Seven Wonders (20 page)

  Jeannie turned and Tony suddenly smelt cut grass. The world wobbled sideways, and he was on his feet in an instant.

  The back of Jeannie's head was devoid of her glossy black hair, and instead showing a ghastly gray-white expanse of bone. He stared, following the jagged fuse lines of her skull, then his eyes dropping lower and lower. Her spine, embedded in moving, undulating sheets of striated muscle. As she moved her arms back and forth, the sleeves of her black shirt vanished, replaced by red and white muscle through which the rounded white ends of her elbows protruding sickeningly. Tony blinked again and her limbs became entirely devoid of flesh, creamy bright bone showing now in perfect anatomical alignment. Her radius and ulna rotated around each other, held together, Tony presumed, by tendons and ligaments which were oddly absent.

  Tony felt bile rising and fell back into the booth. He had not the fucking clue what was going on, except that he felt sick and his Xray vision had turned itself on by itself. He screwed his eyes shut, but it made no difference − he could still see, clearly and without impediment. He sank the heels of his hands into each eye socket − this worked for a moment, then the layers of skin and muscle separated in front of him like the layers of a dry old onion, until he was staring into an alien, rocky terrain that looked like the bleached surface of the moon. With a start, he realized he was looking at the bones of his wrist.

  Tony cried out, but nobody could hear him. He looked left, right, straight ahead. The dance floor in front of him was a heaving mass of jumping, bouncing, twirling skeletons. No clothes, no flesh, nothing, just skeletons bouncing, floating an inch or more above the floor. Shoes! Some of the skeletal forms teetered on the tiny bones of their toes, Tony realizing they were girls in ridiculously high heels. The tattooed barkeep seemed to notice Tony, and craned his neck up. Tony doubled over at the sight of his stripped bones, a wave of nausea sweeping over him.

  Hands on his shoulders. He looked up, staring into the bare skull peering down at him, revulsion pulling his face into a grimace. The skull was talking, the jaw bone flapping without meaning or form. The skull shook, and the figure dropped onto one horribly sharp knee. The empty nostril swung into his eye line, and he shrank back again. The old taste of tequila filled his mouth. Here it comes…

  "Tony! What's wrong?" the skeleton shouted − it was Jeannie. Tony felt a little relief and managed to keep his stomach contents where they were, if just for the moment.

  "I don't feel so good," he said. Jeannie leaned in, Tony closing his eyes − uselessly − as he imagined the sharp ridges of her skull scratching his ear. What he imagined and what he felt were two different things entirely. Her lips brushed his earlobe, and he felt the tickle of her hair on the side of his face. He pulled away, too quickly and regretting it, but he had to look. Beside him, skeleton Jeannie looked at him with empty eyes, her surprised expression completely invisible to him.

  The effort of shouting pulled the energy almost physically out of him, causing him to pause after every pair of words. His ears rang and his vision − skeletons aside − was growing shadowed at the edges. Unconsciousness wasn't far off.

  "I can see skeletons. Bones, nothing else, just skulls and ribs and shit. I can't even close my eyes, I can see through my own hands. My X-ray vision has gone batshit crazy."

  The jaw of Jeannie's skull rattled up and down like bad CG. Laughter. Tony burped, thankful that nobody could hear. The gin and tonic and tequila and pizza from Sherrod's was about to make an uninvited reappearance.

  Jeannie kissed Tony on the cheek, the warm wet of her lips surprising him again. Her humid, hot breath in his ear told him she was alive and normal and it was just him.

  "Don't worry," she shouted. "You can't expect to just know how to control everything. Some things will need to be learned!"

  Tony smiled, head clearing just a little, then his mouth opened and he puked salami, cheese and tequila over Jeannie's shoes. But he felt better, and he opened his eyes, and saw Jeannie's face of flesh and blood frowning at the mess. He smiled, sheepishly, and glanced over her. There she was, black haired and black shirted. Around them, the bar was populated with people, fully clothed and full dressed. He felt better.

  "Sorry."

  She shook her head. "Tomorrow we're taking your feeble Big Deal pay check and going shopping for new Chucks. Roger roger?"

