‘Keys are in the ignition,’ Andrea commented as they looked in the cab.
‘And no one has stolen it. Can’t have been here long.’ She pulled off a glove and used it to open the door. There was no indication of ownership, nothing to tell who the driver was or what had happened to him. She pulled the single key on a basic, leather fob and walked around to the back.
‘Might be rigged,’ Andrea said as Twilight inserted the key.
‘Good point…’ She turned the key over and got no immediate response, and then backed off to one side and used her scabbard to push the lever handle down. The door bounced open an inch and there was still no explosion. ‘Well… so far so good.’ She stepped around the door and pulled it open.
‘Oh shit,’ Andrea said, her voice sounding flat.
‘Yeah…’ Twilight agreed, mumbling the word aloud. She was seeing what Andrea was seeing and she felt that the short phrase did not quite cover it.
There was a body hung by ropes from the ceiling of the van. The interior walls were more or less painted in blood, but that was hardly surprising given that there was no skin on the corpse and there was a long wound in its throat, cutting from one side to the other all the way down to the bone. The only reason the head was still attached was that it was wedged firmly between the stretched arms.
Blood began to drip, very slowly, onto the tarmac at her feet and Twilight stepped back, fishing her radio from her boot. It was circumstantial at this point, but it looked like their serial killer had taken another victim.
Part Three: Poker Face
New Millennium City, MD, 4th May, 2014.
Twilight sat cross-legged on the kerb at the side of the road a hundred yards from the van, which was now crawling with crime scene people in white bunny suits. Another hundred yards away a cordon of uniformed cops was holding back a gathering crowd and a lot of press and cameras. A number of them had tried to get a comment from Cygnus when she flew in, but she was saying nothing and had taken up position beside her partner, waiting for the detective in charge of the case to come over. He had told Twilight she should stay put and was taking his own sweet time about talking to her.
‘That him?’ Cygnus asked as a tall, muscular man with short-cropped, sandy hair started toward them with a dark expression on his face.
‘Uh-huh, Detective Silvian.’ Twilight watched him approaching. He had some sort of hand cannon in a shoulder holster, she was willing to bet it was a .44 Magnum automatic, and from the way his trouser leg hung, he had a backup piece in a holster on his ankle. The body tone and the way he used it as he walked suggested he liked throwing his weight around and the excessive armament told the same story. This was probably not a nice man.
‘So, you just happened to be passing,’ Silvian said without preamble, ‘saw a parked van, opened it up, and found a body in it?’
‘Good start,’ Andrea commented.
‘Pretty much. It looked wrong.’ Twilight remained on the ground, even if that meant looking up at the towering detective. She did not feel like letting him ruffle her.
‘Looked wrong?’
‘You never get gut feelings, Detective? Last time I saw something like that a policeman was shot by the guy inside it. I wasn’t risking lives by letting some guy open the door first.’
Silvian gave a grunt, looking back toward the van. Then he said, ‘We’ll need that sword to check for blood.’
‘No, you really don’t.’
There was a triumphant glint in his eyes when he turned back to scowl at her. ‘You’re refusing to provide evidence linked to a murder investigation?’
Now Twilight got to her feet. ‘I’m refusing to hand over my sword unless you have reasonable cause to suspect it was used on that body. Have you ever skinned anything, Detective? A sword is not the most useful tool for that kind of job, and I don’t carry a knife.’
‘Hand over the sword, or I’m placing you…’ He stopped as Cygnus pulled her tiny phone from her boot and lifted it to place in her ear. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Calling the UID,’ Cygnus replied blandly.
‘What?’
‘You’ve clearly determined that an Ultra is responsible for these murders. That places it in their jurisdiction. I assume that you’ll be turning the case over to them as soon as you’ve arrested my partner, but I figured I’d save you the trouble and call it in myself. And then I thought I’d go explain to the press over there why you’ve just arrested Twilight–’
‘I need to get the sword tested to eliminate her from the enquiry,’ Silvian growled. ‘There is no solid evidence of an Ultra being involved at this time.’
