Masha wasn’t moving. When Lindstrom set her down on a chair, Tandy realized she was conscious, just blank, staring straight ahead.
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing she won’t recover from. If you cooperate.”
Tandy wasn’t sure she could. She’d reached the point of being able to use her ability on demand—but only when she could concentrate on the flicker of genuine fear roused by Eric’s fire. She wasn’t going to be afraid of Masha’s harmless fog, though perhaps fear of the thin man would help.
For the first time, she let herself wonder how far away the rescue party was. She knew there would be one, but would they get here in time? Kieren and Masha had friends and family looking for them as well and they had been here for weeks. She couldn’t count on a rescue, but she didn’t know how she could begin to escape on her own. Right now, cooperation seemed like her best option.
“Why are you doing this?” She had an idea, but she wanted to hear him say it. Hear him say this ray gun, his Sling Shot, would be used against supers.
“Equality,” he said, surprising her.
“Yeah, kidnappers are always discriminated against,” she said dryly.
“I’m only doing this to level the playing field. Intellect should be prized, not strength. For years I developed technology at Trident. My devices saved lives, changed lives, but every time my work was celebrated in the papers it was just brushed aside as some tool a magnificent super used when they single-handedly saved the world. I saved the world. But could I get my picture in the papers? Of course not. I’m not super.
“But with toys like mine, why do we even need superheroes? If we’re all relying on them, we fail to see the greatness in ourselves, always waiting for some super to drop out of the sky to save the day. Well, I may not be super, but I’m not waiting on anyone to save me. My Sling Shot will bring them back down to earth with the rest of us. And then I’ll be heard and the supers will be ignored for a change, just like the rest of us.”
“You honestly think people will thank you for killing all the supers?”
“Who said anything about killing? That’s why I need the right frequency. I’m just neutralizing them. Giving us all an even playing field again.” He turned, grabbing his Sling Shot, and caught sight of Masha. “I didn’t mean for it to go like this. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“You could let us go,” Tandy suggested softly. “If you turn yourself in, they’ll believe it was an accident.” Accidental kidnapping. She had a feeling the Pierce family would not be so forgiving, but right now she would say anything to get out of here.
“No. No, I can’t stop now.”
Tandy looked toward Lindstrom—maybe he would help them escape? But if she was looking for traces of humanity in him, she was going to have to look deeper. He hadn’t said a word yet and for all the emotion that showed on his face, she couldn’t even be sure he wasn’t a robot. She wouldn’t put it past the thin man to have built his assistants. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who inspired others to follow his orders… unless he had a mind-control ray.
“He won’t help you,” the thin man said, seeing the direction of her gaze. “He believes in our cause. Supers killed his family.”
“Supervillains.”
“And it was superheroes who failed to save them. Does the distinction really make a difference? Lindstrom doesn’t think so. It was his idea to kidnap the Pierce girl in the first place.”
So no help from that corner.
“Now, enough talk.” He hefted the Sling Shot and strode toward her. “Let’s see what you can do.”
A loud thud on the roof stopped his advance. He spun toward the sound, aiming his Sling Shot up as a fist punched a hole in the corrugated metal ceiling. The roof was ripped open like tin foil and DynaGirl flew through the opening, with Eisenmann clinging to her shoulders like a giant backpack.
The thin man pulled the trigger. Eisenmann and Darla were still twenty feet above the ground when the wave hit them. Darla cried out, convulsing mid-air. They plummeted to the cement floor and Tandy screamed. Darla landed hard and lay motionless, but Eisenmann hit the ground rolling. He leapt to his feet and charged.
Chapter Eighteen – David & Goliath
Eric’s fire was gone, smacked into submission by the ray that had knocked them out of the air, but he didn’t need a super power to kick DocDavid’s ass.
The technopath had tracked both DocDavid’s and the Diana sock-puppet’s messages off a dozen dummy servers before they pinged back here, to a warehouse just outside town. Most of the superhero posse was tracking other leads, but Darla had volunteered to fly him out here to check it out.
