Age of Power 1: Legacy (42 page)

Bullets
hung in midair right in front of me. BJ whispered, “Holy Matrix…what?”

I
realized I could move. I looked around as the bullets fell to the ground. I
then saw that everyone was looking at something to my left.

Brand
said, “Holy shit…”

Yasmine
said, “Who the hell are you?”

In
a stunned-sounding voice, BJ stared and said, “Ian? Ian Devonshire?”

I
looked and saw Ian at the corner of the building, collapsed on the ground and
barely conscious. It was obvious from the way everyone was reacting that the
illusions Ian had created were gone. Blood was running out of his nose and
ears. He looked nearly dead.

And
yet, he was still able to look over to
me and whisper,
“Scream, already, you damn fool.”

Enough
said; I screamed.

But,
doing it without though made it came out unfocused. Still, I pumped energy from
my hyper-buzzing brain. Unfocused or otherwise, my voice exploded with power
that sent the Red Waters mercenaries reeling with pain as their ears bled.

I
saw BJ gritting his teeth as my scream smashed against his flaring energy
shield. Still, in spite of the shielding, BJ was hurting. Worse was Delmar. He
simply collapsed to the ground, unconscious, as his camera fell to the side.
Guilt made me want to stop, but I knew I didn’t dare.

Instead,
I kept up the
scream and began to shape it into a more
focused force
and concentrated on Yasmine’s group. I had a problem,
though; I was running out of breath. This wasn’t going to last much longer. But
with the last of my breath, Yasmine folded up and flew back into the parking
lot. The other Empowered staggered away, holding their ears, and finally
collapsed to their knees. I was winning.

So
naturally, something slammed into the back of my head, sending waves of pain
down my shoulder and back. I fell forward, breathing in hard, trying to get my
voice back. I didn’t get the chance. A foot slammed into my ribs, and I went
flying. I hit BJ and slid over his force field to hit the ground and slide face
down in the slushy snow.

Stunned
but still filled with adrenaline, I turned over ready to defend myself. Before
I could do anything, a foot came down on my chest. Brand glared down at me with
a snarl on his face.

He
said, “I told her this was stupid! But she’s been freaking over Eisenhawk! We
should’ve just bombed this place and been done with it!”

I
brought my foot up in between his legs as hard as I could. There was
protection, but he still howled with pain and fell on his back. He clutched
down there in agony. Taking advantage of the distraction that caused, BJ went
after the mercenaries. Moving into a combat stance, he began to throw punches
at the mercenaries nearest him. I could see that he was going for nerve
clusters.

Seeing
that she was still down on the ground, I went for Yasmine. I figured that if I
took her out, it might free Alan. And once he was free, it would be over for
the bad guys. 
Orbital space—that would be a cool place
to drop them!

Unfortunately,
some plans don’t go very far. As I got close to the parking lot, two mercenaries
were recovered enough to make a grab for me. I started dodging out of their way
intent on their
mind controlling
boss. I could see
that Yasmine was still out of it, but that wouldn’t last long. I sucked in a
breath to scream as one of the mercenaries started to pull out a gun.

Then
without warning, the two mercenaries literally disintegrated in front of my
eyes. I looked up to see that Reich was coming at me, his teeth gritted in
rage. He fired another burst of heat at me, and I had to dodge as fast as I
could. I wasn’t going to let him get another shot. I put my fingers to my lips
and shoved with all the power in my nerves to let loose a
high
powered
whistle. If it took him down once, it would do so again. Or so I
thought.

To
my horror, Reich just laughed as he flew in an arc back up into the air. He
yelled down at me. “Fool! Attack me once, and I am forever aware and
indestructible! I am as unto a god!”

Then
his eyes began to glow, again. I screamed at the same time, hoping to take him
down before he let loose. Beams of laser light lashed out and missed when my
scream hit him at full force, knocking him off-balance. The beams hit the
ground near me and instantly turned a strip of it to ash and steam.

