(The Push Chronicles (Book 2): Indefatigable (19 page)

Without a second thought, I hopped on top of the remains of the pillar Bathory had been driven through, using that as a boost to launch myself up to the top of the Capitol's porch.  That half-smirk, the sheer focus on his face: that man was Mackenzie.  No doubt he had more of his human flunkies in uniform here the whole time.  The thing was they were so sure of the infallibility of their disguise they didn't even pay me mind as I rushed up to the barricade.

I was about to change that as I leaped over the barrier with a battle cry.

Chapter 20 Sunrise

There were two satisfying crunches as I scissored my legs in mid-vault.  Two of the eight Hogs-in-police-clothing dropped like rocks.  My presence was registered by the rest of them, but the brain impulses that identified me as a threat were still pulsing.  Mackenzie, however, reacted instantly, dancing out of my immediate grasp as he drew an automatic pistol.  The fact that he didn't instantly teleport away was indicative of the limits of the power he had available.  As he aimed, I spun fast to my right, grabbing one of the unlucky foot recipients by his jacket.  Proving once and for all I was faster than the FBI agent-turned-terrorist, I spun fully around by the time he pulled the trigger, letting the goon with the bullet-proof vest take the two shots for me.

"Stop her," Mackenzie barked, "she's just one normal woman!"  He didn't believe that for a moment, but I suppose he had to tell his minions something to keep them from cutting and running.  I shoved my current dance partner hard in the back, sending him barreling into another of his buddies.  Unlike the Hogs Ian had in the laboratory, this batch was smart enough and cunning enough to realize that uncontrolled shooting into a brawl was stupid.  The two closest to me dropped their rifles and rushed me from both sides, while another seemed to be taking advantage of this to stow her rifle and draw a police baton.

I didn't have time for this; Mackenzie and his device were the real goal.  I ducked my shoulder towards the fastest of my two attackers, catching him off-balance as I threw him across my body.  The sound of him bouncing off my other attacker was reassuring.  Two steps forward and a knee lift to the chin got Baton Betty out of my way.  No doubt Ian had stressed the importance of the device, because the remaining three terrorists took a defense stance around their leader and opened up with a spray of suppressing fire in my direction.

Instinct and adrenaline took over as I ran, tumbled, and leaped ahead of their aim, bullets flying and bouncing all around me.  A particularly close shot creased the back of my left shoulder, but I instantly shut off the pain.  To my other side, I stole a glance at the ongoing battle against the Countess Bathory.  It wasn't going well.  Even Epic, the physical god on Earth, had bleeding wounds from tangling with the empowered vampire.  Could Ian's machine have weakened him that much?  Doubtful, but it could have compromised his confidence.  I had seen for myself how Eric's powers could ebb and flow with his mental state.  What truly surprised me though was the sight of a person I really didn't think I would see again.  Rachel was by the Pushed girl's side, while Duane emptied a shotgun full of silver buckshot in Bathory's direction.  Yes, I had told him that silver was for werewolves, but he decided to take no chances.

The young woman was Alma Gutierrez.  She was the first Pushed I had the chance to scientifically study.  As far as I had known, I had managed to turn her away from joining the ranks of the Push Heroes or Pushcrooks, instead pointing her to focus on her schoolwork at Georgia Tech.  Her crystalline body was, if anything, even more remarkable in the rain and dark, as it caught even the smallest bit of light from the streetlamps, the flash of supernatural powers, and the flaming debris.  What the hell was Rachel thinking bringing her into this?  What could she do?

It hit me at about the same time the flash-bang grenade I had missed went off.  It all had to do with the Sun, which was brighter than the flash of magnesium powder, but not by much.  Blind and deaf in one fell swoop, I almost tripped over my own feet, but my enhanced reflexes forced myself into a tumble instead of a trip.  I relied on pure memory to rapidly crawl behind what I was certain was one of the battered but intact barricades.  The only clue I had that I wasn't still out in the open was the remarkable lack of bullet holes in my body.

I closed my eyelids and tried, as silly as it sounded, to will my eyes and ears to work, curling my body up as tight as possible to make the smallest target I could.  What I had yet to figure was how they would use Alma's crystalline facets to focus and split the power of the Sun when we didn't have a Sun to focus.  Yes, technically, moonlight is simply reflected sunlight, but for some reason, it hadn't affected the vampires so far.  On top of that, Bathory's summoned thunderstorm would abate no time soon.  It would take a miracle to summon sunlight in the middle of the night and the last I had checked we didn't have God on our side.

