Frostburn (Ultrahumans Book 4) Read online

  Twilight smirked at the Russian heroine and then turned to head off to the dressing room. ‘Like my suit covers much.’

  Dom watched Twilight walking away. ‘She is right, da? The new costume may be sexier than nude.’

  ‘Dom,’ Rosanne said, ‘you’re incorrigible.’

  ‘You are saying I am wrong?’

  ‘No. But you are incorrigible.’

  ~~~

  ‘And Twilight flirting with Dom did not help,’ Andrea grumbled. ‘She says she was just teasing…’

  Jacob chuckled, even if it sounded a little forced. ‘Yeah, well, that’s Twilight for you. I promise I’ll chastise her later.’

  ‘Huh. Is that strained sound in your humour because she was flirting with someone else, or because it was Svetilo?’

  ‘I’m not overly fond of Zuyev,’ Jacob admitted. He shifted slightly in his chair, rebalancing Andrea in his lap. ‘She courts the cameras a little too much for my tastes.’

  ‘Observer bias.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were at that fire way back when Cygnus first started. There was Svetilo, ruining a perfectly good dress, and did you see her giving interviews?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘And the bank job Diamond pulled. And the riots.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Dom’s career is modelling, so she appears on camera a fair bit, but the good stuff she does, she doesn’t really publicise. I don’t hear you complaining about June “courting publicity.”’

  Jacob knew he was on the back foot, but he really didn’t like publicity-seeking Ultras. ‘Well, that’s–’

  ‘Different? No, it’s not. Anyway, observer bias because what you see is what Dom lets people see. The magazine covers, the TV appearances, the red carpet stuff at glitzy parties and award shows. You don’t see all the work she does saving lives, because she doesn’t publicise that, so you think of her as a glory hound. Actually, the stuff she deserves the glory for is the stuff she doesn’t seek the glory for.’

  ‘Okay!’ Jacob said quickly. ‘I get it. But I’ve had my prejudice for years. I can’t just turn it off.’

  Andrea smiled. ‘I know, but I can chip it away a bit at a time. Hell, without the publicity me and Cygnus “courted,” I probably wouldn’t be sitting in your lap. The UID would have us both banned and they’d have probably made sure you and I broke up.’

  Jacob gave a grunt in response. ‘Probably true.’

  ‘Still got you and Heather on desk duty?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Have you managed to get anywhere with that serial killer?’

  Twilight shrugged. ‘I got the police reports from the NMCPD. The UID are being… uncooperative. Few clues, no leads. I’ve asked a few local contacts to look into the victims, but there’s no connection anyone’s been able to find. I hate to say it, but we have to wait for him to strike again and hope we can get more off the next victim.’

  6th November.

  Cygnus had to admit that, despite not having done more modelling since that last calendar, she felt a lot more confident in front of the camera this time. It was partially down to the changes she had gone through in the last year. She was more powerful than ever, certainly, but she had also learned where those powers had come from and that more than anything had made her more comfortable in her alternate skin.

  The other factor, she realised, was that June was watching her from behind Rosanne’s shoulder and, this year, Cygnus could be quite open about her affection and desire for her friend. The part of her that was still essentially Penny Worthington was still a tiny bit confused about how it had happened. After the years of denying any attraction, even that Penny component of her mind could not imagine what the problem had been. That was the weird part: Penny the confirmed heterosexual was in a same-sex relationship and not worried about it. Whatever, having June to look at was having the right effect, apparently.

  ‘Could you dial back the smoulder a little, Cygnus?’ Rosanne asked. ‘This is a new lens and I don’t want it melting.’

  ‘Can you get June to stop being so sexy?’ Cygnus asked in reply.

  ‘Uh… no.’

  ‘It’s a curse,’ June said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Rosanne said. ‘Let’s get you in there with her, then she won’t be able to look at you.’

  Grinning, June slipped her robe off her shoulders and strutted across to Cygnus. ‘I’m not sure this is going to work as well as the stuff we did last year,’ she said.

  ‘And I’m not sure how you think June in nothing but make-up is going to change the look in my eyes,’ Cygnus added.

  ‘It… probably won’t,’ Rosanne conceded. ‘And I suspect we’ll get more out of next week, June, but we can get more sultry lighting in the studio. You suit sultry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ June replied. ‘I am feeling kind of sultry.’

  ‘It looks it. Are you coming out with us tonight?’

  ‘Tonight? I… I hadn’t thought about it. I could, I guess. Dom will be there to carry you, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You got a long, red dress you can wear?’

  ‘Um… yes, I think so.’

  ‘Great! We can do some “damsel in distress” shots.’

  Cygnus looked at June, naked aside from a red-glossed smile. ‘As opposed to the “damsel in no dress” shots?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rosanne said, setting herself up to shoot. ‘Sometimes, more is more.’

