Villain

by Michael Grant

  She considered calling her mother. Talking to her. Telling her . . . what, exactly? That Cruz loved her? She did, but love was only a part of what she felt. That generous emotion was mixed with feelings of betrayal, of resentment.

  Hi, Mom, I’m probably about to die, but I love you. Just one thing: Why did you never defend me from Dad?

  Explain that, Mom. You knew how scared I was. You knew how vulnerable I was. And you watched him bully and sneer and belittle, and you said nothing.

  When she considered calling her father, she quickly dismissed the notion. He would be glad she was gone. He might not want her dead, but gone? Gone would be just fine with him.

  And that, she realized, was the whole list of people she cared anything about, aside from Shade. And Malik. And increasingly, Dekka.

  And Armo, though that was in a slightly different category.

  She laughed silently at her own absurd nascent crush on him. Yes, he was gorgeous. And, despite what Cruz had seen of him in the heat of battle, in calmer times he was . . . well, kind of sweet. Centered. Funny, sometimes. But he was also a white, cis-male, presumably hetero dude who would be horrified by the notion of anything more than friendship. He would think she was creepy. A freak of nature. Delusional.

  Behind her back he might laugh at her. Call her a tranny. Cruz forced herself to see that, to recognize her own foolishness.

  People like me don’t get happy endings.

  Once, long ago . . . well, not so long ago really, it only felt that way . . . Once Shade had said that hope was the best form of torture.

  Maybe. But how the hell could you live without it?

  She knew deep down in her soul that her life would not somehow end with her happily with someone like Armo. Not that there could possibly be anyone like Armo; he was . . . unique. More an ideal than a real boy, Cruz told herself. A fantasy, not a reality. A fantasy even if it had been smart, beautiful, confident Shade setting her sights on him.

  Let alone me.

  Cruz heard gunfire and flinched. Invisibility did not make her invulnerable. She was still a body, she was just an invisible one.

  She slowly rounded a curve in the Strip and saw the Triunfo rising behind the mall. The casinos to her right were still bright by normal standards, but muted for Las Vegas. The Triunfo still blazed gold.

  She wished she’d brought water. She was finding it hard to swallow.

  The army column had finally, after the delay in dealing with Vincent Vu, made its way back to the Strip. They’d been too late to cut off Dillon’s voice slaves. The army column was coming up slowly, cautiously behind her now, and for the life of her Cruz couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or bad.

  A crazed man burst from the Nieman Marcus store at the mall and ran screaming toward her. Cruz recoiled before realizing he could not see her. He ran on into the street.

  The air stank of the burning Venetian and Treasure Island.

  A left. It was here she had to turn. And here she saw the mob in front of the Triunfo. She crossed herself and wished she had a rosary. This was a mob completely under control of Dillon Poe. A mob that could be turned into howling murderers with a few words from the Charmer.

  A mob ahead; a column of tanks coming up behind.

  Cruz raised her phone, still connected to Shade, who had her phone on mute in case a sound gave Cruz away. Everyone in the group was in morph lest they overhear some command of Dillon’s. Cruz whispered, “I’m here.”

  She slowed and narrated. “I’m at Triunfo. There’s a big crowd, like maybe a thousand people. The front doors are smashed in. A Chevron truck is blocking the driveway. I see people up on the overhang, you know the thing that sticks out over the driveway? The windows up there are broken out.”

  Cruz reached the edge of the mob and stopped talking. She searched for, then found, Dillon Poe. He was atop the overhang, walking back and forth and seeming to talk to himself. As she watched, Dillon grinned, pulled out a notebook, and scribbled.

  The gesture was so like herself when she would have an idea and pull out her Moleskine. She pushed the thought away: she had nothing in common with this monster.

  Then she saw the the cheerleader awkwardly unlimbering a hose on the Chevron truck.

  Behind her, the army tanks clank-clank-clanked their way along, closing the distance.

  Cruz looked up at Dillon. Objectively he was terrifying, bizarre, a green-scaled reptile in a tattered tuxedo. But for some reason people did not see him that way. And, Cruz supposed, if she was de-morphed, she might see him the way they apparently did. But she was in morph, so his charm did not touch her.

