Battlecry

by Emerald Dodge

  His eyebrows shot up. “What’s the difference?”

  “Dating is just sex and stuff, right? Courting is where you go to your dad, ask him to go to my dad, who then asks me if I’m interested in getting to know you. If I say yes, we spend time together with a chaperone, and after a while we decide whether we want to get married or not. The elder has to give permission of course, and these days we check the family trees to make sure couples aren’t too closely related. That’s a new policy, though.” I was descended from several cousin marriages.

  Benjamin let out a low whistle. “If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t planning on having sex with you on our date. Maybe hold your hand, but that’s it. I don’t have sex with women until at least the second date.” When he saw my expression, he rolled his eyes. “Jillian, I’m kidding.”

  I’d remembered watching my sister be publicly disciplined after our father caught her rolling around in the bushes with a young man when I was younger. Superheroes, who were out in the world and in the public eye, could look forward to even harsher punishment. Benjamin had no idea how unamusing his joke really was.

  “Anyway,” I continued stiffly, “When you bought me that ice cream, it was the first time I’d ever had it. We weren’t allowed to eat stuff like that growing up. No candy, no ice cream, no cakes, cookies, pastries, or anything.”

  Benjamin’s smile turned sly. “That’s why you ordered all those pastries in the café. You were feeling adventurous.”

  “Rebellious would be a better word.”

  “Oh no, a superhero is eating biscotti. Someone stop her before she lands herself in jail.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Putting it that way, it did sound a little absurd.

  He drummed his fingers again. “Anything else?”

  “Oh!” I slammed my hand on the table so quickly that he jumped. “I’m not allowed to even be here. Libraries are totally off-limits. They’re temples of false knowledge, though honestly this place doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Temples…of false…knowledge.” Benjamin stretched out the phrase as if he was unsure of what he was saying. “Please be kidding.”

  “Nope. Though, I’m starting to question whether Elder St. James has ever been in a library.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I wondered when you’d get there. By the way, if this place is a temple of false whatever, why are you here? I mean, I’m glad you are, and I applaud any effort to act like a normal person, but aren’t you afraid you’ll absorb some of the false knowledge and turn into a supervillain like me?”

  I was certain he was being sarcastic, but I gave him a straight answer. “I won’t look at any of the novels. The educational books shouldn’t be too bad, though they might have something wrong in them about superheroes. Children’s moral tales are probably okay, as long as they have a clear hero and villain. I also won’t read any magazines.”

  “You can’t watch television or movies either, can you?”

  “No. Although, Marco and I went to a movie a little while ago.” I looked down. As much as I’d enjoyed the movie, it was difficult to admit how badly I’d broken the media rules that night.

  Benjamin gently tilted my head up, his eyes sympathetic. “Hey, how about all three of us get out of here and go see a movie? I’ll buy you something healthy to eat so you don’t have to worry about breaking three rules, just two.”

  “Three rules?”

  “Going to a movie, eating junk food, and hanging out with a supervillain.”

  I smiled, biting my lip. “I really would like that…”

  “But?”

  “But Marco and I are hiding here because Patrick is looking for us. We, uh, operated on our own today in a way that was kind of, um, highly public. We need to wait for nightfall to go back to the shed.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “You live in a shed now? Why am I not surprised?” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m looking for a cheap hotel room for you two. I can’t stand by while you get hantavirus from a rat or something.”

  The deadbolt in the door clicked and the door swung open to reveal Eleanor. Benjamin and I stared at her, our faces identical masks of annoyance.

  Eleanor held up a key. “What are the chances that this door would spontaneously lock itself and the librarian would lose her key until just now?” She shrugged and smiled.

  “Zero,” Benjamin snapped. “The chances are zero unless some blonde psycho does her witchery.”

  Eleanor tsked and pocketed the key. “’Witchery’, really. Don’t be jealous just because my powers are more impressive than yours, Benny.” While he floundered for a reply, she patted me on the shoulder. “I met Marco downstairs. He’s in the arts and craft section looking at knitting patterns.”

