Joey’s boyish face showed confusion. “No, kill me. Not back to the lab. That’s worse. That’s so much worse.” He pushed Deon back.
“I don’t know what you are or what you’re talking about, but I’m trying to save you.”
The cracks of breaking wood came before the gust of freezing wind shot through the forest.
A truck with cornstalks in the radiator came down the road. Deon recognized Pete standing in the truck’s bed with his hands on the roof and Pinwheel behind the wheel.
Deon ran to the truck and knocked on the window. “There’s a wounded lizard-boy over here.”
“Wounded?” asked Trista.
“Lizard-boy?” asked Knockout Rose.
A loud crash of breaking wood and panicked birds came out of the forest, followed by a gust of freezing wind.
“Gale Force.” Deon ran through the woods so quickly the low-hanging branches shredded his clothes.
Gale Force fell through the branches and landed hard. She didn’t realize her leg was broken until she tried to stand up. Pain shot through her when her shin bone separated under her weight. She fell again.
The woman-headed bird landed and ran into the woods. Its curved talons got higher with each step.
Gale Force held her helmet and imagined a burst of wind inside the hollow part. It shot from her hands like a cannonball and hit the creature’s head. It squawked and fell over backwards with a puff of feathers.
When it didn’t get back up, Gale Force remembered to breathe. The stench made her wretch.
Frankie’s head peaked out from behind a tree. “Stay back or I’ll make it smell worse.”
Gale Force rolled over and covered her nose. The broken branches tangled in her cape and skirt made surprisingly good camouflage.
Pig-Girl didn’t see her when she ran into the forest with her knife held high.
“Hey Pig-Girl,” yelled Frankie, “I’ll protect –”
Pig-Girl licked her knife’s blade. She stabbed Frankie in the middle of the chest, pulled the knife out, and sprung off before he fell over.
Frankie clutched the hole in his breastbone. “Why? We were so nice to …”
Pig-Girl ran through the woods, out of Gale Force’s sight and beyond Frankie’s smell. “Joey? Where are you?” She kept running until a streak went past her and double-backed.
“Pig-Girl,” Deon said, “come with me.”
Pig-Girl hid the knife behind her back. “Where Joey?”
“I don’t know Joey, but I found a lizard-leg boy.”
“Take me.”
Pig-Girl slipped the knife up her sleeve as Deon scooped her into his arms. On the way out of the forest he passed Trista, Pinwheel, and Knockout Rose.
“Gale Force?” asked Trista.
Deon yelled, “In there somewhere.”
“Is he chickening out?” asked Knockout Rose.
Pete was lifting Joey into the truck bed when Pig-Girl leapt out of Deon’s arms with her knife held high. She plunged it into Joey’s side before anyone else knew what was happening.
Pete grabbed Pig-Girl and threw her back. “What are you …”
Pig-Girl climbed Pete’s body and thrust her knife at his face. Pete shut his stone eyelids and twisted his head. The point scratched along his forehead.
Pig-Girl climbed onto his back. Pete caught her foot and fell over backwards. Pig-Girl let out a piercing squeal as six hundred pounds of organic stone crushed the life out of her with a sickening crunch.
Deon pulled his arm. “Get off!”
Pete rolled off. Pig-Girl gurgled blood and twitched. Everything below her neck was crushed. “Did I just kill a little girl?” His face wouldn’t have moved much if it wasn’t made of stone.
In the forest, Knockout Rose, Pinwheel, and Trista caught their first whiff of Frankie’s scent.
“Why won’t the wind stop blowing?” asked Knockout Rose.
“It must be Gale Force.” Trista pinched her nose and continued on.
They found Gale Force crawling on the forest with her cape wrapped around her face.
Trista ran to her side. “Are you okay?”
“My leg’s broken.”
“Kayleigh, Steve, grab Jenny. Let’s get her out of here.”
Knockout Rose looked to the farm. “We have to help those people.”
“We’re not here to fight.”
