Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change

by Robert J. Crane

  “… when I came out of the pool, the guy was gone,” Steven finished, his voice a low, smooth, sexy rumble. “Sienna rounded everyone up and got them to a safe distance from the house. A few minutes later—boom.” He made an exploding gesture with his hands.

  I waited for Detective Waters to quibble, to ask another question, to pick at his story like she’d picked at mine. “All right, Mr. Clayton,” she said, a lot more warmly than she had at any point during my ‘interrogation,’ “you’re free to go.”

  I wanted to be offended by her offering preferential treatment to the pretty boy over the federal agent, but—let’s face it, I was a disaster with a reputation for chaos and he was an upstanding famous person with an ass you could play racquetball on.

  Oh, shit, did I just say that?

  Detective Waters turned her attention back to me. “Now, you say you’ve had contact with this particular villain of yours before?”

  I rolled my eyes. “First of all, he’s not my villain, I don’t—you know, personally own him or anything—”

  “But you’ve had an encounter with him before,” she said, “in Atlanta?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  She gave me that doubting look. “Listen, Ms. Nealon, I’ve heard stories about you. Every cop has. This Atlanta thing you were involved in—”

  “I was in one of the Carolinas when that mess kicked off,” I said, “I got there at the end. One of my associates, Augustus Coleman, he was the one who took on Captain Redbeard.” Which was my new name for this dude with the phase-powers. Eat your heart out, Cisco Ramon, I can name villains, too.

  “Uh huh,” Detective Waters said. At least, unlike a lot of the other people I’d dealt with tonight, she was sincere—she sincerely did not like me or want me to be here. And hell, if I’d been her, I would have sincerely wished my troublemaking ass out of town. “Does your … associate … know this man’s name?”

  “Well, I think he kind of dug up the earth and buried him in it, so … maybe?” I shrugged. I’d put in a call to Augustus, but he and Reed were off on an assignment and on Central time. Presumably they were both sleeping right now, because I hadn’t heard back from him.

  “Maybe?”

  “I don’t know if names were exchanged before he started ripping the ground beneath the Captain’s feet,” I said, keeping it just this side of snotty. “If he followed the clearly laid out Conventions of Metahuman Battle, as well as Ms. Manner’s Simple Rules for Introductions, then we’re golden. If, on the other hand, he was in a desperate fight for his life against about a dozen metas all at once,” crossing the snotty line at about supersonic speed, “he might not have gotten the name before he closed up the earth on this guy.”

  Detective Waters took a sharp breath, and by the way her lips were pressed together, I knew she was counting the hours until she could go home. “Uh huh,” was all she said, though.

  My phone buzzed, and she and Steven looked at me. I let it go a couple times before I made a show of checking who was calling. “Oh, goody,” I said when I saw the screen read “Andrew Phillips,” “this night just keeps getting awesomer. How could it possibly get any better?”

  “You want to get a drink?” Steven asked nonchalantly.

  My phone buzzed in my hand about five times until Detective Waters, the ire rising in her voice said, “Are you going to get that?” I heard jealousy, but I’d also just heard the hottest guy in Hollywood ask me out, so it was possible I was suffering auditory delusions. Could Wolfe change his voice to play ventriloquist to the stars? A fleeting image of him with his hand up—

  Oh, snot rockets. (That was what Dr. Zollers was telling me to say in place of my old standby, OH SHIT. Neither of us was holding our breath on me quitting swearing. Besides, I had more pressing personality issues to work on.)

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, probably sounding more shell-shocked than I had after the battle. I stepped away from the two of them and pressed the answer button on my phone. “Waffle House,” I said.

  “What?” Andrew Phillips’s voice came through the speaker, a little tinny. I heard him shifting around, checking to see if he’d called the right number. “Oh, ha ha.”

  “No, seriously,” I said, “if you’re calling to place an order for waffles, press one. For all non-waffle related inquiries, please hang up and call someone else.”

  “I heard you met the president,” he said in the same dull tone of voice he always used.

