Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) (8 page)

My eyes fell on sudden motion to my right. Just off the street stood a young man with his hands in the air, mouth agape like his jaw had fallen down in total shock. His fingers were extended and he was shaking, a thick sheen of perspiration across his forehead, like he’d strained himself utterly to do what he’d done. As I watched, he fell back on his haunches on the curb, exhausted, and to my left the shield of dirt fell with him, crumbling back to red dust, the Georgia clay turned into brick by the heat and now too thin to be held together without this young man’s help.

The van was scorched, roaring with flames, which I absorbed into an outstretched hand as I looked at this young guy who had saved my life. I took weary, faltering steps toward him, and he stared up at me as I approached, seemingly wary. Or maybe he was just about to pass out. He certainly looked the part.

I turned and dropped right next to him, more than a little sweaty myself. I was still caked with blood and I could smell it, but the heat and the strain of the last few minutes had left me exhausted, too, and I settled back on my hands as I heard the sound of sirens in the distance. I watched the van burn and knew that the last two guys had bought it in the explosion. Alas. Someone had tried to kill me. Again. Must be Tuesday.

“What’s up?” he asked as I looked at him sidelong, nodding in greeting. He was still shaken, sweating profusely, and not just from the heat.

I sat there, covered in my own blood, glad I didn’t have sleeves on this blouse because they’d have been burned off by my heat absorption, and let myself rest, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. Smoke billowed out of my lips like I’d taken a big old draft off a cigarette, and once it cleared I coughed. “Not much,” I said, returning his cool observation in kind. His eyes widened and quickly returned to normal at my casualness. We were both playing, I was just better at it than he was. Years of experience with this sort of thing. He was clearly new to the game. “Earth powers, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at his fingers. They weren’t shaking now. “I guess so.”

I gave him a slow nod as I stared straight ahead. People were coming out of their houses now. A crowd was bound to assemble soon; they always did. I saw people pointing to us, saw them mouth my name. Heard a whisper from someone as they pointed to him. “That’s Augustus Coleman,” they said.

“Augustus?” I asked. He turned his head very slightly to me and nodded. “Nice to meet you. I’m—”

“Pfft,” he said, and waved me off. “Like there’s anyone who doesn’t know who
you
are. You—you’re somebody.” And he said it with a certain reverence that—frankly—I hadn’t heard associated with my name in a long time.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, and he looked at me like he was surprised, or like he didn’t know what I was thanking him for. “For the help back there.”

“Got to do what heroes do if you want to be a hero,” he said with a shrug. There was a long pause. “And you’re welcome.”

We both settled back and sat there in silence as the sirens drew closer, discordant music to my ears as I waited, and felt the warm heat of the sun on my skin.

“It’s not going to be quite what you expect,” I said to him as the first police cars were pulling onto the street. Augustus and I were both there with our hands in the air as one does when the cops pull up to the scene of an explosion. I had my badge in hand and was prepared to identify myself. When they pulled up, though, they totally bypassed us at first, the first two cop cars on scene screaming up to the wreckage of the van and ignoring us completely.

“What’s that?” Augustus asked, like he couldn’t quite hear me.

“This,” I said, trying to clarify. “This whole … this being a meta thing. Trying to help. It doesn’t … it’s never a smooth thing, without consequence or …” I just shook my head. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

He gave me a sidelong look. “Well, that makes two of us, because I don’t have any idea what you’re saying, either.”

The first patrol officer came over to us then. I waved my badge at him and he nodded. His nameplate said Delaurio, and he was a big boy. “You see what happened—” He caught sight of the blood on my shoulder. “Jesus!”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Sienna Nealon. The men in this van attacked me, and in the process of repelling their attack, I accidentally set off some explosives they were carrying.”

“I gotta … call this in,” Delaurio said, taking a few steps back. I could tell he wasn’t sure quite how to handle the situation. He eyed me again. “You need, like … an ambulance or something?”

“I’m fine,” I said, letting my badge flop to the curb at my side. I looked at Augustus. “You need anything?”

“No,” he looked at me strangely. He looked at Delaurio. “I’m fine, too.”

Delaurio nodded toward Augustus. “This your sidekick?”

