Impressive as it was, though, it was a delaying tactic. With so many men firing on him, Wayne couldn’t risk moving any closer. He had to wait momentarily between creating speed bubbles, and if he was too close to the men, there was a good chance they’d be able to aim, shoot, and hit him in the seconds that he was exposed. The longer Wayne tried to dodge, the better the men shooting at him would get at judging the pauses. If he tried it too long, he’d get hit.
Waxillium took in the scene, then held out a hand to Marasi. “Dynamite.”
She handed him her stick.
“Find cover. Try and hit that Coinshot when he comes down for us.” Waxillium dashed into the room, firing without looking toward the group of men. They cried out, ducking for cover. Waxillium reached Wayne as a speed bubble went up.
“Thanks,” Wayne said. Streaks of sweat ran down the sides of his face, though he was grinning.
“The Pewterarm?” Waxillium asked.
“We fought to a standstill,” Wayne said. “Bastard is fast.”
Waxillium nodded. Pewter burners always gave Wayne trouble. Wayne could heal far more quickly, but the Pewterarm’s powers made him fast and strong. In a hand-to-hand fight, Wayne was at the disadvantage.
“He still has my lucky hat,” Wayne noted, nodding to where the gray-skinned man stood behind the group of Vanishers, egging them on. “This latest group came from that tunnel. I think there are more down there. Don’t know why Miles hasn’t brought them in.”
“Too many guns firing in a room this size gets more and more dangerous for his men,” Waxillium said, looking about. “He’ll want reserves, try to wear us down. Where is Miles, by the way?”
“Trying to flank me,” Wayne said. “I think he’s hiding to the side of the train car there.”
Wayne and he stood in the center of the room, train car behind and to the left, boxes and crates behind and to the right, tunnel to the right.
Waxillium could reach the train car pretty easily. “Great,” he said. “First plan to deal with Miles is still a go.”
“I don’t think it’ll work.”
“That’s why we have a second plan. But let’s hope this one does work. I’d rather not put Marasi in more danger.” Waxillium held up the dynamite. There was no fuse—it was meant to be set off by pulling a detonator. “You go for those men. I’ve got Miles. Ready?”
“Yup.”
Waxillium tossed the dynamite and Wayne dropped the speed bubble right before the dynamite hit the border. Any object—small ones particularly—that left a speed bubble was deflected slightly in an unpredictable way. That was why firing bullets out of one was practically useless.
The Vanishers looked up from their hiding places. The dynamite fell toward them. Waxillium leveled Vindication and fired the last bullet in the cylinder at the falling dynamite.
The explosion shook the room, loud enough to set Waxillium’s ears ringing. He spun, ignoring that, to see Miles step out from beside the broken train car. Waxillium grabbed a handful of rounds and ran for the vault car, hastily ducking inside to find cover as he reloaded.
A figure darkened the doorway a moment later. “Hello, Wax,” Miles said. He stepped up into the vault car.
“Hello, Miles.” Taking a deep breath, Waxillium Pushed against the metal hooks above, which he’d affixed there to hold the nets in place. They sprang free, dropping the nets around Miles.
As Miles jerked about in surprise, Waxillium Pushed on the clasps at the bottom of the nets, shooting them out of the gaping hole where the door had been. That pulled the nets tight at the bottom and yanked Miles’s feet out from under him.
Miles hit the floor of the railcar’s interior, banging his head against the box that held the aluminum. That probably wouldn’t even daze him, but the awkward fall did make him drop his gun. Waxillium leaped forward, grabbing it and pulling it out of the nets; then he stood, breathing quickly.
Miles thrashed at the nets. Despite his incredible healing powers, he wasn’t any stronger than an ordinary man. The trick wasn’t to kill him. It was just to incapacitate him. Waxillium stepped forward, only now finding a chance to bind the wound on his arm. It wasn’t bad, but it was bleeding more than he’d have liked.
Miles looked up at him, growing calm. Then he reached into his pocket, got out his cigar case, and pulled a small, slender stick of dynamite from it.
Waxillium froze. He felt an awful moment of realization, followed by a jolt of terror.
Aw, hell! He threw himself past Miles and out of the railcar. The awkward leap left him spinning in the air. He had a brief glance of Miles yanking at the dynamite’s blasting cap. The man was enveloped in a bright, powerful blast.
The explosion hurled Waxillium forward like a leaf before the wind. He smashed to the ground, and his vision flashed. He lost a few moments.
He came to, bloodied, dazed, rolling to a stop. His head swam. He was unable to move or even think, his heart thumping in his chest.
A figure stood up in the railcar. Waxillium’s vision was too blurry to make out much, but he knew it was Miles. His clothing had been shredded, much of it blown off his body, but he was whole. He’d set off dynamite in his hand in order to free himself from the nets.
Rust and Ruin … Waxillium thought, coughing. How badly was he hurt? He rolled over, numb. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Is there any doubt that I have been chosen for something great?” Miles bellowed. Waxillium could barely hear it; his ears were nearly useless after that blast. “Why else would I have this power, Waxillium? Why else would we be what we are? And yet, we let others rule. Let them make a mess of our world while we do nothing but chase petty criminals.”
