CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The balloons floated above James Clancy like enormous jellyfish, their shimmering surfaces catching the afternoon sunlight.
There were twenty of them in total, each one filled with helium and tethered to sandbags arranged in a circle around him.
The ropes connecting the balloons to the harness he wore were taut, straining against the weight keeping them grounded.
Clancy had chosen this location carefully.
It sat in an industrial pocket of Vernon, surrounded by warehouses and storage facilities that operated during business hours but emptied out by evening.
No flight paths crossed directly overhead.
The nearest residential area was three blocks away.
He could do what needed to be done here without interference… just like the other launching areas.
The harness felt tight across his chest and thighs.
He had tested it three times before putting it on, making sure every strap was secure and every buckle properly fastened.
The same harness he had used for the others, now fitted to his own body.
The perfect fit seemed to align with everything else perfectly ever since he'd escaped the agents in the desert.
He'd stashed a backup car three blocks from his apartment two weeks ago, sensing that this job would be difficult, on the third level of a run-down garage.
He'd tucked away enough helium for one last task and now… well, here he was.
Six victims. That had been the plan. Six people who spent a great deal of their time high up in the air, who manipulated gravity without fear, who breathed freely while looking down at the world from places he could never go. Six liberations to prove his devotion to the Elementalist's teachings.
But he had only completed two. He had failed miserably. Ah, and damn the first two had been so spectacular. After Michael Thompson, he thought it had seemed almost too easy—that he was going to finish his work and leave no traces at all.
And maybe that’s where things had gone wrong. Maybe he’d simply gotten too cocky.
Lisa Anderson should have been third. But in all of his planning, he’d not ever imagined that someone would have the fortitude and sheer will to somehow free themselves in such a way once they were airborne.
And then the second failure…well, that had been a terrible mistake on his part.
He’d been so eager to get Vivian Bennett out to the desert that he’d never even thought to discard her phone.
Her very angry boyfriend had gloated about locating her because she’d had her phone on her when he’d slammed his head three times into the side of the van.
Two successes. Two failures. In other words, he was four lives short of what he had promised the Elementalist.
The guilt sat heavy in his chest, making it even harder to breathe than usual. He had an inhaler stashed was in his pocket, but he had not used it in the past hour. He deserved the discomfort, deserved the tightness in his lungs and the wheeze in every breath.
The Elementalist had given him purpose. Had shown him that his fear was not a weakness but a sign that he understood what others did not.
That elevation was unnatural, that working at heights was a manipulation of the natural order.
The people who climbed towers and washed windows and sat on rooftops were thieves of a kind, stealing experiences that should have been beyond human reach.
Clancy looked up at the balloons swaying gently in the breeze.
The bright blue afternoon sky stretched endlessly above them, cloudless and vast. His breathing quickened as he stared at that expanse of nothing, at the emptiness waiting above.
If he timed it just right, he’d be high enough to watch dusk fall over the entire city in about an hour or so.
He reached for the knife in his belt. The sandbags were arranged in a circle, six of them holding the balloons down.
All he had to do was cut the ropes holding them down.
The weight would release and the balloons would lift him up into that terrible sky.
His hand trembled as he gripped the knife handle.
This was the right thing to do. A sacrifice to show the Elementalist that he understood his failure, that he took responsibility for not completing the mission. A final demonstration of devotion.
He reached out and cut away one of the sandbags. And then a second. He felt the balloons tugging at him, eager to send him skyward.
But after the second, he could not move. Fear locked his muscles in place as he stared upward. The sky seemed to press down on him despite its vastness, threatening to swallow him whole. And then he heard a voice from behind him, a voice speaking his name.
"James Clancy."
The voice came from the darkness near the side of the building, cast in shadows because of the afternoon sun. Clancy spun around, nearly losing his balance in the harness.
A man emerged from the shadows beside the boarded-up entrance.
He walked slowly with his hands raised and visible, palms forward in a gesture of peace.
He was in his early thirties with dark hair and a lean build.
He wore a jacket over a button-down shirt, and there was something both determined and cautious in his expression.
Clancy recognized him immediately. This was the FBI agent from the desert.
The one who had helped Lawsom save Vivian.
The one who had stopped Clancy from completing his fourth liberation.
He felt a sudden sting of regret from braining his partner with the helium tank and then creating that explosion.
A flash of guilt roared through him at the thought, urging him to cut another rope away—more weight away.
So, he did it in one deft motion. The balloons tugged again, harder this time.
"Mr. Clancy, my name is Miles Sterling," the man said, still moving slowly. "I'm an FBI agent…and I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk."
Clancy's hand tightened on the knife. His eyes went from Sterling to the balloons above and back again. There were only three sandbags left.
Sterling stopped about fifteen feet away, his eyes scanning the parking lot. He looked confused, his gaze moving from the balloons to the empty space around Clancy. He seemed to be searching for something he expected to find but did not see.
"You’re alone?" Sterling asked.
When Clancy nodded, he realized he was crying. He wasn’t quite sure why.
"You’re going up yourself?" Sterling asked.
The question hung in the air between them.
Sterling still didn’t understand what he was looking at, that much was clear.
He was utterly confused. He had come here expecting to save someone, expecting to stop another murder, perhaps.
He saw the balloons and the harness, but he had not put it together yet.
That realization settled over Clancy like a weight releasing from his shoulders. Sterling did not see the plan. Did not understand that this was not about another victim. This was about Clancy himself.
And that was reason enough to go ahead and do it.
Clancy turned away from Sterling and knelt beside the nearest sandbag. He pressed the knife blade against the rope holding it in place. Another one gone. Two left. The pull of the balloons was already nearly taking him off the ground.
"Don't," Sterling said, his voice sharp now. "Whatever you're planning, don't do it."
But Clancy was already sawing through the next rope. The fibers separated under the blade and the sandbag dropped to the pavement with a heavy thud. The balloons above shifted, pulling harder against the remaining weights.
"We can get you help," Sterling continued. "You don't need to listen to the Elementalist. He's manipulating you, using your fear against you."
"You don't understand," Clancy said, openly weeping now. His voice was tight, strained with both emotion and the effort of breathing. "He promised to help me overcome my fears. He told me exactly what I needed to do. And he was right. He’s…he’s so very smart…"
He locked eyes with Sterling as the pull of the balloons now physically moved him. His feet slid along the pavement as he reached out for that last rope. And it was also at that very same moment that Sterling came rushing forward to stop him.