by Liana Brooks
“I’d only just found it,” Delilah said. “I found Travys tied up in the basement and while I was waiting for the ambulance I walked around the house searching for other victims.”
“What ambulance?” Morrow demanded. “The one you didn’t call because you didn’t report anyone missing and didn’t call 911?” He slammed the box on the interrogation table. “I repeat, what the hell, Delilah?”
She crossed her arms.
“I think you might be a little out of your league,” Doctor Charm said. “Do you have evidence gloves, detective? This isn’t something I’d touch lightly.”
“You recognize it?” Morrow asked.
Delilah frowned at the box in confusion. Hieroglyphs and languages were not Daddy’s department.
“A number of years ago, when I was fresh out of law school, there was a bizarre kidnapping case in Colorado.”
“The lotus blossom smell!” Delilah burst out.
“Precisely. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this once belonged to Lady Grimoire, matriarch of a significant branch of the superhero family tree back in the day. That was before The Company started pruning things to the point of extinction. An odd policy, I always thought. Very anti-superhero.”
“Ahem.” Delilah cleared her throat and kicked her father in the shin. “Back to the task at hand. Can I be released? I’m starving, and tired, and I’m very late for work.”
With a grave smile her father turned to the detective. “Naturally. Detective Morrow, I think you will need the expertise offered by Miss Samson. This is not an ordinary case.”
“I need to know what happened,” Morrow said.
“Miss Samson will write a statement, you will release her. I will liaise between the two of you until the killer is brought to justice.”
“Killer?” Morrow looked at her. “What killer? I thought this was about your intern getting kidnapped.”
“Travys was helping me review the mayor’s case.” Delilah shrugged. “He must have found more than he let on. Maybe he thought he could solve the case by himself. Too many movies about teenage spies and investigators I suppose. How is he doing? You’ve purposefully failed to mention his health this entire time.”
Morrow grimaced in response. “He’s fine. They gave him a pint of blood at the hospital, but otherwise he’s fine. No drugs in his system, nothing that some bed rest and a few steaks won’t fix.”
“Tell me,” her father said, “is blood theft a common crime in this area?”
“No.” Morrow shook his head. “I’ve been on the force for over thirty years and I’ve seen some weird sh—stuff.” He shuffled his feet a little at the slip up. “But this is new.”
“An overly aggressive blood bank, perhaps?”
“Maybe.” Morrow sighed. “All right, Delilah, I’ll bring you the forms. Once the statement is filled out, I’ll let you go. But that better be the most thorough document you’ve ever written. The chief is ready to eat me alive. You’re our best contract worker and you screwed with a crime scene. Rookies aren’t even that dumb and they can barely tie their own shoes.”
***
Delilah walked out of the precinct two hours later in a huff. Half the day wasted and she was still hungry. Lunch, or an early dinner, that was the first course of action. Then she’d book Daddy Dearest a hotel, or a flight home, and check on Travys. Then maybe she’d have time to search for a new job in the Help Wanted section before bed. It didn’t matter what Wil said over the phone, she was sunk in Chicago. All that time carefully building a relationship with the police, growing her contacts list, making a place for herself… Gone. Straight down the loo.
All because she trusted a handsome man not to abandon her. Well, Alan Adale could keep his cold bed and shadowy hands to himself.
Superheroes and villains... Maybe it only worked if the girl was the good one. Her mom had been a superhero before marrying Doctor Charm, but her mother also had the kind of body that made men trip over themselves to please her. The best compliment Delilah had ever been offered was that she was regal. Most people called her stern. Or aloof. Or cold.
Cold seemed to be a favorite.
Or the old stand-by: heartless.
Well, she tugged her gloves on and bit her lip, it happened. There were only so many times a girl could hear her date confess he asked her out for sex alone, or because he wanted to date her sister, but Angela was hard to talk to. Angela looked like Mom, and was sweet as honey and happily married, and—Delilah reminded herself firmly—it wasn’t her sister’s fault all males were born with only two brain cells and a couple ball sack’s worth of stupidity. A het woman just had to roll with their infantile fascination with balls and accept the inevitable social gaffes.
