Etherya had an idea. It made her feel just a little guilty. She proceeded anyway.
“Hello, Emma.” She smiled at the girl in her mother’s arm. “This is Mister Science. He used to be on TV.”
“Why’s he hugging her like that?” said Emma.
Mister Science stared at the girl for a long moment.
“You don’t play fair, Etherya.”
“I don’t.”
He let go of the officer and let the small tube fall from his hand. Emma’s mother turned and ran at the first sign of violence, which, not unexpectedly, came from the policewoman. She had Mister Science on the ground in under three seconds.
Sprite looked at the muddy shirt Etherya still held in her hands. “Well no wonder we couldn’t find her. Those are alligators, not crocodiles.”
✽✽✽
Molly stared at the front door for a good half minute before she opened it. Going to see Heather had been a fact-finding mission. She had certainly not been stalling her return home. Her return to her mother. She came in cautiously and plastered a mostly fake smile on her face.
“Hello?”
It was an unusual feeling for her. She was used to living by herself and hadn’t had to announce her presence in her own home in years. Fathi lay on her couch and waved pleasantly to her. The bruises on his face looked, if anything, worse, but she could see some tinges of green starting to form. As Wulfric had predicted, he was healing quickly.
“Feeling any better?”
He held his hand flat out and shook it in a so-so gesture. Molly nodded and gave him a sympathetic look. “Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head and pointed to the book he was reading to indicate his contentment. Molly saw the title and chuckled. At Fathi’s raised eyebrow she explained herself.
“Sorry, it’s just not the book in my library I would have grabbed for you.”
He nodded and did his best to smile around the bruises. Then he pulled a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket, wrote a few words and handed it to her.
“Really? Nine hundred years and you never got around to Jane Austen?” She considered that. “Okay. I guess two hundred years since she wrote it. What do you think?”
He wrote one word on the pad, underlined it, and showed it to her. She laughed out loud.
“Dated? I think that’s your fault.” She looked around. “Are Mom and Wulfric downstairs with the decorations?”
He shook his head and made a walking gesture with his fingers toward the front door.
“They went out? Where?”
He gestured with his chin and Molly followed his gaze out her front window. She saw the two of them getting out of a car she didn’t recognize. It occurred to her that she hadn’t looked for Wulfric’s car – or perhaps Fathi’s – this morning. For two crusading knights, the Mitsubishi Lancer was a little too on the nose.
Molly held the door for them as they came in out of the cold. “Where did you guys go?”
“We went to noon Mass, dear.” There wasn’t much reproach in her mother’s voice.
Molly felt blood drain from her face. It wasn’t quite like meeting your priest on Sunday afternoon when you’d skipped services in the morning, but it was close. Wulfric saw her guilty expression and looked like he wanted to roll his eyes.
“I am out of the heathen smiting business, remember? Chastisement isn’t really my thing anymore, so stop looking like that.”
Lydia piped up as she took off her coat and scarf. “Besides, Father Barney knew who you were, so you must attend fairly regularly.”
A half minute of awkward silence fell as Molly decided not to take the bait. The words “You were checking up on me?” were on her lips, but she knew what the answer would be. Lydia would say that yes she had, and why shouldn’t she? It wasn’t as if her own daughter had told her anything about her life for the past five years.
For a man who didn’t chastise, Wulfric sure looked like he wanted to, though Molly wasn’t sure if he was directing that at Molly or at her mother. Since a subject change was in order, she threw the ball back to Wulfric.
“I don’t think I ever asked. What is your actual status with the church these days?”
“I am a deacon, though that’s largely in name only since I’m not attached to a specific parish. I was a full priest for many years, but I spoke with His Holiness, and we agreed that it wasn’t where I was needed.”
“You’ve met the pope?” It was one of Lydia’s bucket list goals.
“Not the current one.” Wulfric was understating things. It also wasn’t the one before the current pope, or the one before that, or the one before that, or, probably, even the one before that.
Peace mostly restored, Molly took a breath. “All right. I’ve had a lot of coffee today, so let me use the bathroom, and then I can fill everyone in on what’s going on.”
She returned from the restroom and was unsurprised to find that Wulfric was making sandwiches for everyone. He handed her a glass of completely uncaffeinated water before she sat down.
“So far, we have only been able to prove conclusively that one person didn’t do it, and that’s Stomper. Since he was the person I wanted to be guilty, that leaves us in a rough spot.” She looked at Fathi. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for a second that you did it, but there’s nothing proving that you didn’t.”
Fathi furrowed his brow and started scribbling on his pad. He handed it to Molly, and it was her turn to frown.
“What do you mean, ‘powder burns?’”
Wulfric spoke up. “The police asked if they could test Fathi’s hands and coat sleeves for powder burns. They took the coat in custody with our blessings. Surely those tests clear Fathi?”
“Sean didn’t mention anything to me, but I didn’t know to ask about this. Maybe the tests aren’t done yet, or maybe Sean just didn’t think to tell me.”
“Can’t they test everyone else?” Lydia seemed hopeful for a simple solution.
