Stolen, page 5
“A couple months ago I made a call,” I said, dropping my voice as well. “She's fine. Still calling unfamiliar women whores.” Renard had played the villain, pretending to put the whole world under threat of triggering an EMP that would take the planet back to the stone age. But I'd figured out he was just playing the market in order to finance his mother's expensive nursing home care. I'd let that pass, because it had been a worthy cause, but Renard was still paying his debt to society.
One of the most powerful Magnetos I'd ever met shrugged. “She knows not what she says.”
I kept on, saying hello to PurpPerp (Maria Westcott) and Brance Venable in turn and passing two cells with unfamiliar players before reaching a double-occupancy cell with some familiar faces. “If it isn't the Gustafson girls.”
Madison and Amanda Gustafson. In the cell next to them, their brothers, David and Nick. During a time traveling incident with Akiyama in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1999, I'd killed their parents, who were assassins working for Omega. Apparently they held a grudge, because almost three years ago they'd come at me in Northern Minnesota with a whole lot of other villains who had reasons of their own for hating me. They'd faked murdering Reed, Augustus, and Jamal in order to try and bring me to surrender, but it hadn't really gone their way. I didn't see them as terrible people – unlike some of the bastards in that scheme – and they'd been incarcerated ever since.
“Hey, Sienna,” Madison Gustafson said. She was thin, attractive, but was looking rougher than when I'd known her before. When I'd first met her, she'd been playing secretary at our office to infiltrate us and spy on me. She'd also been playing like she was my best friend and drinking buddy, which, to be honest, hurt. “I'd say you look like hell, but I'm sure I look worse.”
“You do seem to have lost that innocence in your eyes,” I said, then turned my attention to Amanda, who was even wirier than she'd been before, her chestnut hair lank and lifeless. “And you've lost that sparkle in yours, Amanda.” Amanda's power was red eyebeam blasts...which I'd stolen from her when I'd nearly killed her that night in Minnesota when the world seemed to be naught but blood and fire, and nothing would never be right again.
“I don't want to kill you anymore most days,” Amanda said, “but you really are an asshole, Nealon.”
I stared blankly at her. “...And?”
Her shoulders were bunched up. “I see you haven't changed.”
“Why would I change?” I asked, drifting past toward the cell with her brothers in it. “Everything's going so gosh darned well for me.” Nick and David were odd ones; Nick was another Rakshasa, an illusionist, terribly overweight, and no longer able to hide it behind his own illusions. David had the ability to project a shield around him, but it didn't protect him from eye contact, which seemed to be his archenemy. Dude almost turned his face into the wall to avoid my trying to look at him.
I saw a few more familiar faces as I walked. Some of them I might have wanted to punch. Some of them I might have wanted to decapitate; but most of those were gone in the outflow after Minneapolis.
One cell was seemingly empty, except at the very back I could see someone sitting in total shadow, not even looking at me, head down.
“Who's that?” Reed asked.
I slipped over to the cell and squatted outside, peering into the darkness. “Heidi, can you hear me?”
The woman within did not move, nor react, other than to twitch slightly where she sat against the wall, her arms wrapped around her in the tightest of self-hugs.
“It's Heidi Hutchinson,” I said, rising back to my feet now that I was sure she was, still, non-verbal and – currently – non-dangerous. “She's the one that–”
“Created a Hallmark movie starring you and Eilish in the Colorado mountains?” Reed asked with great amusement.
“It was a reality dating show, okay?” I probably came off more annoyed than I intended to. “She was trying to help me find happiness.” I stared into the dark at her, and she twitched, as if she wanted to say something...but of course she couldn't. As long as she was suppressed, she would remain this way, so painfully autistic that no words ever passed her lips.
“Who'd want to date you, Nealon?” someone asked from the next cell, followed up with a high-pitched titter. I knew the voice, and when I came around the edge I found...
