Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4)

by Niall Teasdale

  They were, apparently, lucky. ‘Apparently, she didn’t want to stick around to watch,’ Damian commented as they stopped on the opposite side of the street and looked back at the still intact building.

  ‘You are sure there are explosives in the building?’ Fuego asked.

  ‘I could smell–’ Damian began, and then the building exploded.

  It was something like a small earthquake. The ground seemed to ripple and then heave. The building itself appeared to lift up, developing a malign, looming quality for what seemed like seconds but was probably not. Then it collapsed back, along with a section of roadway and the yard to either side. When it settled again, the lower floor was less than half the height it had been, the roof had entirely lost its pitch, and the upper floor was leaning inward alarmingly. Flames began to lick up through the wreckage.

  ‘Yeah,’ Mink said. ‘I’m absolutely positive there were explosives in there.’

  ~~~

  ‘You think any of them were inside when it went up?’ Rex asked.

  ‘We’ll see when the news reports come out in the morning,’ Diamond replied, smiling. ‘I think that would be too much good fortune, but we can hope. Is the new place as nice as the last, sugar?’

  ‘I think you’ll like it.’

  ‘Good. I could use the boost. I sorely underestimated Mink. That is one wily lady. I figured, since she works solo, that we needed to remove the Stars, but that just isn’t the case.’

  ‘We’re going after Mink?’ Jack asked from the driver’s seat of their limo. He checked the rear-view mirror for the vans containing the rest of the suit and nodded.

  ‘Yes, we are, but that is going to take a little time. The Nine Kings have been trying for a while and she just beat their flush every time. Her poker face is far too good. We have work to do consolidating our other businesses. We’ll get to Mink when we’re good and ready. But there is one thing I need you to do sooner, Jack?’

  ‘Taverner?’

  ‘We can’t have him talking, sugar. Take care of it, won’t you?’

  Jack smiled. ‘It would be my pleasure, Diamond.’

  New Millennium City, MD.

  ‘You’re sure this is our guy, Andy?’ Cygnus asked.

  ‘No,’ a rather sullen Fire Bug replied. ‘It’s a partial print. A good lawyer would rip evidence like that apart in court. But Arnold’s on my list and it matches his right index finger.’

  They were in an elevator, riding up to the tenth floor of an apartment block in Friendship. Cygnus, Fire Bug, and Svetilo, all there to confront an arsonist who was also an arson investigator. ‘This is uncomfortable for you.’

  ‘I know him. He’s been with the department for years. He was on the ladders when I was a rookie. Came down here from New York when I did. His work has put arsonists behind bars, and now it looks like he’s out to do worse than any of them.’

  ‘He has to be stopped, Andy.’

  ‘I know, but I want to try to do this quietly. That’s why I asked you to come in plain clothes.’

  Cygnus, in jeans and a blouse, had rarely seen Fire Bug without his old fireman’s outfit. He looked smaller, just an average guy in casual clothes, though he was hunching a little with the weight of what he had to do. ‘How do you want to play this?’

  ‘We talk to him. If he’s… uncooperative, you two can handle him, but I’d like to take him in without violence if we can manage it.’

  ‘We do this, Andy,’ Svetilo said as the elevator came to a halt, ‘but for you, da? This man has killed, not by accident but on purpose. He placed bomb in hospital. He does not deserve your compassion.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Fire Bug said, his tone resigned. ‘I know, but…’ Shaking his head, he started out of the elevator car and down the corridor to apartment 1004. There he knocked twice and waited.

  After a few seconds, there was rattling from inside, a click, and the door opened half an inch but no further. Fire Bug reached for the door, but Cygnus stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, easing him back and going first. When she pushed the door open, however, they saw a short and quite empty entrance corridor. Of the apartment’s resident there was no sign. Cygnus walked in, setting her rescue configuration up and scanning with her radar sense. She could see what looked like a bathroom off to the right, a lounge up ahead. In the latter, she could make out a human shape settling onto a seat which faced the door.

  ‘He’s in the lounge,’ Cygnus said. ‘Straight ahead. It doesn’t look like he’s armed or anything. He’s just waiting.’

