Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (39 page)

Once we were all present, Blackstone stood up. He looked exhausted.
Quin
didn’t look much better, and her latex-like skin didn’t shadow under her eyes like his did. But he smiled as he looked around the table, giving Artemis and me a nod.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’m sure all of you have been hearing the latest news reports, and the threats of political action. It hasn’t helped that news of Villains Inc.’s reconstitution and its war with the Mob has gotten out. Chicagoans can live with a lot, but the thought of a three-way superhero-
supervillain
-
supervillain
war doesn’t make anyone happy.

“The good news is that, finally, we are in a position to take the war to our enemies. Detective Fisher?”

Fisher pulled himself to his feet. Somewhere he’d found time to change, but he looked even more rumpled than usual. He gave me a wink, and lit up. As he looked around the table, it was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.

“Alright people, let’s do a refresher. This all started with a bank heist and a related murder. With the fingerprints of organized crime all over it, the only reason it stayed in my department was superpowers were involved both times.”

There were nods around the table.

“Things started getting interesting when you guys tried to execute the warrant for Hecate’s arrest. Sure, she might have realized she’d been
outed
when Dr. Cornelius banished her pet demon, but maybe not. If not, someone told her we were coming—and outside of this team, only my department and the warrant judge knew about the raid. So when Mr. Ross quietly reached out and touched me asking for police protection, I had a problem.”

“Mr. Ross?” I blurted, then flushed. Fisher smiled.

“Astra asked me what I thought had happened to our elusive Mr. Ross, and I told her that if he really was an Outfit banker we’d be lucky to find the body. Since I couldn’t be sure of my own department, I made an arrangement with Agent Robbins and the local DSA office; Mr. Ross has spent the last two weeks in a
safe
safe
house. As the banker, he doesn’t know many real names, but he has been able to provide several descriptions—the Department of Superhuman Affairs brought in a telepathic sketch-artist, and now I believe I know who our leak is.”

He stopped and took a deep draw.

“So the Outfit wants Mr. Ross, but they’ve got other problems. Hecate is their biggest. Friends over in Organized Crimes tipped me that Mickey Kean died of a heart attack the day after Mr. Moffat was put in a box. The name means nothing to any of you, but it’s their guess that he was Ross’s boss. Three days later, his personal physician, Dr. Dresher, died a bit less naturally. The OC
guys’d
had their eyes on him for awhile, on the theory that he was one of the Outfit’s more subtle hitters, and apparently he was Dr.
Millibrand’s
doctor as well. Perfect cover for their meetings.”

“How did he die?” Seven asked.

“Fast—at least ninety miles an hour fast. It took us awhile to work out that it was murder. It’s a guessing game, but I think that what happened was Mickey overreacted to the bonds theft and ordered Hecate to ‘send a message’. Mr. Ross had made himself unavailable, but Mr. Moffat might have been involved, so, the box. But that tipped us that the Outfit was employing
supervillain
hitters again, that Villains Inc. could be back in business.”

“Bad move,” Rush said.

“Absolutely,” Fisher agreed. “So they gave Mickey a funeral—even if he hadn’t gone off and had Mr. Moffat killed, he could be fingered by Ross. And they tried to kill Hecate; Dr. Dresher’s practice records show a late evening visit with
Millibrand
just before he drove his Jaguar into a wall. He wasn’t drunk.”

“So now it’s on,” Riptide said. “Got that—they want you dead, you bury them first. So why do they want the dude who stole the bonds bad enough to try and go right through
us
?”

Fisher smiled, took another drag, then started a second smoke on the end of the first.

“The ten million dollar question. The attack on the Dome? Desperation. From what we now think we know about
Kitsune’s
motives, our bonds thief has probably spent the last three years stalking the Outfit, and Villains Inc. was part of it. My guess is that he knows something about Hecate or her people, something that could blow up their plans of taking over. He may have been attempting to bring it to you when he was attacked at The Fortress.”

Riptide laughed. “I’m beginning to like this
guacho
. So he’s got them chasing him all over town? Why doesn’t he just take what he’s got to the police? End it?”

“His family may have died because of a leak in the Organized Crime Department.”

“So there’s
two
leaks?” Seven asked.

“One, but it’s moved and it’s my problem now. No proof, but now we can play a little game of our own. Agent Robbins?”

All heads swiveled to look at our DSA guest. Agent Robbins took off his glasses, and he was Willis on steroids—
really
freaky since Willis was dispensing coffee around the table.

“Hey guys,” he said, flashing a smile. “I’m sure you understand the operational limitations of the Department of Superhuman Affairs. Mostly we’re an intelligence resource for local government entities, and we use special units in the Secret Service, FBI, and US Marshals Department for active operations. We like to work with local Crisis Aid and
supercop
units when they need us to help them to stand up. Which you Sentinels never have.

“When Detective Fisher approached the DSA with the Villains Inc. problem and his own departmental issues, we decided the possibility of a shooting war between organized
supercriminal
factions in the middle of Chicago called for active involvement. We’ve had Mr. Ross on ice in a detection-proof environment since Detective Fisher brought him to us, and we’ve moved a few assets into the city. Since Detective Fisher considers his own department compromised, we took custody of Villain-X in service of the warrant issued by the State of Michigan—the one for the murder of Mr. Early at Grand Beach last week. But we can’t hold him here; we have to transfer him to the appropriate authorities in Michigan as soon as possible, or turn him over to the Chicago PD.”

