Twenty-one
Rangers Redux
In less than five minutes, eight of us had piled into two Sports and were heading across town toward the old HQ. For some of us, four of those minutes had been spent rapidly changing into our official uniforms. Everyone except Marco got a com. McNally made some calls, while Kate made a good case to Teresa why she should join us. Only Dr. Kinsey, Aaron, and Denny stayed behind at Hill House.
No one had to say it. We all knew who was at HQ a full day before its scheduled demolition. I just hoped they all showed up, so we could look this new enemy in the eye and find out exactly who they were.
We parked across the street from the HQ gate, which was already teeming with federal agents and local police. A smartly suited man with silver hair came over to speak with McNally. The rest of us fell in behind Teresa as she marched toward the gate. A heavy chain and padlock were being removed from the gate, which had only seen visitors a handful of times since January.
As an adult, I had very few good memories of this place. Sure, I’d reconnected with my childhood friends and found purpose in my life again. I’d also seen friends die, been nearly killed twice myself, and had come to think of it as a rotting reminder of a past everyone would sooner forget.
No going back to what was. Only forward.
The agents and cops gave us a wide berth and plenty of distrustful looks. McNally came over with her buddy, whom she introduced as Agent Danther.
“A water line burst a little while ago,” Danther said. “It’s flooding the ground around the Base.”
Water. If Tricia shared my mother’s powers, she had power over water. This entire episode felt like a setup.
“Has there been activity anywhere except the Base?” Teresa asked.
“Not so far,” Danther replied. “We’ve got people setting up surveillance from all corners of the perimeter, in case anyone tries to flee the scene.”
“They didn’t come all the way out here just to run.”
“Do you know who’s there?”
“I have a pretty good idea. Your men need to be prepared for anything, and I mean anything, Agent Danther. If the hostiles are who I think they are, then this could go south in a heartbeat.”
“Understood, Trance. Is there anything you need from us?”
“Just to stay out of our way, and I’m sorry if that sounds rude.”
Danther nodded. “I understand. I know your history, so I’ll let you take point on this.”
“Thank you.”
That was . . . unexpected. We hadn’t had that sort of direct deference from federal authorities in . . . well, ever. I liked Danther immediately.
With the mechanical controls long broken, it took four grown men to push open the gate. I forced back the overwhelming urge to shudder as we walked through as a unit, back onto our old stomping grounds. The pile of rubble that had once been our Medical Center lay to our right, and the silent, ten-story Housing Unit was to the left. Right in front of us was our destination.
The Base had been the world’s most awesome gymnasium, with equipment for any physical exercise and rooms to test every sort of Meta power. I’d come here often as a trainee to practice my control over the wind and to learn how to fly. My first jump off the Base roof had been terrifying, and then exhilarating as I soared into the sky like a bird. I was six.
Water had, indeed, flooded the sidewalk and part of the parking lot by the Base, with no apparent source. The quantity of spilled water worried me. It was more than enough for a half-decent water elemental to do a lot of damage with.
“Marco,” Teresa said.
The single word had our resident shapeshifter morphing into his raven form, and then taking to the sky. He hadn’t risen more than fifty feet into the air before he swooped back down, shifting as he came to land on his feet in front of Teresa.
“They are on the roof,” he said. “Waiting. Five of them.”
As much as I wanted to get the hell up there now, I wasn’t sure I could carry five of us at once, plus myself. Marco was the only other person who could fly, and I said so.
“I can climb the wall,” Kate said. She flashed her clawed hands at me. “I’ve done higher.”
I’d carried three. “Maybe I can manage four.”
Marco shifted back and Kate ran toward the Base. I closed my eyes and mustered up all the wind I could, bringing it close to whirl around us. Renee, Gage, Teresa, and Dahlia converged on me without being told, clustering into a protective circle. The roar of the wind called to me, blasted through me, and I used it to carry us up into the air. Up, up, up a ways, before opening my eyes to adjust our trajectory.