  ~~~

  ‘Okay, so it’s a good dress and maybe I should wear it more often… but it’s not built for this weather.’ June was huddled against Cygnus who had adopted what she called her ‘Air Cargo’ power configuration for the evening. This was designed to let her carry one or two people at very high speed, through space if necessary, without her passengers expiring, so she projected a force field which, among other things, allowed them to survive cold temperatures, even when standing on a rooftop.

  ‘I will not complain if it means you cling to me like that,’ Cygnus replied.

  ‘And it works for the pictures,’ Rosanne added. ‘Actually, I might huddle in there myself in a bit.’

  June wrapped her arms around Cygnus’s waist. ‘Mine.’

  ‘I’m not poaching. Just… borrowing.’

  ‘No idea what you’re complaining about,’ Twilight commented. She was busy doing ‘brooding, dark heroine’ poses on the corner of a ruined apartment building. Unsurprisingly, she was fairly good at it.

  ‘You don’t even notice the cold in Antarctica,’ June pointed out. ‘Heart of darkest space and all that.’

  ‘I don’t feel the cold either,’ Svetilo said. ‘This is a warm summer evening in Moscow.’

  ‘I happen to know that Moscow has quite warm summer evenings,’ Rosanne said. ‘They just have very cold winters. Compared to here anyway.’

  ‘Do not question the hardiness of Muscovites! Besides, I did military training in Siberia. This is climate so cold the SOP issues bras with iron plate inserts to stop nipples punching through the fabric.’

  ‘They do not,’ June said. ‘Do they?’

  ‘Even for the men. Da. It is well-known fact. Being super-strong, mine was titanium-laminate. Proof against armour-piercing shells. I wore through six in basic training.’

  ‘Are you saying you have armour-piercing nipples?’

  Svetilo thrust her, very substantial, chest out. ‘You have doubt?’

  ‘Shut up, Dom,’ Twilight said as June started giggling. ‘Some of us are trying to maintain a brooding demeanour here.’

  ‘I am keeping the spirits up. June of the very thin red gown has forgotten she is cold.’

  ‘Huh.’ Pause. ‘I don’t believe you about the bra.’

  ‘You think I am lying?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Soviet structural engineering isn’t up to building anything that could hold your boobs in. No way that story’s true.’

  The Russian shrugged. ‘Okay, you got me. They tried, but having them driven around on tank proved impractical.’

 
‘Less funny, more brooding,’ Rosanne ordered. ‘This is going to be the last set. Promise.’

  ‘You said that three locations ago,’ Twilight replied.

  And then Svetilo’s phone rang. She plucked the device from her bodice, checked the caller ID, frowned, and answered it. ‘Andy? There is problem? … Da, Cygnus is here with me. We can– Da, we make best time.’ She cut the connection and looked around. ‘There is fire in apartment block in Friendship. Many people trapped. Andy suspects arson.’ Her gaze shifted to Rosanne. ‘I could suggest dropping you off on the way…’

  ‘And you know what my answer will be,’ Rosanne replied.

