Mere Mortals: The Extraordinaries

By Jen A McGowan

Extraordinaires or "EOs" as they call themselves, are a group of people born with superpowers who had been living in secret among the rest of society for many years but peopled learned of their existence after they came out of hiding to help with the world war efforts. Years later, the EOs returned to their normal lives, but it did not take long

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer McGowan
• Release date: May 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777597412

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Eguisheim, France

The village was on fire. People were banding together to put out the blaze with anything they could find, but to no avail. The fire was spreading from one narrow timber house to the next. The screaming and chaos were in symphony with the crackle of angry flames and the destruction of wooden structures. Desperate people ran in all directions. Some into burning homes, some out of burning homes. Some clinging to possessions, some barely clothed. Women and men alike were carrying their children away from the flames while others ran towards the flames screaming the names of their loved ones as they disappeared into the smoke.

Cail watched the disaster below from atop the highest steeple of one of the village’s many churches. She was in the form of an eagle, so she could see through the pandemonium and spot the EO – or EOs – she was asked to locate and bring to safety. This was an almost impossible task, and she knew it. It would have been hard enough to find the EO without the fire and chaos below. She was not even sure what or who she was looking for. Man? Woman? Both? She did not know what kind of power they would have. Someone who could fly would be nice. If someone shot into the air from the conflagrations, her subject would be located and her task complete. But no one shot from the flames into the air; only the flames themselves.

EO was a term she had learned six months earlier when a woman who could make herself invisible spotted her in an alley in New York in the form of a rat hiding from some men who were trying to kill her. At least, she thought they were trying to kill her at the time. The woman recognized that she was not a rat at all and offered to protect her. That was when she learned that she was an EO, and there were many others in the world like her. Well, not like her, since she was the only one they knew of who could turn herself into any living creature, but others who had powers.

EO stood for Extraordinary. They did not use the terms super or heroes because those terms carried an air of superiority. Besides, not all EO were super, and they certainly were not all heroes. Some were good, some were bad, some were neither – but all were extraordinary. Cail thought EO sounded just as superior as the word super, but she was told it was a higher form of the word unusual, which is what EOs were; highly unusual, in a superhuman kind of way.

Now, atop a steeple searching through the smoke and confusion below with her eagle eyes, she tried to find someone highly unusual, someone Extraordinary.

She searched from person to person below, not know what she was looking for but hoping something or someone would stand out. Everyone looked unusual. Everyone looked different, panicked, determined, stricken, angry, sad, in flames. Was there a normal way to act when one’s possessions, loved ones, or self was on fire?

Cail shot into the air and circled the town from above. She then took to flying along each cobblestone street, hoping to find some sign that someone below had powers of some kind. She was about to give up her search and wait until there was more light or less fire to resume her search when she spotted the something unusual indeed. It was a woman, a young woman in a light-blue dress and dark-blue hooded cloak running up one of the streets in the direction of the fire. This was out of the ordinary, because not many people were running towards the fire anymore. It was not much to go on, but Cail decided it was enough that she should keep her eyes on the young woman a little longer.

People shoved past the woman, some yelling at her to run the other way, but she ignored them. One person, a young boy, tripped and fell as he passed her. He screamed in pain and turned to clutch his ankle.

The woman stopped running, turned, and knelt to the boy’s ankle. She placed her hands around the ankle, closed her eyes and breathed out. There was a pause, then she lifted her hands from the boy’s ankle and helped him to his feet. His sooty face was in awe as he stared up at her.

Allez, she said, pointing down the hill. The boy’s gaze followed her finger. Cours vite!

The boy took a tentative step on his ankle, then ran down the hill away from her. She turned and resumed her previous pace up the hill towards the fire.

Gotcha, Cail thought, and swooped down closer. She watched as the young woman stopped and knelt to inspect every collapsed body she came across. She reached a hand to each of their faces. Some she left behind, standing as tears streaked her sooty face. Others she revived, mostly by placing her hand on their lungs, closing her eyes, and taking that deep breath again. Cail thought the women ought to have been suffocating in that smoke, but she was not. She was clearly in pain from it. That was evident on her face whenever she would breathe in. But Cail noticed it did not seem to be affecting her the way smoke ought to affect a human lung; the way it was affecting all the other people in the little village. Those were extraordinary lungs indeed.

