Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (48 page)

Wyatt closed his eyes again, his
voice still dreamy.  “God, I hate that fucking bike…Told them for years…that
someone would do that…”

Harlot looked around the clearing at
the carnage.  Jesus.  She hoped the rest of the guys were okay.

Three
bulls were kept together for a long time.  A lion lay in ambush in the hope of
making them his prey, but was afraid to attack them while they kept together. 
Having at last by charm succeeded in separating them, he attacked them without fear,
and feasted on them one by one at his own leisure.  The moral of the story? 
Union is strength.

Infernal was NOT having a good
day.  For one thing, the
Simpsons
today had been a rerun which ALWAYS
pissed her off.  For another, she was stuck helping this useless fucking city
out of a jam it had gotten itself in.  She had always said that the heroes were
sinister fucks, but no one listened.  For another, she was stuck with the team
of
Skullduggery and Oversight
.  Doug was an asshole.  The whole world knew
it.  And as for Oversight…  She paused; suddenly realizing that his powers were
currently preventing her from even remembering the man’s real name.  What the
hell was it again?  Jesus.  He was never around anyway, so it didn’t really
matter.  PLUS, she was missing
Top Chef
to be here. 
TOP CHEF.
 
The fucking
Restaurant Wars
episode! 
Someone
would die for this.

She sighed and looked around the
street.  The Commodore had put them in charge of stopping Flora and Fauna. 
They were last seen running in this direction, and the LAST thing this city
needed was those crazy lunatics getting into the water supply or causing plants
and animals to start killing people.

Doug absently kicked a fire hydrant
over, sending a plume of water high into the air.  She glared at him.  “Jesus! 
Can’t you act like a grown up for
two seconds!?!”

He kicked the fallen chunk of metal
so that it sailed down the street and crashed into something blocks away.  “Fuck
you, Gia.”  He pointed a finger at her with his spiked half-gloves.  “FUCK
YOU!  I know you’re OLD enough to be my mom, but you
AREN’T! 
That bitch
is long dead, so unless you want to join her, shut your
goddamn mouth,
and
stop trying to tell me what to do!”

She rolled her eyes.  “I can’t
believe I’m really here with you guys.  I SHOULD be home watching
Top Chef
right now.”  She glared at him.  “And you better HOPE that shit is taping.  Because
you ain’t SEEEEEEN villainy like you’ll see if I don’t get my Chef Tom fix,
‘kay?”

Doug kicked a newspaper dispenser
and it flew through the window of a store across the street.

She glared at him.  “So help me
god, Doug, if you don’t
STOP
that I’m going to…”  Her tempter snapped
and she pushed him.  “You know what?  I’ve been putting up with you for years,
and I’m sick to death of it.  Fuck all this fighting heroes shit, I’m fighting
you
. 
You and me; right here.”

He stared at
her.  “You can’t be serious!  I…”

She slugged him
and then winced at the pain which shot through her hand.  Damn hard head of
his.  She’d have to work the body to win this…

Suddenly there were screams from a
building in front of them.  Bloodcurdling shrieks of fear and pain.  She forgot
about their epic bout, and gestured for him to follow her as she ran towards
the sound.  They got within a few yards and then skidded to a stop as a bloody
hand shot out through a window and grasped at the frame.  The glass dug deep
into the gloved palm of the hand, but the person didn’t seem to notice the no
doubt excruciating pain.  The hand weakly gripped onto the frame again, trying
to pull its owner through, and escape whatever horrors were befalling it…then
the hand stopped moving.

 A moment later, the Puffin
appeared from inside the window.  It jumped up onto the bloody gloved hand, and
casually hopped down onto the street.

Infernal put her hand up and pushed
Doug back a step to give it more room.  They were too close to it. 
…Far too
close.

The small bird twitched its
feathered tail at them, shook some of the blood from its black wings…then
shuffled slowly away on its tiny webbed feet to look for another victim.  They
stayed completely still until it was out of sight, and then both let out a sigh
of relief. 

Infernal gave a nervous laugh.  “Shit. 
That was a
close
one.”

There was a snapping sound behind
them and she turned to see what it was, just in time to see a large tree branch
fill her vision and then smash into her.  She flew backwards onto the street
and grabbed her bleeding nose.  Flora appeared and waved a hand; vines grew
from the street, and wrapped around and around Doug’s legs.  “You know what
they say, villains; the grass is always greener!”