  ‘Well,’ Twilight said. ‘I won’t be much use there. I’ll take a turn around Churchton and then follow you down. Get moving. No time to waste.’

  ~~~

  The building on fire was one of the larger ones in Friendship, which was generally a fairly low-rise section of the city. It was pretty obvious which one they were dealing with, even at night, because of the plume of smoke rising from it, dark against the city lights. Then the flames, emergency response vehicles, and people became obvious as Cygnus and Svetilo dropped down toward the scene with their two passengers. Andy Hatch, Fire Bug, stood out among the other firefighters, mainly for the slightly archaic outfit he was dressed in, and they headed straight for him.

  ‘Svetilo,’ he said as they landed, ‘Cygnus, Glad to see you both. It’s a bad one. You ready with the plan we worked out, Cygnus?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Cygnus replied. ‘Can I get a blanket for June? She’s going to freeze out here.’

  ‘Not if that fire gets worse,’ June muttered. You could, in fact, feel something of the heat from the building even though they were outside the immediate threat area.

  Fire Bug glanced at a nearby fire officer who nodded and rushed off. ‘We’ll get that organised. Who’s your friend, Dom?’

  ‘Rosanne Mellor,’ Rosanne said before Svetilo could answer. ‘Pleased to meet you, Fire Bug. Or do you prefer Mister Hatch?’

  Fire Bug’s eyes narrowed a little. ‘Photojournalist, right? I’ve seen some of your work.’

  ‘She’s doing the calendar photoshoots,’ Svetilo said. ‘That’s where we were when you called.’

  ‘That probably explains Miss Summerfield’s dress. And it’s Andy to you, Miss Mellor. Shall we get moving?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Cygnus said. The three of them had got together to discuss how to handle situations like this after the riot in Churchton. Cygnus had demonstrated that she was the sort of omnitool of Ultrahumans, able to do something like what almost anyone else did, but she had her limitations. She could not do everything at once, so they had decided to go with Fire Bug assisting the fire department in stopping the fire while Cygnus and Svetilo handled the extraction of trapped people. Cygnus could keep the fire back, and find and protect the victims, and have enough power left over to handle airlifts. Svetilo was the force multiplier, providing the strength needed to breach doors and shift fallen masonry. They thought the plan would work, but it had never been tested.

  ‘There’s rooftop access,’ Fire Bug said. ‘I suggest going in there and moving down as far as you can. We know there are people on the third floor and they probably don’t have much time.’

  ‘We are on it,’ Svetilo said, and took off, heading for the roof of the ten-storey building.

  Cygnus looked around at June and Rosanne. ‘Hang around here and prepare to receive casualties,’ she said, and then she was rising into the air after the Russian.

  ‘Door is warm, but not hot,’ Svetilo said as Cygnus landed beside her.

  ‘Radar sense isn’t showing anything special behind the wall,’ Cygnus replied. What she was calling her ‘radar sense’ did not use radio waves, but it let her see, after a fashion, through smoke and a few inches of solid obstructions. It was the ‘search’ part in search and rescue. ‘Open it.’

  Svetilo opened the door, via the expedient of ramming her fist through the locking mechanism. There was no immediate rush of flames, but there was some heat. ‘Fire is in stairwell below.’

  ‘Then we should hurry.’

  The flames on the third floor landing died away as Cygnus’s power suppressed them, but the smoke rising up through the stairwell was thick. Svetilo had needed a filter mask by the fifth floor and was letting Cygnus guide her down the stairs by the fourth.

  ‘This is not going to work,’ the Russian said. ‘Anyone we try to get out this way is going to be dead from smoke before they make it.’

  It was true that the plan had been for Cygnus to hold the fire out of the stairwell so that people could use the normal emergency exit at the bottom, and that did not seem like it would work. The heat coming up from below was possibly too intense as well. ‘Does it seem like this fire is a bit too hot to you?’ Cygnus asked.

  ‘Andy did say he suspected arson.’

  ‘Yeah… Okay, we have to take them out off the roof, right? I’ll hold the fire here. Wet cloth filters and you get everyone out of their apartments and up to the roof.’

  ‘And then we airlift from there. Da. Now tell me where door is.’

  It was while Cygnus was waiting for the first of the residents to come out that she noticed the sprinkler heads in the ceiling. Someone had clearly been quite fire-conscious when they had built the place. She had no idea whether the apartments were fitted with sprinklers, but the stairwells and the corridors were. Either they had failed to go off or they had had no effect. It could have been poor maintenance, but the building looked like it was taken care of quite well.

  The first of the scared occupants of the third floor appeared on Cygnus’s radar and she turned to guide them up through the smoke. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, reaching out to move them through the doorway. ‘It gets easier to see as you go up. Just follow the wall and head for the roof.’

  A woman’s voice came out of the smoke, muffled by a cloth mask. ‘I don’t understand how this could happen.’

  ‘Never mind that now. We need to get you out.’ But Cygnus was minding it; it seemed like Fire Bug had called it right: this was arson.

  7th November.

  ‘Four dead,’ Fire Bug said, ‘another five severely burned. They were all in the emergency stairwell when it went up.’

  ‘From the people I talked to,’ Twilight said, ‘that was about five minutes after the alarms went off. And the way they described it, it sounded like an explosion.’ She had turned up, as promised, while Cygnus and Svetilo were clearing the building.

  ‘Yeah, and the fire had not reached that part of the building at that point.’

  ‘Are we talking about an Ultra?’ Cygnus asked. ‘Someone like Thermite?’

  ‘Not an Ultra,’ Fire Bug replied. ‘Not necessarily an Ultra anyway. This is much worse. A chemist. I think he used a pyrophoric, maybe triethylaluminium. The stuff is unpleasant to say the least, but I think he combined it with a solvent, maybe toluene. Couple of reports of a smell like paint thinner.’

  Twilight nodded. ‘I got that too. So we’ve got an arsonist who wanted to make sure he killed some people. That secondary blast was meant to kill immediately as well as trap people in the building. He didn’t count on you three being so effective at the evacuation. If he tries again–’

  ‘He’ll use more fuel. And he probably will strike again. This sounds like a pyromaniac.’

  Twilight shook her head. ‘So we’ve got a fire freak and someone who freezes people to death running around now.’

  ‘That serial case you’re looking into?’ Cygnus asked.

  ‘Uh-huh. Victims show symptoms of exposure to extreme cold. Unfortunately, all the leads are suffering from the same problem. Hopefully, Andy, you can have more luck with your arsonist.’

  Fire Bug turned his head to look back at the blackened building. ‘I doubt it. Fires that hot tend to do a really good job of erasing trace evidence, but we’ll look. Oh yes, we’ll look.’

