Heroes Without, Monsters Within

by Sheryl Nantus

  I walked into the crowd, looking for Lamarr. If I could get the jump on him, maybe I could defuse the situation.

  “Hello, Jo.”

  I spun around, careful not to lift my hands from my sides.

  Lamarr stood five feet away from me, hands in his pockets and looking at me with a smile that morphed into a leer. The crowd shifted away from him and stared up at the neon explosions.

  He tilted his head to one side. “Shall we begin?”

  Chapter Five

  I held my ground. You don’t survive working part-time at a daycare without having some cojones. Of course, I’d only lasted an afternoon, but the point was I didn’t flinch easily.

  “Brian.”

  He wasn’t much taller than I was, with shaggy bright red hair that could have come out of a bottle brushing his shoulders and daring me to cut it. The T-shirt had some sort of faded saying which I couldn’t make out, being black ink on the dark brown fabric. A pair of well-worn jeans finished up the outfit. In his mid-twenties and ready to take on the world. Just what I needed.

  I nodded towards the nearby casinos, the usually blinding lights now partially dimmed for the overhead show. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Lamarr laughed. “You were serious about that?”

  I grinned and spread my arms, trying to look as vulnerable as possible. “Serious. I don’t want to get into a fight with you. We’re all victims here; we all got fucked over by the Agency.”

  His face darkened on the last word. “Bastards.” He turned his head and spat on the ground. “My Guardian was a bastard. Told me it was my duty to fight, to give them a good show.” One side of his mouth twitched upwards. “Sort of enjoyed killing him. No Guardian like a dead Guardian.”

  I didn’t rise to the bait. “There were a lot of bad Guardians.” Overhead a series of women pranced by in a chorus line. “I’m not going to defend them.” A gasp went up from the crowd around us as the jets returned. “But you don’t have to play the bad guy anymore. You can do whatever you want.” I put my hands behind my back, rocking on my heels.

  A jovial look emerged. “And what if I want to be bad? What if I want a million dollars or I’ll take out the Western seaboard?” He pulled his hands free of his pockets. “What are you going to do?” His fingers twitched, each coming up in turn to touch a thumb as if he were going through a countdown.

  “I’ll do what I have to.” I stared at him with my best poker face. “Hell, I took down a fucking alien invasion when all the Alphas couldn’t do it, Brian. You really want to see what I can do?”

  My gloved hands pressed against the base of my spine. I’d been charging up from the second I’d landed. Momma didn’t raise no idiots.

  His eyes locked with mine, the cold blue orbs daring me to flinch. I saw his hands move faster, the fingers flicking up and down. His expressions alternated between fear, anger and something I recognized at the last minute as cocky confidence.

  Lamarr dropped to one knee and pressed his palms against the ground, his fingers still playing invisible piano keys.

  Above us another burst of artificial fireworks on the screen signaled the end of the show. The crowd encircling us shuffled around as the bright lights overhead dimmed and the casino lights began to come up, the old cowboy to my left starting to spark and wave at me.

  With a shock I realized it wasn’t the people that were moving.

  The paving stones under my feet stirred so slightly that if I hadn’t been looking for it I wouldn’t have noticed it. It was like the ground shimmered, rocking me like I’d gotten up too quickly after a good round of drinking.

  I didn’t blink. My hips shifted a fraction, letting me ride out the light tremors. Just like working a skateboard.

  Lamarr’s eyes opened wider, a sneer moving onto his lips. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’ve had a better offer.”

  My hands came around, palms facing the jerk. He’d fired first, as far as I was concerned, and all bets were off.

  The bolts flew from my hands as the stones under my feet shot upward, flinging me into the sky. The world turned upside down as I scrambled for a foothold, airhold, whatever you could call it when you’re tumbling end over end and trying not to crash into the ground or giant flashing cowboys or anything else.

  “GroundPounder.” Steve’s roar ripped through the panicky screams and yells. It was a bit overdramatic, to be honest. I wondered as I flailed for control if anyone was taping this for YouTube, and if they’d put down a soundtrack. Right now I felt the Laurel and Hardy theme would work just fine.

