by Stone, Naomi
When she grew still, her captors steadied in flight. With steadier movement and the rush of cool wind in her face, her vertigo eased. She dared to open her eyes again. The mosquitoes, flying in unison, leveled out at last and bent their path as if to head south. Oh, God. Now would be a good time to faint. Where were they taking her?
A figure in gold and green blazed toward them from below.
Wonder Guy! Gloria’s heart leapt in her breast. Oh, thank heaven. Oh, crap. Her hair must look like hell, whipping and tangling around her face in the wind.
In the next instant, with a series of sharp popping noises and a smell she remembered from summer evenings near a bug zapper, the giant mosquitoes lost their holds on Gloria’s arms. She rejoiced and despaired again immediately, falling free toward the earth below. Her stomach lurched, dropping even faster than she fell through the air. The wind dragged at her hair and clothes, stopping her breath. The pervasive drone of wings fell silent and empty husks of giant mosquitoes filled the air, falling with her. The sharp black point of the Calder sculpture’s support rushed to meet them. Gloria screamed.
Strong, gentle arms scooped her up, and she threw her arms around the hero’s strong neck, burying her face in the warm crook below his clean-cut jaw, trembling in relief.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
They swooped through the air, but this was totally different than flying in the grasp of the giant insects. She lost all fear of falling. Wonder Guy cradled her gently against his solid chest, one strong arm hooked under her thighs, the other holding her tightly to him. She clung fiercely, arms clutched around his neck. How could she feel so–contented? blissful? happy?–in the midst of this craziness? Her face pressed close to the bare flesh where his lower face and jaw emerged from his mask. His scent filled her like the breath of home, human, familiar and safe. She checked the urge to nuzzle him, to nibble her way up to his ear. She relaxed, molding herself to the solid wall of Wonder Guy’s body so warm against hers.
They neared the ground, the sound of insect wings growing louder as they descended. The shrill whine, like police sirens on helium, surrounded them.
“Hold on,” Wonder Guy told her, transferring her grip from his neck to what proved to be the stalk of the giant cherry on which she now stood. His arms freed, Wonder Guy turned to face the army of horrendous mosquitoes closing in around them.
Gloria shivered without the warmth of her hero’s arms around her. Oh. The mist of water spraying from the top of the cherry’s stalk might have something to do with her sudden chill. The drone of a thousand insect wings drowned all other thoughts. She clung with a desperate grip to her cherry stem as Wonder Guy flashed from place to place, always between her and the swarming army of mosquitoes.
Like mindless drones, the creatures seemed to have forgotten everything and everyone else to gather their forces and throw themselves against the hero in a determined assault. Their objective seemed to be to get through him, or past him, or around him to reach…her?
This was crazy. Why would these impossible monsters be after her? Gloria trembled in every limb, wet, miserable and frightened out of her wits. If not for the cold of the metal stalk against her cheek or the slick surface beneath the soles of her sandals, she might think it all a dream. This day had become a living nightmare. Only the hero, decimating the onslaught of monsters as she looked on, kept her from giving in to despair.
He moved more swiftly than her eyes could follow. Now in front of her, now above, now to one side, then another. He seemed everywhere at once, and everywhere he turned the mosquitoes died. They fell from the sky like so many giant bags of trash. Luckily, everyone below had already found shelter. She didn’t know how he did it and didn’t care. He faced them and they died, to fall as dry husks to the earth below. They died, but more kept coming.
So many. Some he only blocked by placing his back directly between Gloria and the mosquitoes’ thrusts. Their stabbing proboscises broke against the impenetrable barrier he made of himself.
Her heart stuck in her throat. At least, she assumed the idiom had been coined to cover her present state of breathless, choking anxiety. Her head told her the swarming, bloodthirsty monsters surrounding them couldn’t harm Wonder Guy, but how could anyone keep up this dizzying defense against such a seemingly endless barrage of the enemy?
