Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (38 page)

“…what?” Like I had
any
idea what to say.

She laughed again, showing perfect teeth. “Muscle-mimickers and skin wrap, just like Rush’s hand. Vulcan never bothered for Galatea 1.0 because her lack of emotion just made it so creepy, but under this
exo
-skeleton armor I’ve got a
gynoid
frame that’s just
me
, looking like the day I…” She dropped the smile. “Got terminally stupid. That’s part of what took so long, making all the synthetic muscles and nerves interface right with my new brain.” She squeezed, and it was
her
hand, not a robot’s. I lost it and threw my arms around her.

“Hey!” she protested. “Don’t break the chassis! My new bones are tough, but not
that
tough.”

“Don’t care,” I whispered. “Vulcan can fix you up. Oh my God, you’re…
back
.
Really
back. I’ve missed you so
much
.”

“Stupid, I’m just not a ghost in your head, anymore.” She touched my face with a gloved hand, thumb stroking my wet cheeks. “Together again.”

*****

Introductions weren’t necessary; everybody already knew Shelly as my Dispatch wingman, and as a “quadriplegic shut-in.” Now they simply assumed she was Galatea’s new “remote-pilot”; only Jacky and Blackstone and now Vulcan knew the truth, and Shell could keep the pretense up easily enough. As she explained it, she was effectively a quantum-mirrored dual brain again—like she’d unknowingly been before she died the first time. Her dominant brain was now inside Galatea, but her secondary brain—like a subconscious she could consciously access—remained in the 22
^nd
Century CPU of the Teatime Anarchist’s secret system. So she could continue as before, minus the neural link we’d shared (the links on her side connected her two brains now).

Small price to pay; inside I was bubbling over, shouting
Hey! This is Shelly! You’ve heard me yelling at her lots, but you’ve never met! Isn’t she awesome?
Jacky smiled when she saw us together.

As the rest of the team pulled back to the Dome we remained on watch; Blackstone ordered the upstairs closed to the public, and we stayed in costume at Defensive Condition Two—which meant full lockdown and an open armory. Even Willis was in body armor, which was truly bizarre.

Fisher showed up as Afternoon Watch changed over into Evening Watch, and disappeared with Blackstone and Lei
Zi
for an hour. When they came out I had a new assignment.

“You know this is deeply weird, right?” I asked rhetorically.

“
As Shelly—I mean Galatea—would say, duh
,” Artemis said. She scanned the streets below from the top of an apartment high-rise while I slowly flew the grid around her position. I’d changed back into my latest unarmored costume because of its chameleon-cloth, and against the dark night I ghosted along as invisible as the breeze.

I’d flown patrol hundreds of times, but not from down at rooftop level, and not at
night
. The whole reason for flying patrol was so people could see me; otherwise I’d just wait in the Dome for Dispatch to send me where I was needed. Even so, flying above Chicago day after day had made it
my
city, somehow, and looking down and seeing damage like the cleared skeleton of Navy Pier or the wreckage of this morning’s fight
bothered
me.
 
By night, even with my enhanced vision, down here at rooftop level and in the shadows it was a different world.

Of course, Artemis was right at home.

I finished the grid and sighed, landing beside her on the roof. We’d been at it for two hours, and I almost regretted telling Fisher about my second dream.

He was
probably
right to decide the burning hounds in my dream were the burned-up bodies dropping dead on Chicago streets, and that they had been trying to hunt down
Kitsune
for the Wicked Witch (why
I
was having “visions” of
Kitsune
, instead of our resident psychic
Chackra
, was a whole other question). He’d also talked Blackstone around to the view that Villain-X had been demonically hopped up and sent after
him
instead of me (stopping that kind of thing was the whole point of Dr. Cornelius’ wards, after all). Fisher smiled when he told us that—like it was a
good
thing Hecate was hunting detectives now. First
Kitsune
, now Fisher; I was getting tired of standing next to targets.

But now he, Blackstone, and Lei
Zi
had something big planned, something that would go a lot better if we could nail down Hecate’s base before it kicked off. So they’d sent Artemis and me to do a grid-search of the area the three bodies had been found in, hoping that my lingering sensitivity to magic would lead us back to her hideout; according to Dr. Cornelius, her kind of magic required an extensively prepared ritual space that I’d “see” if I got close enough, at least if it was active. Probably a
really
spooky house or something.

Artemis lit her e-pad to find our next grid, pale skin glowing in the backlight beneath her hooded mask.

“Five blocks south,” she said. “Residential. See you on top of the corner house.” She swirled into mist and floated up and away. She’d been quiet all evening, making me wonder what else was going on. I dropped off the building and flew after her, wondering if this was even a good idea. Maybe the Wicked Witch couldn’t see us, but her minions might. Then she’d send her flying monkeys… I’d had
issues
with America’s Favorite Musical as a kid. Follow the yellow-brick road, my
assstra
.

