“That’s some cold logic,” I say.
“She’s not wrong.” Ann paces between me and River and Tess.
“Petr is a master of cold logic. I came here to kill Petr. He deserved to die. He took everything from me, turned me to a killer. All I ever wanted was to help people, I never wanted this.” Tess looks down at her own hands with an open sense of bewilderment.
“After I put everything together,” River says, “I knew she would come here, so I came to help. Petr is the oldest living and one of the most powerful heroes. I didn’t know what would happen if Sammy faced him alone.” River kisses the top of Tess’ head.
I kick at the handle of my gun at my feet. The move is a tick of nerves more than anything else. Too much adrenaline has my body wired on high. Brain is working 300 miles-an-hour and the body’s trying to keep up. The buzz in my brain at this point is relentless. Concussions and sleep deprivation don’t help matters one bit.
“So,” I say, “what do we do now?”
“We call Vince,” River says. “Petr deserves a trial. Every man deserves to be proven guilty. You can stand next to him to nullify his powers during the proceedings.” River angles his head in my direction.
I point at my chest. “Moi? Oh, yeah, the whole nullifying powers thing, that was her.” I jerk my thumb in Ann’s direction.
Her cheeks catch a tint of red, like she doesn’t like being put in the spotlight, but she doesn’t say anything. She just holds River’s assessing gaze until River says, “Well, then,
she
can stand next to him to nullify his powers.”
“And me?” Tess says, taking a half-step away from River, but catching his hand in her own. “I’m a wanted killer, a destroyer. What will become of me?”
“You are innocent, you were defending yourself. They can’t judge you for defending yourself,” Ann says.
“A judge
might
not find me guilty but regardless of what might happen in a trial, the general public will always consider me a monster.” Tess sniffs in a snot-filled breath. “I
am
a monster.”
Ann paces faster. She puts her finger back to her chin. “There are a lot of dead bodies down there.” Ann points at her feet, at the trail of dead heroes we left behind. “There has been lots of fighting. What if during all that fighting, something collapsed?” Ann points to a large brick chimney jutting out from the roof.
She takes a few steps and runs her hand across the rough concrete of the bricks. “What if Tess was buried, killed in that disaster? What if
Samantha
could start a new life? A life as a normal person?”
Tess’ laugh is bitter enough to melt Ann’s bricks. “I’ll never be a normal person. I’m not exactly human anymore, I’m a
hero
.”
Ann steps up in front of Tess and River. “What if I told you I could take that from you? Your powers, I mean. What if I took them and made you human again? You would like that, yeah?”
This brings a caustic look from Tess and River. He pulls away from Tess like he wants to fight Ann. That’s a really bad fucking idea on his part. River shoves a strand of hair away from his forehead. “Why would you toy with her like that? She’s been through the Engine, there’s no going back from that.”
“What if I told you there was,” Ann says. She smiles at the pair of them like Mother Teresa at an orphanage.
River’s hands ball in to fists. He opens his mouth, but Ann beats him to the punch. “You both know Flaura, right?”
Tess blinks a few times, but River’s face burns red. “Of course we do. What does she have to do with anything?”
“We ran in to her on our way up here,” Ann says. She points at a vine on the edge of the building, ivy that’s made its way up. The vine lifts up like a snake and waves.
Tess gasps, and River rounds on Ann, his glare replaced by a gape-mouthed look of awe. “You are doing that? How?”
“I always thought my power was stopping other heroes’ power from working, but I can also take it from them. Flaura is still alive and well. She’s probably still in the lobby, mourning the loss of her powers. She isn’t the only one, either.” Ann disappears, forms back a second later. “Vizzy showed up too.”
River’s gaping mouth has turned into something of cartoon proportions. I’m waiting for an eagle to land on his bottom row of teeth and start nesting.
Ann shrugs. “We ran in to a couple others too, but they died before I could take their powers.”
Tess shudders, reaches out and pulls River back to her. Seeing this woman—who fifteen minutes ago was a monster, tearing apart cities—turned into a helpless mess rocks me.
