Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (100 page)

My heart hurt for her. She loved her Flex powers, which allowed her to twist and stretch into impossible lengths and shapes. I couldn’t imagine feeling the potential of your power inside you and not being able to use it.

“My torso’s the same way,” she said, touching her marred abdomen. “I can still bend over backwards, but not stretch out, not like I used to. The only thing that hasn’t been affected are my legs, but what good have they ever done?”

Consoling words failed me. In a horrible way, she was right. She most often used her arms and torso when she stretched for any reason other than interior home repairs. She’d been terribly wounded by the Changeling Queen, and nothing I could say would ever make it better. Or change what had happened to her.

“I’ve been so damned useless during this whole thing,” she said when I didn’t respond. “I can’t do the kind of computer magic that Marco does. I don’t have active powers like you or T, and I can’t read people like Gage. Hell, even Aaron got to go to New York with you. What did I do? I stayed here with Double Trouble and babysat the twins, and even then Marco and Teresa did most of the training.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. I’d never seen Renee Duvall cry before, not since we were kids. The strong, adult woman who’d helped us fight Specter, who’d survived the heartache of William Hill’s death, who’d fiercely fought against Queen that day on the highway—she might be wounded, but she was far from useless.

“Hey.” I tugged her elbow and turned her away from the mirror, around to face me. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her ample chest.

I wiped a tear off her cheek with the pad of my thumb. “I see a beautiful, fiercely loyal woman who would do anything for her friends. I see someone who’s been hurt, and who just needs time to get back on her feet again. I don’t see your scars, Renee, I see you.”

Her face crumpled. I folded her into my arms, which was a slight challenge because she’s taller than me. She pressed her nose into my neck and cried silently for a while, and I held her tight. Held her after she’d quieted, until she pulled away and wandered to one of the toilet stalls to blow her nose. When she came back to the sinks, she gave me a curious look.

“What?” I asked.

“This is going to sound bizarre and maybe a little personal, but I’ve worked in Vegas—in a lot of different kinds of places in Vegas. . . . So I know things.”

Uh-oh. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you smell kind of like a strip club, only minus the smoke and alcohol.” I stared blankly at her until she added, “You smell like sex, E. Did you get laid last night?”

My blank stare melted into panicked shock, with a side of revulsion. Did I really smell like sex? Good God.

Renee frowned. “There are three women in this house, two of whom are taken and the third of whom is me, so who—oh, hell. You didn’t bang the twin, did you?”

“No!” Jesus, Kate was practically a kid, and I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Self-servicing?”

“Can you let it go, please?”

Proving he was the master of impeccable timing, Aaron chose that moment to walk into the bathroom clad in boxers and a wifebeater tank that showed off his toned arms and shoulders. Including one shoulder that sported an unfortunate mouth-shaped mark that was starting to bruise. My heart stopped, and not just because of the lusty look he gave me before he noticed Renee.

“Morning,” he said to her with a cheerful smile.

“Hi,” she said.

I felt her eyeballs burning into the back of my head, but I did not turn around. I couldn’t risk seeing her face, was too afraid of what I’d see. Surprise, for sure, but what else? Understanding? Disgust? The latter I could not handle, not today.

“Okay, well, later,” she said. She brushed past me and out the door.

Aaron watched it close, then gave me a curious look. “Is she okay?”

“She will be.” I hoped.

“Are you okay?”

I sighed. “Time will tell.”

Without explaining, I headed for the showers. Thankfully, Aaron didn’t follow me in. While I scrubbed down, I silently berated myself for not speaking up before Renee left. She wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, and she’d probably go straight to Teresa to try to make sense of her suspicions (Teresa was an excellent sounding board). I’d just outed myself with one hug, and I didn’t know how I felt about it.

I made it back to my room without running into anyone—one of the benefits of such a huge house with so few residents—and was tying my sneakers when an alert and Teresa’s voice came over the intercom system.

“War Room, guys. Now.”

Pulse racing with anticipation, I fled my room and took the stairs down two at a time. We converged on the War Room like a single entity, taking seats at the long conference table without the usual chatter. Renee had already claimed a chair at the far end nearest Teresa and Gage, and she didn’t look at me when I entered. I sat down in an empty seat next to Aaron (hidden behind Scott’s mask), without really thinking about it. Dahlia and Dr. Kinsey were also there, as well as a new guest—Agent Rita McNally. Even the Lowry twins were there, sitting together silently.

