“Yes, what is it?” Lilith asked, looking at him patiently.
“I… I just wanted to thank you. Well, thank you and ask for an autograph, really. I mean, you, um…” the young man began, and she could barely see the flush in his cheeks as he shifted from one foot to another.
“Thank me for what?” Lilith asked, amusement washing away the remainder of her frustration, or at least most of it.
“For… for saving my brother,” he replied, fidgeting. “He told me ’bout you, and sent me the pic Trish snapped. I… I didn’t expect to see you here, but when I did…”
“Trish…? Oh! You’re Russel’s brother?” Lilith asked, her eyes widening as things snapped into place. At the young man’s hesitant nod, she smiled broadly. “How is he doing? I heard that he got out of the hospital, but nothing more than that.”
“He’s good! Real good, aside from when he flew into a wall. That dazed him some,” the young man said, his eyes lighting up as he returned her smile. “Trish thinks he’s dumb, but he says flyin’ is hard.”
That made Lilith laugh, and she nodded. “Oh, I entirely agree with him. I may not be able to fly under my own power, but it’s taken a lot of practice to not run into things in my armor. Still, it’s good to hear that he’s doing well! Now, what was this about an autograph?”
“Right, I, um… could you sign this?” he asked, fumbling a marker out of his pocket, along with a notebook that looked brand-new to Lilith. Both looked new, as a matter of fact, which made her think he’d bought them about the time he saw her.
“Certainly!” Lilith said, taking the two items and smiling wryly. “I’ll warn I don’t have much practice with my signature, though. Still… what’s your name?”
“James!” he said, grinning broadly. “James Jones!”
The alliteration there made Lilith chuckle, and she pulled off the lid of the marker.
“Well, it’s good to meet you, James,” Lilith said, signing the book with a careful, if quick, signature.
“Seriously?” Spark murmured, stopping dead in the shopping center, startled by the sight of Lilith.
With how little Lilith went out, particularly on her own, and how Spark rarely went shopping, the odds of them running into one another should have been poor at best, yet they’d run into one another within a handful of weeks of Lilith moving into the area. It just went to show that the reports of supers encountering each other with unnatural regularity were true, as far as Spark was concerned.
At the moment Lilith was standing next to a rack of clothing, with an odd gap in the crowd around her, almost like she emitted a bubble that kept people away from her, yet at the same time she drew every eye in the area to her like she was a magnet. It wasn’t just that Lilith was beautiful, even in jeans and a black t-shirt, but her power was too potent to ignore. What did surprise Spark was the wry smile on Lilith’s face as she signed a notebook, and the young man who was talking to her. With how everyone else in the area was hesitant to approach Lilith, she was startled that a kid would be brave enough to talk to her. On the other hand, children could be amazingly brave at times.
It also didn’t help that Spark could hear some of the other people quietly talking around her, barely audible over the mall’s music.
“I thought she was going to bite the kid’s head off, but she’s smiling at him! Think she has something terrible planned for him?” a man asked, and the woman next to him shrugged.
“Who knows? Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. Remember, she hasn’t done anything bad in public,” the woman said, brushing back her hair so it wasn’t in her eyes. “She might just be doing it for show, but she might not. I doubt that, but it’s possible.”
Their comments made Spark’s mood grow a bit sour, as some of her innate contrariness sprang to life. There were other people talking too, and she could hear the shutter sounds of some phones snapping pictures, but most of the comments were on how pretty Lilith was, or doubts about what she was doing there. It irritated Spark, even if she had her own doubts about the woman. Faint ones, maybe, but they were there.
That wasn’t any reason to be mean to her, though. So, as the young man took his marker and notebook and turned to leave, Spark moved through the crowd toward Lilith, figuring the least she could do was say hello. And since most of the locals recognized her, maybe they’d shut the hell up.
“Hello, Lilith!”
