Sidekick (7 page)

“Look—”

The Sultana’s feet connected with Ryder’s knee.

“—out!”

I winced. Ryder got to her hands and knees. I could tell by the look on her face that the Sultana was in trouble now. In one leap, she pinned her to the floor. Then she ripped back the silk veils covering the Sultana’s chest—which, I’ll admit, looked a little weird. Next, she started rummaging around underneath the veils—and that looked even weirder. Finally, her hand emerged, and in it was a little box with a switch and a flashing red light.

“The detonator! Awesome!”

I couldn’t help it. I started to jump up and down and punch the air. I had just witnessed a superhero save the day!

With all the jumping around, I noticed the Sultana’s automatic weapon lying on the floor, half-hidden beneath a table.

Well, that wasn’t safe.

I scurried over and picked it up. Best to give it to Ryder. She definitely felt like the adult in the room. Maybe it would make up for the whole me distracting her thing earlier. And maybe she would be proud of me and give me a superhero chuck on the chin.

I made my way over to the two, gun in hand.

Ryder was standing with her foot now pinning a furious Sultana on the floor. “So then, tell me, what’s your game Delilah? Why hurt innocent people? Spread the truth to me.”

“All you need to know is that your time is coming to an end,” the Sultana spat.

Neither one noticed me until I was about a foot away from their scrum. I held the gun out to Ryder feeling very happy dog about the whole thing. Maybe a little too happy because I didn’t notice that the Sultana’s fist, covered in brass knuckles, was on a crash course with my ankle. I sure felt it though. I screamed…and then kind of dropped the gun right into her waiting hands.

In less than a second, she had it righted, cocked…and pointed directly at me.

“Now, my detonator, or we will both shower in her blood.”

Chapter Eight

I could have focused on the look Ryder was giving me, but I was sure she didn’t mean it.

“The detonator, now, or she dies.”

My eyes moved back and forth from the Sultana’s face to Ryder’s. Sure, I was pretty scared, but deep down I knew everything would be okay. Ryder could handle this. She had probably been in this exact situation a hundred times. This is what crime fighters did. They saved people.

“Shoot her.”

“What?” I screamed.

“I’m sorry?” the Sultana repeated.

“Shoot her. I cannot risk an untold number of people’s lives in order to save one. I am not giving you the detonator. You will have to shoot her.”

My jaw hit my collarbone. I looked at Ryder’s face. Nothing reassuring there. “This is hard to say,” I said putting my hand to my chest, “but I am so disappointed in you.” Then a thought occurred to me. I turned to the Sultana. “Why are you pointing the gun at me anyway? Why not point it at her?”

She gave me a tired look and said, “Her clothing protects her from bullets. Yours does not.”

That was so unfair and awesome at the same time.

The Sultana turned her attention back to Ryder. “Well, I guess we’re at an impasse.”

“No impasse. Shoot her.”

“Would you stop saying that!”

Ryder was quickly falling down my list of favourite superheroes.

The Sultana slithered back a foot or two and then rose to her feet, gun still pointed at me. “I can see when I’ve lost the battle.”

Ryder narrowed her eyes again, very much like a cat focusing in on her prey.

“But here’s what’s going to happen.” The Sultana licked her lips. “You’re getting off, Ryder, with the detonator. My troupe and I will leave. You will not try to stop us.”

“What about the girl?”

I smiled. Aw, see? I knew it. She did care.

“I’ll let her go, first opportunity,” she said.

Ryder didn’t move.

The Sultana took a moment to smooth her hair away from her face. “Well, what’s it going to be? Save the girl or try to take me to jail?”

Ryder seemed to be thinking.

“Um, this is kind of a no-brainer,” I shouted without really intending to. “I get the whole not saving my life in order to protect untold numbers of whoever, but come on!”

“Agreed,” Ryder said and turned on her heel.

“Wait! That’s it? You’re leaving me here with this psycho?”

“Isn’t that what you just asked me to do? Or would you prefer the first scenario, where you are shot?” Ryder asked, arching one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“Well, yes…I mean no!” I didn’t know what I meant, but I did not like the way this whole thing was shaping up. Oh, why didn’t I grab the yellow glove? “But how do you know she’ll stick to her word?” I shouted to Ryder’s departing leather-clad back.

