Storm Girl

by Ben Mason

  Grady racked a shell as they moved toward the door. Checking the peephole,Leon saw they were outnumbered. There were a few choices on the table and most of them ended in blood. All of them were dangerous.

  “Here,” he said, handing his guns to Lee.

  “You’re going out there?” She whispered.

  “I have to. If I wait any longer Katie will get down here and try to stop me. Maybe she has her powers under control and can show them. Maybe. If she doesn’t we’re either going to be on the hook for a bunch of dead cops, riddled with bullets, or thrown in a hole never to be seen again. And if we wait any longer we’re going to have to face federal reinforcements.”

  He gave her a kiss before she or Grady could do anything. “I know it’s stupid. Wish me good luck.”

  “Good luck, stupid.”

  Opening the door, Leon held his hands up. A dozen guns trained on him. A large man with the name Miyamoto on his badge walked up toward the front steps, his gun held steady out in front.

  “You giving yourself up, special agent Stanfield?

  “Sort of,” Leon said. His mouth was suddenly dry. It wasn’t that these people were capable of killing him. He had been in those kind of situations before. It was that he wasn’t capable of killing them back. Feeling helpless was not a fun experience.

  “I don’t suppose if I told you that the girl and I are running from a large government conspiracy you’d believe me?”

  “Is the conspiracy that they don’t understand the depth of your love?”

  “No sir, it is not.”

  Officer Miyamoto’s jaw clenched making him look like one of those old 1950’s actors in a samurai movie. “I have a girl her age. If we didn’t have witnesses and body cameras here I’d blow your head clean off your shoulders.”

  “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Leon said edging closer. Around him, he heard rifles being readied. There was no choice. He was going to have to involve Katie.

  “I can show you I’m not lying. The reason the girl and I are running is she has superpowers.”

  Miyamoto sighed. “Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

  “No. No, you do not. Look, let me get her. I won’t go inside, I’ll bring her out here. She can show you. Worst case scenario you have an unarmed criminal and the victim right where you want them.”

  Miyamoto considered it for one moment before he gave a grunt.

  This is going to work out, Leon thought before his heart sank. A dark Dodge Mustang rolled up and came to a stop. When the door opened, Kessler stepped out.

  21

  “Don’t believe a word this man tells you,” Kessler said when he had showed his credentials and made his way to the front. He regarded Miyamoto. “Officer—” He said letting the word stretch out like a question

  “Sergeant. Donald Miyamoto.”

  “Sergeant Miyamoto,” Kessler said, inclining his head. “This man is under criminal charges for attacking the rest of his team as they searched the desert to find this young girl. Look at him.”

  The policeman glanced over. It was obvious Stanfield hadn’t had a chance to clean himself. His stubble was a little too long, his hair was rough, his face pale and tired. He was leaning to one side ready to fall over if someone so much as poked him.

  “Screw you, Kessler,” Leon snapped.

  “I’ll let that go, Agent Stanfield, considering your blood loss. However, I must ask you not interrupt my conversation with the Sergeant here.”

  He heard Agent Stanfield grind his teeth. Good. The more riled up the man got the more likely he was to make a mistake.

  Kessler eyed the mansion. Somewhere inside was his specimen. The charade of having to play along with these hypocritical ants and there so-called moral authority made his jaw clench for a second, his fingernails biting into the palms of his hands.

  Still, he had no doubt the generals in Washington wanted this settled diplomatically with as few witnesses as possible. Considering the requests he was going to prevail upon them, playing their games was the least he could do.

  “As I was saying, sergeant, this man is clearly not in his right mind. I suppose he’s giving you some line about how I’m evil.”

  “Said you were part of a government conspiracy and the girl had superpowers.”

  “Delightful,” Kessler said clapping his hands. “I never knew you had such an imagination Stanfield. What a shame you never tried your hand at writing. You have a wonderful imagination.

  “Now, as I was saying, sergeant, I was hoping to pull some strings and bring the girl immediately back to base. You see her mother is worried about her. There is plenty of paperwork to fill out and news stations to notify, but the woman—Mary Legault—is a nervous wreck. What do you say?”

  The sergeant’s face was full of conflict. The man’s eyes darted between the two men. Lowering his gun a hair he nodded toward the door. “We need to bring her out and see what she wants.”

  “With all she’s been through? I’m not sure she’ll be anymore coherent then her captor.”

  “All the same, I want to see her,” the sergeant said. “This guy’s walking around with a bullet wound in his leg and he doesn’t fit the M.O. of a kid snatcher. I don’t expect her to start levitating cruisers, but I want to see what kind of shape she’s in.”

  As the last few words came out of his mouth, Kessler saw why this Miyamoto was denying him. He doesn’t like the way I spoke, Kessler thought. The man’s intuition tells him I’m lying.

  He had heard about lawmen with sharp awareness and had laughed it off. A mistake he was now going to have to rectify.

  “Last chance,” Kessler said, leaving the warning out of his voice.

  “No chance,” Miyamoto growled.

  Kessler cleared his throat and faced his car.

  22

  Lee and Grady held Katie back as she struggled to get to the front door.

