Blaze of Glory (9 page)

“Ugh.” I flipped through the inch-thick stack. “Looks like a lot of mental problems, if you ask me.”

The sigh startled me. “Well, yeah. The Agency has to put them somewhere, so the villain program is their last option.”

“Or you pull the plug.”

He stiffened as if I’d actually landed one of those futile punches from our workout. “Let’s move onto allies and teamwork.” Plucking the clipboard from my fingers, he tossed it to one side. “You don’t fight alone. You fight as part of a team.”

His words echoed in my ears as I looked around the loft. I was pretty sure this wasn’t anything like what Mike had envisioned.

Limox was still engrossed in the erotic art display, a thoughtful look on his face as he studied each image. David appeared at my elbow, obviously recovered from our previous conversation. “I’ve got a pot of tea going. Shall I pour you a cup?”

“That…would be great.” I walked over to the kitchenette with him. I leaned back with my elbows on the narrow counter as he poured out two cups. “I’ll go back this evening and see who else shows up. If anyone.”

“There’ll be others.” After adding a dash of milk, he put the container back into the mini fridge and passed me the cup. “There’s others who think like you.”

“I hope so.” I glanced at the supervillain previously known as Meltdown. “Just…watch him. You can’t stop him if he decides to do anything, but…”

“We’ll be fine. He’s still a good guy, under it all.” He patted my arm.

“Oh, here.” I pulled a few dollars from my pocket. “Put it towards the groceries. You’re not making any money keeping the store closed.”

The older man paused before pocketing the money. “I’m not going to ask.”

“Don’t. I may be a good girl but we still have to eat.” I couldn’t help giggling. “Besides, I like to think of it as a contribution.”

Leaving Limox with his photo collection, I curled up on the single bed for yet another nap, feeling the weariness in my bones. Well, that and shock.

Mike was dead. Along with every other aspect of that life. I rubbed my eyes, determined not to break down in front of Limox or Jessie. That was not going to help if I wanted to lead this team.

Closing my eyes, I forced myself to relax using some old meditation techniques Mike had forced on me back at the Agency when we were still in training together.

“When the fuck would you use this?” I opened one eye, glaring at him as he sat, cross-legged, directly opposite me.

“Sometimes you need to take the tension off.” He kept his eyes closed. “I’m ex-military. Trust me, this is better than a bar brawl for relaxation.”

“I can think of better ways to relax.”

The edge of his mouth twitched upwards as I openly smirked.

“That’s your business. Mine is helping you win fights and control your power.” Without opening his eyes he reached over and lightly smacked the side of my head. “So shut the fuck up already.”

I woke up to the smell of burning wood and rubber. My jaw dropped open when I looked at my watch. It’d been eight hours. My nap had been a full-fledged deep sleep. Scrambling to my feet, I moved around the pseudo-wall constructed of an ancient faux Japanese paper screen to see Limox down on the floor with Jessie. They were both concentrating on a series of wires, oblivious to my reaction.

“There. That one, please.” Jessie tapped a series of wires leading to a terminal. A thick pudgy finger moved in, rubbing over the thin silver wire, prompting it to melt and drip exactly where Jessie had directed.

“Great!” He continued to direct Limox back and forth along the floor, the two men slithering on their backs like a pair of bears with mange trying to find relief.

“Don’t even ask.” David appeared at my side with a cup of coffee. He handed it to me. “Figured we’d channel that energy into something useful.”

“Why did you let me sleep so long?” I chastised David. The coffee was sweet and hot.

He shrugged. “Wasn’t any reason to wake you up. Mr. Limox caught a few hours on the couch, and I’ve been napping in my chair while Jessie minded the shop. Things are going well and I figured you needed your beauty sleep.”

“Ouch.” I dramatically winced. I glanced at my watch. “It’s early, but I feel like stretching my legs. So to speak. Besides, looks like you’ve got things under control here.” I smiled at David. “Put up or shut up time.”

“Bah. They’ll be there.” He waved a hand in the air. “Go out the back, door’ll lock automatically. And just be careful, we don’t need you on the midnight news yet. You may think you’re all that and a bag of chips, but you’re still human.”

