Emergence (46 page)

Then, the hook came up. Not in malice. It brushed Pan’s cheek in an approximation of a caress, yet still drew a thin line of blood.

Pan slapped the hand away, disgusted.

They were in the air over Ormond’s private pond.

Pan released him, though he didn’t let him fall. He threw a shoulder into his chest and drove him down, plummeting earthward as fast as he could go. And then Pan stopped so that Ormond smashed full-speed into the shallow water, hard enough to bounce once.

Pan landed on the man’s chest, put his foot on Ormond’s ruined face, and held it underwater until the weak struggling and meager bubbles ceased.

He peered toward the edge of the pond, then waded over, stumbled, fell against the muddy bank, disturbing a bevy of nesting swans. They fluttered away, hissing.

He lay there a moment, listening to the lapping of the dark water and the
Peter `N Wendy Theme
still looping from hidden speakers. He then heard the click-clacking of the one-third scale train, saw the single eye light on the front of the little steam engine flare for a moment as it looked on him, then it passed on, as though averting its gaze from his bloody state to spare its own sensitive nature.

The train rounded the bend around the pond, and Pan blinked.

He had spied a silhouette in the open car behind the tender.

He extricated himself from the mud and swan shit and floated over, keeping pace with the little train above, then he flitted down to land in the car beside the seated figure.

Cassidy
.

Bound and gagged, but alive.

He unbuckled the gag from her head and let it fall, then sagged back in the seat beside her, exhausted.

“I’m sorry. I lost my knife.”

She sobbed and leaned her head against him.

“Just give me a few minutes,” he said, slipping his cowl from his face so he could feel the cool night air.

They said nothing for a while, just leaned against each other, watching the grounds go by, feeling the sway of the little train, as they had all those years ago when Ormond had invited them here on a sunny day.

“Ormond?” she asked.

“He’s dead.”

“I still have my appendix,” she blurted.

“What?”

“I never had appendicitis. My dad paid the hospital to admit me, had the records forged, so everybody thought I was sick the day…the day everybody…”

“The day of the bomb. So, you got my message?”

“No. My dad had checked my phone first. He always checked my messages. Knew my passwords. He made me stay home. After the bomb…he…he told me not to ever tell anyone. He knew what had happened. He knew who had done it. All that time. He protected Ormond. How many years did he cover for that monster? For what? Because the bastard made him money.”

“He was protecting you, too,” Jim said wearily. “Died for you in the end. Ormond killed him. He told me. I guess the bomb at Perennial was too big. It must have haunted your dad, and Ormond couldn’t trust him to keep quiet.”

She looked at him. He could feel her eyes glistening in the dark. He wouldn’t look at her. He closed his eyes.

“Jim…I…”

He shook his head.

“Please don’t say anything.”

“You’re hurt bad.”

“Chimerics mend.”

He felt her lips brush his. Her hair tickled his swelling face, and his nose filled with the smell of her.

He flinched away, then sat up and opened his eyes.

“We can’t,” he said. “Not ever……”

“I know. Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Pixie dust,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Faith and trust,” she said.

“What?”

“I read it finally. Peter Pan.
All the world is made of faith and trust and pixie dust
. Do you still believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

The train shuddered suddenly, and stopped. All the lights went out.

“Oh my God. What now?” Cassidy whispered.

Pan heard the familiar engine whine.

“It’s alright,” he said, a minute before the wind kicked up.

Her hair blew in his face again. He smelled it, even above the jet fuel odor, and closed his eyes as it whipped across him.

Then the Brown Bird’s lights shone down on them as it landed across the tracks.

The hatch opened, and the Brown Thrasher jumped down and came over, boots crunching on the gravel.

“Shouldn’t you put your mask back on?” Cassidy said urgently.

He shook his head as the iconic, sweeping bird-shadow fellow across them both.

“It was Elton Ormond,” said the Thrasher.

Pan gave him a finger gun and smiled.

“Looks like I was one step ahead of you this time, Thrasher.”

“I suppose he’s dead?”

“He bombed Perennial all those years ago. He also killed Peter Hollis. And there are three more bodies in his dining room. Go have a look at the room in the back of the house. Go through his computer files. Before you ask why.”

