John Ridley: Those Who Walk in Darkness

Ian went to Ohshitland, hit the brake, jammed it hard, wrenched the wheel. The front end of the Jag—old, not built for lifesaving driving—dipped, plowed low as it jerked and leaned and stretched desperately to get clear of the oncoming car.

The driver of the Beemer was too drunk or too scared or too something to do much but nothing. Its front fender copulated with the rear of the Jag, sending the English car side-skidding toward the rock face to the east of the road. The BMW whipped uncontrolled in the other direction.

From the Jaguar came the sharp shrieks of tired metal torquing and tires pulling on asphalt. There were no human sounds. Despite the speed and the fact that they were, at the moment, riding an unguided missile, both Soledad and Ian were impressively quiet. Ian was working too hard trying to force the car to a stop to bother with useless wailing. And Soledad, bracing for impact, was swirling in disbelief. This is how she was going to die? After every other thing she'd survived, this?

Only, death was far from a given. Under Ian's persistence the Jag came out of its skid. Wheels back in-line, control was returned to the driver. The Jag slowed. The Jag stopped. Not before scraping a good way along the rock face. But that, together with the smashed rear quarter, was all the more damage that was done.

Ian, danger over, post-near-death-experience shock replacing adrenaline-laced terror, body drenched with four seconds' worth of intense and profuse sweating, turned to Soledad, gave a little" you believe that" huff of a laugh.

Soledad wasn't looking at Ian. Soledad was looking behind them, checking on the other driver, making sure the other driver was okay, even if the other driver was a BMW-driving bastard.

Impacting on the passenger side, the German car had form-fitted itself around a tree in a harsh concave pattern. The engine was hissing steam but ran on, and even up the road and over the odors of smoking tires Soledad could smell leaking fuel. It took no experience in crash forensics to know what that combination could lead to.

Wordless, Soledad was up, out of the Jaguar and over to the BMW. Inside the car, behind the wheel, was a woman. BMW-driving bastards come in both genders. Mid-twenties. Good-looking. Used to be right up until her face got punched by the deploying air bag and her head whiplashed against the glass of the door window. Uncon-scious. Bleeding from the skull. But the slow rise and fall of her chest said the driver was still alive.

Soledad grabbed and pulled the door handle. Nothing. The crash fused it shut tight.

Things got worse.

A popping whoosh. Heat and light. The leaking fuel ignited, almost instantly went from fire to conflagration that licked up over the front of the car.

Yanking at the door, Soledad got nothing more from it than before. A quick look around. No other cars, no one to help. Just Ian standing and gawking deer-caught-in-headlights fashion.

Gas fed fire, the fire burned hotter.

Soledad banged her hands on the door window. It didn't give any more than the door had.

"Help me!" Soledad screamed at Ian.

Ian just stood.

A tire of the BMW burst. Inside the car the driver began to stir. She'd burn alive, she'd burn awake.

Heat should have pushed Soledad away from the wreck. Desperation kept her pulling at the door even as she, with all too vivid a memory of her own fire-related experience, began to feel the blistering of her skin. She went rabid with tugging, pounding and pulling.

"Help me!"

Ian just stood.

And then he did something. As Soledad stared, some… thing, some unnameable event rippled outward from the center of Ian and across his body. All his color, his hue faded. Light no longer reflected from him, but passed through Ian as he phased from material to intangible. Ian stepped to the car, reached for the mangled door of the BMW. Phantomlike his hands passed through it, slipping to the driver's body. He did something to her. Ian changed her. Manipulated her. Whatever, it was so far beyond Soledad she couldn't know, couldn't understand. But with no effort she could see, Ian phased the driver from solid to immaterial as well. The fire burned, but it didn't burn Ian. Couldn't touch him. He ignored it. Existing on the same plane, Ian lifted the driver's body and passed it through the car. The background clearly visible through them, Ian carried the driver to the far side of the road— walking across the pavement the same as any normal man despite the fact he wasn't close to normal—laid the driver down on the soft shoulder, and then did what would be the most difficult thing of all for any superpowered metanormal human. He turned and faced Soledad.

"… I wanted to tell you," Ian started."No matter how you took it, I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to be honest with you and I wanted you to know the truth. Soledad, if I had known what kind of cop you were from the very first, I wouldn't have…"

Soledad reached under her jacket, pulled out her off-duty piece. Seventeen times her finger jerked back the trigger. Seventeen slugs screamed for Ian. Every one of them passed harmlessly through his form with no more disturbance than a stone thrown through a thick billow of smoke.

Gun empty, Soledad went for the Jaguar, for her bags. She hurri-caned through them, found the small case that held her modified O'Dwyer. The first clip her hands found, they grabbed: the red-marked one. The one that had put down the pyrokinetic. Jamming it home, she fired at Ian.

Twenty-eight phosphorous rounds.

And the ghostlike Ian still stood.

The blue clip, the one for speed freaks; twenty-eight microchip-guided bullets. The orange, the green, the yellow clips.

Ian still stood.

In her blind frenzy to kill him, Soledad even emptied the clear-marked clip at Ian: the one she'd used against Vaughn. The one he had forced her to use against herself. Blanks and fake blood-filled gelcaps. Enough to fool a telepath. Enough for him to lower his guard, release his control of a" dead" cop and buy the cop time to kill instead of get killed.

Against an intangible they were just as useless as any other bullet Soledad had.

The rock face behind Ian was busted with gunfire. Chunks of it had been torn away by explosive-tipped slugs. A section smoked from hot lead. But that was the only damage done by Soledad. At the end of all that—anger having burned away her strength—she, like her gun, was spent. Empty clips and shell casings littered the road, and Soledad went to her knees among them. Beaten by lies. She dropped her head, was too weak to carry it.

Ian said: "I didn't want to hurt you. That's why I couldn't tell you."

In a low voice, but in a tone distinct and clearly audible: "I swear to God…"

"I know you must hate me; for what I am and for having lied to you."

"If it's the last thing I ever do…"

"But you have to know this, you have to feel it in your heart: Soledad, I love you."

She lifted her head. Intangible as Ian was, Soledad's look hit him and hit him hard."I will find a way to kill you."

Across the road the BMW was swallowed in flame.

"… Always did pick the wrong woman."

Ian turned and walked. And faded away.

Special arrangements were made for Soledad's new office. The basement of Parker Center. She could be alone there. She could go undisturbed by the useless chatter of others. Soledad liked being alone. She'd gone back to seeing the virtues of independence. Being by herself meant getting things done. Hours hunched over a computer, running specs in virtual field tests. Transferring the results to hardware applications. Long and hard and tedious work, and it was her passion.

Obsession.

It's what she was doing when a cop, a uniform who'd obviously wandered off the beaten path for no other reason than to get a look at the near-legendary Soledad, came to her office door and tried to strike up a conversation.