Hero De Facto - Chapter 2

Shouts mixed with sirens, but the sounds echoed weirdly. Someone tugged at Harri’s clothing. Her skin and throat burned.

Harri tried to force her eyes open, but something covered her face. Panic flared. Someone was trying to choke her. She slapped at the offending material. Plastic and cloth. The guy pretending to be Professor Venom? Crazy Bob?.

“Calm down, honey. You’re safe.” A woman’s voice.

Harri fought harder. Someone was trying to kill her, and dammit, she was not going down quietly.

“Hold her.” The female voice again, but no one she recognized.

Hands grabbed her wrists, and she bucked against the restraint. Some two-bit supervillain wannabe was not going to—

“It’s all right. I have you. You’re safe.” The male voice crooned the words over and over.

Her panic melted when his mellow tone penetrated her foggy brain. The super who’d rescued her. “Patty? Is Patty okay?” Her own voice was rough, gravelly, and echoed slightly against plastic.

“She’s your assistant, right?” the super asked.

Harri nodded.

“Another paramedic is checking her and the baby.”

She sagged against his hold. God, please let Patty and the baby be okay.

“If you can behave yourself, I’ll take the gauze off your eyes. Give me any crap and it goes right back on,” the female voice warned.

Harri nodded again. When the weight lifted, she blinked. Her lids felt like sandpaper across her corneas. She was in an ambulance. An oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose.

The woman sitting next to her wore the navy uniform of Canyon Pointe’s paramedic squad. Her short, dark dreads were held back by the strap of her clear goggles. She waved a penlight in her glove-covered hand and frowned at Harri. “You gonna give me any more trouble while I examine you?”

“She won’t.” The super who had saved Harri’s life sat on the opposite side of the gurney.

She would have flipped him off if he didn’t have her pinned to the thin white sheet covering the even thinner pad. Instead, she shot him a dirty look. “Smart ass.”

He grinned back.

The paramedic grabbed Harri’s chin and turned her head back toward the flashlight. Harri winced as the brilliant whiteness forced her irises to contract and dilate. Spots danced in her vision by the time the woman was done.

“The good news is you didn’t get any acid in your eyes, but there’s irritation from the smoke. The ER will prescribe you something.” The paramedic’s nametag read “Jones” or “Jonas.” Between the spots and her watery eyes, Harri couldn’t tell.

“You can let her go,” Jones or Jonas announced.

The super’s warm grasp on Harri’s wrists disappeared. The human contact was more comforting amid the chaos than she wanted to admit.

Jones or Jonas frowned again. She traced a finger horizontally across Harri’s throat. “That isn’t a burn.” She shivered. The knife of the man claiming to be Professor Venom could have just as easily followed the same line and left her to bleed out in her office. Why throw it at her? He could have easily tackled her.

“Someone tried to strangle her while I helped the other victims of the fire,” the super volunteered.

Jones or Jonas’ frown was going to leave deep, permanent marks if she didn’t change her expression. She scribbled something on a clipboard. “You’re a lucky woman. You’ve got some superficial chemical burns and a little blistering, but nothing you can’t take care of at home. The ER docs will do a more thorough once over at the hospital to make sure there hasn’t been more damage to your throat than smoke inhalation.”

She stood abruptly. “I’ll grab an officer to get your statement.” The woman jumped out of the ambulance and disappeared into the people mulling outside.

“You shouldn’t have told her.” God, her voice sounded as bad as her eyes and skin felt.

The super genuinely appeared perplexed. “But that man in the park assaulted you.”

He couldn’t be that naïve, could he?

“Did you turn him over to the police?”

He shook his head. “After I dropped you off here, I went back to the park. He was gone, so I came here again to check on you.”

That didn’t make sense. From the damage to the car, Crazy Bob should have been in too much pain to get far. And why the hell had he attacked her? He had sounded more lucid than he ever did while on his meds. Maybe the alarms from the fire had set off a hallucination.

“Did everybody get out of City Hall?”

He nodded. “I only needed to rescue the people trapped on the fifth floor.”

He sounded terribly young. She took a closer look at him.

Acid holes covered his hoodie and jeans, yet the warm brown skin beneath appeared undamaged. The nasty smell of melted plastic accompanied his ruined shoes. She’d wager his feet were as uninjured as the rest of him. None of his clothing was new. In fact, it appeared to be second or third hand prior to the recent damage. Her gaze drifted back to his face. She recognized the design of the neon yellow and lime green spandex he wore as a mask. It was the same pattern as the outfits Aisha’s law firm had provided at the city’s annual bicycle event for charity last year. Her best friend had claimed it was a good way for both of them to meet men after their respective divorces. Harri had never quite forgiven Aisha for making her look like an unripe citrus fruit in front of the most prominent members of their profession.

