He felt sick and euphoric and afraid and excited. Then he clutched his stomach, covering his jacket with the blood as a nauseating pulse of adrenaline coursed through his body. His chest felt like it was on fire, his lungs underwater.
What had he done? Oh, what he had done…
He straightened and checked the street. It was deserted, he was alone, and nobody had seen.
He'd saved a life, that's what he'd done. And there was now one less Omega gang in the city. Well… that was… good, right? The woman had run and the kids wouldn't be bothering anyone in the park – or anywhere else – ever again.
But… this wasn't his plan. This wasn't how it was supposed to work. The ends had justified the means but… Jesus, what had he done?
True Wisdom and True Conversion, Piety, Joy of Finding…
Conroy wiped his hands on his jacket as best he could, then slipped it off and dumped it in the gutter. He glanced down at his shirt, keeping his gore-soaked hands far away from it. He felt dizzy and cold and almost staggered but managed to keep himself upright as he realized his mistake.
The sigil. He wasn't wearing the Cowl's suit, but more importantly that meant he wasn't wearing the sigil, the complex array of runes which, when placed over his heart, removed him from God's sight. With the Cowl's suit on he was invisible, free to move and act as he pleased and as he needed. But without it, God could see him.
God could see him.
Conroy retched and spat a mouthful of bile onto the street. How could he have been so stupid?
That was it. There was nothing else left for him to do.
He needed to talk to someone, one man in particular, and it wasn't far.
It was open, of course. It was open all night, every night, and Conroy wasn't alone. Three people sat at the back, one sat at the front, and there were at least two that he'd seen lying on the pews, asleep. Around the edges of the cathedral lurked a priest, somewhere. Conroy had seen him when he'd come in but the man had vanished with no more than a cursory nod. Maybe he'd recognized Conroy.
Conroy chose a spot three back from the altar, and knelt with his forehead resting on the pew in front. The wood was cold and smooth.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
"Haven't seen you in a while, Geoffrey."
Conroy opened his eyes but did not move his head. He stared at the dark brown grain of the pew an inch from his eyes. But he did smile, just a little.
"Father Theodore," he said, and he was surprised to find his voice cracking.
A hand on his shoulder. Thick fingers, old but strong. Father Theodore had been a boxer once. One of the best. There was a rumor that'd he even trained some of the superheroes in hand-to-hand combat before turning to God. Conroy knew that rumor to be solid fact.
"Strange time to come to church, my boy."
Conroy lifted himself from the pew and looked at his old friend through wet eyes. Father Theodore was smiling, his thick gray eyebrows pushed halfway up his forehead like the roof of an A-frame house.
The eyebrows stayed there while the smile dropped as Conroy lifted his hand. He kept it low, out of sight of anyone else not sitting in the same pew.
"Oh my Jesus," whispered Conroy, not taking his eyes from Father Theodore's face. "Forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven. Especially those most in need of thy mercy."
Father Theodore looked at the blood-soaked rosary beads, then stood.
"Something tells me you have something to say," he said. He turned, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked toward the confessional that stood to the side of the pew in front of them.
Conroy pocketed the beads, took a deep breath, and followed.
True Wisdom and True Conversion, Piety.
Geoff Conroy breathed the warm air and ran a blood-free hand through his hair. After his confession, Father Theodore had taken Conroy deep into the workings of the cathedral, through his office and into the private chambers that lay beyond the sight of the general public. Conroy had cleaned himself up, washed his hands and his face, which had been bright red from crying. The priest had taken the rosary and sent Conroy out. He didn't need it anymore – or, at least, not for a while.
Conroy had faced his demons and his sins, and had a new mission.
It was early morning, the sun just kissing the cloudless sky, turning the deep midnight blue overhead to a gentle whitish nearer the horizon. From outside the cathedral, Conroy could see right down the street, one of the main thoroughfares of the city, almost to the famous beaches.
The ground ahead of him was a rainbow display of color, a shimmering, incandescent projection. Conroy watched the multicolored shapes for a moment. He raised his hands in front of him, and turned them over in the colored light, as if he were drying his hands under the fan in a public bathroom.
He smiled and turned. At the opposite end of the street, in a square at the very heart of San Ventura, stood the Citadel of Wonders. It was a giant, triangular crystal shard, magically transparent but multifaceted, clearly an artificial structure but somehow appearing organic, like a natural, perfect slice of quartz. In the bright morning light it acted as a prism, shining the rainbow light across the whole city. And as the sun moved during the day, so the rainbow did as well, spotlighting nearly the entire city as it swept around from dawn to dusk.
Conroy felt his heart race. He had a price to pay, and a duty to perform. His past was catching up with him, but he accepted that. Father Theodore had been right. Penance and sacrifice, but also responsibility and acceptance. God was watching now. God knew who he was.
