I waited for Officer Price to walk back to his station before I ripped the police line and ran towards the captain.
"You're making a grave mistake," I said, winded from my short sprint.
"Get back behind the police line before I have you arrested," she said, turning her attention to an approaching cop.
"Unless you get your men back, they are all going to die." It was a gross exaggeration, but I had to get her attention somehow. I knew it worked when she glared at me through her narrowed eyes.
"And you know this how?" she asked, threateningly.
"How, exactly, do you think he was controlling the car that killed Trevor? Or the ones that killed the bankers?"
She turned around and faced me completely. "I thought Trevor told you to leave town."
"He must have died before he relayed that message," I lied.
When she nods her head, I looked back in time to see a pair of overweight cops grabbing me from behind. "It doesn't matter. We will take you in after we are done here. Cuff him and sit him in one of the cars."
"That won't be necessary," I said, pulling my wrists free. "I can tell when I'm not wanted." I walked back to the crowd, surprised she let me get this far. "You'll regret sending me away in a few minutes. Dark wizards don't play by the rules." From there my only move was to blend back in with the crowd. I knew if I stayed close, she would have me arrested without a second thought. For now, she was just too busy to bother, which I was thankful for.
I approached a man sitting on a porch about three houses down who looked to have the best seat in the house. He was a clean shaven older gentleman, probably in his seventies with wispy gray hair and a heavily wrinkled face. He wore a pair of loose fitting blue jeans and a white tee shirt with a single pocket that held a pack of cigarettes.
"Mind if I join you?" I asked. "Hard to see anything from down there."
"Grab a seat," he said, pointing to one of three empty lawn chairs on his front porch. "The name's Tom." He looked towards the front door of his house. "Gloria, grab this fine young gentleman a glass of lemonade."
The woman I assumed was Gloria opened the screen door and poked her head out. She was older too though easily a decade younger than Tom judging from her long black hair and the lack of wrinkles throughout her face. She smiled, showing off her pearly whites before retreating back inside.
"Known Brad long?" I asked.
"He's a quiet fellow. Doesn't leave the house much if at all. The Bakers, next door to him, told me he was one of those Internet geniuses."
The door opened and Gloria stepped out, handing me a tall glass of lemonade loaded with ice.
"How long has he lived there?"
"Oh, a few years now." He reached into his pocket and grabbed a cigarette. I nodded, letting him know the smoke wouldn't offend me. "He got the house when Martha died. She left the boy everything."
"Martha was his grandmother, I take it?"
"I believe so," he said, taking another drag. "She had so many grandkids, it was hard to keep up with."
"Wow. How'd he manage to be the lucky one?"
"Not sure," he said, throwing his cigarette onto the concrete porch. "There were lawyers all over the place just days after she passed, searching the place from head to toe. I'm not sure what they were looking for though."
"Probably the paper will," I said.
"You think he made a fake will? Is that even possible?"
"If he is even half as gifted with computers as you say, I'd put good money on it."
I was about to ask Tom a few things about his personal life when I noticed a commotion at the Tucker residence. On the side of the house next to the garage, three people in full black clothing, all wearing Kevlar vests and helmets were poised and waiting for a signal. Two sets of two officers were on the roof, each standing near the dormers. If the SWAT unit was already in place, it could only mean that Brad's time was about up.
"Looks like things are about to get interesting," Tom said, taking a large gulp of his drink.
I gave him a nod before watching the captain. I knew the others weren't going to move without her approval unless someone in the house did something first. Considering that hadn't happened yet, it was all on her. She didn't wait long to play her hand.
"Bradley Tucker, this is your last chance," she said. "You have one minute left. Don't make us do this the hard way."
I was too far away from the house to see everything going on, but the lack of reaction from the SWAT members positioned around the house told me Bradley wasn't home, or didn't care. Neither answer would've surprised me. I've seen more than my fair share of hasty actions by the police in the name of justice. I'd be surprised if they even had a search warrant at this point.
"The lemonade is delicious, Gloria," I said when she stepped outside to top off my glass. She thanked me with a smile before heading back inside.
Down the street, the three officers that were on the side of the house were creeping towards the front door. The two officers in front drew their pistols while the one in back carried a black battering ram. That's not something they usually bring out unless they meant to use it.
The whirling blades of the police helicopter grew louder as it flew closer to the ground. Another man, wearing the same black outfit that the SWAT teams were, aimed his rifle towards the house. The helicopter whined loudly as the rear rotor came to a stop, sending it into a nasty spin. The police sniper let out a panicked yell as he fell off the side.
"Get down!" I yelled as I threw Tom to the ground. I created a deflection spell on the other side of the porch to shield us from any debris.
The helicopter spun for what seemed to be an eternity before slowly coming down into the house. The rotor blades sliced through the wooden roof like a knife through butter, sending a spray of deadly splinters into the crowd below. Most of the smart ones turned tail and ran at the sight though some of the crazier ones ducked behind a vehicle for cover. The helicopter stabilized for a moment and began to pull up, but the rotor caught on the brick fireplace, sending the helicopter spinning into the house.
