Got To Be A Hero

by Paul Duffau

  He had half-turned to head back when another thought collided with his intention to call the cops. He kept turning, making a full circle until he faced the shrubbery. He glanced up and down the street, crossed the verge of grass. Mitch dropped to all fours, searching under the bushes.

  No way they’d be dumb enough to leave it behind, but there it was, propped up like it was on display, the silvery electrodes bright on the black body.

  Mitch stretched out and grabbed the woven black hand strap, dragging the device closer. He cupped it in one hand, careful not to touch the contact points. Nonchalantly, he stood and walked back to his house, eyeballs darting to see if anybody was watching.

  Once he got into the garage, he quickly ran the door down, plunging the interior into darkness. By feel, he made his way to the door to the kitchen, opened it, and stepped inside.

  His phone sat on the counter, right where he’d left it. He grabbed it as he headed to his room. With a thumb, he unlocked the screen. He went to dial 911—and stopped.

  What was he going to say?

  He tried to rehearse the conversation in his head.

  How did you report an abduction when the “victim” ran away after kicking one of the attackers in the jewels?

  “Yeah, she was about five foot two, glowed, and took down a guy twice her size while I tripped and fell into the dude with the stun gun. She left a driver’s permit. How do I know? I found it in the street after I came to from smashing my head into a tree. One of the kidnappers left a stun gun. The stun gun? Yeah, got that, too. Fingerprints? Uh, probably not.” He inspected the rectangular shape clutched in his left hand. “Definitely not. Do I need medical assistance? Naw, the glowing girl fixed me before she left. . . .”

  Mitch’s thumb hovered over the Send button, jerking back and forth as he tried to decide whether to complete the call. The screen eventually went blank.

  He swung his bedroom door shut with an angry shove and dropped the phone on the cluttered end table. He flopped onto the disorganized sheets of his bed, drawing his knees up as he leaned his shoulders against the painted wall. In the dim light that filtered through the curtains, he inspected the weapon he had liberated.

  It was built with a hand grip reminiscent of a pistol grip, but where the trigger would be, there was a small red toggle switch. A slider switch sat under his thumb. He slid it over to the ON position, expecting something: a sound, a whine.

  It sat there, like a brick in his hand, quiescent.

  Mitch put the pointy silver prongs against the soft flesh of his inner arm. The chilly tips dug in.

  How much could it hurt?

  Reluctantly, he decided that finding out would have to wait until he had help.

  Mitch’s lips twitched into a smile. Hunter will help.

  He hit the red toggle. The wicked crackle that resulted almost made him drop the stun gun as his eyebrows climbed his forehead.

  Maybe Hunter will help.

  Mitch’s smile faded as he put the stun gun down.

  Flashes of the girl’s face as she leaned over him, along with a sense of her touch still on his skin, made him rub his chest. An odd pain resided there, deep. In his back pocket, he could feel the hard plastic of the permit.

  He ought to return it, but that idea made the hurt in his chest worse.

  Chapter 4

  Kenzie heard the commotion as her father came in, the garage door opening, closing, the muffled sounds of movement as he moved into the kitchen. She stayed in her room, huddled into the corner with a comforter drawn tight around her body. Ice still filled her core, but the shakes had stopped while a deep fatigue settled into her mind, numbing her. The heavy curtains were drawn, blocking the brilliance of the day. Swirling motes drifted on a beam of light that stabbed past the edge of the drapery, illuminating the red oak floor. She stared mindlessly at the rosy grain in the wood, the darker redness of a lonely knot.

  She heard the electronic beeps as he deactivated the security alarm in the laundry room of their Tudor-style home. Then she felt the wards go down, and relaxed infinitesimally. New wards went up, more intricate and powerful than the incantations she had used.

  A minute later, her father entered her room without knocking. Raymond Graham inspected Kenzie from the doorway. She shot a glance up, saw creases emerge above his brows, felt the burden of intrusive probing. Instead of speaking, Kenzie held on to her knees, wrapping her arms around them and pulling the fabric snug to her skin. A toe of her shoe peeked out from the bottom, and she focused on a blade of grass captured between the fabric upper and the rubber at the toe.

