Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal (3 page)

Down the length of the alley, hurried footsteps echoed. The orange
light that glowed through a spider’s web of cracks in a basement window brought
a shadow into view. Long, bent and twisted against the dark brick walls, the
shadow seemed to shrink as the sound of footfalls grew louder. Smaller now,
less grotesque, the shadow resolved itself into human form, shrank still and
almost seemed to disappear as the figure that had cast it appeared. It was a
square-built man, blockish and breathing heavily. He cast a hasty glance back
over his shoulder. Had he lost them?

Dan Tyler was on his way home, his workday finally completed. It was
payday, and Tyler had been working a lot of overtime. It wasn’t much money, but
when it was everything a man had in the world, it was enough to make him
paranoid. Enough to make him feel like a target. To walk like a victim. Maybe
that’s what had attracted them. Maybe they just knew the plant employees had
been paid, and pegged Dan for an easy target. Many of the others had left in
packs, headed for the taverns up the street. Not Dan Tyler. He had four
children at home, and with the baby not well, they needed every dime he could
earn.

He was still breathing hard now, trying to be quiet to listen for any
sound that might betray his pursuers. He could hear his own heart pounding,
echoing in his ears. Maybe he had lost them. Maybe he’d imagined the whole
thing. He’d felt their presence almost at once upon leaving the factory gates.
There were two of them, one on each side of the street. They had turned when he
turned. Sped up when he sped up. Finally, he had bolted left and sprinted for
this alley. Made his way down the length of the narrow canyon between buildings
as quickly and quietly as he could, hoping against hope that he’d been wrong…
that it had all been in his head.

Tyler held his breath another moment. Two. Nothing.

He sighed a little, and noticed for the first time the beads of sweat
that had collected on his brow. His hand moved for his handkerchief, when all
at once there came a small, metallic echo and a sputtering hiss of breath. As
if silent feet had found a can or other debris, and a curse had been
restrained. Tyler’s heart began to pound. The footsteps were moving faster now,
knowing that stealth was a lost cause.

Dan Tyler turned and ran as fast as his aching legs would carry him. He
tried not to think of what would happen to his family if the men behind him
took his money. He tried not to think of what they might do to him, of how long
it might be before he could work again. There was only one thought in his mind:
Run.

He ran deeper into the alley, deeper into the night. The blackness
before him was almost total now, but still his legs churned, propelling him
further, faster… desperately hoping to emerge back into the street where
someone, anyone, might find him and intercede.

Almost before he knew what was happening, Tyler was on his back, his
face and hands stinging with pain. The pavement was wet and cold on his back.
Somewhere high above, someone turned on a light, perhaps in fright at the sound
he had made. The light bled down to where he lay, and through the resulting
grey, Dan Tyler could just make out the high wire fence he had run into. His
heart sank. How could he hope to climb over this in time?

A noise behind him made it clear this was a moot point at best.

Tyler spun and clambered to his knees as best he could. Two figures
emerged from the darkness, swaggering forward with the casual ease that only
comes with long practice. One was tall, but wiry, with a tweed cap pulled low
over his brow. The other was thick-necked and powerfully built, a tattered
pork-pie hat perched on top of his head. They closed the distance far too
quickly for Tyler to react. Tweed Cap was the first to speak.

“All right, Pops. Give.”

“Please…,” Tyler sputtered. “Please… my
children–”

“Moss!” Tweed Cap called. The big man circled behind Tyler.

“Please… don’t…”

Moss hauled Tyler to his feet by the back of his coat with a single
hand. Tyler squirmed. If he could just break free… push past Tweed Cap… but the
big man’s hold was too strong. Moss gripped both of Tyler’s arms behind his
back and held him hard. Tyler was gasping for breath now, his heart pounding in
his ears, shutting out every other sound.