At the head of the table, Marco cracked a yawn and rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted and had probably been working through the night.

“With a little help from Rita,” Teresa said, “we’ve been able to narrow down our list of MHC employees who had access to our loved ones’ remains and could have procured their DNA.” She pointed to a wall monitor behind my head, and I twisted around. Five names popped up on the screen. Two were nauseatingly familiar.

“These former employees are all still alive, and only one still works for ATF,” McNally added. “I’m certain you can guess which one most definitely does not.”

I glared at the name on the bottom of the list, recalling the last time I’d seen the man face-to-face. He’d been my mother’s attending physician when she died. Now he was working hard to see all Metas rounded up and eradicated.

Governor Martin Winstead.

“Winstead ceased working for ATF two months after the end of the War,” McNally continued. “He used his experiences with the Rangers and his anti-Meta stance to win and keep his position as governor of Texas. There are rumors he’s also closely tied to Sarah Renolly, the fourth person on our list.”

“Renolly’s the surgeon general,” Dr. Kinsey said.

“Yes, she is.”

“There have always been rumors that the government had a hand in Recombinant research, that they wanted their own army in case the”—air quotes—
“
‘Meta threat’ ever returned. This is practically the proof we need.”

“What about the other names on the list?” Gage asked.

“They all worked in the Medical Center as technicians,” McNally replied. “They aren’t doctors or researchers, so, while they had access, they had less motive.”

“Except money.”

“We checked their records for the last twenty years. Nothing unusual stood out, no large deposits or holdings that we could find.”

“What about Winstead and Renolly?”

She hesitated. “I’ve dug as far as public records allow, but I’m hesitant to go too deeply. The information we need is probably tagged, and we could open an even deadlier hornet’s nest if we look in the wrong place.”

“You helped us immensely already,” Teresa said. “Thank you.”

“You know I’ll help in any way that I can.”

“But why try cloning dead Metas?” Dahlia asked. “We know they can create Recombinants and give them powers, so why double up?”

“Likely in case one procedure fails,” Dr. Kinsey said. “When the hybrid-Changelings were first conceived, we had no way of being certain they’d be born with the powers they had. Even their Changeling abilities continued to surprise us as they grew older.”

“They were hedging their bets on the best method of creating supersoldiers,” I said.

“Precisely. Their cloning methods have proven to be exceptionally frightening.”

“How’s that?”

“You described Tricia Rice as looking to be in her early twenties, and yet your mother only died sixteen years ago. It’s likely they found a method to speed up the aging process in their clones.”

“Or our timeline guess is way off,” Aaron said. “Isn’t it also possible the DNA was obtained before their deaths? At any time during their tenure at the Rangers HQ?”

I hadn’t really considered that, and judging by the looks on several faces, I wasn’t the only one. We’d all assumed that because the clones were of dead loved ones, the DNA was stolen postmortem. What if we were wrong?

“That would certainly put us back to the beginning in terms of suspects,” Teresa said. “Until we find a way to get more answers, all of this is circumspect and guesswork. The largest question we still haven’t answered is, why use these clones to kidnap McTaggert and his son?”

“Public panic, more support for Winstead, less sympathy toward the Metas like Mark Sanderson who are being murdered,” I said, ticking the items off on my fingers. “Making it look like McTaggert orchestrated his own jail break is the perfect way to remove any sympathy the Warren gained after the copter crash.”

“Which keeps Winstead high up on our suspect list,” Aaron said.

McNally’s phone rang. She glanced at the display and her eyebrows rose. She held up a single finger, silently excusing herself, then walked to the corner of the room to answer it. “Agent McNally.” After a moment, she turned to face us, her expression one of perfect confusion. “No, sir, I’m certain they aren’t.”

Gage blanched. He was obviously listening into the conversation, but didn’t relay anything to us.

“Because I’m looking at each of them right now,” McNally said, probably in response to a question, and I was suddenly very, very jealous of Gage’s superhearing. “Of course, sir. We’ll be there as soon as possible.” She slipped her phone back into the pocket of her suit jacket. “We have a new problem.”

“Which is what?” Teresa asked.

