Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘We’ll be ready,’ the sergeant said. He was clearly used to Lament’s operational methods.

  The Fox was less keen. ‘I don’t like it, Lament. They waited for you to arrive. They want you to negotiate. They must know what you can do–’

  ‘It won’t make any difference. You don’t think the two of us can handle a few bank robbers?’

  ‘Of course we can.’ The Fox was quite positive about that, but still… ‘I just think we might want to… check our facts, consider our tactics.’

  ‘When you’ve been at this a little longer, you’ll realise that bank robbers always think they can handle Ultras. And they always discover they can’t.’

  Five minutes later, Lament was striding up to the doors of the bank with the Fox trailing along behind her, feeling very much like a fifth wheel. This was the thing about Lament: the Fox was confident, some said overconfident, but Lament got positively stupid about it when there was a chance for her to shine.

  The three hostages with guns to their heads were quite visible through the glass. Good snipers might have taken out the robbers from across the street before anyone knew about it, but then there were the others at the back of the room, automatic weapons trained on the rest of the hostages. All of the robbers were wearing black, balaclava-style masks and they carried themselves in a manner which suggested that they knew what they were doing. The closer Lament got to the bank, the more the Fox suspected this was not going to be as easy as Lament thought.

  Lament opened her mouth and began to sing as her hand hit the door. Maybe singing was not the right word, but there was melodic sound coming out of her with some odd harmonics mixed in which no normal human voice could have produced. The gunmen remained perfectly still as the sound washed through the room: Lament’s songs controlled emotions and could calm riots or, in this case, soften up hardened criminals so that they surrendered without a fight. Fighting was what the Fox was all about and, briefly, she had to wonder why she was even there.

  Then the biggest of the gunmen, a bear-like man in a designer suit, said, ‘Now.’ Three shots rang out, so close together that they were barely distinguishable. Blood splattered over Lament’s gold-and-green dress as three hostages died with their brains exploding out through their foreheads.

  ‘What–’ Lament began, and then her eyes widened. Behind the big man, another of the gunmen turned, pulling his mask off as he did so. He was grinning broadly. ‘Simon?’ Lament said, surprised.

  Then Simon said, ‘Pa!’ The Fox had no idea what was happening, but Lament reeled back as though struck. Blood began to soak into her dress under her left breast. The robbers were pulling back, fast, and the Fox pulled her foil from her belt, sweeping it up and around just as Simon said, ‘Ba!’ Lament was thrown backward, slamming into the hardened-glass door before falling to the ground.

  Smoke was pouring up around the retreating bank robbers, but Simon was winding up another of his shouts and the Fox reacted, stabbing her sword out toward him, even though he was yards away. Instead of a shout, he let out a shriek of pain and lurched back into the smoke, clutching a hand over his chest. Blood welled from between his fingers.

