Gift of Light_A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel Page 14

  Wisp rubbed her knuckles against her forehead. Sure, today’s rendezvous with C loomed only hours away, but still … her beacon shouldn’t have shown her this much red. Not unless her death was already decided. If Constantine didn’t have her killed today, Smoker would.

  She turned, gazing north through one of the stone arcs, half expecting Smoker’s arrogant grin to flash at her from midair. But all there was to see was Smog and the outlines of half-submerged buildings at the other end of the church square. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, hot and stifling, waiting out the inevitable. Something was going to happen and it wasn’t going to be pretty. A heaviness like the mass of an undigested pancake straight from the freezer churned in the pit of Wisp’s stomach.

  Remembering a fleeting image of Hannah’s face in her dream, she turned her attention to the floating sphere, holding on to that image as she said the words. “Find Hannah.”

  To her surprise, the light not only darted northward, but changed its color to saffron. She had a second to gape at it before it veered down, disappearing from her field of vision.

  Hannah is nearby.

  Drawing herself up in an instant, Wisp rushed the four steps to the stone arc and jumped onto a bottle crate for a better view of the nearby city. She caught a glimpse of her sphere moving northward, flitting a hand’s breath above the drifting Smog at breakneck speed. It crossed the square and zipped through a broken window, continuing its course in what appeared to be a horizontal line, moving too close to the ground to emerge on the other side of the building.

  She’s close. She’s actually here.

  Wisp pinched her own cheek. Discovering that it actually hurt and she wasn’t dreaming, she wove her fingers through the air, gathering enough sunlight to shape a firefly sphere. Once it had fully manifested, she dispatched her little helper to the half-submerged business strip that was blocking her line of sight.

  The instant the light reached safe ground on a former Chinese roof restaurant, she swapped positions and made a soft landing on the roof deck. Then she whirled and rushed to the opposing edge, where a safety rail opened the view to Shadow-claimed territory and a swath of city architecture that had been laid bare by a telling absence of Smog.

  Wisp narrowed her eyes and gripped the railing harder. The toxic vapors kept on clinging to either side of the train station and the tracks leading northwest, rising two stories high as a compact, impenetrable tangerine colored mass. The ground between the two towering vapor screens had been exposed in a straight channel leading northeast. The visual resembled a reenactment of Moses’ parting of the Red Sea. Instead of leading all the way back to Egypt, the path ended at Constantine’s warehouses. No surprises there.

  The Shadow’s leader paraded the exposed city swath with an armed entourage, flaunting his presence with a high-collared, hooded crimson trench coat that gave off a decidedly villainous air. This wasn’t a diplomatic visit. It was a blatant show of power and superiority, supplemented by four men with portable machine guns and a single shoulder mounted mini-gun. The man carrying it had to be nearly seven feet tall.

  Watching them from a distance, Wisp felt her limbs grow heavy, and her breath came in short puffs. That right there was the reason she’d never be able to fight Constantine on equal footing. Because even if she as much as blinded a couple of his men or landed a lucky hit with her gun, Constantine’s retaliatory strike would be far more brutal than anything she could do to his gang. The Survivors didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against this kind of firepower.

  So what are we going to do? Wisp punched her fists against her thighs, shoving her own weakness away. Hannah was somewhere out here. The primary goal hadn’t changed. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make Constantine think he won. Wisp narrowed her eyes at the approaching group, the next objective etching itself firmly in her mind. And when he’s sure I’m helpless and defeated, I’ll destroy whatever authority he thinks he has.

  After another moment of rubbing her thighs with her fists, Wisp felt steady enough to blank out the presence of the guns and take a closer look at the approaching Shadow party. There was no sign of Smoker. Smog still retreated ahead of the group, extending the path of free passage for Constantine’s crew. The Transmuter had to be somewhere close by, waiting for a chance to parade his own villainy. He wasn’t the one she came for.