Being a lesbian was sounding more attractive by the hour.
“Delilah!” Alan’s voice made her turn. “Are you crying? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
She wiped her eyes and threw her head up. “I had something in my eye. What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to Detective Morrow because I heard you were arrested.”
“Yes, I was pulled in at four this morning. About five minutes after you left, actually. Convenient timing. But everything’s fine now.” She gave him a bright smile and tried not to think of stabbing him. Her New Year’s resolution was going to be to date every blond man in the city. One by one she’d pick off the herd and break their hearts. It would be a cathartic exercise to complete before her passport arrived.
Hmmm. Passport.
She changed directions and headed for the nearest post office. An official passport would make life so much easier. Muddle the trail a bit. And she could switch names; Cassandra More, Ellie Fine, maybe Ann. Ann the librarian.
No, not a librarian. The temptation to get a job in New York would be too strong. She needed something that kept her out of the country a lot.
Alan caught up with her. “Where are you going?”
“Why do you care?” She stopped and glared at him. “Oh wait. You don’t. Funny thing that.”
“I do too and you know it.”
She waited for the brutal cold that came with hard lies. Nothing happened.
“I got back to my office at ten, dealt with a ton of... Never mind. I’m sorry I didn’t come back for you right away. The tunnel went all the way down town and I wanted to keep Kalydon in my sights. He and the Hunt went to somewhere off Lake Street. It’s a mess. I need—”
“You aren’t lying,” Delilah said, interrupting.
Alan stared at her in confusion. “Why would I be lying?”
“Because everyone tries to lie to me.”
“I haven’t.”
Her heart raced as she tried to remember all their many conversations. Alan had never lied. There were implications there she wasn’t quite ready to explore.
“Delilah?” Alan stepped forward.
And she stepped back.
“Hi, sweetheart.” A heavy hand landed on Delilah’s shoulder. “Am I interrupting anything?”
She looked up at her father. Replacing Alan would be as easy as finding another green-eyed blond with the body of Adonis and a dry sense of humor Terry Pratchett would envy. Replacing Daddy was infinitely more difficult. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere? Catching a flight? Talking to Detective Morrow? Anything at all?”
“Nope. I was going to go buy you lunch and talk to you about all this. But it seems I’m going to make an awkward third wheel. Who is the nice young man?”
“Someone who is neither nice nor young,” Delilah muttered, shooting Alan a glare that would have turned a lesser man to ash.
Alan frowned. “Delilah...”
“He knows your name?” Doctor Charm asked, reaching for his watch.
Delilah grabbed his hand to stop him. “Doctor Smith is a recent expert in strange languages like the one found on the box at the crime scene.”
“What box?” Alan asked.
She ignored him. “Alderman Adale is Chicago’s deputy mayo
r, the pro tem mayor under the circumstances. He’s following the whole case very closely.” The muscles in her shoulders tightening until she thought bone might break. “Don’t you both have jobs? It’s the middle of a work day!”
Alan raised an eyebrow. “Smith?”
“Yes.”
“Then I assume I have the immeasurable pleasure of addressing the one and only Doctor Charm.” Alan nodded his head in a semi-bow.
It was a terrible twist of fate that gave her the ability to unlock things but not break the earth apart to swallow her whole when she most needed it.
Daddy’s eyebrow went up as he turned to her. “Where do you dispose of bodies in this town, sweetheart?”
“You can’t kill him.” She floundered for a second. “I don’t have a reason why you can’t kill him, but you can’t. Dad, you need to go home. Right now. Leave town. Alan, you need to go to work. And erase my phone number. I’m going to lunch.”
They both started following her.
She spun and faced them. “Alone! I am going to lunch alone.” To think.
She stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall Mexican place she found and ordered the house special. After a glass of horchata and more guacamole than she strictly needed, the locks on the cupboards stopped popping open.
This needed to end. Tonight.
Alan said he’d chased Kalydon down the tunnels to the lake. There was a lot of ground to cover there. Plenty of places to enter the old bootlegging tunnels. The property on Wacker Street probably had a subterranean entrance, something the owner paid to keep off the public records.
Tonight, she’d find it and make them pay.
Chapter Sixteen
Dear Mom,
Can you remember to pack an extra stocking for Christmas? We might have a surprise visitor and I want to make sure there’s enough to go around.
Love,
Delilah
White wine swirled around the inside of a crystal glass. Alinea had been known for its avant garde menu for nearly two decades, and the debonair Doctor Charm had danced past the maître d as if there wasn’t a two-week waiting list.
“Do you drink?” the doctor asked.
“No.”
He put his glass aside. “So you are a superhero. It seems alcohol and mutations don’t mix.”
“Maybe I’m Mormon.”
The doctor smirked. “I doubt it. I’ve met a few, and there’s nothing in your background to suggest religious affiliation.”
“You checked?” Alan asked, only mildly surprised.
“Wouldn’t you check on the potential bachelors in a town your favorite child was moving to? There’s a very short list of acceptable men out here.”
Alan pretended to be interested in the menu. “Having children isn’t a problem I have.”
“Oh, do you have children already?”
He stopped reading, eyes widening in horror. “I meant I don’t have any children to worry about!” Alan folded the menu in exasperation. “Why are we here?”
“I’m trying to help you,” Doctor Charm said.
“How?”
The waiter stopped to refill Alan’s water glass. “Are you ready to order, sir?”
“The Winter Sampler for two, please,” Doctor Charm said. He paused while the waiter walked away before saying, “We have two options. One, I erase your memories of recent events. You won’t remember your time with Delilah, but you won’t have the heartache either.”
Alan sipped his water. “Difficult to do, erasing nearly eighteen months of memory. The gaps would be noticeable.”
“You haven’t been close to Delilah that long.”
“Not that you know of.”
“My daughter keeps me apprised of what’s happening in her life.”
“Somehow I doubt she’s always truthful. Delilah likes her secrets.”
The doctor pursed his lips as the waiters delivered a terrarium of salad greens, accented with mushrooms houses and some unidentifiable food shaped into a red gnome hat. Frowning, he poked at the greens. “We should have flown to Paris. They know how to make a decent lunch there.”
“But the customs wait would be too long,” Alan quipped.
“Indeed, although there are numerous ways around that.” He sighed and set his fork aside. “You seem like a very nice young man. But you don’t realize how much trouble a woman can get you into. You think it will be all flowers, and cupcakes, and sex, and the next thing you know you’re changing the oil in cars and rocking colicky babies to sleep at three in the morning. Liking her long legs isn’t enough to build a relationship on.”
“You think the only reason I care about Delilah is how attractive she is?”
Doctor Charm shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
“I’m not like those men.”
“In that case, you’re going to need a better arsenal. Tell me, do you have a bulletproof vest?”
***
Raw earth, cement, old brickwork... Delilah ran her hand along the tunnel wall deep under Chicago proper. It was like a dark fantasyland. The ghost of jazz music flitted through her mind, a memory of a simpler time.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps superheroes were only the next evolution to it all. Kalydon was the new Al Capone, the shady business baron dealing magic elixirs in the dark. And she was Elliot Ness, the untouchable, incorruptible dealer of justice.
The thought made her grin in the darkness as her flashlight panned ahead of her, looking for security cameras and doors into the Wacker building overhead. Something rat-sized moved in the shadows ahead, shuffling and digging, but not moving away. It twitched, then fell still as she walked closer. The toe of a heavy work boot pointed upward; the edge of a leg of denim pants was barely visible through a layer of heavy mud.