The Base roof loomed, flat and empty except for a helipad and single-access hut. Five figures stood on the faded circles of the landing area. Kate was nearly there already, about to hurl herself over the ledge and onto the roof. I put us down near her position and released the whirlwind. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I stumbled into Renee. She slipped her arm around my waist and held me upright while the world corrected itself.
Kind of.
We spread out in a line, the seven of us, and faced down the five familiar figures strolling toward us from the other side of the roof.
Each wore a similar black eye mask and black jumpsuit, fitted like a second skin. Tricia was easiest to pick out. She even had the same “oh my gawd” smile she’d worn yesterday at Springwell, like this was the coolest meet-up ever. Next to her was a blond woman who had to be Black Ice 2.0, and past her was our very first suspect. The Jasper clone smirked in our general direction.
Down the line Gage inhaled a sharp breath.
The two surprise guests didn’t take long to figure out, despite the masks. The tallest had ebony skin, thickly muscled limbs, and could have easily passed for William Hill himself. Only, I knew without asking that this was a bastardization of a different Hill—his father, Anthony, aka Sledgehammer.
The young man at the end of the line sent cold chills down my back, and I glanced over at Teresa, who stood on the other side of Marco. She’d gone a scary shade of white, allowing the purple marks on her face to stand out like neon paint. I knew how she felt as the final suspect took a step closer, hands on his hips, chest puffed out—that pose was on dozens of pro-Ranger posters when I was a kid.
Younger and not really him at all, the cloned version of Hinder, Teresa’s father, laughed at us.
Marco snarled.
“You should see your faces,” Hinder (I had no idea what else to call him or any of the others) said in a spot-on perfect voice. “You’re supposedly the next generation of heroes, and you didn’t see this coming?”
Teresa stepped forward, both hands crackling with lavender energy. The air around us sparked with the power of it. “What exactly is this?” she asked in a voice so cold, so harsh, it didn’t sound like her at all.
“It’s the dawn of a new era, Trance, the cusp of something great.”
Okay, bloviate much?
“And since some of us are genetically related,” Hinder continued, “we thought we’d give you a fair chance.”
“To do what?”
“Walk away, so we aren’t forced to put you away.”
“Put us away?” The chill in her voice melted into disgust. “You think you can have us arrested? You’re the ones running around attacking hospitals.”
Hinder smirked. “I didn’t say arrested. But we can have you removed from the game and put where you’ll do no harm.”
My entire body tensed, and I fought the urge to rush the guy and demand to know if he’d done that to McTaggert and Andrew. Had he taken them and locked them up somewhere? Were they even still alive?
Teresa put her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of the man in front of her. “And where is that, exactly? Springwell Labs?”
He tsked. “I can’t tell you that, silly girl. But my offer is this: Leave Los Angeles, go anywhere you want, but you disappear for good. Live your lives, forget this hero nonsense, and leave it all to us.” He glanced at something on the wrist of his uniform. “This offer is good for the next four minutes.”
“Uh-huh. And what about the people on Manhattan I promised to help?”
“Forget them. They’ll no longer be your problem. Take your lover and go. Make babies. Live a peaceful life.”
Teresa didn’t even hesitate, bless her. “Tempting, but no.”
He heaved a dramatic, world-weary sigh. “Shame. You know you can’t stop what’s coming.”
“I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Stubborn girl. I think you get that from me.”
She bristled. “You’re not my father.”
“What’s that saying? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—”
“F*ck you. My father died a hero in the War.”
Hinder swept his arm behind him, indicating his four companions. “We all died as heroes in the War. Mothers, fathers, brothers, cousins, friends, all dead because Metas couldn’t control themselves. Time for someone else to control them.”
His fellow clones had been mostly still during the exchange, but they were fidgeting now, as the four-minute deadline ticked down. Something was up, and we were running out of time. Patience gone, I took a step up from the line and asked, “Where are Freddy and Andrew McTaggert?”
Tricia moved to stand next to Hinder. “Why does it matter, Tempest? He left the Rangers. Left us. Changed sides. He deserves what he gets.”
