Trance. Part 29

"It's above us," he said. "Second floor, I think, and getting bigger by the minute. If the sprinklers don't stop it, we're going to have an inferno on our hands." The sprinkler system slowed from a spray to a trickle, and finally stopped altogether.

"h.e.l.l," I said.

"Give it time," Psystorm said.

Far away, someone screamed, audible even over the blare of the alarm bell.

"We split up," I said. "Psystorm and I will head for Spence's apartment. You two make sure people are getting out of this building, and then call Dahlia. Maybe she can get down here and do something with the fire."

"She's still green, T," Renee said.

"She's strong and we need her."

I turned. Someone caught my wrist and pulled me back. Gage's mouth opened-no words tumbled out. We really needed to talk when this was over. "I'll be careful," I said.

After he and Renee disappeared down an adjacent corridor, I turned to Psystorm. He was hard to read, showing no outward signs of fear or concern, just a weary sense of duty.

"Let's find the stairs," I said.

Twenty-nine.

Marcus Spence By the fourth-floor landing, I realized what was bothering me: no one else was in the stairwell. Even with the alarm ringing on every floor we pa.s.sed, I hadn't seen a single person evacuate the building. Milton could be wrong about so many folks working from home, but I doubted it, and it made me wonder how many times a week someone pulled a false alarm.

I pushed the exit door open.

"This isn't the fifth floor," Psystorm said.

"I know, but I don't think people realize this is a real fire." I pounded my fist against the first door I saw. "Hey! Get your a.s.s moving, this isn't a drill, there's a fire downstairs!"

The door whipped open with a rush of cold air. A teenage girl stood there in too-tight clothes, a toddler balanced on one hip. She had a bruise on her jaw, another on her bare ankle, and aimed a revolver at me with her left hand.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" she asked.

I twisted the gun away from her with ease. Safety was off-great. "Get anyone else who's with you outside right now. The second floor is on fire."

Her round eyes widened. She put the toddler down with a terse "Stay here," and bolted back inside. Psystorm went to the next apartment door. The girl returned with an infant in her arms and a bag slung over her shoulder. She grabbed the toddler's hand and yanked the child toward the stairwell.

We didn't stop until we'd banged on all five doors. Only three opened; the others remained silent. Ten people raced into the stairwell. Psystorm and I followed them in. The air had heated a few degrees; the fire was moving quickly. Up we went, to the fifth floor, banging on doors as we moved down the hall. Two opened, two didn't, and we found ourselves in front of 5E.

Psystorm put a hand out to stay me and closed his eyes. The alarm seemed impossibly loud here. I'd be hearing it in my sleep for days. He dropped his hand and looked at me.

"Something's wrong," he said. "It feels like Specter, but also not. His power is missing."

My stomach fluttered. I didn't like the sound of that. "Could his conscious power be elsewhere?"

He shook his head. "Even if it was, I'd still get a sense of it inside of his physical body, something linking the conscious power to his bodily form, like a tether. All Metas have it."

"And now there's no tether."

"Right."

"s.h.i.+t."

"Right again."

My Vox beeped, and then, I grabbed it. "Cipher, Trance, go ahead."

"Copy. We're about to go inside."

"Sounds like he had help," Psystorm said. "He might still be in one of the tenants, Cipher, so watch your backs down there."

Once the Vox was tucked safely away, I turned to Psystorm. "So? Do we knock?"

He looked at my hands, and then quirked an eyebrow. The gesture was cute, sort of c.o.c.ky, and it made him look ten years younger. "How about I let you knock?"

"You're sure this is Specter?"

"Positive."

I grinned. "Okay, I'll knock."

We backed up a few paces, and with Psystorm behind me, I pushed two apple-size orbs at the doork.n.o.b. They hit above and below the hardware and shattered the cheap particle board with a sound like snapping celery. A few chunks flew our way.

We surged through the door and into the worst odor I'd ever experienced. Rot and human waste, bottled up together for weeks, if not longer. I stumbled backward, into Psystorm, gagging on the fetid air in my lungs. He coughed, hands on my waist, holding me upright. In the dim light of a half-open window, I saw my archenemy in the flesh for the first time since I was ten years old.

