Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly (35 page)

Andrea appeared from between two couples, avoiding them with animal grace. She was wearing the dress she had bought for her last visit to Lena, more holes than fabric, and a pair of high-heeled pumps, and she was getting a fair bit of attention as she crossed to the bar.

‘Andrea,’ Red said. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’

‘Someone said that I should get out more,’ Andrea replied, glancing at Cygnus. ‘And she’s probably right.’

Red gave her a grin. ‘First drink is on me then. We’ll celebrate work well done.’

30
^th
November.

‘You sleep through that?’ Andrea asked. She was in bed with Cygnus; she was also a little uncomfortable about that, but Red only had one spare room.

‘You should have heard it when it was those two
and
Svetilo.’

‘I could’ve gone home.’

‘Never drink and port. You said yourself you were feeling the alcohol.’

‘Yeah… It’s not like I have to get up early.’

‘Plans for tomorrow night?’

‘I’m going to see Lena. It’s the only way I can keep an eye on Tonaldo while we’re focussing on Ghostfire. You?’

‘I’ll be at Bobby’s place. Combat exercises and then wrestling.’

Andrea giggled. ‘Wrestling? That what you call it?’

‘I’ve learned some amazing moves from Bobby’s “wrestling” lessons.’

‘Sure you have,’ Andrea replied, grinning.

~~~

‘Bobby,’ Cygnus called out as she walked in through the door. There was no answer, which possibly meant he was in his room at the top, or in one of the rooms at the back. Maybe he planned to delay the combat practice for later.

Dropping her bag she lifted into the air, up through the hole in the ceiling and into the gym. No sign of him there. Grinning, she went higher, aiming for a second portal up into the bedroom above. There he had a huge, king-sized bed which they used rarely, but with all that space the sex was always incredibly wild.

Except that he was not there either. ‘Okay,’ she muttered, ‘hot tub again, maybe.’ Turning she made an exercise of darting down two floors with as tight a set of turns as she could pull. Then she picked up her bag again to drop it in her room, and walked through into the lounge. She was halfway to the bedroom when she glanced toward the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks.

‘No,’ she breathed. Her bag hit the floor as she ran around to where he was lying, curled into a tight ball with his hands clutching his chest. The look of pain on his face…

She checked his pulse and his skin was cold, and there was no sign of…

‘No,’ she said again before running for the phone.

~~~

‘Heart attack?’ one of the EMTs said.

‘Looks like it,’ the more senior one replied, ‘but we’ll leave that to the pathologist.’ She glanced at Cygnus, sitting on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders. Then she turned her gaze toward Dannon and Bryant who were talking to the ME. ‘We’re not needed here. Best we get out and leave that lot to work.’

They passed Red and June coming in as they went out. June rushed over to where Cygnus was sitting, arm going around her shoulders, offering companionship and a place to cry, but Cygnus had settled into a state of weird, silent calm. She thought she should cry, but the tears were not coming. She thought that, somewhere inside her, Penny was sobbing, but the emotion was not working its way out yet.

Red joined them a few minutes later after checking that June had Cygnus covered and talking to the UID agents.

‘They’re saying a heart attack,’ Red said. She got a nod from Cygnus. ‘They think he died last night. There was nothing you could have done.’ Another nod. ‘Dannon says we can take you home. You’re staying with me tonight. They may want to talk to you tomorrow.’

‘I’ll talk to Mister Leighton,’ June said. ‘Red can look after you.’

‘I’ll be…’ Cygnus began. She realised her throat was dry and she could not have continued even if June had not decided to interrupt.

‘No, you’ve just lost someone dear to you. You’ll at least take a day off.’