  “I swung by the studio. Jules said you had a rough time today.”

  Kenzie didn’t look up but started rocking forward and backward. She had fled the scene of the attack, fled from the boy that broke himself trying to help her. His eyes were blue; not light blue, richer. She had felt the pain coursing through his wiry body, held the connection long enough for the healing energy to bind his wounds and repair the physical damage. Deep inside him, she’d felt a deep pain. That she couldn’t heal, hadn’t tried.

  “McKenzie?”

  Her father wouldn’t go away, she knew that. She should say something, make him leave.

  She should tell him what happened.

  She opened her mouth, still facing down to the shoe, made a rasping sound like the air was passing over vocal cords frozen with novocaine.

  Her father crossed the room with short, efficient steps. He knelt beside her. His hand dropped on her shoulder hesitantly, as though unsure of whether to touch her. His hand felt alien to her and, for a second, she was afraid that he would try to hug her, since that’s what fathers were supposed to do when their little girls got hurt.

  “I was attacked.” Her voice was muffled by the comforter in front of her mouth.

  “Jules told me—”

  Kenzie interrupted, “No, on the way home.” An angry shake of her head.

  She waited for him to say something. Instead he stood, took two strides away, and then spoke with his back turned. What little warmth his voice had possessed now disappeared. Lieutenant Graham of the Seattle PD replaced Raymond Graham, father. “Details. Start with where.”

  Kenzie blinked away moisture. Her lips pressed into a wavering, thin line, and she drew in a shuddering breath. She couldn’t get warm.

  He stood there waiting.

  She started to talk, told him the route she used to run home, even though he already knew it, the cul-de-sac at the bottom of the steps, about the car sweeping into the driveway, blocking the sidewalk. . . .

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. Black. Newer.”

  He had her describe her attackers. She did, eyes closed to picture them, while she pulled her legs up into her torso with her arms. The pace of her rocking increased when she told him about the car doors flying open, the men emerging, the shock of recognition that they were actually hunting her.

  Her father didn’t speak, not even in approval for doing what she was trained to do, when Kenzie described disabling the first attacker with a kick, pivoting back to meet the second one. Her voice fell silent in the dim light of her room. Her breath came herky-jerky, and her teeth started to chatter. In her imagination she could see the outreaching arm, feel the foot grab grass, her pivot too slow.

  The boy tackling the man, clipping him at the knees.

  “The rest.” Raymond sounded impatient. “You said there were two of them.”

  Again, her lips flattened out. She clenched her teeth, and the chattering stopped.

  “I couldn’t turn fast enough,” she began, unclenching her jaws and estimating how much to tell. At the back of her mind, a warning sounded. Not everything should be shared.

  “It’s not like at the studio; my feet got caught up, and this boy came flying in. . . .”

  “One of them?”

  She shook her head. “No, he was trying to help. He tackled the second man.”

  “Why?”

  “I d
on’t know!”

  Her father hmmmed as he considered this.

  “Fine. A Good Samaritan, perhaps. We’ll check it out, though.”

  The boy’s face, apologetic through the haze of pain, floated up again.

  Raymond’s voice pierced through the memory.

  “Your attackers, did they use any magic? Or were they Meat?”

  Kenzie stared up at him, her cheeks reddening at the sneering slang for the non-magical. He met her gaze with impassive features, waiting for her answer.

  “They were people . . . ordinary.”

  “Can you remember anything else? Did they speak at all?” His hands began to weave together in an intricate pattern as he spoke.

  Kenzie felt the subtle pull of the compulsion spell he was building.

  “Why don’t you just inject me with truth serum?”

  His hands stopped moving.

  “It’s important that I know everything if I am going to protect our Family.” There was no apology in his voice for his violation of her privacy, but the magical power bled away like a dark tide receding.

