Wonder Guy

by Stone, Naomi

  * * * *

  Elysha found her prey readily enough. Kathleen Pederson had given her a slip of paper their target had signed, saying it included the girl’s address. She needed no address. Touching the signature gave her a clear sense of the individual behind it, a portrait of her energy, as clear to her as blood scent to a hunting dog. It led her a couple miles south of their meeting place to a neighborhood as pleasant as human habitations came. She found the dwelling in a place surrounded by tall old trees, plentiful among the structures, buffering the annoying tang of metal and the acrid scents of streets and internal combustion exhaust.

  The energy trace led her to an open window. Its screen, not the troublesome steel mesh men used many seasons past, did nothing to bar Elysha’s influence.

  Elysha drew near. The metal used in constructing the house lay mostly shielded beneath layers of stucco and brick and board. She’d grown inured to such trace amounts over her years of dwelling so near to humankind.

  The shades of night, shadows of trees, and her glamour combined to make her invisible to the casual eye. She stood at the window and looked in upon her target, the young woman already slumped in misery. This should be easy.

  With her voice schooled to tones heard more by the heart than the ear, Elysha whispered her poison to the young woman seated not far from her, on a bed beside the window.

  “Your friend has died.” Elysha touched her words with the bleak chill of winter. “As everyone you know and love will die. You can hold nothing in this life that will not be taken from you, no one, nothing, no home, no joy, no achievement, nor honor. All shall become dust, until you, too, shall fade to naught.”

  The girl’s shoulders slumped further, her blonde curls tumbling forward unimpeded when she rested her head in her hands.

  * * * *

  A chill breeze from the window raised goose bumps on the back of Gloria’s neck, but rising to close the sash seemed too much of an effort. Everything seemed useless, pointless. What was the point of anything when you lost it all in the end? Jo was dead. Gone. It might as easily have been her, or her father, or Aggie–anyone. What good was it to care for anyone when it hurt so much to lose them?

  Jo’s face arose in her memories. They laughed together over their morning coffee while Jo made wise-ass remarks about Ms. Dexter’s management style, or raved over the latest episode of Criminal Minds or a gorgeous scarf she’d spotted as they window-shopped downtown. Jo had wanted to follow the parade to Lake Harriet and ride the elephant. They should have gone, joined in, had fun while they could. Except, what difference did it make now?

  What difference if Gloria had been trampled beneath the elephant’s feet? What difference if she died now or after years of losing the people and things she loved?

  She had no words to fight these questions, but something in her moved determinedly through her bedtime routine. On automatic pilot, Gloria picked up the hairbrush from her bedside table as she did every night before settling down and tucking herself in. She ran the brush through her curls, stopped at each slight tangle until her fingers teased out the knots as if of their own volition. The brush felt soothing against her scalp, but she hardly registered the fact as her thoughts washed around her, compelling as a riptide dragging her out to sea.

  “No one loves you.” The certainty dragged at her, dragged her from the shores of common sense. It seemed only too true. Pete hadn’t loved her. He might have loved a few things about her, but he didn’t actually know her. Beyond this face that would turn to wrinkles one day, or this shiny blonde hair that would turn gray and thin, the perky body that would eventually weaken and sag. He loved some idea of her, a fantasy that wasn’t her at all.

  Her father didn’t love her, either. At least, not as much as he loved a cold beer and not having to see the world too clearly. Who could blame him? The world sucked people dry and spat them out. The world waved pretty lures of sunshine and hope in people’s faces, only to drag them in, until the bottom fell out and dropped them into darkness and pain. A beer or two didn’t sound like such a bad thing about now.

  But having brushed her hair made it time to trim her nails. Where were her clippers? Gloria looked around, momentarily distracted. The manicure set usually sat on the lower shelf of the bedside table. Where had it gone? Oh–right. She’d snipped the tags off those new washcloths. She must have left it in the bathroom. Too much work to go get it, but her purse lay at her feet where she’d dropped it.

