Joss the Seven

by J. Philip Horne

  Mara-who-looked-like-Jordan had narrowed her eyes while we talked and looked from me to Isabella and back. I’m not sure what she saw that she didn’t like, but it freaked me out to have Jordan look at me like that, even if it wasn’t really him.

  “Shall we, uh, get going?” I asked.

  Mara stepped forward and handed her small purse to her sister. “The car keys are in there. Wait in the car. Keep it running.” She kept the bag the clothes had come in.

  Isabella took the purse and gave Mara a big hug. Then she turned to me and I swear I could feel heat coming from Mara’s eyes. Maybe the caffeine in the energy drinks had given me super sensitive skin. I ducked in for a quick hug and broke away.

  We waited until Isabella disappeared around the corner back the way we’d entered the alley, and then walked the other way. At the far end of the alley we’d turn left, cut across the street, and be at the bank.

  “You up to this?” Mara asked as we walked. “You may need to stop bullets.”

  I checked things out. I still felt spacey, but I wasn’t tired anymore. “I feel okay. Maybe a little fragile. Just make it fast, and I’ll manage.”

  “I always rob banks fast.” Mara looked at me and cracked a smile. I had to keep reminding myself it really was Mara, since she looked almost exactly like Jordan, and Jordan’s smiles were not reassuring.

  I smiled back. Mara was in a better place if she was joking with me. Then she stopped smiling and she put a hand on my shoulder. A big Jordan-hand. It felt heavy. We came to a stop near the end of the alley.

  “What’d you and my sister talk about while I was shopping?”

  “Just, you know, what comes next, if we take care of Jordan. Stuff like that.”

  Mara held me with a hard look on her fake-Jordan face. I think I’d have confessed to stuff I hadn’t done if she’d kept it up.

  “All right,” Mara said and released my shoulder. “Get the mask and blend. We’ll talk more later.”

  I pulled my mask on in a smooth motion. I was getting better at getting it aligned and in place. Just then, a youngish couple with a small boy in tow walked by the wide mouth of the alley up ahead. I blended immediately, but the little boy looked over toward me just before I winked out of sight.

  His eyes went wide and he stopped, staring. His parents turned to see him apparently staring into the alley at a very large, well-dressed man. They each grabbed one of his hands and hustled him off past the alley.

  “So, that kid’s gonna need therapy,” I said.

  “Focus,” Mara said. “We’ve got a bank to rob.”

  “Right. Got to focus on the important stuff in life.”

  Mara strode forward and I followed a step behind. We turned the corner and the bank came into view. It was a big building. Imposing. I wanted to stop and take it in for a moment, but Mara didn’t pause. She cut across the street through a small break in the traffic and walked straight in. I dodged through the door as it closed behind her.

  Three steps into the lobby, Mara stopped and looked around. She made an impression, with all of Jordan’s intimidating size. Heads turned and stole quick glances. I stopped beside her, still invisible.

  “Man in the suit,” she said, just loud enough for me to hear. “Left end of the tellers’ counter. He’s security. I’ve got him. Rent-a-guard over there by the door to the offices. Blue uniform. He’s yours. Cameras all around, so I’ll be seen. On my mark, let’s make an impression.”

  Oh yeah. I was all about making an impression. Particularly at banks, with people who had guns. Compared to what went down at Mara’s apartment, though, could this really be that hard?

  I shook my head. That was a dumb thought. The plan had been simple, but I realized simple didn’t mean easy. Things like rob bank left a lot of room for interpretation. A lot of details that could go sideways.

  “On my way,” I whispered to Mara.

  Time to find out what magnificent disaster awaited.

  Chapter 24

  LIT UP

  THERE WERE FIVE tellers behind the long counter. Three of them were serving customers. Opposite the tellers, some desks spread out, two of which had bank people talking to customers seated across the desks from them.

  I crossed the lobby with careful, quick steps. It would have been easy to sneak up on Mr. Rent-a-cop even if I hadn’t been invisible—he was totally focused on Mara. For her part, Mara just stood there looking like Jordan.

