Luck:
35
Upgrade?(350)
Primary Power:
64
Upgrade?(6,400)
Secondary Power:
70
Upgrade?(7,000)
Third Power:
50
Upgrade?(5,000)
“Done. Consider this a promotion. Or a merit increase? Maybe a bonus? Something like that.
“I hope you work as hard as you did up to this point, if not more so.” Felix dismissed the window and looked to Lily.
The soul-stealing mass murderer’s eyes were clouded. She looked like she was in pain, even.
“Kit said it felt like someone had punched her brain. Do you want to sit down? Here, I’ll get a ch—”
“No, I’m alright. I just need a second.” Lily lifted the hand on her neck to her temple. “It felt like my mind expanded. I even know how to use it, I just… push my energy into it. There’s no limit to how much I can put in an item, other than what I can personally channel in one sitting.”
Felix checked his pockets to see if he had anything she could practice on.
Nothing. House keys, phone, and some lint.
Looking around, he saw the cash register. Pushing off the pillar he’d been propped against, he moved over to the checkout stand. He started looking around for the impulse buys that any good checkout had.
Something innocuous. Something that people would overlook that you could charge. Something that would be—
Ah!
Sitting to one side of the register was a glass display case. Inside were a number of silver bracelets with charms.
The bracelet, and each charm, could function as a battery, he was willing to bet.
“Can I help you?” asked the cashier. He was a younger man, probably in his early twenties.
“Give me that,” Felix said, pointing to the bracelet he’d been eyeing.
“Huh? The necklace or the bracelet?” said the clerk, leaning over.
“Uhm, give me one of each.”
“Okay. That’ll be four hundred and ten.”
Felix flipped a credit card onto the space between them. “Hang on to that, they’ll be out with a bundle of clothes, I’m sure.”
Picking up the bracelet and necklace, he went back to Lily.
She’d watched him but hadn’t moved at all. To him, she appeared as if she were still recovering.
“Here. Bracelet and necklace. Both have a bunch of charms on them. Maybe you can turn them into individual batteries?” Felix held out the two silver pieces of jewelry.
Lily held out her wrist to him. “Put it on.”
Grunting, Felix laid the necklace on his shoulder. Holding on to the bracelet, he unhitched the clasp and then wrapped it around Lily’s wrist. Slipping the clasp into one of the links, he let go. It dangled but seemed well fit.
Turning around, Lily lifted her dark hair up from her shoulders.
“You can put this on yourself,” Felix grumped.
“Put it on,” Lily demanded.
“Seriously, you—”
“Put it on.”
Taking the necklace in hand, Felix reached around Lily and draped it across her neckline. With a quick flick of his fingers, he latched it shut.
“There. Practice away,” Felix said. Taking a few steps back, Felix leaned up against the pillar from earlier.
Lily let her hair fall and glanced at him from over her shoulder. “Hmph.”
Breaking eye contact with him, she walked back to the changing room.
Felix let out a slow, even breath as she went. Lily made him uncomfortable.
Maybe it’s because she’s too damn pretty. Kit and Andrea have their own thing going for them, but Lily is just… forbidden fruit, maybe? Soul-eating seductress. Maybe I should rename her to Succubus instead of Mab.
He chuckled, giving his head a shake.
An explosion of sound went off behind his head, and his entire head felt like it’d been struck by a hammer.
He felt his legs go out from under him, unwilling to respond to him in any way, shape, or form. There was another explosion from feet away, and this time his side exploded in red-hot agony.
The world flashed white as screams echoed throughout the department store.
Felix couldn’t do much of anything. The cold of the tiled floor felt great on his face. The rest of him was a bubbling quagmire of pain and heat. Everything hurt.
In fact, he was pretty sure he was dying. There was too much pain for it to be anything else. Or so he believed.
He tried to roll over onto his side and accomplished… nothing. Fingers flexed against the tile, his shoes squeaked, and that was it.
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him over.
Everything was blurry. Blurry and red.
Someone leaned down into his face. They said something. He couldn’t figure out what they were saying. Now that he thought about it, those weren’t screams he was hearing, but ringing. His ears were ringing.
Yanked to his feet, Felix tried to stand up but his knees wouldn’t obey. He began to collapse as fast as he’d been stood up. His eyes felt heavy and he blinked.
Felix must have blacked out for a moment, because the next time he opened his eyes, he was being carried. His arms were held across two people’s shoulders and they were practically sprinting with him between them.
“Hang on, Felix,” said the one on the left.
“Stay with us,” said the one on the right.
Oh, they’re both Andrea.
Felix tried to ask what had happened, but only made a gurgling noise instead.
“He’s awake!” the one on the left said.
“Good, keep him that way. Being awake is better,” came back a call from up ahead. There was a burst of light, followed by an intense explosion.
“I need two Andreas up the left side. Clear out that hallway!”
Felix felt himself pressed up against a wall.
An Andrea appeared in front of him, smiling at him from an inch away. “Going to just take a peeky peek now. See if you’re a leaky bottle of ketchup again.”
Her fingers slipped along his side, which was apparently now bandaged and very red.