  She bent, rummaging for her multi-tool. It included a mini-scissors and a file. They’d do the job. Habit moved her. It wasn’t as if there were any point in trimming her nails. If she were alive, they’d grow back. If she ended this misery, it would hardly matter what condition her nails were in.

  Gloria slowed, one hand on the soft leather of her purse. Why bother? Why bother with a minute more of her useless life, with waiting for the next shoe to drop, for the decision to be taken from her and fate to end her life? Why wait for the next loss? Why wait for the next blow to send her reeling, the next confirmation that she meant nothing to the world, or to anyone in it?

  Chapter 17

  Elysha whispered, “Why wait? Why let the suffering go on, and on? It would be easy to end this, to end it all.”

  The young woman leaned back, pulling something with her, up to her lap. Elysha frowned. Her victim should be too rapt in the spell to notice anything else.

  * * * *

  Gloria’s fingers fumbled in her bag, still intent on their mission despite the direction of her thoughts. Good grooming was not a habit easily kicked.

  Her fingers found the small tool Greg had given her, there in the inner pocket of her handbag. An electric shock jerked her hand, startling her to alertness.

  She looked around as if waking from a dream, her recent preoccupation leaving only a trace of bleak winter on her heart. What had she been thinking?

  * * * *

  Her intended prey fumbled in the bag held on her lap. A jolt, like a lightning strike from a clear sky, struck Elysha. The young woman straightened, pulling forth something blazing and burning in Elysha’s magical vision. She shrieked in pain, covering her eyes, falling back a few stumbling steps before she turned to flee.

  * * * *

  A cry sounded, like the shriek of a hawk, somewhere out in the night. Gloria shook her head. She had it all wrong. How unfair, forgetting all the people who cared about her. Like Aggie, who had been there for her practically every day since her mother died, who’d encouraged her and helped her to fulfill her dreams. Her father cared also, even if he got too caught up in his private pain to show it. Greg cared. Mr. Carlson cared. Anne and Patty, and the researchers on her team. Lots of people cared about her.

  She turned the multi-tool in her hand, hefted its cool weight. Greg had cared enough to give her something that helped her in small ways every day. She pulled out the mini scissors and began to trim a ragged nail on her left hand. She should probably see a manicurist one of these days, but the way she kept chipping her nails–talk about the futility of life. She smiled at the play on her own recent negativity.

  How could she forget all the blessings in her life? She’d discounted not only her relationships, but all the positive experiences she’d ever had, because those experiences didn’t last forever. What if life’s blessings froze in place like insects trapped in amber? If summer lasted forever, Christmas would never come. If Christmas lasted forever, there’d never be flowers blooming in spring.

  Gloria shortened a nail to unify the look of her hand and then trimmed a couple of the uneven ones on her other hand.

  Losing Jo was terrible. Not only did the loss leave her feeling hollow as Carlsbad Caverns, but the violence left her with a sense of lingering threat, clenching her stomach and shredding her nerves as if scratching its way across a miles-long blackboard. It would be worse if she’d never had the chance to know her friend, or if she’d never had the chance to know the mother she’d lost. The hurt would fade in time. This hollow ache
might always be with her, but a thousand new and better times would intervene, cushioning her from the impact. Time did heal, even while leaving scars.

  Lighten up, Gloria. She should get a pad of paper and make a list of her blessings, remember how many she still had. Maybe she could no longer include a fiancé on the list, but she’d done the right thing, in calling it off with Pete. She should count herself blessed for having the sense to recognize as much and the courage to do what she should. If Pete wasn’t the right person for her, it left her free to find a better match.

  She pulled out the multi-tool’s file, tucked away the mini-scissors and buffed where she’d trimmed. There. She held out one hand, then the other, admiring her work. Good job.

