Superheroes In Denim

by Lee French

  Nodding his agreement, Bobby watched Jayce and Matthew run in at Clive together and each get tossed for distance before they got close enough to do anything. He opened his mouth to say something when gunfire erupted in the distance. “Heckbiscuits, they found someone to shoot.” It could be Liam, so he blew back into the swarm and flew for the sounds.

  He found chaos. That bunch of people he saw before, had actually been wearing nothing but sheets. Some of them were buck naked. They swarmed the armed soldiers, and bodies already littered the broken ground. None of this made any sense until he noticed one of the unarmed people had mottled green-brown scales instead of skin. Another one glowed all over with red light. A third made sparks shoot from her fingers in a muted, more colorful copy of Lizzie’s ability.

  No need to break out the formerly homeless test subjects, because they’d escaped on their own. Their powers were all over the map, and minor, like Sherrie’s and Shane’s. He needed to stop this fight. He had no idea how. His dragons couldn’t stop this many people without killing them all. Time, he needed more time. With more time, more of his side would show up and could take control of this.

  Landing and re-forming, he gave his best shot at some kind of command voice. “Fall back! There’s too many of them.” He thought it sounded fake and weak. The soldiers bugged out anyway. Either Head Cowboy did a better job than he guessed, or these guys were only too happy to be ordered out of this mess. He caught sight of Liam being stupid by running into the throng to reach the ones bleeding on the ground. Hands and feet and claws got in his way, punching and grabbing and kicking and shoving and stomping.

  “Quit it,” Bobby snarled, “he’s trying to help.” The ones nearest him turned to give him the same treatment. It gave him a good view of their faces. Every one of them had the same slack- jawed expression of empty-eyed, mindless determination. They reminded him of zombies, and he didn’t have one single clue what to do about it. As the swarm, they couldn’t hurt him. Liam, on the other hand, had curled up into a ball while they beat the crap out of him.

  A dragon streaked off to get Stephen while the rest of the swarm did what it could to surround Liam and keep them off him without hurting them. They had to be under Kanik’s influence, which meant they had no control over their actions. After all, Sherrie and Shane hadn’t acted like this when they woke up. The mutation hadn’t caused this.

  Leaving a smoke trail behind himself, Stephen zoomed in, grabbed Liam without a word and fled for the safety of shade. Bobby shifted his attention to trying to corral the zombies, but he’d come too late to the party for that. He watched helplessly as they ran in all directions, some shrieking, some yelling, all seemingly out for blood.

  Violet and Chelsea arrived, carrying Lizzie and Dan, and landed on top of a nearby building. Why couldn’t one of them have brought Andrew? Because they wouldn’t be able to fly if they were carrying him, that’s why. Even if Andrew was here, how would that help? It would take a while for him to reach all of these people. There were over a hundred of them, maybe as many as two hundred.

  He went up to where the four of them stood and re-formed, offering a quick explanation of what he thought was going on. “Best I can think is we need to find Kanik and make him stop.”

  “That’s great, Bobby,” Violet said, her Alabama twang making him miss home right now, “but how do we find him?”

  Bobby scratched his head and turned to watch zombies streak past, literally and figuratively. Quite a few hadn’t bothered keeping a grip on their sheets. “I’m gonna go hunting. See if’n you can help Stephen find a coat or something, and go hang by the entrance to direct traffic when the others get here and try to keep this contained in the base.” The swarm spread out, looking for any sign of the source of all this madness.

  He saw Matthew, in his werewolf form, watching Jayce’s back without rampaging or attacking for once. Good for him for getting a grip on the wolf. Clive’s gun lay on the ground. The poor guy had fallen to his knees, sobbing, holding onto Jayce like a drowning man about to slip under.

  Since he couldn’t see Stephen and Liam, he hoped they’d found a hole to hide from the sun and random zombies. Violet had gone off to the front gate with Lizzie. Two cars screeched to a halt, and the newcomers worked on setting up a blockade.