It took Lilith a moment to place Spark’s voice, and she blinked, turning away from watching James go, and smiled as she saw the shorter woman emerge from the crowd. Spark looked much like she had the other times Lilith had seen her, except that she was wearing a black choker, a blue t-shirt with a black jacket over it, and black slacks. Lilith paused, searching her memory for a moment to make certain the heroine was public before she spoke.
“Ah, Spark! I didn’t expect to see you today,” Lilith said, smiling at the heroine and nodding politely. “What brings you out and about?”
“Shopping, mostly. I needed to replace a few things. What about you? Do you have a fan?” Spark asked, glancing toward James just as he disappeared into the crowd, glancing over his shoulder as he went.
“Mm, much the same, though not so much replace as expanding my wardrobe,” Lilith replied, glancing back at the shirts, then took one that she thought would fit off the rack. “As for James, he’s the younger brother of Russel. He wanted to thank me, and get an autograph.”
“Uh, Russel?” Spark asked, circling around to where she was more directly in front of Lilith, a slight frown on her face.
“The young man with the plasma,” Lilith said, internally chiding herself for not being clear enough. “From the fight with Destruction Corps.”
“Oh, right!” Spark’s eyes brightened with recognition. “I thought I recognized the name but couldn’t place it. That’s a good reason for him to show up, I guess. Where’re the other two, though? I usually don’t see you out and about without one of them.”
Lilith snorted softly, moving to the side to look at a sweater, then shook her head. She didn’t think yellow was the right color for her, so she kept looking.
“No, you don’t. However… at a certain point their concern over my safety began to chafe, and I decided to make my escape while I could. They’re probably still at the manor, as a matter of fact. Possibly preparing lectures for me,” Lilith said, pondering, then let out a laugh. “Ah, I can almost imagine Rachel now, lecturing me for a flagrant disregard for my own safety.”
“Err…” Spark blinked, looking a bit taken aback, but didn’t say anything more.
While she could say something else, Lilith decided to remain quiet, instead going through the different racks and glancing across several tables with shirts. She really didn’t like shirts that had text on them, or most graphics, so she ignored most of them. There were a few that were more interesting, though, like a shirt with a yin-yang symbol formed from a black and white dragon, with their eyes the opposite color. She checked the sizes, then scowled as she realized that none of them would fit. Maybe she could order one online.
“Why aren’t you concerned about being attacked? I heard about the attempt the other day, and the police took the people you captured into custody, too,” Spark said at last, attracting Lilith’s gaze for a moment.
“That… is an excellent question, and not one I can easily answer,” Lilith said, moving to yet another table and deliberately not looking at Spark. There wasn’t that much that interested her, unfortunately. Most of the clothing felt too gaudy for her tastes. “I don’t understand why people hate me so much. I simply can’t comprehend it, and that’s with Gina and Rachel trying to tell me. On the other side of the scales, I’ve had a death sentence hovering over my head ever since I woke in the laboratory. Even if the governments have retracted their bounties on my head, at least most of them, the underworld hasn’t. The only difference is that instead of being in hiding, I’m now a more… public target.
“It worries Gina and Rachel. I know it
does, and I even understand why. They want me to be safe, and since I’m the most vulnerable of the three of us, they want me to stay where they can assure my safety, at least to the best of their abilities,” Lilith continued, stopping at another rack and considering the light blue dress. It might work as well, so she found one that might fit and pulled it off the rack. “It’s just that I can’t do it. I refuse to be a bird trapped in a cage. Better to risk death to have freedom than to hide constantly, or to cower next to those who I love. Gina and Rachel may be stronger than me, and I know I can rely on them, but… I don’t want to be a burden.”
Spark didn’t reply for a few seconds, during which Lilith found a couple of shirts that had interesting patterns on them, so she picked up a couple of different colors to try on. When Spark did speak, her voice was soft. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
“I have. It’s the reason I’ve built power armor, since I want to be able to help protect them. It isn’t enough, but it’s a start. I’ve been training properly again, since if I can push myself to my limits, I’m at least faster and stronger than them on the ground,” Lilith said, hesitating before she admitted unhappily, “I’m a lot more fragile than they are, unfortunately, but that’s why I have the suit. I may want my freedom, but I’m not suicidal.”
