Our eyes lock, and we hold the stare for a long, long time. “He wouldn’t,” DB finally forces past lips gone stiff with anger.
“If you say so. I’m sure he’s your very good friend.”
DB turns away, his broad, powerful shoulders hunch as if he’s trying to protect himself. “I wish you hadn’t come here.”
“Me, too. It’s going to be a lonely night.” And I prepare, visualize home, and teleport away. As I travel the Between I think it’s been a good night’s work.
Just Cause: Part II
Carrie Vaughn
NEW YORK CITY
KATE AND ANA RUSHED to catch the subway. Dinner at Stellar, the posh restaurant at the top of the Empire State Building, was one thing, but a cab ride during a fuel shortage was too much of an extravagance. They rode standing, holding on to one of the bars, talking in hushed voices about this and that, phone calls home, how Ana’s brother was applying to the University of New Mexico and how Kate’s parents were still upset that she’d dropped out of college. They got stares. They always got stares, and a few whispers, “Is that really them? It couldn’t be . . . They look so much like . . .”
Street level was quiet. Perpetually gridlocked traffic had vanished. A few government vehicles, a few cabs, and very few private cars were active. Fifth Avenue might have been a street in any small town. The air actually smelled decent.
As soon as they turned the corner, shouted questions began from the group of reporters waiting outside the Empire State Building. Kate and Ana stood shoulder to shoulder and prepared to run the gauntlet.
“Curveball! Earth Witch! Who’s your pick on the new season of American Hero?”
Be nice, Kate reminded herself. Keep the press on your side. Those were the rules from American Hero, and they still worked. She shrugged and smiled her sweetheart smile. Cameras flashed. “I don’t know, I’m not really watching.”
“We’ve been a little busy,” Ana added.
More questions. Kate couldn’t make them all out.
“Earth Witch! Reports say you collapsed from exhaustion in Ec ua dor. Is it true? How’s your health?”
Ana’s face was a mask, the smile frozen in place. “I’m fine,” she said.
Someone pushed her way to the front and stuck a digital recorder out. “Is the Committee going to intervene to stop the genocide in Nigeria?”
Amid the way-too-personal questions about romances, diets, and clothes, the political ones struck like bolts of lightning.
Kate’s sweetheart smile turned apologetic. “No comment. I’m sorry.”
With the doorman helping to clear the way, they slipped inside, leaving the reporters crowded on the sidewalk.
Ana let out a sigh.
“You okay?” Kate asked.
“I’m sick of people asking me that,” Ana said.
“We’re just worried—”
“I’m fine,” Ana said, her smile tight. It was what they all said. They were all so tough.
They took the express elevator to the restaurant. They were nearly the last to arrive.
John turned to the elevator when it opened; his face brightened. “Kate! Wow, you look great!” She beamed back at him. She’d been hoping for that reaction. She wore a silky, floral halter dress with heels, and her hair was up. That alone made her look about five years older and a ton more sophisticated.
“You don’t look too shabby yourself.” He wore a suit with a band collar shirt, giving him sophisticated polish. Definitely his mother’s son. She reached for him, and they joined hands to pull each other into a kiss.
“You two are, as ever, awfully cute,” Bugsy said. “But I’d like to point out that Ana looks fabulous.”
Ana wore a black wraparound dress with a low-cut neck and flowing, knee-length skirt that clung and flattered in all the right places. Add her long black hair, dangly gold earrings, and ever-present St. Barbara medallion, and she looked exotic. And now, she was blushing. But smiling, too.
“We went shopping today,” Kate said. “It called to me from the store window,” Ana said. The two of them giggled.
Bugsy said, “What a surprise, we all clean up pretty good.”
“Maybe someday People will stop picking on how I dress,” Kate said.
“They named you best dressed at that UNICEF fundraiser last month,” Ana argued.
“Only because John’s mother picked out the dress.”
John got a dreamy look in his eyes. “That was a great dress.”
It had been a great dress, with enough architecture to give even Kate cleavage. A picture of the two of them from that night ended up on the cover of Aces! They were arm in arm, looking at something off to the side, smiling. They’d looked like royalty.
The Committee: Rusty, wearing a big grin, waved from the far corner, where he was talking with Bubbles and Holy Roller; Gardener was pointing out something on a potted fern to Toad Man and Brave Hawk; the Lama (from Nepal, who was able to turn insubstantial) and the Llama (from Bolivia, who was almost a joker, with a foot-long neck and fuzzy gray hair, and who could spit a gooey venom incredible distances) were glaring at each other across the foyer. Both had refused to change their ace name to avoid confusion. And Lilith, the British teleporter, standing with Lohengrin and surveying the room critically, like this was all beneath her. She wore an amazing gown, V-neck coming to a point between her breasts, slit in the skirt climbing to her waist, the diaphanous black material deceptively translucent. All the guys were stealing glances—and Lilith knew it.
Being America’s ace sweetheart didn’t count for a whole lot sometimes, thought Kate, in her cute and completely boring dress.
The absent member was obvious: at seven feet, DB dominated any room he was in.
“Where’s Michael?” she asked.
John frowned. “In Chicago wrapping up his concert tour, I think. Let’s make the introductions,” he said, turning their attention to the two women Kate didn’t know. Even more new members. “From Canada, this is Simone Duplaix, aka Snowblind, and Barbara Baden, the Translator, from Israel.”
Simone had dyed magenta hair that screamed look at me. She wore a black miniskirt, crop top, and a nose stud, and glared like she expected someone to challenge her on the dress code. Also in her twenties, Barbara was a little more upscale, with a clingy, midnight blue cocktail dress. She kept her hands folded in front of her and was a picture of calm.
“Simone, Barbara, this is Kate Brandt and Ana Cortez.” Handshakes all around.
“There’s hardly a need for introductions,” Barbara said. “Everyone knows who you are.”
“Introductions are more polite,” Kate said.
Tinker came in from the next room, holding one of his gadgets, a gunmetal gray box that looked like a cross between a TV remote and an eggbeater.
“What’s that?” Ana asked.
“Bug detector,” he said cheerfully in his thick Aussie accent. “John wanted the place swept. Can’t have spies now, right?”
“How do you know it even works?” Kate said.
He pointed it at Bugsy, and the device let out a high-pitched squeal that left them all wincing.
“Well,” Bugsy said, glaring at the thing. “My confidence is truly won over.”
Tinker huffed. “I built it to track down covert listening devices. I think you got a few of those on you, eh, mate?”
For the punch line, a small green wasp crawled out of the pocket of Tinker’s suit jacket.
“Hey!” Tinker swatted the bug, and it crunched. Bugsy winced. “Don’t you ever get tired of that trick?”
“I have another one, but you wouldn’t like it any better.”
The center of the next room had been cleared to make way for a long table draped in white linen. The arrangement lent a somber weight to the evening. This felt like a state dinner. And here, in this luxurious setting, on the eighty-sixth floor, Kate really felt on top of the world.