  Brrr. The breeze seemed awfully chilly for June, but this was Minnesota. Gloria hadn’t noticed until now the clouds moving in with the setting of the sun. The cooler air prompted her to rise at last. She closed the sash against the night and her dark thoughts of only moments before, and against the few scattered drops of rain beginning to fall. These gave her a more immediate, if mundane cause for concern. She’d hoped for a bit more dry weather. There were always a lot more mosquitoes after it rained. Gloria shrugged away this worry too. She’d had enough of negativity. She donned a light cotton nightie. Planning to read for a while before sleep, she chose a book promising her a happy ending.

  * * * *

  This meant war. Elysha fumed, nursing her frazzled senses in the cool shadows of her favorite glade. Before, her attack on the girl had simply been business. The human target, Gloria stood in the way of a scheme Elysha had gone to some trouble to set up between Kathleen of the high aspirations and that professor of the rich appetites.

  But now the chit had hurt her. How dare she? How dare she hurt Elysha, whose life wove itself through the ages of the world, clad in darkness and beauty beyond the grasp of mortals?

  How had she? Elysha’s pain, sharp with the tang of metal and technology, still lingered. The blow had been more powerful by far than the usual run of mortal weapons.

  * * * *

  Before returning to the U for his bike, Greg put in some time patrolling as Wonder Guy.

  When he dropped a would-be arsonist at the third precinct, Detective Diaz hailed him from his office. “Say, can I ask you to keep an eye out for something?”

  “Sure.” Greg paused halfway through the door leading back into the deepening twilight. “What do you have in mind?”

  “We’ve been getting a lot of calls about missing pets. I’d suspect a pet-napping ring, but there are no demands for money, and these are ordinary family pets, no special breeds or rich owners.”

  “I see.” Greg frowned. “Not an overactive animal control department?”

  “No. I’ve got reports of dogs taken right out of their collars while chained up in fenced yards.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Most of the disappearances have happened around dusk.” Diaz slapped him on the shoulder as Greg turned back to the door.

  He made a conscious effort not to flinch, reminding himself the slap was a sign of camaraderie. In high school, the jocks who’d used such gestures hadn’t been friendly toward him. He’d taken a lot of flak about being a nerd.

  Dusk, he thought, leaving the precinct building. He leapt into the sky. The last light of day lingered, half-hidden beyond gathering masses of clouds touched along their edges with hints of rose and gold. The air smelled of a promise of rain, tempting him to close his eyes and lose himself in the rush of the air’s caress, but dutifully he scanned the neighborhood below. In the increasing gloom, telescopic vision alone worked no better than ordinary vision. Greg strained and found an increased range of vision, showing him what must be the same band used by night-vision goggles, picking up differences in heat between the objects below him and their surroundings. Those bright, moving shapes must be the engines of cars passing on the streets. Those softer glowing shapes must be people.

  He cruised above the alleyways, looking for signs of pets or people where they shouldn’t be, looking for anyone skulking in the backyards, any pet slipping its collar. Hundreds of homes lined the streets of the neighborhood, too many to watch at once. He needed to choose an animal to keep an eye on and do a stake out.

  There. A pair of pit bulls shared a yard, their shapes distinctive even as glowing green blobs. Or, maybe not. The pair made an unlikely target for dog-nappers of any sort. There must be easier prey than two full-grown pit bulls.

  Greg blinked, adjusting his telescopic vision to identify a cluster of glowing, darting blobs moving between him and the dogs. Ah, mosquitoes, the ‘Minnesota state bird.’ These must be close to appear this large, and must have fed recently to glow so bright. He looked back to the dogs when the insects moved on, readjusting his sight. Strange.

  He blinked again, adjusting his vision from the heat-signature perception to normal vision and back again. No dogs.

  Greg flew down and landed in the yard where the animals had been chained not two minutes ago. Two worn leather collars retained some heat from the necks they’d recently circled. Two chains dangled limply from a clothesline spanning the yard.

  Somehow, the dogs had vanished in the blink of an eye. In the few seconds he’d been distracted by that swarm of mosquitoes, the dogs had disappeared. It wasn’t possible. He’d have seen anyone near enough to take them, or anyone approaching them, and the dogs would’ve raised a ruckus. He’d have sworn most of the things happening lately must be impossible. Were disappearing dogs more of the same? He’d ask Serafina when he got the chance. Later. From the house attached to the yard came the sounds of someone moving toward the door. Greg shot skyward again before he’d have to witness the owners’ reaction to the loss of their pets, especially since he had no word of explanation or comfort to offer.

