As long as I can focus on that vivid, vibrant red.
The glass block window Kermit made his rather rapid exit through would’ve provided Penny with a goldmine of ammunition to play with—had she actually bothered to show up. Instead, it’s nothing but an obstacle course that threatens to roll my ankles out from underneath me as I narrowly avoid something large and wooden swung in a wide arc at my head.
“C’mere, you little shit! I’ve got a mate who’s waiting to meet you!”
Even as I drop to my knees in broken glass to dodge the rebound swing, I can’t help snorting at Atlas’ ridiculous outburst. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that, mate!” I spit back. The mountain of an Anomaly—also my former drinking buddy and killer pool partner—is wielding a barstool like it’s a poxy battle-axe. I send a swift shower of sparks in his direction, deliberately setting the old wood ablaze.
… which maybe isn’t the smartest fucking thing anyone’s ever done, because now he’s got a flaming battle-axe.
Well, bugger.
Atlas hurls the mass at me, and with nowhere to go, I brace my hands in front of me and catch it. The smouldering wood crumbles and flakes in my hands, and I make short work of the makeshift weapon, ripping it in two.
I barely make out the giant fist that soars between the torn threads of the seat cushion before it cracks across my jaw. The carpet slams against my shoulders, knocking the breath out of me. For a split second, all of the red goes black.
Get up, Savage, you total eejit… get the fuck up!
“All right, boy. Let's try this again…”
The same fist that knocked me for six is balling up a handful of my shirt, peeling me off the floor, which I would be grateful for if it didn’t then hold me in midair like a stray cat. Those massive muscles in his arm shake me violently, snapping my head back and forth. Every joint in my body cracks, and I grit my teeth, digging my nails into his stone-like skin to bite back a yelp.
“I can’t believe I’ve been hearing you go on and on all week about these fucking friends of yours,” Atlas is snarling in my face, “and now you’re telling me I’ve had whatever residue is left of B.L.A.Z.E. in the palm of my hand since Sunday and done nothing about it? Do you have any idea what the four of you could be fucking worth!?”
I wish it were more of a shock for someone I decide I can trust to betray me, but after years of the same old story it gets dull fast. There’s nothing like the look of a man who wants to kill you on the face of a man you once respected. Then again, I’ve always gotten too close to folk too quickly. It’s one of my lesser but more annoying bad habits. And it almost always ends in situations exactly like this.
I hate my big mouth.
With everyone in the pub now involved in the melee in some way or having sought shelter from it, there are few punters left to watch me squirm, or do anything about it. Lucky for me, I can handle myself. I’ve had a fair amount of practice.
One of my hands unwraps from his tree branch of a limb, flexing to tug the spark up from my gut to my lungs, swirl it with oxygen, send it the length of my arm, and expel it, all in the time it takes to draw a breath. My fingertips have barely kindled the flame when they're engulfed in Atlas’ free hand, immediately extinguishing whatever Magick I’d managed to gather.
“Argh!”
He squeezes, tight, the golem-like grip of his hand crushing my own, threatening to break bones. My arm is yanked out to the side, hard enough to strain the joints, and Atlas’ face is close enough to mine I can feel the air move with every word.
“Now, there’s a geezer outside from London,” he continues, as if he's not trying to rip my arm off, “says he's happy to cram my Bit full of sterling. Says I’ll never have to punch the clock another day in my life, and that was when you were just a mouthy Botch and his sad little brigade.”
I open my eyes to glare at him, in time to catch his cruel sneer.
“Imagine what he’s gonna give me when I tell him the four of you are ripe for the Vault, especially when one of you’s a pretty little lady…”
He laughs when I snarl and open my mouth to yell at him, and he shuts me up with another vigorous shake. “Heh, that’s if the bitch is even still alive. What do you think, Diesel, or whatever the fuck your real name is… you think she finally, what was the phrase you used, bit off more than she can chew?”
A familiar voice cuts me off before I can get an answer into my mouth.
“I don’t know, I reckon she probably did all right.”
Penny!?
Atlas’ fist in my shirt makes it harder for me to turn my head, but she’s there. I can see her out of the corner of my eye. I’m damn glad I looked, too.
She’s got her baseball bat across one shoulder and a vicious glare on her face, and I swear she’s never looked more bloody gorgeous. She extends the bat in front of her, closes her eyes, and the wood starts to mould and shift and change in her grip. It flattens, sharpens, and shines, and when she draws it across her body to form a guard, it’s no longer a piece of sports equipment.
While seeing her safe is all well and good, any opportunity I get to witness Penny doing the things she can do with her Magick, regardless of the circumstance, is one I wouldn’t miss for the fucking world.
“Now,” she growls, the steel short-sword positioned between herself and the two of us, “I’m only going to say this once, because my patience is completely fucking shot. Drop the firecracker, before I remove every last bit of you that’s still attached to him.”
27 Penny’s Savagery
I have a weird feeling that when Alfie told me he couldn’t wait to show me his new little local, this wasn’t how he wanted me to see it.
Not that overturned chairs, broken tables, and a sea of shattered glass are able to hold my attention when my childhood best mate is being suspended eight feet in the air by an Anomaly I can only assume ain’t a friend of his.
