The Steel City Heroes Box Set: A Superhero/Urban Fantasy Collection (Books 1-3)

by LE Barbant

  An uncommon smile spread across his face. “A boy can dream. You know you’re always welcome here. Actually, it would be nice to have you come just to talk more often.”

  Willa felt the tension in her shoulders release. Those words might have been the kindest thing he had said to her for years. “What are you working on?” she asked.

  Something came over the man’s face that she had never seen before. It was indescribable, like a child on Christmas morning. “It is a personal project. Greek narrative forms as seen through popular cinema.”

  “Wow. I’d like to read that.”

  “Really? It doesn’t seem your style. I thought you are trying to edge toward those feminists.” His dour countenance returned.

  She forced a laugh, because she knew he expected one. “Even a feminist can appreciate the movies, just so long as they pass the Bechdel Test. But that’s not why I’m here. Something strange happened today.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “If you pay attention, something strange happens every day.”

  Willa ignored him. “A student was talking about, well, abilities.”

  “Abilities?” Edwin looked interested.

  “Yeah. He’s an undergrad, and has taken all my classes. But today he came to me and mentioned he thinks something strange is going on in Pittsburgh. He said he can see powers.”

  “And he thinks that with great power comes great responsibility?”

  “Something like that,” Willa said.

  She didn’t want to say too much to the old man. Fear kept her bound.

  “As you know, Willa, there are great powers in this world. Powers that are derived from many sources. Our Guild is just one of many that have tried to refine and direct the gifts we have been given. There are others too. It’s the magicians, though, who have come to understand that it is a skill and practice that is meant for a purpose and within certain boundaries.”

  Willa paused, choosing her words. “I like him. I told him I didn’t have powers and neither did he.”

  “There are times when we must transcend ethics, for the sake of purity. You likely did what was right.”

  Willa smoothed her dress across her legs and pulled the hem toward her knees. “What if he’s right, Grandpa? What if something started to happen here in Oakland, something bad? We can be a part of making a difference.”

  The old man rubbed his hands across his face, as if he were washing away sleep. “There will always be danger in this world, Willa—evil to confront and people to save. For generations, the Guild thought as you do, thought that we could make the world better. But experience has taught us that when we meddle in affairs outside of our own, it’s not the world that changes but us. The magic we practice is powerful, yes, but it is not incorruptible. The best we can do is keep the magic pure. It’s not meant for petty crime or making your class pay attention. Debasing it in those ways distorts its true purpose. We are preservers, Willa, not heroes.”

  She blushed at his last comment. In front of her grandfather, she felt as childish as Sean.

  Edwin continued. “There’s nothing coming to our city that the authorities can’t handle. Don’t allow your life to become like those romantic poets you love so much. Life, our lives at least, are about control. You need to control your desire.”

  But she couldn’t control herself. Willa’s empathy had always driven her, and it pulled on her emotions now.

  “But what if people are in danger? What if something terrible is happening now?”

  The man locked eyes with his granddaughter for the first time in a long time. “Then it will happen. It is not your concern.”

  And he turned back toward his books.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Elijah felt more at ease than he had since coming to Pittsburgh, but he wasn’t sure why.

  Brooke Alarawn sat across the table from him in a corner restaurant on Mount Washington. The room—warmly lit by hanging lamps—was small enough to feel homey, but large enough to afford some privacy.

  The smells of the Eastern European cuisine wafting through the room were strangely familiar and comforting. He smoothed the tablecloth in front of him with his left hand and looked up at Brooke. Unlike at their previous meetings, she looked like a normal twenty-eight-year-old. She was possibly even more stunning in jeans dressed up with a silk blouse.

  Elijah was pleased the table was set for only two. Rex had dropped him at the curb. The drive over from Oakland took some time, which Elijah had hoped would be useful. But his driver said nothing about the day at the mill. As soon as he picked Elijah up at Chem’s lab, the taciturn man turned on sports talk radio and addressed only the voices on the air. If he knew anything, he was keeping it to himself.

