Villains Inc. (Wearing the Cape) Read online

  Now Jone’s words had an underbeat of bells, a distant Greek chorus counterpointing every phrase. Fisher shook his head as a heavy odor filled the room. Musky, old.

  And then infinity filled with something else. A cloud of flesh-rags shrouding scaled arms ending in steel-edged claws. Far too many arms and too many claws. The horror, immaterial and distant while floating right in the middle of the circle we’d naturally created, spun, searching its own infinite horizon. Jone’s eyes snapped open and he gripped his rod. He started to shout something, and then infinity collapsed and it was here.

  I froze. Orb screamed, her sphere flaring up and spreading out into a foil-thin shield between her and the horror we all saw now. Artemis swore and drew her pistols. Jones threw the rod and the nightmare thing caught it, reducing it to bits no bigger than my fingertips with a shredding sound. I gagged on the reek of old death as ribbons and tatters of flesh billowed around it.

  A bundle of arms whipped out, razor-claws spearing Artemis as she unloaded both pistols into it. Blood sprayed as it punched through her chest and stomach, nailing her to the wall. Fisher methodically emptied his pistol into its center-of-mass from the other side and started reloading.

  I screamed Jacky’s name and finally unfroze, throwing myself at the nightmare. Stinking flesh wrapped around me and I gagged, retching. I broke bundles of arms like rotten twigs, trying to grip it and pull it off my friend, but I couldn’t find its center, it seemed to go in forever, and I couldn’t breathe the putrid air, the miasma of sulfur and decay as claws ripped at my costume, grasped, sliced and drew blood as I struggled with rising panic. I couldn’t grapple it, couldn’t pull back, couldn’t fight…

  And then Mr. Jones spoke.

  One word, and I heard it in my bones, a golden sound like the deepest chord of a cosmically amped base guitar, like a planet had just sung a note. The foul thing screamed, the horror of its ululating voice distant and faint beneath the world-filling sound of the Word.

  Then the room was empty, of infinity, of the nightmare, and I lay retching on the floor. I felt something wet and, reaching up, found that my ears were bleeding. Along with lots of other parts of me. Climbing to my knees, I looked to see Artemis, slumped to the floor still holding her pistols. Jones and Fisher crouched over Orb. Blood covered her from coiffed head to Jimmy Choos, and she wasn’t breathing. Fisher started CPR, but each push brought more blood, soaking the new carpet.

  No. Oh no. I began to shake.

  “Fisher,” I whispered, pulling myself up. I could fly her to the hospital.

  He looked up and shook his head. Jones made a sound, like an animal caught in a trap. Then he spoke again, another word too big for the world. Infinity roared back, deeper than seas, to blow through me again with the rush of a million wings and the heady smell of clean spring rain. Giddy, I laughed without knowing why, and as the Word faded out of memory I heard them: two more beating hearts. Orb breathed and laughed as even Fisher smiled wide enough to crack his face. But I ignored them, because sitting against the wall Jacky laughed and cried, the holes in her closed, gone, and I could hear her heart beating, racing as blood filled warming cheeks. She was alive.

  Episode Two: Pursuit

  Chapter Twelve

  I like kitties in trees. They’re easy.

  Astra, Notes From a Life

  * * *

  “You’re alive,” Dr. Beth said with a broad smile.

  Finally finished, he snapped off his gloves and sat down, patting Artemis’ knee absent-mindedly as he gave her the news.

  “How?” she asked.

  “No idea,” he said cheerfully. “You’re still a vampire. No surprise there since you misted home, something mere mortals don’t do. And of course,” he tapped his left canine illustratively, “you’ve still got the signature dentition. But,” he chuckled happily and waved at the screens behind him, “all metabolic processes formerly in abeyance are now functioning. You’re breathing, and not just for air to talk with. You have a healthy heartbeat, measurable brain activity, your sweat glands are working, tissue samples show living cells, I could go on. You’re a living, healthy young lady.”

  I could have told him most of that. When we went out tonight she’d been room-temperature, an animated corpse; now her heartbeat was one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard, a faint echo of that second, already forgotten Word, and she glowed in my infrared vision with a warm and yellow living light. I could hardly take my eyes off of her.

  Taking stock at the apartment, we’d found we were all good, but the poor building super nearly died of shock—this time the attack left the carpet soaked in blood and a big hole where the thing pinned Artemis. I’d never left an incident scene so fast; Fisher hustled us out, taking Orb and Mr. Jones with him. Officially, he’d contacted both of them and asked them to come out and look at the scene, and Artemis and I had agreed to come along as backup. I guess he thought it was better to lie like a rug than let Chief Garfield know that my request had guided the investigation to tonight’s encounter. It didn’t feel right, but he knew his boss better than I did.

  Artemis and I flew back to the Dome and, though I’d never felt so good, went right downstairs to the infirmary. Shelly had called ahead, so Dr. Beth and Blackstone waited for us there. After determining I wasn’t even scratched anymore (and that took a minute, with all the blood and sticky shreds of costume), Dr. Beth went to work on Jacky. He hummed to himself as he checked her pulse, respiration, heartbeat, muscle-tone, involuntary reflexes, and took samples from everywhere to feed his machines. I could have gone and changed but I’d stayed, holding Jacky’s hand while we waited for a diagnosis. She practically vibrated, ready to fly into a million pieces. Blackstone listened as we dictated our after-action reports.