The tight-fitting bicycle tops and pants would have looked damn good on her super from the lines of muscle that peeked through the tears of his clothing. Even with the mask, she could tell he was young. Too young. Twenty-two at the most, and she sincerely doubted that. She stared at his face.

“Who are you?” she finally asked. “Really?”

The sudden fear in his eyes cut her to the core. His irises were pale hazel, nearly gold. Beautiful eyes, but cautious. They were eyes that had seen too much suffering.

Harri’s normal irritation with superheroes evaporated at his vulnerability. “Are you legal?”

“Uh…” His tongue swiped across his top lip, and he glanced at the open doors of the ambulance bay. She recognized his behavior all too well. She’d seen it too many times in the runaways and foster kids she’d encountered when she’d interned with the city’s juvenile court judge one year while in law school. He was about to bolt.

“I won’t tell anybody.” Harri reached over and grasped his hand. “Are you registered? As a super?”

His entire body twitched.

“I want to help you,” she whispered hoarsely.

“No.” His words were even softer than hers. “No, I’m not registered.”

“Are you eighteen?”

“I don’t know for sure.” His fingers trembled in her hold. “I think I’m older than that.”

How could anyone not know his own age? She squeezed his fingers gently. “What about your family?”

He refused to meet her eyes, giving her only a sharp shake of his head.

Nothing intrigued Harri like an enigma, and this kid had puzzle written all over him. No birth certificate explained why he hadn’t registered with the federal government. If he had collared Crazy Bob, she could have cut him a deal. Especially since his first concern was the safety of the civilians.

“Do you want to be a registered superhero? I can help you with that.” She squeezed his fingers gently.

He shrugged, and his body tensed.

She needed to change the subject before he flew off in a panic. “When you were inside city hall, did you see a big guy dressed in black and wearing a mask wandering around?”

“Is he the guy the cops are saying did this? Professor Venom?”

Harri shook her head. “The guy who did this claimed he was Professor Venom, but he wasn’t. I know Venom. Did you see anybody matching my description?”

The super thought for a moment. “I saw a guy with a mask on in the alley behind City Hall when I was flying someone across to the police building. He was moving fast. I only got a glimpse, but he definitely wasn’t short and skinny. I was more worried about getting everyone out on the fifth floor.”

Harri felt a tickle in her throat that quickly developed into a coughing fit. She’d been right. This afternoon’s generic promise-of-destruction letter aside, the man who had attacked her couldn’t have possibly been Arthur Drallhickey. Too tall. Too muscular. Too effective. And Arthur wasn’t fast. An elderly woman with a walker had been the one to capture him after the park bench incident.

Arthur may have been totally incompetent as a super villain, but he was consistent. Which meant polite threatening letters and the occasional mishap with his acid powers. So why the hell would someone impersonate him to do this?

If it hadn’t been for this threadbare superhero sitting next to her, she would have died in today’s fiasco. Patty and her baby could have died, which only added to the sick feeling in her gut. Quite simply, she owed the kid. Twice. Four times if she counted Patty and the baby.

Harri’s coughing eased. She yanked off the oxygen mask. “I need to find my assistant first, then we need to get you out of here. Stick with me. No matter what.” He’d been seen by too many people, not to mention the news crew filming from their helicopter. She had to get him away from City Hall before the feds showed up. There’s no way in hell he could pay the fines for unlicensed superhero acts. If she was going to cut him a deal, she needed to be the one to bring him in.

“I don’t think you should be getting up, ma’am. The paramedic said you needed to see the ER doctors to check your throat.” But the super made no move to stop her as she climbed off the gurney.

“It’s Harri. Harri Winters.” She shook her index finger in front of his nose. “If you ever call me ma’am again, I’ll sue those jeans off your ass. Got me?”

“Yes, m—” White teeth shone against his tan skin. “Harri, I’m El Pájaro.”

“‘The Bird’?” She shook her head. “Kid, we have got to get you a better name.”

* * *

True to his words, El Pájaro stuck by Harri’s side as she searched among the emergency vehicles and evacuated staff for Patty.

A loud crash shook the street as the fifth story collapsed onto the fourth, sending up a gigantic plume of smoke, dust, and ash. The various fire squads continue to pump special oxygen-robbing foam onto the inferno from ladder trucks. Her nails dug into her palms. So much for the restoration work on the courthouse.

