Supergirl (13 page)

Fighting for his life, Ethan leaped into one of the cars. At least, let him not be meat on the plate for them. He grabbed the pole. From every direction, cars rammed viciously into him. His car bucked and spun, trying to throw him off. Ethan held on to the pole, but his grip was weakening.

Selena looked triumphantly at Bianca. "Lady," Bianca said, "you are improving every way in every day."

"I know, I know." Selena smiled. She was soaring. First Ethan, then Kara. Now did they understand what they were up against? Now were they ready to do her bidding and bow down before her Power? Or did she have to give them both another little demonstration? She'd do it gladly!

"Selena!" Bianca screeched. "Selena! Look!"

Selena looked and wished she hadn't.

Bringing all her super powers into play, with one fantastic leap, Supergirl had bounded up and leaped over the wall of Selena witches. Free of them, she flew straight up, as if rejoicing in her freedom. Up and up and again up . . . Had she forgotten Ethan?

For a single heady moment, Selena thought exactly that; Supergirl was fleeing for her life.

In that moment, Supergirl acted. In one impeccable movement, so swift no eye could follow it, she plummeted to earth, gathered a pile of sharpened tent poles, and threw them at Selena. The tent poles slapped into the ground, forming a perfect ten-foot-high stockade around Selena.

"Biiii-aaan-caaaa," Selena screamed.

Even before Selena's scream dissolved in the air, Supergirl had, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, rescued Ethan. Moving with super-speed, she whipped through the melee of dodgem cars, slapping them out of her way, and snatched up the one in which Ethan was trapped. After the bulldozer, this was a piece of cake. She flew off with dodgem car and Ethan cradled in her arms. A rerun of a former successful show, with one difference. This time, the principal male character was conscious.

Conscious, and not liking what was happening. Shoot, he wasn't afraid of heights, not really, but this was ridiculous. Flying around in a tinny toy car, as if it were a jet plane, and nothing between him and the ground, which was (he noticed, when he took a quick peek over the edge)
WAY DOWN THERE
—nothing between him and that but a teenage girl's arms. Ethan almost wished he was back in dodgem city.

No sooner had Selena screamed for Bianca than she'd tried out half a dozen different spells. Number seven had worked. "
Wil ti twilti twilti ta tonce!
" What was demanded was done. The ring of tent poles had wilted like frozen flowers, fallen over limp as string.

By the time Bianca showed up, she wasn't needed anymore. She spit out her gum. Wasn't that just like Selena? Scream her head off, scare a person out of ten years' growth, and then not even want you when you came running. "I came as fast as I could—puff, puff, puff," Bianca said. She pulled a lock of hair in front of her face. Was that a gray hair? Another few of Selena's screams and it would be good-bye, black tresses.

"You have to run faster, puff, puff, puff, if you want to run with me."

"So, like, are you okay?"

"Okay? Am
I
okay? I am perfect. Perfectly furious!"

Bianca ran in place. "At
moi
? I told you—puff, puff, puff."

"Not you!" Selena kicked aside a tent pole. "Her. That girl in the blue suit. She has to
GO
, Bianca.
Pfffft!
I want her out of my world."

Dawn broke as Supergirl circled over the water with the dodgen car, Ethan asleep inside. It was ironic, she thought, or maybe just a coincidence, but in any case, it was certainly
INTERESTING
that she had, almost by instinct, come back here.
Here
was the very beach where she had first set foot on Planet Earth. She landed lightly and set the dodgem car down so gently Ethan never stirred. Supergirl looked tenderly down at her beloved. She noticed (with as much fresh wonder as if she were the first one ever to ever think it) how dear he looked in sleep, and how vulnerable.

She lifted him out. His eyes opened. He began to struggle. "Where am I? What's happening? Put me down. Where's the glass hill?"

Poor dear! Was he feverish? "You're all right now," Supergirl said soothingly.

Ethan didn't agree.

"Okay, okay, take it easy, big guy." Supergirl set Ethan on his feet. He staggered a little. "Listen, are you okay? You had a pretty rough time back there—"

"Me? Rough time?" Ethan tried to compensate for his spaghetti legs with an abundance of dignity. "I am terrific," he said and dropped like a stone as a coconut fell out of the sky and bonked him senseless.

Bianca approved of the coconut. "Very good. Very nice. Clever," she applauded.

