The Good Fight 2: Villains Read online

  Kingfisher looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind. Instead, he squatted near the side of vault door and let his eye beams loose in the seam. I left him to it, and went to check on the state of things up front.

  Halcyon sat on a chair in the corner. It was the chair the security guard used. The guard was slumped on the floor beside him, sleeping, nearly comatose, just like everyone else in the bank. The blinds over the big front window had been drawn, to delay the inevitable. We knew it was only a matter of time before someone realized there was something strange going on at this branch. I kept hearing phones ringing in the offices near the back. No one was awake to answer, and I sure wasn’t stupid enough to try to fake it.

  I glanced at Halcyon. There was a glint of wet near the corner of his mouth. His lips were loose, and his eyelids drooped almost closed. I walked over to him, to make sure he was handling his part in this caper.

  “Hey Halcyon, you okay?”

  His eyelids undrooped for a second, just long enough to glance at me, before slipping back to cover most of his eyes. The brief glance was haunting. He almost seemed empty. “Shh,” he responded lazily. “I’m concentrating.”

  “You’re drooling.”

  I left him alone. Despite how sleepy he looked, he must’ve been working pretty hard. There were easily forty people in the bank that day, and every one except for him, me, and Kingfisher were catching some serious Z’s. They were all over the bank, draped across desks, flopped on the floor, wherever they’d collapsed when Halcyon had first hit them with his power.

  A movement by the front door caught my eye. We’d locked the doors, just to keep people from wandering in on regular business and complicating things. There were no blinds for the doors, so anyone could look in or out. It didn’t matter. I’d already wrecked the main control box for the bank’s surveillance—no point giving the police any advantages—but we knew we’d be discovered before we finished. It’s just a given. We only had to delay long enough to finish clearing out the vault, and then we’d leave through the roof.

  That was where I came in. Since I’m way more than bullet proof, I could go out first, maybe right through the plate glass out front, and draw any fire. Even if a hero showed up, I could keep the sucker busy long enough for Kingfisher to carry Halcyon away. Kingfisher’s a much faster flyer than me. As long as Halcyon held his breath, Kingfisher could’ve flown at speeds that would’ve made them nothing more than a quick blur that you’d miss if you blinked.

  Over at the front door, I could see police cars pulling up. That was good. Let them set up a barricade. They probably already had people in the back alley too, and snipers on nearby rooftops. I was about to go back and see if Kingfisher was finished, when I heard a loud clank, followed by a heavy thump, and the floor shook slightly. Yep, he was done. Time to move.

  I whispered to Halcyon as I passed him. “Five more minutes, then we’re ready to go. You holdin’ up?” He didn’t change his expression, or open his eyes to look at me, but his hand fluttered on his knee, like he was brushing off a fly. “Yeah, yeah,” he seemed to say, “get going.”

  Heading back to the vault, I passed a big office with heavy wooden furniture. It must have belonged to some bigwig, the bank’s manager or something. On the desk, off to one side, was a small TV. Wondering whether we’d be important enough to show on live news, I clicked it on.

  Soap Opera. Soap Opera. Infomercial. Soap Opera. Live news. There was the front of the bank. Yep. We’d made it. Just as I thought, the building was surrounded. I wondered when they’d try to call us. Right then, the phone on the manager’s desk rang.

  “Yo, you gonna watch TV all day, or are we here to rob a bank?” Kingfisher was standing in the doorway, looking impatient. Uptight. Then he pointed at the phone. “Should we answer that?”

  “Nah.” I turned, brushed past him, and headed for the vault. “Let ‘em stew.”

  Once we’d filled the heavy canvas bags we’d brought with all the good stuff from the vault, Kingfisher went to the tellers’ drawers to empty them out. I headed back to the TV, to see what was going on outside.

  I was just in time to see this guy come flying in, landing inside the circle of police cars and newscams. He was dressed in bright yellow spandex, with his head and face completely covered by the same bright yellow. Superhero. The colour choice was a little loud, but at least he wasn’t wearing a cape, or big fins on his shoulders.

  “We got company!” I shouted down the hall to my partners in crime. “Super company!”

