Super Human (34 page)

“You can’t save the world by beating it into submission, Max! There must be something in his memory that you can use against him. That’s how you normally do this, isn’t it? You take something that scares them and magnify it.”

“But . . . his memory is huge, Roz. He’s never forgotten anything. His mind is like . . . a desert filled with blood and bones, scattered with rusting shields and swords. Wait, I can see his parents. They died young. Food was scarce—they starved themselves so that Krodin and his brother would live. That’s got to be painful for him. . . .”

This has to work,
Roz thought.
I don’t think even Titan could defeat him.

On the battlefield Krodin swung a punch at Abby and missed. Then he staggered, bellowed in pain, swayed, shuddered, and toppled over.

Exhausted, Max slumped to the ground. “It’s done. I’m telling Abby and Brawn to tie him up with the strongest stuff they can find. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to keep him down long enough for Titan to get here.”

From the far side of the battlefield Thunder approached, keeping his distance from the Fifth King’s unconscious body. Roz walked out to meet him. “You OK?”

The boy shook his head. “Not really.” He looked even more drained than Roz felt. He ran his hands across his face. “I hope he’s down for good because I don’t think I can go through this again. Look at us, Roz. With Max there’s five of us. Five superhumans. And we barely made a dent in this guy!”

There was a scuffling behind them. Roz turned. Pyrokine was climbing to his feet. Roz and Thunder turned to face him, fists clenched.

Pyrokine held up his hands. “Don’t. I’m not going to fight you—you’ve won. I . . . Sorry about your hand.”

They stood facing each other for a moment. Roz was torn between the urge to attack him and a powerful, inexplicable desire to run toward him and wrap her arms around him. And she could see in his eyes that he was caught in a similar confusion.

“I
know
you,” she said. “But that’s impossible. We’ve never met before.”

“I . . . I get the same sort of feeling.”

Thunder looked from one to the other. “What’s going on here?”

Pyrokine stepped closer to Roz, and reached out his hand toward her face.

The moment his fingers brushed her cheek, she remembered. She remembered everything.

They had met over a year ago. A chance encounter as they both rushed to save people from the same disaster, a collapsed suspension bridge in Arkansas.

“Fabian. . . . You saved me,” Roz said. “I was trapped under a metal beam. It was crushing me, and you turned it into light.”

Pyrokine clasped his hand to his mouth. “Oh my God. We went out. . . . We were together for
months
! How could I have forgotten that? I was falling in love with you!”

Roz nodded. “And then . . . something happened. You left. I . . . We couldn’t be together. It was too dangerous.”

“They locked me away,” the boy said. “There was an accident and I caused it. I
know
I did, but I don’t remember what it was. And then I forgot about you. How is that possible? You’re the only one I’ve ever loved and I forgot about you!”

“You used to take me flying,” Roz said. “You’d hold my hand and we’d just take off. . . .” She smiled. “Remember how mad my brother got when he found out? He kept saying that we were too young to be in love and we didn’t know anything about the world and that . . .” She found that her mouth had gone dry. “It was him. It was Max. He said it would be for the best. He made us forget. He wiped our memories. He set you up!”

With Pyrokine and Thunder following, she strode back to Max. He wouldn’t look at them. “Roz, I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t the right time. It’s all I can do to keep Krodin unconscious.”

Roz swore at him. “You messed with our minds! How many times, Max? Who
else
have you done this to? Josh? Is that why our brother is so different from other kids his age? He’s ten years old and he has no friends, no hobbies. He hardly does
anything
kids his age do. All he does is study! Have you been using your power on him too?”

Pyrokine stepped in front of Roz, pushed his face close to Max’s. “When this is over you are going to pay. You set me up, got me sent to prison. You ruined my
life
!”

Still staring at the Fifth King, Max said, “This is not the time.”

Thunder took hold of Pyrokine’s arm, tried to pull him away. “Hate to agree, but he’s right. Save it for later.”

Pyrokine shrugged free of Thunder’s grip. “No! How dare you, Dalton! Do you know what your lies did to me, to my family? You destroyed them! My folks lost their jobs, they had to move to a new town!”

“Get him away from me, Roz,” Max said, his teeth gritted. “Right now.”

“What you did to her is even worse!” Pyrokine screamed. “You twisted her
mind
, you sick son of a—”

Max lashed out, struck Pyrokine across the face with his fist, sent him sprawling to the ground. Pyrokine reacted instantly—he launched a fireball at Max.

Roz instinctively leaped at her brother, knocked him out of the fireball’s path.

Max’s head smacked off the ground.

And the Fifth King awoke.

Two hours after it left, the helicopter carrying Lance returned to the power plant. The military had evacuated a twenty-mile radius around the battle zone: The fight was still raging.

As they reached the perimeter the pilot said, “Sorry, sir. This is as close as we’re allowed to get.”

“Says who?”

“Says Colonel Morgan—it’s been declared a no-fly area. If we attempt to breach it, we’ll be shot down.”

“Get him on the radio, will you?”

A few seconds later, the pilot passed Lance a headset. “Go for it.”

