The Color of Courage (21 page)

God, I hoped Adam was right, and it would hold beyond the corner she was turning.

“This is easier than I expected it to be.” Adam rubbed his hands together and grinned at me.

“More addicting than
I
expected.” Jazzed, I scanned the circle and the branching streets, looking for someone else I could help. “How long can we stay here?”

He laughed and settled against the brick behind us. “As long as you want to. But we shouldn’t get back too late,” he corrected, as if realizing we were supposed to be training me for tomorrow and then remembering what tomorrow was.

“Right. Okay, only a few more.”

After half an hour, Adam had me change my approach. Instead of addressing other people’s emotions, I tried to use my own.

“Altering what they are actively feeling is another tool for you, but I think you can do more.”

I watched the delight sparkling in a bubble I’d formed around myself. “I don’t know what more. I’ve already done this.” I mentally pushed the bubble outward until it engulfed Adam, making him laugh.

“Try other shapes. Other approaches. I can feel the happiness like a skin, but as soon as you let it dissipate, it’s gone.”

“I know, that’s what—”

But Adam wasn’t letting me minimize my power anymore. “Go inside. Dig into the core. I know you can do it.”

I knew I could, too. That wasn’t the point. “People’s core emotions are personal, Adam. It’s not right to attack them.”

He held my shoulders, a smile curving his lips slightly and making his eyes dance. “That’s exactly it, Daley. You’ve finally gotten it. It’s an attack. And tomorrow, we’ll be responding to an attack that will be a violation of a lot of things. Sometimes the only way to protect is to do the same thing.”

I scowled. “Well, I’m not doing it to any of these people.”

“Nope, you’ll do it to me.”

I argued a few more minutes, but he’d already convinced me. Speaking generally, digging into people’s core emotions might be wrong. But it wasn’t any different from shooting the bad guys with guns, if it could make them stop doing harm. So as we left the circle and headed back to HQ to meet the others for last-minute reports and planning, I experimented with the tamest emotions I had, trying to find the best entry. In the end, Adam’s pride and approval assuaged some of my guilt and reluctance. I felt confident and comfortable with myself again, and though I didn’t expect to have to use my newfound tools, working with them had done what Adam had set out to do.

We stayed at HQ that night, up and ready the next morning. Very early the next morning. In fact, from the looks of us, none had gotten much sleep.

Adam, Kirby, and I stayed at HQ to await the expected call. Evan took Summer and Trace to the memorial, hoping to catch members of CASE at the points we’d identified.

The three of us sat in the break room, silently sipping coffee. Every half hour Trace reported in, and it was always the same report. Nothing happening. The kids had appeared at the far end of the Mall, as planned, but otherwise it was quiet.

At ten, my cell phone rang. Kirby jumped up and her duffle zoomed into her hands before she realized it wasn’t the HQ line.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, sitting back down.

Adam patted her shoulder sympathetically, but I noticed he hadn’t moved.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered, trying not to sound resigned. Was she anticipating crises now, instead of after the fact?

“Hi, sweetie. I know you’re busy, I won’t keep you. I’m just calling about the family picnic next week. Your cousin Lilah was finalizing the menu and she had so many calls to make I told her I’d call my kids. Sarah’s doing that seven-layer salad with the peas and broccoli and bacon—”

I cut her off before she listed the other four ingredients. “Why can’t we all just bring something, like other families do?”

“You know Lilah, she likes to have things coordinated. She complained last year that we had too many brownies and not enough macaroni salad.”

Except every one of the eight pans of brownies had been eaten, and the lone bowl of macaroni salad only half so. Lilah was all about symmetry, not logic.

“Fine, I’ll bring lemonade.” I had no idea if I’d have time to cook, but I could stir some concentrate into a pitcher of water.

“Oh, no, not store-bought! Daley, you can’t do that!”

Her dismay and future embarrassment didn’t move me. “I’ll be lucky to get there at all, Mom. Don’t push it.”

“All right. I’ll let her know. Just put it in a nice pitcher, okay? Don’t leave it in the jug.”

I didn’t bother to explain my plan. “Okay, Mom.”

“And please, make sure you get there. Spike is leaving right after, you know.” Her voice broke on the “leaving,” and I softened.