She didn’t know who she could sue on this one. Even if Arthur had been responsible, he didn’t have any money either. This was a first—a broke hero and a broke villain. That left FEMA and the state emergency fund, which meant sticking it to the taxpayers yet again.

They finally found Patty sitting on the curb a block away, another emergency tech tending her. Second-degree burns covered her right forearm.

Harri dropped to the concrete next to her assistant while El Pájaro stood guard over them. “Is the baby okay?”

Patty gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, she’s kicking up a storm right now.” She hissed as the tech prodded her damaged skin. “I’m fine too.

Thanks for asking.”

“She was very concerned about you,” El Pájaro interjected. “She fled her own treatment to search for you.”

“Oh, I’m well aware she uses her grumpy behavior to hide her marshmallow interior.” Patty beamed at him. “Thank you for saving us.”

“De nada.”

Patty leaned closer to Harri. “Did I hear the guy in your office right? Was that really Professor Venom?”

Harri snorted. “If it was, then I’m a Victoria’s Secret model.”

“There he is!”

Every muscle in Harri’s body tightened at the all-too-familiar shout. Shouting she was often on the receiving end of. “Shit,” she muttered.

Mayor Quentin Samuels bounded out of the crowd, two police officers at his heels. “Arrest him!” He jabbed the blade of his hand in the direction of El Pájaro.

Harri forced herself to her feet. “What are you blathering about?”

“Him!” Samuels always compensated for his lack of height by doubling the decibel-level of his voice. Another sharp hand motion in the direction of the kid. “Eye witnesses place him here when the fire started.”

“But I—” the kid started.

Harri held up her own hand to silence her super. He’d say something stupid and ruin his chances of getting registered properly.

“The perpetrator was in my office, and it wasn’t him.” Her smoke-damaged voice added a certain gravitas to her statement.

“Really?” Samuels crossed his arms. His smug expression set off warning claxons in her aching head. “So who started the fire?”

Dammit. If she said it was Professor Venom, Arthur would get charged for the arson. And even if he was annoying, he was also innocent this time. God only knew who else on the fifth floor had heard the imposter’s claim besides Patty, who was smart enough to keep her mouth shut now.

Harri matched Samuels’ stance. “I’m not sure. He was dressed in black with a mask. All I can tell you is he was a big guy with a deep voice. Will security be able to retrieve the camera footage?”

“Possibly,” one of the officers offered. He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re not using water, but that foam can still short out the DVRs if they’re hit directly.”

From the glare Samuels shot the officer, his assistance wasn’t appreciated. The mayor turned back to El Pájaro. “I want to see your hero license.”

Harri inserted herself between them. “He’s just a kid trying to help, and I already lectured him on the need to get a city license.” She wasn’t going to mention his lack of federal registration unless Quentin brought it up. “I’ve granted him immunity on the license violation in return for his assistance and cooperation.” She crossed her fingers behind her back and prayed the kid had taken her previous hint to stay quiet.

“You can’t do that!” Samuels spluttered.

“I can negotiate any settlement that will benefit the taxpayers.” She pointed at what was left of the City Hall. “We’ve got a hell of a mess. I want the asshole who did this to pay for it.”

“Maybe it should come out of your salary,” he sneered. “For not reporting the intruder. Or a legitimate threat. I already know you received one from Professor Venom in this morning’s mail.”

Samuels could be a sniveling weasel, but snooping through her office correspondence? “You’re reading my mail? That’s bullshit,” she said quietly. “And you know it.”

“Why didn’t you buzz security when Venom showed up in your office?”

Anger overran her fear and worry. “First, I don’t know who the guy was. I didn’t see his face. Second, I didn’t call security because my office was on fire, and I was busy trying not to die. Third, what exactly are you insinuating, Mayor Samuels?”

“You’re either incompetent or in league with Venom.”

Harri straightened her back and deliberately violated Samuels’ personal space, forcing him to step back. “If you knew about his attempted extortion, why didn’t you notify the police?”

Scarlet flooded his face as he spluttered for a full thirty seconds. He could look down at her, but only barely. He wasn’t much taller than she was. Finally, he shouted, “You’re fired, Winters!”

Harri ignored the fine spray that covered her face and stepped closer until she was nose-to-nose with the mayor. Something about her tight grin must have scared him because he leaned as far away as he could without actually moving his feet.

“Sorry, but I already quit.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Come on, El Pájaro. Let’s make you rich.”