Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  The double doors led to a small foyer. On the left wall were two small unlabelled metal mailboxes set into the wall. Neither looked like they'd been used for years. Under them was a small radiator, and there was a big pile of mail on top of the metal radiator cover. The single interior door was large and wooden, with more etched glass in a similar design to what was on the front; it was also ajar.

  Fontaine nudged the door open with her left foot, the Beretta still at the ready.

  The hallway had a dark wooden staircase leading upward, a small hallway to the right of the staircase with what appeared to be a closet door at the end, and a large metal door on the right. The latter had obviously been a more recent addition, as the gray metal didn't match the dark brown wood of the rest of the décor. Like the interior door, it was ajar. A golden tabby cat was curled up in the far corner next to the closet. Baptiste figured this to be the cat that the Hsu woman had mentioned. It probably had made a break for freedom through the partly open door.

  Baptiste was liking this less and less.

  Fontaine stood back a distance from the door. Baptiste called out, "Ms. Ankhmeni? This is the police. Are you home?"

  All Baptiste could hear inside was a strange rustling sound. The cat woke up at the sound of Baptiste's voice, lifted its head, then settled back down into its nap.

  He looked at Fontaine, who nodded. Both officers undid the safeties on the slides of their respective Berettas.

  Kicking the door the rest of the way open, Baptiste went in.

  The metal door led into a big living room, with windows on the right that looked out onto 82nd Street. To the left was a large entryway that led to the dining room, which had a window that looked into the airshaft between this building and the brownstone next door. A small door on the side of the dining room led to a hallway that took you to the rear of the apartment—presumably the bedrooms and bathroom. Matching furniture covered in plastic slipcovers made Baptiste feel as if he'd entered a time-warp. Some of the ugliest abstract paintings he had ever seen in his life hung on the walls between the windows.

  Now the rustling sound was louder, and seemed to be coming from the dining room area.

  Fontaine pointed at the entryway to the dining room and moved past the slipcovered couch.

  Baptiste looked in to see a small, round dining-room table and a china closet in a room that opened on the near end to the living room and the far end to the kitchen.

  Between the dining room and the china closet, he saw a large man covered in feathers kneeling over a bloody, messy female figure. He'd seen the former before, on Tuesday in an alley off Esposito.

  Jesus shit!

  Everything happened very quickly after that.

  Fontaine cried out "Fuck!" as soon as she saw the Claw and what was probably the dead body of Joan Ankhmeni.

  The Claw leapt up toward the living room, going from a kneeling position to airborne in less than a second.

  Baptiste found himself deafened by the reports of two Berettas throwing multiple shots. In fact, he didn't consciously register that his finger had squeezed on the trigger until he heard the noise in his ears.

  Turning in midair toward Fontaine, the Claw landed on Baptiste's partner.

  Now Baptiste hesitated, the bitter taste of almonds in his mouth, as the Claw was right on top of Fontaine, and Baptiste couldn't fire without risking hitting her.

  The Claw swiped at Fontaine's throat with a taloned hand, and blood spurted in all directions.

  "No!" Baptiste screamed and then started squeezing the trigger again and again, continuing to throw shots into the Claw, until the clip emptied and the Beretta's slide tore into his hand.

  Dropping the Beretta in shock from the pain of the slide, Baptiste reached for his billy club. He was having trouble breathing and his chest was tight, but he was goddammit going to do his job and do what he could to stop the Claw from—

  He realized as he yanked his club out from its strap on his belt that neither the Claw nor Fontaine were moving, as both were in a bloody heap on the floor.

  For several seconds, Baptiste just stood there, staring at the two dead bodies tangled up in each other.

  Then the Claw started to shimmer and glow. What the—?

  Baptiste was forced to shield his eyes with his hand as the glow intensified for just a second before fading again. Blinking the spots out of his eyes, he saw that the Claw had shrunk and looked a bit more normal. Still covered in feathers, with wings and talons and the rest of it.

  To his shock, Baptiste recognized what the Claw had turned into.

  "Jesus shit," he muttered, "that's Starling."

