Superhero (18 page)

She sat in a chair and crossed her legs. Next to her on a glass table was a vodka and tonic, which she sipped from slowly.

“You know alcohol’s been proven to kill brain cells.”

She jumped and gasped, spilling the drink on the table. To her right, perched on the balcony like a monkey, was a man, or something in the shape of a man, shiny and black with white over the eyes.

“Who the…wait. I know you.”

“It seems the whole world knows me now, thanks to you.”

“Kids and their cell phones,” she said, reaching for the canister of mace in her purse.

“Mace won’t do anything but if it makes you feel better, you can hold it.”

“How did y—”

“I’m here to ask you a favor.”

“Me? And what’s that?”

“I need you not to air anything else about me.”

“I can’t promise that,” she said. “You’re big news. People love successful vigilantes.”

“Something very big is happening that I’m trying to track down. You’ll make it much more difficult for me if everyone sees me coming.”

“Big how?”

The figure stood on the railing and began walking along its edge with perfect balance, as if he were walking on solid ground. He hopped off and leaned against it.

“I tell you something, you tell me something,” he said.

“Okay. What’dya want to know?”

“Agamemnon and the Myrs. Everything you know about them. I’m sure you’ve got sources I could never have.”

“Deal. I’ll get you a file. Now for me: what’s happening that’s so big you have to be kept a secret?”

“The Myrs have smuggled a weapon into the Mojave that they want to use on the city. I don’t know what kind of weapon yet, but it could be a nuclear or chemical device.”

She was silent a moment. “They’re a street gang. They don’t have the power to do that.”

“They’ve done it. I’ll find out where it is, but for now, no more stories about me.” He jumped up on the railing and turned, facing the street below. “I’ll be back for my file tomorrow night.”

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Dragon is fine.”

He leapt off the edge, gliding down like a bird. Pushing with his feet off an adjacent building, he flipped into a ball and spun before landing on the pavement below. One jump, and he was gone.

Veronica stood at the railing, trying to see him but he had already disappeared. Her heart was racing. He would be back tomorrow night. She ran inside; she had to prepare.

CHAPTER 39

Reese Stillman put on a Kevlar vest and loaded his shotgun in the back of the van. Six men around him did the same. The bank was just outside their blackened windows, about to open for the day’s business. For some reason, most bank robberies occurred near closing. Agamemnon had ordered that their robberies only occur during opening.

Reese checked his watch and everyone did the same. Another six minutes before opening time. He observed as one of his men snorted a line of meth off the back of his wrist. Reese was glaring at him when the man offered him some.

“That’s stupid, yo. You’re gonna get your head blown off gettin’ high before a job.”

The man shrugged and snorted another line. The van was hot and the air conditioning didn’t reach the back. He would have to remember to bring a block of dry ice with him next time to make sure they kept cool.

The van doors slid open as the driver glanced at all of them and then climbed back into the driver’s seat. Reese went to put on a mask. He was the only one. Agamemnon said they had nothing to hide from, but the mask gave him strength and he felt people were frightened more easily when they couldn’t see their attacker.

The men jumped out and sprinted for the bank entrance just as a woman was walking away from the doors after unlocking them. Reese was the first in. He tossed the canisters of gas and they clinked as they rolled across the floor and filled the space with gray smoke.

“Everyone down!”

Employees screamed as Reese’s men ran behind the counter, one of them grabbing a teller and slamming her head down across the counter. Reese went to the largest office, finding a woman in a business suit.

“Up,” he said, pointing the weapon at her. As she stood, he saw her belly: she was pregnant.

“Please,” she said, “don’t hurt me.”

“Do what we say and you won’t get hurt. Grab your keys and come with me.”

He had her walk in front of him as they made their way to the safe. He checked his watch: they had a good four minutes before the first LAPD unit responded. Still, he wished they had dug a tunnel like the last one. But the amount of work that had gone into that added an extra three days to the job. The main thing Agamemnon didn’t want to waste was time.

