“Hayes?”
“Won’t know until we get in there.”
The grim determination in Jamie’s voice didn’t bode well for the enemy. Alexei couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry about that considering the number of Splice-afflicted bodies they’d come across in locked biohazard rooms, double-layered plas-glass window walls smeared with blood and liquefied organs. By unspoken agreement, they weren’t handing out mercy to the enemy.
“Clear!” barked the soldier on point.
They moved as one, quickly rounding the corner and advancing toward the secured lab doors up ahead. Alexei held his position while two soldiers attached explosives to the heavy-duty door on a fifteen-second timer. Safe behind Trevor’s telekinetic shield, the resulting explosion wasn’t harmful. Alexei pushed the fire into the main lab, not caring about the hazard that might cause with who knew what chemicals lying around. Trevor would keep them safe.
The concussive wave lasted only seconds. Once it faded, they pushed into the lab amidst a hail of gunfire they returned with better accuracy. At least a dozen Sons of Adam fighters were scattered around the immediate area. But men and women playing at being soldiers had nothing on Strike Force operatives who lived their lives on the front line of war, to say nothing of MDF metahumans.
Scientists in white lab coats ran for the nearest exit or cowered in fear. Mindful of the need for evidence and someone alive to take the fall, Alexei opted for disabling hits on them. If a couple of them bled out before Trevor stabilized them, well, Alexei wouldn’t cry over the fuckers. Normally he had greater respect for scientists, but not when they put their skills toward torture instead.
Their group cleared the lab with deadly focus. Alexei was mindful of his power and opted not to use it, resorting to his weapons and his hands to take out the enemy. The cavernous space housed a lot of machines and several empty, clear plas-glass prisons.
In the center was an array of computer terminals and several primed with an uplink showing a familiar face. Declan’s angry visage made Alexei wish the other man was within range of his rifle.
“—get out of there, Val!” Declan yelled. Alexei could make out the familiar space of a flight deck beyond Declan, and he wondered if Declan had managed to escape.
The blonde woman hunched over a terminal barely looked up from where her hands flew over the opaque touch screen on the terminal. “Not yet.”
“Hands up!” Jamie ordered loudly, sighting down his weapon at her. “Hands up! Right now!”
Valerie Hayes ignored him, still frantically working to erase her livelihood. Not that it would save her from prosecution. Alexei aimed his weapon at the entrance they’d come through, making sure no enemy would sneak up behind them. He kept scanning his immediate area, staying on guard, but froze when Katie’s telepathic voice ripped through his mind with a tense warning on a broad telepathic call.
Declan’s people have rigged the training facility to explode. All teams retreat right now!
What about the lab? Trevor asked.
I’m digging through the minds of the few people you’ve left alive. While I don’t think Hayes’ people planted any explosives, I can’t be sure, so just get the hell out of there.
Wraith? Alexei wanted to know, his thoughts translating through Russian, but that wasn’t a problem for Katie.
Katie’s few seconds of silence made his stomach sink. He’s after evidence.
Pull him out, Jamie ordered even as he said, “Back the fuck up, Hayes.”
She spun around to face them, right hand raised in a threatening manner in their direction. At first glance, it looked like Hayes wore a med-glove, but the bulky fit around her forearm had Alexei thinking otherwise. Behind her on the holoscreen, Declan leaned closer to the camera pickup, eyes wide with denial.
“Valerie! Don’t!” he shouted as she primed the weapon attached to her arm.
In moments like this, they had to weigh their lives and safety over the need for bringing the enemy in alive. It took a split second to make that choice, and they couldn’t know if it was the right one until after, when the metaphorical dust had cleared.
Jamie didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger on his rifle, painting Valerie’s chest with red holes. Declan’s scream was that of an anguished man losing a loved one as her body slumped to the ground, the neuro-jammer blast exploding against the terminal’s heavy base. The electric hit short-circuited the computer, causing the uplink to cut off, silencing Declan’s scream.