‘Get some,’ Twilight told him, ‘and I’ll bring this in myself.’
‘You could’ve cleaned–’
‘Yeah, about that. You see any blood on me? That van is swimming in it so the killer must have been covered head to foot. And if I’m not then I either found the body, like I said, or I’ve had a lot of showers, and you really think I wouldn’t have cleaned the sword too?’
‘She’s very meticulous with that sword, Detective,’ Cygnus put in. ‘I’ve seen her spend an hour going over every bit of it. Not in the last couple of days, mind.’
‘I haven’t had to use it recently,’ Twilight said, shrugging.
‘If you’d like to throw around a few more baseless allegations while I’m here as a witness, I know a few good lawyers who can make sure you spend the rest of your career as a crossing guard.’ Cygnus gave him her best smile.
Silvian gave a grunt of disgust and stalked off back toward the van. They both heard him muttering something about ‘freaks’ as he left.
‘People like him make me want to smash something,’ Cygnus grumbled. ‘Let’s go home.’
Twilight nodded and the shadows from the street lamps thickened around her. ‘I’ll see you there,’ she said before dropping into the darkness.
~~~
‘He was fun, but not my best work,’ Diamond commented.
‘Two days before he died,’ Rex said. ‘That’s pretty good.’
‘Yes… Though there was that nice young woman in Austin. Five days. Now that was a real thrill.’
‘She was an Ultra, Diamond. You can’t expect a normal to last like that.’
‘True.’ She sighed and sank onto the bed, lying back and smiling up at the big man. ‘How is your other little project going?’
‘I planted a couple of ideas that should get that comedian you like down here. I don’t expect him to get away with much before he’s nailed, but it should be amusing.’
‘Slapstick? Oh, perfect. Just make sure he doesn’t know where we are. Poor man just doesn’t know when he’s taken a joke too far.’
Rex nodded. ‘I also invited Jane over from LA. I thought you’d want to meet her rather than one of us.’
Diamond’s nose wrinkled. ‘Yes. Can’t stand the girl. Too dense for her own good, but we can drop her among some pigeons and see what she can do with them.’
‘Any pigeons in particular?’
‘Oh… I’m sure I’ll think of something. Who did you say had been assigned to my case?’
6th May.
A small, dishevelled-looking man in a scruffy black suit and bowler hat, wearing a small, obviously fake, moustache and pale face paint tended to attract a little attention as he waddled through the security gates coming from a flight from Bangor. It was generally amused attention, however. Even the security people smiled as the Chaplin impersonator made his way toward the concourse.
And then the attention was gone as people began to collapse around the airport. Limbs began to spasm uncontrollably, and then they would fall. Medics rushed out to handle the problem, but were quickly overwhelmed by the numbers. Around eighty people were affected and most of those were dead before they could be taken to ambulances, their bodies contorted as their muscles tightened and locked in some sort of bizarre, pre-death rigor mortis.
No one who saw them could forget them either, because every
single one of them was wearing a broad, manic smile, and the sight of it suggested one horrible fact…
~~~
‘Slapstick?’ Penny said to the speakerphone. ‘Slapstick is in town?’
‘We’re putting a warning out on UltraNet,’ Heather said, ‘but I figured I’d call you directly. You know, since you’re the protector of New Millennium and all.’
‘Thanks,’ Penny replied sourly.
‘Your voice sounds funny.’
‘Speakerphones will do that. No one’s seen him, I assume?’
‘There were some reports of a Charlie Chaplin lookalike in the airport before people started collapsing. We’ve tracked all the victims to a plane which flew in from Bangor, so it looks like he gassed them on the flight. They’re issuing antidote syringes to the cops, but you should watch yourself. That gas is only really useful in a confined space and it takes prolonged exposure to have an effect, but still…’
‘I’ll tell Twilight. This isn’t good. The guy’s a menace. How come he’s not locked up?’
