Teia backed out of the way, and Sam stepped forward. In the background, Paulson shouted at his people to back up and take cover.
“Anna, here,” her father said, an anxious edge to his voice as he gestured her behind a nearby patrol car.
Sam brought both hands together in a joined fist and aimed. A doubled force of energy, bronzed rays of light, blasted away from him and hit the doors, which shattered. Shards of frozen steel radiated out in a cloud of water vapor, leaving behind a jagged space where the doors used to be. The guards on the inside probably got the worst of it. Peeled, warped edges of steel folded inward, pointing toward a path of ripped floor and steaming debris.
Arthur strode toward the mess.
“Dad!” Anna waited for the gunfire that would mow him down when the guards stormed through the breach in the wall.
His hand was on his head, and he was glaring. This wasn’t Anna’s father anymore—this was the Dr. Mentis she’d read about in books. Paulson shouted again at his people to stand back.
A silent minute ticked over. And another. Dr. Mentis turned around. “Captain, I believe the ground floor is clear.”
The police captain rolled his eyes before waving a SWAT unit forward. The black-garbed and helmeted group of officers held their guns ready as they streamed forward in a military formation, past a nonchalant Dr. Mentis. They peered carefully through the hole before trickling into the building, leading with their guns.
“What did you do?” Anna asked him.
“I cleared the ground floor,” he said simply.
The radio in Paulson’s hand crackled on. “Sir,” a voice scratched, “we’ve got something like thirty bodies here. Mercenary unit, I’m guessing. Lots of body armor, automatic weapons.”
“Bodies,” Paulson said, glaring at Mentis. “Are they dead?”
A brief pause, then, “No … it looks like they’re asleep.”
“The usual trick,” Arthur said, putting his hands in the pockets of his trench coat, shrugging.
Anna pressed the headset to her face. “Teddy? Ghost? Can you hear me?” No answer. “Teddy, where are you?”
“I can’t really make exceptions when I’m trying to drop a whole room like that,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
“We have to find him,” Anna said.
Ms. Baker stepped forward, staring thoughtfully at the hole her daughter had helped make. A mist hung in the air, vaporized particles still settling out. “Damn,” she murmured.
Teia flexed her hands nervously, looking like she wanted to say something. Yearning for approval. Her mother just smiled.
Arthur said, “Analise, if I could suggest that you wait someplace safe—”
“I’m keeping an eye on my kids. I’m not even a telepath and I know what you’re thinking—my powers are gone, I’m all washed up. Well, if they’re blocking your powers, we’re in the same boat, right? Handicapped and useless? I’m staying.”
Teia, Lew, and Sam—the Trinity—were already running through the breached blast doors, ignoring Paulson’s orders for them to stand down. Arthur followed at a more leisurely place, with Analise not far behind, a resigned set to her shoulders and crossed arms.
Anna hesitated a moment, overwhelmed. The hole in the blast door suddenly gaped like a mouth, and the darkness inside loomed. Lights glowed within, but they seemed ominous. She felt small next to the towering skyscraper and the ignorance of what lay within. The old stories of her grandparents and Commerce City’s other heroes had seemed so … epic. This—believing her mother was inside but not knowing for sure, hoping she was still alive and unhurt—it didn’t feel epic, it felt desperate. Necessary. Like getting a cavity filled. You hunkered down and did it because you had to, and no one could do it for you.
She reminded herself: She wasn’t alone in this—in fact, the whole city seemed to be here to help, because anyone who could hurt Celia could hurt everybody. They had to win. Anna repeated to herself: “I am superhuman. I am a West and a Mentis, and this is what I was always meant to do.”
She ran to catch up to the others.
TWENTY-ONE
THEIR plan to snatch the girls had obviously gone horribly, spectacularly—and, Celia hoped, hilariously—wrong. She wished she could have seen it, especially if it involved Sam Stowe’s laser blasts. Or maybe an invisible Teddy Donaldson pantsing them both. The possibilities were endless and gorgeous. At any rate, the two hench-fiends had been thwarted and were returning home. The girls were safe.
“How can they be on to us already?” said the mentalist in response to Majors’s bad news. “There’s no way she could have warned the telepath—we were supposed to have hours of lead time before anyone found out.”
“The telepath must be stronger than we thought,” Majors said thoughtfully. “Even with you blocking, he must have known as soon as we took her.” The man looked sidelong at her, reassessing.
No, Celia thought. Anna was the one who realized what had happened immediately. The mental block must have erased Celia from her daughter’s awareness, and she raised the alarm. Which meant things around here were going to get noisy in short order. She directed a placid smile at Majors.
“Don’t think this means you’ll be rescued anytime soon,” he shot back at her.
“You believe I’m this powerful archvillain—don’t you think I had a plan in place for just this event? My people are coming, Majors.”
“Your people are deluded.”
She turned to Mindwall, who kept throwing worried glances toward the windows. “And what are yours?” she said.
“This building is a fortress. Unless they can fly—and I know they can’t—they’ll never get here. I hope you enjoy your stay at Elroy Asylum.”
“Hmm, I’ve been wanting to take a vacation. But I was hoping for a beach.”
He was just like every other two-bit hack who’d ever kidnapped her in the old days. Expecting her to be fearful and cowering in the presence of his awesome might, he was instead discomfited by her amusement, by her lack of concern. Instead of ignoring her as he should, he struggled to impress her with his strength. The more he struggled, the more foolish he appeared. They never pinged to this.
His expression turned cruel. “Every elevator shaft is trapped. All the staircases have countermeasures. The exterior of the building has antiaircraft weapons that will target anything larger than a human body. No one reaches this space without my permission. But if you give up now, if you agree to sign over West Corp, I can end it all. This doesn’t have to be a battle.”
—Arthur, I wish you could hear me, so I could warn you.—
“You don’t know a damn thing about Commerce City, do you?”
An explosion sounded, a rumble from street level resembling the force of heavy-duty construction. Majors stalked to the window and looked down. The mentalist fidgeted, acting like he wanted to flee. Celia imagined saying “boo” might set him off.
“Should I go check it out?” said the thug, Majors’s remaining guard.
“No,” Majors commanded, returning from the window. “Sonic and Shark should be back any second. They can scout it out. Steel, you watch her.” The thug leered at her.
“Steel? Is that supposed to be the noun or the verb?”
His smile vanished.
“Ignore her,” Majors commanded. “She’s baiting you.”