I must have looked surprised. “A bespoke suit needs a good tailor,” he said. Cryptic as all hell to me. He took my measurements. Another thing to throw in the basket of the bizarre: Mutter the tailor.
Boots echoed on the stairs. I tensed. Support?
Keisha appeared, sheepish. “Sorry I’m late.”
“For once, your timing is perfect, Steel Witch,” Mutter said. He turned back to me. “You can go.”
Keisha rolled her eyes at me as we passed each other.
Back upstairs I wandered around the barn. I was restless. Part of me couldn't believe Gus had just run like that. Maybe he was hiding someplace in the barn. There was no sign of April—she was probably in her quarters below, and Peep was still back at the farmhouse. This was the perfect time to poke around. Other than the van, the floor of the barn was empty. But a ladder went up to a loft area, which was now some kind of office.
Filing cabinets lined one wall, drawers open and papers scattered over the floor. Total mess. Weird. Records of some kind I guess, but I didn’t stop to look. I felt like I was walking in a minefield, and at any moment, the room would explode around me. There was a door at the far end. It was unlocked.
Inside the room was dark. There was a shit stink. I fumbled around for a light switch. My fingers found the switch, and flipped the lights on. The room was filled with survival gear, rope, pallets of water bottles, lots of plastic sheeting. A plastic tarp hung on the far wall.
The smell got stronger as I neared the tarp, making my eyes water.
I hesitated. I definitely smelled shit, mingled with the coppery tang of blood.
My fingers trembled as I pulled back one corner of the plastic sheet, on the top right.
Blood-soaked, greasy black hair.
My breath froze.
I pulled the tarp down further.
Tie-down cords lashed Gus to the cement wall, arms out, like he had been crucified. His eyes—one was gone, leaving only a bloody socket, the other was half out. His mouth hung slack, too slack. His jaw had been broken. Dried blood caked his face and neck. It was like he had exploded from within.
His skin was spiderwebbed with red veins. He had exploded from within, as though someone had filled him with air.
Mutter.
Gus’s fingernails had left bloody gouges in his own palms.
I collapsed to my knees, squeezed my eyes shut, but couldn’t get the image of Gus out of my head, his eyes staring at nothing, dead. Someone moaned softly. It was me.
I whimpered. Rocked back and forth.
Bastard Mutter had killed him. Tortured him to death.
“Oh, Gus,” I whispered. “You didn’t run away. You stayed.” Guilt washed over me. If only he had run off. But he stayed. If only I’d listened and gone with him, he’d be alive now. But he’d stayed and been murdered.
Mutter had had the balls to sit there and ask us what had happened to Blender. To go on and say that Gus's absence didn’t matter. Murdering bastard. He'd probably been laughing inside at his sick joke. Sure, Gus didn’t matter now, he was dead, killed by our lunatic leader.
It must have been like pulling the wings off a fly for Mutter. My chest tightened. Damn Mutter.
I got up and covered Gus. I’d have to tell Winterfield about him, have him collected, so he could be given a decent burial somewhere. Or was it a cremation? Gus had never told me what he wanted.
I dried my eyes.
I couldn't cry now. Crying was weakness, and weakness would mean death. I couldn't be afraid, either, it would reveal me. And I couldn’t show my anger. I forced my fingers to unclench. Took a deep breath. The smell of Gus’s shit made me sick. I left the room and closed the door behind me. Took another breath. I felt my anger inside me, like a volcano about to explode. I couldn’t do that. Not now.
I snuck back to my room and took a long shower, but I couldn’t wash the smell away. There was a flower in my room, an African violet, dying in its little pot. I watered it and stroked its leaves with my finger. My emotions were a roiling mess. If I sent my power into the flower, I might kill it.
But I had to do something. I brushed at it gently, like the African violet was made of the thinnest paper and might tear or crumple if I pressed too much into it. The flower swayed, petals opening. I hoped it was enough.
I didn't have much time.