  “You know what you’re having?” The man looked like a retired KGB agent, dressed up as a waiter.

  “Would you order the lady an appetizer?” Brooke asked.

  Elijah scanned the menu; unfamiliar names jumped from the page. But when he ordered the Pastrmajlija the words came out as if he were a native speaker.

  The waiter raised his eyebrows. “Oh, nearly perfect.”

  Brooke laughed. “I didn’t see that coming. I thought your specialty was twentieth century American history.”

  No one was more surprised than Elijah himself. The words came out unbidden, as if he was a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Yeah,” Elijah said, scrambling for words. “I knew a guy in Boston. We went to these places all the time.”

  His subterfuge was improving.

  “You’re full of surprises, Dr. Branton.” Brooke’s eyes smiled in a way he hadn’t seen. His stomach churned.

  “And, speaking of surprises,” Brooke said, “what in the world happened to your face?”

  Elijah’s left hand instinctively came up to his jaw. “Absent-minded professor.”

  “Oh, this sounds interesting.”

  “Not so much,” Elijah said. “I was walking down Fifth, lost in my thoughts. I was making a few notes on my phone and ran straight into a street sign.” He grinned and looked at the table, hoping she would buy it.

  Brooke laughed. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Nope. Right into it. Consider it a mark of my dedication that I’m willing to sacrifice this pretty face for your job.”

  Brooke laughed again. “Quite a sacrifice. I’m starting to think that I’m doing the world a disservice.”

  The appetizer came; Elijah’s mouth watered. He wanted to swallow it whole.

  “I love finding these neighborhood places,” Brooke said. She scooped some of the bread pie onto a plate, and took a bite. “Oh, this is excellent.”

  Elijah took his own. “It’s decent; the lamb isn’t quite right.” He surprised himself again.

  “You’re a connoisseur?”

  “I dabble,” Elijah said.

  “So,” Brooke said between bites, “what did you find at our old mill? Anything interesting?”

  While the question was inevitable, Elijah still felt unprepared. He had stepped into one of the more difficult conversations of his life. There were vague images in his head, but for the most part, still no memory of the visit. “Some people say, if you’ve seen one old mill you’ve seen them all. But they have no idea what they’re talking about. It was really quite interesting, walking the grounds, moving through the building, and trying to picture all the stories that I’ve been reading about for weeks.”

  Brooke pushed her dish toward the center of the table. She was careful about her diet and it showed. “I’ve read a lot of those stories. And of course, my dad talked about his grandfather incessantly. There’s a lot of pride for the Alarawn family in that place. In the city, really. That’s what this project is about. I need you to reconstruct the narrative, show people all the things my company—my family—has done for the city. And what we will do.”

  Silence grew between them. Elijah began to sweat as he listened to his benefactor. His face flushed; he wondered if it was the food. Maybe the laceration was infected after a
ll. He fought the urge to scratch at the wound on his chest.

  Elijah watched Brooke’s lips move, hearing only some of what she was saying. “These days everyone focuses on the negatives: smog, accidents, exploitation, blah, blah, blah. It really is an inaccurate representation of what we’ve done. And that’s why…”

  The discomfort transformed into something else—anger. His face turned from warm to red-hot. Beads of sweat rolled down his back. Brooke Alarawn’s beauty vanished.

  She was grotesque.

  The woman stopped talking and stared at the historian, mouth slightly open. “You okay?” she stammered. “Your face, it’s…it’s changing.”

  Elijah stood, knocking over the chair behind him. Everyone in the restaurant turned. “I’m sorry, excuse me for a minute. I’m…I’m not feeling well.”

  Stumbling toward the bathroom, Elijah felt the pain in his legs increase. His head felt numb—tingling—like his blood was being drained. The men’s room was a tiny square with a single toilet. Thankful for the privacy, he ran cold water into cupped hands. With his face close to the sink, Elijah splashed water again and again. His eyes were on fire. He opened Chem’s “prescription” and swallowed three more pills.

