Forced Betrayal (2 page)

*****

 

Hericane's pretty jumpy during the drive across town--not just because she's used to flying, I'm sure. Nothing like a little quiet time in a car for harsh reality to sink in a little deeper.

As for me, I'm jumpy, too, for a different reason: I hate hate
hate
going to The Zoo. It is by far one of the sleaziest places in Isosceles City.

There it is now, up ahead, bathed in blazing pink neon--the
strip club
, not the animal park. Though truth be told, I don't see much difference between the two most nights.

I get the valet parking, plus I slip the guy an extra twenty. You think getting out of a car with Hericane's gonna decrease your car's chances of getting broken into? Think again.

Especially when the strip joint you're walking into is full of grade A certified animal-based super-villains.

As soon as we walk through the door, we're bombarded by deafening dance music and swirling lights. Dozens of pairs of eyes swoop around and lock in on us, most of them only partly human.

I spot at least seven known felons at a glance: Doggy Style, Pale Horse, Cucaracha, Lab Rat, Coral Snake, Lena Hyena, Killer Zebra. Every one of them's some kind of mutated creature--part human, part beast.

All nasty.

But I don't see the one we're looking for. "Any sign of him?"

Hericane emits a softly pulsing golden glow as she scans the place with her 21 senses. "Nothing." She shakes her head. "Chimpanzero is not in the house." Then she points at the far side of the room. "But his mate is."

I pat the gun under my jacket just to make sure it's there. Not that I'm worried with Hericane by my side, but...there's something about these bestials. They make me nervous.

As Hericane and I cross the room, all those roving pairs of eyes follow us. The only one who doesn't seem to be looking our way is the ape in question, Chimpanzero's mate. She's too busy stuffing twenties in the G-string of a jackalope dancer--a cottontail bunny type with horns like a buck deer.

As we draw up beside our target, I step out in front and tap her black-furred shoulder. "Sick Little Monkey?" I hate using the dumbass code name, but I don't know what her birth name is, if she even has one. "Bubbles" or something?

Sick Little Monkey looks at me and grins, peeling her rubbery chimpanzee lips away from her massive white teeth. "Well
all right
! That
pig roast
I ordered is here! Somebody toss it in the
pit
!" With that, she screech-laughs and jumps up and down like the chimp she is.

I feel Hericane start to move, and I hold up a hand to stop her. "Where's your boyfriend?" I ask the chimp.

"Why do
you
care?" Sick Little Monkey hops up so her face is in my grill. Talk about bad breath.

"I gotta tell him he won the lottery," I say. "Think of me as the prize patrol."

"
Pig
patrol is more like it." Sick Little Monkey screeches and jumps around some more. "You got
zero
authority down here, dipshit! Animal kingdom ain't part of your super-prick protectorate!"

She's right, and I could give a crap. Time to start pushing her panic buttons, making her squirm. "Just tell us where he is." As I say it, I push hard in her adrenal gland and back-brain, working up a major fear response. Enough of this tough-talking, stripper-loving monkey bitch.

I watch her face as the changes take hold. Her eyes widen, her nose twitches, her lips tremble.

How ya feeling now?, I want to ask her. Where's all the bravado, you piece of garbage?

I give Hericane the nod, and she steps forward, reaching for the chimp. But before she can lay hands on her, Sick Little Monkey reacts badly.

"Help! Help!" Her chimpanzee screams pierce the pounding techno music. "Don't let 'em take me back to the lab!"

Shit.

There's a moment before it all breaks loose. I see all the bestial heads turn toward us, and I know what's coming. A damn nightmare, that's what.

I start to reach out with waves of panic that will stave off the drama...but I'm too late. Everyone's already in motion. The whole damn Zoo is moving in on us. The room fills with the roars, howls, screeches, chatters, and shrieks of a hundred-some enraged bestials looking for a fight. More than, looking for
dinner
, I'm sure.

Shit.

 

*****

 

The mightiest woman in the world is standing inches away from me, less than an hour after her live-in girlfriend was murdered. Could there be a better person to have by your side when a roomful of mutated bestials rises up and comes after you?

No way.

Right before my eyes, she jolts into action mode. Her jaw clenches, her gaze turns to steel. Every muscle in her body tenses under her skintight white costume.

Part of me feels sorry for this horde of yipping, chattering idiots. They picked the wrong day to get froggy at The Zoo.

With a casual flick of her finger to Sick Little Monkey's head, Hericane knocks the chimp unconscious. She could fly us right out of here now, if she wanted to--just gather us up in her arms and blast through the ceiling.

But she doesn't want to. I can see it in her face when she looks at me. "Watch the monkey for me, wouldja?"