As soon as they’d seen the black sedan outside as they were flying in, he’d known they were in the right place. Eisenmann had sent out a we found her message to all the others while Darla was ripping open the roof. The cavalry was on its way, but he wasn’t waiting.
Eric charged. The big man against the wall lurched to intercept him, but the other girl, no longer catatonic, leapt up and ran and the big guy changed direction to catch her before she made it to the door, lifting her off her feet as she screamed curses at him in Russian.
“Stop!” The man holding the ray gun yelled. He still leveled the ray at Eisenmann, but with his other hand, he whipped out a handgun and pointed it at Tandy’s head.
Eric stopped so fast his feet skidded. His hands flew up in instant surrender. “Don’t hurt her, David.”
“David?” A disbelieving snort. “Don’t you recognize me, Eisenmann?”
For the first time, Eric looked at the man’s face—and felt all the blood leave his. “Clark?”
He knew this man. He’d worked with him, and not just online. He’d mentored Clark for years before the younger man had abruptly left Trident without a word to anyone.
And now he had a gun on Tandy.
He wanted that gun off her five seconds ago, but without a magic wand he couldn’t get to Clark before he pulled the trigger—and that was giving up on the other girl entirely, the one who struggled against the massive man beyond Clark. Fog began to fill the room, but abruptly vanished as the big man struck her and the girl went limp.
Eric was back in that nightmare, but on the other side of helpless now, watching as Tandy was threatened and there was nothing he could do but stall. The cavalry was coming. Eisenmann may not be a hero, but they were. If he could just distract Clark, keep him from hurting anyone until help arrived, they might all survive this. Keep him talking…
“You’re DocDavid?”
Clark shrugged. “I needed an alias and that one seemed appropriate. David and Goliath, you know.” He lifted the ray gun to his shoulder. “Do you like my Sling Shot?”
“What are you doing? This isn’t you.”
“This is exactly me. We always talked about how unfair it was, remember? That some people were born with a random super power and elevated to near godlike status while the true heroes were ignored because all they had to offer was massive intellect. You wanted to be super. I wanted no one to be. Looks like we’re both going to get a chance at having what we want.” He waved the ray gun at Darla. “It’s time to bring them back to earth and take our turn as the gods. I thought you’d be on my side.”
“If you really thought I would be with you, why the alias? Why use Diana?”
“To motivate you. Keep you focused. You’ve always wanted to be a hero, Eisenmann, so I gave you someone to save.”
“Except she was already past saving.”
“But didn’t she drive you? Look how far you’ve come. We’ve come. You have to admit we worked well together. Until you had to lie about the frequency.”
Eric felt the fire begin to stir at the back of his mind. When was the goddamn cavalry going to get here already? “I didn’t lie.”
“No? Then why does the one you included in your original tests send them into seizures?” He waved the ray toward where Darla was still flat on the ground.
&nbs
p; Because it wasn’t meant for them. The frequency had been slightly different for Frost and for him. He hadn’t thought to include the variance in his original findings because the difference was so slight, but apparently that slight difference was a personalization. “It isn’t the wrong frequency,” he said. “It’s my frequency. It probably only worked on DynaGirl because it knocked her out.”
“You’re saying each super would have their own frequency. A personalized key. That is inconvenient.” Clark raised his voice. “Lindstrom, put Ms. Korlova down and come secure Dr. Eisenmann.”
Eric stood docilely, allowing himself to be bound. He didn’t need his hands anyway. Not with the fire beginning to rumble in the back of his mind. His volatile companion didn’t like the fact that Tandy was in danger any more than he did. It stirred and coiled, fighting its way free of the ray’s containment, even as Eric let himself be confined.
