He grabbed a girder and leapt toward me, swinging it. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to lift a girder, let alone stop one. His super strength was beyond mine. The girder swung closer and closer. I couldn’t move.
A worker in a hard hat swung a wrecking bar at the supervillain’s head. The attack distracted the Purple Menace and he dropped the girder, half-turning. He probably would have killed the construction guy, despite the three other hard hats backing him up with tools that could do major damage to a normal man.
I didn’t give the Purple Menace the chance. I instantly used the distraction to my advantage and shot my bolts at him. Why hadn’t I used them previously?
He stumbled back. Then he leapt into the air and flew away.
I woke up with my face mashed into my keyboard. Oh, crap.
It was evening. I’d fallen asleep in my hotel room after settling in the only comfortable place, my bed, to use my laptop. Big mistake. It must have happened the moment I fell asleep. I swear I was only out for a few seconds. I was still exhausted. Yet, I had dreamed again. Of course there was a new art page on my laptop. Damn it.
There it was on my screen—a crane in danger of falling into the pit where construction workers were. The Purple Menace pushed it toward them.
I turned on the TV. Footage played of the crane toppling. Not only was that news, but the construction site was near Ground Zero, where live cameras focused 24/7.
The television showed the workers below, the same ones who in my dream helped me scare him off. But now I saw it happen a different way. The crane wobbled and almost toppled. Dust at ground level hid the fight scene. I waited for the TV news commentator to talk about a supervillain. She didn’t. As the video looped to show the crane wobbling again, she repeated herself. She gave no more details. There was no footage of me in my superheroine role, fighting the supervillain hand-to-hand, and getting an assist from the hard hats. Plus, the supervillain I had named the Purple Menace in my dream was not in the footage being aired. Not there at all.
How could this be? Always before, even though I had been invisible, the supervillain had been caught on camera. Had the Feds already imposed some instant video re-tooling of events?
I checked out a bunch of websites. Nobody had a clear shot, and nobody mentioned a costumed bad guy. I was the only person who had seen the supervillain—in a dream. Yet as in past incidents, my computer showed a drawing of a costumed supervillain. It all happened very quickly. Was the supervillain some kind of illusion that took time to build?
I was in a midtown hotel only a couple of miles away, but I might as well have been back in Chicago. If I went down to the construction site to ask what the night workers had seen, I’d be treated like just another gawker, and told to move along. I’d never get a chance to talk to them. Anyway, what was the point? The mystery was beyond mere eyewitness accounts.
In the past, the spam artwork was always an exact record of an attack, minus me. But this attack was different. My head hurt. I was more and more confused.
To stay awake, I took a long walk around the Times Square area, chugging caffeinated soda until it was time to renew my look for my late evening with Eric. He was currently the best bet for solving my mystery, but I had to be careful. I couldn’t let sex distract me.
Eric came to my hotel to pick me up for our club date. I had touched up the pink ensemble and professional makeup job from earlier, exaggerating the eyes for the club scene. He was in the same black as before. We took a cab to an obscure storefront behind which was a very hip club. Its trendiness was given away by the line of people waiting behind a velvet rope, hoping to get in. The bouncer recognized Eric and quickly waved us through.
The club was like any club. Tiny. Decorated to look like somebody’s nightmare, in this case a pink theme with silver. I wasn’t impressed. On the other hand, I kind of went with the room since I was in pink myself. It was packed with people and noise. Not with cigarette smoke, although the acrid smell of it was still an undertone in the air. This was New York, which banned smoking even in bars.
We didn’t look for a table or a perch near the long counter. Eric pulled me behind him and headed straight across the dance floor to a door at the back guarded by two bouncers. No velvet ropes here, but it was obvious these men were positioned solely to keep the celebrity area from being invaded by the hoi polloi. Again we sailed past the guardians.
Inside, the VIP room was exactly what these rooms are meant to suggest. Very plush, very luxurious in a continuation of the style from the main room. Instead of simple chairs and tables, here there were couches and ottomans, side tables on which to perch drinks comfortably, and more. In fact, the space was set up like somebody’s very intimate and comfortable living room. Music came in from the main room. People danced here, too, though the floor was tiny. Mostly, this back room gave the effect of being a private party.
Eric knew people. He introduced a couple of local politicians, some people in the arts, some obvious rich girls (blondes, of course), and a number of men who must be wealthy business owners or executives. Not the Wall Street young crowd, though. No arbitrageurs. This wasn’t the kind of party at which youngish guys in expensive khakis stood around casually holding microbrew longnecks.
Why were we here? To dance, drink, and do drugs, of course. I would pass on the drink and the drugs. With the amount of caffeine in my system by now, I couldn’t handle any more stimulants. Or downers.
The music in this room wasn’t loud. We could talk without shouting. Perhaps I could learn something useful that would help solve my mystery.
At first we didn’t say anything important. We discussed the merits of independent comics creation versus working for a big corporation.
“Why did you become an indie comic creator?” Eric asked. “There’s hardly any money in it, and not a lot of fame, either.”
