Where There's Fire (Panopolis Book 2) (6 page)

Firebolt had been a circus performer, a juggler and fire breather who, thanks to an experimental lighter fluid mix and some quick medical attention, had ended up with a GI tract that was impervious to flame. After that accident she started lighting high temperature fires in her stomach and breathing flames for hours to please the crowds, which led to a sponsorship from several companies that made lighter fluid, as well as one that built fake fireplaces. They constructed specialized masks for her Hero persona that channeled the flames from her mouth down tubes into more focused handheld weapons—today’s was a sword.

That didn’t excuse her just busting in with her flame weapon willy-nilly, though. “There’s a civilian in here!” I shouted. “Be careful where you’re sticking your sword!”

“You’re the one who’s endangered Mr. Bries,” Firebolt replied, her voice rather metallic through the speakers in her mask. “I’m the one who’s going to save him.” Another triangular hole punched through the vault door, and I groaned internally. Not that I wanted to make her job any easier, but if she’d started on the hinges she might already be through. Chopping through the middle of the door was about the least efficient way to get inside.

“Not if you set him on fire first.”

“What?” No amount of soothing emotion could keep Larry calm at this point, and to be honest I was tired of trying. I sighed and let go of his hand. Larry’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped open as he stared at me.

“Yeah. It’s fucked up.”

“Oh my god, Edward, WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE—”

“Never fear, Mr. Bries!” Firebolt called through the door. “I’ll have you out of the hands of that vile . . . Edward Dinges . . . oh, that doesn’t work at all. Hey, what’s your Villain name?”

“I don’t have one yet.”

“How about Doctor Incompetent?” Larry snapped, his eyes wild. “How about He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Because-He-Is-An-Idiot? How about Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-You-Spilled-Coffee-All-Over-My-Shirt?”

“Really?” I mean, he had good reason to be upset, but . . . “That’s the kicker for you, the fact I got coffee on your shirt?”

“It was a gift from my wife!”

“I’ll apologize to Evelyn later.”

“You’ll do no such thing, you Villain! My god, I can barely comprehend it, why would you . . . Edward, of all the people I’ve ever worked with, I thought you possessed better sense than this.” Larry’s eyebrows drew up his forehead like a pair of caterpillars trying to escape. “Why would you rob your own bank? How could you do this? You’ve ruined your life, and for what?”

“I never intended to end up like this.” Just because I didn’t regret it didn’t make that untrue. “And I wasn’t the one who started with the ruining, trust me.”

“You deserved everything you got, you traitor!” Firebolt shouted. Another, bigger hole started to burn between the other two. She didn’t say anything else, and must have been saving her breath for the burn, because this hole got big fast—big enough that after a minute or so Firebolt could stick her entire fist, complete with sword attachment, through the door. “Ha! Surrender, or I’ll bathe this room in flame!”

“You can’t do that, I’m in here!” Larry wailed. Fuck, I felt so bad for him. Where was Raul? Hadn’t it been five minutes yet?

Just then a shudder passed through the floor of the vault. Not a big one, but it heralded things to come. I smiled. I needed to stall just a little longer for Raul—no way could I handle Firebolt on my own. She had no bare skin to touch; it was only her insides that were impervious, her outsides were covered by a thick asbestos suit that made her look like a walking orange marshmallow.

“I would surrender, I totally would, but the lock is gone,” I said to her. “We can’t open the door. Don’t take your righteousness out on Larry; he’s a victim of circumstance.”

“I . . . What?” Our conversation was clearly fucking with Firebolt’s head; this wasn’t the way a Villain confrontation was supposed to go. There was a standard script: Stand Down Evildoer, Never You Pathetic Hero, Then I’ll Have To Make You, Ha-ha I’d Like To See You Try, Battle Battle Battle. Not this. “I’m not . . . You have to surrender, okay?”

“I think you can take my surrender as implicit at this point.”

“What?”

Oh my god. Had I gotten a thick Hero on my case? I mean, all right, at least she wasn’t Freight Train, who would already be in here and arresting me, probably with a smile on his smug fucking face, but was it too much to ask for someone who knew how to negotiate?

“He means the fact that we can’t get out and you’ve got the only weapon indicates that his surrender is obvious,” Larry yelled. Oh boy, he was really not taking this well. “Now remove your flaming arm from this vault before you destroy more of our property than you already have!”

