Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes (14 page)

And that was a
good idea
. “Shell, can dragon armor fly?”

“Short distances! It—”

That was all I needed. I took off, dropping lower and
not
opening up my speed. If he’d just follow…

“Incoming!” Shell screamed before I realized what the roaring blast behind me meant. I couldn’t even count the flashes and tumbled from the sky in blind, deaf, spinning vertigo.

“Flash-bangs!” I heard Shell over the ringing in my ears only because she was in my
head
.

“Really?” I’d been flashed before but those had been police grade flash-bangs;
this
… my eyes weren’t clearing, the ringing tinnitus in my ears deafened me, and the vertigo-triggered nausea made me want to vomit. This was military grade dialed up to
eleven
. “Where is Brick I can’t see him!”

“And I can? I’m using your eyes! I’m calling in your escorts!”

I could at least feel the shattered concrete under me, managed to roll over and get up off my elbows. I found out where Brick was when he kicked me in the groin, lifting me off the ground to land in a helpless sprawl.

“Hope!”

When Brick kicked me over onto my back I rolled with it and launched for the sky I could finally see.
Now
I heard him, his laugh punching through the tinnitus.

“Leaving? The party’s just started!” The little rocket that caught me this time was a straight-up explosive—the first mistake he’d made. It threw me sideways but hurt less than his kicks.

“Shell, the team! Which way?”

She obligingly flared a virtual targeting icon in my still-spotty eyes and I twisted around to get distance between us and everybody else.

“Fly faster!”

“When I can see!”

“What’s to see? Fly
up
! What was
that
?” A ripping sound signaled the arrival of Lieutenant Corbin and his team, a stream of metalstorm rounds leading the way. I heard Brick shout behind me as the rounds punched into him, and the crash turned me around. I almost laughed in relief. The nearest building was at least two hundred yards away; our engagement zone had moved out of town.

“
Stay down
!” Lieutenant Corbin shouted in my earbug as he bounded by me. He ate thirty feet with each leaping step, the others right behind.
 
My tearing eyes worked well enough again and I watched as his team fanned out to each side, laying down fire. Corbin fired his own arm-mounted chain gun in controlled bursts, the tracer-marked sabotted rounds flashing away to explode off Brick’s fancy armor.

“
Medical status
?”

“I can still fight! What can Brick do?”

“
I saw that dragon armor crap in China—it’s like putting a bull in battle armor and giving it an infinite supply of ammunition. Not high-tech, but it doesn’t have to be. Shit!
”

Brick lit up explosively and snaking flame trails from multiple launches reached out to Corporal Stein’s hulking form.

“
Screen and move!
” All four of them ejected canisters throwing up clouds of smoke, kept firing.

“Wow,” Shell said, fading in beside me.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed weakly. My super-duper vision meant I could still see them as shining heat sources, moving like a choreographed dance with the partners a hundred yards apart. Under the light wind the smoke stretched into bands, spreading to cover the zone. Then Brick moved, a single superhuman leap that came down on Lance Corporal Tsen.

I screamed. The shooting stopped as Shell yelled “Go go go!” and I did too late. Brick hit Tsen hard enough to crumple his chest armor and throw him fifty feet to crash into the brush.
He’s dead he’s dead he’s dead.
I smashed into Brick without slowing, off-center and spinning him. He didn’t fall.

He recovered laughing, leering at me under his open-faced helmet.

“Having fun Astra? Ready for a good time? They can watch!” He dodged my lunge and kicked me in the gut just below my breastplate, his armored boot driving the air out of me and freezing my diaphragm. This time I rode the shock, doubling around his foot and grabbing it, pulling it as I spun us away on the force of his kick.

Brick roared as my spin flipped him, boots up to slam him head down.
Now
my superior strength paid off—locking his leg, I twisted for leverage and stomped on his closest arm just above the elbow. It snapped with a sickening
crack
and he screamed.

“Are you still having
fun
?” I twisted his leg down, pushing like I was trying to drill him into the ground, brought my knee down on the pit of his opposite shoulder and felt the pop and rip of tendons as the ball and socket of his shoulder joint separated. He screamed again.

A final flip planted him on his face and I dropped on his back, fists together for a hammer. And froze, breathing like a winded sprinter. Brick screamed with each twitch, boots kicking the ground, and I wanted to hit him again and again and
again
.

“I trained with Atlas and Ajax you
idiot
,” I panted. “I can take a beating from
Watchman
and you think you can play with me?”

A pair of armored legs stepped into my sight and I looked up. Lieutenant Corbin stood by Brick’s head.

“Ma’am, if you have issues to work out, we can always leave and come back.”

“No. I’m good.” Really not; rising nausea was replacing fading adrenaline. My breathing hitched. “Corporal—Corporal Tsen?”

“
Feeling no pain
,” the dead corporal laughed in my earbug. “Good
drugs
.”

“You’re not going to believe it, Hope!” Virtual Shell stood laughing over Tsen’s crumpled form. “They’re all Ajax-types! C Class, but strong enough to pack a couple of tons of armor and gear around and tough enough to take a hit and not squish inside their cans.”