She lost track of time. Her arms ached from clinging to the giant cherry stem. Her legs wobbled, trying to keep her perch on the scanty, slippery footing afforded on the slick aluminum. Her grip slipped and she lurched near falling while struggling to regain her hold. At last, the cloud of whirring wings thinned to reveal stretches of clear, cerulean sky and the incessant drone faded from a thunder in her ears to a thinner whine. Dead mosquitoes littered the lawn below, clogged the pool, draped across sculptures or piled up around them.
As he flashed like lightning from one point to another, Wonder Guy had been drawn further and further from her position. Now a contingent of the mosquitoes moved quietly below, creeping out of hiding from among the corpses of their fellows, moving in coordination as if controlled by a single mind.
Oh God. As they rose in unison, moving arrow-straight for her, Gloria screamed, mind numb with horror. She shuddered at the thought of them touching her again. Worse, this time they might be out for blood. She pressed close to the cherry stem, squirming around to keep its solid steel between her and the approaching monsters, but they came from every side.
Wonder Guy arrived in the instant, put his broad, impervious back to the squadron of mosquitoes stabbing at them and wrapped his arms around her. Standing behind her, holding her pressed into his chest, the whole length of him held tight along her backside, he gave new meaning to guarding her back.
The shock of impact echoed through his flesh to hers as the first wave of assault broke upon his back.
She realized he’d spoken.
“What?”
“Let go.” He plucked at her arms, still clenched around the cherry stem. Gladly she released it, turning at the urging of his hands to transfer her hold to him. She clasped her arms around his neck, and in the instant her eyes met his, looking out from behind his mask, she forgot her fear and her weariness. A bolt of exhilaration shot through her, an inexplicable joy.
Gloria grinned, letting the world drop away below them. She hardly registered how they’d shot into the sky, leaving mosquito hordes far below. She might never have this chance again. The belly dancers of the world might surround him as soon as they returned to earth, like when he’d stopped that rogue elephant in Uptown. She’d have to go back to her life and her work and responsibilities. Right now this magnificent man’s arms wrapped tightly around her and his gaze stayed locked with hers. For the moment he was hers.
His masked face drew close, his breath warm on her mouth. Gloria leaned in, brushed her lips across his chiseled, slightly parted ones, thrilled as they softened and opened beneath her light touch. She bore down, parting her own lips to kiss him in earnest.
Oh Lord. If they weren’t already up among the clouds she’d be flying now. Who knew a kiss had the power to unlock such a rush of sensation, become a whole new dimension of delight? It had never worked that way before. His mouth met hers with equal fervor and with a tenderness melting her from crown to toes. The kiss called every corner of her being to life, from instep to shoulder blades, from forgotten childhood games to impossible aspirations, from the lost and loneliest corners of her soul to the brightest surges of exuberance.
She became a bottomless fountain of joy. The fountain re-doubled in him as if reflected in a mirror. The joy mirrored in him was mirrored in her, reflected in him, reflected in her, multiplied over and over again between them, in infinite regression. The joy became something more than joy, more than hers. Not hers alone, but theirs, a new bliss they created together.
It seemed only natural for her hands to explore the shapes of his shoulders beneath the skintight fabric of his costume. Only natural for his hands t
o clasp her closer, to feel him grow hard where her thighs pushed close to his. She prayed the moment, the kiss, would go on forever, but each moment only increased her desire to make more of it than a kiss alone.
If the joining of their mouths could thrill so deeply, if it created such joy to touch even with the barriers of their clothing between them, how much better might it be to dispense with all the barriers, to join fully as man and woman?
Gloria groaned, a sound embodying sigh and moan alike, and pulled away. Everything had happened so fast. Too fast. Her world had been tumbled end over end these past few days, leaving her exhausted and overwhelmed, but oddly pleased by the answering groan from Wonder Guy when he released her mouth with one last, tender kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Mmm,” she said. “I’m wonderful. You’re wonderful.” She smiled up at his warm, oddly familiar eyes.
