by Lexie Dunne
By my last count, she appeared to need at least seven.
I eyed the latest pair in an unending parade. “How are these different from the last ones, again?”
Angélica, grinning without any sign of remorse, leaned down to tap the straps that crisscrossed her ankles. “There’s silver here.”
“I think you’re lying.” I squinted at the shoes. Truthfully, shoes had never been my thing. I’d worn flats or pumps around the office, but whenever I could get away with it, I usually left my commuting sneakers on. Angélica, evidently, belonged to a different school of belief. She’d already explained to me that for her, the shoes dictated the outfit. And if she had anywhere near as many shoes as she claimed to have, her closet must have been the size of an industrial bunker.
“So,” Angélica said, turning to Vicki, who’d become her comrade. “You like?”
“Twirl.” Vicki pursed her lips as Angélica did so. “The silver looks good against your skin, but . . .”
“You’re right.” Angélica nodded. “Absolutely right. Definitely a ‘but . . .’ pair.” She dropped down onto the little bench and eyed my shopping bags piteously. “You’re sure you don’t need any other shoes?”
I wiggled my toes in my new canvas sneakers. “I’m sure.”
“There’s a really cute pair of red heels back there that I think will look really good on you.”
“What am I going to do with red shoes?”
“What aren’t you going to do with red shoes is a more appropriate question,” Vicki said.
“Yeah, sure, uh-huh,” I said. Though I wanted to check my phone and see what time it was, I didn’t dare with Angélica around. I still had over an hour until I needed to slip away and meet Naomi—how I was going to do that, I hadn’t figured out yet—but just waiting around and wondering what her game was made me feel restless. I bounced on the balls of my feet.
Angélica caught the movement and frowned. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“That really greasy pizza in the food court before the Great Shoe Hunt began.”
Angélica nodded, calculating. “There’s a pretzel stand right outside,” she said.
A hot-from-the-oven soft pretzel sounded heavenly and it would give me a chance to text Naomi that I had arrived. I pushed myself to my feet. “Want one?” I asked, including both Vicki and Angélica in the offer.
“Oh, simply can’t, darling,” Vicki said immediately. “Fashion week’s coming up, and those horrendous cameras pick up every bite.”
“Right, sure, like you’re any less of a human garbage disposal than I am. Angélica?”
“No, I’m good.”
The guy at the stand had a little TV hooked up in the back of the booth. He misinterpreted my glance at it and ducked his head, looking defensive. “Boss doesn’t mind. Your pretzel.”
“Thanks.” I took a huge bite while he ran Vicki’s credit card. “You get HBO on that thing?”
He laughed. “I wish. Just local channels.”
“Alas.” The TV cut off mid-commercial to a Special News Bulletin. I recognized one of the news anchors who always sat on the superhero desk.
“Your credit card,” Pretzel Guy said, holding it out.
I took it without looking at him. On the screen, the news had switched to the helicopter cam. They were apparently following somebody they believed to be a villain though he or she was little more than a white blur in the distance against the skyline. “Something’s going on,” I said.
Pretzel Guy glanced over his shoulder at the TV. “Of course it is.”
The helicopter was apparently gaining on the blur. I stuffed the card in my pocket. “You mind if I hang around for a minute?”
Given that it was a Wednesday evening and the mall seemed pretty dead, Pretzel Guy shrugged. “Help yourself.”
“Thank y—”
“Wait a minute.” Pretzel Guy leaned closer to the TV, too. “That’s—that’s right outside the mall—”
Right as he spoke, the camera finally stabilized long enough for a clear shot. The blur became a reality, a familiar white and pink mask filling the screen for one angry moment.
“Oh, crap,” I said. I dropped the pretzel and sprinted back to my friends. Angélica saw me coming first; she sprang to her feet (one was still bare). “What is it?”
“Chelsea. Incoming and coming fast.”
Vicki immediately crouched to lace up her boots. “You think it’s the museum?” she asked Angélica.
Angélica nodded. “Has to be.”
