by Liana Brooks
“No.”
“Do you think you could change that?”
“No.”
Locke scowled. “Some date you are.”
“This isn’t a date. I’m catching you in the process of breaking and entering.”
“I haven’t broken or entered anything,” she grumbled.
He shook the list at her. “Why don’t you seduce the superhero first, and then I won’t need to arrest you for anything, because you won’t be doing anything illegal.”
Delilah quirked an eyebrow. “Seducing you is only important if I need to distract you. Which, at this juncture, I don’t.”
“So unlock the door and kiss me so we can get on with our evening.”
She ran her hands along the door again. “Therein you have found the crux of my problem. There isn’t a door here.”
“What’s this?” One barely-solid hand shook the door handle.
“A false door.” She eyed the Spirit speculatively. “What’s on the other side?”
The glimmer of green light that made up his eyes winked off and on, his version of a blink. “How should I know?”
“Because it’s dark in there and you can go in?”
“That would be breaking and entering, the thing I came here to prevent you from doing.”
“So?”
“So, no. I won’t go in there without an invitation. Not unless you have proof that there’s something illegal behind these walls.”
Delilah glared at the Shadow to no effect. “I bet you we’ll find some if we go in there.”
“And then, maybe, I’ll help you. Not before.” His hand, warm, solid, covered in a black glove, encircled her wrist. “Let’s leave. We don’t need to be here.”
“We have movement on the elevator,” Control reported as she stumbled into the wall.
She tried to shake the Shadow loose, but his grip only tightened. “Control, repeat that. Who came into the lobby?”
“No one,” Freddie said. “All known entrances are quiet. Neither of the guards have moved.”
She looked up at her gray-faced captor. “Did you bring someone as back up?”
He shook his head. “You have a team?”
“Minions. Super villains get minions. Superheroes get plucky sidekicks.”
“I don’t have a side kick and you have minions and an intern,” he muttered as the elevator dinged. “That’s not fair.”
Not good. Not good at all. She licked her lips and hoped she had enough of the family charm to talk her way out of this. “Listen, if anyone asks, this is a costume.”
“What?”
Delilah was already walking towards the service elevator and the back door. She punched the lift button and hummed tunelessly as she waited for her exit. Beside her the glass windows reflected frosty light. Tempting, but she was too far up and too unprepared for that kind of exit.
The Spirit of Chicago followed her. “What’s going on?”
She turned back as an elevator dinged its arrival and the doors opened. A figure swept out in a heavy, black trench coat. There was an inarticulate squawk as if the sound came through water. The man had a gun. Damn! Damn! Sick with fright, her arms leaden with shock, she grabbed for her watch. Too late. And then the Spirit of Chicago was there, standing in front of her like a smokescreen.
Delilah focused her energy on the pocket watch, praying to whatever god cared for small-time crooks that the magnetic shield would protect them both.
It didn’t.
The bullet slammed into the all-too-solid shadow and he fell, his weight pushing her into the elevator. The attacker fired a second round. The bullet splintered the doorframe as she hit the button to close the door.
“Freddie, get a lock on my position and pick me up. I have...” She examined the very-human superhero lying in the elevator beside her. She rubbed her forehead. “We need to get to the hospital.”
The cab pulled up in a splash of slush as Delilah opened the delivery door and carried The Spirit of Chicago out over her shoulders. “Get this scene cleaned up. No blood. No tracks,” Delilah ordered Thames, who stepped out of the car to help her load the fallen hero. “Freddie. I need you in the back with me.”
Hudson climbed into the front seat as Freddie scrambled into the back. “River or hospital?”
Delilah doubled checked the Spirit’s pulse. “Hospital, he’s still breathing.” For now. “Stupid man decided he was going to rescue the damsel in distress.” She took her hat and wig off, tossing them into the front passenger seat. “Go dark, Hudson, I don’t want anyone harassing the cab companies trying to find us after we drop him off.” She gulped down another ragged breath and tried to will her heart to stop racing.
