Riverside City Chronicles | Book 1 | Riverside City [Capes & Cowls]

by VanDerHeyden, Paul C.

  The sound of a lock clicking and a bar being lifted come from behind the closed door. The door opens and Jose’s whispered voice comes from inside, “Get in here. I’ll show you what this piece of Latin meat can do!”

  Mercy darts toward the door, slips through, and pushes the door closed behind her.

  A moment later, Kat is standing in what is obviously a living room. A large flat screen TV sits against a wall with a large white leather sectional couch facing it. Mercy is on all fours on the chaise part of the sectional, her micro mini skirt pushed all the way up beneath her breasts. A large Latino man in a black suit jacket stands behind her with his pants and underwear around his ankles.

  Kat is standing behind him, but when she realizes what is about to happen she averts her gaze and gags. She runs over behind a white leather armchair opposite the couch and covers her ears. Despite her efforts, she still hears the moans of pleasure and grunts of effort from the other side of the chair.

  “Don’t worry, Katrina’s asleep, this is her naptime,” Jose says in between grunts.

  “I wasn’t worried,” Mercy says in between moans.

  Kat starts going “La, la, la, la…” to drone out her mother and her former bodyguard.

  After a few minutes, the noises stop. Kat cautiously uncovers her years, stopping her “La, La’s” and peeking back over the couch just in time to see Jose fall over, pants still down, though mercifully, his underwear is up.

  “Nice watch, though he knew he was guarding her from me. What was he thinking? I would have fired him if I was still the lady of this house. That was too easy. He was a good lay though, better than Emilio has been in years,” she’s holding what looks to be a golden watch, but the metal of the winding mechanism is covered in blood.

  What did she do to him? Is he alive?

  “Idiot.” Mercy kicks the limp body of Jose in the chest. When he rolls over, his eyes are open and unmoving. “I’m the Steel Scorpion you dumbass, I can control any metal or technology to my will. All it takes is a bit of my venom and any little thing becomes lethal.” She kicks him again.

  “Oh, he’s dead. Bummer. I was hoping I would get to spy on Emilio interrogating him. He was always at his sexiest when he was doing that. Anyway, I need to change clothes and get ready for a little trip. Then I’ll grab Katrina and go. Marseilles, you’re so smart!”

  She drops the bloody watch on his chest, giggles, and heads off toward a large set of double doors down the hallway, not even bothering to pull her skirt down again. Her bare ass shakes as she dances a little bit on the way to her old bedroom.

  I come from that? How can I look at Theo again? He’ll worry I’m going to turn out like her. I’ll just not tell him, got it, he can’t know about this. Cinder won’t tell him, I hope...

  ___

  A minute later Kat is standing by the door into a room decorated in a sickly pink color. There is a large four poster bed, draped all in pink, along with a stark white dresser and mirror. Sitting on the edge of the bed is a three year old Katrina. She knows it’s herself, she sees the little collick that she figured out is fixed if her hair is long enough.

  From the hallway behind her, she hears Mercy. “All right, I’m presentable now, time to get Katrina and go. I wonder how long until they find Jose? I stuffed him in my old closet. I bet it’s not until he starts to smell!” She giggles maniacally for a moment before collecting herself.

  Mercy walks into the room, past Kat, and over to the little Katrina. She’s in jeans, sneakers, and a grey sweatshirt with ISU on it in big letters. Mercy sits next to little Katrina and puts her arm around her.

  That’s how I remember her, always the one with the hugs. I think I still have that sweatshirt somewhere in my closet. I used to lay with that thing every night as I cried, pretending to sleep. I’m not hugging back, I wonder why?

  “Mommy is going to take you on a trip, sweety. Do you have your bag of fun?” Mercy’s voice is sickly sweet.

  Little Katrina looks at her mother, “What happened to Jose? I can’t hear him anymore.” Mercy is shocked, she goes to answer, but little Katrina cuts her off.

  “He was really happy for a little bit, then I couldn’t hear him anymore. I want to say goodbye to him if we’re leaving,” she says with the certainty only little kids have.