That wasn’t quite true, I realized. Naomi had set up the meet. Even if I didn’t think she was in cahoots with Chelsea, it was still too big a coincidence to ignore.
Vicki looked at me, but she still spoke to Angélica. “Stay or go?”
“Get your mask on. We’ll meet you upstairs.”
Vicki nodded and, boots laced, took off.
I immediately rounded on Angélica. “Museum?”
“There’s one on the third floor with some old artifacts. Mostly useless, but you never know with villains. Either that, or she’s here for you, and there’s no reason she would know you’re here.” Angélica paused in the middle of doing up her laces and gave me a careful look. My stomach immediately sank. “Or is there?”
“Um, so don’t get mad, but I promised a friend I would meet her here at six thirty,” I said. “My friend from the bank. It’s possible Chelsea knows she’s here.”
“You were going to tell me this when?”
“Uh,” I said, and Angélica glared. “Sorry?”
“It changes things. Do you know where your friend is?”
“No, but she’s nuts about superheroes, so actually, the museum’s a good guess.” I followed Angélica out of the shoe department and to the clearance section behind the menswear, where she grabbed a couple of ski masks off the shelf. She tossed one to me. “You’re not cleared for field duty yet, but it’s an emergency. Keep your identity hidden.”
“I’d rather not let the villain with the angry zapping powers know she didn’t kill me dead enough the first time, yeah,” I said as I yanked the balaclava over my face. It mussed up my hair when I lined up the eyeholes, but that was something I’d have to worry about later. “I’m not supposed to meet Naomi for another hour. Why would Chelsea be here already?”
“Don’t ask me to ever understand villain logic.”
I tried to call Naomi as we rushed out of the store looking like tiny muggers in our mall clothes and our ski masks. “She’s not picking up. Typical.”
“Just who is this friend, again?”
“She’s a reporter—” I broke off when Angélica let out a ripe curse. “What? Is that bad?”
“Reporters are a collective pain in the ass for those on the front line. It just figures you befriended one.”
“It’s brought me more trouble than it’s worth, trust me.”
Even though it had seemed empty earlier, the mall was now full of people crowding the stairs and the escalators as they ran for the exits. Angélica glanced around once and turned her back to me. “Hop on,” she said.
“What?” Feeling foolish, I clambered onto her back—and swore, clamping on when Angélica went from a running leap to a thirty-foot vertical jump, leaving my stomach behind. She caught the railing on the third-floor promenade and hauled both of us over. “A little warning next time!”
But she wasn’t listening. “Get downstairs,” she said to the nearest people as I jumped free. “Calmly. Don’t trample anybody. It’s going to be—”
Over our heads, something crashed. I yelped and dodged out of the way of falling glass, wincing as people began to scream. “Go!” Angélica shouted at the civilians, and Chelsea descended from the ceiling.
She stopped in midair above the pile of broken glass, tall
and erect. A little cape lined with pink silk wafted in the mall air-conditioning behind her. My palms went cold.
Even worse, she hadn’t come alone. A group of armed men hustled up. I recognized the two henchmen from the bank by the way they walked, but there were six others dressed in the same unbroken black. A pale kid with the worst hipster haircut I’d ever seen trailed behind the group. He gave the impression of being lost and quite unsure how he’d gotten there in the first place, unlike the spindly blonde woman walking next to him. She, I was positive, had never met a fight she’d backed down from.
“Oh, great,” Chelsea said when she saw Angélica and me. “This is all the security this place has? A couple of midgets with ski masks?”
I opened my mouth, but Angélica’s look promised pain if I spoke. I closed my mouth.
“Seriously, though,” Chelsea went on when neither Angélica nor I said anything. She lowered herself to the ground, where she still towered over both of us. “You’re it?”
“No, they’re not,” Vicki said from beside me. She hovered, bobbing slightly, in the air over the railing about three feet away from me. The Plain Jane mask looked oddly plastic in the mall lighting. “And more backup’s on the way. This an even enough match for you?”
Chelsea sniffed. “Certainly. Now we might even break a sweat when we destroy you.”
