Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4)

by Niall Teasdale

  Mink half-accepted his change of subject. ‘Elaine said you were more sure than “might have been.” She said you wouldn’t explain how you got the information.’

  A number of emotions warred within Damian. Bianca had just let him uncover her biggest secret. There was absolutely no doubt that she was letting him uncover it; she had hoped he would get over his reluctance to accept it, and he had, faced with the obvious. Did he have a right to keep his biggest secret from her? But saying it meant accepting it. Saying it out loud, and not in his head, made it real.

  ‘I… just know, from the crime scene, that Beatdown was there. Detective’s intuition.’

  Mink did not laugh. Instead, she lifted a hand and ticked off points. ‘You’re a very observant man. You hear things I don’t, but I notice things. Like when you heard Marie outside the door before she pressed the buzzer. You heard me land on the elevator floor and I’m good at stealth. You were too far out of your seat for it to have been the door opening. You could operate fine in the smoke when we took down that trafficking shipment. The gunmen were working blind, but you knew exactly where they were. And Cygnus has this trick she does. She calls it hypersensory psychometry, or something like that. Reading objects and environments, collecting clues below the conscious level to get a view of past events. Kind of like knowing that Beatdown was there when your victim died…’

  ‘Are you suggesting I’m an Ultrahuman?’

  ‘I know you are. What I’m wondering is whether you do.’

  Damian frowned as his heart tried to strangle him. ‘You know I am?’

  ‘Hugh Last worked it out. You were interfering with some of his instruments. He analysed the disturbance, just to be sure it wasn’t anything important. And it wasn’t. It isn’t. I can’t speak for most of humanity, but I don’t give a fuck whether you’re an Ultra or a guy with really good ears. It goes no further than this room, but if you know… I’d kind of like you to trust me, considering.’

  ‘Uh… Oh… Uh…’ He looked up to find her looking at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘I knew, sort of. More of that denial stuff I had with you. I grew up being taught that Ultras are…’

  ‘Monsters?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Some of them are. Some of them are paragons of virtue. Most of them are just people with a lot, or a little, power. I think… Do you want to know what I think?’ She got a short nod in reply. ‘Good. I think that if you’ve got a talent, you should use it, preferably for something good. I happen to have lucked out in a genetically normal but bell-curve-exploding manner, so I put on this outfit from time to time and pummel bad guys. Cygnus was possessed by an alien police officer, so she goes out to exact justice on people by drop-kicking them across a continent. You, apparently, have some enhanced sensory capabilities and I’m willing to bet you could develop them. And there’s no real reason anyone should know about them if you don’t want. You’re already a cop, so it’s not like you need registration to arrest criminals.’

  There was silence for a few seconds. Then Damian said, ‘I have good hearing, vision, very good sense of smell. When my night vision gives up, I can… feel what’s going on around me. I can usually tell when people are lying to me, usually detect an Ultra when I can touch them. That’s how I know you’re not one. And the psychometry thing sounds about right. It’s just like that. I saw Beatdown blasting Rachel Halford into a window.’

  ‘But you can’t use it. Not really. It’s a bit like Twilight’s information source. You can use it to push you in the right direction, but you can’t really use it in court. You’re providing highly subjective information from one source which can’t be corroborated. There’s no point in even telling anyone official about it, but you can talk to me, or Elaine, because we’re not restricted in the same way.’

  Damian nodded and gave a small frown. ‘You’re right. I can’t employ this with any legal force, but there’s no reason I can’t use it to investigate further.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I’ve got further evidence that it was a murder anyway. The autopsy came back. Injuries “not entirely consistent” with the way she seems to have fallen. Who jumps backward off a fire escape anyway? No trace suggesting anyone else was there, but the catch on the window gave no fingerprints at all. Would you wipe your fingerprints off a window latch before jumping to your death? And leave your bed unmade?’

  ‘I make my bed every morning.’

  Damian thought of the rumpled sheets upstairs and grunted. ‘Not everyone does.’

  ‘Of this I am aware.’

  Mink was smirking, and looking more like Bianca, and Damian found himself unable to keep the grin off his face. ‘Okay, so why would Beatdown want to kill some singer?’