So, she’d almost been shot. No big deal. It happened. She’d survived close encounters before.
But never with casualties after. Victimless crime. Stealing from thieves. Never delivering more bodies to the morgue.
“Are you all right?” Freddie asked.
She nodded, shoving the fear aside. “I hate to be cliché, but who was that masked man upstairs? Did we stumble into the Golden Hunt?”
“Control has the pixies quartering the building now,” Freddie assured her. “We’re doing everything we can to find him.”
Delilah studied the man in the ski mask, bleeding across the back seat of her cab. The right side of the Spirit’s black shirt was sticky with blood. “Hand me the first aid kit. We need to staunch the bleeding. Do The Company records say if he’s fast healer? Can I let him sleep this off in a hotel somewhere?”
Freddie handed her the kit and helped move the Spirit’s arms so she could cut away his black polyester suit. “The Company has no record of him being able to form a corporeal body. They also have no known alias, address, or any other information on him. He’s a ghost.”
“He’s a human who lied to The Company,” Delilah said as she dug in the kit for scissors. “Ghosts, as a general rule, don’t exist. He’s probably like Maria, able to make illusions and control light or something. Maybe be in two places at once.” She cut his shirt free and winced in sympathy. The bullet had torn a hole in his abdomen.
“It missed the lungs,” Freddie said. “He might still live.”
“Yeah.” She stuffed sterile gauze in the wound and tried to wrap it. “Take his mask off. I want to see who he is.”
Freddie tugged at the black ski mask and revealed a blond man with a face that she would have said reminded her of the better Greek gods if he didn’t look exactly like Alderman Adale.
“Merde.”
Freddie hissed, as close as he ever came to swearing. “This isn’t good.”
“You’re telling me. We can’t let him die. Three superheroes in a year isn’t coincidence; it’s targeted racial violence.”
“Two dead mayors in less than a week is also a noticeable trend.”
Delilah touched Adale’s face. Still warm, thank all the lucky stars in the firmament, but when she forced his eye open he showed no signs of waking. She shook her head. “Okay. Game plan. We need to create a crime scene outside Adale’s apartment.” As an afterthought she turned her earpiece on. “Control, did you copy that? Crime scene at Adale’s place. I want shots reported to the police. Get someone on the radio, I want to know when the shooting at the Clousson building gets reported and what they say.”
“Copy that,” Control chittered.
“Freddie, give me your clothes, we need to get Adale dressed as something other than a second-story man. If The Company doesn’t know what he is, I want to keep it that way.” She’d flirted with Alan Adale. Had he guessed? When he approached her at the Field Museum a few hours ago, had he been trying to tell her he knew? “I can’t believe I killed my first date in years.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Freddie said, pulling his jacket closer. “And outing him might prove beneficial for our long range plans in the city.”
She held out her hand. “Revealing the pro tem mayor as a super-powered freak is going to throw the c
ity into chaos and make him the target of every big game hunter out there. Atlanta’s Golden Hunt is already working in Chicago. For all we know, the shooter was following Alan.” That made her stomach leap. What if they had been following him? “I need a background check on Adale finished. Everyone he’s talked to. Every meeting. Every hour accounted for. Start a file on the mayor and start cross-referencing everything he did with what Adale was doing. Find all the points of connection.”
Her minion-in-chief frowned, bulbous eyes protruding further than usual under feathery eyebrows. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering if Adale wasn’t the target all along. Maybe someone knew who he was after dark, and Arámbula was just collateral.”
“It’s coincidence,” Freddie insisted.
She shook her head. “That was a well-timed encounter. Too well done for my comfort. Now, stop arguing and hand me your pants.”
Freddie grumbled under his breath. “Aren’t you going to look the other way?”
“What? What are you trying to hide? You’re part frog, part plant. You don’t even have genitalia!”
“I have modesty!”
She rolled her eyes and faced the window, watching the Christmas lights dance on the snow until she felt Freddie’s pants slap on her hand.
