A Hero By Any Other Name

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  It had rained briefly two nights past, ending the weeks-long absence of it. But the rain had been brief and the summer was still sweltering warm. The long, heavy scapula did not help matters. Light spilled out through the crack in the back door, more light came from the streetlight down the short end of the alley. It had been repaired. There was no starlight this night, the clouds overhead looked like a solid bank of gray fog and hinted at more rain.

  It took a moment to open the handbag and fumble around inside it for a cigar. Biting off a tip, the actor spat the bit on the ground, struck a match, and puffed until the end caught. “Ladylike,” he laughed softly, as he twirled a rosary with his free hand. He puffed, savoring the flavor and staring at the crack of light.

  Something shuffled in the debris, in the darkened corner by the pub’s back door.

  “Hello?” the actor called. “I am not a rent boy.”

  More shuffling, the figure stooped and removed the whiskey bottle. The door shut and the light disappeared.

  “Sorry. I have no time for fun.” He stood and took the cigar out of his mouth.

  The figure came closer, wearing a cloak with a hood. The glow from the streetlight did not reach quite far enough to reveal more details. But there was a glint from a drawn knife. The man flashed it one way, and then the next, making the sign of the cross.

  “You disapprove of burlesque?”

  The figure stopped and the knife faltered. A heartbeat later it flashed again, another motion to mimic the sign of the cross.

  “More, you take issue with the performers who—you believe in some way—mock faith.”

  The figure took a step back.

  “You came at Clara ... Conrad ... last week. He had a rosary, this very rosary in his hand when he sang his opening number. Conrad carried it because he is Catholic, he did not mean any derision against the church. He had been praying backstage, and he had no pocket to put the rosary in, and so he carried it on stage with him. Jody Blake had done a burlesque number some weeks ago, and in it poked fun at the Pope. That offended you. Always your attacks come when religion—not a twisting of gender roles—is involved.”

  The figure snarled.

  “Before Jody there were other performers making fun of religion and its trappings. In fact ever since the theatre became first The Folly and then Toole’s ... the actors who made parody of the church, you—”

  “Blasphemers!” the figure cried, charging at Mortar, who was wearing the nun costume. The figure waved the knife in the sign of the cross. “I will kill the blasphemers!”

  In that instant the back door opened, spilling light into the alley and momentarily surprising the cloaked man. Conrad and two police inspectors came out into the alley.

  Conrad watched as Mortar met the figure’s rush, dropping the cigar and the handbag and the rosary, raising one arm and wrapping his fingers around the wrist that held the knife. He brought his other hand up, the heel of it striking just under his assailant’s chin, snapping the head up and back. Mortar brought his knee up, a difficult matter given the comical voluminous quality of the scapula, and jammed it hard against his attacker’s groin.

  The knife fell to the alley floor, and the assailant dropped to his knees.

  The police inspectors applauded Mortar, then grabbed the man on the ground.

  Conrad clapped too. “That’s—”

  “—Theron, the prop man.” Mortar doffed the scapula. He had trousers and a shirt on beneath. “Who studied Catholicism in this very building in the fifties when John Henry Newman delivered his oft-quoted lectures on Anglican Difficulties. The religious order sold the building, and it became a music hall. And your prop man did not follow the order to the Brompton Oratory, he remained here, attached, thinking the building—” Mortar paused, as if he was seeking the perfect term. “—sacred.”

  “Blasphemers!” Theron hissed. “They mock God! They must be punished! It is my right to punish them.” The police inspectors hauled him away.

  Conrad and Mortar remained in the alley.

  “So he stayed on here, working,” Conrad said, “to keep the place sacred, attacking those performers who blasphemed faith. And the fires. He started them, too.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Conrad studied the detective more closely. Mortar was apparently a master of disguise, appearing as one of the pantomiming nuns on stage, then coming out into the alley and pretending to be an actor. Was the bricklayer role also an act? One more part that Mortar played?