  ~~~

  There was no alert from t
he outdoor sensors but the doorbell sounded and June happened to be closest. When she opened the door to find Viviane standing there, she was more than a little surprised.

  For one thing, the raven-haired sorceress was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. June had hardly ever seen her out of the barely decent costume-dress that was Viviane’s trademark: a red, tabard-like garment which left little to the imagination. And then there was the fact that she was using the door…

  ‘Viviane,’ June said, failing to stop the surprise registering in her voice. ‘You… Don’t usually ring the bell. And Andrea’s at work.’

  ‘That is not a problem,’ Viviane said, ‘since I came to see you. And that is why I thought I would use the door rather than appearing in your lounge.’ She coughed. ‘And I understand that were I to do so without warning, I might discover you engaged in some form of activity with Cygnus I might not wish to disturb. Andrea… mentioned it.’

  June smirked. ‘Penny’s in, but we’re busy with the calendar. So… No activities. Um… You want to talk to me?’

  ‘Yes. Might I come in?’

  ‘Oh! Of course. Come through to the lounge. Would you like tea?’

  ‘Please.’

  Viviane had been almost scandalised to discover that, while Americans had no idea how to make tea naturally, they could be educated. Still, she watched June carefully as the tea was prepared using pot, kettle, and properly boiled water, much to Penny’s amusement.

  ‘You know, Viviane, a watched June doesn’t make the tea any faster,’ Penny said, grinning.

  ‘I find the process fascinating,’ Viviane replied. ‘I really cannot believe Americans can do this. None of the ones in the Union seem capable.’

  ‘None of them are from New Millennium City. We’re just superior like that.’

  ‘What did you want to talk about?’ June asked. She was watching the kettle too, so it was never going to boil.

  ‘I am… thinking of updating my image,’ Viviane replied.

  ‘Oh? I kind of like your dress. It’s classically simple. It fits your sorceress-seductress idea rather well and the red suits you.’