Ann steps forward, still ten feet away so she doesn’t interrupt River’s hold over Petr, reaching a hand out. “What I’m saying is, I can take your burden from you. You can disappear. Vince will help, he’s always believed in you. If you don’t want this anymore, I understand. You can reach out to me, let go.” Ann’s voice is soft as her hand reaches out in Tess’ direction.
Tess locks eyes with River. He gives a small smile and nod. Whatever drove them apart is obviously pushed to the back of both of their minds. Tess takes a few steps closer to Ann. I wonder if River will disappear with her. Tess takes a breath, reaches her hand out and takes Ann’s grip.
Ann shudders, drops as her knees buckle. She bites back a scream. When she looks back at me, her eyes are glistening and her lip is bleeding between gritted teeth. This power transfer doesn’t seem to be getting any easier on her.
“Di-did it work?” Tess’ hands are knotted together in front of her throat.
Without moving her body, Ann rises, floating in the air in front of us. She holds out an arm and an air-conditioning unit lifts off its concrete base. I guess that answers that question. Tess is now a normal human again and it sounds like something she needed, invited. Hopefully, we can get her out of this alive.
Tess—just Sam now, I guess—watches the floating piece of metal in awe. She reaches toward a different unit and holds her arm out. Nothing happens. Her forehead crinkles in concentration. Still nothing. The tears in her eyes take a completely different meaning as she starts to laugh. It’s the hearty expression of someone just released from death row for a crime they didn’t commit.
I clap my hands together. “So, what now? We already called Vince, he should be here soon with backup.”
“They need to get out of here. It will be much easier to sell the ‘They’re dead’ story if
they
aren’t hanging out here with us with the cavalry shows up.”
“Thank you,” River says to Ann. He turns to me. “And you too. I’m sorry about what happened at the casino, but I didn’t know you. I couldn’t trust you.”
I give him a Cool Jim grin. “It’s okay, I didn’t trust you much either. What about him?” I point to Petr.
“When Sam and I leave, he will come to. My powers only work at a near distance. But if Ann takes his powers before we go, I don’t see him giving you much of a struggle,” River says.
Ann walks to stand next to Petr. She reaches a hesitant hand out to his cheek, stopping millimeters away from skin contact.
“It’s okay, losing his powers is the least of his worries. The fucker deserves to lose his life.” I give her an encouraging nod. This is the right thing to do.
Ann closes her eyes, reaches out to touch him. She screams, falling to her knees.
Someone else shouts behind me. I turn to see a red-skinned man with flames lapping all over his body holding River by his throat. The flames consume River’s face and his shriek sends flames blowing out from his mouth in a dragon’s dying breath.
Sam’s hand rises toward the hero of fire and flame, Fogo. Nothing happens. Her power is gone. Fogo drops River’s charred body to the roof and turns his sights to Sam. She dives behind the brick structure as Fogo unleashes a stream of flame that makes napalm look like a dive-bar matchbook.
I dive for my gun, snatch it off the ground, and roll to a crouching position. Four squeezes of the trigger leave four holes in Fogo’s chest, all of them oozing liquid blue fire. He opens his mouth to laugh and fire roasts in the back of his throat like something out of a dime-store demon hunter novel. Fogo’s chest swells as he sucks in enough air to fuel a typhoon. I look for something to hide behind and come up empty. Nothing solid around me. The only message my brain gets out is to curl into a ball, protect the important shit.
Heat licks across my face, but not hot enough to burn or even blister. Did he miss? I look up to see Fogo floating 50 feet above the roof. Ann is standing under him with her arm raised in the air. With a grimace, she swoops her arm down toward the roof. Fogo screams until his body crashes into the roof. It breaks through the floor below. Pieces of roof crumble and fall as the hole widens.
I scrabble backward until I’m safely away from the fall zone. The door to the staircase acts as my prop as I push myself to my feet. The gun in my hand chatters with my shaking. That was close, too close.
River.
I skirt the edge of the hole in the roof and make my way to him.
Sam is there. She holds his blackened corpse in her arms. Her body rocks, but there are no tears. I wonder if she has any left. The movement causes bits of ash from burned clothing to float up and drift lazily around the air on the roof.
