The band struck up a tune, and I knew what it was in a second. Because people played it for me all the time in bars or on jukeboxes, in spite of the lyrics clearly referencing dudes.
“Holdin’ Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler.
And she sang it right at me, smiling, and seemingly on the verge of laughing the whole time.
Nice. At least it beat being called names.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Brance
He was almost through the first chorus when his voice broke a little. He didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did, and he tried to get back on track—
A wrenching squeal cut through the sound system, and a shriek came up through the audience. Brance heard it immediately, his eyes snapping open. He caught a host of people with hands at their ears, pushing, faces twisted in pain.
Brance froze, listening to the squeal of electronic feedback, feeling that slow, paralyzing sense of horror gripping him like icy hands on his heart.
It was happening again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sienna
Maesie May was about halfway through her audio tribute to me when Officer Sims of the Metro PD burst into the door of Old Burd’s, a wild look in his eyes and no time for what was going on onstage. He scanned the crowd just a level below panic, searching for me, presumably.
I put my Sprite down and leapt off my barstool quicker than a peal of thunder. I made it halfway to the door before he caught my rapid motion through the crowd. He stood there in the doorway as I finished my transit, shoving some poor sap out of the way to close the last meter.
He didn’t have to speak. I asked first: “Where?”
Sims turned and led me outside, presumably holding his powder until I could hear him, the music fading as we hit the sidewalk and put a door between us and Maesie May’s killer rendition of the song. Funnily enough, it looked like someone did, in fact, need a hero right now. “This way,” Sims said, breaking into a run. I saw other cops heading down the street, streaks of navy uniforms cutting through the plodding crowds. One cop had taken advantage of the street traffic’s lack of movement with all Broadway’s lights currently red, and he was sprinting between the cars. “Mercy’s Faithless is the name of the place.” He tossed a look over his shoulder as he stepped off the curb. “It’s karaoke night.”
I almost leapt past him, but paused mid-step. “How did you know that?”
Sims turned as red as a ripe tomato. “I, uh...go there sometimes on karaoke night when I have it off.”
“Everyone’s a singer but me in this town, I guess.” I leapt ahead of him, coming down in the middle of the street, then leapt again. In this much foot traffic, no way was a traditional run going to be faster.
Neon nights spelled out Mercy’s Faithless ahead, which I thought was a funny name for a honky-tonk in the Bible belt. Maybe that was part of the satire. A pronounced and horrific squealing was barely audible to my meta ears as I landed half a block from the front door and vaulted through an open pedal tavern sitting at a stoplight. A shitload of bachelorettes were having a party and yelled approbation at me as I leapt sideways through them. I was surprised they had the wits about them to figure out who I was given the heavy smell of wafting beer coming off the pedal tavern, but maybe they thought I was a pigeon and were impressed by that.
Rolling off a Tesla SUV, I leapt up onto the sidewalk and over the heads of several pedestrians, clearing a spot on the sidewalk to land. “Move!” I shouted, commanding the attention of drunken pedestrians for an entire block with my serious-as-hell, foghorn voice. “Out of the way!” I was caught between needing to get to Mercy’s Faithless in a reasonable window and not wanting to start an absolute panic and stampede that would kill and hurt many more people than this meta had thus far.
Luckily for me, most everyone just sort of turned and stared at me rather than losing it and heading for the hills. Unlike New York, almost no one pulled out a cell phone camera, and they responded very positively to my shoving them out of the way. One big guy in jeans and a cowboy hat that I shoved out of the way actually said, “Excuse me,” and sounded like he really was sorry he’d had the temerity to occupy the space I was trying to transit through.
I vaulted one last person and I was there, the doorway to Mercy’s Faithless. It was an old building, aged brick stained black by decades of pollution never once cleaned. It would have been a great headquarters for a villain if not for the glowing neon sign proclaiming it a honky-tonk. I paused for a second in my last steps to the door, shoving my hands deep in my pockets and coming out with a pair of earplugs I’d kept from the TBI range. I hastily pushed them into my ear canals.
That done, I stepped into Mercy’s Faithless, past a couple cops that were paused just inside, faces racked with pain. A shrill screech was rolling through the air at a painful volume and octave. It made me flinch, even through the earplugs.
Steeling myself against the painful, shrill sound coming from within Mercy’s Faithless, I readied myself, looked up at the stage...and opened my mouth to speak.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Brance
It couldn’t be happening again.
But it was.
Brance was squarely in the middle of a high note, taking it up louder because...
It couldn’t be happening again.
It just couldn’t.
He was locked in, though, had to prove to himself that no, it wasn’t him. Couldn’t be him. He’d never done this before last night. He couldn’t even do this kind of thing!
People were screaming now, falling out of their chairs.
But Brance couldn’t stop. Because it wasn’t him. Couldn’t be—
“BRANCE!”
The voice boomed over Mercy’s Faithless, over the cries and screams and tinkling glass as bottles and glasses were knocked off the tables by the spasming patrons.
Brance’s eyes swept in surprise to the door. He hadn’t even used his real name. How could anyone know...?
Who could...?
Oh.
Oh, no.