  I managed to steady myself in midair, right side up, and look around. The crowd had scattered, heading into the casinos, running along the street, anything to get away from the mini-quake. The slab of stone still stabbed upwards, with Lamarr crouched nearby.

  Steve wrapped his arms around the makeshift pillar and ripped it from the ground. His silver and brown arms shone with sweat, catching the flashing lights and dancing the colors back.

  He tossed the tower at Lamarr with an angry yell, cursing in a foreign language as he charged at the earthmover.

  Lamarr smirked and twisted his palms against the ground, fingers tapping out another song. A second stone mountain shot up a few feet in front of him, intercepting the projectile.

  Lamarr’s fingers flexed again. The remaining bricks in front of him buckled and twisted, the domino effect pushing him down the street and away from us. Steve froze in place before being tossed backwards, under where I hovered.

  The paving-stone pillar slammed into the grounded obelisk and shivered for a second before crashing and splintering into a thousand small pieces of shrapnel. Instead of flying in the opposite direction, towards us, the lethal stone daggers whirled around and spun out in every direction, a full three hundred and sixty degrees of death.

  “Steve,” I yelled. “Protect the civilians.” I stayed in the air, not daring to let my feet touch the ground. Something was wrong with this attack. This was beyond what Lamarr could do. I just had to survive long enough to figure out what was going on.

  “Yes, civilians.” Lamarr chortled. “Can’t let the little people get hurt now, can we?” He looked to one side and flicked his fingers. One of the large steel towers holding up part of the mammoth canopy overhead shifted, the bricks around the bottom of the support bursting like popped balloons.

  “Son of a bitch.” I fired off double bolts from my hand as I charged the punk, alternating my shots. One electric bolt shattered the ground just in front of Lamarr, forcing him to stand up and retreat a step.

  Steve leapt to his left, landing at the base of the support tower. He wrapped his mammoth arms around it and let out a rumbling groan as he embraced the tilting steel. The silver veins on his arms stretched and twisted, flowing over his skin with the neon lights bouncing off them.

  A shout went out, a series of yelps. No, howls. I looked to my left to see a pack of mangy sandy-colored coyotes charging towards Lamarr, their yellowed teeth bared. They leapt up as I laid down another series of blasts, trying to cut off any retreat for the super without shooting the animals. Just one hit would affect him like a taser, short-circuiting his body and dropping the little bastard like a stone.

  Of course, I had to hit him first. I swayed sideways, buffeted by strong gusts of wind that couldn’t be natural. It felt like being drunk and trying to shoot the target with the broken popgun at the carnival.

  Steve groaned again as he pushed the leaning support down, jamming it past the original cement base. It wobbled for a second before steadying itself. It wasn’t a great solution, but it bought enough time for the rest of the civilians to get out of the way.

  Lamarr crouched and pressed his right hand to the ground. A jerk of a finger yanked a stone wall out of the tiles to stop the coyote pack in mid-jump, the poor animals slamming into the barrier at full run. They fell in a dazed heap. One got to his feet and shook his head from side to side, mimicking my inner thoughts. A second later the coyote flew to the right and sm
ashed into a display booth. Glass dragons and tigers crashed and shattered, the tinkling noise of broken glass adding to the mayhem.

  Lamarr stood up and looked at me, a sneer on his lips.

  “My ride’s here and my job’s done. Later.”

  A roaring filled my ears. I spun around to see a small twister, a whirlwind racing down the center of Fremont Street towards me. It snatched up the vending carts, the loose billboards advertising CHEAP BLACKJACK, and garbage cans, whirling them around at a furious rate. Bits and pieces of debris crashed into the lit signs, poking out glass letters and sending sparks everywhere. The smell of burnt plastic grew as it continued its rampage.