  I felt him die, I know it. Maybe that’s why it didn’t phase me the first time someone died around me last year. I was really worried about that rotation at the hospice company, but they said I had to get used to the feeling so I wouldn’t freak out in a fight if someone dies. Heartless, but smart on the FSA’s part, as much as I’m loath to admit it.

  Mercy wracks her drug addled brain for a moment, “Jose got a call about his baby being born, so I let him go home for the day.”

  “Yay! He was so worried and sad all the time, he cried a lot. That should make him happy. Okay, we can go then,” Little Katrina says matter of factly, she gets up and grabs a small pink duffel bag with a unicorn on it. She unzips it, stuffs a small pink unicorn stuffed animal into it, and closes it up.

  “All right, sweety, let’s go,” Mercy grabs her hand and leads her out of the room.

  Chapter 41: Draconic Soul

  While Kat is having her image of her mother shattered, out in the dojo Theo is hard at work getting a handle on his dragon breath. He stands panting against the charred remnants of one of the targets. Most of them disappeared, but this one didn’t. Theo would have been more cautious about that, but he’s distracted.

  I’m feeling a void in my chest, I wonder if I overdid it? I’ll have to ask Cinder if that’s possible. I still don’t know anything about “Draconic Souls”, I hope I didn’t do any lasting damage.

  Cinder walks out of her home, closing the door behind her gently. She looks over and sees Theo leaning against the burned target and starts toward him.

  Speak of the devil.

  Theo’s face splits into a small smile. “Hey Cinder, it’s not like you to check up on me after you give me a task. Is there something you’d like me to change?”

  Cinder smirks. “Well, it looks like you’re slacking off, so I have a few questions.”

  “If it’s okay, I have a question before I answer yours, I hope that’s okay,” Theo bows a bit.

  “Only if you answer one of mine first, why did you stop?”

  “That’s actually what I wanted to ask you about, I felt a void in my chest after a while. I’ve never felt that before, so I stopped, I feel better now, but it was distinctly uncomfortable a few minutes ago. Also, why did I feel like that?”

  “Quite the bit of stamina you have there, never having felt your Draconic Soul drained before.”

  “I’ve heard the term before, once from Richter, and another time when you made Kat and my house in here, but I don’t know what a Draconic Soul actually is.”

  “Our elements are powered by our Draconic Soul, it’s also where the super intelligence and linguistic powers come from. All Children of the Dragon get it in a small dose, though some get more than others. That rock-head Richter forgot to tell you about it, didn’t he?” Cinder looks smug. “Think of your Draconic Soul as a big energy tank that fuels all of your abilities. It can only do so much, then it has to recharge. Some of us have a big tank, others recharge quickly, you probably have a bit of both of those.”

  “We were more concerned with the whole ‘You have powers, here’s how to use them’ aspect of the training. I almost died when I had my First Awakening, he was concerned that I would explode or something if I didn’t learn to channel all of this power. He must have forgotten about it,” Theo says defensively, he likes Richter and doesn’t want Cinder to think poorly of him.

  Cinder waves him off, “Earths are notoriously bad with the theory portion of our powers, almost as bad as Woods.” She laughs. “He was probably counting on you Awakening again soon, hoping I, or one of the other Elemental Trainers, would fill in the blanks.”

  Theo nods, “Richter was pretty hands on, always sho
wing me how to do everything by hand, it felt a bit claustrophobic to be honest.”

  “Bah, now back to your slacking, how many dragon breaths would you say you did at full power in the last hour?” Cinder smiles as she plays with blue, purple, and green flames. She makes them dance in a vaguely hypnotic pattern.

  Theo shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t give me that shit, you don’t forget unless you want to. Kat mentioned it in one of our chats. How many? Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

  Traitor...I guess I should come clean, hopefully she won’t laugh...

  Theo averts his gaze, staring at anything but Cinder. “Six hundred and thirty-two, I took a minute break in the middle to catch my breath, I would have done more, but the targets stopped showing up.”

  Cinder loses control of her multicolored flames, they shoot off above her about a hundred feet before they burst into small fireworks. She sputters before staring Theo in the eyes.

