Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (49 page)

He bent his face down to her
flaming lips and kissed her.  “
It’s a date
.”

Now?  He had to do this fucking
NOW!?!  Jesus,
WHAT AN ASSHOLE!

Traitor looked down at her wound.  “Wow. 
Look-it all the blood.  Huh.  Glad that’s not me.”  He shook his head, still
sounding like he was watching a TV show and one of the characters was hurt.  “I
got a cut like that back in ‘Nam once.  Hurt like a bitch, but I soldiered
through.  I had to strangle one of those V.C. bastards with my own intestines
while I was running up the stairs to the embassy heliport as Saigon fell. 
LAST. 
ONE.  OUT
.  True story.”  He began looting the bodies.  “I mean, YOU’LL
obviously die soon, but…”  He paused.  “Hey, out of curiosity, are you by
chance wanted
dead
or alive any place?  Because, I’m not going to lie, a
few bucks in my pocket would be pretty nice.”

Automatic weapons fire suddenly started
hitting the street around them.  She pushed Doug away, her hand still pressed
over her wound.  “Go.  All of you!”

Doug shook his head.  “I’m not
going anywhere.  I’m staying here with you!”

She pushed him again. 
“I said
GO!”

Traitor nodded.  “’Kay.”  He
casually walked away shouldering one of the dead soldier’s rifles.  “Later
Gia.  Good knowing ya.  Sorry you’re dead.  Kind of sucks.  ‘Specially since
you were hot.”  He gave her a fist pump of encouragement.  “Give’em
hell
,
G.”  He strolled away around the corner, pressing his enemy earpiece into his
ear again.  “Command, are you there?  Thompkins?  Yeah, this is Captain Westpoint. 
I have the bastards on the run.  Send me the coordinates of all of our men in
the field, and come pick me up.”  He smiled.  “Oh, and I need one of those
tanks
.”

More gun fire sounded around them.

She ignored Traitor’s characteristic
moral bankruptcy and pushed at Doug again.  The dumb bastard was really
planning on standing here and dying too.  She was not ABOUT to let that
happen.  She slammed a fist into his chest and he went flying down the street
away from the battle.  Asshole never did know when to quit.  Maybe a couple
broken ribs and some unconsciousness would teach him a lesson or two when he
finally landed.

She glanced around looking for
Oversight, but then realized it was useless.  The man couldn’t be seen.  She
sighed.  “I don’t know if you’re here or not, John.  I hope you’re
not
. 
If you are though, I want you to
leave!
”  She coughed again, knowing
full well that he wouldn’t run.  If he was still here, which she was almost
positive
he was, he would just be quiet and help her anyway, no matter what she said. 
She smiled.  “Thank you, Johnny.  Thank you.”

She wrapped an arm around her
stomach wound and staggered down the street towards the men she had to kill
before she could rest.  She made a fist and the first row of men were
consumed.  A round hit her in the shoulder, and she staggered back as the tank
started to melt.

What a shitty fucking day.  Goddamn
heroism.  Goddamn Wyatt.  Goddamn asshole Doug and his lack of balls in not
kissing her before she was about to die.  Moron.

A round hit her leg and she winced,
but somehow stayed on her feet.  Several more of the men burst into angry
flames.  A company of them ran down the sidewalk in an effort to flank her, but
where cut down by machine gun fire from one of their own fallen weapons, which
mysteriously seemed to be firing itself.

Fucking Johnny.  She TOLD him to go
home.  He was an asshole too.

The tank fired off a round in the
direction of the gunfire, and the building behind where she thought Oversight
was standing exploded.  The gun fell to the sidewalk, but was picked up a
second later and started firing again.

Fuck it.  Time to end this, right
now.

Infernal made fists with both her
hands and gritted her teeth in concentration.  The whole end of the street
opened up and the tank and the remaining men tumbled down…down…down…  Flames.

She collapsed onto the street, her
job finished.  She coughed again, her skin returning to normal.  Her back began
to become wet as more and more blood spilled out of her wound and onto the
street beneath her.

She closed her eyes and felt
herself falling…

Shit.  Now she’s never get to see
who won
Top Chef
; a Tivo filled with an episode she’d never watch.

Fucking heroics, man.  Fucking
heroics.  Villainy was so much easier than helping people, no matter how much
better it felt.  Her last thoughts were of her friends.  Her stupid, annoying friends….