Geoff Conroy, formerly the Cowl, squared his shoulders and walked towards the Seven Wonders.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Lair was dark, the systems on total shutdown. In the dark it was dangerous, with unrailed walkways over abyssal drops. And deep underground, the darkness was absolute.
Tony frowned. He held the white plasma globe as high as he could above his head, not that he could get burnt, but to keep it well away from Jeannie. Even at a distance of several feet, Jeannie's exposed face was red from the heat. But until she could get the Lair systems rebooted, Tony's light was all they had.
They approached the walkway leading to the main control platform, Tony's globe illuminating the dead bank of screens at the opposite side of the cavern. Tony's light didn't penetrate very far into the dark that fell away on either side of the bridge. Something told him it was very, very deep.
Jeannie indicated for Tony to head over the bridge, and keeping a safe distance, followed him. Tony found a space on the edge of the platform that allowed Jeannie enough safe room to work, and shuffling his bare feet on the smooth tiled floor, took a good look at the Cowl's abandoned Lair. He didn't speak for quite a time, unwilling to start a conversation he knew would turn into a strung-out exchange, half argument, half prolonged explanation. And besides, Jeannie had brought them here and she needed to get the systems back online. Tony decided that silence was golden.
That worked for a while as Jeannie pulled open panels to check wiring and connections. But as much as Tony tried to keep his mind occupied, scanning the cavernous space with X-ray vision and infrared vision, his mind continually wandered back to the great elephant in the room.
To his surprise, it was Jeannie who spoke first. She must have been thinking the same thing.
"Aren't you going to ask about Blackbird? About all this?"
When Tony answered, it was abrupt and came after nearly half a minute's pause.
"Nope."
Jeannie flicked a switch experimentally, and a few blue and red LED pinpricks lit up on the desk. She turned and sat against the edge of the desk, facing Tony.
"This is − was − the Cowl's Lair."
"Yep."
"He's gone, you know. Vanished."
"That a fact?"
"It is," she said, and then paused. "I know where the Lair is and how to get in because I'm Blackbird."
&nbs
p; "So I've been told."
"Don't you want to kill me?"
For the first time, Tony stopped looking around the Lair and set his eyes on Jeannie. At this distance, and with the hazy glow of the plasma globe melting the air between them, her expression was hard to read.
He shrugged, juggling the plasma ball and changing the shadows around the Lair. "I don't kill people. I'm a member of the Seven Wonders, remember?"
Tony watched the spittle fly from her mouth as Jeannie laughed, almost hysterically.
"Yeah, and that's going so well, isn't it? I guess police don't count as people now."
Tony frowned. She was right, of course, but the scene back at the apartment was fading from his mind already and even just a few hours later didn't feel real, somehow. Shock, perhaps. Everything felt dreamlike, surreal. He looked at Jeannie and tried to picture her as the infamous Blackbird. She was the right size and shape. And he'd known there was something about her, from when he first met her in the bar. Something which he'd put down to an "X-factor", something indefinable that drew two strangers together on a hot summer night.
No, it hadn't been like that. Tony wouldn't have dreamt of approaching someone like her. She had come to him. It was so unlikely as to be, well, highly improbable, if not downright impossible.
Tony felt sick. It wasn't about attraction at all. She had chosen him. Then used him, constructing a complex pretense, playing a role with such depth that only a supervillain could.
"That's it, isn't it?" he said at last. "You've been training me all along to be the new Cowl. You picked me from the crowd. A tool to be used. And don't I just feel like one."
The plasma ball in his hand flickered in time with his anger. He felt it grow hotter and was pleased to see Jeannie flinch a little.
She turned back to the control desk and flicked a few more switches. The sound of a generator winding up somewhere behind the rock walls filled the Lair, and soft spotlights came on, strategically illuminating parts of the cavern. Tony flicked the plasma ball up; out of his hands, it sputtered out with a pop a dozen yards above his head. Even the flash as it went out couldn't light the ceiling.
"Very nice," he said. "A secret lair fit for a supervillain." He took a few paces towards the control desk and towards Jeannie.
"Why me?"
Jeannie licked her lips. "It took a while to find the right person. Had to be someone with strong feelings about the Cowl, about the Seven Wonders. Harder than you might think."
"How long did you follow me for?"
"Oh," said Jeannie with a shrug. "A couple of months." She turned and waved at the towering computer screens and panels behind her. "Amazing the kind of search and surveillance you can do on this thing."
"And your boss never knew?"
Jeannie laughed again. "The Cowl is a somewhat self-absorbed individual."
Tony nodded, like an appreciative new employee being given a tour of a particularly fascinating stationery cupboard. Slowly he reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist. Jeannie smiled and returned the gesture, but Tony quickly pulled her against his chest and squeezed too hard to be comfortable.
"So, the thing I'm wondering now…" he said, speaking slowly. Jeannie looked up into his face. He was smiling again, but that in that slightly pissed-off way that people who have just been insulted sometimes do to show they're not backing down. "… is whether we're really in this together, or whether you've been double-dipping with the Cowl and I'm just another toy for you two supervillains to play with. Maybe he hasn't vanished. Maybe he's just waiting around the corner, waiting for this diabolical scheme to come to a head."