Though, knowing Alfie, it very well could be.
“Atlas—” grunts Alfie, but the juggernaut of a man shakes him again, violently, to shut him up.
“Well, look what we got ourselves here, then,” Atlas announces, to who I can only assume is myself and Rhys. “Let me guess. You.”
He releases Alfie’s arm to point a finger the size of my entire hand at me.
“You’re the hot little piece of totty this prick’s been slobbering over since he was old enough to figure out what his boners were for. And you,” he adds, shifting his attention to Rhys. “You’ve got to be the hapless, nerdy virgin.”
Rhys chokes gracelessly.
“I beg your pardon?” he sputters. From the look on his face, if he were wearing pearls beneath his scarf, he may have started clutching at them like an offended aristocrat. “Now you listen here, you gormless, gourd-fingered cretin: I’ll have you know that I am in no way hapless!”
My eyes allow themselves time for an adequate roll. One of these days, hopefully soon, I’ll find a bloke who can stand by my side on the field without embarrassing me in front of the antagonist.
“You deaf or stupid?” I bark, before either of them can encourage more witty banter that isn’t serving anyone’s best interests. This isn’t a bloody comic book. My eyes are cold, hard, and locked on Atlas. “Drop him.”
“Okay.”
I wasn’t anticipating that. With the one fist still wrapped up in Alfie’s shirt, the granite-skinned giant hauls the smaller Anomaly back and lobs him like a cricket ball at Rhys. I dart to the side as Rhys takes the full force of the human projectile, and Atlas is launching himself at me.
Oh, bollocks!
The floor actually shakes with each thundering footfall. The sheer power in each step is so intense, so extremely profound, that I can’t help wondering whether he would be strong enough to break and bench-press Duncan, or the other way around.
Either way, this is one juggernaut I do not want to be in the path of. Blissfully, while he may threaten to be as strong as Duncan, he definitely wasn’t blessed wi
th the same gift of speed. I slip easily beneath his lumbering hands, each one larger than my head, and swing the sword in a broad arc to gather enough power to hopefully take off one of those hands at the wrist.
I’m not against violence when it comes to protecting the people I love. I’ve done worse in the past, and if my future holds anything similar, it won’t be my last.
My muscles tighten and my joints lock, but the razor-sharp edge of the blade bounces harmlessly off his skin as if it were made of stone. The rebound force isn’t expected and throws me off-balance. His other hand lunges for me again, looking to wrap around any part of me it can reach, and I barely twist away from his grasp as I dive behind an upturned table.
“You'll have to be stronger than that, girl!”
The safety of the solid slab of wood doesn’t last long enough. I’ve barely gotten my bearings when it’s gone again, quite literally, raised high above my head in the hands of the man I dove behind it to avoid. It’s hard not to feel like a mouse trapped by a very large, very angry cat as he leers down at me from his massive height.
“Your mate’s been telling me a lot of juicy things about about you, darling,” he sneers, his voice as cold and hard and his skin. “All the little things he likes, and you know what, I might not mind having a butchers myself before I hand you over to the Bashers…”
I snarl, hoping my mask of pure ugly derision will be enough to force him to recoil at least a little, but the grin on his face only widens. I become acutely aware of how much the pub seems to have emptied out since Rhys and I arrived less than thirty seconds ago, and how difficult a challenge taking down this mammoth of a mercenary might be. Unless this really is a comic book, and we’re able to pull off something completely brilliant and comical, such as getting him to punch himself in the face, this is going to be a long and strenuous workout.
Hey, I’ve got it, lads, let’s not bring our own juggernaut inside! Now there’s another decision which, once again, turned out to be yet another fantastic fucking idea.
With a growl, Atlas lunges for me again with both hands, throwing the table to one side like a big Frisbee. I do what I presume is the last thing he’ll expect, bolting for his legs and rolling between them. One finger of one hand snags the loop of my shoelace and tightens around it, refusing to let go. My leg catches, and I hit the floor hard on both elbows with a grunt.
No!
I yank my foot hard, rolling over and wedging the other against the back of his knee for leverage so I can wriggle free before he gets ahold of my limb itself. A hand seizes mine and a body wraps around my own on the ground. A familiar aftershave reaches my nose, and I recognize it as Rhys’ without realizing.
“Just a bit of elbow grease—!”
He digs both feet into the back of Atlas’ legs and we both shove, hard, right as he tries to pull me back between them. My foot finally slides free from my shoe with an almighty release of pressure. Rhys and I roll over several times and wind up in a heap on the carpet, and when I look up, Atlas is dropping to his knees, groaning in pain.
“Did… did he seriously just punch himself in the face?”
“I think he did.” Rhys winks. “Well, bugger me. That was rather jammy!”
It pains me that I can’t argue with him. Even if I wanted to state that the sequence of events leading up to that outcome were perfectly reasonable, the fact that I chose to wear trainers and not my snug-fitting combat boots when I left the campsite for Church Norton this afternoon can’t be dismissed. Not by any Anomaly whose loyalties may be leaning even the slightest bit toward Nova, anyway.