“I don’t have to take that! What are you, a Villain sympathizer?”

The vault shuddered again, this time hard enough that even Larry noticed it. “What is—?”

“Answer me!”

The far lockboxes suddenly broke free, scattering across the floor as the wall behind them cracked. I frowned. What was Raul doing? I’d expected a targeted explosion, but this was more like getting hit with a wrecking ball. Larry stared helplessly at the mess for a moment, then started to cry. I almost wanted to join him. This was not what I’d hoped for out of my first real job as a Villain.

“No answer? Then you asked for it!” Firebolt’s arm started to glow, slowly heating the room up. Within minutes Larry and I were dripping with sweat. I pulled him to the floor with me, grabbed my cane off of the briefcase, and turned the handle three hundred and sixty degrees to the right.

A thin, flexible heat shield burst out the bottom of the cane. I pulled the fabric over us and thanked God that Raul had insisted on including this in his design. All of his clothes were made of a mix of Kevlar and heat-resistant fabrics, in case he was too close to one of his own bombs when it went off. And it was good that he had, because right now it was the only thing keeping both me and Larry from blistering.

Not that we wouldn’t roast eventually if Raul didn’t break into the damn vault soon. “Raul?” I tapped my earpiece. Nothing. “Raul!” No reply. The heat had probably gotten to it.

“What . . . Why is she . . .” Larry panted.

I grimaced. “She’s new. Overeager. Sees Villains everywhere, I’m sure.”

“Why don’t you stop her?”

“I don’t have that kind of power, Larry.”

“Then what kind of power do you have?” he gasped. It was getting harder to breathe.

Fuck it, we might die soon and I owed Larry big time for getting him into this mess. The least I could do was help him feel a little better. I reached for my mental barrier, reassembled the poor, shoddy thing so that all my fear was trapped with Inside Me, then touched Larry’s temples. The emotions I shared were stronger when I touched someone’s face. “This kind,” I said, and let myself focus on how I had felt last night, lying in bed with Raul. Not doing anything, not having sex or talking, just lying together and feeling safe and warm and loved.

Larry’s worry lines cleared, and he actually smiled. “Oh,” he whispered. “That’s lovely.”

I managed to smile back at him. “Yeah. It is.”

Those wouldn’t have been bad last words, all things considered, but then the far side of the vault crumbled inward. I peeked beneath the edge of the blanket, and saw . . . the woman with the lavender hair?

“Come with me now!” she yelled, and fuck it, I didn’t have a choice. I detached the heat shield and left it on Larry, grabbed my briefcase and cane and ran for the hole. She helped me through the rubble, but there were a bunch of bystanders on the other side, all staring at us curiously. As I stumbled outside, police rounded the far corner of the bank and started to push their way through the crowd.

“Where’s Raul?” I demanded in a low voice.

“I’ll tell you if you can get us away from here,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m tapped out.”

Fine, but she would be telling me. I unscrewed the rubber cylinder at the bottom of my cane, pressed the ignition button and tossed it in front of us. “Hold your breath!” Three seconds later a plume of utterly foul smoke began to spew from it, and people began to retch. I pulled her to the right, toward a less-crowded side street, and on and on until we were simply two more busy people, wondering what the hell was happening. I pulled my jacket inside out to hide the scorch marks, then turned to her. “Where’s Raul?”

“Oh, c’mon.” The woman’s voice was teasing. “Whatever happened to basic introductions? I did save your life, after all.”

“I don’t care who you are, I want to know about Raul. Where is he?”

“Shouldn’t you be worrying more about yourself?” she countered.

I resisted the urge to scream at her. “No, I shouldn’t, because at least I know where I am. When I last spoke with Raul he was coming to get me out of the bank. Then you showed up instead. He would have told me if he was working with you, so that means something happened to him. And you’re going to tell me what.”

“Am I? I’m not so sure about that. I mean, you can’t even bother to be civil—”

I grabbed her thankfully bare wrist. “I don’t have time for civil.” Inside Me was a roiling ball of rage and fear, and I let it bleed through. Lavender-hair’s eyes widened, but instead of quailing, she started to shake, vibrating so fast that my fingers went numb. I dropped her hand, and we stared at each other.

“Touché,” she allowed. “So you’re a fear monger?”

“Not really,” I said. “Fine, introductions, then. Who are you?”