“I know. If I can be there, I will. It’s top priority.”

“Okay. You have a good day, sweetie.”

“You too, Mom.”

“Oh, wait! Daley! Daley?”

“I’m still here, Mom.”

“Don’t forget to bring all your HQ friends.”

I smiled at Adam and Kirby, who were watching my conversation. “I’ll make sure they try.”

“Okay, good. Love you. Bye!”

I replaced the phone in its clip on my belt. “You guys have my family picnic on your calendars, right?”

“Of course,” Kirby said.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Adam’s lips tilted up a bit. He and my brothers got along like gangbusters, which I’d never understood. He was so quiet and strong, and they were so loudly immature. Even my mother, despite her dislike of my role in HQ, took to Adam. He was very good at the flattery.

Three more hours passed. Kirby went to the office to do some computer work. Adam and I went to the gym for a light workout, just enough to keep our blood pumping without tiring us. After that, he attacked paperwork, and I addressed a few old employer accounts that needed updating. The busywork did nothing for us, however, and we kept drifting into each other’s areas, as if one might have heard something the rest of us hadn’t.

Finally, just before two o’clock, the call came. Adam answered the phone and nodded once, sharply, at me and Kirby hovering in the doorway. Kirby summoned our gear bags and we ran to the truck, not waiting for Adam. Kirby started the vehicle while I opened the passenger door for Adam and then climbed into the back seat. He ran into the garage a moment later, his cell phone to his ear.

“No, it was Hurley, I recognized his voice.” He slammed his door. Kirby peeled out into traffic. “That doesn’t matter. He wants us to meet at the northwest corner of the building. Good, but stay hidden. We’ll meet you there.”

“That’s near where I cut the wires,” I told Adam. “Under the trees. What did he find?”

“He didn’t say. Trace questioned if it was even him, and honestly, I couldn’t tell for sure. Get us as close as you can,” he told Kirby. “We’ll have to walk in. The others will hold until we approach.” She did, and Adam called Hurley back as we hurried toward the memorial.

“We’re almost there. No, traffic was fine. What’s the level of urgency?” He listened for a minute. “We’re all here. Okay.” He snapped the phone back onto his belt. “He said he’s concerned about crowd safety and doesn’t understand the nature of what they found. He wants everyone to stay back while I approach, because he’s afraid it’s unstable.”

I didn’t like that. “We’re still operating on the assumption that this is a trap, right?”

“Yep.” He pulled his flexi-shield over his head and fastened it, looking grim. “I don’t see how else to approach it, though. We went to all this trouble to hide the fact that we knew something was going down. To delay for recon will blow that.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“None of us do, Daley. Let’s go.” He pushed into a jog.

We followed, and a minute later met the others standing among the trees off the northeast corner of the traffic circle.

“Anything?” Adam asked.

They shook their heads.

“I walked past a minute ago,” Evan said, “but without walking into the trees, I couldn’t see anything.”

Adam nodded. “Okay, everyone suit up.” We had our suits on, but added gloves and flexi-shields. “I’m going over there to meet Hurley or whoever called us. Daley, you come with me, but stay back. I just want you to read who’s there.” We didn’t have an angle for me to do that from here. “The rest of you, coms on and spread out. Half-circle, as much cover as you can get, not too close but with visual. Ready?”

We all moved off. I strode next to Adam, focusing on the copse of trees along the north wall. “Three people, all with high excitement and eagerness. No darkness.” Shorthand for no negative emotions.

“Three to one’s pretty good odds, right?” Adam flashed a smile, hesitated, then said something much more intimate with his eyes that I couldn’t understand before he moved away. “Stay here,” he cast back over his shoulder.

I ignored him. I walked further around the circle before cutting back toward the building. If all eyes were on him, they wouldn’t see me. I eased close enough to see three figures wearing our stolen suits. They stood in a triangle, about twenty feet apart, all holding some kind of odd equipment aimed at their center. Wires trailed from the units back to the wires I’d cut yesterday. I held my breath when Adam appeared. He halted outside the triangle.

“What’s going on?” He looked around, pretending. “Where’s Hurley?”

