The Gathering Storm, Part 30

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Chewing thoughtfully on his cheeseburger, Carl realized he probably wasn’t doing it thoughtfully at all. He was considering the scent of machine oil and harsh cleanser in the room. He was blaming it for how his stomach now churned. And as his appetite quickly fled, he realized that all of that—far from being thoughtful—was just a delaying tactic.

There’s something I need to deal with—there are important thoughts tumbling around in my head, but they’re something my brain knows I don’t want to face, Carl considered. So why deal with them when I can sit here and leisurely gnaw on greasy hunks of food like a cow chewing cud?

Query looked up from the fuselage of the drone he was fiddling with, and regarded the lawyer through his mask. “Are we going to get to new business any time soon, Carl?” Query asked. “Usually you plow through your two burgers in no time flat—this second one’s taking you a while. Did Wendy’s use some rancid meat?”

“More like my employer using rancid-smelling and probably toxic substances that aren’t supposed to be used in enclosed spaces,” Carl said, finally setting the remains of the burger down on the table next to him.

Query put down his tools, turned in his chair, and pushed the recently installed bulletproof window behind him up about halfway. “There’s no good angle to get a bullet through that particular window anyway unless you’re in a cherry picker, so as long as no one is waiting to lob a grenade up in here, we should be good. Can we get on with things so I can get back to this without complaints from you?”

“Feel the love,” Carl teased wearily, and regarded the compact surveillance craft occupying all of Query’s desk and extending nearly a foot past each end of it. “What’s wrong with your drone there anyway?”

I’m stalling again, he realized, because I think the new business is what will put my mind where I don’t want it to be—it’s what’s going to trigger a talk I don’t want to have.

“New Judah PD shot at it and got lucky,” Query answered. “Nothing too serious, but a pain in my ass. Seems they don’t like my eyes in the sky. Guess they don’t like the competition for the three drones they have that are twice the size of mine, half the speed and not nearly as cool-looking.”

“Well, next time they should steal theirs from the military like you did instead of settling for first-generation models,” Carl shot back, looking at his half-eaten burger and sighing. “OK, new business, then. I’ve heard from inside Fortunato’s building, but only from one of our parties: Zoe. After a few days, Fortunato finally made a job offer, and she’s got a contract to send me for review.”

“Look it over with the finest-tooth comb you have and don’t let him screw her, Carl. At least not screw her over legally and contractually. I don’t care what other kind of screwing might happen.”

“I’ll keep her safe and solidly armored by flawless paperwork. Don’t worry about that. What you should probably worry about is yourself. Fortunato finally gets your attention and now leaves you hanging for three or four days? What’s he up to, you think? Why so coy now?”

Is this what’s bugging me? Carl thought. Fortunato’s plans? No, there’s no sense of dread. What am I avoiding?

Query paused in adjusting the wing articulation controls in the drone and looked up again. “Partly he wants to make me sweat, because he’s delusional enough to think he can. Mostly he’s busy trying to figure out how to get Zoe in his camp—”

“Loc-Down,” Carl interrupted.

“Hmmm?”

“Just occurred to me you might want to know. Zoe’s codename’s apparently going to be Loc-Down.”

“Cute,” Query said. “She’s got a whole head full of locs that can punch through metal plates and tear you to ribbons when she morphs. As good as any name. Anyway, he’s busy with her,” the black-clad hero continued, “because he knows I’ll sit tight. Zoe’s slippery and he doesn’t want to let her get away. Certainly not until he puts her to work with the plans he’s hatching.”

“Which are?”

“I don’t know,” Query admitted. “I’ve got wonderful intuitive powers, Carl, but I’m not an oracle. Most likely it has something to do with his cousin that took a dive out a window. I think Fortunato wants revenge.”

“On who? Did the guy’s pharmacist give him the wrong anti-depressants?”

“No, Crazy Jane gave his cousin all the right incentives to make the leap to the great beyond,” Query responded.

“How do you figure that? Did one of your birdies see her watching his swan-dive?” Carl asked, nodding to the owl-head-shaped cowling on the desktop that Query had removed from the nose of the drone some 10 minutes earlier.

“Nah. I got hold of some video that shows her making regular visits to the guy. The images were sent to Fortunato privately so he’d know who was responsible. I knew she could unnerve people psychically as well as transmit electrical shocks, but always wondered if she had more powers, given how unstable she is. Guessing this was either some mind control in action or, more likely, she can make people lose their fucking minds. That’s in line with her name, so it seems most likely. Nasty power.”

“I thought she was being held in the Givens facility under high security.”

“You must have been hung over or out of town a few months back, Carl. She was busted out of Givens. Bloody damn job, too. A dozen dead staff or thereabouts—and they took one of the doctors there with them—hard-ass, DA-hired headshrinker named Marcus Blood. No one knows if he was an accomplice or a hostage. Still haven’t found him. Big news. Janus busted her out personally—well, with some of his lackeys with him. Those three scary killer women he’s got and a couple norm human troopers.”

“So, Crazy Jane got busted out, maybe just to do this job against Fortunato’s cousin, which means Janus is behind it all, and he isn’t just going after you but Fortunato, too. Fortunato wants your help with getting back at him.”

“Probably,” Query acknowledged. “But I can’t say for sure yet. It feels like Fortunato has something else brewing. I think he may be trying to form some kind of team, but I can’t tell if it’s just a revenge kick or some kind of vanity project with longer-term goals. I need more data. Which is part of the reason I’m even going to lend him an ear when he finally calls you up to meet with me. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest single threat to New Judah after Janus is Fortunato right now. Man has a God complex and even if he thinks he’s doing good, he’ll probably leave a whole lot of damage in his wake—eventually, his ego and greed always get in the way.”

And there it is, Carl thought, and with a sickening mental lurch, he realized he was finally in the territory he had been avoiding all along. No stopping now…

“With all due respect, Query—”

“In other words, ‘let me point something out something potentially insulting to you’.” Query said, cutting him off.

“Anyway,” Carl sighed. “No offense—”

“Same thing,” Query teased him.

“Jesus! OK, Query, what I’m trying to say is, you’re right that Fortunato has an ego bigger than the city itself, but you’re not in a position to judge somebody else’s God complex. You have a squadron of high-tech, programmable, auto-pilot mini-drones flying around the city, you’ve got a network of informants, you regularly hack into all kind of surveillance systems and all that, and you share hardly a speck of your intel with the police. You know the identities and even the damn home addresses of several costumed whackjobs and you mostly keep that to yourself. You don’t go after them yourself very often, you don’t send other white hats after them very often and you almost never share with New Judah’s finest men and women in blue. Why?”

For several moments, Query said nothing. Carl’s guts clenched, but he didn’t sense anger from the man. Bewilderment, maybe, but not anger. As the sharp cramp in his belly eased, Carl could almost imagine the hero’s eyes blinking behind the mask like a startled cartoon character. The mental image calmed him a little.

“First off, Carl, my personality gives me plenty of right to judge Fortunato,” Query retorted mildly. “If I’ve got a God complex, and I don’t—but anyway, if I have a similarly large ego and level of presumption as Fortunato—then I’ll judge him all day long. Takes one to know one, and I have enough distance from his issues to know when he’s too close to them to think straight. Honestly—and this pains me to admit—the same could probably be said of him sorting out my issues if he knew enough about me to know what I was up to.”

“So why don’t you?”

“What? Share my entire wealth of data with everyone who’s going after the bad guys, you mean?” Query asked.

“Yeah. Because you should be.” Carl’s tone was flat, but still, the sense of accusation transmitted clearly.

“Partly because I’m not God, Carl. I can’t fix everything, and I shouldn’t try to. I also don’t want people knowing just how much I know, because then they’ll start wondering if I’m more a danger than an asset to the city or, if they’re the bad guys, they’ll realize I’m even more a threat to their operations than they know already. I don’t need to be dodging hit squads like the one Janus sent on a regular basis. That shit’s tiring, and I’m getting too old for that.”

Carl said nothing. But the accusation remained.

“But in the end, it’s really about balance,” Query said.

“You think the crooks deserve to have some kind of balance?” Carl spat out. “That’s crazy. A level playing field for them?”

“Oh, hell no,” Query sneered. “It’s not about making things fair for the black hats; it’s about not adding to their numbers, man.”

“Huh?”

“Look, transhumans aren’t crazy per se, Carl, but we’re wired differently. We have issues in our heads—an awful lot of us, anyway. And some of us more than others. Let’s say I handed out my data like candy at Halloween and we cleared out most of the costumed bad guys in the city. What would happen?”

“I guess folks would come in to the city to fill the voids. That what you mean?”

“Worse, Carl. Some of the heroes and vigilantes in the city might fill those voids, too. Without suitable challenges…that is, without enemies that are like them—peers in power, if you will—I suspect some of the white hats who mostly like kicking ass or getting attention might gravitate toward the dark side. Jedi/Sith-style like in Star Wars. A lot of those heroes need an outlet—fighting folks who are like them. Without that, seizing power and misusing their power might start to taste good to them.”

“But some of these black hats are way more of a risk than the average crook, and you let a lot of them continue to run free when you could shut them down. Doesn’t that—”

“Make me feel conflicted? Make me feel like shit sometimes knowing if I’ve misjudged that someone I thought was no big deal might kill a whole bus full of children or a convent full of nuns? Yeah, Carl. My job sucks. But the fact is, no matter how big my ego, I’ve got enough perspective and humility to know that sometimes I need to let nature run its course. I need to remind myself that no one—not even me—can make crime ever go away. We all have our roles to play, Carl. A lot of times, mine is to sit back and keep my nose out of other people’s business—even when I can smell things are going to go sour.”

* * *

Although her work as an assistant district attorney took her to the main building of the New Judah Police Department on a fairly regular basis, Andrea realized this would be her first time going above the fourth floor since she had started the job two months ago. Truth be told, though, that little bit of trivia was only a minor note in her mind right up until the elevator doors opened.

Then she gasped.

The man standing in front of her in a crisp suit-and-tie ensemble might have thought she was gasping at the sight of him, she considered many hours later—he was tall and handsome enough—but what had taken her breath away was the crisp, clean, high-tech appearance of the mostly open-plan landscape of the sixth floor. The rest of the eight-story main precinct building and the other, smaller precinct buildings she’d visited weren’t that much different than what she’d seen in the city of Cleveland’s Division of Police—the offices were neither startlingly decrepit nor were they models of modernity.

But this floor looks like it belongs on the set of some science fiction show, she thought.

“ADA Yates; good to meet you,” the lieutenant said, extending his hand. She took it and gave him a light, quick shake as she exited the elevator car. “Can I get you a coffee?”

“Sure. Black. Do you have a machine that teleports them straight to you, Lt. Greene?” she joked.

He chuckled, low and slow, as he stepped around into a small reception desk and grabbed a cup, pouring from a pot just underneath the counter. “Well, a lot of the officers around here do call this floor ‘The Enterprise,’ but no. Old-fashioned brewing and pouring,” he said, smiling and handing her the paper cup as the steam from it spiraled up in the air between them. “C’mon, let me give you the grand tour. So, I know this is your first time here, or I wouldn’t be your tour guide, but I wanna make sure I show you the right things. I hear that you wanna handle a lot of transhuman cases?”

“Yeah. Is that weird or something?”

“Not at all, Ms. Yates. You see,” he said in an almost boyishly excited voice as he extended one arm in an arc to show off one half of the floor like a gameshow prize, “a lot of this floor is forensics. State-of-the-art lab computers and stuff—the actual labs and clean rooms are a floor above us. Lots of great equipment in there, but that floor looks pretty much like standard police issue architecture. Fortunato actually paid for a lot of this floor as a goodwill gesture to the city. But this—this is what you’re really gonna wanna see.”

He pointed toward the other side of the floor, and led the way to a door marked “SO/GT Div.” Opening it, he waved her in and followed right behind her. It was one of the few parts of the floor that wasn’t open and airy, and there were no windows to let anyone see into this section from the rest of the floor or see out onto the main part of the floor.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been ushered into a secret lair?”

“In a way, you have. This part of the department doesn’t get talked about a lot. I wouldn’t say it’s secret, but it’s probably best if you kind of behave like it is. We talk about it too much, and it may not work as well for us as it does.”

“As what does?” Andrea probed.

“Well, remember how Detective Sergeant Lindemann kind of read you the riot act a few weeks ago about not pushing the department to arrest transhumans on weak evidence?”

“Good God. Is he telling that story all around the department or something? Am I going to be like the village idiot around here?”

“Oh, hell, nothing like that. He’s discreet as hell. But I asked anyone in the department who feels like they have any sense of you or any major interactions with you to come and talk to me before our appointment today.”

“Why, Lieutenant?”

“So I know what your level of knowledge is and what I need to teach you about what we do here. What did Joe tell you was one of the biggest problems about arresting transhumans?”

Andrea sighed and didn’t bother to try to mask the exasperation in her voice. “Making a positive ID and linking them to a crime, since they typically wear masks and gloves—hell, whole costumes that make it less likely they’ll even drop hair as evidence. Plus some of them use body doubles as misdirection.”

“Bingo!” the detective said eagerly. “Even if you get good video, making an ID is hard, because unless the mask is pretty form-fitting, you might not even be able to use facial recognition software to match a suspect to the perp you caught on tape. And that’s why we have the SoundOff Program. That’s the ‘SO’ part of what was on the door back there. We have high-quality recordings of the voices of a lot of transhumans—criminals, vigilantes, heroes, whatever—and we can use those to match a suspect with their voice on file to help make the identification stick when we charge ‘em and you try to convict ‘em.”

With a rush of awareness, Andrea realized what felt strange about this area. Much of it struck her like it was a sound recording studio or radio station.

“But you’d only have them recorded if you’d captured them before, right?”

“Oh, no. We estimate we have voiceprints—good, thorough ones—on probably a third of the trans crooks in town, regardless of whether they’ve ever been caught or even questioned,  and average to middling quality on another third.”

“How?”

“They call us.”

“No, seriously.”

“Dead serious, ADA Yates. Dead serious. Transhumans who put on costumes tend to be the ones most touched in the head. They’re the ones who often want the attention, or why would they put on costumes and give themselves these crazy names? They love to call and taunt us right before or after a crime. Or just to try to strike fear into our hearts when they first enter the scene. Or to complain to us when the press is mischaracterizing them or we’re supposedly slandering them. And of course the heroes and vigilantes call in to let us know there are bad guys to pick up—so we’ve got them recorded and stored, too.

“Attention,” Lt. Greene continued. “The biggest mental block most any costumed transhuman has is a desire—on some level—for attention or validation. So we sometimes know the villain’s name before anyone’s even seen the creep in action in costume, and we have a voice to match to it—all because he called to introduce himself—or herself. We’ve even been able to nab a few who changed their costume and name later thinking it would help them avoid capture, and charged them with the crimes committed under their previous identity.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“We’ve had this division and this equipment—or earlier generations of it—for a decade, give or take. There are similar centers like this in Manhattan, D.C., Chicago, L.A., Dallas, Philly and Gryphon. Marksburgh flat-out refuses to adopt the technology, even though God knows they need it more than anyone else.”

“And they still call you? No one’s caught on? Surely you have to reveal to the defense and the judge that you have a recording and how it was obtained.”

“Yup.”

“Then why don’t the newer transhuman villains stop calling you and giving you evidence to help identify them?”

“Same reason people see shows on TV like CSI or Law & Order or some cheesy Lifetime woman-gets-murdered-by-crazy-husband movie and know the police have special sprays and lights that can show bloodstains that aren’t visible to the naked eye and yet still clean up all the blood and think they’re free and clear. Or rape a woman without wearing a condom. Or don’t wear gloves even though fingerprinting technology’s been around forever. They’re either dumb, overconfident or want too badly for us to realize how amazing they are. And it’s not like we go trumpeting the fact we have all these technologies—that’s why I say behave like it’s a secret, even though it really isn’t.

“But in the end, who knows?” the lieutenant continued, “Ego? Stupidity? Both? I dunno. Maybe just ignorance in some cases. Doesn’t matter, though. In the end, we have these trans guys and gals on file—and non-transhuman folks who crave attention, too, like serial killers or activist extremists. And that’s where we get into the ‘GT’ part of this division’s name. The GeneTrapper Program. Genetic material when we can get it from a crime a trans villain is known to have been at, cross-referenced with the voiceprint and with the gene records and voiceprints of known associates and enemies. And other stuff, too. But showing’s better that saying, and I’ve got some people for you to meet. C’mon, Yates—let’s show you what you’ve got to work with when you go after these costumed nutjobs.”

Barely even looking at him—her head swimming with the realization of just what kind of people she was about to start making the focus of her work and the strangeness of them—she followed in his wake.

I guess we’re not in Cleveland anymore, are we, Toto? Andrea mused as her guide continued to regale her with tales of technology and transhumans as he led her farther down the long hall. Or maybe I’m picking the wrong fantasy analogy. Maybe I just fell down the rabbit hole like Alice did.

* * *

Pushing a comic book just slightly to cover an errant view of the dull, pitted hardwood of his apartment’s floor, the man leaned back. He admired the wall-to-wall “carpeting” of his small, dingy place in the part of the city known as The Hollows—the sea of comics. This tiny place was more than he deserved, really. Crazy Jane had told him that so many times, even as she stroked his hair and called him her good little puppy. Or her bad little puppy.

In the end, both terms were usually used for the same behavior.

He didn’t deserve this little hovel furnished with nothing but two wooden chairs, a small table, and hundreds of comic books to cover the floors. He didn’t deserve Jane. But in the end, he’d played that small part in her escape because she was his world by then. He needed her. Craved her attention. Even now, he shook with stress over the fact she hadn’t been to see him since two mornings ago, and rubbed his hands nervously across his black-hooded face.

Usually, she’d visit him daily—sometimes a few times in a day—to monitor his progress. To see how he was developing.

Her art project. Her pet project.

Her pet.

And her toy.

Oh, never to play with sexually—such a thought repulsed him. Not because he didn’t desire her. He did. Oh so much. But it would repulse her he was certain. And it would anger Janus, which might cause him to be permanently removed from Crazy Jane’s attentions. He couldn’t disappoint her like that. So he would never overstep that line.

Besides, he could slake his desires on other men and women just like Crazy Jane had taught him. Just as she had molded him to do. Because she’d imprisoned the sanity that had always held him back from glory. She’d freed his mind to the wonder of what others called madness.

But it was really just truth. Problem was, most of society couldn’t handle the truth.

He admired the colorful, paper carpeting of his abode. Comics with Doctor Doom on the cover. Or Doctor Fate. Or Doctor Strange. Doctor Octopus. Doctor Light. Doctor Silvanus. And so many others.

He’d need to get a tarp today. And then a victim. Mustn’t disappoint Crazy Jane, who’d expect him to have some kind of project to show her when she arrived tomorrow. That’s why she was making him wait, probably—he’d been slack in giving her new pieces to admire. It had been a couple weeks now. He needed to find someone new to—modify.

But first, the tarp.

It wouldn’t do to bloody all these famous comic book “doctors.”

Even if his own name was Marcus Blood, M.D.

Dr. Blood.

* * *

Janus looked out through the broad window of the conference room in which he and Underworld were ensconced. Toward the figure sitting outside on a small sofa. Long-legged and busty with silver-streaked dark hair pulled into a pair of pigtails. Black, sleeveless top and plaid miniskirt. Fishnet stockings with a big pair of lacy white garters at the swell of the thighs, matching the four smaller garters on the arms, over black opera gloves. High-heeled red pumps with their own lacy garters. Face shining with pale powder and highlighted with a black circle at each cheek and equally black lips. And to top it all off, contact lenses that made the eyes look red as burning embers.

“I cannot believe you convinced me to let that on my team,” he sighed.

“Our team,” Underworld corrected him. “And you can’t deny the test results and reports. She’s everything I promised you she would be. Her powers are incredible, especially now that my team has honed them with vocal training and couple technological additions. She’s a goddamn work of transhuman art.”

“She? She has a dick. Cleverly secured back between his ass cheeks or not—a dick. That’s a man, and I wish he would act like one.”

“She already agreed to change her name from Shrill to the more intimidating Caterwaul—and go Goth for you so that she doesn’t look too frilly in a fight. And I have to admit, she does Goth so well. She’s made her concessions. I’m not going to make her dress in slacks and a button-down for you.”

“That is not a woman,” Janus insisted. “I cannot believe you are enabling this ridiculousness.”