  The Claw was one of the founding members of the Superior Six.

  And Mara Fontaine was dead. Taking a closer look, there was no doubt about it. Her eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling, and her throat had been completely torn open. Baptiste had seen far too many corpses in his five years on the job not to know one when he saw it.

  This wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a simple call, and then they'd go visit Rhonda.

  Oh Jesus shit, Rhonda's never going to see her Mommy again. Just like I'm never going to see Sylvia again. And now that sonofabitch ex of hers is going to get custody, and—

  Focus, Trevor. He was standing in a room with three bodies, one of whom was his partner, another of whom was a killer that had been at the top of the city's most-wanted list for six years. The third was some poor woman wouldn't have been found for who knew how long if it weren't for the crummy floors leaking blood to her downstairs neighbors' place.

  He needed to call this in.

  Grabbing his radio, he started to speak, but it came out as a croak.

  Clearing his throat, he tried again.

  "PCD, this is—this is Unit 2205 with a signal 13. Officer down. Suspect down. Need Homicide, crime-scene, M.E."

  "What the hell happened, 2205?"

  "Mara is—" He couldn't say it. "We—we got the Claw."

  Before PCD could reply, the ground shook hard enough to cause Baptiste to lose his footing and the lamp on the end table next to the slip-covered easy chair fall to the floor with the snap of shattered glass.

  SuperCity didn't get earthquakes. Baptiste had a feeling the alien invasion had finally started in earnest.

  Perfect timing…

  7.07pm

  For Charlie Duffy, the roof of City Hall was a haven. The mayor's security detail didn't like people loitering outside to smoke cigarettes, and of course the entire concept of smoking indoors had been rooted out in pretty much every public location and half the private ones. The Blarney Stone had held out longer than most of the bars, but two years ago, they finally gave in. Charlie's own shabby-but-rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment was the only indoor spot he lit up in anymore.

  However, the roof of City Hall had a heliport that was open to anyone with credentials to be inside the Hall, which included staff, city government, and the press, so the reporters would come up here to smoke. There was even an overhang for days like today when it was pouring rain.

  Everyone had been in a kind of holding pattern since the UFO appeared in the sky. Charlie didn't recognize it. There were a few aliens who'd shown up more than once, like the Hlakkins—shape-changers who'd taken over the McLean Foundation, leading directly to Charlie's first Pulitzer—and the Brin-Lavi—one of whom, Lavi-3-Zel, had joined the Superior Six before being kicked out for experimenting on humans as if they were lab rats, something that wasn't actually a crime by Brin-Lavi standards, and sent back home. A few others had arrived briefly, including the Omnivore more than once, but this ship didn't look like any of them.

  Then again, Charlie could barely tell the difference between a Ford and a Chevy, so what the hell did he know? It was a gray, oval ship with four weird shapes jutting out of it.

  In any case, whoever these guys were, they were just hovering, floating, sitting there. From his vantage point near the heliport, he'd seen, at different times, three o
f the capes—Spectacular Man, Prism, and Amethyst—fly toward the ship to investigate, only to depart again for no obvious reason.

  He was alone up here. None of the other smokers had joined him, citing a lack of desire to get wet—Charlie reminded them of the overhang, to no avail—and the weather also meant that the mayor's helicopter wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

  Having no one to talk to, he found his thoughts went to Javier Garcia. It had been good to hear from him, even if the captain had only even called because Matt Barnett was a lying sack of shit. It would be good to catch up with him. Garcia had been a good deep-background source back when Charlie was covering the police beat full-time, and maybe after pouring a few bourbons down the captain's throat, he would get something juicy. Of course, Garcia had been expecting that—which was why he'd insisted on the venue not being Manny's—but Charlie had faith in his abilities.

  Suddenly, lights came on all around the alien ship. Shoving the cigarette between his lips, Charlie dug into his pocket for his ZP500. Take one last drag on the cigarette, he opened his mouth to let it drop to the roof and stepped on it as he activated the video and audio recording functions on the Zap. He also tried to set it up so that what he recorded would stream directly to the Gazette's web site, but he wasn't sure if he was doing that right, and he doubted the opportunity to call tech support was going to present itself.

