Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women (10 page)

BOOK: Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women
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Whenever she has one of her fits, I wonder if I should tell her what I do in my spare time. Then I wonder: what would that accomplish? It definitely wouldn’t make her less paranoid about my safety. On the other hand, it might kill the idea of moving away. She could relocate us to the other side of the country, and I could fly back to Kingsport in a few minutes, so what would be the point?

Halfway through my late dinner of veal parmesan, the meal my mouth loves but my conscience hates, Sara calls.

“Hey. Wanted to let you know, we got Missy home okay. We told her mom she got sick after school, might be the flu.”

“Great minds think alike,” I say, peering out into the living room to make sure Mom or Granddad didn’t slip in. “I told Mom that same thing after she grilled me for getting home late.”

“That old tune...”

“Tell me about it.”

Sara pauses, then says, “I don’t like Dr. Enigma.”

Gee, I never noticed. “We’re going to need her,” I say. “I mean, come on, magic. That’s so out of our league it’s not funny.”

“I know, but...”

“But?”

“Carrie, she killed some poor woman. She didn’t think twice about it, she didn’t hesitate, she didn’t care she was killing someone —”

“I don’t think she didn’t care,” I say, but Sara barrels over me.

“— and she was ready to do the same thing to Missy. If you hadn’t stopped her, she would have.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“She’s dangerous. We can’t trust her.”

I won’t deny that Dr. Enigma is more hardcore than the others in the Protectorate — cold sometimes, maybe even brutal, but I can’t help but think Sara’s dislike is rooted in something else: everyday jealousy. Astrid is a gorgeous woman, no question, and Matt, clueless doofus that he is, didn’t even try to hide how bad he was crushing on her, so it’s natural Sara feels threatened. Stupid, I know, it’s not like Astrid would ever get romantically involved with a fifteen-year-old, but no one ever said love promoted clarity of thought. Times like these call for bland reassurances, not rebuttals.

“Let me worry about Astrid. If we can do this without her, we will, but we’d be dumb to shut her out completely.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

She’s hardly mollified, but it doesn’t matter, because mine is an empty promise; every instinct tells me Astrid isn’t out of the picture quite yet.

 

 

TEN

 

Officially speaking, Missy is laid up with the flu.

Stuart called her folks this morning to see how she was doing. Mrs. Hamill reported that Missy was out like a light, running a slight fever, but she seemed to be comfortable, though that news did little to put Stuart at ease.

“She’ll be fine. Missy’s a tough little Muppet,” I tell Stuart before we part ways for the morning. He grunts, nods, and puts on a brave face that fools no one.

The first thing he does when we get out of school is call Missy’s house. No one picks up, presumably because the parental units are off at work, so Stuart tells us he’s going to hike over and check in, make sure she’s okay. As the rest of us debate whether to join him in his well-intentioned but ill-advised act of breaking and entering, my phone buzzes in my pocket (because, dutiful daughter that I am, I turned it back on as soon as I got out of the building).

“Uh, boy,” I say, reading the screen. “Guess who?”

“Astrid?” Matt says hopefully. Sara scowls.

“No.” I pick up, and as I suspected, we’re receiving another royal summons from His Majesty King Concorde the First. He wants an immediate full report on last night’s shenanigans. Man, this guy and his debriefings.

“What about Stuart?” Sara asks.

“He’s got more important things on his mind,” Matt says. “Let him do what he needs to do.”

“Agreed,” I say, and we head into town.

The first stop, as always, is Coffee E for some liquid enthusiasm, then it’s over to the Protectorate’s public office. Ms. Hannaford, the team’s psionic secretary, shuffles us into the Wonkavator.

Astrid greets us in the subbasement. “Sorry about this, guys,” she says. “I tried to tell Concorde this could wait, but you know how he is.”

“No biggie. It’s all part of the job,” Matt says, all cool and devil-may-care. Yes, Matt, very smooth, I’m sure Astrid is fighting to keep from throwing herself at you.

She leads us upstairs. “That was good work last night.”