  Suddenly a bullhorn crackled and screeched to life. Dillon said, “Okay, show ’em the first sign!”

  Two people peeled off from the crowd and ran toward the lead tank holding a piece of poster board, on which was written, Stop right there: I am ready to negotiate.

  The tanks did not stop.

  “Kate!” Dillon yelled. “Time to spray!”

  To Cruz’s utter horror, the cheerleader on the truck turned a valve and liquid first spit and sputtered and then flowed. The smell was instantly recognizable as gasoline. The cheerleader played the hose over the mob like a suburban mom playing with her kids in the backyard. Tears ran down her face; she was sobbing like a heartbroken child, but she did not stop.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” people asked. But did not move.

  “That’s gas!” another said. And likewise did not move.

  Then Dillon called to another cheerleader, who ran from the second-story window that had been broken out to allow access to the overhang. And she carried something small in her hands.

  “Careful with that,” Dillon ordered. “That’s a collector’s item!”

  Dillon took the object in his hands, held it up as if for inspection, then began earnestly winding a key. Only then did Cruz recognize the object as a wind-up toy. A little car or truck, a piece of junk from a souvenir shop.

  What? Why?

  But then, as the Charmer walked to the edge of his platform and held out his hand, she understood. The gas fumes were overpowering. If the Charmer held a lit match up above in the rising fumes it might ignite the fuel. But a sparking wind-up toy? If he dropped it, it would fall to the ground below, crisscrossed by rivulets of gas. He would have perhaps a second or two . . .

  “Second sign, go!” Dillon ordered.

  Two more of his mob, hair limp from gasoline, ran with a piece of poster board whose ink was smearing.

  All it takes is a spark. If I drop it, they all burn.

  “No,” Cruz whispered. Then, forgetting about concealment, she yelled into the phone. “Shade! Now! NOW!”

  Dillon, hearing Cruz’s voice looked sharply at . . . at nothing. And at that moment a shot rang out from an army sniper on the roof of the mall.

  Crack!

  It was night. It was a long shot to make. And rising gas fumes distorted the light.

  “Aaaarrrgh!”

  The bullet meant for Dillon’s heart flew and hit his left collarbone. He twisted as if punched by a strong man. He dropped to one knee. His wind-up toy dropped to the overhang and fired off multicolored sparks as it scurried around.

  For a moment the toy was lost to view. And then, suddenly, it flew over the edge of the overhang and spiraled down, still sparking.

  The mob, unable to move, screamed.

  The word “now” seemed to take a long time to Shade.

  She was out of the casino doors, down the driveway and turning onto the Strip before the “w” was done resonating.

  She had run fast before. But this was Cruz.

  She felt her clothing flap and shred. She felt the way her Plasticine body reshaped itself to use the wind to push her down, to keep her from flying off wildly into the air like some out-of-control race car.

  Her legs were a blur. Her hands moved so fast she felt the heat of friction.

  The Strip blew past. Bodies were blurs.

  She skidded int
o a turn and there were the tanks. She ran past them, a whirlwind, a sudden gust of wind like a tractor trailer passing at a thousand miles an hour.

  In a split second she saw it: the gas truck. The immobilized mob. The sparking toy twirling slowly down and down.

  At any second the gas fumes would . . .

  No time!

  She kicked off, leaped into the air going the speed of sound, bounced off a man’s shoulders, stretched out her hand . . .

  With her accelerated vision she saw the very moment a spark caught the vapor. Saw the spark become a flame, a slow-motion fire rose unfolding in midair.

  Shade snatched the toy in midflight, closing her fist around it to stop it sparking.

  The wind of her passing sucked the oxygen away, and the flame . . . died.

  Shade landed at the far edge of the mob, but it was an uncontrolled landing, and she plowed into three people, a hundred pounds of armored girl moving at eight hundred miles an hour, killing two instantly, spinning the other like a top.

