Mercury Page 5

  Marco let out a long breath. “Anyway…”

  “What are we going to do about Jen and Gabriela?” I asked as gently as I could. “I don’t want to see another civilian hurt because of us. Before everyone, I want to make sure they’re safe.”

  Berenice’s expression, which had automatically hardened when I’d spoken, softened again. She turned to Gabriela. “Could you stay with Jen at your salon?”

  “Or at my apartment?” Jen offered. “I have lots of food and blankets.”

  “That works,” Reuben said. “Are you okay with that, honey? I don’t have powers for another few months, but I can’t leave my team.”

  His words were still in the air when Abby jumped to her feet, her fists balled. “Bad!”

  We all leaned back slightly from her, as if she were emanating a physical force. Berenice stood up and tried to put her hand on Abby’s shoulder, but Abby swatted her hand away.

  Abby’s face twisted into an enraged grimace. “Bad, bad, bad,” she growled.

  Reuben held his hand up to stay us, then slowly stood. “I don’t understand,” he said cautiously. “Please explain why you’re angry at me.”

  Abby jabbed her finger at Gabriela. “Reuben stay Gabby. Reuben stay protect Gabby. Team fight good weeks no Reuben. Reuben stay Gabby!”

  That was easy enough to interpret: Abby expected Reuben to stay with his wife. The Baltimore team had lurched on without Reuben for weeks after the tribunal.

  Yet, I couldn’t see the source of her sheer fury over Reuben’s decision. He was pretty obviously the natural leader of the combined teams. I expected him to stay with us. Arranging safe harbor was necessary.

  But Abby took a shaking step forward. “Reuben stay Gabby. If Reuben leave Gabby…Tiger scratch Reuben.”

  I didn’t want to know what a tiger’s “scratch” looked like. Still, Abby was an odd duck—tiger?—and I liked her already. She had a grasp of loyalty that any supervillain family would’ve been proud of.

  Reuben sighed. “I have to stay here, Abby. This isn’t an easy decision, but Jen will look after Gabriela. They’re friends. I trust Jen, and I hope you do, too. There’s no concrete reason for me to keep Gabriela and Jen here. And I really would appreciate it if you didn’t maul me over it. Unless that’s how you’ve decided to handle leadership decisions you disagree with?”

  “Dear,” Gabriela murmured. “Be nice.”

  Abby crossed her arms and frowned, though there was a hint of confusion in her eyes. Finally, she said, “Cub.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Reuben asked.

  “Cub,” Abby repeated, an unsaid “you drooling idiot” in her tone. “Reuben protect Gabby cub. Reuben make Gabby cub. Reuben stay Gabby. Team fight. No Reuben.”

  We all caught on simultaneously, five gasps breaking the tense silence. “No way,” Berenice said, peering at Abby with her mouth open. “How do you know that?”

  Abby tapped her nose.

  Reuben spun around to look at Gabriela, whose stricken expression underlined her posture—she was holding her stomach in an unmistakable maternal gesture. “There’s a baby?”

  Gabriela nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you until this had all blown over. You didn’t need another stress on top of everything.”

  Reuben collapsed into his seat. “This changes everything.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jen said. She eased herself to her feet and stepped into the middle of the room, between Abby and Reuben. “Abby, I may not be a superhero, but I’ve been responsible for Gabriela’s safety for several weeks now. I’m aware of the risks, and I’m willing to fight to keep her safe. As soon as the snow clears, I’ll take Gabriela to my parents’ house down in La Plata. Reuben, you need to be with your team. As a civilian,” she said with exasperated emphasis, “I would appreciate it if the most capable leader of my city’s heroes were with his team if there’s no good reason for him not to be. But really, the decision isn’t ours,” she said firmly. “Gab, what do you say?”

  Gabriela wiped her eyes. “Jen’s right. She’s my friend and I feel safe with her. The strike team won’t follow us. They don’t care about us, they care about you guys. I want to be with you, but you being with me will endanger Jen and me. And the baby,” she added. “If you want to keep me safe, please stay with your team.”