Miles hopped down from the train car, then strode forward, bare-chested, trousers hanging in rags. “I am tired of doing what the city tells me. I should be helping people, not fighting meaningless fights as prescribed by the corrupt and the uncaring.”
He reached Waxillium, leaning down. “Can’t you see? Can’t you see what important work we could be doing? Can’t you see that we’re meant to be doing it, perhaps even ruling. It’s almost like … like we, with the powers we have, are divine.” He seemed to almost be begging for Waxillium to agree, to give him justification.
Waxillium just coughed.
“Bah,” Miles said, straightening up. He flexed a hand. “You don’t think I realize that the only way to stop me is to tie me up? A little explosion can serve a man so well, I’ve found. I keep the dynamite in the cigar cases. Few people look there. You should have questioned the criminals I caught back in the Roughs. A few of them tried capturing me with ropes.”
“I…” Waxillium coughed. His own voice sounded wrong in his ears. “I couldn’t have talked to any of the criminals you caught. You killed them all, Miles.”
“So I did,” Miles said. He grabbed Waxillium by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet. “I see you dropped my gun as you jumped out of the train. Wonderful.” He punched Waxillium in the stomach, causing him to exhale with a grunt. Then Miles let him fall to the ground, wandering over toward a gun lying nearby.
Dazed, but knowing he needed to get to cover, Waxillium somehow lurched to his feet. He Pushed against a piece of machinery and sent himself sailing across the room, where he landed beside the boxes. Those had been scattered in the blast, but they still provided some protection.
Coughing, bleeding, he crawled behind them. Then he collapsed.
Wayne spun between two Vanishers. He brought his dueling canes to the side, slamming them into the back of one of the men. He was rewarded with a satisfying crack. The man fell.
Wayne grinned, dropping his speed bubble. The other man who had been trapped in it with him spun about, trying to draw a bead on Wayne—but while sped up, he’d inadvertently moved into the path of several of his comrades who’d been firing.
The Vanisher fell to a spray of bullets. Wayne jumped back, erecting another bubble around just him and one confused Vanisher.
Everything outside slowed—bullets stilled in the air, shouts vanished, the waves diffusing as they hit the speed bubble. That did strange things to sound. Wayne spun about and knocked the gun out of the hands of the Vanisher behind him, then lunged forward and rammed the end of a cane into the man’s neck. The man gurgled in surprise; then Wayne smacked him on the side of the head, dropping him.
He stepped back, puffing and spinning one of his canes. His bendalloy was running low, so he ate another bit. His last. More worrisome were his metalminds, which were almost completely spent. Again. He hated fighting that way. A single gunshot could end him. He was as fragile as … well, everyone else. It was most disturbing.
He stepped up to the perimeter of his speed bubble, wishing it would move with him. That Pewterarm was still wearing Wayne’s lucky hat; the man had ducked behind cover when Wax had thrown the dynamite, and had only just emerged. He didn’t appear to have been injured badly; a few scrapes to his face, the sort of thing a Pewterarm could ignore. Too bad. But at least the hat was doing all right.
The man had begun to charge toward Wayne, moving extremely slowly, yet noticeably faster than the other Vanishers. It was frustrating, but Wayne knew he had to stay away from the man. He’d never beaten a Pewterarm without a lot of health stored up. Better to keep jumping around, keeping the man confused until Marasi or Wax could shoot him a few times.
Wayne turned and scanned the area nearby, choosing where he should stand as he dropped the bubble. With so many bullets being fired, he didn’t want to …
Was that Wax?
Wayne gaped, only now noticing Waxillium’s bloodied form hurtling across the room, as if by a Steelpush. Wax was pointed toward a group of boxes on the northwestern side of the room, to Wayne’s left. His suit had been shredded and burned along one side. Another explosion? Wayne thought he’d heard something, but jumping in and out of speed bubbles could really play havoc with sounds.
Wax needed him. Time to end this fighting, then. Wayne dropped the bubble and dashed forward. He counted to two, then put up another bubble and dodged right. He dropped it and kept running, bullets streaking through the air where he had been. To the eyes of those trying to track him, he’d have blurred and appeared immediately to the right of where he’d just been. He did it again, dodging back in another direction, then dropped the bubble.
Almost there. Another bubble up, and—
Something hit Wayne in the arm. He felt the blood before the pain, strangely enough. He cursed, stumbling, and threw up a bubble immediately.
He grabbed his arm. Warm blood squirted between his fingers, and in a panic, he tapped the last smidgen of healing in his metalmind. It wasn’t enough to fix the gunshot wound; it barely slowed the bleeding. He turned, noticing another bullet about to hit his speed bubble. He jumped to the side just before it touched the perimeter, zipped through the air in a heartbeat, then hit the other side and slowed again, deflected erratically up toward the ceiling.
Damn, Wayne thought, tying an improvised bandage on his wounded arm. Someone has very good aim. He glanced about to find the black-suited Coinshot kneeling beside the wall, holding a familiar-looking rifle, sights on Wayne. The rifle was the one Ranette had given to Marasi. Well, this is going to hell faster than bendalloy burns.
