Runaways

by Christopher Golden

“You do know this isn’t Scooby-Doo, right?”

  Nico held on to the staff. “Just do it. Leap and don’t freak when I open the door.”

  “Maybe some magic—”

  “Chase!”

  “Going!”

  He worked the Leapfrog’s controls and the ship lunged from the rooftop toward the gleaming silver tower of XandraWest. With the flick of a thumb, Chase fired a laser at a row of windows on the twenty-first floor. Nico spared an errant thought for the street below, but in the predawn darkness, the sidewalk was empty.

  Nico hit the hatch control and it sprang open. The Leapfrog crashed into the side of the building, legs scrabbling a bit as Chase guided it inside the cubicle-filled office space. Nico jumped out with a flurry of paperwork whirling past her as the wind rushed into the building.

  “Go!” Nico told Chase. “Help the others.”

  The Frog scrambled, hatch closing, nearly falling out of the hole in the side of the silver tower. With Chase at the helm, it leaped away. Nico stood alone in that vast span of cubicles. Power lines sparked and danced and a piece of the floor gave way, allowing a desk to slide right out of the building. Aside from the wind, it seemed eerily quiet.

  What the hell am I doing? she thought.

  “I’m committed now,” she said aloud.

  Karolina chimed in over the comms. “Whatever you’re planning, do it now.”

  Nico nodded. She loved her friends, but in her heart, she preferred it this way—on her own. If she’d dared to say out loud that she thought they needed her to lead, every single one of them would have mocked her, or at least had their feelings hurt. Maybe not Karolina—Kay would understand. Chase and Gert would think she was arrogant. Full of herself. And, hell, maybe that was true. But it was also true that Nico only led the Runaways because she loved them, and feared for them, and felt obligated to keep them safe because she knew she was the best one for the job.

  You are so damn conceited, she thought.

  Yet, conceited or not, leadership put pressure on her. Trying to keep on top of things in the middle of a fight, to get them working as a team in combat, was a huge responsibility. But here, in the quiet, by herself, she could just be Nico. For a few minutes, she only had herself to worry about—only had herself to keep safe.

  So, of course, you’ll probably die, she thought.

  Not so confident after all.

  The Staff of One felt strangely warm in her hand as she started weaving her way through the labyrinth of cubicles. She had no way of knowing what floor the Crimson Cowl might be on. Gert could probably find a blueprint for the building’s layout, tell her where this or that lab might be, but that would all take precious time. Whatever the Cowl might be doing, she was going to move fast now that she knew she wasn’t alone in the building. Nico had thought maybe coming in hard and fast would alarm her, send her scurrying, make her call off the whole plan. Now she felt stupid.

  “Hey, Gert, it’s too late for this but…how sure are you that the Cowl’s even here? We just blew a huge hole in the side of a building. Repairs are going to cost—”

  “Nico, don’t second-guess yourself,” Chase said, breaking in over the comms. “Gert’s hunches are better than most people’s for-sures. Find the Cowl.”

  Nodding as if her friends could see her, Nico held the Staff of One in front of her. Word choice was everything with the magic she had at her disposal, and it took her a few seconds to realize just what she wanted to say. With the staff, simple was always best, but she had to be clear and focused.

  “One Step Behind Her.”

  As Nico spoke the words, intoned the spell, she felt the Staff of One grow warm. A silent cloak of glittering darkness enshrouded her and she blinked it away. Blinked again, and the darkness dissipated. She had no idea what floor she was on, or if she was even still in the XandraWest building, but she stood so close behind the Crimson Cowl that she could smell the scents on the woman—something soft, maybe a body wash or shampoo, along with a crisp metallic scent, like an electrical spark. They were in some kind of lab or research space, its glass surfaces scrawled with mind-boggling math formulas. In the center of the room was a chamber about eight feet high and equally wide, made of triple panes of thick glass, or something like glass. Inside sat what looked like a computer workstation, a high-backed chair—nothing fancy—and a black monitor, attached to a weird box about as tall as Nico herself. Black and gleaming like graphite, it had a single red eye that traveled back and forth across its face like a heart monitor from hell.

