Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera (37 page)

“He doesn’t have Specter contained.”

“I believe you. And he may have valuable information hiding in his head. But the staff is prepared for any eventuality.”

Translation: We’re taking no chances. “How about Caleb?”

“He knows his father is sick and that he’s getting better. I believe he’s in the waiting room, coloring in a picture book.”

Waking soon meant I could talk to Psystorm and get a better idea of what had gone on inside of the heads of Milton and Spence during their struggles. I couldn’t begin to imagine how telepaths used their powers, or how their inner sight worked. If Lady Luck decided to smile on me, she would let Psystorm remember something. Anything that hinted at who was controlling the Specter powers.

Gage shifted, looking for a comfortable way to stand facing both of us. He seemed to give up the fantasy and aimed his body at me while twisting his head every few moments to acknowledge McNally. His indecision amused me.

“So what do your bosses think of today’s events?” Gage asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t reported it yet.”

His lips parted in surprise. “Really?”

“You aren’t the only one to call a few loyalties into question. Until we figure out who this doppelganger is, I’m keeping what you tell me between us. If my boss doesn’t like it, that’s not my problem. My loyalty is to you both and to your teammates. It always has been.”

“Good luck putting that across on Grayson.”

She shrugged. “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may have a hand in your funding, but I don’t answer to Grayson, and neither should you. We’ve done nothing except bring hardship on you, and you’re intelligent enough to do this alone.”

“You have no idea how much I love hearing you say that,”
I said, and I meant it. More and more I felt the stranglehold of authority closing its grip around my throat. We were not meant to operate like this—run by committee and second-guessed by people with no powers experience. Ranger or Bane, it no longer mattered. Few could understand us; fewer tried. It was easier to compartmentalize us and order us around.

No longer, not if I had anything to say about it.

Right after we neutralized the doppelganger.

“Agent McNally, why did our parents lie to us?”

“About what, Trance?”

“About what really started the War?”

She was silent for a long time. “Because they were the good guys. Or they were supposed to be.”

The answer was so simple, and it made perfect sense. “So Psystorm is in a coma, Ethan is MIA, and Marco can’t morph. Dahlia is slowly getting the hang of things. I am once again in a hospital bed, and somehow Renee has still managed to be the only person not wounded.”

“Physically, at any rate,” Gage said.

A reply died on my lips. He was right, and I felt like an ass for forgetting. It was barely thirty-six hours since William had died, soon to be one week exactly since we regained our powers and the world spun on its head. Something told me our Specter impersonator never intended his hunt-and-slaughter to last this long. He or she could get desperate. Slip up. It was our only real chance at catching him.

I reached for Gage and squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m just ranting a little and waiting for my vision to inevitably
turn purple.” The threat of going nova again was the absolute last complication I needed on my plate.

“Any excuse for a filter cleaning.” The corners of his eyes crinkled in an adorably boyish way that made me wish McNally was elsewhere. I could get lost in his eyes and in the way they looked right through me. Saw every part of me.

Wait.

“Eyes.” I craned my neck to see past Gage and look at McNally. “Do we have a file on Marcus Spence?”

“A slim one, why?” she said.

“I was just thinking something. We know Specter’s eyes glow yellow when he’s using his powers on others.”

“You’re correct, Trance, but what—?”

“Do his eyes glow when he’s not using his power?” Her expression slackened; it hadn’t occurred to her either. “Would we even know it if we passed Specter Two on the street?” Or had been working close to them all this time?

“I don’t honestly know. I never engaged Specter personally, and no one I’ve spoken to has mentioned it.”

“Psystorm would know,” Gage said. “He knew Specter for months, if not years, before the end of the War. Specter had to power down once in a while. Of course, I’d prefer if his eyes glowed all the time. It makes finding him a little bit easier.”

“Nothing about this has been easy,” I said. “Why should this be any different?”

“Hey, guys!” Dahlia’s panting, overeager voice boomed though the quiet room, almost as startling as McNally’s earlier entrance. She skidded to a stop just inside, half-hidden behind Gage. He scooted to the side, and I blinked.

She had certainly chosen a uniform. Shimmering yellow fabric clung to her short, thin legs, ending with stirrups that hooked under the two-inch heels of her black boots. The top of the unitard looked like a shelf-lift corset, outlined with black and orange piping. She wore a short, elbow-length black jacket over it, giving her shoulders some modesty. Her long blond hair had taken on an orange hue—either a color job, or her powers were changing her body, kind of like Gage’s hair had changed from blond-brown to sandy-salted. Even McNally seemed stunned by the wardrobe choice.

“What is it?” Gage asked.

“One sec.” She waved at someone in the hallway. Seconds later, Marco appeared by her side.

He was also out of breath, red-cheeked, intent on something. The haze of self-pity surrounding him since Sunday had finally lifted—a very good sign. “You look terrible, Catalepsia.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said. “What’s going on, you two?”

They shared a look and a smile, and I found myself daring to hope for good news. It had to be good news. They kept nodding back and forth, each prodding the other to relay their information. Cute, if annoying. I cleared my throat. It got their attention.

“I believe I know where to find Ethan,” Marco said.

Next to “I know where to find Specter Two,” those were the best words I could have heard.

N
o amount of personal pain or pleading from Dr. Seward could keep me from accompanying Marco and Gage on their quest for Ethan. Renee and Dahlia agreed to stay behind and hold down the fort, and after a few heated words with a sleep-deprived Seward about my condition, we set out in another tinted-windowed vehicle. Gage drove; Marco rode shotgun to give directions. I sat in the back, biting the inside of my mouth to suppress yelps of pain each time we hit a bump or pothole.

