Hero (39 page)

I saw a shadow appear at our feet, and it was growing in diameter fast. I didn't stop to look up; I dove to the right.

The Wrecking Ball was caught underneath the thirteenth floor of the Bascom Accounting Firm building, which Warrior Woman had launched from the next building over.

I peeled myself up off the ground and saw the kids, their faces drained of all color as they looked at the pile of rubble. All that could be seen of the Wrecking Ball was a hand, its palm still smudged with rust.

I grabbed as many of the children as I could and started running. I couldn't see a building that wasn't under siege; hell, I couldn't even see a free door. I was about to fumble the small child in my arms when a cowl suddenly whooshed in front of me. Dark Hero lifted the child over his shoulder before I dropped her, and motioned for us to follow him.

The heroes gathered in a swirling vortex and began to form an attack aimed in our direction. I shouted for the teacher and the tour guide to hurry. The tour guide kicked off her heels so she could run. We sprinted down an alley along the side of a factory building. Dark Hero yanked open a fire exit and directed us to hurry up the stairs. We grabbed the kids and raced up three flights as fast as we could. We burst out onto the fourth floor, and Dark Hero gathered us in the middle of the room and shoved heavy metal file cabinets around us to provide some shielding. The teacher hurried the children into the makeshift bunker and told them all to sit quietly. The tour guide cried hysterically.

I thought I heard a scraping noise above us, but I assumed it was the building settling under all the duress of the battle outside.

Dark Hero put his hand over the tour guide's mouth to shut her up. He needed to listen. We all looked up at the ceiling, at the sound of something moving above us, something like claws scraping across a metal floor. Dark Hero rose and walked directly beneath the sound.

A carved circle of concrete dropped out of the ceiling, and the Badger and the Weasel dropped through the hole and pounced on top of Dark Hero, taking swipes at him with their claws. The kids squealed and clattered to the other side of the room. Dark Hero drew the rodents away from the children and engaged them in hand-to-claw.

A sudden blast rattled the building. The children screamed, and the floor began to crumble and disappear beneath us. I yelled for everyone to roll with me to the side of the floor that still remained intact. I grabbed a little girl by her tiny arm to stop her from slipping into the abyss. The other children reacted quickly, and no one fell. Another sonic boom rattled the building, and the floor across the room collapsed. Suddenly we were struggling to stay on a tilting plane that sloped directly toward a yawning chasm, a certain plunge to death. The children didn't scream; all of their energy had been spent climbing up to safety.

There was a little boy who looked like he hadn't changed clothes in a few weeks trying to scramble up the sloping floor, but he was dangerously close to the edge. The tour guide was close enough to help him, but she was frozen with fear. I scooted down closer to him, only a few feet away, and stretched out my leg so he was almost able to reach it. I called out for him to hold on, that I was coming. The building shook again, this time with a heat blast. I felt my eyelashes singe in the heat, but I kept crawling closer and closer to the boy. Dark Hero had his hands full trying to dodge the Weasel and the Badger, all the while keeping them away from the kids, but he managed to throw me the end of his cape, so I could hold on and dangle near the boy. Just a few more feet—I was going to reach him and save him.

"Thank you!" The teacher cried big grateful tears as the boy reached to grab my foot. "Thank you!"

Then the center of the floor gave way completely.

Everyone screamed, and we saw the boy, his eyes big as saucers, disappear in the darkness.

But something stopped him in midair.

A massive, sinewy hand grabbed the edge of the floor and pulled a husky frame onto the remaining ledge. Under the rescuer's other arm—which ended in a lump of flesh that could have been a hand—was the little boy, frightened but unharmed.

Dad.

"Are you an angel?" the filthy little boy asked my father. He must have thought he was already dead.

Dad wiped a smudge of dirt off the side of the kid's face and mussed his hair. He lifted the boy up, sat him down safely next to me, and in the next second my father was upon the Badger and the Weasel.

The Weasel gnashed his razor-sharp teeth at him. Dad picked up the Badger and threw him at the Weasel, knocking them both to the floor. They never had a chance to get up. Dad grabbed each by the foot and tossed them into the hole. I counted to five before we heard their bodies smack the bottom.