I went back down to the river once more, my one-shot cell phone in my coat pocket. The wind rustled the grass along the shoreline, a natural breeze without Empowered intervention.
The Meadowlark was gone and the willow trees shivered in the breeze, buds eager to blossom.
My hand closed on the phone in my pocket. I couldn't push the image of Gus out of my mind, Christ-like in death, his skin a patchwork of bruises and dried blood.
One call.
One call was all the phone would give me.
I wondered how Ruth was, how sick she was today, and what the twins were doing.
Would Winterfield honor our agreement? Would Support say I'd done my job if I called them in now? I didn’t know. Maybe yes. Maybe no.
Would that be the right thing to do?
I thumbed the phone, dialed.
Put it to my ear, closed my eyes, and waited for the answer.
"Hello?" Ella said.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
"Ella, it's me, big sis."
"Mat!" Concern filled her voice. "Where are you?"
"I can't say right now."
"That man hasn't come back," she said.
I tucked my head, hunched over. If I had anything to say about it, he never would again.
“I am glad to hear that.” I said. "How's Ruth?”
The sound of a door opening and a car engine.
"I'm outside now, on the porch," Ella said. "Ruth isn't doing so well, but she acts like everything is fine. You know Grandma."
Yeah, that sounded just like Ruth. "How's Ava?"
"She's still really mad at you."
"I'm sorry," I said. I wiped my eyes. "I didn't want it to be like this."
"Mat, I know you care about us."
"Thanks."
"No," she said, more insistent. "I mean it, I know you really, really care about us, and whatever you are doing is to help us out."
I dabbed my eyes. "That means a lot."
"I wanted to tell you that. You must be in a bad place by the way you sound. I wanted you to know we all care about you. Even Ava. We're worried. But I also wanted to let you know I love you, and love you even more for trying to take care of us."
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I love you, too,” I said. “All of you.”
“I know. Grandma and Ava do, too, really.”
Her voice got small.
“Big sis?”
“Yes?”
“Be strong. We’re thinking of you, always.”
The horror of Gus’s death was still with me, but I felt my little sister’s love and concern, and suddenly, I felt lighter.
"I'll call again as soon as I can," I said when I was able to speak again.
"Take care, big sis."
"You, too, little sis."
I thumbed the phone off. The display went red, then black. I couldn't turn it on again.
I pulled my arm back, threw the phone as far as I could out into the river. It spun as it hurtled through the air, splashed fifty yards out, and vanished into the dark water.
CHAPTER 17
“Hey!” Keisha’s angry shout snapped me out of my brooding.
I’d been on the riverbank for maybe fifteen minutes since calling Ella, just staring at the river, trying to keep the rage inside me from exploding.
Keisha ran down the grassy hill towards me. Her black leather coat billowed around her like the wings of some giant bird. She slipped and fell, got back up. She reached me, breathing hard.
“Did you know?” She gasped, bent over, took in huge gulps of air. “Mutter says Gus is dead.” She put a hand on my arm as she struggled to
stop gasping.
“Gus took off,” I said. It sounded lame, even to my ears.
She straightened up. “So, he did split?” Her chest heaved.
I swallowed. Damn this was hard. “Once a weasel, always a weasel.” If she found out Mutter had killed him, she would try to kill him here. But not now. He might be expecting it. And we wouldn’t have him red-handed, stealing the amplifier, so I could show the Scourge that he had betrayed them. Yeah, that was a long shot, but what choice did I have? Either way, it had to be when he wasn’t expecting it. In the middle of the Sequoia job. Not here where he was strong and had April watching his back.
Her eyes narrowed. “The lying sack of shit, Mutter, he said Gus is dead. To my face. Implied he killed him.”
I pulled away from Keisha. I had enough trouble keeping myself from trying to murder the monster. Restraining Keisha would be a tall order if she knew the truth.
“What happened?”
