Hero (Gone 9)

Dekka ran flat out up a set of steel steps and found herself in a bewildering maze of pillars wrapped in posters, stainless-steel turnstiles, and signs that told her nothing useful. She’d already become disoriented.

“Dammit!”

Armo caught up to her and stopped short, equally confused, but Simone had been here many times before and led them through ratcheting turnstiles, up another set of stairs, and suddenly they were in a capacious marble-walled hallway. Directly ahead was a posh women’s clothing store that looked as if it had been looted. To Dekka’s left: natural light. Outside! Outside where she could just keep going. And never stop. Find herself some place far away, a beach in Mexico, a jungle, a swamp, anywhere. Anywhere but here.

She turned her back on the light and followed Simone, who was aloft, gliding ahead just a few feet off the ground. They raced along the ramp, footsteps echoing, past shops with broken windows and scattered goods. Past an optometrist with an unbroken window tagged with a big orange “V” and beside it a cartoon drawing of a hornet with a big stinger and a malicious expression.

“Almost there!” Simone cried. “Left here!”

Dekka and Armo scrabbled to keep their footing on the slick floor, with claws not made for marble. Ahead there was an arch through which Dekka could see the main concourse. And between her and that concourse, two men, one in a military uniform, the other in an expensive business suit, both with submachine guns propped on their hips and expressions of smug superiority on their faces.

Dekka ran straight at them, hands raised. The barrels of the machine pistols rose. And suddenly both men shrieked and fell to their knees and writhed in pain.

Malik.

Thank God!

They burst into the vastness of the main concourse and Dekka spotted Vector—not difficult, he was the only insect cloud, after all—and veered right toward him. She raced past Cruz, headed straight up the steps in great, bounding strides, and without a word, let loose a howl and fired.

Shade saw the sudden incapacitation of every unmorphed human in the concourse below. They dropped and bellowed and writhed, and she could not help but see the similarity to what Vector had done to the poor man or woman roped atop the information kiosk.

But Malik’s victims survive.

Mostly.

Shade kicked off from the balustrade and fell at normal gravity speed, almost like slow-motion to her morphed senses. As she fell, knees bent to take the impact, she squeezed the trigger on her flamethrower and watched a jet of liquid fire stab at the monstrous swarm. Where the napalm reached, the bugs stopped, crisped, and fell like propeller seeds from a maple tree.

They burn! Hah! They burn!

Shade landed hard and staggered under the unusual weight, and barreled ahead trying to keep her feet as she ran beneath Oz the Great and Murderous. She tripped and fell and twisted onto one side so that she could, with some difficulty, fire straight up into Vector. Hot, dead insects rained down on her like ash from a volcano.

Every one of Markovic’s human tools was out of commission. Dekka had swung the nozzle of her own flamethrower forward and was firing it with one hand while shredding with the other. Armo was beside her. Three flamethrowers now poured death into Markovic.

It was a massacre. The air stank of gasoline and incinerated insects. Three long light sabers of flame swept back and forth like they were hosing down a car, back and forth, the fiery streams intersecting and sweeping on, and many, many of Markovic’s creatures died.

Dekka quickly took stock of her battlefield. Everywhere rose the screams of those Malik had hit. And he was keeping it up, not letting them even think about recovering. Cruz had sensibly backed away and now cringed beside a pillar, still in her mayoral guise.

Armo had reached the top step and aimed his flame straight at the center of the faux face, playing his flame left and right. The air was choking with a smell like burned hair as bugs died in the thousands.

But then Dekka saw Armo stagger. His flamethrower spray veered wildly, barely missing Dekka herself. He skidded down the marble steps on his back, blistering the air above him, but not hitting the small, iridescent, scaly-fleshed creature that had flown into him and jabbed two Tasers into the sides of his head.

Dekka, still flaming and shredding, took in the situation. Armo sprawled down the marble steps, feet higher than head, with the fish-looking creature beating at his face with a crowbar, spraying red blood over white fur. Armo was down, but he was not in real danger. Yet.

“Simone!” Dekka yelled. “On Armo!”

“On it!” came the reassuring shout.

Shade was up and moving, not at her full speed but still at a velocity a cheetah would envy, running in a blurring circle, directing her flame at the insect mass in the middle.

Simone

flew to Armo’s defense, body-slamming the hovering fish creature, who swung the crowbar at Simone but missed. Simone got a grip on the creature and hauled her away, her tiny wings buzzing furiously, and now those two, one armed with a crowbar and one not, were carrying on a bizarre midair wrestling match, punching and grabbing and grunting.

Armo got up, face and neck red with blood, and aimed his flamethrower again, but it would not light. The pilot had gone out, and bear claws do not flick lighters.

“Shade!” Dekka roared. “Light Armo!”

Shade instantly saw the problem and zoomed past Armo, trailing her flame over the end of his flamethrower, lighting it again.