  The Crimson Cowl took a step toward it. Nico knew the costume wasn’t supernatural, that this was just a woman in a tight red bodysuit and a flowing, hooded cloak that also masked her face. Cloak, cowl, it didn’t matter what word Nico used in her head, it still creeped her the hell out because it moved like it had a mind of its own. The bottom hem of the cowl stayed just off the ground as if floating, and its forward edges reached ahead as if they yearned to touch the thing in that glass cage.

  Nico took a breath. She held out the Staff of One.

  The back of the cowl snapped toward her. Nico twisted the staff and held it across her chest in defense, but the cowl still struck hard enough to knock her sprawling backward. She smashed to the ground on her side, slid into the base of a column, and grunted in pain as the impact made her let go of the staff.

  Cursing, Nico scrambled up. As she moved, the cowl smashed the column. Exposed, vulnerable, Nico stared at the Crimson Cowl.

  “Where did you come from, little girl?” the woman asked. “Halloween Town?”

  Nico sneered. “Fashion insults? I guess that’s the best a D-List Super Villain can manage.”

  She hoped the words sounded brave, that the Crimson Cowl wouldn’t hear the quaver in her voice. Whoever she was behind the mask, the cowl itself was just as intimidating as she’d feared. The cloak portion of it moved like Medusa’s hair or Aladdin’s carpet. Nico knew it was tech, that the cowl was prehensile and controlled by the wearer’s mind, but it seemed like black magic to her, and though she used magic herself it still scared the crap out of her.

  “Powers?” the Crimson Cowl asked, cocking her head. “No? Then you’re almost too stupid to kill. Keep out of my way, girl.”

  She turned, starting toward the glass room again, toward the obelisk with its scanning red eye. It had to be the tech Gert had talked about. Nico would thank her later, if she was alive to do so.

  The Staff of One lay on the floor about six feet away, just beyond the wreckage of the destroyed column. Nico felt puzzle pieces clicking together again in her mind. One-on-one, the Cowl would murder her. No way could she defeat her without magic. But even with magic, she’d have to have the precise spell and would only get one chance. What spell could she cast, what sort of hex would defeat the Crimson Cowl?

  It didn’t matter. Her heart sank as she realized that even if she stopped this woman, knocked her out, bound her or took away her control of the cowl, the other Masters of Evil were still out there on the museum steps fighting with LAPD officers who might already be dying. Just beating the Crimson Cowl or capturing her wouldn’t solve that; it wouldn’t make the cops and the Runaways safe.

  Nico lunged for the staff.

  The Crimson Cowl spun and the cowl lashed out. It wrapped around the Staff of One just as Nico’s fingers closed on it. She stood, fighting the strength of the cowl for a moment.

  “That’s adorable,” the Cowl said. “Is that some kind of weapon? Let me have a closer look.”

  The cowl yanked, reeling in the staff. Nico held on, even leaped toward the woman, letting the strength of the cowl give her speed. She twisted the staff and struck the Crimson Cowl in the face hard enough to stagger her. For a moment, her concentration broken, the cowl itself went limp and dragged around her like any ordinary cloak. It only lasted a moment, and then the cowl began to slither and reach for her again.

  “Idiot,” the Crimson Cowl said. “You really think you can—”

  Nico ge
stured toward the glass box and the smooth black obelisk inside it. A spell rose to her lips, a flicker of inspiration, a solution.

  “To the Moon,” she said, smiling happily.

  It vanished. Glass box, ordinary chair, and monitor, and that five-foot piece of creepy tech. The Crimson Cowl spun and stared at the black stretch of floor where the object of her criminal desire had been sitting just a second before.

  “How dare you!” the Cowl roared, and the cloak whipped toward her.

  Nico held the staff in her left hand as she dove behind one of the transparent workboards scrawled with complex math. The cloak shattered it, as the Crimson Cowl marched after her.

  “What did you do?”

  “It’s gone,” Nico said. “Your boys are fighting fifty cops or more in the street out there. Whatever happens now, whoever dies, it’s for nothing. My friends have already reported that you’re here, what you’re up to, so the police will be coming. Every second you waste is a risk.”

