Paranormals (Book 1) (40 page)

The fire rogue could shoot from both hands simultaneously, and so she also hit Steve as he followed Takayasu from the room. Steve wasn’t exactly
fond
of fire, but he kept his head enough to wrap his cape around himself the instant he realized what was happening. The heat was uncomfortable, but the double-protection of micro-chainmail was more than enough to handle the assault. He lashed out with his foot and caught her in the stomach, but she’d already been backing up, so it barely winded her.

Again, Mark was the aggressive one, and his protectiveness of Mike made him even more so. He was right behind Vortex, and when the bitch tried to turn her fire trick on him, he made a deliberate show of laughing at her. A casual shockwave pushed the fire back like it had hit a physical wall. In a way, it had — the fire moved up and around as though it had burned a path to a solid dam. Mark then sent that dam racing forward to give the woman a full-body slam, from head to toe. She flew backward like she’d been hit by a city bus — when she didn’t move or make a sound afterward, Mark shed no tears.

Lincoln bent over the trembling ensign. "You okay, man?" He remembered how scary fire could be, to a normal person, but he was still surprised by the P C Agent’s reaction — until now, Takayasu had struck him as a pillar of confidence and control. Now the Asian man looked like he might wet his britches.

"I-I’m okay," Michael said, allowing Powerhouse to pull him to his feet. "I ... I just had a bad experience once." He held up his hands for Powerhouse’s inspection — unlike most other people, the big man apparently had not yet noticed the scars. "I’ll be all right. We need to—"

It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Piercing, disorienting,
excruciating
. But it wasn’t a sound — it was in their
minds
. The newest rogue had slipped up behind the ensign and the traitor while they were talking and hit all four of them at once. The sniveling little man sneered as he watched Powerhouse and Shockwave cry out and fall, grasping at their heads as though they could possibly reach the ache he was causing ...

Then the little man’s smirk dropped when he saw that the Oriental guy and costumed freak did
not
 go down. They were obviously feeling it, but not enough, not
nearly
enough. When the little rogue took another look at the ensign’s headband, he had an idea of what was happening. He rushed forward, hoping to snatch away the protective device—

Michael and Steve moved as one. Each bent at the waist, each lashed out with a foot. The little man took a shoe on one side of his face and a boot on the other.

Another rogue bites the dust.

"Not bad," Steve commented. "Kick-boxing?"

"Leftover Tae Kwon Do," Michael answered, "and Academy training. Mark? Powerhouse?"

Mark was already climbing to his feet, and he was looking more pissed than ever. Powerhouse took longer to recover, but Vortex was helping him. "Come on," Mark snarled, "we’re wasting time." Without waiting to see if Mike would follow, he turned and moved down their designated side of the hall, absently blasting another rogue who emerged from a side room before the bastard could even show what the hell his powers were.

PCA

Lincoln steadied himself against Vortex a few seconds before standing fully on his own. Perhaps he’d been too harsh when judging Takayasu’s fear of the flames. He
thought
he’d remembered the threat of physical pain, but it was now clear that he’d become quite spoiled in his invulnerability. If Vortex and Takayasu hadn’t been able to take the rogue down so quickly, he didn’t know
what
he would have done.

"Powerhouse?" came a tentative voice.

Vortex whirled, but Lincoln recognized who it was and called out for the vigilante to hold his fire. "Yeah, it’s me, Edmond."

The acid rogue carefully emerged from the computer room. "Can I surrender to you?"

Lincoln blinked, not
quite
shocked, but close. "You know I’m here with the PCA?"

"I saw everything that happened upstairs," Edmond told him, keeping a very wary eye on Vortex but speaking to his masked friend. "And I always knew you weren’t cut out for this, Lincoln. You weren’t meant to be a rogue. I guess I wasn’t, either."

Lincoln smiled, and touched the man affectionately on the arm. "Yeah. I, uh ... I’m placing you under Citizen’s Arrest. You can, um, wait here in the computer room until we come back. Understood?"

"Understood," Edmond agreed with a returned smile. "I would offer to help you guys, but ..." He touched his broken nose gently and cast a meaningful glance at Vortex, who refused to look apologetic. "... I know I’m not cracked up for this paranormal combat stuff, either."

"That’s okay," Lincoln said. "Just wait here."

"Hold it," Steve interrupted. He stepped into the doorway of the "computer room," as Powerhouse had put it, and surveyed the many machines therein. "Is this McLane’s data storage facility?" he asked the acid rogue.

"I believe so," the man answered promptly. "We’ve mainly been using it to watch the businesses above and to monitor information coming in from the news and other pirated sources. But I know those computers have a lot of hard drive space, and that cabinet over there is loaded with CDs and DVDs. I can’t be sure, but I think this is a lot of stuff McLane was working on when he was still employed over at
Davison—
Ack!"

Edmond yelped because Steve was suddenly lashing out with his lasers. His black mask hid the near-raving fury on his face as he sliced apart every single piece of equipment and storage compartment in the room. He kept it up so long that he felt his eyes pulling energy from his body to maintain the flow, but he didn’t care. He would
not
allow any piece of his father’s company to remain in that murdering bastard’s possession.

