He was still screaming when she grabbed the back of his jacket at about seventy feet, straightened out the dive, and lifted him onto one of the lower rooftops nearby.
‘You’re out of the drug peddling business,’ she told him as he sat, shivering, against the roof access door. ‘If I see you on the streets again, I’ll tragically fail to catch you.’ She took off from the roof, heading south toward North Beach.
Scaring street dealers made her feel dirty, and Twilight was better at it anyway. She needed a shower, but at least she had a date for the next shipment. Friday. Andrea was going to be out of town by then, telling her parents about Twilight. That was going to be a tough conversation; Cygnus did not envy her at all.
There was still a light on at the house and she was not entirely surprised to find Andrea in the lounge, reading a magazine which really did not suit her. It was one of the fashion mags June kept around the house and Andrea did not seem like the type to follow fashion too closely.
‘How’re things on the street?’ the brunette asked as her partner walked in, looking less regal than usual.
‘Tonaldo has a shipment coming in on Friday. Any guesses where?’
‘Watch the docks. With your eyes, you’ll probably spot the wake from the boat. I could delay my trip…’
‘I can manage on my own, and you need to tell your parents before they find out from some news broadcast.’
Andrea scowled. ‘I hate this. I should be out there with you, but…’
Cygnus walked over and sat down beside her friend. She seemed to have a need to talk, and what else was a partner for? ‘But what? You need some rest, and you need to get used to… whatever it is you can do now.’
‘I know, but… I’m scared of going out there, Cygnus. I think I’ve lost confidence in myself. I got caught. I died. I don’t want to do that again. But Twilight does.’
‘You are Twilight.’
‘No.’ Andrea grimaced at the look of worry on Cygnus’ face. ‘I always thought of Twilight as… as a mask I wore. I’d put on the cowl and I had one goal: take down Tonaldo. It let me have a life outside of that. Now it’s worse. I hear her, in the back of my head. I think she knows what we can do. She’s as confident as ever, but I’m scared to put the mask on. I’m scared I won’t be able to take it off again. I’m scared of finding out what we’re capable of.’
‘I don’t think split personality disorder is supposed to work like that,’ Cygnus replied.
‘There aren’t that many studies on Ultrahumans with the condition, but I agree.’
‘When you get back from Boston, you’re going to see Hugh. If there’s anything wrong with you, I think it’s best we find out sooner rather than later.’
Andrea sighed. ‘I guess you’re right. If he’s willing to check me out…’
Cygnus giggled. ‘Are you kidding? He’ll be as enthusiastic about it as he was about me.’
27th March.
‘You’re looking a better colour,’ Andrea said as she looked down at Jacob.
‘Still feel like hammered shit, but they tell me my temperature is more or less normal.’
He did still look sickly, even if she had said he did not. His normally healthy, black skin had a distinctly blue sub-colour and his eyes had a rather sunken quality. Of course, her eyes were not doing so well either.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Health-wise, I’m good, but… You know you have this problem with Ultras?’
‘I have a problem with some Ultrahumans who seem to think having powers…’ He stopped. ‘What happened? And now I think about it, why are you wearing dark glasses?’ Andrea sighed and took her glasses off. It seemed to take him a second to realise what he was seeing, and then he said, ‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. The drug… The Excelsior triggered some… alterations. I’d be dead without it. Maybe. If you want to keep your distance…’
He gave a weak laugh. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be up to any athletic activities for a while anyway. I think you were not exactly unpowered before this, right?’
‘I could teleport. It’s how I could always get into your house.’
‘I’d come to the conclusion it was that, or walking through walls. If you suddenly start craving camera time I’ll dump you. Barring that, I don’t think this is going to be a problem. If it was, I’d probably have said something before now.’
Andrea grinned. ‘Well… Now you’re awake I’m going up to Boston. I need to tell my parents about this. So, uh, I guess you’ve got time to change your mind and dump me anyway.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’
28th March.