They walked to the safe, whose thick steel door spanned from floor to ceiling. Reese placed the barrel against her ribs, just to make sure she felt its presence.

“Open.”

She fumbled with keys until one slid into the lock. A light on the door turned from red to green and the woman dialed in a code. The door clicked open.

Reese moved her out of the way, revealing a safe stacked with neatly pressed and bound cash. He stood aside as four of his men ran in and began filling garbage bags. One stood by the hostages, smoking a cigarette. The one that had snorted meth. He was sweating and pale.

“You all right?” Reese said, walking next to him.

“Fine,” the man said without looking at him. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey!” the man screamed, holding up his weapon to the pregnant woman. “Don’t fucking move!”

The woman screamed, tears beginning to flow down her cheeks as she held up her hands.

“She wasn’t doing anything, man,” Reese said. “Relax. We’re almost out.”

“She was moving.”

The first man ran out of the safe and to the van. Reese checked his watch: they had a good minute and a half. Plenty of time.

The man next to him yelled, “I told you, don’t fucking move!”

Panic gripped the pregnant woman. She was getting hysterical. She looked to the front entrance where the other man had just run.

“No!” Reese shouted.

The woman ran for it. As she rounded the corner, the man next to Reese fired. The woman flew against the wall and hit the ground, staring up to the ceiling in silence.

Reese spun the man around and swung with the butt of his shotgun, fracturing his jaw. The man flew off his feet and onto his back, his weapon falling limply to the floor. Reese ran over to the woman. He felt for a pulse but it was too late.

“That’s it man, let’s go. Hey, let’s go.”

Reese felt hands lift him to his feet and guide him out of the bank. His vision felt dulled and he had trouble thinking. He didn’t even notice that someone had pushed him inside the van as tires screeched and his men hollered and slapped each other’s backs.

Reese felt emotion choking him. He twisted away from his men so they couldn’t see and got his sunglasses off the van’s floor. Placing them on, he stared out the windows as someone counted the cash. Some of it had been spattered in droplets of blood but the man counting didn’t seem to notice.

They turned a corner, heading back to the old plant when they heard something hit their van. At first they thought they’d been in an accident, but Reese could see that they were still moving forward in the lane. The men all stopped what they were doing as they heard another noise: footsteps. Coming from the roof of the van.

One of the men lifted his weapon and fired. The sound was bassed and loud and it made Reese’s ears ring to the point that he couldn’t hear anything anymore. The other men began to fire and Reese held his hands to his ears.

The gunfire stopped and the men sat quietly. The driver kept going for some reason. Reese went to the front to tell him to pull over and saw that no one was in the driver’s seat, the door open and swinging wildly.

“Shit!”

The van hit the railing on the side of the road and swung back the other way, slamming into a Honda before spinning nearly all the way around and stopping in the middle of the road. Everyone had been thrown around and two men were outside on the pavement. Reese blinked a few times and saw that he was on his back across the passenger seat. He sat up. The money had been scattered over the van and was drifting on the wind outside.

One of his men sat up and grabbed his shotgun, making his way outside with a garbage bag full of cash in the other hand.

Reese saw a black arm come down from the roof of the van. It grabbed the man by the chest and flipped him up into the air so high Reese couldn’t see him for a moment before he crashed back down in the middle of the street.

Reese waited and listened. He could hear sirens; there wasn’t much time. He took a deep breath, shouted as if he were going into battle, and leapt out of the van onto his back, the shotgun aimed at the sky. He hit nothing but air.

He got to his feet and began to run. The man that had been thrown through the air was unconscious so Reese grabbed his bag of cash and sprinted down the road. A Lexus slammed on its brakes, screeching to a stop, to avoid hitting him. He pointed the shotgun through the driver’s side door and the woman inside froze. She didn’t scream or call for help, just sat motionless, staring at the shotgun’s barrel.

Reese opened the door and pulled her out by the arm. He jumped into the driver’s seat and as soon as he hit the accelerator he heard a noise. Something akin to a heavy object falling through the air.