“Hand tailored, I’ll have you know. Custom made just for me!”
“By a minion we keep at the castle,” Delilah shot back as she loosened Adale’s belt. “This is so awkward.” A hot blush crept up her neck and she giggled. “See, you mentioned modesty and now I feel bad about stripping an unconscious man.”
Hudson laughed in the front seat, sounding more like an avalanche. “We’re about to kick the guy out bleeding into the snow and you feel bad about seeing his undies?”
She turned to Freddie for help. He was laughing at her too. “Shut up! This is not enthusiastic consent! I don’t want to... molest him.”
“Just shut your eyes,” Freddie said. “I’m genderless, no reproductive organs, so I can’t molest anyone. Right?”
“Right.” She shut her eyes firmly. No peeking allowed.
“What kind of underwear is that?”
Ha! She peeked. “Those are running shorts.”
“Fond of black, isn’t he.”
“Shut up and put the pants on him. And,” she said, noticing the bandage was soaking through, “get him some more gauze.”
“Someone is going to notice he’s stripped and treated. Shouldn’t we... You know... Leave him for the doctors?”
“Gauze!” She pulled the soaked dressing away. A hard lump gleamed sullenly in the cab-light. “His body expelled the bullet. That’s good, right?”
“Coming up on the hospital,” Hudson said. “There’s two police cruisers at the ER door and an ambulance unloading.”
“Pull up, we’ll push him out on the far side so they don’t see in. Freddie, you better switch with Hudson when we slow down, we’ll need to evade like the very devil was on our tail.”
“Ya think?”
“Less snark, more minioning!”
Freddie snorted.
Hudson slowed the car. “Switch... now!”
Freddie threw the door open, helped Delilah shove Alan Adale into the snowdrift, and hopped into the seat Hudson was hastily vacating. They sped off, leaving the alderman bleeding in the dirty snow.
Chapter Nine
Dear Daddy,
Freddie says he needs more pants. His measurements are attached. Don’t ask. Just... don’t ask.
D
Bright sunlight was obstructed by the blocky body of Detective Morrow. Alan turned away and tried to make sense of the pain. Machines. Beeping. Squeaking wheels. Nothing he associated with home.
“How are you feeling?” the detective asked.
“Sore. Confused. Um... This is a hospital, isn’t it?”
“John H. Stroger Junior,” Morrow confirmed.
Alan nodded and instantly regretted it. Bright lights twinkled in his vision, gradually fading to black spots. “Home sweet home. I wonder if the nurse who named me still works downstairs.” He blinked the last of the spots away and found Detective Morrow’s eyes. “Pertinent question, why am I here?”
“Someone shot you.”
“What?”
Morrow sat down beside the hospital bed. “Last night, around eleven thirty, you were shot outside your home.”
“Shot? In Chicago? No. No, no-no. We have the lowest incident of gun crime in the country. People do not get—” His words slurred. What was in that IV? “People do not get, shot,” he enunciated clearly.
“Uh-huh. How you planning on explaining the bullet hole that ripped your side open?”
Alan looked down at his aching right side. “Um...”
“You were shot.” A notebook appeared as if by magic.
“Cute trick.”
“I do parties,” Morrow said, pulling a pen out of his jacket pocket. “Now, what do you remember about last night?”
A cluttered mess of colors and shapes gabbled for attention in his mind. “There was a—” Not a girl, couldn’t say girl, that sounded too young “—a woman. At the apartment. We talked.” Flirted. Most assuredly flirted. “We talked.”
“Do you remember what you talked about?”
Lock picks. “Stuff.”
“And did she have a gun?”
“No. No.” He shook his head against the pain. “She didn’t hurt me.” The fragments of the night before started piecing themselves together. Locke in the hall with her steampunk gear. Flirting. An elevator. A man? Probably a man, stepping out of the elevator with a gun. “How did I get here?” he whispered to himself.
Morrow leaned forward. “What?”