  Shifting her attention, Wisp scanned the strip of visible terrain to discover a second, smaller group of Shadow gang members following on the heels of the first. Three men instead of a dozen, keeping their distance from the main group. These gang members were equipped not with weapons, but a limp body hoisted over the largest man’s shoulder. Even though they appeared as little more than specks moving in the distance, Wisp caught a flash of long red hair swaying with the movement, and her heart sank to her boots.

  “You’re not dead,” she whispered. “You were okay a minute ago. I mean, your light had a more optimistic color than mine.”

  She tightened her grip on the railing before releasing it, urging herself to find something good about this situation. Constantine was returning Hannah and she was alive. He wasn’t likely to let her go, but her presence was going to open a window for negotiation.

  A broken window with sharp, jagged edges.

  Having taken in the details of the approaching party, Wisp turned around and launched her tiny light, sending it back to the tower platform she had departed a minute ago. She swapped positions and ran to the stairway, doing her best to navigate the clutter of the gang’s stored supplies without tripping over anything.

  “Something’s going on with the Smog,” Max said when she was halfway up the stairs.

  “I know,” she said, climbing the last steps two at a time. “Constantine is incoming, and he’s bringing Hannah!”

  This piqued everyone’s interest faster than anything else she could have said. Sara sat on the uppermost step with a tattered tabloid and clapped a hand over her mouth. Wisp touched her shoulder in passing. Max looked up from a set of mechanical parts he was working on, his athletic body taut as a tightly wound chord. Luca shifted to face her, not abandoning his observation post on the ledge.

  “Is Smoker with them?” Luca jutted a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the Smog-blurred cityscape below.

  “Didn’t see him. He has to be.” Wisp stepped up to Luca, putting a hand on his arm, and stared past him through the stone arc. “He’s pushing the Smog out of the way so they can walk outside in broad daylight. They’ll be here in a few minutes. We need to get ready. They’ll probably pull the Smog away from the tower so we can head downstairs.”

  Sara jumped to her feet. “Is Hannah okay?”

  “She’s alive,” Wisp said. “I don’t know anything more, but we’re getting her back today.” Infusing the words with strength helped keep the terror of her nightmare at bay. They did nothing to ease her worries, however. She reached inside herself to grasp her stronger, more confident persona and found it out of reach.

  Luca was looking at her as he hopped off the ledge, his mouth hardening.

  Max tossed the camera he’d been working on into a box of disassembled drone parts and rose to his full six feet of height. “Let’s go pick Hannah up.”

  “Just one thing,” Wisp said. “How much longer do you need to finish the camera and the trigger for it?”

  “An hour or two. Had to do some testing to find the right battery for the job and small enough to keep it concealed yet strong enough to power the communications link.”

  “Sounds fair.” Wisp collected her Desert Eagle from the box where she’d left it. It felt clunky in her hand, useless. A kid’s toy to face down an army arsenal. “Sara, I need you to stay here. You’re going to look like a target to those guys and I promised your brother to keep you safe.”

  The girl nodded and sat down, huddling on the stained stone floor. “Okay. But I want to listen from here.”

  “Sure.” Wisp strapped the gun to her belt. “Keep quiet an
d don’t worry.”

  She stepped over to the ledge Luca had been sitting on, reaching past him into the sunlight to shape three fist-sized spheres and observe the church square. Down below, the Shadow war party advanced to the tower, spreading out to form a half-circle of intimidation with Constantine’s crimson-clad figure at the center. He positioned himself in front of the museum doors and raised a ring-adorned hand, prompting the man beside him to lower Hannah’s limp body to the ground.

  I’m coming for you both. Knowing that her priority target was within reach jump-started Wisp with a rush of energy that left little room for self-doubt. Ready, set, go. She shaped her third sphere in a hurry, fingers weaving through the air in a frenzied rhythm.

  Once complete, she ordered the trio of lights to trail behind her as she descended the stairs with Max and Luca in tow. The sound of their movements at her back gave her a small boost of reassurance.

  This was it, the biggest challenge she’d ever faced. The day she was going to put her turtle shell to the test. To crack meant to lose everything and everyone she still treasured.