Red like blood.
There was a black marker line where the bloodstain ended, all the way around.
“Nothing new, but that’s no guarantee,” Andrea said. Then she stood up and gently turned his head to the side.
Felix’s brain slipped out of his skull and hit the ground. Or that was what it felt like, at least.
Felix focused on the tile beneath him and the fact that he wasn’t dead.
“No change here either. Damn. I wish we’d spent more time in that hospital. We need to send an Other there after this,” whispered the Andrea in front of him.
“Nn, nn,” said the second Andrea.
“Is he okay?” Eva asked. Her voice wasn’t far, maybe behind Andrea. Maybe. Things didn’t sound right.
“He’s… alive. Lily! We need to move!”
Another explosion came from further ahead. “Clear, move up. Garage is right ahead of us. You think Chauffeur Andrea is still there?”
“We would never leave. We would die first,” the two Andreas said in unison.
Before he could really start to follow the conversation, it was over. They picked his arms up and pulled him back over their shoulders again.
His head lolled forward, his eyes watching the tiles pass underneath his dragging feet.
Body parts and blood were liberally painting the floor.
As he watched, the tiles became dark pavement. A burst of gunfire tore through the air.
Return gunfire came from the Andrea on his right and from up ahead.
“In, in, in,” shouted Andrea from ahead of them.
He heard car doors opening, then he was being shoved bodily into the rear seat. Eva was already inside and pressed up against the glass on one side.
As the Andrea who was guiding him
in got him situated, her clothes blew out around her.
She dropped bodily into the car, her head falling into his lap.
In a last burst of strength, she somehow got the door closed and lay still, staring up at him from his lap.
Chauffeur Andrea got in and stomped on the pedal.
“Where’s the other—” Eva started.
“I absorbed her. No room,” Chauffeur Andrea said.
Felix laid his hands on the Andrea in his lap. Her mismatched eyes stared up at him. Her mouth was wide open as she gasped for breath.
“It’s… my lung. Shot in… the lung,” she got out between gasps.
Felix understood that at least. She was probably dying faster than he was.
Carefully, he brushed her hair back from her face. He gave her a smile and ran his thumb along her eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Felix said lamely.
“It’s… okay. I’ll… come back. Myriad… never really dies,” Andrea said, giving him a bloody smile.
Her face twisted for a second and she pressed her hands to her mouth, coughing into them.
Blood seeped up between her fingers, splashing down the sides of her face and neck.
“I’m sorry, Andrea.”
Felix gently stroked her forehead, smoothing her hair back. She coughed into her hands again, blood spilling unendingly from her hands. Her eyes gazed up at him, full of pain and fear.
“Andrea, can you absorb her before she dies? I-I think she’ll suffocate at this rate,” Felix said lamely, looking up to the driver’s seat.
Sunlight poured in through the windows as they escaped the garage.
“Kit, this is Lily. Felix has been shot. We’re on our way back. Tell Felicia she needs to come up with something quick. Do we have any supers with healing powers?”
Chauffeur Andrea looked back at him when they hit a stoplight. There was no way she could run it since there was a constant stream of cars driving in either direction.
After what looked like a moment of indecision, Chauffeur Andrea reached back and pressed her hand to the Andrea in his lap, and she vanished.
She was there one moment, and then gone the next.
All that remained of her was the blood that stained his pants.
Letting his head sink back into the seat, Felix felt the world slip out of his grasp.
“Lily? Felix is…”
Chapter 17 - Catching Up -
The world was a groggy haze. Filled with snatches of conversation and alternating bright lights and deep darkness.
Occasional words would slip through, but none of them stuck.
In time, Felix began to feel as if he could keep a thought for longer than a few moments. Longer than a single breath.
His eyelids felt heavy. So heavy he couldn’t open them.
That’s good. Heavy eyelids means I’m alive. Right?
Swallowing, he concluded he must have eaten a desert, considering how dry his mouth was.
“Oh! Felix? Are you awake?” asked a soft voice.
“Mmnnuugh… wwaaaa…” Felix explained patiently.
“Water?”
“Yuuuuuuu,” he energetically agreed.
A straw slipped between his lips. Felix set to the task and drank quickly. The cool, very wet, very delicious water brought life and happiness back to the wasteland that was his mouth.
Releasing the straw, he sighed, licking his lips.
“Thank you. I feel groggy,” Felix said. His head felt heavy. Trying to open his eyes again, he only managed to get them open a crack.
Which immediately blinded him.
“It’s been two days since you were shot,” came a patient voice.
He couldn’t quite place it. He knew it, but his brain refused to tell him a name.
“What happened?” he asked. Somehow, he managed to move his hand an inch, and suddenly found someone else’s hand. Latching on to it, he laced his fingers into theirs.
At this moment, any human contact was preferable, even if he didn’t know who it was.
“You were shot. The first bullet grazed your skull. The second nicked a lung, perforated your bowels, and exited your hip,” said the definitely feminine voice that he knew. That he swore he knew. “We’ve kept you drugged up until a little bit ago. There were concerns about waking you early before everything could be finished.”
