We Could Be Heroes 2

by Harmon Cooper

  “Do you know how to get in touch with Donovan?” Helena asked.

  “While it’s possible to send a message, I have found the best way is to visit him in person. He sort of has an open-door policy when it comes to the people he works with, especially if the person coming has a better deal for him. You show up, and his people take you to him. That’s pretty much how it works.”

  “Write down where he stays,” Ozella said. “Give us all the details you can.”

  “Yes, write it down,” said Helena.

  “Sure.”

  Nightshade retrieved a piece of paper from his drawer. He scribbled down some information on it, and once he was finished, he handed the paper over to Helena, who read it quickly, her eyes shutting for a moment and reopening as she transmitted the address to her assistant.

  Helena walked the piece of paper over to Ozella, who folded and stuffed it into her bra.

  “Is that where you normally store things?” Sam asked.

  “Sometimes,” Ozella said, looking away from him. “Is that a problem?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Just one more question,” Helena told Nightshade. A bead of sweat had appeared on the side of the bald man’s head, his eyes bulging and bloodshot. “Where is Donovan now?”

  “Donovan should be here any moment now.” Nightshade looked at his watch. “Really soon, actually.”

  “He’s coming here?” Sam exchanged glances with Ozella. Dinah looked to Sam and Ozella, wondering if she should go back to work.

  “Answer the question,” Helena said. “Why would Donovan be coming here?”

  “You didn’t know?” Nightshade asked. “This is a blood party, and Donovan is bringing some of his friends.”

  Chapter Nineteen: Crimson Fiesta

  (Because the ‘Red Wedding’ was already taken, and technically, no one is getting married here.)

  “Let’s get changed,” Helena said, nodding toward Ozella’s backpack. “I’ll send a mental message to Zoe,” she added as she unzipped her red backpack, handing out their uniforms.

  David Nightshade simply sat at his desk, still hypnotized, now staring down at his hands, his cigar sizzling out.

  “Zoe can stay out there.” Ozella fastened her mask around her face, pulling her hair over it.

  “Why would they invite famous people to a party like this?” Sam asked as he tore his wig off and began changing into his exemplar uniform.

  It made no goddamn sense.

  “I don’t know… Nightshade?” Helena asked quickly.

  “There’s no one too famous here now. The red carpet was just for show. Most of the people out there are lowlifes, people that won’t be missed.”

  “But I recognized some of the people,” Helena said.

  “Anyone of importance has already been told to leave, transported to a different party a few blocks away.”

  Helena grunted as she yanked her dress off. She now stood in a thong and a strapless bra. And after shaking out her uniform, she stepped into it, pulling it up tight around her body, turning to Sam so he could zip up the back.

  Positioning her breasts, she got everything in order before she asked Ozella for her ballet flats. Since they were lightweight, Ozella had packed those as well, and she quickly tossed them over to Helena.

  Sam would have to wear his man-sized ballet flats, but he wasn’t too worried about it as he too got into his own uniform, adjusting it, making sure everything fit right before he put his mask on and pulled the hood up.

  “And here they come…” David Nightshade said, still looking down at his hands.

  They heard commotion outside, Sam immediately running to the door and saying, “Power-up, hearing.”

  He pressed his ear into the surface of the door, closing his eyes as he interpreted what was happening on the other side.

  With his eyes closed not only could he hear the echoes of the building, he could also visualize spatial distances between the sounds he heard in the other room. There were muffled cries, people trying to teleport away and failing…

  “They have erected an anti-teleportation barrier,” he informed Helena and Ozella, both of whom stood behind him now.

  “Yes, we did,” Nightshade confirmed.

  “I really wish we had some more wrist guards,” Helena said.

  “We only brought one because we didn’t think it would turn into this,” Ozella reminded her as she helped Helena strap the wrist guard on. At least they had brought one that had an energy blade.

  Once it was securely fastened, the combat dancer activated her energy blade and deactivated it, just making sure it was good to go.

  Still with his ear pressed to the door, Sam listened for Zoe to spring into action. Things were starting to get tense out there, and the vampires had already started to round people up, a few of them clearly about to go to town.

  “Look at me,” Helena told David Nightshade. The big man looked up at her for a moment, and Helena’s eye turned into a rotating red bullseye again. “I want you to forget ever meeting us. You simply came into your office to smoke by yourself for a moment when your guests arrived.”

  “Someone is screaming out there,” Ozella said, bringing her hand to her mouth.

  “I’m just waiting for Zoe,” Sam told her, his own voice practically exploding his eardrum.

  He winced, and pressed his ear into the surface again. There were a lot of sounds to pick out, and even with his eyes closed and sensing people’s outlines, he still hadn’t found Zoe. Sam focused even harder than he had been before, listening for…

  There, he thought, noticing a foot that sounded different than the others, a nail clacking against the floor. Zoe had transformed, her legs too, and that was definitely the sound of one of her claws.

  “Power-up, off,” Sam said as he backed away from the door. “We’ll need Dinah too.”

  “Power-up, on,” Ozella said, and Dinah’s form took shape and solidified.

  Sam turned to Dinah, the thin woman with stringy blonde hair smiling at him as they locked eyes.