*******

The Librarian had lost some sort of
invisible lottery, she was sure of it.  Rather than getting a sane or incredibly
powerful member of the Consortium of Chaos to partner with, she had somehow
drawn The Cynic.  Again.  The Commodore had put them in charge of chasing after
the hero known as Cargo, and so far, it had
not
been a successful
operation.  Which was not surprising, as
nothing
Cynic was a part of
could possibly succeed.  He was to
success,
what control rods were to a
nuclear
reactor
.  If you were having too
much
success, he would get
involved, and stop it.

She had limited field experience. 
She had not even been out of the base except to go to court in over a year, and
had not had a field operation in two, which sadly, had ALSO been with Cynic. 
She was far too busy for field assignments, and her skills were put to better
use elsewhere in the organization. 

Despite all that though, she STILL
felt far more capable of dealing with Cargo than Cynic was.  The man was a
buffoon
. 
He always seemed to be distracted, he was incapable of intelligent dialogue, and
she had never seen him do anything that would lead her to believe he had ANY
kind of super-power.  At all.  She was beginning to suspect that he had simply
lied his way into the organization with promises of vague and terrifying powers,
and was now just keeping up the charade.  What a tedious man. 

And he was a
terrible
car
salesman.  Just terrible.  She knew that from bitter experience, and had
requested to
never
be partnered with the man again.  Once had been MORE
than enough.  Two years later, and she
still
had not gotten over that
nightmare of a mission.

She turned to stare at her newfound
“partner.”  “We must hurry, Mr. O’Probrian.  He will elude us if we do not make
haste.”

He rolled his eyes and continued
shuffling down the sidewalk disinterestedly, his voice taking on an air of mock
panic.  “Oh, good heavens!  Tis true!  Whatever shall we do if our quarry
eludes us!  Surely that scoundrel shall be made to encounter the swift hand of
our
justice!
”  He shook his head sadly.  “Jesus.  It’s like having the
Queen Mum as your drill instructor or something.”

His negativity was pointless.  She
did not understand that kind of thinking.  If they did not hurry, they would
fail.  And they could NOT fail.  She had never failed at anything, and she was not
about
to let someone like
Cynic
break her lifelong streak of
success, merely because he was lazy.  “I do not understand what your difficulty
is here, Mr. O’Probrian.  We have been tasked with capturing Cargo.  We must
fulfill our mission.”

He made a bored uh-huh sound.  “Yeah,
yeah.  I’m hurrying!  I’m hurrying!  Shit, I’m going as fast as I…”  He stopped
at a corner to read the headline of a newspaper as he passed by.  “Shit. 
Malcolm Peterson died.  Really?  Did you know that?  His movies were awesome.” 
He reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out some change.  “Do you have a
quarter, Sweets?  I want to grab one of these; it might be worth something
someday.”

She took a deep breath, her incredible
patience wearing thin.  It was like he was DELIBERATELY stalling just to anger
her.  “
Mr. O’Probrian
…”

The rest of her words were cut off
as gunfire sounded through the street.  She heard a bullet whizz by her head and
pieces of concrete were blasted away around them.  Cynic did not so much as
move.  He ignored the shots completely, and continued poking through the coins
in his hand.  “Why do I always get
Canadian
coins when people give me
change?  That’s just…”

She tackled him, propelling him behind
a car as bullets ripped through the newspaper dispenser he had just been
standing in front of a half-second before.  His hand hit the street in an
effort to break their fall, causing his change to fly free from his clenched fist
and roll into the street.  He grabbed in vain at the coins as they tumbled away. 
“
NO!
  My change!”  He glared at her accusingly.  “I fucking needed
that! 
You owe me a dollar!”
  He suddenly seemed to notice that she was lying
on top of him.  “Or…you could
work
it off if you wanted.  I’m sure we
could come to SOME sort of arrangement…”

She rolled off him and pushed his
face away in disgust.  He grinned, his obnoxious smile spreading from one side
of his face to the other.  “What?  YOU’RE the one who threw yourself at
me
. 
I mean, I’m used to women doing that and all, but…”

Cargo ran by, firing several more
shots at them.  He ducked for cover behind a low traffic dividing wall and
started shouting out at them.  “I’ll fucking KILL YOU!  I won’t let you hurt me,
again!”  He fired three more rounds.  “I’ll DIE FIRST, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Cynic looked at her.  “That sounds
bad, but there’s no proof he’s talking about ME. 
You’re
a villain TOO,
you know.  He could just as
easily
be referencing something that
YOU
did to him.”  He pursed his lips as he considered that.  “In fact, I bet
all
of this
is about you, isn’t it?  What the hell did you do to this guy? 
Probably something dark and violent and
sexual,
I’m guessing.”  He shied
away from her.  “You’re some kind of freak or something
, aren’t you!?!”