“Finished with what? It sounds like I should be dead.”
Felix struggled with his eyes again, finally managing to get them open. Everything was blurry and bright, but he wasn’t blind.
“Felicia built a machine that would help anything mend. To heal. In such a way that it would defy science and modern medicine. It’s more like a bed than a machine. You were in it up until this morning. I carried you to your bed so you could rest more comfortably.”
The world began to come into focus, though aggravatingly slowly. As the kaleidoscope of colors and blurs became something recognizable, he realized it was Miu at his side.
The aloof beauty Miu, who seemed to always flee rather than speak with him.
Smiling at her, he squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Miu.”
“Of course. I’ve been watching over you since they brought you home. I shall not be leaving your side going forward. I’m going to be your personal bodyguard should you leave for anywhere until we can find someone more permanent for the job.”
“I see. I assume this is something Ioana, Kit, and Lily agreed with?”
“They did not get the chance to disagree. I will be training at an increased speed to make sure I can handle any problems that come up as well.”
Miu didn’t elaborate on the fact that the others didn’t agree.
“I won’t even argue. Being shot sucks. Was anyone else hurt?”
“No, only you were. It was an impromptu attack. I believe they followed you, waited, and then planned the assassination from there.”
“Assassination?”
“Someone tried to shoot you pointblank in the head. It’s a miracle they missed. It’s an assassination attempt. There can be no question of that. All that remains is to determine who.”
Felix took a slow, deep breath and then nodded his head.
It made sense. There really wasn’t any other possibility when you looked at it from that point of view. There had been no other targets, only him.
“Lily is the only reason you’re alive. She was able to react quickly enough that the rest of the gunshots impacted a shield, rather than you,” Miu admitted with a glum look on her face.
Apparently Felicia isn’t the only one who doesn’t like Lily.
“I’ll be sure to thank her when I get a chance. So, what’s the prognosis, Doctor Miu, will I live?” he asked, giving her hand a squeeze.
“Oh, ah, yes. Everything is as good as new, but you are very weak. Felicia’s machine pulls the energy from you to make the repairs, as if you were to heal naturally. You will feel tired for many days.”
“Delightful. Paperwork, antiques, and office work for me, then.”
“Yes. Though, I fear we are about to have a visitor. She has—”
The door burst open, slamming into the wall. The clang of the doorstop heralded the fact that she hadn’t put a hole in the wall.
“Felix!” Andrea shouted. Closing the distance in a single hop, she was suddenly up in his bed, rubbing her face all over his chest. Her arms were locked around his neck and she squeezed him tightly.
“You’re awake. Kit said you’d be awake quickly. That you were stronger than people gave you credit for. I’m so glad,” Andrea gushed. “It was so hard to not climb into the machine with you and hold you. Felicia said she’d cut off my tail if I did it. Then Ioana promised to turn it into a broom. Mean. Mean, mean.”
Felix chuckled and released Miu’s hand. He gently set his arms around Andrea and patted her on the back. “They were right to keep you away so I could recover, Andrea. Sorry, but they were being mean for the right reasons.”
“I know. I still don’t li
ke it, though. You don’t smell good. You smell like medicine. You need a shower. Come on, I’ll wash your back.”
“What? No, I don’t—”
“Yes, yes now. Yes now, or else,” Andrea threatened.
“I would agree with her. You smell of medicine and sweat,” Miu said, a small smile turning up the corners of her lips.
“I don’t—”
“No more talking. More showering and scrubbing.” Andrea hopped off the bed and split into ten different Andreas rapidly.
In unison, they all clapped their hands together, then held up one arm. “To the shower! Strip him!”
“Hey now, let’s taaaaoouuu—”
Felix had only a moment’s notice before the Andreas descended on him and carried him off to the shower, Miu trailing along behind.
They were merciful. They stripped him, dumped him in the shower alone, and left him there sitting under the hot, steamy water.
He’d have to remember how invigorating a hot shower could be. He went from feeling sorry to himself, to being hungry, thirsty, and clean.
Hot water was glorious.
By the time he stumbled out of the shower, he found a set of clothes waiting for him to change into. Only Miu and a single Andrea remained when he finally left the bathroom.
“A pancake brigade has been assembled,” Andrea said with a bright smile.
“I… that sounds great, actually. Thank you,” Felix said sincerely.
“Lily and Kit are assembling a department head meeting for you.”
Felix nodded his head and gestured at the two women. “Lead on.”
Andrea happily bounced off, opening the door and stepping out.
Miu merely ducked her head to him and waited.
Keeping his tongue behind his teeth, and his wit, he realized he couldn’t fight what they wanted to do to him. They depended on him being alive and healthy. After this incident, he didn’t think he’d be wandering around alone anymore.
Giving her a tight smile, he followed the sound of Andrea skipping towards the dining room.
A handful of pancakes, a glass of orange juice, and a soda perked him right up.
Everyone gave him a chance to finish before starting in. The moment he admitted he was indeed done, they cleared the table, and all looked to him expectantly.
Super Sales on Super Heroes Page 19