Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (46 page)

“Apogee – the tower,” I shouted, firing my boots to cross the distance between Ashbourne and I.

I had the tower in view when the shot went off, the barest muzzle flash in the stark daylight. I didn’t see who it hit, but I heard screams and a heartbeat later, the report caught up with the shot, a small explosion lost in the sudden chaos.

*              *              *              *

The sniper’s name was James Michael Douglas, a former marine and later member of the elite JSOC group – notorious for their nighttime raids and kill missions. After two tours in Afghanistan, he applied for and was accepted into the Secret Service, and a few years after that into the Special Officer program, which is how he got to be a member of Senator Ashbourne’s security detail.

He wasn’t particularly gifted with a sniper rifle, but the weapon he had was computer control and laser guided, with a special package warhead on the enormous .50 caliber bullet.

We’d find out all of this afterwards, of course, including how Brutal kidnapped his four children and wife in order to get him to shoot and kill the Senator. He was actually off duty that morning, despite the added pressure on the Senator’s protective detail, but his credentials were enough to get him past the security cordon with a suitcase that would have otherwise been searched by his Secret Service colleagues.

He waited until five minutes before Senator Ashbourne was to speak and climbed the Dartmouth tower overlooking the event, taking out two school security guards. He assembled the weapon, and said a tearful prayer while holding a picture of his family. He loaded the strange weapon and also readied his service revolver, which had a 9mm round in the chamber but was sporting and empty clip.

We’d find this out later, of course, because in that split second after the bullet tore into Global, and the second after that when the loud report echoed through the Dartmouth campus, five Secret Service sharpshooters, the remaining thirty agents, about one hundred security guards, the thousands gathered on the lawn, and over fifty heroes glanced in his direction, not a hundred yards away. Yet he still had time to clear the chamber of the spent casing and load a second round, aiming this time for the Senator.

I fired my boots, rocketing toward Ashbourne, past a dozen heroes that were taking to the sky to find the sniper. The touchy throttle propelled me at the Senator, whose eyes widened as I backfired to slow down and landed beside him.

Then I tackled him.

As we went down, I felt a sharp pain stabbing my back and as we flew off the raised stage, I turned and crashed into the lawn with the uninjured Senator in my arms. Global, who had been standing beside the Senator when the first shot caught him in the chest lay next to me, gasping for air. I released Ashbourne and rolled over to the hero, looking at the horrible wound.

“Osmium-tipped,” he said, coughing as he clasped his bleeding chest. Instead of crimson blood, Global was seeping the same mercury colored fluid at an alarming rate. He looked at me and smiled, his teeth stained with the stuff. “My…only weakness,” he added.

“Take it easy,” I said, unsure of how to proceed. “We’re going to get you some help,” I said, but he shook his head, tears of mercury streaming his cheeks.

He didn’t seem to be suffering, so much as in fear of something awful about to happen. I tore his costume tunic open and saw the edges of the wound deepening like a sinkhole as more of the fluid gushed from inside him.

“It’s too late,” he said, his voice only a whisper.

“Get your hands off him,” Ashbourne said, rising to his feet as several men from his detail jumped off the stage and joined him. A few had their weapons raised in my direction. The insane looking guns they wielded weren’t standard issue 9mm pistols.

“The bullet, it…pierced him, somehow,” I said in vain. The Senator’s detail was already turtled around him. They lead him away, save for the two left behind to ensure I didn’t follow.

“How can I stop it?” I asked Global, but he was already still, maybe even dead. The edges of the wound continued retreating from the spot the bullet had struck him, and a second later he burst, like a popped water balloon, spraying me with metallic goo.

Global was gone.

Things had spun irrevocably off their hinges in the round, civilians fleeing in all directions, the heroes responding to the attack, and the security personnel trying in vain to regain control of the situation. Superdynamic gave crisp, flawless orders through my earpiece, but it wasn’t translating to anything near control of the situation.