  “Steve.” I swooped down and grabbed the man’s right hand, pulling him up and away from the base of the pillar. The tower shuddered once but didn’t move. If we could get enough altitude and get clear of the buildings, we could avoid ramming the casinos. Steve had steel skin, but I knew I couldn’t take that sort of impact.

  The raging winds slapped against me, making it hard to move upwards. I fought to stay in the center of the street, giving it all I had to avoid falling.

  “What is that?” Steve yelled over the rising din.

  “I don’t know.” I spotted the coyotes running away in all directions. Some limped and others were bleeding, but no bodies were left behind. I couldn’t imagine how guilty Peter would feel if some of them died.

  Lamarr just stood there with an arrogant smirk on his face.

  “He’s got something to do with this,” Steve said. His hand tightened around mine, almost painfully so. “Toss me at the little bastard.”

  I nodded. We’d discussed this move before but hadn’t even practiced it, leaving it to later. Except that later was now, and there was no room for error. I fought to move forward and get closer to Lamarr. Steve swung at the end of my grip, readying himself to drop like a meteor on the super.

  Lamarr glanced up at the approaching whirlwind with a look of reverence on his face. I lifted my other hand, preparing to take a shot at the grinning fool as I readied myself to release Steve.

  Something caught me around the waist, a light soft touch that tightened to the point of pain, stopping me in midair. I gasped as I jerked to a stop, calling on my last reserves of strength to stay airborne. Steve hung below me, still clutching my hand.

  “Son of a…” Steve exhaled as the unknown force turned us both to face the oncoming storm.

  A figure materialized at the center of the spiraling debris, staring at us. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, if that. Tall, blonde and obviously able to manipulate air. Her face spiraled through a series of emotions—fear, panic and for an instant I saw utter confusion make a showing.

  I had no idea who she was.

  Except that she was a super and not on our side.

  My stomach did a flip-flop, threatening to return the creampuff et al in force.

  The invisible rope around my waist shifted upward, pushing on my chest. It tightened and started to spin us, quick and fast. I remembered going through something like this before, skating on the local rink and being at the end of a long, long line of skaters, going faster and faster until the momentum snapped me off and away into the boards with bone-crushing force.

  I thought about putting down some shots, but there was no way to guarantee I’d hit the woman instead of fleeing tourists. I couldn’t take the risk. Instead, I gritted my teeth and hung onto Steve, my hand lost in his mammoth grip.

  The controlled spin stopped with a loud pop, sending us twisting away towards the ground.

  The world whirled again with the same sensation as on the skating rink, but I wasn’t going to hit any wooden boards and skid to a stop on a sore and cold ass. A pair of strong arms wrapped across my back, pulling me into a tight hug.

  “Hang on,” Steve shouted in my ear as he curled himself around me. He smelt of cigar smoke, whiskey and a bit of sweetness I recognized as cinnamon candy, just before everything went black.

  Heaven smelled a lot like man sweat and felt like being hugged to death.

  I lifted my face from Steve’s chest. We were lying in a small man-sized crater in the middle of Fremont Street with no sign of Lamarr or the mysterious whirlwind.

  A rumbling chuckle came from under me. “Girl, you need to eat more. You’re as light as a feather. Surprised Metal Mike didn’t crush you.”

  I looked into his grinning face. “How do you know I wasn’t on top?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” he replied. “But you better get going. I don’t want Hunter to get mad at me for touching his girl.” He squeezed my waist and snickered.

  I laughed as I rolled off to one side, a little dizzy. It took a second to crawl out of the crater, and I surveyed the scene from my knees, not trusting my legs right away.

  The supporting pillar for the overhead canopy of lights leaned to one side, outwards, away from the street itself. But it was holding, and that was the important thing. A few bulbs fell from the artificial sky in odd spots, sounding like gunshots when they hit the ground. A few brave people ventured out of the casinos and stores into the street, at least until the bulbs fell and sent them scurrying back inside. Sirens sounded from all directions, the high-pitched whine matching the sobbing and screaming coming out of the shadows.

  Steve pulled himself out of the crater. He slapped both ears with the palms of his hands and shook his head. “I always hated merry-go-rounds.”

