Even Villains Have Interns

by Liana Brooks

  “Everything seems normal.” She touched the screen and zoomed in. “You guys need better equipment.”

  “We got new stuff last year. Every picture in the office came out distorted until we took the apple out.”

  She froze. “Apple?” Serial killers with an apple as a calling card. She knew who that was right away, and none of it was good.

  “A golden apple paperweight. We think it’s bugged, but our tech people haven’t figured out how it works yet. They’re trying to crack it open.”

  Delilah was already shaking her head. “Bad idea. Don’t do that. They tend to explode.”

  Morrow let out a breath she hadn’t realized he was holding. “Yeah. I’d heard about that. In Atlanta, right? After the DEA officer was shot?”

  Delilah exhaled, rubbing at her forehead. “Last October. This spring the Wooden Wonder had an apple on him when he was killed.” She met Morrow’s eye. “Apples are not a good thing. Though the warped images is a new twist,” she added.

  He perched on the edge of the spare seat. “What information can you give me?”

  “Lots of guesses and no names, alas.” Delilah tapped the video stick in her hand. “The apples are the calling card of a serial killer, or group of serial killers, who call themselves The Golden Hunt of Atlanta. Possibly a reference to the city, possibly a reference to the mythical Atlanta. I think they started as a normal hunt club, going after deer and foxes, but someone at the top isn’t right in the head.” She stared at her white board, the hastily written names blurring into abstract art. “They started hunting humans. Picking off the weak, the forgotten. They prey on the most vulnerable.”

  “Like wolves?”

  “Like vultures.” Rage simmered beneath her calm facade. One day she was going to find the leader of the Hunt, and then God have mercy on his soul, because she wouldn’t. “I’ve linked nearly twenty deaths to the group. Some of the kills are straightforward, like Arámbula. The more dangerous they consider the victim, the more they like to toy with them. The Wooden Wonder was a superhero, nigh on immortal as we would understand it. Almost nothing could hurt him, but they burned him alive.”

  Morrow had settled back in the chair and was taking notes. “Why? What’s the motive?”

  She stared at him, eyes cold. “Survival of the fittest, detective. They are Darwinists. Except they take it to an extreme only Hitler could appreciate. They believe they are superior, and the rest of us are just animals. We’re prey.” Delilah smiled, but she knew it didn’t soften her features. “I have a transcription from the one caught in the DEA case.” She pulled it up on the computer.

  “Did the guy go to jail?”

  “He died three hours after booking. The arresting police officer died in a traffic accident the same night.”

  Morrow frowned at her. “How’d you get a copy of the interrogation?”

  She shrugged. “My tip led to the arrest, and I was with Officer Kimley when it happened. Out of habit, my recorder was on. I wanted evidence for court. Emmet Grear babbled like a brook. He told us all sorts of things, some of it utter nonsense, but the Atlanta PD couldn’t take the case any further. The perpetrator was dead.”

  “But he had someone on the outside,” Morrow argued. “He had someone mess with Kimley’s car. Right?”

  “That’s always been my suspicion, but I could never collect enough evidence to move on it. They’re cagey. They like anonymity. The apple is for the victim. They want them to know they’re about to die. They want them to run scared.”

  Morrow shook his head. “That’s just sick.”

  “It’s a troubled world, detective.” She held his video stick out. “I’ll send you all the files I have.”

  “Send it to Gelphi, he’s handling the investigation.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want copies?”

  Morrow pulled his hat on. “Officially, no.”

  “I’ll send the files to your private email then,” Delilah said, softening to a real smile. “Along with a question about the dress code for the benefit dinner.”

  He winked at her. “You’re the best. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “I never will.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dear Maria,

  Where the hell is our baby sister? I tried emailing Noah and, lo and behold, his military address no longer works. Did you know he wasn’t active duty anymore? I didn’t even know you were allowed to quit! You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you? He would definitely call someone if he was in trouble. He’d call Blessing, right? So where is she?

  Call as soon as you can,

  Delilah

  Golden apples. The Spirit of Chicago balanced his chair on two legs and put his feet up on the table. He’d snuck into Chicago’s main library after hours to see if the book he remembered from childhood reading forays was still in circulation. It was, and now he was ensconced on the eighth floor of the Harold Washington Library Center, reading the old mythology book like he was twelve again.

  He flipped through the weathered pages, ripped and torn by thousands of careless hands over the years—and repaired with great patience, no doubt. Golden apples. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it meant something. There were the Golden Apples of Discord, used by the goddess Eris to start the Trojan War. Kallisti, the fairest.

  Well, he doubted anyone had needed to convince Helen to leave her aging husband for a younger man. That happened even without meddling goddesses. There were golden apples of immortality in several mythologies.

  A beguiling idea, but that didn’t seem right for a serial killer, not unless he thought killing people would bring him immortality. And there were the golden apples of Atlanta, thrown during a foot race to distract the goddess. That sounded almost right. Distractions...

  He shelved the book back where he’d found it and drifted through the library. From his pocket he pulled a page from Arámbula’s day planner, the unofficial one no one was supposed to know about. The ripped page had been crumpled in the jacket the mayor had left behind in the office after the meeting. There was a partial date on the corner.