“Oh. That’s—that’s good. Brick’s your prisoner, Lieutenant. Excuse me?”

I managed to get off of him and stagger a few yards before I threw up. Repeatedly.

“Hate is the worst emotion. When you hate someone, you can’t think rationally about them. You can’t forget about them. They burn in your soul like acid thorns.”

Hope Corrigan (Attributed)

The lingering flash-bang vertigo, the kicks I felt only now, the memory of Brick’s bones snapping under my feet kept me doubled over and heaving while the team closed in to take care of Brick and Tsen. I wondered how much penance Father Nolan was going to assign for the sin of wrath when I made my next confession. Maybe he’d consider my wanting to keep vomiting till my soul felt clean to be penance served.

Shell gave me a minute, staying respectful of my condition until I sat back on my heels.

“Hope? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I hope not. Shell? If I
ever
say something as stupid as ‘How hard can it be?’ again I want you to slap me with the biggest brick you can find.”

“Okeydokey!”

“So, what
are
you thinking?”

“I see London, I see France, I see Astra’s underpants?”

I looked down at myself and started laughing. Brick’s second missile had pretty much shredded and burned off my kicky summer outfit; the only thing saving my modesty was the virtually indestructible underwear Vulcan made for me out of his polymorphic molecule goo. He’d spun the stuff into a weave as strong as carbon fiber, fireproof and soft as cotton, and Shell called them my Unmentionable Indestructibles. Which still left me in my underwear, but my white and blue sports briefs and bra—complete with white Astra star crest—covered enough to be worn in the gym. Yes, my life was interesting enough that I wore indestructible underwear. If I was ever caught dead, I’d at least be a modest corpse.

Finished giggling, I spit and wiped my mouth and went to help.

Stevens had arrived, driving off the road to get to us, and Stein and Balini had kits out. Balini used a tool to crack Tsen’s chest armor and Stein unhitched his helmet while Tsen swore at them. Lieutenant Corbin looked up from where he worked on Brick.

“Three minutes to lift, can you give me a hand?”

I nodded shakily and he handed me a brace. Brick’s armor had disappeared sometime while I’d been heaving, and Corbin had put titanium hobbles on him. Now he showed me how to slide the brace on. Brick screamed again when Corbin planted his foot and
pulled
to set his shoulder for the brace, managed to keep it in when we set his broken arm and put the field sleeve on it. My hands shook and I was dizzy again before we were through.

“Good job,” Corbin said encouragingly. “You going to be okay?”

“Eventually?” Dirt and bits of brush swirled under the beat of arriving extraction helicopters, giving me an excuse to wipe my eyes.

“Then let’s load everyone up and go get a drink.”

The extraction teams got us off the ground in less than a minute after landing, moving like we were in a hot zone about to receive fire. Only Corporal Stevens stayed to drive the truck back to base, and they left her one copter as an escort. I didn’t even try to fly, just squeezed in beside Balini. I rode out, I could ride back in.

They flew us to the naval base, passing over the Garage and the empty valley it sat in. By the time we landed I was steady again, even brushing off the remains of my outfit. A medic had dabbed a few bleeding scratches but I’d been only lightly scorched. Sore from my ribs down, tender in places I didn’t want to think about, I’d still gotten off lucky. When our rides touched down with the softest of bumps, we reversed the process and Tsen and Brick disappeared, whisked away.

“Tsen’s going to be fine, ma’am,” Corbin said as we watched them go. “Cracked sternum, ribs, he’ll be getting loving attention from a nurse he’s been hot on for a week.”

“I’m going home.”

“Ma’am—”

“Home to Littleton, I mean. I’m not Navy, I’m not a Marine, I’m going to go shower and put some clothes on and play with a little girl. Tell whoever that I’ll write up an after-action report tonight.”

He nodded—and then he
saluted
. Stein and Balini too as I stood there mouth open. I finally returned it, feeling stupid standing there saluting in what amounted to a modest bikini, and flew away.

The marshals at the Garage passed me through to Littleton without any delay, and the town
 
looked so normal I almost cried.
 
Mr. Darvish met me at the door of Holybrook Rest, looking far more concerned than a sinister grand vizier had a right to. He didn’t so much as blink at my returning dressed for beach volleyball.

“Miss? The Garage sent a message to expect you. Are you well?”

“Yes, thank you.” I was focused like a laser on the shower upstairs, but my mouth moved on autopilot. He stood aside.

“I will make tea. Please come down when you are ready.”

I nodded and went up the stairs, thankful no one else was home. Everyone kept asking how I was.

Turning the water up until billows of steam turned the bathroom into a sauna, I sat in the tub under the shower stream, legs pulled up and head on my knees, and let it all go. Eventually I stopped shivering and remembered to take off the top and briefs. Dropping them to lie in a sodden pile on the tiles beside the tub, I turned my face up and into the direct shower stream and stayed there until the water started to run cool.

