“James is dead,” Turquoise said. “I found his body near Obsidian’s. He’s definitely dead.”
“Fuck…” Kevin took a deep breath in. “Okay, go, and go fast. This is a war zone.”
Not wanting to draw attention to his big form, Kevin crouched down, cradling Obsidian in his arms.
“Kevin?” Obsidian asked, her eyes fluttering open. The cat girl was in pain; he could tell by the way her ears were twitching and her body lay limp, blood smeared across her face and neck.
“We have a healer,” he reminded her softly. “We just have to find Scarlett.”
Kevin was quiet for a moment as something shuffled past him.
He got a glimpse of an absolutely enormous man, the same one he’d seen back at the prison with the protrusions jutting off his body. The man either didn’t see Kevin or paid no attention to him as he moved past, one staggering step after another.
Turquoise returned, breathing heavy as she carried Scarlett in her arms.
“Is she?”
“No, she’s alive,” Turquoise said.
“Then let’s go. I don’t know which direction. Which direction?” Kevin asked, panic rising in his chest as he stood, now with Obsidian over one shoulder.
“This way,” Turquoise said, moving into the dust.
She was fast, and rather than hold his hand, Kevin held on to her tail, trying to keep up with her as they moved away from the carnage to be.
He heard the sound of bricks scraping against one another, the ground quaking, more muffled cries.
Kevin ignored it all. His only focus was on getting away.
Eventually, they got to what Kevin assumed was the other side of the street. Looking back, he saw a giant form lifting from the building’s remains, a monstrosity made of brick easily two and a half stories tall.
“Come on,” Turquoise said. “It’s now or never, Kevin.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Kevin started to pick up his pace, energy returning to him, adrenaline firing again now that he’d seen what was about to go down.
While bold at times, Kevin wasn’t stupid.
The fight that was about to take place was above his pay grade.
Chapter Thirty-Six: Stone Serpent
Catherine’s hands came before her. A light breeze picked up, moving the dust aside and revealing a towering figure made of huge slabs of concrete and whatever else Margo could conjure up.
“Tell Emelia she should go,” Roman said, his telepath band preventing him from sending a message to her.
Catherine nodded, immediately firing off a mental message. She then returned her wind to the battlefield, moving it through the debris. “There are more,” Catherine said, her wind sifting through the ruins of the building. “And they’re moving around.”
“Those are likely the people she has animated, people like…”
Roman swallowed hard.
He didn’t say Celia’s name, realizing that now was the time for getting to cover. People were still trying to evacuate, teleporters appearing, and the sound of the occasional cry for help meeting Roman’s ears.
Focusing his power forward with Coma still at his side, Roman lifted his own creature out of the rubble, this one made of brick, metal beams, concrete, drywall, and anything in its vicinity.
It wasn’t as tall as the stone creature Margo had created, but it was lean, and as Roman focused in on it, he imbued his creation with life, willing all his fighting knowledge into the rock monster.
He took a knee, his power dial flashing, not quite at full capacity but closer than he would like.
Margo’s creation got the gist of what was about to happen, and the big bruiser came forward with its fists drawn. It met Roman’s stone creation with a tackle, kicking up more debris as the two fell backwards.
Learning from his earlier lesson with Ava, Roman had purposely made his stone creation smaller for agility reasons. His fighter was up on its feet in a matter of moments, bringing in a few quick fists to the side of Margo’s monster, dodging one of its punches, a tail forming out of its back that it used for leverage.
Roman knew he had company when a thick mist filtered into the area, Mister Fist’s voice all around him now, berating him, asking him what he had done.
“Focus on the task!” Roman screamed into the mist, still with his eyes on his fighter.
He was crouched down now, Coma standing in front of him with rebar wrapped around her forearms that was forming into two large blades.
Regardless of the fact that Mister Fist’s team was here, Roman knew he would only have one shot to take Margo down, and to do that, he would have to see her.
The ground shook as Margo’s towering fighter stomped its foot down, sending a wave of force in Roman’s direction. He pivoted just in time, avoiding a line cutting through the debris.
Some of William Bottorf’s clones moved into the mist and dust, the clones spinning their batons as they turned to Ian Turlock. The big red man charged them, gnarled protrusions growing from his body as the clones tried to beat him into submission.
There was darkness spreading off to the right, which was quickly met by a wall of flames as Ava zipped through the air. But her power would do little against Hazrat’s shadows, and William and Ava quickly switched places, Ava going for Ian while William’s clones continued to distract Hazrat.
The two towering figures made of building materials continued to duke it out, their deafening punches ricocheting down the block, their fight making it almost impossible for Roman to concentrate.
“What do I do!?” Catherine asked, wind spinning around her hands.
“I…” Roman didn’t want to say that he didn’t know, that he only had one goal in this. He didn’t want her to sacrifice her life for him, so he told her exactly what he she should do, not wasting a breath as he said, “Get out of here, now. And before you do, blow the biggest windstorm you can muster to clear the dust so I can find Margo. Then go, and…”
“And what?” she asked, panic coming across her masked face evident in her eyes.
“I will contact you if I make it out.”
With a deep breath in, Catherine lifted into the air, a tornado forming around her hands, fingers spread wide. The tornado grew in size and blew some of William’s clones away in the process, Roman only able to hold on by physically cementing his feet to the pavement.
Catherine continued to pick up the speed, wind swirling around her.
She finally let it go, the tiny woman blown upwards as a storm thrashed into the area whipping all the dust away, Mister Fist having to take a solid form.
“Stay behind me!” Coma screamed to Roman, who remained in his crouched position.
He saw a woman that he recognized as one of the exemplars Margo had animated. The woman now had wind swirling around her, a mischievous look on her face.
She’s the absorber, Roman thought as the woman fired off a blast of wind at Mister Fist, who immediately separated into two pillars of smoke, the wind passing between them, Mister Fist going back into his real form as he engaged the zombie exemplar.
His power dial flashing again, Roman focused on the two towering stone creations that were duking it out. As Ava flew above him, more fire spraying from her open palms, Roman liquefied the legs of Margo’s creation, dissolving his own creation in the process.
Ian’s form completely engulfed in flames now, the big man ran into a wall, fell backwards and got back up, his flesh and protrusions boiling in Ava’s inferno.
“I can’t believe you,” Ava said, seething as she landed next to Roman. “Look what you’ve done…”
“Ava…” Roman reached out for her, but she pulled her arm away, rising back into the air.
And in that moment Roman truly understood just how much destruction he had caused.
One look around and he saw MindLenz across the street, the telepath lining people up and moving them out of the way; he saw William’s clones getting shredded by Hazrat’s shadows, the killer from the Southern Alliance with ey
es black as sin tore through bodies; Mister Fist engaging the unknown woman, the zombie exemplar also turning to mist as he tried to get a grip on her.
What caught his attention next, however, was something he could have never fathomed.
The bricks and concrete started swirling together, forming a serpent easily as large as a line of trolleys. As more debris swept into the creation, Roman noticed that there were two people standing on top, a woman with a hood over her head and Celia.
All the blood drained from Roman’s body.
This was his moment.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Woman in the Emerald-Green Mask
The stone serpent vomited brick and concrete detritus, Roman taken off guard as an apple-sized hunk of concrete skimmed past the side of his head, tearing a gash through his mask. Coma moved in to swipe another piece out of the air, only to be blown back by a thick board.
Roman was on the ground now, the left side of his face sticky with blood, something screwy about his vision. As usual, Coma was by his side in a matter of moments, helping Roman get behind some cover.
Mister Fist and his team continued engaging Margo’s stone serpent, the heat from Ava’s fire reaching Roman. He knew that Ava wouldn’t be able to take Margo down, but she had taken Ian down; one glance over his shoulder confirmed this.
Ian’s body was a smoldering carcass now, which meant there were still two exemplar zombies that would need to be taken out.
Roman wanted to go after Margo—fuck, did he want to finish this—but with her current creation, and with so many clones around her and Mister Fist also trying to spiral to the top of the serpent, he knew he should hold back for just a moment.
He needed an opening, and in the meantime, he didn’t want Hazrat or his shadows to be able to sneak up on anyone in Mister Fist’s team.
So Roman kept low, Coma with him, intuiting what he was thinking as he nodded his head in Hazrat’s direction.
Hazrat was a good thirty feet away, maybe more, still engaging some of the clones. But he was dead, and even if Margo was more powerful than Roman could imagine, she was still unable to completely recreate the awareness the real Hazrat may have had.
And Roman understood in that moment that this was the weakness in animating corpses, that even if they could still utilize their power, they didn’t have the same wherewithal as they would have had alive.
Which was why Roman was able to so easily sneak up on Hazrat, shadows whipping all around the man’s body like he was an octopus being electrocuted, Roman able to get into a position where none of the shadows reached him.
Roman could now see the hole he had blown out of the back of Hazrat’s skull from his attack back at Harper’s apartment, and he decided this would be the best place to start.
Taking some of the rebar from Coma’s arms, he formed a metal snake, this one smaller than the towering monstrosity Margo had created.
Roman slithered the snake over to Hazrat, another snake forming from the steel coming from Coma’s other arm. The snakes wound their ways up Hazrat’s legs, both diving into his chest and tearing out of his body before dipping back in, quickly ripping the man to shreds.
“That was amazing,” Coma said, her red eyes wide now, looking from Hazrat’s mutilated body over to Roman.
Roman heard Ava cry out as Margo’s giant stone serpent spit more debris in her direction. He saw the serpent trample over the other exemplar that Margo had animated, squishing her, scraping her remains over the jagged rubble.
And in that moment, Roman wondered where the other doll was, the one that she had stolen from him and animated.
He glanced around, expecting the doll to come out of nowhere, but the dust had mostly settled, and aside from the rubble that Margo’s giant serpent was kicking up, there wasn’t much obscuring the battle ground.
Maybe the doll is buried under the rubble.
With Margo engaged, Roman knew this was his only chance to act.
The only thing he could do would be to play dirty, just like she had done.
Roman wiped more blood from his face as he moved behind a partially crumbled wall, his back pressed against it as he sent his two metal snakes forward.
He turned his head and watched through a hole in the wall, the snakes moving over to Margo’s enormous serpent body, latching on and slithering up toward its head, where Celia stood, Margo next to her, the wicked woman’s arms crossed over her chest.
Margo was too focused on trying to bring down Mister Fist, avoiding Ava’s fire, and fighting off the clones that were climbing the structure to notice the two metal snakes.
And for a split second, Roman thought he could simply knock her out, neutralize her that way, let the Centralian legal system do the rest. He could even use the metal snakes as cuffs…
But in the end, he knew this wouldn’t work. Margo was relentless, and it would be hard for them to contain her.
Nope, he needed to end this now.
The two metal snakes reached the top of the serpent’s head, both merging in Margo’s skin and tearing her from the inside out as they moved upward, the sudden shock of the attack throwing her off guard. Margo looked down to see what was happening and tried to animate them, only for one of the metal snakes to tear out of her face, dipping back into one of her eyes and coming out the other side.
Roman exploded the metal that was in her skull, a splash of blood and brain spritzing the air.
The stone serpent collapsed to the ground in a heap of rubble and dust.
“Celia!”
Roman came roaring out of his position of cover, shoving some of William’s clones aside, jumping over rubble, running as fast as he ever had over the debris toward his wife’s body.
Coma was hot on his tail, her hands at the ready, the doll sensing something he did not.
Even as he lifted his wife’s cold dead body into his arms, the adrenaline still surging through him, William’s clones started to form around Roman.
“Back off!” Coma shouted at the clones, lifting her fists.
“Roman, call off your doll,” said Mister Fist as his form took shape. Ava landed next to him, breathing heavily as the flames licked off her body.
“What?” Roman asked, still shocked to be holding his wife’s body, not sure of how he should react at the moment.
He had killed his adversary, he could see her gutted form lying in the mess of rocks.
Margo was dead.
But he also knew there would be repercussions, which was why he wasn’t prepared for what happened next, even if he had thought some of it through.
“We are taking you into custody, Roman,” Mister Fist said. “You know what you’ve done, and if not, I can go over it with you here. Formal charges may be filed later, once investigators pick through all that has happened. Now, will you come quietly, or we will be forced to…”
A turquoise blast struck Mister Fist in the back, the man falling forward almost immediately.
William’s clones fanned out, Ava lifting into the air. MindLenz appeared on the scene as well, her fingers pressed into her temple as she mentally scanned the area.
A woman in an emerald-green mask appeared at the other end of the rubble, her wrist guard aimed at MindLenz.
“No way…” Roman whispered. “No fucking way.”
Ava swooped down at the masked woman, flames pouring out of the palms of her hands. The woman activated a shield at the last minute, protecting her from the flames as she ran toward Roman.
By this point William’s clones had reached her, all of them filtering away as soon as they neared the woman’s shield, their forms melting, faces mangling as they fell to the side while Ava came in again for another attack only to fail in the end.
More clones continue to spill to the side as the woman grew nearer, Ava eventually landing behind her and trying to bring a flaming fist into the back of the woman’s head.
The masked woman pivoted at the last moment. The flames on Ava’s hand went out as the masked woman
cracked her elbow against Ava’s chin. Shock registering on her face, Ava cried out as the woman brought her to the ground.
Crouching, the masked woman fired off a shot that sliced through one of William’s clones, cutting through its core. She was just turning to take out more clones when Ava went for her, her hands coming around the masked woman’s neck.
The two struggled for a moment, but eventually the masked woman was able to flip Ava off of her, scrambling on top of her in a matter of moments and stunning Ava with her wrist guard. Roman’s teacher fell to the side, her body writhing before settling.
As the masked woman approached Roman, she met the real William Bottorf, his batons twirling as he tried to deliver a final blow. She blocked a few of his swipes with her shield, the force of his last attack causing him to backpedal, and then the woman zapped him with her wrist guard.
William fell, out cold.
“Stop!” MindLenz the telepath said, lifting her fists as she got in front of Roman.
“Do you really want to do that?” the masked woman asked, slightly out of breath.
Against her better judgment, and clearly realizing her telepathic abilities weren’t working, MindLenz pressed a button on her wrist that activated an energy blade.
“All right then,” the masked woman said as she kept her shield up, moving to address the new threat.
The telepath wasn’t too bad with a blade, but Roman could tell it wasn’t something she practiced with often enough. While the blade would have been deadly in the other scenario, the masked woman’s shield and skill gave her the upper hand.
It wasn’t long before an opening presented itself, and the masked woman brought MindLenz down with a fist to the gut. She followed up by stunning the telepath with her wrist guard.
“I don’t know what to say…” Roman told the masked woman as she approached him, Celia’s dead body in his arms, Coma standing next to him, her fists curled at her sides.
“How about ‘thank you’?” Nadine asked as she removed her emerald-green mask. “Also, now or never. We have to leave, Roman.”
House of Dolls 3 Page 24