Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly (18 page)

The man with the straggly black hair looked distinctly out of place in the front room of the expensive North Beach villa. He was dressed in a camouflage jacket over prison overalls, and looked like he had spent more than one night sleeping in the open and had not seen a bath in a week. And he seemed to be talking to himself.

‘I generally like to see who I’m doing business with,’ Thermite said.

‘Get comfortable with disappointment,’ a voice said from somewhere in front of him. ‘My name is Ghostfire. That is all you need to know about me.’

‘Ghostfire. I like it. You broke me out. What do you want?’

There was a throaty laugh and a file lifted from a table and was tossed into Thermite’s lap. He opened it, taking out a picture.

‘I want you to do what you do best, burn things. Buildings, people, especially the one in that picture. She’s a hero, a new one. Draw her out and fry her. You’ll find information on her known powers in there.’

‘That’s it? Kill one scrawny little girl and my debt’s paid?’

‘That’s all. But she’s tough, don’t take her for granted.’

Thermite raised a free hand, cupping it, and a ball of shifting, writhing flame appeared between his fingers. ‘No one survives what I’ll do to her,’ he said, his eyes on the flames, reflecting their glow as he smiled.

23
^rd
October.

Penny turned north from the park, as she usually did when there was not much happening. She had noticed something of a decline in the muggings and purse snatches since she had started running that patrol. Her northerly wanderings were becoming more frequent and wider ranging. She found herself flying over Uptown more often, despite the fact that the Tonaldos were gunning for her.

So far there had been no signs of assassins
or
Thermite. As far as the mob killers were concerned, she was happy, if a little annoyed that they were taking their sweet time to try something. Thermite was a different matter. She was starting to wonder whether she had been wrong. Maybe he was not coming to New Millennium. Maybe he had gone elsewhere, where the hero contingent was weaker. Maybe…

The sound of sirens reached her ears as she flew over Avenue N and 5
^th
Street in Churchton. She looked right and saw it: three or four blocks away flames were rising into the air and smoke was billowing into the night sky. Banking hard, she poured on the power.

There were already three fire trucks outside the apartment building on 9
^th
Street. Firemen were rolling out hoses. One team was already playing a jet over the front of the building, but the fire had a good hold. Penny dropped down beside someone who looked like he was in charge just as a car with blue flashing lights came to a screeching halt nearby.

The man who stepped out of it was dressed in a stylised version of an old, heavy-duty fireman’s coat and a helmet, all in bright yellow. If that had not been enough to tell Penny who he was, he gave her a quick glance with eyes which seemed to burn with inner flames before looking toward the building. He was well known to most of the residents of New Millennium; an ex-fireman who had exhibited powers after being trapped in a burning building. They called him Fire Bug, but unlike Thermite, he specialised in putting fires out.

He strode forward with a grim look on his face before Penny had said anything to anyone.

‘Lieutenant, what’s the situation?’

The man Penny had figured was in charge seemed to be. He turned and responded immediately. ‘Andy, good to have you here. Looks like it started in the basement. Ground floor is gone. We’re pretty sure we have people trapped on the upper levels.’

Fire Bug scanned the structure and Penny followed suit. The bottom floor might have been in flames, but it looked like the rest of the building was trying to catch up really fast. If there were people in the apartments then they were in real danger.

‘It’s Cygnus, right?’

Penny looked down; Fire Bug was talking to her. ‘That’s right. I don’t know if I can help, but…’

‘I saw that trick you did with the car,’ he replied. ‘You’re strong and you can fly. I can push the flames back, but we’ve probably lost the stairs up.’

Penny gave a nod. ‘So I fly us in and you clear us a path.’

‘May be some doors to break down too. Don’t go anywhere until I say so, understood?’

‘You’re the boss. I’m still pretty new to this.’

There was a thump from behind them and they both turned to see a tall, buxom woman in a short, black dress and heels grinning at them. ‘Good evening,’ Svetilo said. ‘Long time no see, Fire Bug. Now you have two big, strong women to watch your back.’

‘Must be my lucky day,’ Fire Bug replied. ‘Okay, Cygnus carries me up. We’re going in through that window on the right side. Svetilo, take it out and then pull back until we’re sure it’s clear.’