  “I know you can understand me, or at least somewhat understand me, but here’s how this is going to play out. Ozella and I can’t fight, and we don’t have weapons. Helena has a blade, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. Just keep them distracted.”

  Dinah nodded.

  “Good. I’m getting the door now, Helena and Dinah, you’re out first.” Sam brought his shoulder to the door handle, looked back at the three and realized that barging into the room wouldn’t be the best idea for him.

  But then he heard glass breaking, a battle cry from Zoe, and he knew that now was the time to strike.

  He loosened the door handle, brought his foot back and kicked it open, jumping aside.

  Helena charged into the other room and immediately moved into a cartwheel as she engaged one of the ninja vampires.

  She brought her blade into his back and pulled it out just as Dinah ran past, the nude woman startling a few already startled guests as she took to the air, latching onto another vampiric ninja and bringing him down.

  The vampire bit at her, sure, and tried to scratch her too, but she didn’t pay much attention to him as she rolled around with the man. She restrained the fucker until Helena could bring her energy weapon into his back, her blade also cutting into Dinah’s chest as she finished the vampire off.

  Helena helped Dinah up, the gash in her chest already starting to heal as she turned to the next set of blood suckers.

  “Get in here!” Sam called to the guests who were huddled near David Nightshade’s door. “Now!” he shouted at a pair of models who seemed frozen in place.

  As he tried to corral people already inside the condo, a glimpse of something red caught his eye.

  Sam had to smile when he saw Zoe jump onto a table, the bottom part of her dress torn and now fashioned into a red bandanna that covered the lower half of her face.

  She jumped just as one of the ninja vampires swiped at her, kicking
both legs into the man’s chest and bringing him down. Zoe leapt off just in time to avoid a diving tackle from another vampire.

  The diving vampire hit the ground and slid into the bar, scrambling up over it only to be bladed through the chest by Helena, Dinah behind her and standing guard as Helena pulled her blade out.

  A bartender came out from behind the bar wielding a bottle of wine; Dinah cold-cocked the man before he could take another step.

  “Damn!” Sam said, trading glances with Ozella, who was trying to help a terrified waiter into the safety of Nightshade’s office.

  More people were getting the hint and filing into Nightshade’s office. Helena and Dinah were doing their best to protect the entryway while Zoe was a wildcard as usual, flashes of red peppering the battle, a light occasionally being broken, screams, hisses and the cacophony of overall mayhem following Zoe as she did as much damage as she could.

  But Sam knew in that moment, especially when they looked outside and saw the chaos happening around the rooftop pool, that the fight had only just begun.

  His first indication that shit was about to get much worse was when he saw a vampire tackle a person, the man trying to fight him off as both of them neared the edge of the building.

  There was a railing, but that didn’t stop the two from struggling for a moment, the ninja vampire finally getting the opportunity to bite down on the man’s neck, forward momentum sending them over the railing.

  It was then that another portal opened up, Donovan stepping out, Mia the beast morpher and the giant, gray-skinned muscular vampire with him.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that Sam noticed.

  He just happened to be standing at an angle where he could see the night sky above, a few stars twinkling, the moon hidden by a dark cloud. And maybe if the moon was out, he wouldn’t have seen a flash of color high up in the air.

  But it was definitely there, and whatever it was, it was coming their way.

  ***

  Sam whispered the words, “Power-up, sight,” keeping his eyes trained on the sky above, his vision zooming forward until he saw four people (who must be exemplars) barreling toward the rooftop.

  There was a wolfman covered in blue hair; a woman halfway transformed into a statue; a man wearing a trench coat and a mask with a jewel on it; and a masked woman with both her arms tucked at her sides.

  It was that fast.

  Something stopped them from smashing into the rooftop, and at the speed in which they were traveling Sam assumed it was a telepath, one who specialized in telekinesis.

  Yep.

  Floating above the crowd now, the man with the trench coat gave himself away, clearly the group’s mind freak.

  By this point Sam had switched his power back to his enhanced olfactory sense, his vision tumbling for a moment as it settled.

  Barely a second or two later that the blue wolfman launched himself at Donovan’s big gray vampire, the two cracking together and tumbling into the pool, water splashing everywhere as they continue to duke it out. The pool wasn’t very deep, just three feet or so, which got Sam wondering if vampires could actually drown.

  Questions to ask Ozella later, Sam thought as he helped a lady in a pink dress to the safety of Nightshade’s office.

  Helena and Zoe were still engaging the vampiric ninjas, Helena softening one up with a pair of kicks before launched the vampire into Zoe’s waiting claws.

  Of course, Zoe didn’t have an energy blade, so she simply gouged the vampire’s eyes out, shoving it so Helena could knife the blood sucker in the back. Dinah was doing her thing as well, running around and randomly punching enemies, the ghost woman packing quite a punch.

  Now that a real exemplar team was here, Sam knew that this wasn’t their fight, that as soon as they were seen, they would bring even more unwanted attention to themselves.

  “We need to go!” he told Ozella, who stood off to his left. “Fire exit!”

