In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4)

by Hailey Turner

  The stranger approached, hands held toward them in a calming manner. “You should sit down. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  Sean didn’t know what expression he had on his face, but considering how bloody they looked, it wasn’t surprising that complete strangers were treating them with kid gloves. He opened his mouth, jaw hurting as he did so, but try as he might, no words came out.

  Not even the warning he desperately wanted to shout when he caught sight of Cillian and some of his crew racing across the street from a nearby bar.

  The stranger reached for Sean, his hand passing through Sean’s body. Brown eyes widened as his gaze snapped up to Sean’s face. “What the—”

  The sound of guns going off made Sean flinch, mouth parting on a wordless cry that never came. The man who’d been trying to help them jerked as bullets cut through his body in an unforgiving spray, passing harmlessly through Sean and Alexei. He fell through Sean and Alexei’s form and collapsed on the pavement, back peppered with bloody bullet holes.

  Sean stepped backward, getting clear of the body, pain lancing through his head as he worked to keep them phased beneath the onslaught of bullets aimed their way. His ears rang from the guns going off and the sound of people screaming. Cars swerved in the street, one or two crashing into each other, their drivers victims of stray bullets.

  Panic made it difficult to breathe, clawing at the inside of his chest. The harsh passage of air over the holes in his gums pulled at Sean’s attention along with all the other painful injuries afflicting him. Cillian kept coming closer, flanked by his followers, the look on his face one of sheer fury.

  “I dinnae know how ye escaped, but yer in no condition ta be goin’ very far,” Cillian said as he raised his gun. “Runnin’ ain’t goin’ ta save ye.”

  If they had neuro-jammer guns, they opted not to use those weapons this time around. Truthfully, Sean wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay phased long enough to escape getting hit by one. Already he could feel the heaviness in his limbs growing faster as his mind fought his body, the migraine-level ache afflicting his head getting worse with every second that passed.

  “Best ta put ye outta yer misery, aye?”

  Sean didn’t have any strength left to run, and Alexei’s weight pulled him down to the ground. The demarcation between their phased bodies and the solid earth was miniscule. Sean closed his eyes and curled his body around Alexei’s limp, unconscious form, trying to protect him even as the migraine ripping through his head threatened the shaky, fitful control he had over his power.

  The first bullet didn’t hurt, passing through them both before ricocheting off the ground, but there were plenty more where that came from.

  In the end, Cillian had more bullets than Sean had minutes left before the backlash of breaking free of the Faraday cage overwhelmed him and he reverted back to solidity.

  I’m sorry, Sean thought desperately, the scream trapped in his lungs, in his throat, voice locked away by trauma. I’m so sorry, Lyosha.

  “Telepathy Warrant isn’t guaranteed. We’re getting pushback from the judge regarding how we got the evidence that led us to their location.”

  Kyle looked up from where he sat in the belly of the X-17 Hermes combat jet. He finished sliding an H&K USP tactical 9 mm into his thigh holster as he met Katie’s gaze. “Does this idiot fucking judge know we’re chasing a wanted international terrorist?”

  “He knows, but this particular D.C. Circuit judge is pretty damn conservative.”

  “So what are we going to do about it? We’re five minutes out.”

  Katie arched an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  Kyle’s shoulders loosened at that answer, managing to give her a tight smile. “Real glad you’re on our side.”

  “I’m not leaving our boys in the enemy’s hands. I’ll take the black mark when it comes.”

  “You do, and you’ll have all the rest of us putting in letters refuting it,” Donovan said from the other side of the jet.

  “Oorah,” the rest of the team agreed.

  Katie’s smile was serene. “Thanks.”

  They all knew a black mark was inevitable if Katie used her telepathy outside the chain of command. The idea of a rogue telepath within the MDF ranks was a fear that bubbled up every now and then within the public. Someone with the ability to read a person’s innermost thoughts was a nightmare to most people. Katie walked a fine line with her telepathy, adhering to the laws laid down by Congress and the MDF. Breaking them wouldn’t be accepted by those in power.

