I let the gun fall. It hit the pavement just as someone inside the van turned the ignition, threw it into gear and drove away. The van dragged the man I’d just kicked for a few feet, but he fell out when the back wheels hit the road outside the alley.
The van’s tires squealed, and the doors hung open, swinging as it drove away.
Maybe I could have jumped inside if I’d tried, but I hadn’t realized there was anybody in there.
I stepped back, breathed, tried to think of my next step. So okay, I’d taken two guys down, and I’d need to tie them up or something. The two kids I’d rescued were gone. They’d bolted down the street when the van left. They were running toward the club.
I could catch them if I wanted to, but I’d probably lose the guys on the ground if I didn’t find some handcuffs (and maybe medical attention).
I pulled out my League phone (the one that looks like my normal phone, but isn’t). I’d taken them down with my mask off, and I didn’t have Daniel around to fix their memories. If I were lucky maybe they didn’t have many.
Yeah, that’s right, hope for brain damage. Crap.
Who to call? My Mom? Isaac Lim, our team’s FBI handler? I went with Lim. It would get taken care of either way, but Lim wouldn’t be angry at me. With Mom, I’d be interrupting a dinner meeting of her team with, “Hey Mom, I beat up a couple guys, can you do damage control, and send an ambulance?”
Not like it would be the first time.
When Nick gave us the new phones, he put Lim’s office on speed dial for everybody. So I was about to call Lim when I heard footsteps—big footsteps. As in, the last time I heard footsteps that big it was the Grey Giant last year–the first time Daniel, Nick and I went out as a team.
We’d been totally overmatched. The only thing that let us hurt him was my dad’s sword, and that was back in Michigan.
I turned around, realizing that my staff was in my backpack, and that it wasn’t going to do much good against anything big.
The thing that stepped around the corner came straight out of the movie Shrek. About two-thirds as tall as the two story building next to it, it wore brown, leather pants, and one of those medieval shirts you always see those dorks wearing at Renaissance Fairs. Oh, but unlike Shrek, the creature wasn’t green.
Something about the face seemed familiar. Combined with its blond hair and beard, it reminded me of Rod, the guy in line. Except, if he was here, what about his friend?
A woman in a red and gold costume ran around the corner after him. She’d gone with a medieval theme too—her shirt went down to her knees, held to her waist with a belt, and worn over pants. She held a staff.
It figured. Magical types tended to run together.
She stopped, looked from one body to another, and then to me. “You did this?”
“Hell, yes. They were trying to kidnap people. You saw him out there, right?” I indicated the guy who’d fallen out of the van with my thumb.
She glanced at the guy again. He’d scraped his face in the fall, and was bleeding.
It would be just my luck if they decided to attack.
She turned back to me, holding the staff ahead of her, “OK, who or what are you really?”
“One of the good guys. Give me a second, I’ll prove it.” I pressed the button that called Lim and put the phone to my head. “I’m calling my handler at the FBI.”
I got the department secretary, and I explained what had happened.
By the time I’d finished, the woman had come closer, and held the staff by her side.
The creature had disappeared, leaving only Rod, still in his “Vincent Sucks!” t-shirt.
“Back up front, I thought you were normal,” the woman said.
“You’re Sam?” I asked. “So did I.”
She laughed, “That’s right.”
Forgetting the costume, the Sam in front had been white, and well… fatter. The Sam standing here might be a little heavier than average, but not much, and instead of being white, she was… I didn’t know. Indian, maybe?
More different than she would have been from a costume change. I wondered how, and then thought, “Duh, Cassie. Magic.”
My next thought was, “Why didn’t you come before they started shooting at me?”
Cassie, that’s not the question you should be asking right now. What you should be asking is, if Rod and Sam are there with you, who is saving your place in line?!
Yeah get your priorities straight Cassie, who cares about silly stuff like getting shot at or your secret ID being blown. Party time is all that matters!
will Isaac ever hear from Cassie? Will Cassie ever hear the fabulous backstory Jim has for Sam and Rod? and most importantly will they ever get to hear the fabulous music of Vincent Sucks? These and more will be answered on thursdays post
@Mystic; you missed out “Same League time, same League channel.”
^^ I hurt myself laughing there…
Calling back to comments about Thor on the last post:
A) @PG, I have a better version of that joke (and it’s a longer tale). The shortest version is that Thor sees a beautiful woman in the woods at night, makes love to her all night long, but they never speak. In the morning, he says:
“I should tell you, I’m Thor.”
Her reply:
“You’re thore?! I’m tho thore I can hardly pith!”
