Nervous energy made my stomach clench.
What did Ryder have planned for me? A mugger? A thief? A murderer? My secret weapon no longer filled me with confidence. I was out of my league, and I knew it. But I had to try. I couldn’t go back to the bleakness of my life before Ryder. I had to prove to her that I could do this. I had to prove it to myself.
I took a few steps into the damp alley and waited. No sign of Ryder…but plenty of signs that this was the birthplace of the bogeyman.
Suddenly, what sounded like a thousand metal bars crashing down from the top of the building shattered the quiet. Adrenaline shot through me. I did the only thing appropriate in such a situation. I covered my ears and screamed.
Eventually my voice died out like a balloon losing its last bit of air. I blinked my eyes open and looked around. I spotted a fire escape ladder. That hadn’t been there before. I followed the rungs with my eyes up, up, up. There on a landing, barely visible in the shadows, stood Ryder.
She crooked her index finger, gesturing for me to climb. All my uncomfortable nerves turned to excitement. This was happening. It was really really happening.
I started to hike my way up the rungs, juggling my secret weapon. I was pleasantly surprised at how much easier it was to climb this ladder compared to the one on the Sultana’s ship. It had to be the shoes.
I popped up onto the landing, grinning ear to ear. Ryder didn’t match my smile, but one eyebrow furrowed a fraction of an inch. What was wrong? She had called the test. Then I realized she was taking in my outfit.
“It didn’t come together exactly as I anticipated,” I said smoothing the already smooth plastic over my body. “But I do think the outfit, and the hair for the matter, capture the…well…tribute, I am making to, uh, you.”
Silence. Not even crickets. The city had killed them all.
I looked everywhere but at Ryder. She might take direct eye contact as a challenge and rip out my throat.
I heard what I thought was a sigh of resignation and figured it was safe to look back. Ryder leaned a little despondently—if panthers can look despondent—with both hands on the railing staring into the darkness.
“What is that you’re carrying?” she asked without looking at me.
“My secret weapon.”
“Of course it is,” she replied.
“Well, I figured you have all your special gadgets, I could use—”
“An explanation isn’t necessary.”
“You know, I’m getting a little tired of your attitude.”
I said the words before I even realized it. Ryder turned slowly towards me, crazy neon eyes flashing in the night. I fought the urge to drop to the ground and show belly.
A long moment of uncomfortable silence passed between us.
“Perhaps you are right. You may be far more competent than you appear. I could give you the benefit of my very large doubt.”
“Very large indeed,” I replied taking on her tone. Wait, that wasn’t right. It didn’t matter. I was on a roll. “And while we’re at it, would it kill you to, you know, give me an encouraging word. I am out here—”
I stopped talking abruptly. Ryder had somehow managed to convey a growl without making a sound.
“Too far?” I asked.
She nodded slowly.
“Okay, my bad, Mistress Ryder, sir,” I said quickly. “So what’s going down tonight? I’m ready for anything.” Probably ready for nothing was just as apt, but tomayto, tomahto.
Ryder pointed to the entrance of the alley. “Very soon a man will appear just there. He will attempt to commit a crime. You will stop him. Then deliver him to the police officer stationed at the corner down the street. These will help you,” Ryder said, passing me a pair of cuffs.
They were heavier than I had anticipated. The weight brought all my concerns home. But just like my hair, it was too late to back out now.
“Got it. Let’s do this thing.”
I stuffed my secret weapon in the nape of my bodysuit, and began my descent of the fire escape. I kept the cuffs in one hand, just in case I needed them sooner than later.
“So what kind of criminal are we talking here?” I called up to Ryder.
She pointed.
I secured my perch at the bottom of the ladder and squinted over my shoulder. A scraggly looking man shuffled into the alley. Concealed in the shadow of the building, it was hard to get a good look at him. Finally he stepped into a stretch of light beaming down from the streetlamp. That’s when I saw what he was wearing. Son…of…a…bitch.
I looked up to Ryder to give her my best Seriously? look, but she ignored me.
I glanced back over at the man to see if I had made a mistake. Nope. No mistake. Buddy wore a trench coat—tied very loosely at the middle.
I swore, repeatedly, under my breath.
I mean, I get it. I was auditioning, like a pledge at a sorority house, and as my sorority house leader, Ryder was entitled—nay, obligated—to put me through my paces, perhaps even humiliate me a little.
But a flasher?
I was sure my moment with destiny was never intended to be this clichéd.
I shook my head.
Oh well, as far as criminals went, at least this guy was probably of the non-violent variety.
I hit the ground in what would have been a perfect cat landing if I hadn’t been so top heavy with my secret weapon. As it was, it only took me a second to hop up to my feet.
I needed a game plan. I couldn’t exactly tackle the dude for standing around looking drafty. I had to wait until the moment he was about to let loose then nab him…very carefully of course. If only I had kept the gloves that came with the hair dye on.
I snuck up on Mr. Scraggly till I was stationed a few feet behind him. Either his hearing wasn’t very good or he was too excited about the night’s possibilities to pay attention to his surroundings.