  Nodding, Fire Bug took the lead, heading for the lounge door. Cygnus glanced back at Svetilo and the Russian settled herself just inside the front door, legs set apart and arms folded over her chest. If the bomber made a run for it and got past Cygnus, Svetilo would stop him. Turning again, Cygnus followed Fire Bug.

  ‘I was expecting you a little sooner, Andy,’ a voice said as Cygnus reached the doorway. ‘And you brought Cygnus with you.’ The man in the recliner was in his fifties, his hair was grey, and his face showed a lot of worry lines. Being in the business of investigating fires had to put a strain on a man. Perhaps some more than others. ‘Arnold Willard, ma’am. We’ve never run into each other at a fire. I usually turn up after it’s over.’

  Cygnus gave him a nod. ‘Captain Willard.’

  ‘Why, Arnold?’ Fire Bug asked. ‘Why did you do it?’

  Willard’s smile was weak, but he met Fire Bug’s eyes. ‘They abandoned Churchton, Andy. Long before the riots, they were cutting back on resources. They had you, and then they had Cygnus. What did they need normal firemen for? Cops too, but that’s their problem. When the riots happened, we lost the only two firehouses they’d left functional and what’s their plan to deal with that? They moved us all out into the richer areas and they’ll get to rebuilding when they can. When they can…’

  ‘It takes time and money, Arnold. It isn’t going to happen overnight and you–’

  ‘They aren’t even sending us to investigate fires in Churchton now. I haven’t been up there since the riot. They’ve abandoned the place. I wanted them to know what it’s like. I wanted them to feel the pain I feel, that everyone up there feels. I wanted–’

  ‘Revenge,’ Cygnus snapped. ‘You wanted revenge and you didn’t think about the consequences.’ Fire Bug turned toward her, opening his mouth to cool her down perhaps, but she lifted a hand to silence him. ‘We’ve been raising money to help get Churchton and Deale back on their feet. People are sympathetic. What do you think is going to happen to that sympathy when they find out these fires have been caused by someone wanting to show everyone else how horrible it is to lose your home? The bomb in the hospital alone was going way too far.’

  Willard seemed to shrink a little, his face contorting as if in pain. ‘That wasn’t… I had to try so hard to make… make the simplest mistake. It all got twisted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I… I met the Devil and he twisted everything. Warnings… Was going to give… warnings for the… for this weekend. He made me… I couldn’t…’

  ‘The Devil made me do it? Really?’

  ‘Arnold,’ Fire Bug began.

  Willard looked up at him, his face clearing. ‘You have to leave. He doesn’t want… I can’t be taken alive. I’ve already… already primed it.’

  Cygnus’s eyes widened as Fire Bug stepped closer to Willard’s chair. She reached out, grabbed the fireman, and lifted him off his feet, hurrying back toward the entrance lobby. ‘Dom, get out!’ she yelled.

  Behind her, Willard said, ‘Too late.’ There was a sound something like a firework going off, a spitting, hissing sound, and then a wash of flaming vapour erupted out from beneath Willard’s chair and he started screaming.

  Cygnus felt the fire wrapping around her, but the heat was kept back by her force field, which filled the corridor and held the flames back in the room.

  ‘Stop!’ Fire Bug yelled. ‘We have to stop the fire or it’ll take out half the building.’

 
‘Yes, sorry.’ Cygnus let go of Fire Bug and slammed her control field down on the flames, feeling Fire Bug doing the same. The fire died away quickly, but not quickly enough for Arnold Willard.

  Cygnus wrinkled her nose. The smell of burned meat was horrific. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Thermite and a pyrophoric vapour,’ Fire Bug said. ‘We’d better get someone up here with some of the neutraliser.’ He walked over to the slumped form of Willard and checked for a pulse. It was not with much hope: the base of the chair was a smoking ruin and Willard’s thighs and buttocks were charred husks. Fire Bug shook his head. ‘The Devil. What the Hell did he mean by that?’

  ‘He lost it? The stress pushed him over the edge and…’ Cygnus trailed off. ‘Unless… The clubs that were hit yesterday? The Gates of Hell wasn’t among them, right?’

  ‘No. He tried to hit Red’s place before then, but the Gates went unscathed. Sweet let us check the place to be sure, but there was no sign of anything there.’

  ‘Newest club in the city should have been a big target, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Da,’ Svetilo agreed from behind them. ‘Gates of Hell should have been among first targets. And Sweet would make a good demon.’

  ‘Circumstantial. Very circumstantial.’

  ‘This is our middle name, is it not?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll look into it.’

