In the Ruins (Metahuman Files Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  “War is big business. The threat of it, and the reality of it, will always exist. There will always be an enemy to fight. If you don’t think I’m not prepared to cash in on that, then perhaps we were wrong to reach out to you.”

  Jamie was careful to keep his tone more curious rather than accusing, knowing he had to walk a fine line so he didn’t insult Stanislav. Jamie had to hope the arrogance people expected of him wasn’t going to be a harsh enough insult that Stanislav would walk away from the partnership they needed. Begging wasn’t something Jamie would or could do, because someone of his status didn’t beg.

  But they could question an idea until it turned into an offer both parties could accept.

  “I think we can come to an agreement of how to use your company. Good work is difficult to find, after all,” Stanislav said after a long moment of silence. “Good people are even rarer.”

  Jamie allowed himself to smile. “I’d heard you’re a decisive man, Stanislav. I’m glad to see I wasn’t disappointed. It’s always so refreshing to work with people who understand what it takes to run things.”

  Stanislav pulled a slim tablet out of his inner tuxedo jacket pocket. “As I was telling Emmet here before you arrived, I unfortunately must deal with a business emergency and need to leave. I will reach out to you in the near future if tonight doesn’t overwhelm you.”

  “When you’ve taken mortar fire from insurgents, a gala full of rich people is child’s play,” Jamie said with a shrug. If he wasn’t damn sure of the oncoming attack, it definitely would be.

  Stanislav laughed, but it never reached his eyes. Jamie pressed his hand to the tablet and let it access his RealIdent and the identity the MDF had painstakingly created for him. Stanislav didn’t offer to provide his own contact information, but Jamie knew he wouldn’t. If Jamie survived the night, then it would be more than obvious to Stanislav that Jamie would be someone he’d want to do business with.

  Stanislav moved away from Jamie to say his goodbyes to the handful of people who merited it in the tent. Jamie ignored his departure in a way only someone of his wealth and status could. Emmet looked like he’d swallowed something sour, glowering at Jamie with unconcealed anger in his eyes.

  “That,” Jamie said, gesturing with his champagne glass, “is how you do business.”

  Emmet stabbed his finger in Jamie’s direction, taking a step forward. “All I saw was you begging for scraps from the table.”

  “I see you haven’t witnessed any actual business deals. What did you say you did again?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “So nothing of note, then.”

  “Emmet is well known within our circles,” Niko interjected hastily before Emmet could start a fight. “We appreciate his contributions immensely.”

  Before Jamie could respond, Kyle’s voice ripped through Katie’s telepathic links, his warning burning straight through Jamie’s mind.

  Splice bombs are being worn by suicide bombers. They’re on attendees. Don’t know how many, but I’m guessing enough to do a lot of damage.

  Jamie fought against the urge to immediately start checking out the people nearest him for any hidden threats. Of fucking course Cillian would change up his MO to impress someone of Stanislav’s reputation.

  “I’m sure you do,” Jamie said, returning to the conversation at hand. “But I only work with people I know are on my level. You’ll forgive me if I take the wait and see approach with Emmet here.”

  “With an attitude like that, I don’t think you’ll last the night among everyone else,” Emmet replied, mouth twisted in a half-sneer.

  “You’d be surprised at what I’m capable of surviving. I’d bet good money I’m far more resilient than you are.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “As much as I find this dick-measuring contest amusing, I have better things to do with my time. If you think you have something to offer me, I will gladly take your contact information. Otherwise, we have nothing more to discuss.”

  “You can take your contact information and—”

  Kyle’s mental warning cut through Jamie’s mind again, drowning out whatever else Emmet said even as the familiar sound of gunfire erupted from inside the museum.

  Gear up! We got hostiles and they’re coming up from the tunnel entrance! I’m going after Pavluhkin!

  Jamie took the initiative to handle the insult in a manner most well-bred people would consider impolite, but which he’d been itching to do all night.