A burst of flames tears over our heads, engulfing Atlas as he holds his face on the floor. I whip my head over and see Alfie standing there, one arm still curled into his stomach, the other extended into the plume of fire and smoke before him.
I don’t know how effective Alfie’s Magick is going to be against this foe, but if Atlas was able to get my friend into the position we found them in in the first place, I’m going to guess not very. Which means we could have only moments before he’s on top of us again.
Rhys and I untangle our limbs from one another’s, and help each other to our feet. Alfie’s less than a meter from me, and I take the step or two to reach him, one hand falling on his shoulder to announce my presence.
“There’s a news crew outside,” I say, leaning in to be heard. “This whole thing’s a fucking set up. We need to GFTO, sharpish.”
“Nice of you to finally show up.”
The words sear, burning me worse than his Magick ever could were he to try. “Alfie—”
“I know, I know,” he strains through clenched teeth, not even looking at me. “Later, over a cuppa.” Sweat gathers in beads on his forehead, his jaw trembling with the effort to maintain so much energy. I sometimes wonder if he knows how powerful he is, or has the potential to be. Other times, I’m terrified he does.
“Exactly how strong is this dickhead?”
My answer comes in physical form, as Atlas hauls himself upright with a roar of effort, craning his neck to peer through the stream of fire toward us. I ready my sword as Rhys taps my shoulder.
“While I don’t want to criticize you on how to do your job, Miss Lieutenant,” he says softly, “perhaps I would have been more useful outside, and the big fuck-off Scottish bloke more useful to you in here.”
“I don’t know what you're talking about,” I reply instantly, watching Atlas turn fully to face us, Alfie’s flames flowing off of his skin like water from a duck’s feathers. “I think we’re going to need all the luck in the world for this one…”
28 Oliver’s Biggest Headache Yet
I’ve had some whopping great migraines during my time, but of all of them, this one may be the absolute worst.
And it happens tonight, of all nights. Even if I weren't currently crawling on my stomach on top of an OB production van outside, we would be inside, and I would be expected to socialize like a normal inebriated pillock. My horizontal proximity to the roof of the vehicle isn’t helping the stabbing at the front of my skull, and every time the chassis rocks under me my nausea intensifies to a point of gagging to avoid vomiting. I’m no veteran, but I’m pretty sure honking all over the roof would give my position away. And while I may not have my physical health, I still have my mental resolve, and that’s seen me through tighter squeezes than this in the past.
Just think, you really are like John Connor now. Except you’re saving the Terminator. Which is actually a pretty cool plot twist.
My target is the enormous satellite dish, bolted to the back of the van. It isn’t climbing up onto the roof without being seen that presented the biggest challenge—it’s remaining up here undetected. The crew are everywhere, spilling in and out of the truck with gear and equipment. A woman not much older than me is running around barking orders angrily into a headset. According to one of the technicians, they’re having difficulty getting the broadcast online.
Good, I think, biting my lip against the sickening throb and screeching whistle in my head. Because, if I have anything to say about it, things are about to become a lot harder for them.
Hopefully, our luck will hold out as long as it takes me to get everything set up.
I squirm out of Penny’s rucksack, staying as low as possible the entire time. One wrong move could easily send me or my gear tumbling off the roof, attracting all kinds of unwanted attention. I’m a complete klutz, famously amongst friends, which is why I don't usually leave the safety of headquarters during raids and missions such as these.
Unfortunately, the safety of headquarters no longer exists, and our numbers have thinned to the point of near-extinction. As Penny declared, it’s all hands on-deck—including my own.
Said hands dig through the inside of the bag, withdrawing neatly-wrapped cables and wires and laying them out in order. As I always lectured the other tech lads: if you don’t take care of your gear, how can your gear take care of you? My usually cheery, positive mantra takes on
a more bitter and grim tone in the wake of their deaths, especially given my less than stellar condition right now, and I have to shake the memory off and focus on the job at hand.
“Oi, Wayne, you lads nearly ready? Mike says he’s good to go live when we are.”
I’ve been ignoring the majority of the banter from downstairs, unless it pertains to the software or hardware of the vehicle itself, but this particular comment catches my attention and holds it. My head raises, slightly.
“Hang on…” someone’s answering him.
“Any luck on the signal? We need to get this shit in the can before those freaks run out of juice!”
With refreshed urgency, I crane my head around to locate Duncan. He’s exactly where he said he’d be, loitering around the post-chain fence at the edge of the carpark with a cigarette on the go. I squint at him through the glow of the streetlamp between us; he’s staring directly at me.
In this moment, despite the gravity of the current scenario, I think I understand something that’s been bothering me for days. There’s something very surreal, very reassuring, about the sense of those dark eyes being locked onto me, watching my every move. And it has nothing to do with Duncan Doherty being a very attractive individual, and everything to do with his raw physical potency.
With those eyes on me, with those hands at my back, and with that speed and that strength bolstering me, I feel like I can take on the entire world—and survive it all.
Beneath the protective, possessive heat of his gaze, despite being in the very midst of a certain eventual death, I finally understand why Penny feels the need to trust herself to intimately with him. When it comes down to the wire, he's all that stands between her, and what we all fear most:
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