“I wish.” Molly shook her head. “I’m pretty sure Hunter Baxter fired his gun at Stomper, so there will be powder burns regardless. As for Damselfly and The Aerialist, they’ve had time to change clothes, shower, and do anything else to get rid of any traces, and The Aerialist did fire a rifle as well.”
Wulfric nodded. “So where are we now?”
“We need to find The Aerialist. He’s currently my most likely suspect for the shooting, but I admit that’s based on not much of anything. If he didn’t do it, then maybe he saw something that can help point the finger.”
“Why do you have to find this man? Aren’t the police looking for him?”
Molly felt a darkness well up inside her. She tried to deflect her mother’s accusatory tone. “The police asked me to help them. They’re paying me to help.”
“But they wanted your help because of who you used to be. This Aerialist appeared for the first time a few days ago. What do you know that the police don’t?”
“At the moment, not much, but I have access to options they don’t have.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for one thing, I can call Hustle and see if he’s still speaking to me. His speed makes a manhunt much easier.”
She had no idea why, but it was the wrong answer. Her mother almost snarled. “You can’t seriously want to work with that jackass!”
This was not the sort of language Molly was used to from her mother. “Mom, what are you –”
“I saw the way he played around with you after that business with the Centipedes. You need to stay away from him.”
Molly blinked uncomprehendingly. She had only tangled with the Centipede Gang a handful of times, and they frankly weren’t that memorable. She couldn’t figure out for the life of her what her mother was…
When it dawned on her, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. She and Hustle had broken up and gotten back together a half a dozen times, but on one occasion (ironically after the most amicable of their break-ups) Hustle had tangled with the
Centipede Gang with the help of Razzle. The pyrotechnic heroine had mistaken the team-up for a date and kissed Hustle right in front of a dozen news reporters. She and Hustle quickly got bored with each other, and she eventually moved to a different city and married the Dark Heron, but the damage had already been done. The tabloids knew Etherya and Hustle were an item, and they assumed she’d been thrown over for Razzle. It was huge in the papers for several months.
And there was only one reason Molly’s mother would be bringing it up.
“Mom, have you been on the Etherya fan sites?”
Lydia did not look abashed. “I know you’ve been busy, but it’s not like you were sharing a lot of details about who you used to be.”
Molly looked at Wulfric. “I can’t believe you let her go on those sites.”
“No one ‘let’ me do anything, Molly. I’m a grown woman.”
“One who really should know better than to trust what’s on the internet.” Molly shook her head. “Razzle kissed Hustle, not the other way around, and it was after I dumped him. And it was years ago. I am not saying this to defend him, because he doesn’t need to be defended. He’s one of my best friends, and I trust him completely.”
“I still think you should leave this to the police.”
Molly gave up on restraining her temper. “Well that’s not up for debate, Mom. I am doing what I’ve been asked to do in the way I think best.”
“You are chasing a killer. It’s dangerous.”
“I know that.” She had reached her breaking point far more quickly than she’d expected. “Do you see now why I never told you about being Etherya? I knew exactly how you’d react, and it’s just like this. ‘Don’t do it. It’s dangerous.’ ‘You could get hurt.’ You’d have been hovering over me every moment of every day.”
Lydia matched her volume. “You’re my daughter. Of course I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I can’t live like that.” She felt Fathi and Wulfric staring at this shouting match and forced an artificial calm into her voice. It came out as a lot of bitterness. “I don’t expect you to understand this, which is why I never said anything to you, but my powers weren’t just something neat I could do at parties. I could help people in ways no one else could, and if I wasn’t willing to do that because it was too scary or too dangerous, then I didn’t deserve to have the powers.”
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
“Sometimes it does, Mom. Dad understood that.”
She instantly hated herself for letting that last sentence come out. She had just crossed the line into cruelty.
Lydia went bone-white. “Your father knew?”
“At the end. I told him a few months before he passed on.” Her mother just stared at her, looking betrayed by the man she’d loved for so many years.
The silence was broken by Molly’s back door opening. She didn’t have time to grimace, but she knew what was going to happen.
Hustle appeared in his usual blur. “Did I come at a bad time?”
✽✽✽
Molly stared at the closed door of her guest room. Her mother had mumbled something and rushed up the stairs five seconds after Hustle’s arrival. Molly had followed after making a few hasty excuses, but she hadn’t made it up the stairs before the door was shut. Buster, who had come up beside Molly, scratched once at the door and whined.
She could have knocked. That would have been polite.
She could have just opened the door and walked in. The lock was tricky on this door, and her mother probably didn’t have it locked.
Instead, she decided for the nuclear option. Molly ghosted and walked through the door.
“Molly,” her mother admonished.
She was having none of it. “What, Mom? Am I not supposed to use my powers in my own house? Do you expect me to be ashamed of them?”
“I never said that.” Lydia turned her back on her daughter, trying to give herself some space. “Everything’s coming at me at once, and you’re expecting me to accept it just like that.”
“It’s the opposite, Mom. I’m not expecting any acceptance at all. If I thought for a minute that you could have accepted my old life, I would have told you years ago. Part of me feels guilty for that, but when you prove me right at every single turn in the road, it’s harder and harder to feel bad about this.”