Spark nodded, picking up a shirt and examining it, but Lilith could tell that the heroine wasn’t going anywhere. A tiny part of her wanted to sigh, since she’d left the house to get away from people being protective, and based on the way the civilians were reacting, it seemed like Spark was deliberately trying to distract them, or even to drive them off. She might be subtle, but she wasn’t that subtle.
Looking at her acquisitions, Lilith considered them, debating if she should go try them on or not. She seemed to recall some stores having a limit on how many items you could try on at a time, and she didn’t want to have too many.
“I understand, a little. On being fragile, anyway. Doesn’t help that I also tend to fry any electronics in the area if I’m not careful… until I got this, anyway,” Spark said, reaching up to tap the choker, and Lilith’s eyebrows rose.
“Oh? Is it a dampener or something?” Lilith asked curiously, glancing at the choker more closely. Now that she looked, it was thicker than she thought it was initially, and she thought she saw a couple of black wires descending under Spark’s shirt that were hooked to it.
“Yeah, a modified version of the one that Dreamer’s minions used on me. It’s super-easy for me to shut down when I need to, but it keeps me from randomly frying electronics, and also allows me to touch someone without worrying that I’m going to tase them,” Spark said, a flicker of annoyance flashing across her face. “I wish I’d had something like this years ago. First time I kissed my boyfriend in high school, I put him on the floor, and almost into the hospital. Then I didn’t have a boyfriend anymore.”
“Ah, that… would be unpleasant, I suppose,” Lilith said, wincing slightly as she thought back to when she’d been hit by a taser. It hadn’t hurt much, but that was mostly due to the modifications which Amber had built into her. She considered, then decided to share. “I would say that I sympathize with him, but I really can’t. When I was… designed, I was deliberately changed so that tasers wouldn’t have much of an effect on me. I’m not entirely certain how, but I shrug it off almost instantly.”
Spark almost dropped the pants she was examining as she glanced over, surprise on her face, followed by envy. “You can what? That… that’s just not fair!”
“Um… why?” Lilith asked, a little taken aback by the reaction.
“It just isn’t!” Spark insisted, letting out a huff of frustration. “Honestly, I go years without running into anyone who can resist my electricity, then this?”
Lilith looked at Spark, her confusion only growing, as she wondered how she was supposed to react.
Some days people confused her.
Chapter 34
Wednesday, May 14th, 2031
Toole Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
Acheron Dreadnaught looked down at the buildings and the various containers around it, and all the while he struggled, trying to overcome the mental chains binding him. It was horrifying not being able to control his body, yet being fully aware of what was happening, and what he was being forced to do… it was sickening, even for a villain. Or possibly even especially for a villain.
The chemical disposal plant had been originally constructed to store and dispose of the chemical weapons of the United States, or at least a large portion of them, and it’d been shut down after the last of the weapons had been destroyed years before. Unfortunately, not all villains were opposed to the use of chemical weapons, and the facility had been reactivated in 2020, though on a much more limited scale than it had been before. The problem was, he had no idea what sort of weapons were currently stored there, and the alien was utterly insane. It had directed them to deliberately release the agents if at all possible, and without clearing the area. It was a quick form of suicide, and he couldn’t keep himself from following the instructions.
As Vincent stood to attack, Dreadnaught struggled still harder, but his body ignored his commands to stop. Dreadnaught desperately hoped that the heroes would react fast enough to stop them. Even SuperMax would be better than this.
Eden Manor, Glendale
“I can’t believe she went out without telling us!” Gina protested, punching a pillow on the couch, and Rachel looked up from her phone, a hint of sardonic amusement running through her, though she didn’t entirely disagree with Gina. “She could be hurt! Killed!”