His wheelchair sat across the small living room, next to a dusty sofa. Huddled under a stained cotton blanket, the fragile old man didn't move or acknowledge our presence. Red spots, likely sores of some sort, lined his lips and chin. Liquid leaked from his rheumy eyes and half-open mouth. His hair was pure white, face lined with age and abuse. Frail hands clutched the edge of the blanket, skin marred with liver spots, bones gnarled from arthritis. An oxygen tank was hooked to the back of the wheelchair, and a yellowed nasal cannula wrapped around his head. The urine bag attached to his chair had overflowed, leaving a dark puddle on the frayed carpet.

Tears stung my own eyes-from the smell or the sight of this neglected old man, I wasn't certain. Crying over Specter. What would William have thought?

"Is he even alive?" I asked, surprised at the quiver in my voice.

Psystorm slipped around me and took a few steps forward. "He's alive, but no one's home. Just like I felt in the hallway, the tether is gone. He's powerless and if he's in there somewhere, he's down deep."

"Can you reach him? Get Marcus Spence to come out and talk to us?"

"I'll try." He crouched in front of the old man, allowing an arm's reach of distance, and closed his eyes.

I did a quick sweep of the apartment. The bed was neatly made, not slept in for a long time. Thick coats of dust covered most of the furniture, including the kitchen counters. The toilet had backed up, which accounted for some of the smell. I located a can of room freshener, sprayed liberally, and closed the door tight. All the food in the fridge was spoiled or a day from it, and a small family of roaches scurried out from under the garbage can when I kicked it.

Someone had kept an ailing old man prisoner in this apartment for an unknown length of time, living in his own filth, with no food or filtered water. In spite of myself, and in spite of the horrors he'd done fifteen years ago, I felt sorry for him. Specter was a sh.e.l.l, barely alive by all rights. He couldn't have been the one responsible for the h.e.l.l we'd lived through this week.

I returned to the living room. Psystorm sat on the floor in front of Specter, hands folded in his lap. A single tear rolled down one cheek, and it told me everything I needed to know. I stopped, afraid to intrude.

Psystorm turned his head. Grieving eyes met mine. "I've never felt anything like this. Such despair. Eagerness to simply die and let it be over with."

"Did he tell you anything?"

"I could glean a few things, mostly images. He didn't surrender with the others on Manhattan. Someone else was collared in his place. He escaped west, hid out. Had a stroke a few months after the War ended and has been wheelchair bound ever since. He had a second stroke four months ago. A hospice nurse used to come twice a month to check on him. He's had other visitors, but I can't see them clearly." He blanched. "The catatonia is recent, very recent. Days, maybe a week."

The timetable fit with the recovery of our powers.

"It's incredible, Trance. It's like someone ripped out his soul and left a wailing animal in its place. He just wants to die."

I s.h.i.+vered, despite the stifling air. "What can do this to a person?"

"An extremely talented telepath."

"Could a telepath actually take someone's powers?" As soon as I said it, I had my answer. The Wardens had done exactly that to us-stripped us of our powers. But they hadn't taken them to use as their own; they stored them away. Whoever took Spence's powers did so with another intent.

"How could that work?" I asked. "Dr. Seward told me once that as MetaHumans, our bodies adapt to accommodate our powers. I've had firsthand experience in adapting to new things, and it's not pretty."

"Things have changed, Trance. You know that better than anyone."

My hands clenched. We were now facing an unknown enemy with a stolen ability, h.e.l.l-bent on destroying every living Ranger (and probably Psystorm, now that he was helping us). No name, no leads, no way to ferret this person out.

"We'll take him with us," I said. "Let's get out of here before the fire gets worse. We can try to get into his mind again back at HQ."

Psystorm stood up and stepped behind the wheelchair. I bent and unlocked the wheels. As I straightened, a shadow moved in the apartment's shattered doorway, a familiar shape loomed, and the equally familiar snap-clack of a shotgun slide broke the room's silence.

Andrew Milton stepped into the foyer, shotgun against his shoulder, eyes glowing yellow-orange, and fired at Psystorm. I threw up a s.h.i.+eld too fast to brace myself, and the impact of the buckshot against the s.h.i.+eld tossed me sideways. The report thundered in my ears, and the shock of my tailbone cracking on the hard floor sent bolts of pain up my spine.

Milton loaded again, another snap-clack. Psystorm shouted. I sat up, despite my body's angry protests, and lobbed a cherry-size orb at the landlord. It hit center ma.s.s like a bullet and sprayed blood as it entered his chest. He screamed and squeezed, shooting off one more blast that hit the ceiling and took out a fluorescent light fixture in a cloud of sparks and gla.s.s.

"Psystorm!" I shouted over the fire alarm still wailing in the hallway.