The small black plastic box was still sitting in the pocket of my leather jacket that hung on the coat rack by the stairs. I didn’t remember putting it there. David must have picked it up from the bed when I had lain down.

“Jessie?” Pulling the jacket down, I pointed at the bulge in my pocket. “We’re going to need more of these.”

“Already taken care of.” He lifted his head from the floor. “Installed another one here that’ll block you all while here. And I’ve got orders in for more portable ones.”

Limox let out a sigh. “I’d totally forgotten about that.”

“Of course.” Jessie jerked a thumb at me. “That’s why she’s in charge.”

I smiled at the confidence in his voice. “I’m off to the tower. Do a bit of a walkabout, make sure there’s no one lying in wait for us.”

“Good luck,” Limox groused from his awkward position. “Don’t let the bed plugs bite.”

I strode towards the stairs, hopefully with an air of command in my step. Last thing I needed from the start was Limox trying to take over.

The streets had begun to fill with the evening rush-hour traffic—taxis doing impossible maneuvers in and out of the slow-moving lanes and exhausted businessmen and women struggling to fight their way to the mass transit system to catch their bus or train or streetcar out of the city. I hadn’t kept up with how many people commuted into Toronto to work, but it’d gone up since I left two years ago.

Queen Street West was a glorious mixture of shops selling everything from alligator cowboy boots to chic fashion to comic books. I’d missed the pleasure of just strolling down the street and taking in the sights, too busy playing the game. The street vendors offering tie-dyed scarves and shirts, handmade jewelry and incense holders in the shape of dragons lying on their backs. The row of motorcycles outside a bar with a line of limousines double-parked beside them. The buskers playing guitars, wooden flutes, a classical cellist performing with an open case at her feet.

And, despite an alien invasion, people were still going to work and having fun and making love in the small apartments over the stores. Some things never change.

The afternoon paper showed a front-page shot of the fat avocado hovering over Times Square with some glib comment over the image. Since the attacks had stopped there were a plethora of opinions being bandied around, from running up the white flag and just giving them the planet, to tossing atomic bombs at them and sacrificing the cities. Some had begun to wrap conspiracy theories around reality, claiming it was all a stunt by the supers to try and take over the world. Except for the bodies they were digging out of the rubble, that is.

The sun had set by the time I had walked down to Spadina and the fashion district, hopping down to King Street and the fancy financial buildings that refused to take a day off for anything, even alien invasions. A few people looked at me askance but didn’t say anything—either they figured I wasn’t who they thought I was or they quietly accepted me back home. Either way I wasn’t going to launch into an explanation.

I grabbed a hot dog from one of the street vendors and wandered towards the tower, which was easy to spot from almost everywhere in the downtown core. The large domed stadium beside it was empty—no game tonight again. Most major cities had decided against having massive events due to the imminent dangers—which didn’t mean they weren’t happening, they had just been rerouted to smaller towns and the networks were broadcasting even more sports events. Thank goodness, I really didn’t relish the idea of trying to find a super in the middle of a crowd of rabid fans.

The streetlights had kicked on, neon rushing to fill the gaps left by the setting sun. Sitting down on a park bench not far from the tower, I stared up into the sky, seeing the first stars begin to fight their way through the smog clouds.

“What am I doing, Mike?” I said out loud. “What am I doing?”

An elderly woman walking nearby gave me an odd look, wrapping her shawl around her a bit tighter as she passed me by.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and sighed.

“Weight on your shoulders, dearie?”

The senior who had passed me by earlier had seated herself next to me, pulled out a bag of bread and was tossing it in hunks and chunks, signaling a feeding frenzy for the ever-present pigeons.

“Oh, just a bad day.” The crowd of birds at our feet began to grow and spread out, covering the white concrete up to the road.

“We all have those,” the white-haired woman replied, the dark brown shawl loose on her shoulders. “But we just have to fight through it.” Turning towards me, she smiled, her lips pressed together. “Don’t we?”

Her mouth never moved, but the words echoed in my mind all the same.

Chapter Eight

I stared at her for a second, hoping I had just imagined the words had popped into my head. Just imagined that the old woman feeding bread to the herds of pigeons had to be a super.

