Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (15 page)

I bounce down from an awning and land between two men who are circling each other, fists held high as if they've had at least some experience with proper fights. One already sports a bloody nose; the other a cut lip. 

Usually in these cases, the brawlers don't process the mask or my presence and simply try to shoulder me out of the way, so I brace my feet beneath me and wait for them to try and rush by.

Except they don't. 

"Oi, it's her! Shrek!" One crows it with such delight that I take a step back.

"It's Shrike," I tell him, vaguely offended.

"What's a shrike?" the other asks, wiping blood from his nose. It stains the blue of his shirt.

I point to the silhouette on my shirt. "It's a bird."

For some reason, that strikes both of them as funny. Maybe because the silhouette of the shrike is near my tit, but I haven't a clue. 

"So what are you doing down here?" The man with the cut lip asks me, excitement almost dripping from his words. He licks away a drop of blood from his lip, the cut and the fight I've interrupted clearly forgotten.

"I heard you two yelling."

The bloke with the bloody nose claps me on the shoulder, making me jump. "She came to break up our fight. Bless her."

I have no idea what's happening. "Aye, well, if you're finished punching each other, I'll just be off then."

"Don't leave yet! You just got here!"

They both look at me expectantly. For a moment I picture taking a selfie with these two blokes and posting it to the Tumblr I've considered creating. Then I think that might not be the same kind of PR as kissing babies. "I probably ought to go. Try not to land on each other's fists anymore, hey?"

I think they both expect me to soar off into the sky, and when I instead turn and walk away, I can almost feel their boyish disappointment. 

Feeling stupid, I make it about a street away. One glance over my shoulder tells me they're still watching me, and I wince. There's a fire escape in the next close.

Might as well give them something to talk about. I launch myself at the first iron bar, a solid fifteen feet above my head. I hear the lads whoop down the street as I clamber up hand over hand. 

At least maybe they'll believe in me.

I spend the rest of the night wandering the rooftops of Edinburgh, feeling nonplussed about my own existence. For the first time, I truly ponder the implications of that fateful bottle of Irn Bru. Once I first strapped that mask across my face, it was all over. I can't quit or retire, unless I want to face a mob of Scots with pitchforks and torches. Anything I do will likely never be enough, and anything I don't will be filed away in a trunk to pull out just when I think I'm safe from ridicule.

It happened to almost all the superheroes; it's going to happen to me. People are people, and when I put on a mask, I gave up my anonymity.

I heard once that if nothing we do matters, the only thing that matters is what we do. Of course, it was a fictional vampire called Angel who said that, but it doesn't make it any less true.

It fills me with a vague sense of pomposity to compare myself to the Spider-Mans and Angels of the world, but what's my other option? Run away to Greenland and learn how to race sled dogs?

I don't really think the people I help are helpless, anyway. They're just people. I've needed help before. Desperately needed help. I need help now. It doesn't make me helpless; it makes me human. I guess the whole point is that we ought to be helping each other.

Well. Doesn't that just make you want to barf?

In my wandering, I've made my way across half the city. I'm back out by the airport, but not really near Adair's flat. It's a part of the city I haven't been to much, and the night's been so quiet that when I hear the muffled scream, it takes me by surprise.

It seems to be coming from two streets over. Without thinking, I bound from my rooftop out toward the street, aiming at a lamppost. My feet hit the crossbar on the light and launch me across the street itself toward another lamppost. Before I can consider what I've, I'm balanced atop it in a crouch, one hand gripping the cold metal. 

I've never done anything like that before, but I don't have time to reflect.

I jump, high enough to catch the bars on a window. I pull myself up, finding hand and footholds in the stone until I catch my footing on the roof itself. It's then I spare one glance backward. 

I crossed that street like a shrike would.

The scream sounds again, and I take off running. Shrikes, at least, don't actually run. The scream dies into a gurgle just as I reach the close it's coming from.

I dive off the roof, instinctively pointing myself toward the sound, turning my body in midair. Below me I see a crumpled form and a standing one. I aim for the standing one, and my feet hit his shoulders. My toes curl in their boots, but of course they can't grip him. He falls to the ground, and I drop and roll away from him, coming up in a crouch. He's out cold, and one quick touch to his neck tells me he's alive.

The balled-up person next to him may not be as lucky.

It's a young man. His jacket is dirty, covered in muck from the puddle he's occupying and scuffed in several places with marks that I suspect would match his attacker's boots.

"Are you all right?" I ask. "Can you hear me?" 

I reach down to check his pulse, and his fist hits my arm, knocking it away. The kid skitters backward toward the wall. He can't be more than sixteen. 

"Easy, lad, I'm no going to hurt you."

He looks at me, then at the unconscious breaker of my two-storey fall. 

"You're that superhero." 

"Glad to see word's getting around."

He looks at me as if I'm mad. "You killed Johnny."

I motion to the man on the ground. "If that's Johnny, he's alive. He'll have a wee bit of a headache when he wakes, but he'll be fine."

"You should kill him." The lad says flatly.

I can't help it. I raise an eyebrow, which the young man probably can't see behind my mask. "And why's that?"

"He hurts people."

"Aye, well, I know a few bobbies round these parts. I'll make sure they keep him from hurting people."

"They never help. He'll be out again in a week."

The lad sounds so sure that my heart gives a little ka-thump in my chest. "Have the police come for Johnny before?"

He nods. "Three times. He always gets out."