The trio didn’t say anything. The two flanking Adam moved past him to center him between them. I saw a light on the woman’s machine glowing. It was powering up. Which meant they had repaired the wires. I started to shout a warning, then remembered the coms. I hit mine to activate it.

“Adam, get out!”

I didn’t have time to say more. Bright white bands of light zipped up and down over Adam’s body. He backed up a few steps, frowning down at the bands, but before he could do more, they froze.

And so did he.

Chapter 19

I opened my mouth to yell and leapt forward with the intent to do . . . something, but noise erupted over my com. Shouts and impact sounds I couldn’t decipher. I paused, disoriented, and that gave the fake HQers time to insert their weapons into metal boxes on the ground that sealed with audible hydraulics. I waited to see what they were going to do next.

“Trace, what’s going on?”

He didn’t respond. There were more shouts, crashes, running footsteps, a few screams I hoped were fearful bystanders, not anyone who was hurt and not anyone on my team. The three who’d immobilized Adam conferred too far away for me to hear what they were saying. I crept closer, keeping low to the ground, but ran out of cover and still couldn’t hear.

“Evan? Summer. Kirby.” No one answered, and I wondered if my com was malfunctioning. “Dammit.”

The gang of three surrounded Adam. One of them said something and they all laughed. Anger sizzled in my blood. I wrapped my hand around the asp in my bag and rose to my full height. I sparred with three or more law enforcement types at a time. I could take these three.

I moved into the small clearing under the trees. It took them a moment to notice me. The dappled light hid me in my dark suit. When I did catch the woman’s eye, she laughed again.

“Cute outfit,” she sneered, squaring off. “Whatsa matter, you lose your pretty gray and white one?”

I closed my eyes and let myself see just their auras. Excitement, anticipation, caution. E, A, C. The woman, E, flashed toward me, wanting to take me by surprise while I had my eyes closed. I held still until she was a couple of feet away, then stepped to the right and lashed out with the asp, smacking her in the knees and sending her stumbling. She recovered and back-kicked me in the stomach. My suit absorbed the blow. Hers would protect her, too, but the technology of the fabrics was different, and I knew the strengths and limitations of her protection. That gave me the edge.

Caution stayed back, but I saw Anticipation heading for my “blind spot.” I dropped flat to the ground, catching myself in a pushup, and rolled to my right. A missed me completely and plowed into E.

“Get off me, you asshole,” she shrieked at him.

I opened my eyes and grinned at the heap they made, legs tangled together. Neither one of them wore their flexi-shields. Two taps with the asp, and they were out.

I hadn’t forgotten about Caution. He moved slowly in my peripheral vision, smudges of black staining his golden aura. He wasn’t making a move toward me. Suddenly alarmed, I jerked around to face him, using my eyes instead of my sight, and saw the gun in his hand a split second too late. The bullet hit me in the left shoulder. The suit deflected it—chips of bark flew off a tree to my left—but shock knocked me back. He fired again, and I fell. The end of the asp caught on the ground and it twisted out of my hand. I rolled again, coming to my feet as he attacked.

He didn’t strike but pushed me back, keeping me off balance as he reached for my flexi-shield and tried to strip it off my head. I thrust the heel of my hand upward under his chin. He howled, and blood spilled out of his mouth. I might not have hit hard enough to hurt his neck, but he’d bitten his tongue, and there were now several feet between us. I swept the side of my hand toward his throat. The glove’s fabric stiffened as it contacted, becoming weapon as well as protectant. C gagged and bent forward. I kicked him in the face, and he was down.

“Adam!” I ran toward him but stopped before I passed the lines of triangulation. I didn’t know if the beams would freeze me, too. If they did, I’d be worthless. I could see no animation at all, not even eye movement or emotion behind his eyes.

His aura was there, though. Faint, but readable. He was terrified, and I wondered how much effort it was taking him to focus that terror on the others instead of on me, so I’d know he was still in there, still alive.