  * * * *

  Saturdays had a special magic of their own. A Saturday following a night soothed with the music of the falling rain, dawning on a world washed clean and sparkling with dewdrops did remarkable things for Gloria’s spirits. She rose refreshed, eager for a chance to play, create and explore on her day of freedom. Jo’s death, yesterday’s break up with Pete, her distress, all seemed things of the past. They might have occurred years, rather than days ago. If she didn’t think about them too much.

  Life went on. Gloria stripped the pale rose cotton sheets from the bed, stuffed them into the hamper with her week’s accumulation of other laundry and zipped her bras into their net bags. She pulled on her most comfortable jeans and her favorite over-sized t-shirt, featuring her favorite frog puppet. Maybe it was just the t-shirt, but she found herself humming an old song Aggie had once taught her, “I’m in love with a big blue frog...”

  Saturday mornings meant laundry day and catching up with chores for which she had no time during the week. This coincided nicely with Dad’s day at the VFW hall, hanging with his old pals. Saturday afternoons generally meant some project time or expedition with Aggie. They’d made a practice of visiting local sites of interest, from the Gibbs Farm to the Swedish Museum to the Minnesota History Museum. Gloria wondered what Aggie might be up for today. So much depended on her energy level. They left it to Aggie to pick their activities, though Gloria had a veto power she seldom used.

  On her way to the basement laundry room with the heavy hamper in her arms, she found her father sitting bent over the coffee table, groaning.

  “Gloria,” he moaned. “If you’ve ever loved me, will you be a peach and get your old dad some coffee and some of those ibuprofen? I swear my head’s gonna fall right off my neck, split in two down the middle.”

  “Right after I get my laundry started,” she said cheerily.

  “Have mercy, girl.”

  “You pick up your empties and clean up around the couch.” Where, in addition to his empties, an inexplicable quantity of torn envelopes, used tissues, cutlery and plates bearing half-eaten food had accumulated. “And by the time you’re done, I’ll have some coffee for yo
u.”

  “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth–”

  “That’s got to be the only bit of Shakespeare you know.” Gloria propped the basement door open with her hip, flipped on the light switch and took the first of the steps. “And you overuse it. Give it a rest.” She proceeded downstairs.

  A half hour later, she’d gotten Ike his coffee and seen him out the door with his buddy Stu. An hour more, and she’d had her own coffee and breakfast, taken care of the kitchen clean up, vacuumed the living room, taken out the trash, folded and put away her laundry, remade the bed, changed to a cute baby-blue baby doll top and headed next door.

  “Oh, Gloria, honey. I was going to call you.” Aggie looked up from the morning paper as Gloria entered the kitchen.

  Hank Luddell sat across the table from Aggie. Half-full mugs of coffee rested before them, along with a box containing a couple pastries and scattered crumbs.

  “Hi.” Gloria greeted Hank with an automatic smile, turned back to Aggie and raised her brow in question. What was up here? But the wrenching sensation in her gut told her exactly what was up. She was losing Aggie, too.

  Not like she’d lost Jo. Not like she’d lost her mother. But the changes-to-come spread out before her as surely as any array of a gypsy’s fortune telling cards or vision in a crystal ball. Aggie wanted this man in her life, wanted to spend time with him. Mentioning her concern about Greg might have been Aggie’s subtle way of letting Gloria know, too. Inevitably, there’d be less time for Gloria, less time for their projects and expeditions.

  She pushed back the rising urge to fight, to keep Aggie to herself. Aggie, who’d never stood in the way of Gloria’s dating Pete, or wished for her young protégée anything but the best life could offer. Aggie deserved whatever her heart desired and Gloria’d be damned if she’d stand in the way of her getting it.