“And the super,” Clark instructed when Lindstrom was done with him. “We’ll need something stronger than zip ties for that one, I’m afraid. Look in my special storage area. I should have some cuffs reinforced with the anti-superstrength polymer.”
Lindstrom departed to obey, leaving Eisenmann and Clark alone, with Tandy huddled silently on the floor, her feet bound, and Darla and Masha unconscious in their respective corners. If not for the fact that Clark still had his gun pointed at Tandy’s head, it might have been downright social.
“Is that still necessary?” Eric nodded at the gun.
“I suppose not.” Clark lowered it, but didn’t put it away. “I wasn’t going to shoot her—not unless you made it impossible not to.”
Funny, he remembered now how Clark had never taken responsibility when things went wrong. He was one of those people who never had choices. The universe made him do it, whatever it was. Eisenmann was just glad nothing had made Clark hurt Tandy.
“She must receive some sort of signal before she emits the psy pulse to shut down the power,” Clark mused. “You did say she had to be in physical contact. That would explain—”
Eric tuned him out, risking a look at Tandy. Her face was bloody, but she met his gaze steadily and gave him a small nod. Christ, she didn’t even look frightened, just ready for whatever he was planning. Incredible. She really would make a phenomenal super hero. He wasn’t sure he could say the same of himself. Darla had once told him that she got a rush out of kicking bad guy ass. Eric had no such rush. He just wanted this to be over. To go back to his lab with Tandy, buy a goddamn mattress and hang onto her for the rest of her life.
The fire roared, a lion in the back of his mind, sounding oddly like it agreed with him—though its approach was much less merciful. It wanted to burn anyone who tried to keep him from Tandy into a pile of ashes. A sentiment he found it hard to argue with at the moment.
Tandy’s eyes widened suddenly and then flicked to the left. Eric followed her gaze—to smoke rising from a trash can. His fire was back. And it was angry at being thwarted.
“There is one thing I probably should have mentioned about the ray,” Eisenmann interrupted Clark’s scientific ramblings. They dared to touch her. The heat was pushing to the front of his thoughts, making it harder and harder to form words.
Clark gave him an arch look, utterly secure in his superiority. “What’s that?”
“It wears off, asshole.”
The Sling Shot and handgun ignited, the burning so hot the metal liquefied in Clark’s hands. He screamed, a high, shrill, agonized wail, but Eric barely heard it. He was the flame now, the voracious mouth of fire, consuming everything that would dare challenge him until the world would know better than to ever stand in his way again.
Chapter Nineteen – Bonfires and Badasses
Tandy rolled away as the first flames exploded into life. Eric wasn’t pulling any punches. The heat seared against her skin, even from several feet away.
One of Clark’s tables stopped her roll. She grabbed the first sharp instrument she could find and sawed the zip tie around her ankles. She needed to get to Eric before he brought the whole building down.
A door banged open and there was a flash of movement, almost too fast to see, then a large figure appeared beside Darla’s supine form.
“Lucien!” Tandy shouted. “Get them out!” The zip tie broke and her ankles jerked apart. “There’s another man. Lindstrom. But you have to get Darla and Masha out before Eric takes the building down!”
He didn’t speak, just gathered Darla up and they were gone—slower now, but still blurred with the unnatural speed.
Tandy came up to her knees. She couldn’t stand with the blood painfully returning to her feet, but she tucked her right arm against her chest and crawled as quickly as she could toward Eric. The fire was everywhere now, smoke billowing in clouds and ripping up her throat with every indrawn breath. “Eric!”
A breeze hit her and Lucien was there at her side. “Come on.”
She shoved his hands away, knowing with his strength he only let her because he felt like it. “I have to get to Eric. I can stop him.”
“He’s going to burn out.”
Tandy shook her head. “Not today. Let me go, Lucien.”
“I’m sorry, Tandy. Darla would kill me if I let anything happen to you.” He reached for her.
