Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (33 page)

“It isn’t.”

“I’m sorry, but no. You know about the Dome attack, and I’m sure you heard of today’s events.”

“Nothing to do with us.”

“That is not quite true, Mr. Early. So far you have two dead that we know of, one in a very public attack with a lot of collateral damage. Every new incident of superhuman-on-superhuman violence increases public apprehension, enabling people like our good friend Mr.
Shankman
to turn up the rhetoric. Blackstone says the Outfit is eating itself, and as far as he’s concerned that’s fine, but every day your war is adding more gas to the fire.”

“We’re taking care of it.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough anymore. The attacks have been public, so now
we
have to be seen to ‘take care of it.’”

He grunted. “And why did they send you? Why aren’t I having this conversation with Blackstone?”

I rolled my eyes. “Plausible deniability?” True enough—what Blackstone didn’t know about couldn’t be his fault. “And do you think he’d leave the hospital to talk with you
now
?”

His gaze wavered.
Good. Our family’s been hurt, so you wonder how responsible he holds you for it
. I closed my mouth and let him think about it.

He swirled his scotch, set down the glass and sat back.

“So what can we do? We’re already at war.”

Somehow I managed to keep my expression neutral.

“Information, Mr. Early. We need to know what and who we’re facing. Blackstone thinks you revived the old Villains Inc. and it got out of hand.”

He nodded.

“Smart man. What has he told you about it?”

“Only that it was modeled after Murder Inc., your old
hitman
-for-hire operation.”

“
Meh
,” he said. “Maybe. And you guys laid it out but good. Business, no hard feelings. But can you see why we couldn’t just leave it there?”

“The gangs?”

“The gangs. They make good buyers, good soldiers, but get a few breakthrough gang-bangers together and they start thinking like comic-book
supervillains
. They’ve got the powers—why should they take orders?”

“So you brought Villains Inc. back.”

“Damn right, and fast. Some, they’re out-of-town hires. Others, they’re street villains themselves—we pay them well and we know where their families live. And we always pay a few of them quietly, let them stay in their own little groups so we know what’s going on
on
the street and they don’t know what we know. But you cleaned most of those ones out last year when you took down the Brotherhood and the Sanguinary Boys.”

I leaned forward. “So what happened?”

“The witch happened. Look.” He retrieved his glass, rolling it between his hands. “The associate who ordered the banker’s hit went over the line. We don’t use those assets for public messages, not anymore. That associate is no longer a concern, and when you guys got on the witch’s tail she
should’a
taken the severance package we offered her and got out of town. Instead she reached out to our other hires. Don’t ask me how—we kept the guys on our books separate. But she’s pulling them together, wants them working for her and us working for them. Call it management reorganization.”

“Has she got all of them?”

His face set. “Not hardly, but we’re having a hard time moving against her, not knowing who to trust. But the world’s bigger than this town, you know? And we have deeper pockets.”

Great. So they were hiring mercenaries for their war. He smirked, message delivered.

Behind me Artemis shifted, and it took everything I had not to look back at her. It would be like we were suddenly south of the border with the warring drug-cartels; this fight could burn Chicago down. Or put us under martial law.

We are
so
far over our heads.
I waited until I could be sure my voice was steady.

“You know how that’s going to end,” I said. He shrugged.

“Maybe, but we didn’t start it. We’ll clean our own house.”

“And we’re in the middle of it. As I said, it’s not good enough. And as you say, it’s your house. Their actions are still your responsibility.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“That people have died under our protection, and they were
our
responsibility, Mr. Early. You know the people responsible. We want Villains Inc. If not locations, then names or at least descriptions so we know who we’re up against.”

The silence stretched tight. I listened to the gears of the Swiss clock until he grunted, tossed back the last of his scotch, and set the glass down with a click.

“This is where I say we don’t like threats, you say it’s not a threat, and we both get counterproductive. So here’s the deal. We take care of our own, and I mean the ones who have stood with us. The rest, you can have them, the one’s we’re sure about. We’ll even tip you the nod when we learn anything you can legally act on that doesn’t compromise our own interests. We keep it friendly between us.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.

“Then we understand each other. I’ll have to speak to some associates, iron out what’s fair, but you can take something home tonight to show our good faith. The witch has three lieutenants I’m sure of.
 
They’re—”

Carl took hold of Mr.
Early’s
head and twisted it with a sickening sound, killing him instantly.

