Even Villains Have Interns

by Liana Brooks

  ***

  Alan’s phone screamed with a ringtone he hadn’t programmed in as he steered the car smoothly through the traffic. He hit the call button on the dash. “Delilah?”

  “No.”

  It took him a moment to place the gravelly voice on the other end of the line. “Freddie?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yes, sir.” There was a silence. A very obedient silence, as if Freddie was trying to fill it with all the things he wasn’t supposed to say.

  “Where’s Delilah?” he said, dreading the answer.

  “I’m so glad you asked, sir,” Freddie replied. “She’s gone for a drive up town to meet a certain huntsman I’ve been specifically forbidden to talk about. While I can’t name the bastard, I can say that my mistress is visiting him at his Chicago domicile and nowhere south of Lake Michigan near the address she sent you.”

  “How circuitous,” Alan said as something to say while his brain raced. Delilah was going to meet Kalydon. Alone. In Chicago. And she’d sent him out of the city on purpose. “Where is Travys?”

  “I have been specifically forbidden to mention the young gentleman’s whereabouts, or the fact that a certain family member stopped by late last evening to collect the young gentleman’s coat that he had left here inadvertently.”

  Alan snorted. “I like how that forbidden bit keeps you from saying anything. Very effective.”

  “I was programmed for loyalty, sir, not stupidity,” Freddie said primly.

  “Delilah is going to have your ears when she realizes what you’ve done.” Alan took the highway exit and stopped at a light so he could get back on 90 North.

  Freddie was silent for a moment. “Miss Delilah may very well be upset, but within the parameters of my programming and understanding, I’m not sure. She may have anticipated this phone call. It’s the only reason I could call.”

  “She forbid you to call but you think she expected you to call me anyway?” The light turned green and he drove under the overpass.

  “There’s a twenty-three percent chance that my mistress anticipated this phone call and your return at the right moment.”

  Alan’s gripped tightened on the wheel. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for Delilah to tell me when she wanted me to show up and save the day?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. The mistress’s mind is a mystery to me.”

  “Me too.” Alan sighed. “I’ll be there in about forty minutes if the traffic stays steady.”

  “Sir, if I could be so forward, I would recommend breaking a few of the more pedestrian traffic laws. Miss Delilah entered the building over ten minutes ago, and I didn’t call until the building sealed itself. We’re unable to reach her, sir.” Worry underscored Freddie’s words.

  Alan’s foot flattened the accelerator. “I’ll be there in time.” Even if he had to ditch the car and ghost his way to Chicago.

  ***

  “Miss Samson, what a pleasant surprise.” Kalydon’s voice dripped with contempt as she stepped inside the shadowy room. He moved a wrinkled hand and she heard the door seal behind her with a smothered thump.

  Delilah looked around the room, matching the faces visible in the gloom to the pictures on Kalydon’s Kill Wall. “My, my, my, the whole gang is here.” She smiled. “What? No chair for me?”

  “You volunteered yourself,” Kalydon reminded her. “Your blood for the city of Chicago.”

  “And names in exchange for the formula,” Delilah said, stripping off her gloves. “Thankfully I’m young enough that senility and dementia haven’t set in yet.”

  Klaydon growled at the insult.

  Her smile grew sweeter.

  “Blood first,” said a woman’s voice. She stepped out of the gloom, revealing obsidian black skin and a shimmering gold dress. Her hair was white and tied up in a hundred small braids. “Do you know me?”

  “Ayo Naiabi,” Delilah said. “I know your reputation. Child soldier in Africa, brought to England by an international charity group, suspected of your boyfriend’s murder in college but you were found not guilty in court.”

  “Murder is between equals,” Ayo said. “One such as myself can never murder a human, only exterminate them.”

  “Yet you cried on the stand and declared you loved him,” Delilah mocked softly. “Such love, you said. Such devotion.”

  “Like a dog.” Ayo shrugged. “He was my pet, and when he became unruly I put him down.”

  Kalydon thumped his cane on the ground. “Enough. The blood, Miss Samson. A donation to our work.”