“I’ll get you out,” I promised and hoped I wasn’t lying. I crouched to examine the box on the ground. It fitted onto the base of the unit, a slot allowing the beam to continue unimpeded as the cover was put on. The seams were almost undetectable. There was no handle on the top of the box, and the sides were smooth. I touched the top and perceived a slight hum. But I had no idea what the beams were, how they worked, and what would happen if I interrupted them. If I moved one unit, would it disrupt the energy and release Adam? Or would it kill him? I couldn’t remember if they’d activated the three units at the same time. If they hadn’t, it was probably safe. If they had, it might not be.

What if I interrupted the beam without moving it? I glanced around and grabbed a wide leaf. Holding it by the stem, I lowered it into the white beam, bracing for an explosion but hoping the leaf would block the beam and free Adam from his stasis. Neither occurred.

But the leaf disintegrated.

Fuck.

I needed the others. I hit my com again. “Trace! Evan!” Nothing. Then I realized that I hadn’t heard anything over it for several minutes. I wasn’t sure when it had gone out completely—sometime during my fight.

“I’ll get you out,” I assured Adam again. With zip ties from my utility pack, I fastened the hands and feet of the fake HQers, then dragged them around the corner, out of sight behind the wall. I removed my flexi-shield and checked my com. I couldn’t find anything physically wrong, like a jarred wire, but it was still dead. I had to go find the others.

I gave Adam one last look and another, silent, promise, but it killed me to leave him alone and vulnerable.

From what I’d heard on the com earlier I didn’t expect them to be there, but I ran back to the spot where Adam and I had left the others. I was right, they were gone. I couldn’t detect any emotional traces, either, which probably meant they were calm when they moved. Stronger emotions, especially emotional spikes, tended to linger longer than calm or gentle emotions.

Without a lead, I decided to head for the memorial. I ran, Adam’s entrapment foremost in my mind. But when I reached the closed-off portion of the traffic circle, he dropped down my priority list.

The normal quiet disorganization of tourists climbing up and down the steps and milling around the inner chamber had disappeared. The screams I’d heard had probably been people trying to escape those who now held many of them at gunpoint in a tightly compacted group at the middle level of the steps.

Evan stood at the front of that group, his hands up by his head, talking calmly to the guy in front of him despite the machine gun inches from his abdomen. I couldn’t see Trace anywhere. Kirby huddled behind one of the cement barriers closing off the front of the circle. She saw me and motioned me back. I hadn’t been spotted yet, but I was out in the open and any movement could call their attention to me. I backed up slowly, exactly the way I’d come, until I was hidden by a tree past the sidewalk on the outside curve of the circle.

Kirby made a small motion with her hand. It took me a minute to catch on. She wanted me to switch my com from broadcast to person-to-person. I was skeptical, but I switched it and keyed her code on the button. Her voice exploded in my ear.

“Where the hell have you been? Where’s Adam?”

“My com wasn’t working. Adam’s . . . incapacitated.” There wasn’t time to explain, not yet. “Where’s Trace?”

“I don’t know. We started fanning out but as soon as we got close to the steps these guys burst out of the building. Trace was closest and took two of them out, then chased down a third. He’s offline and hasn’t come back.”

I had no doubt Evan had charged in, as well, and was now paying the price for his macho heroics. Or soon would, judging by the heated response of the guy with the gun to whatever Evan was saying.

“I started summoning weapons away.”

I could see them now, black pieces smashed on the walk at the base of the steps. She must have summoned them against the wall.

“I got the clips. But I only got three before they caught on. Now they’re holding them too tightly.”

“Can’t you summon the whole person away?”

I could feel her glare even from this distance. “Of course I can, but to what purpose? I can’t take them all on, and they for sure won’t let me handle them one by one.”

“Where’s Summer?” She was our best fighter.

“She’s on the other side of the building. She wanted to follow Evan, but I convinced her to wait. We need a plan, not a willy-nilly leap into the fray.”

That was for sure. We needed Adam. But if Summer, Kirby, and I went to try to release him, who knew what would happen on these steps? How many civilians would they kill?

“Daley.”

I spun, trying to swing my asp before I realized I’d left it behind. Luckily, the man who’d snuck up on me was someone I knew, someone on our side.

Or was he? I curbed my initial relief and studied Hurley before I spoke to him. His aura was like all the others around here, full of anxiety and fear and determination and need. He could be the dedicated cop we’d thought him to be, and his emotions stemmed from the terrible odds of innocent people surviving. Or he could be part of CASE, his emotions stemming from fear of being found out.