Lydia turned and looked over her shoulder. “I just need time to digest this. You’re not being fair to me.”
“Nope. Not at all.” Molly took a step closer. “But let me remind you that you wanted me to stop keeping secrets, and then when I tried to let you in on what I’m doing, at the first possible opportunity you started to criticize. That is also, by the way, not fair.”
Lydia turned to her daughter. For a moment, Molly thought she was going to lash out, but something crossed her face. It was sobering to realize just how grim the set of Molly’s face must be. Her mother was a little afraid of her.
“What do you want from me, Molly?”
“A lot, but for right now I’ll settle for an understanding of the facts on the ground. I need to go back downstairs and plan strategy. If you want to be kept in the loop, you can come downstairs. If you’d prefer to stay up here, that’s fine, just understand what my reaction is likely to be if you then complain that I’m not opening up to you. The decision is entirely yours.”
Molly turned on her heels and walked back to the door. “If you do stay up here, let Buster keep you company, please. He’ll whine if you don’t let him in.”
She opened the door and Buster charged in with tail at full speed. Molly didn’t shut the door behind her and went back down the stairs. Hustle met her at the bottom.
“Are we ready?”
“Almost,” she replied. She waved at Sandra through her window as her lawyer came to the door. “Just one more person to arrive.”
Molly heard her mother start to descend the stairs. She looked and saw the woman holding Buster like a lifeline. The dog didn’t mind at all. Molly wasn’t sure how she felt about her mother’s decision. Regardless of how she felt though, the decision had been made.
Chapter Thirteen
“Molly, you can’t do this.” Sandra’s tone was somewhere between alarmed and trying to explain something to an eight-year-old. “You’re in the VAA. You absolutely cannot lead a team of capes to go capture The Aerialist.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
Sandra narrowed her eyes. “Then what precisely are your intentions?”
“They are to run my plans by my lawyer before I put them into effect.” Molly was rewarded by raised eyebrows all around. She allowed a little frustration to escape as she addressed her team. “I may not be a tactical genius, but I’m also not an idiot. When this is over, I’d like to not wind up in prison if it’s all the same to you.”
Everyone else looked a little sheepish. Hustle grinned. “It’s your circus, babe. Just tell us which rings to stand in.” He went so far as to salute, which was kind of a mixed metaphor.
“Thank you. Now I’m working off the assumption that The Aerialist is local to Capetown.”
“Seems logical,” Sandra conceded.
“And following that logic, I’m hoping that we can track him back to wherever he makes his base.”
“You mean his home?” Sandra asked.
“That might be too much to hope for, but then again he’s new to this.” She gestured to Wulfric and Fathi. “I propose that Wulfric, Fathi, and I take up locations in Capetown to try and spot him. When we see him, we can watch where he goes and report to Hustle, who can try to track him from the ground.”
“And when I find him I grab him.”
She shook her head almost as vehemently as Sandra. “No. If you grab him, I’ve incited a vigilante to perform an unlawful arrest. Thus I’ve broken my VAA agreement, and thus, jail.”
Hustle looked abashed for once in his life. “Gotcha. Sorry. Not used to these ground rules.”
“Wh
at you do is tell me where he goes. If we can track him to whatever he’s using for a home base, I can tell the police where that is, and they can go get him.”
“Can they? Is the local police force capable of catching someone with the power of flight?” Wulfric was being diplomatic. If Hustle had said it, she’d have slapped him.
“Capetown’s police force, probably not, but I’m working for the State Police, and they have a lot of resources. I’m confident that if they can find him, they can catch him.” She turned to Sandra. “Will it pass?”
Sandra pursed her lips and considered before speaking. “It seems innocuous enough. I’ll discuss it with Erasmus, but at first glance, I think it’s acceptable – with one caveat.” She looked at Fathi. “Mr. Faizan, I’m afraid you’ll have to sit this one out.”
Fathi frowned, pulled out his pad and wrote, “Feeling better already.”
“I’m glad for that, but I’m not benching you because of your injuries. You were one of a small number of people present when Matt Nelson died. Given the unusual nature of this murder, it’s best that you stay out of this as much as possible.”
Molly frowned. “Didn’t they test Fathi’s clothes for powder burns?”
“Did they? I wouldn’t know, but even if those tests come back negative, it’s hardly conclusive, especially if the police start throwing around a conspiracy theory. Six people in a room, one dies, one ends up in a coma, but of the remaining four, no one saw who committed the murder? It seems unlikely.” Sandra shook her head. “Unless the police get a lead of some sort, they’re going to start to wonder about things like that.”
“That seems far-fetched.” Wulfric was obviously concerned for his friend.
“No, she’s right,” Hustle said confidently. “The longer this stays unsolved, the more elaborate the theories will get. It kind of has to.”
“Then let’s try and get this over with before…”
The doorbell rang.
“Crud.” Molly looked at Hustle. “You might want to disappear. The uniform…”
He shook his head. “Relax. It’s Bri. I saw her through the window.”
Ex-Cape | Book 2 | Ex-Cape From A Small Town Page 18