"The old coconut-out-of-the-sky trick," Selena sniffed. "Every beginner knows it." She thrust the Omegahedron toward the mirror screen. "Power of Shadow . . . Power that be . . . bring that Ethan to me!" It had worked once before, but not this time. Nothing changed on the screen. Ethan still lay inert on the beach, Supergirl still bent over him, though now and then she turned a puzzled glance skyward, as if wondering where that coconut had come from.

"Do it, do it," Selena cried, but it didn't help. "What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?"

"You're, like, doing everything right," Bianca assured her. "You want to do the coconut thing again?"

"No! I want him here. Is that so hard? Why is it that every time
she
comes around . . . ?" In her utter frustration, Selena almost chewed off one of her long red nails. Seeing what she was doing, she thrust her hands behind her back. "Think, Bianca! Earn your keep for once! Don't you have any ideas?"

Bianca nodded. "Give me a minute or two." She puffed on her cigarette holder and popped in a fresh stick of gum. Sure, she could have ideas, but she wasn't going to be in any big hurry to spit them out. Selena usually shot her ideas down as fast as they appeared, which, admittedly, wasn't very fast. All the same, if you were going to go to all the trouble of thinking, you didn't like having your thoughts dismissed just like—
that
. She snapped her fingers.

"What? What?" Selena said.

"Please. I'm thinking." Selena wasn't the only one who could be royal. The gum got in the way of her thinking, and she tongued it up under her upper lip. There. Now she could, like, concentrate mentally. She paced up and down, waving the cigarette holder. She liked the way, for once, Selena was watching her, hanging on her every movement.

"Well . . ." she said finally, when she judged Selena was ripe for an idea. "Well . . . what I'm thinking is, we ought to give you-know-who a call."

"You-know-who who?"

"Not who who.
Who
."

"What?"

"No. You-know-who"

"Whose
WHO
?"

"Who's on first"

"Bianca!"

"All right, all right," she said, hastily, and then hoping Selena wouldn't go right through the roof, she said even faster (to get it over with), "I think you should give Nigel a chance to help you out."

"Nigel! You call that an idea. That is an abomination in my sight."

Bianca shrugged. "It's my best shot. You know, he's been around. He knows things you don't, no offense meant. Just—he's older, so that gives him, ah, experience?"

"I don't want his experience," Selena said but With less heat.

Bianca could see she was crumpling. "But you do want what's-his-name there," she said, nodding to the screen.

Selena sighed. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes!"

"So would it be so awful if Nigel helped you get him?" Bianca extended the phone to Selena. "Call him. Go on, do it right now and get it over with." Then, cleverly, she added, "It's so amazing the way you wrap him around your little finger. I just love to watch you in action."

"You're flattering me," Selena said, taking the phone from Bianca, "and I love it."

Nigel had been summoned. Summoned by Selena. He war whooped. See, Nigel, it pays to play hard to get. His jubilant mood was only slightly soured when he remembered that the last time he saw Selena, she'd closed a door—actually, not A door,
HER
door—in his face. So, he hadn't actually been playing hard to get so much as, well, sulking. Oh, well, couldn't win 'em all.

He washed, shaved, combed his hair, trimmed his toenails, cut the two long hairs growing out of his left ear, and put on his favorite bile-green jumpsuit with electric-blue pocket plackets. He was ecstatic for at least six minutes. Then caution crept like a shadow across his soul. Easy there, boy, this is Selena you're dealing with. I know, I know, but . . . But what? caution asked. But I'm crazy about her, Nigel whimpered silently; she drives me out of my mind.

That put it exactly right. Out of his mind. Had to be out of his mind to jump through her hoops. He knew what she was, knew her better than she knew herself. Quick rundown of Selena's sterling character: greedy, vain, ambitious, power-hungry, tyrannical, irritable, and capricious. That more or less put it in a nutshell.

Was that a Lovable Person? No. Did he love her? Yes. Why? Who knew? Love was just one of those Mysterious Forces. Did he like her? No. Why? Why should he? He didn't like most people, with the exception of his very own self. Then why not stay away from her?

Forget it! The door had opened, the phone had rung, Selena had called, and Nigel ran (or in this case, drove), pell-mell to the carnival grounds. Didn't want to keep her waiting, but all the time, right till the moment Selena opened the door, he kept warning himself. Cool it,

Nigel, don't leave your rear unguarded, and if a black cat crosses your path, spit three times.

