by Rob Rogers
“Yeah, and what happens if the armor cuts out?” Samuel had asked her. “It happened to your dad once or twice. You’re left carrying 150 pounds on your back.”
“It’s more like sixty-five now,” she had protested.
He had nodded. “All right, then. Next workout, you jog wearing sixty-five pounds on your back.”
And here she was with sixty-five pounds of dead weight around her, joints stiffening as the sealants worked to keep her alive.
She took one step forward and the armor seized up on her. She fell to the ground, setting more of the manicured grass ablaze. And then she saw the Werewolf running toward her.
“This is not going to happen!” she shouted inside her helmet. She pulled herself to her knees. Surely the Werewolf wouldn’t try to bite the searing armor.
But the Werewolf’s pace didn’t slow. He ran across the lawn toward her, preparing to leap.
Her armor, she thought, would burn him. But the increased stress of a sudden impact by a superhuman with the Werewolf’s strength? It would quite likely shatter the armor around her, and even if she survived the attack, she’d be maimed or killed by the sudden heat she’d be exposed to.
The Werewolf leaped. She threw herself to one side, praying she’d avoid him.
But then the Werewolf was knocked out of the air in mid-jump. Something slammed into him and knocked him aside.
Something small.
Staring, she saw her Uncle Samuel, six inches tall and dressed in cut-off shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, clinging to the Werewolf’s neck.
* * * * *
Osprey was following right behind Jason, those shining Bundi daggers in her hands. He didn’t know how she could maneuver through the tight space of the house with those wings, but she was an acrobat, after all.
“She’ll target you first,” Doctor Camelot had said to Ducett. Well, Jason thought, she’d been wrong about that at least.
He was moving through the house as quickly as he could, trying to get away from her and keep from getting cornered by any of the others, but he was running out of room.
Enough was enough, he decided. He would head into a narrow hallway, remove the advantage of her maneuverability, and try to take her out. That was what he was here for.
He dove into a hallway on the first floor, spun around, preparing to fight her, and then noticed two things. First, Gork was standing right behind Osprey, his rifle pointed at Jason, a smile growing on his lips. And second, the walls on either side of him were on fire.
* * * * *
The flames had no real fuel other than the air, Kate thought. They were damaging her armor, but not igniting it. Something about Hector Hell’s power, she realized, made the flames persist, like napalm. She pulled herself to her feet.
Samuel clutched the back of the Werewolf’s neck with one arm and was punching him with the other. “Get in the damn pool!” he shouted at her.
She nodded, turning back around.
Bedlam was there, moving toward her. She staggered past him, feet catching the grass aflame with every step. And then she fell in.
The sudden burst of steam was an explosion, the force sending water and vapor high into the air. For a few seconds, she could see nothing at all through her faceplate. Everywhere around her was steam and heat.
But it was a big pool.
Within a few seconds, whatever Hector Hell had done to her was over. The heat had dissipated into the mass of the swimming pool. One by one, her armor’s functions began to resume.
She flew out of the pool, water and steam spraying behind her. Seventy-three percent operational, one readout informed her. She smiled. “That’ll be plenty,” she said.
* * * * *
Seeing Doctor Camelot moving toward the presumed safety of the pool, Cain turned his attention to the Werewolf, who was locked in an odd battle with a tiny man.
Sam Small, he realized. The missing Storm Raider who had been presumed dead.
Hefting the shotgun with the beanbag ammo, Cain tried to get a clear shot at the slavering Werewolf.
But then he saw Argonaut fly through a window, Gork clutched in his arms, a burst of flame trailing behind them.
The house was on fire. He’d been so distracted by the flames on Doctor Camelot, by his own wound, that he hadn’t realized it, but now he could see that flames were coming from nearly every part of the building.
A figure erupted from the house behind Argonaut—the winged Osprey.