  “Anyone you recognize?” Kingfisher shouted back.

  I jogged out to the main area. Kingfisher was just finishing up the last cash drawer. “Nope. Some guy in yellow.”

  “Yellow? Dark yellow? Is it Lava?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Bright yellow. Like a lemon.”

  He shrugged, and then handed me the bags. “Dunno. Never heard of Lemon-man.” He walked over to Halcyon, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Halcyon’s eyes fluttered, and then his head snapped up. Suddenly, he was wide awake. His eyes screamed high alert.

  “Incoming!” Halcyon shrieked, just as the front doors shattered with a cacophony of glass.

  A canister came flying through, spewing thick blue smoke. It quickly filled the air by the doors. Time for me to pull my weight on this job.

  I took a deep breath, and ran up to the entrance, pulling my goggles down over my eyes. Something, or someone, was sure to come through that wall of smoke. I had to stop it.

  A moment later, someone did come. The guy in yellow flew straight in toward me. He looked surprised as his head cleared the smoke to see me standing there, so close. Then he was on me.

  I was just about as surprised as he was. He tried to swerve, and I pushed him in the same direction. When my hands hit his chest, for a moment, I felt funny. Strange. Then he was past me, and coming to a stop near the ceiling, and I forgot about it.

  Kingfisher tried to zap him with his eye beams, but the hero had only paused for a fraction of a second, before zooming in an arc down towards his attacker. I launched myself into the air, aiming for a collision interception—and fell flat on my face.

  My head smacked onto the concrete floor, and I was stunned. For the briefest moment, I saw blackness crowding the edges of my vision. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings, and then looked up to see Kingfisher strafing the tellers’ counter, eye beams burning through to the other side. Clearly, his powers were still working, but not mine. I couldn’t fly, and I’d just been hurt. As of now, I was just a guy in a villain costume. Just a guy, and one who could get caught in the crossfire. I stayed flat where I was, looking for a break, hoping my powers would come back soon.

  Kingfisher stopped. The front of the counter smoldered in a ragged line from one end to the other. He looked down at Halcyon, who was still sitting in the chair. “Do something!”

  Halcyon looked like he was concentrating, like he was trying to thread a small needle with a big rope. His voice sounded strained when he answered, “I am doing something. He’s just . . . I can’t . . .”

  Suddenly, his head snapped back, so hard he put a dent in the drywall behind him where it hit. His eyes were rolled up under his eyebrows, until I could only see white. His mouth was opened in a jaw-stretching grimace, but I could hear him breathing noisily through his flared nostrils. Then Halcyon made a sick, gurgling noise, and went limp. He fell out of the chair, right at Kingfisher’s feet.

  Kingfisher stared down at Halcyon for a moment. Then he looked at me, still prone near the front doors, and pointed in the direction of the counter. “Do something!”

  “Hell, you’re the only one with powers,” I snapped back, getting up on all fours, but staying low. “I can’t fly anymore, and I can’t—” I quickly shut my mouth. Remembering that the yellow hero was still hiding on the other side of the counter, hearing everything, I didn’t want to give him anymore to work with. He probably already knew my powers
were gone—that was the funny feeling when I touched him—but now I’d gone and confirmed it.

  I started crawling towards the far end of the counter, away from the front of the bank, and towards Kingfisher. “Blast him! He can’t hide forever. His cover’s as good as gone.”

  Kingfisher knew a good idea when he heard one, and started raking his eye beams along the side of the counter. I used the attack, and the hissing noise that accompanied it, as cover myself, to quickly crawl around to the far end of the counter. I grabbed the security guard’s billy club along the way. The guard was lying on his gun, and I didn’t want to waste time getting it. The counter really was disintegrating, falling apart in scorched chunks. Now was the time to act.

  I made it to the end of the counter, still crawling, and slipped under the hinged section of countertop that blocked the gap between counter and wall. With the bulk of the counter on my right, I switched the club to my left hand, and made ready for my rush.

