“Good Lord — who the devil do you think you are? I am Black Owl, leader of the League of Unmitigated Rotters!”
“Charmed.” Jack yawned. “Listen, mate, I still haven’t tried this out, so by all means make a report and get back to me with the details.”
He levelled his right arm and pointed it at the flying owl logo on the man’s torso. Then he thought about what he really wanted to do to the pompous arse. The recoil and pain surprised Jack most — made him think he’d dislocated his elbow — and the flash was subdued cobalt in colour.
The result? Black Owl, on the receiving end, took artificial flight and disappeared somewhere down the next street.
“Sugoi shooting.”
Jack turned quickly to discover a ballerina on the boardwalk.
There, in the middle of a promising ad hoc battle zone, about six metres from him, was a superbly postured, picture-pretty girl with pale, luminescent skin and brunette hair pulled back severely into a small bun that was wrapped in a floral garland.
She was dressed in a black leotard sporting a frilly tutu, with white tights and pointe shoes — looking like the goddamned Black Swan. A domino mask sat on her nose, across which were inscribed musical notes, and Jack noted she had one blue eye and one brown.
“Sugoi?” he asked.
“Japanese. It means ‘great’, impressive. That kind of jazz.”
“Okay. So tell me — are you a hero, a villain, or someone who’s misplaced their ballet studio?”
“Funny,” the girl said, plumbing sarcasm, but she was kind enough to present him with a charming smile. “Black Owl is a valiant fighter — too valiant for Prima Ballerina to allow him to be defeated.”
“You always refer to yourself in the third-person?”
“Sometimes. If it suits.”
“Well, since you’re narrating, what’s the plan? You’re going to dance me to death?”
“Oh, a comedian.”
“No, just stating the obvious.”
“More obvious that you know.”
The girl placed her arms in an ‘L’ position — the left one out straight beside her, the right pointed Jack’s way — and for a split second he believed her intention was to throw at him what he’d done to Black Owl.
Instead, she pirouetted on one leg several times, so swiftly her body became a blur. When she finished the rotation, the dancer struck a pose, her arms crossed low in front and one-foot forward.
“Bras Croisé,” she announced. Jack couldn’t help himself — he gave a round of applause.
Seconds later, she’d moved on to a series of linking steps consisting of three small hops, executed both with the back foot and the front foot in tandem, sideways, forwards, backwards, turning.
“Pas de bourrées,” Jack heard the girl say in the sweetest of voices while he followed the rhythmic footfall and began to feel drowsy. “Ichi, ni, san, ichi, ni, san, ichi—”
That was when something struck his back from behind. He ended up on all fours on the cement, shaking his head to clear it.
“Arabesque,” that candy-coated tone declared. “Dō itashimashite!”
A hand grasped Jack’s arm and yanked him to his feet — he was staring up, at close quarters, into Pretty Amazonia’s purple irises.
“Don’t look at her feet, her legs, her arms,” the woman hissed, “don’t listen to her voice. Prima Ballerina uses everything she has like a Siren. Just bloody well shoot her and be done with it!”
“Understood.”
Jack swung around and aimed the dancer’s way before he had time to properly look or listen — right when the Brick blundered across his path. The cobalt blast that exited Jack’s fingertips struck the Equalizer in the shoulder and he staggered sideways.
Jack scrambled straight over. “Crap, Brick — you all right?”
“That…hurt,” he muttered. “Don’t worry ’bout li’l ol’ me, I’ll live.”
Vaguely reassured, Jack looked past the man, but the street was now empty. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted only Pretty Amazonia hunting about for prey.
“Looks like they did a runner.”
“The sewers.” The Brick straightened, as he rotated his glenohumeral joint. “That’s the bastards’ standard escape route.”
“Not all of them.” Jack pointed over to the blue ’30s Chrysler, where a shadow on the bonnet had surprising enough dexterity to open up the driver’s door.
“Sonuvabitch — Sinistro.” The Brick made a fist, but before anyone else could move, the automobile exploded with a definitive ka-boom. It rained down fragments of engine, upholstery, whitewall tyres and a bent black fender, along with a shade shorn in half — minus its physical body.