  She walked out while I mouthed wordlessly at her. How did she know Marco’s name? What did she know about us?

  Benjamin dropped his head onto the table and banged it twice. “I hate my sister. I hate my sister.”

  I stood up. “Let’s just go.”

  Benjamin sighed and collected his things, and then we left the reading room and walked out onto the second floor of the library. The setting sun shone through the high windows, casting beautiful fiery red and gold beams onto the walls.

  Benjamin and I set his books down onto a table in the corner and wandered over to the balcony. We leaned on the rail and watched the evening library patrons mill around the first floor, too engrossed in our people watching to talk for several minutes.

  Eventually I pointed towards a huddle of squishy chairs. “See him, in the blue chair? That’s Marco.”

  Benjamin squinted in Marco’s direction. “I thought Eleanor was joking when she said he was reading knitting patterns. What’s that about?”

  I smiled, my memories rolling back to happier times. “One winter when we were kids, charity people we’d never seen before came to Chattahoochee camp with boxes of goodies for all the children. Everyone’s box had something different in it. Some of the things inside Marco’s box were a pair of knitting needles, yarn, and instructions. He knits whenever he can.”

  I indicated my blue yarn bracelet, a gift from Marco. I liked to think of it as my lucky bracelet, though I wasn’t sure whether I actually believed in such things.

  “Charity people? Are superheroes p—I mean, underprivileged?”

  “Yes, we’re poor. We’re not allowed to have jobs, so money is hard to come by. At least half of our food came from the charity people, and almost all of our supplies. The boxes were the best thing they ever brought, even better than the food.”

  “What was in your box?”

  I closed my eyes and relived the magical moment of opening my box, nearly a decade before. “A doll,” I said quietly. “A beautiful doll with brown hair and a yellow dress. A purse with embroidered flowers. A pink, sparkly toothbrush with blue toothpaste that tasted like fruit. Soap that smelled like roses. A beading kit. Crayons, blank paper, and pencils. Hair bows in all the colors of the rainbow, a brush, and a little mirror.”

  That had been the best day of my life.

  “Is Elder St. James the leader of Chatta…Chatta….”

  “Chattahoochee camp. Yes, he’s the leader. Our leaders are called elders. He’s Marco’s uncle, though Elder has so many sons that Marco wasn’t trained for leadership.”

  Benjamin thought about that for a minute. “I’m beginning to wonder if anything I think I know about superheroes is true. We were told in school that leadership is based on capability, not maleness, and nobody ever said anything about any elders. None of the documentaries or books about you guys talk about them.” He pursed his lips. “I hate being lied to. I hate feeling stupid.”

  As if Benjamin could be stupid. He was one of the smartest people I’d ever met.

  I leaned back against the rail, my elbows propped up. “Tell me about the documentaries.” Yet again I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “There was a famous one that came out about twenty years ago called The New American
Heroes. It covered the first superheroes, how you guys were ceded some of the national forests, all the laws enacted about superheroes, and stuff like that. There was even footage of, um, your grandma.” He had the grace to look ashamed for mentioning my grandma’s death video.

  I put a hand on his arm. “You said there were books, too?”

  Happiness returned to his features. “Tons. Histories, biographies, even books about how superhero fashion has changed over the decades. And then there’s the novels.”

  I straightened. “Novels? What novels?” Why on earth would anyone write a novel about superheroes? What could they put in such a novel? We were so boring.

  Benjamin beckoned for me to follow him down a long aisle. He studied the spines and tutted to himself as he searched. Finally, he kneeled down and pulled out a thick volume from the bottom shelf. “Here you go.” He placed it in my hands.

  The cover of the book, Rescued by Danger, showed a picture of an absurdly muscular masked man inside a burning building. Flames licked at his shins, but he didn’t seem to notice, instead gazing down at the thin, unconscious woman in his arms. She was wearing a lacy black nightdress.

