TWENTY-THREE

THE minions returned and huddled in conference with Majors—out of Celia’s hearing, of course. Alas. Not that she would have been able to do anything with any information she gleaned. She kept glancing at the mentalist, Mindwall, wishing she could interrogate him on the extent of his power. Wishing she could knock him unconscious by sheer force of will. But no, that was Arthur’s ability.

Arthur. She relied on him for so much. She’d taken him entirely for granted, and now she had plenty of time to review in painstaking detail all the mistakes she’d made in her adult life. Little mistakes, inconsequential. A missed birthday here. A failure to listen to her children sufficiently well. An obsession with details she might have been better off letting go. Celia had given herself a pass because those mistakes all paled when compared to the drama of her childhood. Except for the latest mistakes: She really should have told everyone about the leukemia. And when she told Arthur that he was right, assuming she got out of this in one piece, he wouldn’t even say I told you so.

Maybe Majors was right, and she should have let the company go a long time ago. Let the big picture fend for itself while she focused on what was important: Arthur and the girls.

No. Those thoughts were a trap, because while she didn’t have powers of her own, she was still her parents’ daughter. She had the power to make Commerce City better and an obligation to use it. Dr. Mentis of the Olympiad understood. So did Anna, or she wouldn’t have spent all these weeks sneaking out on her adventures.

An explosion sounded, the whump of a fireball in a distant corridor, the hiss of gas and burning, and a group of people shouting in panic that seemed to echo through the building’s foundations and floor. No …

Majors turned back to her, his face drawn into a very serious, very pitying frown. “Remember, you could have stopped this.”

“You’re a psychopath,” she said. “I know your kind.”

“You don’t know anyone like me,” he declared.

She smiled, because she could list the names of all the villains who were just like him, who’d kidnapped her or tried to. Who’d failed, no matter how confidently they’d stood before her and ranted that they were different. The feeling of déjà vu was oppressive.

The sounds continued, changing in ways Celia couldn’t interpret. The blast of a blowtorch, shouted denials, then … rain? Falling water? Whatever it was, the shouting stopped, which could either be good or bad.

Typhoon …

Which was only her mind playing tricks on her. A memory from the old days intruding.

“That’s it, right?” Steel, the thug behind her, asked Majors. They’d all gone very quiet, listening. “They’re done?”

“We’ll wait a few minutes and send Shark in to check. But I’ve studied all the vigilantes who might have come to help her, and none of them could escape those traps.”

Just keep blustering. She desperately hoped he was wrong. Tried to imagine a world where he wasn’t, and her rescuers just met disaster. Tried and failed. She could not imagine herself not getting rescued, and wasn’t that an odd thought? Did Majors know that she’d never not been rescued?

Celia flinched back when she felt a tickling pressure on her left wrist. A tugging at the nylon strap binding her. Then a voice whispered close her ear. “Ms. West, it’s Teddy Donaldson. I’m invisible.”

Of course he was. She sat very still and kept a smile of relief off her face. When really, she wanted to laugh. The nylon jerked a few times, seemingly of its own accord—a strange thing to see—until the knot loosened. The boy was clever enough to leave the strap there but tied loosely enough for her to easily slip her hand free. He quickly did the same to the right hand and then her feet, leaving them entirely free of the straps.

“When we give the signal, make a run for it,” he whispered.

Now this was a rescue. She’d been freed right under Steel’s nose and no one was the wiser.

A tiny breath of a draft marked Teddy’s passing. Steel looked over, as if he’d caught some motion out of the corner of his eye. But he shrugged it off.

Celia wished she could have talked to Teddy, or that he’d leaned close enough for her to whisper a reply: Take out Mindwall. With the mentalist out of commission, Arthur could likely incapacitate the whole room and they could stroll out of here. If only …

She took a deep breath to settle her nerves and waited. Everything was going to be all right, and very soon.

The shadowy figure in green chose that moment to step into the open. The vigilante was tall, impressively fit, his arms and thighs leanly muscled under the skin-suit fabric. He stood in a pose of strength, shoulders back, hands clenched at his sides. His mouth and jaw were visible under the sleek helmet and mask he wore. He was clean shaven and seemed young.

