Justice Keepers Saga--Books 13-15, page 83
The hologram raised an admonishing finger. “Send your best people, Headmistress,” she said. “I don’t need to tell you how dangerous Harry Carlson is.”
“Where are we going?” Claire asked as they hurried along a sidewalk filled with people heading in the opposite direction. She had to hop out of the way several times. No one here knew that she was a telepath. It would have been the other way around if they had. Claire chastised herself for that thought. Melissa’s right; I’m already getting used to the special treatment.
Her father was right in front of her, and her sister too. Rajel had come along as well. And for some reason, he had brought his parents. The three of them followed Claire without saying very much. She liked Evran and Merin. They seemed friendly, but she could tell that they were afraid of her. Rajel must have told them who she was.
The tall buildings on either side of the street shut out the wind, but it was still cool and damp. Gray clouds stretched across the sky. She really hoped it didn’t start raining. Where was her father taking her?
“Dad?” she pressed.
Harry didn’t even look back; he just kept plodding along with his hands in his coat pockets. “Rajel’s parents are filing a motion with the city zoning commission,” he said. “I’d like you to see it.”
Claire stopped dead. “You’re taking me to watch them fill out paperwork?”
“They want to open a school for telepaths on the land where Rajel’s parents live,” Harry said. “I want you to see what happens when they try to fight for their home.”
That felt like a pointless waste of time. Claire was pretty sure that she already knew what would happen. The clerks would bring up some obscure rule, find something wrong with the paperwork, and the telepaths would get their way. She didn’t complain though; she had agreed to this.
They walked in silence for another block or so.
Claire yelped when some guy came charging out of an alley. The dumb-ass nearly plowed right into Melissa. He would have knocked her down if she hadn’t been quick enough to turn and grab him by the shoulders. Sometimes, Claire envied her big sister. Telepathy was cool, but it would be nice to have super reflexes.
“Easy there,” Melissa said. “Are you-”
The guy was totally freaking, jittering in Melissa’s grip. His face was white, his eyes wide with horror. He had one of those stubble beards that looked more like he just didn’t bother shaving. Did Antaur have homeless people?
The guy clamped a hand onto Melissa’s wrist and held on for dear life, staring into her eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe.”
The grubby dude ripped something off Melissa’s arm, then spun around and darted back into the alley. He was gone before Claire could say, “What the hell?”
Melissa checked her gauntlet, and gasped. “He stole my multi-tool!” she shouted. “What is wrong with this stupid planet?”
“Just let him have it,” Evran suggested. “It’s not worth it.”
When Melissa turned around, she wore a frown that said she would do no such thing. “Sorry, Mr. Aydrius. That’s a no-go. There’s sensitive data on that thing. I need to get it back.”
“You want backup?” Rajel asked.
Melissa hit him with a fiery glare. “I can handle a pickpocket,” she said. “Take your parents to City Hall. I’ll meet you there later.”
“Honey…” Harry interjected.
“Dad, please!” Melissa snapped. “I’ve fought ziarogati, battle drones and Isara herself. I’ve got this.”
She took off before anyone else could protest.
Melissa bounded through the alley, sprinting headlong for a wooden fence that the thief had scaled only moments ago. Moving at such incredible speed, she didn’t even need Bent Gravity.
She just leaped, grabbing the top of the fence and doing a handstand above it. She flipped upright and dropped to the ground on the other side, crouching on impact. The thief was waiting at the mouth of the alley.
He glanced back, panicking at the sight of her. There was nowhere for him to run; he stood on the curb of a very busy street where cars zipped back and forth.
Melissa stood up, striding toward him and shaking her head in disgust. “You picked the wrong girl to steal from,” she said. “Hand it over, and I won’t even report you to the cops. We can just-Hey!”
The thief fled into the road, narrowly avoiding a truck that nearly ran him over. He disappeared into the gaps between several lanes of traffic, cars whooshing past in both directions, blocking her view.
