Day's End (7 page)

“Here goes nothing,” I murmured. I flew at full-speed toward the second floor wall, an area between two narrow, metal-reinforced windows. They’d done a really good job of trying to strengthen this building, expecting that it might be a target someday. Unfortunately, they were too worried about keeping people out, never considering what would happen if the school’s charges were trapped inside.

I spun in the air about four feet away from the building. Avoiding crashing into it face-first would probably be a good thing. The impact of my back hitting the brick wall was enough to knock the air from my lungs and shake my body so hard I was pretty sure I felt shit cracking.

Of course, I didn’t have much time to worry about whatever was broken inside me. The hot air from the stairwell nearby hit me, and I knew that if I wasn’t wearing my armor, I would have been blistered.

If they were on this floor at all, they’d probably tried to get to the classrooms in the middle of the area, between the two stairwell infernos. I ran there, knocking first one door in, then another, then another.

“StrikeForce!” I shouted. “I’m here to get you out but you have to help me.”

Even with the enhanced vision in my mask, I was having a hard time seeing.

“Come on. Give me something,” I shouted as I bashed down another door. There was a scream when it went crashing in, and I ran into the room.

“Thank god. Is this everyone on the floor?” I asked one of the adults in the room.

“Yes. We got everyone here once it started getting hot. There are others on the third floor.”

I nodded and surveyed the room. It was packed. A good sixty to seventy kids, plus a half dozen teachers.

Right now, I was grateful for the small class sizes in this particular school. Shit.

“Okay. I’m gonna take you out, as many as I can carry at a time and then I’ll keep coming back for the rest. I think maybe the firefighters have something they can use, too, once I open up that wall so we can get you out. Okay?”

Several of them nodded. The rest were watching me as if they were waiting for the moment I’d attack them or something.

“Back away from that wall. Turn around so none of this debris hits you.”

I was sweating my ass off in the suit. Several of the kids were crying, screaming. It was getting too hot for them, too.

I shouted and flew at the wall, busting a Jolene-sized hole in the wall, letting in the fresh air from the outside. I flew back, making the hole bigger.

Fuck, it hurts to use yourself like a human wrecking ball.

I flew back in, hoisted one kid onto my back and gathered as many as I could in my arms. Six went out with me in the first group. The firefighters could get the rest out while I worked on the third floor.

At least, that was the plan, until I noticed all of the fire engines on fire and my teammates fighting assholes in very recognizable red and black uniforms. I scanned the crowd for Killjoy, but he could have been anywhere. The asshole could have been standing right next to me, and I wouldn’t have known it, thanks to the invisibility powers he’d gotten from Dr. Death’s little experiment, via Crystal.

One more reason to hate her. The invisibility thing and his teleporting powers made my life a lot harder than it needed to be.

I set the kids down near a bunch of police cars. The front line of police were shooting, and a few who weren’t actively shooting came to help me with the kids.

“There are about sixty more on the second floor,” I shouted over the chaos to one of them.

I needed Portia. There was no way I could get them all out plus manage to get the third floor opened up before it all burned. And if our super powered kids were still in there, they needed to be protected, too.

I flew around, sending punches of energy at Mayhem members as I passed them, trying to give my team the upper hand where I could. I found Portia facing off against a chick with a sword, and I crashed into sword chick from behind, then bashed her head into the ground to knock her out.

“I need you. I can’t get them all out on my own.”

Portia nodded, and I carried her into the building.

She glanced around. “I’ll need to make two trips. Third floor?”

“I need to get up there.”

“Okay. I’ve got this handled.”

“I was dropping them off near the police barricade on the west end,” I said, and she nodded. I flew out of the opening I’d made and circled around, getting enough distance to build up enough force to bash through the outer wall on the third floor.

The smoke was black, and the building was starting to make really, really not-comforting sounds, as if things that were kind of important were starting to weaken.