At the top of the hill, the woman turned down a narrow street lined with colourful stone houses and entered the third house. Cail swooped down onto the street. The fire had not seemed to touch this part of the village, but the smoke was blowing in all directions. Cail turned into her human form, wiped off soot and debris from the window of the house the woman had just entered, and peered inside.

Papa? the young woman called. Papa? Où es-tu?

There was a brief pause, a shuffle from the other room, then Cail saw a man emerge, but he was not alone. Several men in black military uniforms emerged from behind him. Each was holding a semi-automatic weapon aimed at the man’s head. The soot on the man’s face could not conceal his terror, or his desperation.

Oh shit, Cail whispered outside the window. I’m too late.

One of the military men reached down and spoke into his radio. Yes, sir, we found two of them.

The French woman stepped towards her father but the military men took a step towards her, and she backed off.

Orders are to waste the male and take the girl, the uniformed man said, lifting his head from the radio.

And just like that, before Cail could intervene, before the young French woman in the house could move and before the poor man with the guns to his head could protest, one of the men, the man closest to him, opened fire. Bullets tore through the top of the man’s head until there was nothing left but an empty convex of ragged skull above the man’s eyebrows. Blood and brain matter peppered the faces of some of the men, the young woman, and the wall.

PAPA! the woman screamed and reached for the man’s hand as his body collapsed to the floor. The young woman collapsed to the floor next to him, her hands still reaching towards him. She fumbled her way towards his head, stretching her fingers to touch the missing top half of it.

Grab her! one of the men yelled. Another of the men reached down for the woman, but she swatted his hand away. Angered, he tried again, this time grabbing her by the hair, ripping her from her father and throwing her against the wall.

Outside the window, Cail took a deep breath.

Here goes, she said.

She summoned all her strength and imagination. She settled on turning herself into a dragon; one with a thick, scaly hide. A hide that would hopefully stop bullets. She gave herself three-inch talons on long, muscular dragon limbs, massive, bat-like wings, a long snout with razor-sharp teeth and a barbed tail for good measure. She then busted through the front door of the house to a shocked group of men in black military uniforms and attacked.

She has powers too! one of them yelled, just before Cail knocked his face sideways and took out his lower jaw. He fell to the floor, jaw gaping and tongue lolling from it.

It’s Cailyn! the man with the radio shouted. The shape-shifter! Shoot the heart! SHOOT THE DRAGON’S HEART!

Cail, inside the dragon, heard this and hit the floor to protect her chest.

Every power has its limitations. Cail was not invincible, so she could not create a creature that was invincible. She could come close, but her vulnerability typically defaulted to her centre…her heart. Not her head, which she appreciated; not her Achilles, which she would have preferred; but her heart.

Gunfire ensued, most of which bounced off the dragon’s hide like pebbles off a cliffside. The dragon swung its tail and took out another military man. She lifted her wings and sent two more flying back against the wall.

Seeing his shot, the radio man opened fire on the chest of the dragon and found its mark on some of the soft flesh there. The dragon roared and closed her wings around her chest. Once again, she dropped to the floor. Her tail swung again and hit another mark. The man took the barbed tail in the side of his neck. She pulled her tail back and a jet of blood shot from his jugular. He clutched his neck and sank to the floor.

The dragon swung a taloned claw out at the radio man, who ducked and fired at her chest again. The dragon yelped as bullets tore through the meshy curtain of batwings and slammed into her heart. The dragon turned from the radio man and crushed another man into the wall with her body. She opened her wings again and sent another man soaring into the next room. She turned to face the radio man again. She could feel the bullets embedded in her chest and knew one had hit its mark. Her heart was collapsing, failing her. She could feel the pressure of it inside her chest. She could feel it weakening.

