Even Villains Have Interns (2 page)

“Hot date?”

“No.” Her date was lukewarm at best, and being
stood up for the third time. Hopefully the mayor’s right-hand man
would get the point. Every time she ran into him, she fought the
urge to stab his eyes out of spite. Alan Adale was the snake of
Eden walking around in the body of a fallen angel. He had asked her
if she was free for dinner tonight in front of people. There’d been
no way to wiggle out of it without losing her standing. Besides,
the local tabloids already had them pegged as Chicago’s next Power
Couple, as if that was something to be proud of. She was pretty
sure Adale was up to his handsome neck in whatever was going down.
“Time?”

“Quarter to eleven. You missed Doctor Who, but
you should be able to catch a rerun of the Firefly reboot.”

“Unlikely. I need to catch a plane. My intern is
flying in,” she elaborated when he tilted his head.

“Super villains have interns?”

“Well, superheroes have the whole sidekick thing
pretty well wrapped up. I guess you could call him a minion, but
since he’s being paid instead of exploited, I went with intern.”
And if she missed his flight and left her sister’s favorite student
of all time stranded at O’Hare airport. Angela had doted on the boy
even before he’d shot her in the arm. When he’d come to Angela’s
wedding over the summer, he’d mentioned he was having weird
premonitions. Like called to like. Delilah’d ask some questions
and, sure enough, Big Sis’s favorite kid was a genetic freak too.
His powers were minor, premonitions of when people were going to
die and the ability to heal a little faster than normal humans. It
wasn’t enough to win him a spot in The Company as a superhero, but
it would be enough to earn him a visit from their silencing squad
if they ever found out about him.

Delilah and Angela’s family had closed ranks
around the boy, herding him in like they had Angela’s husband and
brother-in-law. Travys was safe. And once he’d enrolled in the
University of Chicago, she’d pulled a few strings to get him a
place as her intern for a few months. It was the only way to train
him to survive.

The shadow sauntered closer. “Where do you need
to go? I can drop you off at home.”

“I don’t take boys home on the first date, or
ghosts home ever. My ride will be here shortly.”

An icy breeze fluttered her hair. Behind the
shadow a man in a tight blue suit landed, face covered by a
sculpted mask that horribly disfigured the handsome man beneath.
“My ears are burning. Were you talking about me?” the man asked
with a smile.

She could picture Ty raising an eyebrow behind
his mask.

“Cute dress,” her brother-in-law said. “Angela
will be jealous.”

“Long story. How’d you know I needed a
ride?”

“Frederick called to tell us you were out of
communication. I came out and waited. Who’s the new boyfriend?”

“The Spirit of Chicago, and not my boyfriend.”
She walked over to her brother-in-law, waving careless fingers over
her shoulder. “Toodles.”

The shadow gave her a lazy salute. “Some other
time, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

Ty moved fast, dropping her at the apartment and
flying her to the airport once she’d changed. He hovered in the
shadows. “You sure you’re fine?”

“I’m perfect. No lingering affects except an
abiding desire to get home and snuggle under my quilt with the
heater turned up to eighty. Freddie is bringing the cab around.
I’ll drop Travys at his dorm room and go straight home. Which is
where you should go,” she added firmly. “Your home. Drop the camera
off with Daddy on your way, please.”

He laughed. “You need to go get your own errand
boy.”

“I have twelve minions and an intern who eats
like a horse.”

“Why don’t you co-opt that shadow dude? He’s
here, why can’t he work for us?”

Delilah smiled wryly. “Us being the good guys
who fight the other good guys for a chance to fight the bad guys?
There is no ‘us’, Ty. Maybe you and Angela have California tied up,
but the Midwest isn’t going to suddenly see the light and flee the
strangling embrace of The Company. I’m not sure the Spirit of
Chicago could. He’s supposed to be the ghost of someone who died in
the Chicago fire.”

“He looked solid to me.”

“Yeah.” To her too. “I’ll worry about it later.
Kisses to Angela, tell Aaron I say hi.”

“No more adventures before Christmas,” Ty said.
“Angela’s been sleeping poorly enough as it is.”

