Masks (Out of the Box Book 9)

by Robert J. Crane

  Scott had been thirty feet off the bow when the Tirragusk went up, shielding himself from gunfire. Did that mean he was …?

  My stomach dropped, and I felt a shock of adrenaline blast through me as my flight powers kicked in. “Thanks, Gavrikov—and Wolfe,” I said as the urgency filtered through me. I started forward—

  And something jerked me back hard, snapping my neck like I’d just gotten rear-ended by a trucker.

  “What the hell?” I muttered, turning my head and looking for whatever had stopped me. There was nothing behind me, so I started to fly toward the Tirragusk again, but that same sense of something anchoring me to—

  I got it a second later as I realized I was being slowly, slowly pulled back toward the Verrazano Bridge, probably at the pace of a slow walk. Jamie must have used her gravity powers to anchor me to the superstructure, because now I was having a hell of a time moving even an inch to the left or right. I tried to pull at my t-shirt, hoping maybe she’d connected me there, but no dice; she’d clearly attached somewhere deeper. Which made sense, because a t-shirt wouldn’t have a hope in hell of holding my weight. Sadly. And much pointed out. (Thanks, internet assholes.)

  As I debated trying to figure out if she’d anchored me to a point in my back and internal organs that I might be able to survive the loss of for a few seconds, the Tirragusk exploded yet again, and the two pieces of the ship that had been barely clinging to each other divorced entirely, dipping below the waves one final time as the area around the ship—presumably where Jamie and Scott were—became a graveyard for the vessel, hundreds of tons of steel making their way to the bottom of the bay.

  And I was powerless to stop it.

  47.

  Jamie

  The ship was falling toward her, gathering speed as it came down. She threw out her hands in reaction, throwing channels and setting them to repulse. This wasn’t the sort of maneuver that would do any good, but she was out of air, out of ideas, and panic was starting to set in, taking from her clarity of thought. She activated the channels in an instant and pushed—

  She was dragged down by their force, propelled toward the bottom of the harbor by the weight of the ship bearing down on the channels and through them, her. The murky darkness waiting for her below rose to embrace her. Jamie fell, her ears filled with unbearable pressure as she went down, the light above disappearing as she swirled into the depths, the pieces of the broken ship falling after her.

  She looked around frantically as she fell, hoping to see the bottom. If she could just find the bottom, she could set up a channel and launch herself to the surface. Why had she even come down here to begin with?

  Oh. Right. That government agent. That one. Right over there …

  She blinked her bleary eyes against the burning of the water in them, felt it swamping her sinuses, painfully, pressing up into her nose as the pressure increased. She shook her head, her vision becoming dimmer either because she was falling further into the depths or because she was out of oxygen, her need to take a breath now painfully desperate.

  She reached out with a hand and snagged the agent with a channel, pulling him toward her even as she continued on her downward path, driven ahead of the falling of the ship’s pieces. She dragged the agent, Scott, to her like a fisherman reeling in a line, and he bumped against her side, his body limp and lifeless.

  Worry about him when we get to the surface, she thought, darkness closing in, vision getting hazy. Her movements were sluggish, and not just because of the resistance of the water. Her arm felt like it didn’t want to obey her, it wanted to flail pointlessly in the water. Liquid dripped down her throat and choked her, and full panic set in, drowning reflex active and preventing any rational thought.

  Helplessly she flung her arms in the water. The light above was gone, the silty bottom below not yet in sight, and Jamie was drowning, she knew, and her body was reacting, preventing rational thought, and trying to get her to the surface, flailing against the drag of the pieces of the Tirragusk, unable to stop the channels as they propelled her closer and closer to death.

  48.

  Nadine

  Nadine took care not to even get into the shower spray this time, because she anticipated a long call with Abner. She held herself to the side of the spray and then immediately punched the keypad to activate the door, slipping into the darkness and fumbling for the phone, dialing before she’d even really settled in her seat.

