“I, Battlecry.”
“Promise to take upon myself the singular burden of leadership.”
My hand trembled, but my voice didn’t. “Promise to take upon myself the singular burden of leadership.”
“In doing so, I promise to support and defend all that is moral, equitable, and good.” The sixth principle: justice.
“In doing so, I promise to support and defend all that is moral, equitable, and good.”
“I will be answerable and accountable to my peers for all my actions.” The twenty-second principle: responsibility.
Ember looked down, wiping a tear from her eye. I knew in my gut she was thinking about something Patrick had done to her, something he hadn’t yet answered for, though I didn’t know what. I would make him answer for it, though.
“I will be answerable and accountable to my peers for all my actions.”
“I will guard my words, deeds, and thoughts with care.” The twenty-third principle: self-control. My weakest area.
I swallowed. “I will guard my words, deeds, and thoughts with care.”
“And I will never deliberately harm or attack my teammates,” Reid added after a moment.
“Of course not,” I said, shocked. Marco hid his grin, and I repeated Reid’s addition to the oath. “I’ll be the best leader I can be.”
I lowered my hand and took a deep breath.
Battlecry was in charge of a team again.
27
“You want me to lie on official forms by saying Benjamin is dead.” Captain Drummond sounded as if she weren’t quite sure she’d heard me correctly. She leaned back in her office chair.
“That’s right.”
She and I were in her office, but the others were sleeping in the cramped dormitory intended for officers working overnight. My first act as the official leader had been to ask Captain Drummond for the beds. I, on the other hand, had to argue over Benjamin’s future.
“Why on earth do you think I’d do that for someone whom I really should just arrest right now?”
Don’t slouch. Look professional. “He’s on my team now, which means you’ll have to go to more effort than he’s worth to lock him up. Besides, you’ll never hear of him committing a crime again.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because he’s on my team, and if he’s been on my team for thirty minutes, it’s the same as if he’s been on it for a year.”
She glared at me. “You lied to me about him in the first place. As far as credibility is concerned, your name’s mud.”
“I lied to protect the man who saved my teammate’s life,” I growled. “Right now, you’d be wise to do the same.”
She sat up straighter. “Are you threatening me, Battlecry?”
“No, I’m warning you. Benjamin is the newest sworn member of Saint Catherine’s team. His family will want to know where he’s gone. If you release a statement saying he’s dead, they won’t bother searching for him, nor have any reason to think the new superhero in town is their son. If you don’t, his family will strike, and the city will be caught in the middle.”
She breathed heavily for a long moment, then pushed herself out of her chair. Though the liaison was impeccably professional, I could see the weight of the day’s events in her posture. She walked to the window and opened the blinds.
The tenth-story view was now a hazy nightscape, the city roads spread out like lace as they weaved around and over the many waterways of Saint Catherine. For a whole minute she stood there and gazed out the window, silently watching the late-night goings on downtown.
“They said I’d come to hate you, in the end.” Her soft voice carried clearly through her darkened office. “When I received my assignment. They said there would come a day when I realized that I wanted you gone, but I couldn’t afford to lose you. Superpowered handcuffs, I believe is the phrase.”
I’d never heard that phrase. Handcuffs?
She turned to me, her face unreadable. “I want you gone. I want you out of my city, away from my citizens, and back to whatever backwoods camp sent you in the first place. I didn’t vote for the city to bring in a team, and I didn’t ask for this assignment. Police never want to deal with superheroes, and do you know why? Because in the end, the Supers run the city. It happened in Chicago, it happened in Mobile, and it’s happening here.”
“We don’t—”
“Oh, shut up,” Captain Drummond hissed.
I startled—I’d never seen her break her professional exterior like that.
She strode to her desk, grabbed a leaf of paper from a small stack on her blotter, and thrust it towards me. “Do you know what this is? It’s a letter of condolence to the newly-widowed Mrs. Keenan. Her husband, Patrolman Keenan, died today of a snapped spinal cord. He had two toddlers and a baby on the way. Atropos did that.”
She pulled another piece of paper from the pile. “Sergeant Perez. Dead of internal injuries. She was engaged.”
A third piece of paper. “Detective Kozak. Married, father of four. Died instantly when he hit a wall.”
She slammed the papers down on her desk. “Atropos did that. Atropos, the leader of the superhero team we wanted so badly, did that. And now you are standing here, telling me I have to lie on an official document so a superpowered criminal can get off scot-free?”
“Yes.”
I was sympathetic to Captain Drummond, I really was. But she had her team to look out for, and I had mine. Negotiating Benjamin’s falsified death was my responsibility as the leader and I wasn’t going to cave just because I was exhausted and she was yelling. And though it stung that she didn’t like us, I wouldn’t yield one inch, because we had every right to be in Saint Catherine until the day the mayor formally told us to leave.
“No. I’m not doing it, Battlecry. I swore to uphold the law.”
“Then for the protection of my teammate, I’ll have to remove my team from the city while he heals. If we have to be gone during the hurricane, then so be it, but I will not risk Benjamin’s life by keeping him here when supervillains are looking for him. However, if you simply say that he’s dead, we can stay and help you.”