My stomach soured just looking at her. “You are not my mother, lady. Freddy had his reasons for leaving the Rangers, and Andrew’s just a kid!”
“Who will grow up to be just like his father. Those children deserve a chance to have a better, more fulfilling life.”
“That’s what we want for them, too.” The breeze around us picked up as my temper soared. “Where’s Andrew? Where’s my brother?”
The five clones gave a collective start. Okay, so I maybe shouldn’t have blurted that one out, but now they knew I was serious as hell about getting the McTaggerts back.
Hinder looked at his wrist again, then shook his head. “Sorry, but time has expired on my offer.”
“So what happens now?” Teresa asked.
“The fun begins.”
Tricia raised both hands into the air. From three of four sides of the building came a mighty roar, like charging stallions. My group spread out a bit, each of us preparing for a fight. Teresa’s hands glowed with energy. Marco shifted into his panther form and reared back, ready to spring. I tested the wind and found it waiting, eager to be used.
The roar revealed itself in a great rush of water that spouted up from the three sides of the roof—the broken water main—straight up into the air. Teresa threw an orb at Tricia. Sledgehammer dove in front of the shot, which knocked him sideways onto the ground. Tricia closed the gap in the water wall, effectively enclosing us in a backward downpour.
Teresa lobbed another orb at Tricia, but Tricia dodged. The blond woman, Black Ice, spun around with a mighty screech, and the water began to solidify. Four thick, tall walls of ice formed around the Base.
I gathered a whirlwind, intending to use it like a giant drill and break through the ice, when Hinder shouted, “Stop! The ice will protect us!”
I hesitated, and it got me knocked to the ground by the Jasper clone, who moved with the incredible speed I remembered. Marco roared and a big black paw swiped damn close to my head as Jasper dodged the blow. I rolled away and came up on my knees, only to topple sideways again. Not because someone hit me, though.
The building was shaking. Hard.
A distant, muffled rumble was joined by alarms and the sounds of glass shattering, wood creaking, stone breaking. The ground itself screaming.
“Is that an earthquake?” Renee asked.
The fight stopped as quickly as it had begun, with both sides stumbling to their respective corners. Marco shifted into raven form and took to the air with a cry. I looked at Teresa, who was clutching Gage while the world rocked and shimmied, and she nodded. I gathered up a cushion of air and rose into the sky, above the shell of ice surrounding the Base.
Los Angeles was shaking apart.
California was no stranger to earthquakes. We’d experienced a few this year, but nothing strong enough to do more than rattle a few chandeliers and make dogs bark. This was different. The entire world seemed to be in motion, like the ground was desperate to toss off the structures man had hefted onto her back. High-rise buildings long vacant swayed under the pressure and chunks plummeted down. Cracks split the pavement and sidewalks of the Avenue of the Stars. Rows of trees crashed onto Olympic Boulevard. Water sprayed from a broken water main. Fires blossomed on the landscape as far as I could see as the city crumbled.
Hill House. Aaron.
Something hard and cold knocked the air from my lungs, and a second concurrent blow sent me careening, unable to control the wind keeping me up. I slammed into the ice wall and tumbled to the Base roof in a pained heap. The earthquake seemed to stop at the same time, but movement around me became a blur of chaos.
The ice cracked and snapped. Cold water and flakes of snow rained down on me, and I covered my spinning head with my hands. My chest ached and I coughed, desperate to breathe again. Teresa was shouting orders I couldn’t understand. I had to get up. Had to help my friends. Had to get to Aaron and make sure he was okay.
I focused on the battle in time to see Sledgehammer punch Gage square in the chest. Gage screamed, something audibly cracked, and the blow sent him skimming down the roof several feet like a human bowling ball. Teresa hollered something unintelligible and hit Sledgehammer in the gut with a cantaloupe-sized power orb, and he went careening into Black Ice.