Just like I’d told Adam. I couldn’t tell. I was worthless in this fight.

But I was in it all the same, and walking away wouldn’t save anyone. My safest bet was to pretend I didn’t suspect him.

“You’re okay! When Adam was ambushed, I thought—”

Hurley shook his head. Worry flared briefly. “I was grabbed and forced to make that call. I wasn’t anywhere near here. They let me go a few minutes ago, and I came straight here to see what I could do.”

So many holes in that explanation. “Did you notify the authorities what was going on?”

“I didn’t know what to report. What
is
going on?”

“Don’t tell him anything, Daley,” Kirby warned. I’d left my com on, and she could hear our conversation. “He could be one of them.”

“I don’t know, either,” I said to both of them. “I just got here myself. I’m trying to figure it out.” I took a chance on turning my back to survey the scene on the steps again. I kept my empathic attention on him just in case, but he only moved up beside me, his hands at his sides. His lightweight jacket didn’t hang like he had a weapon concealed in or beneath it.

I surreptitiously used my left hand to key Summer’s com into my communication with Kirby, then wondered, “Why didn’t they fire their weapons?”

“Daley. There you are.” Summer was breathless. “Kirby?”

“I’m here, Summer. Daley’s got Hurley with her. She can’t talk freely. Where are you?”

“I’m inside. Hangin’ over old Abe’s shoulder. They never saw me go past.”

Oooo-kay. Innovative location. They wouldn’t be expecting it. But I wasn’t sure of its strategic value.

“What did they do to Adam?” Hurley asked, his eyes on the group at the top of the steps. No one had moved.

I explained the triangulated beams and the stasis they’d put Adam in. “Any idea what it could be?”

Hurley shook his head, and Summer and Kirby both said no.

“Can you hear anything?” I asked.

Hurley threw me a puzzled look. “Not from here.”

Kirby answered my earlier question. “I expected them to shoot at me when I pulled the guns, but they didn’t. And I can’t hear anything.”

“They’re too far away from me, too,” Summer added. “And dammit, Evan isn’t doing too well.”

Kirby shifted but didn’t expose herself beyond the pillar.

“Has anyone seen anything else? Funny-looking equipment? Explosives?” I was grasping at anything, any place we could start. This standoff was going to get us nowhere.

But I’d blown my advantage with the coms. Hurley knew I couldn’t possibly be talking to him. His expression cleared as he nodded and stepped a few feet away to make a cell phone call. I listened as he relayed the scene to someone, hopefully his precinct or other law enforcement and not the local CASE leader. I tried to listen to everything he said, but Kirby and Summer were speculating and planning in my ear, and I couldn’t process both.

“Wait, you two, Kirby was right before. We can’t just charge in there.”

“Do you have a better idea, Ms. Second-in-Command?”

I was a little taken aback by Summer’s tone. I opened my mouth to argue, but thought better of it. The last thing we needed now was dissension between us.

We did need a leader, though, so I took the challenge Summer had thrown out.

“Kirby, I need you to come back here with me. Then summon Evan to us. We need as many people as we can get, and he’s just agitating that guy.”
That Guy
was now waving his gun in the air. “Maybe he’s learned something we can use, too.”

Kirby was already moving my way. There was a shout from the crowd. Someone had spotted her. But she was next to me before they acted.

“Now,” I urged her.

She raised her hands, concentrated hard, and Evan flew through the air toward us.

The problem with Kirby’s power is that she has to summon directly toward herself. It’s a drawing power, not simply a moving power. With large chunks of debris, she can dodge them at the last second and let them land behind her, momentum taking them out of her way. Drawing a person, however, is a lot trickier. First, their natural inclination is not to go. Evan flailed, fighting the pull. Halfway to us he realized what was happening and gave in to it, but he had to jerk his legs up to avoid hitting the stone pillar Kirby had hidden behind, and when his body entered the trees, the only way to stop him without injury was to catch him.

Which we did very well, thank God. I stood next to Kirby, and when Evan soared down to us, we braced and each grabbed an arm and his waist. He landed ungracefully, but on his feet.