“I mean the mosquitoes. They didn’t hurt you when they grabbed you earlier?”
“Oh no. I’m good.” She glanced to the sculpture garden far, far below, like a patch on the quilt of the city map. Her grip tightened convulsively around Wonder Guy’s neck. “Uh, do you think they can follow us this high?”
“No, but I didn’t think mosquitoes could grow this big, either.” His grin dazzled her. He adjusted his grip, scooped up her legs and carried her into a long, gentle descent.
* * * *
Greg approached ground level cautiously, keeping a wary eye out for further mosquito attacks, though none came and the skies stretched clear and empty around them.
He held Gloria in his arms, warm, solid and alive. No one else knew how much those simple facts meant to him. She had kissed him. A dream come true, a miracle defying every hope or expectation. His lips, his whole body still rang like a bell struck resoundingly by her kiss. Nothing had ever felt so right, or so wrong, given she kissed him like that without knowing she kissed him.
The sense of something wrong shifted focus when he landed near the conservatory, setting Gloria on her feet. None of the hundreds of dead mosquitoes littering the area a few minutes ago appeared anywhere in sight.
People stood around talking as others ventured forth from their refuges. The lawns looked pristine, but a few of the glass panes walling the conservatory bore huge cracks or were broken out in jagged shards.
Strangers turned to applaud him as soon as he set foot on solid ground. The instant he released her, Gloria ran toward the conservatory. She must be worried about Aggie. He shared her concern, but before he followed, a crowd of people came between them, shouting questions at him.
“What happened up there?”
“Did you see it?”
Other voices chimed in, “They disappeared while you were up out of sight.”
“The weirdest thing.”
“They shrank!” A little girl’s voice piped in. “I was under there.” She pointed to a stone table. “I saw one go from big,” she held out her arms, “to teeny.” She brought her hands together and held something up, pinched between a forefinger and thumb. “See!”
Greg bent to examine her offering, an ordinary mosquito of ordinary size. Dead.
“I see,” he said. He addressed the growing crowd. “Is everyone okay?”
* * * *
Elysha’s smile scarcely faltered when her spell shattered and the pitiful remnants of her swarm shrank away to nothing. Or next to nothing, returning to the size nature had given them to begin with and flying off on their own business, no longer under her command.
She wrapped a glamour around herself and faded back among the trees where she’d stationed herself to oversee the capture of the young woman who’d already eluded her once.
Going after the chit complicated her plans for the Hero, but she’d expected her swarm to keep him occupied while she wrapped up her business with the troublesome girl. She turned to her nearest minion, “Bring the phone.”
The small, warty creature muttered, but kept its protests muted enough so Elysha chose to ignore them. The device contained enough cold steel to burn those of her creatures who handled it, but its casing material buffered the effect and the burns would heal.
Without delay, the device was removed from its padded bag and propped for her in the crook between branch and bole. She used a twig to punch in the numbers, not trusting such a precise task to the near-witless underling who’d put the phone in place.
Standing near enough to the dreadful metal to hear and be heard pained her, making her temper short.
“There has been a change of plans,” Elysha spoke in tones brittle as the thin layer of new ice over a deceptively deep pond.
“What now?” Kathleen Pederson’s voice, even distorted as it was by the phone, still sounded snappish. “I’ve already wasted an hour waiting for your call.”
“Then you’ll be pleased to hear you need not bring the weapon today after all.”
“Weapon? You mean that chunk of brick and cement? I don’t see what good it is for anything.”
“It is enough for you to know it will aid our plans in the right place at the right time,” Elysha went on. “The young woman who threatens your position must survive for the present. I’ve discovered a use for her.”
“But she knows too much.”
“It won’t be long. She’ll have no time to make use of anything she knows. First, you must help me take her captive.”