  She made her way through the museum. Maybe their target was me all along. The thought led to another, cutting deeper. Maybe Hannah got caught up in this because she’s my friend, and because I care about her.

  With every step she took, the lingering stench of Smog washed over her, reminding her of how volatile her piece of peace had been up until Hannah’s kidnapping. Even her birth town had only seemed safe until the Breakdown. No matter what she did or where she went, there would always be someone bigger and badder than her. Someone capable of toppling her house of cards.

  “Remember,” Luca said just before she pushed the door, “if you cave, they can get you to cave again.”

  The glass double-door swung open and she faced a dozen guns. All of them were pointed in the general direction of her, Max and Luca.

  Constantine spread his arms in a mock welcome. “About time you showed your face. I was starting to believe you don’t actually want to see me, or your friend.” His tone matched the hardness of his gaze.

  Not bothering with a response, Wisp rushed to the slumped woman who lay sprawled face down on the rough pavement. That was her intention at least. Every cell of her body longed to pull Hannah into her arms, feel her warmth as proof that she was still alive, and let her know that her friends were looking out for her. But before Wisp had crossed more than half the distance, a burly man in a black dress shirt blocked her way.

  “Let me see her,” she said without taking her eyes off the prone body wearing Hannah’s clothes. Max tried to shoulder his way past her and the man blocking them. Luca grabbed his arm, holding him back.

  They were saying something she couldn’t hear. A burst of gunfire ripped through the air, battering her eardrums and overpowering all other sounds. Wisp instinctively dropped to a squat and her hands flew to her ears. The shooting stopped after a brief instant but her heart kept pounding like a jackhammer, anxious to check on everyone at once.

  Through the gap between Black Shirt’s legs she saw Hannah, still sprawled and motionless but without any apparent new injuries. One of Constantine’s men had grabbed her by the throat and pointed the barrel of a handgun to her temple.

  “Don’t shoot,” Wisp said in a quivering voice, hands dropping away from her ears. Max was standing beside her with taut shoulders and hands raised partway, huffing visibly. Luca, half behind her and half to her left, had grown still and quiet as a blanket of snow.

  Wisp only detected the raised machine gun when the man who had fired the shots lowered it. Judging by his stance, he had fired into the air. The acrid, eggy stink of discharged gunpowder mixed with the latent chemical odor of Smog.

  “No one approaches the girl,” the man with the machine gun barked in accent-free German.

  “Okay,” Wisp replied mechanically, the gunshots still echoing through her skull.

  “We have something to talk about, you and I,” Constantine said. “The girl is an irrelevant little dipshit. Look at me.”

  She didn’t agree, but the muzzle of the machine pistol in front of her convinced her to stop and turn back to him, fingers clenched so tight her fingernails dug into her palms. He gave her a weighty look, authoritarian and immovable, assessing her from head to toe as if to locate the gun she had put against the back of his neck the day before. His eyes fell to the bump on her hip.

  “Let me talk to Hannah first,” she said. It didn’t sound as forceful as she’d hoped, and she caught herself fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. Her mask was out of reach and she couldn’t take cover behind it.

  “No.” His steely voice cut through the air like a sword. “You might not be aware of it, but you’re my subjects now, living and looting and shitting on my territory. You’re going to start doing all of this on my terms. No one gives a goddamn what you think.”

  “I get it,” Wisp said. “You’ve got the bigger guns now, so it’s your city – all of it – and your rules.” She wanted to add more but bit her tongue in the end. Her attention snapped to Hannah before shifting to the gun pressed to the young woman’s temple, and the various other firearms fencing her in.

  Constantine tilted his chin. “So you’re going to prove your usefulness to me.”

  “If you release Hannah,” Wisp said. “That was the deal.” She felt Luca shift behind her, radiating disapproval.

  “Good to hear.” Constantine waved in Hannah’s direction. “Wake her up.”