  I got to the guard and checked out his gun. It was in a dark holster on his right hip, with a strap buckled over the back of the grip to secure it in place. That was a problem. I leaned in and took a close look. It seemed straightforward. Just a snap on a strap.

  The guard took a half step toward Mara, and she exploded into motion. The gun was out and aimed at the other security guy before I fully registered she had moved. The bag hit the floor where she dropped it and her other hand extended toward the rent-a-cop, palm out.

  “Hold!” Her voice boomed in Jordan’s low range. “No one move, and no one gets hurt.”

  The security guy froze, his hand just outside of his suit jacket. He’d been going for a gun for sure. Rent-a-cop took a shaky step backwards and came to a stop, his hands hovering near his gun. A couple of the bank customers screamed, but were quickly calmed by the tellers.

  “Your gun,” Mara commanded, and stretched out her hand toward the rent-a-cop.

  That was my cue. I flipped the holster strap open with one hand while grabbing the gun with the other. I pulled it free fast enough to get it clear before his hand instinctively clamped down on his empty holster. Without pausing, I sent the gun spinning across the stone floor toward Mara. She brought her hand down, keeping it pointed at the gun as it slid toward her, and lifted one foot to trap it. To everyone in that bank, it must have looked like she had called the gun to her.

  Well, that made an impression. A couple tellers dropped out of sight behind their glassed-in counter in a dead faint, along with one of the bank customers. Mara bent down and retrieved the gun in her left hand, keeping her other gun trained on the security guy. Several customers started edging toward the front doors. Mara dropped the safety with a thumb, aimed the rent-a-cop’s gun at the ceiling, and fired off a couple rounds.

  “Everybody on the ground! Now!” As she spoke, Mara strode to the security guy, who dropped to the ground along with everyone else. She stuck the gun she’d just fired into an interior coat pocket as she walked. “Hands up.”

  He stretched out on the floor with his hands above his head and a look of terror on his face. Mara bent down beside him and her hand flashed into his jacket. It came back out with another gun. “Go get that bag. You have one minute to fill it with cash, or it gets ugly.”

  The man nodded, and ran to retrieve the bag. Holding it, he crossed back to a door near where he’d been standing and badged through it, appearing behind the counter a moment later. Mara walked to the middle of the lobby and slowly turned in a circle, a gun in each hand. I knew she was doing it to make sure any security cameras got a good look at her Jordan-face, but it was still imposing.

  I looked around, too. I didn’t like what I saw. Everyone was on the floor, except the security guy who was now behind the tellers’ counter emptying cash from drawers into Mara’s bag. They were scared out of their minds, and several of them, both men and women, were weeping. Rent-a-cop lay on the ground at my feet, his eyes closed.

  It struck me that this whole setup was a bad idea. Sure, it would force Jordan on the run, hunted by everyone and their mother. Hopefully, he’d wind up in jail for just about forever, and I knew he deserved it. Mara and Isabella would escape, and not have to fear him coming after them. Same for me. He’d either be in jail or too busy trying to stay out of jail to come for us.

  “Thirty more seconds,” Mara said, and the security guy gave her a quick nod while frantically shoveling bills into the bag.

  The thing was, these bank people didn’t deserve to be terrorized. They didn’t know we weren
’t going to harm them, no matter what happened. In an important way, we were harming them by the very act of putting on this show.

  “Fifteen seconds!” Mara said as she set one of the guns on the floor.

  That was my next cue. I’d have to think it through later. I ghosted through the counter and hopped over several tellers laying on the ground to stand near the guard. As I reached him, Mara extended her free hand toward the guard. I snatched the bag out of his hand and ran for the door off to the side of the counter and glass that went back to the lobby. It struck me that the security guy had used a badge to get through it. Hopefully it would open automatically from the inside.

  It did. I slipped through the door and and tossed the bag along the floor to Mara. As I ran over to her, I wondered if we’d been right. Thomas and I had thought it best to make it obvious to anyone in the Guild who might take notice of the bank robbery that a Seven had been involved. That way, the Guild would hopefully figure out Jordan was a Mocker using Sevens and go after him along with the FBI and cops.

