Seven Wonders (11 page)

  Sam laughed. "That mouthful saved his ass from that superpowered copyright lawsuit, remember."

  "Ah, the lifestyles of the superpowered and litigious."

  Sam sighed.

  "Let's go."

"Mr Mayor."

  With one last wave to the assembled guests, Smith turned from the podium. Behind him, his personal staff and colleagues were still ap plauding his third (fourth?) toast. He smiled at them all, and raised his glass again. It was empty.

  A red gauntlet holding a full glass appeared in front of him. The mayor took it gingerly, careful not to touch the fabric of the glove as it shimmered with energy, then made to playfully slap the provider on the shoulder before pulling his arm up short, theatrically. His staff laughed politely.

  "And they say you can't get good service in San Ventura?"

  This was the mayor's show, although perhaps not everyone was looking at him now. Beside him, a deep, hearty laugh emanated from the barreled chest in bright red and yellow that stood next to him. Aurora's Light, leader of the Seven Wonders, husband to Bluebell, and the most powerful superhero left in the world. Everyone called him Aurora.

  The superhero's smile pushed his half-mask up his face a little, the flaming halo above his head flickering as he chuckled at the mayor's joke, tugging his thick salt-and-pepper hair like he was swimming in deep water.

  "I hope I didn't warm that up too much for you, Mr Mayor." He raised a glove, palm-upwards, and created a small translucent yellow sphere of plasma, hovering an inch above his hand. It wobbled slightly, and Aurora let the crowd get a good look before quickly forming a fist and squeezing the ball of energy to nothing. There was an appreciative murmur, and sporadic applause broke out. The mayor laughed.

  "Can I book you for my son's ninth birthday party? Our magician had to cancel."

  "The Seven Wonders serve the city." Aurora gave a tight bow. "Now, sir, if you'll excuse me?"

  The mayor waved his glass, and Aurora left the group of councilors and city staff.

  He would have stayed to chat a while longer, maybe done a bit more with the plasma − middle-aged housewives loved it, and middle-aged housewives were, according to the mayor, the most influential group of voters. But he couldn't ignore the alert buzzing in his ear. As the most famous – and imposing – person in the entire room, he had no trouble reaching the quiet edge of the ballroom, the crowd parting to let him through without pause before closing in again in a wake of appreciative gossip and beating hearts.

  He reached a pillar near the buffet, and turned back to face the charity ball. In the crowd, but at the periphery, he caught sight of a tall black woman in an ochre dress. She caught his eye and nodded, imperceptibly, before turning and casually taking another glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

  Aurora touched his belt, the alarm clicking off with a sharp beep.

  "Report, SMART."

  "Citadel of Wonders to Aurora. Tracking on the Angel Vault has been lost. Vault breach presumed." The voice that entered Aurora's head was metallic, artificial, but not without inflection, simulated though it was.

  Aurora took a breath. "Confirmed. Stand by."

  He clicked the communicator off, and looking up saw the black woman moving slowly towards him. Happy that no one was observing with any particular interest, he began to walk towards her.

  "Oh, excuse me."

  Aurora stopped and smiled broadly, inwardly cursing at his own distraction. The man in front of him had a broken arm and two black eyes.

  "Mr Conroy, a pleasure as always." Aurora bowed in acknowledgment. Looking up, he allowed a small smile to cross his face. "I heard about your Caribbean excursion. No permanent damage, I hope?"

  "Only my pride, Aurora!" Conroy laughed, then with a grimace passed his uninjured hand inside his open jacket to rub a cracked rib. "Anyway, how's it going, big guy? The city keeping the Wonders busy?"

  "Well," Aurora began, looking around the charity ball meaningfully, "the SVPD are the country's finest, I have no doubt about that. But San Ventura is no ordinary city. With the Cowl still at large…"

  Conroy hissed, shaking his head. "We can't let that son of a bitch hold this proud city back, Aurora. That's why charities like this are important, that's why the Seven Wonders are important, that's why Conroy Industries is committed to the future of San Ventura."

  Aurora held up a hand. His eyes were blank white ellipses in his mask and his chin was the only bare skin visible. Aurora's expressions were nearly impossible to read. That was the point. Superheroes – like supervillains – had to have one hell of a poker face.

