“Truth is,” Detective Fisher said once we were back out under open sky, “most of what we walked through down there is just the last line of containment; they have ways of controlling the inmates, keeping a breakout from becoming general. The Pit is built to keep people out as much as it is to keep them in.” He lit up again. “You okay, kid?”
“Hell, no.” I shook myself, feeling like I’d just climbed out of a bottomless hole. The DSA agents gave me room — a couple of them twitched, half-hefting their autorifles without realizing it.
Most people’s reactions to me are pretty predictable; my size, claws, fangs scream Danger! Danger! to the piece of the human hindbrain tasked with instinctual threat-assessment, so even when they’re not scared, normal people dance around me like I might accidentally eat someone. Fisher didn’t. He smirked, chuckled dryly. “Yeah, I get that. Let’s go home.”
Watchman flew wingman outside the plane for the flight back. Detective Fisher used the time to tell us Astra stories featuring her police liaison job. Half the stories involved dead bodies; cops have a strange sense of humor.
* * *
We touched down after dark and Watchman gave me a lift back to the Dome. With nothing going on, I went and found Ozma’s new lab.
Open boxes sat on every table and had been stacked in corners. They’d certainly provided her enough glassware, even a sealed clean room for mixing the really interesting stuff (that made me feel a lot better). Her Witchy Highness sat perched on a lab stool, poring over a notebook. Someone had decided labs required lab coats and she’d turned hers green.
Beside her, Nix stood in front of one of Ozma’s smaller mirrors, behind a camera set up on a stack of books. She waved at me then went back to watching the mirror. The goth girl standing behind the watchful doll looked away from the mirror long enough to check me out, and holy shit, it was Artemis, the Sentinels’ mysterious vampire-vigilante. Midnight-black hair and cold eyes to match, in a face pale enough to make you believe she never saw daylight. Just a look from Spooky Girl, and my body started bulking up for a fight.
I shook it off. “Princess.”
Ozma held up a hand, made a notation in her notebook, then leaned over to whisper something to the mirror. “Yes!” cried Nix, and I heard the camera click-click-click-click as she captured whatever was there. Then the mirror cracked all the way across, spiderwebbing from edge to edge. Ozma sighed, dropping her head to rest her chin on folded arms.
“Hello Brian. I hope you had a boring day?”
“Better than yours?”
A pointed finger directed my attention to a stack of broken mirrors propped against the wall. “Watch out for glass, I swept three mirrors ago.” I felt the crunch of glass slivers underfoot.
Right ... how many years bad luck? “What are you doing?”
“Watching our Astra. Wherever she is has good magic or psychic wards and I’ve only been able to catch her in one mirror, and we can’t go through it to get her or make her see us.”
“But she’s okay?” She hadn’t mentioned any of this in the morning briefing.
“She is alone and injured, poor child, but fiercely, fiercely brave. Look.” Sitting up, she tapped the laptop beside her and brought up a screenful of picture files. Now I understood what the camera was all about; since she obviously couldn’t keep a mirror on Astra, Ozma was opening a view and snapping as many shots as she could before the connection was literally broken.
The viewing wheel showed dozens of shots. It looked like we were seeing through a bathroom mirror into a small bedroom. We might not have been able to see her except she’d pushed the bed she was lying on up against the opposite door. In the earliest ones the lights were out so there was nothing at all to see beyond dark shapes, and in most of the rest she was asleep, but a series of eight shots had caught her looking in the mirror. She’d had her costume top open, poking her shoulder as tears ran down her face. Half her face was purple, her shoulder and arm purple and black, and her lips were pressed tight over her teeth. My throat closed up.
Ozma sighed. “I’ve met our team doctor and he believes, based on the time since the fight, that she isn’t healing.” She patted my arm. “Someone has stolen our hero’s power, but we will have her back.”
Nix nodded solemnly.
Spooky Girl hadn’t said a word, or moved, and I jumped when she said “Send the pictures.”