Vicki stepped daintily onto the top of the railing and hopped down, standing between Angélica and me. I kept my eyes on the spindly woman and the kid, somehow sensing that even though Chelsea’s henchmen had guns, these two were far more dangerous.
“I’m not letting you get into the museum, Chelsea,” Vicki said, “so you might as well just turn around and go home.”
Supervillain banter, I thought, rolling my shoulders. I’d sat through attempts at it so many times, I kind of wished they’d get to the carnage already.
“Your sidekick looks a little bored,” Chelsea said, nodding at me. She gave me an assessing look. I stared back at her coolly, hoping that she couldn’t tell my hands were trembling.
Vicki laughed. “She was looking forward to a real fight, but I said it was just going to be you and your goons.” She smirked at the kid with the bad haircut. “Hello again, Konrad. I see I left a nasty little scar the last time we ran into each other. Whoopsie. That was clumsy of me.”
Konrad bared his teeth, suddenly looking a great deal less lost. Now that Vicki had brought it up, I could see a scar running from his hairline to the tip of his chin.
I had to hand it to Chelsea: she certainly had the element of surprise down. Even with my reflexes, I barely saw it coming. Her arm came up, ready to spew bee-stinging pain on everybody, and I reacted. I slide-tackled Vicki, sending her backward and into Angélica so that the green-and-yellow beam shot harmlessly over our heads.
All three of us bounced to our feet as Chelsea’s henchmen raced forward, surging around her to get to us. Angélica took two running steps and blurred out of existence for a second, appearing right above the first of the goons and dropping down. He hit the tiles, already unconscious. I knocked the second man’s feet out from under him and brought my elbow down on his cheekbone. When he tried to grab me around my middle, I hit him again. He stayed down this time.
“Wanna tango, Konrad?” Vicki asked, her laughter floating on the air as I ducked a blow from the butt of a rifle. When I spun around to throw the same mercenary over my shoulder, I saw her flying away, Konrad dashing after her.
I knocked out a third henchman, spun, and that was when I spotted Naomi.
She stood in the front window of the superhero museum, eyes wide as she gaped at the fight happening on the main concourse. I waved at her to get away, to get to cover, and someone grabbed me from behind.
For a second, the old panic set in. I was being taken, kidnapped yet again, helpless to stop it and—wait a second, I had muscles. I threw myself forward, using my body like a fulcrum so that both of us flipped the same way. I heard a crunch as we landed, but I was already rolling to my feet, looking to neutralize the threat.
The henchman who’d grabbed me lay still, eyes closed, so I looked around for Angélica instead.
She’d apparently made short work of the rest of the thugs. Now, she fought the skinny woman I’d noticed earlier. The woman was a lot spindlier than she had been, though, for as I watched, rooted to the spot, she stretched out her limbs like she was made of some kind of rubber, and tried to choke Angélica. My trainer wasn’t having any of that; she blurred out of the way, bounced forward, and socked the woman in the gut. I had the very absurd experience of watching the woman’s entire body ripple as if she were a bag full of liquid.
“Weird,” I said.
Angélica took a bad kick to the thigh, grunted, and launched herself to safety. “Gail!” she said, pointing over my shoulder.
I whipped around and realized that Chelsea had slipped into the museum, heading right for Naomi. I scrambled for the door, tripping over the guy I’d knocked out. Facing Chelsea by myself wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do, but it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
The museum lobby was an open space laid out with very nice marble floors. A floor-to-ceiling tribute to the earliest days of the fighting superheroes covered the walls, done in that newspaper-retro look. Glass cases along the wall held old uniforms. Just inside the doors, a service desk kept a lonely and dusty ficus tree company.
I didn’t see any sign of Chelsea or Naomi, so I paused and listened, drowning out the sound of the fights from outside. After a second, I pinpointed the sound of two sets of running footsteps, and took off in that direction. It reminded me of the bank, listening to Naomi’s screams as I’d sprinted down those hallways. Here we were again.
Meeting up with Naomi Gunn was indeed very bad for my health.