I nod and draw my gun--a .45 semi with laser sights. "Don't be long, okay?"

Hericane smiles coldly and holds up an index finger. "Right back," she says, and then she turns to the onrushing mob.

And then she goes after them. Like a buzz-saw.

There are superhuman heroes on the hardcore side of the crimefighting scene, characters who aren't afraid to administer the death penalty in the field. Hericane isn't one of them. Even tonight.

But these bestial idiots are probably wishing she
was
one of those types about now. You should see how she tears 'em apart, ripping and breaking and mangling--all without killing.

I admire her even more. Because
this
is Hericane on one of the worst days of her
life
. And she
still
doesn't compromise her code.

Not
yet
, anyway.

As I keep my .45 trained on the unconscious chimp on the floor, I steal glimpses of Hericane in action. I watch as she uses a bear-person as a club to bowl over a snarling mob of creatures. I see her tear the fins off a shark-person and use them to slice up the tough hide of a rhino-man. She breaks the legs of a wolverine-woman and drives her gnashing maw into the crowd, chewing up a cluster of hawk-people, wolf-girls, lizard-men, and some kind of praying mantis thing with laser eyes.

Fur, feathers, shells, and scales fly everywhere. Blood and bone and all manner of organic goo splatters the walls, floor, and ceiling.

It's a ballet of barely controlled violence. I consider using my power to break it up and send the bestials running for the hills...but I hold back. Nobody's dying, and Hericane needs this to let off some steam. Better this than bottle it up and go crazy later. Better this than lose it bad and drink so hard to kill the pain that you drunk drive headfirst into a utility pole and put yourself in the hospital for three months.

Like I did, after Jimmy and the kids.

Briefly, I feel a pinch of jealousy. I wish I'd had her power back then, when my family was murdered. I wish I could've beaten the shit out of an army of bestials like Hericane.

Or maybe I'm better off that I didn't. Because my code isn't the same as Hericane's, not by a long shot. Not since the day I lost my family.

 

*****

 

As the dust settles, Hericane flies over the twitching bodies of her beaten foes and lands on the nearest stripper stage. "You'd never guess I used to want to be a
veterinarian
, would you?" She dusts off her flared white gloves, which are stained with blood that no amount of dusting off will ever remove.

"How 'bout we get what we came for." I wave the muzzle of the .45 at Sick Little Monkey, who's still out cold at my feet.

Hericane hops off the stage, grabs the chimp by her shoulders, and lifts her like she's a pillow. "Hey, banana breath." She shakes the monkey hard, trying to wake her. "Rise and swing."

Reaching out with my power, I give Sick Little Monkey a gentle nudge, just enough to break her sleep. It does the trick. Her eyes flutter open, and she smacks her lips softly, coming back to life.

"Where's your man, poop-flinger?" snaps Hericane, shaking her some more. "Where the hell is Chimpanzero?"

"Stick it," mumbles Sick Little Monkey, drifting back to slumberland. "Got nothin'...to say...to you..."

I nudge her harder this time, and her eyes shoot wide open. So does her ugly yap, which proceeds to screech like a cop siren.

Hericane smacks her across the face, and that's the end of the screeching. Instead, the bitch chimp starts struggling in her grip, fighting to break free. As if that's even remotely possible. She might as well have meat hooks stuck in her shoulders; Hericane's grip can't be broken.

"So you
want
me to dump you at the Filipino restaurant in Paratown?" says Hericane. "The one where they eat
monkey brains
?" She hauls the chimp up close and snarls the next words in her ugly kisser. "You know they serve 'em
live
, don't you? Crack the skull like an
eggshell
and scoop 'em out with a
spoon
?"

The chimpette screeches again, spraying Hericane's face with slobber. Hericane responds by calmly snapping the monkey's right arm at the elbow with a jab of her finger.

This time, the monkey's screaming in pain for real. I add to her distress by giving her back-brain a kick, ramping up the sheer terror knifing through her.

"Where
is
he?" shouts Hericane. "In case you haven't
noticed
, I'm not
fooling around
here."

When my next zap sets off a fresh round of screeches instead of a confession, I decide to apply a different form of inspiration. Specifically, I swing up the .45 and stick the muzzle in the chimpette's nose.

Suddenly, she stops screaming. Her eyes cross as they lock on the barrel of the gun.

"For the last time." I shove the muzzle in a little deeper. "
Chimpanzero. Where?
"

 

*****

 

I have to beg Hericane not to break down the doors. I know she wants to--I do, too--but we're on tricky turf.