“A passerby reported seeing movement through the front gate of Ranger HQ. And we’ve just received information that power has been turned on at the Base. Someone’s there.”

Twenty-one

Rangers Redux

I
n less than five minutes, eight of us had piled into two Sports and were heading across town toward the old HQ. For some of us, four of those minutes had been spent rapidly changing into our official uniforms. Everyone except Marco got a com. McNally made some calls, while Kate made a good case to Teresa why she should join us. Only Dr. Kinsey, Aaron, and Denny stayed behind at Hill House.

No one had to say it. We all knew who was at HQ a full day before its scheduled demolition. I just hoped they
all
showed up, so we could look this new enemy in the eye and find out exactly who they were.

We parked across the street from the HQ gate, which was already teeming with federal agents and local police. A smartly suited man with silver hair came over to speak with McNally. The rest of us fell in behind Teresa as she marched toward the gate. A heavy chain and padlock were being removed from the gate, which had only seen visitors a handful of times since January.

As an adult, I had very few good memories of this place. Sure, I’d reconnected with my childhood friends and found purpose in my life again. I’d also seen friends die, been nearly killed twice myself, and had come to think of it as a rotting reminder of a past everyone would sooner forget.

No going back to what was. Only forward.

The agents and cops gave us a wide berth and plenty of distrustful looks. McNally came over with her buddy, whom she introduced as Agent Danther.

“A water line burst a little while ago,” Danther said. “It’s flooding the ground around the Base.”

Water. If Tricia shared my mother’s powers, she had power over water. This entire episode felt like a setup.

“Has there been activity anywhere except the Base?” Teresa asked.

“Not so far,” Danther replied. “We’ve got people setting up surveillance from all corners of the perimeter, in case anyone tries to flee the scene.”

“They didn’t come all the way out here just to run.”

“Do you know who’s there?”

“I have a pretty good idea. Your men need to be prepared for anything, and I mean anything, Agent Danther. If the hostiles are who I think they are, then this could go south in a heartbeat.”

“Understood, Trance. Is there anything you need from us?”

“Just to stay out of our way, and I’m sorry if that sounds rude.”

Danther nodded. “I understand. I know your history, so I’ll let you take point on this.”

“Thank you.”

That was . . . unexpected. We hadn’t had that sort of direct deference from federal authorities in . . . well, ever. I liked Danther immediately.

With the mechanical controls long broken, it took four grown men to push open the gate. I forced back the overwhelming urge to shudder as we walked through as a unit, back onto our old stomping grounds. The pile of rubble that had once been our Medical Center lay to our right, and the silent, ten-story Housing Unit was to the left. Right in front of us was our destination.

The Base had been the world’s most awesome gymnasium, with equipment for any physical exercise and rooms to test every sort of Meta power. I’d come here often as a trainee to practice my control over the wind and to learn how to fly. My first jump off the Base roof had been terrifying, and then exhilarating as I soared into the sky like a bird. I was six.

Water had, indeed, flooded the sidewalk and part of the parking lot by the Base, with no apparent source. The quantity of spilled water worried me. It was more than enough for a half-decent water elemental to do a lot of damage with.

“Marco,” Teresa said.

The single word had our resident shapeshifter morphing into his raven form, and then taking to the sky. He hadn’t risen more than fifty feet into the air before he swooped back down, shifting as he came to land on his feet in front of Teresa.

“They are on the roof,” he said. “Waiting. Five of them.”

As much as I wanted to get the hell up there now, I wasn’t sure I could carry five of us at once, plus myself. Marco was the only other person who could fly, and I said so.

“I can climb the wall,” Kate said. She flashed her clawed hands at me. “I’ve done higher.”

I’d carried three. “Maybe I can manage four.”

Marco shifted back and Kate ran toward the Base. I closed my eyes and mustered up all the wind I could, bringing it close to whirl around us. Renee, Gage, Teresa, and Dahlia converged on me without being told, clustering into a protective circle. The roar of the wind called to me, blasted through me, and I used it to carry us up into the air. Up, up, up a ways, before opening my eyes to adjust our trajectory.

The Base roof loomed, flat and empty except for a helipad and single-access hut. Five figures stood on the faded circles of the landing area. Kate was nearly there already, about to hurl herself over the ledge and onto the roof. I put us down near her position and released the whirlwind. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I stumbled into Renee. She slipped her arm around my waist and held me upright while the world corrected itself.