  “You think I can’t get to the moon?”

  Nico smiled. “I think you can’t get to the moon and search the entire surface for the Skeleton Key before—”

  “Before what? Before you find it?”

  “I’m not going to the damn moon,” Nico scoffed. “But I can make an untraceable phone call to the people who own this building, let them know what happened. You know S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. or somebody will beat you there. You’re done. Whatever you wanted that thing for, it’s not gonna happen.”

  The Crimson Cowl pointed at her, and the cowl itself rose up to point, the fabric mimicking her hand. “I’ll see you again.”

  Nico held the staff ready, wondering what desperate spell she’d manage next.

  “I hope you’re smarter by then—”

  But Nico hadn’t even finished the sentence when the cowl rose up, swirled around its owner, and the Crimson Cowl teleported from the room.

  Nico felt the air go out of her like a popped balloon. She dropped to the floor and sat there, numb, thinking about how close she’d just come to death. Over her comms, her friends were cheering for her, telling her how much ass she kicked and how smart she’d been, but it didn’t feel smart to her. It felt insane. Almost suicidal.

  Then she heard Karolina’s voice in her ear: “The fight’s not over, Nico. Get out here.”

  She jumped up and started running for the elevator, wondering what she’d find when she reached the ground floor. She called their names—the names of the friends who’d become her family—asking them to tell her they were okay, that they were safe.

  Nico didn’t pray, but these felt like prayers.

  They’d created this void in the L.A. underworld, this vacuum that so many blackhearted people were rushing to fill, and they wanted to take responsibility for it, to prevent the defeat of the Pride from making things worse. But for the first time, Nico admitted to herself that she didn’t think they could do it alone, that this was too big for a bunch of practically homeless teenage runaways. This was too big for them.

  A moment ago, she’d had a big personal win. So how come it felt so much like losing?

  Karolina lay on the museum roof, looking down at the standoff between the cops and the Masters of Evil. Whirlwind had blown three police cars over and Blue Steel had nailed several officers with energy beams from his suit, but she noticed that the attacks weren’t fatal. One of the cop cars had an officer inside and she hoped he was all right, but at the moment, her big concern was Sunstroke.

  “Nico, whatever you’re doing, please hurry,” she said.

  Molly shifted beside Karolina. The two of them were flat on their bellies, looking down from the roof.

  “This doesn’t feel very Super Hero—y,” Molly groused. “We should be down there—”

  The police would be dealing with us and them. “We’d just make it worse if we couldn’t shut them down.”

  “Who says we can’t?” Molly said, wrinkling her nose. “I wanna win this thing before this power surge burns off and I pass out.” She grabbed the edge of the roof and broke off a chunk of masonry, then leaned out to take aim at the criminals below.

  “Molly, no. You could kill someone.”

  “So could they, if we don’t do something.”

  Karolina knew she was right, but dropping a big piece of stone onto someone from a hundred feet overhead would be murder, not self-defense. Whirlwind and Blue Steel were pulling their punches, but Sunstroke kept swearing loudly and screaming at the police. Furious and cradling his broken arm, maybe humiliated at the way things had gone for him the past twenty-four hours, he kept generating waves of heat that baked the facade of the museum and made the skin on Karolina’s face feel tight. The paint on the nearest police cars bubbled and blackened, so that the cops had been forced to retreat farther back. At first several had shot at him, but the bullets had melted before reaching him, and from the sound of things it seemed like Sunstroke might be about to reach his breaking point.

  “Let me try,” Karolina said. She dragged herself farther forward, but the edge of the roof seemed to yawn before her, to tug at her as if the air wanted her to fall. “Molly, sit on my legs.”

  Molly got it immediately. She scrambled back from the edge and straddled Karolina’s thighs. The girl didn’t weigh much, but it was enough to give Karolina the confidence to slide a few inches more, so that her head and arms were hanging out over the edge, only the museum steps far below to break her fall. Molly might be small, but she was strong. If Karolina started to fall, she could drag her back up. Although now that Karolina thought about it, she wondered how much of an anchor Molly would need. Without something to hold on to, might she not just tumble off the roof as well?