“Miss Cassidy,” said the Thrasher, bowing slightly. “You’d better come with me.”

“She can’t,” said Pan.

“Pan…,” said the Thrasher.

“She’s tied. And I can’t use my hands.”

“Ah.” The Thrasher bent over her, taking something from his belt that looked like bird beaked scissors, and snipped her bonds.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Cassidy said in Pan’s ear.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

Then he stood up in the train car, wobbly kneed, gathered himself up, and pushed off, climbing into the dark.

TWENTY

The crowd was enormous, bigger even than the vigil of mourners who had lit candles to mark the passing of the fifty-five civilians and the two P.O.N.E. officers killed in Tantrum’s second attack.

People love a celebration more than a memorial.

And people loved The California Girls.

Everybody knew the story worldwide by now. Four teenage chimerics and their leader had saved LF where TCA and P.O.N.E. and the police and Army had all failed. They’d come out of nowhere, like Pan, whom everybody but the most diehard Rogers fans had mostly forgotten.

Why they were embraced and Pan was shunned was easy to see.

They were bubbly, fun, cute, vivacious. There was their leader, Termagant. She looked to be past forty, all in white with short silver-blonde hair. Nobody quite knew her powers, though it was rumored she was an Alpha-level telepath and the one most responsible for the amazingly coordinated team. She was definitely an Alpha-level promoter, because she stayed wisely in the background and let her girls, who seemed perfectly appealing across demographic lines, bask in the limelight.

The plucky Astarte, whom Pan had met, seemed to be second-in-command. She had cut through solid concrete with her energy spear. In what became the most shared image to come out of that disaster, she had been famously captured on film, a news truck above her head in one hand, sparing a moment to lean over and kiss the handsome reporter Cotton Anderson as he rose astounded from the rubble beneath. That shield of hers somehow had the power to resist Tantrum’s psychokinetic blasts.

A girl called Roar had the ability to assume the shape and exaggerated powers of any feline, shifting in the blink of an eye from a snarling tiger woman into a speeding cheetah girl. At the party thrown in their honor, Roar had glitter-gloss on her black skin, wore black lipstick and goth clothes. Her blue hair scored big with the disaffected youth.

Third up was Hyna, a tough-looking Latina shapeshifter, who could not only change her face, but assume a bizarre, resilient battle form that looked like a seven-foot-tall cross between a dinosaur and a human with bright blue skin and glowing red eyes. She’d taken hold of Tantrum by the ankles and smashed him through a building.

Last was Bipolar, who, during the big battle, had gone up to the KO’d Pecos and A-Frame, touched them, and then split herself into three exact duplicates of herself, two of which utilized their powers.

TCA and the DCD took an extreme interest in them, especially Bipolar, but couldn’t come near them. They had three-point-eight-million adoring fans protecting them, after all, and in the weeks after their appearance they were everywhere. Billboards, apparel, there was talk of a cartoon series. They were featured in a remade Katy Perry video of the famous “California Girls” song, with a few lyrical tweaks by Perry, just for them. At a downtown celebration, the mayor, shouting above the roar of the ecstatic crowd, called them ‘La Futura’s Favorite Daughters.’

Not everybody was so enamored.

“More proof of experimentation on America’s youth by companies like DNAdvanced and Biotiq,” Aisha Cordell spat from her refurbished studio. ““When are you going to wake up, America? Do you want your own daughters prancing about like whores for the enjoyment of the lib—?”

Father Eladio switched off the TV.

“That’s enough of that.”

Jim shook his head.

Two chimerics had saved her life, but she had insured Margarito had a good stretch in San Quinton ahead of him once he got out of physical therapy.

Father Eladio had secured him a good lawyer, and they had high hopes.

“I don’t get people like that,” Jim said.

“If she didn’t keep doing what she’s doing, she’d be out of a job,”” said Amonson, coming down the basement steps in his tailor made suit, looking as out of place in the cluttered surroundings as was humanly possible.

“Mister Spinks!” Father Eladio exclaimed, smiling. “You want a beer?”

“I don’t drink,” said Spinks, looking around at the dingy church basement. “This place looks like a blind man keeps it.”

“Hey, not so loud, man. I got a couple of nice old ladies that come in once a week to clean.”