  The bag skidded to a stop near Mara, and she dropped all three guns into it. With that, she picked up the bag and turned toward the main doors. I glanced around as I followed. Everyone was still on the ground, except the security guard who stood staring at her from behind the counter, his mouth hanging open.

  Movement caught my eye off to the side. Rent-a-cop rose to his feet and ran toward Mara. His left hand flashed down to his belt opposite his empty holster and came back up with a blocky device.

  “Taser!” I hissed to Mara and bruised as I stepped between the rent-a-cop and Mara. He gave a primal shout and tased me.

  As Mara had so eloquently put it earlier in the day, I was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was like being shocked and punched dozens of times a second. I lost track of time. I lost track of myself. It was hell on earth.

  I returned to coherent thought as Mara threw me over her shoulder in a fireman carry and fled the bank. She burst through the doors and paused for a moment, then turned to the right and starting running. She had my legs in a vice grip against her chest, but my upper body was free to bounce around as she ran, so I got a good look down the street behind us.

  I realized the loud sounds I was hearing weren’t in my head. There were flashing lights and sirens. It looked like the street was full of cop cars descending on the bank. Mara turned to the right again, and my view of the street disappeared. A moment later, she turned left and stopped.

  “Can you walk?” Mara asked, still looking like Jordan.

  She set me down, but held on to me as I tried to regain control of my body. I lifted one leg, and then the other. My muscles felt on the verge of cramping. The sirens got louder. “I’m shaky, but I can do it.”

  “Reggie. Hurry.” As she spoke, she stepped away from me and disappeared. The clothes collapsed in on themselves in a mound, with the bag beside them. A moment later, a cat fought its way out of the jacket. There was a twisting blur, and Mara stood as herself where the cat had been, wearing the same clothes she’d worn all day.

  I tried to ignore that weirdness and concentrated. It didn’t seem to help much, but my nerves stopped jangling around, and I felt like I could control my body again. “I’m okay.”

  “Good. Meet back at the car. Blend and go!” Mara took the guns out of the bag and tossed them up on the roof beside us and then threw the bag of money up with them. With that, there was another twisting blur, and a hawk took off down the alley. In a moment, she flashed out of sight.

  I blended and cut back out into the street we’d just left and headed back toward the bank. There were cops everywhere, including two large, black SWAT vans. It took me ten minutes to make my way through the mess and back to the alley across the street from the bank. I hurried through it and out the other end, where our rental car was parked, the engine running. Isabella was sitting low in the front passenger seat.

  I looked up and saw a hawk circling high above. I ghosted into the rear of the car and lay down behind the front seats. When I released the ghost and blend, Isabella made a squeaking sound and snapped around to look at me. It was gratifying to see real warmth in her smile.

  I yanked off my mask. “Open the driver window. Quickly.”

  “Mara?”

  I pointed skyward. “A hawk.”

  Isabella reached over and rolled down the window. A moment later a hawk streaked into the car and landed on the driver seat. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and when I opened them Mara was sitting there.

  Isabella started to say something, but Mara flicked a hand up to silence her. She started the car and rolled her window up as she pulled out of the parking lot. Mara drove for a couple minutes in silence, taking random turns. The sounds of sirens tapered off until they could no longer be heard.

  “Okay, we should be good,” Mara said. “Joss, you doing alright?”

  “Been better.” I scrambled off the floor of the car and sat on the seat behind Mara. “Is it possible to burn out as a Seven? I almost couldn’t hold my blend getting back to the car.”

  “No. You can wear yourself out, but it’s not permanent.”

  “So you robbed the bank?” Isabella interjected.

  “Yeah, we robbed the bank,” Mara said. “Went well until Joss took a taser meant for me.”

  Isabelle looked at me with concern written all over her face. “You are okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just a bit, uh, jittery. Not something I ever want to experience again.”

  She nodded. “But you protected Mara, yes?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah, he did,” Mara said. “All hell broke loose, though, when Joss popped into sight. I mean, all in black, thrashing around on the floor with a taser attached to him? Utter pandemonium. Would have been worse, but the guard freaked out when Joss appeared and dropped the taser.”

