“I don’t understand you!”
“I don’t expect you to,” he replied.
Every muscle in my body tensed. If I could only make him see…
“Fine!” I heard myself yell. “I never needed anyone to look after me before! And I sure as hell don’t need you to look after me now!”
“Then it’s agreed,” he said.
“Damn it! Why do you do this? Why do you shut everyone out?”
No answer.
“Okay, then,” I yelled, “You want to die alone, go right ahead, you miserable bastard!”
I stormed out, thinking that would be the last time I would ever talk to him.
I put the box down and lean back in the sofa. I close my eyes and let the darkness envelop me. Why did I have to open the box? Why couldn’t I just leave well enough alone? I sit there nursing old wounds I thought long healed.
They called me a sidekick. I always thought we were partners. When we parted company, I seriously considered calling it quits. But I had invested too much of myself to let this be the final episode in my all-too-brief crime-fighting career. Eventually, I decided to go it alone.
No longer would I be Red Kite. To do so would be to remain in Harrier’s shadow. I needed a name that would signal my independence—and my rebirth. So I became Redhawk. With my newly-christened persona established, I set out to make a name for myself. To prove my worth, I would place myself in increasingly riskier situations time and again. It wasn’t long before it all caught up to me though.
I was careless. Where Harrier exercised prudence, I opted for flair. I was intent on showing him up whenever given the chance. I had such an opportunity when I discovered where Pierrot—Harrier’s nemesis—was holed up. He had long been a thorn in our side, and this would be my chance to make my mark.
I was in over my head.
I’ll spare you the less-than-flattering details of my unceremonious capture. The important thing is Pierrot didn’t even want me. He wanted Harrier.
But I wasn’t his sideki—his partner anymore. For all Pierrot knew, Harrier would let me die. But there was someone Harrier was sure to save.
Months after I’d left, he had taken on a new sidekick. A replacement. Despite claiming he’d changed his mind about wanting someone to take over some day.
I don’t know why he did it. I couldn’t bring myself to ask. What I do know is that it made me feel discarded. After bouncing from foster home to foster home, I really did think I had found someone who genuinely cared about me. When he insisted I leave, I assumed the problem was his, that he had some inner failing that prevented him from caring about anyone but himself. But when I saw he had a new partner, I could no longer believe that was true. No—I must be the problem, I thought.
I’m about to admit something about myself that seems so childish it embarrasses me to say it. I was jealous. So what do jealous people do? They become obsessive. I made it my mission to find out everything I knew about the new Red Kite. I resorted to stalking the poor kid whenever he wasn’t with Harrier. I discovered his real name, where he went to school, where he hung out when he wasn’t fighting crime. All the while I tried to convince myself I was just sharpening my detective skills. The things we tell ourselves when we’re hurting…
So I came to know everything about him. And once Pierrot captured me, he knew everything too.
I pick up another box in search of articles about that day. Tragedy in Midtown. Black Day for the Black Harrier. The Last Flight of the Red Kite.
“Choices, choices…”
“Let them go!”
I was dangling upside down in an abandoned warehouse, my arms tied behind my back, a rope binding my ankles. I looked over to find that the new Red Kite, Toby Thompson, was in a similar position a few yards away from me, unconscious. On a giant screen, a recording of Pierrot’s grotesque clown face smiling ghoulishly as a timer counted down. On the ground below, the Black Harrier, my old partner and mentor, faced with an impossible choice.
“You probably think me mad, don’t you Harrier?” Pierrot’s image blared. “But the only madness I see is your insistence on keeping caged such beautiful birds! Birds need to fly, Harrier. Let them fly!”
With that, Pierrot’s haunting laugh echoed throughout the vast empty space. The next thing I knew, my body was weightless.
“No!” shouted Harrier.
Just then, a sudden jolt. Our descent came to an abrupt stop. Pierrot’s rig pulled us back up slowly. The sick bastard was enjoying this.
“‘I would have thee gone,’” began Pierrot’s projection in mock sadness. “‘And yet, no further than a wanton’s bird, that lets it hop a little from his hand like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silken thread plucks it back again, so loving-jealous of his liberty.’” Now this monster was quoting Shakespeare at us. “I see why you have such a hard time letting them go, Harrier! They are so much fun!”
“I said let them go!” Harrier called from below as our helpless bodies rose higher and higher.
“‘These violent delights have violent ends!’ Wouldn’t you agree?”
I glanced over at Toby, but his body still hung limply. I hoped to hear any sound that might suggest he was alive. For all I knew, the fall and sudden jolt might have snapped his neck. Maybe he was killed earlier, his lifeless body hung up like a twisted ornament. There was truly no way of knowing.
“Oh, I know why the caged bird sings,” Pierrot’s voice blared over the speakers. “The caged bird sings of freedom. Would you like your freedom, little bird?” His giant televised eyes seemed to be looking at me now.
“Wha—?” I managed to utter.
“How about you?” his eyes darted madly to the lifeless Toby. “‘A caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream, his wings are clipped, and his feet are tied, so he opens his throat to sing!’” Another poem. This was Pierrot at his most insufferable. A cat playing with his captured prey. “Well?” he resumed. “SING!”