  Privek. He found Privek. The man walked through a door as dragons buzzed past it, and the person behind him could only be Kanik. Along with them, Hannah, Tony, Javier, and John left the building, following like lost puppies. He’d chosen a weird group to keep for himself. Hannah, he could understand. She could make a force field and had more organizational skills than Bobby could shake a barrel of biscuits at. The rest, though, he didn’t get. Tony could turn himself into objects, Javier could climb walls, and John controlled plants. Against Matthew and Jayce, those guys had no chance.

  Bobby called the swarm in while Privek swaggered through the zombies threatening Matthew, his entourage in tow. Landing next to Matthew, the dragons flew together until Bobby stood there, hands in his jean pockets, unafraid of whatever might happen next. Privek pulled out a gun, pointed it at Matthew, and fired. The werewolf could heal his injuries, so Bobby didn’t even flinch as three shots went straight into Matthew’s chest. He took a step back from the impacts and growled.

  Bobby lifted an eyebrow. “That the best you got?”

  Beside him, the werewolf threw his head back and roared. Whatever control Matthew had, it must have been tenuous, and getting shot broke it. Bobby saw Privek’s mouth quirk up in a smug smirk. He saw Kanik, the left half of his face covered with queer burn scars, dart forward with a mild limp and grab Matthew’s furry arm. Bobby blew out into the swarm and went for Kanik. Take him out, and everybody would be free of his influence. In theory.

  The second his dragons touched Kanik, he lost control of them. Kanik laughed maniacally. Bobby had no idea what to do. He was still himself, still had his mind, but the dragons refused to do what he wanted. They launched off of Kanik and went for Jayce, and there was nothing Bobby could do about it. He saw out of their eyes and felt the press of them without having the ability to control or direct them. This, here, now, became his new worst thing imaginable: his tiny little machines of death under the control of a madman.

  Jayce’s eyes widened and he grabbed up Clive and the gun, then took off running. At least he had enough sense to see what happened. He didn’t, though, have enough speed to get ahead of the swarm. Dragons caught up with him in seconds and poured into his mouth, and into Clive’s. Bobby’s mind screamed out to stop them. They kept going, ripping Clive apart and clanging around inside Jayce’s steel innards.

  “You can’t stop us, Bobby.” Privek grinned, stepping up to pat Matthew on the arm. “No one can. Kanik, send the dragons to kill the rest of them. Leave the healer, he’s useful. We’ll control him this time, though, to avoid any more incidents.”

  A blast of air and dirt and concrete tossed them all back and off their feet. Dragons got tossed for distance, and Bobby’s consciousness moved that way, staying in the center of the swarm. Jayce had the fancy future gun in his hands and fired it again. This time, a blue force field sprang into existence, sending all the debris flying around the group of six. Privek got to his feet and dusted himself off in the safety of Hannah’s power. The rest of them followed suit.

  Yeah, sure, easy fight. With just himself to worry about, Jayce took off running again. He’d have figure something out, because Bobby couldn’t imagine how anything would stop Privek now. Jayce and Stephen were probably the only ones he couldn’t kill right now. As soon as the dragons formed back up, they were going to leave a sea of corpses in their wake.

  Again.

  Chapter 19

  “Stephen!” Liam turned to find the source of the urgent shout, only to see that shiny metal man charging straight for him and the vampire standing next to him. Stephen had found enough cloth to cover up, and they’d just stepped back out of the building they’d been sheltering in to survey the scene.
>
  He’d never seen so much chaos. People ran around all over the place, bouncing off the walls in some demented game of human pinball. Liam clung to the wall, hoping no one noticed and attacked him.

  “Bobby’s under mind control,” Shiny Metal Man called out as he kept running, carrying that big gun Clive brought. “Kanik has to touch you to take control. We need Andrew, can you find him and get him over there?” He stopped next to them and fired the weapon as he panted, tossing people around like ragdolls and kicking up dirt and small things that glinted in the sunlight. “You’re faster than me.”

  “Understood, Jayce.” Stephen nodded and flew away from them, towards the front entrance.

  “Maybe I should just hide until this is all over,” Liam suggested with a gulp.

  “Time to grow a pair.” Jayce grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him deeper into the base.

  Liam stumbled along behind him, unable to resist such a massive force of steel, and glared at his back. “What do you expect me to do? Heal them into submission?”