  Kyle glanced surreptitiously at Gamma Team, who were seated closer to the ramp than the flight deck. The director had ordered Gamma Team into the field with them on the rescue mission because Tessa Hahn was the MDF’s only available teleporter at the moment. The thirty-five-year-old ex-school teacher had been a metahuman for eight years. Her partner, thirty-seven year-old Bryan Dowling, was ex-Army intelligence. He caught Kyle’s eye and gave a thumb’s up at Katie’s statement.

  Alpha Team wouldn’t be the only one backing Katie up.

  “Apollo to Alpha Team, do you copy, over?”

  Jamie’s voice cutting across the comms had Kyle tensing, and he wasn’t the only one. As second-in-command, Katie was the one who answered the hail.

  “Viper to Apollo, Alpha Team and Gamma Team copy, over,” Katie promptly replied, frowning at the tone in his voice.

  “Splice bombs are going off in Boston. Require backup for containment purposes ASAP. Send me who you can spare from your priority mission.”

  It felt like all the air was sucked out of the combat jet at that announcement. Kyle looked over at Trevor and shared a grim look. Their rescue mission had just been turned into a pitched street battle.

  Katie blew out a heavy breath. “ETA five minutes, Apollo. We still don’t know the exact location of Inferno and Wraith. Has base been updated on the new development?”

  “Base knows. The director is mobilizing all agents in Boston to assist.” Jamie’s voice became tight, the stress in his words audible only to the team. “Senator Callahan’s campaign rally is a likely target.”

  Kyle closed his eyes, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. Jamie was too much of a professional to let his fear bleed through, but Kyle knew Jamie felt it keenly in moments like this. They all did.

  Katie spun on her heels and strode toward the flight deck where Annabelle was piloting with an MDF agent in the co-pilot’s seat. They’d need Annabelle on the field, especially now. “I’ll drop half the team at your location and I’ll take the rest to find our missing teammates.”

  “Understood. Track my location. I’m with a group of security personnel.”

  Translation: the Secret Service was still around. Everyone on the combat jet made a face, but they didn’t have time to complain about that detail.

  “Copy that. Viper out.”

  The situation had gone FUBAR in a way that had Kyle grinding his teeth, but they were still minutes away from being able to provide backup. Shoving himself to his feet, Kyle joined the others at the weapons locker, accepting the hard helmet that Trevor tossed him. He opted for his AKR-75 assault rifle over his sniper rifle, automatically checking it over.

  Stepping aside, Kyle switched on the HUD. His tactical goggles exploded with data that glowed softly before minimizing. Katie stepped out of the flight deck a few seconds later, Annabelle right behind her.

  “Nova, Bones, Tank, and Icarus, we’re dropping you off at Apollo’s location. Looks like the Sons of Adam has fighters mixed in with the crowd at the rally and the demonstrators,” Katie ordered.

  “What about containment?” Madison asked.

  “Boston PD is trying to form a hard quarantine zone, but there are a lot of civilians in the line of fire, and some of those contaminated by Splice may have already fled.”

  They’d end up with pockets of people dying all over the city if the quarantine zones didn’t hold. Chasing after the living who didn’t know they were dead yet never got
any easier.

  “Dropping in ten seconds,” the agent now piloting the combat jet announced over the general comms.

  Everyone strapped in, with those leaving first positioning themselves closer to the ramp. Kyle heard the engine noise change frequencies as the pilot took them down through the atmosphere at a steep dive toward Boston.

  Kyle loved coming home, but he never envisioned coming home like this. The red warning light near the ramp switched on, the piercing noise whipped away by the wind as their exit opened up. The jet leveled out hard over a city street filled with scattered, screaming people. Kyle heard the X51 Vulcan autocannon mounted on the bottom of the combat jet go off with sustained fire for a few seconds before going quiet again.

  Annabelle launched herself off the ramp and into the air, using her anti-gravity power to fly out of view. Trevor caught everyone else up in his telekinesis and carried them with him to the ground, out of Kyle’s sight. The ramp closed in seconds, sealing tight.