Doug yanked his leg free and advanced
on the hero.  “That doesn’t even make sense, asshole!”

The hero’s eyes narrowed.  “Don’t
you tell me what makes sense and what doesn’t!  I’m a hero!”

She pulled herself to her feet.  “
THAT
doesn’t make sense either!
  Jesus, everything with you is a non sequitur! 
Not even your NAME makes sense, since you’re ALLEGEDLY a dude!”

He stamped a foot in agitation.  “Sister! 
Spring forth and assist me in disposing of these villains!  I…”

Whatever he had been about to say
was cut off as Doug smashed his skull into the other man’s face.  The
unbreakable material inside his head made short work of the man, and he
collapsed to the ground unconscious.

She turned as Flora appeared behind
her.  The brown haired woman shrieked in rage.  “I’m going to call up a tiger
to eat you!  NO, a lion!  No, no, a GIANT lion!  Just like the one I used on
those policemen last week.  Eat you all up.  I’m going to…”

Her words were cut off as her head
suddenly jerked to the side like she had been hit by something, and then she
fell in a heap on the street.  Gia blinked down at her unconscious form for a
moment, and then for the first time, noticed Oversight standing there, a tire
iron in his hand.  Damn but his powers were weird.  You just never noticed him,
even if he was in plain sight. 

He looked over at her and opened
his mouth to say something…

A team of five Freedom Squad
support soldiers appeared from an alley to their right.  The helmeted man in
the middle stepped forward, as the others leveled their automatic weapons at
them.  “I’m Captain Judas Westpoint; Freedom Squad Security detail.  You are
all under arrest!  Throw up your hands!”  He pointed to Fauna’s fallen form. 
“You are in violation of NY AD Code Section 16-118(6) for this!  Men, cuff
them!”  The four other men stepped out to arrest them.  The leader nodded
smugly.  “Always thinking that you guys are something special, ain’t ya?  Just because
you got powers.  Well, I got powers TOO!”  He drew himself up to his full
height.  “
Dramatic
power!
  And now that my men have arrested you,
we’re going to FORCE you to put on a show with us in my uncle’s barn!  I wrote
it myself, it’s called
Fall in Love
.  And you sons-a-bitches had better
HOPE that the play saves the farm, or so help me God…” 

The men stopped advancing on them,
and turned back to stare at their leader in confusion. 

He shrugged.  “Don’t look at me
like that, men. 
I’M
your leader, and if I say you’re singing Judy
Garland tunes, you’re going to forget your troubles and
get fucking happy!
 
Because I’m
entirely
…”  The man quickly pulled out two handguns from
behind his back, and shot each man in the face.  “…
trustworthy
.”  The
leader took off his helmet, casually tossed it aside, and fell to his knees
beside his fallen men.  “
OH GOD, NO!  MEDIC!”
  He picked up one of their
bleeding heads and placed it limply in his lap.  “Don’t worry, Spacowski. 
We’ll get you out of this, son.  You’re going to make it!  Just hold on!  Hold
on, for Phyllis and the kids!”  He looked over his shoulder, tears streaming
down his face.  “
MEDIC!!!  For God’s sake someone call a medic!  HURRY! 
We’re LOSING HIM!  NO!!!”
  He chuckled to himself and the tears stopped.  He
dropped the man’s head back to the street, and stood up again, wiping his
hands.  He gestured to his uniform.  “Can you guys believe that they just
left
this stuff in their headquarters?  I mean, one second I’m in prison, and the
next they’re basically BEGGING me to take command and lead them to glorious victory. 
Not that I blame them; I was the heart and soul of that unit, after all.  Those
Band of Brothers
guys were complete
strangers
compared to us; brothers
to the bone.  That’s a bond we’ll carry forever.”  He looked down at his
watch.  “Best hour and three minutes of our lives.” 