Deon stopped so quickly at Gale Force’ side he kicked up a cloud of leaves. “Let’s get … what’s that funky-ass smell?” He half-carried her out.
“People may need our help,” said Knockout Rose.
“We should at least see what’s happening,” said Pinwheel.
Trista felt the urge to take over their minds and force them to retreat. It’d only take an instant of eye contact to give her the connection she needed to project her consciousness.
But no. Agent O’Farrell told her leaders need to listen to their followers. “Fine. One look.”
From the spot where Trista, Pinwheel, and Knockout Rose emerged from the forest, the carnage on the farm was clearly visible. Something with a bird’s body and a crushed human head twitched reflexively. Mostly human bodies lay scattered about. The barn burned as dozens of animals trapped inside cried. The remnants of the blown-up farmhouse smoldered.
In front of the farmhouse Noah stood over Marcia. A scar-faced man with metal whips attached to his wrists, a woman wearing ragged green fatigues and a bronze helmet with two protruding antennae that looked like rabbit ears, and a hulking brute in a black leather jacket with a pistol in each hand moved towards him.
The metal whips spun like helicopter propellers as the man in a trenchcoat advanced. Noah widened all four eyes. One whip shattered into icy fragments. The other turned bright orange and fell to pieces.
Something ran out of the cornfields. Trista and Knockout Rose jumped back when Ruby waddled out on legless feet with her crab claws raised high.
A freakishly lanky hairless man with wet ink-black skin ran out after her. He caught Ruby and lifted her into the air. The ink-black man’s disproportionately long fingers wrapped themselves around her neck.
Knockout Rose punched the ink-black man in the stomach. He dropped Ruby, who scurried back into the cornfield.
The ink-black man bent his arm at an impossible angle. The long nails on its other hands slashed her left cheek.
Pinwheel thrust his palms and released a blinding flash. The ink-black man jumped back into the corn.
Knockout Rose tore off her stun gloves and touched her bleeding cheek. “No, oh no.” She saw her molars through the cuts.
The ink-black man emerged from the cornfield.
Trista stared into the black oily circles where his eyes should be and projected a burst of angry energy into him.
The ink-black man stumbled. Trista tried to extend her psychic reach into its mind but couldn’t make sense of his discordant thoughts. It was like trying to swim through a whirlpool. She couldn’t grasp anything.
A loud boom broke the connection, followed by a powerful shockwave knocked everyone off their feet.
Magna stood in a freshly made crater near the cornfield. “Agent O’Farrell said you needed help.”
Trista got up and thought of her rosary shattering to regain possession of her mind. She looked towards the farm house. Stormhead dropped from the sky with a burst of lightning.
The woman with the bronze helmet pointed her fingers at the man in a trenchcoat. He disappeared with an echoless pop. Then she pointed at the brute, and he disappeared with a pop. Then she pointed at herself and disappeared with a pop.
Noah screamed so loudly Trista heard it. “You again? Why can’t you leave me alone?” The grass around Stormhead ignited.
Stormhead flew straight up and threw lightening at Noah. Instead of dodging, Noah shielded the dark-red woman with his own body. The electricity made his body seize before he fell unconscious.
There was a loud pop in the cornfield. The woman with the bronze helmet pointed
at the inky-black man. He disappeared with another pop. Then she pointed at herself and vanished in puff of green smoke.
Knockout Rose saw her reflection in Magna’s metal. “Oh my god, my face!”
Trista pointed at the rustling cornstalks. Magna raised its arms and charged its vibration blasters.
Ruby came out with her claws raised. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
Chapter Four: Leaders Don’t Cry
Alex sat next to Trista on the beach as the sun set. From Griffin Island’s west beach, New York’s skyscrapers looked like tiny dark needles on the horizon.
He said, “Leaders don’t cry, but I won’t tell anyone if you do.”
Trista threw a shell into the waves.
“You led your team into a massacre but got them out alive and managed to save some other people,” said Alex.