  ~~~

  ‘Could someone tell the guy with the drums to stop?’

  Twilight was on her feet and at Heather’s bedside before Jacob had even registered the sentence. ‘Sorry, we paid him for the full hour and he won’t stop until then.’

  Heather groaned. ‘What happened? I remember being cold, and a lot of pain… And I think I blacked out.’

  ‘No, that would be me arriving. You were conscious for a few minutes after I broke you out of the ice. Then I guess you blacked out from the pain and a little hypothermia.’

  ‘Not that we were worried or anything,’ Jacob added. ‘We knew you’d be fine.’

  ‘Tell that to my head,’ Heather replied. ‘You got him?’

  Twilight shook her head. ‘He was gone when I got there and going after him wasn’t an option. We were hoping you can tell us who he is?’

  Heather shook her head and then winced. ‘Remind me not to do that. He was wearing a mask. Full face. I never saw him. But…’ She frowned. ‘I think it was Gary Hopper.’

  ‘And he is?’

  ‘I interviewed a woman called Adele Hopper. She reported her husband missing and it could be the dismembered corpse, and… There was something that wasn’t right. She set my alarms off. Her son’s the right age, build. It’s all pretty weak, but I think it was him.’

  Jacob shrugged. ‘I’ll put him under surveillance.’

  ‘No offence, my love,’ Twilight said, ‘but you’re not exactly inconspicuous.’

  ‘That, my love, is the point. If he’s it, he’ll make a try for me.’

  ‘It might well work,’ Heather said. ‘I just bet they aren’t letting me out of here to help, are they? What happened with the fires?’

  ‘No, you’re not getting out,’ Twilight said. ‘Tomorrow, if you’re lucky. They got the fires under control by about two a.m. Fire Bug, Cygnus, and Svetilo got the bomber this morning.’

  ‘Got him?’

  ‘Well, he killed himself, but there won’t be any more fires. We just need to nail the serial killer and we get a clean sweep.’

  ‘I’ll get right on that then,’ Jacob said.

  ~~~

  Eric Hoffman had never really liked stakeouts. You sat in a car or, if you were really lucky, a building, drinking far too much coffee, watching a lot of nothing happening, usually accompanied by someone who would run out of conversational topics after the first hour or so. The latter was not a problem here because, in or out of costume, Night Shift worked alone. That just meant the silence was louder, but at least it was not uncomfortable. The coffee was just as bad and, for no reason Hoffman could fathom, his quarry seemed to be staking out a doughnut shop, so the coffee was plentiful. The doughnuts were not that bad at least.

  As far as Hoffman could tell, Dannon had not worked out he was being watched. Then again, Dannon was also clearly not that experienced at stakeouts. It was almost as though he wanted whoever he was watching to know he was there. He had been into the shop a couple of times, not bothering to hide the white suit he seemed to be constantly dressed in. He sat in his car, munching on doughnuts and drinking coffee, and in full view of the shop windows. Not wearing the suit’s helmet seemed to be his only concession to stealth.

  The thought occurred that an ex-UID agent, with field experience, would know better. Dannon did want to be seen? Okay, so… Why? Well, if he was hunting his next victim, this was an amazingly stupid way of doing it. Dannon’s partner, Bryant, had apparently been attacked by the killer so maybe she had been able to provide information Hoffman had no access to. Dannon had, also apparently, been helping with the fires when Bryant was attacked, but Hoffman had been unable to verify his location. Dannon could have attacked his partner, but even Hoffman had to admit that it was becoming increasingly unlikely that Dannon was the man they were hunting.

  Playing catch-up ranked just below stakeouts on Hoffman’s list of things he enjoyed, but he needed more information. He picked up a tablet computer linked into his home system and began running queries. Maybe, just maybe, he could work out why Dannon was so interested in a doughnut shop in Deale Harbour.

  ~~~

  Jacob sensed the shadows thickening around him, but he kept his eyes on the building he had trailed Gary Hopper to. He was not surprised when he heard Twilight’s voice.