We waited like that for a while—me, crouched in darkness, buddy, pacing the mouth of the alley, bouncing on the balls of his feet as though he had ants in his non-existent pants. A few times, I looked over to Ryder to see how long we were going to give this thing, but she never moved. Apparently, we had all night.
Then I heard it. Laughter coming from down the street. He obviously heard it too because he undid the knot at his waist and curled his hands around the opening of his coat.
I watched the teetering shadows of young women in heels stretch across the brick wall of the opposite building. I couldn’t see them yet, but they were probably wearing shiny clean clothes not bought from secondhand shops, and they probably had their hair done by professionals. They were me a few short weeks ago. I allowed myself to hate them just a little bit.
I could hear the click of their heels on the pavement close by now.
The Flash was about to strike.
Go time.
I stepped forward and tapped the gentleman on the shoulder. He jumped about a foot in the air, making me jump too. He then spun around, and so began my first real face-off with a criminal.
He apparently recovered from the fright more quickly than I had because he spoke first. “I think maybe your head is on fire. Do you want me to put it out?”
My hands flew to my hair. It felt sticky in parts, crackly in others.
“It’s not on fire…and just out of curiosity,” I said narrowing my eyes, “what would you put it out with anyway?”
A half-lecherous, half-stone-cold-crazy smile moved over his face.
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh God.”
“What kind of freak are you?” he asked.
Me? I was the freak? This guy thought I was strange?
I quickly rallied. “I am the freak of your worst nightmares.”
He looked back at me through his shaggy eyebrows and cocked his head a little like a confused dog. Not the reaction I was going for. I obviously needed to work on my taglines.
I struggled for something to say. My only experience with this kind of thing had been through watchin
g movies, so I decided to go with my best tough guy impersonation.
“The way I see it, we can do this the easy way…or the hard way,” I said, twirling the cuffs around my right index finger.
“Do what?”
“I’m taking you in, Bub. You’re through terrorizing this city.”
“Terrorize? That’s a bit of an overstatement. Some think what I do is a service.”
“Nobody thinks that,” I said. I couldn’t imagine a fetish category that would take him. Hot grunge? “I mean seriously. You should know better. How old are you, fifty?”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Dude,” I said looking him over and shaking my head. He was the poster child for hard living.
“Hey! You don’t judge me! Have you looked in a mirror?”
Not within the last hour or so, but I was starting to think that perhaps I should. “Enough of this. You have two choices. Come with me nicely, or things are going to get ugly.”
“I have a third option,” he said, showcasing the three remaining teeth in his mouth.
“And what’s that?”
“Let’s hug it out.”
He threw off his coat and lunged for me, open-armed.
Horror froze me to the spot. I had not prepared for this. No woman should ever have to prepare for naked grappling with a man who smelled like popcorn and cat urine.
His bony arms reaching around me, snapped me back to the moment. I had no choice. I had to touch him in order to free myself. My hands pushed into the loose skin covering his chest. No matter how I gripped, my palms and fingers slid around unable to find leverage. The result was a horrible mutation of the forbidden dance.
“Ew, gross!” A voice suddenly shrieked.
I looked over naked guy’s shoulder to see the group of high-glossed girls I was in the process of saving.
They were pointing their shiny nails, shrieking and laughing, not a one moving to help.
“Are you just going to stare?” I shouted.
“Oh my God, I think it talked to us,” one ultra-blonde girl said, clutching her friend.
“They need privacy,” another answered, face-frozen in Valley Girl disgust. “Let’s go!”
“I know…I want to…but I can’t stop looking at its hair!”
Oh, that was it!
I found untapped strength. I shoved my naked friend hard on the left pec, spinning him around so that he faced the girls. They screamed…rightly so. Then I kicked him hard on the butt sending him flying in their direction. His hands were already flexing open and shut, like he was about to squeeze some fruit.
The girls scattered, but he was right on them.
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling satisfied with my handiwork, when I noticed Ryder at my side.
“I believe you misunderstood the instructions,” she said, observing the chaos I created.
Oh shoot. The test!
“There’s still time!”
“Really?” Ryder replied, her eyes moving from mine to the direction of the street. The girls had vanished and a skinny butt was hobbling away into the shadows.
“You’ve got to give me a second chance!” I pleaded. “I mean, setting me up with a flasher? Totally fair. But bitchy mean girls? They’re like my kryptonite.”
Ryder turned and walked away from me.
This was terrible. Awful. And I had been doing so well! This couldn’t be how it all ended. I had worked too hard! I had sacrificed my hair!
“This isn’t over Ryder!” I called to her sleek back. “Do you hear me? This isn’t over! I’ll show you!”
Suddenly a large boom rocked the night, and a fireball shot into the sky from the roof of the opera house.
Ryder looked back at me.
My hands shot straight into the air.
“I didn’t do it.”
Chapter Seventeen
I stared at the pretty ball of fire in the sky.
Meanwhile Ryder had bounded up the ladder to the roof.
“Hey! Wait for me!” I called out. Normally I wouldn’t consider it wise to run straight for the source of an explosion, but I was burning up with adrenaline.
I caught up to Ryder near the top of the building. She sat perched beside a giant gargoyle. I positioned myself on its other side. She motioned for me to squat down before we both turned to peek over the ledge.
