Love for the Cold-Blooded (7 page)

Most other guests were collecting their cups, coats and cake to relocate to the back of the café, away from the windows opening on the market square. Some left altogether, screw the city council and their recommendation. A handful of curious thrill seekers were pulling up chairs right by the windows, and two women had even stepped outside, brandishing camera phones.

A waitress came by with a small plate. The promised villain cookies turned out to be buttery shortbread cut into evocative shapes — Pat was pretty sure the one Zen was biting into was a large cat’s head, no doubt intended to stand for Jaguar.

“By the way, Patpat.” Zen patted some Jaguar crumbs from her face in a thoroughly unladylike fashion. “Dad called this morning. I’m supposed to tell you all that he had a great flight, and will be heading out to the skinning cavern right away. He’s hired some jungle guides, so he’ll be perfectly safe. He’s going to hike to a village with phone reception at least once a week to call us. He thinks it won’t be long before he and Mom will be ready to come back.”

Pat hmmmed noncommittally. His own villain cookie looked like an irregularly shaped W, or maybe an M. He had no idea which challenger it was supposed to represent, but popped it into his mouth anyway, demonstratively chewing to show that he totally couldn’t speak.

He’d be glad to see his mom again. She’d been gone for over a year this time, and he’d missed her a lot, like he always did. It was only that he was pretty damn busy, what with working and studying and swimming and all. He couldn’t afford to take several months off the way she was going to expect him to. He had his own life to live. He couldn’t just drop everything whenever his mother decided she wanted to take over the world.

Zen fixed him with a disturbingly perceptive gaze, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she simply gathered her shopping bags and counted out the money for her coffee and cake. “Anyway, Patpat, I’ll be on my way. No time to waste waiting around for the Corny Corps to get their heroing on when we’re going to see it all on the news, anyway. I intend to collect my winnings in the form of pasta, so you’d better brush up on your carbonara skills.”

Like it was really going to be The Shark, right smack in the middle of the city, during shopping hours? Patrick gave Zen a suitably disgusted look, but in the way of sisters, she was immune. She just grinned and tossed him a kiss before slipping out the door.

“Oh, I get it. Cassiopeia!” That’s who his villain cookie had been. Cool — Cassie was pretty rad. Last time she’d tried to take over the world, the Hero Corps had had to call in every single one of their reserve members, even the really embarrassing ones, like that dude who shot laser beams from his crotch like a total creeper. “Awesome.”

Pat turned to share a triumphant grin with the café at large, and caught one of the other guests staring after Zen. He glared at the dude until the offender cleared his throat and looked down, pretending to be entirely absorbed in his newspaper.

Whoever was causing the commotion outside was coming closer; they were probably heading for City Hall. Pat had better get a move on himself. But before he did, he stole a second to fire off a quick text to Delilah, because seriously, that shit was not okay.
WTF? Dump that loser’s ass, you are like 1000x cooler than him. I’ll come over and loom over him a little if you want, just say the word. (I loom like a pro, FYI.)

Then, Pat legged it in the opposite direction of City Hall. He had a date with Maurat and her
Principles of Urban Architecture
, which was at this very moment waiting for him at the book store, glossy and full of promise.

He might have been a little lost in anticipation, possibly even wearing a silly grin. He definitely wasn’t paying as much attention to his surroundings as he should have been, particularly since a challenger attack was in progress. But nothing was ever perfect in this world, which in this particular instance meant that one moment, Pat was peacefully dreaming of streets and parks and municipal planning — and the next, a wide swathe of cobblestones to his left was blasted several meters into the air amid a choking cloud of dust, and a pair of high-gloss black boots slammed down right in front of him.

“Tremble, mortals!” boomed Doctor Destiny. Her cape billowed and snapped impressively, almost hitting Pat in the face. He staggered back a few steps and fell on his ass in the middle of the cloud of dust, tripped up by the cobblestones, which had settled back down in a road hazard kind of way.

Meanwhile, Doctor Destiny swept out an arm, a blinding arc of energy sizzling from her fingertips to slam into the really ugly statue of some old dude that stood off to the far side of the square. “Tremble as you face your ultimate Destiny! Bow down before your mistress, for I come to rule over you!”