  ‘He’s in there?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s his apartment block.’

  Twilight stepped up to stand beside Jacob, looking up at the same building. ‘I assume he’s seen you?’

  ‘Unless he’s the most unobservant man on the planet, yeah, he’s seen me. I’m almost certain he saw me on the way here. I’m giving it half an hour to let him see me watching, then I’ll call it a night.’

  ‘I’ll set an imp watching the place, just in case.’

  ‘Wise precaution, but he won’t go out again tonight.’

  ‘Probably. You know Night Shift is tailing you?’

  ‘He’s been sitting in his car watching me watch a doughnut shop all afternoon.’ Jacob sounded amused.

  ‘That guy is a pain in the ass.’

  ‘I won’t disagree. The man employs a PR consultancy so he’s not exactly on my list of likeable Ultras. Still, we’ve shared stakeout boredom, even if we were in different cars. It’s a sort of bonding experience.’

  ‘Maybe you should invite him to join you tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d appreciate how cold I keep the car.’

  ‘Huh. I stopped by at the hospital after work. They’re letting Heather out in the morning. You’ll probably need to dissuade her from joining you.’

  Jacob shook his head. ‘Heather’s sensible about stuff like that. She won’t want to sit in a cold car when she’s recuperating from mild hypothermia. I might have to remind her about the cold, but she’ll stay home. Besides, Roman and Hill called today to ask about us doing some work. She can start things off with that.’

  Twilight smiled. ‘We did say they’d have work for you.’

  ‘Yeah. I wasn’t expecting it this soon, but I’m not complaining. I’ve got bills to pay.’ Above them the lights in the windows of the Hopper apartment went out. ‘Looks like that’s it.’

  ‘I’ll get that imp set up and meet you back at your car.’

  Jacob gave her a slow smile. ‘Staying the night?’

  Twilight returned an innocent look. ‘Well, your place is closer to Radium Comics than mine…’

  29th December.

  The apartment block had been a big clue. Hoffman had been getting nowhere with his research until he had tailed Dannon back to the apartment block. The address was in his case database, in the section on mi
ssing persons. So, it seemed that Dannon was focussing on the Hopper case and a little research indicated that Gary Hopper, son of the missing Donald Hopper, worked at the doughnut shop. A small deductive leap and Hoffman concluded that Dannon suspected Gary Hopper was the serial killer.

  Obviously Bryant had not been able to make a positive identification or the police would already be involved. Unless they were aiming at revenge rather than arrest, but no matter how Hoffman looked at Dannon’s psychological profile, that seemed an unlikely eventuality. Of course, the emergence of Ultrahuman powers could be traumatic and trigger personality shifts… But no. Whether rightly or wrongly, Dannon suspected Hopper.

  And Hoffman had to admit that the young man fitted the rather broad parameters of the case. He worked in the right area of Deale and his home was at the other end of the catchment area for victims. The times of the crime fitted with Hopper’s schedule on leaving work. The same could be said for a lot of people, but there was the added matter of the missing father and the frozen body parts.

  Hoffman spotted a woman, brunette hair poking out from under a woolly cap, walking toward Dannon’s car. She was wearing what looked like Arctic gear, and he could not see her face but she had to be Bryant. Maybe the two detectives were on to something. Maybe Dannon was not the killer.

  ~~~

  ‘Before you say anything,’ Heather said as she closed the car door, ‘I’m not staying long and I got dressed up really warm.’

  ‘Huh, yeah,’ Jacob said. ‘How can you actually bend to sit down in that?’

  ‘It’s not easy. I’m actually starting to sweat in this thing. Anyway, I had a meeting with Mister Hill and we’ve got our first paying job.’

  ‘At the rates we worked out?’

  ‘He didn’t even flinch. Offered a bonus for swift completion too. It’s not exactly exciting. We’re tracking down possible beneficiaries of a will, though the deceased was an Ultra. No one famous, but there’s a rumour he may have a couple of kids out of wedlock and with his mask on, so to speak.’

  ‘Ouch. That’s going to take some doing.’

  Heather smirked. ‘I thought you’d know all about making kids with a mask on.’