  “Did you? What did he think of our waffles?”

  “Will you knock that off? I know it’s you.”

  “Jeez, you must be the only guy in the world who doesn’t like waffles—”

  “If you think smarting off to the president of the United States was a good idea—”

  “—maybe a blue waffle for you?”

  “—you’re even closer to the edge of getting fired than you ever have been, you realize that?” Phillips said, ignoring my rather crass reference.

  “Oh, noes.”

  “What are you even doing in California?” Phillips asked. “I don’t remember sending you on assignment to LA.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t have to reimburse for my travel so I didn’t think you’d notice,” I said, looking at my fingernails. They were dirty. “We received a credible threat of meta attack, so here I am, as fits my job description.”

  “You’re not supposed to go on assignment without permission,” Phillips said, the tension evident in his voice. “Your assignments are up to my discretion.”

  “Yes, but your judgment is suspect,” I said lightly. “I mean, you don’t even like waffles, for crying out loud—”

  “You need to get to Washington,” Phillips said. “DC,” he clarified, probably wisely.

  “Too bad, I was totes heading for Seattle as soon as we hung up. Maybe lunch with Bezos or something, bum around Pike Place Market, get some Starbucks right at the source—”

  “Stop.”

  “You want me to ignore the fact that a meta attacked someone on national television?” I asked, having a little fun with this. “I mean, this mess is trending on Twitter right now. Instagram photos of the carnage are spreading like blue waffles across the internet as we speak—”

  “What the hell is a—nevermind,” he said, his frustration with me reaching—if not a peak, at least a recent high. I’d missed this. “You cannot operate without oversight.”

  “Fine, oversee me,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “Come to the coast, we’ll get together, have some laughs, watch a guy with a really epic beard of red try and kill a reality TV star, and possibly me—”

  There was a click, and I said, “Hello?” I felt my eyebrows go up and nodded in silent respect, mostly to myself. I’d never gotten Phillips to hang up on me before. Maybe this day wasn’t so bad after all.

  I wandered back to Detective Waters and Steven, who were both watching me, Waters with that same jaded look and Clayton with some dim interest that, uh … well, I didn’t know quite how to take it.

  “Drink?” he asked me again.

  I stared at his handsome face, his straight brown hair, perfectly framed for a magazine cover, and I sighed like Princess Anna. “I probably need to make sure Kat doesn’t get murdered in the night,” I said. Unfortunately, I did not add.

  “Wow,” he said, still sincere as anything. “That’s a good point, I hadn’t even thought about that. Good for you, keeping your commitment, prioritizing it above petty stuff. You’re a good friend to her.”

  I kept from laughing at the suggestion that Kat and I were friends, but only just barely. “Well, you know,” I said a hell of a lot more airily than I felt, “you gotta do the, uh, heroic thing and … whatnot.” I’d been up for like, twenty-four hours and had just declined a date with easily the most handsome man I’d seen since I first went running out the front door of my house at age seventeen. I’d dated some reasonably nice-looking guys, but none of them were movie stars, if you catch my meaning.

  “
You really are a hero,” he said. “Maybe some other time.” He gave me a nod and started off down the hill. I didn’t know where he was walking, but I was watching him until he disappeared into the crowd.

  “You really are an idiot,” Detective Waters opined once he was gone. I turned my head in time to see that her eyeline was still following him down the hill. She shook her head and wandered off to handle the scene.

  I tried to decide which I was, but ultimately just landed on “tired,” before I headed off to collect Kat and Scott and hopefully find a place to collapse for a little while—preferably somewhere that the menace of Captain Redbeard wouldn’t follow me.

  22.

  Sienna

  I walked into one of the slickest hotel suites I’ve ever seen in my life, one that rivaled mansions I’ve cannonballed through the windows of (what? It’s not like anyone would invite me into a swank place like that—you know my rep for destruction) and stood admiring the view of Los Angeles before me, all lit up at night like I was in the middle of a city of stars.

