Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes (21 page)

“But it’s hardly sporting. And if we fail… Perhaps it would be best to just kill them? Every one of them is wanted for war crimes somewhere or other.”

“That would be inadvisable,” Mr. Black interjected. “The Serene Republic’s neutrality in these sorts of matters is being stretched enough as it is tonight.”

“But you can do your part?” I asked. I
really
didn’t want to rethink the whole plan.

“My instructions are to be a watcher tonight. However, where I do the watching is up to me.”

“Then this will work.” It was classic Lei Zi—she’d say it was a combination of Stratagem Six and Stratagem Thirteen;
Feint to the east while attacking in the west
, and
Beat the grass to startle the snake.
With a good dose of
Don’t make it complicated
.

My projected confidence carried the day, or maybe they had all just decided to watch the kid and see how she did. Silent Léroy seemed content so long as his boss agreed, and Balini was only put out because he didn’t have a hands-on role.

MC nodded. “Very well, then. And we will all hope that things do not get too interesting.”

“I meet the nicest people. And the bravest people, too. It’s easy for capes to be brave and heroic when it all gets nasty, we’re trained for it. But
bystanders
, with no powers to help them, will surprise you every time.”

Hope Corrigan,
Notes From a Life
.

Galahad was surprised to see me, and not happy about it. I had the Anonymity Specs back on, but I had before and he “recognized” me as the too-young American girl in the cute dress. Café Cubano had only gotten busier since I’d retreated, without a single space left at the bar, and I began to think that the plan might be sunk just because we couldn’t get a table until a small party sitting next to our targets got up en-masse.

“There!” I pointed imperiously and Darren laughed, tucking me under his arm to push us both through the crowd. Nobody beat us to the table, and the reason was our targets; their glares pushed away anyone less apparently oblivious than us. Darren ignored them to focus on getting me into my chair, and I focused on acting innocent and drunk enough not to notice Darren’s laughable open leering. Ignoring the three behind me, I watched the dance floor.

Darren got a waiter’s attention and ordered, and when our drinks arrived I took one sip and knew Galahad had mixed it; my “Cuba Libre” was all coke and no rum, which made me feel worse about what was going to happen next.

“So do you come here often?” Darren leaned over, partly to compensate for the music, obviously to look down my dress as if there was anything substantial to see. I almost choked on my drink, worked
hard
not to laugh.

“No! First night in town! I heard the drinks are good! But they’re kinda thin!”

“Would you like me to order something stronger?” I could
feel
our target’s eyes boring into our backs, but heard no scrape of chairs. We were in, and actually started drawing appreciative female attention from the surrounding tables. I imagined half of the women present deciding they’d ditch their escorts if only they could figure out a way to pry Darren away from the naïve toy he’d found to play with. If things didn’t move along we’d have company at our table soon.

“Phase two,” Shell whispered in my ear so I wouldn’t go tense when Jacky made her debut.

Jacky had purely hated losing the specs and her guns, but if it turned into a mess the last thing we wanted was to give the crazy pyrokinetic villain stuff he could make go bang. She’d also ditched her hood and body armor and now she just looked like a dominatrix out clubbing. The two men with her made contrasting bookends, and when MC looked at their chosen table and made its occupants aware that they were in the way they cleared out without even a protest.

The table to our left, next-closest to our friends.

Now I heard our targets shift behind me, and I imagined Red and MC sizing each other up, two big alpha-males with too little space between them. Red was probably imagining fun scenarios, but the puff of impatient breath was one of the other two telling him
not here
. After all, they were in Upright Men territory.

So Jacky and her boys ordered drinks in peace. And they got to work.

Vampires aren’t
obvious
unless you know what you’re looking at, at least not to anybody who doesn’t have nifty vision that sees into the infrared spectrum where the living look like walking lightbulbs.
I
could see that MC and Léroy were the temperature of the outside air, but living and daywalking Jacky was the temperature of every other “breather” in the room and none of them showed fang unless they smiled really wide. In the dim café lighting, even Jacky’s pale shade and the boys’ almost complete lack of pallor wasn’t that easy to see.

But they didn’t have to hiss theatrically to start emptying a room. Not when they could
push
.

Darren stopped leering at me and shivered, and he’d been braced for it. The noise-level from the tables around us actually dropped as patrons became increasingly uncomfortable. Three vampires extending their mental influence, whispering
there are predators here
to the monkey-brain, started clearing tables. More to the point, they focused our target’s attention on themselves beautifully.
They
weren’t leaving.

“Shit,” Darren muttered next to me, tearing his eyes away from their table and leaning closer. Instinctively protecting me? Wasn’t he
used
to this stuff? Then I figured it out—I’d made a mistake; now
we
looked out of place, not clearing away as the people around us shifted, tried to restart conversations, and decided that the party had gone flat here and it was time to move on. Even the girls decided Darren wasn’t that interesting anymore.

I almost stood myself, trusting Darren to follow my lead, when Shell whispered “Stage three,” and Mr. Black walked in.

He’d come to watch. It was his job.

Now it became a lot easier to tell the locals, who came in all shades after all, from the tourists who didn’t know what an Upright Man was. Galahad knew; I could see him now through the thinning crowd and he’d backed away from the bar. Then he reached below it, looking at me, and my breath hitched. He thought the Upright Man was here for the obvious Bad Guys in the room and they were sitting at the table next to
me
. He was actually going to come to my rescue if things went really bad.

The tide became an exodus, and I stood because anything else would look too wrong.

Mr. Black stepped away from the door, calmly letting the more panicked patrons lead the rush. He ignored Galahad to turn his complete attention to the table full of fiends of the night. Now I could look at them—it would be out of character
not
to. They stood one by one, the Master of Ceremonies first and looking as masterly as it was possible for any human being to. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, clasped his cane.

