He beamed himself behind the roof where the two humanoid figures were perched. They remained impossibly still. Now that he was close to them, their skin looked like raw meat. Their forms were more or less humanlike though their proportions were a little off as if an amateur sculptor had shaped them from clay. They sat by the edge of the roof, looking out over the small town from lidless, yellowish eye clumps.
An idea rose like bile in Radiant’s throat. Whatever these were, he hoped that they had never been alive once. From his vantage point he scanned the area fifty feet below him and spotted a few more lifeless meat effigies in different positions. One sat in the driver’s seat of a parked car. Another was balanced amid the branches of an ancient oak tree. Two more sat atop the church tower, facing opposite directions. Each one appeared as lifeless and immobile as the first two he had spotted. Acknowledging how he failed to recognize them earlier irritated him now. He had concentrated too much on the burned corpses and the scathing message because he was too hung up on himself and his role in this tragedy.
Unsure if the remaining figures would launch more fireballs at him, he shot one of the effigies on the tower with a laser beam. It exploded as easily as a grenade and fell apart, raining parts of half-melted flesh onto the church courtyard below. The following beam made short work of its twin. Black smoke drifted from the smoldering clumps still clinging to St. Sergius’s ancient arched windows.
Conscious that there were more snipers nearby, Radiant changed position and incinerated the figures in the car and the tree. Once he accomplished this he looked around for clues about what to do next. Since nearly a minute had passed since the last gunshot, nothing except the sizzling of the fire barricade filled the eerie silence now. He scanned his surroundings for more flesh effigies but saw none.
The absence of targets filled him with unease. The cries and voices he’d heard earlier inspired hope that most of the townsfolk were still alive, hiding in their homes as they waited for help. But he still didn’t have a plan as to how to remove the actual threat: Nusku and his cronies, who held an entire neighborhood hostage behind a barricade of otherworldly flames.
Come out, come out, wherever you are. The villains had to be hiding somewhere, with or without hostages, waiting for him to make a mistake.
This would all be much simpler if he had a support team with him. If Athena was there to release a swarm of drones, or Queenie verified the whereabouts of known rogues to let him know who he was up against. If Rune put his superiors on hold and came with him instead of going straight to Romania. As it was, Radiant was on his own. And damn if the tingling in his spine wasn’t fear.
Traveling in bursts, he beamed himself away from the tower in variable directions, only stopping for a second or two to scan the area below him for snipers and other lowlifes. He spotted another flesh effigy along the way and destroyed it before it had a chance to launch a counterattack. If one of those fireballs or sniper bullets met their target, it was game over for him. His skin’s resistance didn’t extend to bullet wounds, and he was as susceptible to burns as the average human.
I miss you, Saint. I really do.
Radiant beamed himself to the other side of the flaming barricade. Once again suspended over the field where the bodies spelled out his condemnation, he trained his eyes on the military vehicles, looking for any villains who might be hiding behind the tanks. But if any gunmen remained in the vicinity, they didn’t do him the favor of revealing themselves.
A splash of color next to one of the dachas caught his eye. Radiant beamed himself closer to discover the body of a child, huddled in the fetal position in the cottage’s garden. Judging from her body proportions, she looked to be about the same age as Denis.
Though her face was hidden in her drawn-up knees, Radiant saw long braids of blonde hair spill out from beneath a bright blue knitted cap. Despite the warm weather a long-sleeved blouse and brown trousers covered her arms and legs, making it hard to determine whether she was injured. But since she lay there motionless, he was certain something was wrong with her.
His next burst of movement brought him closer to the cottage where the girl was located. The small dwelling was deathly silent without any movement from behind the windows or around the small wooded area separating the dacha from its nearest neighbors. Radiant scrutinized the property from different angles for any flesh effigies or lurking shooters, but didn’t see anything.
He paused midair because he sensed a trap, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility of a child in need of help. A child as young and innocent as Denis. A child who could have been Denis if his nephew hadn’t been whisked away to safety in time.