  ‘That part is easy. Rachel Halford ratted him out to the Stars three years ago. The question is not why he did it, but whether you want to make that information known. If it becomes an Ultra case, the UID are going to step in. They’ve taken the bank robbery off the SFPD already.’

  ‘So we keep it quiet. It’s a murder and we’ve established that I’m not required to provide the evidence I have…’

  ‘A little dodgy, but I am not going to disagree with your rationalisation. There’s no official record of Halford contacting the Stars. Lament can get… quite fixated when it comes to her brother. More than usually ready to disobey the letter of the law.’

  ‘Right… Um, look… I’ve never told anyone about… what I can do.’

  ‘I’m not going to–’

  ‘Not even myself.’

  ‘Then, thank you. You should know that Hugh told Cygnus. She told me. I’m the only one who knows exactly what you can do, but I’d worked out it was probably sensory. Twilight and June were there when Cygnus told me. None of them care, beyond a little worry about how it might affect you and me. They aren’t going to mention it to anyone else.’

  ‘I… can’t believe I’m saying this, but I trust them. All of them. But my point was that it’s still going to take me time to accept this. It’s the first time I’ve admitted that… that I’m not human, out loud.’

  Mink stared at him for a second. ‘Damian… You’re as human as you ever were. That’s human. Ultras aren’t another species. The genetic differences are miniscule, minor mutations of the genome. Almost everyone has most of the same mutations. I do. Elaine does. You undoubtedly have a couple we don’t, assuming these powers just developed, but that doesn’t make you something… else.’

  ‘It–’

  ‘And,’ she went on with some force, ‘you’re the same interesting guy I decided I needed to get to know. Always have been.’

  ‘So… us bumping into each other at the park wasn’t exactly unplanned?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Huh. I’m going to overlook that subterfuge because I’m mesmerised by that vent in your costume.’

  Mink smiled. ‘Why do you think it’s there?’

  New Millennium City, MD, 13th December.

  ‘Well, that confirms it,’ Penny said, hitting the mute on the TV. ‘Whoever Jason Sweet is, he’s got more than just charm.’ She turned her head and glanced at Svetilo. ‘Your lapse of judgement was almost certainly forced.’

  They had just finished watching Ultras Tonight and Marta Hendry’s glowing review of the Gates of Hell. Club reviews were not even part of the show and she had only got the plug in by linking it to Cygnus, and mentioning that ‘it was a shame she left when she did since the party really took off not long after she left with new beau, June Summerfield.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ June asked. ‘Some sort of psionic ability?’

  ‘I’m thinking that I run a wide-area psionic suppression field as part of my social configuration, and he couldn’t do anything until I left.’

  ‘Marta was pretty negative about him when we saw her. Now she’s acting like he’s God’s gift to the clubbing circuit.’

  ‘Felt the same to me,’ Svetilo said. ‘Was not until following day that I wondered what I wa
s thinking when I agreed to… I will not go into details.’

  ‘Thank you, Dom,’ Penny said. ‘I don’t think I want to know. The guy was…’ She shuddered. ‘I didn’t much like him before he opened his mouth, and then it went downhill from there.’

  ‘With me, was sort of opposite. I did not like him, and then he spoke to me and it seemed like I just wanted to do whatever he asked.’

  Penny chewed her lip. ‘So it’s probably tied to his voice, but it’s psionic too.’

  ‘Like the imps,’ Andrea said, absently reading one of June’s fashion magazines. ‘They gibber at you. You have to hear the gibbers for it to work. But then it’s more like the words go straight into your brain.’

  ‘They do not suggest you perform unnatural acts with a wine bottle,’ Svetilo muttered.

  ‘And we’re back to details I don’t need,’ Penny said, throwing a seat cushion at the Russian.

  Svetilo caught the pillow. ‘I will be out of your hair tomorrow. Building is back up to code.’

  ‘We should probably perform some natural acts with a wine bottle later then,’ Andrea suggested. ‘Your last night and all.’

  ‘Da. I should totally move back in with hangover.’

  14th December.

  ‘So… Dom looks kind of shell-shocked,’ Andrea said as Penny poured coffee.