The statue of the old dude bowed down obediently by crumbling into rubble and collapsing into a heap. Pat vaguely felt like he should have known who he had been. On the other hand, not like it mattered anymore.

Unlike the statue, a bunch of people in the vicinity entirely failed to bow down. Instead, they screamed and scattered, flinging their shopping about randomly. The obligatory apple cart immediately overturned to add to the chaos.

For an instant, Doctor Destiny’s form was outlined in crackling electricity, emphasizing her dramatic pose. She’d flung her head back photogenically, long hair whipping wildly about her masked face, and cut a super imposing figure. One of her hands was outstretched as though reaching for something, gloved fingers bent into claws; her body was twisted lithely in that boneless athletic way that ensured a good picture from nearly every angle. Her cape flared out behind her, so intensely black that it seemed like a slice of starless night cutting into the autumn afternoon. The gleaming silver infinity symbol on her chest was the sole splash of color relieving the light-eating black of her costume.

Doctor Destiny, what the fuck? She’d never even crossed Pat’s mind. The Doc was serious business, a mad scientist and scheming mastermind all rolled up into one. She clocked in at the upper end of the challenger spectrum, right up there with people like Cassiopeia. What was she doing on a random downtown rampage? That kind of thing was more the wavelength of small fry like The Shark (though not this far out of water), or screechy Bitterfly with her eternal campaign to be acknowledged as the most-wronged — or alternately the most annoying — person in the history of ever.

Pat scrambled to his feet and realized, with a thrill of cold, that he’d lost his shopping bag. He’d stayed up all afternoon refreshing the infoweb page to get on the waiting list for
Mad Bad and Dangerous to Ho.
He’d paid way more for it than he should have. No way, he was not going to lose his new album because of a stupid challenger attack!

It took him a minute because the dust hadn’t settled yet and his eyes were tearing, but then he spotted his bag on the ground, pretty much exactly at the gleaming polished heels of Doctor Destiny’s boots. Not ideal, but if he was quick about it he could just grab it and go, leaving the challenger to her challenging and getting on with his day. Right?

Pat had barely snuck within grabbing range when Doctor Destiny whipped around, nearly kneeing him in the face. Her dark, burning gaze landed squarely on him, crouched at her feet with his outstretched fingertips almost brushing his bag, and by extension her boot.

It was an awkward situation all round.

“Heya, Doc,” said Pat. He tried a sheepish smile.

“Patrick? Patrick West, is that you?”

A moment later, she’d yanked him up by the arm, tossed him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry — cueing a chorus of shocked cries and shouts from the onlookers — and almost made him puke up his Cassiopeia cookie by painfully jolting his stomach while flying him to the top of City Hall, bag and all.

Several tiles came loose beneath his feet as he scrambled to find his balance on the steeply slanted roof. He sat down hastily and ended up and more or less starfished on his back, which at least ended the sliding. His dignity was less valuable than the roof; City Hall had only been renovated last year, and the tiles were expensive natural slate, still all fresh and nice-looking.

Doctor Destiny stood tall at the edge of the roof, dramatically outlined against the sky. She sent several more bolts ripping across the square. Most of them evaporated harmlessly, if with a lot of flash and noise. One, however, smashed into an abandoned hot dog stand, and another ripped up the pavement right in front of Taliesin Books, scattering stones and a display of discount DVDs into every direction.

The view from up here was pretty cool, Pat noted. Like, the way the buildings were grouped around the square was suddenly totally clear. Even if the black-clad challenger with the billowy cape shooting electricity everywhere did clutter up the cityscape some.

“How have you been?” Doctor Destiny tossed the question over her shoulder, adding a menacing glare and threatening pointing finger for effect. Pat rolled his eyes, but obligingly cowered a little when she stabbed her finger at him again with more emphasis. He wasn’t completely blind to propriety, and people were watching, after all. “Imagine running into each other like that! Why, the last time I saw you, you were a pimply scrap of a teenager. Now look at you, all grown up and handsome. I’ve heard you’re going to university now, just like your sisters. Your mother must be so proud!”

“Yeah well, I hope so,” said Pat, evasively. “So, I’ve been wondering. What’s with the mortals thing? I mean, you’re mortal too, right?”