  The engines whined with power as the combat jet rose into the air and banked hard, heading for the Seaport District, which was mere seconds away at the speed they were flying. Katie bowed her head, gripping the edge of her seat so tightly Kyle knew her knuckles would be white if he could see them beneath her gloves. He scratched at the underside of his jaw, vaguely aware he needed to shave. The little details weren’t on his mind the same way Alexei was. Thinking back to the image of Alexei’s broken, wounded body that Phaedra had shown him, Kyle only hoped they weren’t too late.

  You better not be dead, Lyosha, Kyle thought.

  He’s not, Katie said, her telepathic voice sliding into his mind.

  As good as that news was, Kyle knew all too well how quickly things could change in the midst of battle. Where are they?

  On the street. Sean got them free, but that’s all I know. He’s too panicked for me to attempt a solid link and I don’t want to fuck with his concentration.

  Kyle had a very good imagination, and it didn’t take much for him to figure out why Katie wouldn’t want to risk a mental link if Sean was still phased.

  “Get me down there,” Kyle said as he stood up.

  A quiet settled over his mind, the sharp focus that came when he peered through a scope at a target washing everything else away. The ramp wasn’t even all the way open before Kyle was flinging himself out of the combat jet and falling several meters to the street below, rifle in hand.

  The chaotic scene on the street overlooking the waterfront consisted of stopped cars peppered with bullet holes, people cowering behind any cover they could find, bodies in the street, and Kyle’s target.

  He processed everything in a split second, taking a bullet to his chest and thighs, the impacts absorbed by the tactical gear over his combat uniform. Kyle got off three shots that found their targets as he fell to the street. Three of Cillian’s men dropped where they stood, the rest scattering for cover except for one, a woman who raised her hands and made a shoving gesture with them.

  Kyle’s feet had barely touched the ground before a shock wave slammed him backward at a speed that made his head snap back. It felt like getting hit by a car at high speed, all the air driven out of his lungs, the pressure of the hit bruising even through his tactical body armor. Kyle expected to hit the ground hard and ended up crashing into Tessa instead. For a split second, everything went black, the stomach-lurching sensation of a teleport ripping through his body. Then the world blinked back into existence, sound filling his ears with a bang.

  Tessa let him go, teleporting to a different location. Kyle’s feet smacked down on the ground meters behind the Sons of Adam affiliated metahuman and a few scattered members of their group. Kyle didn’t think, just took the headshot the opportunity gave him, and blew out the back of the woman’s skull. The element of surprise was always the best way to deal with enemy metahumans. Her body crumpled to the ground, the shock wave half-formed by her power fading to a mere disturbance.

  Bryan was a hydrokinetic, and since they were only a short distance from the bay, he didn’t waste his strength in forming water out of thin air. A column of seawater exploded upward near a dock, spinning tightly as it moved and bent in an unnatural way. It cut through the air, its passage sounding like a roaring waterfall as it crashed into a trio of Sons of Adam fighters hunkered down behind a solar compacting bin.

  Dying by drowning on dry land from water you couldn’t escape was a messy way to go.

  Kyle took shot after shot, picking off Cillian’s people with bloody ruthlessness, unwilling to let any more harm come to his brother. Katie crouched beside Sean and Alexei on the sidewalk, Cillian having run like the coward he was the second the combat jet descended into the fray. Their pilot was restricted from using the heavy guns since too many civilians were within range, but that didn’t stop him from tracking the SUV Cillian had scrambled into with a few other fighters.

  “Keep on them,” Katie ordered the pilot over comms. “Echo, I need you.”

  Kyle ran to Katie’s position, but Tessa easily beat him to it. The older woman teleported within range as Bryan slammed another wave of water at a group of fighters who thought they could take advantage of the lull.

  Tessa’s hand passed through Alexei’s bruised and bloody arm, half of the lower part of his limb skinned down to muscle. Kyle’s rage seared him from the inside out as he took in the wounds Alexei had sustained at Cillian’s hands. Phaedra’s glimpse was nothing compared to getting actual eyes on their missing teammates.

