Joe abandoned his incredibly thorough scene investigation, and – to Sam's dismay – replaced the pen in the top pocket of his jacket. Hands in pockets, he walked back to where Sam stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her in the cool San Ventura night.
Now Jacqueline Chan, SVPD's finest forensic examiner − and please, don't ever call her Jackie − could finally get on with her job without the clumsy frame of Detective Joe Milano at her elbow. Her blue-latexed hands were immediately on the collar of the old, worn coat that the body was wrapped in, not so discreetly checking that Joe's inept fiddling hadn't disturbed anything important. Sam had to smile. She knew how much Jacqueline hated it when cops touched things.
"What's the news, Jackie?"
Jacqueline tensed visibly, and Sam's smile only grew wider, knowing that Joe was using the nickname deliberately to get a bite. The doctor sighed loudly, and when she stood and turned around to face the detectives her own smile was pretty tight and thin. Behind Sam, Joe sniggered under his hand.
"What you have here, Detective Milano," said Jacqueline, stressing Joe's name in the same way a disappointed schoolteacher would address a problem student, "is what we call a dead body. Scientifically speaking, of course. Please stop me if I'm getting too technical."
Joe pulled a face and Sam suddenly wished she'd taken that reassignment to San Diego when she'd had the chance. It was late, it was a Saturday, and it was colder than a summer's night should be. But San Ventura kept her close, and she knew she could never leave. Not while he was on the loose. And at least this had got her out of the charity event. Sam idly wondered what the dictionary definition of "workaholic" was before she took a step forward to get a better look at the body and dragged the conversation back to a professional level.
"Cause and time of death, Jacqueline?"
The good doctor unfurled the protective gloves slickly from her hands.
"Time? Difficult, but he's pretty fresh. Maybe only in the last two or three hours. Actual cause will take a bit longer to get the detail, but if you want the Cliffs Notes, it's pretty easy. He was cut up, and cut up good. A sharp blade, very long. Actually, very sharp − sliced his gut like jello."
Sam winced at the image. Unusual causes of death in San Ventura were not, well, unusual. Plasma incineration, bones powdered with a superpowered punch, flesh rendered molecule by molecule: the SuperCrime department had seen it all. Including, on very rare and significant occasions, the results of a knife so sharp it fell through solid objects. It was the preferred hand-to-hand weapon of San Ventura's finest and most upstanding citizen, the Cowl.
Except…
"It's not him."
Sam snapped out of her thoughts. Jacqueline was looking right at her. Sam held the gaze for one confused moment, then blinked and asked what she meant.
"The Cowl. I know what you're thinking, girl, and it ain't him. Can't be. You want to get down closer and see the mess that the perp made of the body. The Cowl is clean, perfect. When he uses that magic knife of his it's with precision, finesse. He uses it because it leaves no trace, unless you know what to look for. Which we do. But he and that sidekick of his never leave any evidence. You and I both know that."
Sam nodded. The Cowl's famous knife was, mostly, a weapon of last resort, used only if the supervillain didn't have time to unleash the array of incredible superpowers at his disposal. When you have superstrength, superspeed, invincibility and a dozen other abilities that were beyond the understanding of science, there usually wasn't much a knife could do that you couldn't do yourself with a flick of a spandex-wrapped wrist.
Not for the first time, Sam completely failed to understand why the SVPD − normal, ordinary, unpowered people with regular families and lives − were left to deal with supercrimes while the city's great protectors, the Seven Wonders, were not.
A second later and the thought evaporated. It was something she had felt every day for the last five years. All the cops in the city did. They had a job to do just like anyone else, and damn the Seven Wonders.
"Hey, Jacqueline, you seen this?"
Joe was at the end of the alley, which terminated in a chain-link fence, beyond which lay a courtyard and an outhouse with a low roof, most likely the back-end of a restaurant. Against the fence a squat rectangular dumpster had been pushed, filled with damp cardboard boxes, folded or crushed presumably by whoever worked in the brick building that formed the west-facing wall of the alley. The dumpster had seen better days, for sure – it looked like a delivery or more likely a collection truck had reversed into it at high speed, crumpling the front side of it.
Joe was squatting again, poking at the side of the bin with his pen. He stood as Jacqueline and Sam approached and gave the dumpster one final drum. The sound rang out dully in the still night air.
"Well, well, well…" Jacqueline peered closer at the side of the dumpster. Joe moved out of her way, and shot a grin at Sam.
"I think we got us some evidence, detective."
Sam blinked, and watched Jacqueline's hunched back as she worked at something on the dumpster. After a moment she stood and turned, brandishing a shining set of tiny tweezers in both hands. Between their claws, a triangular strip of what looked like black plastic. Sam squinted, unable to see it clearly, but Jacqueline fished out a pen-sized flashlight and trained it on the find. The plastic shone in the beam, the curved surface of the fragment smooth and patterned with a tiny triangular gray weave.