The tweed cap was pushed back, just a little. Tyler could see laughter
in the man’s eyes, and a small smirk playing about his face. He was going to
enjoy what happened next. Tyler steeled himself against the impact to come. The
lanky man in the tweed cap pulled back one of his long, spidery arms and…

Nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. The man staggered slightly as he lost his
footing for just a moment, like a man almost slipping on ice might. For a half
second, the man seemed perplexed. Then he caught Tyler’s eyes, focused behind
him where his arm still hung, poised and ready to mete out punishment. He
turned his head hesitantly, as if afraid of what he might see.

There, in the shadows, he could just see his own hand, still clenched
in a fist. And it was easy to see what had stopped the blow and caught Dan
Tyler’s eye. The man in the tweed cap saw in horror that his wrist was caught
in the powerful grip of a red gauntlet!

The three men froze. The moment couldn’t have lasted longer than a
second or two, but it felt like an eternity. There was movement forward into
the spill of half-light that came from far above. The gloved hand was revealed
to have an arm, sleeved in a grey overcoat. Half a second before the body
resolved itself, the dull flash of two empty white eyes appeared, like a wolf’s
eyes, hunting by moonlight. The man in the tweed cap gasped. Tyler felt Moss’
hands grip his arms harder behind him, as if in fear.

An instant later, a mask appeared around those eyes, in the same bright
red. The man himself followed at last, like a Cheshire Cat melting back into
existence, complete with an utterly disarming toothy grin. The man in the mask
was clearly about to enjoy himself.

“The Red Panda…,” Tyler breathed without meaning to, his heart filled
with both a sudden thrill and dread. No one knew much about this masked man.
Some said he was just a legend, a story. But the legend had stepped from the purple
prose of the newspaper headlines and intervened in favor of Dan Tyler.

All four men stood, frozen. Between the mask and the fedora, Tweed Cap
could see the Red Panda’s left eyebrow rise, just a little. A tiny gesture, but
one that spoke volumes. Together with the confident smirk the crime-fighter
wore as he towered over them, the look asked Tweed Cap how he wanted to do
this, and made sure he knew that the ending was in no doubt.

The frozen moment was shattered. If it was to be fight or flight, Tweed
Cap would choose flight. He tried to pull his arm out of the vice-like grip in
which it was held. Instantly, and seemingly without effort, the Red Panda
pulled Tweed Cap clear off his feet and hurled him to the ground. Tyler felt
himself thrust out of the way, back to the pavement, as Moss moved to aid his
partner. As he fell, Tyler could see the Red Panda, still holding Tweed Cap’s
arm, jam his left foot into the throat of the prone hold-up man with great
force. Tweed Cap sputtered and choked. It wouldn’t keep him down, but it kept
him out of the way.

Tyler landed in a heap, cutting the palms of his hands against the
gravel and pavement. He didn’t see what happened as the man in the mask leapt
over him to close the distance with Moss, but he could hear the result. A crack
so sharp – Tyler couldn’t believe that it was caused by a punch –
and then another. Tyler rolled to his left to get clear of the melee. He could
see the masked man working Moss over with blow after blow from the red-gloved
hands. Moss’ nose was already broken, and the Red Panda paused, as if to give
the thug the opportunity to fall. But Moss was too stubborn. He even flailed
his arms a little in a vain, punch-drunk attempt to fight back.

The Red Panda responded to this sign of life with a blindingly quick
flurry of blows. He was working Moss’ body with a series of crushing uppercuts,
almost holding the big man up in the process. Suddenly, from the corner of his
eye, Tyler could see the lanky form of Tweed Cap pull himself to his feet, a
found length of pipe in his hand. He spit and threw an angry look at the Red
Panda’s back. Tyler drew a breath to cry out a warning to his rescuer, but
before a word came from his lips, he heard a strange sound, like the wind in a
sail, or a kite moving quickly.

Tyler saw her before Tweed Cap did, descending rapidly from the gaping
darkness above. An unmistakably female form clad in a grey catsuit, her fall
from one of the nearby rooftops turned into a controlled glide by two membranes
that ran down the sides of her costume starting at her wrists and running
beneath her arms and along the length of her legs.