  “Ugh,” Kat said, as though these accommodations were the most substandard she’d ever had inflicted upon her beleaguered, long-suffering person. “Is this the best they could do?” Somewhere in poorer regions of the world, they would be burning the lovely furniture that appointed this suite because fuel was more important to survival than pretty things.

  Here in Los Angeles, California, though, Klementina Gavrikov had completely lost perspective and thought this marble-floored, multi-floored palace was completely unsuitable for her more-than-modest needs.

  “You’ve come a long way from that shack outside Kirensk,” I quipped, but she looked at me blankly because she couldn’t remember that. I could, though, thanks to her brother being in my head. I liked her better when she wasn’t too good for everything and everyone.

  “Best we could do on short notice, Kitten,” Taggert said, mildly apologetic, as poor Karyn struggled in carrying a half-dozen bags while Scott followed behind with a half-dozen more. None of them were his, of course. I would have carried something, but honestly—pro tip—you don’t tie up your hands when you’re on bodyguard duty. Doing so means you waste valuable seconds dropping whatever it is to either draw your gun or—if you’re me—shoot a web of light, send a flaming blast at someone, etc. I also drew my gun frequently, because it looked more intimidating to the average meta than just holding my hand up menacingly. Surprisingly few people made the connection in the heat of the moment, realizing that they were more likely to die from one of my flame attacks than from a bullet. Go figure.

  Also, I was nobody’s beast of burden, let alone Kat’s. If she’d asked me to carry a suitcase for her, I would have shown her exactly where she could carry it, but it would have required the removal of the stick already residing there first.

  “I’ll be in the master suite,” Kat said, making a noise that told us just how put out she was by having to leave her rental house behind in order to hide here in this posh hotel. There were no cameras present, either; they were still gathering footage of the cops and firemen back at the site of the attack. I’d overheard Taggert telling her to do a “confessional booth” video on her phone before she called it a night, and a little piece of my already shrunken soul died.

  “Umm,” Scott said, gesturing to the suitcases in his hands.

  “Follow her up,” Taggert said, making an obvious motion toward the staircase Kat was already climbing, Karyn following meekly behind her. “You can drop my bags here.” He unbuttoned his jacket. “Then when you’re done bringing Kitten’s up, you can come back and put mine in my suite.” Awww, Taggert. So close to genuine humanity there for a quarter second, but not really.

  Scott, however, did nothing more forceful than shoot me a disbelieving look before shrugging and doing as commanded. I watched with a little disbelief of my own, and then my phone buzzed.

  Ricardo

  A glorious woman such as you should not spend the night alone.

  “Oh, if only I were, Dick,” I muttered and then felt the awkward presence of Taggert sidling closer to me, grinning. “Whoa. That’s close enough.” He stopped as though nothing were unusual about what he was doing. For all I knew, there wasn’t anything unusual about it. He was likely a weird creeper to everyone.

  “We should talk,” he said nonchalantly, placing his hands on his hips and pushing back his jacket. It was kind of a Superman pose, but he really lacked the classic good looks to pull it off. Also, the decency of Clark Kent. Or even Grant Ward, come to think of it.

  “So talk,” I said, eyeing him like he was going to slowly ooze his slime-puddle self over and mess up my boots. It was a real danger, I judged. “I have ears and can hear you from here.”

  “Why don’t you come into my suite and we can talk a little more privately?” he asked, still grinning. My boots were safe, but the rest of me was feeling crawly at the mere suggestion.

  “This seems like a fine spot. Kat will probably have Scott and Karyn unpacking for her, and that’ll take at least a year.”

  “We need to talk about the security precautions for tomorrow’s Vanity Fair shoot,” Taggert said.

  “Oh, I’ve got that covered,” I said. “She’s not going.”

  Taggert raised an eyebrow. It looked painful, like he was warring hard against the botulinum toxin to make that happen. “The hell you say.”