“One moment.” Ozma pulled the flash drive out of the camera and plugged it into the laptop. Another short stream of pictures dropped onto the screen and she forwarded them to the epad I hadn’t seen in Spooky Girl’s hand. In the new shots, Astra stood with her back to the open bedroom door, like she’d just come back in. Behind her the camera had caught the faces of two men I didn’t recognize, part of a third. Ozma laughed delightedly and Nix cheered. I didn’t.
She’s scared. Freaking terrified. I couldn’t say why I knew, it didn’t show on Astra’s face, but I felt my claws growing. My body was weirdly psychoreactive tonight.
“Nice timing,” I said, almost growling. Spooky Girl looked up from her pad and gave me a predator’s smile.
“Timing, yes,” Ozma agreed, turning her head to frown at me. She knew what it meant when my voice got deeper. “Since it takes too long between pictures, I have been attempting a sortilege formula to choose informative moments. None of the pictures tell us where she is, that would be too gracious a gift, and I can’t find other mirrors around her. Artemis?”
Spooky Girl’s spooky smile widened. “Got another one. The third guy’s Redback, a street villain with the Sanguinary Boys — one of the few left outside Detroit Supermax after the Sentinels rolled them up last year. He can paralyze you with a look — maybe more than that now, if Blackstone’s right — but I made him a snack the couple of times we met. Shelly? Have you narrowed down the location?”
“Do vamps sleep in the daytime? Yes they do, and is one of fifty rooms narrow enough? Hi, Brian!”
I almost felt sorry for the guys holding Astra. With a magical princess, a vampire vigilante, and a techno-ghost hunting them, they didn’t have a chance. But only almost; I wanted to talk to them and “fifty rooms” sounded real promising.
Ozma patted my arm again. “Stop bulking up, Brian. They are not hurting her, and I believe your strength will be required presently.” Her lips quirked. “So go. Eat. Fuel up and be prepared to ride to the rescue. Shoo.”
“Don’t go too far, pretty boy,” Artemis said without looking up from her epad. “I’m going to need you to break stuff soon.”
The promise of violence in Spooky Girl’s voice started my fangs growing again and, with one last look at the screen, I let Ozma push me away. The princess was good about her promises, too; if she didn’t think it would be long, it probably wouldn’t be, and my looming wouldn’t help.
But I needed to find out where the workout rooms were so I could seriously attack something.
I got my fight-fuel; Willis — the Dome’s majordomo and wasn’t that a weird title — had made sure the kitchen got my dietary requirements. Protein, lots of it. But I didn’t get my workout; as usual, Ozma nailed it and I hadn’t even finished gorging on the tower of rare prime rib cuts the cooking staff had prepared for me when my earbug sparked with an excited “Move it, people! Assembly room now! Follow the lights if you’re lost, newbies!”
A cheeky light flashed over the dining room door. Robot-girl was going to be seriously annoying.
* * *
Even the Sentinels’ weird Verne-type, Vulcan, sat for this meeting, and with the addition of the detective and a beefy DSA agent (whose dark glasses made him look just like Bob in shades), we filled the seats. Nox and Nix sat on the table in front of Ozma, and Nox couldn’t take his eyes off Artemis (I could understand why; Nox liked dark, and with her black body armor, hooded Death’s-head, and guns, the vampire looked like a freaking goth assassin).
“Hey — ” Reese started. The eyes in the black skull half-mask focused on him and he shut up. A smile flickered across
her lips before she returned her attention to Blackstone.
“Thank you, everyone,” Blackstone said once we’d all sat down. The old magician looked better than he had last night. “We have found Astra, and we are going to get her. Detective Fisher?”
The rumpled detective got to his feet and took control of the screens. We gave him our complete attention.
“My team is tasked with the Wreckers investigation. Eric Ludlow, Dozer, had cleared his email history and his phone records were unhelpful. However, bank records showed us that he joined this organization — ” the symbol of an eye in a radiating triangle backing the words The Foundation of Awakened Theosophy came up on the screens “ — last January. We were unable to get a warrant to do any digging until a search of the Crew’s records from the California Quake put him together with this man.” The image changed to a shot of a guy, brown hair, brown eyes, average everything.