  The man reached into his drop pouch, pulled out a plastic bottle of clear liquid, and unscrewed it. Wisp struggled to stay still as he dug his fingers into Hannah’s disheveled mane and yanked her head up from the pavement, revealing a constellation of red and dark purple bruises beneath her facial piercings. Her lips were caked in dried blood and one of her eyes had nearly swollen shut. Despite the rough treatment, the young woman showed no indication of waking up.

  “How do I know she’s going to wake up at all?” Wisp asked, her vision blurred by unshed tears.

  “Because I say so.” Constantine’s reply contained a derisive snort.

  “That’s not enough.” She rubbed at her eyes with her right arm. “Before I do anything for you, I want to see her. Hold her.”

  She could practically hear his eyeroll. “Fine. Let her through. If the boys approach the hostage, shoot them.”

  “Wisp…” Luca said in a gentle, pleading tone. She didn’t stick around to hear him out.

  Wisp shouldered past the thug who had blocked her way. She faintly registered a blur of movement around her, followed by the sound of multiple guns being cocked. Then she dropped to her knees beside Hannah and pulled the warm, limp body into her arms.

  No one spoke. No one fired a shot. No one tried to grab her or pull her away.

  “You can wake up now,” Wisp said in a soft voice, cradling her friend’s swollen face in her hands. “Hannah, we’re here. Everyone’s here for you.”

  Hannah’s eyelids fluttered and her skin felt warm, but she didn’t wake up.

  “We tried to find you sooner,” Wisp went on, the words a tremulous whisper. “From now on, we’ll always stay together so no one gets lost.” She resisted the urge to wrap her friend in a tight hug. Hannah’s bruises extended all the way to her arms and back. Hugging her would only hurt her more.

  A rustle of movement pulled her mind back to the others. She turned her head to see Max’s bulky adult frame fold in on itself. He sank to his knees, matching her pose. “Did you drug her?” he snapped at Constantine, who was towering over her with the stone-cold carelessness of an Egyptian obelisk.

  The Shadow leader raised an eyebrow. “I did no such thing. My men did.”

  Wisp bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. Strangely, the pain invigorated her and took the anxiety away, clearing space for a more useful emotion.

  She glared at Constantine. “I’m only going if the others can take Hannah to the tower.”

  “Demands, now?” The rigid line of h
is mouth twitched upward at the corner. “Don’t be ridiculous. Keep wasting my time and I’ll have one of your other friends shot to prove the fucking point. She’ll be free to go after you’ve earned her freedom.”

  Right. This right here is why we’ve never fought back. Why we always begged for a compromise and ducked our heads in the end.

  Wisp clenched her teeth, allowing the fire in her belly to burn away her own weakness. At least for the moment. She rose to her feet and turned to Max and Luca.

  “We got this,” she told them. She’d stopped caring about the guns at that point. Standing her ground felt surprisingly easy, almost natural.

  The villain fixed her with a level gaze, perhaps noticing the change in her attitude. “Let’s talk about you, then, and what you’re going to do for me. I don’t give a damn about the redhead. If you’re less of a little shit than she was, I might forget she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.”

  Max stood to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling at the nearest gunman. “I’m staying here with Hannah and I’m not moving an inch until they let her go.”

  Wisp gave him a nod. “Thanks, Max. Just don’t provoke them, please. Don’t talk. I’m handling this.” She turned back to Constantine. “If I prove myself,” she said, “I want to join your gang with whatever rank Smoker has, and I want to keep the money.”

  For the first time in what felt like an eternity, her words knocked the wind out of Constantine’s sails. For a brief delicious moment, his arrogant stoicism faltered and his eyes went wide before narrowing in apparent suspicion.

  Luca pulled on her fingers, sharing his discomfort through touch.

  Trust me. The thought felt warm and desperate as she sent it through their interlocked hands. Please, Luca. Just trust me.

  “We’ll see,” Constantine said, resuming his stony facade. “For now, you do as you’re told. Smoker. Show yourself.”

  The air stirred. All around her, the distant ring of Smog encircled the plaza and the ever-present pungent stench intensified. Beside Constantine, Smoker peeled into existence inch by inch, materializing slowly as he drained color from the empty air that had spawned him.