"Hel-lo," Selena said, draping herself on the doorway. "Come in, dear Nigel! Biii-aaaan-ca! Guess who's here?"

"Nigel?"

"Isn't she clever." Selena beamed on Bianca.

Alarms went off in Nigel's head. A beaming Selena was not a Selena he recognized. Where, oh, where was the dear, familiar, vicious, selfish woman he knew and loved? "So what's the deal?" he said, briskly. "Let's put aside the small talk, Selena. Or do you think I'm wet behind the ears?"

"Nigel, I have only the greatest respect for you." She smoothed his collar. "We've had our tiny misunderstandings in the past," she purred, "but can't we forget all that? We can do so much together. We'll combine forces. Work as a team, side by side, in the same harness." Nigel stared at her, bemused. Selena in harness? He tried, but he couldn't quite see her as a dray horse.

"Just think what we can do, Nigel, with my power and your knowledge . . ."

"Nigel" Bianca popped her gum. She was getting a bit impatient with all this high diplomacy. "Just remember this, the way to a woman's heart is but one short step from rubbing out her rivals."

"The way to a woman's heart," Nigel murmured, a bit confused; then he got it. "You want me to
KILL
somebody?"

"Certainly not," Selena said. Good heavens! Imagine sending old Nigel out to attempt murder.
Quelle
folly! "Your job is simply to deliver the goods." She swept an arm toward the mirror, and Supergirl appeared.

"Her?" Nigel took another look. "She flies? For real? Or do I see wires attached to that little blue suit?"

Bianca flapped her arms. "She flies"

"Well, terrific. How am I supposed to deliver a bird like that? Catch her in a butterfly net?"

"Don't be tiresome, Nigel," Selena said, sounding more like herself. "Use your imagination . . . oh, never mind." Selena snapped her fingers. "I have it. Get
him
for me—" Another sweep of her arm, and Ethan appeared in the mirror. Nigel was sure he recognized that too-handsome face, but from where? You see one pretty face and you've seen them all.

"Get him for me," Selena repeated, "and
she'll
follow."

"I wish I followed," Nigel muttered. He walked into the kitchen for a drink of water. There was some flaw in Selena's reasoning (get him and she'll follow?), but he hadn't put his finger on it yet. "I have to think this over, Selena."

"What's to think, Nigel?"

Selena had followed
him
—that was a new wrinkle!

"Just say you'll do it. For me," she added winsomely.

"Why do you want him? Why him?"

"First," Selena said, tapping him with one finger, "so I can get
her
. And second" she tapped him harder—"so I can buy time to master my new toy. You've seen it, of course." She put the swollen Coffer of Shadow down on the table. It throbbed faintly. "And you know what's inside"

Nigel knew, all right, and he wouldn't mind getting his hands on what was inside for himself. Then he'd see who'd jump through whose hoops. But the way the Coffer of Shadow was bouncing and throbbing made him uneasy. He sensed that the thing inside was dissatisfied. Nigel wished it had some decent name, instead of being "it," or "that thing," or "the whatchamacallit." Take his Burundiwand, for instance. He was respectful, he gave it a name, he
used
that name.

"What does the girl have to do with—what's in there?"

Selena raised a scornful eyebrow. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Obvious," Nigel said quickly. "Certainly. She's, ah, ah, er, a, uh . . ."

"A threat," Selena agreed. "The very word I was going to use. She's a menace. A flying menace. A menace and a peril to our way of life. Nigel, we can't rest while she bats around in the sky. Indecent citizens are not safe. Now, together, we can handle this, don't you think so?"

Nigel gulped down another glass of water. Being wooed by Selena was making him the tiniest bit nervous. He loved it, of course, but he kept expecting the balloon to pop. Idly, he looked into the pot of cold love potion and picked out a nutshell. Sloppy, sloppy.

"Drop it, buster," Selena said. Despite the fact that she was asking Nigel's help (which she did not like
ONE BIT
, and
OH
, was he going to pay for it one of these days, but right now, she needed him, the self-satisfied turkey, and if he didn't say yes to what she wanted in two seconds
FLAT
, she was not going to be responsible for what happened)—despite all that, she was so sure of her hold over him that when she told him to drop the nutshell, she expected him to do it forthwith—and forgot about it.