The explosion had blown a large hole in the roof of the building.
What was going on? This had to be an accident.
I believed that until I heard the helicopters overhead. They swooped towards the opera house in a swarm, each one with Pulcinella’s face plastered on the front.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me,” I whispered.
Ryder said nothing. Her face remained absolutely still, but I could see the work going on behind those eyes. The inside of her brain probably looked like one of those infrared computer screens you see in the movies.
“What do we do?” I mumbled, using only the corner of my mouth.
“We do nothing,” she replied. “In fact, I think this would be a good time for you to go home and address the disaster unfolding on your head.”
“Hey, that was pretty funny. I bet most people don’t know you have a sense of humor.” I let my face drop. “But seriously, what do we do?”
I stared at her, waiting for instructions. It was getting easier and easier to ignore the you are so crazy look I had seen so much of lately. Very liberating. Besides, it only lasted a second before she turned back to the action.
The circus crew rappelled from the helicopters and then tumbled over to the smoldering hole. I had been impressed with their synchronicity before, but this reached a new level of precision. Even the boxing pair were walking purposefully instead of jockeying one another for position.
The Sultana came out last.
She didn’t so much rappel out of the helicopter as slide down from it in unravelling veils.
Whatever, Octopussy.
She followed the others to the lip of the hole and jumped right in.
Before I could contemplate the magic behind that move, Ryder had leapt up over the ledge of the building. I scurried to catch up with her. She stalked around the hole, I guess looking for the most secure entry point. I followed her to the edge. Through the smoke, I could see how the Sultana and crew had made it down. Discarded trampoline material lay crumpled on the floor. Some of the more acrobatic members must have jumped in first then held out the tarp for the others. Unfortunately, it lay in a heap now. We were stuck.
Suddenly Ryder did a cheerleading type flip into the air and dropped into the hole, landing perfectly down below.
“Hey!” I shouted. “What about me?”
She disappeared.
Not so fast, I thought. This was it. My second chance. I would show Ryder what I could really do when it counted.
It wasn’t that far a drop. In fact, if I swung my legs over while holding onto the edge, it wouldn’t be that far at all.
I pulled my synthetic sleeves down over my hands before getting on my belly to slide towards the hole. The roof was hot but not unbearable. I eased my legs over the lip and shimmied backwards.
Once I was hanging, I thought Okay, time to let go, Bremy. But as I looked down past my dangling feet, I noticed the drop seemed a lot farther than it had just moments before. A little post-traumatic hot air balloon panic bubbled up in my stretched out tummy. I could barely hold on, but, apparently, I couldn’t let go either. It suddenly hit me that this was very dangerous. I could break a leg or something.
“Um, Ryder?” I called out.
No response.
“A little help over here?”
Nothing.
My hands slipped a fraction of an inch.
“Ryder!”
I screamed all the way down and hit the floor like I meant it. I really needed to have a word with Ryder about her situational ethics.
I sat in the rubble for a moment blinking dust and smoke out of my eyes. This h
ad to be a storage area because costumes littered the floor, thanks to the explosion.
As I struggled to get up, I felt something under my right hand. I wiped my eyes again to get a better look. A small, black mask. Fancy that.
I couldn’t risk showing up on the news again. I was already on my father’s radar. This could be just the ticket.
I picked up the finely wrought mask and tried it on. It fit perfectly.
Oh yeah. Now I was ready to kick some ass.
I picked my way through the wreckage towards a door marked Exit. Even without the glowing red sign, I knew which way to go. I just had to follow the screaming.
I quickly found myself in a wood-panelled hallway. The obvious route would have been to take the stairs just in front of me leading down to the theatre below, but to my left, I noticed a small passageway ending in a door labelled Upper Stage. Hmm, the door was slightly ajar. A great tip-off for someone with my observational powers. Of course, the hog-tied contortionist with tape over her mouth lying in front of it was also a clue, but I never would have missed that door.
I walked over to the poor woman tied with her inner knees wrapped over her shoulders. She didn’t look terribly uncomfortable. Wasn’t struggling either. In fact, she was just lying there, staring glassy-eyed at the other wall. Huh.
I stepped carefully over her and poked my head around the door.
I saw a little landing, then lots of scaffolding, lights, ropes and other theatre equipment. Right in the middle of it all, perched in the rafters above the stage, was Ryder.
I started to crawl over the suspended ladder that led to her spot. I guess my movement caught her attention because she looked over. Her eyes actually bugged out a little when she saw me—which seemed out of character. She was a smart lady. She should have seen this coming.
I hurried over the last few planks to crouch beside her.
“Don’t worry about the whole leaving me hanging thing,” I said in a whisper. “I know you had to follow the Sultana.”
“I was not apologizing.”
I ignored that. No sense in quibbling. “So what’s happening?”
Ryder sighed ever so slightly and I followed her gaze down below. There stood the Sultana holding court center stage. All she was missing was one of those furry Viking helmets with the horns. The cast of the opera were huddled off to the side by the heavy velvet curtain, among them a large man dressed like a clown. He looked like a very sad clown indeed, especially with Pulcinella staring him down.
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