“She feels like one, and I’m on her side,” Underworld said. “A chick with a dick, as she likes to say. Variety is the spice of life, Janus. I’ve even found a Regenerator who assures me he can get her body to start producing estrogen consistently. With that and a little cosmetic surgery help, she won’t need the padded bra anymore.”

“A fucking she-male on our team. Just what I wanted,” Janus sneered.

“She hates that term; so do I. You know, for someone who wears masks that express some kind of duality and has the name of a two-faced god, you’re awfully persnickety about sexual identity issues,” Underworld observed.

She also observed, silently, that there was a subtle difference to his mask today compared to others he had worn. The forward-facing central part of it struck her as angry and male. On each side were two other faces, one looking right and the other left. Both of them seemed feminine, with one smiling and the other’s mouth exhibiting a more neutral affect.

In a sense, he’s wearing three faces today instead of his usual pair, and it mixes masculine and feminine. A little outside his box and perhaps a sign of confusion. I do believe I’ve hit a nerve and found a new way to make Janus uncomfortable, Underworld considered. And that’s always a good thing for me.

“I’m a superpowered kingpin. I reserve the right to be a hypocrite. I just happen to believe that when it comes to gonads, you play the hand you’re dealt,” Janus said. “Or you go under the knife and change your hand to a whole new one. You don’t mix up two different decks.”

“She likes having a dick. It’s like her big, fat juicy clitoris,” Underworld taunted him in a syrupy sweet tone. “And for a pussy she has—”

“Oh, God, please shut up,” he groaned. “Will he go all the way in a fight if necessary? Does he have the killer instinct?”

“She’s sexy and pretty, not a pushover,” Underworld said. “She’ll perform. She will get the jobs done. She. C’mon…say it. Sheeeeeee.”

“It…has…a…dick,” Janus enunciated slowly. “He’s your responsibility, so just make sure he—”

“She.”

“If I start using ‘she’ and ‘her’ can you promise me we will never again discuss its sexual anatomy or who and what it sleeps with?” Janus said with quiet intensity.

“Oh, of course, my dear,” Underworld said with even more exaggerated sweetness. “That sounds just lovely.”

“Then I look forward to her proving herself. If she fails me by showing the slightest hesitation—if she crumbles at any crunch-time—I will not hesitate to crush every one of her protuberances before I kill her.”

“Fair enough, Janus,” Underworld said with a smug undertone. “You’ve gotta admit, though, she has a great ass and gorgeous legs.”

Janus sighed heavily. “In hindsight, I suppose I should have made you agree not to talk about any part of Caterwaul’s body.”

“Yeaaaaah,” she responded, slowly and softly.

“I think we’re done today,” said Janus. “Tell the others to come back in a couple days and we can finish sorting out the final roster and backup members. Hopefully, you’ll be over your gloating by then. I trust you can see your Goth-tart protégé out by yourself.”

“Of course, darling,” Underworld said as if addressing a small child, her glee at ruining his day a little taking some of the edge—a sliver at least—off her burning daily desire to murder him. “Wouldn’t want Caterwaul to get any of her transvestite cooties on youuuu, would weeee?”

“Go,” Janus snarled, then smiled brightly beneath the angry frown of his mask. “Please go before I forget how much I need to keep you around.”

Hard Ride

The tinkle of bells intruded on her solitude—well, perhaps solitude was the wrong word, with the owner of the shop behind the counter in front of her, laying out herbs and vials for her to inspect. Setting out wares in hopes the mambo would buy even more of them than she had intended when she entered.

But for a glorious half-hour in the curio and voodoo shop, it had been her and the shop owner alone, she thought, as she pointed to the jimson weed and sulfur with one long, clear-glossed nail, nodding to the owner that she wanted both added to her order.

For some 30 minutes, there had been just the two of them. No curious tourists stumbling in from too much drinking on Bourbon Street to “experience” voodoo first-hand like gawkers at a zoo. No ignorant locals who thought a few exotic powders or dried leaves would give them magical power over the world. No fellow practitioners whom she typically chafed.

And it would, of course, end up being one of the latter, she thought, sighing inwardly as the door to the shop closed and the bell hanging from it progressed quickly toward silence. A houngan who held her in particular disdain. He cleared his throat with a noise that communicated all too well his disgust and irritation. She half expected him to spit a thick wad of phlegm on her.

“Unruly child. Undisciplined whore,” Harmon de la Croix said, spitting words instead of saliva. “How long will you be here?”

“I am not a child or a whore, Harmon,” answered Christine Barrow, turning toward him and regarding him with a face made up half black and half white to make it seem skull-like beneath her black top hat. “I am a mambo in need of supplies. I’ll be done soon and remove my presence from yours.”

“You are no proper mambo. You are a heretic and I would have you remove yourself from New Orleans—and from Louisiana—if I could,” Harmon sneered. “Baroness Samedi indeed. You offend him and all loa with such pretention naming yourself that. You particularly offend his wife, Maman Brigitte.”

“If he is so offended, why does that particular loa ride me so often, Harmon?” Christine answered. “I am Baroness Samedi when I dispense justice and protection with my transhuman powers. I am Mambo Barrow when I preside over ceremonies with the faithful. I intend no offense; instead, I honor him. I am an earthly consort whom he blesses to be of service to others, making my transhuman powers stronger when he rides me, and I thank his dear Maman for letting me be such to him.”

“You are a foul-mouthed, immature woman who has delusions of superiority and probably a touch of Tourette’s syndrome. Even Baron Samedi would blush at the obscene phrases you speak when he supposedly rides you. And certainly he is offended by the way you use your powers of illusion—your transhuman abilities—to make ghostly images of him descending upon you. Tricks to lure followers to your ceremonies. Sacrilege!”

Christine flushed with anger and hurt, and found herself in a rare moment of cursing the fact she had a white father and that her mother’s brown skin was so light. Christine looked very nearly Caucasian to the casual eye, and the blush was probably visible on her neck below the makeup, letting the houngan know he had actually scored an emotional blow.

I do sometimes regret using my powers during ceremonies, she thought. But the faithful often benefit by being able to see what I see or feel, or some semblance. My faith is real, and my devotion to the good god Bondyè is true. And if I name myself after Samedi, is it my fault? I know there are other loa who serve Bondyè, and sometimes they ride me. But Baron Samedi comes to me so much more often. I am a mambo, not a loa nor the Good God. It is not my place to refuse to be ridden, only to moderate Samedi’s actions sometimes when he is upon me and to make him dismount if he overstays his welcome.

“I am a mambo and act with the power of faith and true conviction, Harmon. You are a houngan and I respect your practice as a priest. But I spit on your value as a gentleman and regret that you fail as a peer, making me an outsider.”

“I’m not the only one,” Harmon said as Christine paid for her supplies and passed by him, ready to patrol the streets for a few hours as Baroness Samedi before she removed her makeup and dressed less garishly for tonight’s services with her small but growing flock. His small, dark eyes bored into her and he stroked one side of his thin black-and-gray mustache absently. “Many of us refuse to be associated with you, lest you corrupt our relationships with the loa and our commitment to the good god Bon Dieu.”

“Thank Bondyè and his loa, then, that a few houngans and mambos have more sense and give me the same respect I offer—the respect I wish you would let me offer you.”

“I want nothing from you, heretic,” he answered her as she stepped out to the sidewalk. “Nothing but your absence. And thank our creator Bon Dieu that I am finally granted that.”

* * *

Christine sat at her vanity table, staring for long minutes into the mirrored glass before her. For perhaps the thousandth time since she had developed her transhuman powers at age 12 and later entered the voodoo priesthood, she considered using her powers of illusion to make herself look more like the black woman she was. So many women like her over the generations had been happy to pass, but she wasn’t one of them. Mama said they could trace their family back to Marie Laveau and even farther back to priests of Haitian vodou. Yet on days like these, she felt her paleness mocked all of that.

But changing how she looked wouldn’t change who she was—who she was proud of being most days. Moreover, it would dishonor both the mother and father who had raised her. Besides, people had seen her with this lightly tanned skin for the entire 31 years of her life that she’d been in the Orleans Parish; what good would it do to use powers of illusion to darken her visage and hands? And where would she stop after that? Make her hair appear kinky and black instead of straight and brown?

I am as Bondyè’s will and world have made me. I am a mambo. I am also a transhuman protector of this city. My illusions are for patrolling and for ceremonies. Not for vanity or to soothe regrets and emotional wounds that I refuse to let go of or let heal.

She considered the array of makeup before her, both mundane and exotic, and considered whether she should do up her face as a skull again and work out her frustrations on some thugs in the dark side streets of the French Quarter so that a few less tourists would go to their hotel rooms as mugging victims tonight. She was tired, though. It has been a good ceremony tonight, and the loa Ayida-Weddo—the rainbow serpent—had ridden her tonight. Usually it was Baron Samedi or one of his fellow sexualized and profanity-loving Ghede. It had been far too long since one of the Rada loa had visited her congregation. Longer still since one of the Petro loa had, either, but Christine dreaded the violence they sometimes brought with them.

Baron Samedi and his Ghede kin might bring an air of debauchery and mischief to my ceremonies, but better to have bawdiness than brawling. Bruised thighs are usually more pleasurable in the aftermath than black eyes.

As she struggled with decisions and realized how dark the circles under her eyes were tonight, a light tap at her door demanded attention.

“Yes?” she inquired.

The door opened and a tall man with skin so dark it could almost legitimately be called black peered in. He smiled disarmingly in that usual way of his that suggested he meant no intrusion and at the same time wanted very much to brighten the room with a ribald joke or a loud, long laugh.

“Matthew. What can I do for you?” she asked of the man, who was one of her chief assistants, both in the conduct of this small voodoo church and the carrying out of her transhuman duties in costume.

“I have good news for you, Mambo,” he said. “I have gotten word from some of our friends abroad. We finally have a fix on Mister Voodoo.”

Christine smiled a grin so wicked it was like a razor-sharp sickle. Most people wouldn’t smile at thoughts of Mister Voodoo, much less two people in the same room express glee at the speaking of his name. But they had been hunting for him a long time. And any hunter is happy when the quarry is finally in sight.

“Where? Where is he, Matt?” she asked breathlessly. Harmon may have called her a heretic but Mister Voodoo was the one carrying out true sacrilege. In name and in deed, he exemplified everything in popular culture that made her religion of voodoo and its Haitian cousin vodou seem like something wicked and perverse.

“Atlanta, Mambo. The outskirts, anyway. He is here in the South again, but this time, he didn’t hide so well. Several hundred miles from us, sadly, but from what I’m told, he seems like he won’t be leaving Georgia any time soon. We have him, Christine. Baroness Samedi has him.”

“I don’t have him until he’s actually down—dead or, preferably, in someone’s custody,” she reminded Matthew. “Let everyone know there won’t be services for at least a few days. Have them say prayers and perform rituals on my behalf at home. I’ll need all the blessings I can get for this.”

* * *

Christine, in her full Baroness Samedi costume and makeup, stepped out of the rental van, smoking pouring forth before her from a cigar clutched between her teeth and embraced by her black-and-white-painted lips. The taste of expensive rum was on her tongue—not enough for a serious buzz but enough to entice Baron Samedi, she hoped. Tobacco and booze were the lures to bring him forth, and she feared she would need him soon. She’d need to risk a little of her edge to do that.

Setting the cigar down at the edge of the van’s side door, next to an open bottle of rum, and trailing smoke in her wake, she led three men—one of them a heavily armed Matthew—from the van toward the house in which Mister Voodoo was said to be holed up. She and Matthew headed for the front door, and the other two headed around back; this wasn’t going to be a subtle operation. The strategy might not be the best, but she intended to kick in the doors and take Mister Voodoo down hard and fast. The more finesse and stealth, she figured, the less likely they’d attack strongly and the more likely their approach would be seen.

Besides, Baron Samedi adores disruptions and chaos—if I want his help today, I need to do what will attract his attention and draw his blessings upon me, she theorized. It’s worked before; I really need it to work today.

Before she and Matthew could reach the front door, hoping to be more or less in sync with Leroy and Vic kicking in the back door, Baroness Samedi heard a sharp cry from the back of the house and recognized it as Vic. She heard Leroy shout, “Remember, the zombies are victims!”—then heard several shots fired. She and Matthew hesitated as they tried to figure out whether to head around back to help or continue toward the front door. Finally, she barked, “Move! Knock it in!”

Matthew surged forward, and kicked the door with a Doc Marten-booted right foot, which was attached to a 6-foot-3-inch,  240-pound body that rarely missed a daily trip to the gym. The door framed splintered, the door flew inward—suddenly, a gaunt, desiccated person lunged at him, flailing meaty fists attached to a pair of withered arms. For a person that looked like a corpse, the swings had a great deal of energy and inertia behind them, forcing Matthew to backpedal. Mister Voodoo appeared in the doorway then, a gun leveled at Baroness Samedi’s right-hand man. Three shots rang out, hitting Matthew in the bicep, shoulder and finally his chest. He tumbled to the ground and the “zombie” that had preceded Mister Voodoo out of the house fixated on her and charged.

She didn’t want to kill him—or her. So hard to tell given the condition of the shirtless, shoeless body in wrinkled jeans. The horrid thing in front of her, as much as it looked like a member of the undead, was just some poor victim—a living person consigned to an earthly hell. Mister Voodoo had the power to control minds, though it seemed he needed considerable time to establish a link and control, since he’d never simply wrested an enemy’s will away in a fight. Why these poor thralls looked the way they did was still largely a mystery. Baroness Samedi’s sources had liberated one zombie from Mister Voodoo years earlier and nursed her back to some semblance of health, and they theorized that either he had Necro or Disruptor powers he used to damage their tissues and organs, or that he was a Vamp that slowly fed on their bodily fluids.

Opinion leaned toward the latter, since he seemed to go through zombies fairly rapidly, with what seemed to be a new set of three to five of them every few weeks.

Disruptor, Necro or Vamp—whichever it is I almost certainly don’t want him touching me or I’m probably finished.

She didn’t want to kill the zombified thrall, but she also couldn’t afford to be grappling with the wretchedly altered person, so she fired at its legs. Not being all that good an aim, though, and mostly used to relying on her powers, it took six bullets to finally bring the zombie to the ground. Meanwhile, Mister Voodoo was firing at her. He wasn’t any kind of marksman himself, and actually hit his own zombie several times. A few other bullets whizzed past Baroness Samedi as she emptied her gun on him, hoping she’d hit something vital or at least incapacitating. A bullet finally caught her in the left hip and she stumbled. She saw him take careful aim and tumbled away quickly, crying out as she rolled over her hip wound several times and left wet, red stains in the grass. Two bullets sprayed soil and grass from the spot where she had been, and then Mister Voodoo was clicking on an empty magazine.

Baroness Samedi struggled back up to her legs unsteadily as Mister Voodoo charged toward her, seemingly free of even a single gunshot wound despite her volley of bullets. Seeing her regain her bearing, he slowed up to prepare for an attack, and grinned cockily at her.

“Oh, this is rich! A voodoo mambo coming to take me down. Too bad you’re just gonna fail, bitch,” Mister Voodoo said. “Your two dudes are being pummeled and chewed on in my backyard and your wingman is down in my front lawn. I’ve heard about you, Baroness Samedi. Such a joke. Superstitious cunt! Delusional slut with a need to justify the fact she like the occasional gang-bang by the superstitious coons that follow her. And you think your powers get stronger when Baron Samedi rides you. You’re too stupid to realize it’s just adrenaline or whatever, and your powers kicking up under stress. Well, I’m gonna stress you out; no doubt of that. But whatever that stresses squeezes out of you in terms of power, it ain’t gonna be enough. I’ll be beating you down and maybe fucking you ‘til you’re dead. Or maybe I’ll make you my newest zombie. Wouldn’t that be freakin’ ironic?”

He charged her, reaching for her arm. He snapped his fingers around her wrist as she tried to pull the limb away from his grasp.

And he closed on thin air.

Startled, he stepped back and then, as he reoriented, he saw her a few feet away. Whatever satisfaction Baroness Samedi had felt over tricking him, using her illusion powers to make herself appear much closer than she was, they were dulled by the knowledge she was bleeding and limping, and wouldn’t be able to stay out of his reach for long—or continue to generate complex illusions, for that matter.

She felt nothing of her favored loa’s presence in her. She was operating on her power alone, against a transhuman villain who’d never been captured and had killed dozens of people over the course of his career—hundreds perhaps if he did indeed consume the very life essence of his withered and mind-controlled slaves.

She regarded her enemy, searching for a weakness. Searching for a plan of attack. Circled slowly as she limped on a throbbing, blood-soaked leg.

Mister Voodoo just kept smiling, his teeth glistening white and just a single gap in front where a canine had either been knocked out or extracted. His eyes were a sharp, light brown—mottled hazel and boring into her with intense concentration. His costume was a canvas tunic with all kinds of supposedly voodoo paraphernalia adorning it—chicken claws, shark fangs, mummified fingers and toes, and more—some of them oddities she’d never seen in any voodoo shop. In a few places, mandrake roots were sewn to the material, and from his neck hung a voodoo doll of beige felt that was pierced with at least a dozen pins and nails, with red spots around them that could be fake blood or might real, though fake seemed more likely unless he’d just recently applied it.

Voodoo doll! That pisses me off on top of everything else. He’s made it into the violent, curse-associated tool that movies and stories love so much. I’ve never known a houngan or mambo who ever used a voodoo doll for anything other than a blessing or—in the worst-case scenario—to exert some control over someone whose behavior needed to be reined in.

She realized he probably had some sort of body armor under the crude, totemic tunic. Probably a codpiece of some sort, too, so she wouldn’t be too quick to aim for his balls. He sported heavy leather and steel gauntlets to protect his hands and forearms, shoulder and elbow pads, and heavy steel-toed boots and knee pads. She was facing off against a man more heavily protected than a football player, except for his lack of helmet. His head was the only place she was sure to do some damage. Now she just needed an illusion to distract him so she could—

Baroness Samedi grunted as she was hit from behind and as frail-looking but strong arms wrapped around her and dragged her to the ground. One of his other zombies, having snuck up behind her.

“This is where it ends, bitch,” Mister Voodoo said, now sauntering toward her with slow, arrogant steps. “This is where you die or end up my newest bony-ass slave. So sweet. Another win in the Mister Voodoo column.”

“Fuck that, you pompous cunt-waffle,” she snarled, surprised at her language. Then she smiled. She almost never swore unless Baron Samedi or one of the other Ghede were upon her. Her patron hadn’t abandoned her. He had come to lend his power. She sighed as she felt the spirit of the loa settle over her. Mount her. “We ain’t even danced yet sugah, and here you are getting ready to suck the life outta me. How goddamned rude of you. What ever happened to romance?”

She stood up, ignoring the pain in her hip and leg now, standing and dragging the zombie back up with her, its arms still pinning her arms to her sides. Baroness Samedi felt a warm ripple of comfort wash over her injured limb and smiled. The loa Baron Samedi was a trouble-maker and charmer, the lord of the dead and an aficionado of tobacco, alcohol and sex. But he could also heal and cure disease in whomever he desired. A power she enjoyed when he rode her at times like these.

“So you’re standing. Big deal. You still ain’t going nowhere,” Mister Voodoo taunted her. “Not in time, at least. You ain’t even trying to throw illusions against me. Weak cunt.”

“My cunt’s wet and strong, darlin’,” came the sensuous voice from Baroness Samedi’s mouth. “Too bad you won’t get to find out, fuckwad. Maybe you’d like some cock from me instead, baby. Like you’ll be getting a daily dose of in prison, peckerwood.”

The ground exploded all around Mister Voodoo as gauzy-looking but substantial tentacles—five in all—burst from the ground. Quasi-matter constructs that flailed, slapping him around and then slapping him to the ground. One whipped toward Baroness Samedi and pulled one of the zombie’s arms from her roughly. She pushed the poor thing away and stepped toward Mister Voodoo, who had scrambled through the morass of tentacles spawned by the Ecto powers Baroness Samedi had never even known she had access to before. Her heart sang at this newest gift from the loa.

“I ain’t scared of you, bitch! What? You came after me because you don’t like my little take on voodoo. My special branding. I was raised in that superstitious shit. Fuck your stupid-ass religion! I’ll mock it and make people fear it more until the day I die. All while I kill and steal and take what I want.”

Unstable as quasi-matter was, the tentacles began to dissociate, and he batted one away, satisfied to watch it quiver and vanish.

“You can’t keep your fake cock up, can you, Baroness Samedi? Worthless cunt. Dead woman walking.”