  Shade rolled away her momentum, stood, and threw the toy as far as she could. It landed on the roof of the mall.

  Atop the overhang, a bloody, roaring Dillon was being half carried by his cheerleaders, trying to get back through the broken window to relative safety.

  Shade shut her eyes to the destruction her landing had caused—no time for that now. She ran, leaped, and landed on the overhang. Dillon was being dragged down the hallway, yelling, cursing. Shade would have him in seconds. But now she heard the slow, slow sound of Cruz’s voice in the phone.

  “S-h-a-d-e!”

  At the same moment she felt a vibration. That, too, was slowed down, which just made it all the more puzzling. She glanced back. And froze.

  Dragon had arrived.

  CHAPTER 27

  Dragon and Gasoline

  DILLON WAS CRYING. The pain was incredible. It came in waves, wave upon wave, faster and faster. His shirt was soaked with blood, soaked as if he’d been caught in a sudden rain shower of blood.

  “Get me to my room!” he bellowed.

  His Cheerios hauled him to a room, and as he entered he saw himself in the full-length mirror. He almost fainted. The front of his shoulder was red around a single round hole. But the back of his shoulder was a crater. The bullet had done what it was designed to do—to tumble and twist its way through flesh at incredible speed. The result was an exit wound six inches across, tattered flesh and bits of shattered bone, the pulsing worms of arteries and veins.

  “Oh, God, I’m going to die! I’m going to die!”

  The aspiring comic in him saw nothing funny in this.

  The Cheerios laid him on the bed, groaning and weeping.

  “Get me a doctor! Get me a doctor!”

  The women all obeyed instantly and raced from the room. Too late it occurred to Dillon that he was now alone. Alone, in agony, and bleeding onto the bedspread.

  “Peaks!” Dekka yelled.

  The TV cameras were all on the massive lizard creature people called Dragon. But she knew the monster was her old nemesis, Tom Peaks.

  “Okay,” Dekka said to Armo, Malik, and Francis. “The situation is clear enough now. That is Tom Peaks, the man who created the Ranch. Some things might still be confused, but one thing is crystal clear: that asshole needs to die!”

  She strode purposefully to the door and opened it. Casino security was outside. “I need a car. Now!”

  Jody Wilkes, head of casino security, had entirely accepted Dekka’s authority in dealing with anything not actually inside the casino.

  “SUV?” Wilkes asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You want some volunteers to go with you?”

  Dekka shook her head. “The creep, Dillon, isn’t dead yet, and his voice might still reach anyone you send. We’ve got this. But thanks.”

  She went back inside. “Okay, we’re getting in an SUV—in morph—and we’re going after Peaks.”

  Malik nodded slightly, and seemed distracted. Francis just gulped and nodded.

  Armo said, “OK.” He grinned at Dekka. “See? I am totally doing what you want.”

  “Only because you can’t wait to get into it,” Dekka said.

  “Well . . . yeah. Duh.”

  They rode the elevator down. The elevator music was playing “Maybe I’m Amazed,” which would not have been her first choice for a theme song as they went into battle.

  Dekka looked Francis over. She was both beautiful and disturbing. Her shape had not changed, nor her size, and she was dressed in the clothes she’d come in. But every exposed part of her—face, hands, neck, even her hair—was a bright, swirling rainbow. Like someone slowly spinning a color wheel. There were reds bleeding into violet, greens turning blue, bright orange and yellow whorls. And there was something else, something Dekka couldn’t put a name to. It was a depth of field, a sense that the colors were not on the surface but extended into Francis, like her skin was just the surface layer of a lake of colors.

  Francis’s eyes were stunning to look at, infinite pools of deepest violet and red, shifting highlights of gold and green. They were hypnotic, surreal.

  “I think we have your superhero name,” Dekka said.

  “What?”

  “Rainbow,” Dekka said.

  Malik leaned back against the mirrored wall. “Francis. Do you feel them now?”

  Francis shrugged. “Feel what?”