  “To your longevity you mean? That is what you use this serum for isn’t it, Kalydon? You keep the Grim Reaper at bay with these injections, but they’re not working as well as before.” She brushed past Ayo to sit down in the empty chair. “That’s why the murders have become more frequent, isn’t it?”

  The old man glared at her. “Nonsense.”

  “Perfect sense,” Delilah countered. “The formula first became available in 1985, a product of a villain called Lady Grimoire. She produced small amounts using her own blood as part of the Eden Project. Of course that was before she considered a villain, wasn’t it? She was plain, ordinary Marjorie Thayer, single mother and biochemist, when she worked for Kalydon Industries.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kalydon said stiffly.

  “Liar.” Delilah winked at him and relaxed. “Marji was one of your little failures, wasn’t she? You mentioned her in an interview once. A brilliant scientist who spurned you because your wealth wasn’t enough to blind her to your other failings.”

  “I have no failings!”

  “Hubris being chief amongst your faults,” Delilah continued as if he’d said nothing. “When The Company was formed and Project Eden was taken away from her, Marjorie quit. She left you, went rogue, became a villain. Her black market formula for superpowers created dozens of one-shot villains. Angry men and women who thought a single dose would make them gods. What’s funny about people who want to become gods is that they’re never happy with that first elevation, are they? No one with power is content. We all want more. I want stronger powers to be like the other superheroes.” It was a plausible lie, especially to someone like Kalydon who lived with the More Is More mentality. “You wanted superpowers to prove Marjorie, and everyone else who mocked you, wrong. Ayo wants revenge. Chasten Huntley,” she waved to the mayor’s social secretary, “wants attention. I bet we could ask everyone here if they want more power and they’d all say yes.”

  Ayo shrugged. “So? We are the pinnacle of humanity’s evolution. We are the wise ones. The brave ones. The warriors.”

  “No, warriors fight for a cause,” Delilah said. “You’re power-hungry fools.”

  Kalydon stood. Rage radiated off him like a perfume as he shook. “How dare you,” he said between clenched teeth. “How dare you challenge me? I have laid low your protectors of humanity, your so-called heroes. I have hunted them like the animals they are!”

  “And?” Delilah asked calmly.

  “I am better than they are!”

  “Because you pulled a trigger?”

  “Yes!”

  She clapped ironically. “Bravo! You are a tool-using monkey! What a smart monkey.”

  Something moved behind her, grabbed her arm and twisted it up. “Do you know me?” an angry voice asked.

  Delilah scanned the room and picked the missing name from the list. “Winda Leverick? From Boston?”

  “Yes.” He pushed her arm to the point of breaking. “Guess what I took a dose of this morning?”

  “Oh, hmm. Let me guess. Mégisti?”

  “That’s right. I can rip your arms from your body, run faster than a train, fly like a bird in the wind. Can you, little girl with a big mouth?”

  Delilah laughed. “Do I need to? I’m exactly where I want to be.”

  “Gag her,” Kalydon ordered. “Get the machine out here. I won’t waste any more time with her talk.”

  Leverick held her wrist tight enoug
h to bruise, but the Megisti formula had its flaws. That’s why notes mattered. That’s why old records about dead people were worth reading. The serum numbed the nerves of the skin; it was the only way for a normal person to move at high speeds without writhing in pain. Someone born with super-powered flight or speed wasn’t using muscle, they were using magnetics, a fact Delilah learned all about from her mother. But Lady Grimoire’s potion numbed the pain receptors and pumped extra oxygen into the muscles to allow a person to move at inhuman speeds.

  Which meant that Leverick didn’t feel the heat rising in the room until it was too late.

  Kalydon wiped sweat from his forehead. “What is that? Who turned on the heater?”

  “I feel nothing,” Ayo said.

  “Are you feeling well, sir?” Chasten asked, moving at a speed he wasn’t born to.

  Delilah smiled as the floor under her sagged.

  “You!” Kalydon shoved an angry finger in her face. “What are you doing?”