“I found him down in the bunker with April, by the rooms they say are off-limits to the rest of us. Told him I couldn’t find Gus; he must have run off.” She scowled. “You know what that fucker did? He laughed. Said something like, “Blender should have been so lucky." I asked what he meant by that, and he told me Gus was dead, that he was unreliable.” She stomped her foot. “You only say shit like that if you did it.”
“He’s lying.”
“Why would he?”
“He’s trying to scare you.”
“We next?”
“That’s what he wants us to think.”
The air crackled. The dirt began to vibrate and smoke. Tiny bits of metal, red-hot, floated around her outstretched hand. She flicked a finger and the bits came together like potter’s clay, spun, formed a long, slender barbed nail. “He’s not going to scare me,” Keisha said.
More metal appeared.
“Just take a deep breath,” I told her. She needed to calm down now. My own anger still roiled inside me.
She shook her head. “Fucker can’t intimidate me.”
Messing with people’s head was what Mutter really loved to do.
“Just ignore him.”
Two nails now, spinning in the air.
“I don’t think he’s lying.” She gave me a hard look. Her scowl deepened. “Where is Gus?”
“He left.”
“Without saying anything?”
I shrugged.
She stretched out her palm, and the nails stopped spinning, dropped into her open hand.
“Really?”
“You know Gus,” I said.
“Yeah, I do. He’s a weasel, but he’d tell one of us, me or you. Maybe both. If he was that scared, he’d have tried to get us to leave with him.” She leaned in close. “I think you are lying.”
“No.”
“He is dead!”
She whipped around, and the two nails hurled across the river into the nearer willow on the half-submerged island. The tree’s shriek filled my mind and I clutched at my head.
“Why are you lying to me!” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
I shoved her back. “Because I’m trying to save our asses.”
She swung at me, her fist smashed my jaw, and I went down.
I swept my legs around and knocked her on her ass. She sat up just as I tackled her and we slammed into the ground. We wrestled in the dirt. I finally managed to get on top of her and pin her arms to ground.
“I don’t want you to die,” I said in her ear.
She froze. “Why the hell would you care?”
I held her against the ground. “Because I do. Because, like it or not, Keisha, we’re friends, and friends look out for each other.”
“But why would he kill Gus?” She shoved at me. “Damn it, why?”
This was it. It was all in or nothing at all now.
“Because Gus found out what Mutter is really up to.”
She blinked.
“Listen," I whispered. “Gus came to me and said Mutter was after something called an amplifier, a piece of tech that boosts an Empowered’s abilities.”
“Does the Scourge know about this?”
I sat up, rolled off her, and helped her sit up. “No, and Mutter wants to keep it that way.”
“We need to tell them then. Now.”
I shook my head. “How are we going to reach them? Do you have a number we can call? I sure as hell don’t. Do you see any way other than that medallion thing Mutter keeps around his neck?”
“I still want to kill that asshole,” she growled.
“So do I,” I whispered.
I got to my feet. “But we have to do this right. We have to catch him red-handed, kill him and then contact the Scourge.”
Keisha brushed herself off, gave me a hard look. “So, we go through with this crazy-assed plan, and then, when the time is right, we take him and April down?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
“You give me the signal—shout “For Gus,” and I’ll kill that fucker deader than dead. April, too.”
“For Gus,” I said.
CHAPTER 18
The helicopter banked over Puget Sound, rotors whirring. The waters sparkled below us, the wakes from boats gleaming white. I leaned into my harness. My stomach lurched and I thought I was going to throw up. Keisha was beside me, hands clutching her armrests. Peep sat behind us, humming. Crazy creep. April piloted the copter while Mutter lounged in the copilot’s seat. He acted like he was sightseeing rather than leading us into the dragon’s den, pointing out the Space Needle and other Seattle landmarks.
We flew past a white surveillance blimp. That was a bad sign.
There was a worse one below us. A huge aircraft carrier floated in the Sound, the United Nations flag flying above her bridge alongside the gold Hero Council banner. Black helicopters and jets lined her flight deck.