‘You take care of yourself,’ Andrea said as she stood in front of the gate looking nervous.
‘You know me,’ Penny replied, smiling.
‘Yeah, bulletproof and crazy.’
‘Maybe. You be careful too. You don’t blend in as well as you used to.’
Andrea adjusted her glasses, brow knitting. ‘I know, but I’ll be fine.’ Around them people began to shuffle toward the gate. ‘Time to go.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks. Hopefully I won’t need it.’
Boston, MA.
The taxi pulled over to the side of Salem Street and Andrea got out of it, pulling her case out with her. Behind her, LeFey Coffee was waiting, and within it her parents.
She had insisted on taking the taxi from Logan. It meant she was not going to be asked about the dark glasses until she got inside, and there would be no scene because there would be customers in the shop. For a little while she could just enjoy being back with her family.
Looking up, she grinned at the sign. The name had been her mother’s idea. Morgana le Fey, and they were the Morgans, so LeFey Coffee. It was an appropriate sort of name for a shop on Salem Street, and neither of her parents were religious enough to take witchcraft in the least bit seriously. It actually attracted more than its fair share of women in gothic-looking dresses. One had even commented on the collection of original artwork; her parents snapped up witchcraft-related art where they could find it to decorate the interior.
There was a small bell mounted over the door; the jingling brought the attention of a grey-haired woman at the back of the shop. Audrey, her mother, had not taken Andy’s death well and the grey hair had come on as a result. However, Audrey smiled broadly as her daughter walked in and started through the tables where a scattering of tourists and a few locals were enjoying their drinks.
‘It’s not that bright out,’ Audrey commented, raising her eyebrows and flicking a glance at the glasses. Despite the grey hair, she was still a young-looking, attractive woman with the same sort of dusky skin as her daughter and the same brown eyes as Andrea had, until recently. The hair was grey, but still had a vibrant quality to it and her figure was holding up well, despite her cooking, which was excellent.
‘I’m having some trouble with my eyes,’ Andrea replied. It was not even a lie.
‘Nothing too bad, I hope?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later. I don’t want to have to explain it twice. Where’s Dad?’
‘Upstairs, making your room ready. Go on up.’
Nodding, Andrea went through the kitchen at the back of the shop to the stairs which led to the house above. It was on three floors, with a lounge and kitchen, then main bedroom and bathroom, and finally two guest rooms. One of those was where she found her father, Marcus.
He was a slightly rough figure of Irish stock. People would occasionally wonder how he had managed to woo Audrey Neroni since she was by far the more attractive of the two. She said it was his sense of humour which had attracted her and he did have a wonderfully bright smile. He was greying at the temples now, but he was pushing fifty. She had got her dark hair from him, but his eyes were blue and tended to sparkle. The worst thing about Andy’s death had been seeing her father’s eyes go dull and she hoped she was not going to see that again this weekend.
‘Hey, kid,’ he said as she
wheeled her case in. ‘Been out on the booze?’
‘I’ll explain the glasses later, when I don’t have to do it twice.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Fair enough. Well, the room’s sorted. I’d better get back downstairs. Get yourself settled in.’ He slipped his muscled form past her. Andy had got his frame from his father. Andrea had favoured her mother more, which Marcus had viewed as no bad thing.
Andrea closed the door and took the couple of steps needed to get her to the bed where she fell, face first, onto the blankets and began, once again, to work out what she was going to say to them.
~~~
Audrey had cooked enough food to keep a battalion happy, as was her habit whenever her daughter came home. When it had been Andy as well there had been enough for an army, so she was learning to cut back. Andrea had decided to wait until after they had eaten to say anything, and it almost worked. They had finished most of the food and were sitting back with a glass of wine each when Marcus spoke.
‘So, what’s the bad news?’ he said, though his eyes were still bright.
‘Bad news?’ Andrea replied.
‘Dark glasses, and you’ve been jittery since you got here. Some guy knocked you up?’
‘Marcus,’ Audrey chided.
