“He’s in the center of the crowd,” Ember said. “But he knows a telepath is nearby and he’s ready for us to strike.”
“We need to separate him from the civilians,” Berenice said, rubbing her chin. “If Emily was willing to stab Jen, then we have to assume that Buck will also resort to similar measures. This could get messy.”
“Tiger hunt kill Buck,” Abby suggested with a little shrug from behind Berenice. She’d refused to leave her side since Berenice had woken up.
“That still doesn’t fix the civilian problem,” I said. “You could charge him, but what’s stopping him from grabbing a kid?”
I squinted at one of the firemen, who was hurrying out of the front door and back to his truck. Several people oriented their bodies towards him as he moved.
I pointed. “Marco, could you set another fire down the block? Maybe a large tree? The firemen will follow the fire, and the people will follow the firemen. Buck’ll probably stay to look for Daisy.”
Marco let out a huge sigh. “I have zip heat left from blasting Kyle. Only light. After I use that, I have to wait for the sun to come up.”
Two of the firemen emerged from the front door, each carrying a blackened, desiccated corpse in his arms. One corpse was significantly larger than the other. “Baltimore team, look away,” I ordered, my throat tight. “You don’t need to see this.”
Instead of listening to me, Berenice and Abby kneeled and placed their right hands over their hearts. I’d never seen the gesture from my teammates. I turned to ask Reid if it was a camp custom, only to see that Reid, Marco, and Ember had also placed their hands on their hearts, though they remained standing. Reid whispered inaudibly—a prayer, perhaps, or the camp’s secular equivalent.
Sometimes I could see little difference between superheroes and warriors in old ballads.
“Metal cover,” Abby whimpered. “Metal body naked. Bad honor.” Her lip trembled. “Metal cold in snow.”
She and Berenice stood up. “We can’t right now,” Berenice said, patting her shoulder. “Don’t worry, girl, the firemen will cover the bodies. Look, they’re already laying them down. They’ll bring out the white sheets soon.” She kissed Abby’s forehead, reminiscent of an older sister and her baby sister. “Topher’s not cold. Trust me.”
I could not bring myself to chastise them for their off-topic discussion. Topher’s life had mattered and the feelings of his closest friends mattered still—and I really didn’t want to endure a beating from Berenice like the one I’d gotten during Ember’s attack. Instead, I watched the crowd, which had moved back a few feet to give the bodies wide berth.
Only one man, tall and muscular, moved forward, pushing and shoving people out of the way in his haste to get to the front of the mob. The people began to jump aside for him, allowing him to pop out into the little clearing just as the firemen were covering the corpses.
Buck McClintock collapsed to his knees and began to sob when he saw Daisy’s small, charred body. He pressed his forehead to the ground, his overwhelming grief palpable even at our distance. An old woman in a shawl tried to comfort him, but he refused her efforts, forcibly pushing her arm away. He reached out his hand towards Daisy’s remains, then doubled over again, too overcome to do anything but mourn.
Reid and Marco joined me at the edge, flanking either side of me. Reid sighed. “Maybe they were lovers. That would explain his bizarre decision to leave his post.”
“Or maybe they weren’t, and it’s just really upsetting to see the burned body of a teammate,” Marco said, an edge in his words. He glared at Reid. “Remember after the tribunal? And honestly, if you called me and said you couldn’t get out of a burning building, I’d run over to help you, too. Not every story is a tragic romance.”
Reid’s reply was lost to me. Something he’d said glued itself into my brain and danced in little patterns: That would explain his bizarre decision to leave his post.
Now that I thought about it, why had he left his post?
Buck McClintock was the leader of a strike team. Every account I’d heard indicated that the strike teams were the SEALs of the camps. Emily had nearly killed Reid and me. Daisy had certainly been an effective killer and a clever foe. Kyle, from the sound of it, had nearly bested three superheroes in the space of three minutes. They’d tricked, they’d blitzed, and they should have won.