  Then the entire roof shook, and Charlie stumbled. Holding onto the Zap with his left hand, he tried to brace himself with his right, slamming his hand into the concrete. Pain shot through the heel of his right hand, as well as his arthritic knees, which made a noise like Rice Krispies in milk as he fell.

  Though he'd lived his entire adult life in SuperCity since moving here to attend BusiekUniversity, Charlie grew up in Los Angeles, so he was familiar with earthquakes. In fact, one of the reasons why he left Southern California was to get away from them…

  The four protrusions on the ship revealed themselves to be gun turrets of some kind, as red beams shot out from each of them in different directions. His Zap's lens pointed squarely at the ship, Charlie started to say something, but wound up with a phlegmy coughing fit.

  In the background he heard several explosions. Closing his eyes briefly, he tried to picture the map of SuperCity he had in his head. Getting his coughing under control and clearing his throat, he said, "The beams that just fired from the alien ship appear to have hit KirbyPark, HamiltonIsland, the middle of downtown, and somewhere in SimonValley. Christ, I hope they didn't hit the south lawn of the park…"

  The protrusions rotated on the top of the ship, moving to different spots. "Looks like they're repositioning to fire on different locations."

  Suddenly, a purple sphere appeared around the ship and the red beams—which looked green now—expended harmlessly against it.

  Looking around, Charlie soon spied the form of Amethyst, the gem buried in his chest being the source of the purple sphere. Moving his Zap to point at the cape, Charlie zoomed in to see that Amethyst had a weird helmet on.

  Sonic booms heralded more capes, and Charlie zoomed back out to take in the other new arrivals: Prism, Major Marine, and five of the Superior Six. Charlie couldn't see Starling, but Spectacular Man (carrying Suricata), Komodo Dragon (carrying the Bengal), and Olorun were all flying toward the ship, and they all had the weird helmets.

  "Looks like the Superior Six, Major Marine, Prism, and Amethyst are all ganging up to stop these guys. And they've all got funny helmets on. Half expect 'em to be made outta tin foil, but now I know why Spec Man, Prism, and Amethyst all flew away from the ship without doing anything before. Probably some kinda weird mind-control thingie."

  The turrets all shifted position so they were next to each other, and then one big red-but-looking-green beam fired at a single spot on the purple sphere.

  A moment later, the sphere just disappeared, and Amethyst started to fall toward the ground. However, Olorun swooped down and caught him in his bare, muscular arms.

  Prism then pointed at the ship and a laser beam sizzled from her finger, hitting all four gun turrets at once and melting their apertures.

  Charlie was recording all of it on his Zap. "Nicely done. Setting it up, knocking it down."

  An explosion rocked that section of the ship. Charlie guessed that Prism had been hoping the beams would try to fire after she melted the muzzles, with the power feeding back. He really hoped that he'd set up the web link properly, because this was going to send the Gazette's web traffic through the roof. Much as he hated a lot of what he found on the Internet, Charlie also appreciated that he was able to reach readers through the web that he never would have in the print-only days.

  Small cubes came zipping out of the ship a moment later, and they started firing red beams of their own.

  The scene after that was chaos, and Charlie found himself unable to take it in. He just recorded it and hoped that he'd be able to sort it out later. All eight heroes—Amethyst appeared to be back in the game now, too, based on the purple shapes that kept appearing out of nowhere—took on the cubes, trying to keep the beams from striking the ground, and mostly succeeding.

  One beam got past Olorun and slammed into the copter on the helipad, slicing right through the propeller, which then crashed to the roof, shattering the glass of the cockpit in the process. It made a tremendous noise that rang in Charlie's ears.

  Two cubes managed to sneak through the gauntlet and headed toward the ground. In fact, they were headed straight for City Hall, and Charlie felt a lump in his throat.

  Just as he was starting to make peace with the fact that he was going to die as he lived, working on a story, and with a plan in place to haunt tech support if the web link from his Zap wasn't working, he saw something he never expected to see again.