  “Hello?” Abner asked when he picked up the phone.

  “Abner,” she said, as close to exultant as she got without a one hundred percent return in a day. “I saw the news. Did we—”

  “It’s almost entirely done,” Abner said. “The bank job distracted them and allowed us to hit FBI headquarters by using the stolen SWAT van as a Trojan horse. I also used a different contractor to hit the US Attorney’s office. Whatever evidence they had on you is safely destroyed, save for the digital backups, and, uh,” he chuckled, “those will be gone soon enough. I’ve got a man on them now.”

  “Sounds like a tall order,” Nadine said, breathing a rush of relief into the cool darkness. “I hope your man can handle it.”

  “He’s quite good,” Abner said, matching her with a coolness of his own. “Professional hacker. His handle is ArcheGrey1819. He’s a legend in the digital underworld. They won’t realize it until later, but the job should be done within the hour.”

  “So I’m about to be a free woman?” Nadine mused.

  “They’ll be watching you for quite some time,” Abner said, the voice of caution. “But in essence, they won’t have a thing on you. They’ll have to at least allow you to resume your ordinary activities.”

  “How much is this going to cost me?” Nadine asked. She didn’t care, so long as she was able to get back to work, but she was curious.

  “Not as much as you might think. ArcheGrey—or whatever his actual name is, because I don’t bloody know—he didn’t want money. He wanted something else.”

  “Curious.”

  “I suppose when you’re as good as he is, you can make money appear in your account like turning little bits of ones and zeroes into water. Anyhow, he’s going to be a happy camper because I’ve got him what he wanted and you’re happy because it only cost you—well, we’ll talk about it later. You’ll get a lulz out of it, as Grey says.”

  “I look forward to it,” Nadine said, shifting in her chair. The plasticy seventies-era material was sticking to her naked ass. “When will we be able to meet? I want to discuss prevention of future occurrences of this.”

  “Try not breaking the law,” Abner said with amusement. “Failing that … this will be more difficult next time. We’ve left signs that this was a terrorist action rather than evidence disposal, and hopefully it’ll be enough to cover what we did. The mercenaries we hired are almost all dead as well.”

  Nadine raised an eyebrow. “They are?”

  “Their boat just had a tragic explosion,” Abner said with rough amusement. This was why she’d hired him. “It wouldn’t have been worth it, leaving that many loose ends out in the world. They knew what they were there to destroy, after all. The only survivors are the bank team, and they were the distraction, so … doesn’t matter if they talk, they didn’t know what the others were up to.”

  “Clever, Abner.”

  “I kept it compartmentalized.” Now he was just bragging, trying to impress her. Lucky for him she was impressed. He’d done a good job, and he was a very good man to have in her corner. “Safer that way.”

  “So, what happens now?” she asked, letting the chair squeak as she spun it very slightly back and forth, the sticky material pressing against her thighs like flypaper.

  “I’ve got people verifying whether or not the FBI is going to back off you now,” Abner said, the gloating fading as he went back to the business at hand. “Once we’re assured they’re off, you’ll be able to move into a hotel and resume your life unwatched for a time. And you should get your money and your other
assets back, though the bastards will hang on to those for as long as they can. We’ll need to be vigilant, because with all the damage we’ve done, it’s possible they’ll get suspicious once they realize how much effort has gone into destroying all the evidence for their cases.”

  “But they’ll have real criminals to chase, won’t they?” She frowned. “Murderers and such? Why would they waste time with little old me?”

  “I don’t know that they will,” Abner said. “But we should be prepared just in case. We’ll up your security, upgrade your phone to one of those un-hackable models they sell these days, keep your digital footprint to a minimum, and … well, you’ll need to scale back your activities at work. If you step a foot out of line and they can prove it, they’ll be all over you again.”

  Nadine stared into the darkness. It suddenly seemed so hot inside the steel panic room. “What if I don’t want to scale back?”