“RPGs and stealth gloves?” Trevor asked in the sudden silence. “They’re getting more creative every year.”
Alexei would’ve responded, but the building suddenly shook around them, making him scramble to keep his footing. It felt like an earthquake, the shaking going on for a good twenty seconds before it faded away. Many loose items on the surrounding lab tables clattered across counters and work spaces before falling to the floor.
“I thought someone took care of the metahuman with the seismic power?” one of the Strike Force operatives said to no one in particular.
I need Inferno, Katie snapped through their minds.
Sitrep, Jamie instantly replied.
They blew the whole goddamn facility and it runs deeper than the plans and satellites show. I’m recalling all pyrokinetics and hydrokinetics to my position. We need to get the fire contained.
Alexei was already moving, signaling the closest Strike Force operative to take his rearguard position. I can make it to the roof. I’ll need a pickup.
Icarus will meet you.
I’m headin’ your way, Annabelle told him.
“Everyone clear the lab,” Jamie ordered over the general comms.
Viper? Alexei asked, dread seeping through his mind. What about Wraith?
Katie hesitated a moment before saying, He’s alive, but he’s not clear.
Katie’s worry spurred Alexei on. While everyone within Vitae Neurotherapeutics made their way to the ground floor exits, Alexei double-timed it to the roof. He took the nearest stairwell all the way up, shooting the lock off before kicking the door open. He came out low onto the roof, trying to make himself as small a target as possible to any remaining snipers.
The acrid smell of smoke hit his nose, making his eyes water behind his tactical goggles. A bright whiteness washed everything out through the night vision on his HUD. He quickly canceled it out, blinking spots out of his eyes as a red-tinged darkness immediately descended.
In the distance, where North Star International’s training facility once stood, a massive inferno burned in a crumpled pit of broken debris. Alexei’s breath caught in his throat as fear washed through him. He could see the fire moving in unnatural ways as the two other pyrokinetics on the MDF roster struggled to keep it contained.
Alexei fumbled at his belt, withdrawing the flexible filtration mask from a pouch before placing it over his face and snapping it securely to his hard helmet. He sealed the edges over his jaw, taking a couple of deep breaths as the filters kicked in and cleaned the air so he could breathe without coughing.
“Heard you need a ride,” Annabelle called from above.
She swiftly dropped out of the sky to land beside him on the roof. Her red hair was tucked securely under her hard helmet, filtration mask clipped in place. Alexei stood up and turned his back to her. Annabelle wrapped her hands around the straps on his tactical vest at the shoulders and hauled him into the air with her.
Becoming weightless through her anti-gravity power was normally a fun ride, but not tonight. Alexei kept his weapon held low across his body but ready to bring it up in an instant as Annabelle flew them through the sky. Wind rushed past Alexei’s ears, the toes of her boots bumping against his calves as she headed toward the dangerous conflagration.
She didn’t fly in a straight line, taking some hard turns here and there to hopefully keep clear of anyone targeting them. The closer they got, the more Alexei could feel the heat, even through his uniform.
The ground rushed up to gre
et them as Annabelle descended to where Katie was barking out orders over comms and to the soldiers around her. Alexei saw Matthew guarding her six while Donovan kept a general eye out for her with his enhanced vision that could see in all spectrums.
“Special delivery!” Annabelle shouted before letting Alexei go.
He dropped the last few feet, running into the landing as his weight came back with a suddenness that made his knees ache. Annabelle shot back into the sky after picking up a load of grenades someone handed off to her. Alexei ran the last few meters to make it to Katie’s side, squinting at the fire roaring in the distance.
“Wraith?” Alexei demanded as he hooked his weapon to his tactical vest to free up his hands.
Katie had one hand pressed to the side of her helmet, jaw clenched tight. “In the middle of that fucking firestorm. I’m trying to guide him out, but he’s losing air.”
“Has filtration mask.”
“He gave it to the kid.”
Alexei stared at the fire, throat tightening. “Kid?”