  “Astra,” Dr. Beth said, breaking my near-trance. “Could you come over here, please?” Taking my hand, he guided it under a high-res sonogram scanner, nodding at what he saw.

  “If you’ll look here, ladies,” he said. “Astra, in your fight with Seif-al-Din in January you fractured nearly every bone in your body. Now, as you can see, the bones in your hand and wrist show no sign of increased density from bone remodeling. Also…” He paused, smiled gently. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I am not unaware of your problem.”

  “Oh.” I’d hoped only Dr. Mendel had picked up on it, but Dr. Beth examined me after every serious fight.

  Jacky looked at me. “Hope?”

  “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The cabin? But I feel fine.” I laughed, giddy. “Better than fine—like I used to feel after a tough field hockey match.”

  Dr. Beth nodded. “PTSD is caused when an overactive adrenal response triggers deep neurological changes in the brain. I’d not be surprised if the biological ‘reset’ you both seem to have experienced has erased its effects on your neuro-anatomy. You may even find your post-combat shakes gone completely.”

  I stared, stunned as his words sank in, and then proved my new emotional health by bursting into tears. Blackstone had waited quietly throughout the examination, and now he produced a handkerchief from nowhere with a flamboyant magician’s wave. I laughed again, wiping my eyes.

  “Thank you, doctor,” he said. “So you can certify them both for active duty?”

  “Oh my, yes. They couldn’t possibly be healthier. Bottle whatever it was, and I’m out of a job.” Completely untroubled by the possibility, he reached into the pocket of his doctor’s coat and handed each of us a lollypop.

  * * *

  Blackstone disappeared to speak to Fisher and get Mr. Jones and Orb back to the Dome, but the first thing Artemis did was head for the dining room. Willis, having heard the news through Dispatch, had set out cold-cuts sandwiches for us. Both of us. I was fading fast, but Artemis sat and ate with me before following after Blackstone; if he was the team’s intelligence wizard, she was the wizard’s apprentice.

  Just watching my friend eat was wonderful, though she took it
in her usual undramatic, detached way. I fell asleep full of gleeful thoughts of all the places I could take her, how surprised the Bees would be, and slept like the dead till a ghost woke me up.

  “Hope,” Shelly whispered, tickling my ear. I swatted at her virtual finger and rolled over, then almost hit the ceiling when she started on my feet.

  “Aahh! What the hell, Shell?”

  “Jacky wants you, but didn’t want to wake you up.”

  “And good thinking, too! Why?” I landed and untangled from my sheets.

  “She’s going out to watch the sunrise.”

  I never dressed so fast in all my life.

  * * *

  “Are you sure about this?”

  We stood just inside the east doors, looking out over Grant Park toward Lake Michigan in the blue pre-dawn light. Jacky wore her daysuit, but had her left glove off, dangling from her right fist. She turned, and I couldn’t see her eyes behind her protective mask.

  “Dr. Beth said I’m alive, and if I—if I’m really alive…” The no-drama girl of last night was long gone.

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t need Level 5,000 sunscreen anymore,” I said desperately.

  “But it might,” she whispered, naked longing in her voice.

  The sky lightened as I watched, trying to think of anything to say. I could have dragged her back inside. Instead I took her hand as the light turned gold and the sun topped the trees.

  And she didn’t burn. Her hand squeezed mine, warm and pale, and I breathed again.

  “Jacky—”

  She nodded, and suddenly she was tearing at her hood. Pulling it off, she unsnapped her sealed facemask and threw it to the ground, taking deep gasping breaths of morning air.

  “Oh God. Oh God.” She couldn’t look away from the sun, even when she turned and grabbed me. And then my tough-as-nails friend was crying so hard she couldn’t stand up. But that was okay; I wouldn’t let her fall.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I dreamed of being a superhero, I imagined epic fights and daring rescues. But do you know how superheroes spend most of their time? Paperwork and meetings. Public-relations meetings, Sentinels business meetings, city-liaison meetings, coordination meetings, certification and compliance meetings. Someday I will cross over Jordan, and there will be no more meetings. But some meetings are more interesting than others.

  Astra, Notes From a Life.

  * * *

  I had classes, but when I got back Jacky and I wandered Grant Park for lunch. We grabbed some hot-dogs and even soaked ourselves in the wind-blown spray of Buckingham Fountain, just two girls in summer dresses out on a warm spring afternoon, and if Jacky looked Goth-girl pale the boys didn’t care.

  Afterward I changed and went on patrol, but not before stopping by Quin’s office to talk to her about my conversation with Mom on Friday. It had absolutely dropped out of my head, with everything happening, but my promise to see what I could do for last week’s breakthrough speedster came back to pinch me. Quin didn’t know that there was much we could do, but she promised to make inquiries and get back to me soonest. That evening, we were summoned to war, all hands on deck in the Assembly Room.