‘Well, I have got a boyfriend…’
‘But that’s not why you’re wearing sunglasses indoors,’ Audrey said. ‘Unless he’s hitting you–’
‘He isn’t. He’s a UID agent. He’s nice. Big, strong… His name’s Jacob. And this is sort of to do with him.’ She frowned, trying to work out how to continue. ‘Something happened. To both of us, but…’
‘Out with it,’ Marcus encouraged her. ‘You’re making your mother nervous and delaying isn’t going to help.’
‘Yeah…’ Reaching up, Andrea lifted her glasses off, looking out at them through her dark eyes. Her mother gasped, but her father looked less surprised than she might have expected.
‘You’re Twilight,’ Marcus stated. ‘That girl who’s been in the news with that new heroine in New Millennium.’
‘Cygnus,’ Andrea supplied absently, her eyes wide.
‘That’s the one. Of course, they hardly ever get a picture of her partner, but the figure was yours and they said the two of you were being really hard on the Tonaldos, and there was the sword, but they never said anything about…’ He waved a hand vaguely toward Andrea’s face.
‘Well, no, this is new. I could keep it a secret before. Then… I got gassed along with Jacob. It’s a drug the Tonaldos are shipping in. He’s in hospital. I’m fine, but… different.’
‘You were trying to catch the people who killed Andrew?’ Audrey asked, her voice hushed.
Andrea nodded. ‘And it turned out to be more complicated than we thought. But one of them is dead. Ghostfire, the man Cygnus killed before Christmas, he was one of them. The other one got away, but we’ll get him. He wants Cygnus for something and when he comes back we’re going to nail him.’
‘I thought the Tonaldos–’
‘Andy shouldn’t have got involved with them. They put him on the wrong road, but it was Ghostfire who killed him, Mom. Set him up, set the whole gang up, and killed them.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll bring Cygnus up to see us sometime,’ Marcus said. ‘We should thank her for getting some justice for our son.’
‘I’m not sure she wants to be thanked. She didn’t have much choice about killing him, but it took her weeks to get over it. I’ll see what I can do though. Might do her some good to know she brought a little closure.’
‘So…’ Audrey said, visibly trying to look happy and not quite managing it. ‘Uh, what can you do?’
‘I’m not really sure yet. It seems to be related to darkness and shadows, but beyond that… I haven’t had time to find out.’
Audrey’s brow furrowed for a second. ‘Darkness and shadows, well, that’s appropriate if you call yourself Twilight.’ The brightness was a little forced, and Andrea did not think it was simply to do with the discovery that her daughter was an Ultra.
New Millennium City, MD.
Cygnus soared above Chesapeake Bay, her eyes scanning for signs of water traffic. It was a clear, cool night, the wind was in her hair, and she was feeling pretty good, if a little frustrated. So far there was no sign of a drug ship.
She was beginning to wonder whether her information was wrong when she spotted the shadow. Something was moving under the water of the bay, something large and dark. She considered the possibility that it was a lost whale, but decided it was worth following up on because the shape seemed too unnatural for a sea mammal.
As she followed the shape as best she could, she pulled a slim, hook-shaped device from the top of one boot and slipped the short end into her right ear.
‘Call Red Huntress.’
The sound of the Den was loud in the background of the call. ‘Cygnus?’ Red’s voice had a question in it.
‘Hi, Red. Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering whether you knew if people used submarines to ship in drugs?’
‘Not in this area, but… I think I recall hearing about it being done into Miami.’
‘Huh… Shame Twilight’s not in town. She would have loved to see this one. I’ll try to drop in there before closing time.’
‘See you later then.’
Tucking the mini-phone back into her boot, Cygnus checked the position of the shadow under the water. It was maybe two miles away from Deale Harbour and not travelling very quickly. She figured she had a good ten minutes before it got to shore and, as yet, she could not be sure where it was headed. The deep water around the docks probably meant that the thing would not need to surface until it was actually at the unloading point.