“You’ve used death words a couple times now, limp-dick,” Baroness Samedi crooned. “And that’s just the problem. This is the lord of the dead riding this woman’s body and soul, and he’s a little sick of you sending quite so many people to him before their natural time. Just because I let the dead into the next life don’t mean I want a fucking crowd at my door of confused bastards. You insult this woman’s religion and you insult me and all the loa, cock-wad. And my dicks have spiritual Viagra flowing like rum on Bourbon Street, he-bitch!”

Three new tentacles coalesced from the air, batting Mister Voodoo around as Baroness Samedi walked calmly to where Matthew lay on the ground. He was breathing, but erratically, and she passed her hands over his wounds, the bullets slowly pressing out of his flesh and the holes sealing as if he’d never been shot. Only the smears of blood on his skin showed anything had happened. Baroness Samedi turned at the snap of a branch, Mister Voodoo racing toward her through the flurry of quasi-matter tentacles.

She snapped her finger, and a new tentacle appeared in front of him, rigid and straight, and his forehead ran straight into it. He stumbled, stunned, and then fell back as it punched him in the face four times.

“I ain’t done with the stud down here. Gotta fix up this rich piece of beefcake for my mambo. Wait your goddamn turn, Mister Frou-Frou.”

Passing her hands over Matthew one last time to complete the regeneration of his wounded body, Baroness Samedi walked to Mister Voodoo and gazed down at him, her head cocked and eyes curious.

“Did you think I’d forget about ya, sweetie?” she asked almost demurely. “I still got a treat for you. I’ll love you long time, soldier!”

A shimmering, ghostly tentacle struck him in the mouth several times, splitting his lip, and then hit him six more times. He struggled to his knees, coughing, and spit up several teeth in a spray of fine red mist. Then the tentacle slid quickly into his mouth and down his throat. He went rigid, scrabbled at it with his fingers, and stumbled, gagging desperately but nearly silently, breath lost to him.

“I loved the movie ‘Deep Throat’ back in the day. The loa like the movies, too. I just always preferred the X-rated ones,” Baroness Samedi said. “How do you like that cock, fucker? This day just isn’t motherfucking going your way all of a sudden, is it?”

When Mister Voodoo went still, the tentacle vanished and the zombie that had attacked Baroness Samedi before simply wandered aimlessly in circles, its unconscious master unable to give it direction. Baroness Samedi sighed as she felt the loa’s presence lift away from her, surprised with how gently she’d been mounted and dismounted today.

She shook her head, got her bearings, and then handcuffed Mister Voodoo. Once she confirmed that her other two men were—as she feared—dead, she roused Matthew and called the police.

Nothing ever goes as planned, she thought sadly, but at least the job is done.

* * *

In a show of coincidence and symmetry so contrived that Christine could only assume it was engineered by the loa themselves, houngan Harmon de la Croix walked once again into the same shop where they had traded words days before, just as she was ready to leave.

“Hmph!” Harmon snorted as he saw her. “At least today you’re not flaunting your heresy by dressing like Baron Samedi. Some of the other houngans and myself thank you, though, for dealing with Mister Voodoo. You’re still a whore and a fraud, though.”

Christine smiled wanly, responding, “It was my honor to serve the loa and the creator god in doing so. But what, Harmon—what will finally get you to stop calling me those horrible names and accept me as a mambo?”

“Can you make the Christians and Hollywood and all the rest stop misrepresenting and fearing us?”

“No, Harmon. I’m no miracle worker. Just a mambo.”

“Not even a mambo,” he retorted. “Just a foul-mouthed slut pretending at being a priestess.”

Christine gave him no response as she brushed past him. Outside, she pulled a hip flask from the pocket of her jeans and swallowed a slug of rum. Once it was slipped back against the curve of her ass, she pulled out a slim cigarillo and lit it up, feeling the gentle caress of Baron Samedi on her mind and soul as she puffed.

You are the constant thorn to keep my mindful, Harmon, she mused, exhaling a thick cloud of acrid smoke into the air, relishing its taste as it mixed with the rum in her throat and belly. At least I know Baron Samedi is proud of me.

________________________________________
Baroness Samedi photo (actual title by artist/photographer is “Baron Samedi II”) is used with permission of Koen, whose work can be seen at DeviantArt under the moniker KoenNya [click here to view her account]. Use here should NOT be implied as permission for the photo to be redistributed or re-used elsewhere or for any other purposes, commercial or otherwise, by myself or others.)

Burying the Lead

This story is pretty much a direct follow-up to a story I posted earlier in October (my most recent previous piece of fiction, actually), which was titled “Intersections.” Might be worth reading that one first, since some significant things in this story refer directly to events in “Intersections.” Also, there’s a reference in this story to something that happened with a guy named Ringmaster. That story, “Fresh Wounds, Old Scars” can be read here. By the way, any resemblance between the journalist character in this story (and its predecessor) and myself is purely coincidental. Maybe. Or not.
____________________________________________

Meeting a masked man in a secluded area of the city park as dusk crept in—just the average workday of an average journalist…

OK, not average at all, Doug admitted to himself as he approached the rendezvous point, and when I started off as a staff writer at a construction engineering magazine right after graduating from Northwestern, I never would have imagined I’d spend more than 18 years of my 21-year journalism career covering transhumans most of the time. Such a niche segment, and it snuck up on me. Took over just like some evil criminal supervillain genius taking over a city’s underworld.

Tonight’s meeting came—indirectly, at least—courtesy of PoweredPEOPLE, which was PEOPLE magazine’s transhuman-oriented sister publication, and more specifically thanks to the email from its managing editor telling Doug that after nearly a year of no new assignments from them, they had a juicy offer if he could quickly secure an exclusive interview with Asclepius and do it in person so that he could also snap a few digital photos of the “white-hat” transhuman in a relatively un-posed manner.

That’s the advantage of living in New Judah and being a freelancer, when so many of the transhuman publications are based in New York or California. I’m on the ground where a large number of the superheroes and supervillains act out their shenanigans, so I’m one of the guys you call when you need a rush interview with one of them.

He nodded as he caught sight of the man in black scrubs and black domino mask which, along with his brown skin, made him blend into the shadows awfully well right now. But Doug knew where Ascelpius was going to be, and hopefully with the growing darkness, they could have just a little privacy before things got involved and maybe drew attention from a random passerby.

“Evenin’ Mr. Jeffries,” Asclepius said amiably, holding out his right hand.

Doug shook it, and said with a goofball tone of voice, “Nice to meet you again, Mr. Asclepius.”

“Heh,” Asclepius said, both amused and sheepish. “Too formal?”

“Yeah, Doug is just fine. No need for ‘mister,’ especially since you saved my life.”

“The doctors probably would have done fine on you Doug, even as badly shot up as you were,” Asclepius responded. “But when word got out what had happened, there was no way I was going to take chances. You might not be transhuman, but you’ve always been fair with us in your stories. Always a stand-up guy. In a way, you’re one of us, and so you get my patented healing services. Hopefully you won’t ever need them again…”

It was time for Doug to let out a brief, amused snort of his own. “God willing,” he agreed. “But still, I can’t thank you enough for what you did.”

“Well, enough of that, right?” Asclepius ventured, as he sat down on a folding chair he had just flipped open, handing a second, still-folded one to Doug. “We’re here to let you work your reporter thing, and I’ve got to get going in a bit to do my own work. Sorry about the oddball time to meet, by the way. I mostly work nights since the heroes mostly work nights, but I also need to be up during the early- and mid-afternoon for the daytimers, so I sleep in two or three little shifts and frankly, I just got up.”

As if to punctuate the point, he reached for an insulated drink container and lifted it to his lips as Doug sat down in his own lawn chair. The Starbucks Coffee logo was easy to see in the fading light, with its white and green patterns.

“So, where do we start? Whatcha wanna ask me, Doug?” Asclepius asked.

“How about, ‘How do you think your new career of healing the bad guys instead of the good guys is gonna work out?’,” came a woman’s voice from some nearby shadows. As she stepped a bit closer, the dark reds of her outfit made her more visible—looking something like a skintight leather version of a carnival barker’s suit or circus ringleader’s, complete with a tophat.

Both Doug and Asclepius immediately stood up.

“That’s very gentlemanly of you both,” she said. “You probably both want to offer me a seat. But that’s all right, because I’ll just be taking Asclepius and going.”

“Jeeesus!” Asclepius exclaimed. “Ringmaster tried to pull this very same shit to force-pimp me out to the other side a couple years ago! And you dress almost like him! What is this, some kind of tired theme I’m gonna have to rehash every few years?”

“My name’s Sideshow. Interned with Ringmaster, and he’s come on hard times. Sold me all his intel on you, Asclepius, and the contacts he had for selling off your services. His various game plans. Everything. Cost me a hell of a lot, and I had to borrow from some dangerous people to afford it, so I need to put you to work as soon as possible. Let’s go. Oh, and just so you know, I’m pumped up on motion sickness medicine, anti-emetics and a whole lot of other stuff, so if you try some of that reverse-healing crap you did with Ringmaster’s crew on me, I’m going to taser you and drag you by your testicles to my trunk before you can even have an effect on me.”

For several moments, neither Ascelpius nor Doug spoke, and finally the former broke the silence.

“I think you might find me putting up a bit more of a fight than you expect,” he said.

“I don’t think so. What do you think, Doug?” Sideshow asked.

When Asclepius turned his face toward the journalist, he saw a gun pointed at him.

“Doug? Shit. You’re working with her?”

“She offered a lot of money, and after me almost getting killed—not to mention my wife and little girl put in danger—by some people who wanted to use me to get to some of you transhumans, well…seems like a good time to cash out of this line of work,” Doug responded. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

“Damn, Doug. Damn. This just doesn’t seem like you. Not your style. And after saving your life, too.”

“Welllll…” Doug said. “Yeah…not my usual style.” With that, he turned and pointed the gun at Sideshow. “Not my style at all. I wouldn’t take a penny of your money, lady. Granted, I thought about demanding a percentage upfront and then keeping it after you got hauled away, but then figured you’d be really motivated for revenge against me later if I did that.”

“Good plan, Doug,” Asclepius said. “Besides, you can probably get some kind of book deal out of this. Nice acting, by the way. Wasn’t sure you had it in you. I mean, we had so little rehearsal time.”

“A little theater in college before I realized it paid even worse than journalism,” Doug said.

“So, you warned Asclepius after I approached you with my offer,” Sideshow huffed. “How rude.”

“No, I warned Asclepius before you approached me,” he said. “As if the timing of your contact with me right after Katy’s email from PoweredPEOPLE wasn’t obvious enough, I already knew the email didn’t come from her. Sure, the address was almost perfect, since her last name has so damn few vowels and is so damn long, but even if I didn’t notice a couple transposed letters, she doesn’t call me ‘Doug’ and it hasn’t been a year since my last assignment with them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, clearly you bought off the magazine’s head IT guy—don’t worry, I’ve got a timed-delivery email Katy should be getting later tonight to tell her he needs arresting. So he set up an account I’d think was from her but that wasn’t hers so she wouldn’t know it was being used to contact me. He shared all her sent emails with you so you could mimic her style and all that. Congrats. Except a year ago, we started getting chummy online and she stopped using her work email to contact me. I’ve gotten all my assignments since then through her personal email. Not to mention she calls me ‘D-Bag’ these days, not ‘Doug.’ Rude, but she does it affectionately. Next time have your inside guy check the messages coming into her account instead of just her sent messages. Pro tip.”

“Hey, don’t help her—she’ll probably escape eventually and do better next time,” Asclepius teased him, then turned his attention to his would-be abductor. “You also should have done enough research to know that I don’t tend to go out without a transhuman bodyguard. The good guys like to make sure I stay intact to heal them. And there ain’t no one here with me but Doug tonight. Shoulda been a tip-off.”

“I’m only transhuman, not perfect,” Sideshow responded. “A lot of convoluted effort the two of you went through, though, to snare me. Why?”

“Kind of personal for me, Sideshow, and so I wanted to talk to you face to face,” Doug answered. “That’s why Asclepius agreed to this. After all, it was you who sent those two goons to abduct me a few months ago, after all, right? Same routine—I was targeted because I have the inside track on how to contact so many transhumans, by straightforward means and special ones. I’m kind of pissed about that, seeing as how my family was threatened in the process and I almost died. Oh, damn! I’m a journalist and I’m only just now telling you what all this is about. I went and buried the lead of my story.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Sideshow sneered.

“Seriously?”

“No, Doug, I don’t. This is the first time I’ve had anything to do with you. The ‘goons’ you refer to were someone else’s.”

“Shit.”

“Damn, Doug,” Asclepius said. “For a baseline human, you sure are getting popular with the black hats these days.”

“That’s the kind of popularity I can do without,” Doug answered, and realized that aside from showing no recognition in her eyes, there was no reason for Sideshow to lie about the two guys who’d try to abduct him for their boss in November when she was already caught red-handed trying to abduct Asclepius now in March. “Damn. I was sure I was killing two birds with one stone here tonight.”

“Maybe you should consider a career change, Doug,” Sideshow said with a wicked smile. “If you live through tonight, that is. Anyway, Asclepius is right. I should have realized him being out without a bodyguard was odd, and isn’t it also odd I wouldn’t have brought someone along just in case to help me,” Sideshow said in a lilting, taunting tone. “But…what makes you think your pet reporter’s enough protection for you, Asclepius?” And then she spread her arms wide and four associates strode forth—three of them costumed and therefore probably transhuman, Doug and Asclepius realized. The fourth was an unknown, but he was very clearly armed, so in the end, it didn’t matter much.

“You see? I brought friends, just in case. That’s part of the reason I had to borrow so much money from the loan sharks.”

“What makes you think we don’t have friends of our own around here?” Asclepius asked.

“Because while I may have made missteps in some other areas, I’ve had Doug’s email, landline and cellphone all monitored since the start, and I know he hasn’t contacted the police or any other transhumans before meeting you here.”

“Yeah, but isn’t is funny that you still haven’t realized you also didn’t notice I had warned Asclepius beforehand,” Doug noted snidely. “In fact, aside from one email that I sent to him so that you’d know he’d agreed to an interview with me and where, you haven’t seen any other communications at all between us, have you? Isn’t that funny? And yet I warned him and we planned all this. Almost as if I have all sorts of interesting and nontraditional ways to get in touch of most of these transhuman folks…oh, yeah, riiiight. I do.”

On cue, a half-dozen pairs of feet crunched softly from behind their various forms of cover. All costumed. All heroes or vigilantes who regularly worked the streets of New Judah and relied on Asclepius’ healing powers.

“Gosh darn it,” Asclepius said. “Looks like you’re outnumbered, now. And that’s even without the two other white hats still hiding in the shadows. Somehow, I doubt you thought this many moves ahead, given how many other things you missed along the way.”

As the melee began, Doug and Asclepius sat back down on the sidelines of the action, and the latter handed a bottle of beer to the former.

“You know, Doug, you might want to get video of this on your phone,” Asclepius said. “You really should angle for a little book deal, and a viral video on YouTube and UrbVid could help a lot.”

“I like the way you think, Asclepius,” Doug said, and clinked his beer bottle against the transhuman’s stainless steel coffee mug as he fished out his iPhone. “Maybe I can still get out of this line of work before someone else tries to fuck with me.”

Right Place, Wrong Style

Sorry I still haven’t gotten around to the next chapter of “The Gathering Storm” and even sorrier that it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything new here. My Muse is a bit fickle the past few weeks…

Right Place, Wrong Style

Two aesthetic philosophies continued to duel in his mind even now, more than an hour after he had finally settled on his attire and grabbed the #36 CTA bus to make the rendezvous. He had made a decision, and still second-guessed himself.

His mother’s voice urging him to be bold and take chances and his father’s voice exhorting him not to stand out or make a spectacle of himself.

Maybe if I’d been a tougher guy growing up, and better able to stand up against bullies, Dad’s voice wouldn’t be so loud in my head right now, Sean thought. Queer, pussy, sissy, punk, bitch—so many names I’ve been called by peers and others that bore no relation to my given one.

But he’d stood up to his own father in the end, in some small way, Sean considered, because no one in the family or the neighborhood Sean had grown up in was ignorant of the fact Sean William Carter Sr. had been quite unhappy to see his son apply to a fashion design degree program at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago. That act simply cemented Sean Sr.’s notion of parental failure—and the loss of his son. All he saw in the choice was freakishness and “being different.” In Dad’s world, you didn’t go for different; you didn’t go for style.

You followed in your father’s footsteps.

And isn’t that why he gave me his name, in the end? Sean thought. To be like him and maybe even join the Chicago Fire Department where he still serves?

That his roommate and fellow bachelor of fine arts student Jack was one of the biggest queens he had ever met and stood strong in the face of challenge, adversity and threats was an irony that wasn’t lost on Sean as he sat nervously in the little pub waiting for the guy he was supposed to meet.

A man who wanted to wear a costume—or probably already did and simply wanted a better one.

A transhuman of unknown character and demeanor, except that he’d been the only one to answer Sean’s Craigslist ad offering free costume design and construction. The ad inspired by his mother’s voice. He’d wanted to stand out from the rest of his class in costume design for their final design project—what better way to do that, he had thought, than to design a few outfits for someone who was actually an active transhuman, whether they needed a costume to start their career or were in need of an upgrade.

There was a sharp tap on Sean’s shoulder—like a tiny hammerblow—and he turned to see someone wearing camouflage pants, Army boots and a gray hooded sweatshirt. The man pulled back the gray hood to reveal a ski mask-covered face and said, “Let’s take this outside and discuss what I need and what you’re worth,” the man said with a hard, cold edge in his voice.

Beside this simple and vaguely menacing attire, Sean suddenly felt that his choice of narrow-legged jeans, canvas boat shoes, a button-down long-sleeved white shirt and a dark burgundy linen vest made him all the more meek.

Also, as Sean got up from his bar stool and followed the man into the night, he realized—as he felt growing unease from the man’s voice and demeanor—that he’d never specified in the ad that the transhuman for whom he would do the free design work had to be a white hat or a justice-minded vigilante. He’d left it open for mercenaries and villains as well without even realizing it.

But still, he wanted a project with a perfect grade or as close to it as he could manage, and he followed the man outside.

* * *

Sean and the potential pro bono client who had yet to identify himself had been talking for nearly five minutes in the shadows about Sean’s skills and the other man’s costume needs when the stranger announced, very casually, “By the way, my name is Straight Edge, and I’m about to murder you, faggot.”

Sean was stunned into silence, part of him wondering if it was a bad joke, and the other part trying to figure out how to flee without being taken down from behind as he did so.

“Of course, it wouldn’t really be murder, no matter what the police say,” Straight Edge continued. “More like housecleaning. You fags spread disease and immoral behavior and you’re a cancer on society. Straight Edge is here to cut you out. You get to be the first.”

Sean finally picked up on the subtle emphasis the man was putting on the Straight in his name, and realized he was dealing with a homicidal homophobic person who, even if he wasn’t really transhuman, probably was well-equipped to end his life. He wondered with an inward shudder if the monicker also meant this man carried a straight razor or some other blade with which to slice and carve his flesh.

“Scared, faggot?” Straight Edge taunted him with a grin.

“I’m not gay,” Sean protested with a whiney edge in his voice, and it surprised him as he said the words that he was defensively asserting his heterosexuality rather than worrying about his life.

Old habits from grade school, middle school and high school die hard, I guess, Sean thought vaguely.

“No straight man goes to get a degree in fashion,” Straight Edge asserted.

“That’s not true at…at all,” Sean said weakly. “I’m just gu-good at it and I like it. I’ve got a girlfriend. She’s in the graphic arts program.”

“Bullshit!”

“I’ve got pictures of her. Of us,” Sean said. “Right in my wallet,” he added, fumbling for it. “Together. Shit, we’re kissing in one of them.”

“Don’t try to save your life with that pathetic shit, faggot,” Straight Edge sneered.

“Look! Right here!” Sean said, thrusting out his open wallet. “Shit, take the money and credit cards if you want. I’m not gay!”

With a sense of humiliation, Sean realized he was not only pleading for his life like a coward but also trying to distance himself from homosexuals, even when Jack—not just his roommate but supposedly one of his best friends—was as gay as they came. From the pits of that shame, a tiny voice inside him, his own now and neither Mom nor Dad, told him he probably deserved to die.

As flustered now as he had been murderous before, Straight Edge took the wallet and flipped through the four photos in there.