“Damn it!” Melissa shouted, then glanced up toward Heaven. “Sorry.”
When she reached the curb, she discovered she could go no further. The traffic was just too intense. The thief was probably dead, and her multi-tool was probably a hunk of smashed circuitry clinging to someone’s tire.
She was forced to revise that assessment when she caught a glimpse of the man on the far side of the road. He had almost made it to the other sidewalk. Horns blared, and cars swerved. But no one hit him.
As he stepped onto the curb, he turned around and winked at her. He winked at her! Oh, the nerve of this guy! That’s it; she was rescinding her offer. When she caught him, he was going straight into a holding cell.
Bending her knees, Melissa called upon her Nassai to lessen gravity’s pull. She pushed off the sidewalk, propelling herself in a wide arc that carried her over the traffic, landing safely on the other side.
Her perp had already disappeared into an alley. She saw him scrambling to climb over another fence, this one made of metal bars. When he hit the ground on the other side, he took off in a mad dash.
“Why me?” she mumbled.
Melissa went loping after him, moving like a furious wind. Once again, she leaped over the fence with little difficulty and chased him onto the next street over. This road bordered the waterfront.
A guardrail on the opposite sidewalk overlooked a pebbly beach, and beyond that, the dark waters of the ocean stretched on under a cloudy sky. She thought she saw a boat in the distance, but it was too far off to be sure.
The thief ran into oncoming traffic again, causing a blue car to honk its horn and skid to a stop. The idiot didn’t even look back. He just hurried to the other sidewalk, gasping as he collapsed against a lamppost.
Luckily, there was a lull in the traffic this time.
Melissa ran across at full speed, hopping onto the curb. The thief backed away from her, pressing his body against the guardrail. “Please,” he whimpered. “I just do what I’m told.”
“What you’re told?”
A strange, twisting sensation was the only warning Melissa had before someone used Bent Gravity to fly up from the beach. The newcomer crested the railing with ease, landing poised on the sidewalk.
The stranger had a feminine form, a slender body wrapped in a skin-tight, purple leotard with light armour on top. Her face was hidden behind some kind of mesh. Like a fencer’s mask.
Just like the man on Salus.
Shindraso.
This was one of Dusep’s goons, and she had a corrupted symbiont. Which meant that all of this – the pickpocket, the chase – was just a ruse to bring Melissa here. Another trap. And she had stepped right into it as surely as she had when she wound up stuck in a room with a ziarogat.
The thief tossed Melissa’s multi-tool to Ms. Purple, who caught it with a deft hand. “Well done, Jonas,” she said, clipping the device to her belt. “Run along now. Melissa and I have much to discuss.”
The scraggly man was more than happy to obey.
“What do you want with me?” Melissa demanded.
“Why to kill you, of course.”
Melissa strode forward with her left hand on the guardrail. A chilly wind made her hair flutter. “You’re not the first to try.”
“Yes, but I’ve studied you,” Purple replied. “You and I have a score to settle.”
“We’ve met before?”
“No more talking.” The woman removed two batons from her belt, linking them together to form a short staff. Then she powered it up, each end flashing with electricity. “Now, you die.”
The City Hall had an old-timey feel. Big, thick pillars supported an arched ceiling with a round skylight. The walls were some kind of beige marble. Or something like that. Claire wasn’t sure.
What struck her, however, was the lack of people. She and her friends were the only ones in the lobby. That was weird, right? A place like this was almost never empty. She expected to see city councilors hurrying out the door, on their way to a meeting. Or clerks returning from their lunch break.
On a hunch, she reached out with her thoughts and felt…nothing. There were no minds in this building. Now, that was wrong.
Taking her father’s hand, Claire looked up at him. “Dad,” she murmured. “We should go. Something isn’t right.”
Harry had that look he sometimes got when he was sizing up a situation. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I think you’re right. Maybe we can come back later.”