  Peter stood in one of the doorways. He staggered towards us and pointed back at an opening.

  “I didn’t… Hunter…” he stuttered, his face paler than usual.

  It was only then that I noticed the bloody smears on his front. The pristine white shirt was speckled with scarlet blotches, jagged tears breaking up the tie-dye design.

  “Are you hurt?” I fought my way towards him, legs feeling like rubber.

  He stared down at the torn shirt with a puzzled expression, then at me.

  “No,” he wheezed. “It’s not mine.”

  I scrambled over pieces of jagged cement, half-running, half-crawling towards the building. Peter yelled past me at Steve, his lips moving although I couldn’t hear what he was saying through the pounding in my ears.

  I got through the doorway and forced down a rush of nausea, the result of my ride with Steve. My hand went down on a slippery varnished wooden rail, fingers clutching at the support to keep me upright.

  It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. Shadows moved past me without speaking, dark ghosts rushing to and fro. A hand brushed against my arm, but I didn’t turn, my attention focused a few feet ahead.

  A slot machine lay on its side, the flashing lights sending an eerie glow over the body lying on the floor. A young woman, in her early twenties, crouched at his side. She squinted at me, hiccupping as she fought for control. Her pink “Check out my Slots!” shirt was more red than pink, the bloodstains destroying the three cherry symbols.

  “He jumped in front of me,” she stammered. Her hands fumbled to pull long dark strands of hair from her mouth. “He saved my life.” The woman stood up and took a step backwards, stumbling over a thick black cable protruding from the slot machine. “He did.”

  I dropped to my knees beside Hunter. Numbness crept through my bones, threatening to paralyze me in that position forever.

  He smiled as he focused on my face, the black pupils narrowing. “Hey.” A clear bubble of air escaped between his lips. “Looking good, Jo.”

  A jagged shard of cement protruded from the left side of his chest, almost an inch thick. I couldn’t see how far in it went but it sure wasn’t going to fall out on its own.

  He lifted his left hand, his fingers trembling with the effort.

  I tore off my gloves and grabbed his hand, held it, channeled all my remaining strength into that one touch. “God, Hunter.” The numbness changed into a thousand needles stabbing me.

  “Don’t.” The strength in his voice poured heat along my hand
. “Don’t feel guilty. We followed you up here and got into it when it seemed like you were in danger. Remember the first rule.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “There’s a second rogue super. Lamarr must be working with him or her.” He turned his head to one side and coughed. Specks of blood dotted the green carpet under him. “I tink I bith my tongth.” He stuck out the offending body part. “Can you sees?”

  “It’s a small cut.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the grey shaft stuck in his chest. “You’ll live.”

  Blood oozed out of the chest wound, soaking through the thin fabric of Hunter’s shirt.

  He let out a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, it’s just a flesh wound. You need to get back to the Lair and get Jessie working on finding this new super. Not too many have that skill. Shouldn’t be hard to track him down.”

  “Stop talking.” I touched his cheek with my other hand. My fingers drew dark streaks in the white powder coating his skin. “Save your strength.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Hunter repeated, his tone growing harsher. “Listen, this is important. We’re all in danger now. All of us.”

  I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice. “You’ve got a fucking shard of concrete stuck in your chest and you’re worried about us?”

  “Listen.” He pulled my hand down to his mouth, the vibrations from his words shooting through my skin. “Listen to me. We lost. Say it.”

  “We lost,” I repeated, my mind racing as his lips brushed against my palm.

  “The Protectors lost in public.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Now the public knows you can be beaten. Now the government knows there’s stronger supers out there, stronger teams that survived and aren’t the good guys.” He drew a shallow breath. “The government won’t stand for that. The public won’t.”

  The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach grew into a bottomless chasm. A roaring filled my ears, and I shot into reality with a resounding thud.

  It was like someone turned on the volume switch. Suddenly I was surrounded by people yelling orders and crying and moaning and screaming for help.