‘He’s bloody difficult to catch! He’s damn clever, and he doesn’t stay dead.’
‘At least he’s a relatively known quantity.’
‘Huh. I wish. Guy’s got a mind like a bag of cats.’
~~~
Penny decided that Cygnus should be the one to visit Radium Comics; the staff had met her before and there might be questions if Penny turned up to tell Andrea about the new problem. Roger looked like the sun had just come out as she walked in wearing a cropped T-shirt and tight jeans, but that had been expected and Cygnus just smiled and said she needed to speak to Andrea, urgently.
‘Slapstick?’ Andrea groaned. ‘Oh… crap.’
‘I figured you might know more about him,’ Cygnus said. ‘He’s supposed to be a comic nut, right?’
‘Kind of. He loves comics, sure, but he idolises the villains. He likes the clever ones, the ones who trick the heroes. Thankfully he’s never quite managed to emulate the worst of them, but he tries really hard. And he’s madder than–’
‘A bag of cats?’
‘Please don’t make jokes. With Slapstick in town, we’re going to get really sick of jokes, really fast.’
7th May.
‘We’ve had ten deaths and twenty-three hospitalised since this morning,’ Penny said as Andrea poured herself a mug of coffee. ‘He’s been putting canisters of that damn gas on buses.’
‘He’s just playing,’ Andrea replied. ‘Killing a few people like that is a great prank, but not a big enough punchline. He’ll be working up to something major.’
‘So how do we stop him? The transport authority has put gas detectors on the buses and the O, so that should stop that trick, but what’s next?’
‘We wait. We’re the big names in the city’s hero community. He likes to play to the crowd, face off against the top dogs. He’ll come to us. Not directly, but there’ll be something aimed at getting our attention and pulling us into whatever perverse gag he’s got planned. Remember he lives to emulate his heroes.’
‘And his heroes are into riddles, jokes, and killing people.’
‘Yeah. The main problem is that he’s bat-shit crazy, but he’s also extremely intelligent. He’s not going to be easy to take down. Don’t pull your punches.’
‘He’s supposed to be unkillable, right?’
Andrea nodded and sucked down half her mug of coffee. ‘He was in New York when Magmatic roasted the place. There were witnesses to him being swallowed by lava.’
‘And he came back.’
‘Uh-huh. You might kill him with a punch, but he’ll come back eventually.’
Penny sighed. ‘So we patrol and hope?’
‘Yeah. We patrol and hope.’
~~~
‘I do hope you had a nice flight, sweetie,’ Diamond said as the plain-looking, dusky-blonde walked into the room. They were meeting in a motel on the north side of the city, well away from the knaves, and that seemed to be irritating the newcomer more than anything.
‘It was fine. Male flight attendant.’
Diamond smiled. ‘Plain Jane, always a hit with the boys.’
‘You’re not exactly bad yourself.’
‘Oh, nothing like you, hun, and you know it. No sense in being modest.’
Jane preened a little. ‘What am I doing here, Diamond? And why didn’t Rex meet me?’
‘Well, you know why I wanted to meet you myself, and as for the first question… Well, you’re going to be my poker face.’
Sitting down in one of the straight-backed office chairs the motel provided at very little cost, from the look of them, Jane frowned. ‘As usual, the card thing is getting in the way. What are you talking about?’
‘When you’re playing poker, the last thing you want is for the other players to know what you’re holding. They can’t see the cards so they have to work from your expression. You can’t let them get anything from that, so you put on a poker face.’
‘I know what the term means.’
‘Good.’ Diamond had no illusions regarding the brain power of the woman she was talking to. Jane got by on a special talent which did not require much intelligence. ‘So you’re going to keep all the other players distracted while I get ready to call. You’re going to be my poker face so I can do as I wish behind you. You stay away from my boys while you’re doing it, mind. I see one of them wearing a stupid grin and they’ll find you floating in the bay. But don’t worry. I’ve got something else coming up you’re going to absolutely love.’