  You can fly, dummy, she thought, smiling to herself. But even so, she felt the fear of falling, and this was about ending the standoff, not escalating things. Flying around above their heads would only antagonize the Masters of Evil.

  “Okay,” she said quietly, “I’m going to take out Whirlwind first. Without him, I think we can take the other two if we have to.”

  “Finally,” Molly huffed. “Do it.”

  Karolina reached both arms down, letting them dangle, and clasped her hands together to form a finger-gun. Whirlwind must figure they were gone by now, so he wouldn’t be expecting an aerial attack. She was only going to get one shot, which meant her aim had to be perfect.

  Down on the steps, she could see his green helmet. His lower body was hidden inside a mini-tornado, but his upper body was visible, turned toward the police as Sunstroke raved. Taking aim with her fingers, swathes of rainbow light curling around her hands, Karolina shot a thin, barely visible beam of multicolored light down at Whirlwind. It struck his helmet, not hard enough to burn through but so hard that he jerked to one side and then tumbled down the stairs, the tornado around him dispersing instantly.

  “Drag me back!” she called.

  Molly obliged with a single tug, scraping Karolina’s arms against the roof edge. Karolina sprang to her feet and swathes of light weaved around her, flowing from her body, turning her hair into something else…into pure light.

  She reached for Molly. “Let’s go.”

  Holding Molly with one hand, she stepped off the roof, propelled by her solar radiation. She’d run out of stored power soon, but morning was not far off, and all of this would be over by then. Down below, Sunstroke roared and stormed over to Whirlwind, spun around in search of their unseen attackers, and finally looked up. Even from this height, Karolina could see his rage. More than that, she could feel it. Sunstroke raised his unbroken arm and a ball of fire blossomed around it, so hot that Blue Steel backed away from his teammate and shouted at him, his combat suit smoldering, smoke rising from his chest plate.

  Karolina took a shot at him, but her attack went wide. Sunstroke roared and released a blast of fire that ballooned into the air. Molly shouted and twisted, and Karolina had to use both hands to hold on to her as she flew around the side of the building to avoid
the roiling cloud of fire. Gunshots rang out and as Karolina banked and returned, she and Molly saw Sunstroke jerk aside, struck by a bullet to the shoulder.

  Blue Steel knelt by Whirlwind, trying to shake him awake. He lifted a hand and some kind of beam shot from it—not a weapon but a defensive shield, which deployed a crackling blue wall of flickering energy that would buy them time, if Karolina and Molly weren’t coming in hard, just overhead.

  “Ready?” she called to Molly.

  “Ready!”

  Karolina swooped lower. Fifty feet over Blue Steel’s head, she released Molly’s hands. The superstrong girl dropped like a bomb—

  As she fell, the Crimson Cowl appeared beside Blue Steel and the unconscious Whirlwind. She scooped them both inside her cloak and they vanished in an instant. Molly landed hard enough to crack the stone steps, but they were gone. Karolina turned, worried that Sunstroke would attack now, even as the police moved in—a dozen of them, guns drawn, behind riot shields that might be fireproof but not against fire this hot.

  The Crimson Cowl reappeared. As Karolina dove toward her, the woman’s cloak enfolded Sunstroke and teleported him away as well.

  On the broken steps, Molly fell to her knees and toppled over, fainting. She’d used her powers so much that she’d fallen completely unconscious. Police began shouting, but Karolina grabbed Molly, then let out a burst of vivid colors that would make the cops shield their eyes, at least for a moment. And a moment was long enough.

  When the police looked again, the crisis had ended and everyone with powers had gone, leaving them standing in the glow of the sun peeking above the eastern horizon and looking forward to a long day full of paperwork.

  Gert had a cold water bottle in her hand but she’d almost forgotten it was there. Zeke sat in the chair beside her, the two of them hanging out in front of the computer arrays in the cavern. They’d hit the galley kitchen next to the conference room and rustled up drinks and small bags of pretzels. Now Zeke sipped his soda and Gert tried not to fall asleep in the chair.

  “Am I boring you?” Zeke asked.