‘I… guess,’ Cygnus replied, getting to her feet.

~~~

‘I saw your father on the way in,’ Andrea said, her tone casual.

‘Oh?’ Lena replied. ‘He has been to see me a couple of times this afternoon.’

‘He did look more chipper than usual.’

Lena giggled. ‘Poppa’s never been “chipper” in his life. He’s been pleased with himself all week, after Cygnus and Twilight broke up a load of his opposition’s places.’ She paused for a second, pursing her lips. ‘Then again, that thing on the news this evening might have something to do with it.’

‘I try not to watch the news,’ Andrea lied, ‘too depressing.’ She had, in fact, missed it today since she had spent most of her time at the gym. Fighting crime was exercise, but she had been letting her basic stuff slip.

‘Someone died, an old Ultra name of Zephyr. Cygnus found the body. Turned out she was in a relationship with him.’ Lena felt Andrea stiffen against her back. ‘Did you know him?’

‘Met him, professionally, a couple of times. He was a nice guy. Did it say how he died?’

‘Natural causes, they said. No foul play.’

‘Shame, he wasn’t
that
old.’ Twilight was having none of the natural causes idea, but there was no way to leave without drawing suspicion. Seeing how her partner was doing was going to have to wait until the morning.

‘Well, I guess Poppa thinks this’ll take Cygnus out of the picture for a while, so he’s not shedding tears.’

‘No,’ Andrea replied softly, ‘I guess he wouldn’t.’

1
^st
December.

After checking Penny and June’s flat to find it empty, Twilight figured that Red might have invited them back to her place, and that was where she found them. Or she found Red and June; Cygnus was asleep in the spare room, sedated.

‘She barely slept last night,’ Red explained. ‘I have some sedatives for when my back gets
really
bad…’

‘What happened?’ Andrea asked, her mask in her hands, being twisted out of shape.

‘The initial estimation was heart failure, some form of coronary.’

‘So they’re not investigating further?’

‘There’ll be some investigation, but they aren’t putting a rush on it. Why?’

‘It’s just… Several of Tonaldo’s people suffered fatal heart attacks, and now this. And we’ve been hitting Ghostfire’s operation pretty hard the last couple of weeks…’

Red frowned, an index finger tapping on pursed lips. ‘An Ultra who can induce heart attacks… I’ve not heard of an MO like that, but it’s not impossible.’

‘But they’d also need to get to Bobby,’ June said. ‘His place has a lot of security.’

‘True. I suggest we don’t mention this to Penny. She’s under enough stress as it is.’

June nodded. ‘She tried changing back to her normal form, but she gets these weird noises in her head when she’s stressed and she could barely concentrate to change back.’

‘I… didn’t know that,’ Andrea said.

‘Neither did I until last night,’ Red told her. ‘Our Penny had something traumatic happen to her to turn her into Cygnus. She’s… different. Not a typical Ultra.’

‘She said Ever said the same thing,’ June supplied.

Red nodded. ‘We’d better keep an eye on her for the next few days.’ She glanced at Andrea. ‘I’ll put some feelers out about an Ultra who can cause heart failure, but I’m not sure we’ll get anything.’

‘Well… we can try.’

9
^th
December.

Funerals for heroes were odd affairs, in a way. Zephyr’s was well enough attended. There were several of his ex-students there, though Cygnus did not recognise any of them. There was a small UID presence, though Dannon and Bryant kept their distance, letting the mourners mourn.

The odd thing was the costumes. Even those who were no longer active, like Red, were in full costume. Black armbands stood in place of black clothing, but the bright colours were jarring. At least Twilight looked the part, dressed all in black.

Cygnus had not wanted to go in her skimpy, white outfit, but Red had insisted that this was how Ultras had been buried since the sixties. So Cygnus stood in the sunshine in thigh-high boots and a plastic swimsuit, feeling more self-conscious than usual.

That was another thing: it should have been raining. There should have been thick cloud and pouring rain, but the weather stubbornly refused to comply with propriety. They stood there in the bright light of almost-winter, listening to speeches by various people and some clergyman. Cygnus had not known Bobby was nominally Catholic, but it made sense.

There were press waiting outside the cemetery, and Cygnus was almost pleased that Ultranova was there to capture their attention with a heart-warming speech on how Zephyr had been a great man taken too early. Almost pleased. The speech sounded as though it had been written for him by publicity agents. At least it gave her the chance to slip away in Red’s car before any of the reporters noticed her.

The entire week had sucked. There had been questions from sympathetic UID agents, but Cygnus had felt like they were accusing her of murder. Paranoia, and she knew it, but she could not stop herself thinking that way. Maybe Penny would have been more practical about it, but she had not been able to spend more than a minute in her other form. Whenever she changed, the voices started. She got a few seconds of whispering and then her mind erupted into chaos. It took all her concentration to change back.

Maybe now, with Bobby in the ground, she could move on.

10
^th
December.

The voices were still there, but they had subsided to a whisper. Penny, dressed in a T-shirt and some rather baggy shorts, along with a thick, towelling wrap, was still off work, but planning to return tomorrow, assuming the whispering stayed quiet.

In fact, she felt well enough to check UltraNet. She had not logged in once in the last week. Twilight had been keeping her up to date to some extent, but she had started getting the feeling that both her partner and Red were keeping things from her. She had moved back to her own apartment after the funeral, partially so that she could be alone for a day while June was at work and find out what was going on.

Apparently, there was nothing special. She saw no signs of anything odd in the reports. There were no personal messages from Twilight, but then she had seen her just about every day. There were quite a few messages in the fan mail folder. She figured she might as well give them at least a cursory look since she had neglected them for the last couple of weeks.

Several had been sent by people who had seen her pictures in the calendar. A couple of those she was
not
in the mood for. There were several more general fan letters, and then the ones started from after word of Bobby’s death had got out. There were more of those from women, all of them offering their condolences. And then…

You don’t know me, and I won’t give my name. They could kill me. Your boyfriend, he was murdered. It’s the same girl they used to kill those Tonaldo lieutenants. They call her Heartbreaker. She’s in Apartment 6, 1425 Kinsolving Road in Friendship.

The voices were screaming in her head by the time she finished reading and the change happened before she was even aware she was making it.