Sienna Nealon stood framed in the doorway, a look on her face like thunderclouds on the distant horizon, a bellow that would have sent a whole herd stampeding. “Knock it off!” she shouted.
Brance stopped, trilling voice ceasing as though someone had stuck a sock in his mouth. He stood there and stared at her, and she stared right back before picking her way over a fallen figure in the doorway, then another, and another—
How many people had he...?
No! Brance shook it off. This wasn’t him! It was the electronics in this place! It couldn’t be him. He didn’t...couldn’t...
“Put down the microphone,” Sienna Nealon said, slowly making her way toward him.
He looked down at the mic in his hand. The wire cage that wrapped the tip had been slagged off like it had just melted or blown away. The rest of it looked as though someone had given it a dozen hard taps, cracking the metal and making a mess of the thing.
“I didn’t do this,” Brance said, easing back from the edge of the stage.
“The evidence of my eyes disagrees with you,” she said, not stopping her slow advance toward the stage.
“I couldn’t have!” Brance shouted. “I don’t have powers.”
“I think you might be denying reality here. Unless this same scene didn’t happen last night in Screamin’ Demons?” She arched her eyebrows, giving him a look that made him feel like she thought he was stupid.
That burned him, sent a hot rush through his cheeks, heat under his shirt collar. “I’m not stupid, okay? But I didn’t do this. This ain’t a thing I can do—”
“Maybe not—before. But this is a thing you can do now,” Sienna said, taking a couple more easy steps toward the stage. “It’s happened twice. It’s not a coincidence anymore. This is you. This is a power, okay? I know some things about powers, and bringing people to their knees with your voice, bleeding from the ears? That’s a superpower, not just you hitting some of
f notes.”
“It can’t—I can’t—” Brance staggered another step back. He was sweating, and the mic slipped out of his hands. This had all happened so fast. Everything was ruined—again. This was supposed to be his shot at redemption, but it had all gone tits up—
“Brance,” she said again, voice surprisingly soothing given that she was walking through a literal pile of people moaning and crying and bleeding. “I know you didn’t mean to do this, but it is done. Twice now. We need to get you out of here and somewhere safe. Okay?”
“I needed them to hear me,” he said, and his voice broke. Shoulders jerked, the sobs came out. “Everybody ought to hear me. I was going to be big, the biggest thing to hit this town since Garth—”
Sienna’s eyes swept the carnage around Mercy’s Faithless. “Well...you definitely hit the town hard, I’ll give you that. Not sure you were going for doing it quite this way—”
How could she say that? Her little shot of misery was like a dagger straight to Brance’s heart, and he felt it. Boy, did he feel it. He let out a sobbing cry, closing his eyes as he did so, and there was a spike of anguish that ran hot through him as he cried out—
His eyes sprung open and he watched Sienna Nealon get flung like she’d been hit by a motorcycle.
She smashed through the front windows and out into the street and Brance just watched her go, his jaw hanging open. How had she...?
Had he just...?
He flicked a look around. Nobody else in here was even moving, and he’d been looking at her when he’d let out that cry...
“Oh...no,” he muttered, watching out the shattered front window. “No, no—this wasn’t—I didn’t do that—”
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter what he said, she wasn’t going to hear him now.
Brance turned and ran off the stage, slamming off the wall as he ping-ponged down the hallway toward the bathrooms at the back of the bar. The emergency exit sign was broken, glass glinting in the dark beneath it, but he knew there was a way out here somewhere. He just had to find it and keep moving, keep running—
Before she could come after him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sienna
Brance opened his mouth to let out a baby cry and it was like he vomited out a sonic semi-truck that slammed into me at full speed. My ass went flying out the front windows of Mercy’s Faithless and I ended up crashing into a cop car out front, denting the hell out of the door before I landed on the pavement.
“Owwwwwwww,” I let out a low moan as the full extent of my pain became apparent to me over the next few seconds. It felt like a giant had reached down and flicked me across the room.
But one hadn’t. I’d just been battered by the voice of Brance, Mr. No-Last-Name-because-I’m-a-sensitive-artiste-in-denial-about-my-superpowers.
“Ms. Nealon, are you all right?”
I lifted my head, and through a curtain of blood running down my face I saw the guy in the cowboy hat I’d almost run over earlier. He of the supremely good manners and tight jeans.
“I’m a pretty damned far flight from all right,” I said, taking his offered hand and pulling myself up while nearly ripping him down to me with my superhuman strength. He held on though, and I didn’t yank as hard as I could, and pretty soon I was on my feet. I swept a hand over the top of my head and shards of glass came raining down on the sidewalk along with a fair few drops of blood. My hair felt like it really needed a washing now. Cowboy took a step back, surprise plastered all over his aged face, wrinkling around his eyes. “But I’m going to be all right once I punch the stuffing out of this human scream machine,” I said, and leapt back through the shattered window into Mercy’s Faithless.
My eyes adjusted to the bar’s darkness in time to see quick motion in the hallway to the right of the stage. Everything else was slow movement, people like a pit of snakes on the floor in their pain. The glint of broken glass and blood glinted in the neon shining in from outside. I could smell traces of iron from the bleeding ears as I bolted through the bar, heading for that hallway in the back where I’d seen Brance disappear.