"What did he do to you?" I ask. If I can give Trevor some information, corroborate this lad's story, maybe Johnny will get put away for longer.

The lad pulls up his shirt. His torso is littered with angry red welts that look like someone took a cat o' nine tails to his midsection. It reminds me of Magda when I rescued her from the lab underneath Hammerton. Rosamund Granger or Edmund Frost had beaten her until her skin looked more like meat than person. 

"What did he use?"

"Belt."

I don't want to think of how many times a belt would have to come down to inflict that kind of damage. "How long has this been going on? Is Johnny your father?"

The lad shakes his head hard. "He's mum's pimp."

Bloody hell. I ignore the implicit joke in a pimp being called any variation on John. "Where's your mum now?"

"Gaol."

So Mum gets thrown into gaol while her pimp's free to beat up her kid. Sometimes I hate this world.

"Look, lad. What's your name?"

"Anthony."

"Anthony. I'm going to ring the police. I'm going to make sure they lock Johnny up for a good long time, and if they don't and he gets out, tell him that the next time I fall out of the sky on him, I'll aim for his head and not be so careful about the rest of him." I try to think of something else I can do. I can't just leave the lad to deal with this. I could give him my mobile number, but I don't like that idea. "Do you have a mobile?"

The kid nods. He's been inching away from Johnny's still form the whole time we've been talking. 

I pull out my mobile. "What's your number?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to ring you in a few days to check on you."

Anthony blinks and rattles off his number. I enter it into my phone, but don't hit send. I save the contact. This might be a poor precedent to set, but I don't know what else to do. 

"Do you have anywhere safe you can go?"

He bobs his head again. 

"Good. Go there. I'll take care of Johnny, and I'll ring you in a few days. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that wanker never lays a hand on you again."

Anthony doesn't quite look like he believes me, and I don't blame him.

I give serious consideration to giving Johnny a kick while he's down.

fifteen

I arrive home at six o'clock in the morning to find Taog sleeping soundly when I peek into his window, his breathing shallow from congestion, but at least he's asleep. Without me, which is also encouraging. At least one of us is getting some sleep tonight. 

I've just enough time to get ready for work, and as I have to leave the office early to meet Macy, I want to go in at seven instead of nine.

As usual, I eat a large breakfast at home and also bring in breakfast to work. All my coworkers know is that I bring a full Scottish breakfast with me every morning. I've had a few curious accountants come ask me how I stay so svelte, and I give them all the same answer: breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

It's total bollocks, but if I tell them I drank a spiked bottle of Irn Bru, they'll all gain fifty pounds guzzling every can of it they can find, and there won't be any superpowers waiting for them. Just diabetes.

At two in the afternoon, I'm mid-way through the third quarter profits when my email pings with the map from Macy. This time she wants to meet in Holyrood Park, not far from where I found Glyn Burns.

I'm sure she knows the symbolism for me.

I've brought my Shrike outfit in a rucksack, and I don't change until I get to Holyrood, ducking into a large rhododendron a half mile from the pin in my map to hurriedly change. I rip my blouse on a branch and curse. Superhero problems. I toss the rucksack into a holly tree where it hangs from a high branch. I'll get it when I come back.

I find Macy under a large sycamore tree. This time her mac matches her wellies, both of which are bright purple, as is her umbrella. Inconspicuous, she is not.

Then again, I'm wearing spandex and a mask, and the sun's still technically up. A cyclist goes by as I approach Macy, and the woman does a double take. I wave at her, not knowing what else to do.

Macy doesn't question it, and for that I'm thankful. Instead, she gets right to the point. I'm starting to like this woman.

"Good job," she says by way of greeting. "Sarah and Adair are still alive."

It's as good a litmus test as any. "Granger got away again, though."

"She's good at that. It's been her full time job for the past thirty years."

That's more forthcoming than I expected from Macy. "How did you know that?"

"Know your enemies," is all she says in response.

Touché.

She goes on after a moment. "I don't have much else I can tell you, but you need to be even more careful now. Granger has a timeline she's working on, and you dumped a load of bollocks on it."

"She's got a timeline?"

Macy looks at me as if I've just asked her to clarify the colour of the sky. "Aye, she's got a timeline. Have you not noticed that the murders are becoming more frequent? She was cautious at first, thought she had enough time to do it all, but now she's getting desperate. Push her a bit more, and she'll become erratic."

I don't like the idea of an erratic Rosamund Granger. Again the picture of her sniping Adair or Sarah — or Taog — from half a mile away intrudes. A thought comes into my head, but I dismiss it. Macy's right; the murders have picked up in frequency. There were maybe five between September and January. At least as many in the past three weeks alone.

"You've been very helpful so far," I say after a beat. "Thank you."

I mean it. I hope my trust in Macy hasn't been misplaced. I think of Ross and feel a pang of guilt. Here I am with a near-stranger in Holyrood Park, trusting that the information she gives me is correct when I can't give a mate I've known for three years the benefit of the doubt. Then again, no one found Macy's fingerprints on that bomb.

Macy drums her fingers against the handle of her umbrella. It's not raining much, but she keeps it up anyway. "I'm close to something," she says finally. "I can't tell you yet, but if I get really lucky tonight, I'll have something for you tomorrow."

My heart speeds up just a bit. "Tomorrow?"

"I'll send you another map to tell you where to go. Not afternoon this time. 2300 hours. If I don't have it by then, I won't have it at all." She looks so determined that I simply nod.

Macy turns to walk away. 

"Be careful," I tell her.

She ignores me.