“David Hayling,” I said, looking over the former CIA ops officer as he giggled again – manically, uncontrollably. He'd been well-muscled and bronzed when I'd worked with him; now he was pale, pasty, and getting toward scrawny. After he'd betrayed me to the Russians in an attempt to get them to kill me, I'd repaid the favor by stripping him of his personality's emotional controls. He went from manic to tears when I stared hard at him, and he couldn't hold anything back. “I still daydream about gutting you,” I said.
He burst into tears, unable to speak. I heard behind me the sound of doors unlocking, and turned to find the someone I least liked of everyone in the place. And being that they were among betrayers, murderers, and rapists...that was saying something.
“Must be the warden,” Reed muttered, turning to take in the guy.
And he was, I knew, by the nervous shuffle of his feet, his halting steps.
“Warden Bletchely,” I called, and the warden's shoulders sagged at the mere sound of my voice. His red hair, already thinning when last I'd known him, was now almost gone, and if he'd been pasty before, he was now sickly. “I haven't seen you since I left you unconscious in a puddle of your own piss – that time I escaped the Cube.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Then
I swooped over US-180 against cold, mountainous winds, the power of Gavrikov (flight, not fire) sweeping me forward. It wasn't hard to find Croftsburg's car; it was the one swerving all over the highway, a sedan with the occasional beam of purple blasting out the window at anything that got in its way. He lit into a minivan, beam vaporizing the hood almost to the windshield and sending it spiraling into the ditch.
“Huh,” I said, really taking in the result of Croftsburg's power. It had burned completely through, disintegrating everything in its path in less than a second. Getting my face in the path of that beam would swiftly result in losing my pretty face – and the rest of my head.
Even Wolfe can't heal you back from that, Wolfe said, almost begrudgingly. Such a ray of sunshine.
“Yep,” I said, “so we're going to have to be a little careful, I guess.”
You guess? Roberto Bastian asked. What's your plan for dealing with that?
“I could just blast the car?” I asked, watching it swerve. Another blast came out of it, causing a pickup to veer off the road. “But whatever I do, I better do it quick–”
Before I could even complete the thought, an aging Chevy Silverado crossed the center line, heading straight for Croftsburg's car. A purple blast from Croftsburg vaporized the Chevy's windshield, cutting off everything above the hood but slowing it not one whit. The Chevy plowed headfirst into Croftsburg's car, bringing both to a complete stop–
Croftsburg was ejected from his vehicle, flying over the decapitated pickup and slamming into the ditch, rolling to a stop in a cloud of dust so intense it was like a solid wall of desert sand. I came sweeping down, figuring to finish the job, knock him out, confirm he was dead, pin him to the earth with his own hands shoved up his ass like a cell phone camera.
A purple blast zapped past me, offering a loud hum like a diesel generator starting up in my ear. Another followed it, but I was already zagging through the sky. The dust began to clear, and a human figure was prostrate on the ground, grunting and groaning, and still, somehow, filling the air with vaporizing blasts.
Someone leapt out of the ruin of the Chevy, a figure I noted was wearing a white T-shirt and a leather jacket, blue jeans and boots that blended nicely with the dusty ground. Short-cropped brown hair nearly caught a purple blast as he – whoever he was – drew Croftsburg's fire, and the smell of burnt hair gel filled the air.
I veered and dove for the ground, trying to decide my best move. Warmind seemed in order, and I reached out with the power of Bjorn Odinson and laid it on him, causing Croftsburg to scream and promptly vent another blast skyward, taking my left arm all the way up to the elbow and sending me into a hard spin.
Cratering into the earth at about forty miles per hour, I felt a hard thump and heard bones cracking. A purple blast issued forth inches from my face – Croftsburg, even in his agony, taking pains to finish me before I could recover.
The purple blast vanished as the hard thump of fist hitting flesh reverberated through the air around me like the sound of a ham hitting concrete after being chucked out a tenth-story window (don't ask how I know what that sounds like).
Wolfe, I whispered, and he worked, swiftly. I rolled over, floated up–
And saw a hell of a sight.