“Ah, the gloves come off at last. You finally reveal your low opinion of the webcomics scene,” I teased.
Eric didn’t deny it. He waited for me to continue.
I decided to throw him a bone. “Opportunity, no deadlines, no bosses looming over me demanding I draw what they want, how they want it. You of all people must know the drill. Why did you abandon your own art for the corporate life?”
“You might not like my answer.”
“Hey, I asked, didn’t I?” I gave him a suitably encouraging look.
Not that he needed one. As an executive, Eric was used to being listened to with attention. He leaned back in his lounge chair, his expression focused inward.
A club wasn’t the ideal place for a heart-to-heart about career choices, but it was a lot safer than going somewhere more private to chat. I had a feeling anything we’d be doing elsewhere would be horizontal.
“C’mon, spill,” I encouraged. He seemed to make up his mind about something. He gave me a smile he probably thought of as self-deprecating. No way. This was a man of supreme confidence.
“I got bored and lonely. Drawing the same kind of thing over and over all by myself didn’t cut it for me.”
“Funny, but I can’t picture you being lonely.” I stared at him. “I definitely can imagine you being ambitious.”
Eric leaned back again, a contemplative look on his face. “I’m a good artist, but am I great? Probably not. A realization you may not have gotten around to yet.”
Good point. He was thirty-five to my twenty-five, and he’d given up on his art career by the time he was thirty. Maybe when I hit the big three-oh, I’d look for the next act in my career. Or a new career entirely.
“So what made you go for management?” I prodded.
“Being the boss appealed to me,” he said.
“And whoever was the top dog at the time just stepped aside?” My disbelief had to be showing on my face.
“It was dead easy once I made up my mind to try,” Eric said matter-of-factly.
I made a scoffing noise. “Really?” I’d heard the sanitized version already. Roland had shown me adulator
y fanzine articles detailing Eric’s rise to power. By contrast, other zines depicted Eric as Satan himself. Somewhere between the two poles was the real Eric Wood. Would he reveal part of himself to me?
He raised an eyebrow, acknowledging my challenge. His eyes gleamed. “You think it was an ugly battle? It wasn’t. The last thing creative people want to do is the uncreative stuff. Dealing with deadlines. Strategizing. Talking to the money guys. Leadership was needed.”
He inclined his head and shrugged, as if to say he had been the obvious leader. Thus, he dismissed the implication he had engaged in protracted warfare, or underhanded tactics, or any of the other things the fan press accused him of.
“Hard to believe it was simple.” I gave him a bland look. “Or bloodless.”
“Possibly there were a couple of disappointed people,” he admitted. Eric’s expression showed some of the satisfaction he must have had at the time. The angles of his face made him appear more shark-like than ever.
“You became a corporate hatchet man. You sold out,” I said.
“You’d do the same if you had the opportunity,” he shot back.
“Not in a million years.”
“Then why did you apply to be on this idiot TV show?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t even draw my artwork submission,” I added, confessing all my sins at once.
Eric stared. He began to laugh. I laughed, too, but it was a weak laugh because I did not know why he was amused. The joke was on him if he’d pursued me because of the artwork. On me, too.
“Who drew it? I want to offer him a job,” he said.
“I don’t know.” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
“How can you not know? Did you steal the art from somewhere?” he frowned.
I snorted. “Call it a gift. I’m surprised you haven’t recognized the art style.”
“I can’t know every artist,” he shrugged. “Why don’t you know?”
“Because the art appears mysteriously on my computer.” At his incredulous look, I explained. In detail. At length. I didn’t say anything about my dreams, or my superheroine role in them. My story was crazy enough. I expected him to be skeptical. He wasn’t, which made me wonder why not. He seemed deep in thought after my wild tale.
After a bit, he reassured me about the TV show, the least of my concerns. “You’re still the winner. We won’t boot you off.”
“I don’t care about the TV show.” It was merely the means to an end. The mystery artist was the link to the bigger problem. “Eric, what if there really are supervillains roaming our planet?”
“No one is talking. People who experienced attacks soon retract their stories,” he said. “Perhaps because no one believes them.”
He had paid serious attention, like me. He’d followed the supervillain story carefully enough to notice the curious suppression of the truth.
I grimaced. “Could Homeland Security be pressuring them to recant or else end up in a secret prison as terrorists? Is this some weird government experiment?”
“Let’s not go there.”
“You think I’m being paranoid?”
“I made some quiet inquiries. The media and government are taking a wait-and-see stance. No need to freak out.”
“Even if you’re right, that leaves a mystery no one in charge wants to solve.”
“I don’t need official recognition or assistance to investigate,” he said. He shifted closer. Only a tiny round table separated us. “Are you positive you didn’t draw the art? In your sleep, maybe?”
“It’s definitely not mine.” I leaned away from his insistent look, and fiddled with my drink, whatever it was. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”
Like a lot of men when a conversation with a woman isn’t going where they want it to, Eric chose not to answer me. He stood up and tugged me into a slow dance with him.
