She saw him. moved to try and cover herself, “Don’t look, Krouse!”
He turned to step away, to turn his back, but Jess reached out, caught his pants leg.
He looked again, saw Noelle’s head hanging, her hair a curtain around her face. She was sobbing.
The skin on the angry red mark parted. There was no surprise from the others; they’d seen this already.
Beneath the angry red skin on Noelle’s thigh, there was an eyeball, twice the normal size, with a broad yellow iris. Noelle’s hands were clenched into fists, gripping the cloth of her jeans as the eye’s gaze darted from one member of their group to another. It settled on Krouse.
Accusatory.
17.08
“He’ll be one minute,” the woman at the front desk spoke.
Trickster nodded.
“If you’d like to take a seat…” The woman trailed off.
“I prefer to stand.”
“As you wish.”
“Can I smoke?”
“No.”
“If I open a window-”
The woman at the desk frowned. ”My employer is… particular.”
“I’ve heard.”
“If you leave the cigarette butts lying around, or if this room smells too strongly of smoke after you’ve left, he will be upset.”
“I understand.”
“It’s your funeral,” she said.
Trickster stepped over to the window, found the latch, and swung it open. He rested his elbows on it and leaned out, drew a cigarette and lit it, being sure to hold it and exhale outside of the window.
The Boston skyline stretched out before him, with the ocean in the distance. Over the last year and three months, he’d picked up on how things were subtly different in this world. It wasn’t explicit, wasn’t overt, but he couldn’t help but notice that all of the newer constructions were sturdier. Buildings were more reinforced, just a little thicker where supports were required, as though disaster was always at the periphery of the designer’s attention. At the same time, windows were often larger, and many apartments had floor-to-ceiling windows for a wider view of the world beyond.
How had Jess put it? This world was sublime. A world that was awesome in the truer sense of the word, greater in so many respects. In a metaphorical sense, the peaks were higher, the valleys lower, works of art more artful, extremes more… extreme. It wasn’t a good thing. Make the mountains twice as tall and the chasms twice as deep, and things start crumbling.
He missed home, but every day, every week, home felt a little further away.
“Accord will see you now, Trickster.”
Trickster nodded, crushed his cigarette against the outside of the building, flicked it over the ledge, and then stepped away to close and latch the window before entering the office. He was sure to remove his hat.
Supervillains were weird. Every one of them had different rules, different aesthetics, different goals. All of them, himself included, had their own issues.
Accord wasn’t the most influential figure in Boston. That was why Trickster had approached him. He didn’t even look like a supervillain. He looked like a CEO. Only an ornate mask with curling, overlapping bands of dark metal trimmed in silver marked him as anything more. His hair was oiled and neatly parted, and his white suit had been brushed clean with immaculate care. Trickster doubted there was even a fingerprint or a glimmer of tarnish on Accord’s silver tie pin. For all his presence, Accord was barely over five feet in height.
For his part, Trickster had taken care to clean his own clothing and comb his own hair. It was becoming a ritual, entering a new city. One typically had to find the meeting place. Virtually every city with ten or more supervillains had one, a neutral ground for the villains to meet. He would then find the people in the know, pay some of the money he’d held on to from the last city to get the necessary information on who was who and how they operated, and move on from there. He’d been briefed thoroughly on Accord.
“Trickster, was it?”
“Yes,” Trickster stepped forward. He offered his hand.
Accord shook it, his grip strong.
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m observing formalities. My team, as you may know, tends to move from location to location, city to city. It’s a bad idea to settle down for any length of time in an area owned by a local power, so I wanted to ask permission first.”
“I see.”
“If you saw fit to grant that permission, I would then ask if you’d let us engage in some minor activity. Robbing low-level stores, primarily. Possibly a bank. All in your area.”
“If I granted that permission, Trickster,” Accord raised a warning finger. “I would not be doing so for free.”
Trickster nodded. ”I understand, and I wouldn’t expect you to. We’ve recently passed through Richmond, Paine, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Each time, we paid a modest up front fee to anyone that hosted us in their territory. We also offered up a twelve, thirteen, twelve and ten percent share, respectively, of our take. For you, if you’ll allow me to make an opening offer, I’d suggest ten thousand dollars up front and a fourteen percent share of anything we gain. We’ll be saying for ten days.”
“So you’ll give me fourteen percent when you offered less to others. You think you’re flattering me.”
“Yes. We’re staying a little bit longer here. We looked into it, the heroes don’t have a strong presence here in your Charlestown territory. We can get away with just a little bit more.”
“Don’t think I won’t look into the amounts you just gave me.” Accord was using a stylized fountain pen to make a note on a pad of paper. Trickster wasn’t entirely sure, but the paper didn’t seem to have lines, and Accord was still making them meticulous, with neat, tight, flowing script.
“I wouldn’t lie,” Trickster said. ”That’s a good way to get killed, and I rather like being alive.”