  I squinted at the cover. “Who the hell is this supposed to be?”

  Benjamin took the book from me and placed it back on the shelf. “The character’s name is Danger. He’s arguably the most popular fictional superhero in print. I think the Danger series has twenty books or so. It was made into a TV series a few years ago, though it wasn’t very good. Bad writing and terrible special effects.”

  “Most popular.” There were more? And if they were about superheroes, could they corrupt me anymore than I already was? Somehow I didn’t think so. And just how much superhero-themed media had Benjamin taken in? He spoke about the books, documentaries, and shows as if he were quite familiar with all of them.

  Benjamin nodded. “Oh, yeah. Superhero fiction is an enormous industry. You guys even have your own subgenre of romance novels. You should see those covers.” He winked at me. “They don’t court, if you know what I mean.”

  Heat crept up my cheeks. “Well, that’s just silly. We’ve always courted.”

  Benjamin leaned against the bookshelf, arms crossed. “So, have you ever been courted by a handsome, eager young hero?”

  I was amazed by how he could inject laughter into every word while keeping a straight face.

  My cheeks were warm. “Yes, once. Sort of. He wasn’t a hero.”

  He grin widened. “Do tell.”

  I scoffed. “There’s nothing to tell. It was right after my brother died. This one boy, Matthew Dumont, started hanging around a lot. It turned out that my parents thought a boy’s attention would help me with my grief, so they arranged it all with Matthew’s parents. One day after about a month, he got too handsy. We had a huge fight. The truth came out.”

  The nausea I’d felt back then, when I’d discovered that Matthew’s attention wasn’t genuine, crashed over me, ever fresh. I held my fist to my mouth, trying to suppress the newly-visited humiliation.

  Benjamin must have mistaken the gesture as an attempt to swallow sadness, because his brow furrowed as he spoke. “That’s harsh, and I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Were you close?”

  “Yeah, we were. But that was a few years ago. I’ve gotten over it.”

  Benjamin thought for a second before bending down and picking out another book, handing it to me with a small smile. “Danger lost a brother in the fight against the forces of evil, too. This is the first one in the series. I think you’d like it, when you stop laughing about how wrong all the details are.”

  I was beginning to suspect Benjamin had read all the Danger novels many times over.

  The cover was emblazoned with the title Codename: Danger and presented the same muscle-bound man as before standing at the top of a skyscraper, surveying the metropolis below while he held on to the spire. Unless he could fly, there was no good reason for him to be that high.

  I fanned the pages. “What are this guy’s powers? Invulnerable to fire and flying? Does he have any more powers? Because I’ve never met anyone with more than two.”

  Benjamin laughed and threw an arm around my shoulder. “I’m guessing you don’t have a card, so I’ll check the book out for you.”

  Benjamin’s arm around my shoulder was an unexpected pleasure. Suddenly shy, I glanced away, aware that his face was quite close to mine. He still shook his hair to get it out of his eyes, just like he had the day I met him. He grinned at me, kindling the familiar warmth in my stomach. My sensitive nose detected a hint of soap on his skin, and sunshine, and something deeper, more basic and organic. I resisted the urge to press my nose into his neck and inhale.

  Instead, for one brilliant moment I let myself revel in my crush, casting aside the bald fact that I hardly knew Benjamin, and what I did know about him was that his family was eternally at odds with mine.

  I pictured courting him back home, holding his hand while we walked through waving grass, sharing a tender kiss in the lacy shadows of the forest. I gazed down the chasm of my imagination, building a world where Benjamin, this handsome man who thought I was pretty, would be eagerly welcomed into my family as a brother and a son.

  A woman’s terrified scream from downstairs jerked me back to reality.

  We dashed to the balcony and scanned for the woman who’d screamed. Library patrons were rushing towards the exit, but I couldn’t tell what they were running from. I dearly wished I had my knives; they made me feel so much more prepared in situations like this.