  Two red-white-and-blue balls went flying through the air toward the two errant cubes, both having been preceded by a familiar fwoomp of compressed air. When they hit the cubes—both aimed perfectly—the balls unravelled into American flags that wrapped around the cubes.

  A muffled explosion later, and the flags started to collapse, having apparently destroyed the cubes. Then the flags themselves distintegrated with a flash of red, white, and blue sparkles.

  Charlie couldn't believe it. He thought for sure that after the last one—the one he interviewed, the one he got his second Pulitzer for—there wouldn't be another.

  But he could see, standing on the lawn in front of City Hall, holding the miniature cannon that fired the flags, yet another person who had taken on the mantle of Old Glory.

  Now Charlie really hoped that the Zap was linked to the Gazette's web server, because he was getting exclusive real-time footage of first known appearance of the sixth Old Glory.

  He zoomed in. This new OG had the same flag-themed costume that had not significantly changed since the Second World War—but it looked different somehow. Zooming in further, he saw that this new cape was lithe, curvy, and feminine.

  She turned to aim the mini-cannon again—it appeared to be a T-shirt cannon of the type used at sporting events, but modified to look like the famous cannon that was also called "old glory"—and now Charlie saw the outline of two breasts on the chest.

  "Sonofabitch," he muttered. Then, remembering that he was recording, he added in a louder tone: "Ladies and gentlemen, there's a new Old Glory in SuperCity, and she's a woman!"

  Suricata leapt onto one of the cubes and did a midair backflip, tossing it toward the City Hall roof. Once again Charlie's throat became lumpy, and this time he didn't think that the new Old Glory was going to be any help. Of course, the stupid cape probably thought that nobody was on the roof, especially after the helicopter was trashed.

  Trying to make his weakened legs move, Charlie tried to get to the large metal roof access door, propped open as always by a small brick that had been serving the purpose of keeping that door open for the tobacco hounds since the new indoor-smoking laws were passed.

  He put his hand on the side
of the door in the hopes of prying it open just as the world exploded all around him.

  PART FIVE

  FRIDAY

  6am

  "Good morning SuperCity! And welcome to News 6 at 6. I'm Mindy Ling."

  "And I'm Chuck Ortiz. Later on, we'll have Ian Michaelson with the latest from the Capes in sports, Debra Fine letting us know when the rain will finally stop on the weather, and Donna Brodsky with how the aftermath of the alien invasion snarled the morning rush hour on traffic. But first our top story. Mindy?"

  "Thanks, Chuck. Obviously the story on everyone's mind is last night's attack by the alien race identified this morning by the Terrific Trio as the Children of Yarfor. One of their ships appeared near City Hall last night and remained in the air for an hour before it attacked, destroying the MooreBuilding, sinking HamiltonIsland, and doing considerable damage to KirbyPark's north lawn and the intersection of 23rd and Ayers in SimonValley. The Superior Six, aided by Prism, Major Marine, Amethyst, and what appears to be a new Old Glory—about whom we'll have more later in the program—were able to destroy the ship and its attack drones. Spectacular Man and Olorun dragged the hulk of the ship into orbit, where it will be studied by United Nations scientists on the International Space Station in conjunction with Ms. Terrific. The Terrific Trio released a statement this morning that they briefly encountered the Children of Yarfor during a mission to Brin-Lavi two years ago, and that this drone ship matched their design. Chuck?"

  "The invasion was brutal for many, Mindy. Two people were killed in City Hall, including Super City Gazette reporter Charlie Duffy, who was on the roof reporting on the attack, and mayoral staff member Olga Bludeau, who was on the top floor retrieving files. Dozens more were injured. While the MooreBuilding was officially closed for business, there were several people inside, including maintenance, security, and office workers—a full casualty list has yet to be released. Emergency workers are still at KirbyPark, but the latest reports have five dead with many more injured. No one was killed in SimonValley, though about a dozen injured were taken to KaneMemorialHospital. Thankfully, the HamiltonIslandMuseum was still closed for repairs, and because of the weather, there were no workers on the island during the attack yesterday. Mindy?"