  ‘Yeah…’ Penny replied, smirking.

  ‘Finally gave her what she’s been wanting for months then?’ When Andrea had gone to bed, her three companions were still up, and still drinking.

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘She normally looks more… triumphant after a conquest.’

  ‘Yeah… She’s probably not used to being ganged up on…’

  Svetilo wandered past, muttering. ‘Dvoye iz nikh. Oni ne ostanovyatsya. Dvoye iz nikh.’

  ‘You any idea what that means?’ Andrea asked under her breath.

  ‘No, but she’s been saying it with a dazed expression on her face since she woke up.’ Penny raised her voice and added, ‘At least she doesn’t seem to have a hangover.’

  The only reply was, ‘Dvoye iz nikh…’

  San Francisco, CA.

  ‘This is quite a setup,’ Damian said, nodding as he looked around the underground lair of the enigmatic Mink, which happened to be under Bianca’s house.

  ‘June called it the Mink Cave,’ Bianca replied, ‘and it’s kind of stuck.’

  ‘It’s got way better plumbing than a cave,’ Elaine said. ‘And believe me when I say that was no easy job.’

  ‘Okay,’ Damian said, ‘so you said you had some more information on Beatdown?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Bianca agreed, ‘but how’s the investigation going with what you have?’ She waved at the seating and they settled down to discuss things.

  ‘Between the autopsy and the interviews I’ve done, it’s been marked down as a suspicious death. None of her friends or family noticed any signs of depression. Her band was beginning to take off. She had no reason to kill herself. I couldn’t find anyone who saw anything odd, but one of the neighbours remembered hearing a crash, maybe someone shouting, on Thursday night, around ten p.m., they thought. That fits in with the TOD the ME gave us. Of course, the neighbour didn’t think anything of it until I asked the question.’

  ‘I somehow doubt it would have made that much difference to the outcome.’

  ‘No… No, it probably wouldn’t.’

  ‘Okay… What we have is more to do with the bank robbery, but it might give you a few leads, or point you in a different direction… Beatdown appears to be working with someone else.’

  ‘From the profile I read, that’s not usual.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Elaine said, ‘but his partners in crime are a little unusual. Cygnus and Twilight ran into her and her cronies in New Millennium. She was responsible for the Excelsior releases. Calls herself Diamond.’

  ‘She’s got some sort of card motif,’ Bianca continued. ‘Always has twelve men on her team. The members vary, aside from two who seem to be quite constant. One of them looks like he could be an Ultra, or is just really big. The other is smaller, but he’s built like a martial artist. I think we’re looking at muscle and precision. Diamond is the brains.’

  ‘But lethal brains,’ Elaine said sourly. ‘She psychotic. No one’s sure how many people she’s killed. She likes skinning them. Slowly. I mean, over days. She’s a meticulous planner. The bank job has her fingers all over it. She knew exactly how it was going to play out, and Twilight spotted her in the camera footage we got from the bank. She was there, among the customers, and just walked out afterward while her people escaped.’

  Damian frowned. ‘And someone like that allowed Beatdown to revenge-kill Rachel Halford?’

  ‘Ah,’ Bianca said, ‘well…’

  ‘You think she doesn’t, or didn’t, know he killed Halford?’

  ‘I think she’d have done a proper job of it.’

  ‘Maybe even helped,’ Elaine said. ‘Certainly she’d have made sure you thought it was just a suicide if that was how she thought it should be played.’

  Nodding, Damian considered how the situation affected his case. ‘She’s an Ultra?’

  ‘As far as anyone can tell, no. She’s just a really bad example of a normal human.’

  ‘Huh. If she figures out Beatdown did it, you think she’ll try to cover it up?’