  “Bullshit, I’ve never done more than five hundred full force blasts myself in an hour and I’ve been at this for millenia.” She shakes her head. “Kid, if you were going to lie, you should have come up with a more believable number. I only knew two people who had that kind of firepower, one was my older brother Bolganone. Bolganone was the leader of the Fire Corps of the other person who had that much raw killing power, Jinlong himself, the Great Golden Dragon. I know you have his name, but it’s not possible…”

  She stands staring at Theo for a solid minute before suddenly belching a white hot flame at him out of nowhere. Before the flame is a foot from her mouth, a golden figure has her by the throat. The golden dragon head of Jin’s scaled form snarls at her, all traces of the lovable boy named Theo are gone.

  “You insolent whelp!” The golden form of a very angry Jinlong glowers at Cinder, his eyes a burning deep red. “Attacking one of my direct descendants is unforgivable, let alone the fact that he is obviously my Chosen? Do you wish to die again?”

  A wall of stone coalesses behind Cinder, only for Jinlong to slam her against it by the throat, her feet dangling almost two feet off of the dojo like floor.

  Cinder struggles to speak. “I th-thought…his danger…sense would help him.” She coughs and Jinlong loosens his grip enough that she can speak normally, if uncomfortably. “Thank you Father. I thought his danger sense would allow him to dodge the flame, also, he survived a dip in a volcano, so I thought I would give him minor burns if I turned out to be wrong.”

  “It would have, he was already dodging to the side when I took over. However, I felt the need to put you back in your proper place.”

  Jinlong’s grip tightens up a bit again.

  Cinder speaks more quickly, “I see now that I was absolutely wrong to do such a thing. I can’t believe that I didn’t notice your presence.”

  Jinlong lets her fall to the ground, she eagerly gulps air. “Thank you Father. Your mercy is as appreciated as your wrath is righteous.”

  “I will be brief. Get Theodore ready to enter the world at large. The Darkswarn are already after him. If at the end of this Awakening I believe that he comes out not only stronger, but faster, smarter, and more emotionally aware, I will have a gift for you. I don’t have to tell you…”

  “He can’t know about what he is,” Cinder finishes the sentence.

  “Don’t fail me Daughter.” The draconic face smiles and winks at her.

  Theo’s golden scales disappear as quickly as they arrived, though the stone wall remains.

  Theo shakes his head. “Wait a second, the last thing I remember was time slowing down and dodging that fire from you. Why did you do that?”

  “I was testing something, it won’t happen again, I promise,” she replies sternly.

  “No worries, I’m not hurt. How’s Kat?” Theo asks, his hazel eyes shining, a bit more gold in them than there was a few minutes ago.

  Cinder sighs. “She’s going through one of the hardest things a person can.”

  “What is it? Can I help?” Theo looks at Cinder quizzically, his eyes betraying his worry as he absentmindedly spins a piece of coal a few inches above his hand.

  “Watching the fall of a parent into someone they can no longer respect, she has to go through this alone.” Cinder stares back at her home, where Kat is undoubtedly suffering. “She needs to know who she really is.”

  Chapter 42: Regret

  After seeing her younger self leave the family wing of her father’s compound Kat is angry. She’s so blinded by her rage that she’s really not interested in seeing much else.

  That tweaking piece of shit, she wrecks everything she touches. I’m glad that I grew up not knowing how terrible a person my mother was. Iris raised me, she made me the woman I’m going to be, not this piece of garbage.

  A moment later Kat is standing in an old Blockbuster, racks that used to hold videos and dvd’s by the hundreds are now empty. Little Katrina is in the corner of the room, where the kid’s movies used to be, playing with her unicorn stuffed animal while listening to music on a portable CD player. There’s still a poster up for some Disney flick, but the name is ripped off, it shows some woman in a dress with a bow and arrow, but any more detail than that is impossible to find.

  Mercy stands in her “mom” outfit talking to a short Asian man with spiky black hair with frosted tips, she leans over the counter so her breasts show a bit behind the sweatshirt.

  She didn’t even put on a bra...somehow I’m not even surprised anymore.