  After several minutes, he returned to the dining room. Brooke was on her phone as if nothing ever happened. As soon as she looked up, the feelings—physical and emotional—returned. Trying to make the feeling go away again, Elijah gathered a fistful of his khakis and squeezed. Three paces from their table, Elijah knew he was going to pass out—or throw up.

  Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

  Someone.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The police scanner buzzed. It was a continual annoyance. But over the years, Chem had accustomed himself to its incessant squawking; its presence overhead had become a familiar thing. The crackling voices fashioned a common soundtrack to his many experiments. Chemistry, otherwise isolating, was punctuated by sounds of a world beyond his laboratory walls. His colleagues, who distrusted him anyway, considered the scanner unusual. But they were chemists; they all had their oddities. Chem let their curiosity devolve into the innocuous assumption that he merely had an interest in law enforcement.

  They remained unaware, however, of the scanner’s true purpose. The illicit nature of Chem’s side business demanded it. Coded responses emanating from the small black box alerted him of potential clients—his med bag prepped and ready for a rapid response. Knowledge was power, even—and perhaps especially—for the criminal.

  The chatter on the radio faded into the background as he studied the lab report. Typical blood work could take weeks to evaluate, but he stared at the analysis of blood he’d drawn only an hour previously. He was a firm believer in the power of a well-placed bribe, and he happened to know an underpaid lab tech who was willing to bend the rules. Having friends in the right places goes a long way, and Chem did all he could to never burn a bridge.

  “This can’t be right,” he said.

  The chemist went over the data again and a third time. In ways, it looked completely normal, but there was something in the blood that shouldn’t be there. Something not human. He leaned against the lab stool and closed his eyes.

  Did I place my trust in the wrong lab tech?

  In disbelief, Chem looked at the report again.

  The historian’s blood contained two things that shouldn’t be there. Things that were, for the most part, unknown to the scientist who had committed his life to this trade. One was a compound similar to the Baclofen that he recently “acquired” from the medical lab. But it was different, like nothing he’d ever seen before. Close enough to cause similar results, but also erratic. The other was vexing. As far as Chem could tell, it had the makeup of a typical VOC—a volatile organic compound. The chemist grabbed a clean slide and applied a drop of Elijah’s blood. Sliding it under the microscope, he focused on its composition. The elements that looked like a VOC now appeared similar to benzene, a compound released in the manufacturing of steel.

  Any VOC would be highly volatile, but Chem determined this one was off the charts.

  What are you doing here?

  He closed his eyes again and considered the mixture of the Baclofen, or whatever it was, and the VOC.

  He imagined the result of their mixture.

  “Holy shit. This is it.”

  Chem couldn’t help laughing like a madman. The answer to his project was swimming around in the blood of a historian from Boston.

  A voice on the scanner caught his attention.

  This is Dispatch. I need a car on Mount Washington to check out a report of an incident.

  10-4, Dispatch. This is 221, I’ll swing by. What’s the issue?

  Thanks, 221. Well, we got a call from a frantic citizen saying a man was out of control.

  Roger that. That time of the year, I guess.

  221, use caution—man described as a monster.

  [laughter] Monster? Repeat, Dispatch.

  That’s right. A monster. They said they watched him turn into, well, a monster.

  10-4. I’ll check it out.

  Chem grabbed his medical bag and ran for the door.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Willa Weil moved her lips. Elijah saw them, but the din of the restaurant and the pounding in his head masked the English professor’s words. She stared at him unblinkingly.

  His body grew hotter.

  What was in those drugs? Am I hallucinating? What the hell is she doing here?

  As he stood there, failing to make sense of it all, a different phenomenon struck him. Elijah felt his body changing. Pressure built from the inside—as if his blood were trying to escape through his skin.

  The pain was staggering.