“I’m Vibro.”

“Vibro . . .” I considered what had happened at the bank. “Some sort of . . . resonant frequency thing?”

“No, but nice try!” she said brightly. “I project energy through my hands. Let’s me break stuff apart. It’s great for walls but not so good on people.” She smiled. “They always make such a mess.”

“And did you make a mess of Raul?” If she had, I was going to . . . I don’t know what I was going to do, but it would be bad. Probably for me, although my chest was wound so tight with worried tension that I didn’t care.

“Your honey’s safe as houses, Edward Dinges. Well,” she corrected herself, “not your house, but other people’s houses.”

I locked my knees against a sudden dizzy spell. “What’s wrong with my house?”

“Why don’t you go take a peek at it? And when you’re done there, come to this location, and you’ll get answers about the Mad Bombardier.” She handed me a small, tidy piece of stationary. “I suggest you come prepared to impress.” Vibro winked, and for a second I saw something moving through the wave of her hair, parting the strands like an invisible finger. “See you later, Edward.” And with that, she ran off before I could think to grab her again.

Our home . . . Raul . . . I was burnt and blistered, smelled like smoke and probably looked like hell. Finding Raul was my biggest priority, but I had to take care of myself first or I wouldn’t be able to take two steps without attracting unwanted attention. I fumbled in the cane handle for my backup pill and popped it dry to try to stave off the headache that was careening toward me, took a steadying breath, and then headed back for the street. I needed to find someone who’d be willing to trade clothes.

The difference between pitiful and pitiable was a fine line, but I struck it with a young guy in a dark hoodie and carpenter jeans who glanced my way and did a double take, plucking his headphones off as he walked over. I pushed my fear down into Inside Me, snagged his hand before he could speak, and said, “I’m sorry, but I need your clothes.”

“Oh man, fuckin’ check you out!” Outside Me projected more sympathy into him, and he nodded. “Yeah, you can have ’em.” It was a little awkward, guiding him back to the far side of a dumpster and undressing without losing contact, but I managed. I ended up in his gear and he put on my awful suit. “It’ll be okay while I go home and change,” he said, clapping my shoulder with his free hand. “Seriously though, are you gonna be okay? I’m so sorry about . . . um . . .”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I appreciate it.” I let go of him and clutched the briefcase and battered remnants of the cane in my arms. “Thanks for everything.”

“Uh . . . yeah.”

I didn’t go straight to where I’d parked the scooter, of course. I went back to the café where Raul had been headed, and found the front of it a smoking ruin. A few carnations, their blossoms crisp and shriveled, were still on the charred pavement, and the awning and the outside tables were wrecked. A few paramedics were treating people for burns, but it didn’t seem like a massacre had occurred. It also didn’t seem like Raul was there. Someone had attacked him, and kidnapped him. Unless he was waiting for me at home . . . a home that, according to Vibro, wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t even check in remotely because my phone had been fried in the vault.

There was nothing for it. I walked back to my scooter and rode home, briefcase between my feet, trying to keep myself from stopping and ripping Vibro’s envelope open before I’d verified things for myself. The trip was a total haze, my mind a cacophony of crackling heat and crumbling brick and the siren sound of screams. Less than a block from our warehouse, I realized that there were actually sirens. I blinked to clear my head of cobwebs and pulled the scooter over onto the sidewalk, got off, and followed the noise, and there—

Was the warehouse. Or rather, where the warehouse had been. Now it was a tower of flames, the fire extending far beyond our plot to neighboring warehouses and storage units. The fire had become big enough that the fire department had responded—unheard of this deep into a red zone—and even reporters were there, surrounded by a group of people staring raptly at the flames. One of them was Jean Parks, naturally, speaking loudly into the microphone held an inch from her bright-red lips. I drew closer, my head covered, one more member of the voyeuristic crowd. I bit my lip to hold back the scream that beat against my throat as I listened to her speak.

“—can only assume to be the work of a Villain, although there are no concrete reports on who is to blame,” she said. “Coupled with the confusing break-in at First National less than an hour ago and the quick but vicious attack on Pinnacle Street Coffeehouse, it’s safe to say that everyone should be on their guard. Today is a day to be mindful and stick close to your local Heroes, folks, as there’s no telling what else the Villainous elements of Panopolis might have in store for us.”