  “Then you’d best be prepared to go to jail, this time without any sort of way to get out.” Abner shifted on the other end of the phone, his breathing getting heavier. “We cannot pull this off again. Not in this way, not and get away with it. This was a one-time-only get out of jail card. They’ll be prepared in the future, and what they’d have you for if they could tie this to you? It’s so much worse than what they were threatening before.”

  Nadine’s cheeks burned at the thought. Abner was the only one who could tie this to her. “They should have just left me alone. I wasn’t doing anything that anybody else hadn’t done. They just made an example out of me because I’m a woman, and I was better at it.”

  “Be that as it may,” Abner said, “they’ll make an even bigger example out of you if they can ever trace what we’ve done here. So let’s not give them another chance, eh? You’re going to be free to go back to work, to have your freedom, to trade again … but I can’t help you next time if this happens again. Once is a coincidence, twice is going to be the death of us. They will figure it out.”

  “All right, fine,” she said airily. Next time she’d just take it easier, that was all. She’d still beat them all at their own game, but she wouldn’t be as obvious about it. As flagrant. She could still be Queen and rule quietly. “So this business is settled.” She thought about Gravity Gal and her cheeks burned harder. “What about the other thing?”

  “Oh, you mean your, ah … your revenge?”

  “Yes, that.” What an idiot. As though she was talking about anything else. Her estimation of him was sinking already, now that he’d denied her when she’d asked how they could get her out of this next time.

  “My people saw her leave Staten Island this morning, but she did so from a different location,” Abner said. “She left from a somewhat disused industrial section of the city, and … well, the owner of the nearest business is one Jamie Barton. I was going to have my people identify every employee and try to match them to their home addresses, but as soon as we looked up Ms. Barton, we found out she lives right in the middle of that radius I set up earlier, and when I looked at the picture—covered up the bottom of her face … I think we’ve found our Gravity Gal.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I sent someone into her work to ask for her once we made the connection, tried to play off like they were interested in buying some of her designs. She makes clothing.” Abner sounded like he was smiling, proud of himself. “Her assistant, a very eager young lady, said she wasn’t there but enthusiastically tried to set up a meeting. I had someone check at her house —no one at home, either. I set people down the street from her house and outside her office, so the next time she comes to either we’ll be sure, but … I did some preliminary digging and I think you’ll like what I’ve found in terms of vulnerabilities …”

  Nadine smiled in the darkness. “And you’ll be ready to move the moment you’re sure?”

  “With a vengeance,” Abner said. “Business in deep debt, failing. Teenage daughter is experiencing some troubles at school, it seems. Yeah, I think this one will be easy to push over, even before we unmask her to the public. Gravity Gal is not exactly the most popular hero in New York, after all. I might even be able to tie her to this mess we’ve made today.”

  Nadine thought of her, that stupid, sanctimonious cow, with her stupid, sanctimonious cow face, looking down on others. It was going to be a pleasure to see her get her comeuppance. “She won’t be so high and mighty after we drag her through the mud,” Nadine said with a smirk.

  “Indubitably,” Abner said. “I’ll get started on this as soon as we know—”

  “Don’t wait,” Nadine said. “Get started now.”

  There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line. “What if we got the wrong person?”

  Nadine snorted. “Abner, how many FBI agents died this afternoon when we blew up their headquarters? Who cares if it’s the wrong person? Life’s tough. Bring her down, and if it’s the wrong person … well, who gives a damn, really? We’ll just move on to the real deal.”

  “As you like it,” Abner said, his resistance disappearing without a hint of a fight. “And … about the teenage daughter? How do you want me to handle—”

  “I’ve heard losing a child is among the most painful things a parent can experience,” Nadine said, feeling the rough edge of her nail where she’d bitten it unevenly. “That seems like a good finale to me. Why don’t we build up to that? Because it seems like if these stupid heroes got to watch what happens when someone as exalted as Gravity Whore falls, it’ll probably be a good lesson for all of them.”