The Senator’s detail had him twenty yards from me in just a few seconds, and I figured the old man’s feet were barely touching the ground as they raced to safety. Only a puddle of metallic fluid remained of Global, more on my lap and chest than on the lawn. It drained through the blades of grass, seeping into the ground, gone forever.

He had been one of the Original Seven, a project planner for Dr. Retcon and youngest member of the team. Global had embraced the role of superhero more so than the others, even more than Valiant, operating transnationally, independent of any corporate interests, always with the greater good in mind. He, Nostromo and Valiant had stopped Retcon’s lame-brained idea to use the Earth’s moon to attack the Lightbringer alien that watched from Calisto, and along with Apostle, had stopped the old man when he stole the entire Soviet nuclear stockpile in a similar plan.

Though his power was nebulous and expansive, Global made sure it was always used to help others, and had remained active and public longer than any of the other heroic members of the Seven. In fact, when you looked at the timing, he had retired around the time my former group, the Impossibles came into being – just around the time I killed Pulsewave. Global retired from public life to protect his stalwart friend, the man that had championed his cause more than any other.

To protect him from me.

“Jesus, Dale!” I was shaken from my reverie by Apogee, who with the slightest touch sent me reeling, pitched face down on the ground. She turned me on my side and I felt her touch my back, her hand coming back drenched in blood.

“You okay?” I said, screaming in pain, only now realizing something was protruding from my back.

“Oh, Jesus,” she said, easing me down.

“What’d I do now?” I joked, only then realizing the blurring edges of my vision. “Oh dear,” I muttered.

“You’ve been hit, Dale. Sit still while I find-” she said, then stopped. Her face was inches from mine and I saw her go from fear to scowling rage. I turned to look, getting an upside down glimpse of a figure casually strolling away from us, toward the bundle of Secret Service agents that were fighting with the crowd to get Ashbourne to safety.

It was Brutal.

“Stay here,” she said, peeling herself off me and charging her fist.

“Hit him before he charges up,” I said, but Apogee was out of earshot before I finished the first word. She rushed Brutal in a second and hit him with everything she had.

And he didn’t flinch.

Brutal stopped as the purplish anima Apogee hit him with faded into the ether and smiled as he glanced at her. He smiled and laughed, reaching out with his power, an invisible hand that slapped her across the campus.

“Apogee,” I shouted, rolling on the ground and now lying on my belly.

He didn’t relent, turning his attention to the Senator’s detail. The men scattered, flung about like ants, their life energy trailing off in green wisps that raced into Brutal’s chest, leaving Ashbourne lying on the grass, helpless.

“Don’t do it, Brutal,” I shouted, climbing to my feet. The muscles in my back sang their displeasure, my legs felt rubbery and wobbled as they held my weight. I probed my back, my fingers running over the offending protrusion, jutting out of my ribcage, near the small of my back. A guttural scream followed a sharp tug as I tore the object out of me.

I fell to my knees again, a bunched fist the only thing keeping me upright. I opened my blood soaked hand and saw the source of my agony. It was a bullet the length and width of a beer bottle at its base. The thing was coated with my blood and at the tip, a pointed bore still rotated, bits of my flesh were encrusted in the threads, dripping on the grass.

“What the hell?”

Brutal laughed, “Meant for the Senator, Blackjack, and through anything – and anyone that got in the way. You’ll have to accept my apologies.”

I forced myself back up as he cackled, master of the moment. It was then that I realized what was happening around us. We were in a vortex of his power, a mini hurricane whipping the campus grounds with a howling fury. Brutal, Ashbourne, and I sat in the eye of the vortex, while the rest of the world was caught in the whipping currents, grabbing for handholds or being flung away at terminal speeds. My worst fears come to life. Brutal was already fully charged.

It was over and there was nothing I could do.

He watched dawning realization spread across my face, and threw his arms wide, his victory sealed. He was going to kill Ashbourne, me, everyone else on campus; there was no end to it.