Lance put the headset on. It was too big for him and he had to adjust the microphone. “Colonel Morgan? This is Lance McKendrick.”

The colonel’s voice came back crackling with static. “Who? No, not the kid Paragon brought in?”

“That’s me.”

“What do you want, McKendrick? We’re kinda in the middle of something here!”

“We need permission to get to the battle.”

“No chance, kid. You’re a civilian, and you’re not superhuman. I’m not putting anyone else at risk. That monster has taken everything we can throw at him and he’s still going strong. You cross the perimeter and we will use whatever force is necessary to bring you down.”

“Wait. . . . In order to protect us from getting killed by the Fifth King,
you’re
willing to kill us? Wow, that’s smart.”

“Stop wasting my time, McKendrick.”

“So you’ve recovered from the infection, then? Oh, of course you have. Because it was
me
who got the cure to Quantum and got him to pass it on to everyone else. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Lance thought he heard a muttered curse, then the colonel said, “All right. Get the pilot to drop you no closer than five miles from the site. Then he’s to fly back here—a copter is just another source of ammunition for the Fifth King. You’re on your own out there, Lance. I don’t know what good you’re going to be able to do.”

“Me either, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.” He removed the headset. “Better take it in low and slow.”

The pilot nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Lance smiled to himself. He decided he liked being called sir.

The copter crossed the twenty-mile perimeter and a minute later, over the constant roar of the rotors, Lance heard a knocking on the copter’s hatch. He unclipped his seat harness and started to rise, then paused. “OK, I don’t know much about helicopters but I’m guessing
that’s
not normal.”

Then a silver shape darted around to the side of the canopy—and Paragon saluted to Lance. The armored hero pointed back to the hatch, and beckoned to Lance.

“Is it safe to open the hatch at this height?” Lance asked the pilot.

“Safe enough,” the man replied, “long as you hold on to something.”

“OK. Steady as she goes. Or whatever the proper expression is. No loop-the-loops or sudden dives.”

Lance got out of the copilot’s seat and opened the hatch. The wind rushed through the copter and he had to brace himself against the bulkhead to avoid being pulled out.

Paragon had dropped back a little, and was now flying level with the hatch. He reached out his hand to Lance, and nodded.

Why not?
Lance asked himself.
What’s one more crazy stunt after everything I’ve done in the past couple of days?
He took hold of Paragon’s arm and jumped.

 

We’re beaten,
Roz thought.
There’s no way we can stop him now.

Max was once again trying to get inside Krodin’s mind, but it wasn’t working. The Fifth King had already adapted to his attacks. Even with Pyrokine’s aid, they were still only barely holding the warrior at bay.

Exhausted, and in almost constant pain, Roz wanted nothing more than to lie down. She knew she couldn’t do that. She had to keep going.

Roz knew then what she had to do, and the thought of it sickened her.

She walked over to Slaughter, who was still lying on the ground, feebly trying to remove Abby’s sword from her stomach. “You can’t remove it until your strength returns, and that won’t happen until you’re healed, right? And you can’t heal with the sword inside you.”

The woman swore at her.

“Slaughter, you know what’s going on here. We can’t control the Fifth King. He’s going to defeat us and he’s going to remake the world in his own image. Do you honestly believe that he’ll let you live?”

“Go to hell, Dalton!”

“We need you. With your strength and speed we might be able to turn this around. All of us working together. You, me, Abby, Max, Thunder, and Pyrokine. That’s a lot of firepower right there. The deal is this: You help us defeat him and everything is forgiven.”

“You know you can’t trust me—why should I trust you?”

“Because if he wins he’s going to destroy you anyway. Max told him, spoke into his mind,” she lied. “At that level they don’t need language—only images. The Fifth King knows that it’s The Helotry’s fault that he was taken from his time. He’ll never see his wife and children again. So your only chance is to work with us. What do you say?”

For a long moment, Slaughter was silent. Then, “I’ll do it. Get this thing out of me.”

Roz reached down and grabbed the sword’s hilt with both hands, pulled the blade out of Slaughter’s stomach.

The woman winced in pain. “Give . . . Give me a few minutes to recover.”

Roz nodded. The sword floated from her grip and sailed over to Abby, who snatched it out of the air.

And when Roz looked back, Slaughter was gone.

Abby ducked under the Fifth King’s reach and slashed at his thigh with her sword—though she knew it wouldn’t do any damage. She’d already struck him dozens of times, blows that would slice a normal man in two, and each time the wounds healed within seconds

He made a grab for her and she threw herself backward, rolled head over heels, and landed on her feet.

Before he could get any closer, Pyrokine swooped at him, his body wrapped in a sheath of blue-white fire. The Fifth King swept out his arm and knocked Pyrokine to the dirt.

Abby darted in again before the king’s powerful foot could stamp down on Pyrokine. Her sword flashed twice, and for a moment twin streaks of red appeared on the warrior’s bare back.

From a hundred yards away, Max Dalton shouted, “Abby, pull back! Roz, take over!”

Abby threw the sword into the air as she retreated—Roz caught it telekinetically and resumed her attack.

“You holding up OK?” Brawn asked as Abby collapsed next to him.