  Reuben’s eyes darted back and forth between Jen and Gabriela as he processed what he was hearing. “I need to talk to Reid.”

  “I’ll get him,” I volunteered.

  I was up the stairs and at the bathroom door in a second, the usual blur-and-stop a strange relief from the emotional turmoil downstairs. The bathroom was empty, so I raised my hand to knock on the bedroom door, which was cracked open an inch.

  Ember’s low voice made me hesitate.

  “I said get out,” she spat.

  “Sweetie, please,” Reid begged. “I didn’t mean to say that I don’t care about your well-being. I really thought a scan was easy for you. You’ve done similar things before, and—”

  “Don’t call me your sweetie,” Ember shot back. “I ceased being your sweetie when you lost your mind in Liberty. You made a choice and this is the consequence.”

  “I said I was sorry!” Reid’s voice quivered. “A million times! Just tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”

  “I want you to get out.” She enunciated every word, obviously speaking through gritted teeth.

  I knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Ember said.

  I pushed open the door to find Ember standing with her arms crossed over her chest, her back to Reid. A reeking trashcan stood at her feet. Reid was so slumped that he resembled a question mark. He straightened a little as I walked into the room, but he never took his eyes off Ember’s rigid back.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. I closed the door behind me and put a hand on my hip. “I trust you weren’t talking about anything other than mission-related subjects.”

  If Ember dipped into my mind, she would’ve received the same rant Reid had gotten earlier that day, as well as overheard my repeated reminder to myself that I would never hit a woman who hadn’t tried to hurt me first.

  Reid finally tore his gaze away from Ember to stare at me. “We’re fine. It was just a bout of flu. Is there really nothing you can do about it?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “I can’t heal sickness. Say whatever else you have to say and get back downstairs, Uncle Reid. Abby just announced that Gabriela’s pregnant, and Reuben is just this side of a breakdown. We need all the help we can get.”

  “I knew she was pregnant,” Ember said as she knotted the little plastic bag in the trashcan. “But she asked me not to tell. I didn’t know Abby knew, though.”

  The yellow light from the desk lamp went out, plunging us into shadows. Elsewhere in the house every electrical machine failed at once, resulting in a single whumph. The only light present was the same low, watery light from the snowstorm that had illuminated my hospital room—except now, in midafternoon, the light was even dimmer.

  Almost immediately I could feel the temperature in the room begin to fall. Without a heat source, the house’s temperature would plummet.

  “Hunted by a strike team in a blizzard,” Reid said with a sigh.

  “With a pregnant woman,” I added.

  They both shook their heads in exasperation.

  “How about we go downstairs and figure out what happens next?” Reid said. He held the door for Ember, but she pointedly put her boot on the bed and began to retie it. Reid disappeared down the stairs with his head bowed.

  As soon as he was gone, Ember said, “You got something to say?”

  I took a deep breath. “Do you actually have a good reason for not wanting to scan, or are you just being recalcitrant to piss me off?”

  Ember jerked her head up. “Piss you off?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You have scanned major portions of the city before, and I’ve never see
n you so much as get a nosebleed from it. Hell, you volunteered to be on telepathy duty when we needed to find Lark and Berenice. So what is it? Is it really too big of a task or are you prolonging this mission just because you want to make my life hard?”

  Forget Reid. My biggest concern was the vein in my forehead bursting.

  Ember deflated. “Scanning isn’t as easy as you’d think. A scan of that magnitude would physically drain me. When Patrick made me…” She closed her eyes for a second. “…search for Jill that day last summer, the effort of looking for her across the city weakened me so much that I couldn’t fight back, though it’s not like I had much of a chance in the first place. Reid knows that.” She hugged herself protectively. “So I don’t know where he gets off suggesting that I weaken myself right before a fight with a strike team.”

  I walked up to her, my ire cooling. I raised my hand to pat her shoulder, but she flinched away. I immediately regretted ever wanting to shake her or otherwise physically express my frustration.