Out
of the corner of my eye, I saw BJ take out the last of the mercenaries with a
leaping roundhouse kick. The guy went sailing across the snowy lawn to land in
a heap next to Delmar. I only had enough time to take notice of that as Reich
power dived
at me.

I
noticed he liked to boast a lot. “You think you can just play the super hero,
Hagen? 
Nein
!
 I think not. This is
reality. And heroes die all the time in reality. With your death, this will be
how the Ultimate Empire begins!”

I
braced myself, ready to take the hit. His eyes still glowed red, but he didn’t
fire his eyebeams. Instead, he flew down at me at increasing speed. I readied
myself to try to swing him around and use his momentum to send him flying into
a wall. Before he got close enough, however, a bright flare of gold-white light
burst from nothing directly in front of me. Angela appeared, and I had a split
second to see Reich’s eyes widen as Angela brought up her sword to meet Reich
head on. Literally…head on.
Oh, yuck!

Then
we went flying back as the still moving body slammed into us. We sprawled back
on the ground in a very bloody heap. It wasn’t our blood, but damn!
Pushing off
the what
was left of Reich, I rolled over
to try to get back to my feet. Angela
got to her feet before
I did, flicking
off the blood from the sword as she did so.

Then
a hand touched my upper right arm. I looked up to see BJ offering to help me. I
grabbed a hand and he helped me to my feet. I noticed that BJ had a spatter of
blood on his uniform. Angela and I had blood all over us.

I
swallowed down the bile. Now was not the time to get sick. Using
her a
distraction, I went over to Angela. I just wanted to
hold her and thank her for saving us. But I stopped myself when I realized that
there are some points in a person’s life where a person does 
not
 want
to hug and cuddle.

Still,
I did give her a wide, happy smile and said, “
Hey, that
was very timely! Are you okay?”

Angela
nodded, but said nothing. She looked at Yasmine and Alan. Saying nothing, she
started walking toward Yasmine. I knew then what her intentions were and this
time, if Angela wanted to shove that sword in Yasmine, I wasn’t going to argue.
Then I looked around and saw BJ checking over Ian. The redhead was tense, slow
moving, and hesitant. A normal reaction when someone sees a ghost, I’m sure.

I
heard his whisper. “Ian…?”

I
pushed the worries away. I had to ignore what was going on with BJ and Ian,
though. Instead, I ran over and checked on the cameraman. He was in some sort
of catatonic state. I passed my hand over his eyes, but there was no reaction.
With a sigh, I straightened him out on the ground and made him as comfortable
as I could. It was all I could do for the moment. After that, I went over to
Ian.

Kneeling,
I said, “Ian?”

His
eyes fluttered open and he managed a smile. It was lopsided, and he still bled
slowly from his nose and mouth. He tried talking. It was heart wrenching to see
him trying. But he wouldn’t quit. But after one extreme effort, I could
understand what he said. “Takes a lot of power…doing that. I'm not up to Alex’s
power level. Nowhere near it, in fact…sorry…”

BJ
shook his head, a sound of grief coming from him in a whimper.
“Ian, why?
 
How?”

With
his one good arm, Ian pointed to something in his jacket. He said, “Take
this…don’t let them have it. Too much info…take it and you’ll be safe. For
now…”

I
reached in the coat quickly and pulled out a DVD case with the disk in it and
the pink diamond he’d shown me earlier. Ian said, “Only copy left. And never
take the crystal off…they can’t find you. Only legacy of Claire’s left.
It’s…the only information left on Empowered.
Even ‘lexi
Cherenkov has been…dealt with.”

I
must have looked alarmed at that, because Ian said, “Relax…Vaughn…ran into him
on the way back. Blocked his memory…it’s for the best.”

Looking
over my shoulder, Ian reached up and touched BJ’s hand. In my ears, I could
hear his heart faltering. But somehow, the former Dane Eisenhawk had summoned
the strength to hold tight to BJ as he said, “Dana…tell her I love her. I
couldn’t let them take me knowing what I know.
See…her…in the
Summer Lands.”