  “Unlocking things,” Delilah said with a laugh. “That’s my talent, didn’t you know? The ability to unlock things. I can open doors. Make people tell me their secrets. It’s a small, worthless, unimportant talent. Not very grand. Not very showy.”

  Ayo screamed as the floor under her collapsed.

  “What are you doing?” Kalydon demanded.

  “Unlocking the bonds between atoms.”

  She wasn’t sure Kalydon had time to register what she said. It was possible he didn’t even know what she meant. But he saw the results. One controlled atom bomb going off in his secret bunker on Wacker Street. After that, he probably didn’t see very much at all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dear Mom.

  No matter what you hear, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.

  I love you,

  Delilah

  Bright lights swam in Delilah’s field of vision. First little sparks, then pale yellow, then a strobing red and blue. A fireman in yellow pulled a rock aside. “Are you alive, miss?”

  “I’m fine.” Bruised, possibly with a fractured ankle, but fine.

  Police cars swarmed the scene. She almost wished she could call them off. There was nothing left to find. The Golden Hunt hadn’t been bombed, they were the bomb. In time, hopefully, someone would find the bunker with the kill wall. She’d done her best to keep the heat away from the room, but explosions were such an imprecise science. At least, done her way they were an imprecise science. A gifted arsonist could probably have left the room wholly untouched.

  In the muzzy-headed way of the lightly concussed, Delilah knew this was an unproductive line of thought. There were people. Soon there would be questions. It wouldn’t hurt to have a doctor look at her ankle or her head. But all she wanted to do was lie in the rubble and take a nap. Curl up around the still warm chunks of concrete and sleep for a good twelve hours. For the first time in over a year, she relaxed completely. Everyone was safe. The Hunt was gone.

  The fireman was carrying her to a waiting ambulance. News reporters flocked around. It was all a lot of fuss for one little girl from Texas.

  “Delilah?” Detective Morrow pushed an EMT aside to get to her. “What were you doing here?”

  “Following a lead.” She managed to keep the smug self-satisfaction out of her voice.

  Morrow folded his arms across his chest. “You okay?”

  “I’m not dead,” Delilah said. “Just tired.”

  “Don’t go to sleep!” Morrow said at the same time as one of the emergency responders.

  An EMT stepped forward. “Could be a concussion.”

  “Maybe one of the falling rocks hit me,” Delilah said.

  Morrow frowned. “Were you in the build—”

  “Stop!” An elderly woman in white high heels picked her way across the rubble, a black wallet with a badge in it in hand. “Homeland Security. This is my witness.”

  The EMT smiled genially. “Sure thing. Let me get her checked out and we’ll turn her over to you.”

  Detective Morrow looked like a fish out of water. “Homeland Security? I thought you guys disbanded. We don’t need you here. A building collapse doesn’t make it federal jurisdiction.”

  “A terrorist bombing does,” the woman said with a snide smile. “It was a bomb, wasn’t it, Miss Smith?”

  Old memories of a darker time invaded Delilah’s peace. “Katrina?”

  The woman’s smile grew sharper.

  “You need to update your files. The name’s Samson, not Smith.”

  “Either way,” Katrina said. “You’re coming with me.”

  Delilah weighed her options. Morrow would stop this if she objected. The EMT could be dealt with, and he undoubtedly had something in his kit that would make her head stop aching. It was the sight of a green-eyed blond on the other side of the police cordon that stopped her from making a fuss. Alan.

  Freddie must have called him in. Either that or he’d ghosted to the national park address she’d sent, found no Travys, and come back to Chicago to find her. Katrina was reaching for her handcuffs. Things were a hair’s breadth away from escalating.

  The handcuffs clinked together and it was all Delilah could do not to laugh. Across the wreckage, she sent Alan a very firm glare. Hopefully he’d do the smart thing and stay away.

  Katrina didn’t get the joke though. She cuffed Delilah’s hands behind her back and pushed her towards a waiting car. Delilah snickered quietly. Things couldn’t have gone better if she’d written this script herself.