He beamed himself to the girl until he hovered a few feet above her. He cast another glance at the house, which remained still and dark.
Have her parents abandoned her? he wondered, his stomach sinking. Or are their burned bodies among the others on that field?
“Can you hear me?” he asked in Russian, in what he hoped was a gentle, reassuring voice.
No answer. He was about to repeat himself in English when he caught a glimpse of one of the dacha’s curtains stirring. Expecting an attack, he transformed himself into a burst of luminescence and shot into the sky. When he regained his senses, the window had shattered and a gunshot reverberated through the air.
Another frightened local? His gut told him it wasn’t.
With no desire to set the house and its potentially innocent occupants on fire, Radiant didn’t retaliate. Instead he positioned himself above the edge of the dacha’s roof to look at the child again. This time he saw a single eye peek out from beneath the crook of the girl’s elbow.
A lidless yellow eye.
Before he understood what he saw, he heard the steely wheeze of unleashed metal cut through the air. Something cold and hard bit into his skin, piercing his shoulder through his leather jacket, so he beamed himself away from the threat.
To the church steeple, he willed his power.
An instant later he hovered in mid-air. But instead of the safety of the St. Sergius bell tower, he settled less than fifty feet above the cottage roof. His confusion gave way to agony as a sharp pain pulsed from his shoulder, drawing a gasp from his lips.
He looked to see the butt end of a metal harpoon sticking out from the leather sleeve of his jacket. Attached to the foot-long harpoon was a chain reaching all the way to the house and leading straight to the small flesh effigy he left there. So the child was a trap, and he had played right into the villains’ hands.
Rune’s earlier words resonated within his mind. If you go there, you’re dead meat.
Someone, maybe the Metalokinetic, had channeled their powers through the child effigy below like Nusku had channeled his fire-throwing abilities through the first flesh figure Radiant had encountered.
His thought was interrupted by another wave of pain from his shoulder wound. This one was more intense than the first, accompanied by a feeling of disorientation and a twinge of sickness in his gut. This was beyond the effect of mere blood loss, Radiant knew. He recalled something he read about South American indigenous tribesmen who dipped the tips of their blowgun darts in toxins.
Have I been poisoned?
He struggled to think through the jumble of possibilities and observations, but the idea of escape prevailed.
Got to … go farther. Have to … get rid of … this chain.
Another power leap and a few seconds later, Radiant was almost in the exact same position as before. The harpoon was still lodged in his flesh, its chain pulled taut. The third attempt to beam himself away barely moved him an inch. His powers failed to overcome the foreign object.
I’m like a dog on a leash.
Radiant closed his fingers around the butt end of the harpoon. Clenching his teeth, he pulled hard. The resulting pain seared through his entire body unlike anything he ever felt before. He choked back a sound in place of a scream. Dizziness washed over him with the force of a tsunami, though the harpoon in his s
houlder hadn’t budged an inch. When he willed himself to focus he realized he was dropping, falling. The surrounding luminescent energy flickered, stopping his plummet a short distance above the ground before dimming once again. The experience of losing control over his powers sent a chill through his bones.
Using the last of his diminishing powers to lower himself to solid ground, he safely landed in the cottage garden not far from the house where he found the effigy girl. The chain from the harpoon was coiled on the ground between him and the small figure with the knit cap.
As he inhaled the scent of the grass—the scent of home—a tide of nausea brought him to his knees. His vision turned black, but in the distance he heard murmuring voices. One of them had a singsong quality to it.
His head swam. He tried to muster his luminescent energy, but it was gone. When he moved a hand in an attempt to rally his laser, he felt nothing except for the grass beneath his fingers. Not even a spark on the tip of his finger. He tried to roll over, but failed. The pain in his shoulder was replaced by a cold numbness spreading through his limbs. Was this what poison felt like?