Dark Hero motioned for us to follow him. Dad picked up the tour guide, helped the teacher to her feet, and we led all the kids toward Dark Hero, who had found an emergency fire door leading to a metal walkway that connected with the building next door.

I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but Dark Hero kept urging us forward. Dad and I each had three kids in our arms, and we herded the rest along quickly. Dark Hero led us up a dozen flights of stairs to the roof and began to lower the children over the side, onto the roof of the next building.

Dad told us to hurry, we had to get the kids across into the next building and out the first-floor exit before the heroes found them. The building was severely damaged, more a husk than a building, really. I hoped it would hold long enough for us to escape. The tour guide didn't want to drop over the wall to the next building, so after all the children were safely on the other side, Dad picked her up, still squealing, and tossed her over into Dark Hero's arms.

Just then we heard the roar as the building we'd just left collapsed. We turned around to watch the floors crushing down on each other like a petrified stack of pancakes. We didn't wait to see the top floor hit bottom; we disappeared below.

The power was off, so we hurried in and out of shadows as we poured down the stairwell. It's a good thing missing chunks of walls allowed some light to stream in, because we'd never have been able to see otherwise.

Dark Hero led us out onto the tenth floor and motioned for us to be quiet. He and Dad listened. Nothing. The silence made my hair stand on end.

"What the hell is happening?" I asked in a sharp whisper. "Who's doing this?" But I already knew the answer, and so did Dad.

He looked out of a missing chunk in the wall, and I followed his gaze up to the alien who hovered over the Wilson Memorial.

Justice.

Dad rubbed the corners of his eyes like he always did after a bad day at the factory.

"He always was a real bad penny."

"I don't get it," I said. "How's he doing this?"

Dad stared off into the sky, crowded with hundreds of heroes, destroying the city.

"Mind control." Dad sighed and shook his head. "I hate mind control."

"How do we fight it?" I laid my hand on a little girl's forehead, and a cut stopped bleeding and sealed.

"We're fine for now. He's working in large numbers."

"What if he tries to get in our heads?"

"Simple," Dad told me. "Don't think like everyone else." He grabbed my wrist. "Let me see your hand."

"Why?"

"Where's your ring?"

I didn't want to tell Dad that it was buried with Ruth. That was none of his business.

"I don't have it anymore."

"That's how he does it, I bet. How he controls the League. The rings," Dad said. He was looking up at the sky, watching the "heroes" of the world weave in and out of air currents as they wreaked mass destruction. "It's how he always knows where you are. That's just his style, too. He made a big production out of giving it to you, didn't he?" Dad couldn't hide the disgust on his face. "Like it was some special treasure."

"Why's he doing this?" I asked.

"He's going to blow up the world," Dad said, as if it were a simple, obvious truth. "So he can go home."

I thought about the night I'd caught Justice staring off into space.

You all smell the same to me.

"He can't get there on his own—even he doesn't have that kind of power. He needs something big to propel him."

Dad looked me up and down.

"Nice outfit."

Up to that point I'd forgotten that I was wearing his costume. I would have felt less embarrassed if I'd been standing in front of him naked. He stared at the faint outline of the mari-nara stain around the abdomen. The dry cleaners had done a good job, but they weren't miracle workers.

Dark Hero was crouched near the missing chunk in the wall. He never took his eyes off Justice or the Wilson Memorial. So far we were lucky, no one knew where we were. Yet. I wrapped my hands around two sprained ankles and then cupped my hand around the teacher's shoulder blade. She said she thought she'd broken a rib in the scramble when the floor fell. I did what I could for the pain.

"Who's your friend?" Dad motioned to Dark Hero.

"Oh, that's Dark Hero," I said, like I was introducing a new friend I'd brought home from school.

"Nice to meet you," Dad said, and extended his hand. "I'm a fan of your work." Dark Hero stood up and shook my father's hand. "Very result oriented."

"So," Dad asked himself, his eyes narrowing, "what are we gonna do here?"