She fixed her angry eyes on the radio man but before she could attack, her legs collapsed beneath her. Her massive dragon body tumbled sideways, and her face and long snout slammed to the ground with a loud THUD. The man stood over her and reloaded his weapon with a smug grin on his face.

Now I’m a fucking dragon-slayer, he said, and lifted his gun up to fire the fatal blow.

Cail closed her eyes, but no gunfire ensued. Instead, there was a loud THWANG sound followed by another less loud THUD. The dragon opened her eyes. Standing over her was the young French woman, covered in soot and her father’s blood and holding a wrought-iron frying pan in her hands.

The woman looked down at the dragon. Her face behind all the gore and soot was stunned, but unafraid. She dropped the frying pan and knelt beside the dragon’s face.

Dragonne! she gasped. She reached out with shaking hands and tried to lift the dragon’s wings but failed. Giving up on this, she reached for the dragon’s long snout and sharp teeth.

Ne me mord pas, she whispered, placing a hand on the side of the dragon’s face.

The dragon’s blue eyes blinked as the young French woman searched with her hands to find the injury.

Cail let out her breath. Again, she could feel that painful pressure on her heart intensifying. She could also feel the creature around her, the dragon, receding into her human body. She let go of the dragon and allowed her body to normalize.

Hein? the woman gasped, her hands recoiling from the dragon’s snout. Une femme?

But the hesitation was brief, and the woman sprang back into action. She scrambled towards Cail again and rolled her onto her back. She looked down at Cail’s chest, where she found a fountain of blood gurgling from a gaping wound. She tore open Cail’s shirt and placed a hand on the wound.

Respirer, she said, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. Respirer, dragonne. Ne pas aller.

Darkness was creeping around the edges of Cail’s vision. All her strength was gone. She could not speak. She could not move. She could barely blink. But she could feel a tingling heat around her heart like someone trickling warm water into her. She could feel the woman’s hands there, pressing into her.

Garde tes yeux ouverts, the French woman whispered. Regarde moi.

Cail kept her eyes open as long as she could but even that felt impossible. She stared into the eyes staring back at her. Kind, light-blue eyes almost like a grey pitted against that sooty, blood-streaked face. They looked like two spotlights in the dark. Her own eyes were a dark blue. She wondered if the last thought she would have would be how much lighter blue this woman’s eyes were from her own. Such a strange thought, but not a bad one. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

Then her eyelids felt lighter, and the act of blinking not as difficult. The warmth in her chest increased until it was almost hot. The heat seemed to flood the chambers of her heart and inflate it until she could feel the steady beat-beat beating of it again. Her own eyes opened wider and she gasped as if she had just emerged from being underwater much too long. The pain was ceasing, her energy increasing.

She opened her mouth to say something but noticed the woman with the healing hand was falling away from her. The woman’s eyes were closing, and she was falling sideways, but Cail heard her whisper, Bien joué, dragonne. Then the woman collapsed to the floor beside her, one of her hands still resting on Cail’s heart.

Cail felt dizzy, but alive. Not just alive, but recharged. She slid a hand under the French woman’s hand and felt her chest. She found the skin was intact; smooth, even. She looked down at it and found it to be unscathed. Dark blood around the area was the only remaining evidence of her injury. Her fatal injury.

She turned and looked at the woman lying next to her. The woman was breathing. She could see the rise and fall of her chest underneath her scorched cloak and dress, but she was unconscious.

Cail looked around at the bloodbath that was once this young woman’s house. Bodies were strewn everywhere, including that of the woman’s father. It had been tossed into an unnatural position and was lying in the corner. The inside of the skull was covered in so much dust it no longer seemed like it once belonged to a living, breathing human.

Something crashed and crackled in the back room and she realized the fire had made its way inside the little house after all. She could see several paintings in the other room ablaze. She could also hear voices on the man’s radio requesting a status update and advising that another team was on its way.

We won’t be sticking around for that party, Cail said, rising to her feet. She breathed in and summoned her power once more. This time, she gave herself a thicker pair of wings. She grew several feet and added a few extra muscles. She gathered the French woman into her arms, then covered herself in fur. The fur wrapped itself around the French woman as well, enveloping her in a cocoon of warmth to protect her from the biting cold of flight.