Majors and his people jumped like they’d been hit with a static shock. And Celia found out how Steel got his name when a metallic scraping wrenched from his raised arms, which had become elongated, flattened, and edged with vicious-looking blades. The man’s arms had become mutated, living swords, and he held them out and bent, ready to wield.

She didn’t want her daughters anywhere near that man and hoped Arthur had the good sense not to bring them. The thought of the man standing guard behind her suddenly became that much more terrifying. All he’d have to do was drive one of his arms through her back …

The green-suited super didn’t seem the least put off by the display, almost like he expected it. He announced, “Danton Majors, I need you to release Ms. West and surrender immediately.”

Majors grunted. “Who the hell are you?”

The young super hesitated, as if trying to figure out what to call himself, but he set his jaw and brushed the question away. “I’m a concerned citizen. You’ve broken a lot of laws here, Mr. Majors.”

“Who are you to decide that?”

The vigilante quirked a smile, tilted his head. “Just let her go.”

“No,” Majors said. His grin turned ugly, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Steel?”

The superhuman cocked back his bladed arms and ran forward.

Even Celia knew you never ran head-on at a strange superhuman without knowing anything about their powers. Seriously.

The mystery man leapt out of the way. He literally jumped, his power taking him across the room in a single stride. He bounced feetfirst against the wall, landed on the floor nearby in a crouch, and looked back at his opponents. Meanwhile, Steel had stabbed his right arm into the floor where the stranger had been standing, tearing through the carpet. Snarling, he wrenched his arm free. The man went after his quarry again, still running, as if moving fast enough would allow him to catch the jumper. This time, Steel slashed instead of stabbed, but the vigilante deftly sprang out of the way, bouncing across the room like some kind of insect. This time, he landed near Celia.

She didn’t suppose he’d at all coordinated with the bunch in the stairwell …

“What do you think you’re doing?” Majors said, laughing. “You think you’re just going to grab her and jump off the roof with her?”

“Sure,” the vigilante said. “Why not?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. She’d rather stay tied to the chair for the time being. Maybe she could talk him out this. Mindwall, she’d noticed, had edged to the wall, where he crouched in a vain effort to hide. No offensive capabilities, scared to death. Good.

The whump and crash of another large explosion rattled through the space, closer this time. A couple of ceiling panels shook loose and fell to the floor.

“What was that?” Steel gasped, unnecessarily.

The woman, Sonic, ran into the open space. “Danton, they’ve broken through! They’re on this floor! They survived!”

“Then stop them!”

What followed sounded like nothing so much as a ray gun, a patter of high-pitched whines searing down the hallway. Blaster’s laser bolts. When Sonic and Shark appeared from around the corner, they ducked and dodged like a couple of kids fleeing a snowball fight. It was almost amusing.

“What are you doing?” Majors yelled at them. He was losing control of the situation, and he knew it.

“We can’t get close, it’s the kid with the ray beam—”

“I don’t care! Sonic: Knock them down!

The two supers turned to hold their ground, Shark crouching and Sonic taking cover behind him. He clapped his hands over his ears, and Majors and the rest of his people did likewise—Steel managed to retract his swords first, alas.

The woman leaned around, cupping her hands around her mouth and letting out a noise that didn’t seem like it could ever come from a human. Almost an electronic squeal, Celia felt it in her bones more than heard it with her ears. As the vibrations rumbled up through the floor, her gut turned over, and she grew more nauseated. The steel frame of the skyscraper itself seemed to be vibrating on some fundamental resonate frequency. The whole building was going to turn to powder if this kept up.

Celia debated pulling her hands out of her bindings to cover her ears, to give away that her rescuers were already in the room and she’d been freed. Hell, she could probably just run. And go where?

Things happened very quickly, too quickly for Celia to decide on an action, one way or another. First: The windows shattered. Starting with a ringing sound, ethereal church bells, the glass bowed, cracked, maybe only on this floor, maybe across the entire building. The cracks multiplied into a frosted sheen while Sonic’s wailing continued to pound them, until the entire wall of glass burst outward in a shimmering crest of glinting shards. Sheets of glass would be raining down onto the streets below.