  Her jaws clenched tight. She forced them to relax, pulling in a deep breath before she spoke.

  “More important than me?” Below the hurt, a hot anger burst, fueled by the sparring, the attack, the indifference.

  “Aren’t I Family, Father? I know, I’m only one part of the Family, aren’t I, it’s not like I’m more important to you because we’re actually freaking”—a hint of hesitation at the near-swear word before she plunged on—“related.

  “No, someone attacks me, tries to grab me off the street, and all you can do is treat me like a suspect in one of your lineups. Just the facts, isn’t that how you do it? Don’t get too emotionally involved with the victim? Remain objective? Investigate all the facts, find the perps, and lock them up?”

  She grabbed more air. Her voice rose in pitch.

  “I’m the victim this time, Dad. Me, your daughter, and all you can do is put me through the inquisition and worry about the Family?”

  Silence hung in the air like the dust motes in the beam of sunlight, swirling on the undercurrents in the room. Her father stood apart from her, his guarded expression measuring twice to cut once.

  “You did what you were expected to do. You defended yourself—”

  “You never asked if I was okay!”

  He appeared surprised at the accusation as much by the fact that she was shouting at him.

  “You’re in shock.” He paused, took note of the blanket wrapped around her, nodded. “I’ll get you something to counteract the effects.”

  He nodded to himself again and walked to the door. He turned at the threshold, left hand resting lightly on the doorknob.

  “We’ll finish with this later, when you feel better.”

  The door swung shut soundlessly on the oiled hinges. As the latch snicked closed, Kenzie found her voice.

  “Your compulsion spell sucked.”

  She had meant to shout it, but the sound didn’t carry past the comforter, which soaked up the sound, the bitterness, the wetness from her cheeks.

  Chapter 5

  Mitch saw his bedroom door bang open, and the shadow of Uncle Henry, a sloppier version of his father, blocking the light from the hall.

  “Get out here.”

  Mitch’s lips curled with disgust, but he didn’t turn his head to acknowledge his uncle.

  “Why? I did the chores. . . .”

  “Cop’s at my goddamn door. He’s askin’ for you. Now get your ass out here.”

  At the mention of the police, Mitch winced. Either McFurkin or the girl must have called. His mind raced ahead, and he decided it must be the girl. The cops wouldn’t have bothered if McFurkin called and told them that he was baked. As long as he wasn’t disturbing anyone, they’d ignore it.

  So, it had to be the girl, he thought, and a wave of guilt washed over him. He should have made the call. Then another thought chilled him.

  What if she never made it home? What if this was the last place she was seen?

  “Coming,” he said as he shoved the calculus book off his lap and swung his legs to the floor. His hands shook as he brushed crumbs off his jeans.

  The gray-suited cop was standing inside the small entryway at the door. While Uncle Henry glared at him and settled back in front of the television, Mitch crossed the living room, hurrying to avoid blocking the big flat screen.

  The cop’s presence made Mitch’s stomach turn over, and sinewy bands bound his chest. He reminded himself to breathe.

  “Hello, Mitch.”

  Of course, he would already know my name, thought Mitch, stopping four feet from the man, avoiding eye contact.

  The man studied him, letting the silence between them build.

  Mitch knew how to play this game, too, and silence was a comfortable friend. The cop stood a few inches shorter than him. His gray suit looked like a refugee from Goodwill and didn’t fit him across the shoulders. His face didn’t seem right, either. Mitch expected the hard, suspicious lines of a cop. Thin lines of worry creased the corners of this man’s eyes and lined his forehead, giving him an air more like a priest. A shock of unruly gray-white hair framed his face. Mitch went numb when he met the cop’s eyes. They were steady, the eyes of a man who could see a thousand leagues. Not gray like the rest of him, but vibrant green, like the green of a new spring in a deep, dappled forest, with secrets hidden in the shadows.

  “Let’s step outside, Mitch,” said the older man.