She stepped outside the house and into the smoky night, allowing her wings to lengthen even further, then she spread those massive wings, sending smoke and flames scurrying away from her in wispy cyclones and offering one short moment of fresh air. She inhaled the fresh air, then she shot into the sky with the unconscious woman in her furry arms. She flew high into the clouds, then sped off in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean.

CHAPTER TWO

Greenwich Village, New York – Six Months Earlier

Hello, can I help you? the dark-haired woman asked as she opened the door to her apartment. Her eyes widened as she looked out into the hallway at a small group of well-dressed men. They all almost looked the same, if it were not for the different-coloured ties they were wearing.

The first man, the one standing directly in front of her, was smiling and holding up some sort of ID. The ID looked official, but it did not look recognizable.

Census department, ma’am, the man said. We are wondering if Cailyn Shaw is home?

The dark-haired woman looked confused, but she nodded and turned her head towards the inside of the apartment.

Cail? There’s a group of men here to see you.

Inside the apartment, the woman named Cail laughed and said, "Now what would I want with a group of men?"

The dark-haired woman at the door laughed as well and turned back to face the men. Instead of seeing smiles and expensive suits again, she was staring down the barrel of a silencer.

The gun fired. There was a muffled CRACK. The dark-haired woman’s head snapped backwards and the back of it exploded. The door to the apartment burst open at the same time and the men flooded into the apartment before the dark-haired woman even hit the ground.

JESUS CHRIST! Cail yelled and shot to her feet. She had been sitting on one of the wing-back chairs in the living room, spending the quiet morning with a book and some tea, but the book and the tea were now airborne. The quiet morning was now a murder scene.

Three of the men pointed odd-looking rifles with cannisters on them at her. Cail took a second to process that those rifles shot darts, not bullets. She took another second to clue in as to what these men wanted. Before any more seconds passed, Cail flipped the wing-back chair over and ducked behind it. She heard darts hit the plushy leather seat with a PHUNK, PHUNK, PHUNK. She willed her power and turned herself into a falcon, the fastest bird she could think to conjure. She then shot to the ceiling, out of the line of fire. More darts missed her as she zigzagged around the living room ceiling. The kitchen caught her keen eye and she sped towards the open kitchen window.

The window! one of the men shouted, and another got to it just in time to close it. Cail, as the falcon, flew into it. She hit it with a loud WHACK and fell backwards as her human form again, clutching a hand to her forehead. Blood trickled from between her fingers as she struggled to find her focus. Her vision was waning, toggling between darkness and dizziness. She was able to focus long enough to notice a figure standing above her. He had one of those cannister rifles pointing down at her. She rolled and turned herself into a snake just as two darts shot through the hardwood beside her.

She slithered through feet and under furniture. The furniture was promptly overturned from above her as she hid beneath it, but she was too fast for them to catch her. She dodged darts and fingers as she scurried all over the apartment. She slithered beneath the built-in bookshelf, the one thing they could not overturn, and waited there a moment. She could see men’s feet moving towards her. This opened an alley of escape and she darted out from under the bookshelf at full speed. She shot between the legs of the man closest to the apartment door and beneath the gap under the door to freedom.

Out in the hall of the apartment, she morphed into a cat and sprinted on cat legs as fast as she could, once again zigzagging towards the stairwell door.

Men rushed out into the hallway and shot darts at the fleeing cat. These missed as well, but just barely. Not chancing turning herself into anything bigger, she once again shrank down to a small snake and slithered under the door gap of the stairwell.

Back into a cat in the stairwell, she raced down the stairs as fast as her four feline legs would take her, leaving the bipedal men in the dust behind her.

Cail turned herself back into her own body as she opened the stairwell door again to the lobby of the apartment building. She closed it quickly as she saw more men like the others in the lobby. She descended another flight of stairs to the basement. She exited the stairwell there, happy to see none of the men had thought to check the basement yet.