I bashed in through the third floor wall and was momentarily blinded by the cloud of black smoke that billowed out of the hole. I flew through it into the hallway. The good thing is, the flames still seemed to be mostly confined to the ends of the hallway, where each stairwell was located. But everything was full of black smoke and I was pretty sure that this was what the inner circles of hell probably felt like.

I thanked Equipment again for the air filters in my mask and started busting doors down.

I heard a shout, then the unmistakable sound of fist striking flesh. I followed it to see one of the classroom doors open, a bunch of terrified little kids huddled in one corner behind three adults while two others fought.

And of course, they were fighting assholes in black and red. As I lunged at the one closest to me, I noticed another adult in the corner, an older woman with snow white hair. Three kids were behind her, and they all seemed to be focusing really hard.

As I punched Mayhem asshole #1 in the face, I realized there was no smoke around the large group of kids, as if an invisible bubble was keeping it away from them. Another was around the three kids and the lady with the snow white hair.

Force fields. Protective bubbles.

I smiled and hit the Mayhem asshole again when he lunged toward me. Sometimes, we super powered freaks are pretty awesome. Undoubtedly, the kids behind the lady with the white hair were the powered kids. She was protecting them, shooting flashes of white hot light at the other Mayhem jerk, while one of the kids, maybe two of them, held the force fields.

When I had a chance, I’d take a moment to be really, really impressed by the kids’ control and calmness.

I punched the Mayhem guy one more time and he fell to the ground, still.

The white haired lady hit the other guy with one more blast, and I finished him off with a hard left hook.

I glanced at her and gave her a respectful nod.

“Daystar,” she said in greeting.

“Those are our people’s kids?”

“They are.”

Two of the three kids stared at me with huge eyes. The third was still silent, focused. Clearly, this was the one making the force fields.

“We need to get them safe before the lady in blue comes back,” the woman said.

“Shit. Can you protect them another few minutes while I get them out?” I asked, gesturing toward the larger group of kids. Without the force field protecting them, they’d all suffocate in no time. She nodded, and I glanced at the two guys on the floor. One was starting to move around. I knocked him out with one more quick punch, then quickly put dampeners on both of them just so they couldn’t cause any more problems for the white haired lady while I was dealing with the kids.

I gestured toward the kids, pointing at about seven of them. If it worked the way Crystal’s force fields did, they’d be able to walk out and leave the forcefield intact, but no one could get in from the outside. They walked through, timidly approaching me. I got one on my back, managed to get the other six, and flew out of the building. I dropped them near the police barricade, took a quick peek at the fighting continuing between StrikeForce and Mayhem, then went back.

Five more times. Five more trips, then Portia was there to help me get the last of them out. I gave her a nod of thanks, then flew back up to collect the woman and the kids with powers. They were still standing there in their protective bubble.

“Okay,” I started to say.

Something hit the forcefield the four of them were inside of, and two of the kids screamed. I noticed a flash of black and red.

“Missed you, sweetheart,” a familiar, grating voice said. “Our little visit yesterday was too short.”

I didn’t think. I just punched. I don’t think he expected it. Usually, I yap back at him. But I was tired and pissed and the building was making more weird noises. He went flying across the room.

He picked himself up with a groan. “Not playing today, eh? That’s okay. Those are mine, though,” he said, pointing behind me to the three powered kids in the bubble.

“Kids, Killjoy? Really?”

“You know my name. Say it.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m doing somebody a favor,” he said. “It just coincided with my own goals.”

“Which are?” I moved, staying between him and the kids in their protective forcefield. Keep him talking, make sure he doesn’t do anything annoying, like teleport.

“Seeing you again. Reminding you that I can make all your problems go away.”

I laughed and shook my head. “My problems? You are my problem.” God, I wanted to hit him. Hard. Kick him so hard he’d remember it every time he pissed. But he knew things, clearly. And I needed to know what he knew.

“So you’re helping the woman who’s going after the kids?”

He took a step toward me and I pushed him back with my power.

“We’re wasting time here sweetheart. We both know I’m gonna win.”

“This isn’t your style. Kids? Come on,” I said.