Realization dawned as somehow blurry vision and echoed hearing began to return to me.  We didn't have God, but we had someone with almost as much power.  That was why Rachel had Archer bring in Epic and the Crusaders.  All of that was worthless though if I couldn't stop that machine.

A blurry man-sized shape lurched into view next to me, causing the only reaction I thought appropriate:  I rolled up to my feet and punched it somewhere that I hoped was actually it's center of mass.  The shape cried out in pain and dropped down into a smaller blurry shape.  There were more starry flashes in the distance so I ducked down as the warble of echoing gunfire passed over my head.  A straight advance in my condition was suicide and I didn't have time to wait for my senses to finish clearing.  I clenched my fist and glanced at the blurry image of the barricade I was leaning against.  Idea.

The reason that mankind stopped using armor in warfare was because you just couldn't wear enough crap to stop bullets.  Even 'bullet-proof' vests were really more 'bullet-resistant' than anything.  However, the armored barricade that I held awkwardly ahead of me, muscles straining under the weight, was plenty bullet-proof.  I was sure, even with my echoing hearing, one of the remaining soldiers muttered something about me being no ordinary woman.  On that note, I charged, bullets spanging off the barricade, hoping to get to them before my strength decided to give out.  The feeling of a sudden fleshy impact and the resultant cries of pain on the other side was all the cue I needed to drop the barricade, giving it a little heft forward.  Another round of painful shouts let me know I had set down my burden in just the right place.

"No, Irene, you are not going to stop this," Mackenzie, slowly resolving into a proper image, said, his gun unwaveringly aimed at my head.  A flare of light shone from behind me as I stared down the barrel, waiting for the twitch of the trigger finger.  The coms were blaring in my ear, distorted but finally comprehensible.

"Get her off of them, team," Ex ordered.  "If we can't keep Epic and Alma safe, it's game over."

"Thossse Crussader friendsss of hiss are letting too many through."

"Out of bolts, friends, my apologies.  To fisticuffs then!"

"I don't know how, but my telekinetic shields are fading.  I can't push them back anymore!"

There was some kind of pressure wave that rattled the building from the lawn below.  Shouts of pain, my friends' shouts of pain, filled the air.  It wasn't Elizabeth Bathory that was killing my friends.  Ian Mackenzie was.

"One last chance, Dr. Roman," Ian said, cold as ice, never once wavering.  "You can help me fix all this.  Your friends dying down there?  Fixed.  All the people I had to kill to get here?  Living.  It's so simple.  Please."  Only when he said that final word did I get any sense of emotion in his eyes.  Somewhere deep down, there was a man who wanted to make it all better.  Just like Eric did when he changed the world.

I moved like greased lightning at Mackenzie.  Though I was faster than he was, Ian's enhanced reflexes were still remarkable and a bullet is still a bullet.  The first shot hit right below the right collarbone, recoil brought the second through the meat of my right shoulder, but I felt no pain.  Nothing was going to stop me this time.  His finger started to squeeze one more time, but I swatted at the gun with enough force to break his wrist.  The gun skittered uselessly away.  For the first time, I saw the resolve in Mackenzie's eyes flicker.  I growled as white motes began to gather around him in direct proportion to the storm fading overhead.

"Next time, Indomitable."

No, I screamed in my head and threw all of my weight behind a final punch.  In a last ditch effort to save his face from multiple fractures, Ian turned away from the punch.  Instead of his face, my hand slammed into the backpack containing the reality device.  A crunch of metal and a spray of sparks erupted from the pack.

There was a look of existential horror on Ian Mackenzie's face as the white motes suddenly exploded around him.  When the flash cleared, the man was gone, leaving behind only a smoking hat filled with electrodes.

"What the hell just happened?" Duane shouted over the com.

"Shoot fire, I feel like a million bucks!" Hexagon hooted.

"I think Irene did it, guys.  Let's wrap this up double-time," Ex commanded.  "Mind, Tank, Hex, sweep 'em back.  Meds, give Bathory another look, you might have better luck this time.  I'll give our secret weapon some cover.  Do it!"

I smiled, despite the blood running down my uniform, and walked to the edge of the roof, hand pressed to the worst of the two bullet wounds.  The storm clouds overhead were rapidly fading away as moonlight began to shine down on the battle-tossed streets below me.

At the center of the lawn, a tattered Epic concentrated and a white circular portal opened, cascading pure, warm sunlight out of it.  Alma, who I thought I had saved from this life, was bathed in the light and it reflected, intensified, and refracted.  The weakest of the vampiric hordes began to run at the first sight of the Sun's rays.  Bathory, stubborn to the end, instead lunged, despite being half-stone.  Mind's Eye stopped her with a telekinetic wall before Extinguisher froze her legs to the ground.  Hexagon and Medusa each grabbed a flailing arm while the Human Tank brandished a glittering Star of David in the ancient monster's face.