“You think I’m going to fall for this? So you got some fag-hag woman to pose with you as cover,” Straight Edge said.

“What would I need photos in my wallet for to make people think I’m straight? How muh-muh-many gay guys do you think guh-get cornered by someone like you and need to convince the person they’re hetero…straight…c’mon! People don’t come up on gay people like that anymore…except you or whatever!”

Straight Edge looked back and forth from the wallet to the college student in front of him, squinting and grimacing.

“Well…you dress like a homo!” Straight Edge snapped.

“I’m sorry you don’t like my clothes; my girlfriend does and I like to keep getting laid,” Sean babbled, realizing he was still emphasizing his heterosexuality like a punk. A pussy. A loser.

Am I right to do whatever it takes to live, or am I even less of a man for my own little brand of homophobic behavior rising up in the face of a bully—no matter how murderous and psycho he is?

Some small bit of edge creeping into his voice, but not much, Sean blurted, “You’re just looking for an excuse to kill me, now, gay or not!”

Straight Edge paused, then smiled. “Maybe so. What of it?”

“Go to the Manhandler or the Jackhammer or hang around some other guh-gay bar if you wanna kill homos!” Sean said, and felt a little bile in his throat.

I’m trying to point him to gays to kill now just to save my life. What the fuck?

“If you’re not gay, how come you know the names of gay bars?” Straight Edge ventured.

“I don’t like jazz, but I know you go to the Green Mill if you want to listen to some and drink until 4 or 5 in the morning!” Sean keened. A part of him almost wailed I have a gay roommate until the rest of his brain screamed out, Tell him that and he’ll kill you for liking gays.

Heart pounding, Sean waited for the blow to fall, or a blade to cut him. Agonizing seconds looking into Straight Edge’s eyes desperately and cursing himself for his steadily mounting failures here in the dimly streetlights, in the shadow of a man who wanted to become a killer.

“Huh,” Straight Edge said. “I gotta be sure. OK. I gotta be sure before I kill someone. I can’t be killing straight guys. The world needs them. But you’d better fucking have kids. You’d better raise them to be fucking real men you little shit! Do you hear me?”

Ignoring the spittle peppering his face, Sean nodded and said, “I hear you. My dad’s a firefighter. I’m sorry I wasn’t like him. I’ll do better with my son. My sons.”

The wheedling tone in his voice as he made promises to a man he’d likely never see again that he’d do things he knew he probably wasn’t capable of seemed to kill little parts of him one by one, but Sean couldn’t seem to stop. “This isn’t the place to be trying to wipe out gays, and I’m not worth your time.”

Straight Edge nodded at that, and Sean didn’t care whether it meant solidarity between two hetero men or that Straight Edge found him too pathetic to kill. He simply watched the man walk off.

Then his heart froze when Straight Edge stopped and turned around.

“I still want those costumes,” he said. “It better be ready in two weeks. I’ll tell you where to leave it, and if there are any cops that come along with it, I’ll kill you, your girlfriend and all your goddamn teachers. No matter how straight all of you are. Hear me?”

“Yeah,” Sean said in a near whisper, then half-shouted, “Yeah! No problem!”

Finally, Straight Edge departed.

As his knees gave way and Sean slumped to the ground to weep, he knew there was no need for Straight edge worry. There would be no police. He had no good description to give them and worse, if he told them the story, everyone would know how much he had failed. How much he had given up. How he had turned his back on a whole group of people and then fingered them as better targets for Straight Edge. His roommate Jack would find out. His girlfriend Ellie. Everyone would know.

Even his homophobic father wouldn’t approve.

Sean wept for his lost dignity even as some small part of him reminded him he’d probably get an excellent grade in the class for originality and utility of design. Except that he’d never be able to submit Straight Edge’s costumes, or else when the man finally made the news, everyone would know Sean was tied to him. Straight Edge would probably even tell them Sean had pleaded for the man to troll around gay bars to save his own life.

I’ll be working my ass off to outfit a man who might kill Jack one day, and I’ll still have to come up with a project for class. My mom told me to stand out and take chances. Yeah, I’m stand-out, all right. Standing out and standing up for who I really am.

As a pussy. A punk. A bitch.

Broken Legacy

A dog face peered intently at another dog face and sighed in an all-too-human way. A human voice, too, issued from the ebony muzzle with a weary, “Why did you do it?”

The other dog-head issued its own human response from its dark brown muzzle: “Do what?”

“Leave a witness,” answered Hellhound from behind the dark, slick, heavy rubber of his canine mask, his eyes hidden behind moss-green lenses but his voice making it clear his gaze was stern and annoyed.

“He was just a kid,” Dog Pound said, unzipping the mouth of his mask’s muzzle area to breathe more freely, his gaze visibly confused through the open eye holes. He couldn’t figure out how Hellhound kept from passing out with only two small nose holes and a thin, short slit where his mouth was. Dog Pound’s own canine-themed leather mask was better ventilated than Hellhound’s by far and even so, he felt lightheaded in short order, especially under exertion.

“He’s still a witness, and you took your mask off, too? You’re an idiot.”

“I doubt he could do a very good job of giving a description and I was about to die of heatstroke; it was a fucking hot night.”

“You go shirtless when you’re on the prowl, you pussy,” Hellhound snapped. “I’ve got a full rubber mask, a unitard and body armor when I go out. Point is, the kid saw your face. Doesn’t matter if he can help the police ID you; fact is he’ll see your face over and over in his dreams. You killed his goddamn father right in front of him.”

“So? At least I killed the person best qualified to be a good witness, and a rich one at that.”

“I took you on as an apprentice to teach you, Dog Pound; haven’t you learned anything? Since at least the ‘70s, we’ve been living in a world of costumed heroes and villains who seem to follow similar memes as in the comics. What happens in the comics? What happened with the character Batman? Bruce Wayne.”

“Dude killed his rich mom and dad in an alley for their money and he grew up to hate criminals. Put on a bat costume and then hunted down crooks and shit, including the guy who killed his parents.”

“This kid could be your future Batman, you stupid shit.”

“Slim chance of that,” Dog Pound said.

“But you don’t know, do you? He could be transhuman for all you know. He might already be a Brain with a photographic memory. He might hit puberty and become an Acro or a Brute and one day track you down and tear you up in a fight. Fact is you left a witness you shouldn’t have. He might not put you away or get revenge on you, but every goddamn witness you leave is one more potential person on a stand to get you convicted or maybe even be your future arch-nemesis. We transhumans are messed up in the head—every last one of us. We’re wired to do crazy shit like obsess about someone who fucked us over and then build a costumed life around it. A lot of us, anyway.”

“Like you?” Dog Pound said. “You never did tell me your back-story.”

“And never will. I’m the master and you’re the apprentice, Dog Pound. We will never be equals. But I do know that you used to have to run dog fights for your crazy uncle. And he made you do bare-knuckle boxing and shit against other kids for money. And you couldn’t resist asking me to teach you the ropes when you put on a mask, because I had a canine theme, too. See? We’re fucked in the head. And the only reason I took you on is ego and vanity. Touched in the effin’ head.”

“All right, all right. I get it. I’m not gonna leave witnesses again. Guess I’d better steer clear of marks with kids, ‘cuz I don’t know about killing no kids,” Dog Pound said.

“Do what needs doing if you’re going to wear a mask,” Hellhound said. “If you’re going to be half-assed about it, get a damn day job behind a desk.”

* * *

Dog Pound awoke in his small house in the middle of the night, realizing someone was there. He stayed as still as he could while trying to get his bearings in the dark, his lean-muscled body tensing—ready to teach the intruder what it felt like to be hit by a Brute, even a relatively low-end one.

“Suit up,” came a soft but firm command from the shadows, and something landed on Dog Pound’s face. Just before Hellhound switched on the light, he realized the other man had tossed him his mask.

“I didn’t think we were on tonight,” Dog Pound muttered groggily, not having seen Hellhound in the three days since his lecture about witnesses, revenge and legacies and whatever the hell else he had been on about.

“We weren’t; we are now. Be ready and be in your garage in five minutes,” Hellhound said. His expressionless black dog mask gave him an implacable air. “We’ve got a really special job.”

* * *

They pulled up to the edge of an expansive estate in one of the few parts of Lark County that wasn’t within the borders of New Judah, and Hellhound motioned his protégé to get out. A few paces away from the side of the road, he said, “Grab the ladder,” pointing to the low grass near the property’s border.

“Why is there a ladder here…”

“Shut up, put your muscles to work and bring it with.”

Hellhound led them to the back of the mansion there, and pointed to an open window on the third floor. Dog Pound was confused for a moment, then remembered the ladder and got it extended and propped up as quietly as he could. Every tiny scrape and click, though, sounded like a clarion going off to him.

When the ladder was in place, Dog Pound scratched at an itch underneath a layer of fresh sweat running down the back of his neck, and whispered, as he looked at the wide-open window, “People this rich, you’d think they’d have air conditioning. Hot night.”

“They do have air conditioning, and it’s on, and it’s turned way the hell up, and they have windows open for fresh air,” Hellhound answered conversationally. “That’s how wasteful and self-entitled rich people are. I’m going up first; come up a few feet behind me. Be quick and be quiet.”

When he finally struggled through the open window, finding himself in a room decorated with posters and littered with robots and action figures, Dog Pound saw Hellhound standing over a bed, his hand over a child’s mouth and a small bedside lamp turned on.

“Take off your mask,” he ordered Dog Pound.

“Why?” he started, and then felt a sharp stab of pain in the middle of his forehead that seemed to radiate down to his eardrums and Adam’s apple.

“Take. It. Off.” Hellhound said quietly, and his apprentice relented, unnerved by the sudden pain and its timing so close to showing reluctance toward his mentor. Turning his mask toward the boy in the bed, Hellhound said to the boy, “Do not yell or scream, or I will kill you and everyone else in this house—your sister, your brother, your mother, the maid. Everyone. Do you know that man?”

At first the child said nothing, then nodded slowly.

“Speak up,” Hellhound demanded.

“Yes,” the boy said timidly.

“How?”

“He killed my dad.”

Grabbing the child roughly by his cheeks with one black-gloved hand, Hellhound turned the boy’s face to look directly into his own mask. “And how do you feel about him doing that?”

The boy’s eyes filled with tears and he whimpered a little, but said nothing.

Hellhound turned back to Dog Pound. “I think he’s a little afraid of what the answer would mean to his safety,” he told his sidekick. “But I can see it in his eyes, underneath the tears. He hates you.”

“How did you find him…”

“You took every valuable thing from his father, and a lot of that value was in his wallet. Not just money and cards, though. Driver’s license, dumb ass. Thought we’d take a field trip. You left a witness who hates you now, and will keep hating you more and more as the years go on, especially now that you’ve paid him a new visit. Someone who will one day inherit a bunch of his daddy’s money. Maybe all of it.”

“I get it already, Hellhound! I get it!” Dog Pound hissed. “It won’t happen again.”

Without a word, Hellhound yanked the boy out of the bed and tossed him through the open window.

Dog Pound thought the sound of the child striking the low stone wall of the rose garden below was surprisingly soft, all things considered. Still, his gut clenched and he felt a little tremor of nausea flutter in his belly.

“What if he’s not dead?” Dog Pound asked haltingly.

“Then you’ll finish the job,” Hellhound responded, “as soon as we get down there. He’ll keep for a couple minutes, though.”

“I swear, it won’t happen again.”

“Yes, it will,” Hellhound said. “I’m going to look up some of his daddy’s friends and track them and we’ll surprise one of them some night after dark when they’re with one or two of their kids someplace dark and quiet. And you’ll kill those kids right in front of me, right after you kill the grown ups. In for a penny, in for a pound. Your messes are my messes, and your hands will be at least as bloody as mine.”

Dog Pound put one gloved hand against the wall to steady himself. Too much, too fast. This wasn’t the kind of thing…

“I can’t do it. I can’t do shit like that, Hellhound.”

A ravaging wave of something like fire and electricity seemed to run through his brain and ricochet off the inside edges of his skull, and Dog Pound almost lost his balance. Then the pain was gone.

“I’m the alpha male of this fucking pack. Don’t forget it. I can give you reminders in pain, or rewards in more pleasant ways. You’re mine, and you’ll do as I say.”

Dog Pound felt a retort on the tip of his tongue, and then felt a tiny lick of pain up and down his upper spine, and bit the words down. Instead, he said, “Yes. Yeah. Got it.”

“I don’t much like the idea of leaving potential vengeance-laden legacies, no matter how unlikely it is that kid would pull a corny Batman-style move from the old comics,” Hellhound said. “But I am liking the idea of the whole sidekick and minion legacy. You’re my bitch. The first of several. You’ll do what I say, and if you do it right, you might be the Beta male, and you might get a taste of any ass I recruit. I’ve got my eye on a wolf-masked woman going by the name of Stalker who’s working Marksburgh right now, and a few other people, too.”

“Teams never work out,” Dog Pound said. “You hardly ever see any…”

“Superhero teams rarely work, because people with morals have trouble funding a headquarters and paying for it and all the bills, and they always want to talk shit out instead of having a strong hand in charge, and they get sued for property damage and all that. You and all the others will be my crew. Not a team. Minions. Dogs to run and jump where I say. Period. Like I said, you can be number two if you start learning my lessons well, or you can be bottom bitch.”

Dog Pound hesitated a split-second, and then found himself tensing for another painful reminder of the power he hadn’t previously known Hellhound possessed. The pain scared him. The prospects of what worse things might come with disobedience scared him more.

“I’m in. Yes. I’m your man…your…your…dog.”

Dog Pound was certain that Hellhound was grinning underneath that thick, black dog mask, and the tone of the voice that issued forth seemed to confirm it.

“Good boy,” Hellhound said, and waved one hand toward the open window and ladder.

The Gathering Storm, Part 27

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

Almost human again, thought Zoe. Almost human. It’s amazing what water—hot enough and copious enough—can do to sluice away the remnants of a day full of horrors.

In the steamy confines of the small bathroom, a towel wrapped around her torso, Zoe looked at herself in the mirror. No one’s blood on her anymore. And on her face, neck and arms—the places people might see when she had clothes on again—she bore only a few scratches. Once she was dressed, it would almost be as if nothing had happened today. As if she’d never been kidnapped and never killed two men and then watched two more die at the end of Query’s gun barrel.

The intertwined mass of dreadlocks—a ropy mass of reds, pinks and light blonde on her scalp amidst those bearing her natural dark brown, almost ebony, color—reminded her too much of today. She wanted all memories of it shoved as far away from her consciousness as possible.

She closed her eyes, concentrated for a few minutes, and then opened them again, noting that the steam had mostly retreated from the room and the towel had slipped a bit down her upper body. She looked upon the  re-colored landscape of her hair and managed a small smile. A minor change, but a new start of sorts. Most of the locs remained their natural deep dark-chocolate hue but about a third of them now were deep purple or dusky orange, and a couple of them a swirled mix of the two. A few ribbons of lavender wove through the other hues here and there as well.

It’s all got to begin somewhere, she thought, and then slipped into the borrowed clothes from Query’s closets. As she walked out into the main area of the safe-house Query had sent her too, Zoe was greeted by the smell of scrambled eggs and sizzling bacon.

Breakfast for dinner. Mad Dash, I think I love you right now. A little of that in my belly and some TLC from this healer Asclepius when he shows up—I do have a few gashes on my torso along with some serious bumps and bruises—and I just might feel fully human.

* * *

Nearly an hour of searching through Janus’ forest cabins had, as Query had suspected would be the case, yielded no hard evidence to track down the criminal kingpin nor disrupt his schemes. He’d removed the hard drives from several laptops just in case, and commandeered all of the cell phones that Janus’ minions had been carrying, but his hopes weren’t high. The web caches, phone numbers, IP addresses and all the rest would likely lead him on a circuitous path to nowhere.

He’d have more freedom to go on those potential wild goose chases later, once he figured out what to do about Feral and then sent Buttress and Peregrine back home. Even dead-ends could yield insights, though those insights would be hair-thin—Janus seemed quite adept at not leaving evidence that could point to him.

On the other hand, Query didn’t make it common knowledge that all of his senses were highly enhanced, so Janus wouldn’t have guarded against that possibility, perhaps. Janus was probably smart enough that none of these men and women had been near his main headquarters, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been at some key satellite operations and didn’t bear evidence for Query’s investigation. Every strange scent he picked up that didn’t belong in the woods gave him another clue. Every bit of debris or miscellany in a minion’s pocket that didn’t have anything to do with the forest fed him more information.

I have dozens of tiny puzzle pieces, he thought. Sure, it’s a 5,000-piece puzzle and I can only complete small portions of the overall picture, but I’m getting closer, Janus. My intuitive powers can guess at what some other portions of the puzzle are supposed to be. By having as big an operation as you do, you have lots of people. Eventually, I’m going to find one who can lead me straight to you.

Query glanced up at the two small cameras mounted near the ceiling, and then to the table lamp and potted plant with their hidden spy equipment. He’d disabled all four cameras shortly before beginning his search, but he smiled at them all the same.

Hope you liked the show, you son of bitch.

* * *

The growling and shouting had been going on for some time now; when Buttress first came to tell Query that Feral was fully aware again and angry, the response was simply, “Tell him I’ll be out in 10 and then leave him be.”

Six minutes after that, Buttress was urging Query to come resolve the situation since he had created it to begin with. Without even turning his black mask toward the man, Query held up four fingers and then waved him off with several flicks of his wrist.

Query didn’t really need the extra time to do any more searching for evidence—he was done with that. This exercise in delay was in part meant to gauge Feral’s temperament.

It’s also the principle of the thing. I said 10 minutes and I meant 10 damned minutes.

When he emerged from the cabin, Query was carrying a large black duffel, unzipped and filled to bursting, with a shotgun stock sticking out. He let it drop to the ground. In his other hand, he held a spray bottle he had found in one of the cabin’s kitchens.

Peregrine and Buttress’ eyes were drawn more strongly to the bottle than to the duffel bag that held a firearm. In other circumstances, Query thought, he might have found that amusing. The memory of the horrifically mangled body of one of Janus’ minions in one of the cabins, though, squashed all hope of merriment tonight.

“Get me the fuck outta these!” Feral shouted at Query, spittle flying from his lips, straining at the pair of handcuffs and the various nylon ties as he struggled in his kneeling position.

“Calm down, first.”

“Untie me and unlock me or I will rip your goddamn heart out!”

“That’s not my definition of calm. It’s not anyone’s definition of calm.”

“Let me loose you fu…!”

Query sprayed Feral in the face a dozen times; he could almost feel Peregrine and Buttress tense up at the first few squirts. Clearly, it never occurred to them the bottle would be filled with mere tap water.

“What the hell are you…!”

Query sprayed him again, eight more times, saying, “Calm down so we can talk like humans.”

Sputtering as water dripped down his face, Feral half-growled, “I’m not a damn pet on a counter making a mess or getting hair on the couch. Stop trying to humiliate me.”

“I’m not trying to humiliate you, Feral. I am trying to get your attention and appeal to your rational side. I thought this would be a lot nicer than slapping you around.”

“I’m calm now,” Feral answered, his eyes glittering and a snarl teasing at one corner of his mouth.

“No, you’re not, but you’re close enough that I think we can begin to have our talk,” Query said. “I believe I asked you earlier not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. I’m pretty sure you could have beaten her senseless instead of shredding her into kibbles and bits. Certainly if you were going to go for a kill, a cleaner and more merciful one seemed appropriate.”

“I was wounded; it sets things off. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“And I’m concerned that this might not have been the first time, Feral. Is it?”

“Plenty of people don’t deserve to live, Query,” he snarled. “Or deserve to die messily.”

You’re avoiding my question, Feral, even as you show you understand my intent in asking it.

“I’m worried about the ones who did deserve to live and might possibly have met a bitter end at the claws you wear. Maybe a petty criminal or an innocent bystander.”

Feral mouthed neither protest nor confirmation, which was precisely what Query had feared might happen. It was a more damning response than an overwrought denial.

Query reached into a side pocket on the duffel bag, extracted something that looked vaguely like a wristwatch, then took out a charger, and tossed both items on the ground near Feral’s feet.

“When I do finally unlock the cuffs and cut off the ties on you, you are going to put that on,” Query said levelly. “I don’t care where. Wrist, ankle, dick—whatever. You will make sure it is charged at all times and you will make sure you wear it every time you leave your home. Do you understand me?”

“An electronic leash? Are you kidding me?”

