by Kyell Gold
“Nice work on that car thief,” the whip-thin fox said, sauntering over to Jake during a break.
“Oh, you noticed?” Jake played with the League pen, doodling on the memo pad.
Red squeezed his shoulder. “I was the youngest once, too. Just be patient, ‘kay?”
Jake glanced up at the narrow russet muzzle, encouraged by the smile. “You were? When?”
“‘Til you joined.”
Jake barked a laugh. “Really? How old are you?”
“I graduated from Whitford two years ago.”
“You’re kidding. You’ve only been a superhero for two years?”
The fox leaned against the table, looking down at Jake. “Now, who says I wasn’t doing a bit on the side in college? I just went pro after graduation.”
“But I read your bio! You collared the Dastardly Dingos, and brought down F.R.I.G.H.T. almost single-pawed, and—”
The fox waved him silent. “Ah, you know, the Dastardly Dingos weren’t that dastardly. It was just the alliteration they liked.”
“I thought I’d never get into the League. There’s no criminal genius masterminds or organizations in Dunstown. I won’t even get to investigate the Mount Cedar thing.”
Red put a paw on his shoulder again and grinned down. “You’ll get there. Just wait ‘til the other guys get to know you a little better. The barbecue will be good. Bringin’ anyone?” Red grinned. “I saw that article.”
“Oh, that.” Jake shook his head. “The papers, you know. They make up shit...” He flicked his ears. “Nah, not bringing anyone.”
Red nodded, and rubbed his chin with a paw. “You’ll meet my wife there. Those things are always kind of awkward, though. Tell ya what. Why don’t you come by the house for Sunday brunch? We can sit down and just talk.”
“Sure!” Jake wagged his tail. “Love to!”
“I do love my Sarah’s biscuits an’ gravy, and I bet dollars to donuts you will too.”
“Doesn’t show.” Jake grinned, pointedly eyeing the fox’s waistline.
Red laughed. He leaned closer. “I’m not ‘llowed to talk about it around Vicious Vixen, but I just can’t keep weight on. Anything I eat vanishes quicker’n a chicken leg at my mom’s Sunday dinner.”
“I’m kinda the same,” Jake said.
“You could just blink off the extra weight, couldn’t you?” Red cocked his head.
“Eww.” Jake shook off the vision of a pile of fat lying on the ground. “I dunno, never tried.”
“Crypto reckons you could. He’s pretty excited about seein’ the range of your powers.”
“Really?” Jake looked across the table at the scruffy fox, lost in his laptop computer. “He hasn’t given me anything to do. I wonder if he ever will.”
Red rubbed his chin again. “Hold on just a tick.” He patted the coyote on the shoulder and then navigated through the chairs and heroes to Crypto’s side. The smaller fox jumped when Red tapped his shoulder, then perked his ears, looked over at Jake as Red talked, and finally nodded. Red looked up and gave Jake a thumbs-up.
“I swapped with you,” he said a moment later, strolling back to Jake’s side. “P.K.’s investigating the Mount Cedar research item you brought in, and Crypto’d assigned me as backup, but I convinced him to switch with you. I’ll do that cleanup over in Millenport for ya.”
“P.K.?”
“Psycho Coyote. Sorry, Power Coyote.”
Jake stifled a giggle, looking over at the tall coyote engaged in conversation with Vicious Vixen, three pens twirling lazily in the air above his paws. “Psycho?”
“Psycho-Kinetic. But also, yeah, that.” Red grinned. “Wait ‘til the barbecue. Watch him try to pick out a fork. The tines all have to be exactly the same length. He’s an okay guy, though. Just be flexible with your schedule.”
Jake found out what he meant after the meeting, when P.K. came over to work out the schedule. The floating pens in front of the jarring red on black patterned uniform distracted Jake, so he had a little trouble following the conversation.
“I’m sorry, we can’t meet there at noon?”
The pens twirled more quickly. Jake had to look away. “I have to eat lunch at 12:45 p.m.,” P.K. said. “And I have to eat dinner at seven. So we’ll have to leave the labs at five.”