The guy in the boots and jeans was beating the unholy hell out of Croftsburg. Mr. Mystery had him facedown, an arm snaked around Croftsburg's neck, his fist finding the fugitive's kidneys with a steady blur of punches. Croftsburg was screaming in pain, and sending purple blasts wildly into the earth, superheating the dirt, leaving black glassy streaks.
“You can knock it off,” Mr. Mystery said, breaking Croftsburg's right arm at the elbow and nearly twisting it off. “Or I'll knock it off for you.”
Croftsburg's response was to send a purple blast wildly in a random direction with his other hand; in this case it hit the wreck of the two cars, neatly dissolving our mystery man's truck bed. This bought Croftsburg another broken arm, and Mr. Mystery promptly flipped onto his back, facing Croftsburg toward the sky. Lifting his legs, Mr. Mystery pinned one of Croftsburg's broken arms in a perfect bar and restrained the other with the hand not choking my fugitive out, so that and every blast Croftsburg issued forth was grounded out into the earth, creating only blackened runnels of molten sand extending a few inches along the earth while our mystery man continued to choke the piss out of him.
“He needs to be unconscious,” I said, my head floating a little as the light of the purple blasts scorched my retinas – and, thankfully, nothing else. Croftsburg was loosing them continuously now, carving trenches on either side of them, which threatened to tip them both over and disturb the mystery man's balance and control of the situation.
“Just a second!” Mystery Man shouted, pushing down harder with the hand he had on the back of Croftsburg's neck. I'd come down beside them, watching warily for the purple blasts, because a stray one could end my life; my mysterious savior had things under control, but only by a narrow thread. And it seemed to be fraying.
“Until he's out, he's still a threat to these people!” I shouted back, looking for my opening. Croftsburg was screaming, almost insensate, enraged, in full knowledge that he was in serious trouble. He could see me, and seemed to be trying to line up his broken right arm with me so that he could turn me into free-floating atoms. Which would still leave him to deal with our mystery man, but hey, one thing at a time.
Croftsburg turned loose his blasts, driven by fear and rage, and they became so intense I was forced to leap away. The purple energy went from being a couple feet in diameter to beams of heat and destruction five feet wide and so intense that I wasn't even in contact with them and I could feel them scorching the tiny hairs on my skin from paces away. He screamed in pure rage and pain, a purple blast issuing forth from his mouth, his eyes, shooting skyward like a pillar of raging violet–
Then it all stopped, turning into a trickle and then dying, his hands and body going limp. Before I could recover and give Croftsburg a good punch, my mystery helper threw him off like an unwanted sack of shit. Croftsburg thudded against the ground he'd turned to glass, sliding down and leaving a smear of hissing blood as it burned him. He was limp as death, but, I noted with some surprise, still breathing, albeit raggedly, face buried against the glassy earth.
Now I got my first real look at my helper as he got to his feet – fast enough I knew immediately he was a meta, and with a few scorches to his shirt to reveal perfect skin and abs beneath. His face was smooth, his jaw perfectly chiseled, dark hair a little messy over his forehead, and a piercing set of blue eyes looking back at mine as he rose to tower over me. “Hey,” he said, brushing some of the dust off his slightly shredded T-shirt, “I'm–”
I punched him right in that perfectly chiseled jaw.
He swayed, but didn't stagger. A little blood welled up on his lip and he cupped his jaw, feet planted like he was a damned oak. “Ow,” he said, not sounding terribly nonplussed. He straightened right back up, eyes dancing with amusement. “You're welcome.”
“Didn't ask for your help,” I said, kneeling to check on Croftsburg. He was breathing steadily, but was clearly out. Retrieving my phone, I called home base, keeping one eye firmly peeled on my perp, the other on my helper. “This is Nealon, in Silver City, New Mexico. I got a big restraint problem here, I'm going to need a transport cubicle and a military plane, post-haste.” I frowned at Croftsburg's fallen form. “I have to keep him unconscious until he's boxed up.”
“I can help with that, if you want,” Mystery Man said. I waved a hand at him, annoyed; he shrugged it off. And he wasn't even touching his jaw anymore.