I covered Tom's head with my body when the helicopter exploded. The wave of heat from the crash reached us moments before the debris that deflected safely off of my spell.
"You OK?" I asked, helping him to his feet.
"I'm fine," he said, dusting himself off. "I won't ask how you did that, but thank you."
I gave him a curt smile. "Go make sure Gloria is OK and find a place to stay safe. Ideally away from here, but at least stay inside."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make sure everyone else is OK." From the looks of the house, I already knew my answer. Something inside me was drawing me to help. It sure wasn't the captain, but I couldn't let her screw this up any worse than she already had.
- 13 -
I approached the house cautiously, watching the flaming wreckage as I got close. For the most part, the civilians behind the police line were shaken, but were far enough back to be out of harms way. There were a few that were injured from the splinters, but I didn't see anyone that needed immediate attention.
In front of the house, Captain Andrews rushed to a large metal plate in the front yard. Underneath, one of her officers screamed in agony while trying to push the weight off of his chest.
"Need a hand?" I asked, kneeling next to the captain.
"I thought I told you to leave," she said, eyebrows scrunched.
"Be glad I didn't," I placed my hands under the plate. "On three."
She nodded in agreement. On three we put everything we had into moving the plate, but barely budged it.
"We need a few more people," she said, running towards a group of officers stationed a few houses down.
I looked around for others until I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Need a hand there, son?" Tom asked as he took a spot next to me.
"Couldn't hurt," I said. "Give me a moment." I stood up and cast a spell to increase my strength, it wasn't a fla
shy spell, so nobody would know what I was doing unless they looked close. Tom's eyes grew wide when he saw the spell go of, the only visible aspect being a short flash of light, less bright than the nearby fires. "Ready when you are," I said, kneeling down by his side.
"Stay with us," I said to the officer who grimaced in pain, but otherwise being a champ about his situation. With my added strength, the metal plate lifted easily. Not wanting to draw any extra attention, I made it look like I was straining while lifting it slowly. Even though I was here to help, they wouldn't think twice to take me in to ask how I pulled it off. Tom, knowing what I was capable of, was already one too many. He at least seemed trustworthy.
We had the plate a foot off the ground when a trio of officers came running up with the captain. With the added bodies, I put extra effort in our lift since I could pass the buck on the team. Once the man underneath was free of the weight, the captain dropped off and pulled him out, allowing us to drop the metal back on the ground.
The freed officer's arm was definitely shattered to the point that he would be fortunate to keep it. From the way he was holding his chest with his good arm, he looked to have a few shattered ribs as well. He wasn't going to feel good for a while, but he would live.
I turned my attention to the house, to see if there was anyone inside. The second floor was blazing nicely, the fire spreading with the release of fuel from the ruined helicopter. All the windows on the ground level were shattered from the earlier explosion, leaving a trail of glass in front of every window.
The glass crunched under my feet as I walked to the far window. A wave of heat rushed out as I got close. The room was a smaller bedroom, maybe ten by ten but instead of a bed and a couple dressers, there were large servers lining every wall. A large room AC unit sat in the middle of the room, trying to keep up with the amount of heat being put out by the computers. The next two rooms were more of the same though there was a desk with two laptops near the bedroom door of the last with a large stack of papers between them. His office, I gathered.
From there I stepped onto the front porch, hopping over a small rose bush set up between the front rail and the main wall. I turned the handle and pushed the door inside. This room was larger than the others by nearly triple with a large brown sectional against the rear wall facing a sixty inch flat screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. In the ceiling was a set of cameras, one in each corner with one pointed down the hall and the other right at me in the front door. I dared to take a few steps inside to get a better look. The black smoke from the fire upstairs was billowing down a staircase down the hall. Carefully, taking a couple more steps I heard a mechanical buzzing from the corner of the room.
The cameras.
I faced them, and took a few steps back, the cameras both following my every move. Brad knew we were here. Even worse, he now knows I'm still alive.
The wood and drywall above me cracked, sending wisps of smoke through the ceiling. I turned tail and sprinted out of there, not wanting to be inside when the house came crashing down.
Back on the porch I noticed another camera, hidden in a box facing the door.
That explained how he knew we were here.
"You need to get your people out of here, Captain," I said, hopping over the porch railing. "He has the whole house under surveillance."
"Of course he does," she said, shaking her head. "We've seen the cameras."
"That's not what I meant." I struggled for a way to explain technomancy to her. I imagined it would be similar to teaching someone to drive a manual transmission. Not impossible, but a definite pain in the rear. "Brad is a whiz with electronics. He can do things with a computer that people would consider impossible."
"You trying to tell me he caused all this?" she spread her arms to her side.
I nodded. "And the crashes on 36."
"You're insane!" she said, turning away. "I don't know what Trevor ever saw in you. All I see is someone grasping at straws."
"Then why are you here?" I said, stomping to her. "Tell me what evidence you have that shows Bradley Tucker caused any of this."
