by Lee French
“You can’t kill me with a gun, asshole.” The vampire’s voice held so much angry darkness that it sounded like he might rip Privek apart with his bare hands.
Kanik’s eyes went wide with shock at the same moment when Liam realized Andrew had been the one who crashed into them. He held Kanik’s arm with one hand and his own leg with the other. Blood seeped out of the leg to stain his jeans. Privek must have shot Andrew, which Liam had no way to heal.
“Don’t kill him,” Liam shouted. “Not yet.” The fighting had stopped, and everyone in Privek’s entourage stood there, disoriented and confused.
he vampire took another shot to the chest before he batted the gun away and grabbed Privek by the front of his suit, lifting him off the ground. They went twenty feet up and Stephen chose not to bite him or break him in half. At least he responded to orders.
Utterly flabbergasted by this turn of events, Privek flailed in the air. “How? You can’t overcome—? This is impossible! You’re all mine! Kanik! We can still rule this country, side by side, as the power behind the President!”
Kanik lifted his head. “Who cares about that?”
Chapter 22
The dragon burned and bit and scraped. Lily’s gurgles and whimpers echoed all around Bobby, the world shaking as she writhed around in reaction. He burst through Lily’s chest in a blast of fire, spraying blood and gore everywhere and already looking for his next target. It focused on Anita as she turned to watch Lily fall into Tiana’s arms. In that moment when her body went limp and her eyes glazed over, he suddenly got control over his dragons again. They stopped attacking and backed off, all of them confused.
He pulled the swarm together and re-formed on the other side of the barrier between him and her body, unable to do anything but pound on it with one fist. Sam still had control over enough dragons to deny him his other hand and arm up to the elbow. “Let me through, please, Anita! I ain’t controlled no more, I swear, let me see her!” Tears stung his eyes. She could still be alive, he had to hold onto that. “I gotta take her to Liam! Help me save her!”
The debris parted and he saw nothing but Lily, lying there, bloody and still. He grabbed her up and ran for it. The swarm broke out and carried her faster than his legs could, and he felt Sam release the rest. She wasn’t dead, not yet. He couldn’t do anything about Clive, he couldn’t do anything about that little girl or her people, but he could save Lily. He would save Lily. Somehow.
All around him, the zombies looked around, confused. Every last one of them must have been under Kanik’s influence, and now they were free and had no idea what happened. But it didn’t matter, because he needed to save Lily.
He found the smaller group, Stephen holding Privek up in the air. Kanik looked less like a threat than a confused person. The swarm set Lily down beside Liam and Bobby re-formed on one knee between them both. Picking up Lily’s hand, he shoved it into Liam’s. “Heal her, you gotta.”
Liam looked up at him. As he sadly shook his head no, Bobby heard a thump, a clatter, and a shout. Bobby looked past Liam and saw Stephen on the ground, yanking a dart out of his arm. Privek scrambled to his gun, picked it up, and fired all around, hitting Javier in the arm, Liam in the leg, and Kanik in the back. Bobby jumped up and ran straight at him, taking a bullet in the gut and not caring as he leaped and tackled Privek.
“You did this, all of this,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks. He grabbed two handfuls of Privek’s suit and dragged the man to Liam. “Look at what you done, you—” He shoved Privek’s face down at the ragged, bloody hole in Lily’s chest. “There ain’t no words strong enough.”
Chapter 23
Liam knew Bobby didn’t mean to shove Privek at him. It was incidental. What happened was something he had no control over. The woman Bobby shoved at him—one of their kind—was dead, but so freshly dead, he wasn’t sure if she was beyond his ability. All he really knew for sure was that he had no intention of sacrificing himself for someone else, not like that. But Privek wasn’t him. More importantly, he hated Privek.
His power swept him up, daring him to try to resist. What would happen clicked in his head, and he let it. A connection formed as he reached out and grabbed Privek. Liam took Lily’s death on himself, then passed it—along with his own bullet wound—to Privek.