She didn’t bother to turn around. “If she doesn’t, she’ll be very sorry.”

“Oh well, great!” I shouted. “And as the old saying goes, that and a bag of chips will get me a bag of chips!” A little spittle flew from my mouth. This was so not cool. I watched Ryder walk out the door into the sunlight. She took two steps to the wooden railing then leapt up and over into the air. From what I could hear, the crowd went wild.

Well, wasn’t this just fabulous. I stood very still, unsure what to do. I could practically feel the Sultana staring into my back. I couldn’t take it anymore. I peeked over my shoulder. My stomach fainted. Yup, Crazy Pants was just staring at me, probably deciding how she could best feed me to her snakes.

Suddenly she turned and walked over to what appeared to be a console. I hadn’t noticed before, what with all the dust and gloom, but a computerized control panel stood by the window. The Sultana turned a key, of all things, and the wooden leviathan came to life.

She and the gun then floated back towards me.

“Well it’s just you and me,” she said softly. “I would imagine that you feel quite safe, given who your father is.”

“Not really,” I replied.

“Then maybe you’re not a fool.” She looked down at the torn veils, barely covering her creepy, perfect boobs and frowned. “Because you see, the Sultana doesn’t answer to anybody. Not even your father. Not anymore.”

Fantastic. She was talking in third person. Never a good sign.

“Now, come with me.” She motioned towards the door.

We stood on the platform. The crowd was nowhere near dispersing, and there was no sign of Ryder. The only notable difference now was that there looked to be about fifty cop cars parked below. Fifty cop cars doing absolutely nothing!

The Sultana walked over to the podium. I saw the microphone for the first time.

“My friends! We’re leaving!”

Miniature figures down below started flipping and twirling.

Show-offs. Someone should really tell them that it’s just as easy to walk.

The performers, including Nine-Lives Pulcinella, then began scaling the ladders around the ship with the greatest of ease. Once they had all disappeared into their various hatches, the Sultana turned back to me.

“What I said about not answering to anyone? I meant it.”

“Fabulous. Great. My father’s not exactly on my top ten these days either.”

“But I always keep my word,” she said ignoring me. “I’m going to let you go.”

“Really? That’s great. Just tell me how to get d—”

She put one finger to my lips.

“See you later alligator.”

Then she shoved me over the side of railing.

Chapter Nine

I flew ass over teakettle.

The now familiar half-second of free fall shut down my brain. Then I felt the jerk at the back of my jacket. I looked up to Ryder’s face. She was clinging to the underside of the platform like some super sexy praying mantis. She mouthed the word
quiet
to me.

Luckily, the Sultana didn’t take the time to watch my fall. Besides the crowd had screamed when I first went over—which restored a little of my faith in humanity—and those screams had probably been enough to convince the Sultana of my street pancake status. Or maybe I just wasn’t that high on her priority list. Either way, we heard her footfalls retreat into the ship.

When she was gone, I finally was able to communicate some vitally important information to Ryder, “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!”

Ryder said nothing, but she helped me grab a wooden plank with my hands so that I could then hook my legs around some scaffolding.

“You saved me!” I shout-whispered.

“Yes. And you haven’t been making it easy for me.”

A stupid smile spread over my face. I couldn’t help it. I had evaded death again. The feeling was a little intoxicating.

“So what do we do now? Are we going back in? Are we going to take all of those circus freaks out?”

“No. We are going to jump.”

My giddy intoxication turned to something more nauseating. “Um, I’m sorry, but did you say we were going to jump?”

“I would ask if you had a better idea, but I think we have witnessed the quality of your problem-solving abilities.”

Sure, from her perspective, I was a bumbling idiot, but, but…I wasn’t really sure what the
but
was,
but
I was sure there was one.

“You seem to be missing one extremely important point. We can’t fly. Well, at least, I can’t fly. Who knows about you with your freaky alien eyes.”

