Wisp slowed her steps to stop at the center of the main street they’d been walking on. He was right. Narrowing her eyes against the brightness of an electric storefront sign that was somehow still working, she peered upward to count fourteen illuminated windows in the general vicinity of the Shadow headquarters. The nightly breeze picked up at the same time, bringing a murmur of voices with it. Bubbles of drunken, grating laughter. A sharp cry that dissolved into cheers and applause.
This part of the city wasn’t as deserted as she remembered it. Far more people had moved in and out, and the locals were clearly not perturbed by the seasonal return of the Smog. It almost seemed as if they were celebrating it.
“Sounds like they’re in a good mood tonight,” Wisp said, turning to face the others. “Be on your guard, everyone.”
Luca and Max gave grim nods, but Sara removed one of her earphones with a look of wide-eyed concern.
“Is something wrong? I mean, more wrong than we thought?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Wisp said in a flat tone. “Keep your eyes on me like we said, okay? If some weirdo talks to you, ignore them and turn up the volume on your player.”
Sara bit her lip and lowered her gaze. She looked vulnerable and had never been to this part of town before. The poor girl had to be scared out of her wits.
As the group slowly picked their way forward, Wisp slipped into a quiet mental space she’d created to play her part. The doubts that had eaten away at her not long ago gradually eroded away, pushed from her mind by a growing sense of inner-confidence and self-awareness. She bundled her thoughts and forced them to align toward a single goal: how she was going to make this work. Failure wasn’t an option.
So, she directed her senses outward, taking advantage of her superhuman night vision to note changes in her environment that struck her as both suspicious and recent. She marched through the streets, exuding made-up authority with the heavy thuds of her too-large combat boots on the pavement. Her swarm of summoned lights trailed behind her, painting broken shop windows and graffiti-covered facades a soft orange.
She wouldn’t be able to maintain the bluff for long. For now, though, her change in demeanor was convincing enough. Her companions, seemingly aware of her shift in mental gears, stopped addressing her and spoke in low voices among themselves. She knew they’d be ready to play their parts when they needed to.
When the four of them approached the roundabout surrounding Ernst Reuter square, they encountered an alarmingly high number of locals loitering about. Younger men gathered in strategic places to drink and smoke while they surveyed their territory. They wore the usual ragtag outfits: baggy cargo pants combined with expensive dress shirts, loosely knotted ties, star-adorned caps and a couple of dark blue jackets that had, once upon a time, belonged to Berlin’s police force. The blatant display of looted property demonstrated Constantine’s dominion over the area. Nothing new in that regard.
One important detail stood out, however: the guns. Through the gray lens of her night vision, Wisp spotted at least one small firearm on each of the loitering gangers. A good third held factory-fresh rifles and submachine guns at the ready. The men proudly brandished their guns at the Survivors’ approach, making it easy for Wisp to identify the models as foreign designs imported from overseas. Even though she hadn’t inherited her father’s fascination for army implements, she’d be damned if she couldn’t tell a M27 Infantry IAR apart from a Heckler & Koch HK 416. Growing up as a Bundeswehr officer’s only child came with some perks at least.
Where’d they get all those shiny new toys from? She had never known Constantine to be resourceful, and certainly not wealthy enough to equip his men with an entire arsenal of military issue guns. Unless … unless he had recently made new friends she wasn’t aware of.
The thought bothered her more than she cared to admit. But since she was currently wearing the expression of someone tougher and more fearless than herself, she brushed the concern aside and marched onward, holding up two joined fingers.
This was a signal for the others, letting them know she’d noticed something that couldn’t be discussed until later. They’d likely made similar observations. The two guys stared ahead with dark frowns. Sara, who kept her eyes glued to Wisp, walked alongside Max with determination on her face.
Good job. Stay tough, recruit. We’re in the war zone now.