  ‘Or,’ Bianca said, ‘we’re going to find Beatdown somewhere with his skin removed.’

  ~~~

  Briefly, as he watched the young man Diamond had hung up by his wrists in the basement of the house, Beatdown wondered whether he would lose the dinner he had eaten not that long ago upstairs. He had wondered where the blonde beauty he had teamed up with was while he ate with the guys, her suit. Rex had said she was busy and that she wanted to see him later. Considering a few of the things Diamond had got up to with him, Beatdown had been fairly keen for ‘later’ to arrive. Now… not so much.

  ‘It’s been weeks,’ Diamond said, watching the half-dead body twist from the ropes. ‘No, months since I’ve had someone to play with. Do you know why that is, Simon, honey?’

  ‘Uh… no,’ Beatdown managed. He watched rivulets of blood work their way down the naked body and swallowed back bile.

  ‘It’s risky. Someone just might connect one of my friends with a few others I’ve had. In New Millennium City, for example. So I need to be really, really careful. When this one’s no longer fun, Rex will make sure no one ever finds him. There are plenty of sharks in the Bay, I hear, but I think we might just take him out into international waters.’ There was a whimper from the boy, the heavy gag covering his lower face making speech almost impossible, and Diamond smiled brightly. ‘Don’t you worry, honey. You’ll be dead by then. You won’t know a thing about it.’

  ‘S-so… Uh, why now?’

  ‘Well,’ Diamond said, vaguely waving the diamond-shaped blade she had been using to dissect her current victim, ‘here’s the thing.’ Beatdown found himself fascinated by the way the blood ran down her arm as she moved. ‘I was restraining myself, and that’s not an easy thing, believe me. I love playing with my new friends. You could call it an addiction, I suppose. But it was for the greater good, y’know? The plan. Stay under the radar until we had ourselves all set up good and proper. And then… Well, some asshole murdered his old girlfriend!’

  Beatdown staggered back, bumping into the cellar door as the diamond blade thudded into the wood a bare inch from his ear. ‘I… I didn’t–’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, sugar,’ Diamond hissed. ‘Don’t deny it. The first thing I did when I came to this soggy shit pile of a city was to get ears in the homicide department. Suspected suicide is ruled suspicious and who comes up in the background check on the victim? Simon Taverner.’ She stabbed a finger out at him. ‘Don’t. Just don’t.’

  ‘I… um… I’m sorry?’

  Diamond smiled, the anger vanishing from her face in an instant. ‘Oh, honey, what’s done is done. No sense in crying over
spilled blood, y’know? I need you, don’t I? Otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you to join me.’

  ‘Right. Yeah. It… won’t happen again, Diamond.’

  ‘No, honey. It won’t. I know it. You know it.’ She turned and smiled at her plaything. ‘Because now you know what’s gonna happen to you if it does. Now, you run along and leave me to finish up here. I think I might be able to get another day out of this one. He’s a strong boy. Aren’t you, baby?’

  The only reply was a muffled moan. Beatdown could not leave the room fast enough.

  New Millennium City, MD, 15th December.

  ‘I thought you’d left,’ Penny said, looking up at Svetilo with a grin on her face.

  ‘Oh, I am like Soviet Army: once we move in, there is no getting rid of us,’ the Russian replied. ‘Calendar is on sale. I came to discuss early figures.’

  Penny raised an eyebrow but led the way through to the lounge where June was busy with the coffee pot. ‘Hey, Dom,’ June said, smiling. ‘Back for round two?’

  Svetilo held up her hands. ‘Net! You two are demony… demons. What is the word? Sukkubami, uh…’

  ‘Succubi?’

  ‘Da! Evil succubi.’

  ‘Well,’ Penny said, smirking, ‘June and I agreed that you were the last time we’d do that. We’re going to be exclusively exclusive from now on. Not,’ she added quickly, ‘that we have any regrets about holding you down and turning you into a gibbering idiot with sensory-overload issues, but we think…’

  ‘That my having two sexy lovers is quite enough without extras,’ June said.

  ‘Da. I would be happy. I am honoured to be last victim of your demonicheskiy wiles. Now, calendar is on sale–’

  ‘For, like, an hour!’ Penny exclaimed. ‘How are you talking about sales figures after an hour?’

  ‘Online sales report. Pre-order sales–’

  ‘There were pre-orders?’

  Svetilo sighed. ‘Da. Pre-order sales went out last night. Those were good. Sales on web site are seventeen per cent above projections. Of course, we do not have figures from major online retailers yet…’

  ‘I haven’t looked,’ June admitted. ‘Haven’t wanted to, in case it was low… This is great! We should get drunk.’