Tricia raised her hands and a wall of water rushed over the side of the roof. I lurched to my knees and reached for the wind. She smashed her wall of water into Renee, Kate, and Dahlia, and the force of it sent all three over the edge of the roof. We were five stories up. Dread filled my guts as I sent a spiral of air at Tricia. It knocked her toward panther-Marco, who sprang to catch her.
Teresa threw an orb at Black Ice, who countered with a ball of ice. Their powers collided with a sound like bursting balloons and water sprayed into the air between them. Still sore but less dizzy, I climbed to my feet and blew a wall of air at Black Ice. She stumbled sideways. Teresa’s orb connected with her chest, and she spun around once before collapsing. Out of nowhere, Jasper hit Teresa like a tackling linebacker, his incredible speed carrying them both straight into the stairwell housing wall with a horrific crunch. Jasper bounced away. Teresa fell.
I pulled a pocket of air close, and then sent it right where I expected Jasper to turn next—and caught him perfectly. He sailed in the opposite direction, right into Hinder, who’d been inactive the entire fight, the smug bastard. The pair went sprawling to the ground. Not far from them, panther-Marco was sitting on top of Tricia, holding her by the back of the neck with his powerful jaws and teeth.
She screeched and a nearby puddle of water formed into a wad the side of a basketball.
“Marco, duck!” I yelled.
He took the direction somewhat literally, because he rolled to the side and shifted, coming away in raven form. The water ball smashed a hole into the roof near Tricia’s head. Jasper zinged forward before I could muster up the wind to stop him, and he grabbed Marco by his bird feet. Marco screeched and twisted around, pecking at Jasper’s face with his powerful beak. Jasper screamed and let go, both hands coming up to clutch at his bleeding left eye.
Another water ball hit Marco before he could react, and it sent him careening over the building’s ledge in a blur of wet feathers. I turned a wall of air onto Tricia just as she sent water in my direction, and our elemental powers collided in a shower of raindrops. She’d crawled to her knees, and over and over again we crashed our elements against each other, me and this woman who looked like my mother, had her powers, but was actively trying to kill me and my friends. My focused zeroed in on her, on stopping her, on exhausting her water supply with my endless supply of air.
Too bad it distracted me. Hinder appeared in my peripheral vision an instant before the blow struck. Pain burst in my jaw and rattled my teeth. I spun and fell, stunned, dizzy, nauseated by the agony of the single punch to the face.
“This has been fun,” Hinder said, “but it’s time to go. Good-bye.”
I blinked, trying to focus on his escape, even if my body was too tangled up and confused to stop him. Our eyes met and the genetic bastard smiled. Then all five of the clones disappeared. Poof! Like they’d never been there at all.
How the hell was that—?
Andrew.
“Andrew!” I tried to stand and only succeeded in lurching to my knees. Spat a wad of blood onto the concrete roof and only then felt the cut inside my mouth. “Andrew!” Even if he was there (and I was pretty damned sure he was), I doubted he could answer me. They were using him for his invisibility powers.
I hauled ass over to Teresa, who was using the side of the stairwell access to stand up. She was dazed and unsteady after her crash into the metal wall, eyes unfocused, and I caught her before she fell.
“Status report,” she said.
“They’re gone,” I replied. “All of them.”
“Shit. Our peop—Gage!”
She yanked away from me and stumbled over to where Gage lay on the ground. He hadn’t moved since the start of the fight. Teresa rolled him onto his back, and he cried out. His face was stark white and sweaty, and he’d bitten his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
“Shoulder,” he huffed. “F*ck, it hurts.”
Her fingers barely brushed his left shoulder, and he hissed through clenched teeth. “Hold on a bit, okay? We’ll get you to the hospital.”
“That might not be easy,” I said, recalling the apocalyptic disaster caused by the earthquake just a few minutes ago. The distant roar of fire, of sirens, of people yelling—it became a single thunderous noise.
Marco flew overhead, shifting as he came down to land solidly on his feet next to us. “Renee, Kate, and Dahlia are all right,” he said. “Somewhat bruised. Noah’s telekinesis cushioned the fall.”