“Did you see what happened to Kayleigh? She’s disfigured.”
“She’ll live. So will Jenny.”
“I could’ve used my powers to stop them.” Trista choked up. “They trusted me as their leader.”
“Yeah, I remember once I led a team into battle against the Iron Pirates. One of them broke into the research lab and caught this really sweet girl all alone.”
“Do you have to bring that up?”
“I felt sick about what happened, or what I thought happened.”
“You hated me then.”
“Personal feelings aside, I questioned a whole lot of things about myself.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Leaders make decisions based on what they know, but you never know everything. The people under you will get hurt because of what you don’t know. And you’ll make mistakes, because that’s what people do.”
“I don’t want to hurt my friends anymore.”
“Remember, I’m your leader. This whole thing was my idea.” Alex unlocked his tablet. “You saw this guy, right?”
Trista saw the inky-black man. “That’s him.”
“His name is Slick Shadow.” Alex enlarged a section in the corner. “Here’s the part you need to see.”
“Deceased?”
“The Chicago police found his liquefied body in a barrel three years ago.” Alex flicked the screen “Stormhead identified this one.” It was the woman with a bronze helmet with rabbit-like ears. “Puca was an innate teleporter and IRA bomber. After the UK made peace with the Irish separatists, she became a freelance terrorist. Four years ago, she got too close to one of her own bombs. The smoking hand found at the scene had her fingerprints.”
“That whole Ireland-England trouble stopped, like, twenty years ago, right? She didn’t look that old.”
Alex flicked the screen again to display the woman-headed bird. “Sirin terrorized Ukraine until the Geroi, Russia’s national superhero team, tore her to pieces a long time ago. I gave them a call. Most of those pieces are still in a lab.”
“Are you saying we fought dead people?”
“Legally speaking, yes.” Alex flicked the tablet again to show a picture of the brute in a camouflage jacket. “Everything Malone did with the Green Berets is classified, but we think they tried to make him into an improved Sergeant Hammer. After getting dishonorably discharged, he specialized in protecting crime bosses from superheroes. There were no sightings of him after a run-in with the Las Vegas Rollers, and that was more than a year ago.”
“And the guy with metal whips?”
“Canadian mercenary called Flayer. He has telekinetic control over anything he touches, so he attached chain whips to himself. Hasn’t been seen in two years.”
After a long pause Trista asked, “What do we do?”
“Right now I’m as shook up as you. I’m working through it by bandaging wounds. You’re going to pray your rosary, count the waves, pet Billy Two, talk to your therapist, or do whatever else it takes to become strong again.”
Trista nodded and walked back to her cabin.
As Alex walked back to the medical building, Pete stopped him. “You got a minute?”
“Not much longer than that.”
“I can’t stop thinking about what happened today.”
“What part?”
“I killed a child.”
“Pig-Girl attacked you. You saved yourself and an injured boy. Probably Deon too.”
“If I wasn’t so slow, I could’ve pinned her or something.”
“Or gotten killed trying. Neutralizing danger is the top priority.”
“It’s just …”
“It’s hard to hurt someone. It goes against everything we’ve been taught. But, sometimes, we have to do it.”
“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this hero stuff.”
“Sleep on it. We’ll talk later.”
Alex went into the wood-paneled building near the airfield. The rustic exterior hid the sterile medical facility on the inside. On each side were the survivors of the massacre. In the middle Harry and Magna hooked monitoring equipment to Joey. Deon, who traded his running clothes for scrubs, ran from bed to bed to inspect each patient. Bart came up from the stairway in the corner with a case full of antibiotics.
He had spent hours in this room. His medic training, combined with Harry’s physiological expertise, Magna’s surprisingly soothing bedside manner, and Deon’s speedy eagerness helped them get everyone who came back on the helicopter stabilized.
Kayleigh slept on a bed. Three deep gashes in her swollen cheek were held shut by dozens of Steri-strips. Trista was right, the wounds would leave disfiguring scars.