For a moment her mind couldn’t quite grasp what she was seeing. And then it all clicked. Someone was buried alive under the muddy floor. Or, at least, they had been alive when she’d started walking toward them.
Stretching her hand over the packed dirt, she tried to loosen everything. But the dirt wasn’t locked per se, it was just there, and she hadn’t thought to bring a shovel for breaking and entering.
A hand clawed through the mud. Delilah grabbed it, pulling the hapless victim out of the grave. The mud-covered face was barely recognizable as Ivan with a broken nose. “You?”
“Me.” Delilah squatted down and looked him in the eye. “What happened?”
“They decided I was expendable.”
Focusing on Ivan, Delilah loosened her grip on her talent. His pupils dilated even wider than before. He stared at her with a glazed expression.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
“The Mégisti formula gives normal people superpowers. Flight. Strength. Health. The seller proved it to us. Shot one of his men, gave him the formula and healed him in front of us. Said he needed money and a volunteer.”
“And you got volun-told?” Delilah guessed.
“Seller said I was wrong. His guy punched me. It was like being hit by a car. I woke up choking on dirt.” He paused, reaching for his still buried legs. “I think I broke a bone.”
Delilah blew a stray hair out of her eye. “Where’s the entrance?”
“Don’t know. Wasn’t conscious when they brought me in.” Ivan rocked back as his eyes returned to normal. “I hurt.”
“Can you wait twenty minutes, or should I call the police?”
He stared out into the darkness. “Got an extra flashlight?”
She took her phone out, turned on the GPS, and put a lock on it. “Here.”
Ivan turned it over in his muddy hand and grinned. “You’re going to leave your phone here for me to hack?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Delilah rolled her eyes. “You unlock that and I’ll buy you dinner.” The Pentagon couldn’t unlock her phone and she’d sold the prototype for the lock to them when she was in college. Good educations weren’t cheap. When people asked about her sudden surge of wealth, she told them a ri
ch uncle had left her money in his will.
It made you despair, it really did. Her entire life’s history had been available if anyone had wanted to look, but they never had. Not a single person had considered her worth a full background check. Yet they’d given her the keys to every room on campus because she did work-study as an early morning janitor. The minions had done the cleaning, but still, they’d handed over the keys! Humanity.
Walking along the broken wall, intensely aware of Ivan watching her, she wondered why she thought the keys had mattered anyway. Doors were just bigger keyholes.
A flutter of warm air caressed her hand through the chipped mortar. Somewhere on the other side was a heat source. She focused, and the wall crumpled to dust under her fingers. With a quick smile at Ivan, she stepped through the hole and into a section of the Chicago pedway illuminated only by emergency lighting.
Odd, for this time of day. The pedway closed at five but there were lights on down here, homeless people, and all the other little joys of subterranean Chicago life. She sniffed the air, inhaling dust and bleach.
Taking the handheld GPS out of her pocket, she pinged the satellite quickly and confirmed her suspicions; she was under 77 Wacker Drive. Someone had boarded up this area to use as a private entrance to the mostly-abandoned building.
Turning the GPS off so it didn’t attract unwanted electronic attention, she found the signs for the exit and followed the concrete stairs upwards. Three flights up, the stairs changed, wooden doors dividing the bare concrete from padded floors covered in a rich tapestry carpet with maroon and gold accents. There was a lock on the door. Relying on the tech gadgets she’d borrowed from her father to handle any unseen security, she swept past it.
The hall didn’t feel lived in. It smelled like a mausoleum, all death and dust and forgotten dreams. Maybe in some ways it was. If Kalydon was behind this—and she had no reason to believe he wasn’t—then he was running out of time. Money couldn’t buy him immortality. She wasn’t even sure why someone would want to buy immortality. Death wasn’t frightening. It was simply there—like the night sky, or the ocean, or a mountain.