“I could just blink you home.”
One of the pens nearly fell. “Oh, no no no. I can’t do that. No, my private jet will be fine. We just need to be done by five so I can get home.”
Jake caught the eye of Red Lightning, who was grinning at him over MultiWolf’s shoulder. “Okay. If we meet at three, will that work?”
The pens froze in the air for a moment. P.K.’s eyes seemed to unfocus. “Three is bad,” he said. “It has a bad resonance on that day.” He focused on Jake again, as the pens started moving. “Three-thirty?”
“Two-thirty would give us more time.” Jake watched the pens’ reaction to that. They kept twirling calmly.
“All right.” P.K. nodded. “Two-thirty it is. Meet out in front of the labs? I’ll have Jumal call someone there to set up an appointment. The idea is to pick up reference points for us to come back that night and investigate further if need be.”
“Got it.” Jake grinned.
P.K. peered behind him. “I hope you don’t wag your tail that much all the time,” he said. “It’s quite distracting.”
“Sorry.” Jake stilled it, but when P.K. turned away, he gave Red a thumbs-up and a huge grin.
His first real assignment had Jake excited enough that when he blinked into Marcia’s place that night and saw her holding the Herald society page, he had completely forgotten about Moxy’s article. “Guess what?” he said, bouncing from foot to foot. “I’ve got an assignment, a real one, with P.K. next week! I can’t tell you what it is ‘til it’s over, official League business, but it’s—what?”
Marcia held up the paper, open to a page 2 article titled “Local Hero Has Romantic Side.” Beneath one of the stock photos of him, Moxy had drawn a generically canid silhouette with a large chest and a white question mark inside it. “Oh,” Jake said. “That.”
“Let’s see,” Marcia said. “I could be Genevieve Hightower, the kangaroo heiress to the Hightower fortune—classy, her internet sex video must be losing steam—or I could be Janice Margolies, high-powered criminal attorney—met her once or twice, she needs that long neck for looking down on people, plus she has no fashion sense—or I could be Adrienne Bazure, that slut of a lioness over at Macy’s—and why do they have you linked to all these exotic women anyway? Oh, and listen to this: ‘Rumors linking Blink Coyote to the Herald’s own Moxy Nightwing are almost certainly untrue.’ Almost certainly.” She snorted. “Considering she just made them up, I’m sure they are. Aren’t they?”
It took Jake a second to realize she was talking to him. “Oh. Oh, yes, of course! I mean, I couldn’t tell her anything about you, but she tricked me into telling her that I have a girlfriend.”
“I know.” Marcia sighed. “It’s just frustrating, doing all this work and being such a part of your career and not being able to take any credit for it. You know, yesterday all the girls at work were talking about that carjacking.”
“They were?” Jake’s ears perked up. “What did they say?”
“Oh, the usual.” Marcia splayed her long ears and clasped her paws under her chin. “‘He’s so brave, I bet he’s really handsome under that hood, and so mysterious!’”
“Was that that cute, um, what’s her name, Crystal?” Marcia’s eyes narrowed, and Jake flattened his ears, dropping the look of interest. “Sorry, sorry. So, uh, where are we going tonight?”
“Bertolucci’s. My treat.”
Jake wagged his tail as Marcia dropped the newspaper. “Is this my birthday dinner?”
“No, no.” She smiled. “You get your birthday dinner next week on your birthday. I’ve got something special planned. No, this is just a dinner. Then I thought maybe we’d come back here and work on your c
oncentration.”
“Oh, if we have to.” His tail wagged even faster.
She grinned. “Like I have to ask. Come on, stud. I’ll drive.”
That was their standing joke; Jake had a car, for appearances, but it barely ran. He preferred to walk or blink anywhere he went. He could get to places he could see, or get back to places he’d been, and having grown up in Dunstown meant he could get almost anywhere in the city within five minutes at most.
