Tempest (23 page)

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. “Fuck, 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?”

Noah said over the com line.

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.

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,

“Denny, it’s Tempest,” I said. “Are you okay?”

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.”

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.

Twenty-two

Apocalypse Now

F
or the rest of the trip to Hill House, I tried to not look down. The destruction was impossible to ignore completely. Streets were flooded, roofs had collapsed, people wandered in the streets, shouting at one another. We passed over more fires than I imagined possible, and even if Dahlia had been in top form, she couldn’t have helped all of them. The task was too great for one woman. Even after Los Angeles had been pounded by battle after battle during the Meta War, it hadn’t looked like the disaster it was today.

We finally entered our neighborhood, which was a patchwork of fallen trees and broken homes—most of them empty, thank God. We had very few neighbors in the sprawling estates and once expensive homes of Beverly Hills, which was one of the reasons we’d settled there. The seclusion also gave the area an air of abandonment and horror as we flew over it.

Denny was pacing the backyard when we flew in. Dozens of windows had blown out. One of the giant old trees had fallen on top of the house and collapsed the roof from the third floor down to ground level. My bedroom was gone, and below it the tree had struck the kitchen and dining areas.

I put us down next to Denny. “Where did you see them last?” I asked before anyone else could speak.

Denny gulped, his pale face marked by a single bruise on his forehead. “Dr. Kinsey asked if I wanted anything to eat. They were going into the kitchen.”

Dahlia bolted, probably propelled by Noah’s need to find and protect his family, and he took over before he reached the house. I followed him to the broken, gaping hole where the back door had been. The tree lay at an angle about forty-five degrees from the ground, its top caught on something to keep it from falling flat. Sheetrock and wooden beams lay in piles, some jagged and exposed from the second floor above. Sunshine showed dust and rubble, and what had once been our kitchen island. Nothing was burning, but I smelled gas. I pushed a strong breeze into the space, hoping to give them some fresh air until we could get them out.

“Dad!” Noah shouted. “Dad, Aaron!”

“What the hell?” Denny said from behind me.

“We’ll explain later,” I said. The Changelings coming out like this wasn’t ideal, but panic did funny things to people.

“Who’s Aaron?”

“Scott.” Like that explained anything.

“Shut up,” Noah said. “Listen.”

I did, straining to hear over the trickle of water running and weakening wood creaking. A persistent tap-tap-tap that changed in pitch every three beats. Morse code. SOS. “I hear it,” I said.

The wreckage had a crawl space large enough for one person to slither through, and as I moved for it, Noah grabbed my arm. “I’ll go in,” he said.

“No, I’ll do it. If that tree moves or if there’s an aftershock, I’ll need you to keep things from falling on me.”

“What if you need to move something inside the house to get to them? My powers will be more useful from there.”

Good point. “Okay, fine.” More than Noah’s going in, Dahlia’s going inside that house terrified me. We weren’t as close as we used to be, but I still loved her to pieces. “Be careful.”

Noah’s green eyes flashed momentarily blue. “We will.”

He knelt down and crawled inside. Wood snapped and shifted as he moved on top of it. His legs disappeared into the dusty dimness. I sent air with him, hoping to keep the gas thin and the grit out of his eyes and lungs.

My com buzzed.

“We’re at the house. Denny’s okay, but Dr. Kinsey and Aaron are trapped inside. A tree collapsed part of the roof.”

She swore.

I thought of the SOS tapping and my heart twisted. “At least one of them is.” I’d tell her about our fire saving stop on Wilshire later. She didn’t need that extra bit of drama, especially with Gage badly wounded. “How’s Cipher?”

“Any sign of the anti-Rangers?”

“Probably.”

“I will.”

As soon as I finished talking to Teresa, Noah’s voice came over my com.

“How are they?”

A fast and easy plan formed in my head. “How close to the door into the dining room?”

“Okay, stay put for a minute.”

“Get closer.”