I didn’t fight him. Why would I? If he wouldn’t spill the reason for his interest in my mystery, my refusing to dance with him wouldn’t make any difference. Maybe, being a guy, he had more to communicate on a nonverbal plane, if I’d let myself listen.
That’s what I told myself. The truth was, the moment he made physical contact with me again, I melted. I wanted the embrace of the slow dance. I wanted him to lightly push and pull at me to move us around the floor in small circles. I wanted the slow, languorous swaying of our hips, and the entangling of our limbs. Of course it was a tango.
Eric was a masterful dancer. I have some dance experience myself. I wouldn’t say we would rule a real tangueria, but the little neglected club floor saw a mighty struggle of passionate aims, expressed in opposing, cooperating, and re-opposing moves.
Then the music was over, and I fell out of my daze even as Eric drew me closer and whispered, “Come home with me tonight.”
I burned with conflicting needs. I wanted to hook up with Eric. He hadn’t put a finger out of line during our dance, but our bodies had rubbed against each other intimately and I wanted more.
What did Eric want from me? I’d thought I’d gotten to the truth of this man and his choices in life. Suddenly, I was unsure. Had I been led on, told what I expected to hear? I’d confided about the mystery artwork to him. What an idiot I was.
Still, sex was a tempting distraction from my gnawing anxiety, even if he mistakenly thought by hooking up with me he could control me or get more answers, or whatever. Not happening.
“Not tonight,” I said. I managed a semi-promising smile. “I want to return to my hotel and rest before tomorrow’s early call.”
“You’re sure?” He still had me draped against his body. It was a struggle to deny him. My breasts were touching his broad chest, and I was feeling the heat of our connection. But I wouldn’t let him win this one.
“I’m sure.”
*
I said good night to Eric outside the club, where I was safe from temptation. The bouncer and the line of people still waiting outside were effective chaperones against changing my mind, which at that point would have taken only one more touch from Eric.
I insisted on taking a cab back to the hotel alone. I didn’t trust myself, not after that tango. Luckily, a taxi pulled up outside the club when I needed it. If Eric had climbed in with me and kissed me, we would have ended up at his place. But he didn’t press his advantage.
“Good night, and thanks,” I said, trying to act cool.
His eyes glittered. “See you tomorrow morning.”
“Right. Tomorrow.”
The cab took off and I began to breathe more steadily. Close call.
*
I was still on an adrenalin high by the time I regained the safety of my hotel room. I called Roland and filled him in. Of course, I didn’t tell him that Eric tried to hook up with me.
“Sorry to call so late. I didn’t learn much.”
“I was still awake. I was worried about you,” Roland said.
It was good to hear his familiar voice, although I felt guilty, too. I was using Roland’s feelings for me. I only wanted friendship from him. I wanted more from Eric. I was considering hooking up with him. I liked sex, and the idea of having sex with dangerous Eric was a definite turn-on. If there hadn’t been the early call tomorrow—technically, today—I might have said yes regardless of my distrust of his motives.
Roland and I rehashed both of my conversations with Eric and agreed he knew something. What could it be? Where did he fit into this mystery?
Eric wanted something from me, had singled me out from the moment he’d entered the party room at Rockefeller Center earlier today. I still did not know what it was. I thought I had been clever, leading him along. He’d led me, instead. I didn’t say so to Roland, but once we’d clicked off, I fretted about my folly.
I had to cut myself a break. I had no experience with high-powered men. They thrived on discovering people’s weak spots and exploiting them for their own ends. Tomorrow was a new day.
I lay down in bed out of sheer exhaustion and hoped for a drea
mless sleep, still thinking about Eric. Another mistake.
Chapter 5
Wednesday late night
An apartment building burned as I had never seen anything burn, except in a movie. Huge flames shot out the windows on the first three floors. Nasty black smoke poured into the sky. I gasped and choked. My eyes watered.
Was I the only superheroine on duty? Where was the fire department?
I heard a woman scream. I knew she was trapped inside on the top floor, the only floor not yet engulfed. Sounds in a fire could be deceptive, seeming to come from one place when they came from another, but somehow I knew she was there.
I did not fly to her efficiently. The fire created strong winds that impaired my directional ability. Flames tried to push me back, away from the building. I feared their random leaps.
The woman appeared at the top window. I was her only hope. If she jumped, she would die. If she waited for the fire department, she would die. I must help her.
I flew toward her, knowing she couldn’t hear my shouts of reassurance. She looked terrified. Maybe I terrified her. Neither a flying woman nor a fire burning out of control belongs in a sane world. I flew closer, wobbling from the enormous winds created by the fire. I gestured to her, urging the woman up onto the ledge where I could reach her. The flames licked closer from inside. Fresh oxygen poured in the window, feeding them madly. I yelled, “Hang onto me,” as I grabbed the woman around her waist, and took off. Her weight impeded my flying. I almost dropped us both into the flames rising from the windows of the floor below. I veered away clumsily, fighting to control my flight pattern. When I got us safely to the ground, we collapsed on the hard pavement.
EMTs rushed over and took charge of the shaken woman. “You saved her when we couldn’t get near enough,” one said to me. “Good job.”
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