The agent gasped and gurgled and goggled. The woman’s chest healed over. He collapsed and she drew a breath.
For a moment, Liam stared blankly at what he’d done. It filled him with awe and wonder and horror all at once. As he lay back again and stared at the sky, he thought perhaps Privek had gotten off too easy. That bastard deserved something much worse for all he’d done. With that happy thought, he blacked out.
Chapter 24
Camellia stayed still, perfectly camouflaged as she leaned against the wall, watching everything happen. Kevin’s body heat gave him away, standing beside her. “I’m glad we had orders to stay out of this.” Mitchell dove to his knees and shoved the now dead body off the now live one, taking her up in his arms and kissing her.
“Me too.” He sounded noncommittal. She imagined he leaned there casually, arms crossed and aloof. He spent so much time invisible, she had no idea what sort of mannerisms he really had, and made them up in her head.
“I’m thinking maybe I don’t want to be part of the group.”
“No? I’m thinking it’s pretty incredible how they’ll do just about anything for each other. Wouldn’t mind having an in to that.”
Camellia shrugged, distorting her camouflage enough that anyone looking could see her. “A lot of people die around them. Lots of chaos, destruction. Privek was only the first person who wanted to control us. He won’t be the last.” She watched the shiny guy and the vampire checking on everyone over there.
“Maybe so, but even I know that being invisible only keeps people from seeing me. I’m pretty sure I can be detected. I also have a feeling that if I go off on a crime spree, these guys will be the ones hunting me down. For their own safety, if nothing else.”
“I guess you have a point.” Camellia shrugged again. “I suppose it won’t hurt to give them a try, at least.”
“No, I don’t think it will.”
Chapter 25
Bobby got out of the car with Riker, Stephen, and Jayce. Nearly everyone else either needed to rest or had volunteered to deal with all those people. Getting nearly a hundred and fifty formerly homeless folks with minor superpowers across the country without attracting too much attention to the destination presented a complicated problem. Hannah said she’d take care of it, which Bobby appreciated. He didn’t have the first clue how to even start on it.
Lily was fine (thank goodness she left Sebastian in the car, so he didn’t see much of anything), so was Liam. He healed up everyone who’d survived, the drugs wore off for Stephen and everyone else, and they had to figure out what to do with Kanik. The guy needed help, and they’d find a way to get it for him. They’d take care of their own, and that was that. Liam said his parents would help financially, and a few of the others had some money, too. The farm would be in good shape soon enough, and they might just start their own little town.
The only other loose end besides the one they’d come here to take care of was the wormhole stuff. Bobby felt pretty confident a bright light of publicity combined with some sabotage would slow that down enough to trigger all kinds of bureaucracy. Folks would learn more about Asyllis than the few blurry shots a reporter managed to grab, too. He had a lot to say still, and nobody could shut him up about any of it.
General Hanstadt had a really nice house with a really nice front yard. Everything was precise and as close to perfect as nature would allow. It felt artificial and sterile, but that didn’t matter. Bobby led them all up the front walk. The door opened before he had a chance to ring the bell, which didn’t really surprise him. After everything that happened today, they had to be expecting a ten pony circus to ride up to the door and blow it up, or something equally dramatic and dest
ructive.
“Mr. Mitchell.” The General answered the door himself, in uniform. “Please, come in.”
Bobby gave him the most polite smile he knew how and stepped inside the house. “Everybody calls me Bobby. This here’s—”
“I know who your friends are.” His interruption sounded less than friendly without turning the corner to ugly. He gestured for them all to use a particular doorway from the well appointed entry. Inside it, they found unexpected visitors already sitting on the couches and chairs.
The two men in dark suits standing in the corners reminded Bobby too much of ones he’d faced before to be comfortable, but he didn’t suppose members of the Secret Service would leave just because he asked nice. Not when the President of the United States was in the room. Though he didn’t recognize anyone else in the room, he figured they must be important.