The blonde Russian lifted back into the air, still grinning. ‘Your wish is my command.’ She raised her hand as soon as she was level with the floor and a bolt of white light shot from her palm, and the window exploded apart as though hit by a hammer. Flames immediately began to lick around the frame.

‘Damn,’ Fire Bug muttered, ‘it’s higher than they thought. Okay, Dom, take out the other windows on that floor and then tell them to get the hoses in there. Cygnus, take us in nice and easy. Give me a little time to deaden the flames. Then stick close to me. We’ll go room by room.’

Penny gave a nod and moved them toward the window. The flames slid back as they approached, as though something was telling them to die away, which was what was happening. Control of fire had to be a useful talent for a fireman. She let Fire Bug down onto the window ledge and then followed him in. There was smouldering furniture in the room, and the carpet had definitely seen better days, but there were no people.

‘Floor’s sound,’ Fire Bug commented. ‘I don’t see how the fire got up here…’

Penny pointed down the short corridor which led from the lounge they were in to the door. Except that the door was gone, and the frame and the carpet in the hallway were furiously alight.

‘I’m thinking someone blew the door in and used some sort of accelerant on the hall carpet,’ she said.

His burning eyes regarded her, narrowing. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’

‘Know? No, I don’t. But Thermite escaped from the Fortress recently…’

‘I saw that on UltraNet. I tend to take note of active arsonists.’

‘I think he’s in the city, and this is just his style.’

‘Shit! He’s just what we need.’ His gaze flicked to the window as Svetilo swept in, landing lightly on the carpet beside Penny. ‘All right, let’s get moving.’ He reached into his coat and pulled out a pair of smoke masks. ‘You may want these. I can kill the fire, but the smoke is another matter.’

Penny took one of the masks and started to put it on. ‘What about you?’

‘My lungs filter it out, another adaptation.’ Turning, he started down the corridor to the hall, the flames dying away as he went.

~~~

The van had signs on the side stating that it belonged to ‘Bugstomp Exterminators Inc.’ which Twilight really doubted given that it was almost ten-thirty and it was still parked up outside a jewellery shop in Fairhaven. She had been watching the van from the rooftop opposite for fifteen minutes and had seen it shift a couple of times; there were people inside. What she had not figured out yet was what they were up to.

Apparently someone else had noticed the truck, however. A squad car rolled down the street, sliding to a stop ten yards behind the rear door. Twilight frowned as the two officers climbed out, one of them pulling a shotgun out after him. Either the van was something entirely innocent, or this was likely to turn ugly. Crouching down, she concentrated for a second, vanishing from her perch, and reappearing on the road just in front of the van.

One of the two policemen banged on the rear door of the van with his baton. ‘NMCPD, anyone in there?’ he called out. There was silence for a reply. He tried again. ‘Little late to be killing pests, isn’t it?’

Twilight slipped silently down the pavement side of the van. She could hear something moving in there, and she guessed that the cops could too. They did not like being ignored.

‘We know there’s someone in there. Open up or we bust in.’

The doors flew open and three men burst out, each armed with an assault rifle. The policeman with the shotgun had more presence of mind than his colleague; he fired immediately and one of the mobsters was slammed back against the rear of the van. Two rifles opened up on automatic and there was a scream…

And Twilight was in motion. When it was just her, or even her and Cygnus, she was prepared to risk going into action with her batons. This was different; there were normals in danger, even if they were cops. Her sword lashed out, carving into a gunman’s bicep, all the way to the bone. His rifle dropped as she wheeled past him and smashed the hilt of her sword into his jaw.

One of the cops was down. She could not see blood. If he was wearing a jacket and they had gone for centre mass then maybe he would live, but he was going to be bruised to fuck. The one with the shotgun had made it to the cover of their vehicle, but the second gunman was aiming…

Twilight snapped a kick at the man’s thigh and he screamed. There was a reason they were called
stiletto
heels. Her sword flashed out, slashing his jacket and scraping over a mesh layer beneath it. The goons were wearing bulletproof jackets as well, which meant the third gunman she had assumed was down might not be. Her eyes flicked toward the back of the van to check as she kicked at her second target’s face. She took in the rifleman, still down, and a fourth man moving forward. She saw the broad, maniacal grin, the hugely muscled body, and the M60 machine gun he was swinging around to aim at her.

‘Get down!’ she screamed, hoping the cop would listen. Then she dropped and rolled under the van as heavy calibre bullets began to flow out of the rear of the vehicle like water. The police cruiser’s siren gave a valiant burp before dying plaintively and the big man dropped out of the back of the truck, turning to look under it. There was no sign of Twilight there, so he turned again and laid down more lead in the direction of the cowering cop.

Taking two steps forward, the big machine gun still firing, he hosed over the car a couple of times, and then he seemed to notice the first officer, still lying on the sidewalk where he had fallen. ‘You die, pig,’ he growled as he lined up the muzzle of the gun.

Twilight leapt from the roof of the van, diving through the air with her sword in her hand. At the last instant, she swept the blade in an arc, landed on the paving stones beside the fallen cop, and turned, aiming the point of her blade at the gunman’s face. His grin stayed in place, even as his body began to topple and his head peeled off at the neck.