  Conrad made the sign of the cross against his chest. “I do not mock God,” he told Mortar.

  Mortar started down the alley, then paused and looked over his shoulder. “I could do with a partner, Conrad.” Mortar tipped his head and continued away.

  Conrad smiled as he watched the bricklayer go. “Maybe I will take you up on that.”

  About the author

  Jean Rabe has written thirty adventure and fantasy novels and more short stories than she cares to count. When not writing or editing, she tosses tennis balls to her moose-of-a-mutt, visits museums, and enjoys a variety of roleplaying and board games. Visit her at www.jeanrabe.com.

  About The Story

  Matilda Alice Powles (1864-1952) worked as a male impersonator in England and the United States, adopting her famous Vesta Tilley role beginning at age eleven.

  The Toole’s Theatre building opened in 1840 and bore several names through its years of operation. It was demolished in 1896. Part of the Charing Cross Police Station now occupies the original site.

  Need To Know

  A Story of the In Hero Years... Universe

  Michael A. Stackpole

  Grant Stone waited patiently with his sister, Polly, in line. They’d hurried to get to the bank early, knowing that Saturday morning only one teller would be working. They’d hoped to deposit the Farmer’s Market cash from the previous day before Mrs. Anderson got there to do her banking, but their best effort hadn’t been good enough.

  Polly looked up at her older brother, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not going to say you shouldn’t have helped Mr. Branson shift the bundles from truck to newsstand but…”

  Grant shrugged. “The President’s resigning last night made the papers kind of heavy.”

  Mr. Pierson, who stood in line in between them and Mrs. Anderson, turned back and smiled. “Not a problem for a strapping lad like you, is it, Grant?”

  “No, sir.”

  Polly gave Grant a knowing smile. The Pierson farm was their nearest neighbor, and if anyone in Lyttleton had a chance of having learned Grant’s secret, it would have been Bob Pierson. He’d not seen Grant use the incredible strength caused by his birth on another planet, but Pierson had seen the aftermath enough to be suspicious.

  In front of them, Mrs. Anderson started counting pennies out of a small beaded purse. She’d gotten it, as the entire town knew, when she’d attended one of Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugurations, as a young girl. Some in the town noted that she kept getting younger and younger in that story as the years passed. She wore a black dress and black hat with a veil, as befit a widow, despite the fact that her husband had died long ago at Normandy. She snapped each penny down on the counter in a weekly ritual, which no one interrupted lest she have to begin her tally anew.

  Grant would have sighed aloud save for two reasons; the first that it might have interrupted Mrs. Anderson. Not only would that prompt her to start her count again, but she’d sniff and the story of his rude behavior would race through the small town. The same wags who would happily criticize the widow for her eccentricities would preferentially scold him for his behavior, simply because, in their minds, teenagers these days didn’t respect their elders.

  The other reason was that even if Polly and he had arrived before Mrs. Anderson, they’d have given up their place in line to her. Everyone would have. The widow wasn’t Lyttleton’s eldest inhabitant, nor best loved, but she was a character and, therefore, others accommodated her. Her visit to the bank on Saturday morning was par
t of Lyttleton’s routine, and without it, something would be seriously off kilter.

  A panel van screeched to a stop outside the Lyttleton Savings Bank, tires smoking. Everyone inside froze, afraid the sound would start the count again. Another penny snapped in sequence. Customers and staff breathed a sigh of relief.

  A moment too soon.

  A man in tiger-stripe camo fatigues kicked the door open. He brandished a shotgun. A red bandana covered the lower half of his face, matching the red beret on his head. Both the beret and jacket’s right should bore a round black patch, edged in gold thread, with a gold cobra rising embroidered on it. The four other individuals following him into the bank—three men and a woman—wore identical uniforms. The men carried M-16s, while the woman had a pistol holstered on her right hip and her hands filled with canvas sacks.

  “Don’t nobody move and you won’t get hurt!” The lead robber leveled the shotgun at the line. “Back into the corner. Move it.”