  Lei Zi and Blackstone, field and team leaders, sat at the head of the table. Lei Zi looked calm and inscrutable as always, but I could see the tension in Blackstone. Chakra was wound even tighter, The Harlequin, Rush, and Riptide ready to get on with it. Vulcan looked mildly distracted, and beside him Galatea had no expression at all. Seven looked up when we entered, and winked. I relaxed, taking a seat by Artemis.

  Orb and Mr. Jones didn’t look at all out of place sharing a table with Chicago’s premier superheroes in all their costumed glory, but once again Fisher looked like he belonged in a different movie. He nodded to us as we took our seats. Willis finished freshening everyone’s coffee and stood back, invisibly attentive.

  Once we’d settled, Blackstone stood.

  “Ladies. Gentlemen.” He looked around the table. “We have mobilized tonight to engage an enemy I had hoped was gone. I am referring to Villains Inc.” He waited for the exclamations to die down.

  “None of you here were on the team the first time we faced Villains Inc, although I’m sure you remember the news stories. In the wake of the Event, Chicago’s organized crime families faced a direct challenge from the first supervillain gang-bangers for control of the local drug trade. The Chicago Outfit responded by buying in the villains who were willing to work with them and burying the ones who weren’t. After the blood dried, the Outfit set up a cell of superhuman hitmen modeled after the old Murder Inc. Besides acting as mob enforcers, they accepted contracted hits from criminal organizations across the country. The public didn’t know anything about Villains Inc. until we moved to take them down.”

  There were nods around the table. Nobody could have missed the huge media storm around the joint Sentinels-DSA operation and the trials—or the highly fictionalized movie made out of it. The Undertaker, Knox, Trophy, Stricture, and The Message were household names now, but with two dead and three serving life sentences they could have done without the fame.

  “Most people think our takedown of Villains Inc. ended the Outfit’s venture into superhuman crime,” Blackstone continued. “That could not, however, be further from the truth. Consider this: without Villains Inc., how has the Outfit managed to resist hostile takeover? Until last year Chicago had two strong supervillain gangs—the Brotherhood and the Sanguinary Boys—but there was never a hint of conflict between them and the Outfit. Why?”

  “Should I raise my hand?” Seven asked. “They were scared off by the Outfit’s superhuman assets.”

  “Correct. And when we took down both gangs last year, not a single member tried to plea-bargain with information against the Outfit. It is my belief that the Outfit reconstructed Villains Inc. years ago, without reviving the villain-for-hire racket that brought them to our attention the first time.”

  Nobody had anything to say to that. In the trials that followed the Great Roundup, a bunch of the Brothers and Boys had cut deals ratting on each other, allowing the state prosecutors to nail them for extortion, sex-trafficking, money-laundering, lots of stuff. But there hadn’t been a hint of Outfit involvement, and most of what they’d done had been pretty small scale.

  “But if we’re moving tonight,” Seven said, “we know they’re back and who they are?”

  “We know who at least one of them is,” Blackstone agreed. “And the police can make a homicide case against her. Which brings us to Detective Fisher. Detective?”

  Fisher leaned forward to look around the table.

  “You’re all aware of the bank job last week. A shapeshifter. We’ve got leads there, nothing solid, but two days later the bank employee the shifter used to do the job ended up dead. The forensic evidence suggested a superhuman killer.”

  Artemis choked and Fisher smiled. Saying the evidence suggested a superhuman was like saying a surfer missing a leg suggested a shark.

  “The damage signature didn’t match any known superhuman,” he went on, smiling at me. “So while the department followed other leads, Astra brought in a pair of consultants.” Everyone looked at Orb and Mr. Jones. “Orb’s sphere is more sensitive than even Astra’s enhanced senses, and Mr. Jones—”

  “Dr. Cornelius, please,” Jones said with a smile for me.

  “Dr. Cornelius is an expert on thought-forms, projections, and other manifestations of supernatural breakthroughs. As many of you have heard, the doctor’s examination of the crime scene yielded interesting results.” This time Artemis just coughed theatrically.

  “It’s my fault that things got so interesting,” Dr. Cornelius said, his resonant voice too deep for his narrow frame. “Either the person who first invoked the qlippoth intentionally left a trigger allowing its return, or it was simply powerful enough to re-open the path that had already been laid once I got its attention. Fortunately I was able to recognize the summoner’s psychic signature in the echo of he
r summoning.”

  “Kli-poth?” Rush asked.

  “A demon.” Dr. Cornelius shrugged blandly. “One of the Gamchicoth, the Devourers.”

  “And you killed it?” Seven asked.

  “Qlippoth are the very opposite of alive. I burned its pathway here—shut the door on it. And in the process saw who invoked its presence.”

  “Which brings us to the warrant,” Fisher said, echoing Blackstone. He pulled the folded sheets out of his suit pocket. “Spectral evidence is admissible in court only if it’s caught on film. Same for psychic visions, second sight, divination, scrying, sortilege, and any other kind of ‘higher knowledge.’ However, they all work just fine as grounds for probable cause, if provided by a reliable source. The DA assures me that Dr. Cornelius, never having issued a false or disproven claim of knowledge, passes the warrant court’s test.