Apogee.

“No,” I said, falling again to my knees. “Please, no.”

Senator Ashbourne lay on the grass, shielding his eyes from the sharp winds and debris as it encroached on our peaceful buffer. He knew his fate and was ready to meet it with stoic calm. He would suffer and die, but Brutal would be denied the satisfaction of seeing the man brought low.

Brutal took a step towards Ashbourne, maintaining the vortex with zero effort and said, “Oh good, the old man wants to meet his fate bravely. What do you think Blackjack? How long before I can get him screeching? Let’s start a pool. Winner gets to pull his arms off.”

Apogee attacked him in a purple detonation, following up with an attack so fast and savage, I thought, for a moment that it might break through. Brutal didn’t move, never tried to defend himself, and though the force of her blows knocked him around, he never lost his balance. She broke away from for a second, charging her purplish anima banner for another go at him.

Then he retaliated.

Apogee skidded to her knees, tumbling to the edge of the vortex, screaming as he drained her life force. I looked around for help but no one else was near, no one was within Brutal’s power vortex. It was up to me.

“No, Apogee,” I roared, and engaged the rocket boots, digging my foot hard into the throttle. Flames exploded from my feet, and I crossed the distance between us in a second, grabbing Brutal by his hair. We crossed the barrier his vortex winds created, tearing through them as it died in a whoosh of air, the crashing through a building.

I got control of my boots and angled the control surfaces to ascend over the campus. We tore through the sound barrier once, then again, as I adjusted my grip onto his chest. Five seconds after takeoff, we were traveling at Mach 10, and my boots were taking us faster and higher.

He didn’t fight me at all.

Not like he had to. In a few seconds we would break the lower atmosphere, and I would run out of oxygen and die. Then he could return to the party. His power could transport him back to Ashbourne in an instant. I mean, what was I doing after all? This wouldn’t stop him at all. If anything, I was helping him, giving him a boundless power source to drain from. Well, it was Apogee’s plan wasn’t it? Get the guy away, anywhere but where he could hurt innocents. And then there was the added time it would give the heroes to gather themselves back at the school. At least there was that.

I gripped him hard, my hands under his armpits now, squeezing into his flesh, but from the smile on his face, he was unbothered. Instead he stared at me the whole time up, as I fought against the wailing winds.

“Blackjack,” he mouthed, his face dripping with disgust, halting our ascent with a violent jerk that rattled me like a marionette on strings. He slipped from my grasp, hovering feet from me, while also holding me in place, even as thrust poured from my boots.

“They will never love you, Blackjack,” he said with an amplified voice that resounded through the clouds. “Never. To them you’ll always be the bad guy, and nothing you do will change that. You know how important it is to cultivate a villain to them? It’s everything, man. Why can’t you see that? They need the bad guys out there to keep everyone afraid.”

“You’re totally insane, you know that?” I said, aiming my thrust in his direction, trying to get closer.

“I’m the only sane person out here. I’m the only one that’s doing something about it. Well, I’m tired of talking about it. I’m going to go back down there and show them what they really have to fear. I’m going to-”

I got close enough to grab him by the coat and hit him three times, fast strong shots, catching him in the head. He didn’t react, didn’t even flinch.

“You can’t hurt me, Blackjack. You killed the only person that ever stopped me, darling.”

I was about to punch him again but he let his head dangle back, as if he was enjoying the wind in his hair, his eyes closed, his face peaceful.

“I’ve been dreaming of this day for decades, you see?”

And he started draining me.

I’d felt the coldness welling inside me before, back in Amsterdam, but this time it was different – so close, so focused. His power ripped into me, like a gutting hand tearing through my skin and flesh, his power grasping clumsily for my soul. I tried closing my eyes, but the harrowing glow burned past my eyelids. I could hear and smell my flesh searing, and a hollow scream as his power overwhelmed my ability to withstand pain. I was fading, dying.