Jeannie tried to push away, but Tony held his grip for a good few seconds before letting her step back. Time to show her who was in charge of their partnership now.
"The Cowl's gone," said Jeannie. "Trust me, he's not coming back, not for a while anyway."
Tony raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"Time for the big reveal then, eh?" Jeannie turned and walked with some purpose back to the computer desk. Her whole posture changed, even her gait. Jeannie had become Blackbird. As much as he hated to admit it, as much as the confusion of the last few hours had clouded his mind, he was impressed. A secret identity was more than just a costume and a funny name. He had to remember that.
At the desk, she stood beside the tall swivel chair and leaned over, typing at a keyboard to bring all seven displays to life, then stood back and gestured at the chair, turning it slightly in invitation. Tony walked over and slumped into it before turning his attention to the bank of active, but blank, monitors.
Jeannie opened a folder of files on the huge main display, then two more folders on two of the smaller secondary panels. The main display showed the CIT directory, the smaller monitors a list of files detailing something called Meta Induction Coupling and Negation. Tony frowned, but Jeannie just waved at the screens.
"Listen to the audios and read everything. I'll be back when you're done." She turned on her heel and left the platform via a side bridge, then vanished into the darkness. Tony heard some tapping and a beep as a concealed door opened, and then Tony was alone in the Cowl's Lair.
Jeannie kept walking, away from the cavern, away from Tony, away from the sounds of her parents' screams and the Cowl's taunts that filled the air. She slipped through another door and was finally out of earshot of the horror.
This was not how it was supposed to have played out. Blackbird had started something and Jeannie wasn't sure she could finish it.
Alone in the corridors, Jeannie slid to the floor, and wept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
An hour later and Tony was still sitting in the swivel chair, stroking his unshaven chin in thought. As Jeannie strode in, soft-soled combat boots silent on the hard polished floor, he flicked the main monitors off and turned the chair to watch her approach. His supersense had picked up her approach − he'd also heard her sobbing in the corridor earlier. He looked her up and down, his expression unchanging.
Black boots over shiny, skintight leather pants topped with a matteblack utility belt. Above this, the leather catsuit continued to the neck, although it was currently unzipped almost to her navel. The suit had other black enameled zips arranged on it, tiny pockets and compartments holding wonderful gadgets and tools. In one hand she held an elaborate mask, a streamlined helmet with a thick, curved triangular beak and large circular goggles. The sides of the mask followed the contour of the beak as it swept backwards and up, giving two wings on either side of the head that were tapered and fluted like feathers carved out of obsidian. In the low light of the Lair, Jeannie's pale skin almost shone behind the open zipper, her short dyed hair glistening blue-black.
Blackbird.
Tony couldn't help but smile at her entrance, and she seemed to relax, and grinned. She threw Tony the item she was holding in her other hand. It was a black fabric half-mask that would cover the face down to the nose, leaving the mouth and chin exposed. Tony held it up, opening the mask with his fingers, and stared at the face of the Cowl.
"You gave me my powers," Tony said, poking his fingers through the eyeholes. "You took the powers from him and gave them to me, with your machine, the Meta Induction thing. He killed your parents." Tony stopped and sighed. "Doesn't explain why you're his sidekick."
Blackbird walked around the chair, making Tony swing around to follow her as she sat on the edge of the computer desk on the opposite side.
"I was his 'sidekick' long before I knew he'd killed my parents. Their death was what drove me to the… well, it was what led me down a dark and dangerous road. I was angry and he made me an offer."
"The master and his apprentice?"
"Not quite," she said. "My parents were involved with top-secret military research at CIT. I'm moderately powered thanks to them. A bit of strength and agility, fractionally above the upper limit of human normal. Not much, but when they died, I felt something else break inside. I had no idea how or why they died, but I felt a
rage burning. Hatred of the city and whoever had done it and those goddamn motherfucking superheroes who didn't give a shit. My parents were fucking well working for them, for Christ's sake!"
Blackbird stopped and looked at the floor. Tony kept his gaze on her, waited for the anger to pass, then asked: "So you wanted revenge?"
Blackbird shook her head, nodded, then shrugged. "Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. But playing by the rules had done nothing for my parents, who gave their lives working to protect the world. Of course back then it wasn't just the Cowl − there were supervillains all over the world, every city had them."
Tony nodded. "And then the superheroes won."
"Then the superheroes won." Jeannie repeated Tony's statement without emotion. "Ain't that a fact. Except not in San Ventura, where the last active superheroes keep the city safe from the last active supervillain. Ever wondered why that is? The Cowl was powerful, sure, but there was only one of him and seven of them. Not to mention superheroes all over the world, hundreds of them. Their combined might could crack the planet in two."
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