I froze, but Artemis drew and fired as Mr. Early slumped
bonelessly
forward over the coffee table, both e-lasers out and snapping. Carl turned to leave, ignoring the shots that should have dropped him twitching to the carpet. Shaking off the shock of sudden death, I launched myself at his back and he slammed me into the wall. Bouncing, I met another kick on the way down. My side exploded in pain as this one threw me across the study desk and into the shelves.

Pulling myself up, I watched Carl turn on Artemis and I
knew
. Villain X, the unknown Atlas-type from the Dome attack. Mr. Eager had been wrong in his trust. Carl tossed the couch aside, reached for her, and she danced away into mist.

“Hey!” I yelled, and hit him with the desk. Oak is heavy and I followed it, smashing us through the balcony doors, taking the fight out into the night.

He fell, off balance, and I kept up the momentum to smash Carl down into the pool patio. He took the hit and flipped me off over his head. We both paused for breath, floating over the patio.

“Did you carry the gun to floss your teeth?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Camouflage. People see you packing, they think that’s what you’ll use. You’re a cutie; let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Cutie? I’m one of the hundred strongest people on the
planet
! I’ve gone through three costume changes! I’ve got a
rep
now! What do I have to
do
?”

We smacked into each other and clinched. I used my shorter reach to get a shot in on his solar plexus, locking his diaphragm into spasms, but he got a knee up into the same ribs he’d hit before and my vision exploded. He drove us back down into the patio, me beneath him. Our hit shattered the concrete, collapsing our end into the pool.

Our slide let me twist and I broke his hold. I got a solid punch on his jaw, two more hits to his stomach, then took one in the head with no room to roll with it.

My vision swam and I lost my hold. He pulled back for another hit but Artemis came out of mist to put one of her .45s to the base of his skull.
Bang.
He let go and I fell to the lawn as he climbed into the sky. I leaped after him, and everything went weird and dark.

“Hope?”

A hand squeezed my shoulder and I spat out grass.

“Hope?”

“This lawn tastes terrible.”

She actually laughed. “I’m going to roll you over now.”

I hissed. Too much pain makes you want to not move, not breathe, not think. If you don’t, the pain can’t find you. I opened my eyes to find her resetting her
earbug
, and reached up to wrap my hand around hers.

“Don’t,” I managed.

“
Don’t
? We’re getting you home right now.”

“No, we’re not.” I held my breath, sat up carefully, and managed not to pass out. “You’re going home right now. Dispatch can’t track you while you’re mist. That keeps you off the radar till morning.”

“But—” She shut up and I watched her think it through. I helped her.

“My first meeting with Mr. Early is in the official record, suitably edited. We
can’t
leave a murder scene,
can’t
make tonight not happen, but me being here isn’t—isn’t so bad for us. Somebody has to tell the story to the police, but
you
can’t be here. This has to look like what it was, a meeting, or it’s over. Help me up.”

“ No. God, Hope.”

“I’ll be
fine,
Jacky.” I forced a smile; desperation can make an actor out of anybody. “And you get the wonderful job of explaining it all to Blackstone. My part is easy; I only have to talk to Berrien County’s finest. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Sirens?”

I nodded, standing up on my own now that the world had decided to hold still.

“I’ll be fine,” I repeated, and she gave up. “Don’t move,” she said, and disappeared to reform on the balcony and duck inside. In moments she was back to take the cell and Bluetooth from me.

“I reconnected the phones. You’ll have to explain the security—”

“
S’okay
. Go.”

“If you—”

“
Go
.”

She swirled into mist, fading from sight. If she caught a good wind, she’d be home long before sunrise. The sirens drew closer, the flashing lights illuminating the property’s bordering trees, and I crushed my
earbug
before dropping it in the grass and limping over to a pool chair, back to not thinking. Getting arrested was
so
going to suck.

Repeat after me: a superhero is
not
a vigilante, a superhero is
not
a private investigator, a superhero is
not
a freelance do-gooder with a self-issued license to…to do good!

Astra
(Repeated with variations many, many times.)

Sheriff
Deitz
put me in the office cell, the one that shared the room with the desks and filing cabinets, and left me in the custody of Deputy Sweet. Deputy
Angel
Sweet. Really. She stayed to watch me and answer calls while he rejoined the state troopers at the crime scene; he had jurisdiction, but they had the manpower. I couldn’t complain about the cell—with bars on two sides and the door open, I wasn’t sinking under claustrophobic flashbacks of the Dark Anarchist’s private cell block.

Which meant instead of wigging out, I could wallow in my own stupidity.