My entire world lit up, like it had three months prior, but this time it was warm, radiant sunlight, bright but not blinding, projecting out from every facet of Alma Gutierrez’s living crystal body, from the cut angles of her muscles to the tiny planes of her eyes.  Once more, the air was filled with screams,  but they weren't the screams of my friends or the innocents they protected.  It was the unholy death throes of the undead.  When the sunlight struck one of the beasts, it swelled like an overdone hot-dog and exploded into a messy spray of rotting tissue and stolen blood.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsed didn't explode like the others.  Instead, the rays of sunlight pierced her ashen form like arrows, each shaft obliterating more and more of the stain of evil from the Earth.  She did not scream as she was destroyed.  Instead, she looked up, straight into my eyes.  I couldn't tell if it was some shred of humanity that thanked me for her reprieve or the darkest depths of the ancient evil inside of her that cursed my soul.  Either way, a shudder ran through my spine as she blew away.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I could barely believe it, standing there, blood leaking between my fingers.  We had done it.  We had saved our city.  Still, there was a hollow feeling to it all.  How many policemen, firefighters, average citizens had died tonight, this week, as a result of all of this?  In the end, the status quo prevailed.  For all I knew, Ian Mackenzie could still be alive, free as a bird.  All those brave men and women, dead for nothing.  As Extinguisher raced up on his ice slide as he caught sight of me, I wondered if I had made the right choice.

Chapter 21 Parting

"Indy, are you -" Extinguisher asked.

"- okay?" I finished for him.  "No, not really, but we won, so I can deal with it."  I glanced down from the porch of the Capitol building.  "Give a girl a lift?"

"My pleasure."  Ex offered me a hand which I didn't need but was a nice gesture anyway.

"How bad off are we?" I asked as we spiraled back down to where the others, my friends as well as Epic and his Crusaders, were gathering.  Almost as if decreed by natural forces, the two groups had separated and seemed to stare at each other across an invisible divide.

"No one's dead, if that's what you're asking."  I could see that his firefighter's coat was in tatters and he had more than a few seeping wounds as well as a swollen ear.  "We're a lot worse off than Epic's goons, to be honest."

"Then let's not pick a fight."  As we landed on the muddy lawn, I was met in mid-stumble by Duane,  who threw my good arm over his shoulder.

"Nice work, Doc, but next time don't get shot, alright?" he asked as he began to lead me towards the truck he, Rachel, and Alma had arrived in.

"Hold on, Duane, just a minute."  The former agent gave me a cross look but relented.

"Fine, do what you gotta do, but I'm working on you right here then."  Duane waited a moment to make sure I wouldn't tumble on my own, then ran for the truck.  I gave a glance at my friends, then at Alma, who underneath the crystal skin seemed both nervous and strangely content.  Saving my words for her and Rachel for later, I finally settled my gaze on Epic and his Crusaders.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed that the Argent Archer was still standing at the fringes of our group, checking on Medusa's wounds, instead of falling in step with his Lord Epic.

"It would appear that we have won the day," Epic offered.  "What has become of the terrorist Ian Mackenzie?"  The wounds the demigod had suffered were already healed and his compatriots had endured far less fighting than we had.  I stood up straight, trying to look as strong as possible despite the bleeding holes in my body.

"He tried to teleport out once he realized he couldn't stop me," I said.  "Right as he was blinking out, I hit his reality machine.  I think something went very wrong and he poofed."  I shrugged, despite my shoulder.  "I don't know if he made it or was blown to atoms or erased from reality or what."

"Unfortunate, I would have preferred to see him face Crusader justice," Epic rumbled.  "He has committed great crimes against the Pushed."

"And a lot more crimes against normal folks," Hexagon pointed out.  "I would figure if anything he'd wind up with us for, you know, courts and all that stuff."

"It's a moot point as no one is taking him for anything," Rachel said, something that surprised every Pushed on both sides.  I was even a bit shocked; it took something special for a normal to speak up to any Pushed, let alone stick themselves into a potential argument between them.  "There are more important priorities to deal with."

"Rachel is absolutely correct," I nodded.  Duane jogged back up with his black bag and, completely ignoring the tension in the air, broke it open to begin work on the worst of the wounded.  I only wished he hadn't decided that I was at the top of that list.  "We have loads of casualties, a ravaged city center, who knows how much property damage .... we can't even be sure that we held them off from killing any of the city government.  Hell, what about the governor?"