“You bitch, you took everything from me.” The words come out in heavily-accented Russian.
Ann stands toe-to-toe with Petr. He’s bellowing and his hands are balled. He has no idea how close he is to death.
“Calm down.” Ann has her hands out in front of her. Through all this, she doesn’t want to hurt him, I don’t think.
“Fuck you, calm down. You took everything from me.”
“And you tried to take everything from everyone. Maybe you could have gone back in the Engine, but you destroyed it.
You
had it blown up, because
you
were hungry for power and now
you
ain’t nothing. Now, you will come with us and stand trial for your actions.”
Petr’s face and hands turn the red of freshly-spilled blood. His eyes glisten in the light of the sun, but he stays silent. His jaw loosens and turns to the remorseful pose of a man on trial for killing his wife, but the words stay locked inside. The sound that finally pollutes the air is that of gun shots.
Ann’s shirt bounces as two holes appear in her back. The holes in the clothing are the end of the damage, though. The Patriot was impervious to things like that. Now, Ann is impervious. We both turn to find Miles standing on the roof holding a gun. His eyes swell as he realizes he has only angered the beast. He might have meant to disappear, but I’ll never know. In the blink of an eye, Ann has crossed the roof, taken Miles by the neck, and broken said neck into two separate pieces.
If she managed to take Miles’ powers before she killed him, it has affected her less than the others, because she doesn’t make a sound. Maybe how much power she takes has more or less of an effect on her.
“Where’s Petr?” Ann says, drawing me out of my thoughts.
We both run to the edge of the roof where we left him and look over. A crowd has gathered around a body on the ground. Blood seeps out in a wide arc. I guess he couldn’t handle it. Losing his powers, coming to trial. He took the coward’s end. I hope it hurt.
THE CHOP-CHOP
of approaching helicopters echoes in the distance. Three little black dots are heading this way from the East. Ann and I walk over to Sam. She’s released her grip on River and is on her knees beside him. As we approach, she sets River’s head down on the roof with the gentle manner of a mother setting her newborn in his crib.
“We have to go,” I say. “We need to get you out of here before the men in black helicopters show up and get to asking questions.”
Sam doesn’t move.
“He’s right.” Ann crouches to set a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Come on, let me take you home.”
“Can you do that?” I ask.
Ann’s eyes catch mine as she gives a gentle nod.
“I want to come too, come back and get me, okay?”
Sam grimaces.
“I promised your parents I would bring you home,” I say. “I plan to be there when we make good on that.”
The tears I thought had dried up start to flow again. Sam latches on to Ann’s neck and the pair of them vanish into the afternoon air.
I watch the choppers coming. They are still little more than specs, but they’ll be here soon. If this is anything like when there’s a police incident, I’d be willing to bet the paperwork is going to take me the rest of my life. At least the bad guys are gone, I hope. That means I might actually
have
a rest of my life to waste away on paperwork. For whatever reason, I think that if I had a cigarette, I would smoke it right now. The habit was never for me, but right this second, I feel like I could burn one down to the filter.
The gun is still in my grip. I tuck the weapon into my waistband. When I hold my gun hand back out in front of me it shakes. Apparently my body has finally decided this is a good time to give out. My jaw wrenches itself open in a yawn that brings a tear to my eye.
Ann appears next to me and takes me by the arm.
“Did you get lost?” I was beginning to think she forgot about me.
“No. I took her to across the street from her parent’s house. It took that long to get her to let go of me.”
The world around me changes in an instant, and I’m back in Houston. My throat churns and bubbles, but I swallow back every urge to puke. The bile burns my throat.
Ann shakes my shoulder. “Jim, look.”
In the front yard of the house across the street, the three Higgins are locked in an embrace. Sam’s mom is crying, and I even catch a single tear rolling down the face of her stoic father. My chest tingles. I never would have expected things to work out this well for the Higgins family.
We cross the empty street and join the rejoicing family. Sam turns to us, arms wrapped around her mother and father on either side.
“Thank you,” her father says. He squeezes Sam’s shoulder.
Her mother pulls a tissue from her dress and dabs the corners of her eyes. She mouths the ‘thank you’ but no words come out.