“Always aim for the head,” Kyle muttered, then swore, the sound louder than the crack of his heavy caliber sniper rifle. “Bullet was stopped. Your drop didn’t knock him out.”
Abigail blurred to a stop next to Liam once again, not sounding winded at all. “He almost got hold of my uniform.”
Liam reached the end of the row and started down the stairs, electricity crackling around his hands. “Europa? Let’s go fishing.”
“Got eyes on you,” Samaira said.
Liam didn’t look for her, knowing that she’d follow his lead. They’d run this particular trick before, and Glenn was already taking point.
“I have him contained,” Glenn said.
The metahuman wouldn’t be able to go anywhere, trapped by Glenn’s force field. He could still use his powers, though, and Abigail swore as she was pitched forward by the bits of metal on her uniform. She slammed into Liam, and they both crashed to the stairs hard. Liam managed to brace himself for the fall and not split open his face on the edge of a step as they rolled down the stairs.
“Sorry,” Abigail said before she disappeared in a blur, aiming to outrun the magnetic power.
Liam shoved himself to his feet, ignoring the bruising ache in his ribs and knees. “Europa?”
“The space is halfway filled,” Samaira replied.
Liam looked at where the other metahuman was slamming against Glenn’s force field, trying to get away from the water rapidly filling the space he inhabited. Samaira could pull water from thin air and fill a person’s lungs with it, but they needed the bastard alive. His macro-level magnetic power couldn’t touch Liam’s blood like Tariq’s could, but he wouldn’t put it past the panicking metahuman to use the metal bits in his belt like a projectile.
Rather than wait to give him a chance, Liam drew his arm back, electricity flickering around his fingers in a tangle of bright light. He threw the ball of electricity that could’ve doubled as lightning at the man in the water, guiding his electrokinesis to its target.
Glenn made a hole in his force field to let Liam’s attack pass through. Samaira’s hydrokinesis had filled the enclosed space halfway, a useful distraction. Pure water wasn’t a good conductor of electricity, but Liam didn’t need water, just a body.
Electricity slammed into the man with enough power to stop a heart and fry organs if Liam wanted it to. Except Chapman wanted the man alive, and Liam wasn’t about to disobey that order. Their need for information was too great. Liam clenched his hands into a fist, guiding the electricity from a distance through the man’s body until he passed out, falling into the water.
Glenn lowered his force field, the water flowing outward over the grass, and the unconscious metahuman slumped to the wet ground. Liam ran toward him, accessing his comms again as he jumped over the last railing, feet hitting the grass of an enclosure.
“I need a Faraday cage,” Liam said.
Seconds later, a rush of wind blew dust and bits of stray grass around him as Abigail skidded to a stop by the downed metahuman, a familiar tangle of metal, wires, and electrical nodes dangling from a collar she held in one hand. “I’ll secure him.”
Liam changed course, heading toward the track and the people still shooting at civilians. Some of the enemy had started to make a run for it, but the heavy crack in the air of Kyle’s sniper rifle was easy for Liam to pick out.
“I like this rifle,” Kyle said as he picked off the enemy one precise shot at a time, Glenn having adjusted his force field height to give Kyle room to shoot. “I’m keeping it.”
Liam smiled grimly, electricity running across both hands. “Consider it a wedding present.”
“Thanks. Are you going through the force field?”
“Might need to.”
“Got your six.”
Liam picked his closest target—a trio of shooters—and launched a burst of electricity at them through a hole in Glenn’s force field, intent on taking them down.
He had a feeling Ascot was canceled this year.
11
Faith Will Never Lead You Home
“You’re all right, darling?”Sofia asked, holding on to Oliver with tight hands.
Oliver stepped closer to give his mother a brief hug. “I’m all right, mum.”
Four hours since the attack and containment of the terrorists, and the UMG was only now starting to let people leave the grounds. No Splice bombs had been detonated, but that didn’t mean the threat had disappeared. Bomb detecting robots and dogs had been deployed to clear the grandstand and the track.
