25.
“Scott, cover!” I shouted as Scott sprang into action. He was already drawing moisture out of the air and pushing it in front of him, pulling whatever water vapor hadn’t frozen in the below-freezing temps and shaping it into a shield in front of him. I took position behind him, figuring if this guy was going to start tossing flame bursts, I wanted to have a little something between me and him while I started to work my magic with the wind.
“Taneshia, Jamal!” I shouted and could see them already moving. Blue electricity sparked down their hands as they lanced bolts toward the villain hovering over us.
A bitter wind ran over me, one that I wasn’t controlling, and something in the air seemed to change.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered. But it was too late to do anything about it.
Mr. Flaming Super Evil was grinning, a thin shield of water distorting the air in front of him. Somehow, he had Poseidon powers, too, and had done a much lesser version of what Scott had. It was thinner, covering him in a semi-spherical arc in front, but a thread extended from it across the space between us, into Scott’s forming shield.
Taneshia and Jamal’s lightning bolts crackled along the surface of his impromptu shield as Mr. Flaming Super Evil darted back. The electricity sparked as it made contact with the water and then ran through it, lightning crackling—
And ran down the thread connecting his shield with Scott’s—
When it reached its end, the lightning jumped to the nearest target, trying to ground itself.
And found Scott’s extended hand, only inches from the shield.
Scott jerked as I leapt back, unable to do anything but keep from joining him in a shocking hell. Scott jerked and spasmed, lightning running through his body like Darth Vader at the end of Jedi.
He stayed standing for a moment after the electricity had passed, and then the water shield he’d been forming splashed onto the tarmac, freezing as it landed. Scott toppled after it, smoking under his clothing, limp as though someone had just ripped his spine out.
“That is one,” Mr. Flaming Super Evil said in an ominous Euro accent of the sort that villains in 80’s movies used religiously.
“Full court press!” I shouted and blasted at him with all the wind I could summon. He formed a shield of his own, a smaller, less powerful screen of wind, and my attack rolled over him and to the side, toward the Gulfstream jet.
I looked over and saw Greg Vansen next to the plane. He started to shrink, but the diverted wind caught him as he disappeared. He struck the plane a moment later, denting it and sending it skidding a foot, like the wind had blown it. The only reason I knew he’d hit it was because there was a bullet-sized dent in the side where he’d struck it, and a moment later he returned to his normal size and collapsed on the tarmac, limp as Scott.
“I’m gonna tear you a new super hole, Euro-trash!” Guy Friday screamed, leaping over me, swole like a … I dunno. ‘Swole’ is not a word that comes easily to me, because I know it’s new, and it just—anyway, he leapt over me like an idiot, clearly planning to attack our enemy midair.
“No!” I shouted.
But it was too late. Friday didn’t even get close to target; Mr. Flames dropped a couple feet, and the wind kicked up just behind his shield, catching Friday mid-air and sending him sideways.
Friday slammed into the Gulfstream, completely wrecking the wing and spilling jet fuel everywhere on the tarmac. I looked over to see Olivia and Tracy getting into position near the plane, along with Jamal. They were planning something and I might have been eager to see what it was if not for …
Our enemy grinned, and launched a tiny little spark of flame.
I shouted again, in anger, deaf because of the winds roaring furiously around me as I assaulted him.
But it was pointless. Too late.
The flame hit the spilled jet fuel, and it exploded with a thundering fury that blew me sideways. I went end over end like some angry Hercules had hurled me, landing in a melted puddle of slush that ran down my shirt, down my back, frigid water awakening me more effectively than any alarm clock I’d ever owned.
I rose, trying to look at the damage. The plane was on fire, burning furiously.
And my team …
My team was down.
The only good news seemed to be that the explosion’s force had flung my team away from the burning plane. I did a quick count over the ringing in my ears—Friday, Taneshia, Jamal, Scott, Greg, Tracy, Olivia … all down.
Where was—
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Augustus said, staggering up to me, ears slick with blood. His shoulders were covered, too; the force of the explosion had destroyed his ear drum on the side closest to the plane. He was also bleeding from some wounds on his side and arm, and a few incidental scrapes on his forehead. He looked like he’d been in a whole entire action movie, one like Die Hard where the hero ends up half dead by the end, not like he’d been in a ten-second confrontation with some supervillain on the tarmac of MSP airport.
“We are getting our asses kicked,” I said, trying to speak over the ringing in my ears. It was angry, persistent, the sound of bells, klaxons, something. “This guy has way too many powers.”