“It has its moments,” Accord said. He wiped the end of the fountain pen and snapped the lid into place. The pen joined all the other objects on the desk, arranged with explicit care to even spacing and hard right angles. It was almost artistic, the way things were arranged for both size and utility, and the uniform nature of the aesthetics, with the colors and materials seeming to flow from object to object. Silver and wood in dark cherry.
Accord looked down and corrected the position of the pen on his desk before turning back to Trickster. ”Fifteen thousand dollars, and fifteen percent of any take. The heroes don’t have a strong presence here because they don’t need a strong presence here. I maintain the peace. It will cost me if I have people here, active and causing trouble.”
A little steep. ”I’ll have to discuss that with my teammates.”
“Before you do, let me make you an alternate offer. You do mercenary work?”
“We do.”
“I’d like to hire you for a task.”
“What task?”
“I’d like certain items stolen from a rival. I can describe them to you and show you photographs. Do this for me, and we’ll waive the fee for entering my territory. Also, I’ll concede to have my share cut down to a mere ten percent.”
“Which rival?”
“Blasto. A tinker. Not quite the destructive personality his name implies.”
“I read up on him. Blasto from the latin prefix, meaning bud, germination or seed. Tinker botanist, grows walking, sentient plants in giant glass tubes.”
Accord gave Trickster an approving nod. ”Yes. Tinkers are… bothersome. Tinkers who work wet are especially bothersome. They build, they learn from past research and past projects, each thing is created more elegantly or faster with the tools they’ve designed and amassed over time. A tinker designs a better welding torch, to use an analogy, and that allows him or her to build a better power drill. And so the cycle continues. Steal Blasto’s tools for my trophy case, it will set him back weeks or months. I’ll give you a further bonus if you destroy any other projects of his, as we
ll as any computers or blueprints.”
“Ah, you want more than just the waiving of your hospitality fee?”
Trickster was careful to be diplomatic. ”No offense intended. If Blasto was that easy to handle, I’m sure you would have dealt with him already.”
“Agreed. Hm. As you surely already know, I am a craftsman. Not a tinker, but I use my power to create quality goods.”
“I’m aware.”
“I will pay you a moderate sum, and I will also supply a set of costumes for your team. Use your free time over the coming week to make notes on what you desire. Newspaper clippings, printed images or links to online images each of you individually like. They do not necessarily need to be of costumes or clothing. I would meet each of your teammates to assess their preferences. With that, I can guarantee you costumes that everyone in your group will like.”
And you bring the world a little more in order, Trickster thought. Accord was a thinker, and the running theory on his power was that he got naturally smarter as the problems he was addressing got more complex. It gave him an intuitive understanding of groupthink, politics, and convoluted designs. It also made him a local warlord capable of devastating counterattacks. The power failed to grant him the same advantages in a one-on-one fight, and he wasn’t quite the same battlefield strategist when it came to direct assaults.
Which was, Trickster understood, why Accord wanted him and the other Travelers to handle the attack on their own.
“Only four of us need costumes,” Trickster said. ”The other can make her own.”
“Only four costumes? When there are seven of you?” Accord’s tone made it all too clear that he knew he was admitting knowledge he shouldn’t have.
He knows about Noelle.
“When there are seven of us, yes,” Trickster said, feigning a lack of concern.
The door banged open. Trickster tensed, his power reaching, even before he saw the threat.
It was Sundancer, with the receptionist following quickly behind.
Idiot, Trickster thought. I told you to stay back.
“Trickster,” she said. Then she saw Accord. ”I’m sorry for interrupting.”
“The deal was for a one-on-one meeting,” Accord said. His tone was strained, indignant. Accord looked at his receptionist. “You didn’t warn her at the door?”
“I tried,” the receptionist said. ”She charged on through.”
“It’s an emergency,” Sundancer said. ”Trickster, we-”
“Shut up,” he said, and the tension in his voice coupled with Accord’s seemed to clue Sundancer into the gravity of the situation.
She fell silent. She’s smarter than this, which means the situation’s bad. But I can’t do anything about it until I finish dealing with Accord.
His heart was pounding. ”Go wait outside, Sundancer. I was in the middle of a meeting. If Accord is willing, we’ll wrap up this business quickly, I’ll… offer him something by way of apology, and then I’ll come and talk to you about the issue.”
Sundancer backed towards the door, turned and left.
“Very sorry, sir,” the receptionist murmured. She closed the door.
Accord stepped over to the window behind his desk and stared outside. Trickster waited patiently as the man composed himself. Long seconds passed, and Trickster couldn’t help but imagine the worst case scenarios that would have Sundancer forgetting common sense and crashing a private meeting between supervillains.
“I am something of an oxymoron, Trickster,” Accord said, turning around. He was measuring his words, stretching out the sentence, as though he were fully aware that Trickster was now in a hurry, and he wanted to apply pressure.
“Is that so?”
“You see, I deal with complicated things,” Accord touched his mask, “And I excel at them, but deep down, I’m a very simple person.”
“I think we’re all very simple when you look past the surface,” Trickster said.
“Quite so. I like order, Trickster. Order means everything has its place,” Accord touched his desk, moved his chair a fraction of an inch so it was squarely in place. ”And everyone has their place. Your subordinate’s place was not here.”