“I can’t lie—”
“Hannah! People will die if you don’t! What about this situation do you not understand?”
She sank down into her office chair, her energy gone. “What are you going to do about Atropos? When I said that we’re going to handle him together, I meant it.”
I chewed on my tongue. I still hadn’t come up with a solid plan, but I had some ideas.
“You could send in a request to the Columbia team, or maybe Norfolk’s. A few of them are from the Oconee camp, so they might be able to reason with Atropos. No, excuse me, they might be able to reason with Patrick.” She raised an eyebrow. “He’s no longer a superhero and doesn’t get the honor of a codename. Benjamin, on the other hand, does. He’s Mercury now.”
She threw me a disgusted look. “The last thing this city needs is yet more Supers running around, getting into battles and blowing up buildings. Give me something better.”
I settled into the chair opposite her desk. “Well, my team doesn’t know what Patrick is going to do next, and we don’t have a way to figure it out. However, I’m comfortable saying that he’s probably going to come after us. Maybe not this week, or even this month, but he will.”
“Yeah, I figured that much.”
“So why don’t you officially say we’re gone, too?”
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
“Send him on a snipe hunt. Only EMS and cops know that we survived the library fight, right? So tell the press that we’re, I don’t know, at the Super hospital up in Virginia. He’ll go north, and we’ll train Benjamin down here in peace while he heals. If we’re needed during the storm, we’ll keep a low profile.”
“And when he’s done healing? What then?”
“I…I don’t know. We can come up with a long-term plan afte
r that.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“That’s what I have,” I snapped, heat rising in my cheeks. I took a steadying breath. “Listen, it’s in the middle of the night and we’re both drained. If you will just make the statements about Benjamin’s death and our hospitalization, it’ll get the immediate Super problems out of your hair for at least the duration of the storm. Patrick is psychotic, but he’s not stupid. He won’t hang around in a hurricane zone if he thinks we’re elsewhere.”
“And the Trents? I don’t see why they’d leave the city.”
I pondered that for a few seconds. “Well, as far as they’ll know, the police have their son’s body. If you imply during the press release that you recovered evidence from the corpse, they’ll probably leave to avoid arrest.”
She sighed. “And where will you go in the mean time?”
I didn’t bother hiding my grin. “I know a place for people who need help.”
28
Father Kokoski said we could stay in the abandoned convent next to the church. The best thing I could say about it was that it was better than the shed.
When the front door swung open with a rusty creak, dust swirled on the floor, revealing the heavier mouse droppings mixed in with it. The dim foyer smelled like mildew, and I was certain I heard something large squeak within the walls.
While we watched, a large spider hanging from the ornate light fixture overhead curled up and scuttled back up to its web, which held the imprisoned corpses of several large flies.
Marco raised his hand and a dim orb of light appeared, casting a soft yellow glow.
The priest nodded in thanks. “It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but it should be big enough for all of you. There’s some flood damage on the first floor from Hurricane Camden a few years back, but I think we got rid of all the black mold. If you see any, just stay away. Why don’t you all take a look around and get situated? I’ll call the utility companies as soon as I’m back in my office, and then I’ll get you some supplies. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
I shook his hand. “Thank you so much. We couldn’t be more grateful.”
After Father Kokoski said goodbye and shut the front door, Benjamin kneeled down to examine a fist-sized hole in the wall near the floor that exposed the wiring behind it. “This place should be condemned.”
I let out a long breath. So this was where we were going to hide from Patrick. Could the broken windows, cracked ceiling, and rotting woodwork provide any kind of protection?
Was he outside right now?
Ember caught my eye. I’ve been listening for him, Jill. He’s not there, although Benjamin’s thoughts are…odd.
I looked over at Benjamin. He saw me looking at him and smiled pleasantly.
“We’ll continue this conversation later,” I murmured to Ember. “Let’s just take a look around.”
Beneath the gloom and decay of the convent were hints of a formerly comfortable residence.
The kitchen was open and spacious, with a large range and refrigerator. The downstairs living area was large enough to function as a training room, if we stayed long enough to convert it. Down a side hallway were a grimy bathroom and two small rooms that I mentally set aside as the new sick bay and a storage room. The bedrooms upstairs were small, but functional.
I took the smallest bedrooms for myself and my office, and let the others argue over the rest. There were two bathrooms, so I assigned the larger of the two for the men.
After the tour, we all stood in the living room. Benjamin put his hands in his pockets and blew out a breath. “So, any ideas what to do until the priest comes back?”
I sat down against the wall. “How about we start training Benjamin?”
Benjamin perked up. “That would be great.” He sat down on the floor, and then the others followed suit, arranging themselves in a loose circle.
I leaned my head back. “Okay, so, being a superhero. As far as I know, you’re the first modern superhero who wasn’t raised in the camps. Your training is going to be way different than ours.”
“There are three camps, right? That’s what we learned in school.”
“There was three originally. Now there’s six: Chattahoochee and Oconee in Georgia—”
“Patrick and I are from Oconee,” Ember interrupted. “Jill and Marco are from Chattahoochee.”