Her father believed her! She loved him for that. Claire was so used to people telling her that she was just imagining it when she told them that something was off. But Harry still had those cop instincts.
“Surely, someone must be here,” Evran said. “We came all the way down here. We can’t just leave before we’ve finished our task.”
Rajel turned his ear toward the bank of elevators, listening for something. “No, Dad, Claire’s right,” he said. “We should go.”
That was enough for Merin and Evran. The five of them turned around and went back to the front entrance. But it was already too late.
A glass pane in each door looked out on a large, front lawn. The wide, cobblestone path that cut through the lawn, connecting the sidewalk to the front steps, had a round fountain at the halfway point.
Claire saw men and women in blue uniforms and heavy body armour scrambling through the grass, moving toward the steps with assault rifles at the ready. This was a trap, and she was the target.
She should have been afraid, but she was getting used to this sort of thing. Which was sad, given that she wasn’t even thirteen yet. There was going to be a massive amount of therapy in her future; she just knew it. But that was tomorrow. She had to worry about today. Besides, she had superpowers. So, scary things weren’t quite as scary.
Claire reached out to touch their minds and found the same nothingness she had felt earlier. Her talent was working. She could feel the fear radiating from Evran and Merin, the resolve from Rajel and Rix, the cold determination from her father. So, why couldn’t she sense the soldiers?
“They’re being shielded,” Claire whispered.
Harry looked at her.
“The SWAT team or whatever they are,” she said, pointing through the window. “I can’t touch their minds. They’re being shielded. Which means they have telepaths backing them up.”
“Get to cover!” Harry growled, grabbing her arm and yanking her away from the door, deeper into the building. They took shelter behind a large, marble pillar. Rajel and his parents did the same on the other side of the lobby.
Pressing his back against the pillar, Harry gazed into the palm of his hand. The Overseer thingy revealed itself, writhing against his skin. “I’m sorry, Claire. I never should have made you come here.”
“I was pretty insistent, if you remember.”
A Keeper and an Overseer thing. They might be able to survive this, though Claire was suddenly wishing that her sister hadn’t run off. That pickpocket had probably taken her multi-tool just to lure her away. “I wish Melissa was here,” she mumbled.
“Me too,” Harry whispered.
“Don’t ever tell her I said that.”
She was just starting to think they might get through this when the ding of an elevator arriving made her jump. The steel doors slid open, and more SWAT guys came out. Of course! The team outside wasn’t coming in because that wasn’t their job. They were only there to prevent Claire and her friends from escaping.
Trapped between two groups of enemies.
This wasn’t going to go well.
Ms. Purple stood on the sidewalk with the sparking staff clutched tightly in both hands, watching Melissa through the mesh that hid her face. This was a trap – Melissa realized that – but it wasn’t just a trap for her. They had lured her away so they could attack her family. She glanced across the street, back the way she had come.
“Try it,” Purple urged. “I’ll only chase you. Maybe you’ll actually get back to your family. But then you’ll still have to deal with me and whatever they’re up against.”
“Then I’ll just have to deal with you first.”
Turning her shoulder toward the other woman, Melissa leaped into an aerial cartwheel. She flipped upside-down over Purple’s head and came down on the other side, spinning to face her enemy.
Purple spun around, swinging the staff.
Melissa leaned back, the sparking tip sliding past her nose. She popped up in time to see her opponent draw back the staff and thrust it forward like a spear.
Hopping backward by instinct, Melissa barely avoided a painful shock. She jumped with a high kick, forcing Purple to parry with the staff. The other woman slid along the sidewalk, holding the weapon up horizontally.
Melissa landed and quickly grabbed the middle where the two batons connected, trying to wrench it out of her enemy’s grasp. Purple struggled, grunting and snarling, desperate to hold on.
A kick to the stomach forced the woman to let go. She almost lost her balance but recovered quickly enough. “Bitch!” she growled, drawing her pistol from its holster.