Argonaut was flying high in the air with Gork, but the scarred man was struggling with him, showering him with punches that echoed through the air. And Osprey was closing in, her knives flashing in her hands. Argonaut was tough, but could she cut him with those knives? Cain had seen the damage the man had suffered in the building.
He glanced at Werewolf, but still couldn’t get a clear shot. Sam Small was a veteran superhero, and he seemed to have things more or less under control.
“She hates other people with wings,” Doctor Camelot had said about Osprey, looking at Cain. “She’ll target you first.”
Pain still running through him from the rifle shot, Cain launched himself into the air. “Hey, Osprey!” he shouted. “I’m down here!”
* * * * *
Kate took it all in. Argonaut was flying with Gork. Osprey was trailing them, but the injured Bedlam was taunting her. The mansion was ablaze. Nearby, Uncle Samuel was fighting the Werewolf. Hector Hell and the Behemoth were unaccounted for.
She jetted toward the Werewolf. Samuel clung to his ears, pounding the other man on the skull. But then the Werewolf raked at him with his claws, and he was thrown free.
Samuel rolled to his feet. When he glanced up and saw Kate flying his way, he smiled and gave her a tiny thumbs up.
He was still smiling when the Werewolf lunged forward, teeth flashing, and ate him.
* * * * *
Jason had thought that once he had Gork in his hands, the rifle far behind them, he could more or less neutralize his opponent. But Gork was raining blows on Jason’s head and shoulders. The punches were rhythmic, like a man working a hammer.
Flying higher, Jason squeezed Gork, punched him back, and tried to drop him, but the man clung on to him, legs wrapped around, working in his damage.
Then Gork reached down to his waist, pulling off part of the belt buckle. Just as Ducett had warned, it was a knife. “You son of a bitch,” Gork said. “I’m going to butcher you.” He raised the knife, preparing to stab Jason in the face.
“I don’t think so,” Jason said. And pushing with all his strength, the strength of Heracles, he shoved Gork free. A startled look on his face, the man tumbled loose, falling, falling, falling . . .
The sound he made when he hit the ground was nauseating. Given what he’d heard about Gork’s resilience, Jason thought the man would probably live. But he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
Some motion coming from the edge of the burning house caught Jason’s attention. He turned and saw Julian flying out a window, low to the ground, his mustard and black uniform dark with soot.
Julian wasn’t facing Jason, but he seemed to sense Jason’s attention anyway. He turned and looked up at his brother. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Julian waved.
Jason hesitated a second, then waved back, watching his brother disappear into the night.
* * * * *
Kate stared at the Werewolf, who was licking his lips with a long canine tongue. There was nothing human in his expression.
First her father. Then the rest of the Storm Raiders, all but Uncle Samuel. And now him, too.
“I’m going to kill you for that,” she said.
The Werewolf laughed then, the sound like a hyena. “He went down smooth,” he said, his accent part Austrian, part animal. “You I might need a can opener for.” He swaggered toward her, opening his jaws, preparing to pounce.
And then he exploded.
Fur and flesh and bone and blood splattered in every direction. The gra
ss was littered with it.
And in the center of the mess, Samuel stood looking at her, at his full size, blood coating his face, gore dripping from him, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I should feel bad about doing that,” he said. “But he should have known better than to swallow me whole.”
She wiped at her faceplate with her metal glove and smiled at him. “I thought you said you’d retired for good.”
“Yeah, well,” he said. “Like I said, in Devil’s Cape, you can’t trust anybody.”
Then the Behemoth came crashing out onto one of the turrets, flames and smoke billowing behind him. The body of Hector Hell was cradled in his arms, his neck clearly broken. “Who did this?” the Behemoth shouted. He bent and tore the door to the turret off of its hinges with one hand, hurling it like a discus. It flew into the trees surrounding the yard, cutting half a dozen trunks off at their bases, sending the trees crashing down. “Who did this?”
* * * * *
Osprey turned and dove at Cain as he rose toward her in the sky. He tried to shoot her with the shotgun as she came closer, but the motion was awkward since he had to use his arms not only to aim, but to fly. He missed.