  "Don't worry, Mr Conroy, I know how committed you are to the future of our great city. You keep the place running from the bottom. We'll keep it running from the top. The Cowl doesn't have long now. One man − superpowered as he is − can't stand up to the seven of us much longer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll let you get back to the party."

  "You got it." Conroy shook Aurora's hand as the superhero dialed back the swimming haze of heat around it enough not to burn. Aurora then gave his customary curt bow, and walked on.

Conroy watched the hero's receding back for a moment, then headed over to one of the plate windows that lined the entire east face of the ballroom. San Ventura glittered at night, a million points of light twinkly in the misty sea air. And at the center of it, towering above the skyscrapers of the business district which reflected its light back from their tall glass walls, the Citadel of Wonders. Tonight, the night of the SVPD ball, the thin triangular sliver that was the headquarters of the Seven Wonders was illuminated in a rotating display of blue, red and green light, mimicking the colors of the Police Benevolent Fund's logo.

  Conroy gazed at the Citadel for just a second, then took a cell phone from his inside jacket pocket and put it to his ear.

  "I hope," he whispered, "you're calling with good news?"

CHAPTER NINE

"
Stone cold,
is what."

  "Murder is what it is, detective. Stone cold or not, makes no difference."

  Sam kept her distance. The large pool of blood, black on the alley floor, was no longer spreading and the leading edge had been demarcated clearly with a little plastic triangle. But she'd never got used to the butcher's-slab stink of a stabbing, and until the scene lights were up, God only knew what she might step in. Joe was less cautious, squatting within reach of the body, enough to poke and prod with a pen. Sam seriously hoped it wasn't the same one he used to write up his notes.

  Joe abandoned his incredibly thorough scene investigation, and – to Sam's dismay – replaced the pen in the top pocket of his jacket. Hands in pockets, he walked back to where Sam stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her in the cool San Ventura night.

  Now Jacqueline Chan, SVPD's finest forensic examiner − and
please,
don't ever call her Jackie − could finally get on with her job without the clumsy frame of Detective Joe Milano at her elbow. Her blue-latexed hands were immediately on the collar of the old, worn coat that the body was wrapped in, not so discreetly checking that Joe's inept fiddling hadn't disturbed anything important. Sam had to smile. She knew how much Jacqueline hated it when cops touched things.

  "What's the news, Jackie?"

  Jacqueline tensed visibly, and Sam's smile only grew wider, knowing that Joe was using the nickname deliberately to get a bite. The doctor sighed loudly, and when she stood and turned around to face the detectives her own smile was pretty tight and thin. Behind Sam, Joe sniggered under his hand.

  "What you have here,
Detective Milano
," said Jacqueline, stressing Joe's name in the same way a disappointed schoolteacher would address a problem student, "is what we call a dead body. Scientifically speaking, of course. Please stop me if I'm getting too technical."

  Joe pulled a face and Sam suddenly wished she'd taken that reassignment to San Diego when she'd had the chance. It was late, it was a Saturday, and it was colder than a summer's night should be. But San Ventura kept her close, and she knew she could never leave. Not while
he
was on the loose. And at least this had got her out of the charity event. Sam idly wondered what the dictionary definition of "workaholic" was before she took a step forward to get a better look at the body and dragged the conversation back to a professional level.

  "Cause and time of death, Jacqueline?"

  The good doctor unfurled the protective gloves slickly from her hands.

  "Time? Difficult, but he's pretty fresh. Maybe only in the last two or three hours. Actual cause will take a bit longer to get the detail, but if you want the Cliffs Notes, it's pretty easy. He was cut up, and cut up good. A sharp blade, very long. Actually,
very
sharp − sliced his gut like jello."

  Sam winced at the image. Unusual causes of death in San Ventura were not, well, unusual. Plasma incineration, bones powdered with a superpowered punch, flesh rendered molecule by molecule: the SuperCrime department had seen it all. Including, on very rare and significant occasions, the results of a knife so sharp it
fell
through solid objects. It was the preferred hand-to-hand weapon of San Ventura's finest and most upstanding citizen, the Cowl.

  Except…

  "It's not him."