  “The hell I say,” I agreed. “She needs to keep a low profile.” I shot an appraising glance around the suite. “This isn’t helping, but at least it’s not public and totally exposed.” Well, sort of. For a guy who could walk through walls, nothing was all that private.

  “We checked in under a false name,” Taggert pointed out.

  “Yeah, no one will ever guess that Pamela Isley is actually Kat,” I deadpanned. They for real had done that at the check-in desk. Reed would have shat upon the Persian carpet just before the desk had he been here.

  “There are a lot of nice hotels in this town,” Taggert shrugged, taking off his jacket while he was making the motion. He casually tossed it over the arm of the velvety couch and stretched, showing off his utter lack of pecs under his polo shirt. Less yoga, more weight, dude-bro. “What are the chances he’d find her at this specific one?”

  “I don’t know,” I said sourly. “Ask me in the morning if we haven’t had a sudden case of Kat euthanasia.”

  “No cameras here anyway,” he said, shrugging like it didn’t mean a thing. “If he was gonna attack, he’d be better off waiting until the shoot.”

  “Thank you for making my argument for me,” I said, arms folded in front of my chest. “Cancel the shoot.”

  “Can’t,” he said, smiling impishly. Much like that elf from Rudolph, I was going to be a dentist yet. “Do you know how long this cover shoot has been in the works? Months and months. Everyone wants it. It’s a big get.”

  “You know what else is a big ‘get’? Death. It’s huge. Pretty much consumes the whole rest of your life, damages the plans you’ve made for the coming weeks and months and years. Cancel the shoot, or be prepared to cancel a whole lot more stuff in the future.”

  “I’d rather die than cancel the Vanity Fair shoot,” Kat said stiffly, staring at us over the balcony above. She had a look on her face telling me she was serious.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I said.

  “We’re doing it, and that’s final,” she said. She sniffed and then disappeared back toward what I presumed to be her room. I could hear faint noises up there like drawers being opened and closed. It would appear my sarcastic prediction of her putting Scott and Karyn to her unpacking had held some water. Uhh … no pun intended. Poor Scott.

  “Yes, it might end up being final,” I said, staring at the balcony where she’d stood. “So very, very final.”

  “Come on,” Taggert said, beckoning me forward as he slowly started to make his way to the open double doors to the room behind him. “We’ll talk about it a little more.”

  “Wha
t’s wrong with right here?” I asked, a little afraid of the answer.

  “There’s no shower here,” he said, grinning again. “And I need one. You, too. We can talk while—”

  “Okaayyy,” I said, one step from throwing up my hands (to keep me from knocking out all his teeth). “Yeah. No.”

  He broadened his grin and took a step closer as I mentally drew a circle around myself that I determined would constitute the point where the law would consider him to be crossing into the territory of a threat. “You know what I need right now?”

  “I don’t know, a lifetime supply of Valtrex?”

  He actually grinned wider, the bastard. “Are you slut-shaming me?”

  Oh, God. By the look on his face, I realized that not only had he tried this routine with other women before but it had actually worked. And probably often, judging by how casual about it he seemed; there was no nervousness, no hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar guilt, not even the playful illusion of it that anyone with decency might have tossed out as a defense. Just a wry admission that he was a horny old man hitting on a much younger woman. And this bastard didn’t even have any power over me. It occurred to me that given his position, that likely wasn’t the case most of the time.

  The circle of violence I drew around myself broadened in an instant. “If the micro-penis-sized condom fits,” I said, low and menacing.

  “Oh, you don’t want to play,” Taggert said, looking hurt. “Such a shame. That’s all right, though. I was hoping maybe you and Kitten could show me how good a friends you are later—”

  “OH, YUCK!” I made a vomiting noise that was drawing nearer to being real with every passing moment. I should have realized that this lecher would prey on anyone, but somehow the realization that Kat—I didn’t even like her, but EWWWWW—at least Janus I could sort of understand, because he was a decent enough guy underneath the old. “You and Kat?” I asked before realizing that I didn’t actually want to hear whatever came next.