The otherworldly screeching stopped as even Sonic looked back, surprised at what she’d done.

The man in green took that moment to leap at her, jumping at an angle, bouncing off the ceiling, aiming his legs in a piledriver kick at her chest. She spun but couldn’t dodge; he caught her on the shoulder. Strongman Shark was right there, grabbing the kid and literally drop-kicking him across the room, booting him in the chest. He hit the wall near Celia and rolled to the floor, groaning.

The cavalry arrived then, a whole swarm of them rushing in, spreading out, shouting.

So was this the signal for her to run, or was it something else?

God, the kids looked like a real superhero team: Sam kept blasting, focusing a rain of lasers on Shark to throw him off balance, unable to go on the offensive. Shark bent to the attack as if he leaned into a hailstorm. As for storms, the shattered wall gave Lew access to a blast of wind and driving rain, adding to the confusion. Teia had her hands to the wall, and a sheet of ice grew away from her, toward Sonic, until it curled away from the wall and around the enemy super, creating a column of ice around her, trapping her. Sonic shattered it quickly with a short burst of sound, but by that time the floor had grown icy as well, and when she tried to run, she slipped and fell hard.

The others had flowed into the room by that time: Mark Paulson, amazingly enough, along with a couple of his SWAT guys, guns to their sides in this chaotic environment; Analise—and what the hell was she doing here?—and Celia wondered if her flash on Typhoon really had been her imagination; Arthur, thank God, and just seeing him made Celia smile. The expression on his face wrenched her heart—he was looking at her, but he couldn’t see her, not really, not without his power. She hoped he could tell just by looking at the surface of her how happy she was to see him. And then Anna. Anna was here, small and pale, mouth twisted in a worried, panicked frown, her red hair wet and plastered around her face. She’d lost her stocking cap and mask somewhere along the way.

Go away, Celia wanted to scream at her. Hide, please hide.

Instead, Anna looked across at the superhuman in green, who was picking himself up off the floor, stretching a no-doubt bruised back and shoulders.

Eliot?” Anna exclaimed, loud enough to echo across the room.

Everyone hesitated, turning to stare at the unknown man. Danton Majors himself, who had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, maybe in preparation for wading into the fight, stared at the kid with a kind of disbelieving intensity that made the rest of them pause. A tension spiked that hadn’t been there even with all the fighting and combat.

What?” Majors said darkly. Poor Anna stood frozen, obviously unsure of what she’d done. Despite the new drama unfolding before her, Celia couldn’t look away from her daughter. There’d been a moment when she believed she would never see Anna again, and that moment pulled at her gut like fishhooks.

Majors and the man in green faced each other, and the man in green took off his helmet and mask. He was a good-looking guy, with dark hair and an intense gaze, cute and boyish—and obviously Danton Majors’s son. They had the same eyes.

“What—” Majors said, and stopped, too shocked to continue. And what shocked him? Eliot Majors’s appearance here, his opposition to Danton, or the basic fact of his possessing superhuman powers? Might have been all three; Celia couldn’t tell.

“Didn’t expect to see me here, did you, Dad?” He laughed a little, which sounded like relief. “Well, here I am. Superhuman. Just like you always wanted.”

Oh, to peel back that history … it was like looking into a fun house mirror.

Danton finally shrugged, letting his hands drop. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He almost sounded forlorn.

“Because I knew you’d try to turn me into that!” He pointed at the quartet in the matching skin-suit uniforms, Majors’s personal superhero team. Delta’s finest, no doubt, chosen and cultivated by the entrepreneur to be so.

Celia realized something: Danton Majors had accused her of manipulating the city and its superhumans because that was what he’d done in Delta. He couldn’t imagine her doing anything else with her wealth and power and connections. And he figured there was room for only one of him in the world.

“Eliot. You need to stay out of this. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I was trying to help,” the man in green—Eliot—said. And exactly how much had Anna been hanging out with this guy? “I know you came to Commerce City to stop the Executive. I wanted to help. Prove to you a lone hero can do some good without you, without the team. But … I think you’re wrong, Dad. I think you’re wrong about what’s been going on and about who here really needs to be stopped. When we started looking for clues about the Executive, we didn’t find Celia West. We found you.”