“Damn it, Pierrot!” I shouted. “The kid’s done nothing to you! You’ve got me! Just take me!”
Pierrot let out a ridiculously exaggerated belly laugh. “Hee hee hee… ho ho ho…” He wiped away a nonexistent tear from his eye. Just then, a spotlight shined on me that blinded me temporarily. “You’ve got one kid here who’s yesterday’s news. All washed up!” The spotlight moved from me to Toby. “This one, on the other hand... this one is brand new! He’s got that lemony scent that comes with all new sidekicks.”
My eyes slowly recovered by the temporary blindness. I focused on Toby in search of any sign of life. That’s when I noticed something was off.
“Enough!” insisted Harrier. “This ends now!”
“MAKE YOUR CHOICE!”
I could see what was going on now. While the spotlight shined on Toby momentarily, I noticed it wasn’t Toby at all. It was merely a decoy made to look like him. But that meant...
“Harrier!” I called out. “That’s not Toby! Get out of h—”
But it was too late. With the timer still counting down, I heard a loud click, and my body was weightless once again.
“‘A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun’s rays and dares to claim the sky!’”
This time there was no sudden jolt that signaled he was simply toying with me. No, he meant it this time. I closed my eyes and waited for impact. But suddenly, I felt a sudden rush of wind as something blew past me, grabbed my legs, and stopped my fall. I opened my eyes to find Harrier standing over me, his face obscured in the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to say.
“No, I’m sorry,” he replied.
Pierrot’s ghoulish face was still projected above us. “You are not a free bird, are you Harrier? No, you only seem free. But you are bound by morality. You are bound by your relationships. You are bound by feeling. Don’t you see what I’ve been trying to do all this time, Harrier?
”
“Don’t…”
“The choices… doing what you ought to do rather than what you want to do…”
“Please…”
“Harrier,” he went on, “I’ve been trying to free you!”
Another loud click. This time “Toby” fell to the ground before Harrier could react.
“Noooo!!!”
A sickening laugh echoed all around us. “Oh my,” Pierrot’s giant face now had a genuine look of surprise. “If you’re still watching this, you failed the test, Harrier. More important, you failed ME! This was supposed to be our last dance! Now I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go, walking with a dead man over my shoulder.”
The small timer now took up the whole screen. It was counting down from 59 seconds.
Harrier was in a trance. I explained to him what I discovered while I was up there, that what he saw was all a sick joke, and that the real Toby was somewhere else. In my weakened state, I got him up to his feet and insisted that we get out fast.
As if the pain he inflicted wasn’t enough, Pierrot’s voice came over the speakers to rub salt in our wounds: “I overestimated you, Harrier. I thought for sure that with that brilliant mind of yours you’d realize that the only real choice you had was for you to come after me. You certainly put the rube in Rube Goldberg. Oh well... C’est la vie...”
3… 2… 1...
A City in Mourning. Crime on the Rise. Has the Black Harrier Flown the Coop? After the explosion that leveled the warehouse, Toby’s body was recovered—Pierrot’s wasn’t. The crime rate climbed steadily for months after that. People were afraid again after years of feeling safe on the streets.
Reading over the articles, I realize how much he meant to this city and how much he was missed when he disappeared. Did anybody care when I retired? I can’t help but wonder. Did they even notice? I head over to the mini-bar in the corner and look through the bottles of expensive scotch and bourbon. I never could understand how he stayed in shape—hell, how he even functioned—while drinking so much.
I pour myself some of his most expensive scotch and make a silent toast.
After the kid’s death, his drinking only got worse. Of course, he blamed himself. For failing to solve the deranged puzzle, for letting his emotions cloud his reasoning, for putting the kid in harm’s way.
I finish the tumbler of scotch in one gulp, then pour myself another. I go back to the clippings.
It might have helped him if I’d admitted my role in the tragedy. That I’d gotten myself captured with my overconfidence. That I was weak and told Pierrot everything.
That part of me…
I swallow the contents of the glass before I finally admit it to myself.
...That part of me may have wanted to punish the kid for replacing me. That some morbid, sickening slice of my psyche might have secretly wished him dead.
Geez, what would he have thought of me then?
Bird Watching: News and Speculation. Real Sightings or Mass Hysteria? The Black Harrier Returns.
Clearly, Frank had an obsession. With fighting crime, yes, that’s obvious. But apparently, there was more to it. Because even after the trauma of losing the second Red Kite, he eventually went back to fighting crime and, yes, began training another sidekick.
The new guy was good. Definitely better than his predecessor and probably even better than I was at that age. And I was the real deal.
This time, I stayed away. Even as the envy gnawed at me, I avoided knowing anything about him. I didn’t read any articles, didn’t watch any news stories. I didn’t speak to Harrier for a few years even.
Until he disappeared again.
It turns out that even though we had all hoped Pierrot had died in that explosion, he had actually survived—as cockroaches often do—and went into hiding. We found out much later that he was preparing his ultimate plan of revenge. God, the guy was nothing if not consistent. He managed to kidnap Harrier himself and tortured him in ways that made what he did to me seem like a spa treatment. He held him for weeks.