“No, you’re not imagining it.” A young man sat beside me, his long leather trench coat brushing against my left leg. “May, you know that’s not how we agreed to do it.” His tone held a hint of reprimand.

The woman puffed out her cheeks with an annoyed huff.
“You don’t know how to deal with women, Hunter. That’s why you’re still not married.”
The words bounced around my mind, the tone reminding me of a mother chastising her bachelor son.

I put my hand up to my mouth, hiding the smile. Hunter responded by leaning forward, taking a hunk of bread from May’s bag and tossing it into the crowd. A thick band of metal on his wrist sparkled in the evening lights, sending a chill through my bones.

Guardian.

Here.

Leaping to my feet, I backed away from the couple, charging up my gloves even as I shuffled through the pigeons. Feathers flew everywhere as the birds protested.

“Now you’re scaring her. I told you to hide that damned thing.”
The admonishment reverberated in my head.

My attention shot back and forth between the white-haired lady sitting on the bench still feeding the pigeons and the Guardian sitting calmly near her with one hand running through his blond hair. I clenched my fists, grabbing as much power as I could, my heart hammering almost uncontrollably.

“I’m sorry, I forgot. Shut her down, May.” The Guardian got to his feet. “She’s panicking.”

A burst of voices shot into my mind’s eye, yelling and screaming and whispering and mumbling and crying and…

The sidewalk was cool under my cheek, solid and unforgiving as I lay there gasping for air.

“Okay, May—give me a minute.” Hunter materialized in front of me, lifting my head to cradle it in his lap. “Damned woman. She never listens.”

My mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out.

“Give it a minute.” He glanced towards the park bench. “It’s a bit overwhelming when Mayday gets going.”

I stared at the metal band on his wrist as he brushed some hair from my face. He frowned and followed where my eyes led.

“Oh. Damn.” He pulled down the sleeve of his coat. “No, I’m not going to kill you.”

“Are you scaring her, Hunter?” May’s voice carried to where we were laying.

“Probably.” A weak smile showed on his boyish face. “Sorry, Surf. Didn’t mean to meet you like this.”

I regained control of my voice, my balance returning soon after. According to my watch it had only been a minute since the initial attack, but it felt like hours to me. In the back of my mind I could hear Mike yelling at me for being such an idiot.

“Just breathe.” Hunter looked up, probably at the tower. “Takes everyone a different amount of time to recover from May’s mind blast.” He sighed. “Guess this is a pretty awkward way to answer your call, hmm?”

I must have smiled back because he continued. “Name’s Hunter Dillon. And yes, I’m May’s Guardian.” His light blue eyes held a trace of tears. “And before you ask—I couldn’t send her into that. I saw what was happening to you and the others and I couldn’t.” The words dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t do that to her. So we cut and ran.”

“Ran,” I whispered.

“Yeah. Just don’t kill me when you recover, please?” His tone was light, but I knew he was serious. If he was a Guardian, he knew what I could do.

I eased the charge away, releasing it back into the air, the ground, anywhere it wanted to go. Last thing I needed right now was to have an accident—that hadn’t happened in over a year, and Mike had never passed up the chance to point out the electrical scars along the living-room wall.

“Good. Now I’m going to help you sit up. Please don’t throw up on me.” Hunter chuckled, a soft trill. “I don’t have any other clothes than what I’ve got on.”

He pushed me upwards. Putting one gloved hand to my right temple, I tried to massage away the throbbing with little success. May tossed out the last hunk of bread and patted the bench beside her.

“Come over here, dear. Time to talk.”

Hunter helped me to my feet, and I limped over. May smiled. The Guardian sat beside me, putting me in the middle.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said in a sing-song voice I recognized from the noise in my mind. “Didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“No problem.” A few deep breaths helped to clear the fuzz from my head. “So, let’s take this from the top. Obviously, you know who I am. But I’m at a bit of a loss.”

“Maybelline Andrews.” Her hand reached out from under the thick sweater, pale and small, to shake mine. “This is my Guardian, Hunter Dillon.”

My attention turned to the man. “We’ve met.”

He nodded. “I've heard of you. Cool skills. Mayday here has the ability to dump static into people’s minds. Not enough to put her on the main list, but enough to keep her around for the tag-team matches.”