“I am
not
a sidekick,” Augustus said, suddenly outraged.

“Concerned citizen,” I said. “Hero, really. He just saved a lot of lives by helping me contain the blast.”

Delaurio nodded. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind waiting right there …”

“I got nowhere else to go,” I said, shrugging. Augustus’s lips pushed tight together. “What?” I asked him as Delaurio edged away, making a call on his shoulder-clipped radio in hushed tones. I could hear every word. “You got somewhere else to be?”

“I’d like to go home,” Augustus said, and he shivered. It had zero to do with the weather.

“Crimes scenes make me nervous, too,” I said. “Especially after a fight like this. You always wonder which direction the local authorities are gonna go.”

He froze in place like I’d hit him with an ice beam. As a side note, I would like an ice beam. Should have absorbed Winter when I had the chance, I guess. “Could we … I mean … we were the heroes in this. We’re not going to get arrested, are we?” he asked.

“Nah,” I said. “And if we are, it’ll get sorted out quickly.”

This only seemed to increase his agitation. “I can’t get arrested.”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

He looked at me like I’d gone nuts. “Because I’ve never been arrested before, and it’s a streak I’d love to keep going all the days of my life.”

I snorted. “I broke that streak a long time ago. It’s NBD, as my brother would say. Don’t sweat it, it’ll all turn out all right, especially for you. You didn’t even engage in the fight, all you did was shield the locals from a potentially hazardous outcome.”

That didn’t seem to settle him down much. “Maybe now I’m starting to get an idea of what you were talking about before, with things not going quite like I expected them to.”

“The problem with being a hero,” I said, staring straight ahead at Officer Delaurio, who was still speaking into his radio, “is that the system doesn’t really know what to do with them when they’re outside the traditional structure.”

He gave me a look that asked for further elaboration, but an unmarked car pulled up and squealed to a stop before I could. Marcus Calderon popped out of the passenger side like a jack-in-the-box, leaning on the door and staring at me, shaking his head. “Your rep is clearly well earned.”

“My rep?” I asked, more playful than I felt. “I haven’t even done any reps today. Still got a workout in, though.”

Calderon nodded at the van. “How many were in it?”

“Eight,” I said. “Mercenaries or some type of soldier of fortune.”

“Eight?” Calderon’s jaw was a little slow to close. “That’s hardcore, even for the Bluff. You get a look at them?”

“Not close,” I said. “They were wearing tactical masks like a SWAT team. Carried HK submachine guns. Caucasian-ish, though, at least the ones I saw.”

“Eight?” Calderon just shook his head. “That’s seven too many for this area, statistically speaking. That’s like an Aryan Nation meeting stumbled down here or something. I got enough problems here without importing white guys with automatic weapons to boost my stats.”

“Let’s just work on your closing ratio for now,” I said. “That’s a stat boost I bet you wouldn’t mind seeing.”

Calderon finally let go of the car door and sauntered over to me. He had a good look, and he was wearing a black fedora-esque hat. It suited him. “What’d you find out?”

“Flora had a boyfriend,” I said, “according to a co-worker. I was on my way over here to check out her last address when …” I mimed putting my hands together and an explosion as I pulled them apart. “Ambush.”

Augustus perked up next to me. “Wait, that was an ambush? For you?”

Calderon gave him a pitying look then turned back to me. “You get any idea where this is coming from?”

“Not a clue,” I said. “Who even knew I was in town?”

“Everybody,” Augustus said. “You think eight guys in a van dressed up like a SWAT team is weird around here? Try a flying white girl zooming over your house. All of Atlanta knows you’re here.”

“Random killing attempt?” I asked. “You think so?”

“No,” Calderon said, rubbing an index finger on his upper lip. “Someone’s nervous that you’re poking around. Maybe jumped the gun a little.”

“They frigging pulled the trigger while it was still in their holster,” I said. “Blew off their own foot. Because now I’m thinking this is linked to Flora Romero and the lightning man, and I’m not likely to back off it until I’ve got answers.”

“That’s probably gonna put a little bit of a limp in their walk,” Augustus said, drawing a look from me and Calderon. “Oh, sorry. I thought I was part of this conversation. I can just let you two get to it.”