“How did I get here?” Alan asked, louder. “I don’t remember that part.”
The detective cleared his throat and pulled out an electronic file pad. “According to the nine-one-one report, two calls came from your area reporting the sound of gun shots. First call was at nine-twenty-seven, the second at nine-thirty-one. The second caller reported that they saw a gray sedan driving fast down the street. A traffic camera in your neighborhood picked up a gray sedan doing seventy at nine-thirty-three. Indiana plates. We ran it, the car was reported stolen two months ago. No joy there.”
“I was kidnapped?” That didn’t work. Delilah had no reason to help him. No reason not to expose him.
Not unless their flirtation meant more to her than she was letting on. The drugs were clearing out of his system fast now that he was awake and focusing. “I hate to ask, but what was I wearing when I was brought in?”
“Same thing you wore to the party last night; black slacks, dress shoes, no shirt. Someone took it off and tried to bandage you up. The pants were ripped at the hem.”
His eyebrows went up. “Is that the usual MO for an attempted murder? Wouldn’t it be easier to let me bleed to death?”
The detective shrugged. “The running hypothesis at the station is that it was a case of mistaken identity. Most of our violent crimes are related to domestic violence now. The girl you were with, she’s not married is she?”
“No, not that I’m aware of. No ring or anything.” He’d checked the first time they’d met, and every time since. Delilah wasn’t Chicago’s most eligible bachelorette, but she was in the top ten and making the boys in town work for her attention.
“Can you give me her name so I can check it out, just in case?” Morrow asked.
“Um...” There wasn’t a good answer to that. “We aren’t... We weren’t... This was not...”
Morrow rolled his eyes. “You’re a politician, Adale, not a saint. Just spill already.”
“She doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. We weren’t going public with the relationship yet. It’s too early. I don’t want people harassing her.” Close enough to the truth. Probably closer than the truth would sound. But Morrow didn’t look like he was buying it. “I’ll call her when I get home and see if she’ll talk to you.”
&
nbsp; A familiar face poked around the corner.
Morrow turned and frowned. “Chief Wyte, good to see you.” The detective glanced over his shoulder at Alan. “Do you want visitors? He was out in the foyer when I came in this morning.”
Alan nodded to the chief of police. “Hello.” Wyte had been one of Mayor Arámbula’s poker buddies. He was always around when you didn’t need him, always subtly putting down the people around him, always ready to schmooze his way into power and money. “Coming to check on the walking wounded?”
“I’m just being neighborly.” Wyte patted Morrow on the shoulder as he walked past. “Great job, Detective. Why don’t you take a break while I chat to my buddy here?” The snake oil all but dripped off him.
Morrow peered over the chief’s shoulder and waited for a nod from Alan before he left. The detective was good people.
“Chief,” Alan said, refocusing his attention. “I wasn’t expecting you to stop by.”
“Really?” Wyte put a hand to his chest as if he were hurt. “Come on, Alan. We’ve been friends for how long and you didn’t think I’d come out to check on you?”
“Have we ever spoken without Arámbula around?” Alan asked.
Wyte sighed. “You wound me. I know you like put on the Man of the People act, but come on, Adale. We’re cool, right?”
There was a knock on the door and Alan’s side burned when he sucked in his breath.
“Delilah Samson.” Wyte moved in like a heat-seeking missile.
The steampunk Locke was nowhere to be seen in the perfection of Chicago style that Delilah wore as her day costume. Her dark hair was pulled up in an elegant twist and her flawless skin was framed by a tailored purple suit so dark it was almost black. He coughed to hide a snarl when Wyte reached for her.
“Chief Wyte,” Delilah held out her hand like she expected him to bow and kiss her fingertips. Wyte almost did. That woman could wrap men around her finger like nobody’s business. “I heard you were here.”
Alan scowled. Delilah’s gaze flickered to him and she winked. It was enough.
“What can I do for you, Miss Samson? Name it, and it’s yours.”