She ran the length of the basement until she reached the garbage room, knowing there was an exit to the back alley from there. She opened the back door to step out into the back alley and saw the coast was clear. She started to run out of the alley, debating what to turn herself into next. Another bird? A pigeon was probably ideal.

WHAM! She slammed into something she could not see, or something she could not see slammed into her. She let out an OOHF noise and once again fell to the ground clutching her bleeding forehead.

Dizzy once again, she fell sideways into a pile of smelly, wet bags of garbage. She heard a female voice, one with some sort of accent, a British accent say what she thought was her name…her full name. It sounded like the voice with the accent said, Oh dear me, Cailyn. I’m so sorry. But there was no one there.

Cail clutched her spinning head as she rolled around in the wet garbage. She heard yelling at the entrance to the alley and turned to look. Through blurry vision, she saw two of those men in suits running towards her. Without thinking she morphed herself into a big, fat, brown New York rat. She sank down in between the wet bags of garbage and scurried towards the dumpster where she knew many of her big, fat, brown, New York rat buddies were busy scavenging for food. She squeezed herself into the middle of the mischief and let them push her here and there as she tried to regain her vision and her wits. She heard the men stop and look around.

I think she’s one of these rats, one man said.

I hate rats, said the other. What do we do?

The first man shrugged. Dart as many as we can and whichever one turns into a woman is the one we take with us?

Good plan, said the second. They both raised their tranquilizer rifles and pointed them at the mischief of rats.

Cail was just thinking about what to turn herself into next to escape the indiscriminate darting when she heard that voice again, the female voice with the accent.

Sorry, gentlemen, said the disembodied voice, but would you mind terribly not firing your guns at those rats?

The two men looked around and so did Cail. She still could not see anything or anyone, but it appeared she was not the only one who could not find the body to match the voice. The two men looked around with confused expressions.

Did you hear –

Cail heard a SLAP sound, then saw one of the men’s heads snap back. He then buckled forward as an unknown force hit him in the stomach. Cail watched the other man swing wildly at the air as he circled his buddy.

The first man flipped over and landed on his back. Cail watched his left arm lift upwards, then his head lurch violently to one side. She saw some sort of weight press down on his left shoulder, then heard a POP as his shoulder popped out of place. He screamed and clutched at it with his right hand.

The other man pulled a gun, a real gun. He started shooting randomly all around the area where the first man was screaming. One of the bullets hit the man in the leg and he screamed louder.

Before the second man could apologize, the gun flew out of his hands and hit the brick wall of the alley and spun away with a clatter. The man looked around with wild eyes.

Who’s there? he yelled.

Something grabbed him from behind and tossed him head first into the side of a dumpster. The dumpster shifted from the impact and slid on its six-inch wheels over the top of Cail-the-rat so she could no longer see the action. She heard a few more bangs, screams, and smacks before she heard the dumpster lid open above her. There was the sound of someone with a female voice straining, then the THUD of a body being tossed into the dumpster. This whole sequence of sound repeated as the second man was tossed into the dumpster after the first. There was a pause where Cail heard someone trying to catch their breath. Then the sound of the dumpster lid being closed ensued, followed by the sound of someone clapping dirt off their hands.

Cail waited. She did not dare move. She did not dare make a sound. She was hoping whatever invisible thing was still out there would either forget about her or leave, but it did neither. Instead, it spoke to her in that female voice with the British accent again.

Come now, Cailyn, let’s be ladies, the voice with the accent said.

Cail felt the dumpster above her head move. Sunlight poured in on her and her rat companions. They fled in all directions, but she lingered until she was the only rat left. She looked up but could not see who or what had moved the dumpster. She was about to scurry back underneath it when a female head – just a female head – manifested itself.

Let’s press on, shall we, Cailyn? the female head with the accent said. Young ladies such as yourself should not hide as rats under rubbish bins for too long. It’s unbecoming.

CHAPTER THREE

Greenwich Village, New York – Back Alley of Cail’s Apartment Building

I assure you, I mean you no harm, the woman with the British accent said