  Brooke stared as well, but her face held a look of concern—or perhaps intrigue. The cell phone, which had held her attention, slipped out of her hands and tumbled to the floor. She paid it no heed. The rest of the crowd carried on as usual, as if the three of them were invisible.

  Elijah looked down at his forearms. His muscles heaved in rhythm with the pounding between his eyes. His flesh rippled.

  He didn’t know how, but the historian was certain that Willa was the cause. It clearly wasn’t food poisoning, and it was unlike any high he’d ever experienced. This woman was causing his body to change. And he had to make it stop.

  An inclination to scream overwhelmed him. The room blurred, then went dark.

  ****

  Where is he? Must find him. This form, this body, it is not me. Another. The pain, I can barely stand it. Pakao. But I must.

  A restaurant. They are all looking, all of these people. Their clothes, so odd.

  What is this?

  I need to get home, I need to get Adrijana. Wait, these are not my hands. I remember…on the job. It was nearly a victory, and then they did this.

  Her. She is one of them. Belongs to him. Comes from him.

  Jebi se. Kurvin sine.

  The pain is too much. Darkness comes again.

  ****

  Elijah came to with a knee on the concrete floor and a hand planted on a stranger’s table. The historian’s eyes burned, their temperature catching up with his skin. Everything appeared through a carmine filter—the world was turning red.

  Pushing himself to his feet took every ounce of energy. He winced; his own groan rang in his ears like a foghorn. The man at Elijah’s side pushed off his chair and scrambled away—under the table. All eyes were fastened on Elijah. Silence blanketed the room. There was nothing but the words of the adjunct professor he had only just met. Elijah knew nothing except that he needed to escape. The words had him, and he needed to break free. He was filled with a murderous rage.

  He fought the urge to attack Willa and pushed his pulsating body through the front door and onto the street. The frigid January air did nothing for the burning.

  Rex’s Lincoln was parked on the curb to the left. Elijah turned right. Moving his legs was impossible. Fear p
ropelled him forward. He stumbled. A road sign caught him and barely held him up. The sound of sizzling condensation surrounded him. The metal softened beneath his fingers as the sign bent and fell to the ground.

  The war of emotions was over; rage had won—or perhaps he had given himself over to it. Throbbing replaced the fear. He welcomed the hurt.

  Elijah reached down and clutched a City Paper box in both hands and pulled. His strength shocked him. He hurled it down an empty street and watched it tumble. Without thinking, he yelled, releasing anger from a century of loss. The last thing he saw, as the world turned to black, was Willa. With one hand raised, she chanted and walked in his direction.

  ****

  I need to fix this. They must be stopped—destroyed.

  Her. I need to get to her.

  To kill her.

  She is all now. All there is of the man who did this to me—to us—to our city.

  Strength. I feel it. The pakao is power. The old way, how did I ever doubt it? We were so naïve. Organize and compromise. Weakness.

  This is power.

  And they gave it to me—now they will pay. I am zduhać. I am but a small piece. His penance will be for the multitude. For every drop of blood, for every life squandered, for every child who goes to bed with nothing but a faint memory of a father he hardly knew—they will pay.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Magnus, the neighbor’s pit bull, was eighty pounds of terror. Willa was pretty sure the dog was half-demon. The beast would spit rage while throwing its frame against their fence. Its owner thought Magnus was cute. Willa’s father did not. He had told the neighbors that if they didn’t take care of the “dog problem,” he would. Weil always got what he wanted. Until Magnus.

  Willa was in the backyard playing on a massive jungle gym her dad had built in a day’s time. It was her thirteenth birthday present. The monstrosity was more a fortress than a swing set. Friends from school looked at it wide-eyed, like kids at Disneyland. Willa barely paused for cake and ice cream. All she wanted was to swing and climb. Her father, a skilled carpenter and a master engineer, designed it himself. And he knew exactly what would make his daughter happy. The tree house on the top of the new installation had spires like a mini version of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. She felt like a princess.