I craned my head around as we passed in time to see a blue streak land on the deck. An Empowered. A moment later another landed, this one in bulky armor. Dynamo-- Karl Cooper of the Hero Council’s First Team. The name Protector was painted in huge white letters on the far side of the ship’s superstructure.
We were in deep trouble. “First Team’s here,” I told the others.
Keisha shot me a worried look. “Damn it,” she said.
“Not to worry,” Mutter said, as if that were the end of it.
First Team had four members. It was first among the North American sanctioned Empowered. Other teams had usually had three Empowered. First Team always had four.
I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t be getting out of this one alive.
The Space Needle rose off to our left, an HC pennant flying beside the US and Washington State Flags.
Keisha and Peep saw it, too. I heard Keisha swear under her breath.
“We have to get out of here,” Peep said. “Seattle is crawling with sanctioned Empowered.”
“Like I said, all under control.” Something in the way he said the words stood my hair on end. He seemed happy that the Hero Council was here in force.
“But they’ll hit us like God’s hammer,” Peep yelled over the rotor’s whine.
Just like when the Hero Council had come down on the Renegades.
“Exactly,” Mutter said, pleased with himself.
“I didn’t sign up for suicide.” Peep was having a rare moment of reluctance.
“Not to worry, my friend,” Mutter replied. “You didn’t. Like I said, this is all under control.”
Mutter wanted the Hero Council to be here.
We flew over the Sequoia building and landed on the helicopter pad next to the building. Inside the Sequoia a half-dozen redwoods rose, green giants towering two hundred feet above the ground.
Keisha squeezed her eyes shut and mumbled under her breath.
I leaned over as the helicopter approached the landing pad.
“Hang tough.” I squeezed her shoulder.
She nodded.
My heart hammered in my chest. I needed to follow my own
words.
The black Support two-piece suit was tailored for me, just like Mutter had said it would be. I carried a standard issue thin-line briefcase, Support wrist comm, comp-pad, and wore fake Super Shades. That’s what Mutter called them when he'd handed them out, sneering at his own words.
I carried a mini-stunner holstered inside my suit. The suit made me feel even more awkward--I'd never worn one before.
Keisha and Peep dressed the same, were equipped the same, Peep had given up his creep glasses for the Super Shades, his eyes hidden behind the mirrored lenses just as ours were.
April and Mutter were in their blue Hero Council jumpsuits. April wore her helmet but Mutter left his in the helicopter
Seemed like a dead giveaway to me, but Mutter brushed aside my concern.
“Suit ID,” he said. “And we’re in the database. Facility security will recognize me as sanctioned.”
Incredible. I couldn’t imagine how Mutter had managed to get entries for him and April into Support’s computer system. If he was lying, this was going to be a very short job.
We walked in a wedge, Mutter and April in the front, me behind Mutter’s right, Keisha behind April’s left, and Peep behind us.
The surveillance blimp was overhead. A blue streak hurled up from the Sound and entered the observation blister in the blimp's belly.
Great, we were going to be filmed in full color from all angles when they caught us. Or killed us.
April flashed an ID badge at the first checkpoint, outside the building. Security was a two-person team behind a standing console with a Clearplex bullet screen, a man and a woman, both in standard Support black two-piece suits like me, wearing Super Shades and, no-doubt, holstered stunners inside their suits.
The woman's hands worked the console while her partner held up a scanner. April waved the badge in front of it.
There was a beep and a green light flashed on the front of the console.
"You're good to go, ma'am," the woman said. She did it for each of us.
“Okay, thanks,” the guy said. Waved us past.
The next checkpoint was at the entrance to the building itself. It had two doors, like an airlock.
The six-story building's exterior was all Clearplex, a very transparent glass that almost looked as if it wasn't there.
The Empowered Series (Book 1): Empowered (Agent) Page 20