  Three numbers and a hunch wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. He stepped through a wall into the shadows, and out into the snowy Chicago night.

  ***

  No one at Sub Rosa Securities knew about Delilah’s alter ego, the super-villain-by-default Locke. They’d hired her at the Blackhat conference in Las Vegas when she was still playing around as LockPick and earning good money finding holes in people’s security systems. Subrosa offered her all that and healthcare. She’d signed once they added a rider to her contract that kept them from asking too many personal questions about life before they hired her.

  During her three years in Chicago, no one had ever questioned her results. Legal methods turned up plenty of dirt; her methods turned up more. But Wil had never once asked why. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t believe her anyway, even if she swore on a stack of Bibles.

  Still, over the years she’d found fewer and fewer reasons to pull out her steampunk suit with its clocks, copper curls, and a top hat. There were better ways to curb her curiosity. But tonight she needed Locke. She needed to have something for people to look at, if they looked at all, because Kalydon hadn’t left traces on the computer.

  Three hours of gleaning every grain of information from the web had resulted in a pitiful biography. Edgar Kalydon had been an average son of a blue-collar family until a lottery ticket on his 18th birthday had changed his life. He’d dropped out of school, found himself an accountant, and enjoyed his life living off the interest.

  There was no record of drug abuse, and although he’d gone through four wives in under twenty years and any number of girlfriends, there was no abuse reported. His major vices seemed to be a stubborn self-centeredness—something Delilah didn’t find herself quick to condemn—and a passion for hunting. He’d been a big game hunter in his younger years, and an avid skeet shooter well into his sixties. Now, nearly eighty-five, he
seemed to have settled down.

  Maybe it was paranoia that made him so cagey. Or maybe he was a victim of the hunt too, being stalked like Arámbula was.

  “Hudson? Thames?” Delilah called over her shoulder as she shrugged a Kevlar jacket cut in Edwardian style on. Four points of red light lit the dark hall—eyes, although not the sort most people liked to see. Hudson and Thames were gargoyle-style Minions, genetic marvels created in her father’s lab to guard her in the big city. “Fly over to the Wacker building. Do a preliminary scan, and settle down to watch. I want reports coming into base in thirty-second intervals, and instant alerts if Kalydon arrives. Do you have all the information you need?”

  There was the sound of stone scrapping against stone as Hudson opened his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She finished dressing and strode to the control room. When she originally bought the apartment, the realtor had waxed poetic on how nice it would be to have a second bedroom, how big it was, what a nice nursery or guest room or workout room it would make. Delilah had nodded noncommittally; the poor woman’s nerves wouldn’t have handled hearing her real plan, which was to make it a windowless safe room with a super computer that made everything they had at Langley and the Pentagon look slow.

  Fortunately, the computer drew power from a kinetic energy strip she’d installed in the subway system and didn’t affect her power bill.

  Her minion-in-chief glanced up from one of the terminals as she entered. There was no denying that Freddie was a warty, bulbous affront to nature and the good reputation of frogs everywhere, but he passed for a short human in a trench coat and fedora, so she’d never complained. “Kalydon left the building ten minutes ago, ma’am.”

  Delilah nodded. “Is there anyone else on the premises?”

  “Two desk clerks sitting in the lobby. They alternate rounds on the main floor every two hours, checking locks and stuff. It’s all for show,” he said laconically.

  She nodded again. “Should be easy enough. What’s the angle of entry?”

  “Building across the street. Subrosa has security there.” He passed her a tablet with the building layout.

  “I know this one.”

  “We can create a window for seven minutes. Long enough for Thames to tie a zipline on, or fly you across.”

  Delilah scooped up a handful of tiny golden buttons from a bucket near the computer. One of them buzzed. When activated, they were pinky-nail sized bugs capable of flying and attaching themselves to her chosen victim. In the unlikely event that Kalydon had no security in his apartment that would detect them, she’d leave a few of the snoops behind.

  “What do normal girls do on a Tuesday night, Freddie?”

  “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

  “Neither would I. Pull the car around. I’ll be down in a moment.” With a perfunctory bow he left the room, webbed feet flapping on the tile. Her other minions, all miniatures of Freddie, continued with their work, bat-like ears twitching as they listened to the Minion Midnight Radio station that was tuned too high for her to hear.

  There was probably something unethical about creating a sentient species and immediately putting them to work for you. Probably. But his lack of ethics was what made Daddy a successful super villain—and she couldn’t help but think that it also contributed to his success as university professor when he left his life of crime. Grad students and minions had a lot in common, including, cold, clammy hands.

  Delilah shuddered and left the room to check the mirror one last time. The trick to an effective disguise was to wear something that could pass as commonplace without being everyday wear. The steampunk community in Chicago was legendary, ever since the Affair of 2017. Teenagers wore gear-worked backpacks to school, painted their nails rustic copper colors, and read H.G. Wells on e-readers covered in Gail Carriger stickers.

  Most nights of the week it wasn’t uncommon to see groups of ‘punkers traveling around, usually en route to their role-playing guilds. Even in the dead of winter they were out.