  The statkeeper had a dazed look in her eyes as she watched the exemplar team on the deck. He had to shout for her again to get her attention, Ozella looking at him curiously for a moment before nodding. “Right.”

  Sam felt stupid in that moment. The fire exit should have been where they were funneling people, not into an office.

  It was too late now, and he assumed that there would be other guests trying to use the fire escape in the hallway outside, that or cramming into the elevator.

  “Helena!” he called out, the combat dancer performing a one-armed cartwheel before flipping over a vampire and pressing her blade into his spine, blood spritzing out of the front of the man’s body.

  Sam called her name again, and Helena quickly pulled her blade out, the vampiric ninja writhing once he hit the floor.

  “We have to leave before the exemplar team sees us,” he said as soon as she reached him. “Ummmm. Okay, I got it. Use your power-up to get everyone to lay down in the hallway outside. I know there are people out there.”

  “Will do. Zoe!” Helena shouted. Zoe swiped her claws across a vampire’s face and dropped on all fours as she raced over to them. “We’re going. Come with us.”

  “But I was just getting started…”

  “Power-up, off,” Ozella said. Dinah disappeared instantly, and the four of them turned to a hallway, and from there to the condo’s main entrance. There were people in the way, bodies on the ground too, and they eventually came upon a female vampire still feeding, the woman hunched over, blood trickling down her chin as she drank.

  She looked up at them and hissed. Zoe offered her clawed toes to the vampire’s face, pinning her against the wall as Helena stabbed the woman in the chest.

  “Here goes nothing,” Sam said as he pressed out of the front door. Just as he suspected, the hallway was filled with people trying to leave the party.

  He crouched to the side, his hands over his eyes, allowing Helena to pass by.

  “Power-up, flying knives!”

  Everyone in the vicinity immediately got down onto their stomachs, shielding their heads with their hands. Sam also found himself wanting to get down, to duck a series of sharp objects flying overhead.

  But he ignored this thought as he waited for the hallucination to settle. And he knew enough to trust that Ozella and Zoe were doing the same thing, just waiting it out.

  “Let’s go,” Helena said, and as soon as she said this, Sam removed his hand from his eyes. Everyone in the hallway was still lying on the ground, protecting their heads, a few starting to look around to see what had happened to the flying objects.

  With no time to waste, Vigilante Justice carefully stepped around the bodies, Sam actually stomping on a woman’s finger, the lady crying out in pain.

  “Sorry!” he told her as he continued to tiptoe in his ballet flats around people until the four would-be heroes reached the stairwell.

  Not a moment too soon either. As soon as they pressed into the stairwell—Helena first, then Zoe, Ozella and finally Sam—he heard the exemplar team’s wolfman burst into the hallway, snarling.

  “Faster!” he called to the front of the group, to Helena.

  The four ran down the stairs as quickly as they could, Ozella eventually falling and Sam having to help her up.

  “I’ve got you,” he told her. “Just focus on getting out of here!”

  They were two floors down from the top when the sound of the door slamming open echoed down the stairwell.

  Zoe jogged back up, ready to come to Sam’s aid as he moved past with Ozella.

  “I’ve got this, Zoe.”

  “No, you don’t,” she told him. “Just keep moving. Help Ozella.”

  “Dammit,” Sam grumbled as he continued down, still supporting Ozella.

  The blue wolfman was fast, and eventually he caught up, Zoe going to meet him.

  The platform they had to fight on was pretty small, and at first, the two just sort of circled each other, daring the other one to go first.

  “Who are you?” the blue wolfman growled
.

  “The name is Tiger Ears, and shit is about to get real as fuck if you don’t let us go.”

  The wolfman snapped his teeth, saliva spraying into the air as he laughed. “An exemplar team I haven’t heard of? This will be fun.”

  But an opening attack wasn’t in his cards.

  Standing next to him now, transparent Dinah latched on, bringing the wolfman to his knees almost immediately.

  He tried to fight the ghost off, but it was impossible, and he eventually began to lose power as injuries overcame him, the man’s snout twitching, his tongue falling out of his mouth as he transformed back into his human form.

  “Shit,” the wolfman said, wincing, rolling to his back, his hand on his stomach as Dinah continue to drain him.

  “That’s enough,” Sam told Ozella.

  She nodded, and called Dinah off as they continued down the stairwell.

  “Too bad,” Zoe said, as she caught up with Helena. “That would have been a fun fight.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get your chance some day,” Helena said as they came to the fifty-seventh floor. She opened the door, allowing Zoe to shoulder past, the tiger girl’s tail bouncing behind her as she launched into the hallway on all fours.

  Sam and Ozella followed, Sam shutting the door behind them.

  Zoe grew self-conscious almost immediately once she saw a mother rushing into her apartment, holding her daughter’s hand.

  “I…” Zoe stood, and bowed her head, her tail dropping too.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Helena said as she walked past, her shoulders held high.

  “It’s fine,” Ozella assured Zoe with a smile. Dinah was already at her side, healing her from the nasty spill she’d taken in the stairwell. Sam was off near the door, fists at the ready just in case the wolfman decided to come at them.

  He didn’t know what he’d do if the man regained his strength and came through that door, but he was prepared for anything.