“No hard feelings about being given the flick?”
The Brick glanced at PA; she maintained a cool expression. “None that I know of.”
“Everyone likes a grumble,” added her teammate.
Just then Jack noticed something over the Brick’s shoulder, high up in the sky. It was some kind of laser-light display visible even in daylight hours, and it painted there a huge, quivering circle with a lightning bolt through it.
“What the heck is that?”
After taking a look-see, the Brick swung back around. “That, kid, means it’s showtime. Saddle up.”
“Please don’t tell me you have flying ponies.”
“We’re not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Pretty Amazonia grouched. “I wish. At least then we’d have an element of style and I could play Valkyrie. We’re going in the Rose instead — follow me. Hopefully the GWH got over his temper tantrum and is here to pilot it.”
#103
There was a gaping crater where once upon a time, according to Pretty Amazonia, a jewellery store called Harvey’s Gems stood on the corner of Crestwood and Standard.
The place specialized in diamonds so had been frequently targeted by the city’s marauding evildoers, though never before completely destroyed.
Around the crater was much debris including the shells of burned-out automobiles, blackened signage, and a lot of dead people.
Police officers busied themselves cordoning off the living with bright yellow tickertape. The blood splashed around — from inert, mostly dismembered bystanders — looked real enough. With carefree abandon the Brick and Pretty Amazonia played hopscotch amidst body parts while their recently returned leader, the Great White Hope, tried to find a parking spot for his blimp.
Looking about, Jack felt his stomach lurch and he eventually threw up brown bile, only partially a compliment of the imitation drinks.
Trouble was the mask.
Since the Capes were in public, hardly incognito, Jack had been instructed to wear the thing. This was a tight, full-face hood with holes only for the eyes, so he had to — out of necessity — roll it up fast to vomit.
On top of these travails, the mask made him feel a bit of a sore thumb, since he was the only person in the posse whose costume included one. The Brick got about in salmon-coloured undies, Pretty Amazonia had her frills, and the GWH his stainless whites. No masks. Sir Omphalos wore a mask — but he was dead.
“My, my. If it ain’t little Miss Nancy Drew.” The Brick nodded his great skull in the direction of a skinny woman who’d arrived at the scene in a mandarin-orange car, registration GEN 11. “1940 Ford 11A Super Deluxe Convertible Coupe. Neat-o.”
“You and your wheels,” Pretty Amazonia sighed.
“Them’s enough to drive you mad, eh?”
“No — but your poorly steered wordplay drives me to distraction.”
They watched the approaching woman while Jack pulled his mask back down, a sour taste in his mouth. She flashed an ID at a police officer and promptly marched over.
Around thirty or thirty-one, this lady had short, straight brown hair shaped like a 1920s Hollywood actress’s bob. On top was a small hat with minimal veil that didn’t reach further than the forehead. She had hazel-coloured eyes, looked workably attractive, and wore very little in the way of cosmetics.
To make up for the lack of attention to her face, the newcomer wore a smart, box-cut chartreuse tweed suit and pumps.
Her face grabbed Jack. There was a mix of honesty and obsessiveness there, plain to see — and in profile she had a striking aquiline nose that’d give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.
“Hello, Brick. Pretty Amazonia,” the woman said as she stopped before them.
The Brick paved a smile. “Gypsie-Ann.”
“Who’s your kewpie doll?”
“His name is Southern Cross,” muttered PA, annoyed.
“Well, I guess the flag’s a giveaway. Bit obvious. But isn’t there a star missing?”
“Who cares? SC’s our replacement for Sir Omphalos.”
Gypsie-Ann presented the three with a birdlike expression, more hawk with that nose than sparrow. “Is he now?”
Jack couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but he felt this woman was hiding a certain amount of distress beyond the window dressing.
“Well,” she barged on, “what’s the scoop on Sir O’s demise?”
“We were hoping you’d tell us,” Pretty Amazonia said in a voice very flat.
“Why me?”
The Brick shrugged. “Yer the ace reporter.”
The woman considered both Capes, and then settled her frigid glare on Jack.
“No leads I haven’t already written about in the Patriot. Three spent cartridges by a grassy hill, right in the area witnesses say they saw a muzzle flash around the time O bought it. He was flying overhead, waving to kids on the cricket oval, apparently winged — and flew straight into the billboard, breaking his neck. No positive IDs for the shooter. Police Forensics believes the weapon used was a Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle.”