Black Coin

Chapter 23: The Tentacle King

Chapter 23: The Tentacle King

Vrumm—CRUNCH!

The sedan blocking the tracks didn’t stand a chance.

Seven kept the throttle down, the massive gas turbine locomotive plowing through the thin-skinned car like it was made of tin foil. Metal screamed. Glass exploded into a thousand glittering shards. The two-hundred-ton beast barely shuddered as it cleaved the wreck in two, spitting out twisted parts behind it.

Tak-tak-tak-tak!

Bullets sparked off the armored hull. White scars appeared on the dark metal. A ricochet whined through the air and found flesh—one of the ambushers by the tracks clutched his thigh and went down screaming.

Seven’s eyes stayed on the tracks ahead. Cold. Focused.

He’d known it was a trap the second he saw the barricade. Too obvious. Amateurs. But in this dead world, amateurs with guns could still kill you.

A shadow flickered at the edge of his vision.

Something thumped onto the roof of the cab.

Chen Sixuan gasped, scrambling back into the narrow corridor, her eyes wide. Seven didn’t turn. He listened. Thud. Thud. Drag.

Something was up there. Moving fast.

He cut the throttle. Let the train’s momentum bleed off. His hand dropped to the short blade at his hip. The steel felt cold. Familiar.

The windshield exploded.

Not all at once—a spiderweb of cracks appeared first, centered around a single, brutal impact. Seven saw it: a thick, ropy tentacle, the color of sick moss, pulled back for another strike.

A face appeared in the fractured glass.

A middle-aged man. Sweat-slicked hair. Eyes burning with a nasty, arrogant light. And behind him, four more of those green tentacles writhed from his back, holding him suspended against the speeding train.

“Bold kid!” the man shouted, his voice muffled by the glass but dripping with contempt. “You actually drove right into it!”

Seven said nothing. His mind worked, cold and quick. Superpower user. Physical mutation type. Adhesion capability. Striking force high enough to damage reinforced glass. Threat level: high.

The man’s gaze slid past Seven, landing on Chen Sixuan. His leer was audible. “Well, well. Got a pretty one hiding back there.”

Slam!

Another tentacle hit the windshield. The cracks deepened. A single piece of glass fell inward, clattering to the floor.

Seven moved.

He hit the brakes hard. The train groaned, wheels shrieking against the rails. Inertia threw everything forward. The tentacled man’s eyes bulged in surprise as his grip failed and he was hurled off the front of the cab.

“Lock the door,” Seven said, his voice flat.

“What are you doing?!” Chen Sixuan shrieked.

“Finishing this.”

He was out of the cab before she could reply, the heavy iron door slamming shut behind him with a final clang. He couldn’t fight that thing inside the train. The windshield wouldn’t hold. And a broken windshield in this silent city was a death sentence—it would let the scent out. It would call them.

The cool outside air hit his face. The train had ground to a halt.

The man was already getting up from the gravel beside the tracks, his tentacles flaring around him like angry serpents. He wiped blood from his mouth, grinning. It was a ugly, broken thing.

“Playing the hero?” he sneered. “Cute. Don’t worry. I’ll take your ride. And I’ll take real good care of your girl for you.”

Seven didn’t waste breath on a reply. His right hand came up, index finger pointed like a gun.

The man’s eyes widened a fraction—a veteran’s instinct. But it was too late.

Click.

A compressed spear of wind, invisible and brutal, shot from Seven’s fingertip.

It hit the man square in the forehead with a sound like a hammer hitting a melon. His head snapped back. He flew off his feet.

“Shit! You’re one too!” the man—Liu Wei—hissed, scrambling in mid-air. His tentacles flailed, finding purchase on the chain-link fence running alongside the track. He steadied himself, but the shock was in his eyes now. The arrogance was tempered by a sliver of fear.

Seven felt a flicker of cold satisfaction. He’s new at this. Strong, but clumsy.

The satisfaction died instantly.

A tentacle, moving faster than he’d anticipated, lashed out. It wrapped around Seven’s ankle with a thwip. The grip was vice-like, crushing.

Before he could react, Liu Wei yanked.

Seven’s world upended. He was pulled off the tracks, over the edge of the steep slope that fell away toward a polluted river below. He had a split-second view of the sky, the train receding above him, and then he was tumbling.

Crash. Thud. Snap.

Branches broke. Rocks tore at his clothes and skin. He curled into a ball, protecting his head, but the world was a violent blender of green and brown and pain. The tentacle never let go.