  The Fox looked at the wall of smoke and then at her fallen comrade. Lament was not moving and the Fox could not see through heavy smoke… ‘The Fox to HQ. Lament is down. I need paramedics here ASAP. Repeat, Lament is down.’ Then she dropped to her knees and began to try to stabilise Lament.

  ~~~

  It was an extraordinary meeting of the San Francisco Stars for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious was that their leader, Lament, was in hospital, so Elaine Ellis, Backroom, was chairing the meeting. Then there were the guests. Elaine had invited Cygnus and Twilight, because they were in the city and might be able to help, and she had invited Mink because it was very likely that the enigmatic heroine would be able to lend assistance.

  Mink was looking a little uncomfortable. Definitely out of her comfort zone in the Stars’ HQ on Alcatraz Island. She stood there beside the huge model of the city with her arms crossed over her breasts, a defensive posture.

  Then again, the newest member of the Stars was looking a little defensive herself. The Fox was a mid-height woman with green eyes and long, black hair. She had an athletic physique: her tight black slacks suggested well-developed thigh muscles certainly. To go with the slacks, there were over-the-knee, high-heeled boots, a black blouse open enough to show off a reasonable amount of cleavage, and a black lace mask which did an adequate job of disguising her features, but she looked attractive. The style was that of a female Zorro, which was also what the name and the foil in her belt suggested.

  ‘I wanted her to take it carefully,’ the Fox said. ‘It smelled like a trap. They were waiting for her. They asked for her when it came to the negotiations.’

  ‘No one is blaming you,’ Elaine stated flatly. ‘We all know how Lament gets when she sees a path to glory in front of her. She’s not dead. No really extensive injuries though she’ll be black-and-blue for several days. You stopped him finishing her, though… Tell them what you told me. All of it.’

  ‘Okay… We went in the way you’d expect. Lament did her singing thing. She said she was going to soften them up, make them want to give themselves over to the cops and free the hostages. We got inside and it all went to Hell. They shot three hostages, right there in front of us. No negotiation, no stalling. Bang! Lament’s song did nothing to them. And then one of the robbers pulled his mask off. Lament seemed surprised to see him, seemed to know him. She called him Simon and he just… shouted at her…’ She trailed off as the rest of her team, and Mink, began to spout expletives.

  ‘I’m assuming you know who this guy is?’ Cygnus said.

  ‘Beatdown,’ Mink said. ‘He’s Lament’s brother. They both have powers based around sound, but his are… more offensive.’

  ‘And he’s worked out some sort of countermeasure against Lament’s powers,’ Elaine added. ‘That’s why her song didn’t work.’

  ‘I’m going to assume they aren’t on the best of terms,’ Cygnus said.

  ‘She considers him an embarrassment. She’s put him inside several times, which he isn’t exactly happy about. However, he usually stays the Hell out of the city.’

  ‘He’s turned up in San Jose a few times,’ the Fox said. ‘Uh, I’m from San Jose,’ she added for Cygnus and Twilight.

  ‘Anywhere out of Lament’s sight,’ Elaine said. ‘He usually works alone, however, and this time he’s got a gang.’

  ‘And he didn’t seem to be running it,’ the Fox added. ‘There was this big guy giving the orders. Really big. Maybe an Ultra, maybe just a big human.’

  ‘How did they escape?’ Twilight asked.

  ‘They had to know exactly what they were doing. They used shaped-charge explosives to cut a hole from the basement of the bank down into a sewer tunnel under it. They must have used the time they were holding the cops off to do that. They took bearer bonds, no money, no jewellery. All of them moved like they knew what they were doing too. They had to have the whole thing worked out pretty precisely.’

  ‘Well planned, well orchestrated, so why wait for Lament to turn up? They wanted her to know her brother was on the team? Just a distraction to keep the cops from following, or were they hoping to take Lament out entirely?’ Twilight frowned. ‘You’ve got video from the security cameras?’

  ‘That and the raw footage from the news cameras on the scene,’ Elaine said.

  ‘Let’s see it.’

  ‘Definitely well drilled,’ Mink said as they watched the feeds from four cameras inside the bank. The team moved in with almost military precision, except for one of them who definitely seemed more of an individual stuck in the middle of a group. The bank had been penetrated quickly and efficiently with someone covering every place that needed it, and then the cameras had been taken out with bursts of gunfire. ‘They know the layout, where all the cameras are, but they don’t really care if they’re spotted because of t
he masks and they haven’t bothered trying to stop anyone raising the alarm.’

  ‘Could you roll it back, Elaine?’ Twilight asked. ‘To before they enter and then go forward.’ She waited while Elaine did that and then watched one of the screens in particular. ‘There,’ she said, pointing at a woman, a customer, walking into shot.

  ‘Oh,’ Cygnus said.

  ‘You know her?’ Mink asked.

  ‘Wait…’ Twilight said. On screen, the gunmen ran in. One of them, the big one the Fox had mentioned, seemed to be directing things. ‘Pause it there.’

  Cygnus pointed to a second screen which was showing two more of the gunmen. ‘That’s the other one. It must be her. Has to be. She won’t have gone out with her team. Elaine, scan through the TV footage. See if you can see a woman in a red dress leaving the bank with the hostages.’

  ‘Okay…’ Elaine said. ‘But would you care to explain?’

  ‘It’s Diamond,’ Twilight said. ‘Diamond is here in San Francisco.’

  ~~~

  ‘Now, Simon, honey, don’t be such a cry-baby,’ Diamond said with a smile on her face, though, in truth, she wanted to terminally stop Beatdown’s wailing with a blade. ‘Everything went just perfectly. Your cut of the proceeds will make you really quite wealthy.’

