Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (30 page)

Master Li thanked me and we all took up our cups. He inhaled the fragrant steam, then sipped. “Very good.”

I sipped mine, thinking hard while he waited.

Finally I said, “Good things come. Bad things come. Accept both with equanimity.”

He chuckled. “An excellent fortune-cookie aphorism. Stuff happens. Get over it.”

I grinned. “Thank you,
Sifu
.”

He shook his head. “Ted, please.
Sifu
is for students.” He scowled at Jamal. “That’s ‘teacher’ in Chinese, and
you
will use
Sifu
.” Jamal almost dropped his cup.

After that I caught Master Li up on everything that had happened in the past year, and Jamal talked a bit about his background: no dad, mom died just after finishing paralegal studies, foster homes. Any time I feel like karma’s made me its play-toy it’s easy to find someone who’s had it way worse, but he got it all out with a stiff chin, daring us to feel sorry for him.

Master Li listened with few comments. He knew how to deal with boys who arrived with stories—a lot of his foster kids came from the worst-off Chinese states. Afterward, he showed Jamal to his room and walked Jacky and me to the door.

My manic mood had worn away, and Master Li picked up the change. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Debbie will smother him and I’ll thump him, and he’ll be fine. And
you
must come more often. And your mother. It was very nice to meet you, Jacky.”

Jacky thanked him and didn’t say anything else until we got back in the car. I sat back as New Tom pulled away from the curb, rolling my head to look at my friend.

“It feels good to actually rescue someone, doesn’t it?”

She looked back at the school, frowning.

“So he’s a martial arts master. Will he be able to handle the kid?”

“Didn’t I tell you? He’s a speedster like Jamal and Rush. Never uses it in the
gun
, but I caught him at it the time I almost broke his tea set. He gave me permission to spill it this morning—the secret, I mean. I’m pretty sure he’s ex-military, like Lei
Zi
.”

“Sniper, ma’am,” New Tom said from the front. “Belonged to my old special unit.”

“Well, there you go.” I turned to look back myself while Jacky stuttered. “You know, one of the things he taught us was stories of the
xia
, the wandering martial artists of Imperial China who fought bandits and bullies on behalf of the common people. Kind of like the Knights of the Round table, but cooler.”

Now
I
frowned. “I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I’m going to have to give Jamal the speech Atlas gave me—the one that says the cape isn’t the only option.”

Jacky raised an eyebrow. “Will he listen?”

“Nope. But he’ll remember it.”

“Where to, ladies?” New Tom asked.

“The hospital, thanks. And, Tom? If you could polarize the windows and raise the glass, we’ll change back here.”

The glass went up.

It turned out Artemis had never mastered the essential life-skill of changing in a backseat—probably because she hadn’t had an overscheduled childhood. I could change anywhere, but we never made it to the hospital.

It’s amazing what you can do with a half-mask, a wig, and a padded bra. But that only works for pictures; if you’re serious about keeping your civilian identity secret then don’t
ever
let the same people meet you in costume, and if you do then don’t open your mouth. The most unbelievable thing about Superman was Clark Kent and his glasses.

Astra
, Notes From a Life.

I was trying not to kick a hole in the roof with my boot when Dispatch called.

“A-One do you copy?”

So
not
Shelly. I’d always suspected she re-mixed her own Dispatch calls so they sounded by-the-book.

“A-One copies.”

“Bad crowd situation at The Fortress. ETA?”
Beside me, Jacky listened to her own
earbug
, and the sedan bounced as Tom pulled us into a 7-11’s corner parking lot in the shadow of an old tenement block.

“ETA, two minutes.” I jammed my mask down, lined up the eye-holes, and yanked my gloves on, feeling something tear. A look confirmed that Jacky was still fighting with her leather suit. At least she’d got her skull-deco half mask on and her hood up.

“Go,” she said, and Tom popped the trunk while I hesitated, torn. Even if she couldn’t mist or use her Jedi mind-tricks with the sun up, she was still wicked-quick and could body slam an Olympic weightlifter. And she could still do Dark and Dangerous like nobody’s business. If I had to face down a mob…

“Make that ETA four minutes, A-One and A-Two,” I corrected, pulling her out of the car. She squawked and then shut up as we both buckled and zipped her in. When she was completely Artemis, New Tom handed us our arrest kits and I grabbed her hands and launched, lifting us up over the old tenements.

“
The CPD is mobilizing a crowd-control unit
,” Lei
Zi
cut in, filling us in as we flew. “
It looks like Mr.
Shankman
decided to give a speech to his faithful outside the club this morning; apparently the place is
‘a temple to false idols.’”