Thank God.
“They might have had Andrew here for his invisibility power,” I said to Marco. “Do you smell anything unusual?”
He cocked his head curiously, then shifted into a panther and loped across the roof, sniffing as he went. Teresa took out her cell phone. I saw her dial McNally’s number, probably to give an update on us and find out just what was going on outside. I used my own cell to call Hill House, but the call didn’t go through.
Would one of them go to the War Room and get an active com? “Tempest to anyone at Hill House, do you hear me?” I said. “Tempest to Hill House, hello?”
<I’ve been trying, too,> Noah said over the com line. <No one’s answering.>
I moved to the ledge. The trio stood in a swamp of water and grass. Past them, the broken, sagging, shattered structure of the old Housing Unit looked one stiff breeze away from collapsing entirely. Ten stories that had stood for more than a century had been brought to its knees by the strongest earthquake in at least that long.
<We need to get back,> Noah said.
“Yeah.” I looked over my shoulder at Teresa, who nodded silent permission. I mouthed “thank you,” brought up a rush of air, and flew over the edge. Down to pick up Noah for a fast flight over the worst kind of carnage I’d ever seen.
As he clung to my waist in our cushion of air, we flew over what looked like a war zone. Collapsed buildings everywhere. Over Wilshire, which was cracked and littered with fallen palm trees. Cars were stalled in the road, a few of them in collision clusters. People had gotten out and were watching a gas station that roared with an uncontrolled fire.
“Dahlia wants to stop!” Noah yelled over the noise.
I didn’t ask, just put us down a good hundred feet from the blaze, near an overturned pickup truck. Dahlia had taken over their shared body during the landing, and she stepped closer to the blaze, which had consumed both the building and all four pumps. I redirected the wind to keep the smoke away from us and from the idiot bystanders who hadn’t found a safer place to hang out than within blasting distance of a gasoline fire.
“Only what you can handle,” I yelled at Dahlia. One of Teresa’s key phrases when it came to Dahlia’s ability to absorb heat and fire. She’d gone overboard with a chemical blaze once and nearly killed herself.
Some of the bystanders tossed a few nasty remarks in our direction, but we ignored them. One seemed to be recording us with his cell phone. Well, good. If this turned out well, maybe we’d get some positive press for a change.
Dahlia held her palms out toward the inferno and closed her eyes. The direction of the wind shifted a little as she pulled the core heat of the fire toward herself. Hot air rushed around us, and I kept it as contained as possible while Dahlia absorbed the blaze. The leaping flames shortened, pulled back. Sweat broke out over her skin, and she was breathing harder through her mouth.
The gasoline. Accelerants got into her system and made for a pretty harsh postfire hangover. By the time she’d doused the final flame, she was the color of a clamshell. Then she dropped to her knees and vomited onto the split pavement. Behind us, a few people clapped and cheered. I knelt down and held her while her body expelled the poisons she’d absorbed along with the fire’s heat.
My com crackled in my ear, and then a desperate voice said, <Hello? Can you guys hear me? It’s Denny.>
“Denny, it’s Tempest,” I said. “Are you okay?”
<Yeah, just shaken up. But the house, some of it collapsed and I can’t find Scott or Dr. Kinsey anywhere.>
Fear crept up my spine on icy fingers. “I’m on my way back with Dahlia. We’ll be there soon. Don’t go back in the house until we get there.”
<Okay.>
I helped Dahlia stand up.
“Hey!” someone yelled from the far side of the street. “There’re houses on fire over on Whittier.”
“We’ll come back,” I replied. “We have another emergency.”
The shouter was the man with the cell phone. “These are people’s homes.”
“I’m sorry.”
And I was. I didn’t want to leave those people behind to battle fires when the roads were too torn up to allow fire trucks to pass. But we had to help our friends first. I had to know Aaron was okay.
As I lifted us up into the air, cell phone guy shouted out, “Cowards!”
So much for positive evening news coverage.