~~~

They found three children trapped in a bedroom on the fourth floor. They were the first people they had located, and they were too scared to be relieved at the sight of the three heroes who smashed through the door.

‘It’s okay,’ Penny said, crouching by the bed all three were cowering on. ‘We’ll get you out. Where’s your Mom?’

‘Working,’ the eldest, a girl, replied. ‘She’s working. I’m supposed to be in charge, but I didn’t know what to do and…’

‘Well, we’re here now.’

‘You two get them out,’ Fire Bug said. ‘Svetilo, blow the window. I’ll make sure you’ve got space to come back in. There might be more.’

‘Benny and his grandma are next door,’ the girl said, pointing at a wall. ‘His grandma’s in a wheelchair…’

‘Okay, get them out and come back in through there, I’ll go around the inside.’

There was the sound of shattering glass, and then Svetilo scooped the middle child, a boy, up from the bed. ‘Come little ones. We’re going flying. Won’t that be fun?’ She glanced at Penny. ‘You can manage the girls?’

‘Easily,’ Penny replied, holding out her arms. She suddenly had a three-year-old clinging to her neck and she giggled. The elder girl was a little more sedate about it, but soon they were flying out through the broken window, over the building, and down to the medics waiting below.

It took a little help from Svetilo to get the youngest child from around Penny’s neck, and then they were climbing back into the sky.

‘Do I call you Dom or Svetilo?’ Penny asked as they crossed the roof.

‘You noticed Andy uses both?’ the Russian replied. ‘It’s courteous to use the codename in front of civilians, unless you know the Ultra does not mind. Andy does not. He is not that fond of his codename.’ She dropped into the alley behind the building and aimed a blast of light at the window they were going in through. Then she gave Penny a grin. ‘
You
can call me Dom any time you like.’

Penny recalled what June had said about the Russian woman preferring blondes. Was Svetilo actually hitting on her in the middle of a fire? Shaking her head, she swept down into the lounge of yet another low-rent apartment, pushing the thought aside, especially since she was a little alarmed to discover that she did not really mind…

Fire Bug was kneeling beside a frail-looking woman in a wheelchair. There was a boy of about fourteen standing beside them trying his hardest not to look scared, and managing it a lot better as two attractive women flew in to land beside them.

The fireman looked up at them. ‘Margaret here has been very helpful,’ he said. ‘She says there’s an old couple in the top corner apartment, at the back. They may be stuck. I did a quick sweep of this floor from the hall and I couldn’t see anyone else…’

‘You can see through walls?’ Penny asked.

‘I can see through walls,’ he replied. ‘As long as they aren’t too thick, and the ones here are cardboard. You two get Margaret and Sam out, then head up to the roof. You can go in through the roof access, and I’ll make sure it’s clear after I’ve checked the floor.’ His lips quirked. ‘Okay, Sam, which of the pretty ladies would you like to carry you out?’

Sam stared wide-eyed at the two women, and then pointed to Svetilo. She grinned broadly at him, lifted him into her arms, and started for the window.