  Just then, a large section of the counter collapsed. I peeked around the front, and saw a chair come sailing over the top toward Kingfisher. “Look out!” I yelled, but Kingfisher was already on a hair trigger. He blasted the chair, eye beams flicking back and forth across it. What was left of it fell to the floor in a rain of smoldering splinters.

  Unfortunately, with his deadly gaze on the chair, Kingfisher didn’t see the hero fly through the gap where the counter had collapsed. I didn’t see him either, since I was watching the chair as well, and the hero was staying low, zooming a few inches above the concrete floor.

  I did see him before Kingfisher, though. “On the floor!” I shouted, but too late to make a difference. The hero, a yellow streak against the drab colours of the bank’s interior, flew up at the last moment, aiming for Kingfisher’s head. If it was me, I would’ve given Kingfisher an uppercut he’d have felt into next year, but this guy had other ideas. His hand was outstretched, fingers splayed, and he grabbed at Kingfisher’s face.

  Kingfisher, already reacting to my warning, and probably to the feeling that everyone gets when something gets close to their face, flinched and tried to pull back. It didn’t help much, because his back was already near the wall. He’d been standing beside Halcyon, and the same wall that our now comatose partner in crime had smacked with his head also blocked Kingfisher’s instinctive retreat.

  The hero’s hand came up, and Kingfisher’s chin went down. Outstretched fingers reached for Kingfisher’s face, with those killer eye beams seeking their own target as well. The hand reached its target first. In an instant, the eye beams flickered out.

  The hero continued up toward the bank’s high ceiling. At the same time, Kingfisher, still reacting to the hero’s charge, pushed at the hero’s yellow torso with both hands. Maybe he was trying to grab hold, so he could get a good blast at his target. I don’t know.

  Whatever the reason, he only got a half grab. One hand shoved, the other hand caught at the hero’s spandex costume. The hero, deflected from his path to safety above us, was arcing back toward me, Kingfisher holding on with one hand clenching a stretch of yellow fabric. Then Kingfisher’s grip failed, and he fell to the floor. The hero continued, upside down, facing the ceiling, but headed toward me.

  The man in yellow slowed, twisting to right himself, while Kingfisher fell to the concrete floor. The back of his head smacked the cushionless concrete first, and bounced for a moment while the rest of his body collapsed, strewn and splayed, to the floor. On second contact, his head stayed put.

  His eyes, though, got really weird. The lids were closed, but the purple-white glow from his eye beams was showing through. It quickly intensified, leaking out through the edges, and then making the whole area around his eyes glow. A moment later, his whole face was glowing, then his whole head. Then his head exploded.

  The energy released by the blast was hot enough that I could feel it both as raw heat and as a hot wind. The concussive force was much stronger. I’d been squatting on my heels, and was nearly pushed onto my keister. I had to swing my arms for balance, and caught the edge of the counter for support.

  The hero was not so lucky. Being in the air, and still moving forward, toward me, and away from the blast, he was pushed, with nothing to grab onto. The explosion shoved him hard in my direction, and seemed to stun him in the process. He never saw it coming when I jumped up and swatted him out of the air.

  I swung the billy club I’d lifted from the guard as hard as I could, a clean arc that caught him on the side of the head, right below his ear. Then he fell into me, and we both tumbled into the edge of the counter.

  Since it was already damaged by Kingfisher’s beams, it collapsed under our combined weight, and we fell through it. Somewhere among the sound of splintering formica and crashing countertop, I heard the sickening crunch. I’d never heard it before, but somehow, I knew instantly that it was the sound of a spine snapping.

  For a few seconds, as the two of us lay tangled in the wreckage, I felt a rising panic. My back was broken, or maybe even my neck. I’d be paralyzed for life. This wasn’t supposed to happen, my thoughts screamed. I’m supposed to be invulnerable. Now I can’t even walk, let alone fly! I was feeling frantic.

  Then I realized I was feeling other things, too. A screw was sticking out of a broken board, and jabbing the side of my calf. The hero’s knee was dangerously close to my groin. My left hand was twisted uncomfortably underneath me. I could feel it all!