I wasn’t getting it. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

She chuckled darkly. “
Maybe not, but there’s a gang of construction workers from the renovation site across the street mixing into it, and they’re not happy with what the good Mr.
Shankman
is saying. Add friends of last night’s victims—some of them arrived this morning to put up a flower-shrine outside the club.
”

“Okay, bad now.” Mom’s training left me over-socialized and sometimes I regretted my general lack of swearing vocabulary.

“Sure dropping us into the middle is a good idea?” Artemis asked, not sounding terribly concerned.

“
It’s a terrible idea,
” Lei
Zi
returned. “
And we’re not. I want the two of you on top of the Newberry Plaza Tower in case it all goes pear-shaped. If the police can handle it, fine. If not, you two and Rush are going to make things peaceful
.
The North Side Guardians are standing by as backup, but they don’t have a great power-mix for this, either. Rush is dropping Seven off by the crowd, plainclothes, to see if he can add his luck to the situation. I’m coming with The Harlequin and Riptide.
”

That sounded better. I took us west to approach from the other side instead of overflying Rush Street, and came in above the Chicago News helicopter to hide in its blind spot. Artemis let go when her feet touched the graveled roof, and we stepped to the east edge to look down on the scene. Marino Park, the wedge of brick-topped ground where Rush Street angled into State Street, was greening beautifully in the spring sunshine, and the young leaves of its carefully tended trees hid a large chunk of the crowd below.

The Fortress sat on the corner of Rush and Bellevue, and with its granite-faced walls and narrow windows, it had always looked like a, well, a fortress to me. Now it was a fortress under siege. The narrow sidewalks didn’t give the protestors much room, so they’d spilled across the one-way street and into the small “park.” A pair of police officers stood directing the northbound traffic east onto Bellevue. From the signs waved, it looked like the protestors from the Dome had decided to relocate here for the day. Maybe they thought it was safer.

“What’s going on?” Artemis asked. At our height, she couldn’t identify anyone and my telescopic vision was stretched.

“
Shankman’s
standing in front of the club doors. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but he’s got volume.”

Police worked the edges of the crowd, erecting yellow barriers to check the spread, but we could see more people arriving from all points and the police weren’t keeping them all out. News of the incident had to be spreading by text and by tweet, not to mention live TV coverage. When protestors meet counter-protestors, is the result mutual annihilation?

“
Astra? Artemis?
” Dispatch brought me a new voice. “
Captain
Verres
, here
.
I’m the situation commander for this morning’s show. My station is on State Street, just south of Bellevue.
” We looked down and spotted the big antennae-covered police van. Around it, helmeted police were unloading with riot shields.

“We see you, captain,” I said.

“
Good. I
don’t
want to see you, unless it gets really bad. Red flags. Bulls. Understand?
”

“Understood.”

“
Good. Glad you’re here
.” A chime told me he was gone, and that worked for me; Atlas had held firm against our being used for public order operations against
normals
, and the final Go No-Go would be Lei
Zi’s
anyway.

“He sounds on top of it,” Artemis said. “Do you see the workers Lei
Zi
mentioned?”

“Um, yeah. South edge of the crowd, making noise. It looks like the mourners are stuck up against the side of the club, but they’re not trying to go anywhere.” The small knot of people carrying flowers and frames had formed up tight and were shouting back at the crowd. It looked like some of the late arrivals were trying to force their way through the crush to join them… “Oh no they’re
not
.”

“What’s going on?”

“The
Bees
are here. And Dane.”

Scenario One: send Rush in to “disappear” each of them from the middle of the crowd. Like they’d go willingly. Scenario Two… My thoughts stuttered around the impossibility of doing any kind of quiet extraction, while a big part of me hysterically demanded to know
what the hell they were doing there
.

“Are they really?” Artemis asked, sounding mildly interested.

I desperately wanted Shelly. She could have easily gotten them on the phone and passed them to me through our neural link, bypassing Dispatch.
Seven
. If he was close enough…

Artemis handed me a cell.

“What?”

“Burner phone. Never know when you need to talk outside the system.”

Don’t ask.
I dialed Megan’s number.
Pick up pick up pick up
.

“Megan here,” she came in clear against the crowd noise. Artemis leaned over to listen.

“Hi Meg, I can see you,” I said carefully.

“TV or live?”

“Live.”

“Cool. We were down in the Loop when Julie got the tweet.
Shankman’s
an ass.”

“And you’re all here to tell him? Go
away
.”

“Can’t.
Annabeth
wants to tear him a new one first.”

“
Annabeth
?
”

“I know, right? Righteous indignation’s a new one.”

The background pitch got louder, angrier. I heard yelling, but they’d moved under the trees.