  Jamie punched Emmet in the face hard enough to knock the man out before cutting the follow through short and ramming his elbow backward into the side of Niko’s head, catching him in the temple. Both men collapsed to the ground, unconscious, because Jamie hadn’t bothered to pull either blow.

  Jansen is taken care of, Jamie announced to his team even as he yelled loudly, “Everyone might want to take cover. It doesn’t sound like this is a party anymore.”

  Even the thick walls couldn’t muffle the sound of automatic gunfire. Jamie pulled the nanotech strips out of his tuxedo pocket and applied them to his face as he approached the bar while everyone else ran for the nearest exit.

  Tariq Hameed was the Royal Legion’s third most longest-serving member, a metahuman whose power over blood could permanently stop a person’s heart or burst a blood vessel in their brain. It didn’t take much effort for Tariq to kill a man, and Jamie wanted to get him on the front line as soon as possible.

  “Long or short?” Tariq asked as he hauled two heavy cases from beneath the portable bar he’d been manning in the corner.

  “Long.”

  Tariq opened a case and slid it over to him. Jamie took less than thirty seconds to assemble the AKR-75 assault rifle inside, feeling a little calmer now that he had a weapon in hand. Shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket, he pulled on the tactical vest Tariq handed him, strapping it into place. Spare magazines were clipped to the tactical vest as well. He wished they’d been able to sneak in more armor, but there wouldn’t have been any place out of the way to gear up in. Even out here in the garden courtyard, people were looking their way.

  Katie? Could use some mental cover, Jamie asked as he and Tariq sprinted toward the door he’d come through earlier.

  I’m scrambling as many minds as I can near you, but I need to separate the suicide bombers from everyone else first. There’s only so far I can stretch myself, she replied.

  Understood. Alpha Team, switch to comms. Call in.

  “They’re Irish, Reborn IRA probably. And they got a few metahumans in their ranks,” Donovan said.

  “Cillian’s or Emmet’s?”

  “Does it fucking matter?”

  “Am with Icarus and Wraith. He’s off comms. Have disarmed five suicide bombers,” Alexei reported.

  “How long will Jansen be out?” Madison asked. “These bombs are more like chemical IEDs, Apollo. The blast can do some damage outside of the Splice chemical. It’ll be real messy if they blow.”

  “I can go back and shoot him,” Tariq offered as they reached the set of doors that would lead them back into the museum.

  Jamie thought about it for half a second—he was tempted, very tempted—but shook his head. “Viper, see if you can’t keep Jansen under.”

  Copy that, she said.

  The doors wouldn’t budge; either someone was holding them closed or they had locked it. Jamie waved Tariq aside and braced himself. With one hard kick, he broke the doors open, knocking one completely off its hinges from the strength of the blow. It hit the floor with a loud clatter, catching someone’s bodyguard on the shoulder on the way down. The man yelled out in pain, his arm hanging oddly as he staggered away. Jamie edged through the now-open doorway, pausing only long enough to ram the butt of his weapon into the face of a guy who thought he could sucker punch them, knocking him out.

  All the artwork around them was now encased in protective energy shielding. Either someone had manually triggered the alarm or some of the earlier gunshots had hit an exhibit and th
e museum’s smart building AI had triggered the shields. Jamie would put good money on the latter.

  A gun going off had them both ducking out of instinct. Jamie signaled Tariq the direction he wanted to go and got a thumbs up in response. Jamie counted down from three using his fingers before swinging his weapon around, holding down the trigger for a fully automatic spray as they sprinted across the way for the museum store. Some of the rounds hit several enemy combatants while the rest ricocheted off the artwork shields. What few his aim didn’t take down, Tariq took care of.

  Tariq’s power wasn’t flashy, but it was formidable. The group of enemy advancing went down as one, having no time to clutch their chests before their hearts exploded. Manipulating the iron in people’s blood at a micro level might not look impressive, but it sure was deadly.

  So was the counterattack.

  What looked like a horizontal pillar of fire exploded down the length of the sculpture gallery, burning past exhibit shields. Jamie and Tariq retreated deeper into the museum store as fire ripped through the air, licking madly at the walls and ceiling. It lasted only seconds before the main force of the fire faded away, leaving only the flames crawling up the wall. Jamie shielded his face with his arm, heat making sweat drip into his eyes.