They were walking down to the car when his handheld went off. He flicked it on and skimmed the messages while Marcia sighed audibly. “Oh, for…” He tapped a message back. “Hang on. I can’t believe these guys have never heard of Justin Timberwolf…I can’t believe they don’t know who sings ‘Howl of My Heart.’ Crypto really needs to go home and not be at the office all night. Okay, there.” He flipped the device off and grinned at her. “Dinner?”
They had just gotten their drinks when the handheld buzzed again. Marcia glared at it. “What now?”
Jake’s claw moved over the screen, writing in quick shorthand as he talked absently. “Another check up. They’re worried about Dr. Malevola escaping from his cell, and they want me to pop in at random intervals.”
“Can’t they wait until after dinner?”
“Crypto says that might constitute a predictable pattern.” He looked up, putting the device down on the table. “I’ll be right back. Sorry.”
“Jake, listen, don’t—”
He didn’t hear the end of her sentence. When he blinked back, she was sipping her beer. The lines of annoyance above her eyes smoothed out as she saw him. That was one thing Jake was learning to appreciate about his ability: the chance to see people candidly in the moment before they registered his presence. He made a note to be nicer to Marcia for the rest of the night.
“Dr. Malevola all safe and sound?”
“Yeah, he was, uh, well, kinda embarrassed to see me.” Jake grinned. “I think someone’s been sneaking him dirty magazines.”
The rabbit shook her head. “You shouldn’t do that, darling. The waiter could’ve come over.”
Jake shrugged. “No biggie. I’d sign an autograph or two and we’d get the meal comped.” He slid the handheld into the pocket of the yellow dress shirt he wore.
The rabbit arched an eyebrow. “That’s never happened.”
Jake looked off towards the bar. “I got a free salad once after I stopped a guy from robbing the Sizzler.”
“But you did that in costume.”
“Marcia, I’m fine, really.” The handheld in his pocket buzzed again, and he took it out and started tapping on it.
The rabbit looked over the table. “Another follow-up?”
“Nah, P.K.’s asking me if I can take care of the potato salad for the barbecue this weekend. He was supposed to, but I’m the new kid, so they’re dumping all the stuff they don’t want to do on me. Red Lightning already asked if I could get the chips for him. I’m like, how long will it take you to run to the store? A minute?” He grinned and waved his paw.
“Oh.” Marcia leaned back in the booth. “I didn’t know we were going to a barbecue this weekend.”
Jake’s ears went back. He looked up at her and then back at the handheld. “Oh, I, uh, didn’t think you’d want to go…”
Marcia folded her arms across her dark blue jacket. “What made you think that? All the times I asked if I could meet some of the other League members? The strings I pulled to get you an interview to get into the League in the first place? The huge poster of WonderWolf I used to have in my college dorm?”
“I never saw your college dorm.”
“First the publicist position, now this.”
“It’s just a boring function. I don’t know if anyone else is bringing their, uh, SOs…”
“Of course they are,” she snapped back at him, and then softened her voice, giving him a smile. “But most of them aren’t single. You just have to be more assertive.”
“I just feel like I have a long way to go,” Jake said after a moment. “I’ve only been doing this for two years. They’ve all got these great stories they swap. And my name…”
“What’s wrong with your name?” Marcia narrowed her eyes.
“Blink Coyote? It sounds like I have some kind of neurological condition.”
“We picked that name out together.” Marcia’s tone was growing frostier.
“You picked it. Anyway, I don’t even have a nemesis yet.”
“Oh, not this again.” Marcia rolled her eyes. “Forgive my prosaic spirit, but I’m glad you don’t have one of those.”
“But I should! I’m the only big hero in Dunstown. The only one in the League, anyway. WonderWolf has at least three.” Jake tapped the table. “I wonder if he’d give me one, if I asked.”
The waiter returned then with their pizza. Jake took one of the pepperoni and sausage slices and ripped a huge bite out of it, while Marcia nibbled on the green pepper and onion side.
“You’ve got a lot to be proud of,” she said after a bit. “I mean, crime in Dunstown is down thirty percent since you started working the streets.”
“I know,” he said, “but it’s all purse-snatchers and liquor store holdups. Nothing really big. You hear that Night Wolf captured three terrorists and half a pound of weapons-grade plutonium last week?”