  ‘Perfectly?’ Beatdown replied. ‘What part of the plan involved me getting stabbed in the guts by a sword from five yards away?’

  ‘Well, if you’d done as I said, no more than five seconds before you retreated, you wouldn’t have been wounded, sweetie.’ The reply was given in a bright, smiling voice, and still managed to convey the reprimand it was.

  Beatdown ignored it. ‘I wanted to make sure Judy was down. I could have finished her off there and then.’

  ‘Which you would have if you’d hit her with two concussion shouts instead of wanting to see her bleed. Now, I’m not one to worry over a little blood, but you could’ve crushed her and you let your feelings get in the way.’ Diamond paused. ‘I do hope you’ll get it right next time, honey. I really do.’

  Beatdown was angry and hurt, but this time he noticed the hint of menace behind the sweet tones. ‘Next time I’ll crush her bones,’ he said.

  ~~~

  ‘She’s a psychopath,’ Twilight said. ‘She likes killing people, slowly, with sharp objects. The autopsies of her victims in New Millennium suggested that some of them had spent days in agony.’

  ‘But she’s a meticulous planner,’ Cygnus went on. ‘She hit a bank in New Millennium too. A perfectly executed operation. They were in and out before anyone knew about it. Then they set off a thermobaric bomb in the vault to disguise what they’d taken.’

  ‘Which is an interesting point,’ Twilight said. ‘You might want to check up on who had bearer bonds locked up in this one. Could be those that used to belong to the Nine Kings.’

  ‘Yeah. Anyway, she went in as a customer in New Millennium and they took her out with another man as hostages, supposedly. Then she skinned her fellow hostage. You know, this whole thing seems kind of sloppy for her.’

  Twilight shrugged. ‘She couldn’t know we’d be brought in to look at this. Even if we were, recognising it’s her work is as much luck as anything. I thought the big guy looked the right shape for her lieutenant and went looking for her. Plus, I think she wanted this to turn into a police standoff so that Lament would respond. For whatever reason, Diamond specifically arranged for Lament’s brother to get a shot at Lament.’

  ‘Presumably to get rid of Lament,’ Fuego said.

  ‘Why not just shoot her?’

  The fire Ultra opened his mouth, and then closed it. ‘A fair point. She wishes there to be someone else to take the fall?’

  ‘Good one… Which means Beatdown is going to remain alive just so long as he’s useful.’

  ‘At which point he’ll turn up without his skin,’ Cygnus said. ‘You might want to run checks for dismembered or skinned bodies in the area. I don’t think she can handle going for too long without killing someone. It’s an addiction, but if she’s got a reason to hide her presence here, she might also hide the bodies.’

  Mink shrugged. ‘Plenty of places to dump a corpse around here where no one will ever find it. Especially if you want to put some effort into it.’ She frowned. ‘In New Millennium, she was trying to take over the local organised crime family, right?’

  ‘The Tonaldos, yes.’

  ‘And we just lost our major crime syndicate. You think she plans to move in and take up where the Nine Kings left off?’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. Most of the infrastructure must still be there. If she can get the cash–’

  ‘She just has.’

  ‘Then maybe she could pull together what’s left of the tong. She was the one who came up with the idea of Excelsior bombs to create a bigger market for the stuff.’

  ‘Yeah… All right, I’m convinced. I’ll work with the Stars on this one. At least until Lament gets out of hospital and throws a hissy fit about it. My guess is that Beatdown is going to be the easy way to find Diamond. She may be a meticulous planner, but he’s not. He’ll screw up.’

  ‘He’s been a screw-up most of his life,’ Bonehead said with a shrug. ‘Why should he change now?’

  Antarctica, 4th December.

  ‘And here we have it,’ Doctor Ultimate said.

  Jacob raised an eyebrow at the suit he was being shown. It was a full-body affair, complete with a helmet featuring a shaded, open faceplate. White and grey, with a few patches of blue here and there, it looked like it was armoured. In particular, the shoulders and neck looked quite heavy, but that might have been to do with locking the helmet into place.

  ‘It’s, uh…’

