Free Masked (2010) by Lou Anders

hero, someone like—
    A concentrated burst of energy flashed above them, leaving a perfect circle in the ceiling. The bright red form of Atomahawk streaked down from the sky, landing in the middle of the room, his fists wreathed with balls of white plasma. He stood with his back to Retaliator, facing the chief justice.
    Retaliator started to scream a warning.
    He got out the word “close” when the gun at the chief justice’stemple disintegrated as Atomahawk’s atomavision ripped it apart at a subatomic level.
    The word “your” ripped from his throat as the chief justice smiled.
    The word, “eyes” crossed his lips as Atomahawk whirled around, now wearing the very same smile.
    “Shit,” said Retaliator.
    “Language,” said Prime Mover as he floated into the air, flexing Atomahawk’s fingers as if testing to see how well they fit.
    Retaliator reached for the antispace grenade, a small box the size of a deck of cards that could destroy all matter within a three- foot sphere by creating a pocket of alternate physics where the Higgs boson had no mass.
    His fingers never reached his belt before Atomahawk’s impossibly hot fingers closed around his throat and jerked him from his feet.
    “This is more like it,” Prime Mover giggled. “The power of a living sun at my command! I’m going to kill a lot of people in the next sixty minutes, Eric. You, however, will not be one of them. You’ve humiliated me so often, Eric, that I don’t want your misery to ever end, Eric, Eric, Eric! When you learn what I’ve done to—”
    Suddenly Atomahawk jerked backward, gasping as if he’d been stabbed. Retaliator fell from his slack grasp, landing, appropriately enough, on the prone form of Vance Davis, the attorney who’d been prepared to argue Prime Mover’s case.
    Witness floated behind Atomahawk, his ghostly forearm reaching into the radioactive Indian’s back. Retaliator could tell from the position of the boy’s arm that his fingers were closed around Atomahawk’s heart. Prime Mover was getting a full dose of the graveyard touch.
    If Witness could distract Atomahawk for another thirty seconds. . .
    It took only three seconds for Atomahawk’s reddish skin to flash through every color of the spectrum, then beyond. His skin turned clear as glass. Sparks leapt from the silver buckles on Retaliator’s boots. Witness wailed, then disappeared.
    Atomahawk fell to his knees as his skin returned to its normal hue. He chuckled breathlessly for a few seconds. “I always. . . suspected. . . there was an electromagnetic frequency. . . that could reach the bloody ghoststream,” Prime Mover said, wiping his lips.
    “You sound winded,” said Retaliator.
    “Perhaps I’ll massage your heart and see how you sound,” Prime Mover grumbled.
    “I was going to blame the smoking,” said Retaliator, holding up the pack of unfiltered Camels he’d swapped on Atomahawk’s utility belt. In his mind, he counted down six, five, four,. . .
    “I’m so sorry, John,” he said, despite the lump in his throat.
    “What are you—”
    Prime Mover never finished his sentence. There was a silent flash. In the aftermath, there was a perfectly concave indention in the marble floor where Atomahawk had knelt.
    He’d just killed his worst enemy and best friend with a single act, but he had no time to contemplate what had happened. The goons in the warehouse, with the helicopters and the high explosives—this had never been their target. In the pit of his stomach, he knew where Prime Mover had sent them.

    Eric Gray, the man who saw things in black and white, sat amid the mound of black cinders that had once been his mansion as pure white clouds the shape of comic book thought balloons drifted in the November sky. He had his mask wadded into a ball in his left hand; the island was completely silent. While the place was technically a crime scene, he had enough pull to allow him these few precious, private moments alone in the remains of the