She couldn’t fight him. Not with his strength. And she couldn’t let him take her away from Eric. Tandy slapped her good hand on his chest and pushed. “Stop.” He staggered back, his face reflecting the shock of having his strength and speed suddenly drained. “I’m sorry, Lucien. You’d better run.”
She staggered to her feet and took her own advice—right into the heart of the flame.
* * * * *
Eisenmann didn’t exist anymore. He was flame. He was fire. He was pure white heat and vicious hungry power. He’d thought it would hurt, giving in to the fire with the last shred of his soul, but it was amazing. Liberating. He’d let go of life and all the fear that went with it. No longer human. Just flame.
Then he heard her voice.
“Eric!”
Tandy. Even the brightest, most inhuman heart of his fiery parasite knew her. Knew that he could never let her burn.
A path cleared in the flame. She pushed her way through the smoke to his side—as much as a living flame had sides. She reached for him and the fire that was his skin retreated until it was flesh again against her fingertips. “Eric,” she whispered, her voice raw with smoke. She shoved. He felt it, felt her pushing against him, trying to ram the fire back into its hole, but it was too big now, too much a part of him. It wouldn’t fit.
“Eric?” A note of panic. She coughed, but she didn’t retreat. “It’s not working.”
She couldn’t push the fire out of him now because he was the fire. That wild creature whose only fear was extinction.
No.
Beneath the layers of smoke and searing heat, a tiny flicker resisted. He was more than fire. He knew her. He protected her. He loved her.
She sank to her knees, coughing.
Tandy.
That deep flicker, that Eric spark flared up, fighting the fire for control. For her.
It resisted. It had never liked being extinguished and it wasn’t about to go easily, but Eric had never had anything worth fighting so hard for as he did now. He’d never had a life until he met her. He wasn’t about to forfeit his life to the fire now that he finally knew what living was supposed to be about.
He shoved. He’d felt Tandy do it, had tried a thousand times to do it himself, but this time the fire let him win. It retreated back into its box, a burning coal in the back of his mind, an ember for another day.
He opened his eyes as the smoke began to clear. Tandy was curled on the floor at his feet. He knelt next to her, touching her cheek, terrified that he had been too slow, that the smoke had done what the fire refused to do. But then she coughed and he learned to breathe again.
“Tandy.” His own voice was raw from the smoke.
Across the room, Clark mo
aned—another survivor, though much worse off if the pain in his voice was any indication. Eric ignored him.
Tandy opened her clear-as-glass green eyes, confusion and hope filling them in equal parts. “How?” she rasped.
He cupped her cheek. “I controlled it. Or it let me. Turns out the fire and I agree on one thing—protecting you.”
Her smile stole his breath again. The idea of not kissing her in that moment was unthinkable, so he did. A light press against her lips that grew more heated when she threw her arms around his shoulders and held on tight—until the doors flew open and her brothers burst in.
Chapter Twenty – Come On, Baby, Light My Fire
“We should’ve had them put in a microchip to track you while they were at it.” Chance signed his name on Tandy’s cast with a flourish.
She knew he was joking, hoped he was joking, but Frost looked far too intrigued by the idea for her comfort. “Like a dog?” she asked acidly.
Her brothers loomed over her hospital bed like bodyguards. In theory, they were keeping her company until her release paperwork could be processed. In fact, they looked ready to garrote anyone who tried to lay a finger on her without first presenting a hospital ID badge and a medical degree for their approval.
“It’s not a bad idea—”
“Frost, no. Just no. There will be no microchipping. I’m fine.” They both glared at her cast. “A broken wrist is nothing. It hit the airbag wrong. It could have happened to anyone.”
“It happened to you. And it could have been worse.”
“It wasn’t.” She’d been lucky.
Darla had already recovered and Masha seemed to be doing much better already. Lindstrom had been caught trying to flee the building and led authorities to where they’d put Kieren. Both he and Clark would be going to prison for a very long time, if Clark ever recovered from his burns enough to stand trial.
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