Query raised the water bottle. “Are we losing our will to be Zen about this?”

“You have no right…”

“I want to know where you are at all times,” Query said. “I want to know if and when you are in the vicinity of a death or serious injury that is…unjustifiable. If I find a pattern, I will chase you down and we will have words—or more. I suggest some meditation classes and anger management.”

On the periphery of his vision, Query saw Buttress and Peregrine fidget, and without taking his eyes off Feral held out a hand, palm out, to urge them to stay out of it.

“I am a Primal. Hardcore Primal. That’s why I call myself Feral,” the man said to Query in a hard growl. “Being a Primal is my key power. It’s in my nature to be wild.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t control yourself and set limits. And if that is what it means for you, then you cannot be on the streets doing what you do because you will put innocent people at risk or you will go too far with someone who is just a minor thug and you will cause me to worry at night and make the rest of us look bad.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, you son of a bitch!”

“I just did,” Query responded, “and you need to calm down.”

“I will not calm down, you piece of shit!” Feral roared, a venomous look in his eyes, his torso and head pressing outward as if he thought he could stretch his way through his bonds to reach Query’s throat. The straining effort left him teetering, though he didn’t tumble.

Query dropped the squirt bottle, quickly snatched the shotgun out of the duffel bag, gave it a quick and hard pump and said with a placid voice, “If you continue to confirm my worst suspicions about you, I will put you down like a rabid dog. I suggest you act like a man instead.”

Feral kneeled back onto his heels, closed his eyes and took a few deep, slow breaths. When he opened his eyes again, there was still anger there, and resentment, but the raw fury had bled away.

“Uh huh,” Query said, sliding the shotgun back into the bag. “You can control yourself when you really want to. Thought so. And that makes my concerns so much more salient. Don’t do anything stupid when I cut you loose, and don’t do anything stupid for the rest of your career in costume. We’ll be working on your control and your boundaries.”

Feral said nothing.

“Did you hear me…Alexander ?” Query said quietly.

Feral flinched at the name, shocked to find that Query knew it and wondering what else he knew.

“Yeah, I heard you.”

“Good, because if you don’t want to cooperate with me on this, you either need to move to Marksburgh or somewhere else far away from here, or get used to the idea of being hunted down. Now let’s get you loose and get the hell out of here.”

* * *

There was no overt odor yet, though it was only a matter of time, and Janus hoped he could dispense with the rest of the unpleasantries in time to get the custodial crew in here before the air became rank. Sparing one last glance at the blue tarp slightly behind him, oblong and lumpy as it lay wrapped around the contents, he put his hands calmly on his desk and centered himself for a few moments.

Picking up the handset of his phone, Janus pressed the button for his receptionist and said, “Please send the next one in.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man answered, and Janus could hear his light chains tinkle quietly as he said “You can go in now” and set down the phone in its cradle, severing the connection to Janus.

Janus glanced down at the file on his desk to remind himself of the name of the man now stepping into his office.

“Please, have a seat, Walt,” Janus said, and spread his hands invitingly as the man settled in. Walt’s eyes drifted around the room, confused, and settled on the back door of the office for a few moments.

“Did Kevin go th…” he began, then stopped as Janus lifted a finger to one set of the lips on the two-faced helmet he wore tonight.

“So, Walt, you are my person in charge of logistics.”

“One of them, sir, yes,” he responded nervously.

“Well, among your various duties, you were charged with oversight of the teams in the Langehorne Woods, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So their supplies were your responsibility?”

“Yes, but what…”

“And do you think you adequately supplied them with…ahhh…defensive tools?”

“As well as my budget allowed. More than they would need, I think.”

“Perhaps you didn’t think hard enough. Perhaps you should have suggested some budgetary adjustments.”

“Sir?”

“The team there has been wiped out. The safe-houses there are compromised. Kevin was in charge of communications with that team and I found his defense of his actions somewhat…lacking. I don’t think he communicated my desires well enough to the operatives there. Did you supply them well enough?”

“Yes, sir, I think I…”

“There you go thinking again. But you seem to be doing a lot of thinking now, when I would have preferred you thought ahead earlier. Thought outside the box, perhaps. Anticipated various contingencies like competent trans white hats.”

When Janus paused, Walt fidgeted a little, and then asked, “How big a strike force hit them, sir? Did someone on the team there betray the location? Was it all transhumans in the assault team? There’s so much I don’t know that it’s hard to defend myself to you. If it was more than one transhuman, that wasn’t the sort of thing one could anticipate…”

Janus stood up, calmly stepped past the tarp behind his desk and stood near Walt. “You’re paid to anticipate. You are compensated quite well with other things besides money to anticipate.”

A hand flashed out as Walt opened his mouth to speak, gripping the side of his head firmly. Then a soft, wet, rending sound and a gurgle from the man’s throat instead of words. And then silence, and sluggish lines of gore running down the man’s face and neck toward his torso.

Not as messy as with Kevin; I must be starting to calm down finally.

Janus casually pulled out a second tarp from behind the sofa in his office and deftly whipped it out to lay flat on the ground. No rush. The man’s own clothes would slow the flow of blood and other fluids before they reached the carpet. Then he tipped the chair back onto the tarp, rolled the dead man onto it, and wrapped him tight, dragging him next to his co-worker. Fishing out a tube of Clorox wipes, Janus pulled out two sheets and cleaned a few stray bits of gore from the chair before he set it back up again.

Next time I find your lair, Query, I will have a dozen men fire rockets into the building. No more finesse. I will more than kill you. I will obliterate you for this. You were supposed to already be dead. Why won’t you cooperate?

Janus returned to his leather chair, feeling much less anxious and wondering where Crazy Jane had run off to. He shrugged, sighed, pulled out a new file, and picked up the phone to have his receptionist send in the third and final of the employees to question about this—the one who was supposed to be on top of security protocols for the Langehorne Woods safe-houses.

Maybe she’ll have better answers, Janus thought. It would be nice to send at least one of them back to the offices breathing to show I’m a merciful man at times.

* * *

“Good evening, and welcome to ‘Nighttime RightView,’ Isaac,” Ben Glick said into his headphone as the first caller of the evening was patched into the booth from which he hosted three radio shows a week: mornings on Monday, afternoons on Wednesday and late night on Saturday.

“Thanks, Ben,” said the caller. “I listen to your show at times, and rarely agree with you, but I’ve only felt the need to call tonight with you trying to fire up a race war in connection to transhumans.”

“And how have I done that, exactly?” Ben responded smugly.

“Oh, I don’t know…maybe your insistence on a 50-foot-high wall with snipers and electrified gates along the Mexican border, your call to suspend all immigration and naturalization from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia for the next decade and…uh…your crazy insistence that there’s a ‘Tex-Mix buffet’ of dangerous transhumans all through the Southwest raping norm women to corrupt peaceful white American genetics…”

“Well, Isaac, Caucasians are decidedly less prone to developing transhuman powers, aren’t they? Kinds of puts us at a disadvantage we need to correct and protect against, don’t you think?” Ben retorted.

“No, not really,” Isaac answered. “Whites are still the overwhelming majority of people in this country, even more so when you factor in white Hispanics. So the number of transhumans here is pretty close to even between whites and non-whites in the U.S.”

“Sure, sure,” Ben said with a patronizing tone. “But the projections say that whites will be a minority by 2050; what’s going to happen then?”

“Whites will be a little less than half the population, I think is what the studies say, and that will still make them the single largest group—not a minority.”

“But the transhuman figures won’t be anywhere near as close to equal then, will they, Zach-y boy?” Ben countered. “And when our not-native-born ‘President’ Obama starts ramping up immigration for his extremist Muslim pals abroad and hands out all sorts of government money to them and encourages them to build big, strong families, and then starts marching our Christian, Caucasian women to the abortion clinics to start slicing into our numbers—well, whites will be a minority well before 2050.”

“That’s ridiculous! He doesn’t have broad powers like that, not to mention he’s U.S. born, no matter what your birther nonsense paranoia, and he’s Christian. People like you…”

“Hey, gotta go to the next caller, Isaac. I’m sure you have an militant Liberal-Islamo-Socialist Party meeting to go to so you can raise funds to get Obama his fascist emergency powers and a lifetime seat in the Oval Office anyway. Don’t want you to be late.”

“Muslim, terrorist, socialist, leftist and fascist? That doesn’t even make any…”

With a slice of his index finger across his throat as the signal, Ben had the technician cut the connection, smiled broadly as he saw a thumbs-up in regard to the next caller, and said, “Hello, John, and welcome to the call-in part of our show. I hope you’re a bit smarter than the last guy.”

“Ben, I’m a huge fan, and I wish you’d put your hat in the ring to run against that pretender in the White House. I just wanna say that…”

Ben smiled broadly, and winked at the technician through the booth’s window, watching the phone lines light up with callers, and knowing it was going to be a flood of contempt for the opinions of Isaac and every other weak-willed idiot out in the world who thought like he did.

* * *

After a 15-minute conversation to catch up, most of which she couldn’t hear—not that it would be easy to understand as Mad Dash lapsed into a string of metaphors and absurdities that confused her, anyway—Zoe saw the Speedster give Query a nod, wave to her and then exit the safe-house.

“Sorry about that,” Query said to Zoe. “I know it’s been a rough day for you but I needed to catch Dash up on things.”

“Oh, I feel a lot better,” Zoe said. “About most things, anyway. Not so sure about this,” she added, holding up a tiny, oblong black lozenge between her thumb and forefinger.

“Yes?” Query said in a tone that was unconcerned but also invited her to continue.

“Mad Dash called over that Asclepius guy on your tab, apparently. Nice guy. Fixed up my boo-boos really good. Also sensed a foreign object that he ‘encouraged’ my body to spit out. Funny—it seems to be in the same spot you ‘accidentally’ jabbed me on graduation day when you helped me off the ground.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly 100% forthcoming about that small ‘mishap.’ I put that there on purpose,” Query said.

“Care to tell me what the fuck it is?” Zoe pressed, her voice gaining an edge.

“Transmitter. Tracking device.”

“So, I didn’t need to be kidnapped, or at least not wake up in a trunk panicked and out of control. You could have saved me all that bullshit and stress?”

“No, not really,” Query answered. “That was mainly an emergency backup plan. It’s a passive transmitter; otherwise, Janus’ people could have detected it and be tipped off that you were tagged. I needed to have something else like one of my flying drones get close enough to communicate with it and make it active. I had someone following you when I couldn’t, like tonight.”

“He didn’t do a very good job, did he?”

“He did a great job,” Query countered. “Kept track of you long enough for me to get a couple drones in your vicinity and make sure you had a rescue coming.”

“He let me get caught,” she snapped.

“It was his job to watch you, not protect you.”

“Yeah, that was your job, wasn’t it?” Zoe nearly spat at him. “Except you wanted me to get captured, didn’t you? So that you could get to Janus. You son of a bitch.”

Query regarded her for a moment through the eyeless black mask, arms crossed over his chest, and nodded slightly. “It was something I considered could happen. If I had wanted it to happen, though, I wouldn’t have saved you the first time at graduation, now would I?”

“You hadn’t tagged me before then, though” she pointed out.

“True, but I have my ways,” Query said. “But yes, I did consider that if I couldn’t stop Janus from succeeding with one of his nabs, I could use you as a way to either get to him or at least get close enough to some of his operatives to gather clues.”

Zoe threw the tiny transmitter at him and watched it bounce off the right cheek of his mask. It didn’t satisfy her nearly enough, so she swept one arm wide to knock over a torchiere-style floor lamp and a side table, along with the small candy dish and a set of coasters that had sat on it.

“Tell me how that makes you any different from that bitch Underworld who’s been trying to get me to join up with Janus and trying to manipulate me into saying yes or scare me into it. How the fuck are you any better?” she shouted.

“I could say that you’ve been getting my services for free, so you get what you pay for, but that wouldn’t even be true, because I’ve gone out of my way to keep watch on you—and Underworld where possible—and keep you from harm and prevent you from being whisked away from my surveillance,” Query said. “What I will emphasize though, is that I’m a shitload different from Underworld because my goal in all this—beyond any desire to use you as bait or gain something from Janus’ interest in you—is to ultimately free you from a threat so that you can make your own life decisions. Underworld’s been trying to snare you; I’m trying to get you free to move on with life as you choose. And then get me out of your life, too.”

“You used me,” Zoe said miserably. “I trusted you and you used me.”

“My plan was never to let you get caught, Zoe. That would have been plain stupid along with being rotten,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up as if in supplication. “You being caught and a teeny little passive transmitter vastly increased my chances of losing track of you altogether. But I considered the possibility you might be successfully kidnapped, and I’d have been a fool not to plan ahead to capitalize on that.”

“Capitalize?” Zoe sneered.

“Face it, Zoe: Regardless of any personal interest I have in taking Janus down, it’s in both our interests for me to find him. He may try to get at you again; he may not. Probably not. This latest attempt cost him a lot in terms of manpower, money and more exposure to me. You’ve become expensive. Going after you is now officially a liability and a loss proposition.”

“All the more reason to punish me by coming after me again.”

“Wrong. He’d come after me because I’m the one messing with him.”

“I killed two of his guys,” Zoe pointed out.

“He doesn’t know that. Also, it’s small potatoes compared to the damage I did. He’ll come after me or one of my few friends if he looks for revenge. I doubt you’re one of my friends after all this, so he won’t pick you.”

Zoe leaned against the back of the nearby sofa and sighed. “You could have at least told me what you were up to,” she said dejectedly.

“A secret backup plan ceases to be secret if I tell someone,” Query said. “And I like my secrets. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m not sorry I planned things the way I did, because I still think it was necessary, but I am truly sorry for what you went through. That’s the other difference between me and Underworld. She may not be as outright nasty or vicious as Janus, but she likes control. She practically orgasms when she breaks someone or gets them to submit to her will. I don’t get any pleasure from having played you; not even a little bit.”

For nearly a minute, they remained in silence, before Zoe finally broke it. “So, what now?”

“To be on the safe side, I find someplace you can stay that give you a bit more freedom than this little place and even more security. Cute as it is, I doubt you want to spend the next several months here while I assess the fallout and whether you’re still at risk.”

“Any ideas where yet?”

“Yeah, I think I have a place; a person who will make sure nothing happens to you.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No. I don’t like him much at all, but I know you’ll be safe from Janus with him. But for now, you get some sleep, and I’ll fill you in when the sun is up.”

“Where will you be?”

“Right on the couch,” Query said. “I’ll be reading. No one will find you here, and if they do, they won’t get by me. I promise that. I can do that because I’ll die before I break that promise, and if I die, I won’t have to worry about catching shit from you for breaking it.”

Zoe laughed despite herself, and muttered, “I still don’t like you right now.”

“I have that effect on a lot of people.”

“What if you fall asleep?”

“Not a chance. You see—and considering what I’ve put you through, I guess I can tell you what only a few people know—I don’t sleep. And before you ask, yes, I mean that literally. The price for my powers is a brain that doesn’t know how to shut down anymore, even for a few minutes.”

“You know, it’s not a secret if you tell someone,” Zoe pointed out, feeling some satisfaction for using at least some of his earlier words against him.

“It doesn’t need to be a secret, Zoe. It’s just personal. And I don’t share personal with many people. You may not like me, and that’s understandable. But I like you, and I wish we could have met under better circumstances. You’re good people, Zoe, and I want you to step out in the real world with as clean a slate as possible. You deserve that as much as I deserve your scorn.”

[ – To view the next chapter, click here – ]

Bad Business

If you haven’t already read “Customer Relations,” I’d suggest you do so before reading this story, as the two tales are closely connected, though that story takes place a little over two years before this one.
___________________________________

If there was one thing James could count on at 8 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, it was the ability to turn the sign in the door from “open” to “closed,” close out the cash register and then eat his first leisurely meal of the day at some nearby restaurant—since he and his girlfriend both found the kitchen of their condo useful for little more than storing dry cereal and cold beverages.

So, when he locked the front door of the Shoreline Hero Shop and turned toward the sales counter, the last thing he wanted or expected to see were four intruders—suddenly, 8 p.m. wasn’t very comforting, with an otherwise empty shop and the lights at the front of his store now off.

He considered turning back to the door, unlocking it and fleeing while dialing 911 on his cell phone, but one of the members of the quartet wore a helmet with two classically styled Greek faces—one looking forward and one backward.

I doubt too many common criminals are bold enough to impersonate someone as narcissistic, vengeful and deadly as Janus, and Halloween is still a few weeks off, so I should probably assume this is the real thing and not do anything panicky that will end with something sticking out of my spine or firing right though one of my internal organs, James considered.

Taking a deep breath, he moved halfway toward the counter, hands in his pockets to hide their trembling, and said, “Could you, uh, please step away from my cash register and…um…come around to this side of the counter? If you don’t mind, sir.”

There was a short, derisive sound from the helmet—as much a laugh as a disdainful snort—and then a pause of several seconds before the helmeted man in the charcoal-gray Versace suit responded, “Do you really think I need to raid your cash register, Mr. Pearson?”

All the same, the man who was presumably Janus stepped out from around the counter and the trio of costumed women with him followed suit as James headed back to the cash register via the other end of the counter. One of the women seemed in particular to have her eyes on James as she followed her master—not that he could actually see them, though, nor any other part of her flesh. She was clad head to toe in red and black vinyl or latex, her face completely covered—mouth and nose as well—with a second, heart-shaped skin of glossy red and black goggles with violet lenses hiding her eyes. All the same, James felt her eyes bore into him as one gloved hand fingered the hilt of a kukri at her waist, and he shuddered.

As he switched places with his visitors, James tried his best attempt at a casual smile, even as his guts clenched and made him want to race to the bathroom. Biting down the desire to wince, he sighed instead.

“Not that busy of a day today thanks to the pounding rain out there, so you’d probably kill me if you saw how little was in there anyway,” James said. “But the real reason I wanted you away from it is because I’m about ready to piss myself right now and if I’m going to be facing someone like you, I’d at least like to do it from behind the symbol of my authority—the counter of my store.”

“Yes, the racks of graphic novels and first-edition old comic books behind you makes for an intimidating backdrop to be sure,” Janus sneered, but there was a hint of humor in his voice.

James took a moment to consider his predicament, the toes of his right foot poised near the silent alarm trigger behind his counter. Tripping the alarm was very tempting, but he hesitated. If this was Janus, it seemed unlikely the criminal kingpin would have overlooked the possibility of putting an alarm button within James’ reach by letting him go behind the counter—if that was the case, James figured, summoning the police would probably only result in some deadly blowback for himself.

And if it wasn’t Janus, James figured he could take some time to sort things out. No one had drawn blades or aimed guns at him yet, and all three women quite blatantly had both on their persons. The red-and-black-clad one who had paid such special attention to him was more heavily armed than the others—a kukri, a katana, a Desert Eagle pistol and an Uzi—but the woman with the Venetian carnival-style mask and the one in a lacy black dress with a stark white mask over her face—blonde hair cascading out from behind it—were both equipped with a pair of weapons each, one blade and one firearm each.

Instead of summoning help, James continued to do more of what he usually did during a day at the shop—exude pheromones to keep things pleasant. In this case, calming pheromones, though unlike a normal day it wasn’t because he wanted them to linger and shop. As he did so, he could already feel the headache building behind his temples. The normal way of things was a gradual emission, not a full-on invisible blast of “don’t worry, be happy” chemicals.

“Would it be all right to ask why you’re here?” James ventured.

“Certainly,” Janus said, putting clasped hands behind his back and rocking casually on the balls of his feet in their glistening Bruno Magli dress shoes.

When nothing else was said, James asked, hesitantly, “Why…are you here?”

“Perhaps, like my associate Underworld did once before, some years back, I would like to enlist your aid against an enemy.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I aided her,” James said.

“She spoke highly of the value your shop played in her taking out Glory Boy. I believe she even signed some publicity photos of herself for you—some of them nude ones—as a token of her esteem.”

“She did. I still have a couple left for sale—keeping the best ones until I die, though. Want one?” James asked. “Only $1,000 each.”

“No. I’ve seen that all already, and in 3D,” the villain responded. “But you did help her out, did you not?”

“She wanted to get a handle on Glory Boy; I had a lot of biographical stuff and even some more obscure underground stuff and even some self-published ‘tell-all’ things about him from folks in the scene who knew him or ran across him,” James acknowledged. “But I don’t know that selling her stuff that helped her research is really helping her out. She put all the info together to—I guess—get into his head a bit and distract him or demoralize him or whatever when she had that final fight with him. She did all the work; I just sold a product, and that product wasn’t even a weapon.”