  Alexei was a broken, bloody mess, from his skinned arm to the dangerously black bruising afflicting his chest and abdomen. The number of blows required to bruise a body like that in a short period of time was too terrible to think about. Internal damage was high on the list of wounds that needed immediate treatment, to say nothing of the neurological damage the hit from the neuro-jammer gun and subsequent Faraday cage usage had caused. Kyle recognized the incisions over Alexei’s temple and base of his neck all too well.

  His face was gray beneath the swelling, hair wet in a way that didn’t hint at anything good. Alexei’s fingers were broken, twisted at odd angles at the knuckles. Deep lacerations in his thighs made from a serrated knife were crusted over with blood, puffy and swollen at the edges with the beginning of infection. His pants were a ragged mess, bare feet bruised with the imprint of boot heels over fractured bones. His left leg was bent at an odd angle at the knee, limp in a way that hinted at severe damage hidden beneath the ripped, blood-soaked fabric covering the area.

  As for Sean, his face was heavily bruised, mouth torn up and swollen, blood dried over his throat and bruised chest. He clutched Alexei to him, both eyes swollen, but one a little less than the other. What Kyle could see of his gaze was distant and not all there. His breath came quick and frantic, but strangely enough, that was the only sound he made. He wasn’t as extensively hurt as Alexei, but they needed to get both of them off the field immediately.

  “Try now,” Katie said in a clipped voice.

  Tessa didn’t hesitate, getting a hand on their wounded teammates and gathering them all in a teleport while her partner held the line. The world tilted, going black for half a heartbeat. Then the cold sea breeze was replaced by the temperature-controlled environment of Medical’s medevac triage room. Used exclusively by the teleporters on the MDF’s roster to ferry their wounded off the field, the restricted area was kept clear like the teleportation receiving room in the main building.

  Dr. Gracie Gold strode forward the second they popped into existence, snapping out orders to her team of nurses and doctors. Tessa stepped out of the way while Katie had to pull Kyle away from Alexei and Sean, giving the doctors room to work.

  Gracie immediately put one hand on Alexei and the other on Sean as her people lowered the hovering stretchers nearly to the floor to more easily transfer the wounded. The painful sounding gasp Sean let out was most likely from the lack of pain he now felt. Alexei, tellingly, never made a sound.

  Gracie’s abilit
y to increase the human body’s ability to heal at a rapid rate made her a phenomenal doctor, but her power was only a quick fix in the face of injuries this extensive.

  “Prep OR 1 for Dvorkin and get a regen regime up and running. We’ll need to operate while we tank him,” Gracie ordered, brows furrowed in concentration over her half-closed eyes. “Prep OR 2 for Delaney and have the regen regime on standby for later transfer.”

  Katie hauled Kyle away before he could attach himself to Alexei’s side. “We need to get back to the field.”

  “Delta Team is waiting out in the hall,” Gracie said, not taking her eyes off her patients. “The director wants them in the field with you.”

  Kyle fought Katie’s firm grip for all of a second before turning his back on Alexei and Sean in favor of doing his job. They were safe now, about to get the medical care they desperately needed, while the rest of the team still had a raging mess back in Boston to get control of. Walking away wasn’t easy, but he did it. As they were leaving, Dr. Naomi Delaney and Mercedes shoved past him, intent on getting inside the medevac triage room.

  Delta Team was geared up and ready to fight when the three met them in the bustling medical hallway. The four-member team consisted of two offensive kinetic-based powers, a speedster, and an empath whose ability to influence mass emotion would be critical in crowd control. Their sniper wasn’t anything to sneeze about either.

  “Hold tight,” Tessa said, right before she teleported them back to the wharf area to pick up her partner.

  Bryan gave the all-clear from his position of cover near an outdoor coffee stand some meters away that had been abandoned once the bullets started flying. The sharp wail of police sirens and fire trucks filled the air, the sound both far away and coming closer at the same time. Every first responder employed by Boston was probably being called in because of the attack on the campaign rally.

  “Get to Boston Common,” Katie said. “We’ll track down Cillian.”

  “Good luck,” Tessa said before she teleported her partner and Delta Team away.