  “They’ve got a pyrokinetic,” Jamie snarled over the comms.

  “I’m on it,” Samaira replied, her crisp, accented voice barely sounding ruffled. “Take out the windows and get clear.”

  Jamie pointed at the open entrance between two pillars connecting the main store to the long gallery. “Handle the windows. I’ll head to the next gallery for recon.”

  “Copy that,” Tariq replied.

  “Knight?” Jamie snapped. “What the hell happened?”

  “Looks like the police on duty at the South Kensington Station are either dead or they weren’t ours. They aren’t responding to our hails. The Reborn IRA got through the underground tunnel and into the museum,” Liam replied in a flatly furious voice.

  “Fuck.”

  Jamie spun on his feet and sprinted through the museum store, taking a sharp right through a connecting entrance. Seconds later he heard Tariq shoot out the windows facing the courtyard. Glass shattered and fell to the floor, the sound of it setting Jamie’s teeth on edge as he cased the side gallery he’d entered. It didn’t open up into the sculpture gallery, so he kept moving, crossing its length into the next gallery after making sure no hostiles occupied it.

  Two entrances looked out onto the sculpture gallery and the still-burning fire. Grimacing, Jamie headed for the one closest to the Exhibition Road museum entrance, hoping he wasn’t cutting off his own escape. Not being in tactical body armor meant he couldn’t be as aggressive as he wanted to in this fight. Unfortunately, the enemy didn’t care about his caution. He was almost to the far entrance when a wave of water appeared out of nowhere in the sculpture gallery, slamming into the fire and putting it out. Water poured into the gallery Jamie was in, slicking the floor and soaking his feet. The resulting explosion of hot steam sent a trio of Reborn IRA fighters running for cover right toward him.

  Jamie pulled the trigger, getting a burst off that took out the point man. The two remaining hostiles scattered in opposite directions. He went left, ducking behind a large Islamic vase encased in a shield, catching one of the two fighters by surprise. Jamie pulled the trigger, a three-shot burst cutting across the man’s unprotected throat in a gruesome bloody line. The body collapsed to the floor, gun falling free of lifeless hands. Rather than leave the weapon for someone else to find, Jamie kneeled down and wrapped his hand around the barrel. Squeezing his fingers, he crunched the metal into a useless mess before kicking the broken weapon aside.

  He stayed where he was, keeping his breathing quiet as he listened intently to the space around him. Distant gunfire was ignored. The faint splash of water from footsteps coming closer was not. Jamie flexed his fingers against the grip of his gun, eyes narrowing as he placed the other fighter’s position. His eight o’clock.

  Jamie didn’t wait and came up firing.

  The Reborn IRA fighter dove out of the way of the spray of bullets coming from Jamie’s weapon, sliding across the slippery floor. Jamie advanced, sighting down his assault rifle and pulling the trigger. The hostile was wearing far more armor than he was, which managed to deflect the bullets. Jamie closed the distance between them and grabbed the other man’s gun by the barrel. With a snap of his wrist, he broke it in half.

  The man gaped in shock at him, giving Jamie a precious few seconds to grab him by the front of his second-rate tactical vest, pick him up as if he weighed nothing, and throw him out of the gallery. Jamie’s enhanced strength meant the man went flying into the sculpture gallery, slamming headfirst into the base of a large sculpture.

  He didn’t move after that.

  Knowing he couldn’t hold this position without more firepower, Jamie retreated back to Tariq’s position two rooms over.

  “Apollo to Drake. I’m coming up on your nine o’clock,” Jamie warned over the comms.

  “Copy that,” Tariq replied.

  Jamie made it back to Tariq’s position at the rear of the museum store. Beyond Tariq, Jamie could see a panicked crowd of people struggling to flee the museum. The two main entrances were sealed shut and no amount of pounding on them would get the doors to open.

  “Apollo to Knight. Status of the perimeter?” Jamie said.