“Oh?” Delilah glanced up, although Ty’s masked
face gave no hints.

He shrugged. “Nightmares about what happened
with Jacob. She wakes up screaming about fires. Not frequent, but
between that and the stomach bug going around it’s been a rough
week.”

She nodded. “No more adventures. Promise. I will
not do anything thrilling, heroic, or risky for the next two weeks.
Girl Scout’s honor.” A plane rumbled overhead, coming in to land.
“That should be Travys. Have a good night.” She smiled and walked
into the lobby before Ty could remember she’d never been a Girl
Scout.

The warm, stale air of the terminal was almost
comforting. Still, she shivered. Nightmares were the bane of her
existence. First her mother’s memories of the time she was
kidnapped and mind-raped in Colorado, and now her sister’s memories
of the man she couldn’t save. She’d unlocked those, stolen them in
unguarded moments, and they’d become part of her even though they
weren’t her experiences. A midnight swim in Lake Michigan just
couldn’t compete. So she tucked the fear out of the way, and moved
forward. A super villain’s work was never done.

Dear Dad,

I need a new watch for Christmas. Waterproof.
Possibly with a miniaturized Agree-With-Me ray attached. You know,
for the days when I run into trouble. I also need new boots. Mine
got wet.

Your daughter who is glad she took swimming
lessons,

Delilah

The Spirit of Chicago leaned his head against a
cold brick wall and stared out over the dark harbor. That had gone
as badly as he could have imagined anything going. Delilah Samson.
What a gal.

In the city’s complex world of politics, crime,
and money, he’d had her pegged as a lady on the lowest rung. He
knew her, of course; Subrosa Securities was a big name in private
safety and Delilah Samson the beautiful treat they trotted out like
a show pony for all their affluent clients. She’d even run point a
few times, hovering near various Subrosa clients at charity balls
and holiday mixers with a slightly detached expression, while the
men tripped over themselves to get her attention. Gorgeous. That’s
all anyone ever remembered. Delilah Samson hadn’t been born, she’d
been carved from alabaster. Her eyes were luminous topaz, deep,
dark, and radiant. Her dark chocolate hair fell in waves to her
hips, begging men and women alike to imagine her lying in their
beds with a sated smile.

Or maybe that was just him.

He’d known she was involved with that idiot Ivan
as well, if involved meant they sometimes traded cool glances at
the dry cleaners. He was willing to strangle Ivan for that alone,
stealing her time and favor—and then tonight. The one night he’d
felt reasonably certain Miss Samson would be safe, she wasn’t. His
plans for the evening had gone to hell in a burning hand basket
when the little radar he’d illegally pinned on Ivan’s car met with
the one on Boris Lugchevka’s car. Boris was a thug with a list of
petty convictions stretching back to his childhood in the late
nineties. Ivan was the brains, maybe even a major player in the
criminal underworld, it was hard to say. He had no arrest record.
No proof he’d ever done anything wrong. But he was always on the
fringe of criminal activity, and if Ivan didn’t commit crimes, he
certainly wouldn’t hesitate to egg Boris on.

The Spirit had arrived at the dock in time to
see Delilah fall into the water. Searching the dark lake with
nothing but hope and the faint impressions left by shadows was not
the way to conduct a rescue operation in the dead of winter. He’d
thought he’d lost her.

That was why he’d made so many mistakes.
Bringing her to the nearest yacht seemed safe enough. She’d looked
so helpless, dark eyes huge and filled with fear, her long hair
tangled by the lake water, so he’d stayed to offer help. A normal
woman would have been too shaken to do anything but thank him. Not
Delilah. No, she noticed he picked up a towel. She’d identified
him. She was evaluating him.

A beautiful, brainy woman.

She was going to be the death of him.

He sighed and ran his hands through his short
hair as his physical body reformed around him. For thirteen years
he’d kept his secret safe. Everyone, from The Company superheroes
to the local media, accepted the fact that The Spirit of Chicago
was a ghost. After all, why not? When the evening news was filled
with accounts of a man who could turn into an eight-foot giant with
bark for skin, a ghost seemed downright normal.

