by Tasha Black
But they weren’t ready.
What would happen when Panchenko deployed them on the streets of Glacier City?
She pictured the panic in their eyes.
She’d been pushing them harder these last few days, trying not to allow compassion to be a reaction to weakness. Withholding her faint praise when they succeeded. They would receive no such coddling from Panchenko.
But it had only backfired on her. The men might respond to threats and insults. But their beasts valued bonds and trust - nothing more, nothing less.
The men of Alpha Division would eat them for lunch as Andrews watched.
And laughed.
All the superior training and loyalty of her men would amount to nothing when they cracked under the stress of actual combat.
A familiar scent came to her on the hint of a breeze.
This was the one man she wanted most to see. For so many reasons.
“Surprised you decided to pay me a visit,” she said, eyes still on the glacier, holding onto her composure as best she could.
“Not as surprised as I am,” Dalton replied. His deep voice still did things to her. Too bad he would never trust her again. She’d thrown that away, like everything else, in the hope of saving the men and women who depended on her.
Who would save her?
She turned. He was only ten feet away. He could have taken her out. She was losing her edge.
And apparently, her security here was not as tight as she thought. Of course, Dalton had special skills.
All kinds of special skills.
She forced herself to focus by remembering the last time they’d met.
“You’re not here to gloat.” The ice in her own voice impressed her. “That’s not really your style. So?”
“I’m here to offer you a deal,” he said.
He held up a small leather case.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“What you need,” he told her.
His eyes were serious. He meant it then. Why was he doing this now, when he wouldn’t before?
She tried not to stare at the case with the desperation she felt.
“Is that so?” she asked, trying to buy herself time.
“Haven’t I always been able to give you what you need?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.
She laughed at the unexpected lightness. It felt good to laugh.
“What made you change your mind?” she asked.
He studied her with his crystal blue eyes, an expression of concern appeared on his face, but it was gone in an instant.
“I never could resist you,” he told her teasingly.
She allowed herself to believe, for a moment, that he was really there to help her. That he cared. That there could be some quarter for herself and her men.
He stepped forward and stroked her cheek with his warm hand, and she leaned into him.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered.
When he bent to kiss her, she could tell from the kiss that this wasn’t a reunion.
He kissed her like she was dying, or like he was going off to war.
He kissed her like it was a good-bye.
It was too much.
She pulled away while she could do it without breaking down.
“What’s your price?” she asked.
He blinked and then straightened.
“The unit belongs to me,” he replied.
“I promised them to Panchenko,” she said. “He’s not going to like that.”
“You told me you did all of this to help them,” Dalton said. He sounded like Ice again, an old friend but a formidable one. “To save them. I’m offering these men and women a chance at a normal life. Are you going to keep that from them?”
“What if I refuse?” she countered. “Are you really willing to turn your back? You know first-hand what it will be like for them.”
He thumped the case.
“What’s in here is enough to keep them on an even keel for a few weeks. Long enough to hand them over to Panchenko, and for you to be long gone before anything starts to go wrong.”
His ice-blue eyes locked with hers.
“But if that is the route you choose, this is the last bit of help any of those men will ever get from me or my friends,” he finished evenly, his tone telling her he was referring to her as well.
He placed the case gently on the plastic iceberg, and then stood tall over her.
The air was thick with unspoken words, betrayals and allegiances, all leading up to this moment. All the regrets in the world wouldn’t bridge the gap.
He turned and walked away, vanishing into the night. If not for the package he left behind, she might wonder if he’d actually been there at all.
She eyed the leather case.
It was time to make some choices.
36
West flew through the streets of Cobble Slope astride his souped-up Vyrus.
He focused on the feel of the powerful engine between his legs. He’d been making an effort to savor every experience and sensation afforded to him by the prosthetics that he would soon lose. If he were lucky, and didn’t lose his life to them first.
Mallory warned him during the scans last night that if he overstimulated the prosthetics again, he could burn out on the spot, and the surges would kill him. She’d begged him to let her remove them.
But he’d insisted on finding Jess first. He wouldn’t need to overexert himself. He was just finding a runaway teenager and bringing her home.
A very special teenaged runaway who meant the world to him, and had a bright future ahead of her.
Cord always put Jess first. West was damned sure going to do the same. He was going to bring her back. Even if it killed him.
He squinted and repeated his silent motto.
Find Jess now. Worry later.
He hadn’t heard from Dalton since last night at Mallory’s. He wondered for about the twentieth time what they had talked about. West could have used his upgraded hearing to listen in, if he hadn’t been completely distracted by Cordelia.
Good God.
Her eyes, her lips. The time he’d spent wanting her from afar made him forget the fucking chemistry of it all. He would have taken her on top of that lab table last night, forgoing any conversation, if they hadn’t been interrupted.