  “Let me go!”

  “If you rush out there now, they’ll grab you and arrest us,” Grady said, holding her around the waist while she kicked his shins.

  Lee squeezed Katie’s shoulders. This close, Katie could smell the honey blossom from her shampoo. “We need to trust Leon. I don’t know him well, but you do. From the way I’ve seen you act around him, it seems like you trust him with your life. Now you have to trust him with his.”

  “So we sit inside and wait?” Katie said, crossed her arms. She had rushed down to find what was happening, missing Leon by seconds. She stared at the metal shutters.

  “We can’t even see what’s going on.”

  Lee smiled, grabbing a tablet from behind a vase near the door. Tapping the screen twice she handed it over. The video feed showed Leon along with a bunch of cops pointing guns at him.

  Between them was Kessler, standing around like he owned the place.

  Katie’s stomach flip-flopped.

  This is your fault. He’s out there and he’s going to die because of you.

  “Shut up,” she said under her breath hoping nobody heard her. Lee and Grady clustered around her, leaning toward the screen.

  “So he showed up. Lee, Katie, if I tell you to run, you follow my orders no questions, got it?”

  Katie nodded. Lee hesitated, biting her lip and then gave a brief nod.

  Kessler’s hands were in his pockets and he looked disappointed. He appeared to be talking loudly, not that Katie could tell. Whatever camera Lee was using must not have been wired for audio.

  The cop in front looked confused until the back of Kessler’s car exploded making the house shake from the blast. Stepping out of the smoke a goth steroid version of Frankenstein moved toward the cops in front of it. Katie felt squeamish staring at it. For the briefest moment the thing stared back at the screen and right at her. A hate burned in its eyes and she thought it was going to reach out of the screen and throttle her.

  It turned away when Kessler spoke a few more words. By now the cops were pointing their guns at the freakshow barking orders. The cre
ature burred and a few cops slumped to the ground.

  They were missing their heads.

  Even from inside the house they were able to hear the barrage of gun fire. Over a dozen cops kept firing until their weapons were empty.

  The monster shrugged its shoulders and attacked like a toddler ripping apart play-doh. In less than five seconds they were all mangled body parts.

  “Wolfsbane,” Grady said, his voice a husk.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Katie said, putting a hand over her mouth. She was shaking. She had seen a few hundred rounds unloaded into Kessler’s pet and they hadn’t slowed it down at all.

  In the comics, this is where Miss Mercury would bust down the door and say some cool one-liner in front of the nefarious villain. All Katie was able to do was keep herself from throwing up her burger.

  She slumped to the floor shaking. “I can’t…I just…I can’t.”

  Lee bent down and gave her a squeeze. “We aren’t asking you to. Lee, you and Katie go out the back.”

  “Not a chance,” Lee said, striding toward the door. She pulled a vial of dark blue liquid from a pocket sewn into her dress and opened the door.

  Wolfsbane jumped up and slammed on top of Leon, fists clenched.

  “Hey ugly,” Lee yelled.

  It glanced up right as she hurled the vial. It broke on contact and an explosion shook the area. Grady ran up and discharged all five shots of his shotgun before the haze cleared.

  Katie felt it before she saw it, the blur moving toward her friends. Stepping in front of them, hitting Wolfsbane as hard as she could.

  23

  Wolfsbane slammed to stop as Katie’s fist connected, sparks of purple shooting through the metal spread out through his body. It had stopped him from hurting her friends, but it hadn’t hurt him either. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  Wait, was it a he? She didn’t see any stitching where experimental bodies could have been woven together and he didn’t have the whole grown in a vat thing going.

  This was a person, Katie realized as she stared into his eyes. This is what Kessler might do with me.

  Fear pumped in her veins as Katie gave a primal scream and started slamming her fists into Wolfsbane’s stomach. No lightning, no purple glowy stuff. Her wrists started to hurt.

  “Please stop, child,” she heard Kessler call out. “I want to bring you back with as little damage as possible. If I have to explain broken bones to your mother she may get angry with me. Part of our agreement was keeping you safe and healthy.”

  Even now the creep was twisting the knife, trying to get her to doubt her mom. And the truth was she still did have doubt. She tried to shut out his voice, focusing on the three people around her she was trying to save.

  “Screw you,” Katie yelled.

  “Such language. Wolfsbane. Protocol Infant. Retrieve and Protect.”

  Without a word the creature scooped Katie up and, holding her above its head, walked her toward the police cruisers.

  “We’ll need a new car now that you’ve destroyed the last one,” Kessler said as he moved toward the corpses, a frown on his face. “Blood is so contaminating.”

  Katie squirmed, growling with frustration and anger. Miss Mercury never got held above some guy’s head like a helpless love interest. She was strong, and pretty, and smart and she never felt like crying for the millionth time in one day because she was awesome.

  Not like me. I’m a failure.

  Wolfsbane jerked to a stop as Kessler halted. Grady was standing in front of them.

  “You’re not taking her anywhere,” he said, pointing a camera at Kessler. “I’m going to show the world what you really are.”