Once the Survivors came within ten yards of the square the four armed gang members had chosen as their observation post, the guy in front – a hulk of a man with a buzz cut and narrow, suspicious eyes – raised the muzzle of his rifle at Wisp’s face. He had to know she was the other gang leader; word got around. Her gang mates stayed close but kept quiet so as to not undermine her authority in the enemy’s eyes.
“What do you kids want?” the man barked in strongly US-accented German.
“To talk,” Wisp replied in a firm tone reinforced by the glow of her summoned entourage. “Is the boss home?”
The men acknowledged her floating lights but didn’t look as impressed or intimidated as she’d hoped. Buzz Cut sneered. Behind him, the other two men who kept puffing on their cigarettes, clearly unperturbed by her display of powers. The fourth gang member – a gangly youth who crouched on the roadside, cradling a light machine gun in his lap, looked vaguely familiar.
This one’s actually a local. She filed the observation away. The other men looked as imported as the guns they carried. Worse, they looked like they actually knew how to use them.
“You got a gift for the boss?” Buzz Cut asked with a wag of his rifle barrel in Sara’s direction. “A cute little bunny without a gun. Has to be meat. What do you think, mates?”
The two cigarette smokers hollered their approval. The kid said nothing, but stared at Sara with his blond head cocked to the side, undressing her with his eyes.
Resisting the urge to stick two of her blindingly bright spheres to his pasty pimple face, Wisp glanced at Sara to make sure she was okay. It didn’t look as if the girl had heard anything. Sara stayed beside Max, humming to the tune that trickled from her earphones. Her brother looked about ready to shoot someone’s eyes out. Time to move on.
“We’ll be on our way,” Wisp announced in her best imitation of a military commander’s voice. “Since, as I said, we got business with the boss.”
“Yeah, he said to let them through if they show up,” one of the smoking men said.
The sneer disappeared from Buzz Cut’s face, and he adopted a slightly less condescending tone. “All right then. Want an escort to HQ? There’s a party tonight. Things could get a little rough.”
“Celebrating what?” Wisp asked.
“That’s something you need to ask the boss about,” the cigarette smoker interjected in fluid, French-accented German. “Since he wants to talk to you, so you might actually get in without getting shot.”
“Thanks, but we’ll manage without an escort.”
Wisp turned with a decisive clack of her boots, facing the hulking sprawl of the campus’s outermost buildings. The sounds drifting from that direction didn’t remind her of a party at all. The hooting and hollering, interspersed by a single gunshot, expressed the celebratory mood of hyped up, emotionally unstable soldiers who’d gone on a rampage.
As they picked their way through the trash filling a relatively quiet alley, beyond earshot of the quartet of watchdogs, Luca moved to the front of the group and lightly tapped Wisp’s shoulder. “Maybe I should make a detour,” he suggested in a quiet voice. “Go around the back of the campus. Look around a bit.” He wrapped the fingers of his left hand around his right finger, forming the Survivors’ hand signal for ‘possible trap.’
Luca wasn’t wrong. If Constantine was keeping Hannah captive, he likely had plans to exploit or eliminate the rest of the gang. Since the Shadows outclassed the Survivors in terms of man- and firepower, all it would take for Constantine to eliminate his ‘competition’ was to lock them all into one room. Given enough guns, even the ‘locking�
�� part was optional.
Constantine had made no effort to eliminate his southern neighbors in the past year. It was far more likely he’d drive them out of the city if he wanted their turf.
After mulling things over for a moment, Wisp shook her head. “I need us to stick together for now,” she said. “We can still look around later if my plan fails.”
Wisp led the group out of the alley and into the quad. The trees and grass had long withered away, leaving behind a patchwork of shriveled shrubs and crisscrossing paths. Derelict vehicles driven by Shadow gang until the gas ran out sat in various places and trash littered the ground.
Standing at the edge of the area, Wisp took stock of the Shadow gang. There had to be nearly a hundred dispersed across the area. She recognized eight men lined up near the entrance to the main building with a multitude of weapons. One of the guards pointed in their direction. The others assumed alert stances and didn’t level their guns at the Survivors. Not yet.