Kind of.

We spread out in a line, the seven of us, and faced down the five familiar figures strolling toward us from the other side of the roof.

Each wore a similar black eye mask and black jumpsuit, fitted like a second skin. Tricia was easiest to pick out. She even had the same “oh my gawd” smile she’d worn yesterday at Springwell, like this was the coolest meet-up ever. Next to her was a blond woman who had to be Black Ice 2.0, and past her was our very first suspect. The Jasper clone smirked in our general direction.

Down the line Gage inhaled a sharp breath.

The two surprise guests didn’t take long to figure out, despite the masks. The tallest had ebony skin, thickly muscled limbs, and could have easily passed for William Hill himself. Only, I knew without asking that this was a bastardization of a different Hill—his father, Anthony, aka Sledgehammer.

The young man at the end of the line sent cold chills down my back, and I glanced over at Teresa, who stood on the other side of Marco. She’d gone a scary shade of white, allowing the purple marks on her face to stand out like neon paint. I knew how she felt as the final suspect took a step closer, hands on his hips, chest puffed out—that pose was on dozens of pro-Ranger posters when I was a kid.

Younger and not really him at all, the cloned version of Hinder, Teresa’s father, laughed at us.

Marco snarled.

“You should see your faces,” Hinder (I had no idea what else to call him or any of the others) said in a spot-on perfect voice. “You’re supposedly the next generation of heroes, and you didn’t see this coming?”

Teresa stepped forward, both hands crackling with lavender energy. The air around us sparked with the power of it. “What exactly is this?” she asked in a voice so cold, so harsh, it didn’t sound like her at all.

“It’s the dawn of a new era, Trance, the cusp of something great.”

Okay, bloviate much?

“And since some of us are genetically related,” Hinder continued, “we thought we’d give you a fair chance.”

“To do what?”

“Walk away, so we aren’t forced to put you away.”

“Put us away?” The chill in her voice melted into disgust. “You think you can have us arrested? You’re the ones running around attacking hospitals.”

Hinder smirked. “I didn’t say arrested. But we can have you removed from the game and put where you’ll do no harm.”

My entire body tensed, and I fought the urge to rush the guy and demand to know if he’d done that to McTaggert and Andrew. Had he taken them and locked them up somewhere? Were they even still alive?

Teresa put her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of the man in front of her. “And where is that, exactly? Springwell Labs?”

He tsked. “I can’t tell you that, silly girl. But my offer is this: Leave Los Angeles, go anywhere you want, but you disappear for good. Live your lives, forget this hero nonsense, and leave it all to us.” He glanced at something on the wrist of his uniform. “This offer is good for the next four minutes.”

“Uh-huh. And what about the people on Manhattan I promised to help?”

“Forget them. They’ll no longer be your problem. Take your lover and go. Make babies. Live a peaceful life.”

Teresa didn’t even hesitate, bless her. “Tempting, but no.”

He heaved a dramatic, world-weary sigh. “Shame. You know you can’t stop what’s coming.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

“Stubborn girl. I think you get that from me.”

She bristled. “You’re not my father.”

“What’s that saying? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—”

“Fuck you. My father died a hero in the War.”

Hinder swept his arm behind him, indicating his four companions. “We all died as heroes in the War. Mothers, fathers, brothers, cousins, friends, all dead because Metas couldn’t control themselves. Time for someone else to control them.”

His fellow clones had been mostly still during the exchange, but they were fidgeting now, as the four-minute deadline ticked down. Something was up, and we were running out of time. Patience gone, I took a step up from the line and asked, “Where are Freddy and Andrew McTaggert?”

Tricia moved to stand next to Hinder. “Why does it matter, Tempest? He left the Rangers. Left us. Changed sides. He deserves what he gets.”

My stomach soured just looking at her. “You are not my mother, lady. Freddy had his reasons for leaving the Rangers, and Andrew’s just a kid!”

“Who will grow up to be just like his father. Those children deserve a chance to have a better, more fulfilling life.”

“That’s what we want for them, too.” The breeze around us picked up as my temper soared. “Where’s Andrew? Where’s my brother?”

