PROTECTED. Marcus Calvert

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СКАЧАТЬ aside and ignored the thug’s painful collision through a table behind him. He turned to stare down at the fleeing patrons below. They were heading for the back of the club, trampling each other to get out through the narrow pair of rear exit doors. More innocent people were about to die.

      Omar sent a mental command to the nanite processors embedded within his skin. They conjured up a black bandolier of six high-tech stun pulse grenades. Appearing out of seeming thin air, they resembled typical frag grenades. But the gleaming metal orbs were far more complex. He flung the bandolier - grenades and all - over the railing as IceShadow searched for him in vain. In mid-descent, the bandolier jettisoned the grenades in different directions. The grenades went off the instant they hit the floor. Anyone with a second-floor view of the chaos below watched six white circles of energy suddenly erupt. Much like ripples in water, they spread out in all directions, swept over everyone on the first floor, and stunned them on contact.

      A fleeing stampede turned into a mass of falling, unconscious humanity. Omar figured that while these people were still in harm’s way, no one else would be crushed to death. Even IceShadow was a bit dazed as she floated over to a nearby bar and grabbed it for support. He could’ve killed the lunatic right then and there. Or he could’ve thrown another negation grenade her way. But then the next super villain would come … and the next. Omar realized that he was wrong to have tried to simply grab Monica and run away.

      Ever since his ex-partner figured out his secret and sold the information for a half-million bucks, the hunt for Omar’s proverbial scalp was getting worse. From what little information he could piece together, half of the city’s underworld wanted him dead. The other half wanted to get their hands on anyone close to him. They figured that whoever controlled Omar’s loved ones controlled him, which was also a logical objective.

      What they’d soon realize was that the vigilante/cop had no surviving family, few friends, and a waning interest in keeping Monica Asbur safe and sound. Nevertheless, he still cared about the innocent, who needed saving right now. The folks upstairs, while not hit by the ground-level detonations, were smart enough to stay put. Omar looked over their frightened faces and knew what he had to do.

      Without even looking her way, Omar conjured up a black injection pistol and shot Monica three times. Tiny, black, diamond-shaped projectiles punched through her torso. She started to scream … then she gawked as her wounds closed almost instantly. Even the pain abruptly stopped. Then Monica looked up and gawked as her fiancée became the Iron Snake.

      His clothes ripped as black-and-white armor poured out of his skin and formed around him from head-to-toe. While it felt like a lukewarm slice of ham to the touch, his armor was harder than titanium. On the chest and back of the black armor were the white emblems of a fanged serpent head, which had earned him his nickname.

      Now a foot taller and more muscular, the vigilante hopped onto the railing and crouched low, like a predatory creature defending his territory. Iron Snake conjured up a high-tech heat blaster in his right hand and a fiery-white plasma katana in the left. IceShadow glared up and spotted him with ease. Driven by her hatred, she shook off the effects of the stun pulse and floated a few feet away from the bar. Churning currents of blue energy formed on the palms of her outstretched hands as she eyed her hated foe.

      The vigilante took a deep, cleansing breath and prepared to lose this fight.

      If he didn’t, hundreds could die in the crossfire. Even if Iron Snake could take IceShadow down with a minimum of carnage, his life was still worthless. Anonymity was almost as important to the super hero as his powers. Without it, he had a big fat bulls-eye on his ass. IceShadow wasn’t the only super villain in town. There were dozens of them out there – all of whom would happily kill the Iron Snake: either for bragging rights, his powers, payback, or just for any number of bounties on his head. If they took him alive, they could learn the secret of his armor and use it for evil.

      That he would never allow.

      Also, with him dead, Monica would be off the menu. In the end, Iron Snake didn’t want to leap into certain death for a woman who didn’t deserve it or for a bunch of people he didn’t know. But he did it anyway, because that’s what heroes do.

      The instant he cleared the railing, IceShadow fired short bursts of spiraling blue energy at him. She snarled as he shot each one out of the air with the blaster. Both beams cancelled each other out, leaving only a cloud of steam through which he menacingly descended. Iron Snake hit the floor and rushed in for the “kill.”

      IceShadow jerked her head away from his slashing katana, which sizzled through most of the hair on the left side of her head. Had she been a bit slower, he could’ve taken her left arm off, too. Iron Snake skillfully twirled the blade for a deathblow as he positioned his back to the entrance. The hero grinned under his mask at the realization that he could’ve killed her a dozen ways with the plasma katana. Instead, he raised the heat blaster, as if he wanted to scare her into surrendering.

      IceShadow whipped both hands forward and blasted him with a torrent of ice shards. The sharp projectiles ranged in length from a few inches to three feet long. Instead of dodging the volley, he let them hit. Iron Snake staggered back as her unnatural ice cut through his armor, his body, and chilled him to his dying bones. Blood spurted from forty-six different exit wounds as he fell.

      The cop/vigilante landed on his back, convulsed for a few moments, and then died amidst screams of horror from the patrons above. The katana deactivated as it fell from his lifeless fingers, as did the blaster. The armor fell off of him like a shower of smoldering black ash, which faded away before their eyes. All that remained was a corpse and his tattered clothes.

      Omar Trinns was just a man now.

      Blood pooled out from under the detective’s prone form. IceShadow triumphantly cackled for several loud seconds. Then she leaned down, grabbed her fallen foe by the throat, and floated toward the front entrance. As she dragged him away, the villainess left a trail of Omar’s blood behind her, which froze in her wake.

      Just like that, it was over.

      Monica staggered away from the railing and leaned against a nearby column. She slid to the floor in blinding grief and wept for her fiancée. Black Noyze briskly walked past her and signaled the able-bodied members of his entourage to follow. With his probation status in mind, the rapper abandoned Monica and wanted nothing to do with this crime scene. The other patrons followed his lead as someone (finally) turned the music off.

      Through her sobbing tears, Monica felt something vibrate within her.

      “Armor transference … complete,” a female voice (her voice) echoed within her mind. Monica quickly wiped her tears away and looked down at the three little holes in her dress. She realized that Omar had given her his powers, probably in case someone came after her. If she wanted to, Monica could become the next Iron Snake. The realization made her slowly stand up and walk over to the railing again. Sirens wailed in the distance as she looked down at the hundreds of unconscious people Omar had died to save …

      Then she regarded his frozen blood.

       All this time, he had been a super hero?!

      Monica thought he was fucking around behind her back. All those late nights and lies about his sudden departures. Her friends were telling her to break off the engagement. But she loved him too much. She just wanted to get back at him by having a harmless fling and rubbing his nose in it the next day.

      And now she’d never be able to explain herself …

      Anger, guilt, and grief welled up in Monica as she realized what needed to be done. Omar deserved better than СКАЧАТЬ