And they attacked.

Straight at our targets, who had totally been expecting them to go the
other
way and probably wondering if they could get out quietly while the Upright Man took care of his obvious targets.

MC and Jacky went straight for Red, lunging into mist to clear the tables and chairs in their way. Léroy went for Brainworm, armed with a sandman pack.
I
went for Flashpoint while Darren hit the floor behind me.

Thinking later, I had to admire their training; Flashpoint zeroed on me before I hit him and my cute dress went up like a cotton ball held over a match. Then I had his shirt in my fist.

I flipped him around and onto his knees, wrapped my right arm around his neck, bicep against one side, forearm against the other, braced his head with my left hand to point his face at the floor, and carefully
squeezed
. He struggled, not moving me at all, and the table in front of us caught fire.

Ignoring the action behind me I held him till he slumped, out of it. Releasing my sleeper hold, I made sure he was breathing and then looked to see what everyone else was doing. Léroy had Brainworm on his face on the floor, shoulder of his shirt ripped away and sandman pack pressed against his pinned shoulder. MC and Jacky had Red in a double lock and Jacky was… I looked away.

Lowering Flashpoint to the floor, I signaled for Darren to bring the SF cap in my purse. When he knelt beside me with the cap, I unfolded and opened it, checking the red light. Fitting the cap, I closed the straps and flipped it on. The green light by Flashpoint’s ear said it was working and I exhaled.
Easy
. Crossing myself, I promised God and Mary a few prayers later.

Darren watched our slumbering villain. “Why didn’t you use that first?”

“I didn’t want to risk him seeing it and frying its circuits,” I said softly. “Caps aren’t exactly robust.”

“Gotcha.” He looked behind me at the fang-action I wasn’t listening to, smiled. “Does that bother you?”

“Are you a…”

“A donor? A fang-fan? No. I make a good beard, though—everyone assumes Marcus and I are a couple.” His playful smile was back, this time without the over-acted theatrics, and my knees went a bit weak. “He’s in a long-term commitment, but if you ever come to the Big Easy…”

I knew I had a goofy smile on my face, but I shook my head anyway. Shell ghosted into sight behind him, mouthing “What are you
thinking
?” and when I rolled my eyes Darren was smart enough not to ask.

He sighed, giving up. “You do know you’re still on fire, right?”

I groaned and stripped the smoldering remains of the dress away, patting out the flames against the floor; Flashpoint was lucky I hadn’t caught
him
on fire while clinching. The booming roar of a fire extinguisher signaled Galahad’s arrival to put out the merrily burning table.

After that it was my turn to step out. The other employees had fled with the customers, and I supposed they were all locals. Standing in the café’s doorway with Galahad and Mr. Black, I finally realized why Guantánamo City’s police weren’t arriving with screaming sirens: Mr. Black. Galahad—his name was Tim—had shown impressive presence of mind so far; he’d found me a coat left behind by a patron to cover my blue and white beach-volleyball uniform.

“Shouldn’t I know you?” He looked down at me from his occupationally useful bartender’s height again, and this time I did giggle. My sports-bra top had my
star
on it.

“You should. Don’t worry, it’s the glasses.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “How long are your friends going to be in there? I really need to clean up the mess.”

“They shouldn’t be long.” I tried to ignore the sounds from inside. “And they won’t leave a mess.” The sucking sounds had been bad enough; one of our prisoners was
crying
. Never mess with a vampire—if he’s feeling nice, all he’ll do is put you in a completely suggestible state and then ask you what your mother would think of what you’ve been doing.

“I meant the table. I can drag the torched one into the backroom, and as soon as you guys are gone I’ll be pouring drinks and telling stories all night.
Serious
tips.”

That got a chopped laugh out of me, and I made a mental note to tell Blackstone about him, see if he could recruit him onto the Dome staff.

Mr. Black turned to look at him. “You will say nothing about the three vampires. You will simply say that they were very strong.”

“Um, okay.”

I patted his arm. “Thank you, I appreciate it, too. And thank you for earlier.”

His smile came back. “You’re welcome.”

The noises stopped. Hearing sighs, I assumed that they had just administered the remaining sandman packs. Jacky appeared at my elbow.

“They were paid to do a fast strike on the Navy base’s armory.”

I frowned. “Then they’re still missing team. They don’t have a driver, someone to help them get out fast.”

“They haven’t met their employer yet—he was supposed to show up tonight.”

I looked at Mr. Black, but he didn’t have the grace to look embarrassed. He gave us a nod that was almost a bow.

“If we find him, we will let you know. In any case, may I say it has been a pleasure and an education? Good work, ladies, and good night.” He tipped his hat and was gone, leaving me pretty sure he hadn’t just
teleported
away but not able to remember how he’d left.

Jacky looked up and down the street. “Nice trick. Our new friends won’t remember anything from when we jumped them till they wake up in Navy custody. We should stop by their hotel rooms on the way and collect their gear.”

Balini brought the car up in back, followed by a van sent by the base, and we loaded our sleeping prisoners before anyone out in the street decided to see if Mr. Black was really gone.
 
We drove slowly through the streets like they were enemy territory, back to the Hotél Washington where our three were coincidentally staying, and Jacky and her boys retrieved everything including their own things; they weren’t staying. From there it was a drive straight up Main Street and out of Guantánamo City. Leaving its outskirts, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Not a deep one. We had the Three Horsemen. We’d learned their mission. We’d
won
. But… “Good work,” Mr. Black had said. Why did it feel like I’d been complimented by the Devil?