Ex-Cape | Book 2 | Ex-Cape From A Small Town

by Wentzel, Daniel

  Molly, relieved, went to the door. Bri was about the only person who wouldn’t be surprised to see Hustle or want to arrest him on sight. “We should probably draw the blinds. Wulfric, would you?” She opened the door. “Hi, Bri. What’s up?”

  “I left the pan with the brownies here, and I wanted to make something else. Can I…?”

  “Come in, of course.” Molly let Bri past her and kept an eye on the girl to watch Bri’s face lit up when she saw Hustle.

  “Wow, hey!”

  “Hello, Bri. Good to see you again. I’m here for a confab with Molly.”

  “It’s… It’s good to see you.” She looked at the other people in the room. “Hi, Ms. Brown. I guess if you’re here, this is pretty serious.”

  Sandra’s eyes went wide. “A superhero in full costume comes to visit Molly, and I’m what makes it serious?”

  Bri shrugged. “You’re a lawyer.”

  Molly didn’t try to keep a straight face as she made some introductions. “Bri, these are my friends Wulfric and Fathi.”

  The two men smiled avuncularly. Even with Fathi’s broken jaw, Molly was struck by the similarity of their smiles.

  “I read about you, sir. You’re The Hospitaller, aren’t you?”

  “I am, and even though I am a knight, you don’t need to call me ‘sir.’ Mr. Weiss, or even Wulfric is perfectly fine. Did I hear correctly that you were responsible for those brownies I had the chance to try this morning?”

  “The brownies were excellent.” Lydia seemed happy to talk of something so normal. “I didn’t know you’d made them. I washed the pan and put it away. Let me help you find it.”

  That shouldn’t be too hard, Molly thought, I don’t think I even own a cake pan.

  Hustle continued the conversation as Bri and Lydia went back to Molly’s kitchen. “We do have a little bit of a problem if Fathi’s out. It leaves you and Wulfric as spotters, and as small as Capetown is, I don’t think that’s enough. People talk about triangulating a position for a reason. We need at least three.”

  Molly looked at Sandra, who shook her head. “I can’t do it, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “Heather?” suggested Hustle.

  Molly looked guilty. “She might be better as bait. He was at the bar, the debate, and earlier this morning outside her shop, all places where Heather was. It could be a coincidence, but I’m not betting on that. In fact, staking out Heather seems like the best option to start with.”

  “You could ask your mother.” Wulfric said, just as Lydia and Bri walked into the room. Molly much doubted that was accidental.

  “Ask me what?”

  “We need another spotter, Mom. I understand if you’re not comfortable with it.”

  Lydia stared at her daughter for a long moment with an unreadable expression. Her response was hesitant. “If… If you’re going to be just standing around watching, I think I’d like to go with you, Molly. I know that doesn’t help the situation, but we could at least spend that time together.”

  Molly walked over and gave her mother a hug. “Yes.” It was all she needed to say.

  “Umm, am I allowed to ask what you guys are talking about?”

  All eyes fell on Bri.

  “Yes. This is the standard ‘doesn’t leave this room’ discussion, but I trust you.” Molly let that sink in for a moment, then continued. “We’re trying to help the police find The Aerialist.”

  Bri’s eyes got wider than they had when she’d seen Hustle. “What? But he’s one of the good guys.”

  “We don’t know that for certain. He was one of only a handful of people who could have killed Matt Nelson, and he’s the only one of those people the police haven’t been able to question. Even if he is innocent, we need to find out what he knows.”

  Bri still looked gobsmacked. Hustle gave her a disarming grin. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I’m one of the good guys too, and the police have been out to get me more times than I can count.”

  It didn’t seem to be that reassuring, but Bri spoke up hesitantly. “So, you need another person to help you watch for him?”

  Warning bells went off in Molly’s brain. “I can’t ask you to help, Bri. It could be dangerous.”

  Lydia made a sound in her throat, and Molly pointedly did not look at her mother. Now was not the time for a discussion on hypocrisy.