By get closer, I meant indoors. Despite my aching bones and exhausted limbs, I ran full steam to the front of the house. Dodged a pile of shattered glass that had once been our foyer light fixture. The display cases that had once proudly held old uniforms and remnants of our Ranger history lay on their sides, broken. Huge cracks ran up and down the hallway walls. Pictures lay on the floor. The stink of gas was strong and I spun it outside on a gust of wind.

The power was out, making the interior hall a dim obstacle course that I navigated with reckless speed, until I reached the dining room. A painting had slid to the floor, all of the windows were broken, and a large crack raced across the ceiling from the direction of the kitchen. The door that usually opened into it was broken off, partially blocking the entrance—the rest was blocked by my goddamn mattress and headboard.

“Noah, tell Dr. Kinsey to tap the wall on his side,” I said.

Nothing.

“Harder.”

I heard the tapping that time, about seven feet from the kitchen door. I tapped back.

“Okay, Noah, tell them to cover their heads and stay flat on the ground. And I need you to hold everything up that’s around them. Everything except the wall.”

“Drilling.”

I’d done this a few times—concentrated a thin cyclone of air into a wind drill that could cut through solid materials. My very first try had been a four-foot-wide tunnel through dozens of feet of concrete and debris. One sheetrock wall should be child’s play. The open front door and the broken windows would give me the airflow I needed to make this work.

I shoved the dining table out of the way and stood in the center of the room. Wind swirled and danced, answering my silent call. I zeroed in on my spot about three feet above the ground. Visualized the width of my air drill. Brought it together. My skin buzzed with energy.

“Ready?” I yelled over the roar.

With a directional push from my hands, I sent the concentration of spinning air at the wall. It broke through with ease, blasting a three-foot-wide hole into the plaster and wood supports. The house groaned but held. I swirled the dust right out of the hole and through the windows, then dashed to the wall.

Dr. Kinsey blinked up at me, his face and clothes coated in gray dust. Then Aaron’s head popped up. He had a cut on his right cheek, but his relieved smile unknotted the cold fear I’d been carrying in my stomach since the quake started.

“Come on,” I said.

They didn’t have much room to work with, so getting them through the hole was a lesson in gymnastics I’d have laughed over if our lives weren’t still in danger. Dr. Kinsey basically landed on his head as he slid through. I helped him out of the way while Aaron came through a little more gracefully. They didn’t say anything, just followed me outside to the front lawn.

“We’re out, Noah,” I said over the com.

Behind the house, something creaked and groaned. Then crashed.

Noah said, and I relayed that before his father and brother panicked.

In the sunlight, I got a better look at Aaron. He was filthy, covered in dust from head to toe, but he wasn’t bleeding anywhere except his face. He met my assessing gaze with his own. I probably had a hell of a bruise on my face (yeah, another one), and I didn’t care. I also didn’t care about anything except confirming for myself he was okay when I swept him into a fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around my waist, his heart beating the same speeding rhythm as mine.

“That was scary as hell,” he whispered, his breath tickling my neck.

“Yeah.” I pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes shined with the same relieved affection I felt right back.

“You okay? You picked up some new bruises.”

“We had a bit of a run-in with the clones.”

“You win?”

My smile faded away. “No.”

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Noah and Denny had come around from the backyard. Noah and Dr. Kinsey were standing together near a cluster of fallen tree branches—which had miraculously not landed on or damaged our only remaining vehicle—trying to look disinterested in something that had to have their curiosity on overdrive. Denny, possessing a lot less tact, stared openly, mouth ajar.

Then again, Aaron wasn’t wearing Scott’s mask anymore. The poor kid had seen two strange new faces in less than five minutes. Denny had to be so confused.

I stepped fully away from Aaron, then activated my com. “Tempest to Trance.”

A few long seconds passed before she answered.

“Everyone’s safe and sound.” Something screeched loudly, like breaking metal. “What are you up to?”