  Instead, I clasped my hands in front of me. “Do you remember why I didn’t want to tell you the truth about my past? Last week, at the team meeting? Do you remember what I said?”

  She looked up at me through her long eyelashes. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “The first time in my life, I have a sister who’s my age, and whom I have a close relationship with. I love Eleanor, but we’ve always been distant. You’re closer to me than I was ever was with her.”

  I dared to let my fingers graze her jaw, focusing on memories of us patrolling together, of conversations we’d had about her home in Oconee and her brother Brian, and of our weekly meeting in the sick bay when we reviewed her caloric intake and planned the next week’s vegan-friendly menu.

  I enjoyed my time with Ember, and I’d always hoped that she felt the same. “I’ll sacrifice nearly anything to save Jillian, but not you. I’ve got your back.”

  Ember bowed her head. “I’m sorry for being difficult. I’ll look for Buck.” She inhaled heavily. “But please keep in mind that the more I’m in someone’s head, the more they can sense me there.”

  “I understand.”

  Still hugging herself, she walked out of the room and down the stairs. I stood in the dark, cold bedroom for a long moment, until the weight of the moment pulled me down to my knees. I sank to the ground and stared through the delicate lace curtain into the white-out beyond the glass. I could see neither houses, nor sky, nor any living thing.

  All I could see was the storm that raged.

  Item Six

  Excerpt of letter sent from Christina St. James to her mother, dated March 2, 1903

  …Nella pointed to the map of the city and declared the missing girl to be at that spot exactly. Patrick put on his hat and went to find her. Mother, she was just where Nella said she was. When questioned, she said she just “knew”, and then pointed to where you and Papa live…We collected the reward money and will put it in an account so Edward can go to college, and his brothers if any come.

  6

  There was nothing left to do but wait for the evening to unfold.

  Not a minute after I’d returned from upstairs, Ember hushed us and said she was going to find the strike team. She ordered the rest of us to vacate the living room.

  Watching from the kitchen, I saw her sit cross-legged on the living room floor in front of the fire and place her hands on her knees, as if she were meditating. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, then let out her breath in a long, slow exhale.

  A tingle raced across my brain, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

  I leaned against the doorway, momentarily in awe of my teammate. All my friends possessed god-like powers, but if one quantified our powers by the ability to destroy and disrupt the machinations of our enemies…Ember Harris was the most powerful by an order of magnitude.

  The temptation to fill my idle mind with worry and doubt always lurked. Lest I disrupt Ember’s reconnaissance with obscene imaginations of Jillian’s torture, I let myself consider the young woman sitting on the living room floor.

  Jillian saw Ember in an almost worshipful light, even more so than the rest of her team. I knew my wife well enough to guess why. Ember was a few years older than Jillian, giving her a slightly more experienced air that Jillian respected. She was kind and thoughtful. She had courage of conviction, standing by her veganism even when none of her teammates did.

  More obviously, she was beautiful, like the living embodiment of a Waterhouse painting. Jillian loved beauty in all its forms, whether it be in the plots of romance novels or the edge of a well-crafted knife. It followed that she’d be attracted to beautiful people, too.

  But it was not Ember’s physical attributes of which Jillian spoke most often. Instead, she praised Ember’s amicability and social graces, her knack for knowing just what to say to comfort someone in need. Time and time again she’d moaned that she wasn’t personable. I’d kissed Jillian after she said that and told her that she was exactly right just as she was. Just as the world needed many types of trees to make oxygen, so a team needed many types of personalities to operate.

  I never voiced what I was thinking: Ember got along with everyone because she could hear what they wanted her to say. On some level, her personality was formed by the desires and expectations of others. Cogitamus ergo ea est. We think therefore she is.

  So what, then, lived beneath the outer layer of telepathy and instant understanding of every social interaction? Who was Ember?

  I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that the real Ember had reared her head and roared in Liberty, when her telepathy had been blocked. She’d been forced to approach every situation at the level of the other person, ignorant of their thoughts and wishes.