  Sam snapped out of her thoughts. Jacqueline was looking right at her. Sam held the gaze for one confused moment, then blinked and asked what she meant.

  "The Cowl. I know what you're thinking, girl, and it ain't him. Can't be. You want to get down closer and see the mess that the perp made of the body. The Cowl is clean, perfect. When he uses that magic knife of his it's with precision, finesse. He uses it because it leaves no trace, unless you know what to look for. Which we do. But he and that sidekick of his never leave any evidence. You and I both know that."

  Sam nodded. The Cowl's famous knife was, mostly, a weapon of last resort, used only if the supervillain didn't have time to unleash the array of incredible superpowers at his disposal. When you have superstrength, superspeed, invincibility and a dozen other abilities that were beyond the understanding of science, there usually wasn't much a knife could do that you couldn't do yourself with a flick of a spandex-wrapped wrist.

  Not for the first time, Sam completely failed to understand why the SVPD − normal, ordinary, unpowered people with regular families and lives − were left to deal with supercrimes while the city's great protectors, the Seven Wonders, were not.

  A second later and the thought evaporated. It was something she had felt every day for the last five years. All the cops in the city did. They had a job to do just like anyone else, and damn the Seven Wonders.

  "Hey, Jacqueline, you seen this?"

  Joe was at the end of the alley, which terminated in a chain-link fence, beyond which lay a courtyard and an outhouse with a low roof, most likely the back-end of a restaurant. Against the fence a squat rectangular dumpster had been pushed, filled with damp cardboard boxes, folded or crushed presumably by whoever worked in the brick building that formed the west-facing wall of the alley. The dumpster had seen better days, for sure – it looked like a delivery or more likely a collection truck had reversed into it at high speed, crumpling the front side of it.

  Joe was squatting again, poking at the side of the bin with his pen. He stood as Jacqueline and Sam approached and gave the dumpster one final drum. The sound rang out dully in the still night air.

  "Well, well, well…" Jacqueline peered closer at the side of the dumpster. Joe moved out of her way, and shot a grin at Sam.

  "I think we got us some evidence, detective."

  Sam blinked, and watched Jacqueline's hunched back as she worked at something on the dumpster. After a moment she stood and turned, brandishing a shining set of tiny tweezers in both hands. Between their claws, a triangular strip of what looked like black plastic. Sam squinted, unable to see it clearly, but Jacqueline fished out a pen-sized flashlight and trained it on the find. The plastic shone in the beam, the curved surface of the fragment smooth and patterned with a tiny triangular gray weave.

  "What is that? Fabric?"

  Jacqueline shook her head, and shuffled to one side to let Sam have a clear look at the dumpster. She played the flashlight over the surface, revealing patches of shiny bare metal all over the damaged area. Fresh, clean damage.

  "Look," said Jacqueline, pointing to a thin gash that penetrated the dumpster's wall. "Looks like it's been cut with the knife too." The edges of the cut were thin and most likely razor-sharp. Sam reached forward then pulled her fingers short as she thought better of touching it.

  "The plastic, or fabric, or whatever it is, was embedded in the cut." Joe pointed with his pen, indicated the point at which the knife had stopped as it sliced into the metal.

  Sam stood, thoughts racing in her head. Evidence? Impossible. The Cowl never left anything concrete. But something had clearly gone very, very wrong here. The quantum knife was an easy weapon to wield, yet there were signs the victim had put up a hell of a fight. And now a bent dumpster and a scrap of fabric.

  Sam felt her chest going tight. Did she dare think that the fabric came from the Cowl's famous cloak?

  "Detective? Hello?"

  Sam blinked as Jacqueline clicked her fingers in front of her face. Sam jerked back in surprise, and then a smile began to creep upwards, very slowly, from one corner of her mouth. Jacqueline nodded and smiled herself.

  "Do you know what this means, Sam? You've got what you always wanted. Evidence linking the Cowl to a crime scene."

  Sam exhaled. "Sonovabitch."

  "Damn right, detective." Joe laughed. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a
trail
."

  Sam clicked her tongue in thought, then nodded, a small smile beginning to play over her lips. "Come on, partner," she said, as she took a step back towards the cars. Joe nodded, then turned to Jacqueline and gave her a wink. The doctor laughed and touched his shoulder.