  Mitch glanced over his shoulder. His uncle stared at the screen, slouched into his chair. Mitch turned back and shrugged.

  “Whatever.”

  They stepped into the falling night, Mitch pulling the door shut behind him. The shadows slipped up the street while the tops of the pines glowed with the last light of the ruddy sunset.

  The detective turned and held out his hand. “My name is Mercury.”

  Mitch squinted at the hand, then his gaze retraced the journey to the man’s face. He held his facial muscles indifferent, and his arms by his sides.

  “I suspect you can trust me enough to shake my hand.”

  Feeling his thoughts violated, Mitch recoiled and fell back a step, nearly tripping on the stoop. A firm hand gripped his shoulder, righting his balance, then let go as Mercury retreated a step to open up space between them again. The cop’s jacket flapped open with the movement.

  “Thanks,” said Mitch. He felt the quavering in his throat as he spoke, and coughed to clear his voice.

  The frickin’ man can read minds.

  “Uncle Henry said you’re a cop?”

  “I have a few questions for you, Mitch.” Mercury paused. “It would be easiest if you would describe what happened, as it happened, and I can ask questions to fill in any blanks.”

  Maybe he doesn’t know, thought Mitch, sensing the vagueness of Mercury’s request.

  “Or you can lie to me, and we’ll waste each other’s time.”

  He held his stare on Mitch, waiting.

  “You don’t have a gun.”

  “I don’t like them.”

  Me neither, thought Mitch.

  “The story.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mitch.

  “That’s okay,” replied Mercury, “we’ll get to it eventually. Personally, I’ve got all night, and I enjoy a good chase. So let’s start with the girl. Have you seen her before?”

  Crap.

  “Aren’t you going to take notes or something?”

  Mercury’s lips curled up in a sardonic grin at Mitch’s surrender.

  “I have a good memory and long practice at using it. So, where have you seen the girl?”

  Mitch shook his head. “Occasionally around here. She runs by sometimes in the afternoon.”

  “So tell me about this afternoon, starting with the first thing that was different.”

  Mitch thought. “The car.”

  “What about the car?”

>   “It didn’t make any noise.”

  Mercury sighed. “I take it back. I don’t have all evening. Pretend I’m a friend and talk, everything you can remember.”

  Annoyance crept into Mitch’s voice. “It was a Tesla, an electric car. It didn’t make any noise. The only reason I noticed it is the stupid mutt next door started barking and wouldn’t shut up.”

  “Keep going.”

  Mitch pointed across the street. “It pulled into the driveway, kinda blocking the sidewalk, and I didn’t think anything of it until the doors popped open and these two goons jumped out. . . .”

  “Describe them.”

  Mitch did, adding details when Mercury prodded.

  “Then what?”

  The rest of the story unfolded: the girl defending herself, Mitch running to help. He left out tripping, giving credit to the girl for dropping both assailants.

  “Then, she . . . ran off,” Mitch finished. The words sounded lame to his own ears, and he saw Mercury’s features narrow.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me the part that you’re leaving out.”

  Mitch got the uncomfortable impression that this was the part of the story Mercury had been waiting for, the unbelievable bit.

  The man pointed to Mitch’s scalp, confirming his fear. “I want to know about the part that might explain a very faint but new scar.”

  Mitch shoved his hands deep into his pockets, half-turning away from his inquisitor. His thoughts jumbled together in a mush, flashes of flying through the air, the girl over him whispering “Rest,” followed by blankness. His chin jutted out as he finished turning his back to Mercury.

  From behind him, the cop spoke. “How badly were you hurt?”

  How the hell could he know that?

  Cops were skeptical and cynical. Tell them about a magic healing, and you’d be assuming the position while they searched for your stash.

  “Who are you?”

  “Just an investigator, doing his job." Mercury’s tone was firm, but not threatening. “What did the girl do? I need to know every detail, Mitch.”

  “You’re not a cop.”

  Silence. Through the open curtains of the window, he could see his uncle yelling at the television, but none of the sounds made it past the walls.