Arnold Benedix AKA “Traitor”
absently rocked back and forth on his heels.  “Thanks for coming to rescue me
BY
THE WAY
.  I’ve been stuck in custody
forever!
  Where the hell was
Harlot, huh?  What’s the POINT of being on a team if they won’t lend a hand for
you?  Stick their neck out for a friend?  Jeesh, it’s like…”  He stopped and
pressed his stolen earpiece into his ear.  “…What was that command?  I didn’t
copy?  What do you MEAN, who is this?  What’s your operating number, son?  I’ll
have you court martialed for…This is
Westpoint
…Yes...No, you tell
Mahoney that when we get back to base, I’m going to bust him down at Sargent
SO
FAST
for failing to capture the targets.”  He paused as whoever was on the other
end of the line responded; apparently believing that he was a member of their
organization because he somehow knew their names.  Traitor laughed
good-naturedly.  “Yeah, the
WHOLE
dozen!  That fucking guy, man.  You
see him at the office party last week?  The jelly ones were only the first to…”

Doug yelled at Infernal as a large
form rounded the corner; Templar and his horse “Chastity.”  The man was a
zealot and a psycho.  Even BEFORE all of this, most of the world knew the guy
was a psychopath.  He’d already been banned from every church in the city, and
there was talk of shipping him off somewhere away from the public.  In front of
him was running some guy dressed in green who she didn’t recognize. 

In
retrospect
, it probably
would have been better if Wyatt had stolen the files on the HEROES and brought
them over for the Consortium to review, rather than the files the Freedom Squad
had on the Consortium.  That would have been most helpful, since she had no
idea who the fuck this guy was, and she was pretty well acquainted with herself
already.  She didn’t need a file to tell her her own weakness, she already knew
what it was;
IDIOTS
.

The man streaked towards Doug at an
incredibly fast pace.  Infernal made a fist and the ground beneath the man
exploded in flames, as if Hell itself were opening up to greet him.  The man
wailed as he fell into the burning Earth.  A hero with a series of tentacles
covering his body jumped out at Traitor, but Arnold didn’t even bother moving. 
Traitor’s powers immediately caused the man’s appendages to betray their owner,
and they began whipping and tearing at the hero.  Arnold sighed disinterestedly
and looked down at his cuticles, as the tentacles wrapped themselves around the
hero’s neck and squeezed.

Doug yelled at her again and
Infernal whirled to take out her second target, but it was too late.  Templar’s
sword swung down and cut her across the chest and stomach.  She staggered back
as the knight rode away around the corner.  She made a fist trying to kill the
bastard before he disappeared, but he was already gone.

She coughed and looked down at the
blood coating the orange and black flames of her coat.  Shit.  She staggered
back again, and Oversight caught her.

 Doug raced over.  “You stupid
fucking, bitch!  Why in the HELL would you do that?”

She coughed again, blood filling
her mouth.  “Teamwork’s a killer, Doug.”  She waited a beat and then laughed
hoarsely.  “Sorry.  Too soon.  You’ll be laughing your ass off at my funeral
though, I guarantee.”

A vehicle rounded the street
surrounded by the Freedom Squad support staff.  A couple dozen armed men
clustered around the large assault craft.  Infernal turned to look back at it. 
The heroes liked to have a nice cushion of bodies around to take the brunt of their
fights.  The men were private mercenaries paid by the company.  The company
which SHE was now a stockholder of…so, really…she was paying the salaries of
the men who had just killed her.  Goddammit, but this whole thing was getting
confused.  The men leveled their machine guns at them.

“Well, here’s where I check out,
guys.”  She hauled herself to her feet, trying to ignore the blood filling her
shoes.  “When you get back, tell Wyatt he’s an asshole for getting us into this
mess in the first place.”

“I was planning on doing that
anyway.”  Doug tugged her arm.  “But you’re going to tell him that yourself,
you suicidal bitch.”

She shook her head, her skin
beginning to grow hot as she accessed her full powers.  “Nope.  I’m done.  I’ll
cover you; get out of here and protect the city.”

He shook his head.  “HA!  Listen,
if someone’s going to go out in a blaze of glory, it’s going to be ME, because
you’ll just fuck it up like you ALWAYS do!  Face it, Gia; you’re a terrible
villain.  You couldn’t even melt the Hoover dam that time, and then
I
had to go do it.  Hell, look at the current situation; I’m completely unharmed,
and you’re trying to keep your spleen from falling out onto your fucking
Reeboks.”  He pressed his index finger into her chest to accentuate his words. 
“YOU.  SUCK.”

She laughed and ran a hand down his
cheek.  “Ah, Doug…Don’t ever change, man.”  Her skin ignited into flames.  “Something
I never told you?  I…I never liked you.”  She nodded.  “You’re an asshole, and
when you join me in hell, I’m going to help the devil kick the
living shit
out of you.”