B) @Jim, my favourite Gaiman joke about Thor from the Sandman comic is when he’s showing his hammer to some beautiful goddess from another pantheon, and he says something like, “It’s small now, but if you rub it, it gets bigger.”
Hg
>> So okay, I taken two guys down, and I’d need to tie them up or something <<
Should be " I'D taken" not " I taken "….
So cool! My first grammar correction.
Ordinarily Jim, when folks point out spelling mistakes, I'm usually sitting there like "What? Where was this"
Your story is THAT good that I can't find spelling errors until three years in.
Just great…so soon after Thanksgiving and we’ve already got an overweight white woman stealing a Native American superhero job.
And a mention of Thor.
Jim, did Erik the Red put you up to this? Huh? They’re trying to take back the lost Viking colonies, is that it?
To arms, the Scandinavians are coming, the Scandinavians are coming!
Ok Gecko…… time to take your dried frog pills again mate.
*in sotto voice* – quick, someone grab a strait-jacket, Gecko’s gone bursar!
(PS, 1x virtual cookie goes to the first to spot which series of books the above reference(s) are to……)
M
You know, Mycroft, they say the world stands on the backs of four elephants that stand on the back of a giant turtle.
It reminds me of the old saying they have in Ankh-Morpork…light a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a night. Light a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.
And don’t call the librarian a monkey!
Psycho Gecko, speaking from another continent, it’s a pity the Native American or Indian from the subcontinent (could be either) superhero has to have an overweight white woman identity as a cover.
Actually, the outfit sounds a lot like normal North Indian female attire – if the pants and top match, I’d go with Indian from India.
Bill: Thanks for the correction. I’m always amused actually that even though you’re referring to the fact that it took you 3 years to find something to correct, I find people correcting things that I posted 3-4 years ago. Enough people apparently are distracted by the story to miss it (or, if you’re like me, notice, but forget by the end of the page).
PG/Rix: The reason she’s doing it hasn’t appeared in the story yet. It will. Oh… And I should add it’s Indian as in the subcontinent, not as in Columbus’ confusing misnomer.
Lingy/PG/Mycroft: So obviously I need to read more Terry Pratchett because I missed that…
Hg: Gaiman portrays Thor as something of a doofus in that story, but he had many of the funniest lines.
Captain Mystic/DWwolf/Silas: And you will find out all those things on Thursday, a day that seems so far away on Monday, but today? The clock is ticking, and I’m not going to be able to write till the kids get to bed…
I was saying the whole Native American thing just for the sake of the joke. Also, it would say some potentially funny things about Sam and Rod there if she was a Native American mystic and if they were a couple.
There was something with various Native American groups where an individual would have a special status. Depending on the group, they would healers or medicine men, fortune tellers, or perform various other special roles. They were referred to as having two spirits, though for a long time they were called berdache, which is an offensive French term in this context, seeing as it translates to male prostitute. Basically, they were gay or transgendered men and women in various Native American tribes.
I had learned in a course about them being seen as more mystical because of them being closer to the various gods, who all have both genders at once, but I’ve been fact checking and it seems it could be the idea of having literally two spirits in the same body. Double your pleasure, double your fun. And yeah, they could do things as their other gender. Two spirits that were physically male could partner with a man, and the female bodied ones with women. Some thought that having sex with a two spirit would allow them to get magical abilities or a boost to their masculinity, but the masculinity was only if the two spirit had a male body, I think.
Obviously, there are better sources than I for this kind of information, but we needed to have “Psycho Gecko’s Storytime for Kids” and tell all the impressionable little children how to get supernatural powers. And that last sentence was because I don’t like people who think there’s some sort of insidious gay agenda.
………..but we needed to have “Psycho Gecko’s Storytime for Kids” ……….
……A book that is banned in 30 countries, regularly burned in 3 others, and aparently is on the national curriculum for under 7’s in lavteria. Intererestingly, the first edition was semi-sentient and carnivorous, the paper having been made from sapient pearwood trees, and was responsible for eating several small children. This incident may have been triggered by Gecko’s decision to have the foreword written by the black bishop of bath & wells, Himself notorious for eating babies. Later editions were notable for their use of recycled paper taken from pulped copies of the Necronomicon and various old miskatonic university research papers; a technique that was explained by Gecko as an attempt to inject some “power” into the book. It is thought that Gecko’s insistance in reading all the old matierial before it was pulped to print his books may be the reason for his current mental state, and indeed, his current confinement to Ravenhill Mental Hospital’s reptile ward.
M
…and I can give you a copy for only 12 coppers, but I’m cuttin’ me own throat to do it!
Hg