In all cases, it was only the presence of my team that had tipped the scales, a presence that Buck’s team hadn’t counted on or properly prepared for.
I’d saved Reid from Emily, and then he’d saved me. I wasn’t supposed to be in the house with Topher. Marco and Reid weren’t supposed to be with Berenice. The strike team, as fearsome as they were, had not been designed to take on two superhero teams at once. I wasn’t sure, but their training probably mandated some kind of waiting, or surveillance period, or something. Common sense dictated pulling back and regrouping.
So why had Buck come out of his hiding place and gone to the one place we were guaranteed to be? He was alone and…
Afraid.
Buck McClintock was no longer operating on orders or good sense. He was operating on fear. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that in all my imaginations of the dreaded strike team, I’d neglected to consider that each and every one of them was a human being—and I knew from the vantage point of an intimate eyewitness what happened when a team leader let fear chip away at his—her—ability to command.
He was afraid of losing a battle against impossible odds. He was terrified of losing his teammates and friends. He was terrified of the two rogue teams that, it appeared, had turned their backs on good and embraced evil. His team had walked into a blizzard and discovered that their enemy had doubled in strength and size. He had many reasons to be afraid.
Ember sneezed. I glanced at her uncertain, taught features, the situation crashing down on me.
Buck’s fears ran so much deeper than the events of the night. He had fears that were eating at him like worms in moldering corpse—fears of rumors swirling among the camps that the elders were not the paragons of virtue they’d always suspected. Fears of my mother and her cronies attacking in the night and butchering children. Fears of everything he knew and loved being built on a lie.
I would’ve left my post, too.
“Abby,” I said, a plan forming in my mind. “How would you like to go down there and pay your respects?”
I could barely see Abby as she crept through the snow, which had been beaten down by firetrucks and people until it was a hard, icy track. I stood behind the corner of a building half a block away. The others were in strategic positions around the intersection, hidden behind various items.
The plan was the best we could come up with given the circumstances, the most problematic being that Reuben and Lark weren’t with us, nor did we know where they were. After that, it was simply the fact that we didn’t know what to expect from Buck, grieving and dangerous as he was. We could only set up the trap and hope he took the big, tiger-y bait.
Abby, in all her majestic feline glory, disappeared into the crowd. I had to hand it to Baltimoreans; they’d gotten used to a tiger superhero, a feat I wouldn’t have imagined of them. There were no gunshots or shouts of alarm, just a general cry of surprise as she parted the crowd and lumbered towards Topher’s covered body. One small child even tried to jump on her for a ride, but she gently batted him away and shook her head.
If all went as planned, she’d morph back into a human and tell the first responders that it was her teammate that had died. Buck would see her and follow her right into our midst. What happened depended on the skill of the people around me.
Minutes ticked by. I could no longer see Abby in the crowd, which had converged again, concealing the bodies and the two chief mourners. Buck had to have seen her by now, and though I was worried for Abby’s safety, I doubted he would strike right there. He’d wait and follow, hopefully too overcome to think clearly.
While I waited for Ab
by to appear, I recalled Reid’s reaction upon seeing a Sentinel carry in the bloodied, still form of Ember after the Westerners had attacked Liberty.
All heads had turned as he’d let out a scream of torment and fallen to his knees, his own injuries forgotten. He’d made a wild grab for someone’s sidearm, only to be tackled by Marco. “Later. Later,” Marco had soothed, his own eyes bright with sorrow. “Calm down now so you can kill them later.”
It had taken me several full minutes to assure Reid that Ember was actually alive. He’d been literally too distraught to comprehend the information, linear as it was: Ember was injured but not dead, I could heal her, she’d be fine.
Not that I could judge him. Immediately following his emotional unraveling, I’d witnessed Dean kiss Jillian in a way that indicated they’d kissed before, so easy and familiar. Her body language—get away—had been lost on me. All I’d been able to see was my world, already fractured, crumbling into nothing as my worst nightmare came to life in front of my eyes. In my distress, I’d later lashed out at Jillian and ordered her to stay away from me unless she was dying. I’d forgotten the angry dismissal almost as soon as it had left my mouth.