After the lobby, the museum was a warren, probably not meant to accommodate groups larger than five or ten at a time. Narrow corridors twisted and wound through exhibits that were mostly dark, save for spotlights on the costumes and knickknacks that belonged in old-time superhero lore. It felt like a gimmicky tourist attraction, which was why I’d never been there. They seemed to pride themselves on having real superhero artifacts, though knowing what I did about Davenport Industries, I figured they hadn’t gotten anything close to the full story.
I raced past Gail Garson’s first uniform, its garish reds and pinks dulled by age, and nearly tripped onto Hatchiko’s motorcycle. Couldn’t Chelsea and Naomi have picked a nice, open space that lacked valuable obstacles?
Up ahead, I heard voices, but I wasn’t close enough to discern words. Still, it was a toss-up as to who was more surprised when I rounded the corner and stumbled into the 1950s exhibit on the Superhuman Registration Act: Chelsea, Naomi, or me. Chelsea had lifted Naomi over her head by the lapels of her jacket, and Naomi looked more than a touch worried.
“What the hell?” I asked. I charged forward.
Chelsea switched to a one-handed grip, freeing her other hand. Sparks tickled at the edge of her palm, inches away from Naomi’s face. “Ah-ah-ah, don’t take another step.”
Naomi wouldn’t survive a close blast like that. “Let her go,” I said again.
“Or you’ll what? Ski mask tells me you’re not exactly super-powered, little girl, so why should I listen to you again?”
“Maybe it’s part of my look,” I said.
“It’s a bad look.”
“When I care about what villains think, I’ll ask a better one than you. Put her down.”
“When she tells me where she hid her research, I will.”
I froze. Naomi slid a single, guilty glance toward me, which was all I needed. “Research?” I asked, ripping off my face mask. “You told me this was over a story she didn’t like.”
“Ah, Hostage Girl.” Chelsea rolled her eyes behind the mask. “I should have known.”<
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“Technically, I wasn’t lying. She isn’t happy about a story I wrote about her.” Naomi’s feet were still kicking a couple of feet off the ground, and she wasn’t that short. “So I didn’t actually lie to you, but I . . .”
Chelsea evidently tired of the pleasantries. “Where is it?” she said, shaking Naomi like a dog.
The reporter’s teeth clicked together. “I destroyed it,” she said. I used their distraction to ease back a step, resting my hand on baseball from the 1957 World Series, which had famously socked good old Invisible Victor in the gut while he’d been trying to sneak a close-up look from behind second base.
“Lies. You journalists always back up your work. Tell me where it is!”
I had to hand it to Naomi: she might be a lying pain in the butt, but she had a backbone. She glared at Chelsea, who had the swirling, stinging ray of death inches from her face, and shook her head. “I won’t help you,” she said. “The research is gone.”
“Liar!” Chelsea started to move her hand. My grip tightened on the baseball.
And everything erupted into chaos as the floor underneath us started to shake.
Exhibits toppled like dominos, alarms shrilled, and Chelsea dropped Naomi in surprise. The reporter hit the ground and immediately threw herself off to the side so that Chelsea’s stinging ray bounced uselessly off a placard.
I shoved away from the wall with my free hand, ducking out of the way as a second ray caught the outer edge of my arm. It sent a burst of agony straight to my brain. Naomi scrambled to her feet and took off running. Swearing, I ran across the heaving ground after her. Chunks of plaster began to rain around us. I saw Chelsea duck under a doorway as I stumbled on.
Hands grabbed me when I rounded the corner, pulling me to safety under an overhang. “What the hell is going on? Shakin’ Dave is dead!” Naomi said.
The earthquake villain who’d terrorized Chicago for nearly two months had been taken out by War Hammer, and Chicago wasn’t exactly a hotbed for natural earthquakes. So I thought back to the confrontation with Chelsea and her minions. There must have been a reason that Vicki had singled out one of them, and I suspected we were being treated to it right now. “If I had to guess, I’m going to say a guy named Konrad is doing this,” I said. “We need to get out of here before Chelsea comes and finds us.”