  “Holding, but we can’t risk these people getting out of the quarantine zone,” Liam responded almost immediately.

  “It’s going to be a blood-fest if we don’t get some of these people out of the line of fire.” Jamie saw a pair of dark shapes running through the fading steam at the far end of the museum store and took aim. He waited just long enough to confirm they weren’t friendly before taking them out. “We figured Cillian for the bombs, maybe a couple of enforcers, not a damn contingent of paramilitary fighters. You want this museum still standing tomorrow, we need to change the game plan.”

  Jamie ducked behind a marble pillar at the edge of the grand entrance and trained his gun in the direction they’d come, keeping an eye out for any further advancement of the enemy.

  “Plan B it is. Eclipse will handle the shielding outside. Bones will need to deal with everyone inside.”

  “Copy that. Nova has Viper’s six. On my way down,” Trevor said over comms. “I hope this museum has really, really good insurance.”

  They held position, with Tariq facing the screaming crowd struggling to get out while Jamie covered Samaira’s retreat back to their position a minute later.

  “Europa to all fighters. Be advised, the enemy has scattered,” she reported over comms.

  “What about their pyrokinetic?” Jamie asked.

  Samaira shook her head. “Went below.”

  They staggered their positions, trying to cover all lines of sight, but there were too many angles for the enemy to come at them from. Behind them, the screams gave way to muffled shouts of thank God! and run! as the doors were finally forced open.

  They wouldn’t get very far. Eclipse, a telekinetic on a different UMG field team than the Royal Legion, would have the museum locked down beneath a telekinetic shield. They couldn’t risk anyone getting out and into London, not with the threat of Splice everywhere within this crowd.

  Moments later a sound started up, making the hairs on the back of Jamie’s neck stand on end. Even through the museum walls, Jamie could hear the sirens. Loud, piercing, meant to dig down into a person’s bones and wake the dead, they were first heard centuries ago during World War II to warn of incoming enemy air raids. Now, they warned the citizens of London to shelter in place in the wake of a Splice chemical bomb attack.

  The first of which went off in the middle of the crowd behind them trying to cram through the museum entrance for the uncertain safety of a London street.

  14

  Short of Everything Except the Enemy

  Alexei grabbed Sean by the arm, yanking the ag
ent around to face him as Kyle’s voice faded in his mind. “Clear everyone in room. Now.”

  Sean nodded sharply and didn’t argue. He only said, “I’ll lose comms.”

  “We not separate. Not be problem.”

  There was always that moment where people’s survival instincts had to choose between flight or fight. Alexei had long since scuttled the urge in the back of his mind that demanded he run, choosing instead to fight. While Sean ducked his head and proceeded to literally run through the crowd beginning to sink into the first throes of panic, Alexei slapped nanotech strips onto his face and shoved his way through gala guests to the stairs. Annabelle joined him seconds later, taking position on the landing at the top of the stairwell opposite of him.

  They were on the second floor; the guns going off below were loud and impossible to ignore. The enemy, whoever they were, had come up through the underground tunnel. There was a good possibility they would be overrun. They didn’t have time to find a UMG agent and grab weapons or tactical vests, which put them at a disadvantage.

  “I take guns, you take bodies?” Annabelle asked as the clatter of people rushing up the stairs got louder. Alexei, who could move in full gear without making a sound, mentally scoffed at their shitty efforts.

  “Da.”

  The second the Reborn IRA fighters made it to the landing below them, Annabelle used her anti-gravity power to wrench their guns out of their hands, sending the rifles spinning out of reach. Alexei didn’t hesitate to uses his pyrokinesis to set the group on fire, gritting his teeth against their agonized screams. The shouts below from people they couldn’t see were ones of warning as the way was blocked by burning bodies.

  “I don’t think I’m gonna be eatin’ barbecue for a while,” Annabelle said.

  She guided the assault rifles down within reach of them both, slinging one over her shoulder while taking the magazines out of two others. Alexei followed her example, feeling better already about their chances now that he had a gun in hand.