No. The answer surfaced through his murky mind. I’ve … been … drugged….
The thought prompted him to search the reaches of his decaying awareness. Something was there beyond the edges. Was it something Kathy had said?
Experimental drug to suppress powers … disproved in secret clinical trials … never used.
What was it called again?
The voices drifted closer now, male and female both. Radiant couldn’t tell how many there were of each. Their words were all English, heavily accented at times, flawless at others.
Focus, he told himself. He had to know who his attackers were if he had any hope of surviving.
“It’s raining men! Hallelujah!” a female warbled. Beneath the cheer was an unmistakable Russian accent. “Can I keep him?”
“No playing while we’re on contract,” replied a male voice with the familiar Moscow accent.
Nusku?
Radiant pressed a fist into the grass and tried to get to his feet. He felt himself shift and sway, but in a different direction than he intended. Another surge of nausea washed over him, leaving him face down on the ground with blades of grass tickling his jaw. Something pulled at his head, and he had a vague feeling that something was taken from him, but what was it?
Have … to … stop them….
“Oh, look!” the high-pitched female voice cried. “He’s trying to get up. How cute!”
The unaccented male voice interjected. “Hands off, Dollet. The fish is on my hook.”
Dollet? The name told Andrey nothing.
“Aw,” complained the woman. Dollet. “Raven doesn’t deserve this catch.”
Andrey’s hazy thoughts latched on to something vague but deeply rooted in his memory. Raven … bird … A nuisance … my nemesis? Yes. Raven was the name of his self-proclaimed nemesis. He had to get up, He had to stop these villains before said Raven got involved.
“Nusku?” The word came out like a mumble. No one paid him any attention. He forced his eyes open, but his vision was blocked by something. A bandage?
“Sorry, chica,” said a man in perfectly unaccented English. “We hafta pay the bills.”
So there’s three of them. Andrey pieced together the thought with difficulty, battling his foggy mind all the way.
“We get him inside before we do anything,” the Russian-accented male replied.
“Nuk’s right,” the unaccented male agreed. “We don’t know if he’s got backup on the way.”
Is help coming? Andrey wasn’t sure but he didn’t think so. Should he ask Nusku? A clatter of metal derailed his thought. A long length of something hard and cold coiled about his arms and torso.
Not a snake, but what? He didn’t know, and he was too exhausted to figure it out.
“Which doll did you link him to?” the man with perfect English asked.
“The one I showed you before,” the female replied. “You know, the one wearing a blindfold.”
The searing pain in Andrey’s shoulder intensified, making it impossible for him to understand what the trio talked about next. After something long and wooden was shoved underneath him, he felt like he was being carried somewhere.
Not flying. No more flying.
A short while later, the metal snakes clattered with the impact when he was dropped back onto the ground. Andrey may have cried out in pain, but he wasn’t sure.
When the searing white pain had cleared from his mind, he heard the man with the Russian accent—Nusku, he vaguely recalled—speak out again. “How much we get for the helmet?”
Something about the mention of the helmet bothered Andrey on a deep, profound level, but he couldn’t piece together why.
“Athena gear is hard to sell,” the other male replied. “Trust me, we have a shitload of stuff from his apartment. Stuff we can’t offload. People are too afraid of hidden trackers.”
Athena… Andrey held onto the word like a security blanket. Something about it comforted him.
“Depends who you ask,” Nusku said next. “The Conglomerate might be interested, and they pay a ton.”
Conglomerate? Andrey wondered groggily. The word rattled through his mind as he tried desperately to make connections. Villain. Silver mask. Broadway….
“Can I search him?” the female voice asked excitedly. “Maybe he has other tech toys on him.”
Someone barked a gruff laugh. “Hands off the merchandise, Doll. Sorry.”
“Shut up,” the Russian man growled.
What’s … his … name … again? Andrey couldn’t remember. He didn’t even recognize the people surrounding him as friends or foes.