  ‘It looks bulky,’ Ultimate said, ‘but it’s quite light, aside from the power cells in the pauldrons. You won’t need to wear the helmet unless you’re in quite warm conditions. Summer mostly. I designed the suit to use your own temperature-regulation power to maintain the suit’s internal temperature while also containing it. You will be kept cool, but you won’t freeze the room.’

  Jacob walked up to the mannequin wearing his new suit, walking around it and running a hand over it. The white panels were a little harder than the grey, but seemed quite flexible.

  ‘Oh, the helmet is equipped with radio and data display features which might be useful,’ Ultimate added. ‘I had some spare time while I was designing it.’

  Nodding, Jacob continued to walk around the suit he was likely to be spending a lot of time in, if he wanted to walk around outside once he got home.

  ‘I realise it’s not exactly perfect,’ Ultimate said, ‘but I firmly believe that this is a stopgap until you learn to properly control your abilities.’

  ‘Uh, yes.’ Jacob realised that he was being rude and needed to do more than feel sorry for himself. ‘Thanks, Hugh. Really. You didn’t have to do this. It’ll let me get out of the house without killing myself and I’m sure I can learn to control this… whatever I have. Eventually. Thanks.’

  ‘Well, it’s not entirely altruistic. You’re a valuable resource to an organisation which has a base in the frozen wastes.’

  ‘I’ll help however I can. Uh, how do I get into this thing?’

  Ultimate smiled. ‘It’s not difficult. Let me show you…’

  San Francisco, CA.

  The hot tub had been a good idea. It was dark and they had decided to keep it that way, illuminating their night-time soaking with candles.

  ‘I’m glad I remembered a bikini,’ Cygnus commented absently. She lifted her wine glass and sipped cold, white wine. Yes, the hot tub had been a good idea. ‘Do they make the seats in those courts uncomfortable on purpose?’

  ‘Probably,’ Bianca replied.

  ‘At least the defence case was basically “please don’t convict my obviously guilty client,”’ Andrea said. ‘I mean, did Dwight get a single point out of today?’

  ‘Hugh basically presented an airtight set of physical evidence yesterday,’ Cy
gnus said. ‘About all Dwight can do is provide mitigation and we basically painted Kopf as a mad man. Not putting Kopf on the stand to make his case didn’t help at all.’

  ‘Yeah, but if the DA had got to cross-examine, I’m willing to bet the good Professor would have come across as a sociopath at best. Dwight probably figured that one out. My guess? Dwight was hoping to push the idea that Twi used excessive force in apprehending Kopf. Get the jury at least a little sympathetic. That didn’t work, I don’t think, and it’s all on the facts.’

  ‘Which is how it should be,’ Bianca said, ‘but this is far too serious for three women in swimwear in a hot tub.’

  ‘Point taken. I think my ass has got some feeling back in it, so the tub’s working.’

  ‘The hot tub was a good idea,’ Cygnus agreed.

  New Millennium City, MD.

  A soak in one of the hot tubs would be a good idea. Svetilo decided this as she dragged herself into the house, making sure the door was locked behind her. She caught a whiff of herself in passing, a mixture of smoke and sweat, and decided that a shower would come first, then the tub.

  ‘It was a bad fire?’ Denny asked when Svetilo made it to the lounge.

  ‘Da, was a bad one. I was this close to calling Cygnus for help. Building was lost, people are homeless. Some are dead.’

  ‘I was monitoring the radio traffic. Four dead, sixteen injured, two of those seriously.’

  ‘I did not get final figures. Thank you.’

  It had been an apartment block in Friendship. Just an ordinary building full of ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, until someone had decided to set off three incendiary devices in it. Now it was a pile of smoking, wet rubble. Svetilo was not sure the death toll would not rise when the ashes were raked through.

  ‘The arsonist will be brought to justice, Dominika,’ Denny stated firmly. ‘I have every confidence in Cygnus and her capabilities and this is exactly what Guardians were made for.’

  ‘Da.’ Svetilo pulled her dress off and tossed it down in front of the washing machine, though, if she were being honest, the trash bin might have been more appropriate. ‘We will get him. I take shower, then I take drink to hot tub.’