  He nodded. She stood, shaking the worst of the vomit off inelegantly. "Let's go, party animal. And no peeking at my coccyx, promise?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Fucking hell, it hurt. It hurt so bad his vision was white at the edges and he felt the inside of his head pinging with static. He spat blood into the dirt of the infield, then swung around with his full bodyweight, good arm outstretched. It connected with something small and hard which yielded, resulting in a cry of pain that, this time, didn't come from his own throat. He managed to keep himself upright as his opponent hit the deck awkwardly. Beyond, in the dark, his accomplice lay unconscious and face down.

  The victim didn't stay down. Instead, almost bouncing from the dirt in a cloud of orange dust, he dived back towards his attacker. One outstretched fist collided with the attacker's eye socket, dropping him immediately. The attacker managed to get to his knees, but the white mist in his eyes was turning red, and with every tiny movement of his face there was a nauseating scraping underneath the muscle of his cheek.

  The fight paused, and without the sounds of two men scuffling somewhere near the third base of Leicester Field Ballpark, the night was silent. Concentrating, the attacker could just make out the legs of the victim walking away from him through his double vision. A moment later the legs stopped, then the man bent over and picked up something discarded in the fight. The man seemed to fiddle with it for a few seconds, then replaced it on his head and pulled the front of it down over his forehead. A baseball cap.

  This was it, do or die. With the victim's back turned, the attacker removed a piece of black plastic from his belt that was shaped like a handle. There was going to be just one chance. He was left-handed, but his left arm was numb and swung like a lump of rubber from the shoulder. He fumbled with the handle for a moment, then a blue blade, almost white in what little light there was in the ballpark, materialized with a
shick
. The victim paused, and turned, drawing up something long and gray into a defensive posture. It looked like a baseball bat, but then it turned in his grip and shone brightly, the thin edge of the weapon disappearing into nothing.

  The Cowl allowed himself a sly grin. A katana? Was that all? He adjusted his grip on the handle of the quantum knife and, holding his breath, leapt forward.

  The existent/non-existent blade of his weapon passed through the sword in complete silence, entered the man's body and only stopped when the Cowl's gloved fingers hit the man's baseball jacket. The victim hissed like a deflating balloon and the Cowl rotated the blade one hundred and eighty degrees and dragged it upwards from stomach to chest. The blade met no resistance, and the Cowl had to pull his arm short so he didn't cleave the man's torso completely in half. Another twist, then another, then another, and the victim's chest and upper abdomen were divided into neat cubes which slid and squelched, soaking the ground with pints of blood in mere seconds. Finally the man dropped his sword and fell, head cracking on the rubber mat of third base, his baseball cap flipping up and off his head again to lie in the pool of blood.

  So ended the secret retirement of the Flyball Ninja. The Leicester Nighthawks were going to need a new mascot.

  The Cowl swore, and lifted himself to his feet. His broken arm was beginning to tingle, almost vibrate, which was something because that meant it was starting to heal already. He could move it now, just, so held it as best he could against his waist as he bent over the disemboweled victim. Just a few weeks ago his ribs had taken two nights to heal. With his powers even further gone, he had no idea how long this break would take. But at least, as far as the pins-and-needles told him, he wasn't yet down to regular, human metabolism and he wouldn't need a cast. For that fact he was grateful, because there was hardly any time left at all, not before they arrived, and there was lots still to do.

  The Cowl hissed and bent double.
Pain.
He knew what it was, experienced it occasionally, but only in the rare event that the heavy artillery was rolled out, and then it was more abstract, an interesting sensation rather than his body's natural warning and defense system. This was different. Very different.
This
was pain. This was his nervous system alight with signals it had never transmitted before.

  And as the Cowl was – had been – indestructible and invincible and could heal in seconds, the new sensation was all kinds of wrong. It took effort not to panic, not to scream at the sky. It took effort not to black out from the pain, but the Cowl closed his eyes and breathed, breathed, breathed, for a while.

  He coughed again as he considered how, or even if, he could receive medical attention. Luckily Blackbird had trained as a doctor before shifting from medicine to physics. The problem is, he thought, she seemed to be dead. She hadn't moved since the Flyball Ninja had pitched a highdensity
n
th metal baseball at her. He'd been right on target, the projectile clocking Blackbird on the forehead and throwing her back at least twenty yards towards the pitcher's mound.