So bitter-sweet.
Why were they hitting a break-through now? He would only hurt her again when the prosthetics finished him off.
No. No whining and no regrets.
He’d been living on borrowed time since the fall anyway. He should be grateful he was given this chance to redeem his useless life.
Find Jess now. Worry later.
He’d had Mallory try to ping Jess’s phone. Jess was a smart kid though, she’d been keeping it off. But there were a few hits. He was pulling up to one of them right now.
Smoke & Mirrors.
West remembered a few of his own experiences at this club, and tried to push the thoughts of Jess behaving even remotely the way he had at her age as far out of his mind as he could.
The sign in front showed some frat-boy rock band playing tonight. Not her style.
A bouncer sat by the door. The big guy looked like he was permanently affixed to the stool.
West parked the bike, and got off, slipping his helmet under his arm.
“Hey, man,” he said to the bouncer.
“Uh, hi. You want in?” the bouncer asked doubtfully.
“Hell no.” West smiled conspiratorially.
The guy cracked a smile and nodded once.
West reached into his back pocket and produced a picture of Jess and a fifty-dollar bill.
“I’m actually looking for this kid,” he said, handing both over to the big man. “She’s in a chair.”
The bouncer glanced down for a second, before handing West back the picture. The bill vanished like a magic trick.
“Hilda?” the bouncer asked, recognition lighting his face.
A spilt second late
r, an expression of fear flickered across the large man’s features, like he’d said too much, and disappeared immediately.
It was a good thing the man already had a steady gig, because he would have made a terrible poker player.
“You her dad or something?” he asked guardedly.
“Something like that,” West nodded.
The bouncer considered for a moment.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “She was here last night. Don’t know where she is now, though.”
West briefly considered asking the guy what he was afraid of. He was probably just worried West was going to pitch a fit over him letting and underage girl in.
“Thanks a lot, man,” he said instead, and turned to go, slipping his helmet back on.
Hilda?
What was Jess up to?
Once he was back on the bike, he headed to the next address.
This one was pretty far out.
Like most urban centers, Glacier City had a rule in place to ensure that government leaders like the mayor, the chief of police and others must live in the city. The idea was that a resident would do a better job serving their own community than someone who wasn’t invested.
Problem was that downtown Glacier City was too expensive for government salaries and the Scar was too scary.
So, thirty years ago, not long after the residency rule was put into place, the city quietly absorbed the suburban borough of Greensburg into its jurisdiction. Across the water from Glacier City proper, bucolic Greensburg was allowed to keep its schools intact, though they were officially now part of the GCSD. And Greensburg became a neighborhood appellation which shared a post office and police force with the rest of the city.
But everyone knew it was just a haven for the politicians with kids, or the wealthy who preferred the suburbs to a high rise. The inexplicably exorbitant price of a residential rail ticket just one stop into Glacier City proper did an effective job of keeping out the have-nots.
West cleared the bridge as the sun set over the glacier, and sped through quiet suburban streets. As he approached the location of the ping, a terrible thought occurred to him.
Constantine Panchenko had a compound out here somewhere.
He pushed the thought under, but it refused to drown.
Then he found himself turning down the pretty lane with the NO OUTLET sign that marked the Panchenko place, and the fears took on a life of their own.
Kids in the city frightened each other with rumors about it without ever having seen it. Common legend was that the sign was a warning to guests - not just a department of transportation indicator.
What the hell was going on? Why would Jess ever be here? Maybe someone stole her phone.
Maybe not.
Quickly, West stashed the bike behind a stand of yew trees at the intersection with the nearest street.
He slid on his Ghost suit and headed down the lane, staying in the darkness of the trees along the side of the road as much as possible.
The manicured landscaping made that pretty easy. But eventually, he was going to trigger someone’s motion sensor and the lights would go on.
At last, he reached the part of the lane close to the Panchenko property. It was protected by a twelve foot metal fence topped with hundreds of tiny golden gargoyles.
Classy.
The gate at the center opened to a driveway, which curved into the hillside where a massive one story house hugged the ground, stretching back as far as West could see.
Lights glowed inside.
West went into his head and pulled a lever on the train controls in his mind.
His upgraded vision clicked in and he gazed into the windows.
Inside, there were white plaster walls decorated with beach landscapes, black leather furnishings, bright carpets, and a black marble mantelpiece over a crackling fire. But there was no sign of Jess.
He pulled back his vision a bit and scanned the whole compound, activating his night vision as he did.
Interesting.
It appeared that West wasn’t the only one lurking.
He zoomed in to see that one side of the fence was occupied by a squad of the “improved” Glacier City police force. They were dressed like thugs, but West could see the outline of their uniforms under the street clothes.