“Fuckers managed to make one metahuman, but Sean got her off Declan’s ship. They’re phased, but even he can’t breathe through fire like that.”
A calm settled over Alexei, freezingly deep, sharpening his focus to a knife-like point. “Where?”
Donovan pointed to his left, 45 degrees from where they stood, his eyes better than anything their HUDs could come up with. “There.”
Alexei stepped forward and raised his arms, fingers reaching for the fire. Heat sparked through his skin, pushing outward into curling tongues of flame that wrapped around his hands and arms. Their steady flicker was nothing like the fire raging through the broken building—but he could feel the difference. The immense power burning around him was wild and vicious, incapable of being fully contained.
But Alexei didn’t want to contain it—he wanted to move it.
Bringing his hands together, Alexei clawed at the air, watching in the distance as portions of the inferno danced to his control. The fire fought him, reluctantly giving ground as he pushed his arms apart, subsequently carving out a pathway through the raging inferno. The fire split nearly in two, burning walls of flame reaching up to the night sky as Alexei forced the conflagration to obey his control.
“With me!” Alexei shouted at Donovan.
Together they crossed the dangerous distance to the destroyed building. Donovan led the way, his eyesight capable of finding the safest path over the collapsed building without risking them taking a fall they wouldn’t survive. Sweat dripped down Alexei’s body beneath his combat uniform, half his concentration on the fire surrounding them, the rest of his focus on Sean.
It was a couple of long, painful minutes before they came across the agent and the child he’d managed to save. Half phased through broken slabs of concrete, Sean was hunched over a young, dark-haired girl who looked barely conscious, the filtration mask bunched up around her small face.
“Wraith!” Alexei yelled. Viper, wake him up. We need him to revert back to solidity.
They were almost to the pair when Sean’s entire body jerked, head snapping up, as if someone had shocked him. Alexei knew how a telepathic jolt felt, and while it hurt, Katie got Sean moving. He crawled out of the debris, getting himself and the girl free of everything. Alexei and Donovan hovered close by until the second Sean put his hand on the rubble, not through it.
Donovan pulled the child from Sean’s weakening grip, cradling her in his arms. Alexei knelt, grabbed Sean’s arm and got a good grip on his belt, hauling the shorter man over his shoulders in a fireman carry. The smoke in the area was thick, something Alexei couldn’t control. He could feel Sean struggling to breathe in short, sharp gasps.
Without a word, Alexei and Donovan turned around and began the dangerous journey back to solid ground. Alexei’s attention was split equally between his next step and the wall of fire raging on either side of them. Even with the filtration mask, his lungs were hurting by the time they cleared the collapsed building.
A pair of Strike Force operatives with the distinctive red cross patch on their shoulders denoting their status as medics had joined Katie’s position. Donovan handed the child to the man carrying an oxygen tank, the combat jet it came from waiting mere meters away in a clear patch of grass. Alexei slipped Sean off his shoulders, biting back a snarl at the medic who helped him lay the agent out on the ground flat on his back.
Sean was breathing, but just barely. Alexei unclipped his hard helmet and pulled off the tactical goggles, tossing them aside. The medic immediately placed an oxygen mask over Sean’s mouth and nose, securing it as she started the oxygen flow into his lungs. Alexei remained by Sean’s side as she performed a rudimentary body check on him, finding no apparent wounds other than the probable smoke inhalation and seared lungs. That didn’t mean he wasn’t suffering from any further internal injuries they couldn’t see, but Alexei highly doubted it if he had remained phased.
Donovan scooped up the child once she was stabilized and hurried to the jet. Alexei would’ve done the same for Sean, but Katie grabbed his shoulder, holding him in place with tight fingers.
“They’re bringing a stretcher. I need you to stay here, Inferno,” she told him firmly.
Alexei knew better than to disobey. While his mind knew he needed to stay and fight, his heart wanted to follow Sean into that jet. He forced himself to not reach for Sean as the medics lifted Sean onto the hovering field stretcher and hauled him to the safety of the jet. With a roar of engines, the combat jet launched straight up into the sky at high speed to escape any enemy fire.