  The Cowl knelt heavily by the body of the Flyball Ninja and reached for his dislodged cap. He flipped it over, and tugged at the lining. There, a small square of transparent plastic, a tiny blue LED glowing within. What a stupid place to hide something so valuable.

  A sigh from the darkness. So, Blackbird was alive. Things were looking up. Still on his knees, the Cowl crawled from the corpse to her body, then carefully felt along her sides, her neck, her arms and legs for any obvious injury that would preclude movement. Nothing seemed to be broken, but of course who knew what internal injuries she might have sustained? A concussion at least, although her heavy mask showed only a faint smudge where the baseball had impacted.

  He turned her over, and she sighed again but did not cry out loudly, as he would have half-expected her to had her injuries been more severe. Released from under her body, her left forearm was gashed, the fabric of her catsuit ragged from where her arm had been caught by a hailstorm of tiny ninja stars. One was still caught in her suit, the razoredged flower a bright silver with the logo of the Leicester Nighthawks proudly enameled in yellow and green on the hub. The Cowl plucked it from Blackbird's arm and tossed it onto the ground.

  Sliding his good arm underneath his accomplice's back, and leaning forward to rest her shoulder against his chest, the Cowl staggered to his feet, pulling Blackbird's unconscious frame across his upper body, balancing her weight on one shoulder. Satisfied that the night was still quiet, he left the ballpark at a trot, vanishing into the unlit shadows under the nearest bleachers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The first four roofs had been fine. Flat, spacious and clean. Just airconditioning units, the occasional skylight. Easy.

  Tony thudded over the last one, judged the distance across the street, and leapt the next gap in a single bound. The roof he landed on was angled a little and Tony found himself crashing through a forest of metal. He instinctively covered his face with his arms as he rolled through a complex web of aerials and satellite dishes, but they didn't slow him much. He'd landed on a block of restaurants, and realized he'd crossed into San Ventura's Gaslight Quarter. The area was a pretty half a square mile of historic buildings and interesting architecture, a mecca for tourists and one of the best spots in the Shining City for eating. Tony hoped the patrons in the bars and restaurants below wouldn't be too upset now that he'd busted their TV reception.

  He saw the Cowl up ahead. The bastard had stopped and was actually waiting − waiting! − for Tony to catch up. Tony couldn't see his face from this distance, but he imagined the villain smiling and letting out an extra evil chuckle, just for himself, before turning on his tail and resuming his escape across the roofs. The Cowl had something large slung over his shoulder, a man-sized sack of spoils or something.

  Tony sighed. This was bullshit. He could fly. The Cowl could fly. This foot chase − albeit one across the rooftops of San Ventura − was bullshit, a cliché. The Cowl was playing with him, refusing to make an airborne escape. Tony had taken off a couple of times, but from the air it became impossible for him to spot his quarry in the night, even with supervision and infra-red and whatever. Clad entirely in a black fabric that played tricks with the eye even in broad daylight, it was easy for the Cowl to avoid his pursuer. The only option for Tony was to run, run across the goddamn roofs for who the hell knew how long. This wasn't crime fighting… or, thought Tony, the right way to start his battle with San Ventura's supervillain. It was just a game for the Cowl. Tony began to get an idea of how the cat-and-mouse of superhero versus supervillain, Seven Wonders versus the Cowl, might work. An unending conflict, more entertainment for both sides than a serious mission for justice/anarchy. Why the Cowl wanted to run was beyond him. Maybe, thought Tony with a grin, the Cowl was scared. He probably just wanted to get his bag of goodies back to his secret hideout.

  Tony laughed. He'd teach that hooded prick that things were different now, that his grip on San Ventura was loosening, that there was a new hero in town who would pick up the slack left by the Seven Wonders. No, more than that. He would show the whole city exactly how much it needed the Seven Wonders (a clue: not at all).

  Tony grinned under his new mask and accelerated, feeling the air parting in front of his face, carrying with it the scent of a hundred award-winning restaurants wafting from kitchen chimneys and air vents. The first night out in the costume and he had to run straight into his mark. He couldn't have asked for a better field test.