No matter how good he was, Harrier’s new sidekick wasn’t going to be able to save him on his own, so I finally made an appearance. I helped him figure everything out and nearly got myself killed again. The new kid went in and tried to save Harrier, nearly killing Pierrot in the process, but Harrier stopped him. That was the main rule. The one we could never break: No killing.
But Pierrot had driven Harrier over the edge. His mind had snapped. He finished the job himself, leaving Pierrot with a snapped neck. I don’t care who you are—you don’t come back from that.
Even in death, though, Pierrot had won in a way. Harrier broke his promise and, in doing so, he lost trust in himself. He stepped aside from his role as Harrier, handing over the responsibility to me. He tried, for a good while anyway, to just be Frank again.
Ten years later, and all I can do is lament the fact that he wasn’t more successful.
I’m jarred from my reverie by a knock on the door. It’s them.
I reseal the box of newspaper clippings and return it to its place on the floor. I walk over to the door to let them in.
This is the Cleaning Crew. It’s their job to “clean up” messes involving vigilante-types who have secrets they’d like to remain sealed. Oftentimes, they’ll leave behind family whose safety could be compromised if the truth were to be revealed. I wonder why this is even necessary for the Black Harrier. These guys will have rarely had an easier job. There’s not much to erase anymore, no one to hide the truth from.
And I wonder: with all the people he helped, all the lives he saved—could I have saved him?
A Word From Valin & Martinez
A Word from Christopher J Valin
I’ve been a comic book and superhero fan (especially Batman) as far back as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of watching repeats of the old Adam West TV series when I was growing up in the ’70s and coloring in Batman coloring books. As I got older, I started writing and drawing my own comics and creating my own heroes while collecting comic books obsessively. I loved the covers of Giant-Size X-Men #1 and Amazing Spider-Man #129 so much that I tore them off and hung them on my wall (not the best financial decision I’ve ever made). I was lucky enough to be able to get a job at, and eventually manage, a comic book and collectibles store while I was in college, and even got to work as a writer and inker for some small comic book publishers for several years as an adult. So I’ve been intimately connected to the industry my whole life. For a time, I was sidetracked by screenwriting, writing, and teaching about history, and, later, short stories. But when I decided to write my first full novel on my own, there was no other choice but to go back to my first love, creating my own world full of superheroes and villains. If you enjoyed my story, please check out Sidekick: The Red Raptor Files – Part 1, which takes place in the same universe, called the “Raptorverse” after its central character. You can also find my other books and short stories at my Amazon author’s page and more about me at my website, ChristopherValin.com. Finally, if you’d like to keep up with my new releases, as well as giveaways and other fun stuff, please subscribe to my newsletter. Thanks
A Word from Noel Martinez
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been kicking around stories I’ve wanted to tell. These stories range from the intimate vignette to the raucous superhero epic. Up to this point, I’ve largely kept these stories to myself as I pursued a career in education. Even though my teaching career is now well established, I’ve never been able to shake that desire to create. So here I am, hoping I can make at least a few readers feel the way I did when I read my first comic book and thought ‘wonder what happens next?
The Hunt
BY BEN MASON
Trash cans rattled as Devin ducked down the dark corners of the alley, the soft glow of his tablet illuminating his worried face.
How had he lost track of the time? He saw the notifications racking up at the top right-hand side of his tablet as people li
ve-commented on the new season of Scorched Earth. The whole season had dropped and he had been busy trying to catch up on his work project. If he didn’t hustle, he was going to lose his position as forum moderator.
Sucking in his gut, he moved around a large dumpster and a bunch of plastic bags ignoring the smell. He had some leftover pizza in the fridge and–if necessary–a few beers to dull the smell of this particular shortcut.
“Out kind of late, aren’t you?” A young, thin man said, stepping out of the shadows. The dim light showed he had dark streaks painted across his face. He was wearing a black outfit with asymmetrical slices all over it. In his hand, was a knife painted to look like obsidian.
Two more men appeared respectively on Devin’s left and right. They were bigger than him and none of it fat.
Sids. Devin’s armpits started to sweat profusely as his knees knocked together.
“Hey guys, just going home.”
“Fancy tablet,” one of the hulking brutes rumbled.
“Oh yeah, thanks. Top of the line. I use it to keep up with the latest Obsidian sightings.”
“Really?” The thin young man said, circling around like a shark. “Lookee here, Jev, Dol. We got us another Sid. Sure don’t look like it,” he said, giving Devin a playful poke with the edge of his knife. Thankfully, it didn’t draw blood. “Say, how about you help another Sid out. See, we want to keep up with him too, but we don’t got a computer. Whatdaya say? How ‘bout spreading the wealth?”
“Sure,” Devin said. He handed over the tablet feeling the first seeds of relief. If all it cost him to get away was his tablet, then it was a bargain. Sids were some of the most fanatical gangs around the city. They weren’t even employed by Obsidian and most of the time, he didn’t even acknowledge them. That didn’t stop them from dressing up and taking his look and message to heart. Some of them even slashed their faces, an homage to what their dear leader did when the chemical accident gave him his powers.
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