“You think he’s like Rose?” Augustus held a hand up to his ear, staggering a couple steps. I guessed his inner ear had been affected by the big boom that had knocked our asses over.
“Don’t know,” I said, trying to find Mr. Super Evil. My head was swimming, like someone had gonged it with a little extra fervor.
Oh.
There he was.
Hovering over us.
“Shit,” I said as Augustus got wiped out by a blast of water. His head cracked against the tarmac and he slid, coming to rest in a pile of snow, blood seeping off of him and turning the muddy slush red.
“Strength,” our villain said as I roared toward him, launching off the ground with the wind at my back. He dodged out of the way swiftly, his flight powers engaging as I used my slower, more unwieldy winds to chase after him.
He was rising into the air now, and I hurled wind after him, furious, unstoppable winds. He dodged out of the way of every gust, rising further and further.
Which fit perfectly into my plan.
I chased him up, up into the sky. His laugh found its way back to me on the wind, and he soared higher and higher, willing me to chase him.
I did.
I wouldn’t let him get away now.
Not until I stopped his ass.
The air grew colder the further I rose, chasing him like a bull after a red scarf. His laughter was a taunt, a goad that just burned me further, my blood heating up like I’d opened a vein over the burning plane.
“This—this is the way,” he called back to me, disappearing behind a cloud bank.
“Hiding isn’t going to do you any good,” I shouted and blew his cloud away. It disappeared in a puff like it had never even been there, and for good measure I cleared the skies around us, giving us a cold battlefield of empty air in which to settle this.
The sun shone down and Mr. Super Evil stopped, looking back at me. The bastard was still smiling, that black and hollow smile beneath his flame shield. “You are strong,” he finally said, seeming super pleased about that.
“You’re not going to be nearly so happy about it once I cram enough air pressure up your nose to explode your lungs,” I said, readying myself to do exactly that.
“I will be happy regardless,” he said, pausing in place.
And somehow … in spite of the conditions, in spite of the war we’d just been through on the ground …
I knew he was telling the truth.
This … freak … was happy just to be here. Fighting me.
“What the hell are you?” I whispered, preparing my last attack. I reached down, lifting a fragment of the Gulfstream’s burning wing and raising it into the air even as I assailed him with unceasing winds, buffeting him around, trying to trap him in place for my coup de grâce. It wasn’t going to be pretty, slamming tons of metal into him over and over in a controlled windstorm. I figured it’d be like an improvised blender, and I expected him to come out the other side like he’d been through a real one.
And I was fine with that. Grinding up my opponent like chum, only in this case, I was the shark.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, shouting in the maelstrom of wind I had created. The plane’s burning wing was rising to us now, zipping toward its rendezvous point with his back as I trapped him in place. His command of wind was like mine before I’d been enhanced by Harmon’s serum. No match for me now.
He met my gaze across the distance, flames blowing in the wind. “Do you not feel it?” he asked, electric look in his eyes, as though Jamal and Taneshia’s blast had run through him.
“Feel what?” I asked. Just a few more seconds. Let him connect emotionally with me until my sneak attack connected with him and made a smear of him.
“The call,” he said, staring right at me, almost through me, his eyes were so alive. “Do you not feel it? The need to …?” He let off there, waiting.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I threw that question into the tornado of furious wind between us. “Do I feel what?”
“It,” he said, as though that explained it all. He stared into my eyes, and—
A flash of a raven in my sight caused me to lose concentration—just for a moment, as my senses were scrambled. I’d been hit by this before, this feeling. Sienna had possessed it until Scotland, the power of an Odin-type, and she called it the Warmind.
She’d hit me with it dozens of times, maybe hundreds, but this time …
Something about it was … different. Stronger.
It caught me like a visceral slap to the face, a slap to the consciousness, and my muscles locked as the raven cawed like a scream, louder than my mind could process. It was a hideous noise, one that seeped into my arms and legs and paralyzed them, locking me into place in the middle of my tornado.
A thousand unnamed fears crashed in on me in that raven’s caw, like needles of death stabbing into me. I felt paralysis, a heart attack, screaming panic infusing my every muscle group as I shuddered in the air.
The wind stopped around me, and I was becalmed, my footing disappearing like melting ice beneath my feet.
I dropped, the ground roaring up to greet me, clear now that all the clouds were blown away. I saw it rushing up, the tarmac screaming toward me, my heart thundering faster than it had ever run before. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and it was coming so fast—
Something stopped me a second before impact, a harsh grab at my ankle that kept me from splattering on the concrete below. The whiplash sent all the blood to my head, though, and all I was left with was fear as I snapped into the darkness.