"Got him!"

He stood stiff and straight behind the wheelchair, eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway. His entire body seemed to ripple with energy. Both eyebrows dug in and knotted. Beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead and upper lip. His breathing sped up.

"He's strong," Psystorm hissed. "Too strong."

"Hold on to him."

"Trying."

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring my bruised b.u.t.t. My head spun. The stale air didn't help. I crouched next to Milton's body. Felt for a pulse. Nothing. The light was gone from his open eyes. The power of Specter was somewhere in the room now, caught by Psystorm.

Into my Vox, I shouted, "Cipher, it's Trance, we need backup here."

"Yeah, apartment five E. We'll need emergency extraction. Can the copter meet us on the roof?"

"Good. Two minutes. Out."

I heard the concern in Gage's voice, and all of the unasked questions. I was proud of him for keeping it as short and professional as possible. If Psystorm could keep Specter's doppelganger under control, perhaps we could get them both back to HQ and figure out our next step. The force controlling Specter's power was stronger than we'd antic.i.p.ated. Psystorm had paled considerably, and sweat dribbled down his cheeks in thin rivers. He'd bitten through his lower lip and blood flowed freely.

"d.a.m.n you," Psystorm muttered. "I'm losing him, Trance. He's trying to take me."

"What can I do?"

He hissed through his teeth, buckling under the strain of his mental battle. "Collar."

"What?"

"Use the collar."

Outside, sirens created a disturbing symphony of background music that punctuated his agonized statement. Pain radiated from his pores; desperation clung to every word. Specter's power was tearing him apart from the inside out. Knocking out Psystorm would either trap the power, or set it free. Set it free so it could make me kill again.

No, dammit.

"What will happen to him?" I asked.

"I'll hold on to him."

I pulled the fail-safe device out of my belt pocket and used my thumbnail to flick open the plastic cover. Spence's body jerked; his weeping eyes closed. Psystorm screamed, doubling over like he'd been stabbed in the gut. The air in the room crackled like a static-filled sweater. I had to stop this, had to push the b.u.t.ton. Dread squeezed my heart, and for one brief moment, time stopped.

My hesitation cost us.

Psystorm and Spence raised their heads in perfect unison and fixed matching sets of glowing yellow eyes on me. My thumb twitched. Psystorm lashed out with an uppercut that caught the bottom of my jaw. My head snapped back. Pain blossomed, coloring my vision red. I hit the floor. The fail-safe dropped. Skittered away. I rolled toward it; didn't see the boot until it connected with the side of my head.

Consciousness ebbed and flowed in colorful rivers of pain. I grasped for something, anything to ground me. Footsteps shuffled across the laminate floor. Wheels squeaked. Someone rifled through cabinets and drawers. Then a smell, sickly sweet and eye-watering, overpowered the room's existing stench.

My Vox squawked. I opened my eyes. The room reeled, spun, and finally settled. The unused fail-safe lay on the edge of a tattered rug, just a few inches away. My right hand crawled toward it, inch by inch. Focus, focus. I ignored the throbbing in my jaw and temple. Focused on the black box.

The boot-Psystorm's-came down on my hand. Bones snapped and blood vessels exploded. Agony screeched up my wrist and arm. I screamed and kept screaming as he ground down. My senses numbed. I pulled my left hand around and summoned whatever power I could. Lobbed the orb at his leg. My shrieks became his as the point-blank blast shattered his ankle. He fell, releasing my hand.

I surged forward and grabbed the fail-safe. Finally pressed the trigger. Psystorm's p.r.o.ne body jerked, then fell silent.

One down.

Wheels squealed again. I rolled, drawing my broken hand to my chest. Spence gazed at me from the kitchen-how the blue h.e.l.l had he gotten over there?-the yellow haze in his eyes fluctuating rapidly. He wasn't contained; Psystorm hadn't been able to hold on to him. If he had, then Spence's eyes should be normal, uncontrolled.

G.o.d, no.

I coughed, overwhelmed by the sickening odor. Nauseated by pain. Spence raised one palsied hand and grabbed a dial on the stove. His expression was as weary as his eyes were mad.

Gas. "s.h.i.+t," I said.

Spence sneered.

I launched myself at Psystorm and landed across his legs, mustering every ounce of strength I still possessed. The stove burner snicked once, twice. A blue flame appeared. I tossed up a force field, closed my eyes, and held on as an inferno swept through the apartment and consumed us.