“Good, but not great,” I say. “We should never have let things get so out of hand.”

“Things could have gone down a
lot
worse, but they didn’t, thanks to you,” she says to me.

“Don’t be too impressed. I told you, I had no clue what I was talking about.”

“Don’t sell yourself short like that.”

“I’m not, I’m being honest. I got stupid lucky. You’re the expert on...those kinds of things.”

“And look what almost happened. Sometimes, kiddo, it’s counterproductive to know it all...or believe that you do. It’s harder to think outside the box when you’re convinced you have all the answers. On the rare occasion something completely stumps you, you don’t look for other options, you just assume there are no other options.”

“You outsmart yourself.”

“Exactly. Happens to the best of us. How’s Missy doing?”

“Guess she’s been asleep all day,” Matt says. “Stuart’s checking on her. That’s why he’s not here.”

“Good on him.” Astrid pauses at the door to the interview room, sighs, and utters what has become our mantra for these debriefings. “All right. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”\

 

“Here we are again,” Mindforce says with half-hearted cheer. I guess he had better plans for the day, too.

“At least we made it through the holidays without an incident,” I say. “That’s a decent stretch of nothing, right? I mean, it’s not like super-powered weirdoes pop up out of nowhere and cause trouble for no good reason all the time.”

Mindforce purses his lips and slides Concorde a look.

“They don’t, right?”

“It’s...not
constant
, no,” Mindforce says, “but we deal with random minor superhuman incidents a lot more often than we deal with red-level threats.”

“Red-level threats?”

“It refers to any major incident involving superhumans with a high body count potential. Would-be world conquerors, terrorist groups, et cetera — the sort of crises people think we handle all the time, but the reality is less exciting. More often than not, we’re taking down lone rogues like this Stacy Hellfire character.”

“But where do they come from?” I say.

“Same places normal human criminals come from. At their core they’re simply people driven to extreme measures by desperation, greed, weakness...”

“Insanity,” Astrid adds. “Black Betty, case in point.”

“And thus endeth the lesson,” Concorde says irritably. “Let’s get on with this.”

Mindforce starts recording, and off I go, recounting the Stacy Hellfire incident in all its flamey, possessiony, magicy glory. Concorde says nothing until I finish, and then, like a lawyer in a cheap courtroom drama, he crosses his arms and says,

“And why didn’t you bring the Protectorate in on this?”

Before I can respond, Astrid jumps in. “That was my call.”

“Oh? Care to explain?”

“Not really, no,” Astrid says with a sarcastic smile.

“Oh, dammit, Enigma...”

“Do I have to again remind you, I’m not part of your team? I am a consultant. You ask for my assistance, I provide it, but I am not at your beck and call, and I do not have to run everything I do by you...and I don’t need your permission to ask them to watch my back,” Astrid says, gesturing at me.

“No, you don’t, but the Hero Squad are young and inexperienced, which is why they’re operating conditionally, and under our authority. They are
our
responsibility. Secondly, this isn’t about who’s in charge. This is about taking down a serious threat to public safety, and doing so in a way that minimizes risk, to the public and to them,” Concorde says, poking the air in my direction, “but you didn’t do that. You put them in the line of fire, and Missy got hurt because of it. That’s on you. So spare me the attitude, and get your priorities straight.”

Astrid’s eyes flash. Her fists clench. Concorde does not back away.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the only thing worse than a jerk like Concorde is a jerk when he’s right.

Mindforce clears his throat softly. “Okay,” he says. “I think we’re all set.”

 

God, that was awkward.

Astrid cleared out fast after my debriefing, leaving Matt and Sara to be grilled without any moral support. Sara couldn’t have cared less, but I think Matt felt...I guess
jilted
would be the right word.

Before showing us the door, Concorde gave us firm orders not to act on any information that might come to us by way of Astrid — not without checking in with him first. We agreed, and curiously, it wasn’t as painful to give in to Concorde as it usually is. What happened to Missy was still too fresh in our minds.