After a quiet murmur off to the side, the voices fell silent. Andrey lost track of time while the chains slithered and clattered around him until they stopped. He heard a loud creak followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. Voices, but farther away, their words a muffled mystery.
Left alone now, he drifted in and out of consciousness. The poison in his system took over his mind and body, rendering him helpless.
He awoke to the sound of footsteps, closer this time. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’m really sorry about this,” someone whispered into his ear.
Andrey recognized the voice as the female from before, someone he associated with meat. But why meat? Was she a butcher? His fingers weakly clenched at the metal digging into his skin.
The woman’s voice switched to the language of home. “Those guys are assholes, especially Hook. But don’t worry. They’re not as crazy as the other fuckers out there.”
A vision fluttered back to him, fragile as a butterfly. Human figures in a field. “Coward,” he murmured in Russian. His lips were so dry.
“If it helps, we didn’t actually burn any townspeople,” the woman told him. “They were my dolls. And the soldiers.”
Dolls … not … townspeople. The words seeped into Andrey’s consciousness. He didn’t grasp their meaning, but something about them gave him a sense of relief. His fingers relaxed.
“I’m going to let you in on what’s going on upstairs, okay?” she said in her singsong Russian. “I’m not one of the bad guys, you’ll see.” There was a light touch on his forehead, but it drifted away as the footsteps did.
Moments later, as the darkness fell from his eyes, he stared at a dull cement wall. He focused on a crack in the center of one of the cinder blocks. It helped him to stay conscious, at least for now.
The distant murmur of men’s voices drew closer. From the corner of his eye, Andrey saw a man with a goatee, spiky black hair, and piercings speak into a hands-free headset. Heavy chains were looped around his tattooed neck, jangling as he paced.
Metal snakes, he thought. It was the only concept his dazed mind would produce.
“I’m telling you, Raven, you need to make a better offer,” the man with the goatee said in flawless English. “I gotta make money here, man.
” There was a pause followed by a mirthless chuckle. Snake man paced off to the left, removing himself from Andrey’s field of vision.
Andrey sluggishly moved his head to the side. For reasons he could not explain, his vision didn’t follow his movements. It remained fixed on the blotchy gray brick wall. He still heard Snake man’s voice, which was becoming increasingly agitated. It came from the left now, gruff and angry. Something told Andrey to pay attention.
Must … stay … awake.
“Do you fucking know what Raja’s paying?” Snake man yelled. “He went to three million the moment your name was mentioned. Four million if Radiant’s body is in one piece. For your information, that’s a shitload of dollars.”
Raja. The name sounded familiar to Andrey, though the only connection he made was to India. Was this someone he should know?
Snake man ranted on. “You can’t match Raja’s offer, man. There’s no way the Liverpool hit earned you that much.” There was a pause, followed by a rough cackle. “You’re shitting me. Who the hell’s gonna pay that much for a paper-pusher in a suit?” More laughter, followed by a longer pause. “Why do you care so much, anyway? You got an angel fetish or something?”
Angel. Something about the word sparked a memory and an ensuing wave of sadness. Andrey closed his eyes, but he wasn’t graced with the gift of darkness this time. He could still see the same blank cement wall looming over him. His dry lips moved to form a few silent syllables. “Natalya.”
The man’s gruff voice broke into his thoughts. “Fine. I’ll ask them, but I already know their answer.” The clanking noise drifted away with the echo of footsteps. A heated debate rose in a distant corner of the room and though Andrey couldn’t make out much of what they said, one word was repeated over and over again: no.
When Snake man stepped back into his field of vision, his face was as stony as the wall next to him. “Like I said, the answer is no,” he growled into his headset. “Nusku and Dollet want him alive, but they need reassurance that they’re going to get top dollar. We don’t trust you, but we know Raja’s good for it.” Who do they want alive? Andrey wondered with the last ounces of his mental energy.
Superluminary (Powered Destinies Book 1) Page 77