  Dekka frowned and met Malik’s gaze. “She doesn’t feel them,” Malik said. “There’s something about—”

  He did not finish, for the elevator had reached the ground floor. Two civilians who’d been drafted into casino security stood pointing guns at them.

  “It’s us,” Dekka said.

  It was a long walk to the front door of the casino, a walk through slot machines, some of which had been broken off their stands and dragged to the door to form part of an impressively weird barricade. The barricade was lined with casino security and cocktail waitresses and more drafted tourists, all looking grim.

  They pushed past, went out, and saw a black SUV waiting, engine running, doors open. Wilkes was there.

  “Last chance,” Wilkes said.

  “Yeah,” Dekka said. “But no. And thanks, Wilkes.”

  Wilkes nodded and from the door a voice yelled, “Kick some ass, Lesbokitty!”

  Dekka’s grin was feline, baring too-sharp teeth. “Lesbokitty, Berserker Bear, and Rainbow. We just need a ridiculous name for Malik and we’ll be a damn Sesame Street spin-off.”

  Dekka climbed behind the wheel. Armo took shotgun. Francis sat in the back beside Malik. “I’m not sure how to use your powers, Francis,” Dekka said, making eye contact in the rearview mirror. “So . . . improvise.”

  Tom Peaks was one of the few people in the world who could correctly interpret a flash of fire, a rush of wind, and random people brutally knocked to the ground.

  “Well, if it isn’t Shade Darby,” he said in a voice that matched his size.

  The situation was straightforward to Peaks: the speed demon had to die. There was a mob of civilians, all damp for some reason, presumably innocent people fleeing the violence. Between him and the mob and Darby, a hundred yards of open street.

  He saw her for a split second as she hesitated atop the overhang. He saw her, and she saw him.

  In a heartbeat she would be on him. He opened his mouth and vomited fire, aiming it at the ground that separated them, so that if she came at him she’d have to pass through magma first.

  But Shade was already there! He felt the rush of wind, heard a sonic boom, felt a faint impact on his shoulder, and there she was, her streamlined face vibrating inches from his.

  He heard a buzzing sound like an angry wasp.

  The gout of fire cleared his mouth.

  Then, like a buzz being slowed down so that it was just barely understandable, he heard, “No. Fire. Gas!”

  By the time she’d spoken, and he’d deciphered and begun to puzzle it out, it was done: hundreds
of gallons of napalm were already cascading and spreading down the pavement.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a baby snatched from his mother’s arms. The baby seemed to fly through the air at running speed, carried away by someone or some force he could not see.

  Ah, that would be Cruz, he thought.

  Shade leaped from his shoulder, a blur.

  The magma rolled forward.

  Gas? Gas?

  “No,” Peaks whispered as the enormity of his error flashed through his brain. “NO!”

  Hundreds of gallons of gasoline, some on the sidewalk, some on the street, and far too much in the hair, clothing, and skin of a thousand helpless people, ignited.

  Cruz set the baby down on the sidewalk. It was the best she could do.

  She started to run back to see whether she could drag anyone else to safety. . . .

  The explosion knocked her on her back.

  She felt a wave of searing heat. She gasped, and for a moment there was no oxygen to breathe and she was like a landed fish. She rolled to shield the baby, but the explosion was already past. The blue blanket singed. The baby’s little knit cap crisped. Cruz used her body to smother the flames. The baby’s eyes opened, unfocused blue. His cupid’s bow mouth gasped for air.

  Cruz pushed herself up, found oxygen, filled her lungs, and raised the infant to her mouth. She blew air into it, watched the baby’s lungs fill. The temporary vacuum was followed by an inrush of air carrying the stink of gasoline and charred flesh. Cruz held the child and looked helplessly at a scene from the nightmares of a madman.

  Men and women stood, screaming, howling, but unable to move. Their hair burned like they were torches. Their clothing curled and crisped, revealing blistering flesh beneath.

  “God, no! God, no! God, no!” Cruz cried.

  Human fuel, hair and fat, was lit by burning gasoline.

  Cruz turned away, held the baby close, and ran.

  CHAPTER 28

  A Bonfire of Innocents