"Lord Epic, Milady and Dame Choi present a fair point," Archer added.  "After all, dost we not have a duty to the normal as well as to the Pushed?   We could succor the wounded and lend a shoulder to help in the rebuilding, could we not?"  A few of the other Crusaders nodded in agreement, Fray Justicia in particular.

"
Senior
Archer speaks the truth, Epic," the masked man said.  "It is a blessed thing to give comfort to the needy."

"Of course, my Crusaders," Epic agreed with a parental, almost condescending tone.  "It has always been our way to protect all people, Pushed or normal."  He gazed at me, his confidence restored with his power.  "Indomitable, we will shelve this matter of Mackenzie's fate for now and carry on with our most vital of duties."  He paused a moment, then smiled.  I didn't like that smile, not one bit.  "Before we begin, however, I would ask your permission to use the full extent of my powers.  We have had conflict before and I would wish not to have it again, so soon after we have come together to defeat a common foe."

I could feel Extinguisher bristle beside me.  Was he getting the same bad feeling I was or was he just cross at the fact that Eric was acting like I was in charge?  Either way, he was essentially correct.  No one behind me seemed particularly happy.  The only one that seemed not to be on edge was Alma.  Considering her distance from the ongoing conflict between us and the Crusaders, that really wasn't a surprise.

"Considering it would be one of the few good causes you've put all that power behind, sure, be my guest."  I gestured out with my good arm as Duane finished a quick, but serviceable, field dressing around the two bullet wounds.  "With all that power, we can at least fix most of the damage, attend to the wounded."  I gave him a hard look.  "Don't you dare try to raise the dead.  They deserve peace after all this bullshit."

The other Crusaders looked lost at my last statement.  Wavelength scratched at her mane of rainbow hair while Gaslight seemed more interested in adjusting his dials and gauges than anything I said.  My friends, however, knew enough of the tale and made some unpleasant murmurs behind me.

"I have changed since that time, my dear," Epic's brow furrowed like a craggy mountain.  "The cycle of life and death is something not even a god can overturn, that I have come to realize."  With that, he turned swiftly in mid-air, his crimson half-cape billowing around him.  "Come, my Crusaders, to work!"  With that command, they broke off in different directions, each apparently well-drilled in the part they were meant to play.  Archer lingered a moment, glancing at me, then Extinguisher.  After a moment, Ex gave him a brief nod, releasing the armored archer to his own teammates.

"Guys, if you're not too banged up, spread out, help out, and keep an eye on those guys," the frozen firefighter told us as soon as the Crusaders had spread.  "Outside of Archer, I don't trust them further than I can throw them.  If you need to be patched up, though, don't play hero and sit your ass down, okay?"  Why he was looking at me when he said that I had no idea.  Nope, not a clue.  Still, we were all in bad shape, honestly.  My Pushed friends just recovered better and faster.

"I can go 'cause my systems are fully rebooted from that lightning and my metal parts are kinda gouged up but they all work and I don't feel any pain from 'em so I can totally keep track of stuff," Tank offered, somehow retaining a good ninety percent of his full enthusiasm despite the carnage around us.  "Uh, assuming you're gonna be okay while I'm gone, Miss Eye?"  The bedraggled psychic put a hand on Tank's shoulder and favored him with a thin smile.

"My body is hurt but my will is strong," she told him.  "Do what needs to be done, I will be with you in your mind."  I never understood their peculiar bond, but I never questioned it.  It just was.

As for myself, I took the chance to get off of my feet, sitting on a chunk of rubble.  Brooks shook his head and knelt beside me, continuing to examine my wounds.

"Remind me to knock some sense into those F.B.I. jerks who keep dangling you on a string to see if they can at least cough up some Kevlar for your uniform," he muttered.  "I'm getting awful damn tired of pulling bullets out of you, Doc."  Extinguisher set up a second impromptu triage station a few yards away from Duane.  There was no telling with the damage to the nearby roads exactly how soon it would be before more emergency services would make it here.  To the credit of the citizenry, though, now that a short time of calm had come to pass, the survivors of the immediate carnage came out from their shelters to begin to care for those who had not been so lucky.

"Better me than some of them," I said, nodding at some of the PART officers who ventured out of the Capitol building to tend to the wounded.  "At least I've got something going for me more than a gun and a badge."  Unable to counter that, Duane muttered under his breath and finished tending to the gunshots as best he could.