Keeping an eye on the path of the supposed sub, she flew on ahead, checking the docks for signs of anyone waiting for the incoming shipment. She found them on Pier Four: two vans parked up at the end of the pier and a group of men standing around looking as though they were trying very hard to appear as if they were just hanging. To Cygnus they were not doing a very convincing job. She figured they could afford to wait until the last moment to arrive for a surface vessel, but the submarine would be out of communication for most of its trip in.
Then she spotted the third vehicle coming in. It was a large, paramilitary SUV, the kind of thing the UID used for their special operations squads and a few large police departments deployed SWAT units in. As it came to a stop, the rear door opened and eight men carrying what looked like heavy assault rifles filed out. Two of them had tubes slung to their backs which looked like rocket launchers.
‘Oh swell. They really mean business on this one.’ Taking on that many armed men was not going to be easy. Even with Twilight there it would have been tough. How was she going to stop them? She could see the dark shape of the submersible only a minute or two away…
Grinning, she headed out to sea, past the submarine, and then dropped toward the water. The question was whether she could hold her breath for long enough… Or would she need to? Could she get her body to adapt? Could she do the magic trick Hugh had said she could do?
Diving after the submarine, she muttered, ‘Come on Cosmic Powers, I need to be able to breathe underwater…’ Then the world went fuzzy as the water enveloped her. Seeing the vessel was not easy, but she could just make out a dark mass ahead of her. She needed to get under it, but her lungs were already starting to hurt. Okay, so maybe her awesome powers were not quite up to… And then the ache went away. She was not breathing, but she was getting oxygen somehow and that was good enough. Now all she needed to do was pull off the trick she had planned.
Up on the dock, the first of the men spotted the boat as it broke the surface about two hundred yards from the dock. ‘There!’
Benny Himan turned toward the spot the man was pointing to and frowned. ‘What’a fuck they doin’? They was supposed to bring it all’a way in before comin’ up.’ If the pilot of the boat screwed this up, it was going to be Benny who got it in the
neck. And if that happened, the pilot was going to be out on the bottom of the bay without his submarine.
One of the armed men was frowning more than Benny was. ‘Subs don’t sit that high in the water,’ he growled. ‘Something’s wrong.’
Benny’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah, damn thing’s still goin’ up!’
Shock set in as the thin, black submarine, which looked as though it had been cobbled together out of random boats, lifted entirely out of the water and continued rising. They did not even notice the woman under it, trying her best to balance it on her back as she pushed it upward, until the thing was practically overhead.
‘Shit!’ Benny yelled. ‘Shoot her!’
It had to be the stupidest instruction he had ever given. Cygnus could feel herself tiring, even as the bullets started rattling into the hull. They were putting holes in their own submarine and doing nothing to her aside from pissing her off.
‘You want it?’ she yelled down. ‘You got it.’ Twisting to her right, she tilted aside and felt the rough steel scrape over her skin as the mini-sub fell. The result, as the SUV and half a van turned into scrap metal along with the boat, was something akin to an explosion in a bell factory.
As the noise subsided and men began picking themselves up from where they had jumped or fallen, Cygnus yelled down from where she was hovering: ‘If I have to come down there and physically arrest every last one of you, I am going to be really pissed off. Put your damn guns down!’
For once it actually worked.
29th March.
‘Well, of course they gave up,’ June said. ‘You dropped a submarine on them. A submarine!’
Word of her latest exploit had got back to the Huntress’ Den before she had. Cygnus had decided that she needed to find the person who had invented internet-connected smartphones and have a quiet word about never doing anything like that again. There had been cheers as she had walked across the dance floor.
‘How much was that?’ June added. ‘How heavy?’
‘Uh… not sure,’ Cygnus replied. ‘One of the cops said it had to be about six tons, loaded.’
‘That’s… wow.’ Then June shrugged. ‘Yeah, okay, so we let you carry the shopping.’
Shadows (Ultrahumans Book 2) Page 7