“You should make it twice a week. This place is falling apart.”

“Maybe you could write a check for the church, rich man, widen the eye of the needle a bit for your camel ass.”

“He’s
got
to be an atheist,” said Jim, chuckling.

“Agnostic, actually,” said Spinks, brushing a cobweb from the sleeve of his suit.

“Sit down, Thrasher,” said Pan, scooting stiffly in the folding chair to make room at the card table.

Spinks put a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t stay. Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Sore, but on the mend.”

His broken hands were the worst part, but the bones were knitting well enough. Father Eladio had taken him to a general practitioner that didn’t ask questions, told him he’d gotten his wounds in a gang fight.

Spinks put his attaché case on the table and flipped it open, shuffling papers.

“So…the bomb at Vulpes Plaza was dirty. It wouldn’t have taken out the entire block, but it would’ve made the building unusable.”

“That’s it?” Jim said.

“Public perception of RDD’s is pretty overblown,” said Spinks. “It takes time to decontaminate an area, but it can be done. We call them Weapons of Mass Disruption.”

“Huh,” said Jim.

“Ormond’s hard drives have been turned over to the FBI and Second Star security cameras have been scrubbed, so you won’t show up. We’re spinning it into an angry parent’s revenge. That speedster you killed is providing the identity and the body. They’ll have killed each other. It’s all very sordid, but Ormond was such a recluse it’ll work. The story breaks tomorrow. We’re letting the California Girls have their moment.”

“The kid should be up on the grandstand with them for stopping Ormond,” said Father Eladio.

“Believe me,” said Spinks, “that’s the last thing you want. You thought the blowback from Rogers Stadium was bad, try telling a billion screaming Ormond fans that their idol was a child molester. Oh, that reminds me, the shooter. Guy’s name is Billy Lee Birkenstock, AKA Blowback. TCA wanted him for killing some trainees in Ohio, for Ursus in Montana. He’s going to be far away from humanity for the rest of his days. Maybe we can take a break from homicidal snipers for the time being. Handley…you know he was Ormond’s gardener at Second Star years before he got his teaching job? That’s how they knew each other. He’s back in San Quinton now. Bombero and his homies, too.”

“I’d like to visit them, if I could,” said Father Eladio.

“It can be arranged.”

He took some papers out of his case and handed them to Jim.

“What’s this?” said Jim.

“The deed to your friend Tinkham’s house in Mogera Hills. We paid it off, and we’ve got contractors rebuilding the roof. It’s yours now.”

Jim looked at the paper.

Tink was dead, and it was yet another funeral he hadn’t been able to attend. Father Eladio had officiated, assured him he’d sent him off right. Cassidy had been there. Looking for him.

“You should probably sell it,” said Jim quietly. “Give me a little to relocate, and donate the rest to protect something. How long before Cass comes knocking? She can’t know where I’m at.”

“We can find you another place,” Spinks said.

“Not so sure I want you all knowing where I am either, no offense.”

“Then I guess offering to bring you into the labs, see about fixing your aging problem is off the table?”

Jim shrugged. It was tempting.

How many times had he gone overlooked as a kid as he went into some porn den and smashed it to pieces, whereas an adult might’ve been questioned. How many kids had Pan saved from the kind of hell Tink had gone through with Ormond?

Maybe Father Eladio was right.

Maybe the Power came as it had for a reason.

“Up to you,” said Spinks, closing his case. “I’ll keep the Agency off you as best I can. I can’t speak for everybody. They’ll still come looking, eventually.”

“Who knows?” said Father Eladio. “Maybe these girls will pave the way for Pan.”

Spinks said nothing to that, but pursed his lips and gave Jim a don’t-count-on-it. The California Girls were sweethearts floating on cotton candy clouds. Pan was a rat catcher down in the muck.

“Try to keep your hands clean, Jim,” he said, touched his eyebrow, and went upstairs.

“
Adios
, Amon,” called Father Eladio. “I’ll wait by the mailbox for that check.”

“Might want to bring an umbrella,” Spinks called down before the door opened and shut.

“He’s right,” said the blind priest, when Jim stood up to go. “You ought to keep your hands clean.
Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent
.”