The other gang members sat or lay in drunken stupors near campfires or they were tucked away in shadowy, secluded spaces. Wisp was bewildered and somewhat disturbed by the number of women among them. Based on previous visits, she’d expected to see two or three leather-clad, hard-edged women sprinkled among the males. This present reality painted a different picture. A dozen women in garish, revealing outfits were laughing shrilly while they fought off groping hands with halfhearted effort.
“Holy shit,” Max muttered behind her. “Never mind the Smog, Constantine’s poisoning our city. Look at this and tell me I’m wrong.”
“I’m not sure big C’s really in charge anymore,” Wisp replied. “Come on.”
She pushed herself forward, falling into the rhythm of a purposefully brisk gait in an attempt to maintain her facade. The sights and sounds of the party disturbed her enough to stir the anxiety and tension she was desperately trying to suppress. If she wasn’t careful, she’d lose her edge before she even got the chance to confront her northern rival.
So she pulled herself together and did her best to view her surroundings as an amalgamation of things that pissed her off. The men standing guard at the entrance, their arrogant postures and flaunted superiority. The raucous laughter. The rude jokes assaulting her from all sides as more and more of the locals became aware of her.
Someone threw a plastic bottle at Wisp, and she whipped it aside, gritting her teeth to keep herself from reacting. By the time she’d cut across the withered lawn, the evoked anger had burned away all doubt. She was going to get Hannah back. If Constantine challenged her with intimidation tactics, she’d intimidate him more.
Luca and Max followed Wisp with cold glares and hard faces, ignoring the drunken heckling from the men and women they passed. Max had an arm around his sister, shielding her against projectiles thrown by the more daring partygoers.
Wisp stopped a short distance from the glass double-doors leading into the university’s entrance hall and considered the armed men positioned in front of it. They did the same, assessing her diminutive, light-enshrouded figure with raised eyebrows but without a hint of uncertainty. Chances were they’d been briefed on who and what she was.
“We’re here to see the boss,” she announced in German, folding skinny arms over an equally unimpressive chest.
“Uh-huh.” The taller of the two door guards looked her up and down. “They said you might be coming. Expected something a little different though. More muscle, more … oomph.” He squinted at her entourage.
“Not our problem,” the other guard said in fluent German. “We get to stand here and count the seconds until the lights go out.” He turned to grab the handle and pulled one of the doors open.
Until the lights go out? Wisp faltered. Was this an allusion to her powers or a thinly veiled threat? She couldn’t tell. Her floating orbs hadn’t changed color and glowed the same tinge of reddish yellow as when she’d stepped into Shadow territory. Her group wasn’t exactly safe, but it didn’t look like anyone was plotting their deaths right this instant – this was the standard threat level for life in Dead City, more or less.
Taking a deep breath, Wisp stepped through the door and found herself inside the spacious, elongated entrance hall that ended at a set of stairs leading to a glass-encased information booth. Four elevator shafts lined the wall near the main entrance, and a row of bulky, old-fashioned neon lights dangled from the ceiling.
Yes, they had power here. The university was one of the few buildings with generator access.
There were no guards. Compared to the pandemonium of noise and madness beyond the glass doors, the bleak hall emitted an atmosphere of latent menace. Wisp moved on, leading her small group to the stairway. A muffled murmur of voices drifted down from the floor above. Constantine had to be holed up in one of the former classrooms, surrounded by a small group of his most trusted men.
“Let’s hope he’s in a good mood.” Max holstered his gun, ascending the stairs.
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Luca said in a hushed voice. “We’re dealing with a small-time mobster who wishes he was a supervillain. Being in a good mood just makes him cocky.”
He’ll be dangerous no matter what. And he has Hannah as a bargaining chip. Wisp ascended the final step, her body stiff with attention. A corridor lined with classroom doors extended ahead of her, with a lone guard leaning against the wall by the second door to the right, lighting up the semidarkness with the glow of his cigarette as he pulled on it. A pistol was strapped to his belt. His gaze flicked to Wisp, assessing her, but said nothing. He didn’t look surprised to see a posse of youths emerge from the stairway.