Danton bared his teeth. “You don’t understand anything, not at all! Get out of the way and let me deal with this!”

A roomful of people was poised to jump, if only they knew which way to go. Steel was twitching toward Eliot—but surely Majors wouldn’t want him to attack his own son. Arthur and the others seemed to be choosing their targets.

As enthralling as this was, Celia had had quite enough. It was time to go home. “Danton Majors, you should have gagged me when you had the chance,” she said.

“What?”

She yelled, “Take out the skinny guy, he’s the mentalist blocking Arthur!”

She pulled her hand out of the strap and pointed at Mindwall, who still crouched by the wall. His eyes went round, and he jumped and ran. Then everyone ran.

Mindwall didn’t get far before tripping on nothing but thin air—and that must have been Teddy, still here, still invisible, still incredibly helpful. Teia and Sam charged toward him, Shark and Sonic charged after them, and Steel appeared at Celia’s side, a razor-edged arm held across her throat.

“Don’t move again,” he muttered.

She glanced up, held his gaze. “You are done.

When Majors lunged toward her, planting his hands on the arms of the chair, looming over her, she flinched back, startled. “You did this, didn’t you? You turned my own son against me.”

“I’ve never met the guy, but if it helps you sleep better at night, sure.”

The only response he could manage was a wordless snarl. He turned to Steel. “I’ll watch her. Guard Mindwall. If that block goes, the telepath will kill us all.”

Arthur would never do that, but Celia could spend hours explaining that to Majors, and he’d never believe her. How he must have wished Mindwall could do more with his powers.

The battle was a mess, pure and simple. The Fletcher twins hitting the room with wind-driven rain and ice wasn’t helping, more like turning everything into a soggy frozen mess. Maybe the bad guys would slow down when hypothermia set in. The Commerce City heroes focused their attentions on Mindwall, as Celia had requested, but the Deltas were tripping them up. Paulson and the SWAT guys had guns but no clear targets. Everyone was moving and tangled together. Arthur pulled Anna to the wall, shielding her with his body.

Sam managed to pin down Shark with his blasts, but no more than that. The kid had more in him—he’d blasted down walls, after all. But Celia realized: He was holding to the old Olympiad ideal and avoiding lethal force. He must have thought if he could just keep Shark from doing damage, he wouldn’t have to actually hurt him. The teenager was trying very hard not to kill. So freaking admirable, Celia wanted to cry. But she knew Sam was making a mistake. The Delta team didn’t seem to have such ideals.

The inevitable moment came when a squeal from Sonic distracted Sam, and the swarm of insectlike laser bolts ceased. Shark took advantage of the lull, and his superstrength made him unstoppable. The others, going after Mindwall and doing battle with Sonic and Steel, couldn’t help Sam. The strong man seemed twice as big as the teenager, three times as muscular, and was faster than should have been possible for someone that size. Growling, he grabbed up Sam, put his head in a lock, and wrenched back his arm until the boy cried out. Shark pivoted, swung, and threw, and Sam sailed … not toward any walls but toward the shattered windows. He fell through and down, screaming.

Anna screamed with him. Arthur grabbed her, to keep her from running after him.

Eliot ran toward the open wall and leaped.

Lew threw himself to the floor, leaned over the edge past the broken glass, arm reaching. “I can get him, I can catch him!” he yelled, while Teia and Analise both kept hold of him, begging him to come away from the space. Celia held her breath, unable to look away.

Outside, wind howled, debris rocketing into the office. The sky darkened, and black clouds descended until they shrouded the buildings across the street.

The thin tornado that passed by didn’t seem any more surreal than the rest of it. Not too big, it could travel down the streets without causing too much damage. Just the right size to buoy a falling boy to safety. Celia prayed.

“Did you get him?” Anna begged. Her voice had gone thin, fearful.

“I don’t know,” Lew said, gasping. “That guy, Eliot—he’s jumping, he hit the building across the street and jumped over. He’s got him, I think he’s got him!” The excitement darkened. “He looks hurt. They hit the ground, I can’t see them.”

In the meantime, Paulson leveled a handgun at Majors. “Commerce City PD. Danton Majors, stand down, tell your people to stand down. This is over.”