  Mr. Pierson and Polly immediately moved off. Grant hesitated as another penny snapped.

  The robber approached. “You, too, lady.”

  Mrs. Anderson turned. “Young man…”

  The robber clubbed the shotgun and brought it down at her head.

  Grant shot forward, interposing himself between the old woman and the gun’s butt. The blow caught him on the side of the head. He twisted away instinctively, raising a hand to cover his cheek. Most people would do that to probe the bruise, but Grant did it to hide the fact that he hadn’t bruised.

  Polly appeared at Mrs. Anderson’s side. “Mrs. Anderson, this is a robbery. You have to move over here.” She took the old woman’s arm and began to guide her over toward the corner.

  Mrs. Anderson protested. “But my money!”

  The female robber swept the pennies from the counter, scattering them. Despite Mrs. Anderson’s sputtered disgust, she thrust the bags at the teller. “Fill ’em.”

  Polly pulled the widow to the corner, where Mr. Pierson took charge of her. Grant had trailed in their wake and moved aside, giving his sister space from the others. Across the bank, two of the robbers had summoned the manager, Mr. Gardner, from his office and set him to opening the vault.

  Grant dropped to a knee and Polly sat on the floor beside him. “Are you okay, Grant?” She’d asked the question in a voice loud enough to carry.

  He nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  Polly lowered her voice as she leaned in to examine his cheek. “Grant, you have to do something.”

  He winced, less acting than he would have liked. “Can’t. There’s too many of them, this is too tight a space.” He looked past her toward Pierson and Mrs. Anderson. “And too many witnesses.”

  “But what if…?”

  Grant frowned. If the robbers decided to take hostages or started escalating the violence, he’d have to do something, no matter the risk betraying his secret. With his heightened speed and strength he could easily take down the three nearest to him without their ever knowing what had hit them. He could get to the pair by the safe after that, but they would have a chance to act. They could easily shoot Mr. Gardner.

  “That’s a bridge I’ll cross when we come to it.” Grant gave his sister a hard stare with his blue eyes. “Regardless, Polly, you stay down and out of things.”

  “Grant.”

  He shook his head, a lock of black hair curling down over his forehead. “No, this isn’t you covering for me. This is serious trouble.”

  The lead robber turned toward them. “Hey, no talking, or you’ll get more…”

  Something in the vault door clicked. A robber shoved the bank manager away and spun the steel wheel. Bolts retracted with a heavy clunk. The robber pulled, slowly swinging the door open, while his partner moved toward the entryway.

  Something wasn’t right.

  A cold fog drifted from the vault, rolling along the floor. As the door swung aside, the vapor subsided, revealing a lean man filling the opening. He wore a hood of gray that covered him over the shoulders, and a brown uniform with white accents. Oversized, buff-colored gauntlets encased his hands. His head came up revealing the fact that he, like the bandits, wore a bandana, though his hung from a bronze bird-beak mask which covered his eyes and nose.

  The man bore a short staff in his left hand, which he whipped to the right. He caught the robber in the face, spinning him away loose limbed. He flicked his right hand out, almost casually, sending two small silver balls bouncing into the bank’s lobby. One immediately hissed and ejected a voluminous amount of white vapor. The other flashed brilliantly white, blinding everyone.

  Except Grant.

  Not only had his irises tightened with hyperspeed, limiting the flash damage, but he could naturally see in the infrared part of the spectrum. The robbers glowed like ghosts before his eyes, as did the man from the vault. As he emerged and engaged the robber who had been opening the door, Grant acted.

  Grant Stone had never learned the sort of sophisticated martial arts the other man exhibited, but he’d never had the need. In a nanosecond he was at the leader’s side. A simple shove sent the man careening into one of the bank’s pillars. Something popped and something else snapped, but Grant had already cut right and flung a gunman into a wall. Before that man or his weapon had clattered to the floor, Grant was back beside his sister—a swirl of vapor the only indication he’d moved at all.