  “How is it dangerous?” Bri knew better than to be confrontational, so she kept her tone respectful, like a student asking a teacher to explain a difficult problem. “I would just be standing there watching, right? I know that trying to chase him down would be a mistake.”

  Molly was a teacher and knew how to deal with a teenager who was being respectful while wheedling to get her own way. “That is good to hear, but if someone notices that you’re watching things they don’t want you to, you could end up as a potential hostage.”

  “Can’t you teach me how not to be noticed?”

  The fact was that Bri was pretty good at that already. When she didn’t know the answer to a teacher’s question, she could hide in plain sight and never be called on. Molly had only cottoned onto that after knowing the girl for several years. It wasn’t the issue.

  “Even if I could, you’re a minor. It wouldn’t be acceptable.” Molly looked at Sandra, who nodded, backing her up.

  “A lot of capes are minors. Look at Damselfly. You worked with her this summer.”

  Molly shook her head. “Those capes aren’t helping the police. What they’re doing is technically illegal.” She didn’t have time for this argument, so she decided to foist it off on someone else. “The only way we could even think of letting you do this would be with parental permission.”

  Bri beamed at the news, and Molly knew she’d made a tactical error of epic proportions. Before she could react, Bri had pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

  Molly had been walking on eggshells with Alyss Duncan for a few months now. When Bri had been told that the knowledge of Molly’s former secret identity could be very dangerous to Bri’s loved ones if it got out, she had adamantly refused to tell her parents. However, they needed to be told something. Their daughter had just been kidnapped and brainwashed, and shortly after wanted to start spending time with her substitute teacher who, incidentally, had been involved in some undefined way.

  The lie had started with Sandra, who mentioned the Witness Protection Program as an emergency cover. Molly had expanded on that as little as possible, but Alyss and James Duncan now believed she was a former federal agent who was helping to bring down an unnamed supervillain. She wasn’t comfortable with the lie, but it was an easy pretense to keep up, particularly since one of her boyfriends was a cop. Truth be told, she suspected James was happier knowing his daughter was learning martial arts to defend herself. Alyss, on the other hand, had seemed to be on the verge of hysteria ever since Bri had been kidnapped.

  “Hi, Mom. I’m at Miss Martin’s house. She’s helping the police to find The Aerialist, and she needs someone to do some spotting. I asked her if I could help, and she said not without your permission.”

  It was so blunt, Molly suspected that Bri hadn’t really called her mother. That suspicion was erased when Bri handed the phone over to her. She blinked in surprise, then spoke into the phone.

  “Hi, Alyss. I was…”

  “Bri has my permission. Absolutely. Thank you for checking in with me first.”

  Molly had no response for a moment, trying to get over her shock. “Um, are you sure? There is some possibility of danger.”

  “My daughter is in no danger from The Aerialist. I’m certain of that.”

  The faith she was showing in the man sounded bedrock deep. Molly furrowed her brows. “May I ask how?”

  “He saved my life. Or at least kept me from a broken arm. I was out riding on one of the trails and something spooked Austin.” Austin was a Percheron which was entirely too big a horse for Alyss to be riding, but she spent a lot of time caring for and riding the brute. “I’d have taken quite
a spill if he hadn’t saved me.”

  “The Aerialist? When was this?”

  “Oh, Halloween morning, the same day he made all the papers. I haven’t told a lot of people about it because I’ve had enough of reporters for a while.”

  “And where were you exactly?”

  “That horse trail in the state park.”

  Molly filed this away, then looked at Bri’s smiling face. The girl was looking entirely too pleased with herself.

  “All right. If you’re sure, Alyss. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone else.”

  “Of course, the last thing you need is gossip. Let me know if you need any official signatures or anything like that. Goodbye.”

  Molly handed Bri her phone rather than try to figure out how to hang up the call. She looked at the girl and accepted the fact that she’d been outmaneuvered by a sixteen year old.

  “All right, the first thing we need is a map of Capetown.”

  ✽✽✽

  “Are we allowed to be up here?”