Yes. The young woman would make an ideal hostage. The energy of loving connection between her and the hero had flamed tremendously strong earlier. The surge of their force overcame all Elysha’s spells. But this connection promised an equally powerful anguish should he lose her, fear for her or witness her suffering.
Chapter 19
Gloria hurried to the conservatory where she’d last seen Aggie and Hank headed. She’d kick herself later for failing to say anything to Wonder Guy when he’d had her in his arms. Their kiss had left her speechless. She couldn’t believe she’d actually kissed a virtual stranger. It was crazy, impossible, how much she felt for him, given how little she knew him. Maybe he rescued a dozen women a day and kissed every one of them the same way he’d kissed her. The bitches.
She spotted Aggie, still in Hank’s arms as he headed back toward the abandoned wheel chair, which looked none the worse for its adventure. Gloria veered to meet them.
“Are you okay?” She and Aggie spoke at the same moment.
“I’m fine,” Aggie said, as Hank settled her back into her chair. “I’m not the one carried off by giant mosquitoes. I thought we’d lost you.”
The tears in Aggie’s eyes triggered a few tears of Gloria’s and an ache in her heart. She hadn’t realized Aggie might feel as frightened for her as she’d been on her own account.
“I’m okay. Really. I mean, I was scared to death at first, but then Wonder Guy arrived–”
“What happened?” Hank asked. “You two shot into the air and a minute later the mosquitoes disappeared.”
Aggie shuddered. “I wanted to stay at the windows, to watch out for you, but a couple of the mosquitoes were trying to crawl in through the broken panes.”
“I was about to haul her away from there, whether she liked it or not.” Hank shook his head. “When the bugs shriveled away right in front of our eyes. Damnedest thing.”
“I missed that part.” Gloria bent to the troublesome wheel and, with a few jiggles, had it turning freely again. “There. You know, we don’t have to see the rest of the sculptures today. I’ve had enough of an adventure for one afternoon.”
“I have to admit,” Aggie patted her chest as if calming a runaway steed, but spoke with her usual gift for understatement. “I’ve had enough excitement, too.”
“I’ve had enough giant-mosquito excitement to last me a lifetime.” Hank followed Aggie’s cue, speaking as if he dealt with this sort of thing every day. Or maybe that was his musician’s cool. He moved behind the wheelchair, guiding them back towards the Walker’s parking lot where police and emergency vehicles
now crowded, blocking the way for exiting cars.
“Why don’t we go to the museum coffee shop and wait this out?” Gloria suggested, not feeling quite so cool as her companions. It would be nice to take a breather. Who knew how a day that began with giant mosquitoes might end?
* * * *
“Today on ‘How Do You Do, Minnesota’ Professor Pamela Deifenbauer from the University’s Department of Psychology is here to talk to us about the phenomenon of mass hallucination.” The talk show host, a neatly coifed blonde wearing a double-breasted apricot suit, turned to her guest.
Greg turned up the volume, interested in an academic’s take on experiences he still half-wished he could dismiss as hallucinations, if that wouldn’t mean losing the kiss from Gloria along with the monsters and mayhem.
The professor’s gray suit matched her hair. She faced the cameras with the assurance of someone accustomed to speaking to classrooms full of college students.
“What we commonly call mass hallucination is a variety of collective delusion. That is, socially contagious behavior or symptoms occurring within a group of individuals. These can include symptoms of actual physical illness in the cases we call mass hysteria.”
“I see.” The hostess leaned toward her guest. “Very interesting, Professor. Can you tell us how that might relate to recent reports from people claiming to have seen first dinosaurs and now giant mosquitoes in Minneapolis?” Her incredulous tone suggested that, of course, anyone reporting these things must be delusional.
The professor nodded. “Typically, collective delusion involves small, isolated groups such as found in schools, factories, convents. There were some interesting cases in medieval France, in which whole convents started meowing like cats or biting one another.”
The hostess lifted a tentative hand. “Very interesting, but I’m not sure how it relates.”