The five clones gave a collective start. Okay, so I maybe shouldn’t have blurted that one out, but now they knew I was serious as hell about getting the McTaggerts back.

Hinder looked at his wrist again, then shook his head. “Sorry, but time has expired on my offer.”

“So what happens now?” Teresa asked.

“The fun begins.”

Tricia raised both hands into the air. From three of four sides of the building came a mighty roar, like charging stallions. My group spread out a bit, each of us preparing for a fight. Teresa’s hands glowed with energy. Marco shifted into his panther form and reared back, ready to spring. I tested the wind and found it waiting, eager to be used.

The roar revealed itself in a great rush of water that spouted up from the three sides of the roof—the broken water main—straight up into the air. Teresa threw an orb at Tricia. Sledgehammer dove in front of the shot, which knocked him sideways onto the ground. Tricia closed the gap in the water wall, effectively enclosing us in a backward downpour.

Teresa lobbed another orb at Tricia, but Tricia dodged. The blond woman, Black Ice, spun around with a mighty screech, and the water began to solidify. Four thick, tall walls of ice formed around the Base.

I gathered a whirlwind, intending to use it like a giant drill and break through the ice, when Hinder shouted, “Stop! The ice will protect us!”

I hesitated, and it got me knocked to the ground by the Jasper clone, who moved with the incredible speed I remembered. Marco roared and a big black paw swiped damn close to my head as Jasper dodged the blow. I rolled away and came up on my knees, only to topple sideways again. Not because someone hit me, though.

The building was shaking. Hard.

A distant, muffled rumble was joined by alarms and the sounds of glass shattering, wood creaking, stone breaking. The ground itself screaming.

“Is that an earthquake?” Renee asked.

The fight stopped as quickly as it had begun, with both sides stumbling to their respective corners. Marco shifted into raven form and took to the air with a cry. I looked at Teresa, who was clutching Gage while the world rocked and shimmied, and she nodded. I gathered up a cushion of air and rose into the sky, above the shell of ice surrounding the Base.

Los Angeles was shaking apart.

California was no stranger to earthquakes. We’d experienced a few this year, but nothing strong enough to do more than rattle a few chandeliers and make dogs bark. This was different. The entire world seemed to be in motion, like the ground was desperate to toss off the structures man had hefted onto her back. High-rise buildings long vacant swayed under the pressure and chunks plummeted down. Cracks split the pavement and sidewalks of the Avenue of the Stars. Rows of trees crashed onto Olympic Boulevard. Water sprayed from a broken water main. Fires blossomed on the landscape as far as I could see as the city crumbled.

Hill House. Aaron.

Something hard and cold knocked the air from my lungs, and a second concurrent blow sent me careening, unable to control the wind keeping me up. I slammed into the ice wall and tumbled to the Base roof in a pained heap. The earthquake seemed to stop at the same time, but movement around me became a blur of chaos.

The ice cracked and snapped. Cold water and flakes of snow rained down on me, and I covered my spinning head with my hands. My chest ached and I coughed, desperate to breathe again. Teresa was shouting orders I couldn’t understand. I had to get up. Had to help my friends. Had to get to Aaron and make sure he was okay.

I focused on the battle in time to see Sledgehammer punch Gage square in the chest. Gage screamed, something audibly cracked, and the blow sent him skimming down the roof several feet like a human bowling ball. Teresa hollered something unintelligible and hit Sledgehammer in the gut with a cantaloupe-sized power orb, and he went careening into Black Ice.

Tricia raised her hands and a wall of water rushed over the side of the roof. I lurched to my knees and reached for the wind. She smashed her wall of water into Renee, Kate, and Dahlia, and the force of it sent all three over the edge of the roof. We were five stories up. Dread filled my guts as I sent a spiral of air at Tricia. It knocked her toward panther-Marco, who sprang to catch her.

Teresa threw an orb at Black Ice, who countered with a ball of ice. Their powers collided with a sound like bursting balloons and water sprayed into the air between them. Still sore but less dizzy, I climbed to my feet and blew a wall of air at Black Ice. She stumbled sideways. Teresa’s orb connected with her chest, and she spun around once before collapsing. Out of nowhere, Jasper hit Teresa like a tackling linebacker, his incredible speed carrying them both straight into the stairwell housing wall with a horrific crunch. Jasper bounced away. Teresa fell.