"After we get Epic and his boys out of town, we have an appointment in the infirmary, okay?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Brooks."  I made a mock salute, which forced both of us to smile, at least for a moment.  Duane took his medical bag and moved on to the next patient, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

The thing was that, as far as I could see and from Tank's reports, the Crusaders were, well, doing what we would do if we weren't about to keel over.  Saving lives, helping ambulances get through the wreckage, shoring up crumbling infrastructure, the real meat and potatoes of heroism.  I never imagined they didn't do these things, but when you are faced with a foe in a perpetual conflict, the human mind tended to dehumanize their adversary.  In fact ...

In fact, I couldn't stop hearing Mackenzie's voice in my ear, that belief that Epic had already begun to move on Atlanta, that Archer had been sent as an unwitting spy.  Was this just one more step in that campaign?  The fact that I was paying even lip-service to one of Ian's beliefs was insane, but his logic was so perfect it was hard to not give it a moment's thought.

"Dr. Roman?"

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at the glittering face of Alma Gutierrez.  She was literally unchanged since I had first met her three months ago.  I wondered if that was even possible or if her inorganic form was locked like that for eternity.

"I didn't want to disturb you but -" she began again.

"No, not at all."  I waved off the impending apology.  "I should apologize to you.  I'm sorry Rachel brought you into this, especially after I had gotten you out of it."  Alma shook her head.

"Don't do that, please," she insisted in that weird, resonant voice.  "I wanted to help.  I needed to help, from the looks of things."  She pointed one of her pointed fingers at my face, my mask to be specific.  "You have to realize, anyway, that all of that talk was pretty hypocritical considering you're one of the most famous heroes in the country."

"I didn't wind up with much of a choice," I muttered.  "You did.  Hell, you still do."

"Yes, you're absolutely right, Doctor."  She crossed her arms across her stomach, making small sparks as crystal rubbed on crystal.  "My choice is to ask you and Extinguisher if I can join the team."

"Do you have any idea what you are asking?  This isn't as fun as whatever that voice in your head is telling you."  I gestured around at the dead bodies, the twisted wreckage, the moans of the injured.  "You'll give up your future for a lifetime of this."

"How do you think it feels to stand back and do nothing, eh?" Alma scowled at me as she continued, "I can do things.  Things no one else can do.  I've been doing like you asked, trying to just be normal, but I can't do that.  I can't pretend because I look like this.  There's no mask to take off.  All I get to do is feel bad when I hear about some Pushcrook getting away with something and saying to myself, 'You know, I could have done something about that.'."  She pointed an accusatory finger at me.  "If you think that's the best life for me, then you can go to hell."  The crystal woman turned on her heels towards Extinguisher when I called out.

"Alma.  Just ... wait a moment."  I rubbed my eyes with my good left hand.  It was enlightening to have the one good thing I thought I had accomplished get thrown back in my face.  "You're right.  You're totally right."  I shook my head.  "I did the same thing so many other people seem to be doing lately.  I assumed that you couldn't make your own decision and that I should make it for you, assuming your best interests would be the same as mine."

"I- well, thanks, Dr. Roman."  A smile came over her faceted face as she looked back at me..  "Does that mean I get your blessing?"  I let out a short laugh and nodded.

"Sure, you even get an extra A+ for saving the city today."  Alma smirked and turned back to Extinguisher once more.  I stared down at the ground.  Was that a loss or a victory?  I had trouble even keeping track at this point.

The next few hours passed with no conflict, no fighting, even a few bits of cooperation as several of our team got back on their feet.  As much as I hated to admit it, having someone with the nigh-infinite power that Epic had on hand for this kind of clean-up made a tremendous difference.  While there was still a considerable bit of work left to do, the amount the Crusaders had managed to do in that short space of time was admirable.

The pause in our collective efforts was called by Rachel.  While we had been busy licking our wounds and dealing with the aftermath, she had managed to get through to the city and state government, as well as Captain Braxton.  It was at Braxton's request that we all gathered, Foundation and Crusader alike, at the crumbling front steps of the Capitol building.

"I- well- I don't mean to hold up the fine work all your people are, well, doing for our fair city," Braxton said, "but the Mayor and the Governor both wanted me to personally, uh, extend their gratitude to both of your groups for, well, saving the city."  Epic seemed pleased by this, or maybe it was the intimidating effect he had on Joe.

"Though in the past, the Mayor has remained distant from my overtures to her, I am very pleased to see that she has now realized what an asset our kind can be to the city," Epic said, arms akimbo and chest puffed.  I groaned inwardly.