“Who’s your junior partner?” Calderon asked, looming over both of us.

“Still not a sidekick,” Augustus said.

“Local hero,” I said. “Kept the explosion contained. Marcus Calderon, this is Augustus Coleman.”

Calderon looked him over. “Got any lightning in those veins?”

Augustus gave him a weird look. “Is that cop slang for something I don’t know about? Because I’m clean as a preacher’s sheets, man.”

“Maybe you know different preachers than I do,” Calderon said, “because that’s not exactly a protestation of innocence to me.”

“If lightning guy was uneasy about me being after him,” I said, “why did guys with guns come after me? Seems like it’d be smarter to stage a summer thunder accident than a merc hit.”

Calderon gave me the eye. “You think we’d fail to notice a federal agent and high-profile meta getting struck by lightning on a clear day like this?”

“You’d think you’d notice me riddled with bullets, too,” I said.

He looked at my shirt. “You do look like you might have been riddled a little.”

“You just noticed that?” I asked. “Maybe whoever’s running this play might have been safe after all.”

He shrugged like it was nothing. “You seem fine. You feeling all right?”

“Right as rain,” I said. “Minus the lightning.” I sighed. “Something’s going on here.”

“Which is what I tried to tell your brother last year,” Calderon said. He was only a little smug about it. “Flora’s situation didn’t feel right. But this? This is getting out of hand.”

“You’re so different from other detectives,” I said, smarmy as hell. “Most of them are so grateful when I bring death and property destruction into their jurisdiction.”

He smiled, and there was something unmistakable in it. “How grateful?”

I pursed my lips, deciding how playful to be in my response. “I—”

“I think I’m gonna go home if y’all don’t need me for this,” Augustus said, getting up and brushing himself off. “Because it’s getting a little awkward up in here. Three’s a crowd and all that.”

“Give a statement to Officer Delaurio on your way out,” Calderon said, not taking his eyes off me.

“I’m gonna want to talk to you in a few minutes,” I said to Augustus. “Once they’re done with me here.”

Augustus leaned in and whispered low, “I don’t think the detective is gonna be done with you until—”

I cleared my throat loud enough to shut him up. “We have things to discuss.”

“Yeah, yeah, grownups talking and all that,” Augustus said, drawing himself up. “All right, you can induct me into the fraternity later.”

“In my case, it’d be a sorority,” I said, “but I was just thinking we’d have a conversation.”

“Like I’m Luke Skywalker and you’re Obi-Wan?” Augustus paused, thinking it over. “You know, if we were both white dudes.”

I frowned. “And
old
, in my case.”

“Well, I got work early tomorrow, and I kinda, uh …” He suddenly looked a little grey in the face. “I kinda ducked out and left my … uh … aw, man.”

“Statement to the officer before you leave,” Calderon said. “He’ll get your name and contact info so we can follow up if need be.”

“I live two streets over,” Augustus said, pointing behind us. “The house with the yellow mailbox.”

“I’ll be over in a little bit,” I said, looking back at him.

“Sure,” Augustus said, like he didn’t believe me. “Whenever.” He disappeared into the background of the steadily increasing chaos on the street. Fire trucks were pulled up now, sirens silenced but red lights flashing brightly all around us.

“You know him?” Calderon said, following Augustus with his eyes.

“Just met him a few minutes ago,” I said, looking back to see Augustus talking with Officer Delaurio, who had a clipboard out and was writing on it. I glanced back to Calderon. “Are you taking my statement?”

“Just asking,” Calderon said. “You said the kid’s got powers?”

“Earth-based, it looked like,” I said, watching Augustus. He was just talking to Delaurio. He was trying to be a cool customer, but he started to describe something and really got into it, with faces and hand gestures. He caught me looking and broke off, got all serious again. He probably wasn’t much younger than me, maybe two or three years. “He put a shield of dirt around the van as it exploded.”

“Hm,” Calderon said. “You sure he couldn’t have lightning powers, too?”

“Anything’s possible,” I said, “but I don’t think so. My read is that he’s freshly manifested, just starting to get his feet underneath him. He wants to be a hero.”

“Uh huh.” Calderon was jotting things down in a little pocket notebook. “How do you think that works out, based on your experience?”