Janus’ helmeted head turned to survey the racks of minor martial arts weapons in one corner that had probably supplied dozens of would-be beginner heroes and then turned his regard toward James again. “Information is the deadliest weapon around,” he said.

“Maybe so, but she could have found all that stuff on her own,” James said. “Why is this important to you? Is there someone you need an edge on? I’m perfectly willing to point you toward some resources, especially if the so-called hero is as big an ass-hat as Glory Boy was, just like I’d point a hero toward anything on you if asked, and if there was anything on you of value, which there isn’t.”

For a moment, James worried about that last comment. Looking like a potential enemy wasn’t a smart move. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be pegged as some weird combination of librarian/informant to the villain world.

“You know, I employ many people,” Janus said, apparently unperturbed. “One of them is named Hellfire.”

“Seems a bit small-time for someone like you.”

“Someone in my position can always use people who are—expendable.”

“I’ll be sure never to tell him you feel that way about him if I see him.”

“See that you don’t,” Janus said, a distinct note of threat in his voice, but also a hint of respect for James’ discretion. “But interesting you should talk about running into him one day, since he’s already been here once before.”

James didn’t see any reason not to admit it, nor did he think it wise to deny it outright since he didn’t know the extent of Janus’ knowledge. Transhumans at this level were such a tricky lot to deal with, and James didn’t feel that being a lower-tier transhuman himself helped a bit with understanding them. He identified with norms more than he did those who were theoretically his own kind.

Also, something was wrong with this whole situation and Janus’ demeanor, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. The silent-and-deadly female bodyguards seemed normal, somehow, but something wasn’t adding up right with their leader. He needed more time to figure things out before he panicked and either hit the silent alarm or made a break for the back door.

“Yeah, he was here once. I don’t even remember when.”

“September 2008,” Janus offered without hesitation. “The exact day eludes him, but the month and year really stick in his memory.”

“Can’t understand why,” James said.

“Neither did I. You see, I interview my potential people very thoroughly, even the losers—if for no other reason than to let them believe they are important to me. Hellfire was very good about telling me every single crime he could remember—and they’re all so pathetically small-time that I won’t bore you with them—and at one point he said, ‘Then there was that time at Shoreline Hero—’ and he just stopped and said, ‘Oh, that one didn’t work out. Nevermind.’ I didn’t let it drop, though. He seemed so downright agitated at the memory that I was curious. I didn’t get much out of him ultimately, I suppose; do you recall the incident?”

James paused only a few moments. He didn’t want to overplay his hand or underplay it. Better to seem not to remember it with crystal clarity—though he did—nor pretend it didn’t matter.

Especially when one of Hellfire’s handprints was very obviously burned into the wooden portion of his countertop—he’d never buffed it out even after all this time.

“He came in with a stack of self-written, self-drawn, poorly conceived and badly photocopied and shoddily stapled comics about his exploits,” James recounted after playing up the act of recalling the scene. “Or, rather, his fantasies about what he wanted to be, anyway. Tried to extort me into selling them for him at a really freakishly high price and then give all the money to him. I think I might still have them here somewhere; I had kind of hoped he’d become something bigger and they’d be worth something. Maybe there’s still a chance of that if he’s under your wing.”

“He’s never been back to your shop, has he, James?” Janus probed. “He never did seal the deal and convince you that you should either sell his wares or pretend to and just give him the money. Did he?”

“No,” James admitted. “No, he didn’t.”

“He left your store here, and left it largely undamaged,” Janus said. “Except for that little burn there. Why is that, James?”

“I don’t know,” James lied.

Something about Janus is out of synch, James thought.

“Are you certain?”

Something’s not matching up.

“I played it cool, I guess. I mean, I’m sort of doing that now, too, and you’re a lot scarier and smarter than Hellfire. Dumb bullies like him don’t do well when people don’t fold right away.”

Why isn’t he… James’ thoughts continued, and he felt the pieces fall into place.

James stopped the flow of soothing pheromones and shifted immediately to ones that would cause agitation, knowing the sudden change was going to make his already growing headache three times worse as well as leave a nasty taste in his mouth for hours. Bile rose in his throat, and he wasn’t sure if the nausea he was feeling came from the overuse of his Primal abilities now or from the fear of what fate might soon befall him.

“You seem like the kind of person who would value his safety,” Janus said. “Someone who would trip the silent alarm button on the floor when faced with someone like that. Yes, I’m well aware of your alarm and I haven’t even disabled it. Oh, I know why you’re not tripping it with me here. You know that you’d die at the first sound of police officers approaching. But with someone like Hellfire, you’d let the police come in, knowing it would freak an amateur like him out. Someone in your shop with incendiary powers but no visible weapon who’d barely begun his life of petty crime—you’d likely not end up a hostage or get hurt. At least not too badly. So why didn’t you? And how did you get him to go away?”

Janus’ three minions are calm—I don’t doubt that they’d kill me in a heartbeat at his command, but they’re relaxed, just like I wanted them to be earlier, though that won’t last much longer with new pheromones in the air. Janus, too, is standing there pleasantly while he interrogates me about Underworld and Hellfire. Except that his voice has kept the same note of menace this whole time and he sounds like the kind of guy who’d like to gesticulate while he talks, but he hasn’t been.

That’s when James realized for certain that Janus wasn’t standing there in front of him, and he kicked himself mentally for not figuring that out earlier. Whatever the reason for being here ultimately, why would Janus himself risk coming out in the open to confront a shopkeeper with a silent alarm who might have an itchy trigger foot? Why would he expose himself to that risk?

He wouldn’t. He’d send a guy in a helmet with a speaker and talk from miles away, James realized. That’s why the body language doesn’t match the personality; that’s why the calming pheromones aren’t doing a thing to mediate the threats implied in his words.

James gradually began to slow the flow of agitating pheromones he had unleashed, with a goal of shutting it down completely soon. He just wanted enough in the air to snap the bodies of these four people out of any sedentary posture. If they reported back to Janus about how calm they’d been the entire time, the villain would have what he wanted: information and confirmation of his suspicions.

I can’t risk getting them too agitated either, or the same thing could happen. I only hope I’ve shifted things soon enough that they won’t have anything notable to remark on in terms of their experiences and demeanor while in my shop.

“I don’t know why he left,” James reiterated.

“Really? Because I was thinking perhaps you might have some sort of Interfacer power and made him feel like fire ants were crawling up his legs and stinging him, or perhaps kicking in the running-away aspect of the fight-or-flight instinct,” Janus suggested, “or some Primal power to send out pheromones to influence behavior.”

James tensed at that last comment, hitting so close to the mark, and prayed it didn’t show on his face or in his posture—more likely than not, Janus had a camera in that minion’s helmet as well as a microphone so he could keep an eye on the situation from afar.

“Maybe you have a Psi power that allows you to manipulate feelings and memories at the neuron level or create illusions,” Janus continued without pause, and James sighed inwardly.

He has suspicions, but he doesn’t know anything for sure.

“I’m not a transhuman,” James lied. “So I couldn’t have done any of that.”

“Are you certain?” Janus pressed. “I could use someone like that on my side. It could be useful for someone to lie in wait at some job, waiting in the wings to secretly undermine the confidence of any enemies who might arrive on the scene. Someone who could turn the tide in my favor. Someone like that could expect to be paid well indeed.”

I make a good living owning my own business and keeping only a few part-time employees, James thought. I have a girlfriend who’s busy enough with her stand-up comedy that she doesn’t resent the long hours I log. And it’s a living that not only has given me a nice bank account, but also doesn’t put me afoul of the law or place me in situations where I’m likely to be beaten up on a semi-regular basis.

“I don’t…I can’t…Janus, sir, if I have any of those kinds of powers I just don’t know about them,” James said. “If I do—and I really don’t think I do—they must be subconscious or autonomic or something. Maybe they kick in when I’m under stress sometimes, but that wouldn’t be of much use to you. Powers that can’t be controlled or whatever.”

“Is that your story, James?”

“It’s the only one I’ve got. The truth has always worked for me so far. I’m no use to you,” James said. “No threat, either,” he added quickly.

The fake Janus stood silently while presumably the real one mulled things over and watched James for any sign of hesitation or duplicity. After a minute that felt like something so much longer, the voice from the helmet said, “Ladies, if you could go make sure the back alley is clear, we’ll go out the way we came in, so that James here can do the same soon and drive on to wherever he might go.”

The three companions filed out with professional precision as Janus remained. He wasn’t looking at James—or at least the helmet wasn’t facing toward him—but he said, “If anything changes—if you should discover you have powers and some control over them—you’ll contact me, won’t you?” At that, the man wearing one of Janus’ helmets laid a business card on the countertop, right on top of the fat black handprint Hellfire had left some two years earlier. Just a white card with a single phone number on it, which James guessed went to some prepaid phone that couldn’t be traced to the villain.

“Honestly, sir, I can’t say that I would,” James said.

“Oh?”

“Putting on a mask and sticking my neck out wouldn’t be my style even if I were a Tank, a Regenerator and a Morph,” James said. “Or even a more formidable combo. It’s not my style.”

“Really? That’s a shame.”

James wondered for a moment if his life were about to end. When no killing stroke came after a tense and silent ten-count, he said, “For what it’s worth, if I did suddenly find out I had a power or powers or whatever, and that I could use them at will, I wouldn’t exactly be running to join up with your enemies, either, on the white hat side or the black hat side.”

A low, rumbling chuckle echoed from the helmet.

“See that you don’t, James,” he said as he headed for the rear of the store. “See that you don’t.”

James heard the faint sounds of the city nightlife outside his shop at Janus opened the rear door. The sounds remained several seconds later. The door was still open; had Janus left it that way as he departed, or…

A few moments after that thought, James’ body jerked in huge, startled shudder as he heard Janus’ voice say, “I was never here, James. Make sure of that.”

And then the click of the door shutting.

Before his wobbling knees gave way or his angry guts sent him to an explosive encounter with the toilet in the back room, James forced himself to go to the security system controls in his small office, eject the tiny DVD that was recording everything from the cameras in the store, and snapped it in half.

As the pieces of the DVD make a soft clunking sound in the bottom of the little trash can there, James wished it would be as easy to erase the worry showing in his face or manifesting as knots in his neck and shoulders. By the time Jillian got home, he needed to seem normal. Calm. Untroubled.

Keeping her from knowing about Hellfire was just to keep her from embarrassing me on stage with jokes about such a loser in my shop threatening me, he thought. Keeping her from knowing about this may be the one last thing I need to do tonight that keeps us both breathing.

Fly Away, Fairy

A vision of lacy, frilly, girly splendor in the darkness. A pale blur against the backdrop of small night-shadowed park spaces and commercial buildings. A lithe, springing, satin-winged form running and skipping in the moonlight.

The night was her time. The time of sleep and the time when the Tooth Fairy wandered. Even before she had existed, it had been a time for the mythical tooth fairies that left money in return for baby teeth.

Night. A time of monsters and financially generous fae folk, she thought with a giggle in her head.

Her movements were somehow joyous in a childlike fashion while also suggesting something predatory.

But tonight she wasn’t hunting for random trouble—or random teeth. She didn’t have a scheme or plan to carry out to satisfy her sadistic urges or her greedy ones.

Tonight she was trying to figure out who was following her and why.

Eluding a pursuer while secretly hunting that pursuer. Playing at being unwitting prey so that she could strike.

Tooth Fairy smiled as she jogged and skipped and moved in and out of the dark places. Smiled and let her mouth be home to a wide assortment of different types of fangs, changing over and over as they glistened and sparkled in the moonlight and glow of the streetlamps.

* * *

Another shape in the night, moving quickly but stealthily and avoiding the open spaces and the light as much as possible.

Another shape whose back also bore wings—though these were darker, smaller and shaped like a butterfly. Unlike Tooth Fairy’s more articulated wings, these ones didn’t flap realistically as the skulking form moved and pursued Tooth Fairy.

They were pretty, but static. Rigid. Fixed.

A perfect complement to someone who felt stuck. Who felt awkward. Who need direction.

Catching up with Tooth Fairy was the beginning of solving all of that.

* * *

From above—from a fire escape on the side of a shuttered department store—came a snarling voice.

“Who are you, what the hell do you want and which body part should I start chomping on first?” Tooth Fairy queried and challenged from her shadowy perch. “I’ve known you were behind me a long time; might as well come out and play.”

A woman stepped just barely into view. Pale skin and hair, but a short gauzy dress of deepest black, and her butterfly-shaped wings affixed to the back of it, colored mostly in purple, indigo and charcoal. Her mask was a simple black domino-style one, with a pair of butterfly antennae extending from the sides of it.

The Tooth Fairy being shadowed by a butterfly fairy, thought the woman poised above and licking her teeth which she morphed from sharp fangs back to her natural dentition. That’s a novel change of pace.

“I’m Night Fae,” the woman said from below.

“I don’t know if there’s room for more than one fairy in New Judah,” Tooth Fairy warned. “So, you got the short straw this month, eh?”

“What do you mean?” Night Fae asked, scrunching her blue eyes as she warily and curiously observed the woman watching her from above.

“Seems like every month, give or take, some half-assed hero finds me and tries to take me down. I had thought handing them their asses and keeping parts of some of their bodies as trophies might have sent a message by now,” Tooth Fairy said in a half-snarl, half-purr. “Do I have to start killing all of you to make it more clear?”

“I’m not here to take you in or take you down,” Night Fae said. “I’m no hero. I want to be something, but not that. I want to be like you. I really admire you, Tooth Fairy.”

Mouth wide and filled with jagged teeth like broken white chisel tips, Tooth Fairy dropped to the pavement and fixed her eyes on Night Fae’s.

“I don’t need your admiration,” Tooth Fairy snapped. “I don’t fucking want it.”

“And I like the idea of your apprenticeship even more repulsive,” she added as she pounced, the carefully designed white wings on her back flapping furiously as she launched herself forward.

* * *

The third time that Night Fae evaded one of Tooth Fairy’s attacks, the aggressor skipped backward and stopped, feet together in something almost like a ballerina’s stance, and swayed back and forth, almost seductively, for a few moments as she assessed her former pursuer.

“Better moves than the last guy who tussled with me,” Tooth Fairy noted. “Aggravating, really. I wasn’t looking for a workout tonight. I just cleaned this outfit and I don’t want pit stains or crotch sweat. I might force my estranged husband to have disturbing sex with me tonight and I had fragrant things in mind much more exotic and unsettling than sweat. That’s three times you’ve slipped away. That’s three teeth I’ll claim.”

Then Tooth Fairy struck again, and Night Fae dodged a flurry of attacks again, putting distance between her and the woman she emulated.

“I’m not your enemy,” she said. “Even so-called villains could use allies and friends.”

“I have more allies than I ever wanted, and Janus had to pay me a lot of money to accept them into my world at all,” Tooth Fairy said. “That’s four teeth I’ll have from your mouth now.”

“If you’re that dead-set against having anything to do with me, I’ll leave then,” Night Fae said, breathing heavily—clearly unused to prolonged combat maneuvers.

“Not until I have the teeth you owe for putting me out.”

“God you’re so fucking eerie and menacing and self-assured and independent,” Night Fae effused.

“Stop with the fucking reverence, bitch!” Tooth Fairy snapped. “I don’t want your adoration and I don’t want to be a mentor to anyone but my child.”

“You’re better than me; I know that. In so many ways,” Night Fae said. “That’s why I hoped I could learn from you. But one thing I can do really well is stay away from you. I’ve stolen so many security videos and even a couple news recordings of you in action. I know all your moves.”

That’s what’s so unnervingly familiar and that’s what’s annoying me more and more as this goes on, Tooth Fairy realized. She has my moves.

“You’re a Mimic,” Tooth Fairy growled. “Can you do voices, too?” she sneered. “Go ahead, imitate my voice. I want a new reason to dislike you and add a fifth tooth to your debt.”

“I don’t mimic voices,” Night Fae said. “I can do movements, though. I can copy moves and I learn enough from what I see to fill in a lot of the blanks. Plus add my own touches. I’ve got other powers, too, like the ones that helped me find and follow you. I could be a great help to you. I swear!”

“I don’t want an attention whore sidekick either, you needy bitch!” Tooth Fairy shrieked, and rushed forward again.

This time, though, she abandoned all those martial arts classes she had taken over the years, especially the ones she’d taken up as her powers began to emerge. Instead, she thought of her years with her husband—before she’d become a transhuman; before she’d made herself thus to hopefully ensure her unborn child could grow into powers as well one day. She thought about the college wrestling moves he’d playfully taught her and that she’d seen when he’d coach wrestling camps in the summers for the high school boys. She abandoned everything that had worked in battles since she’d taken up crime, mayhem and torture as her career and went after Night Fae like she’d in the past sometimes gone after Will playfully in the bedroom to pin him and fuck him.

Night Fae hadn’t been ready for any of that, and she grunted as Tooth Fairy slammed into her, hugged her tight, and wrestled her to the ground. Legs wrapped around her prey’s torso now, Tooth Fairy used her Morph powers to extend two long, razor-like prongs from her forearm instead of altering her teeth, and let the sharp, bony tips of those organic blades hover at the throat of Night Fae.

As the women recovered her senses, she tried to struggle out of Tooth Fairy’s grip and failed, then noticed the deadly predicament at her neck. She settled down, and smiled.

“You have enough real enemies out there without killing me. If you don’t want me, at least let me be bad like you’ve been able to be,” Night Fae said. “Reject me if you must; but this is still a man’s world. It needs more women like us. Let me live to be a bad girl like you did.”

“I dislike you on general principles,” Tooth Fairy said. “But you make a good case for a sorority of villainy. If you move or try to get away from me, I’ll kill you. If you cooperate, you live. I might even warm to mentoring one day—long in the future—if you can follow those simple instructions.”

Night Fae nodded and the deadly protrusions retreated back into Tooth Fairy’s skeletal system as she traded them in for the gold-plated pair of pliers she carried in a small, silky white fanny pack under her wing assembly.

“This will only hurt  a lot,” Tooth Fairy whispered eagerly.

* * *

Tooth Fairy walked slowly and contemplatively as she worked her way back to her lair.

In a Ziploc bag in her fanny pack were four teeth—payment in full. Out of kindness, she’d taken the woman’s four rearmost molars so as not to ruin her smile. She felt enough sympathy to hope Night Fae had dental insurance to get some dental implants as replacements.

Along with those teeth, a small slip of paper with Night Fae’s phone numbers and email address.

I don’t want an apprentice or a sidekick, but I might teach her a thing or two, Tooth Fairy thought. More importantly, I will be taking my child more and more often to have time with her away from Will, and a bad girl’s gotta work even on visitation weekends.

Good nannies were hard to find.

Especially ones who could appreciate the need for a mother to go out and sow pain that wasn’t deserved and reap treasures that weren’t hers.

The Gathering Storm, Part 25

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

She’d known he was coming—she’d been alerted by phone.

But apparently he’d also been warned she was on edge.

All for the best, Zoe supposed, as she heard a twig snap in the distance and a youthful, jovial voice calling out amiably, “Fringe, not foe!” as Mad Dash came into sight. The mask he wore—revealing only his nose, cheeks, mouth and chin and sporting almost comically large dark yellow goggles—was only slightly less grin-inducing than the garish short-coat he wore over his gray-green unitard, which was a medley of different colors, types and shapes of fabric. A sturdy looking coat and well-constructed, but ridiculous as hell, she thought.

God can I use a laugh right now, even if it’s only a chuckle and gone almost as fast as it arrived, Zoe considered, flinging her spent cigarette into the road from the rock on which she sat near the tree line. Before she’d fully exhaled her last lungful of smoke from that butt she was already extracting another one to light.

“Those are terrible for you, you know,” Dash told her when he drew near, though to his credit, Zoe noted, he didn’t wrinkle his nose or wave at the air to disperse the fumes like so many people did when they said something like that. “Your lungfish are going to go belly up in the aquarium if you keep up that habit.”

He delivered the cautionary note so matter-of-factly, without any trace of judgment in his tone, that Zoe decided to forego the usual snide response. “They’re right; you do speak a little odd,” she said. Then she cocked her wrist so that the smoldering cigarette stuck straight up into the air and she pointed at it with the index finger of her other hand. “Bad for me though these may be, they’re the only thing making me feel a little human right now, a little sane right now and a little calm right now. Chain-smoking several butts is phase one. Phase two will be a very long, very hot shower and lots of scrubbing until my skin is raw and any blood I see I know is my own. Phase three would be getting piss-drunk, but I can’t even hardly get a buzz drinking, so I’ll settle for some herbal tea and a warm bed and not getting up for 12 to 15 hours.”