“It’s not. But sometimes you have to play nice to get what you want,” he said with a shrug.

“So you’re not giving me anything here?”

“Depends on you. Remember what I just said about playing nice? How badly do you want to know?”

I shook my head and punched out at him with my power. He shouted at me, enraged and unintelligible. He got up, and from his posture, after seeing him do it so many times already, I could tell that he was getting ready to teleport.

“Every damn time, Killjoy,” I said, hitting him again. He went flying again, and one of the kids in the force field cheered. “You can’t run every time I’m about to whup your ass.”

He kind of made the same general motion again, like he was getting ready to teleport, and nothing happened.

I laughed and walked toward him, my hands up, guard up.

“Powers aren’t what they once were, huh? Dr. Death wasn’t as good as you thought he was, maybe.” Killjoy snarled and jumped up, lunging at me. Powers or not, he was s strong bastard. He towered a good half a foot taller than me and his thighs were each roughly as thick as my waist. I ducked away, shot out another blast of power at him, and he went flying.

It barely phased him. He charged at me again, this time drawing his sword and slashing toward me with it.

“We both know you’re not going to kill me, asshole,” I hissed as I hit him again. “Partly because you’re out of your damn mind. Mostly because you know you can’t.”

He stopped then, and he laughed. I knocked him back again, hoping to knock him out so I could collar him and get him locked up before he hurt anybody else. “Really, Jolene? You think death is the worst thing I can do to you?” His voice was quiet, smooth, calm. That, all by itself, was enough to send a shiver up my spine. “You talk a big game, but you’re scared of me.” He paused, looked down at his sword, and put it back into his scabbard. Then he laughed again. “You’re scared of me. And sweetheart, you have every reason to be. Keep the brats. I don’t give a fuck.”

I charged at him, just as he leapt for the window. He was nothing but a streak of black across the sky, and when he flew off, the other Mayhem members all rose into the air and took off as well.

I was halfway out the window to go after him when the building gave a sickening lurch, then a deafening rumble started from the north end of the building.

“Shit.” I gestured wildly to the kids and the woman in the bubble, and they came to me. I grabbed them all and flew them out. We were just through the hole I’d made in the wall when the noise got louder, the walls started to sway, and the building gave out, falling to the earth in a blazing cloud of dust and brick. The authorities had gotten everyone back, clearly worrying that this would happen once they’d been unable to make any headway with whatever Killjoy’s people had used to start those fires. I carried the kids and woman to where the other kids were all waiting, and the assembled crowd went nuts cheering when we touched down. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve heard it, but the shouts of joy from the kids and teachers had a certain energy to them. Only people who have been close to death seem capable of making sounds like that, so full of joy and life that it’s enough to make you cry. The bystanders were cheering too, but the cheers and chants from the people who had been trapped in the school were the sweetest sound in the world to me.

And when they started chanting my name, loudly, wildly, clapping in time to the syllables, “Daystar! Daystar! Daystar!” I did actually start to lose it, blinking back tears while I half listened to Portia filling me in on what had happened on the ground. After a moment, she gave up talking and pulled me in for a strong hug, and the crowd went crazy cheering again.

“You did good, Daystar,” she said, patting my back while she hugged me.

“You too, fearless leader. They got away, though.”

“We’ll get ‘em another day. We saved everyone. That’s more win than I ever could have hoped for in this situation.”

“It was Killjoy.”

“I know. He’s like a hemorrhoid you just can’t get rid of, isn’t he?”

I lost it then and started laugh-crying on Portia’s shoulder and she hugged me harder while the crowd continued to cheer and chant.

“Oh, damn it,” Portia muttered, and I straightened up, ready to kick ass and expecting Killjoy.

It was maybe even worse.

Eve and at least a dozen Tribunal officers stood a few feet away from me. I was about to make a smart ass remark when the whole freaking scene went nuts. StrikeForce, almost automatically, formed a wall between me and the Tribunal assholes, and the crowd started booing and swearing at Eve.