  Jayce fired the gun again, and Liam noticed more glittery things being forced back. “Privek wants you, he thinks you’ll be useful. That means the dragons aren’t going to hurt either of us. You need to be up in this.”

  With more than one reason now to be apprehensive, Liam’s eyes went wide and he gulped again. “Are those…Bobby’s dragons you’re targeting with the gun?”

  “Yes. I’m slowing some of them down.” He kept going, pushing the small clump of dragons back with repeated shots in their direction as they went.

  Liam spotted Privek and his entourage as Jayce fired directly at them, knocking the whole group over. Before they had a chance to really recover, he yanked Liam behind a wall, thumping him into it face first hard enough to make him grunt, and they took cover.

  His nose felt like it was running, so Liam swiped a hand under it only to have it come away with a small smear of blood. “I don’t heal my own injuries.”

  “Huh. That must suck.” Jayce’s skin tone shimmered and changed to be the same as the wall, complete with texture. He leaned out only enough to see.

  “Yes, thank you, it does.”

  Jayce leaned back and stared at the gun, his masonry brow furrowed. “I have an idea.” The grin Jayce gave him as his expression cleared made Liam want to get up and walk in some other direction. “Go out there and distract them. Don’t let Kanik touch you. I’ll circle around and come in from behind.”

  “I don’t really like your ideas.” Liam crossed his arms over his chest, perfectly aware of how petulant it made him look. He didn’t care.

  “You have a better one?”

  If only he had a way to smack that look off Jayce’s face. From the raised eyebrow to the mild amusement to the challenge, Liam hated Jayce a lot right now. He grunted. “Fine. Just hurry. I doubt I can keep him distracted for long before I become Kanik’s new pet.” He pointedly did not think about the very real possibility of that actually happening, or what it might be like.

  Jayce nodded and jutted his chin out for Liam to get moving, then crept away. Liam rubbed his face and stood up with his hands out in surrender. Within seconds, a small flock of dragons swarmed him, landing on his head, shoulders, and arms. It was like…having a bunch of large spiders crawling over him. He shivered at the comparison and brushed a few off.

  The dragons chirped angrily at him. A few blew out little puffs of fire. “Okay, okay, I get it,” he said, not having to feign a mild panic. “Don’t hurt me, I’m ready to talk.” He had to force his legs to take him in the direction the dragons obviously wanted him to go, and he noticed himself hyperventilating. Were those awful stuttering, chattering noises really coming from his own mouth? He gibbered in terror, and it was no act. He needed to focus, to think about Elena, safely tucked two thousand miles away from here.

  Privek looked sharp in his dark suit. For once, instead of cool detachment, his mouth and jaw below his sunglasses had tightened into impatient annoyance. He held a pistol pointed at the ground. “Liam, how nice of you to stop by.” He turned to Kanik. “Send the dragons to find Westbrook.”

  So much for being a distraction. “I’m sorry I lied to you.” Nothing like an apology to break the ice.

  Privek’s face smoothed over to a cool neutral. “Are you a distraction, then? Kanik, take him. Everyone else, stay alert.”

  Liam had two choices: stand or run. A true coward at heart, he turned and fled. He managed to get only a few steps away before a blue field formed right in front of him. Unable to avoid it, he slammed into it and bounced back. Hitting the ground hard with his hip, he groaned and wondered if he’d be able to pass that bruise on to someone else.

  Kanik approached, staring intently at Liam and holding his hand out to grab him. In the distance, Liam saw Jayce bounce off a blue barrier.

  “Are you a conductor?” Kanik’s half-melted face filled Liam’s vision.

  The burns made Liam pity him, but the mad gleam in his eyes made Liam scramble away. Never mind scrapes and bruises, he needed to not be close to Kanik. Ever. “No. I’m a healer.”

  Kanik walked beside him, refusing to let him escape. “Can you heal my burns?” His eyes glittered with an alien sort of curiosity, as if he’d never encountered anything quite like Liam before and yearned to dissect him.

  “Uh.” After what he saw himself do for those soldiers a few weeks ago, he wasn’t really sure. “I, um, maybe? We’d probably have to cut off the affected areas.”