With my civvies gone I dressed in my formal costume, the one that looked like a figure-skater’s skirted outfit. Leaving off the accessories, I brushed out my hair and went downstairs. Mr. Darvish met me at the foot of the stairs with a tray and English tea set and directed me into the B&B’s little study. I sat in one of the Queen Ann chairs and looked at the shelves of old, leather-bound books while he set up and poured. The aroma of Earl Grey teased my nose, relaxing me more, and I gratefully accepted the saucer and cup he offered me.

“Milk? Sugar?” He slid the tray closer to my end of the table. I shook my head, took a sip.

“Thank you. This is perfect.” And it was, the citrusy tang of the bergamot orange adding just the right edge to the heavy black tea.

“The biscuits are fresh.”

“Thank you.” We sat in silence while he prepared and enjoyed his own.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, remembering my manners.

“You are?”

“You’re from the Middle East. I should have covered up more.” Suddenly my legs felt naked, and I blushed remembering what I’d shown walking through the front door.

His smile was broad and genuine.

“It is refreshing to meet a young person who is culturally sensitive. My compliments to your parents. However I have lived in Littleton for a year now, England for five years before that. You are modestly attired.” He set his cup down. “And how are you?”

I found myself spilling the story of my fight with Brick, ending with the way I almost kept hitting him until he would never hurt me or anyone else again. He took the news that I’d been ready to beat a man to death so calmly I almost thought he wasn’t listening, and he let me finish before speaking again.

“You have killed before,” he observed quietly.

“Yes, but not…”

“Not in judgment? Not as the angel of righteous vengeance?”

“No.” I tried to figure out why thinking about it wasn’t sending me into another sick spin.

“I could say that it is in your nature as it is within every man’s. Islam knows the fallen nature of man as well as does Christianity.”

“Have
you
ever—I mean…”

“Oh, yes. When a bomb killed Atifa’s parents, I would have cheerfully and instantly consigned every last jihadi to Gehenna had I the power.” He pointed to a picture over the fireplace, the happy child I’d met this morning, with a smiling man and woman. “But part of my anger was guilt. The bomb had been meant for me.”

“She’s not yours?”

“She is now my responsibility and my delight. Certainly a gift from God.”

I still didn’t feel anything except sadness and curiosity. “Why did they try to kill you?”

“Because I am a heretic, a Sufi imam who preaches many condemned errors, the worst being that the call to jihad has been misunderstood, that Islam properly understood is truly a religion of peace. Most condemnable is that I am also a confirmed awliya, which makes other Muslims listen to my words.”

“An awli—”

“An awliya. A holy man blessed with
keramat
, miraculous gifts of power. You have felt the Peace?”

The question seemed a total non sequitur, but I instantly knew what he meant. The way I’d felt the moment we met, the way I felt just sitting here now. The reason I completely and unreasonably trusted him.

“You’re a breakthrough?”

“Just so. The Peace of God is irresistible, and it came to me when I needed it most, when I needed it for others. No one feeling even a small part of it can hate, or act on that hatred.” Now he frowned. “This does not stop a man who is not in my presence from acting, however. So, a bomb, or poison, or a sniper can end my life.”

He stirred his tea.

“The fatwa pronounced against me drove me first to England and then into hiding, for the safety of those around me. I would ask you not to share this, of course. I merely felt that, having known the dark edge of Islamic fanaticism, you should know the light.”

Of course he knew all about the Whittier Base Attack and our losses there. I nodded.

“So, be at peace.” He said it like a blessing. “Know your heart is human, and it brings you great merit in Heaven that you did not act on your anger. And now I recommend rest, and tonight quiet dreams, both of which you will find here.”

I spent the rest of the evening reading dispatches from Shell and writing up my promised after-action report. Shell thoughtfully emailed Detective Fisher’s investigation reports, something she really shouldn’t have even
had
. Finally working together with the feds, Fisher had gotten them to hire an expensive psychometric esper to do a “reading” of the vault before time faded the psychic impressions of the heist too much to be useful. The reader had brought a sketch-artist with her and psychically read the events, providing images of the thieves (not that that helped a whole lot since they’d been masked) and what was in the box; which turned out to be nothing but a flash-drive. What?

Regardless, at least they were all on the same page now, and I was obsessing about it to avoid thinking of other things. I included a note in my report about my panicked reaction that dropped Brick back into Guantánamo City’s streets; thinking about how many ways that could have ended badly still made me shiver a little, and I wondered how much of my rage had been from knowing my mistake had almost precipitated a tragedy.

And what was Brick
doing
in Guantánamo? Could it really be coincidence? I dreamed that Littleton was threatened, and a mercenary supervillain armed to the teeth by Chinese sorcery shows up? What were the odds?

I fell asleep obsessing about
that
, but Mr. Darvish was right; my sleep was mostly dreamless and what dreams I had were of stars, the Milky Way shining in all its misty glory over Littleton. No sneaky fox entered to disturb them. He probably couldn’t, as long as I slept at Holybrook Rest.

So naturally the next morning pitched me right back into the mess.