‘And how, exactly, do you want me to distract these “other players?”’
Diamond smiled warmly. ‘There’s a detective I want you to go see…’
8th May.
Mark Silvian was having a fairly typical day, which meant he was sitting in a bar at the end of it nursing a drink. His captain had chewed him out for asking questions of a drug dealer in Deale. Okay, so the dealer was in traction, but the guy was scum. If it had been that Cygnus broad doing the beating, there would have been nothing said, but since he was normal…
‘Why the sad face, handsome?’
Silvian turned his head to tell the hooker to fuck off and the words caught in his throat. Settling onto the stool beside him was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Tall, long legs, the kind of honey-blonde hair that glowed, and eyes so blue you could drown in them. The Cygnus girl actually looked better, if he was being really honest, but this one was not a freak.
‘Uh, bad day,’ Silvian replied.
‘Damn shame. I’m Jane.’
‘Mark.’
‘Hello, Mark. Tell you what, you buy me a drink and then you can tell me all about your bad day. And then we’ll see if I can’t brighten it up for you a little. How about that?’
‘I think I’d like that.’
~~~
Cops were not Jane’s style. Too smart for one thing, though this one was not the brightest of the bunch and his macho tendencies were easy to play to. There had never been a cop, a male cop, who she could not wrap around her fingers, but they took more effort than she liked.
Criminals were different. She loved criminals. Always had. Criminals did what they wanted and ignored all those petty little rules. Like the ones that said Jane was not allowed to have anything she desired just because she had no money to pay for it. Criminals, especially the low-end ones Jane liked to prey on, were also dumb. One of the irritating things about Diamond’s knaves was that they were bright enough to know to stay away from Jane, but with most it was another matter. Jane’s power tended to make the dumb ones really happy to do whatever she wanted. But what Diamond had her doing now was just plain painful.
‘It’s the Ultras,’ Silvian muttered from across the booth they had retired to. ‘Creepy bastards can do whatever they like and get away with it. I beat up one… a few dealers and I get reprimanded.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Jane agreed. To Silvian it sounded as though an angel was sympathising
with him.
‘There’s this one, Twilight. I know she’s got something to do with these murders. Bitch wouldn’t hand over her sword, but then if I do pull her in for questioning, I’ll have the UID up my ass… Uh, pardon my language.’
‘It’s fine, Mark. I understand. I really do. Ultrahumans creep me out. I mean, you never know, do you? There could be one sitting right here in this bar. They could be reading our thoughts. They could be sneaking in and watching me in the shower! You’re never safe. There’s one killing people on buses now.’
‘Slapstick? That whack job is just the cherry on the cake. I’d never let him hurt you though.’
‘You wouldn’t? Oh… My hero. Do you think you could walk me back to my apartment? I’d feel so much safer.’
The big detective sat up straighter and pushed his chest out. ‘Of course. All part of the job.’
~~~
‘Yeah, I made contact. Guy’s a creep.’ The apartment was not the best around; it was in Friendship for starters. The place was clean and furnished, and Diamond had promised something better in a week or two.
‘Will he go after Twilight?’ Diamond asked, her voice sounded a little muffled on the phone, but Jane could not be sure why.
‘Eventually.’
‘Eventually? I’m on a schedule, Jane.’
‘You want him thinking it’s his idea, don’t you? It takes time. I’ll push him as hard as I can. He does think she’s involved with your case.’
‘Huh. Did you sleep with him yet?’
‘Of course not! Never on a first date. Besides, he’s the decent type and I was wearing a nice dress. I’m seeing him again tomorrow. I’ll be wearing something sexier, and he still won’t get a taste. He’ll be begging by the third.’
‘Might I suggest a strategy?’
‘I know what I’m doing, Diamond.’
‘Yes, but Detective Silvian thinks Twilight is a serial killer, so what if he thought she was stalking you? Call him up after seeing someone watching you from across the street.’
Shadows (Ultrahumans Book 2) Page 14