“The old man really is expecting us,” Max muttered.
Wisp took a step forward but was held back by a tightening of fingers around her right wrist. She half-turned to see Sara behind her, squinting at the corona of floating lights that now enveloped both of them. She clung to Wisp’s arm with both hands, leaning into her, fingers trembling against the older girl’s skin.
“Are you feeling okay?” Wisp whispered.
Sara squeezed her eyes shut and gave a curt nod. “Yes, but … um … I have a bad feeling. About this.”
“We can still head back to base,” Max suggested.
It was a lie, of course, and chances were he expected Wisp to say that they couldn’t. They’d be wrecked by grief and guilt if Hannah never came back.
The luminous spheres didn’t indicate a heightened threat level. Not yet.
Wisp gently pried Sara’s fingers off her wrist and took her soft, warm hand into her own. She felt unusually mature and sure of herself. Her head was still filled with a hundred reasons for picking a bone with the old man on the other side of that door. She could handle this. Or so she had to tell herself.
“I’ll make this work,” Wisp said with conviction. “Just watch and trust me.” She turned back around and marched up to the guard, meeting his eyes. “We have business with Constantine.”
The sound of footsteps let her know that her friends were right behind her, watching her back.
The man opened the door. “Come in, come in, ladies and gents,” he said in a sing-song tone of mockery.
Raucous male laughter erupted from the room beyond. Wisp nodded once to Max, who was guiding Sara along, and then moved in front of the open doorway to look through. A long wooden table, decorated for what appeared to be a lavish dinner complete with a scarlet tablecloth and exquisite tableware. Constantine sat on a high-backed chair, his broad, harsh face illuminated by the warm candlelight of a tabletop candelabra. None of the ceiling mounted lamps appeared to be on. This was new. The last time Wisp had stopped by, this room – the heart of Constantine’s make-believe empire – had been filled with near blinding brightness.
He probably doesn’t know I can mess with more than just electric lights.
The voice of a woman emanated from a corner of the room. She stepped through the doorway and performed a cursory check for unpleasant surprises, scanning the full
length of the dinner table before she turned her attention to the shadowy recesses of the room. The former classroom had been refitted to serve as a combined study and living room using a variety of furniture. The challenge consisted in not letting herself be distracted by the food. It smelled delicious, consisting primarily of treats that were next to impossible to get in these parts.
A curvy, well-styled young woman sat to Constantine’s right, engrossed in both him and her dinner.
The boss himself, a large-framed, heavyset man in a brown suit jacket, leaned over to whisper in the woman’s ear, though his small, pale eyes remained fixated on Wisp. She didn’t need to see his gun to know he kept one handy at all times. Two weeks ago, he had demonstrated the fact by pointing a Walther PPK at her face.
Naturally, Constantine’s bodyguards carried knives and pistols on their belts, and Wisp couldn’t help but notice they had added stun batons to their arsenal. The two guards – one man, one woman – had taken position by the shuttered window behind the dinner table and the back of the boss man’s chair.
Depending on how things were going to play out, the guards’ positions might turn out to be a problem. They covered not only their boss, but also the only other exit.
“How thoughtful of you to stop by.” Constantine dabbed at his smooth-shaven chin with a white handkerchief. “I was afraid I would need to dispatch some men with a formal invitation. Come, then. Sit. It would be disrespectful of the dinner to let it go cold.”
“Hello, Constantine,” Wisp replied. “Long time no see. Appreciate the offer, but I think we’d like to…”
He lifted one of his heavy feet encased in an elegant Italian slipper and delivered a measured kick to the dining chair that was across from his own, sending it sliding across the floor. Then he took a big bite from his chicken drumstick and chewed with gusto, watching her expectantly.
Gift of Light_A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel Page 5