It felt like my chest had been hammered by a mule kick, which was, sadly, a common sensation to me. I didn’t think the people in either of the previous bars had experienced the force projection I’d just got caught by. There was going to be a hell of a bruise on me within the next few minutes. Luckily, it’d be gone by tomorrow, but a normal person would have been nursing it until it faded in a few days. I would have liked to stop and massage myself, check the damage, but I didn’t really have time to pause and strip down while my suspect was fleeing.
I plunged through the darkness, steering around fallen patrons and into the back hallway. An emergency exit had been blasted off its hinges by Brance’s linebacker charge. The man was operating on pure fear and adrenaline, his meta strength on clear display as I passed the metal door ripped asunder.
“Brance!” I shouted. He was sprinting down the alley at meta speed, footfalls pounding over the damage to my hearing. When he’d turned his voice on me I’d not only felt the hit, but a high frequency shriek had blasted its way through my ear plugs.
I suddenly felt very fortunate that the dumbass at the baggage counter in New York had sent my stuff to Seattle. Without them, I wouldn’t have even needed a new gun, and thus wouldn’t be carrying hearing protection.
Brance didn’t answer my call. He reached the end of the alley and hung a left, sprinting out of my sight.
I cursed under my breath and drew my new HK VP9 pistol. No way was I taking a blind corner and walking into a possible ambush with nothing in my hand but hopes.
The alley was strewn with overflowing trash cans that smelled particularly ripe. A homeless guy in a flapped hat watched me go past with wide eyes, muttering to himself as I went by. Coming up to the corner, I let myself slow, putting my back against the corner before I planted the barrel on the side of the building. I angled my gun around, cutting the corner slowly, constantly covering as I turned the corner so I was perpetually behind cover until I’d ascertained that the alley was empty.
“Brance!” I shouted, catching sight of his back fleeing down the alley ahead. He hadn’t slowed to ambush me. He hadn’t slowed at all. Now he didn’t look back but for a second.
I burst into a run. I couldn’t recall having encountered his type of meta before, but he was awfully powerful, if completely out of control. Strength and speed usually corresponded to power level, and his running speed was impressive. He’d covered a hundred yards already, in a dead sprint toward the river. He crossed a road as I watched, hurrying to try and catch up. I cursed myself for not getting a radio so I could tie in with the Metro Nashville PD; it seemed unlikely I was going to be able to run him down on foot given his lead.
Coming up on the next intersection, a Metro Nashville cop car screeched to a halt just in front of me, as if in answer to my prayers. I did a slide across their hood and waved my hand to indicate the direction of the suspect’s flight. As I bolted into the alley across the street, after Brance, I heard one of the cops radioing it in, complete with instructions on our heading.
Dodging past a garbage-filled dumpster, I again reflected that this was not the best-smelling part of Nashville. The tall buildings of downtown were to my left, and the river was glinting ahead. I had to wonder what Brance’s plan was, because it certainly didn’t seem like he had one.
“Brance, please!” I shouted, completely ineffectually. “You don’t have to do this!” I wasn’t in a close position to diagnose his problem, but by his behavior and everything I’d seen in Mercy’s Faithless, I had a feeling this was a man in deeply over his head.
Ahead, I could see Brance pause, his broad shoulders and tight jeans coming to a slowdown. He didn’t quite slump over and put his hands on his knees, but he certainly looked like he was struggling.
I stopped about a half block back, trying not to corner him too much. I had a bad feeling about this. Not because I thoug
ht he was plotting some sort of ambush. There was a different feel to Brance than I got with most suspects.
He turned, and I mentally confirmed my assessment. His eyes were wild, worried. He seemed about an inch from tears. “I...I didn’t...” He couldn’t even string a sentence together.
“It comes as a surprise sometimes,” I said, letting my pistol fall to my side. If I had to, I could snap up and shoot in less than a second with lethal precision, but the event in the New York subway with Creeper was still freshly burned into my mind. On Brance’s face I saw none of the crazed commitment. He had something different going on; a kind of helplessness that made me want to holster my gun.
I didn’t, though. The weight of too much experience kept it in my hand, grip tight, ready to move if the situation changed.
“What does?” Brance asked, looking at me, that helpless sense wafting off him as he rolled his shoulders forward and put his hands on his knees. He was breathing hard from the run.
“Powers,” I said. “Mine came as a surprise to me, anyway.” I lifted my left hand and made a show of looking at my palm. “Never knew I could do...what I can do...until the day came that I used them to save my life.”
He looked up, hard breaths coming one after another. “I’m not like you.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not. Not exactly. But Brance...you’ve got a little meta something going on there in the vocal cords. Surely you must see that.”
“I didn’t,” Brance said, shaking his head in pure denial. “That was the audio equipment—”
“In both bars?” I asked.
“Had to be.” He was staring at the dirty floor of the alley.
“And the audio equipment kicked me out the window with an earsplitting burst of sound when you got mad?” I tossed that out as gently as I could.
“I...I...” Brance let a low breath of panic. He really didn’t think he was responsible for this at all.
Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36) Page 12