  “So how long was he juicing me?” I asked. “Like, a minute or something?”

  “Maybe two seconds,” Mara said.

  Two seconds? That was crazy. It must have been at least a minute. A very long minute.

  “I grabbed him and ran,” Mara continued. “Something for everyone. The cops will find the guns eventually with the money on the roof, the FBI will be all over the video footage and go after Jordan, and now the Guild will have definitive proof that a Seven was involved. Hopefully they’ll connect the dots and realize Jordan is a Mocker.”

  “So you’ll drop me at home, right?” I asked. “Then disappear into the sunset? Never to be seen again? Just a gun and stacks of cash to see you home?”

  “Something like that,” Mara said. “I’ve got your phone and email. I’ll let you know when we land somewhere safe.”

  “Thank you, Joss,” Isabella said. “You have meant a world to me.”

  I wasn’t totally sure what that meant, but it sounded good. I gave her a smile when she looked back at me. I realized I didn’t even know exactly what time it was. Had Battlehoop ended yet? I pulled my phone out and checked the time. Just after noon.

  Wait a second. Twelve missed calls. What? From home. All in the last thirty minutes. My phone was set to do not disturb, so I knew I’d miss inbound calls, but I hadn’t been expecting twelve of them. All twelve were from my parents.

  “Hey, my parents have been calling. Gonna give them a quick call back.”

  “You think that’s wise?” Mara asked. “We can have you home in fifteen minutes. Maybe ten. I don’t want them to interfere just yet.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. I hit the call-back button.

  Someone picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” It was Dad’s voice, but different. Weaker. Scared.

  “Dad? Hey, it’s Joss. Saw I missed some calls. What’s up?”

  “Joss, are you okay?” His voice kept that edge. He sounded scared. My stomach developed a case of the icebergs.

  “Yeah, sure, sorry I missed your calls. What’s going on?”

  “Where are you?”

  “On the way home. Why?”


  “Are you safe?” Dad asked. “Can you speak freely? Say ‘thanks, Dad’ if you can’t.”

  My throat tightened. Heat flooded my scalp. My heart tried to break out of my chest. “Dad? I’m scared now… what’s going on?”

  “Get somewhere safe and stay there. We’ll come get you. A restaurant. Store. Anywhere public. Where are you now?”

  “Dad?” If it wasn’t a whimper, it was awfully close to one. “What’s going on?”

  “Janey’s been taken, Joss. My little girl is gone.”

  I heard Dad sob as my arm went numb and the phone fell away from my ear.

  Chapter 25

  THE BEST LAID PLANS

  I COULDN’T PROCESS what I’d heard. It was too much. I closed my eyes and shut out the world. So far today, I’d been beaten with a stick, shot, tased, and drunk one too many energy drinks. My body felt hollowed out by pain. The searing heat in my heart, though, overshadowed everything else. My sister had been kidnapped.

  “Joss? Joss!” My dad’s frantic voice sounded faint. I felt a moment of confusion, then remembered the phone in my lap. I fumbled around for a moment to find it without opening my eyes. I didn’t want to see Isabella staring at me, or Mara glancing back as she drove.

  I pulled the phone up to my ear. “Hold on, Dad. I’m here. I’m okay. What happened?”

  “Where are you, Joss?”

  “I’m with Mara. We’re on the way—”

  “What?” Dad’s voice cut in. “Mara? The woman from Battlehoop? Joss, you’ve got to get away! She’s working with Jordan. He…” A sob cut through his words. “He’s the one who’s got Janey.”

  “Dad, listen!” I said. “Jordan was holding Mara’s sister hostage. They aren’t working together, okay? I’m safe. Please.” A tear broke free and rolled down my cheek. “Tell me about Janey. Jordan has her?”

  “What’s going on, Joss? Why are you with her? What have you done?”

  I felt a hand on my knee and opened my eyes. Isabella was looking at me, silently crying. Seeing her sadness directed at me had the strange effect of making me feel stronger. Being a man is being able to stand up under it.