They hit the bottom in a heap of dust and torn-up earth.

Pain. It was a bright, electric sheet across Seven’s nerves. He forced his eyes open, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Every part of him screamed. He took a quick inventory: no broken bones. Deep bruises. Lacerations. Functional.

He pushed himself up.

Twenty feet away, Liu Wei was doing the same. The man was a mess. His clothes were in shreds. A deep, ugly gash ran across his back, welling blood. One of his legs bent at a wrong angle. But the four tentacles still moved, strong and alert, lifting his torso off the ground. His green eyes found Seven, blazing with pure, unadulterated hate.

“You little bastard!” Liu Wei spat, blood and dirt on his teeth. “I’m gonna peel the skin from your bones!”

Seven stayed silent. He’d lost his blade in the fall. He was unarmed.

Liu Wei began to advance, dragging his bad leg, his tentacles pushing him forward like the legs of a grotesque spider. The confidence was returning. He saw a hurt young man, empty-handed.

Seven didn’t move. He just stared, his finger rising again, pointing straight between Liu Wei’s eyes.

Liu Wei froze. The memory of that invisible hammer-blow was fresh.

His tentacles snapped up instinctively, weaving into a thick, protective shield in front of his face.

Seven didn’t fire.

He lowered his hand.

Liu Wei hesitated, confused. The feint cost him—the movement tore at the wound on his back, sending a fresh wave of agony through him. He snarled.

In that moment of hesitation, Seven moved.

He wasn’t fast like the wind. He was fast like a predator closing the final few feet. No wasted motion. He covered the ground in three strides and drove his fist, with all his weight and hardened survival instinct behind it, into Liu Wei’s exposed nose.

Crunch.

The sound was wet and final. Liu Wei’s head snapped back again. A choked cry gurgled in his throat. His tentacle shield faltered.

Seven didn’t let up. He grabbed the nearest flailing tentacle. It was slick, muscular, throbbing with unnatural life. He pulled, using Liu Wei’s own momentum against him, and drove a knee into the man’s ribs. He felt something give.

Liu Wei was strong. His mutated body was tough. But he was a bully who’d gotten power overnight. Seven was a null who’d fought for every breath in a world that wanted him dead.

A tentacle whipped around, catching Seven across the shoulder. The force was staggering, knocking him sideways. It felt like being hit by a tire iron. He rolled with the impact, coming up in a crouch.

Liu Wei was blinking through tears of pain and rage, blood pouring from his ruined nose. “I’ll kill you! I’ll—”

Click.

This time, the Wind Cannon wasn’t a feint.

It took Liu Wei in the throat.

His rant died in a wet, whistling gasp. His eyes went impossibly wide. He stumbled back, his tentacles losing coordination, flailing weakly. He clawed at his neck, but he was already drowning in his own blood.

Seven watched, his breathing steadying. He felt no thrill. No remorse. It was a necessity. A calculation.

Liu Wei sank to his knees, then toppled forward into the dirt. The eerie green light faded from his eyes. His tentacles gave one last, spasmodic twitch and lay still.

Silence returned to the riverside, broken only by the distant, metallic creak of the train cooling above.

Seven stood over the body. His body ached. Adrenaline bled away, leaving cold clarity.

Mutation-type superpower. High physical enhancement, low combat intelligence. A localized tyrant. Not the worst this world has to offer.

He knelt, ignoring the protest in his muscles, and began to search the corpse. He found a cheap switchblade, a half-pack of damp cigarettes, and a small, grimy notebook. He pocketed the blade. The rest he left.

He needed to get back to the train. The gunshots, the crash, the fight—it was all too much noise. This silent city had ears.

He started the slow, painful climb back up the slope. His mind was already working ahead. The ambushers up on the tracks would be leaderless now. Confused. Some would run. Some might try to be heroes.

He’d have to deal with them. Quickly.

And then he had to fix the windshield before dark.

As he hauled himself over the lip of the slope, gravel scraping his palms, a new, deeper instinct prickled at the base of his skull. A chill that had nothing to do with his injuries.

He froze, lying prone on the gravel beside the tracks.

He closed his eyes. Listened.

No birds. No insects. The wind had died.

But the silence… it felt different now. Thicker. Hungrier.

It was the same feeling from the night before. The feeling that had crept into the train just before the scratching began on the roof.

Something was out there. And it had caught the scent.

The chapter had ended, but the hunt was just beginning.