Instead of surrendering, Majors raised a hand, and Steel lunged forward, arm leading like a lance. Paulson couldn’t swing around in time. The sword arm impaled him through the middle. The flak vest didn’t slow Steel down, and the superhuman grabbed the gun from Paulson’s hand as the police captain dropped to his knees, groaning, arm clutched around his middle.

One of the SWAT guys shot at Steel, but he merely flinched back, and the bullet ricocheted into a wall. Snarling, Steel rounded on the cop, who didn’t have much choice but to try again. Meanwhile, Shark stood before Analise and her family, threatening merely with his presence, and Sonic focused her attention on Arthur and Anna.

Celia’s hands clenched, and her throat closed, too shocked to cry out. This was too high a price to pay for her rescue. Her gaze turned dark as her anger built. She pulled her arms from their loosened straps and shook the ones off her feet as she stood.

“Enough! That’s … quite … enough.”

A draft, the tail end of Lew’s storm, maybe, flapped through the broken windows, catching stray bits of paper and shaking ceiling tiles. She had everyone’s attention now. Majors and his people stared, startled by her freedom. She could see them wondering if she really did have powers, but if they were really paying attention, they’d notice Teddy, visible now, standing near Anna and Arthur. And Analise, standing just like she used to as Typhoon, feet apart, shoulders back, arm bent, ready to call the ocean to her if needed. What had happened to spring the lock that had shut off her powers? Teia and Lew, of course. Typhoon had returned to save them. A family of miracle workers.

They all waited for her to do something. What could she say that would make this all stop, make it all go away?

She took off her wig and let it hang by her thigh. There, that inspired audible gasps of shock. As chilled gooseflesh crawled over her naked scalp, she suppressed a shiver.

“You’re wrong about me,” she said to Majors. “I know there’s nothing I can say that will convince you. But you’re wrong. I’m very tired. I’m very … sick right now. I want to go home, and I want my family and my city to be safe. That’s all. I’m going to ask you very simply, very calmly, to let us go. Take your people and go back to Delta. Leave us alone.”

After a long hesitation, Majors offered a wicked smile. “You’re very good. You think of everything, don’t you? A play for sympathy, is it? Thinking I’ll just roll over for you. If the case didn’t go your way, would you have done this in the courtroom? Anything to get people to do what you tell them.”

Not even the worst of her kidnappers had looked on her with such loathing. To the rest of them she’d always been just a tool, a means to an end. But Danton—to him, she was the source of all evil. How very odd.

“She has leukemia,” Arthur said, pleading, desperate. “She’s in the middle of chemotherapy. My God, can’t you see how ill she is?” His power was blocked; he didn’t have to worry about his emotion overpowering the others, so he bared himself and his fear as he begged.

“It’s certainly a good act,” he said.

“Damn you to hell,” her beloved shot back.

“Arthur, it’s all right,” she soothed him. Celia studied the wig in her hands, a mop of tangled red hair. An ugly thing. A mask, of sorts.

Danton Majors expected to see in her a mastermind, an architect of villainous schemes. To him, she was a criminal genius. She was the Executive. All right, then. That’s what he’d get.

She dropped the wig on the floor. Step by step, she crossed to Danton Majors. “You don’t know anything about me. About Commerce City. You can’t succeed here.”

“Stop me,” he said, sneering. “Save yourself, if you can.”

She’d been watching his people, Steel and Shark, Sonic and Mindwall. All through this exchange they hadn’t moved, and their expressions had shifted during that time, falling, their gazes turning inward. To uncertainty. To pity, possibly for her. To horror, maybe? She hoped. Sonic, in particular, kept looking at that wig, as if she knew exactly what it meant, what it cost her to take it off in this setting. Celia hoped she’d read them all right.

“Mindwall?” she said, glancing over her shoulder.

“It … it’s Edgar. My name’s Edgar.” His voice shook.

“Do you have control over your blocking powers, or is it autonomous?”

“I can’t control it. It’s always there.”

“Can I ask you to leave, then? Go downstairs, as far away as you need to until the block stops working here.”

“Mindwall,” Majors said predictably, “don’t move.”