“Is it alright if I call you Bobby, too?” The President gave him a perfunctory smile as he stood up and extended his hand to shake with all four of them.
“Yessir, that’s fine. You are part of ‘everybody’ and all.” For some reason, he expected the President to be something more that the ordinary man standing before him. He ought to be big, or shiny, or somehow larger than life. The guy was just a man in a suit, really. Taller than him, sure, and probably twice as smart, but not a superhero. Realizing that made it easy to talk to him. “We weren’t rightly expecting you, sir, or we mighta dressed up a touch.” At least they took the time to clean up all the blood, and Liam sprang for new jeans and shirts. Except for Riker, who insisted upon wearing his Army fatigues.
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve had a rough day.” The President sat back down and gestured for them to follow suit.
Bobby heard Jayce and Stephen both make little noises and mutter to each other as they stepped around the furniture and sat. A glance back showed him Riker found whatever they said funny, too, but he kept it mostly stifled back. The soldier didn’t sit with the three of them—he stood at parade rest behind the couch they took. “That’s one way of putting it, I reckon.”
“We were expecting William Moore to be with you. Is he alright?”
“Yessir, he’s just exhausted. Bunch of us went through a wringer, and the only reason you got this many is on account we figured if no one came, y’all’d get a touch ornery. Sergeant Riker here insisted on coming, too.”
“Buffalo soldier Sergeant Cory Riker, Sir.” Riker saluted. “I want to know how my men and I will be treated after all this.”
General Hanstadt stopped a few steps away from him. “You’re not going to be arrested, if that’s what you mean, Sergeant.”
“We’ll get to that,” the President said with a nod. “First, I want to talk about where we go from here.”
Bobby felt everyone turn and stare at him. His eyes dropped to his lap, where one of his hands rested on his leg, and it fell apart into dragons. The bunch of them turned to watch the President, then all sat obediently in silence. They drew the attention of all those who’d never seen them in person before. It was a kind of power, one Bobby had yet to decide how to feel about.
“You’d be stupid not to be thinking about how you could use us, for the country, for yourself personally, for whatever else, but I’m telling you right here, right now, flat out: ain’t gonna happen. You can’t control us. Even if you could, we won’t let you.”As he spoke, he raised his eyes until he met the President’s gaze, as serious as he ever got. “If’n you try, we’re gonna rain fire and brimstone down on whoever and whatever we gotta to make it stop. We ain’t toys. We’re people.”
“That sounds like a threat,” General Hanstadt growled. He seemed coiled and ready to leap over the couch to protect his Commander In Chief. Bobby noticed the Secret Service agents tensing. Stephen stayed calm, draped on the couch like a coat, and Jayce looked thoughtful as he flipped a small piece of steel over in his fingers.
Bobby nodded. “Point is, you deal square with us and we’ll deal square with you. You mess with us, and you won’t know what hit you.”
Now giving Bobby a calculating stare, the President sat back in his seat, a picture of rigid, forced relaxation. “I came here in the hopes we could work something out for mutual benefit, Bobby.”
Letting out a light snort, Bobby shook his head. “I ain’t stupid. We been abducted, stabbed, shot, poked, prodded, lied to, even killed, all by people what wanted us to ‘work something out for mutual benefit’. I got no faith the US government has our best interests at heart, and ain’t listening to whatever you got to say all doe-eyed.” He stood up, his dragons re-forming his hand again. Stephen floated to his feat and Jayce also stood, shimmering into steel. “Sergeant Riker and his men are under our protection, so’re their families and ours. We ain’t rightly sure if we all still want to be American citizens anymore, we’ll get back to you on that.”
The President frowned. “You can’t just take American land and declare yourselves sovereign. You do that, and it’ll be interpreted as an attempt at secession.”