Sick Little Monkey knew it, which is why she sneered when she broke down and told us. "You can't touch him there!" she screamed. "He's
safe
!" After which, Hericane knocked her unconscious again and tossed her aside like a used piece of gum.

But the chimp bitch wasn't far wrong. I've been to this place before, I've dealt with its guardian, and it's never been a walk in the park.

"We can't just blast in there," I tell Hericane on my way up the front steps.

"Sure we can." Hericane snaps her head to one side and stares at the big double doors, then slowly lowers her gaze. The pulsing golden aura appears around her, signifying the use of her powerful senses. "I see him inside there, in the basement. All we have to do is blast in, grab him up, and shoot out of there."

"Can't." I shake my head. "You know that. You know what this place is. We're not at The Zoo anymore."

"I don't care." Hericane glowers as I draw up beside her. "We're wasting time."

"We'll do it by the book." I reach up and knock hard on the oak door in front of me. "At first, anyway." I give her a meaningful look.

She just nods. Message received.

I knock again. Without warning, the door creaks inward. A heavyset man peers out at us, blinking under his thatch of brown hair. "Yes?"

"Father Obregon?" I do my best to keep my tone even and courteous. "May we come in? I'd like to speak with you, if I may."

"Why certainly, Bonnie." He smiles as he opens the door wider and waves for us to enter. "Mi casa es su casa."

He bows his head as the both of us walk inside. The politeness is an act; I know that all too well.

I know how this guy operates and the games he can play once he's got you inside the confines of St. Frances Cabrini Church.

 

*****

 

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" says Father Obregon as he pulls the door shut. "What can I do for you, Bonnie?"

Our footsteps echo as he leads us down the center aisle of the big, gray church. As far as I can see and sense, we're the only ones in the place.

"It's a rather urgent matter, Father," I tell him. "My friend here..." I gesture at Hericane. "She lost a close friend tonight." No need to mention the fact that she was a romantic interest of Hericane's. Father Obregon wouldn't approve.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Father Obregon stops midway to the front of the church and gestures at a pew, indicating that we should sit. "Does she require counsel?"

I don't sit. "She needs to talk to someone you know."

Father Obregon's expression is hard to read as he stares at me in the shadowy space. Even with the lights on and racks of votive candles flickering in the wings, it's a dark and murky cave of a church.

"Who would this be?" he asks, as if he doesn't already know.

"Chimpanzero," I tell him. "We need to ask him some questions."

"Ah, yes. Questions." Father Obregon rocks back and forth of the balls of his feet. "I have
seen
how you ask
questions
."

Here we go again. I
knew
he was going to screw with me. "We've had our differences, Father. I won't deny that."

"Good." He raises a thick index finger and grins through his brown goatee. "Because
that
would be a
lie
, my child."

"We know he's in here." Hericane scowls and points at the floor. "We know you're hiding him."

Father Obregon raises his eyebrows. "Then you
also
know that if he's
here
, he's been granted
superhuman sanctuary
. This is a
rescue parish
, after all."

Ever want to punch a priest in the face? Me, neither--but this guy makes me come close. He's the first to put a superhuman spin on the rescue parish concept, providing sanctuary to refugee superhumans just as other churches do the same for illegal immigrants. Does he do it out of some spiritual devotion or deeply held theological principle? Is he such a devout man of God that he can't turn away a superhuman in need? Or is he such a total contrarian ass that he just does it to get a rise out of people and have a laugh at the shit-storms he whips up?

I guess you know which theory
I
subscribe to. "Please, Father." So I try to appeal to his ego, which I believe is pretty twisted. Desperate times call for desperate measures. "Can't you help us? We have nowhere else to turn."

Father Obregon folds his hands over his ample belly and seems to give my plea serious consideration. Then, he purses his lips and shakes his head. "Sanctuary is sanctuary. For all I know, your mission here is a wicked one."

"Wicked?" So much for appealing to his ego. "You do know your charge is a violent criminal, don't you? He's a danger to the superhuman community and the community at large as well."

"All are equal in God's sight," says Father Obregon--and that's when I see it. The
glint
in his eye. He's
enjoying
this. He'll
never
give in.

Then, all of a sudden, the glint is gone. Just like that.

Because guess who just dropped through the floor beside me?

"Help!" cries Hericane as she descends to the sound of smashing floors and furniture. "I'm falling!"

Which of course she isn't falling, she's drilling her way to the basement, as we all know. Father Obregon doesn't even look surprised.

Just pissed. "Now that's a real shame." He wags his head slowly from side to side. "If you can't get what you want, you
take
it."

"That floor
collapsed
." I toss off a shrug on my way to the stairs. "You might have a
lawsuit
on your hands, if you're not careful."