She buzzed by him, knife flashing, slicing into his left shoulder.
Trying not to cry out against the new pain, he ducked to one side, weaved, and tried to shoot her again. The thick beanbag—actually a small bag of buckshot—sailed past her head.
“You’re fast,” she said, her voice soft and musical, “but I’ve been doing this most of my life. I’m going to bleed you.”
He dropped the shotgun.
The smart thing to do, he realized, would be to try to force her to fight him near the ground. Or even to avoid the fight altogether. He was a psychiatrist. He was a man of reason. He could use logic and persuasion.
But he was Bedlam. The demonic form might seem an odd contrast to the rigid, controlled man he’d become. But he had once been a creature of emotion and rage, a child of chaos. He’d been a street fighter and a criminal, diabolic and wild.
He bellowed at her, charging, claws slashing, teeth biting, horns gouging. Letting his instincts run wild, he attacked her like the creature from hell he resembled.
And Osprey fell.
He caught her before she landed, held her unconscious body almost tenderly while he unstrapped the sheathes holding her knives and her claws. Staring at her, reveling in the fury he’d allowed himself, he realized that what he’d told Argonaut and Doctor Camelot about only acting as Bedlam to catch Zhdanov and protect someone—Jazz—had been a lie, if not to them, then to himself.
He wouldn’t be giving up this feeling anytime soon.
He’d never give it up.
* * * * *
The Behemoth is perhaps the most powerful of them all, Kate had told them.
And he was angry. He bent down and set Hector Hell’s corpse on the floor of the turret. Then, his huge muscles bulging, he began to tear pieces off of the mansion and throw them at the heroes. A cinder block smashed into the pool house like a cannonball. A burning timber flew by Argonaut’s head and lodged itself in the mansion next door.
She had studied the Behemoth to the extent that she could. She knew what to expect. But his sheer size and strength surpassed anything that she imagined.
As she watched, the Behemoth bent down to the machine gun mounted to the turret. With a grunt, he tore it free. The rivets popping loose almost sounded like gunfire themselves. It was a 7.62mm KGK Géppuska. Hungarian. It held 250 rounds and could spit them all out in about 23 seconds. The muzzle velocity was close to 2,000 miles per hour. Altogether, the gun, the stand, and the ammo weighed about 72 pounds and the Behemoth held it in one hand, bringing it around, taking aim. Aiming at her.
Don’t face him alone, she had told the others, her father’s face in her mind, her voice breaking again.
But they weren’t facing him alone. They were facing him together.
The Behemoth pulled the trigger and Kate flew right into the bullets, one arm crooked over her head. Better they should hit her, she figured. Her armor could take it. It was designed to absorb and disperse the kinetic energy of the impact, reducing the chance of ricochets. Flying into the bullets made sense. But the reality of the torrent of bullets thundering into her with a rattling sound like hail was almost enough to break her nerve. The Behemoth glared at her, mouth curling. There KGK should have had a hell of a kick, but his arm never wavered.
She saw Argonaut and Bedlam flanking her, one to each side. A few stray bullets zinged past them, but they twisted in the air, darting and weaving. They were facing him together. She pressed on.
Kate hit him first, sending a wave of sonic energy—a directed blast of about 150 decibels—directly at his head. Then Argonaut was floating next to him, fists raised like a boxer, jabbing at the Behemoth’s massive body, punching under the armpit, in the side, flying up and cuffing him in the ear. And then Bedlam was there, too, jumping on the Behemoth’s back, smashing him with a baseball bat and scratching at him with his claws.
The Behemoth sprayed the air with bullets once more, then tossed the gun to the side. He grabbed Argonaut and slammed him into Bedlam. Both heroes spiraled over the edge of the turret.
Kate blasted him with the sonics again. He winced, and blood trickled from one ear, but his huge clawed hand darted forward and caught her throat.