  ***

  “Would you like some water?” The woman asking Delilah wore a black leather catsuit with a red slash down the left side and used a tone of menace that turned a drink of water into the promise of death.

  Not that Delilah was going to eat or drink anything The Company offered, but even if she hadn’t known Lead Feather’s affiliations, she would have given the woman wide berth. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

  Lead Feather sneered at her. “It’s going to be such a pleasure to wipe that smile off your face.”

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy trying.” Delilah relaxed in the uncomfortable chair. Her head was better, although her ankle still twinged. Running was out of the question, but The Company wanted to talk and she wanted to get some answers. It was a win-win scenario at the moment. “Are you going to take these cuffs off?”

  “You wish,” Lead Feather said. “Enjoy your new bracelets. They’re going to be a permanent feature in your life.”

  The interrogation room door swung open and Katrina, Company boss, stepped inside. “Lead Feather, what are you doing here?” she chided. “Get to cleaning up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” With one last death glare, Lead Feather stepped out of the room.

  When Delilah’s mother was a young superhero working for The Company under the name Zephyr Girl, Katrina had been a hard-nosed woman with power suits and a Margret Thatcher haircut. In the decades since Zephyr Girl had ‘died,’ very little about Katrina had changed. Her dark hair had gone steel gray, she’d lost weight, and wrinkles had appeared, but on the whole she was very much like the woman Delilah had grown up seeing pictures of.

  If you ever see this woman, you come get Mommy or Daddy right away. Do you understand, Delilah? Don’t talk to her. Don’t follow her. Don’t unlock things near her. Her name is Katrina, and she is dangerous.

  Some children grew up with the bogeyman; the Smith children grew up knowing The Company was lurking in the dark to kidnap them. Facing her childhood nightmare now, Delilah wanted to laugh. A chicken-boned woman with a smile like a ruler wasn’t scary. She was pathetic. Delilah grinned like a shark. “Katrina, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m so glad you could fit me into your busy schedule.”

  Katrina’s eyes narrowed into dark gimlets of fury. “Where’s the formula?”

  “Which formula?”

  “The one that makes superheroes. The one Kalydon was peddling and that you were trying to steal when the bomb went off. It’s out there. Six vials were s
old at auction yesterday, but Kalydon said he had more.”

  Delilah leaned as far forward as she could. “Did you buy those six vials?”

  “No. We’re negotiating for the purchase of the formula.”

  Delilah’s gaze fell on the window of bullet-proof glass and the empty offices beyond. “So it’s true. The Company is losing superheroes.”

  “Like a sieve,” Katrina confirmed. “It’s the only reason you’re alive. Twenty years ago we had over three hundred superheroes in the Midwest alone. Now there’s one.”

  “That’s a pretty high rate of retirement.”

  With a wintry smile Katrina said, “Superheroes don’t retire. They die.”

  “No more heroes. No more mutant babies. No more Company?” Delilah guessed. “Maybe you should convince the super villains to switch sides.”

  “We tried,” Katrina said through gritted teeth. “There’s fewer of them every day too.”

  Delilah shrugged. “Have you ever considered the fact that there are superheroes out there, they just aren’t signing up to do their patriotic duty? Maybe they don’t like Company policy.”

  “Nonsense.” Katrina either didn’t know what Delilah’s talent was, or hadn’t taken precautions against it. She rambled on. “My daughter was born a superhero. I’ve done everything to keep her safe. Do you see grandchildren anywhere?”

  “Maybe you were playing it a little too safe. Can’t have the grandbabies if she’s using a condom.”

  Katrina’s death glare put Lead Feather’s to shame. “I’m going to bring you some paper. You will write a full confession. You will detail every skill you possess. I will read it. If I think for a minute you’ve left anything out, I’ll bring my mind-raper in. You may not have met one before. The Company doesn’t keep one on staff, but the Russians loaned us Boris as a show of goodwill. I’m sure you and he will get along like a house on fire.”

  “There’ll be nothing left?” Delilah smiled.