  “Are you now?” Kessler snapped his fingers and Wolfsbane stepped forward. Katie felt the pressure from his left hand disappear as Grady went flying, landing hard on the gravel part of the driveway.

  “I suspect you’ll need quite a few skin grafts. You will, however, live,” Kessler said as he checked the camera, making sure it was broken. “My advice? Stay down.”

  He may have said more but car horns sounded in the distance along with more police sirens. They were bringing reinforcements.

  More people were going to die. Grady was going to die along with Leon and Lee. All because Katie wasn’t able to figure out how to be a superhero.

  Looking up at the clouds Katie tossed her dad and whatever else was up there one more prayer. I’m okay with dying. Just let me go out with a bang.

  A roar of energy surged out of her heart and chest as the world turned purple.

  24

  The clothes Katie had been wearing over Lee’s uniform were toast, the blast having shred them to pieces.

  Standing up, the concrete beneath her cracked and broken, Katie inspected her armor. Thankfully Lee knew her stuff. The leather jacket’s reinforced padding had held along with the military type cargo pants. Neither they or the combat boots had torn or ripped let alone blown apart (because fighting naked was not cool, especially with everyone having smart phones).

  The reinforced metal frames laced along the legs and arms sparked with stored energy, thrumming like a pissed off hornet’s nest.

  It made Katie feel dangerous.

  Good.

  Because Wolfsbane wasn’t any worse for wear either. He staggered up and regarded her with rage. Blood was leaking from his mouth as his eyes narrowed. Around them The wind picked up causing grains of dust to whip around, distracting him.

  Katie leapt forward, lashing out a kick at the monster’s kneecap. She slammed into it with a ball of energy and the creature’s leg buckled for a second. For the first time since Katie had seen him, hope surged through her. She didn’t have any time to linger on the emotion. Wolfsbane dove to attack her and she leapfrogged over his back, spinning in a circle and kicking him again in the same spot.

  She dove out of the way as he rushed toward her until she realized he was crashing. Jumping on top of him and started punching. This time her fists were a blur of neon afterimages striking him in the face and throat. A few landed on his stomach and arms because she wasn’t taking time to aim. Her lungs had started to burn and she was fighting to use her advantage. Pushing for one last burst she landed a giant strike to the temple. Wolfsbane’s head rocked to the side and stayed there.

  Panting, she stayed on top of him. His eyes were unfocused and his breathing was shallow.

  Please don’t get up. Please?

  As the adrenaline lessened and the drumbeat of pumping blood fell away, Katie heard the sirens. Relief washed over her. She was able to use her powers and Kessler didn’t have another monster at his disposal (she hoped). If she was able to show the cops even a fraction of what she had just done there was a chance they would believe her over Kessler and then she could go home.

  It was over.

  Katie started to stand up when a large hand wrapped itself around her throat cutting off her air.

  Wolfsbane’s eyes flickered to life as he stared at her. His skin turned darker as blood leaked from his mouth his lips turning up int a predatory smile.

  25

  Leon woke up to see Katie kicking the monster in the head, for all the good it was doing her. It had her in one hand and was squeezing, smiling as her face turned blue.

  He scrambled to stand up and fell over again. His equilibrium was shot.

  Swearing, Leon punched the sides of his legs a few time like a jockey pushing his horse. He was Black Prism, or at least he had been. There was no way he was going to allow a little thing like broken ribs and blood loss stop him from completing a mission objective. A mission objective that involved saving people instead of killing them.

  “If you harm her I will be forced to punish you,” Kessler said, his voice distorted and distant like it was underwater.

  Must be from all the gunfire and the pounding I took.

  Checking for his pistol, Leon found it still strapped to his side, twisted at a forty-five degree angle. He tried to get up again and failed
. His legs weren’t broken, but they had seen better days. They weren’t his biggest concern. Ugly, big and nasty wasn’t letting go of Katie even with Kessler scolding him.

  Leon saw Sergeant Miyamoto's pistol a few yards away. He crawled, wincing as the gravel scraped against his clothes. He stretched out a hand, his fingers an inch from the grip.

  “It isn’t going to work, Stanfield,” Kessler said. “Wolfsbane, kill the agent and not the girl.”

  The monster looked over just as Leon got the gun in his hand. Please let there be one more round in here.

  Squeezing the trigger, he aimed at the monster’s eye. The gun kicked in his hand and the monster’s head snapped back, its grip loosening as its hands flew up toward its face.

  Katie landed on top of the creature’s shoulders in heap.

  “Go!” Leon yelled.

  She shook her head and, reaching down, pulled at the electrodes on the monster’s head. Energy started glowing in her arms as it went down into the metal disks. They started to bend and stretch, squealing under the pressure. Leon thought he imagined it, but Katie seemed to be smiling, and he thought he heard her say something weird like ‘Time to fry’ before a surge of purple electricity burst out of the creature leaving it a smoking ruin.

  The thing swayed for a second and then, listing to one side, crashed down on the ground. This time it didn’t breathe. Katie’s hands were red and blistering, the gloves burned off, but she wasn’t even whimpering from the pain. Instead she stood defiantly in front of Kessler.