We were a motley group of leftovers, saddled by potential victims—kids, no less. Simple, I thought, we'll get the kids to safety, take out the hundreds of heroes on our own—surely three of us should be enough—then we can stop Justice from destroying the planet. If we mind the time, we may even be able to make it home in time for dinner.

In response to Dad's question, Dark Hero made a wringing motion with his hands like he was snapping a neck in two. I assumed he was referring to Justice.

Dad motioned for us to crouch down on the floor with him. He took a stapler off the ground and used it as a pointer.

"If Justice is here"—he stood a hole puncher on its side to represent the Wilson Memorial building—"and we're here"— he grabbed a dented pencil sharpener to stand for our building. Then he stopped and rubbed his chin and thought about it for a second. Dark Hero silently pointed out some possible maneuvers.

"Too many of them," Dad said. "We'd never make it inside in time to stop Justice."

The building lurched and tossed us to the side.

"We don't have much time," I said. The children clung to the teacher and the tour guide.

I stood up with Dad and Dark Hero, and we stared at the impossible number of superpowered beings who swarmed the sky, sowing destruction.

"So many heroes." I looked up with wonder. I didn't need to look over to Dad or Dark Hero to know that we were going to try anyway. This was crazy. This was suicide. But we didn't have a choice. How the hell were we supposed to get past them?

I heard the distinct shuffle of footsteps coming from the stairwell.

"Get ready," I said. "They're coming."

Dad turned, ready to strike. Dark Hero had already disappeared into the shadows.

The door to the room burst open.

"Fuckin-A, I'd give my left tit for a working elevator!" Miss Scarlett rubbed her sore feet, heels in hand. Typhoid Larry filed in close behind her and propped himself up against the doorway to catch his breath.

"I said I'd carry you up," Golden Boy said as he zipped into the room from behind them.

"And I said I got it!" Scarlett threw a shoe at him. The shoe missed and stuck by its stiletto heel into a pushpin board next to the tour guide's face.

Golden Boy saw me in Dad's costume.

"Thom, that's your father's—" He stopped short when he saw my dad.

He stood up straight and saluted.

"Sir," Golden Boy greeted my father.

"Kevin," my father greeted him back.

Scarlett yanked Kevin's hand away from his forehead. "At ease, soldier."

"So," Larry said. "How can we help?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DAD WAS THE TACTICAL genius, so we all looked to him for a plan. He surprised me by what he did next—he asked for suggestions and looked directly at me. I told him the situation reminded me of a simulated training exercise during League try-outs, on a much larger scale, of course. He nodded for me to go on.

"Well." I cleared my throat. "Our goal is to stop the maniac commanding all this. So we shouldn't try to defeat all the heroes together; all we really need is a distraction so some of us can get inside the Wilson Memorial. We have to stop that alien reactor before it blows."

The group nodded. Dad listened as I continued.

"We have this one maneuver we do—our team—we call it the Shake 'n' Bake."

"Oooh, that's a goodie." Scarlett rubbed her hands together and Kevin nodded. Larry tugged at his collar like it was too tight around his neck.

"I think we could adapt it for this situation. Scarlett, you and Kevin take on the first wave, pay close attention to the A-level superpowers. Larry, you know your part. That'll give Dark Hero and Dad time to get inside and take care of what needs doing." I knew they would have no qualms about killing a renegade hero to save the world; they should be the ones to go inside.

"You're the healer. You have to come with us," Dad said to me. "In case one of us falls."

I took a deep breath and nodded, not sure if I had what it took to do this.

"Great," Scarlett said. "We're the world's last hope: Disease-boy." She nodded at Larry. "A homo." That would be me. "History's biggest failure." That would be Dad. "A big fat asshole." She shot a mean look at Kevin like we wouldn't have figured out who she meant.

"And wait, I'm sorry, who the hell are you, anyway?" Scarlett asked Dark Hero. He kept his mouth covered with his black cowl.

"But," Larry began to protest, "there's no way, I mean, there are so many, I don't know if I have that kind of power. They'll kill us." He gulped and then said out loud what we were all thinking. "We're going to die trying, aren't we?"

Our silence gave him his answer.

Scarlett and Kevin stole a glance, and just as quickly, she turned to look away.