I was quite sure that that one cruel statement had tipped her over the edge into suicidal ideation, and I would never forgive myself for it.
I closed my eyes and breathed, orienting my thoughts on the present.
Now, hopefully, Buck would join the long line of hot messes and make a very stupid mistake.
Just when I was about to suggest that Ember contact Abby, the crowd parted and let her pass through. Abby’s furry head was bowed in sadness, her tail limp behind her as she walked through the snow towards our location. I moved back a little, making sure that I was not immediately visible. She crept forward, her sadness clear to everyone.
Buck broke through the crowd and followed on the sidewalk, many yards behind. He never took his eyes off the tiger ahead of him.
On the other side of the street, Ember made an obvious “what the hell?” gesture. Idiot. He’s not even trying to be stealthy. He wants to kill her, revenge for Daisy, blah blah blah. Not even considering that we’re here. He senses me but…he just…doesn’t give a crap. Wow.
Ember’s disgusted summation swam around my head. He really wasn’t thinking clearly. As if to underline the point, Buck walked under the large tree in which Marco was sitting, completely oblivious to the grown man sitting among snow-covered boughs just eight feet above him.
When Abby was in the middle of the intersection, she paused and turned around as if she’d just sensed that she had a follower. Her whole body stiffened, and she growled—a horrifying snarl that made my hair stand on end.
“Calhoun!” Buck shouted, grabbing a knife from his belt.
Abby morphed back into a human with the same sucking sound as before. She stood, a wicked grin stretching her thin face. “McClintock!” she yelled back.
The word was still in the air when she swayed and fell butt-first into the snow, no doubt under Buck’s power.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” Buck ordered. He marched into the snowy road, trembling with fury. “You know why I’m here, don’t you? It was you, you disgusting, retarded waste of—”
“Turn around.” Marco’s voice cut through the crisp night air like a razor.
Buck turned around. I closed my eyes.
My eyelids couldn’t fully block Marco’s flash. White-yellow illumination leaked through into my eyeballs, causing me to drop to my knees and cover my eyes with my hands.
Buck yelled in alarm and cursed, but unless he had the prescience to also cover his eyes, he was blind until I decided he wasn’t going to be—which was never.
“You can come out now,” Marco called, again with the unusual cutting tone that made his voice sound like someone else’s. “He’s down.” Wispy tendrils of pure energy evaporated from his eyes and hands, gradually dimming until they winked out of existence. In their absence, Marco seemed smaller, somehow. As soon as the last bit of light faded, he began to shiver.
All of us emerged from our loose hiding places around the intersection: inside alleyways, on the other side of a car, and from behind trash cans. We began to converge around Buck, who was kneeling in the snow with his hands over his eyes.
Abby jumped to her feet and twirled in the snow, her long hair fanning out around her as she did so. She came to a stop a few feet in front of Buck. “Buck Buck eyeball sizzle,” she sang, adding a ridiculous amount of flair to the last word.
Reid turned his laugh into throat-clearing.
Buck uncovered his eyes. I was close enough to see the damage: unfocused, slightly reddened, and completely useless. Though his eyes darted around as we approached, he could not see us. If he had, he surely would’ve pulled a knife on me as I approached from behind. Well, Mom always did say not to stare at the sun.
Instead, I lunged forward and grabbed his spare knives from their sheaths. He cried out and turned around. “Which one are you?”
“I’m the one who was with Topher when Daisy killed him for nothing,” I hissed. “I’m the one who trapped her in the house and watched it fall on her.” I ripped off my gloves and so I could get a tighter grip on my new knives. “And if I’m the one whose wife is dead because I had to waste time with your punkass team, then I’ll do what my mom did in Chattahoochee,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper as I leaned close to him, “and break into your camp and kill everyone.”
My empty threat had the desired effect. Buck’s mouth fell open as he stared where my voice placed me, but he said nothing, likely too horrified to speak.