“Has he told you anything?” Seven asked.

“Nope. He doesn’t believe that Chakra probably saved his life, or doesn’t care, and we can only hold him so long without granting access to his lawyer—which means disclosing his location. But that’s
good
.”

Anyone hearing that and looking at Agent
Robbin
would ask
Why is this man smiling
? Artemis looked at me and shrugged; she’d been out of the loop on this one, too.

“It’s good,” Blackstone said, “because it gives us a plausible reason for speed. Until now we’ve only been able to react to what Villains Inc. has been doing. Now they’ll have to react to us. Lei
Zi
, could you explain the op?

Lei
Zi
stood, and she had all our attention; if our ex-marine and army guys were talking about
operations
, we really were finally going to war.

I feel like a piece of cheese,” I said.

Fisher smiled. “Actually, you’re one of the steel jaws of the trap.
He’s
the cheese.”

Beside us, Villain-X snoozed in his restraints and cage as the
paddywagon
bounced us over the speed-bump and out into the street. He jiggled against the bars, the Morpheus headset he wore keeping him in dreamland, a sleeping, unexploded bomb and the center of Operation Stalking Goat.

I winced at each bump; any plan that had me riding along next to him was
not
a good plan.

It was simple; the DSA was turning Villain-X, ex-sergeant Jason Leavitt, over to the Michigan authorities. They were driving him out in the predawn light, taking him to a local airport and flying him to Detroit
Supermax
, Michigan’s high-security superhuman prison. Murder carried the Death Penalty in Detroit, and they were going to make Leavitt an Offer He Couldn’t Refuse; they’d see his sentence commuted to life in prison, he’d spill everything he knew about Villains Inc. And in Blackstone’s opinion, since he’d been set up yesterday morning as a sacrificial pawn expected to kill
kill
kill
and then burn out, he probably knew a lot and wasn’t Hecate’s most devoted minion.

So if we got him to Detroit, great—he’d be a huge break in our case. But Fisher, liaising with the DSA, had made sure the leak in his department knew about our “quiet” departure from Chicago. It made sense; force your enemy to act when you’re ready for him; if he doesn’t, he’s hosed anyway.

Fisher and I shared the prisoner compartment with sleepyhead. I was back in my armor, packing Ajax’ maul,
not
happy about being bait in a box even if Seven sat up front, Lei
Zi
, Iron Jack, and The Harlequin rode in the lead and tail cars, and Galatea and
Variforce
stood ready in the DSA helicopter overflying our convoy. “You’re cheese, too.” I flinched at another pothole-bump. “And I’m sitting next to both of you.”

“Relax, kid,” Fisher said.
 
“If anything does go down, we’ll have plenty of warning.” He watched our progress on his e-pad link to the DSA helicopter high overhead.

I forced myself to look away from Leavitt. “Fisher?”

“Hmm?”

“Why can’t you die?”

“Because I’m a fictional character.”

“
What
?” I’d expected him to tell me what kind of weird breakthrough he was.

“I’m the main character of the
Max Fisher
series. Only three books ever got published, around fifteen years before the Event. Obscure hard-boiled detective fiction about a hard drinking, hard smoking, cynical Chicago detective who grew up an orphan on the mean streets. Main characters don’t die.”

I stared, but he stayed focused on the e-pad. “How…how is that possible?”

“Don’t know, but all of my memories before entering the police academy eight years ago are fake.”

“Where’s the author? Could you be him?”

He looked up, chuckling. “You’re wasted at the Dome. Nope. Vernon Wilder died of a heart condition from complications of his drinking and diabetes six years ago. And the series never had a fan club, so I doubt I’m just a Big Fan. Vernon probably created me out of a breakthrough-fueled obsession before he died. According to Dr. Cornelius, I’m probably a self-propagating thought form, a sustained projection.”

And I’d thought
Shelly
had existential problems. “So you really can’t die?”

“Hell kid, I can’t even change. I don’t shave and always have five o’clock shadow. And I never even thought about it till the day I took three slugs to the chest. Mob hit, long story, but no witnesses except the hitter—and he looked real surprised when I sat up and shot back. The last thing he said was it wasn’t fair.”

I must have looked completely wigged, because he patted my knee.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. It doesn’t make me reckless—getting killed hurts, and if it ever happens in front of the wrong witnesses I’m off the force.”

That
hadn’t
been my worry. The wagon slowed and stopped for a traffic light. I hadn’t been hearing any cars around us other than our convoy, which meant the rolling police barricades were working. Our route avoided all residential areas, so this early in the morning the streets would be nearly empty anyway.

“And don’t worry about the other half of the plan,” he said. “Blackstone’s got Team Two, and he knows what he’s doing.”

Did telling someone not to worry
ever
work?
I didn’t say it. Besides, with Seven in DSA gear and driving the wagon, what could go wrong?
Oh, just everything.

We were almost to the airport when Villain-X opened his burning eyes.