  “This is a case where it’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.” Molly scanned the horizon without her binoculars. They showed a clearer picture, but they also cut off her peripheral vision. Until she knew where she was looking, she chose to go without.

  “I always hated that expression.”

  “Well, yes. You’re a parent.” Molly smiled at her mother. It was not returned. “This is a public building and there isn’t a ‘No Trespassing’ sign anywhere. If someone asks us to leave, we will, but until that happens, we’re not doing anything illegal. We’ll just say we’re birdwatching.”

  “I don’t like lying.”

  “Then don’t.” Molly pointed to a flock of sparrows in one of the bushes three stories down. “You birdwatch. I’ll look for The Aerialist.”

  Lydia let out a deep breath which was not quite a sigh. “So, who in Capetown knows your secret?”

  The gust of frigid wind made them both suck in air. Molly was wearing workout gear underneath her clothes and her coat was fairly good at blocking the wind, but her legs and face, unprotected from the air, were almost in pain from the cold.

  “Up until a few months ago, nobody. Now it’s Sean, Bri, and my best friend, Heather. You’ll have to meet her soon.”

  “It doesn’t seem like a good idea to have told Bri. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, but…”

  “But she’s a teenager.” Molly nodded but kept scanning the skies. “You’re right that it wasn’t a good idea. It also wasn’t my idea. Long story short, the first person to recognize me from my old life was an evil mad scientist. He used me to get to some of the active capes, and I guess you could say he used Bri to get to me.”

  Molly spared a glance at Lydia. As expected, her mother had turned whiter than the cold of the day warranted. She started looking around unconsciously, as though expecting an attack at any second.

  “That mad scientist is, by the way, dead, Mom. He killed himself rather than face capture.” That was the official story. She knew it was untrue, but not in a way she could prove. Anyway, this was not the time to share her unfounded beliefs with her already nervous mother.

  Lydia didn’t calm down much. Molly knew her mother was uncomfortable with her daughter having been exposed to that kind of awful violence. Molly could feel her mother’s nervous energy as she shifted from foot to foot. Resolutely, Molly kept her gaze up to the sky.

  “It isn’t always like this, Mom. Granted this stakeout isn’t the most derring-do I’ve seen in my life, but even this is more excitement than Capetown usually gets. Except for the thing a few months back, I haven’t seen any action since I got here.”

  “So you’ve been safer here than when you were with your family?”

  Her mother’s tone was bitter but did not sound angry. Molly proceeded with caution. “I was, and I think so were you. You know about the Gray Judge?” Her throat tightened, but she kept her voice mostly level.

  Lydia didn’t speak for a few moments. “You went away about a month after he disappeared. You couldn’t turn on the news without seeing the reports about that ‘Steelstrike.’ Of course I wondered if you were a witness to something to do with him, but I told myself that was too outlandish.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I really did think the less you knew the better.”

  “I think maybe I’m ready to listen to the logic behind that decision if you want to tell me. I’ll tell you now that I don’t understand how we were any safer.”

  Molly let go of the binoculars and let them settle against her chest, held up by the string around her neck. She turned to face her mother. “All right, but it’s complicated, just so you know. I never told Steelstrike my name, but I’m sure he knew it. People got careless around headquarters because we felt secure there. I know people called me ‘Molly’ on occasion, and I wasn’t always diligent about wearing the mask. It’s possible that he didn’t know my last name, but it wasn’t a given, and certainly not something I wanted to bank on.”

  Lydia nodded, and Molly could see the tension in her mother’s shoulders. She continued.

  "There was no history of the Judge going after anyone with no powers, but he didn’t always let civilians deter him. Doctor Awesome was killed in front of his brother and the aunt who raised him. The aunt died, and his brother suffered burns over sixty-five percent of his body.” Molly shook her head, dispelling the demons. “I couldn’t risk him coming after me and hurting you and the girls.”

  Lydia frowned. “Weren’t you worried that he’d come after us to get to flush you out?”