“Four hours? Make it three,” I said to the Agency dispatcher on the other end of the line. When I hung up, I cuffed Croftsburg, then light-webbed his hands to his ass. If he was going to use his powers, he'd get to burn off his butt cheeks in the process.
I fussed over Croftsburg for a few seconds more, then – finally – turned to Mystery Man once more. I took him in with a cool look and found him looking back at me just the same. “You're still welcome,” he said, with an infuriating smile.
“I am not,” I said, with great irritation, “saying 'thank you' for crashing your car into my collar and then proceeding to make him spark off in all directions until you choked him out. Especially since you nearly got me killed in the process.”
“Looked like you were doing a fine job of that before I even showed up,” Mr. Handsome said (oh, shut up, yes, he was handsome, and he clearly knew it). “I could see the purple blasts lighting up the sky from a mile away.”
“The solution to that is to be farther away,” I said, lifting off about twenty feet to see if anyone needed medical attention. Traffic had backed up, but the nearest car was the stopped minivan some distance back, and while people were swarming around it, it didn't look like it was an emergency.
He chuckled, and I floated warily back toward him. “I get it. You're a solo operator these days. Work better on your own.”
I came down to his eye level, unwilling to land and be looked down on by him. “It's safer when people don't get close to me, Mr....?”
“Wade,” he said.
I frowned. “That's a first name.”
“In my case, it's a last name.” Sirens would have drowned out his reply if he'd been a little more tentative, but his voice was strong; he wasn't shy.
“Uh huh,” I said, checking Croftsburg's bonds again. His arms still dangled uselessly. This Wade had really busted him up. “What's your first, then? You know, so I can run your background?”
He chuckled, then cleared his throat. “Oh, you were serious.”
“I always am,” I said, rising again. “Except when I'm not.”
“Yeah, you seem like a real hoot,” he said, and made a motion toward his wallet. When I nodded, he plucked it out slowly, then drew out a military ID and handed it to me.
“'Jeremy James Wade,'” I said, reading it. “US Navy, huh?”
“Technically,” he said, putting his hands behind his head. Possibly as a precursor to being arrested, possibly to draw his shirt close and let it ride up a bit, giving me a view of perfect abs and cloth pressed against rather spectacular pecs.
I stared at the picture, then at him, mostly to make sure it was him, a little because it gave me an excuse to look at him. Which was not much of an imposition; I was regretting the intemperate punch I'd thrown to start off our talk. “What are you doing here, Mr. Wade?”
“Just Wade,” he said, taking back the proffered ID, sliding it back in his wallet. “I came to help you. I saw the livestream on Socialite.” He flicked his wrist at Croftsburg. “You know, I work for a certain branch of the government that has access to things you might not. Like, say, that chemical suppressant you ran into a few months back? Might help with this guy.”
“Oh, you can get me some of that classified, TOP SECRET level chemical?”
“I can,” he said with that smile, that infuriating smile. “You won't even have to say, 'Thank you,' since I know you're averse to that.”
My look was not amused, I feel certain. “And in return you'd like...what?”
“Hmmm,” he said, making a great show of thinking it over. “I could go for a beer. You?”
I wanted to say no, I really did. But the minute he said it, it activated all my burgeoning alcoholic tendencies. I even started to get the word out, N-O...
“What are we supposed to do with this guy?” I asked, making a show of wobbling one of Croftsburg's broken arms, limp as a wet noodle below the elbow.
“Bring him along,” Wade said. “He can sit at the table with us, like a chaperone.” His eyes glittered with amusement. “I mean, God knows what you'd do to me without him to insure your good behavior.” And he turned his back on me, shoulders already heaving with silent laughter.
“Oh, yeah, this is gonna be fun,” I said, lifting Croftsburg by the (upper) arm. He was wobbly, but got to his feet, eyes fluttering, and his legs held his weight – for a second, anyway. When he started to collapse, I caught him.
“Damned right it is,” Wade said, already flagging down the first cop car. There was a confidence in his voice that I didn't quite feel, yet...somehow I was encouraged to feel.