“She could, and it would be terrible,” Rachel agreed, inhaling slowly as she thought. “I… I don’t know what I would do if that happened.”
“Why aren’t you upset about this?” Gina demanded, standing and pacing back and forth rapidly, her fiery temper obviously in full swing. “You agreed we should stay with her!”
“I did. I even swapped with you whenever you wanted to go out, and I’ll remind you that I’m the one who panicked after the assassination attempt,” Rachel pointed out, a flicker of fear rushing through her at the memory. “That… was one of the worst days I can remember. At least when I nearly died, it came out of nowhere.”
“Then why aren’t you freaking out now?” Gina asked, her eyes narrowing, and Rachel’s temper frayed a little.
“Because she’s not wrong,” Rachel retorted, setting her phone down. “We’ve been… overprotective. A little like your dad.”
“What? No we haven’t!” Gina protested, stopping dead in her tracks. “He deliberately scared my dates, and we haven’t done anything like that!”
“He also was very methodical about being certain when you’d be home, checking to see if your friends were the unsavory sorts, and otherwise being cautious about who you interacted with. It drove you up a wall in school, and I’m not going to let you forget it,” Rachel pointed out, sitting back in the couch. “Now, think about that… then remember that we’ve barely let Lil out of our sight in nearly two weeks. She snuck out while I was working on breakfast, for crying out loud! She felt like she had to sneak, which sounds a damned lot like you from time to time.”
“I…” Gina began, then stopped, frowning unhappily as she eased from one foot to the other. “I… well… maybe, but… what if she’s attacked?”
“I’m certain that Circe will let us know, and you can teleport, I’ll remind you,” Rachel said, narrowing her eyes. “About the only thing I can teleport is magical implements like my suit. You can get to her almost instantly.”
“At the cost of a whole lot of energy, but sure, I suppose,” Gina said, chewing her lower lip. “I just… what if she’s not in range?”
“Mistress Lilith may be choosing to assert her independence, but that does not mean she’s going to be foolish enough to try to go somewhere dangerous without a word,” Circe interjected at last, the AI sounding surprisingly amused. “As it stands, she has unex
pected company. It appears that Spark decided to go shopping at the same time as Mistress Lilith, and at the same location. I believe that Spark was rather startled by her presence, but is not likely to stand idle if she’s attacked.”
“Oh, thank god for small favors!” Gina exclaimed, looking upward. Rachel suppressed a laugh, smiling at her friend.
“That does help, doesn’t it? Now, the only question is what we want—” Rachel began, only to be interrupted by Circe.
“Class one emergency! Toole Chemical Agent Disposal Facility is under attack!” Circe interjected, any humor gone from her voice. “Acheron Dreadnaught, Vincent the Viper, and the Despicable Dozen identified! Odds of Dreamer’s presence exceed seventy percent!”
“Oh, shit!” Rachel yelped, jerking to her feet, any humor or other plans vanishing. “Do the Sentinels know?”
Rachel mentally reached out to her suit, entangling its magic with her own, and there was a pop as the suit displaced her clothing, almost at the same time that Gina did the same thing.
“No. Contacting them now. Mistress Lilith and Spark will not be able to assist you, as the nerve gas on-site has poor reactions to electricity, and Mistress Lilith’s shield has enough of an electric charge to be risky. Adding masks and countermeasures to your armor,” Circe replied rapidly. “Recommend you act quickly.”
“Already on it!” Rachel said, glancing at Gina as they rushed downstairs. As they went, her thoughts skipped a beat, and Rachel snorted softly. “Of all the times for her to meet Spark in public, what’re the chances of it being when neither of them are useful for the fight?”
“Given supers… well, eighty, ninety percent?” Gina replied, a flicker of amusement crossing her face, then it faded as she added, “Though what Dreamer’s thinking this time is beyond me. Psycho bitch.”
Queen's Move (Lilith's Shadow Book 3) Page 27