“I understand. I’m willing to make amends.”
“Of course,” Accord said. He looked up and met Trickster’s eyes. ”I will be rescinding my earlier generosity. Fifteen thousand dollars will find a way into my hands within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Agreed,” Trickster said. There goes our pocket money.
“You’ll do my favor for me and expect no recompense.”
“Okay.”
Accord paused, seemed to consider something. ”She’ll have to die, of course.”
Trickster tensed. Really, really didn’t want to have to fight this guy. “Let’s… not be so hasty.”
“There are two kinds of people in this world, Trickster. Some fit into the intricate machine that is society, and they serve as cogs, gears, levers and weights. I think you’re like that. I liked you right off. Even your power… balance, isn’t it? Move things from one place to the next, but things remain fundamentally equivalent.”
“Well said,” Trickster replied. His mind was racing. How to convince the lunatic to leave Sundancer alone? If he couldn’t, would it be better to fight and kill Accord now or wait until he could recruit the others? Accord wouldn’t have invited him to a meeting if he didn’t have some kind of safeguards. Traps? For all Trickster knew, there was a pitfall in the floor or dart traps in the walls. Accord’s power, his knack for complexity, would make it trivial to weave such things into the architecture of his home and office. If he knew, he could use his power, time it to put Accord in the way of his own trap… but it could be something else entirely.
Accord was still talking. ”Others aren’t so accommodating. They are freefalling, careening elements, bouncing off any and every surface, damaging everything they touch. Pyrokinetics so often fall into this category, I’ve found. Rest assured, it’s better to eliminate this disordered element before it does too much damage.”
Trickster couldn’t find the words to reply. Think, Krouse, think!
“What a shame, such a young girl,” Accord sounded genuinely upset.
“What if…” Trickster started, his mind racing.
“Yes?”
“What if I told you she was an agent of order in the universe? That this situation, it’s not her that’s causing the discord? Like us, she’s just reacting to another force?”
“You don’t know the details any more than I do.”
“True. But I know her.”
“You’re biased by virtue of being her teammate. I see no other way than to act decisively. Would you like to do the honors, or should I?”
“I’ll show you what I mean. She’ll show you.”
“Oh?”
“Just give me a second to go get her. Maybe a bit of time to prepare-”
“Ten minutes, Trickster, and only because I like you.”
“Ten minutes,” Trickster answered him.
“And she comes alone. If she’s truly an ordered individual, she’ll show me for herself.”
Trickster nodded, turned and walked calmly out of the office, counting in his head.
The second the door was closed, he bolted, checking the time on his cell phone. That’ll be ten minutes exactly. He set a timer, subtracting the time it had taken him to leave the office.
The entrance that led to Accord’s personal office was set in an alley, out of sight of the streets. Trickster found Sundancer waiting.
“Trickster, it’s-”
“Stop,” he said, checking the phone. Seven minutes left. ”Where’s your phone?”
She pulled it from her belt, “We-”
He used his power to swap her cell phone for his. ”No, listen carefully. You just threw a neurotic, perfectionist supervillain’s world into disarray by intruding on our meeting like that. He’s now rather intent on executing you for it.”
&nb
sp; “What?”
“And he’s a little guy with some big muscle at his beck and call. We could maybe deal with them in a pinch, but it wouldn’t be pretty. So I’m going to use your phone, call another member of our team to get filled in the emergency. You’re going to fix your mistake, and you’ll do it in… six minutes and twenty-three seconds. Look at the screen of my phone. That’s your deadline. Go, stop by a bathroom, tidy your hair, get it wet and comb it if you have to, but look proper. Better to look neat than to look pretty, understand? When the timer hits zero, you’ll walk into his office, then you’ll perform a ballet routine.”
“Ballet? Krouse, I haven’t done it seriously in two years.”
“Pick a routine you can do perfectly over one that’s fancier or whatever. Do it, apologize profusely for the intrusion, then bow out and leave. If he gives any sign he’s not satisfied, or the second you fuck up, set the place on fire and scram.”
“Krouse-”
“Call me Trickster when I’m in costume,” he corrected, his voice hard. ”Don’t worry about burning him alive. He’ll have escape routes. You have five minutes and forty seconds, now. It took me three to get from his office to here. Go.”
Sundancer rushed to get inside.
Trickster called Oliver.
“Marissa?” Oliver asked.
“It’s Trickster,” he replied. Need to talk about being more secure with our names. ”What’s going on?“
“It’s Cody. He touched Noelle.”
Trickster froze. ”How bad is it?”
“Three times, Krouse.”
“Three,” Trickster said. ”Fuck me. I’m on my way.”
■
There’s no way Cody’s stupid enough to make contact with Noelle.
There’s no way anyone would do it three times. How?
Throwing caution to the wind, Trickster moved through the crowd of people by swapping with them, zig-zagging from one side of the street to the other, scanning the crowd. People ran to get away from him as he appeared, but he didn’t care. Just needed to minimize the damage.
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