“This is Steven Kellough. A C Class teleporter, he was employed in rescue and recovery operations in the weeks after the quake, where he met Eric. He is a longstanding member of the Foundation of Awakened Theosophy and is now Drop, the Wreckers’ A Class teleporter.” The screen split to show his shocked face caught on mask-cam last night.
“This was enough for us to get a silent warrant for all Foundation records. Artemis — ” he nodded to the dark angel at the table “ — began consulting with us en-route, and she and Galatea have given us this.” The screen widened, changing to an aerial view of what looked like a resort.
“The Foundation owns several properties in and around Chicago, including this country ‘retreat’ used by higher-level initiates. It’s rented out for conferences when not in use by the Foundation, and with pictures Ozma obtained for us, we were able to match the room in which Astra is being kept to the blueprints for the main lodge.” The overhead shot turned into a schematic of the building, zeroed in on a wing of narrow single-occupant bedrooms. “Although according to their schedules, the retreat is not in use — the Foundation paid a pretty big penalty to cancel a corporate retreat scheduled for this week — based on current power-usage, the place is not empty. Using Ozma’s pictures and Artemis’ and Galatea’s findings, we have obtained a no-knock warrant which the Sentinels will exercise tonight.”
Rush slapped the table. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go get A back!”
“Agreed,” Lei Zi said. The Chinese superhero had always sounded coldly precise the few times I’d seen her on TV, and tonight wasn’t any different. She stood and took the control wand from Detective Fisher.
“First, some tactical realities. We believe that Astra has been depowered — ” She had to wait for the shocked dismay around the table to die. “From the pictures secured by Ozma, her injuries from the previous night do not appear to be healing. Just as significant, she does not appear to be restrained by anything more than a locked door. This dictates our tactics; we are not going in like a hammer to retrieve an egg.
“Additionally, we do not know the numbers and powers we will face; only three Wreckers are definitively known: Twist, Balz, and Drop. Ozma’s pictures netted us another ID, Redback. Dispatch will provide his relevant stats, but be aware he may be much more than he was. There may be more unknowns, and again we are dealing with someone who can enhance or take away breakthrough powers. The place is also protected by powerful shields. Magic wards or psionic shields can always be purchased, expensively, but to borrow one of Atlas’s favorite phrases, ‘Assume any unknown breakthrough can deal with you.’”
“So what’s the plan, boss?” Riptide asked.
“Tonight’s op has two goals: recovering Astra and capturing the Wreckers. Fortunately, we now have two teams. The rescue team will be our new Young Sentinels, supplemented by Artemis and The Harlequin. They will move in to secure the bedroom wing and extract Astra. Once the rescue team has extracted Astra, the capture team will move in to sweep up as many of the Wreckers as we can. Hopefully we can net all of them, but the rescue is our first priority and we are assuming complete communication blackout once we go in. So here is how we will proceed...”
Chapter Twenty Six: Astra
I am one of the strongest breakthroughs in the U.S., and I’m a damsel in distress. One of my action figures comes with Blacklock restraints, which makes Chakra laugh uncontrollably. I so don’t want to know.
Hope Corrigan’s journal.
* * *
I gave myself a few minutes to just not think — not that I could do much until I stopped wanting to gag and could stand up. I rinsed, splashed water on my face, and leaned on the sink until I was steady, then went back into the bedroom and pushed the dresser away from the wall to add Pellegrini/DA to my scratched message. Blackstone and Shelly would figure it out. Pushing the dresser back, I lay down again and looked at the ceiling. The walls were too thick, but the air vents were in the ceiling; if I climbed on the bathroom sink, could I knock a hole through the plaster and paneling? The thought of trying to pull myself up into the overhead one-armed made me cringe, but if they were done with me for the night, it was worth a shot. Right?
And I had to get out. Dr. Pellegrini wanted breakthroughs, and if he’d helped the Teatime Anarchist’s evil twin set off the California Quake, then he was willing to kill a thousand “sleepers” to awaken a single soul. Had he been behind other mass-casualty attacks? My gut churned and I curled up, hand on my stomach, not breathing until I could lie out straight again.