  I pulled my left hand out from under me, shaking loose pieces of debris that fell on me, and brought more relief with each impact felt. I moved my leg away from the sharpness of the screw. I pushed the unconscious hero off me, and he flopped awkwardly across a large board, head lolling at an angle that was, frankly, hard to look at.

  The snap had been the hero’s spine, not mine. I checked his pulse. I got away with some bruises. He was dead. I went to check on Kingfisher, and nearly puked. Most of his head was gone, replaced by a pool of blood, and bits of skull. I guess the number that this hero had done on me was nothing compared to how he’d messed up Kingfisher’s powers.

  Halcyon still had a pulse, but his pupils were dilated. I pinched him, really hard, on the leg, on the arm, on the face, but got not reaction, not even a change is his slow, shallow breathing.

  I looked around. The bank was trashed. People were still sleeping all over the floor, but some had started to make faint moaning noises, like they were trying to wake up. My eyes slid away from the mess of Kingfisher, and fell on the anonymous yellow hero.

  Stupid hero. He’d taken my powers, killed one partner, left the other a vegetable. And he still ended up dead. And I still ended up stuck.

  How was I supposed to get away without any powers. Powered, I could have flown off, in plain site, and not worried about being surrounded by cops with guns in caffeinated trigger fingers. Now, all I had left was to walk out. Except I knew they might shoot me anyway, because I was dressed like a supervillain.

  I looked down at the guard. His uniform would never fit—he was shorter than me by a good six inches, and bigger around the waist. Then I looked at the hero. I could see his bright yellow boot sticking out from the wreckage of the teller’s counter; the rest of him was covered when the whole thing had collapsed after I dragged myself out of it. I had an idea.

  Realizing I didn’t have much time before they sent in a SWAT squad, I dragged the dead hero into the back office, and put my plan into action. Two minutes later, I was ready. I could see the SWAT guys on the live TV feed, and then heard the megaphone voice: “We have no choice but to storm the building. This is you last chance to surrender.”

  I hurried over to the front doors. The smoke from the canister had mostly cleared. Stepping carefully over the broken glass, I squared my shoulders and walked confidently out to the assembled officers, arms held above my head in the usual ‘don’t shoot me’ pose.

  If a crowd can have body language, this one dropped its shoulders and heaved a sigh of relief. I had to fight to keep from doi
ng the same myself. Not being invulnerable made me very nervous, and the hundred or so guns pointed at me when I came out didn’t help.

  Then the reporters pushed through. The police officers all dropped the ends of their weapons, not wanting to accidentally injure a bystander—even if the members of the press had put themselves directly in the line of fire. For the moment, I appeared to ignore the shout of questions, hoping one of the reporters would shout my name to catch my attention.

  Instead, I turned to the police chief, who was coming to talk to me anyway, still warily eyeing the shattered entrance to the bank. I tried to smile reassuringly at her, even though my face was completely covered by my mask, hoping that the rest of my body language would follow suit. Radio deejays smile even though they can’t be seen, and somehow that smile still makes across the airwaves.

  She still looked severe, with her no-nonsense bob cut and her police dress uniform. She must spend a fortune on dry cleaning if she wears that suit everywhere. Fortunately, her body language dropped a note of intensity in response to my invisible smile. Before she could ask, I answered her inevitable question.

  “Everything’s safe, Chief. You can send your people in.” I was careful not to say ‘boys’, remembering to be sensitive. “There were three of them, but they’re all down for the count.”

  I gestured toward the bank, my arm making a wide arc to take in the whole building, and then pointed directly at the doorway. “There are people, customers and employees, lying all over the floor, but they’re just asleep. Watch your step going in, you don’t want to step on anyone. And mind the glass.”

  The chief looked at me for a moment, like she had her doubts, and for an instant, I fought hard the urge to panic and bolt. With all these reporters around, and the guns lowered, I might just get away . . .

  Then she turned back to her officers, barking commands and directing the action. I still hadn’t heard my name said, by the chief, the crowd, or the clamouring reporters. I swallowed, and face the press.

  Still cameras flashed, video cameras jockeyed for a clear shot, and microphones and cellphones were shoved in my face. I heard a dozen questions, all at once: