Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Yeah, it was a stupid impulse I had,” I said. “Tried to get a clue about the panic going on outside the room and ended up frying my brain with overstimulus.”

  “Maybe don't do that again,” Reed said from the front seat. He was riding next to Gabriel, the SUV going over bumps, sirens blaring as we fought our way through Houston to get to the ship channel.

  “Thanks for the advice about the barn door,” I said, “I never would have figured out to shut it if you hadn't said something just now. In fact, I was about to experiment with my telepathic powers again, just for kicks, because I like the sensation of someone setting off nukes in my skull.”

  “Is that what it feels like?” Augustus asked from the back seat. “Because if so, I have questions about how guys like Zollers and Harmon manage those powers.”

  “Zollers told me it's because when they manifest, they start weak,” I said. “Kinda like listening to the radio and gradually turning up the volume versus just starting in the middle of a death metal concert, sitting next to the speaker.”

  “So are you going to be able to learn to read our minds?” Scott asked. I sensed that he wanted to touch me, to offer reassurance. He didn't, though, his reticence an artifact of our ruined, long-ago romance.

  “Maybe someday,” I said, “but Zollers said it'd take years of steady, disciplined practice to be able to control it, and we'd have to start by visiting isolated areas where the number of minds I would be in contact with would be near zero. Not sure I have that kind of time to devote.”

  “We should plan a cabin trip,” Augustus said. “Those are big in Minnesota. All the natives talk about going 'up north' for the weekend. My southern ass sitting here all jealous because I ain't rich enough or cool enough to have a cabin 'up north.'”

  “Maybe if you hadn't blown all your money on renting a penthouse and then leasing the latest cars, you could have afforded some actual real estate...?” Jamal offered, quite savagely. Because it was true.

  “Pfffft,” Augustus dismissed him. “Whatever, man. I'm living, here. What are you doing?”

  “My parents have a place up north,” Scott said. “We could probably go up there some weekend this summer.”

  “Can we get our heads in the game?” Reed didn't bother turning around to look at us, or even to raise his voice where Gabriel could hear him. “We are riding into a hostile situation here, and we need to have – holy shit.”

  Gabriel brought the SUV to a stop in a field of flashing lights. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars – all of them were amply populating the bank of the channel.

  Scott shoved open the door and held it for me as I stepped out, gingerly, into the glaring bright day. The thermometer was already north of ninety degrees in the city of Houston, but where I was standing, it was easily more like 120.

  The Houston Ship Channel burned.

  Black, oily smoke poured off the water, floating to heaven like the pyres of the dead at a mass incineration. Whatever wreckage remained of the tanker had either sunk or was cloaked beyond the wall of the flame and smoke.

  “It's so hot,” Augustus said, futilely holding up a hand, as though it could shield him from the heat. He looked at me. “Anything you can do about this? You know...subtly?”

  I stared at the blazing flames, burning hot and free across the water, feeding off the hundred thousand plus gallons of oil that were, even now, washing ashore and combining with the dirt in a revolting mixture of oil-slicked soil.

  But at least they weren't burning. Which was more than I could say for the entire middle of the channel.

  “This is a catastrophe,” Reed breathed, and I couldn't find it in me to disagree. “A damned catastrophe.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I was sweating from the fire burning on the water, and the Texas heat, dripping and drenched after only a few minutes in the sun. The sky was shaded dark black, the natural blue only visible at the edges as the oily smoke drifted skyward.

  The chemical taste of oily smoke dried my throat, my vocal chords. Some of the rescue personnel were already donning HAZMAT suits and breathing masks.

  “Maybe we should go,” Gabriel said. His cowboy hat was askew again, tilted back on his head, and his eyes were squinting against the heat pouring off the blaze.

  The fact that the water was burning was one of the most disconcerting things I'd ever seen. Sure, in my head, dimly, I'd always known that when mixed with a fuel source like oil, water could burn. But one of the fundamental assumptions that you walk around through life with is that...water puts out fire.

  But the water here burned, and it was strangely frightening.

  “This is going to be years to clean up,” Jamal pronounced from somewhere behind me.

  “Oh, it's worse than that,” Gabriel said. “I mean, you're right, it'll be years. But it's going to shut down shipping here during some of that time. The city, state economies are going to take a brutal hit. Wildlife, the ecology...” He bowed his head, shaking it, hat falling back down into position. “...I'm not sure how this compares to North Dakota, but it's probably going to be the worst ecological disaster we've ever seen down here.”

  “I'm not so sure about that,” Scott said, peering intently at the burning waters. He looked up, scanning around. “Is there a...” He craned his neck look around. “Ah.” He pointed down the shore. “Augustus, can you sense anything in that dump truck?”

  I looked where he'd pointed; a rust-colored, open-top dump truck was sitting down the shore, the kind that tilted sideways to drop its payload.

  Augustus gave the truck a glance, then waved his hand. “A layer of residual dirt at the bottom, but that's all. Why?”

  “Can you check it for drainage holes at the bottom?” Scott was stretching his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  Augustus stared in deep concentration for a moment. “No, the bottom is solid. Why...?”

  “Can you help me here?” Scott asked. Looking right at me.

  I blinked at him. “Doing...what?”

  “Can you turn down the stove a little?” Scott smiled. Then nodded at the river.

  I stared at him. Then at the river. “Wha...?”

  Oh. I got it.

  “Subtly, though,” Scott said. “Less heat would really help me out.”

  “I can help with that,” Reed said, and took to the air, floating ten feet above us, either for theatrical effect or to see better. There was a whoosh! of air around us, and the flames at the heart of the river seemed to flicker, fading by a small measure.

  I pictured Gavrikov in my head, centering myself on his fire powers, and reached out with my mind. I could feel the heart of the fire, burning in the river, consuming all the oil it touched. I held the image of it, the feel of it, in my head. Then I turned down the intensity; I couldn't turn it off, not a fire that big and certainly not at this distance, but I did reduce it.

  A ripple of surprise ran through the crowd of first responders. I opened my eyes, keeping my powers in mind, keeping the intensity dialed back on the flames, which wanted, so badly, to rise again.

  “Perfect,” Scott said, and stepped up to the edge of the channel. He kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks. Water rose to greet him, rising in columns that embraced his feet, lifting him up like the wind lifted Reed. He rose above the river twenty feet on twin columns of clear water. His hands started to dance like a conductor...

  The fires at the left side of the blaze suddenly went out; I felt them snuff and stared, trying to see, to figure out what was happening.

  Like lights on a switch, the fire started to go out from the left side of the blaze to the right. One of the forks of burning flames was closer to shore, and I stared as it began to go out, bright, blazing orange disappearing in water, the black slick that had coated the channel slipped under the surface as if swallowed by it.

  “He's pulling the oil down,” Jamal said, “getting it off the surface. With no oxygen to burn...”

  “It goes out,” Au
gustus said. “He's snuffing it with the water by pushing the oil away.”

  With a mighty shove, Reed pushed the black smoke higher into the sky, clearing the sky above the channel. The black slick that had been present before was now gone, shoved under the surface by Scott, where it couldn't burn as easily. Since I'd turned down the heat...it went right out. Reed wafted back down to us, landing next to me. “Any fire left?”

  I shook my head. “I think he got it all.”

  “That's great,” Gabriel said, “but what about the oil?”

  “Give me a minute!” Scott shouted, back to us, still mounted on his pillars of water. The surface of the channel rippled, and with a heave, a bulbous mass of oil was lifted from it, dumping itself into the back of the side-loading dump truck down the shore. It splashed, truck rocking on its shocks, a tiny amount of oil dripping down the side.

  “Nuh uh,” Augustus said, clouds of dust whipping around the truck, pushing the crawling oil back up the sides. Once it was all gone, back in the truck, the dust seemed to dissipate.

  A cascading round of applause broke out among the first responders, loud and rollicking and complete with whoops. Augustus smiled and waved, but Scott slumped, taking deep breaths as his water pillars delivered him gently back to shore.

  “Bring me more trucks,” he said, looking at Gabriel, “more containers. I can clean the whole river for you.” He paused, frowning. “Wait. There's something else.” He straightened. “There's a pipeline on the bottom of the channel.” He shook his head. “They burst it, too. It's blowing oil out.”

  “How you gonna fix that?” Jamal asked.

  Augustus stepped up. “Point me to it, Scotty?”

  Scott pointed a wavering hand toward the middle of the channel. A solid platform of water lifted out of the surface, a hand forming, waving at us.

  “I got you,” Augustus said, and held out his own hand toward the waving, watery one. Closing his eyes in concentration, he let out a stiff grunt. “Oh, yeah. It's billowing. That's a high flow.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said, almost bent double. “I can maybe hold it back with water for a while, but not too long.”

  “Don't even sweat it,” Augustus said, and with a couple more twists of his hand and a grunt, he opened his eyes. “There. I packed in dirt solid on either side of the pipeline. Nothing coming out now.”

  Scott straightened, frowning in concentration. “You really did, didn't you? I can't feel anything coming out of it.”

  “Okay, well I guess that solves that problem...?” Jamal looked around, like he was seeking another to solve.

  An explosion answered him before any of the rest of us had a chance to. It boomed powerfully over us, the force enough that I staggered back a step.

  Looking in the direction that it came from, I found myself staring down the channel to the east.

  “That's the Vaquero Oil Refinery,” Gabriel said, looking at the black cloud already billowing out as another explosion rocked the earth around us. “East of the 610 bridge.”

  “How far from here?” Reed asked tensely.

  “Ten minutes by car. Maybe twenty with traffic.”

  “They don't know we're here,” I whispered, and Reed looked at me before nodding. “They won't be expecting us.”

  Reed shook his head. “I'm sorry, Gabriel, but I can't wait that long. We need to fly, ground clearance be damned.”

  “I'll get you ground clearance,” Gabriel said, already whipping up his cell phone. “Go! Just go!”

  “You all ready?” Reed asked, looking around at us.

  “As I'll ever be to get whisked through the air like some magical prom date,” Augustus said, steeling himself.

  “Then here we go,” Reed said, not waiting for the rest of us. He lifted us off, flung us into the sky on tornadoes of wind, rushing toward the source of the explosions as another one boomed, shaking us as we flew.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Scout

  “HAHAHAHAHA!” AJ's laugh was borderline maniacal as he hurled another plasma burst at one of the enormous white tanks of petroleum or chemicals – Scout wasn't certain. All she knew was that as soon as the plasma made contact with whatever was in that tank–

  WHOOMP.

  The explosion hurled Scout backward, right onto her ass for the fourth time in a minute. The force was astounding, like a kick to the chest.

  Black, billowing clouds were already flooding into the air from the burning tanks that AJ had already blown up. He, too, was on the ground, but laughing, audible under the prodigious ringing in Scout's ears. Her vision was shaking – or maybe the ground was? She was definitely regretting coming with AJ on this part of the mission. She could have gone with Isaac and Francine. They were in the control room, with the quieter AK-47, making the employees fear for their lives as they sabotaged the piping and processing. AJ had gotten the “easy” part of the mission – making stuff blow up. Maybe the most fun, too, to hear him laugh about it. He threw another bolt of burning-hot plasma at the next tank and–

  WHOOMP.

  Scout found herself flat on the ground again, and just gave up. She crawled on all fours to a nearby patch of grass. The heat was scorching, fires billowing wildly out of the wreckage of the tanks, turning an already steaming Texas day into a veritable oven. Her mind wandered to what Isaac and Francine were up to in the control room. Francine had probably killed a couple people. She seemed to like that. Isaac probably didn't mind, either. Anything for the cause, after all.

  AJ was dancing, wobbling, as he readied another ball of blue plasma. He was whooping and hollering, though Scout couldn't hear him anymore.

  Brushing her fingers against the side of her head, they came back red and sticky. A glance at AJ revealed that his ears, too, were leaking blood.

  That was fine, though. They'd heal. Scout, for her part, intended to just keep her head down and keep watch for men with guns. Because that was the real danger here, that some men with guns would show up and kill one or both of them before they were done.

  As another shockwave buffeted her, Scout managed to stay on all fours through this explosion. AJ hit the ground again, but his chest was moving in silent laughter. At least he was having a good time, Scout thought, watching the road in either direction through the tank farm. And with all these explosions, who would even try and come after them here? Only a fool, that was who. But watching out was Scout's job, and so she set herself to it, bracing for the next explosion, but watching for any other kind of trouble that might come their way.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Sienna

  The explosions were coming at a rate of one every thirty or so seconds, booms that rattled our teeth and buffeted us minimally, probably because Reed was diminishing their force with some barrier of wind ahead of us. I could physically see disturbances rush toward us after every boom, and they all came to an abrupt stop in front of us, as though we had a shield over us.

  My brother's face was taut with concentration. Keeping the five of us aloft and protected from the shockwaves was probably not the easiest thing he'd ever done.

  “Reed, you want me to play tactical lead on this?” I asked. “You look mentally occupied.”

  “Do it,” he grunted. And that was all.

  “Okay,” I said, mind racing. “This is a game of contain and gang-bang.”

  “Ew,” Augustus said.

  “That's a florid description,” Scott said.

  “Accurate, too,” I said. “We need to stop the explosions.” We were high enough and close enough that I could see the refinery. Chemical tanks had been the sources of the big booms. Six or seven of them were burning now, and billowing flame and smoke. “Scott, you contain the plasma thrower.”

  Scott raised an eyebrow. “Uh...I'm a little weak at the moment.”

  I pointed at the tank farm, partially engulfed, as another went boom, sending a deep vibrato through my bones. “The river's right there, and the humidity has got to be high today. You should have a lot to wo
rk with, but I need you to stall this guy. Augustus – you too. Dirt shields are effective against plasma.”

  “Yeah, but they get turned to glass,” Augustus said.

  “Which you can also control, as I recall.” I pointed at the tanks. “This needs to stop.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” Scott asked.

  “Reed and I need to corner Flyboy,” I said. “If we don't stop him, they escape the same as last time, and we replay this same scenario somewhere else tomorrow, possibly with much worse results.”

  “I'm not sure how much cornering I'm going to be able to do right now,” Reed said. “At least not until I can drop this shield. It's taking all I have to keep these shockwaves from knocking us out of the sky.”

  “What am I doing?” Jamal asked.

  “Ideally, I'd put you in a containment position against the other Thor,” I said, “but I'm not so sure that's a good idea given we don't know where she is. Maybe you should go with Augustus and Scott.”

  “I'll do whatever,” Jamal said. “But if you go up against Queen Thunderhands, y'all are going to be in a pickle.”

  I shared a look with Reed, who nodded. “You stay with us, then,” I said. “Until we get a solid idea where she is.”

  “What about the succubus?” Augustus asked.

  “I want to say we leave her to last,” I chewed my lip, “but the truth is she's as dangerous as any of the others. Maybe more so, depending. She's vanilla right now, I think, but who knows? Maybe she's got a power she's hiding. Plasma guy wasn't exactly throwing that around last time. Whatever the case, we have our priorities. Stop the chaos, cut off their retreat, then converge and bag the rest.”

  “Texas is generally cool with us knocking off metas if they present a threat,” Reed said, voice straining. “They won't give us any trouble. Not after this shit.” He looked at me with great significance.