Ten minutes and another completed grid later, I joined Artemis on top of the narrow three-story home she’d settled on.

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “We don’t even know what my sensitive range really
is
for this; I could feel Villain-X at maybe thirty feet, but I didn’t feel anything back at The Fortress when Nemesis started shooting.”

“It beats waiting around for Blackstone and Lei
Zi
to roll out their Big Plan,” Artemis said. She had come loaded for war—
elasers
in her shoulder holsters and .45 automatics on her hips.

“Maybe. So are you going to tell me what’s got you quietly wigged?”

Her lips twitched. “Wigged?”

“Since you got back from New Orleans you’ve…” I waived a hand. “You’ve been
softer
, less angry. A little less fiend-of-the-
nightish
. But you’re not exactly
here
, either…and right now you’re looking totally
guilted
. What’s going on?”

She sighed.

“I did more down south than stake fellow bloodsuckers. I met family.” And she told me about her grams, Mama Maria Bouchard, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. I was trying to wrap my mind around the stunning news of my determinedly Not-A-Goth girlfriend being
voodoo royalty
when she dropped her bombshell.

“So I’m going back,” she said, “as soon as we bury this witch.”

“You—” Sometimes my brain
does
work faster than my mouth, and it reached down and strangled
can’t
before the word escaped.

She heard it anyway, and smiled. “Family. And a job I don’t suck at half the time.”

“You don’t—”

“Please.” She grinned, showing teeth. “I may not be instant flambé with the twinkle of a sunbeam anymore, but most of the time I’m as useful to the team as a D Class Ajax-type—most of our fights go down during the day. But the Big Easy… they need a sane vamp down there to keep the nut-jobs in line, and being a
daywalker
who’s not religion-intolerant makes me a
supervampire
instead of a wimpy superhero.”

I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a cliché. I even understood her timing; Shelly was back, so now
she
could leave; I didn’t need my big sister anymore. She couldn’t be more wrong, but…
family
. “Think Mama Maria will like me?” I asked, trying on a smile.

Her grin turned feral. “She’s going to
love
you… what?”

I tapped my
earbug
, eyes on the building down the street. “Dispatch? Detective Fisher, please.”

“
Astra?
” Fisher asked. “
Have the two of you found her
?”

“I— don’t think so.” I said. “How close to our location
were
the bodies found?”

“
You’re one block west of one location. Why
?”

“Because I think we’re on the wrong end of the trail. If Hecate is driving her hounds till they die, won’t they be dropping dead out hunting?”

I got a moment of thoughtful silence.

“
Shit. Sorry, kid. And sorry for wasting your time.
”

“It wasn’t a waste. How bad do you want
Kitsune
?”

“
Truth? Not that bad right now; he’s not the one scattering bodies around. Garfield wants him, but he’s not my priority. Do you
know
where he is?
”

“…”

“
Astra?
”

I stared at the white-walled, peak-roofed building down the street; Chicago’s Midwest Buddhist Temple. Red wooden gates—
tori
—were for Shinto shrines, not Buddhist temples. That much I knew, but my dream hadn’t been literal and to a Japanese
shapeshifter
holy ground was holy ground, a safe place for hiding from demonic powers.

I opened my mouth, closed it. The way he stressed
know
flashed warnings in my head. “… it’s a stupid idea,” I said finally. “But what I meant was, where did the victims go missing from? Where did Hecate get them?”

“Hold on, I’ll check.”

Artemis followed my line of sight while we waited, and she took a breath. I shook my head.

“
Astra?
” Fisher returned. “
You might be on to something. No knowing with our John Doe, but for the other two, one was a homeless guy, the other a gang member. Public nuisance and drug dealing charges put both inside a one mile radius in South Side during the past two months. Think she just had them grabbed off the street?
”

“Yeah, I do. Give us a new search grid?”

Half an hour later we’d found the Wicked Witch’s new castle.

Mr.
Shankman
has declined to comment on the Paladins’ recent attack on The Fortress, the popular superhero-themed café and nightclub.
 
Donald Welsh, a spokesman for Mr.
Shankman’s
campaign, has publicly denied any links between the “public-spirited Mr.
Shankman
and any terrorist or militia groups, whatever their goals.” At the same time, the
Shankman
Campaign continues to decry the city’s employment of “contracted peacekeepers,” whom it denounces as nothing more than licensed thugs.

Chicago Evening News.

To my surprise, instead of ordering us to remain at our position while the rest of the team mustered, Blackstone called us back to the Dome. Arriving, we found
everybody
there, crowding the Assembly Room. Back from Washington, Watchman sat beside
Variform
and “Agent Robbins,” a DSA agent in suit and shades and one of Legion. I wondered why Bob or New Tom or
Willis
didn’t just put on a DSA badge as needed.
Dad
was there, Iron Jack, so solid and calm in the electric atmosphere (
not
Lei
Zi’s
fault) I just wanted to go over and hug him.