Cargo fired a couple more shots in
their direction.  “I’LL TAKE YOU DOWN WITH ME, CYNIC!”

Cynic popped his head out and
shouted across the street at their attacker.  “Why are you dragging
ME
into this, Cargo?  This is
obviously
between you and the Librarian
here.  You two should work out your personal shit, and leave me out of it.”  He
paused.  “Oh, and do you have change for a dollar?  Libs spazzed out at the
sound of gunfire, and knocked my change into the gutter in a moment of blind
panic.  You know how women are, they…”

Several more shots impacted the
wall by his head, and he chuckled.

Librarian eyed Cynic
expressionlessly.  “There are sixteen different ways in which I can respond to
that.  Twelve of them involve your death.”

Cynic shook his head.  “You’re
gonna have to speak up, Sweets.  I don’t think he heard you.”

“I was not speaking to him.  My
words were directed at you.”

Cynic turned towards her, ignoring
her warning.  His face took on what for him was a “serious” expression.  “Relax,
Sweets.  I’m good with people; better let
me
handle this.  I’ll talk him
down.”  He stepped out into the clearing, his voice trying to sound calm and
rational as he started across the street towards their attacker.  “Now Cargo,
we all know you’re a fucking lunatic, and after the crimes you’ve committed,
you’ll undoubtedly spend the rest of your life in federal prison somewhere getting
gang raped on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean that…”

Cargo fired the weapon again and
the round slammed into the center of Cynic’s chest, knocking him back a step.  The
bullet went clean through him, the back of his shirt was suddenly soaked with
blood from the exit wound.  He made a wet coughing sound, blood spraying from
his mouth in a fine mist and dripping down his chin.

Marian gasped in spite of herself. 
Jesus.  He was…Cargo had just killed Cynic right in front of her.  That made
her…sad for some reason.  She was not an emotional person, and had never been
especially CLOSE with Cynic, but the thought of him not being there anymore
caused her to feel like crying…which was weird, as he was possibly the most
annoying person on the planet…was
DEFINITELY
the most annoying person on
the planet.  In fact, she was pretty sure that some circles would positively
rejoice
at the news of his grisly demise, but it still made her rather sad.

The man had put
marshmallow
fluff
on his
hamburgers
.  What kind of person
DOES
that?  It
was just…just…

Her mind raced, concocting a plan
to take Cargo down for good.  Her eyes narrowed.  It would be
exceptionally
easy. 
She estimated it would take her twenty-seven seconds to kill him.  That was a
rough estimate of course, as some allowance had to be made for unexpected changes
in wind resistance as she made her way across the street, and…

She stopped as she noticed that Cynic
was still on his feet…somehow.  His body swayed back and forth for a moment,
like it was about to topple over at any second.  He looked down at his body in
disbelief; the blood spreading from the wound; a pool of darker crimson on his
red T-shirt.  He opened his mouth…Closed it…Then opened it again, like he just
could simply not believe that he was going to die on this dirty street over
nothing.

Absolutely nothing.  And now he was
dead.

His life was probably flashing
before his eyes, now.  A last chance to look back on his life, and regret the
parade of poor decisions he had undoubtedly made.  All his many,
many
mistakes. 

He looked up from the wound and
back to Cargo as if in a daze.  He stumbled backwards another step, blood dripping
down onto his shoes and the filthy road surface.  “You…you
shot
me.  You
unbelievable
DICK!
”  He turned back to Marian.  “You see?  Do you
fucking SEE this!?!  This is what I get for trying to be a nice guy.  I go out
of my fucking way, try to ignore my natural instincts to just kill him, and
THIS
is what happens.  I’m just an innocent guy trying to buy a fucking newspaper, minding
my own business, and now I’ve got a .32 caliber round to the center of my
fucking chest.  Well, that’s just
super.
  Thank you so VERY much, Cargo. 
From now on, you can just forget about MY help in the future, I can sure as
shit tell you that.”  He shook in head in indignation, and looked down at the
bullet wound again.  “Typical.  Just fucking typical.”