“I didn’t bring a shower. Or tea. Or a bed,” Mad Dash said, though he glanced quickly inside his backpack as if he might find one or all of them in there, while he awkwardly juggled a large and apparently mostly empty soft drink cup from Wendy’s in one hand. He rattled it a little, lifted the lid, and then downed the last swig and let the last few chunks of ice left slide into his mouth. “I have some water bottles left in my backpack and a few snickety-snackedy-munchies,” he mumbled as he crunched the ice. “If you like granola bars and Cliff Bars and stuff.”

“I think I can keep food down now, so a granola bar sounds great,” she responded with a smile. “I’ll make Query come up with the other things to make up for letting me get kidnapped.”

After he handed over the snack and a bottle of water, he paused and then said, “Oh, salmon! Your clothes look like they came from the fall war-refugee fashion line at Macy’s and I should get you a…whoa! I’m so sorry I’m looking at you I just saw a nipple sorry sorry sorry,” he stammered, wrenching off his coat and handing it to Zoe.

“I like you, Madster,” Zoe said as she put her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up. “You’re weird, but I like you. Chivalry’s not dead, even though your fashion sense might be. Comfy coat, though.”

“Thanks. I make them myself,” Dash said, positively beaming.

“Well, don’t give up your day job, because I think there won’t be many customers for this kind of style. But you’re a Renaissance man, Mad Dash, and you’ll make a fine catch someday.”

“Oh, I’m already the lobster special of the day—got a girlfriend named Honey Badg…hello? Yeah? Querio? Where you at, man? I’m here with Chloe…”

“…Zoe,” she corrected him.

“Zoe,” Dash repeated, and then rattled off a series off a series of “yeah’s” and “uh-huh’s” as his part of the communication with Query.

At least I hope he’s really talking to Query via a Bluetooth or some hidden headset, because I don’t want to find out he has voices in his head, Zoe thought. I can’t deal with shit like that tonight.

Mad Dash paused, then turned to Zoe. “Query says we need to stay put, stay down and don’t get involved with what’s about to happen until he says so.”

“Huh? What?” Zoe sputtered. “No, no, no. Tell Query to call me on my cell phone right now.”

“Says he’s kinda busy setting stuff up.”

“Tell him to call me on my phone right the hell now,” she snarled and then, as if on cue, her phone rang. “Talk to me. What’s gonna happen?”

“Zoe, I need you to trust me right now. I’ve got stuff to do and probably not much time to do it and I just want you and Dash to stay out of the way for now,” Query said.

“Oh no no no no no,” Zoe said, dragging hard on her cigarette and then expelling smoke in a chaotic mass like some angry dragon. “Look, I’ve had a really shit goddamn day and I’m just barely holding it together and you failed to stop them from getting me and I want some damn answers.”

“I take all my jobs very seriously, Zoe, but you’re not being charged for this work,” Query said. “What do you want? A refund check for zero dollars? I’m trying to protect you.”

“And I just killed two guys and some of them is staining my clothes and that’s fucked up and I deserve some answers,” she retorted, her voice sounding angry and anxious all at once. “Plus, if shit is about to go down, I want to know what is going down. Tell me right now or I will walk out into that road and flag down the next car I see.”

“OK, fine. Zoe, they were taking you into the woods. Must mean they have a safe-house somewhere around here. If I were running this operation, I’d have at least a few people waiting there in case there was trouble getting you out of the car. I’ve made some best guesses based on the topography around here and I’ve got some ideas of the most likely places. Also, the guys you zeroed out aren’t able to check in or respond to any communications so chances are Janus and gang will know soon shit’s gone wrong, if they don’t already. I intend to ambush them when they come looking for their friends’ car.”

“How would they find it? You had me drive it off the road.”

“I already figured Janus would likely have all the cars fitted with locators,” Query said. “Pidwidgeon’s on-board sensors have confirmed transmissions from it—someone’s likely monitoring. So I’m going to wait for them to come. I promise I’ll get you out of here. Just sit tight.”

“It’s almost dark already,” she noted.

“I have night vision equipment.”

“We don’t.”

“Dash does. And if things get too hot, and I need you to pitch in, I’ll provide the party lights,” Query said. “I promise. Now find cover, keep quiet and let me do my job. Pretty please. With sugar on top.”

* * *

He was standing in the doorway to her office. Had he been anyone else, Underworld wouldn’t have cared. But she hated him right now, and she was trying not to think of murder right now so that she could get work done. It was way too soon to deal with him again.

Not to mention the fact he never visited other peoples’ office—he summoned them to his. That disturbed her even more.

“I thought we were done after we discussed Odium,” Underworld noted.

“I may have been too quick to praise you for your successful abduction plan,” Janus said, the sourness of his tone mixing in an interesting way with the slightly tinny echo produced by his two-faced helmet.

Underworld said nothing; simply arched one eyebrow.

“We’ve lost contact with the car carrying Zoe,” Janus clarified.

“Where?”

“It was last seen getting ready to get onto Grace Memorial Highway by Breathtaker and the two men in his car when they parted ways.”

“Then I still win,” Underworld said dryly, taking her eyes off him and returning them to the computer monitor.

“How do you figure that?”

“Because if my plan had been flawed, the car would have been stopped or commandeered or whatever long before it got to that point,” she said, still not looking at him. “And the other car, too, for that matter. I assume Breathtaker and the two guys with him are still in contact and running free.”

“Yes.”

“Then the problem isn’t that I had a bad plan or that I failed. The problem isn’t that my hand-picked team got sloppy. The problem is, I suspect, that you picked a fight with Query and he’s still got tricks up his sleeve for keeping tabs on Zoe because this shit is personal and not just business.”

A loud metallic sigh, and them a simple “Hmmmph” from Janus. “I hate it when you’re right,” he said as he walked away. “I think I’ll kill somebody after I finish handling this.”

* * *

A car finally arrived nearly 20 minutes after Query got off the phone with Zoe, stopping very near to where Zoe had driven her abductor’s car behind the tree line. Making some educated guesses about probable locations for any Janus-owned safe-houses out here, Query did some quick calculations about when the car with Zoe might have been expected to arrive at any of those areas, figured their comrades would wait until they were 10 or 15 minutes late to panic, factored in required travel times for those other bad guys to show up here from all the possible locations, and had the sites for Janus’ place in the woods narrowed down to three prime leads.

All while he used the scope on his rifle to size up the three men who were now getting out the car. One of them had a device in hand—probably some kind of receiver/locator—and was likely getting a read on just how far away their missing car was and in which direction it lay. All of them had flashlights; the two guys with Mr. Receiver—as Query had mentally designated the lead guy—had Uzis in hand as well.

If Mad Dash and Zoe were following instructions, they wouldn’t be anywhere near the car and its two corpses right now—wouldn’t be in any spot where the three new arrivals would be scanning the trees with their flashlights.

Hopefully, they’ll also be behind some cover, since Mr. Receiver has clearly figured out where the car is and is now pulling out night vision goggles to look for threats, Query thought. He probably doesn’t really expect any police presence here, or else the car they were seeking wouldn’t be out of sight. But he might be expecting a trap of some other sort. As well he should.

Mr. Receiver even took a long, slow look at the other side of the road, where Query had found a tiny hillock to give himself just a bit of high ground. Query didn’t flinch; the modified portable hunter’s blind he had set up in front of himself would block his heat signature and look like a rock or bush to the night-vision goggles. The barrel of his rifle like some branch.

The man was very thorough in taking stock of his surroundings; his companions were very vigilant in watching his back.

And Query’s trigger finger was feeling quite itchy.

But it was too soon. He trusted his instincts and waited for what he expected—for what he would have done in their place.

And so it was that a second new car arrived on the scene some five minutes after the first one, pulling off to the side a bit farther up the road. For a moment, Query considered waiting some more for a third car, but that was just getting paranoid. So he simply waited until the new quartet of men started walking toward the trio, pulling night vision goggles on as they did.

Odds are that the first team will be going down to check out the car and team two is here to give them some additional protection.

About 10 meters from the trio, the quartet’s tight formation began to fragment just the slightest amount as one man slowed a little, and Query knew that was the point one of them would stop, as the other three would continue on and each stop in turn so they could fan out for the best coverage and ability to kill anyone coming at them from the woods. The two armed men from the original trio were already keeping watch on the road from near the edge of the trees.

Since Query knew the most dangerous threats were getting into position, he decided there was no time like the present to prevent them from getting organized.

While the newest arrivals were still clustered relatively closely to one another, he said into his headset, very softly, “Dash, in 10 seconds the first three guys are yours—take them alive,” and then fired off five shots in rapid succession at the group of newcomers.

The first bullet entered the skull of the man who had just stopped walking. The second bullet went through the throat of the man nearest him, who likely would have been the next to stop in a few more meters. Figuring the time for piling up corpses had come to an end, the fourth and fifth bullets took the third man’s ability to shoot and to run with a bullet in his gun arm and another in one thigh.

Naturally, Query thought, the fourth guy would be alert enough and agile enough to take cover.

Query set down his rifle, picked up a grenade launcher not much larger than the Uzis that Janus’ men were carrying, and said into his headset, “Wait, Dash. Close your eyes until you hear two booms, then hit them.”

Query fired two flashbang grenades just past the roof of the original trio’s car, where his quarry had taken cover, one near the front of the car and the other near the trunk. A loud “whump” and another a second or two later accompanied two bursts of bright light and then Query was bounding down the hillock and toward the road.

He wasn’t trying to beat Dash—no sense in trying that anyway and there was a bit of cleanup work yet. Once he had sprinted across the road, he walked to the man he had shot in the arm and thigh and pepper-sprayed him in the eyes and mouth before quickly binding his hands to his ankles with nylon ties, then continued around the front of the trio’s car, confirmed that his target there was stunned insensate, and quickly bound him as well. He did his best to focus on the task at hand and not react to the sounds of shouting and running so close to him; did his best to be as quick as he could without rushing. Then when he was done, squatting behind his place of cover, he closed his eyes and let his ears sort thing out.

Feet running through the dirt, twigs and rocks—faster than a normal person’s. Mad Dash was still moving. Voices calling out to each other and swearing—only two, though, so Dash had likely taken one man out. Shots fired, but none of them in the direction where Query was huddled against the car, so the remaining pair was clearly too focused on Dash to think about or deal with their other threat: Query.

Query opened his eyes and stood, taking out a tangler. He was just in time to see Mad Dash do a furious high-speed zig-zag through the trees, sliding finally as if trying to beat a ball thrown to home plate and slamming into the legs of one of Janus’ men, who went down about as hard as one might expect when being hit at about 35 or 40 miles per hour.

I know Dash’s unitard is padded and/or lightly armored in places like the thighs and ass, but that costume’s likely going to be a goner and Dash is going to be sporting some rather bloody scrapes, Query thought.

The last man, seeing his comrade go down and realizing he was alone now, was already headed for the car and an attempted getaway, but came to a startled halt as he saw Query.

“Evenin’,” Query said, casually throwing the tangler at the man’s legs and smiling as the sticky tendrils burst out and then contracted back on themselves. The man wobbled for several seconds and finally fell over in a heap. Query tossed a small plastic bag of nylon ties to Mad Dash to restrain these last three men and added to the man on the ground at his feet: “You just relax while I make sure those two friends of yours are really dead and decide whether to make all of the rest of you the same way—only much slower.”

* * *

Underworld was finally in a decent frame of mind again—she’d done a quick set of breathing exercises and a few calming yoga poses and was finally able to get back to the work she needed to finish for phase one of her and Janus’ team expansion plans.

It was, therefore, very disheartening to her when a person burst through the door to her office, ran all the way to her desk and jumped over it, pushing by her legs and then crawling underneath it.

Underworld looked down to see a completely tattooed face staring up from between her legs, and resisted the urge to make any number of snide and risqué comments to the woman huddled underneath her large maple desk and only inches from her lap. She was less able, however, to control the flood of irrationally joyous feelings over the fact that Crazy Jane was near her, though she was pretty sure she managed to keep those feelings from showing on her face.

Crazy Jane’s eyes were wide and earnest as she looked up at Underworld. “If Janus comes looking for me, I’m not here. Please don’t tell him. Please say you don’t know where I am.”

Keeping her eyes fixed at a point she could see both her doorway and Jane in her peripheral vision, Underworld said quietly, “He’ll know if I’m lying. He always knows.”

“Not always,” Crazy Jane. “Not when he’s enraged. It doesn’t work when he’s really mad. That’s when he can’t do that and that’s also when he can do other things. That’s why I need to hide. He’s furious.”

“You do something naughty?”

“No, but Query did,” Crazy Jane answered. “At least I think it’s Query. We’ve lost contact with the team sent out to find out what happened to the car Zoe was in.”

“I don’t think you have to worry, Jane,” Underworld said soothingly. “If you got out of Janus’ way, he’ll likely find some staff member to take it out on. Pretty unlikely he’ll come to my floor looking for trouble, much less looking for you.”

“Thank you, Undie,” Crazy Jane said, and Underworld almost teared up at the sincerity in the younger woman’s voice. “Sometimes, we girls have to stick together, right?”

Underworld simply nodded.

“Can I stay here a while, just in case?”

Underworld nodded again.

“You know, while I’m down here I could give you a foot rub. I’m really goooooood.”

“Oh, what the hell,” Underworld said after a few moments of consideration. “Why not? Girls sticking together, right?”

This time is was Crazy Jane’s turn to nod. And to smile as well.

As Underworld settled in to get her admittedly aching feet pampered a little, she smiled, and not just at the wonderful feeling of having knots and kinks worked out of her toes and soles. She smiled as well as getting some unexpected intelligence about Janus.

I’ve long suspected his ability to tell when a person lies was gender-specific, since he only ever stresses to women that he can tell when they’re not speaking the truth, she thought, but I never realized it was tied to his mood, too. And Jane’s reference to “other things” makes me think perhaps Janus has two sets of powers: one for when he’s calm or relatively so, and one for when he’s not. Makes sense when you consider he named himself after a two-faced god.

Suddenly, being Crazy Jane’s friend, willingly or not, didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

* * *

Two corpses had been added to the pair already in the car with the ruined trunk. The five surviving members of Janus’ team were well past the tree line now and all of them bound and gagged. The two other cars were now parked near each other by the side of the road and a little closer to the tree line.

Query walked back toward Mad Dash and Zoe from those cars, after having left Mad Dash’s backpack on the trunk of one of them and a few scattered granola bars on the hood of the other, along with a jacket and a pair of shoes and socks from one of the dead men

“Why did you do that?” Zoe asked.

“To make it look like they pulled over to do a little wandering and hanging out, instead of looking like they need help. Less likely that a state trooper will check things out if a cruiser happens down the road, and regular drivers will be even less likely to stop and look at things,” Query answered, looking over each man in captivity as if assessing and comparing each one, and then setting down a small tool case he had brought back with him.

“What now?” Zoe asked, fiddling with her bright orange disposable lighter nervously.

“You and Dash will go to my van parked a couple hundred yards down the road and head to a safe-house I have near Fishmonger’s Wharf. Dash knows where it is. You can clean up and you should be able to find some clothes that’ll fit you, Zoe. Have a decent meal, too, if your stomach can handle it. Watch some DVDs or listen to some music. Get some sleep. Dash’ll keep you company there until I’m finished. If I’m not there by dawn, chances are I’m dead and Dash will know who to call to get your situation as sorted out as possible.”

“What about them?” Zoe asked, nodding toward the captive men.

“Don’t worry about them. I have that covered.”

Zoe looked at the case at his feet, and then stared down his concealed eyes behind the black mask for several seconds. She walked up to him, pointed to the red question mark on the mask over his mouth—her finger just inches from it—and said, “Your name is Query; I just asked a question.”

“I ask questions; I rarely like answering them,” Query said coldly.

“You’ll answer mine,” she said, nervous at his tone but reminding herself it was probably bluster to get her to leave—and reminding herself that even if she was wrong, she was hardly powerless. “What are you going to do with them?”

Query sighed behind his mask, and Zoe imagined that his eyes were probably rolling behind it as well. “Zoe, I’m going to ask these fine gentlemen where their little hideout in the woods is. If they don’t answer me, I’ve going to demonstrate how badly I can hurt them with easily accessible items here in nature, and then tell them about the tools in my case here that are more professional-grade. If they don’t answer me even then, I’ll begin using those tools on them.”

Zoe shuddered. “You’re going to torture them.”

“Only if they make me.”

“You mean only if it’s the most convenient route for you.”

“Zoe, I don’t want to debate situational ethics with you right now,” Query groused. “These men kidnapped you. They were willing to kill you.”

“Noooo,” Zoe said. “Two of the dead men in that car over there, and I guess some guys in another car from what Dash has told me, were the ones who kidnapped me, and only one of them maybe was trying to kill me. They’re dead. I fucking lost my composure and killed them. Two other men are dead at your hands. These men came to check on their buddies. I don’t know what they would have done if you hadn’t attacked them.”

“Surely you not suggesting I shouldn’t have…”

“Of course not. You shot first. Wise move. They work for Janus. They were armed. But goddamn it I’m not going to let you torture them just to find out where they came from or for anything someone else did to me. I mean, really, do you expect to find Janus at their hidey-hole? Do you expect him to come here to the woods and throw down with you? I’ve been dealing with Underworld all this time and nothing suggests to me that they’ve suddenly gone lax on their security. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts these guys probably don’t even know where Janus is or the other guys who tried to nab me before at graduation probably would have known.”

“I think we need to be sure, Zoe. And if I go to their place here in the woods, I can look for clues that will help me find Janus later,” Query said. “I need you to go now.”

“How would you even know if they were telling the truth if they did give up a location to you, huh?” she pressed. “People will say lots of things under torture or to buy time.”

“Because,” he responded, raising his voice for the benefit of his captives and turning his head slightly in their direction, “I’ve already figured out from their response time and what I know about this area where the three most likely locales are. If they give me any other location that isn’t in one of those areas, I’ll hurt them more.”

“No.”

“Zoe, this isn’t your operation. This isn’t about you.”

“Yes it goddamn is!” she shouted. “I was the one kidnapped. I’m the one who’s got bits of people all over her. People have been firing bullets all around me and one zipped right past the top of my head. You took on my case so I’m your fucking employer—kinda. It’s all about me and I say you aren’t going to do this.”

“It’s more about me than you know, Zoe. In any case, I need this info…”

“…fine!” she interrupted him, and stalked toward the bound men, morphing as she did to take on a slightly more attention-getting and menacing look—though Query noted her locs, while clearly hardened and sharp, were no longer animated as when she was panicked in the trunk. “Here’s how it’s gonna be, boys. One of you will tell me right now where your little place in the woods is. Then after you’re handed over to the police or whatever—somebody less likely to torture you, in any case—you can go back to clamming up and not saying any damn thing about Janus and if he asks you can all tell him you don’t know how Query knew how to find your hideout. He can just assume Query found your place on his own with his super-intuition. Totally plausible, since he’s apparently already narrowed it down. But he’s really cranky, as you can see, and if you make him search too long, or waste too much time talking to you about it, he’s going to go all Spanish Inquisition on you. Whoever wants to tell me can just nod and I’ll pull off your gag.”

No one nodded.

“Unless Janus is there at your place in the woods, this is a win-win for everyone to tell me, guys,” Zoe said more firmly, flexing her fingers with their sharp, glistening burgundy nails. “You stay quiet about it, then Query is going to start thinking Janus is there, and if that happens I think you’re all going to be probed in a lot of places humans weren’t meant to be probed with things that weren’t meant to go there. Your choice.”

Ten minutes later, Zoe was in the passenger seat of Query’s van on her way to a date with a hot shower, with Mad Dash humming some tune wildly out-of-key on the driver’s side, while Query was taking a ride in one of Janus’ cars to a place in the woods.

Zoe closed her eyes and smiled a little.

I win.

[ – To view the next chapter, click here – ]

The Gathering Storm, Part 20

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

Through a mouthful of glazed doughnut, Carl Beacham mumbled, “Are we there yet?”