  “Come on Twitch, I just need a little more of the good stuff so I can finish my project. I’m so close I can taste it! She licks her lips like it’s the most delicious thought she’s ever had.

  Twitch laughs. “Just a little more? That’s what you said a month ago. I gave you a kilo of Zip, that’s more than I give even my most trusted sellers. What do I have to show for it? Nothing!” Purple lightning dances among his frosted tips.

  “You got more than nothing for the last batch, I’d be more than happy to continue that arrangement.” She reaches her hand under the desk and tries to grab Twitch’s manhood.

  Twitch jumps back a bit. “Oh no, I’m not doing that with the Steel Scorpion anymore. Your husband sent out a notice, anyone who touches you will be handled, personally. I need my brain to stay in its gloriously wrinkled shape. Your hubby is a powerful man, I’m not willing to piss him off a second time.”

  Mercy leans her head back and screams, “FUCK ME!”

  Little Katrina looks over to the source of the noise. Mercy waves her back, so she goes back to playing like nothing happened.

  Twitch’s eyes gleam “I can’t continue our old arrangement, but your hubby didn’t say anything about employing you for your powers. I’ve got a job that should become a lot easier with someone of your caliber around.”

  Mercy looks at Twitch, her eyes desperate. “It’s been four years since I was active, when that little one—” She points at Little Katrina. “—came into the picture, I gave up the life. Research only from then on, that’s why I need more Zip.”

  “That’s a shame, this gig would be worth at least three bricks of the good stuff. I guess I’ll just have to find another technopath,” Twitch says with his eyes cast to the sky.

  “Th-th-three bricks, for a single job? What are we doing, hitting FSA HQ?” Mercy laughs.

  Twitch gets serious. “Not quite, we’re going to hit the transport van after it leaves FSA HQ, but before it makes it to the federal courthouse. I’ve got a client who’s willing to pay top dollar as long as we get Wolfman out of that damn thing intact, the good news is that he’s basically indestructible. Bad news is that they got two Capes guarding the damn thing,” Twitch spits, purple electricity scorching the ground where the spittle lands.

  “Two Capes doesn’t seem to be enough for this kind of job, how many agents along with them?” Mercy’s demeanor becomes serious, her previous attempt at flirting forgotten.

  “Two should be plenty, especially when it’s Femme
-Fatale and Gentle-Man. Trust me, I’ve been hit in the head with that damn cane of his, he’s no gentleman. Femme-Fatale is where you come in, I need you to use what you know about your husband and his powers to jam her up until we can get Wolfman free.”

  “Fuck. That’s going to suck. I’ll need materials, plus a bit of the good stuff if you want her taken down instead of just delayed.”

  Twitch nods. “You’ll get a single dose, make it count. Is it a deal? You help free Wolfman, delay or kill Femme-Fatale, and help me escape. When that’s done you get three bricks of top of the line Zip.”

  Mercy grins. “Deal.” She reaches out to shake his hand. When their hands meet sparks run up her body, she shivers in pleasure. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of what I offered earlier, if you catch my drift.” She steps closer to Twitch, her breathing heavy.

  Twitch starts to decline, but thinks better of it. “What about her?” He points at Little Katrina over in the kids section.

  “She’ll be fine, no one is stupid enough to do something to her in Chicago. Now, let’s get this thing going!” She grabs him and pulls him back into the defunct manager’s office.

  ___

  “I can’t believe I’m going to be the woman to kill Femme-Fatale, she’s a legend!” Steel Scorpion, also known as Mercy, says while strapping on the last bit of her suit. She’s wearing a silver metal carapace that covers her whole body, she has an angular helmet with a green visor. Finally, she has stingers on her wrists that she can shoot, along with a massive scorpion tail dripping with green venom.

  Beside Steel Scorpion are two things, a black and green box labeled “Arrested in the Name of Twitch”, it was his idea, and Little Katrina. She’s coloring in a unicorn themed coloring book, it looks like it may be brand new, with the price tag still on it and the box of crayons next to her.

  Kat is standing a little ways back, away from the edge of the roof where her mother is perched, she steps up and investigates the box. It looks simple, but knowing her mother, it’s anything but that.