Speaking of the Muppet, she bounced back pretty quickly (I think; I don’t know what the normal recovery time from demonic possession is). She was still snoozing away when Stuart, using the spare key the Hamills hide inside a fake rock in the yard, slipped into the house to check on her. He sat with her for a while, and she never once stirred.

She woke up Wednesday morning, still wiped out, but hungry. She wolfed down a huge breakfast, then conked out on the sofa until dinnertime, when she again gorged herself. On Thursday, when we all stopped by to visit, she was awake, and had been for much of the day, but her energy levels were nowhere near normal, as evidenced by the fact that she spoke only in short sentences that each expressed a single thought. Didn’t care for that at all.

Today she is mostly back to normal. Her parents kept her home anyway, to avoid a relapse, so we invade the Hamill home laden with Chinese from Junk Food and extra controllers so we can, to the chagrin of the ever-dour Dr. Kenneth Hamill, Mario Kart our cares away (a pox on you, Rainbow Road).

Throughout the night, we keep one eye on Missy, looking for any uncharacteristic behavior, any sign that the imp, as Astrid put it, tainted her. She swears a few times in Japanese, but come on, getting blue-shelled when you’re in the lead? Cursing is totally justified.

During a break in gaming, I check my phone. I have a voicemail from “C” — my not-so-clever label for Concorde. Guh. All he says is, “Call me back, please.”

Please? Must be serious if he’s asking nicely. I slip into the bathroom for some privacy, and he must be sitting on his phone, because he picks up after one ring.

“Carrie.”

“Hey. What’s up?”

“How is Missy doing?”

Huh. He actually sounds concerned. “She’s okay. We’re at her place now. She’s up, she’s moving. Not back to a hundred percent yet, but she’s good.”

“Good. That’s good.” He pauses. “Do you think she’s up to come in to HQ tomorrow?”

“You don’t like us having full weekends off, do you?”

“Look, I’m only —” he snaps, then he stops. I hear him take a breath, then he says gently, “I spoke to Enigma. She told me about her...concerns about Missy. We want to give her a quick once-over, make sure there’s nothing to worry about. That’s all.”

Nuts, why is this guy making it so hard for me to dislike him lately?

 

 

ELEVEN

    

Mrs. Hamill was not thrilled at the idea of letting Missy out of the house, not so soon after getting over “the flu,” but, “Mom I’ve been stuck in this house all week and I’m going crazy and I want to go hang out with my friends and they aren’t going to let anything happen to me I’ll make them promise to bring me home if I start to feel cruddy so please can I GOOOOOOOOOOO?!” was a very convincing argument.

“I don’t even care that we’re going to spend the morning at HQ,” she chirps as we hike into town, a subdued but noticeable bounce in her step. The sight is as happy-making as the smile on Stuart’s face. This was a rough week for both of them.

Mindforce meets us at the Wonkavator. He smiles at Missy, and for a moment I think he’s going to hug her.

“Let’s get you up to the medical bay,” he says, sans hug.

 

“Hop up on the table,” Mindforce says.

Missy’s eyes pass, with suspicion, from Mindforce to Concorde to Dr. Enigma. “You’re not going to stick me with a needle, are you?” she says. “I don’t like needles. They hurt.”

“We might want to draw some blood,” Concorde says.

“Might,” Mindforce stresses. “Astrid told us there might be some lingering after-effects of your...recent unpleasantness, so we want to give you a quick check-up to make sure everything is normal. If we think we need to draw blood...”

“Like there’s a blood test for demonic possession,” Astrid mutters to herself, softly enough that only Missy catches it.

Missy slides onto the examination table, her stomach gurgling unhappily. The stainless steel is cold beneath her hands.

“How have you been feeling?” Mindforce begins.

“Okay. I was wicked tired right afterwards and I slept a lot but I’m okay now. Is it weird I slept a lot?”

“No, not at all,” Astrid says. “In fact, I’m betting the only reason you’re on your feet so soon is because you have such a strong constitution. So I’m told,” she says with a nod at Concorde.

BOOK: Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women
5.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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