It seemed to him like the car had exploded. The front end was flattened like a pancake and the rear end went up to the sky. The car was nearly vertical when Reese noticed the figure crouched on the hood of his car.

The car fell back, knocking Reese’s head into the roof. He felt himself bite his tongue and the bitter taste of blood filled his mouth. He looked to the hood of the car but the figure was gone.

Reese opened the door and stumbled out. He was dizzy from the knock to the head and felt the warmth of blood crawling down his forehead and neck. He began walking down the street but was so disoriented he wasn’t sure which direction he was going in. Suddenly, blackness filled his vision. He thought maybe he was blacking out but noticed the blackness was moving.

“You killed a woman,” the black figure in front of him said.

Reese fell backward and began to crawl away. He got to his knees just as the figure appeared in front of him again. It grabbed him by the collar and brought him near. Now Reese could see him clearly. The whites of the eyes over black, slick skin.

“She was pregnant.”

The figure threw him so far in the air he thought he was flying. Until he felt the burn of scraping along the concrete, he thought he might’ve hit his head and been lost in a pleasant dream.

The sirens were close now. Reese could hear them just up the street. The figure stood over him and placed his hand on Reese’s chest. Reese felt the breath leaving his body as the figure leaned in close, a faint green glow coming from his eyes.

“I’m not one to kill a defenseless man, but this time…” He pressed on Reese’s chest and blood shot out of his mouth. The figure stopped and stood up. “No. Not this time.”

Reese was alone, choking on his own blood as the first officers ran up and drew their weapons. Recognizing that he couldn’t breathe, they put their guns away, and called an ambulance.

CHAPTER 40

Hospital sheets were something Reese knew from a long time ago. His father would get drunk after work every day and when he came home he would beat Reese’s mother so badly that they would have to go to the hospital immediately. It was always a fall or a car accident or a mugging, some explanation that none of the hospital staff bought but couldn’t do anything about. Whenever the police would come, his mother would stick to her story.

Reese began taking the beatings for his mother. His father would come home and he’d spill fruit punch on the couch or leave his toys out on purpose so his father would direct his rage toward him instead of his mother. But if his father was really drunk, no one was safe.

One day, his mother didn’t wake up. Reese stood over her lifeless body, trembling and crying. His father was passed out on the floor. Reese went to the upstairs closet and retrieved his father’s handgun. With the weapon pointed at his father’s head, he stood motionless above him for a long time. Reese remembered it being hours, though in reality, it was probably only a few seconds.

Finally, he dropped the weapon, and left the house. Devoting his life to living on the streets.

“Mr. Stillman? Can you hear me, Mr. Stillman?”

Reese’s eyes opened to the comforting face of an older doctor. The man adjusted his glasses and turned off the light he was shining in Reese’s face. He stood up straight and made some notes on a chart.

“How is your breathing, son?”

Reese took in a deep breath. It stung all the way down, like drinking a strong alcohol, and filled his chest with pain. “Hurts.”

“You have a fractured sternum. It’s going to hurt for a while. But you’re going to be just fine. Do you have any other pain I should know about?”

Reese tried to relax and become aware of his body. Other than a general ache in every muscle and the burning sting in his chest and head, he didn’t feel any pain.

A nurse was standing behind the doctor. Reese heard her whisper, “This is one of the ones that shot the pregnant woman at the bank.”

The doctor looked to him. “Oh.”

He made a few more scribbles on the chart and the two of them walked out of the room. Reese wasn’t sure where he was, but he could see the two police officers standing in the hallway. Another man in a suit coat and wrinkled tie walked into his room and sat in the chair next to him.

“Can you talk?” the man said.

Reese turned away from him.

“Mr. Stillman, my name is William Yates. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I’m investigating the homicide of Melinda Vexer.” He leaned a little closer, putting his elbows on his knees. “That was her name, Reese. Melinda. She was a mother of two with a third one on the way before you murdered her and her baby.”