“Flying was not my intention.” Ryder shook a thick black cord in her hand. I followed the cord and saw that it was rigged to the platform’s structure. Then I realized she had what looked to be rappelling gear wrapped around her waist. When had she found the time to do that? There was so much I didn’t know about superheroing.

I turned back to Ryder. “I gotta tell you, I think this is a terrible idea.”

Just then, the ship gave a giant shudder.

“I am afraid we don’t have time for you to think.”

“Why don’t we go back inside? You can kick the Sultana’s ass again. That had to be fun. It looked like fun. I could help.”

Ryder gave me the barest whisper of a withering look. It was probably the part about me helping. I should have stopped while I was ahead.

“Delilah is not alone now, and she has weapons. I have the detonator. That is perhaps enough for one day, don’t you think?”

“No! No, I don’t think. She—”

“I think that you are now stalling.”

“Yes, of course, I’m stalling! I’m scared of heights!”

“Then why did you climb up here?”

My eyes widened as I shook my head. “I wasn’t scared of heights then! I’ve had some recent hands-on experience.”

“We are going to jump now.”

“No way!”

“Then I am going to jump without you.”

“No way!” That idea was even more terrifying. Who knew superheroes were so un-user-friendly?

She positioned her feet more squarely on the railing.

“I don’t believe you. You’re not going to leave me up here. You save people.”

The tiniest whiff of uncertainty wafted over to me from Ryder. I knew it. I had called her bluff. She was going to have to find us another way out. She could—

Suddenly Ryder was flying towards me, arms outstretched like the most beautiful giant spider monkey the world had ever seen. She slammed into me hard. Her arms were around me, and we were heading into a nosedive, straight for the concrete below.

My brain suddenly slammed into gear.

“This is not how you rappel!” I screamed. “Not rappelling!”

Ryder said nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face into her shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around her tiny muscled waist.

We were falling fast. Oh God, so fast. Then there was a tug. Then we were falling not so fast. We were slowing down. I blinked my eyes open. The cord had caught and was letting us down at a very reasonable rate. This was okay. We were going to be okay. That Dark Ryder. I knew I could trust her all along.

Suddenly I felt Ryder’s hand move in between our squashed together bellies.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“We are out of rope. I am going to release the belt.”

“What? No! We’re still too high!” The balloon had taken flight and we were now skimming the street still a good fifteen, twenty feet up, travelling at least twenty miles per hour. Now, I was no physicist, but I figured that formula most likely ended in death.

“Up ahead there,” she said directing me with her eyes, “that series of dumpsters moved to block off the street—that is where we jump.”

I knew there was no point in arguing with her. She’d just push me anyway.

“You will have to let go of me so that we do not collide.”

I nodded.

The dumpsters were coming up fast. Really fast. Oh God.

“Now!” Ryder shouted.

She released the belt and pushed me away from her. I screamed and went flailing headfirst into a big mess of garbage.

It took a moment for my brain to come round. I blinked a few times then saw Ryder already outside of the bin brushing herself off.

That’s when it all hit me.

“That was AWESOME!” I shouted.

Ryder had been swiping something off her thigh but paused for a moment to look up at me and say, “You have said that.”

I did a quick check of my body. It was all good. I bounced out of the dumpster high on adrenaline.

“Can you believe we did that? Yeah, you probably can. You probably do that all the time. But let me tell you, as someone who doesn’t do this kind of thing all the time—”

“You are babbling.”

“Right. Totally. I am. But—”

“I have to go,” Ryder said making her way around the dumpsters.

“What?” I asked. “No, no, you don’t have to go. I have so many questions. I—”

“Delilah is up to something much bigger than I had imagined. I have to find out what that is.”

“Are you going to follow the balloon?”

“I suspect if they have not already, they will soon parachute out.”

“But what about the balloon? It’s too big to hide. The police—”

Suddenly there was a large explosion. I looked to the sky. Yup, giant fireball. I guess that took care of the balloon evidence. Where were they getting the money to blow up balloons like that?

I turned back to Ryder. She was throwing a long leg over the coolest motorcycle I had ever seen. She looked like a jaguar riding a slick, black panther. “But what are you going to do? Maybe I could help?”