“Yeah, and we’ve been here a bit over an hour and we’ll be here several hours more at least. But you already knew that. I warned you stakeouts were boring,” Query said from the driver’s side of the SUV, peering out the window that, like the others, he had switched to tinted mode when they parked near Zoe’s dorm. “You should have brought some music and headphones; maybe a Raymond Chandler audio book to really get into our theme tonight. You know, I can’t believe you brought a dozen glazed doughnuts.”

“Too cliché?”

“No. I just don’t like glazed, unless it’s Krispy Kremes. We’ve had enough morning meetings for you to know I’m a maple long john or buttercrunch person.”

“You wouldn’t take your mask even halfway off to eat them anyway while I’m around, so I don’t feel all that guilty,” the lawyer retorted. “So, why am I on this stakeout with you again?”

“Because keeping an eye on Zoe is big, if I want to nail the man that almost got you and me shot to hell,” Query answered, glancing at the eight smart phones mounted to the dashboard—all of them the new Droid Nexusz that people had been scrambling for since the novelty had worn off the iPhone Sextet. Each was receiving a spy-camera feed from some exterior part of the dorm they couldn’t see from the vehicle. “Because of that,” Query continued, “I can use a second set of eyes tonight, since I don’t think Janus will wait much longer to nab her. Plus, like I said: Stakeouts are boring. I could use the company.”

“You overpay me a bit for something like this, but I suppose it’s good to be useful,” Carl said sourly. “Even if the only reason you probably pay me is for you to have someone to talk to besides yourself.”

“Jesus, Carl! What’s with the sudden moody tone? I don’t need you going all emo on me during an already agonizing chore.”

“It’s true, isn’t it? You don’t really need a lawyer. You could do all that yourself with your big, bad, super-intuitive damn brain. I’m paid to be around to be the cushion between you and the outside world and to be your friend.”

“What? You don’t like me? We’re not really friends?” Query asked. Carl couldn’t tell for certain through the mask if Query was being light or sarcastic, though his voice seemed to carry vaguely amused tones.

“Yeah, I like ya, but it’s hurting my professional pride, man. You pay me to be around; not because you need my skills.”

“Man goes into existential crisis; falls apart like cells in lysis,” Query mumbled—thinking he should jot that down for a future set of lyrics—then said, in normal tones, “You’ve got no fucking clue, Carl. Of course I need your skills. I don’t know the first thing about lawyering.”

“You could probably pick it up in a matter of weeks—or a few months at most—with your powers,” Carl grumbled. “Some of us have to work years at this shit.”

“Like I said, you have no clue. Is that really how you think my intuitive powers work? That I can do anything I want; learn anything I want?”

“When I asked about the clarinet in your office a few months ago—”

“Alto saxophone,” Query corrected him.

“OK, the sax in your office—you told me you’d never picked up a sax before your powers emerged. But when you started on it, you became a good player in a matter of weeks and a great player not that much longer after. Probably the same with your electronics skills and everything else.”

“Carl, half of why I do all that shit is to give me something to do every hour of the day so that I don’t go crazy. I don’t sleep!”

“Insomnia’s a bitch, to be sure,” Carl said through another mouthful of doughnut.

“No, Carl. I don’t sleep. Ever. I can’t sleep anymore. Not for several years now.”

“Huh?”

“A couple years of working this closely with me and you haven’t figured that out? That I’m up any time you need to call? That I send e-mails at all hours every day? That I’m reverse-engineering military drones, patrolling New Judah, tracking people down through physical, electronic and virtual surveillance and still have time to keep up with all the best new cable TV series and read three books a week? Carl, I have two fake secret identities just to keep myself busy and not completely bug out, in addition to who I really am.”

“Which is Donald Trump, of course, right? You forgot to mention the time you spend doing real estate deals, hosting stupid reality TV shows and trying to prove President Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen, right?” Carl paused and Query remained silent, looking at the lawyer briefly and then glancing at the phone displays again. Carl cleared his throat and began again, his voice more somber. “Seriously, though, you never sleep? I didn’t know you were being literal all those times you said ‘I don’t sleep.’ Thought you were just being all mysterious and brooding and bitchy.”

“Carl, I can’t even be properly sedated. Believe me, I used to try,” Query said. “I do tons of stuff and learn to do lots of things so I don’t go insane. My Regenerator powers probably help, too, or I’m sure my synapses would just fall apart anyway, but yeah. That’s me. That’s what I do.”

“But still, you could drop one of your other identities or some extra hobby you have to eat up time, and learn all the law-school stuff I spent years on, and probably have it down in weeks. Ergo, I’m still just hired to be company. You could learn law and hire an agent or PR person or someone trying to earn their private investigator license to do the go-between stuff for way less than I cost.”

“I had no idea the depths of your self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, Carl. Do I need to give you a raise so you can afford some therapy?”

“I’d just spend it on some cool wines to stick in my cellar and tell you I was going to therapy,” Carl said. “I’ve got no interest in shrinks.”

“And I have no interest in law, Carl,” Query said. “I also call a plumber when my pipes back up and I let mechanics work on my cars when they go to shit. Sure, I need your law skills pretty often, even when you’re not my go-between with clients and authorities and crap—a task alone that makes you worth your salary already—but I don’t want to learn that crap.”

Query paused and stared at one of the camera views of Zoe’s dorm for several moments. “Is that…no…just a possum running past the front entrance,” he mumbled, then half-turned his head in the direction of Carl, who couldn’t understand how Query could have picked out such a small detail on such a small display even with enhanced senses. “Look, I play the sax like a pro. The guitar almost as well. I’m great at electrical and mechanical engineering. Master of disguise. Good with a gun. And more. But at a certain point, if I don’t give those skills plenty of exercise, all the intuitive, hyper-learning potential is useless. Practice makes perfect. I spread myself too thin…well, then I won’t be pro at anything. I’ll lose my edge in the things I need to know and the things I want to do well because I like them.”

Carl nibbled thoughtfully at the edge of his doughnut, pursed his lips and finally responded, “All right, I feel valued and valuable again.” Then he pointed the half-eaten doughnut toward Zoe’s dorm and added, “Think that guy over there should be hanging around here?”

“A guy in his 30s or 40s? At a women’s athletic dormitory? Nope,” Query answered. “Probably a pair of Janus’ eyes; either means we can expect a nabbing tonight, or more likely he’s just keeping tabs on her because things are about to come to a head. There’s also a guy on phone number five that shouldn’t be there.”

“Which hopefully means a kidnapping squad shows up here soon, so that you can take them down while I play Angrier Birds on my phone. Otherwise, I guess we’re taking turns sleeping and spending all night in this SUV to see what these guys do and try to figure out where they go.”

“If I slept, of course. But yes, you’re a quick study. We’ll make a gumshoe out of you yet.”

“Good thing I’ve got 10 more doughnuts, then. Don’t have the faintest idea what you’re gonna eat though, Query.”

“I’ll dine on imponderable mysteries and deep thoughts. Unlike your diet tonight, I won’t need to wash it down with lukewarm coffee and pee into a bottle later.”

* * *

Serene.

That was the feeling Dr. Jack Hansen had when he worked very early or very late at the Genesis One facility. The subjects were typically asleep or sedated, and aside from a few screams, curses and incoherent cries on some days, he could simply be.

Be the director of one of the most secret places in the United States. Be alone with his thoughts. Be clear enough to rationalize his actions and push down his guilt. Be calm.

Staff was mostly scant or non-existent in the central operations area before 7:30 a.m., so that desire to be drew him here at 5:30 or 6:00. It was easy most days, given how often he slept in his office—his apartment was usually a memory as vague and inconsequential to him as musings of being a six-year-old or recollections of his first pet.

But serenity was a fragile flower, and the unexpected arrival of Gen. Keith B. Alexander—whose many titles included head of the National Security Agency—a few minutes after six made that peace of mind wilt away instantly.

“General, what an unexpected pleasure,” Jack said.

“I doubt it is, Doctor,” the general responded. “A pleasure or unexpected.”

“Wasn’t expecting your visit to happen quite so early in a workday.”

“I know your schedule; we need privacy.”

“Did the president give the green light?”

“He didn’t have much choice, but there is a decent chance he’ll pull the plug before his term ends,” the NSA director noted. “I hope not, because it would complicate my life a great deal. I don’t need this facility being any blacker a black project that it already is.”

“What can I do to keep us open?” Jack asked.

“Showing him results that involve induced transhumans who aren’t crazy as bedbugs would be a good start.”

“We have many of the usual speed bumps in that regard, but we’re managing all right. If you can put him off another few weeks, that would help.”

“With as much as he has to deal with right now with the Republicans in Congress, I can probably give you a month and a half. Just don’t give me any disasters.”

“There won’t be any more cases like Dr. Kelly’s,” Jack said firmly.

“Which bring me to my next point: Under no circumstances do you tell or allow any information that we are responsible for creating Doctor Holiday to get to the president. Are we clear?”

“I voted for Obama; I still like him more than Bush. Asking me to hide information from the president of the United States is a tall order, Keith. I’m also not pleased you told me some weeks back that he wanted results by Thanksgiving; you had me believing he was already on board.”

“You needed incentive. As for my original point, Obama has been staunchly repeating—himself and through cabinet members—that Doctor Holiday was not a government experiment. It was easy to keep that from President Bush—he was never in a position to know anything but the most vague hints of what we are. But now we’re at a point where the president has to know what we’re doing—but he doesn’t need to know that.”

“Because he’ll shut us down if he does?”

“Jack,” the general responded gravely. “We take away his plausible deniability about that particular thorn in society’s side and his opponents pin him to the wall and make it seem like he’s responsible in some way for Doctor Holiday’s continued freedom—and they will—and the president might find us both special accommodations at Guantanamo Bay that the CIA won’t even know we’re in.”

* * *

Going on patrol with Mad Dash tonight had seemed like a good idea to Ladykiller at the time, since they hadn’t been able to get together for a couple days. It seemed an especially good idea since she had suggested their target: an apparent kidnapping and forced prostitution ring that she had gotten wind of.

If I can’t do my normal Ladykiller routine and take out rapists and such, at least I can go after a similar kind of target—though I wouldn’t have tried something this big solo, she thought.

Sadly, the operation they had decided to take down tonight also seemed to do a small but brisk business in meth and skeez—something she hadn’t expected—and so there were several more heavily armed individuals than she would have expected, an observation punctuated as several rounds whizzed by and dug chips out of the brickwork facade of a nearby warehouse where she had taken cover behind a car.

There was a sudden thump and clatter above her as a body landed on the roof of the vehicle and then rolled on onto the pavement right next to her with a loud “Ouchie!”

“OK, managed not to get shot with that turbo-charged-double-espresso pass, but I don’t see any good way to get near them without ending up dead-dead-deadio,” Mad Dash said, rubbing one shoulder.

Ladykiller was in her Honey Badger identity tonight since Mad Dash might be spotted with her, so she had a pair of bulky clawed gauntlets instead of her usual single, sleek one. She had to pull off both of them as she sighed heavily and then reached behind her back. From a small fanny-pack beneath her faux tail, she pulled a 9mm pistol that was half pink and half gunmetal gray and flipped off the safety.

“Cute gun, hon,” Mad Dash said.

“Thanks. Gift from an admirer. But I’m not that great of a shot and I’ll be out of bullets really quick. You carrying?”

“Gun? Like that?” Nah,” he answered. “I really try to avoid them. Chainsaws, too, but mostly because they’re bulky and burn fossil fuels.” He eyed her gun and then her tail. “Got anything else back there?”

“My ass. If we live, I might let you see it nekkid before bedtime,” she answered, then cringed as another bullet struck the wall behind her, closer than the previous ones. “Any other weapons on you, since you don’t have guns or power tools?”

“I try to remember to bring a couple taser guns but I forgot ‘em again.”

“Not that they’d be much use at this range when we’re being shot at,” she said as she unzipped Mad Dash’s small backpack and looked inside. “Let’s see…no…no…uh…what the fuck!” She pulled out a dark cylindrical item. “What are these and why didn’t you tell me you had them?”

“Oh, my ‘Flashdance’ grenades? Cool! I always forget those are in the bottom. Always burying them under the snickety-snacks. Gift from Query a few months ago. Got 10 more at home.”

“Flashdance? You mean flashbang grenades? Jesus, Dash!”

“Hey, I like Jennifer Beals!”

“I’m not questioning your taste in movies; it’s your total disorganization when it comes to accessorizing that drives me nuts,” she responded, pulling out the other stun grenade. She pulled the pin on the first one, threw it over to where their opponents were, then ducked back down, smiling as the loud blast and blinding flash put a theoretically non-lethal and sudden stop to the gunfire. A few seconds later, she pulled the pin on the second grenade and tossed it over as well. “Never do anything half-way,” she said, then fixed a glare on Mad Dash that was, in truth, only half-irritated. “Let’s go truss them up and get to business. Seriously, Dash, do I have to start dressing you for these outings so that I’ll know you’re properly equipped?”

“Oooo, sounds like fun. OK!” he answered. “Can you also put me in my strawberry jams at night before bed?”

* * *

Solstice didn’t like that Query had dumped the whole Marty the Hun mess back into her lap instead of solving the problem for her. On the other hand, exercising her investigative skills was probably long overdue.

Also, taking down Marty was going to be really fun if the plan her stepsister and roommate, Isabella, had cooked up ended up working. Marty might have dodged the other charges for now, but he would have owner and operator of a drug-cooking lab on the list, too, and likely not slip that one. A few other bits of planted evidence, and he should at least do a decent stretch.

Killing him would have been easier, but killing even a scumbag when she wasn’t in imminent danger from said scumbag was a line she hoped not to cross. Certainly not this early in her crime-fighting career.

While Query wasn’t willing to let her off the hook for dealing with Marty herself, he turned out to be very amenable to assisting her with the frame-up of the man. He seemed very pleased with the plan she and Isabella had hatched, and pointed her in the direction of an operation he’d apparently wanted to take out but had been too busy to address.

Now all she had to do was take down the few people that were usually there, call up Query to have someone pick them up and drop them naked on the turf of their bitterest rivals, and then lure Marty and his goons to the empty drug lab so that she could take them down, plant some more evidence, call the cops and be done with all this shit—maybe still have time to go out dancing with the cute redhead she had run into at that art gallery last week.

* * *

Sleek, stately and elegant, Hush-a-Bye sat in an oversized, dark leather office chair, but with only a small, sleek stainless steel desk before her. Her back was ramrod-straight, hands crossed over her lap, and one leg crossed over the other. The black gown she wore, so close in shade to her long, straight hair, was tight enough to reveal her every curve to perfection, but modest enough to make her appear regal rather than slatternly. A pearl choker graced her pale throat, and diamond earrings hung from her ears. The dichotomy of the short, shiny, red patent-leather gloves and the similarly-colored thigh-high, chunk-heeled boots lent a certain primal edge to the formal demeanor she otherwise conveyed.

At her feet was a man curled up almost like a dog—though doing so more like a pit bull than a lapdog. That man, GoodKnight, wore at least a half-dozen knives and three pistols on his body, clad in heavy black leather from head to toe, except for his mouth and eyes.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Janus?” the woman asked, the slightest sarcastic lilt on the word honor. “I was surprised enough when I heard you’d moved eastward and left a criminal void out west. Now you’re visiting Marksburgh? Paying respects to me? Offering some kind of tribute to me? Looking for me to take you under my wing?”

For a moment, Janus’ two-faced metal helmet regarded her silently, then a low laugh came forth. “Well, business and money are involved, but I was thinking that you might want to become a subsidiary of my operations.”

For a few seconds, Hush-a-Bye pursed her lips and placed one gloved fingertip to them as if in consideration, then put her hands back into her lap and shook her head slightly. “No, I think not. I rather like ruling the roost all by my lonesome, with my faithful vassal by my side.”

“Oh, but I insist. I don’t take ‘no’ very well,” Janus responded.

“Really, I thought you’d be more careful, Janus. Coming with just a pair of bodyguards into my lair. Into the dark heart of Marksburgh, where people watch documentary footage of the roughest gang-ridden Detroit and South Central L.A. neighborhoods to cheer themselves up have something brighter to dream of. To the throne of a crime lord who can put people to sleep with a thought.”

“I suppose it would be foolish if, in fact, I were here,” Janus said, “rather than having sent a minion in a really nice suit wearing one of my used helmets, helpfully installed with a speaker, mic and two-way transmitter in it.”

“I say that’s a bluff,” Hush-a-Bye responded. “GoodKnight, sic him—just a tiny bit.”

In a flash, the muscular man in leather was upon Janus and had two fingers of the left hand in his grip. With a quick jerk, he snapped them both and bent them back hard, until one broken bone of the little finger burst free of the skin. The helmeted, Armani-clad man screamed, but coming through calmly, mixed with that cacophony, was Janus’ voice.

“Really? Violence so early on? You know it’s going to much harder to hear me now over the moans and groans of this pitiful, pain-averse pawn.” The fake Janus was on his knees, gripping the wounded hand close to his chest, as the real Janus’ voice continue to issue forth from the helmet, unperturbed. “Satisfied that I’m not really here, or do you need to wound the two bodyguards, too?”

“Well, I had to be certain. I could have gotten lucky,” Hush-a-Bye noted.

“You’d consider harming the real me to be ‘lucky?’ This does not bode well for our future business dealings.”

“You didn’t come to do business, Janus. You came to get a foothold in my playground and a firm grip on the balls of my criminal enterprise. No one—no one, I say—takes from me anything that is mine. I worked hard to take it all from others, after all.”

“It’s true that I had hoped you’d be a bit softer or more fragile in person and perhaps easily cowed by a personage with such a notorious reputation as mine,” Janus admitted over the sobs and groans of the man on the floor wearing his attire. “But mostly I’d like to diversify. I propose to invest in your operations a bit. And in so doing, reap some of the rewards of your efforts.”

“I’m not a publicly traded company, Janus; I don’t need investors. I subsist on victims, pawns and customers. Privately owned and never imitated.”

“There could be benefits in this for you, Hush-a-Bye. I have begun to assemble a very impressive group of transhumans. I’ve been very exacting in finding just the right personalities and just the right incentives to have a stable dynamic. No infighting. Just a perfect collection of power at my command.”

Hush-a-Bye smiled, but there was no humor in it. She stood up slowly, and then rested one hand on top of the leather-clad head of GoodKnight, who had quickly and quietly returned to her side on all fours after breaking the faux Janus’ fingers.

“Are you telling me that such a force would be available to aid in my own endeavors from time to time, Janus,” she asked with a warning note in her voice, “or that it will be aimed at me if I don’t comply and let you ‘invest’ in my operations?”

“I’ll let you decide which is more likely,” Janus answered.

“You’re playing a dangerous game with a lethal person in the meanest city in the United States, Janus. And even if I do say ‘yes,’ your cut will be small, your obligations will be set in stone and your input will be silent.”

“A ‘silent’ partner? Is the pun intentional, Hush-a-Bye? Is that a sign perhaps you’re warming to my charms?”

“I’ll let you decide which is more likely,” she responded. “Have your two upright henchmen here pick up that whimpering fool and bring him back in two days. I’ll have a response to present through him to you then.”

“As you say,” Janus responded through the speaker in the mask, as the man was lifted by both arms and half-dragged from the room. As the trio retreated slowly toward the door, the voice fading slightly as they did, Janus added, “Let’s just make sure no nuclear responses will be called for.”

* * *

Cole had groaned inwardly when Blockbuster told him to show up at Desperado’s office in the Guardian Corps HQ at 3:15 sharp.

He almost groaned out loud after he passed through the empty meeting area and conference room—a shabby area filled with mismatched chairs and even more mismatched long foldout tables—and then realized that Desperado was meeting with a pair of his top lieutenants. He couldn’t hear everything, but much like the fiasco when he was doing the newsletters the other day, he was certain he was inadvertently intruding on a very private conversation.

For a few minutes, he hovered near the door, unsure whether to stay—it was 3:18 now and he had been told to be here—or whether to leave and risk Desperado’s wrath for being a no-show.

“Is someone out there?” Desperado demanded roughly, then threw open the door, throwing his imposing shadow over Cole in the process. “What the fuck are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be hear for an hour. Get the fuck out and get the fuck back when you’re supposed to!”

The man stepped back into his office and slammed the door, but not so soon that Cole couldn’t see the piercing glares of the other two men inside—one suspicious and one almost hostilely curious.

As he left, the stress of the whole situation sent a piercing stab of pain through his head, and he stumbled to the nearest quiet space away from Desperado’s area as he could to ride out another one of those dirty, almost migraine-like auras dominating his vision. The dirtiest yet, turning his world into a haze of greens, browns and bloody reds.

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