  Kanik’s eyes slid shut and his whole body shivered with some kind of ecstasy for a few seconds. “You could make me whole again.”

  “I think so, yes.” Liam hit debris big enough to stop his backwards scuttling. He flinched back as Kanik lunged for him and stopped with his two hands poised an inch away from Liam’s face, ready to press them onto his flesh.

  “Hurry up,” Privek groused.

  Kanik’s eyes darted all around, then settled on Liam again. “Would you heal me willingly?”

  “Of course.” Unable to keep himself from doing it, Liam stared at the too-close fingers and braced for the part where he lost control over his mind. “You’re one of us.”

  His eyes narrowed. Actually, the one eye, affected by the scarring, puckered more than anything else. “Am I?”

  Keep him talking.

  Liam knew how to keep people talking. He’d once thrown so many words at his mother that she gave in and let him have the keys to the antique Jaguar for a date at the tender age of sixteen. He’d convinced a girl she’d been the one to dump him so they could stay friends and he could still crash her parties. He’d…talked Paul into helping him wake Bobby.

  Thinking of Paul and Bobby gave him the angle he needed. One more thing to be grateful to them both for.

  “We’re brothers. You and me. We had the same mother. Privek is the outsider, the one we can’t trust. He’s using you, Kanik. He’s using all of us.”

  Chapter 20

  Bobby watched through the eyes of the dragons as they slipped through the zombie swarm, checking each one to make sure they continued to follow orders. The swarm reached the other side of the throng and his dragons saw everyone, his brothers and sisters. All of them came and they stood together, doing what they could to keep the zombies from escaping and wreaking havoc outside the fence.

  His dragons arrayed themselves in a long line and surveyed the assembled superpowered people. He counted and came up short. There should be twenty-two now, plus one if that portal-teleporting girl woke up. He counted eighteen. Four of them had to be up to something. He hoped it turned out to be the right four.

  Scanning the crowd, he ticked them off in his head. Stephen’s absence stood out. He thought Andrew might also not be there. With luck, everyone understood his importance and worked to get him in a position to stop Kanik. Either that, or someone would have to kill the guy, and that someone wouldn’t be Bobby.

  The dragons surged forward as a long cloud of silvery motes winking in the s
unshine. Violet figured it out first. She grabbed Andrea, standing next to her, and flew away. Others turned to look. Chelsea flew off on her own. Heavy pieces of debris jumped up to form a barrier. Ice shot up from the ground. He saw the blurred form of Ai racing around another small group.

  Kanik’s dragons rushed the defenses. They clawed and burned and scraped at what got in their way. One group stopped in its tracks, probably because of Sam. With horror, he saw one squirm and struggle through a small gap and dive at Lily.

  Bricks formed in both her hands, and she smashed them together, crushing the dragon just inches from her face. Two more followed it through and she only caught one before the other burned through her cheek and dove into her mouth, choking her.

  If Bobby could’ve screamed, he would have. He pushed as hard as he could to jump into the dragon in the lead to try to stop it. As it wriggled down her throat, he found himself pulled into the dragon. Suddenly, he had a burning need to kill everyone with the icy blue eyes. All of them had to die. He’d been made for this job. He did it without hesitation.

  Chapter 21

  Staring intently at Liam, Kanik stopped with his hands still hovering an inch from his face.”

  “He promised to help me, too. But it was a lie.” Liam took a deep breath, sure this had to be at least as bad as having a gun pointed at his head. His hear pounded so hard in his chest that he could barely think. “Kanik, he’s using you. Look into my eyes and you’ll know I’m not lying.”

  Kanik’s eyes bounced back and forth between Liam’s. “I just want myself back.” He lowered his hands.

  “That’s what we all want, too. Can you stop everyone from fighting and all that? We don’t want to hurt anyone, none of us do.”

  Kanik’s face fell, and he rocked back onto his heels. Both of them jumped, startled by gunshots. Someone fell onto Kanik, and shoving him into Liam. He gasped, suddenly struck with an overwhelming sensation of drowning. Only a second later, it abruptly cut off.