After the end of the War, Ethan Swift had been fostered to a family in Kingman, Arizona. I was first to admit that the MHC could have vetted our foster families a little better before handing over twelve traumatized teenagers. Ethan’s placement, though, astonished me. Marco and Dahlia found the records on the HQ’s computer system and it read like a bad television movie.

Roger and Camille Bacon, according to all neighborly witness reports, seemed like the perfect couple. He worked an IT job and brought home a good living. She stayed home
to raise their two children and had been a foster mom for seven years before Ethan came to live there. The children they fostered always complained when they had to leave. Local Family Services praised the couple up and down for straightening out a dozen children.

The pretty façade didn’t hint at the volatile underbelly. I couldn’t judge the Bacons by a file, so I didn’t know if they were ill prepared to handle Ethan’s particular condition, or if the other children simply adjusted and never told about the Bacons’ methods of “straightening them out.” Police reports said Ethan first ran away six months after arriving at the Bacon household. He was found two days later, living beneath an overpass, and sent back. He ran away again the following year. He made a complaint—later lost from his file—about his treatment by the Bacons. An investigation turned up nothing and the matter was dropped.

He asked to be given to someone else. The Bacons fought to keep him. For four years he lived under their roof, until he turned eighteen. He filed criminal charges of negligence and abuse, which were later dropped by the DA for lack of evidence. No medical reports, no broken bones, no bruises, no corroborating complaints. Just two upstanding adults who tried their best to raise a troubled boy with authority issues.

The file ended there. Marco had dug a little deeper and—with Dr. Seward’s help—discovered the names of two other children fostered with him during that time. One of them, a boy named Charles Abbott, lived in New Hampshire and worked for a car dealership. The second, a girl named Alicia Monroe, had a California driver’s license and a current
address in Burbank. Quick phone calls turned up two more tidbits—she managed a restaurant called Totino’s, and she had left work early yesterday and taken sick time for the rest of the week.

Gage exited the 405. We circled around and passed an apartment complex on the right, down past an abandoned movie studio lot, and further into Burbank. As one of the few remaining “nice” neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the cleanliness was striking. Paved streets, living palms, painted buildings. The battle scars worn by the rest of the city had been expertly covered up.

Renee beeped my Vox while we were still a few blocks away. “Go ahead.”

she said.

My mind spun with the influx of data. I tried to pick out the pertinent information and store the rest. She sounded like a decent girl, the kind of person you could count on when in trouble, and the only person from Ethan’s past currently on the West Coast. He may have gone to her for help. It was our best hope, and our one shot at finding him.

Gage located the apartment building easily enough,
tucked away on a quiet side street near old downtown Burbank. Five stories, stucco roof and adobe walls, it screamed of a style no longer popular, yet still timeless. Outdoor staircases ascended to the upper floors, and long walkways connected the separate bungalows, probably six or eight to each level.

We parked in a private lot across the street. Didn’t get out right away. Gage closed his eyes and concentrated. I scooted forward between the front seats, watching his face as he listened to the apartment life. His eyes scrunched. The corners of his mouth drooped. Minutes passed.

“I think I found the apartment,” he said, eyes flying open. “No voices, but I heard two distinct heartbeats and a television program.”

“If they’re home, then they are likely distracted by the television,” Marco said. “They should not see us sneaking up.”

“Let’s hope,” I said.

We exited the van and crossed the street. A teenage girl walking a dog abruptly changed sides when she saw us. Otherwise, we went undisturbed. Everything felt different in this part of town. Quieter, more relaxed. Far away from the hustle and boom of the ravaged, more industrial parts of the city.

Ethan knew how to pick a hideout.

Alicia lived on the third floor, number 5, nestled in a corner that would have made me jumpy, wondering who was lurking in the shadows by my front door. Two windows were shuttered on the inside. A straw welcome mat lay on the stoop, decorated with daisies and faded grass. Homey and girlish, rolled into one.

Gage turned one ear toward the door, listening. “Still
watching television, I think,” he said softly. “The heartbeats are at rest, close together. About twenty feet from the front door, in another room. The bedroom, maybe.”

Made sense for someone still recovering from surgery to be in bed. This Alicia must be a special person to take off work at the drop of a hat for someone she’d known as a child, unless they’d maintained contact over the years, which was entirely possible. It only reminded me of how little I still knew about Ethan.

“Should we knock?” Marco asked.

“Well, I hadn’t intended to break the door down,” I said.

Marco quirked an eyebrow. He was on the verge of retorting when my Vox beeped. I grabbed it.

“That’s great, Renee, but we’re kind of busy here.”

“Shit.” Helpful and also terrifying on some basic level.

Static interfered with the rest of her statement. I tapped the side of the Vox. “Flex? Can you hear me? Flex?”

Marco pulled out his Vox and tried. “Flex, it is Onyx, come in. Flex, Onyx. Hello?” Same static. “Strange.”

More than strange. Downright unsettling. Psystorm saw a face, someone he knew I would recognize. Was it the same face the female Warden had seen before she died? We had to keep this visit short.

“Someone’s moving in the front room,” Gage said. “A woman just asked if he wanted anything to drink.” His entire face lit up when he smiled. “Ethan just said he wanted some apple juice. He’s here.”

I fisted my good hand to stop from throwing my arms around Gage and settled for a face-aching grin. Relief settled over me, calming some of my queasiness. Only a small niggle of worry remained, slanted toward the loss of Vox communication with HQ.