  True to form, Ember had made some friends, and quickly. But she’d also clung to her vows when nobody else had. She’d dug in her heels and called foul on the Sentinels. Most shocking of all, she’d dumped Reid for reasons none of us fully understood.

  I turned to look at her ex-boyfriend, my team’s acting leader. He was sitting at the table, watching Reuben and Gabriela as they held each other in the corner. Reuben smiled at Gabriela and rubbed her stomach. Gabriela kissed his jaw.

  Reid folded his arms on the table and hid his face in them.

  I turned back to Ember. Psychics and telepaths in the Danger television show always put their fingers on their temples when they used their powers, but her hands remained on her knees, relaxed and limp. She sat there for a minute more, silent and still—

  She smiled and opened her eyes. “Got him.”

  She clambered to her feet and strode purposefully into the kitchen. “Reuben, we have to hurry. Buck knows we’re here, and he knows there are two civilian women. I picked up that he’s angry at Emily for dragging Jen into it, so he’s waiting until the civilians are gone to minimize the risk of hurting them. However, I was only in his head for a few seconds to avoid detection. I know we’re being watched, but I don’t know how closely or by whom.”

  “What happens if the civilians don’t leave?” Jen asked. “If we stay here, maybe…”

  “They will raid,” Berenice said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “They’ll work as hard as they can to not hurt you guys, but their first mission is to kill us.”

  “What else did you pick up?” Reuben asked.

  Ember sighed. “They’re splitting up, probably for recon. I have a good idea where Buck is, at a parking garage nearby, but after that, it’s only impressions. This house is their target, though, so we can safely assume that their positions are in a loose circle around it.”

  “And they’ll start zeroing in eventually,” I said. “I bet they’re watching the roads.”

  “That’s a good a guess as any,” Reuben said. “And probably what I would do.”

  Marco stepped forward. “If they’re split up, then they’re the weakest they’re ever going to be.” He leveled a hard stare at Reuben. “We need to act.”

  I�
�d never heard Marco sound like that before. All traces of his usual boyish enthusiasm were gone, replaced by a stony determination to destroy anything and everything that stood in the way of his enacting justice for his murdered sisters, kidnapped cousin, and destroyed innocence. He had little left to lose, and the ability to vaporize human beings without batting an eye.

  Honed self-preservation instincts whispered to me that he was the most dangerous person in that room.

  Reuben squinted at the gathered people and clicked his tongue as he thought. “Reid, you’ll be up against Kyle, obviously. I have no idea why they sent a guy who can turn into stone against a geomorph. Berenice, Marco, you’ll go with him.”

  “Tiger fight Buck,” Abby said calmly, her chin jutted forward. “Tiger kill Buck.”

  “How can you be sure?” Lark asked.

  Abby smiled. “Buck make dizzy Abby,” she said. “Tiger no dizzy. Tiger kill Buck.”

  Buck’s powers didn’t work on Abby in her tiger form. Excellent.

  “You know this for sure?” Reuben asked. “From experience?”

  Abby nodded. “Tiger Buck live Ozark. Tiger know Buck.”

  “Then that’s settled,” Reuben said. “Ember, since you alone can find Buck, you’ll go with Abby. Taking out the leader is paramount.”

  My mind reeled: I’d promised Ember that I’d keep her safe, but this was rapidly flying out of my control. Could I somehow convince Reuben to keep her with me? Or maybe to just keep her out of the fight altogether until she was at full strength again?

  I glanced at Ember and mentally pleaded with her to not hold this unkept promise against me.

  She met my eyes and nodded once. We’re cool, Ben.

  For a half a second, I thought Ember looked scared—but then Reid, who’d been leaning against the wall, abruptly stood. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ember? I don’t want her in the field like that. She’s still weak. She can’t fight. For all intents and purposes, she’s a noncombatant right now.” He frowned at Ember. “Hell, since you’re weak from the scan, you’re little more than a civilian in my eyes. You should go with Jen and Gabriela and wait for us to come get you.”