Tyler’s heart was in his mouth. Could she possibly control this glide?
At the last moment, he was answered by a burble of laughter from the girl.
Tyler stared in amazement. The expression on her face was one of pure joy and
exhilaration.

Tweed Cap heard the laugh and jerked his head up, but it was far too
late. At the last moment she rolled her legs forward beneath her, the
impossibly strong silks of the gliding membranes billowing forward as she
turned her glide into a fall. At the precise moment, the Flying Squirrel thrust
forward a boot and turned the full force of her motion into a kick to the face
that sent the tweed cap flying from the man’s head.

The girl turned with the force from the kick, bringing her other leg
around in mid-air to smash against the man’s face from the opposite direction.
Still moving forward through the air with the energy of her glide, she kept
pace as the man fell backwards, bringing up her first foot to make contact with
a short, jabbing kick that sent the front teeth of the would-be robber
clattering to the pavement.

She was almost out of kinetic energy now. She threw her arms out to
either side and sent her whole body into a spin in mid-air. Tyler couldn’t be
sure, but for a moment he thought he saw some sort of power sparking from the
soles of her feet, as if some energy in her boots gave her an extra boost to
keep her aloft. As she completed her spin, she thrust her left foot out,
breaking Tweed Cap’s jaw with a terrible crack.

The lanky man fell to the ground like a sack of wet cement. The Flying
Squirrel landed softly, almost as if she had been lowered to the ground. As she
smirked at the prone form before her, she extended her arms to the sides and
made a small motion with her fingers. The gliding membranes retracted into her
suit smoothly and noiselessly, leaving no trace that they had ever been there.
They even passed through her belt, suggesting that it was not the solid piece
it appeared to be.

Tyler turned his head to the right and saw the Red Panda, standing over
the long-forgotten unconscious form of Moss, watching the girl closely with a
smile on his face. He seemed to catch Tyler’s eye, and suddenly the smile
disappeared.

“We should go,” he said.

“Roger that,” said the girl, drawing something small from a pouch on
her belt. It was a police whistle. She blew on it three times, hard. Tyler
could imagine the sound of police boots on their way from every direction.

The Red Panda struck a flare, bathing the alley in an eerie red light.
Swiftly, he pulled Moss by the arm to where his partner lay and fastened the
two together with a pair of handcuffs. The Squirrel blew the whistle again. The
masked man turned and his eyes met Tyler’s.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Tyler could only nod. The Red Panda pressed something into his hand. It
was a small key.

“For the bracelets. When the police arrive,” he said seriously.

“Police?” Tyler could barely speak, his mouth was so dry. He looked
around. The girl was stamping a small symbol in red ink on the foreheads of
each of the unconscious toughs. It appeared to be a red paw print.

“Whaddya think?” she said.

“I’m not completely sold on it just yet,” the Red Panda said with a
slight grimace.

“I think it looks cute,” she said, cocking her head.

“That’s part of my problem with it. Besides, do we really need to sign
our work? There’s a witness.”

Dan Tyler found his voice. “Witness?” he said. “I don’t want any
trouble–”

His voice trailed off suddenly as the two masked heroes turned their
heads towards him in unison, their eyebrows arched.

Tyler swallowed hard. “I-I’ll wait for the police.”

The Flying Squirrel batted her eyelashes. “You’d better,” she said with
a smile.

Tyler really could hear the sound of police boots approaching now. He
wouldn’t have long to wait. He saw each of the masked heroes produce what
looked almost like a long pistol with a small grappling hook emerging from the
barrel. The Red Panda fired his into the blackness. Tyler could hear it catch
far above, playing the rope out behind as it flew.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The Squirrel fired her Grapple Gun in the same direction, with the same
result.

“I sure hope we didn’t miss our appointment over these two clowns,” she
said with a shake of her head.