  “I was terrified of that.” Molly shivered as another gust of frigid air crossed over the rooftop. “The best way I could think to prevent it was to cut as many ties as possible. I needed to make the Judge think that you weren’t important to me, so he wouldn’t go through you to get to me. From an outsider’s perspective it was important that it looked like I abandoned my family.”

  “From an insider’s perspective, it did more than just look that way.” Lydia’s tone was flat, but her eyes were hard. “You could have told us what you were doing.”

  Molly shook her head. “No, Mom. You had to believe that I was gone, so that if someone came looking for me, they’d know you weren’t the way to find me. I knew I could lie to the world and make it seem like it wasn’t a decision that broke my heart. People in this town were total strangers to me. I knew that you and my sisters couldn’t do that. I was the only good liar in the bunch. None of you could really pretend to be missing me.”

  “I don’t think you have any idea how much pain you caused all of us.”

  “For the record, I think I do, but it doesn’t matter. You are alive. Everything I did was to keep you that way, and I don’t have a single regret that trumps that. Your lives went on without me, and that’s exactly what I wanted.” Molly brushed away a tear before it froze on her face. “I can say I’m sorry I hurt you, Mom, but I’m not sorry for what I did.”

  Lydia wiped her own tear off her face, but with obvious effort, her voice stayed steady. “And what if he hadn’t bothered to check on us first? What if he had just decided to come for us assuming we could lead him to you?”

  “I didn’t leave you unprotected. You were being watched over, whether you knew it or not.”

  Lydia shot a surprised look at her daughter, but a commotion from below them caught their attention. Four boys were chasing a smaller boy. Molly recognized them at once. Jacob Lieber had gotten into an ill-advised fight at school and walked away with a black eye for his trouble. It might have ended with his in-school suspension except that his mother had insisted that Jacob wear makeup to hide the bruises. The situation had gone downhill quickly. Some of the boys had spotted the makeup. Jacob had lied about wearing it. Soon, “sissy” was one of the nicer names he heard throughout the day. The teachers all knew it was a problem, and were doing their best to de-escalate matters, but off school grounds, there wasn’t much they could do.

&nb
sp; The boys backed Jacob up against the park building. There was a lot of posturing, but Molly was fairly certain it wouldn’t get physical unless Jacob threw the first punch. The boys were trying to tease him to make him cry, something they’d been able to do a few times already.

  Molly inhaled. She knew the boys below, and her sudden appearance above them would probably scatter them to the winds. They would probably be too startled to realize she didn’t have much authority in the public park.

  What was supposed to come out as an authoritative shout became a high-pitched squeak. A gunshot rang out before Molly could say anything. Molly whirled to the sound of the shot, instinctively putting herself between its source and her mother. She blinked in surprise as she realized that the attack had come from a hundred feet to her right and forty feet above her.

  There was no building roof there.

  The Aerialist calmly worked the bolt action on the rifle and sighted down the barrel. The unruly mob of children had broken apart after the first shot, but as another one thundered out, Molly saw one of the boys drop to the ground with a cry of agony, clutching his leg.

  The Aerialist slung the weapon across his back and pulled the bullhorn around. “Listen up!” The sentence was unnecessary. He had the attention of everyone in the park, and he spoke with a new-found confidence. “I used to think Capetown was a peaceful place, and that this would be an easy job to protect you when I could. If I learned anything at the debate, it’s that this madness must end! Stay in line. Keep your children in line. Because if you don’t we’re going to have some problems. Spread the word, people. I’m ending crime in this town before it can begin!”

  Police sirens blared and one of the town police cars appeared on the scene. Chief Willowbrook hopped out of one of the cars with a shotgun in his hand. He shouted something mostly unintelligible, but the ‘stop or I’ll shoot’ message was clear enough. The Aerialist gave a disgusted wave of his hand and soared away. Willowbrook fired twice, but the flier disappeared.

  Molly turned to speak to her mother, but there was no one behind her. She dashed to the edge of the building and saw Lydia had already bolted down the fire escape to the ground below and was disappearing around the corner.