"What is that? Fabric?"
Jacqueline shook her head, and shuffled to one side to let Sam have a clear look at the dumpster. She played the flashlight over the surface, revealing patches of shiny bare metal all over the damaged area. Fresh, clean damage.
"Look," said Jacqueline, pointing to a thin gash that penetrated the dumpster's wall. "Looks like it's been cut with the knife too." The edges of the cut were thin and most likely razor-sharp. Sam reached forward then pulled her fingers short as she thought better of touching it.
"The plastic, or fabric, or whatever it is, was embedded in the cut." Joe pointed with his pen, indicated the point at which the knife had stopped as it sliced into the metal.
Sam stood, thoughts racing in her head. Evidence? Impossible. The Cowl never left anything concrete. But something had clearly gone very, very wrong here. The quantum knife was an easy weapon to wield, yet there were signs the victim had put up a hell of a fight. And now a bent dumpster and a scrap of fabric.
Sam felt her chest going tight. Did she dare think that the fabric came from the Cowl's famous cloak?
"Detective? Hello?"
Sam blinked as Jacqueline clicked her fingers in front of her face. Sam jerked back in surprise, and then a smile began to creep upwards, very slowly, from one corner of her mouth. Jacqueline nodded and smiled herself.
"Do you know what this means, Sam? You've got what you always wanted. Evidence linking the Cowl to a crime scene."
Sam exhaled. "Sonovabitch."
"Damn right, detective." Joe laughed. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a trail."
Sam clicked her tongue in thought, then nodded, a small smile beginning to play over her lips. "Come on, partner," she said, as she took a step back towards the cars. Joe nodded, then turned to Jacqueline and gave her a wink. The doctor laughed and touched his shoulder.
"Off you go, big boy. Hey, you still free Tuesday?"
"I think you might need to ask Detective Millar about that."
Sam laughed and headed off, Joe stalking behind her, the pair leaving Jacqueline to continue her work long into the night.
Evidence.
Goddamn solid, concrete, real evidence.
Sam felt like her grin was a thousand miles wide as she tripped down the alley towards the police cars.
Screw the Seven Wonders. Leave Gillespie to blow them off, there was no time to go back for their meeting at the hotel. She didn't check her watch but it must have been after eleven now anyway.
Detective Sam Millar had evidence. She was going to solv
e this case herself, and catch the Cowl.
She was going to save the city.
CHAPTER TEN
The black woman in the brown dress brought the champagne to her lips, but didn't drink. It was a pretense, a charade to satisfy curious glances, nothing more. Even if she wasn't here undercover, Sand Cat would have acted the same. This society was not hers, and it still confused her. All the city's most important and most wealthy people, each with their own conceits and vices, secrets and affairs, tax dodges and off-shore accounts, gathered in artificial celebration of a law enforcement service that none of them would dream of relying upon, of trusting. It was ridiculous. Pretending to drink champagne was nothing. Everybody in the whole room was pretending.
But this was the way of the world. Aurora and Bluebell had taught her that, and she accepted the fact that as an outsider she could never understand, and importantly, never take part. She had an honorbound duty to uphold the law and defend the city, and for her this was more important than her own life. And if, occasionally, she took pause from her mission to observe the city's inhabitants in their natural environment – specimens to be examined, studied – then this was all part of her ongoing education. Aurora would be pleased.
"I know that look."
Aurora's arrival at her side surprised her, lost as she was in her own thoughts, but she did not allow herself to show it. With instincts honed to virtually supernatural levels, her body remained entirely still in the casual pose she had copied from another woman in a similar dress on the other side of the ballroom. Sand Cat held her glass to her chin, gazing out across the crowd with a knowing smile. This she had also copied. Inside, she cursed herself for letting her guard down. Aurora was a walking nuclear reactor. To not notice him walking up behind her was unacceptable. She was a warrior like no other.
She repented her failings to the Goddess, and vowed never to let it happen again. She continued to scan the room in front of her.
"I too received the alert. What did SMART report?"
Aurora moved closer, standing by Sand Cat's side and casting a smile across the room. To anyone watching, it was just the city's most famous superhero having a casual chat with just one of the many beautiful women in the room. Although Sand Cat's face was never obscured by a mask, with the dress, hair and make-up, she was unrecognizable to anyone who didn't know her personally.
He dropped his voice to a whisper.
"The Angel Vault is offline. We must assume the worst."
Sand Cat flinched at the news, her previous vow temporarily forgotten. The vaults were hidden, scattered throughout the city. It had been Bluebell's greatest achievement. If someone had been able to not only identify the vaults, but breach them, it… well, it was unthinkable.
"The Cowl?"
"There is no one else."
Sand Cat placed her still-full glass down on the edge of a table behind her.
"Understood. We need to head back to the Citadel."
Aurora nodded. "Agreed."