What was their game?
He decided to stick around. If there was a chance that Jess was here, then he wasn’t going anywhere.
He texted Dalton.
No response.
The noise of a well-tuned engine drew his attention. West looked up to see a car approaching the gate from inside the compound. The gate rattled open to accommodate it.
The car, a stretched Escalade, had almost made it out of the drive when a van screeched out of the trees to the side of the property, blocking the way back through the gate.
Another van pulled out in front of the car, cutting it off from the street.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Men poured out of the vans on either end of the car. This wasn’t a traffic stop, it was some kind of ambush, but West didn’t fully understand the game being played. Why did the “police” have street clothes over their uniforms? It didn’t look like they were planning on making any arrests.
West scanned the vehicle under attack more closely. The car itself was armored to the gills - equipped with run-flat tires, bulletproof glass and a reinforced frame. It was clearly ready to withstand whatever these men were about to throw at it.
Except what he saw next.
A man stepped out of the first van, strapped with what looked like a scuba tank on his back. Instead of connecting to a mask, the hose from the tank connected to the oversized nozzle the man held in both arms.
He aimed it into the air and shot up a 20 foot tower of fire, lighting up the night.
A flamethrower.
It wouldn’t matter how much armor the car had, the men inside would surely be baked alive.
They might be criminals, but no one deserved that.
West scanned the interior of the car. He could make out the forms of a driver, and two passengers in the back seat. And farther back, there was something else. A familiar shape.
A wheelchair.
37
West didn’t stand a chance against a force like this.
But when he spotted the chair, his vision went red. He would kill them all if he had to.
A touch of his finger powered up his suit and he sprang into action without another thought.
He began by tossing a flashbang grenade into the melee, catching the men in front by surprise and blinding the men in the van to the rear.
He followed it immediately with a smoke grenade, for cover, shifting his vision to give him crystal clear sight, even through the billowing smoke.
West moved in fast. He was halfway there when the flamethrower went off again, engulfing the car.
Men ran out of the Panchenko house and opened fire on the ambushers. They even managed to take out a few of the Alpha Division men before getting gunned down on the front lawn.
Everything was moving too slowly.
Except the fire. The flames moved like a living, hungry thing.
Several of the ambushers, distracted by the guys on the lawn, stood between West and his goal. He tried to push though, but one of them, approximately the size and shape of a vending machine, refused to budge.
West struck quickly, pressure points and nerve attacks, disabling the bigger man. But it bought the others time to get a bead on him. In seconds, they were all over him, blocking his progress.
West didn’t have time to plan a way out. He let the rage take over. His vision blurred as he blocked and countered with abandon. He was taking as many shots as he was giving.
But he made sure his shots were harder.
Much harder.
As the last man fell, West finally had a clear line of sight to the car, enveloped in flames.
And to the guy with the flamethrower.
No m
ore obstacles stood between them. The man was just 30 feet away. West could drop him in a matter of seconds.
West bent low to charge and tackle, heedless of the flames.
But his legs didn’t respond.
No. No, no, no…
Not now. Please, not now.
Frozen in place, West watched helplessly as the paint on the car peeled away and crumbled to ash.
A blood curdling scream cut through the commotion of the battle.
It took West a second to realize it was coming from his own mouth.
38
West screamed until his throat was raw.
A strange, new sound drowned out his failing voice.
It sounded like… howling.
Dark shapes moved in from the top of the lane. Too fast to follow.
Screams filled the night air again. But this time they weren’t coming from West.
He scanned the scene and watched the men from the vans cry out in terror as they were dragged down.
By enormous, snarling beasts.
Was it the prosthetics? Were his eyes glitching?
A huge, hairy thing pulled the guy with the flamethrower down to the pavement.
But the car still burned like a torch.
The man holding the flamethrower screamed high and clear, beneath the furry shape that pinned him. The sound was cut off in a wet gurgle as the creature ripped the man’s throat open.
The whole scene was a bloodbath, but there were only a few of the Alpha Division police left standing.
Men moved into view from the top of the lane, where the beasts had come from.
Soldiers.
He recognized the uniforms from somewhere.
He thought of that dark night. Running like hell through the field with Cordelia.
West had seen these men before. At the zoo.
Project Cerberus.
With precision that looked effortless, they dispatched the remaining men.
A familiar voice buzzed in West’s earpiece.
“Sorry I’m late to the party,” Dalton said. “But I brought some friends.”
He spotted his friend on a nearby rooftop, watching the perimeter. Too far away to help.
“The car,” West begged. “Get someone to the car.”
“West,” Dalton said. “There’s no way anyone’s alive in there.”
