Читать книгу Scorched - Erica Hayes - Страница 5

By the time I reached the city, it was long past midnight. Behind me, fog wreathed the tree-lined hills, grasping wispy fingers down into the valley. Stars wheeled overhead, their constellations strange and lopsided. Street lights burned oddly bright. Even the air smelled weird. Freedom. I never wanted to forget it again.

I stole some clothes from a hobo's shopping cart in some alley off Castro Street. Distant sirens howled. A painted mural rainbowed the wall where the hobo slept, and he muttered and rolled over, wrapping himself in his greasy jacket and a mist of stale rotgut whiskey. Rats scuttled under a trashpile as I rifled the cart. It was very warm for October, and shorts and a T-shirt would have done. But I needed to stay hidden, so I chose a dirty black hoodie, grimy jeans and a pair of flip-flops, and threw my piss-stinking hospital gear in the dumpster.

A discarded pizza box lay half crushed in the gutter, a rat poking his long nose inside. My stomach grumbled, but I left it alone. Not quite that desperate, yet.

Clothes sorted. Nothing I could do about my beaten-up face, or the ragged state of my hair. I looked exactly like an escaped mental patient. I stank like one, too, and my head ached like… well, like I'd had a metal helmet bolted to my skull for three weeks. But I couldn't go home. His goons would be hunting me. I had no cell phone, no cash, not even a dollar for a phone call.

And truth was, I felt naked and helpless without my mask. Sure, that foul helmet was gone, and I was strong again, but these days you couldn't just flash your powers around in Sapphire City and expect to avoid attention. There's a reason we augmented folks have secret identities.

In the real world, we're called augmented, see. Life isn't a comic book. I'm not from another planet, and I didn't get bitten by a mutant spider or drown in toxic waste only to be resurrected with super powers. I was just born this way. It didn't make me good or evil. That's a choice we all make, one way or another.

But wielding powers attracted unwanted attention, whether from the villains, the lynch mob or the press, all equally dangerous in different ways. That's why we wear masks and costumes to work: what we do isn't safe. And without my mask—or any idea of what had been going on since I'd somehow pissed the villains off enough to get locked in some prehistoric loony bin—I was trapped like a bug in a jar inside my own cover story. Hi, I'm Verity Fortune, freelance journalist. Who's that, you say? The Seeker? Black vinyl catsuit and mask? Fights crime? She's just a rumor, friend. She's not real. Trust me, I'm a reporter. If she was real, I'd know, wouldn't I?

No, I had to stay incognito until I got a grip on the situation. For the moment, I was just plain Verity, but I still had villains on my trail who'd happily carve my brain into cat food, or worse. Which meant I needed to see my father, and pronto.

My father was Thomas Fortune, owner and chairman of Fortune Corporation, a multi-million-dollar company specializing in security and weapons technology. By night, he was Blackstrike, Sapphire City's best-loved crime-fighter, wielding his dark mastery of shadow to defeat the Gallery, our local gang of villains. Only our family knew that Tom Fortune was Blackstrike (for a guy his age, I've gotta say, Dad still looks rockin' in that black trench coat) and that FortuneCorp was just a front for the real family business: fighting evil.

Augmentation came with the Fortune blood: me, my two brothers, my sister, my uncles, our cousins. Though we didn't always get along—big sister, in particular, had the mother of bad attitudes—Dad kept us in line, and he didn't risk unmasking himself without good reason. Still, the bad guys had just benched me for three weeks in the middle of a cease-fire, and FortuneCorp couldn't take a hit like that without fighting back. Dad would know what to do.

But my wits spun in drunken circles, and my vision blurred with fatigue. I couldn't remember Dad's phone number. And I couldn't just turn up at FortuneCorp HQ without being sure I wasn't followed. I'd just have to stick with what I did remember.

I tugged my hood forward as far as it would go, and walked on.

Broken glass littered the sidewalk on Market Street, where galleries and colorful boutiques squeezed in beside restaurants and crowded bars. Garbage piled in the gutter, spilling onto the street, and a few pale people in shapeless clothes picked through it for food. Yellow hybrid taxi cabs cruised for customers, amongst zipping traffic, bicycle couriers, rattling painted trolley cars.

I passed some drunken guys in suits, a gang of teenagers riding skateboards, and prostitutes, the expensive ones in thigh boots and fishnets, as well as their poorer, more desperate sisters, wearing whatever skimpy clothes they could scrounge. Homeless dudes harangued passers-by for change or booze. Graffiti on the brick alley walls read U.S. OUT OF IRAN and SAVE OUR CHILDREN: VOTE NO TO PROP 101 and GOD HATES AUGMENTS, but one phrase in particular stood out…

It was everywhere. Scrawled in chalk on the broken sidewalk. Spray-painted in fat scarlet letters like blood-soaked balloons. Etched on a window with bold, sharp strokes beneath a blotch of melted glass:

BURN IT ALL

My thoughts melted like ghosts, a haze of glassy memory come alive. Flames lick the hot metal walls. Radiant heat scorches my face, inexorable, hungry. No. I fling out my hand, grasping for my power. Chilling laughter taunts me, and flame stings my palm in warning, a threat or a caress…

My shoulder bounced hard off a lamp post, and I stumbled. I blinked to clear my head and walked on.

I stole some change from the tip jar in a fire-bright trance bar and caught the trolley car, downtown where neon-lit doorways beckoned and people spilled out onto the streets in their clubbing gear, tight rubber dresses and high-cut leather jackets and the silky slide of Lycra. Searchlights split the sky between skyscrapers and old town houses, amid sirens and thudding helicopter blades. One of the clubs was gutted by fire, just a charred shell, sprouting twisted metal and glittering with broken glass. Yellow crime scene tape strung tight across the gaping hole, and black-uniformed cops with truncheons moved people along.

I stared, pressing my nose to the trolley car window. The Gallery's work, no question. One entire corner of the building had been chopped off and burned debris littered the sidewalk. The exposed steel beams had bubbled at the ends, the ragged brickwork melted. Cauterized. Like a white-hot razor had sliced it clean through.

BURN IT ALL

I shuddered, and looked away.

The sidewalk was crowded with street performers and food carts selling pizza slices or hot dogs. Mmm, real food. My mouth watered at the delicious salty scent. We passed a police blockade, then another, the cops with their holster-locked sidearms and polycarbonate riot shields checking IDs. Gangs of youths in baggy jeans and hoodies slunk around and glared at each other. No one walked alone.

I frowned. Tense. Had the war erupted again? More work for FortuneCorp?

The tram turned right and rattled along the waterfront where, through the palm trees, the double-decked Bay Bridge suspended creaking across the water, its sweeping neon arcs glistening in misty moonlight. Overhead, seagulls wheeled and squawked. On the opposite shore, suburban lights sparkled like scattered jewels.

I hopped off and walked two blocks south, to an ornate redbrick apartment building, its gilt-etched windows hidden behind security mesh. I strolled casually to the next corner. Didn't see or hear anyone. No one did a sudden double take, or grew a lizard's skin and attacked me, or carved the street open down to the subway with burning razorwhips. When the Gallery are involved, you have to guard against everything.

I slipped alongside the building and jumped up to the second floor fire escape. My flip-flops slapped on the metal landing. Inside, a shadowy living room beckoned. No lights. No movement. No one was home. Fine. I'd just go inside and wait.

I twisted the security screen aside with a swift tug of mindsense, unlocked the window and quietly slid the sash upwards.

Cold hands grabbed my throat, and dragged me inside.