Bart pointed to Kayleigh’s cheek. “In a matter of days, she went from being too good for me to not good enough for me.”
“You said Chak’s blood healed your arm without a scar, right? Do you have any left?”
“A little, but I won’t give it to a girl who called me creepy. The best crossbowman in the world deserves respect.”
“Bart, you are not this much of an asshole.”
“She got this far on her looks. Let’s watch her go back without them.”
Overcome with stress and rage, Alex slugged Bart’s jaw. Bart rolled with the blow and put Alex in an arm lock.
“You think you’re tough?” he said. “You needed a suit to fight. I’m an ultra-athlete.”
Alex broke free and swung a backhanded punch. Bart ducked, caught Alex in a bear hug, and squeezed his still-sore ribs.
Magna’s cold metallic hands grabbed their necks and pulled them apart as if they were quarreling children. “Stop it, both of you.”
Bart wiped blood from his lip. “Tell Scarface here it’s your fault I won’t do anything for her.” He stormed out of the medical center.
Alex straightened his tie as well as his shaking hands allowed. Kayleigh poked his thigh with her toe.
“How much did you hear?” asked Alex.
Kayleigh only moved the non-cut side of her face. “Enough to know he’s the biggest creep ever.”
“Other women have said that.”
“Thanks for fighting for me.”
“Too bad I lost. Griffin Industries will pay for reconstructive surgery. You’ll be beautiful again.”
“I won’t be the first model to go under a knife.” Half of her face smiled.
“You’re taking this well.”
“They gave me the good pain pills.”
Max tapped her toes. “Stay strong.”
As soon as he turned, her brave smile changed into a scared squiggle.
On the other side was Joey’s bed. Alex was impressed by how well Deon bandaged the abdominal wounds. The boy was conscious but the pain medication made him disoriented.
Steve came over. “He want to pet Billy Two. Can I wheel his bed outside?”
“I’d rather you didn’t, but I also don’t want the goat in here. Have Pete help you and make sure he sanitizes his hands afterwards.”
Ruby, whose bed was next to Joey’s asked, “Will he be okay?”
Alex looked at the boy’s reptilian legs for a momen
t before answering. “If we can prevent infection, he’ll make a full recovery.”
“Excuse me,” said Marcia. “I’m a trained nurse. Is there anything I can help with?”
“Did you get hurt?”
“I got shocked, but I’m not shaky anymore.”
“Everyone’s stable. We could use help changing bandages later.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Medic.”
“I watched you take care of my friends. You have good techniques.”
“I practiced on goats.”
“I …” Marcia’s pupils went side to side, “have no idea what you mean. But Joey likes animals. It’s like he can talk to them.”
“Where are his parents?”
“He doesn’t have any. He’s a live one.”
“A what?”
“You really don’t know?”
“All I know is we broke up a fight.”
“The guy with guns ran threw me aside to shoot at Lou, who was also an escaped lab experiment.”
“Where did they escape from?”
“I really don’t know what to say. Talk to Noah.”
“Who?”
“Our leader.”
“You mean Quad-Clops.”
“He’s not a villain anymore. He helped all of us.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Alex went to Jenny’s bed. “How’s the leg?”
“Magna said it’s an oblique tibia fracture.”
In a flash Deon was at Alex’s side. “Doctor Von Dyme says she’ll be on crutches for a while.”
“Can I still fly?”
“You won’t be able to land with that leg.”
Jenny pouted. “This sucks.”
“You’re not the first promising rookie sidelined by an injury. Deon, how are you doing?”
“Gotta tell you, I feel real stupid for taking Pig-Girl straight to the lizard-legged boy.”
“Fog of war. You had no way of knowing …”
Stormhead threw the medical center’s doors open. “Alexander, come with me.” He almost flew across the island. Alex had to jog to keep up as he entered a bunker on the north shore and went down a stairway into the island’s hollow inside to a room with nothing in it but Noah.
The Prospects (Book 2): Nothing Poorer Than Gods Page 4