He smiled. One tusk scratched against his cheek. He put his other hand on her throat, too. “This is pretty much how I killed the last one,” he said. “Just like a chicken. You think I get some special prize if I make it a twofer?”
She saw her father’s face, leaning down toward her, smiling while leading her away from the entrance to his secret workroom. “Don’t count on it,” she said. Her arms came up between his, working to force them apart.
He didn’t budge at first, but his eyes widened at her strength. He began to squeeze in earnest, thumbs digging in. She made a conscious decision not to look at the instruments that would be measuring the pressure of his grip.
Then Argonaut was there, pulling on one of the Behemoth’s arms. Bedlam grabbed the other, claws digging in. Blood started to trickle out of a screaming eagle tattoo on the Behemoth’s arm. His grip loosened infinitesimally, but the force was still incredible.
“Enough of this,” she said. “Time for you to go down.” There were dozens of weapons at her disposal. She ignored them. Instead, she ignited her jet pack with full force, slamming into his chest with every bit of strength the armor gave her.
As Argonaut and Bedlam let go of the strong man’s arms, Kate and the Behemoth smashed through the edge of the turret, then arced downward, finally crashing to the ground. Kate’s armor and the man’s body beneath her helped absorb the brunt of the impact. But nothing absorbed the impact for the Behemoth. He shuddered in pain as several of his steel-hard ribs cracked. He gasped for air. His arms dropped from her neck to his sides. He tried to curl himself into a ball to try to get his wind back, to try to pull himself back to his feet.
She didn’t let him. She grabbed his neck in both hands. Her suit examined him with X-rays, measured his density. She calculated the amount of force it would take to crush his windpipe, the amount of torque she would need to break his neck.
“I can kill you,” she said. “Without a problem. Like a chicken.”
He stared at her. His eyes were empty of inflection. He was still gasping for air, but his gaze was unflinching.
She sensed Argonaut and Bedlam landing just behind her, Uncle Samuel walking up close. None of them moved or spoke.
She stared at the Behemoth. She wanted him to flinch.
He didn’t.
She saw her father’s face again. She saw the faces of her dead “uncles” and “aunts.”
The Behemoth was still struggling to try to get air. Blood vessels were popping in his eyes. It would be so easy to kill him.
She sighed. She let go of his throat. As he gasped, she sprayed the air around his face with ma
ssive amounts of tranquilizers, a gray-green cloud billowing around his head. He sucked them in. He couldn’t help it. He shuddered, sitting halfway up, then fell backward to the grass.
She turned to the others. “He’s asleep,” she said. “Just asleep.”
To her surprise, it was Bedlam who put a hand on her shoulder. “We know,” he said. “We didn’t doubt it.”
She smiled. She heard helicopters and sirens in the distance. Uncle Samuel winked at her, then shrank down to doll size, jogging away toward a thicket of tall grass. As one, she, Argonaut, and Bedlam turned to face the approaching media and police.
She was starting to like Devil’s Cape.
The media gathered at the Ferazzoli estate tonight had hundreds of questions for the three heroes, but one persisted above the others: “Will you be staying?”
Doctor Camelot and Argonaut looked at each other, then at Bedlam, but it was the monstrous Bedlam who leaned forward and spoke into a microphone lifted up for him. “Yes,” he said. “We’re staying.”
— From a WTDC News special bulletin, Jason Kale reporting
Epilogue
Devil’s Cape, Louisiana
Two weeks after the deaths of the Storm Raiders
The study on the Robber Baron’s riverboat was like a miniature museum of the history of Devil’s Cape. He had electricity running through the boat, of course, but the study showed no sign of it except for the vents that allowed the air conditioning to flow inside. The room, blocked off from sunlight by a thick, pearl-brocaded curtain, was lit by dozens of candles: candles hanging in a chandelier, candles mounted on the walls, candles on the desk and the bookshelf and beside the door.