Finally, he relaxed, and the obliteration ceased. Some of the computers were smoldering, but none had actually caught fire. The monitors were smoking quite a bit, but that was all.

"I’ll, uh," Edmond said carefully and quietly, "I’ll just ... sit over here and wait for you to come back, Lincoln." Steering as clear of the crazy vigilante as he could, Edmond sat down in the corner.

PCA

Some rogues were starting to get away — Michael and Shockwave had caught three scrambling to the surface so far. They got two of them, but the third had some kind of slick, glass-looking skin that caused Michael’s tazer to slide right off. He hoped that the agents above would nab that one successfully, but again, he would let them
all
get away if it meant capturing McLane, and perhaps this Khalkha fellow.

Mark was checking a room to the right, so Michael threw open the door to the left. A blonde woman cowered inside, ducking ridiculously behind a small swivel chair. Michael leveled his tazer at her ...

His jaw dropped open. He stared at her, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, or, perhaps, not
wanting
to. "Christine ...?" he gasped, a barely audible whisper.

Christine slowly stood from behind the chair. He wished to God that she were cuffed or chained or fettered, but she was not — she was not bound in any way. Their eyes met, and she knew better than to even try to lie. In that instant, Michael
knew
that she was here of her own free will.

I told her about the synod
, he realized.
Or, at least, I
confirmed
it for her. And later I told her that I had Mark with me at the apartment. McLane should have believed that Mark was dead at that point, but they sent two of the same rogues to deal with him. With us. She tried to get me to stay home from work, and then at the apartment she told me "Goodbye" so heavily ...

He thought he’d felt like throwing up when the guard attacked him above. In a way, this nausea was much worse.

"Why, Christine?" he implored. "
Why
, damn it?!"

She cowered when he raised his voice. She dropped her gaze from him, tears rolling down her cheeks. She mumbled something, too low for him to hear.

"What?"

"He said he’d make me paranormal," she repeated.

Michael shook his head in confusion — his bewilderment and pain of betrayal were swiftly giving way to anger. "What the
hell
are you talking about?!"

Before she could answer, Mark suddenly appeared next to him, shoving a man into the room as well. "Hey, Mike, look who I found? Isn’t this the dumbass McLane always hangs out with?"

Michael almost snapped at his partner for the interruption, but then he realized that Mark had never met Christine, had no idea of the significance of what was happening here. And he was correct — the acne-scarred man was indeed one of McLane’s known associates.

"We’ll
deal
with these two later," Michael spat with such venom that Mark cast an uncertain glance at him. "Come on."

"Michael ...?" Christine called softly.

Michael ignored her as he and Shockwave stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them. "Seal it," Michael said.

"Who’s the woman—?"

"
Seal it
."

Mark took the hint. He placed his hand to one side of the doorknob, then released a little shockwave. The knob bent over sideways, embedding partially into the doorframe. So long as neither of the captives had superhuman strength or some other forceful ability, they weren’t going anywhere.

Michael turned away without another word. Mark followed.

PCA

The storage space at the end of the hall was the largest that Steve or Powerhouse had found thus far. The business above had sold custom motorcycles, and the place was filled with parts and partially constructed cycles. At one time, Steve would have taken an appraising look around, but he wasn’t as interested in motorcycles as he used to be.

Besides, when they opened the door, he quickly had
other
concerns on his mind.

Steve once saw a movie about some men lost in the Alaskan woods. He couldn’t recall the title at the moment —
The End
or
The Edge
or something like that — but he remembered that it starred Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin ... and a really big bear.
That
film
was the first thing to cross his mind when he and Powerhouse opened that last door at the end of the hall, because he’d only taken one step in before the massive, terrifying,
roaring
head of a bear appeared right in front of his face.

Of course, he could have ended the encounter right then and there with a simple laser or vortex wave ... but he momentarily forgot he even
had
such abilities.

Oh, man ...

The bear was
enormous
, much larger than a Kodiak. But its size did not accurately reflect its speed, and before Steve could make any move, he felt a sledgehammer blow against the side of his face and neck. His uniform saved him from any broken bones, but his brain rattled in his skull and he was thrown across the room to crash into the wall.

Lincoln lunged forward and took a swing at the bear’s midsection. He’d never seen the creature before, so he assumed one of the norm-looking rogues had been a shape-shifter after all.

The bear again displayed extrinsic speed as it drew back. Lincoln’s knuckles barely connected at all, and the faux-animal had a much longer reach. It swiped a huge arm inward, catching Lincoln across the chest. The bear’s claws failed to do any damage, but Lincoln was startled by how much he felt the impact — not only was the bear larger than normal and disproportionately fast, but it was clearly unnaturally strong as well.

Lincoln found himself smiling at this unexpected discovery. Since gaining his paranormal strength, he’d been forced to practice restraint like it was an art form. Now, faced with an opponent who might actually be in his own power class, he relished the idea of being able to cut loose!

Steve slowly regained his senses to the sound of muffled gunshots. He shook his head to try and clear it, but that made the pain worse. His neck was throbbing, and he found it difficult to turn it to the right. The gunshots were continuing, and he forced himself to look up to assess the situation.