“I’m from the Coeur d’Alene camp up in Idaho,” Reid said. “I grew up on the banks of Lake Pend Oreille.”
“And the other three are in Arkansas, New York, and Virginia,” I finished. “The Arkansas camp is the newest, I think. The Virginia camp is where superheroes retire after they turn forty-five. All camps are in former national forests, and we live in little shacks and huts. No indoor plumbing or HVAC or anything. Our lives are tough. That’s the bottom line of being a superhero, so get used to it now.”
Benjamin snorted. “Don’t get all sentimental on me.”
“I’m serious. We’re up at all hours, we fight with our bare hands, and we’re always under someone’s authority. Come to think of it, that’s a good place to start your training. The entire superhero chain of command is called the ‘authority umbrella.’”
“We use the analogy of an umbrella because it keeps us safe,” Ember explained. “And yeah, we make fun of the whole ‘umbrella’ thing sometimes, but having a leader to look out for you really is the best way to live. Above the leader is our parents. Then there’s the elder.”
“Leaders have hard limits about what they can and can’t do,” I said. “For example, I can’t be courted by someone on another team, because it would divide my team loyalty. The rest of you can court anyone you want, though. I’m not really sure what the logic is there. And of course, we can’t commit crimes.”
“You also can’t attack your teammates,” Reid said quietly. Ember fiddled with her braid.
Benjamin raised an eyebrow. “I want to know what you consider an attack if beating you guys up all the time doesn’t count.”
“You know, you’re part of the authority umbrella now,” Marco commented, pointing at me, his eyes still closed.
Benjamin asked a question to which Reid replied, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Marco’s comment had dislodged something in my mind. I was the leader, voted in and obeyed as such. But was I part of the official camp authority structure?
The answer was an immediate and forceful “no.” Even though my ancestresses were among the greatest heroes to ever serve the American people, that was the past, before we had the principles. Though there was no argument that I was leading—here I sat, the leader—there wasn’t a place for me in the official hierarchy of the camps. I could wear the king’s crown, but to them I would never be king.
Then again, why did the camps have to know? If I never told anyone of the mutiny, I could go months without having to explain what happened to Patrick. Our lives in Saint Catherine were almost autonomous; we didn’t have to communicate with nearly anyone from the camps if we didn’t want to, though we had to accept regular deliveries of camp media like Leadership and Wisdom, the speeches by Elder Campbell, and other similar items. Nobody back home had a phone.
A strange thought popped into my head: Do I even want to be in the authority umbrella?
I didn’t understand my own intrusive question. Of course I wanted to be in the authority umbrella, because that meant I could lead and guide my team, protecting them from the consequences of mistakes. Being a leader was so much more than giving orders—it was giving your life for other heroes.
It was standing in front of the people who stood in front of the innocent. It was making sure my team got sleep, food, and housing even though I had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow. It was all the things Patrick had never done.
Images of Patrick yelling and raging swirled with a memory of a woman with dark hair and defiant eyes, and then I was standing on a flat rock back home, overlooking the deep creek that ran through it and contemplating the best
way to catch fish, because Gregory loved fish and Mom wanted to hang them from trees to entice Gregory to return from the depths of the forest…
“Jill, wake up.”
Marco’s gentle hand was on my shoulder, his ever-radiating heat tangible even through my clothes. I was lying down with my head on a wadded-up hoodie, though I couldn’t recall lying down. When had I fallen asleep?
Marco smiled, his warm brown eyes crinkling. “You’ve been asleep for hours. Father Kokoski brought us tons of supplies, so we’ve been setting up while you slept. Lunch is ready.”
He helped me up and we wandered into the kitchen, where a transformation had taken place.
The surfaces were now dust-free and lined with box upon box of clothes and supplies. Stacked in the corner were five squishy, worn sleeping bags, topped off with wool blankets. A collapsible card table and mismatched folding chairs stood in the middle of the kitchen.
Reid stood at one of the counters, cutting peanut butter sandwiches in half. Ember distributed little plastic containers of applesauce to each spot at the table.
Benjamin tossed me a juice box. “Hey, look who’s up. Hungry, fearless leader?”
“Starving.” I sat on one of the folding chairs. The rest of the team joined me. Reid doled out the sandwiches and we began to eat. “Where did Father Kokoski get all this stuff?”
I sincerely hoped he hadn’t spent his own money on us, or worse, money from the poor box. There were people in the city who needed it more.
Marco answered. “He said the clothes are from the thrift shop the church runs. The food is from their food pantry. A bunch of stuff is from the camping supplies the church’s Boy Scout troop keeps on hand. Everything else was stuff from around the church.”
Reid pulled an envelope from out of his pocket and slid it towards me. “He wanted you to have this. It’s money for any miscellaneous purchases. We agreed that you should be in charge of it.”
I peeked inside the envelope. There was at least five hundred dollars in it. I’d never held so much money that I hadn’t stolen, though I couldn’t help but feel that I was, in a way, stealing from the homeless population. “Why is he being so nice to us?”
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