Marcia blinked. “No.”
“I guess Stormy was going to release the news tomorrow. Yeah, he just got back from Kurdistan and he was in D.C. with the CIA all day yesterday and today.”
“Stormy? Is that Coyote Rain?”
Jake finished his slice of pizza. “Nah, Stormy’s the...uh...” He grabbed another slice and chewed on it, his ears back..
Marcia put down her pizza. “Oh. So that’s his name.”
“Her name.”
“Cute. Sounds like she really fits in. Is she a wolf? Coyote?”
He chewed on the pizza, searching for an answer that wouldn’t prolong the conversation. “Um. Wolf, I think.”
“You think?”
“I only met her the one time, WonderWolf was introducing her and it was real quick, but yeah, she’s a wolf.”
“Of course she is. The League of Crimefighting Canids couldn’t hire a rabbit publicist. Did you see the press release I did last week got picked up by two of the major networks?”
Jake started to shake his head, then caught himself. “Oh, yeah!”
“If I’m not fighting crime, I don’t have to be a canid, right?”
“Yeah, but everyone else is.”
“That’s discrimination.”
Jake sighed. “I did try to tell them…but I’m just a kid, you know, and I’m new...”
The rabbit picked up her pizza. “It’s all right. I’m probably not qualified. It would have been nice to have been asked, is all.” She paused, then visibly put it aside and chirped cheerfully, “I’m glad to hear things are going well there.”
Jake took another slice of pizza and munched it slowly. Her dismissal of their disagreements made him vaguely uneasy, each one feeling like a cloud in their sky, a storm postponed until later.
They walked along the tree-lined streets back to her condo, a second-floor unit in an upscale complex just a few blocks from the Dunstown gaslamp district. The conversation along the way back was bland and neutral, friends of theirs going on trips, people in Marcia’s office getting promoted, government initiatives. Nothing to add to the storm; nothing to dispel it.
Jake felt the tension, or at least thought he did. Best to cut his losses tonight and start fresh tomorrow, or even wait ‘til his birthday, he thought. They’d reached her building, and she was waiting expectantly, so he said, “I’m kind of tired.”
She tugged on his jacket. “You need to keep practicing.”
He sighed. “Mmm. I really am kind of tired…”
She nuzzled up at the base of his ears and then a bit inside. His ears flicked. He was getting excited, and he could smell that she was too. She angled her hip i
nto his arousal and sighed against him. “Why don’t you stay the night and tuck me in?”
He gave in, of course; he was young and male. What else could he do? At least he would do his best to enjoy it. And while this time he managed to hold on until his climax, he still blinked out in mid-convulsion, returning contritely to Marcia’s remonstrations. At home in his own bed, Jake thought he would rest for just a little while before making his rounds, but when he yawned and cracked his eyes open, the sun greeted him through the bedroom window.
Guilt over missing his rounds drove him to check the Internet and the paper for any crimes he might have prevented, and finding none helped only a little. He worked assiduously the next few nights, meeting Moxy once but getting no new information from her.
Marcia was unaccountably busy the entire weekend, leaving him messages with instructions to come to her place on Tuesday night at 6 pm. Making his birthday present, he presumed, with some relief, as it freed him from having to explain that he was going to meet Red Lightning for Sunday brunch without her.
Red’s wife was a charming vixen, a little older than Red, and she told him they’d been married out of high school, since before the lab accident that had given Red his powers. He told Jake about that over beers (Red drank only one, saying “I’m a lightweight” with a grin), and Jake told him the story of discovering his power, the radiation burst from the machine he was unloading from a truck at his summer job. Jake envied the rapport he seemed to have with his wife, how they each knew each other’s stories and kept taking small moments to look at each other or touch each other. They were so likable, however, and laughed so genuinely at his stories, that he couldn’t let envy grow into anything else.
Their real names were Mike and Sarah, and as they were shaking hands, Mike said, “Well, now you’ve been here, I guess you can get back anytime, eh?”