  The man from the vault finished the robbers quickly. He cut the legs from beneath the woman with his staff. She hit the ground hard and clawed for her gun. She got it out, but he kicked it away. He flipped her onto her belly easily enough, and then handcuffed her.

  He straightened, and even though mist filled the lobby, he looked around. His gaze lingered on the two men he’d not taken down then swung toward Grant and Polly. Grant forced himself to focus up and away so their gazes could not meet. The man canted his head for a second, then withdrew into the vault and closed the door. As the mist thinned, the vault again locked itself.

  Close by, police sirens wailed.

  The Lyttleton Police Force—all three of its squad cars, in fact—arrived fast. Chief Franklin Peck took charge, getting handcuffs on all of the robbers, and frisking them before his men took them to jail. He quickly questioned all the witnesses. It seemed to Grant that he was more concerned with their state of health than he was in getting their version of events. He released all of them, with a promise to follow-up if he had other questions, and took Mr. Pierson up on his offer to drive the Stone kids to their farm.

  Grant and Polly couldn’t refuse the ride, so they squeezed themselves into the battered cab of the Pierson’s old red pick-up and rattled off south out of town. Within half a mile of the city square, manicured lawns gave way to green cornfields and farms stretching over miles of gently rolling hills. For every mile passed, Lyttleton also receded a half-dozen years in the past.

  Being cooped up with Mr. Pierson, Grant and Polly couldn’t have the conversation that they were anxious to share. Grant forced himself to look out the side window. He ran over the robbery in his mind, trying to remember everything he’d done. He was confident the robbers had seen nothing, nor had the witnesses. He knew that was true about the witnesses because they’d said as much to Chief Peck. The only thing the robbers had seen was pillar and wall respectively.

  The man from the safe was another matter. It only made sense that if he used gas and flash grenades, then they wouldn’t affect him. Because of the hood Grant hadn’t gotten a look at his eyes, so he could have been wearing goggles. Grant’s ability to see in the infrared spectrum didn’t provide him any identifiable details, so it could be that the man in the vault couldn’t recognize him. In fact, if he was paying any attention to the hostages, he couldn’t have taken the robbers out.

  Grant desperately wanted to talk with Polly. She’d become utterly fantastic at rationalizing away anything Grant had done. If one took her stories in the aggregate, Grant’s adrenal glands produced gallons of adrenaline, which pre
tty much covered displays of strength and speed in an emergency. She’d also begun studying karate at a school over in Granite Hills—and was good at it—to cover for Grant when he’d been forced to beat folks up. That wasn’t needed in this case, however, since the man in the vault provided all the explanation necessary.

  Grant couldn’t help smiling when thinking of that man. Lyttleton might have been hours away from Capital City, but the radio, newspapers and television carried stories about that major metropolitan area’s crusading superheroes. The stories had become routine enough that on the local TV news they slipped in small bits between weather and sports reports—but really big stories led the news or hit the front page. The idea that Lyttleton might have its own superhero thrilled Grant.

  It also made him a little uneasy. Grant didn’t want to be a hero—he just wanted to be normal. But part of normal was daydreaming about what it would be like to be able to rescue people in danger. All the stories Grant liked to read—Burroughs, Howard, Leiber and Smith—celebrated the hero who used his abilities for good. Since Grant actually had abilities, he could daydream with the best of them.

  While he’d never allowed himself to do more than dream about being a hero, when he did dream, he was Lyttleton’s superhero. He couldn’t be sure the guy in the vault was a hero. What hero hangs out in a vault? How could he know the robbers would hit the bank? How did he get into the vault? And if he was a hero, why didn’t he stick around to have the police thank him?

  Mr. Pierson turned off the main road and headed toward the Stone farm. “I know it’s been an exciting day for you both, but here’s a word to the wise. If you keep quiet like you did on this ride, your mom will be a whole lot more worried than if you just blab everything out. Trust me.”