  49.

  Sienna

  When the slow pull against the Verrazano Narrows Bridge stopped dragging me toward it, it took me a second to realize. It was such a gentle thing, the gradual reeling in of a fishing line, and I barely felt it, like a slow moving escalator.

  Of course, the moment I did feel it, alarm bells started twanging in my head. It was a bad, bad sign that the person who’d made it happen might be unconscious or worse.

  I could tell where the Tirragusk had sunk by the still-boiling seas around it, air bubbles escaping the sinking wreck and roiling the surface. I flew toward it in a blaze, scared witless that I was too late. Jamie was a powerful meta, but was she powerful enough to survive a drowning? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know, because if I found out and it was on the bad side of the probabilities, her troublesome teenage daughter was going to finish growing up without a mom.

  I plunged into the water without thought for self or cell phone, and found myself in a world of darkness. I didn’t love swimming, ever, but if I could save a life, it would be worth it. I opened my mouth in shock at the chill, immediately wishing I hadn’t, because my mouth was filled with a nasty salty taste. I gagged and spat, but it didn’t go away even after I blew most of the invading water out of my mouth.

  I sped deeper down, peering into the dark, wondering where she could possibly be. Need a little light, I thought, holding up a hand, which burst into flames. It shed some illumination, giving me a peek at the close environs as I descended. I could see the shadows of the wreck somewhere ahead, still settling, bubbles rushing up to the surface as it shed the last of its oxygen.

  The problem was, I couldn’t see anything the deeper I got. My ears were threatening to pop with the pressure, and I could barely stand the sensation, even though I’d already regrown my eardrums twice today. I was trying to make out the shadows moving across the murky seabed, and then I saw motion.

  Bastian, stand by in case I need you, I said, and felt a groan within.

  You want to go dragon here? There are people on those shores over—

  Bastian, I said, and he quieted. I’d done it in more public places than this.

  Turned dragon, I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter.

  I fired a burst of flame about ten feet ahead of me, and it lit the area and boiled the water nearby before I extinguished it. I could see someone swimming ahead, closer to the wreck, and I flew toward them, not even bothering to swim
because I didn’t need to. I cut through the water effortlessly, like a shark. A shark with no fins. And more kills, probably. Urgh.

  If Jamie was down here and still moving, why had she killed the tether to the bridge? Was she distracted? Did she lose focus? Did she—

  The answer came as I shot closer. Within ten feet, the answer became clear, because I saw Jamie, limp, falling through the water, only a few feet above the seabed, and next to her, moving wildly, was Scott.

  He saw me as I approached, throwing his head around like he could sense me cutting through the water toward him. I stopped, fearing the look in his eyes; I was surrounded by an element he utterly controlled, after all, and he’d been setting himself up as my enemy. I didn’t think he would attack, but then again, I hadn’t thought he would take my old job or watch me like I was a criminal, and yet here he was doing both.

  His eyes met mine when I reached a distance of about five feet from him. Jamie was between the two of us, no bubbles coming out of her mouth, and I pointed at her. He nodded, grabbed her, put her under one arm, and then launched to the surface faster than I could have done it.

  And he left me behind, swirling in his wake, proving, in my mind, that if he wasn’t full-on willing to crush me under the water, he still wasn’t happy enough with me to try and take me with him.

  I followed a moment later, fighting against the currents he’d left behind. They were strong, strong enough to push me aside, knock me about, and I didn’t want any part of them, so I shot to the surface at a forty-five degree angle to avoid the worst of them.

  When I broke out into the day, I found Scott sitting on a pillar of solid water that was rising out of the bay, his fingers extended just above Jamie’s mouth. She was lying flat on her back, an arm dangling off his makeshift water platform. Liquid was rising from between her lips, pulled slowly by Scott as he drew it from her lungs. She coughed, and it came out in a rush, absorbed into his hand as though it had never existed.