Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa(95)

“Right you are, boss-sir,” responded the Brick, as he gave a brief look to PA. “You heard the man, lady — if ya got a few minutes to spare, it’s time fer us to save humanity again.” Strolling out in time to the waltz, holding aloft his big arms, the chunky Equalizer took up yelling at men and women while debris fell about. “Beat it, ya bums! Thataway!”

Jack was set to go lend a hand when he sensed PA hovering behind him. Glancing round, he noticed how her expression simmered.

“Since when did you start giving orders, Jack?”

“Any better notions?”

“Number one, we’re way out of our league — and, secondly, you’re hardly the type to be in charge.”

“Not saying I am — so you take the lead.”

“Why bother?”

Impatient to help the poor sods under attack, and equally steamed up, Jack turned a speedy circle to face the woman. “Because it’s our job, our responsibility — to save innocent people.”

“Not mine. I don’t remember signing up for such rubbish.”

There was a sonic boom, like someone nearby had broken the sound barrier, and the entire façade of a skyscraper crashed down with a roar onto a nearby street, concrete dust filling the air. Once it cleared, Jack saw people hanging from naked girders several storeys up; others stood, shocked, in offices now open to the elements.

“Shite, we haven’t got time for this.” He glared up at the woman. “For God’s sake, make yourself useful, right now, or go home.”

“Touché,” Gypsie-Ann chimed in from over Jack’s shoulder.

In answer, since she was wordless, the other woman quicksilvered it off the street. Jack caught a blur of lavender, and then there was neither sight nor sign in either direction.

The reporter leaned in close, speaking above the sound of squealing violins and peppered shouting. “Don’t judge her just yet. In the meantime, let’s try and do what we can.”

Someone in a Technicolor cape fell out of the sky to slam headfirst into the asphalt in the middle of the road near the Brick, just as a hardware store went kablooey and showered glass and garden tools on people luckless enough to be nearby.

“Lightning bolt at eleven o’clock!” the Brick shouted from the other side of the street.

Jack and Gypsy-Ann looked about. “Bollocks!” Southern Cross yelped, “which bloody way is eleven o’ cl—?”

A fork of electricity that danced across the boulevard cut him short, missing the Equalizer and his umbrella-wielding companion by only a metre, while several bystanders were sautéed.

Now pushed against him, the reporter had lost most of her calm. “Least we now know what time it is. This is getting really bloody hairy,” she whined.

“At least you stayed.”

“I always was the stupid sister.”

Flames sizzled across rooftops as Capes laid into one another in mid-air. One man caught on fire and another dived beneath a plasma blast, straight into a wall. There were screams, insane cheers and jeers, all of this above and beyond the switch in music to ‘Hungarian Dance No. 5’.

While they tried to round up stragglers, Jack and Gypsie-Ann were almost bowled over by a police officer on an Indian Chief motorcycle — Jack saw the hysteria etched into the cop’s face as he raced past — but the reporter successfully fended him off with her brolly.

Of course these people were panicking. They needed a restorative.

With this fancy in mind, the Equalizer again pointed his arm straight, directed at the sky. Having performed a quick look-see to ensure no one was flying overhead, he then fired off his biggest explosive bolt yet. This might’ve almost removed his fingers, but it lit up the street, giving the terrified pause.

“Head that way!” Jack yelled, shaking his right arm in pain at the same time that he pointed with the left. “Stay calm! We’re here to help, okay? Help us help you!”

“Fer the luvva Pete — move it, bozos!” boomed the Brick.

Once the three established some vague sense of order, even while the battle raged on in the wild blue yonder, Jack heard a crack and a scream above the rollicking chorus of stringed instruments in FA minor.

At first he didn’t know which way to look, but seconds later saw that a boy had stumbled, or been pushed over, in the mad scrum — fifty-odd metres away. This kid sat there on his bum, tears in the eyes, nursing a bleeding knee. Above him, formerly secured to the third storey of an emporium, a huge neon-lit billboard sagged. Sparks flying, it broke away from the wall, dipping down at an accelerated pace toward the kid.

The Brick was closer, but he hadn’t noticed — and there was no way his bulk would cover the distance in time. Jack and Gypsie-Ann were too far and could do nothing to stop this horror-in-motion.