  Delilah’s outfit blended in with them: a heavy, black-wool coat with brass buttons, a top hat with gears and turkey feathers, and a Daddy-modified pocket watch that was probably breaking the Geneva Convention just by existing. The corset was something she’d picked up at a Ren Fest, along with the leather britches. The boots were from a thrift store, and the copper curls were from her metalworking class in high school. Her teacher had been less than thrilled with the sharp-edged wig, and after some thought, Delilah had rounded the edges so she didn’t slice her throat open tossing her hair.

  Satisfied that she could pass as another disaffected college student rebelling against the social norm, Delilah headed downstairs. Freddie was waiting in the underground parking garage in her cab. “Seventy-Seven Wacker, please, Freddie. There’s work to be done.”

  Chapter Eight

  Dear Blessing,

  I have a ticket for a flight out of O.R. Tambo International in Jo-burg for the twentieth. If you can’t get to South Africa in time, let me know, and I’ll send a charter flight to anywhere but a warzone. I know you loathe checking your email, but please, respond!

  If it helps at all, Noah is stateside again. The house we’re renting for the holidays is less than an hour from his parents’ place.

  Totally bribing you,

  Delilah

  Inside 77 Wacker, Delilah leaned against Kalydon’s apartment door. The old wood was cold and smooth beneath her fingers. She let out a breath, and a part of her travelled with it, seeping into wall and the wood, flowing between the molecules, searching for the break between the wall and the door...

  Theoretically she could simply break the bonds between the molecules in the wall and make her own entrance, but that was always a tricky proposition. She’d tried it once or twice, at home in Texas where large explosions went unnoticed by the cattle and jackrabbits. Molecular bonds packed a lot more energy than a twelve-year-old could anticipate though, and she’d accidentally burned a large hole in the Hill Country trying to take a tennis ball apart. Over the years she’d learned to control the energy release, take it into herself or displace it somewhere nearby, but it still tended to be messy.

  Delilah’s senses crept outwards. A line of metal divided the wood of the door from the wall, but that was it. No real door—and absolutely no lock to pick.

  In the corner of her vision, something moved. Delilah pivoted, looking across the hall at the dark, blank windows. Forty-eight floors up with no ledges, and no escape. She touched her earpiece. “How are things outside?”

  “All quiet,” Hudson reported.

  “Nothing to see,” Thames agreed.

  Freddie cleared his throat. “Control has Kalydon in the building, but no eyes on.”

  Delilah shook her head. “Not good enough. I want eyes on Kalydon right now.”

  “Tricky,” said a lighter alto voice that was one of the gem-series minions in the control room. “The theater has live security, and isn’t readily hackable.”

  “So send in the pixies.”

  Various minions swore in a mixture of French and Spanish. The pixies had been made for her youngest sister, Blessing. If you combined reptiles, dragonflies, carnivorous plants, and pure hatred into a flying nightmare, you got a minion who was short-lived, loyal, and perfect for aerial patrol in places where no one noticed three-inch flittering bugs. Her father often referred to them as one of his greatest laboratory disasters, right after the sea monkeys.

  Delilah sighed. “Remember—” A scream from the control room cut her off. “…They bite.”

  “They squish very easily, too,” one of the gems said. “Six pixies now en route to the theater.”

  “Ma’am, there’s someone in that hall with you,” Hudson said. “I see a shadow.”

  “No one’s come in or out of the building. Front lobby is clear. Both guards are on post,” Freddie reported.

  At the very edge of her peripheral vision she caught sight of th
e intruder, a smear of black against the dark windows. Someone started whistling.

  Delilah bowed her head and smiled, pulse settling. “Are you whistling ‘Hey There Delilah’?”

  The Spirit of Chicago swirled closer, becoming almost human. Insubstantial arms wrapped around her waist. “That is your name, isn’t it?” he whispered in her ear.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor.” She tucked her chin down to hide the smile.

  “What are you doing this evening?”

  “A little light breaking and entering. You?”

  The Spirit of Chicago released her. He seemed solid, although she knew her hand would pass through him like smoke. “A little light prevention of theft and crime.”

  “I’m not committing a crime.”

  “Yet.”

  Pulling a glove off, she fished a piece of paper out of her pocket. “I thought this conversation might come up.”

  The Spirit of Chicago picked the to-do list from her hand. “Let’s see… Pick lock for apartment seven. You know, I’m not a lawyer, but this is something that might be considered incriminating evidence in court.”

  “That’s only a concern if I’m arrested,” she said, “and I notice that you left your handcuffs at home.”

  “Locked to my bed,” he said off-handedly.

  “Dirty boy.”

  He leaned against the wall next to the door. “Item two, seduce a superhero. Ah, now I see the problem.”

  She leaned closer to the door, trying to find the missing lock. Something was barring her way and none of her senses could pick it up.

  He winked at her. “You’re doing this backward. Why don’t you start with seducing the superhero?”

  “Because I made the list by priority. I can’t jump around higgledy-piggledy. There needs to be some structure.” She gave up on the lock. “Are rocket launchers legal in this city?”