When he’d first approached The Company, a
seemingly typical reckless and angry teenager, he’d been wary. He’d
been scared of what they might do with him if they knew his name.
So he’d lied. The United States government’s clandestine superhero
control unit didn’t know his real name or what he looked like. They
were content believing he was a ghost, an incorporeal man without
the ability to touch, pick up, or manipulate anything. He watched
people. Sometimes he frightened people. But really he was an
informer, a Company spy.

And because he’d picked up a towel, Delilah
Samson knew more about him than anyone in thirteen years.

The real question was: What else did she know?
Could she guess from his voice who he was?
Would
she guess?
And, if she guessed, what then? Blackmail? Vows of secrecy? A kiss
to thank him next time they met wearing their business faces?

His heart raced, half agony, half hope. Maybe he
could find a way to tell her without losing the life he’d so
carefully cultivated since escaping the hell of his childhood.
Integrate her. Convince her to ally with him and keep Chicago
safe.

Wishful thinking, he admitted as he walked into
his apartment and locked the door. They’d barely exchanged half a
dozen civil words with each other and he was ready to name the
date, the kids, and the hypothetical dog.

Tossing his watch on the kitchen counter, The
Spirit of Chicago stalked back to what he liked to call The Lair:
his apartment’s spare bedroom retrofitted with bulletproof glass,
heavy curtains to keep out prying eyes, and an entire wall devoted
to visualizing the dynamics of Chicago’s power players.

Mayor Marco Arámbula occupied one pyramid of
power. Chief of Police Brian Wyte owned his own pyramid too; he’d
gained ground in the last year and the next election was looking
like it might be a run-off between Arámbula and Wyte. The crime
syndicates were smaller blobs formed under a big question mark. Ten
years ago the individual gangs still had power—some, at any rate.
The police force whittled that away and into the power vacuum a new
player crept. The gangs and the Outfit had become mere feeder
streams to the one big boss.

There was no name to go with the question mark.
Not yet. But he’d have it soon enough. He needed the name before
the criminal element in Chicago became too organized and efficient
to break without going to war.

The Spirit of Chicago traced a finger down the
pyramid of power under Wyte. Subrosa Securities worked in happy
harmony with the police force, so he’d put Delilah Samson right
down at the bottom with the other peons. Only—his finger paused—she
wasn’t there. Huh.

He checked his desk drawer and after a quick
search found a magnet, purple for a reason he couldn’t fathom, with
a black and white image of her face glued on it. Hesitating only
for a moment, he placed Delilah on the third tier under Chief Wyte.
She wouldn’t report directly to him, but her boss had to know.

Subrosa had a good deal if she really had
superpowers. They could offer her protection from The Company and
other less pleasant groups that might want to take advantage of
someone with super mutations, and she had free license to use her
skills. He grabbed a scanner and read the barcode under her
picture.

He turned his computer on to read the
cross-referenced files.
Let’s see
... Delilah Samson, age
twenty-six, height five ten, born in 2007, hired by Subrosa
Securities in the spring of 2029 at age twenty-four. He scrolled
down and stared at a blank page.

Nothing.

Delilah Samson sprang into being five years ago?
He doubted that. Logic said she had a family somewhere, a history,
school records... People left tracks.

He pulled up the Subrosa Securities website
first, scrolling through their list of employees all for hire as
discreet service or to set up your next security system. How
embarrassing. As if security guards were some kind of accessory you
picked to match your shoes in the morning.

Three pages in, he hit the end of the Bodyguards
For Hire and still hadn’t found Miss Samson. He checked the
personnel listings for secretaries, hostesses, and other office
minions. Not a trace of his delinquent Delilah.

Grumbling in frustration, he pulled up the
president’s information. Wilford Andrews, a bespectacled and
impossibly fit man with gray hair and dark skin stared sternly
back. Andrews was the regional president and head of Midwestern
operations (USA) for Subrosa. And there, under the title ‘Vice
President’, was Delilah Samson, resplendent in a blood-red jacket
and skirt. She should have looked like a bellhop, but instead her
flat stare seemed to oscillate between a come-hither invitation and
the cold warning that she would not hesitate to put a bullet in
your head.