She heaved a sigh, throwing him a gleaming gaze. Literally gleaming — her eyes glowed electric blue behind the black mask. “That does not make my appellation any less accurate, Patrick. The point is to address my victims in a properly imposing manner. It appears you have much left to learn.”

“Yeah, sure.” Pat hastily cast about for a subject that would head off the threatening discussion of his choice of career. “Oh hey, speaking of victims. What are you doing here anyway? Isn’t it a little… I mean, usually you have, like, submarines and airships and all kinds of super-cool stuff.”

Briefly, Doctor Destiny’s lip twitched into a pleased smile, though she quickly caught herself and assumed a suitably chilling look of command instead. “I do, don’t I. Be that as it may, Patrick, when you grow older you will learn that at times, it is incumbent upon a person to —” She broke off abruptly, shook her head, and sighed out a put-upon gust of air before beginning again in a less declamatory tone. “Unfortunately I don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. Have you been in that new book store? The Taliesin chain is buying up stores all over, but frankly I have no idea why they are at all successful. Their selection is so poor it makes me ill. Their foreign-language section comprises one tiny little shelf with five anthologies of Spanish poetry and three French novels. They have nothing else — not even Ancient Sumerian! And the rest of their selection is no better. Good luck finding anything to read in that dump. They barely even have books, just several displays of bestsellers and a plethora of touristy riffraff like calendars, chocolates, totes and mugs.”

She let out a scream of rage. “How dare they call themselves booksellers?” A solid column of electricity streaked across the square, racing from Doctor Destiny’s hand to detonate in a blinding shower of sparks in front of Taliesin Books. “What they are is a morally decrepit sell-out of a chain with an abysmal selection. And they dare to come into this city and buy up Mary-Lou’s Book Emporium in order to shut it down, ridding themselves of the competition of a
real
bookstore!”

“What? They’re going to shut down Mary-Lou’s?” Pat loved Mary-Lou’s! You could browse for hours in there, and they had everything. Pat didn’t actually care about Ancient Sumerian literature, although he did get that it was important, but Mary Lou’s had an awesome architecture section, and a pretty good selection of supernatural romances, too. Where would Pat get his monographs, and the romantic elf and were-creature fiction his sisters liked (and that Pat might possibly also happen to read sometimes out of idle curiosity)?

“They are!” Doctor Destiny eyes were now glowing with the white-hot intensity of a fire stoked to burn down a city district or two. “Taliesin knows naught of either common decency or bookselling. And I shall bring them down, whatever it may take. None shall stand in my way!”

“Definitely not standing in your way here.” Pat gestured invitingly (though carefully, given his prone position on the roof) towards the market square, where the last remaining citizens still in sight were inching along the buildings to keep out of the open. “With you all the way, Doc. You’re gonna blast Taliesin to dust so they won’t close Mary-Lou’s until they’ve rebuilt Taliesin, right?”

“You have divined my plan, Patrick West.” An evil smirk stole over Doc’s face. “And allow me to remark that many things can happen between now and then. A
great
many things, if you perceive my meaning. As a matter of fact…”

“It is Destiny!” Pat shouted, punching the air in tandem with her. Okay, out of character for the cowed hostage he was supposed to be, but Doc Destiny’s catchphrase was the coolest. It was totally worth sliding a meter or so over the roof tiles.

Doc paced along the edge of the roof slowly, throwing Pat a quick smirk. “Don’t worry, Patrick, I won’t be keeping you much longer. The hoagies are due to arrive at any moment, and then I’ll be free to cut loose without fear of harming civilians. Be sure to scream a little so they make rescuing you a priority.”

Right on cue, the trademark hum of a Corps-issue aircycle filled the air, clearly coming from the left, the direction of the university. It was a single hum, which meant that either there was only one hoagie — ahem, hero — answering the emergency call, or that only one of them needed a cycle to fly.

“Say hi to your mom from me, would you? Tell her I look forward to Serpentissima’s resurgence.”

The aircycle cleared City Hall’s roof and a hero descended on them in a cloud of righteous indignation, all fluttering white linen and wildly wind-tossed curls. Scarily perfect cheekbones, enormous ball of thread, superhuman strength and speed — bingo! It was Ariadne. Pat had totally called it, and Zen was going down.