I glanced over at Noah, who had been listening and nodded. They were ready to go. “We’ll be there shortly. Out.”

Because of the damage to the streets, we couldn’t drive, so I was resigned to carrying both Noah and Aaron back across town. Dr. Kinsey and Denny were okay with staying behind. Regular power was out, but we’d had emergency generators installed six months ago. They were going to try to get our computer systems back online and help coordinate our efforts. And keep an eye on the news and any potential clones sightings. The anti-Rangers had made some sort of point today—and I had no doubt they’d somehow caused that earthquake—but they were not done with us.

Not by a long shot.

•   •   •

For the first time in our lives, we were coordinating our disparate abilities in order to assist in a massive rescue effort. The scene at the 110/10 exchange was one of barely controlled chaos, made worse by the dozens of bystanders who kept wanting to help. Or accuse us of causing it, as a few managed to do over and over again.

At least two dozen cars were suspected of being under the rubble—I couldn’t imagine how many it might have been if this quake had struck thirty years ago, when Los Angeles had ten times the population and fifty times the traffic problems. Marco was using his house-cat form to scout for us, slipping down into the rubble to find cars with live people trapped inside them. Noah-via-Dahlia used telekinesis to shift chunks of asphalt and stone. Teresa blasted large slabs of concrete into manageable chunks, while I drilled through solid objects and kept fresh air moving down into the mountains of debris.

With their less active powers, Renee, Kate, and Aaron-as-Scott had taken over triage duties. So far we hadn’t rescued anyone with life-threatening injuries, just lots of cuts and scrapes, and two broken bones. At least three police helicopters had flown over already, which hopefully meant evacuation of the wounded would happen soon. I couldn’t fly all of them to Cedars-Sinai by myself.

We were working on the middle level of debris, trying to get to a car where Marco had spotted a child trapped with a dead adult. Layer after layer of asphalt, steel cables, and cement peeled away. The work was both noisy and exhausting, and finally some high-pitched sobbing rose above it. Dahlia was dripping with sweat from the effort of moving so much in such a short span of time—plus, you know, it was August in California. We were all hot and miserable, but this was something we could do.

Rangers helped people.

The dusty, dented green hood of a car presented itself. Double Trouble lifted another chunk of concrete and cables away to reveal a smashed windshield. The crying got louder. Teresa and I peeled away the windshield. The driver was crumbled against the steering wheel, the top of the car crushed down on top of him, blood oozing from a split in his skull. I checked his pulse just to confirm he was dead.

From the backseat, the crying got more intense.

“Hello?” Teresa said. “Honey, can you hear me?”

A black-haired girl peeked around from behind the passenger seat. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and clear liquid ran from her nose and mouth. She took one look at us, then at the dead man (father?), and burst into fresh sobs.

“Can you climb out to us?” Teresa asked. “It isn’t safe to stay in the car right now.”

She shook her head and clung to the seat.

“What’s your name, honey?”

Through the choked tears, she said, “Becca.”

“How about if I come get you, Becca? Will you go with me if I get you?”

The little girl, maybe six years old, paused in her crying long enough to consider it. Becca nodded yes.

“Okay, good. My name’s Trance, okay? I’m coming to get you.”

We watched while Teresa climbed slowly into the front passenger seat. She crouched down, then reached out her arms. Becca leaned over the armrest between the front seats. Teresa grabbed her around the waist and pulled her forward. Metal crunched, and the entire car shuddered.

Dahlia spread her palms and blew hard through her nose. “Got it, now move,” she said in Noah’s voice.

Teresa angled them both toward the glass-free windshield. I stepped onto the warped hood. She tried to pass me Becca, who clung to her like a spider monkey and refused to let go. Switching to plan B, Teresa twisted around so her back was to me. I crouched and grabbed her around the waist, and together we levered them up and out of the car. We jumped down and Dahlia let go. Something settled harder onto the rear of the car and metal popped.