Time to try the ceiling.
I moved slow, careful of my arm and listening for the door. The rod holding up the shower curtain came down pretty easy, and the toilet and the sink were set close enough together that I could step from one to the other.
I could slip, too.
I lost the rod, but the bathroom was tiny enough I didn’t fall straight to the floor — instead I hit the wall, slid down to and off the toilet, and nearly passed out when I hit the tiles. I lost all my air, locked in my first gasping breath.
Don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream. The walls were thick, but someone might be standing guard outside my door.
Rapid blinking eventually cleared my eyes and I let go, took another breath, and curled up on the cool tiles to cup my burning, throbbing arm. Whimpering was undignified. So was sniffling and wanting my dad. For that matter, lying on the bathroom floor lacked gravitas, too; my fans would be disappointed.
Then the lights went out.
Get up! Get up get up get up! My foot found the shower rod and I jackknifed painfully to grab it. Back to a wall, I pulled myself up. Whimpering was undignified, but moving fast gave me a good excuse. Even the bedroom nightlight was out; I might as well have been in a cave somewhere. Using the rod, I found the bed, then the dresser, then the wall opposite. I hugged the wall; the shower rod was pretty heavy, and in the pitch black I could swing at whatever came through the door before they knew where I was.
Yeah, right. I closed my eyes, and opening them made no difference. They’ll probably laugh. Maybe, but if they came to take me away, they’d have to earn it. I wished I’d had time to write everything I wanted to say to everybody on the wall.
A crash made me jump halfway to the ceiling, whimper some more. Then a freight train stomped by my door. A second crash and then a roar like a hurricane. The door opened and wind rushed in, I swung, connected — “Ouch!” — and dropped the rod from nerveless fingers as I wobbled.
A hulking shape I’d only met yesterday loomed in the dim light from the hallway.
“Astra?”
The lights came back on to reveal a fanged, gray-skinned monster with dreadlocks flying in the wind. My monster and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He staggered when I wrapped my good arm around his neck and pulled myself up to plant my lips on that beautiful, toothy mouth.
Grendel
The Sentinels liked opening with kinetic strikes, and Watchman released me on Galatea’s “Mark!” I dropped without a word to free-fall towards my target, morphing into the den
sest, toughest-skinned form I could manage as the air whistled by me.
Below me wasn’t much to see; mostly dark, lit only by walkway and grounds lights, the resort looked asleep. Then it didn’t look like anything at all — Galatea’s hack of the local station cut the power and dropped the building into deep shadow, leaving only a single point of light.
Lei Zi’s plan was less a plan than a series of conditional intentions. Artemis was to infiltrate the target and signal once she knew Astra’s precise location; that was the high-powered LED flashlight I was falling towards. With that signal, the rest of our part unrolled as a choreographed entrance — Lei Zi and Blackstone had drilled us on it until we could repeat our parts and go-no go cues.
Hitting the turf outside the end of the bedroom wing felt like landing on thick sponge, and I had to scramble fast out of the dirt crater. I had to dial up my eyes’ light-gathering abilities before I saw Artemis, shadow in shadow where she waited by the door at the end of the bedroom wing. She pointed up as I started for the door.
Right — my turn. I popped the carry-pack off my belt, pulled out my flashlight, stuck it into the grass with the lawn-spike Vulcan had glued onto it, and flipped it on. The green-tinted cellophane taped over the end gave the rest of the team’s go-sign. Then I charged the door.
Artemis didn’t move out of my way — just turned into mist before I charged through where she’d been. I smashed the door aside and powered down the hall without slowing. The door at the end was a fire door, but it didn’t put up any more fight than the outside door had and Artemis came out of the mist behind me.
“Duck,” she said, tapping my back, and I did as the swarm of micro-missiles shot over our heads to explode in the pitch-black dining room beyond and pump it full of tear gas. Before the gas could reach us, Tsuris turned the hallway into a raging wind-tunnel to blow the stinging cloud further into the resort.
Young Sentinels (Wearing the Cape) Page 23