Sand Cat stalked off, her powerful stride cutting a path directly across the packed ballroom.
Aurora watched Sand Cat leave, then clicked a control on his belt again. There was no need to worry about drawing undue attention now. The city needed its protectors, and there was no harm in letting the assembled guests see the call to arms.
Aurora's halo pulsed and changed from yellow to red. Several nearby guests gasped and stared, in awe of the powerful superhero and his fiery aura.
Aurora raised a hand in apology. He clicked the communicator on his belt again, and this time spoke with a voice loud and clear, a voice known to everybody in the room from the television news and, for some, from seeing Aurora battling the Cowl out in the streets of the city.
"Seven Wonders, unite!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tony remembered the first day the powers manifested.
It had been a hot night, and Tony had drifted in and out of sleep. He turned over and frowned into his pillow. He'd dreamed of a bus ride home and the night he'd met Jeannie. He'd been dreaming about the recent past more and more frequently. Maybe, he thought, it was a side effect of his new situation, of being happy and of feeling safe. It was all new to him.
He screwed his eyelids tight, but it did nothing to block the brightness of the morning light. He sighed and rolled to the left, then curled to the right, then turned onto his stomach and pushed his face into the pillow, drawing the edge of it over the back of his head. But no matter what position, the day was a red glow that told him he needed to get up, that it was very late, and that the day was being wasted. A Saturday too. Tony hated sleeping in at the weekend − weekends were a precious gift that only came once a week, and every hour had to be savored. But it had been a late night… so maybe just another five minutes… maybe ten… maybe…
The red light pulsed painfully. Had he left the curtain open in his tiny bedroom? It was so bright, it had to be nearly midday. Shit.
"Um… Tony? Tony, wake up."
Tony's body jolted at the voice, and he swung up onto one elbow. Jeannie was sitting up in the bed beside him, under the covers but with the sheet drawn fully to her chin. He noticed first her clenched hands holding the sheet up, almost like a shield. Then he noticed the look of fear on her tired face. She looked like she'd only just woken as well.
Tony reached a hand towards her. "Jeannie? What's wrong?" She backed away farther against the bedstead, eyes fixed on Tony's outstretched hand. Tony stopped, and raised his hand to his face.
It was glowing bright yellow.
His skin hadn't changed color; he could see his hand and bare arm quite clearly. But they were surrounded by a bright aura, a shimmering corona of pale yellow light. Tony gawped, and raised his other, glowing arm.
"Tony?"
Tony leapt off the bed. "What the fuck? Shit. Shit shit shit shit."
His entire body shone with light, illuminating the room in the yellow-white glare of a midsummer's day. Tony saw that the curtain on the one window in the room had indeed been left open, the square window beyond nothing but a black mirror, reflecting Tony's image back at him. It was still the middle of the night.
"What's the time?"
Jeannie scrambled for the clock on the dresser with one hand while the other kept the sheet taut at her neck.
"4.23." She let the clock clatter back to the bedside table. "Are you OK? What the fuck is going on?"
Tony walked around the bed to the full-length mirror that was propped up against the bare patch of wall by his built-in closet. He stared at himself, turning his body experimentally to get a good look.
"What the hell is this?" he whispered, half to himself. His entire body was surrounded by a white-gold halo. The aura didn't seem to touch his skin, it surrounded him, starting at about two inches out from his body, extending for another six, and flaring out to a moving, ragged edge. As he moved his hands, arms, legs, head, the aura moved with him, flaring slightly at sudden motion but otherwise remaining a near-perfect, encapsulating field.
Behind him he heard Jeannie shuffle in the bed, then heard her bare feet on the carpet and the pulling of fabric as she came to stand behind him, wrapped in the bed sheet. She appeared in the mirror over his shoulder, standing outside the range of his glow, but close enough to touch. Their reflected eyes met.
"Well, this is San Ventura," she said. "City of fucking weird shit. Do you feel OK? Does it hurt?"
Tony swung his arm back and forth across his front, mesmerized by the reflected glow in the mirror. It was a few seconds before he answered.
"No… no, it feels… it feels good. I feel fine, I mean… Welcome to the Shining City…" he breathed. In the mirror he saw Jeannie reaching out to gingerly touch his shoulder. When she did, her worried face cracked with a hesitant smile.
"It tingles, like putting your tongue on a battery."
Tony smiled. San Ventura, city of fucking weird shit?
"You think something is going on? The Seven Wonders up to something? L
ike that time all the grass and leaves in the city turned orange for a day?"
Jeannie stroked his shoulder and bit her bottom lip. In the mirror Tony saw the hairs on her arm stand on end, and Tony thought he could smell the smell of the ground after a thunderstorm.
"I don't know," she said. "This city is fucked up. But… I kinda like it."
Tony turned around. He felt good, refreshed somehow. Who the fuck knew what the glow was, but it lit the room like an aurora, and his girlfriend liked it.
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