"What are you talking about?" She unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to me. It was a notarized letter from the FBI. "We're here to assist the FBI on bringing him in for charges of insider trading. They received a tip a few weeks back from a local investment firm warning them about irregular activity on one of their accounts."
"It took them this long to serve a warrant," I said. "I've been here less than two days and came up with that."
"Some of us have to play by the rules. We can't get too far ahead of ourselves."
I turned my head to the captain, planning to give her a clue about the recent chain of events when her Explorer started up on its own. She gave me a concerned look right before the engine revved.
"The government install an auto-drive feature on your cars without telling the public?"
She shook her head and pulled out her firearm. The loud pop of her gun caused my ears to ring. The left-front tire exploded, sending the front rim into the pavement. Before she could give me a smug look, the rear tires burned out, filling the air with a thick white smoke and my taste buds with the taste of burning rubber.
"Your gun won't do any good here." The Explorer turned sharply as the rear wheels spun the car at us. "Watch it!" I said, tackling Dana into the soft green grass. The car crashed through the front wall of the house, the front tires lifted off the ground enough to disable the vehicle.
"Thanks for the save," she said, helping me to my feet.
"Save it, this is far from over."
A torrent of flame leapt from my fingertips into an oncoming police cruiser. I continued my assault until the front end melted beyond recognition filling the air with the smell of hot antifreeze and burning motor oil.
"He's doing all of this?" Dana says, loading a fresh magazine into her firearm.
I nodded before sending another blast of flame into the nearby cars. "Have your men disable any vehicle they come across," I said, shifting my flame to a bug. "I can't keep this up forever."
Using magic was a delicate process, one that required immense amounts of concentration. It's fairly similar to the amount of concentration a baseball player needed to hit a 90 MPH fastball, just stretched out over a longer period.
Most people don't have the ability to deal with the amount of mental stress that magic causes. It's not something you could erase by popping open a few beers at the end of the day. The longer you use magic, the more stressful it becomes. Eventually you reach a point where your mind shuts down. It has a safety feature built in to keep you from burning out, sorta like how new lawn mowers have a low-oil shut off feature to keep you from burning up the engine.
There's a twist to it though. If you find yourself in a pinch, you can still draw upon your mental reserves, but with a large risk. There will come a point where you will not only sever your ability to use magic, but reduce your mental capacity to the point where you are unable to perform basic motor functions.
Not exactly the position you want to find yourself in.
In an ideal world, you only want to use magic as a last resort. One you only use when more mundane means of handling your problems won't work. The council frowned on using magic in front of muggles, also known as people who can't use magic. There were provisions in place that allowed you to use it to save the lives of others, but even then they gave you a hard time about it. Considering everything else I've done the last few days, I didn't think twice to start flinging my fire.
"Send a few officers to take out the cameras on the house. Something tells me he is watching the whole thing."
"Then we need to get that out of the way," she said, pointing to the news helicopter above.
I sighed. It didn't matter how many cameras we took out if he could sit on his couch and take us out while watching TV.
"Someone call Fox and tell them to get that helicopter out of here. Now!" she yelled.
Concentrated gunfire fi
lled the air as the officers unloaded their weapons on the nearby vehicles. I allowed a smile to reach my lips when I noticed them targeting the areas around the fuel tanks. Without gas, there was no way he could make them move at all. That had to be the only weakness a technomancer had. They were still bound to the laws of physics.
I caught a whiff of gasoline when the wind shifted. Puddles of it formed in the low lying areas of the road as well as in the cracks. This was the point I decided it would probably be a good time for me to stop using fire. One poorly placed fireball would end this game really fast. In fact, I thought it best if I cleaned the place up a tad.
I weaved a net of water, focusing on an area in the middle of the road. When the humidity levels rose to uncomfortable levels, I mixed in a hint of earth to send a torrent of rain over the carnage. A sizzling steam filled the air as the rainfall doused the fires, limiting my view. Within seconds my clothing is drenched, conforming to my body uncomfortably.
A loud crash startled me as the damaged helicopter finally fell through the house that continued to burn, the water unable to douse the flames created by its fuel.
"Captain, we need to get away from the house. The helicopter can blow anytime." And when it did, I wanted to be as far away from it as possible.
"Surprised it hasn't already," she said, directing her officers to move down the street. I sprinted ahead as the officers worked their way down the street, taking out the vehicles. Somewhere there were dozens of insurance agents cursing them for doing it, the thought of which made me laugh. Down the street, out of my rain cloud, the neighbors stood out in their lawns watching the show. A few of them gasped and pointed as I got close, telling me they saw my display.
I wanted to yell at them to get back inside, but they wouldn't have been much safer there. If one of these cars exploded, it wouldn't have taken long for the chain reaction to take out over half the block.
"Over here," Tom said, waving his arms in the air on his front porch. He opened the door as the captain and I approached, closing it once we were inside.
Sparked: The Nephalem Files (Book 1) Page 8