This wasn’t exactly how Bobby envisioned this meeting. He had a point to make and he made it, and now it was turning into some kind of pissing contest. “I ain’t your enemy, Mr. President. None of us is. Just remember this when you deal with us: we got among us folks what can make fire, disintegrate anything, break a body in half, and fly. You give us a little time, say a month, to bury our dead and set ourselves up, then you send someone out to talk polite-like and we’ll listen.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. President.”
“That went well.” Stephen smirked as the front door closed behind them.
Jayce cracked a grin and chuckled. “You might have told us you were planning on threatening the President of the United States with war.”
“Wasn’t rightly planning on it.”
Stephen clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s what I like the best about you, Bobby. Full speed ahead and damn the consequences torpedoes.”
Riker snorted. “They’re going to try something, just to see if they can get away with it.”
“We’ll be ready for it.”
Sam had ideas about electronic surveillance, and Tiana said something about animal sentries. Even John had thoughts about using the plant life for security.
Bobby opened the front passenger door of the car and climbed in. Jayce got into the driver’s seat and the other two climbed into the back. “Ain’t nobody gonna sneak up on us never again.”
“Yessir, Head Cowboy.” Riker saluted Bobby.
Jayce grinned. “I like ‘Spokesdragon’ better.”
“You would,” Stephen said, shaking his head. “Injun.”
“Fifty percent,” Jayce nodded. “So, technically, I’m a Space Injun.”
Riker grinned. “That makes Bobby a Space Cowboy.”
“Some might call him the Gangster of Love. Or even Maurice.”
“Oh, whatever, just stop someplace so I can get a burger or something.” Bobby laughed with them all, happy he could finally settle down and relax for a while. Then they passed a billboard with a woman dressed like a housewife on it, advertising a maid service. The woman looked a lot like his Momma, which made him think of her, and his smile faded.
He thought about it for a few minutes, scratching his chin. He hadn’t gone to see her since that one day. Time had been tight. Danger had chased him. He’d worried about getting her mixed up in all of his problems. Now, he all that lay behind him. They stopped at a fast food place and got something to eat, and he still thought about it.
“Guys, I gotta bail.”
Jayce took his eyes off the road to glance at him. “Car too slow for you?”
Bobby grinned and shook his head. “Naw, there’s something I gotta do.”
“I’ll go with you,” Stephen offered.
Bobby waved the vampire off. “I’m just going home. Ain’t no big deal. I’ll see y’all back at the farm in a few days. You ask me, I think it’s a good idea for folks to take a buddy when we go
home to visit, but I think I’ll be okay.”
“Head Cowboy only makes the rules,” Jayce smirked, “he doesn’t follow them.”
Rolling his eyes, Bobby pushed the button to roll the window down. “Yeah, whatever. I got someplace to be.” He let the dragons peel off and dart out the window. He heard Stephen say something about him cheating, then he streaked up and away from the car.
Chapter 26
When he reached his Momma’s house, Bobby saw a van from the local news station parked outside, even though it was the middle of the night. National news would probably be here in the morning. That aspect of going public hadn’t actually occurred to him until this moment. Since no one else brought it up, figured no one else thought about it, either.
To avoid attracting attention, he dropped down and re-formed on the back step. The door was locked, of course. He broke in and relocked the door behind himself. He grabbed a banana off the counter in the dark and ate it, then he dropped down on the couch and rubbed his face. How was he supposed to tell her about everything that happened? What would she say about it all? She accepted him for what he was, but that was before…
He saw that girl again. He saw Lily with her chest ripped open. He saw shredded piles of meat. He’d done that, all of it. A hand on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts and made him look up. Momma stood there in her nightdress and slippers, a weary smile visible in dim light coming through the window.
“You look like your Daddy, boy.” She sat next to him, putting her arm around his shoulders. “He used to come out here and sit like that sometimes.”
Bobby leaned into her, grateful he could still have this, at least for the moment. “There’s reporters parked outside.”
“They been there since about a half hour after you went on TV. I saw that, by the way. It’s all over the place. Some folks are saying it’s fake, but I know better.”
“I’m sorry I brought that to your doorstep.”