Alexei tracked it as long as he could, but the Night Stalker pilot was damned good at their job and disappeared into the night within seconds.
“They’ll take him back to Mountain Home,” Katie said. “What I need you to do is help put out the blaze before we end up with a forest fire on top of the mess we’re already dealing with.”
Even this far north, in the near middle of summer, the land was tinder-dry. If the fire got out of control, the resulting disaster would devastate the area and put countless lives at risk.
Alexei pushed himself to his feet, fire already sparking at his fingertips as he reached for his pyrokinesis. “Am ready.”
17
Leave the Body and Leave it Cold
Footsteps on the heavy metal decking of the transport jet had Sean looking up from undoing his flight harness. His shoulders dropped in relief when he saw who had come to greet him. “Hey.”
“Shouldn’t be here,” Alexei said gruffly as he pulled his tactical goggles over his hard helmet.
“I have lung-scrubbers in me right now. I’ll be fine.”
Sean watched as the taller man maneuvered around the cargo boxes full of supplies the transport jet had ferried over from Mountain Home Air Force Base. Sean had caught a ride back into the field only after Gracie had arrived at the base to take the child he’d saved into her care.
Phaedra was still traumatized, and rightly so. Sean had hated to leave her, but Gracie was the best person to care for the child in the aftermath of what she’d survived. Katie had mentally blocked the girl from using her clairvoyant power, so everyone would be spared the rush of images Sean was hit with when he pulled her off Declan’s ship.
Shoving aside the flight harness, Sean stood up to meet Alexei halfway. Alexei looked tired, a tightness to his mouth and around his eyes that spoke of an untreated headache. Considering the charred pit of debris Sean had viewed from the jet’s window upon their arrival, it wasn’t a surprise Alexei was hurting. He and the handful of other pyrokinetics must have had their hands full last night keeping the fire under control while the hydrokinetics put it out bit by bit. Smoke and the risk of flare-ups meant it would’ve been a slow going process.
Sean only had vague recollections of escaping that inferno, which was probably for the best. Suffocating was a nightmare he didn’t need to remember.
They were the only ones on the jet, but it still surp
rised Sean when Alexei pulled him in for a hard kiss that gentled in seconds.
“I’m okay,” Sean murmured against Alexei’s mouth before pulling away. The last thing they needed was for someone to see them acting inappropriately in the field.
Alexei didn’t let him get very far, lifting a hand to cup Sean’s cheek. “You barely breathing when we reach you. Katie say you ignore order to leave.”
Sean winced. “I know. I probably should have left when she told me to, but if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to rescue Phaedra. Last thing we need to deal with is the other side controlling a clairvoyant.”
The idea of a precognitive and clairvoyant focusing their considerable power to undermine the MDF and similar foreign agencies still sent a chill down Sean’s spine even these many hours later. Seeing the future was one thing, because the future was ever-changing. But having the power to see distant events happening in real-time—anything from a car accident to a classified government meeting—was dangerous in a different way. No secret would be safe with a clairvoyant in enemy hands.
Alexei’s mouth twisted in a grimace, gray eyes tired. “Good you save her, but next time should listen to Katie. She’s second for reason.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sean could phase through solid objects, but he still needed to breathe. Coming out into the inferno had made it nearly impossible to orient himself at the time. Sean knew he was lucky the rest of Alpha Team had worked swiftly to come to his rescue. He’d owe them for that, even if they would never accept the debt. But judging by Alexei’s reaction right now, it hadn’t been easy for him to witness it.
“Come on,” Alexei said, tugging Sean forward. “Can help with cleanup.”
They took a few seconds to readjust their hard helmets and goggles, making sure the nanotech strips that would blur their features were in place, before heading for the ramp. All MDF agents and field operatives needed to keep their identities hidden, especially with so many people wandering around out here. SOCOM and Strike Force knowing who they were was vastly different than the press finding out.
In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3) Page 31