  Eleanor sprinted up the steps two at a time and grabbed us by our collars, pulling us away from the rail.

  “You need to run,” she whispered, glancing behind her as if she were afraid someone had followed her.

  Benjamin grabbed my hand. “Why? What’s going on?”

  She looked behind her again. “It’s him. It’s Atropos.”

  “What?” I gasped, taking a step back. “How did—who told—”

  Eleanor glanced behind her again. “No offense, Jillian, but all of you stick out. I knew you were Battlecry the day I met you in the park. It could be someone here saw you and spread the word.”

  I swore. “I’m going to find Marco. He’s down there right now.” I turned to Benjamin. “Will you come with me?”

  Eleanor shook her head frantically, her eyes wet.

  “Too late. Atropos found Marco first.”

  23

  Rational thought stopped.

  I planted a hand on the balcony rail and jumped over, dimly aware of Benjamin and Eleanor shouting something at me. I landed on top of a bookshelf, then lightly jumped to the ground. Blood pounded in my ears as the details of the library zeroed into sharp focus.

  Patrick was here. If he’d killed Marco, he was going to die, simple as that. I’d killed before, and I had no qualms about killing again. I shrugged off my lack of knives; bare hands would do.

  I whipped around the corner of a bookshelf and froze.

  Patrick stood in the main aisle with his back to me. Marco hung above him like a grotesque puppet, his limbs twisted. Marco’s face was a violent shade of purple as he clawed at his neck in a vain effort to remove the invisible hands that choked off his air supply. He saw me and gurgled.

  “It’s about time,” Patrick said, his tone so icy that it cut through my fury. What did he plan to do here at the library, in public? How desperate was he for revenge? The memory of his fearful eyes when I attacked him so many weeks ago played across my mind.

  He was afraid then—it was possible he was afraid still. I needed to exploit that fear, as he’d exploited mine too many times. I squared my shoulders. If Patrick wanted a showdown, he was going to get one.

  But he was going to have to fight Battlecry, not Jillian.

  “Drop him and face me.” I raised my voice as if I were on the streets with a common thug. “Only a coward uses a human shield.”

  Patrick spun around. “A coward?”

  Marco dropp
ed to the floor in a heap. He was breathing, so I didn’t spare him a worry. Patrick was working himself into a mania, which would make him dangerously reckless. But I had learned how to exploit recklessness when I had killed rabid animals in the woods back home.

  “Yes, a coward.” I didn’t take my eyes off Patrick’s face. “You attacked Marco to lure me out. That was a bad move, leader.”

  I needed to keep talking while I came up with a plan. Now that I was within feet of my furious, lethal, and highly unpredictable foe, I realized that jumping over the balcony and announcing my presence hadn’t been the best idea I’d ever had.

  Telekinesis prickled at my skin and clothes, though it was too indistinct to have any effect on me. I suspected that he wasn’t consciously controlling his power anymore, instead letting it billow off him like fumes from a gasoline can.

  He was going to explode if I didn’t stop him.

  “Well, say something.” I put a hand on my hip. Several feet to my right was a janitor’s closet with a fire alarm next to it. I casually took a step towards it. “Don’t just stand there and glare at me. Where are your usual threats? I’ve missed them so much.”

  “I’ll kill you for what you did to me,” Patrick hissed, his face flushed white. The telekinetic fumes increased, just as I hoped they would.

  I took another step to the right.

  “Oh yes, it was so disrespectful of me to tell civilians about your leadership style. Or, wait a minute, I broke the silence, didn’t I? Does that make me disloyal or disobedient?” The words poured out of me, laced with acid.

  I took another few more steps to the right, stopping when I stood between Patrick and the janitor’s closet. I’d charge him, and he’d blow me backwards towards the fire alarm. I needed to distract him for even just one second.

  Despite my taunts, Patrick straightened, the corners of his mouth turning upwards in a humorless smile. “You’re confident. I’ll give you that. You gave the others confidence, too. I can respect the ability to inspire others.”