Celia said, “You can do what you like.”

The man walked away, past the whole crowd of them, exhausted and injured, and disappeared into the hallway beyond.

“Edgar!” Sonic called after him, but Mindwall didn’t stop.

“Arthur, how long should we wait?” Celia said.

“The block starts about the tenth floor. A few minutes, at least.”

“All right, then. In a few minutes, Dr. Mentis will put all of us to sleep. When he does a blanket offensive, he can’t pick his targets. It will happen to all of us. He won’t kill you, I promise. I guarantee you, there’s no better way to stop a fight in its tracks. I’ve seen it done. Shall we simply keep talking until then? Keep trying to explain ourselves to each other? Or you can do … what, Mr. Majors? What’s your next move?”

She was rather surprised that he had one. He reached into his trouser pocket and drew out a device that appeared to be a cell phone but had only two buttons on it. He pressed one.

“I’ve owned this building for a number of years,” he said. “I’ve made many modifications to it, as your Dr. Mentis and his friends can attest. One of the modifications—the building’s entire framework is rigged with explosives. I’ve just armed the system. The second button will trigger the explosives, collapse the building, and kill us all. That’s how far I’m willing to go to stop you, Celia West. That’s how dangerous I think you are.” The spark in his eyes wasn’t crazed; rather, it held the determined light of a martyr. He was convinced of his righteousness.

“Danton, no!” Sonic said, stepping forward. Shark stepped with her, but Steel moved between them and Majors, his weapons held ready to stop them.

Celia stared at the detonation device with a sinking feeling that she’d lost it all. Called his bluff, but he held the winning hand.

“Ms. West, I’m giving you one last chance: Sign over your company to me, submit to treatment at Elroy Asylum, and we all get to live.”

“And you really can’t tell who’s the crazy one here, can you?” she murmured.

On one side of the room, Analise had her arms around both her kids’ shoulders. Teia and Lew must have been too scared to breathe, much less try their powers on Majors—they couldn’t stop him before he pushed that button. Nearby, Arthur and Anna were side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Anna stood tall and proud, glaring with anger. Not fear. Next she met Paulson’s gaze, and even wounded and lying in an expanding pool of blood, he looked angry. That lifted her as well.

Shark inched toward Majors, arm out comfortingly, wary of Steel’s blade. “Boss, don’t do this. This … the situation here, it’s not like you said. This isn’t worth it. Put down the remote.”

Majors glowered. “I thought you agreed with me. You’ve seen what these people can do! Who’s going to stop them if not us?”

“Did you ever consider that maybe we could all work together?” Celia said—to Shark, to Sonic. “I mean, our football teams may hate each other’s guts, but I never much liked football anyway.”

Danton pointed at her. “You, stop talking, unless it’s to agree to my terms. I’m going to detonate this building on the count of ten. One…”

Sonic pleaded. “Danton, Eliot is down there. If you collapse the building, he may not have time to get away—”

“Having powers means sacrifice. He knows that,” Majors replied. “Two … three…”

Shark ran his hands through his hair, pulling. “Steel, bro, come on, this is crazy. Don’t let him do this.”

“He’s right,” Steel said, his jaw set and lips trembling. “We all agreed, he’s right.”

“Four … five…”

—Please, Edgar, hurry!—

Sonic again: “Danton. Put that down, let’s talk about this.”

“Tell her to say yes!” Danton said, pointing with the remote.

The woman took a breath and begged. “Ms. West, please. No one will hold you to it, we can work it all out later. You’re the only one who can stop him.”

“No, I’m not,” Celia said, watching Arthur.

Whose eyes lit at the same time Anna yelled, “Dad!”

“There. There it is.” Arthur scanned the room with a dark, fierce gaze, and a familiar voice called to Celia from the back of her mind: —And there we are. I’ve got you all.—

Majors fell first, his eyes rolling back as he dropped the remote and collapsed. Steel was next, and Sonic and Shark looked at each other, bewildered and comprehending. Then Celia smelled sage, an achingly familiar scent of imposed sleep. She got a glimpse of Anna folding, and Arthur catching her to lower her to the floor, before her vision went dark.

—We’ll be here when you wake, dearest.—

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