~~~

The sound of shattering glass brought Adrienne’s attention to the bedroom door, but she barely had time to react before Cygnus, her face twisted with anger, ran into the lounge. There was certainly no time to say anything before the heroine grabbed Adrienne’s shirt and lifted her bodily off the floor by it.

‘You!’ Cygnus hissed. ‘You were with Briscetto before he died, and you got Tonaldo out in the open for the sniper. I
saw
you. Why did you kill Bobby?’

‘Cure,’ Adrienne squeaked, not denying it. There was no point.

‘What cure?’

‘For me… I kill… any man I kiss. Do you have any idea what… that’s like? You’re hurting me!’

Throwing the smaller woman onto the sofa she had been sitting on, Cygnus pulled back her fist. ‘I’m going to do more than hurt you,’ she growled. Then she faltered, blinking. ‘What…?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Adrienne said. ‘Really I am. That’s the gas. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the cure.’

‘Gas?’ Cygnus said, almost groaned, as she fell to her knees. Adrienne’s face was blurring.

‘Gas,’ Adrienne said, sliding over onto her side. ‘I’m sorry, but they want you… alive…’

And then there was only darkness.

~~~

June was expecting to find Penny sitting on the sofa watching TV. Instead she found no sign of her anywhere in the apartment, but she did find scraps of fabric, cotton and towelling littered around Penny’s bedroom, and her glasses on the floor. Cygnus’ costume was gone from the place Penny kept it, hidden at the back of her wardrobe.

Running into the lounge, June called Red, but she had seen no sign of Cygnus.

‘She’s vanished,’ June said into the receiver. ‘She changed fast, without undressing. She must have left in a hurry too; her computer’s still on.’

‘Can you see what she was reading?’ Red asked.

‘The screen saver is password protected. Can you get a message to Twilight? See if she’s seen her?’

‘I can. Stay there in case Penny comes back. I’ll tell Twilight to meet us at your place. I’ll be there in an hour.’

‘Okay,’ June said. Then she put down the receiver and curled up on the sofa, her knees tucked under her chin.

~~~

Andrea’s brow furrowed. ‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday. You don’t suppose she could have found something suggesting Zephyr’s death wasn’t natural?’

‘I don’t see how,’ Red replied. She was sitting on the sofa, holding June against her side. The brunette was looking
very
worried. ‘Nothing’s come of my attempts. No one knows an Ultra that can cause heart attacks, or none that aren’t locked up in the Fortress. Ghostfire didn’t break them out.’

‘The Tonaldos suspected their losses were not the result of bad habits, but none of them seem to have found a suspect…’