She raised the weapon.
Melissa batted it away with the staff, sparks flashing as metal touched metal. She thrust the weapon forward, ramming the electrified tip into Purple’s chest. That should have settled matters. Except…The other woman didn’t seem to notice.
Purple cocked her head as though confused as to why Melissa thought that would work. “Body armour, remember?” she said.
Falling backward, she caught herself with both hands, trapped the staff between her feet and tore it out of Melissa’s grip. She rose into a handstand, then flipped upright, reaching up to catch the weapon as it fell.
Melissa blinked. “That’s Anna’s move!”
“Like I said, I’ve studied all of you.”
Purple screamed, charging forward, swinging the staff again.
Melissa ducked, letting it pass over her head. She rose as her enemy spun for a hook-kick, a black boot wheeling around to clip Melissa’s cheek. Her skull seemed to vibrate. The next thing she knew, she was stumbling sideways into the railing that overlooked a seafood restaurant.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Purple finally managed to strike her with the staff. Current surged through Melissa’s body, causing her muscles to go limp. She clung to consciousness with every last scrap of willpower. Her thoughts became a jumbled mess. Impossible to form a strategy. The only thing she knew is that she had to get away from here.
Without thinking, Melissa jumped over the railing and dropped down onto the restaurant’s patio. Those few customers who had stayed to watch the fight suddenly scrambled away from their tables when they realized they might become participants.
A waiter in a white shirt and black vest came hurrying out of the building. “This restaurant is for tier one customers only!” he whined. “If you don’t leave immediately, I will be forced to call the police!”
He cut off abruptly when Purple landed on the patio with her electrified staff in hand. She studied the foolish man for a moment. “Get out of here,” she said with her free hand.
The waiter was quick to obey.
Purple began her relentless advance.
Backing away with her hands up in a guarded stance, Melissa felt cold sweat on her face. “Why?” she asked. “Why would anyone be this loyal to a monster like Dusep?”
“I’m loyal to Leyria.”
Melissa grabbed a knife off a nearby table, tossed it up and caught the tip. She flung it at the other woman.
Purple leaned sideways, the knife flashing over her shoulder and clattering to the ground behind her. She stood up straight and grunted. “They teach you Justice Keepers how to improvise,” she said. “Everything becomes a weapon.”
Glancing around, Purple noticed a round table that was large enough to seat a dozen people. She positioned herself behind it and then, with a swift kick, she sent it soaring toward Melissa on a wave of Bent Gravity.
Melissa threw herself to the floor, somersaulting over the wooden deck as the table flew past above her, barely cognizant of the dreadful crash it made on impact. She came up on her knees just in time to see Purpled standing over her.
The woman tried to plunge her weapon down on Melissa’s skull.
Bending backwards, Melissa caught the shaft with both hands, the crackling tip hovering an inch above her nose. She fell back further, twined her legs around Purple’s knee and gave a short, sharp tug.
The other woman toppled over, sprawled out on the deck, letting go of her staff. Melissa tossed it aside and then rolled onto her belly. She pushed herself up on extended arms, forced herself to stand.
Before she even realized it, she was running for the edge of the deck. She vaulted over the wooden railing, rocks crunching under her shoes as she landed on the beach. Dark waters washed over the shore with a powerful spray.
Spatial awareness painted Purple as a misty figure who pursued her with dogged determination. Of course, the woman had recovered her staff. The first step would be to rid her of that bloody thing once and for all.
Melissa turned around, waiting.
She didn’t move, didn’t attempt to flee. She watched her opponent kicking up rocks as she ran along the beach. It was time to end this. These noobs might have the power of a Justice Keeper, but they didn’t know how to use it.
Purple raised her weapon.
Melissa stamped her foot down with a pulse of Bent Gravity. A spray of rocks pelted the other woman, causing her to stumble back with a hand raised to shield herself. The hand that held her staff.