Marco, a few feet to my right, mouthed angrily at me. I caught his eye and rolled my own before mouthing, dude, I’m lying.
He crossed his arms and leaned against a snow-covered car, his face a furious grimace directed at me instead of Buck. I’d have to apologize for my insensitive threat later.
Reid stepped forward. “It’s over, McClintock.” He pointed to one of my new knives. “You up for it?”
I stared at the long blade, then looked at Buck on the ground. “Um…”
Berenice, who’d been watching from my left, gestured to an apartment window above us. “Not here. Civilians are watching, and they won’t care about the ‘why’ of killing this piece of garbage.”
I couldn’t help my weak smile of gratitude to Berenice. She gave me a confused look, her eyebrows pulling together as they so often did when I was in her presence.
“Let’s take him to the alley,” Ember said, pointing to the opening between two large buildings. “No windows. We can make it quick and painless. I’ll put him in a trance so he doesn’t have to feel a thing.” Typical Ember.
“Oh, please, let him feel some pain,” Berenice muttered.
“Listen to you all,” Buck said, laughing breathily. “You can murder Peter St. James in the broad daylight, but you don’t have the stomach to kill me in the night. You’re pathetic.”
“Peter burn Gabby,” Abby shot back. “Gabby civilian. Gabby innocent. Peter guilty, no Gabby.”
I could almost see the question marks appear above Buck’s head. “That’s…what?”
“Peter attacked a civilian named Gabriela, dumbass,” Berenice said. “Lark, Topher, and I tried to stop him, and got our faces burned off for our effort. He was about to kill us for daring to stand up to him when Tiger killed him for, you know, breaking the law and being a public menace.”
“You’re lying,” Buck said quickly. “Eli—I mean, all the elders told me—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you mean the elders, who said Mercury was dead, told you we deserved to die?” Berenice retorted. “Mercury, who’s standing three feet from you? The same elders who decided that a man should be flogged and branded because he got married on his own terms? The same elders who ordered the Saint Catherine team to die even after they’d been formally pardoned for their supposed crimes? Buck, you’re nothing more than a trained dog.”
Buck straightened
, though he was still on his knees and unable to focus on anything. “I’m the son of Elder McClintock, and as such, I’m beyond reproach,” he said evenly. “And unlike you, I’m following orders. You’re the dogs. You have no right to kill me. Daisy had every right to kill Christopher.”
Berenice launched herself at Buck.
There was a puff of air, and Lark appeared, her staff extended. She whacked Berenice in the chest, sending her backwards out of sheer surprise. “Now, Reuben!”
Slowly, mesmerizingly, black smoke appeared around Buck’s wrists, forming handcuffs that appeared to be made of strange, almost effervescent obsidian.
I spun around. In the distance, Reuben approached on a smoky walkway above the snow, his path materializing under his feet as he walked. He dragged a beaten, surly Emily alongside him. Black orbs enclosed her hands, effectively preventing her from sickening us or grabbing a weapon.
Were my teammates and enemies not present, I would’ve shed tears of shock and wonder.
His powers had returned two months before they were supposed to. For the first time in twenty-four hours, I began to believe that Jillian truly had a chance.
Item Eleven
Excerpt of an article from the Des Moines Register and Leader, dated August 8, 1912.
MAN FOUND GUILTY OF DOUBLE MURDER
Prominent local merchant Henry A. Gilchrist was led away after a jury condemned him to death for the brutal slayings of his wife and five-year-old son, whose mutilated bodies were found in the Des Moines River last fall. When asked why he committed the heinous crimes, Mr. Gilchrist said, “They were witches. The woman could speak to rabbits and the boy could turn into a butterfly.” Mr. Gilchrist, who did not have legal representation, refused to admit to insanity.
11
Reuben shoved Emily to her knees next to Buck. “Cross your ankles. Buck, you too.”
To my shock, they complied, though awkwardly.
Mercury Page 10