He
coughed and blood came out, and he said one last thing. “Alex…his message was
to us. To all of us…not to abandon each other…we have to relearn it.”

I
heard a final whisper. “We are all human…”

Silence.

Then,
just as his the last breath left him, Ian disappeared. There was a short rush
of air, filling the
space
he had occupied, and that
was it. BJ and I looked at each other, stunned. After a moment, BJ muttered,
“Teleported…damn.”

After
a moment, BJ said something in Gaelic. I guessed it to be some kind of
farewell. I stood there, saddened by the loss. And I felt guilty because I was
sure that Ian had done this because of me. Now I just hoped we’d have time to
deal with the Noumenonii later. But first, I had to deal with—

*You
won’t have time.* 
A voice that belonged in Hell ripped through
my head, like coarse sandpaper rubbing against my brain.

Despite
the pain, I staggered back to my feet. I turned to see Yasmine on her feet. She
had Angela by the neck. I started to move toward her and screamed as another
wave of pain lashed through my head. In fact, everyone screamed and convulsed
violently. The mercenaries were worse off, with blood spurting from their
mouths and ears.

Even
BJ
was hit
hard by the psi-blast, barely able to
stand. On my knees, I could only watch as Yasmine reached down to her belt, and
unhook the leash handle. With a tight snap of her
arm
she yanked Alan toward her. With a cry of despair, Alan crawled to her on his
knees. It wasn’t hard to figure out what she was going to do.

She
swung around to glare at me. In my mind, I heard. 
*Orbit…good
thought.
Let’s go with that, shall we?*

Yasmine
then pointed at me and said, “What did Eisenhawk—Ian—give you?”

Waves
of pain rushed through my head. But still, fighting her attack, I managed to
wave a forefinger and I said, “Uh uh…not for you.”

Yasmine
snarled at me. Shaking the leash, Yasmine said, “Alan, kill them now. Leave the
bodies! I want that disk. Just take the heads!”

Alan
looked at her, horror on his face. “No…please…”

Angela
tried to cry out, but I only heard a whisper. Yasmine tightened her hand around
Angela’s neck as she looked down at Alan and said, “Do it, or she dies! Do it!”

Alan
cried out, then looked at BJ and me and began to concentrate. The world began
to go white. I wondered if I’d die while seeing the Earth from space.

Bang
.

In
an instant, the world returned to normal. I saw Yasmine looking to my left,
shock fading from her now-dead eyes. There was a hole in her head. In almost a
casual motion, she let Angela go, and fell to the ground. Looking around, I saw
BJ holding a gun with both hands. He killed her with the very gun she forced me
to toss aside.

He
looked at me and said, “Guns work. Just have to know where to shoot. Resilient,
not invulnerable…”

But
it wasn’t over. A scream came from the parking lot. I looked, and fear rose
when I saw Kular staring at Yasmine’s body. Then she looked at me with growing
rage in her eyes. She cried out, “No! No! 
You bastards!
 No!
She was the best! No!”

I
ran at her, but skidded to a stop when she liquefied. With a gurgling scream,
she screamed, “I will destroy you!”

I
yelled, “Angela! Alan! 
Jaunt!”

The
liquid creature rose up as she changed into a column of blackness. Kular grew
in height to tower high above us until she was almost the same height as the
building. The ground smoked thickly, a hissing sound coming from beneath the
acidic Empowered.

Reshaping
into a wave, Kular began to come at us. She would burn through the entire
building if she kept going. I realized that I wasn’t going to get all of her
wavelike form in time.
Not with a scream.
I froze. A
scream did come, though. It just wasn’t my own.

Alan
raised a hand, screaming with rage. His frustration and hate let loose in that
voice—and with power. Bright sparkles turned to blinding flashes of
white-yellow light. I covered my eyes until the blast of light faded.