Hero Stalker

Part Thirteen

"Do you have your own jet?" I asked Peregrine as we took off from the Tower's landing strip. Every five seconds, I made the blades appear or disappear, and every five seconds, I felt a little more energized.

 "Unfortunately, no. We have three—Slasher's, Cypher's, and Femme's. My having one would be slightly redundant." She coughed. "I can fly."

"Is it amazing?" I blurted out.

She gave me a weird look. "You're . . . enthusiastic. Please tell me you're not one of those cosplay types."

"No!" Not of anyone on the Bayton squad, at least. I'd made a mean Rainmaker costume two years ago for BayCon (the first black woman to captain a Centurion squadron—in New York, no less). "Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?"

Peregrine laughed and banked the jet sideways. We shot over Routaille, my own neighborhood. I'd told her to drop me at the big Sushi Queen off I.13—had to start keeping my identity secret, right? "A bunch of sweaty fat girls dressed up like you, screaming your name? Creepy as hell."

My stomach dropped. I stared at her, wondering why God had handed out superpowers to someone who obviously didn't want them. The back of my throat burned. Unfair.

"You'll see things my way soon enough." She hooked one French manicured thumbnail under her mask and popped it off, revealing a straight, aquiline nose under the curve of the beak. Unmasked, she looked younger than I'd expected a veteran Centurion to.

"How can you say that? People look up to you. They respect you. They want to be you—"

"They want to be Peregrine, not Amanda Mason. They want to save the world, not sit around in a lab watching cells all day."

Her face clicked in my memory. "I saw you at Our Lady's Will last Friday. The dedication ceremony. You work in the cancer lab." Beautiful, intelligent, psi-positive . . . but hey, she probably didn't have the municipal bus schedule memorized, right? Wonder what Mom would have thought if I'd told her I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up, instead of 'a hero'?

"For now. I'm doing my doctoral research at the hospital. Why were you there?"

I hesitated. That got too close to my true identity. I couldn't tell my family or Annabelle about this. Why should I tell her?

 She sighed. "Come on. It's me. Amanda. Your friend. Please don't tell me you buy into all that bullshit about secret identities. We're in this together. It'll be awkward going out for beers after patrols if we don't know each other's names."

She wanted to be my friend? Was that a joke? I bit my lip. Calm down, Gloria. She's a Centurion, you're . . . nope, still couldn't think it. And it wouldn't be true until I captured Harpy. But I'd be spending time with her for the next few weeks regardless, so I might as well make friends. It wasn't as if I had too many of those.

"Gloria Dodson," I said, ignoring the angry little twist in my throat. Amanda probably didn't remember what it was like to not be a Centurion. Or she might not have ever wanted to be one. "I work for Valerie Lavoie. The Sushi Queen." Besides, I had what I wanted—the only thing I'd ever wanted. What did I have left to feel angry about?

It's still unfair.

"The very rude woman with the little dog? The one whose restaurant sells the excellent Pittsburg rolls?" Amanda angled the jet down towards West Street. "I remember her. She must pay you well to put up with her."

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Then I looked down and realized how close the road was. Six lanes of traffic flew by beneath us. "Amanda!"

"I got it. Chill out. " She pressed a button on the dashboard. The wings of the jet folded inward. We dropped.

I squeezed my eyes shut. There came a bump and a loud hiss from the engine. An unseen force pushed me backwards. When I opened my eyes, I was sitting in the front seat of a black and purple sports car, speeding down the road at eighty miles per hour. Drivers in the cars we passed stared at us. I hoped the windows were tinted.

"We nearly died!" I said.

"The autopilot's smarter than that. Have a little faith, Gloria." She switched us into the left lane, maintaining her speed at twenty-five miles per hour above the speed limit. I guessed cops didn't ticket Centurion vehicles.

"This was a police car when Femme picked me up," I said.

"They all have different cloaking modes installed. Femme needs more than most. She's always morphing her outfits to go undercover, and her power doesn't extend to her cars." Amanda frowned. "There's a reason they call her the Mistress of Disguise."

"I'm pretty sure they don't call her that." Las Vegas had a Centurion named Master of Disguise for a few years, until the supervillain Set had ripped his heart out at the top of the Pyramid Casino to generate enough psi-energy to fuel a huge robotic snake. "The papers call you the Fantastic Flier sometimes, but Femme Fatale doesn't have a nickname."

"Whatever. I—"                                                                                             

The car in front of us flashed its brake lights. Amanda stomped down her foot. We slammed to a stop. My seatbelt dug into my chest and held me back.

"Fucking traffic," Amanda muttered.

Peregrine curses?

Up ahead rose the bridge that crossed over one of the larger intact stretches of The Wall. It shone with red and blue lights. The police had blocked it off on both sides. Brake lights surrounded us, as did a cacophony of honking horns. Across the median, the eastbound lanes were completely empty. "What's going on?" I asked her.

"Don't know." She pulled on her mask. "Stay here." She typed the passcode into the number pas besides the wheel. The engine cut out. In a single smooth motion, she slid from the car and took off, her red cape fluttering in the wind. I rubbed my sweaty palms together as I watched her go. So cool.

The switches and buttons on the dashboard tempted me as I waited for Amanda to return. I pressed one or two. Nothing happened. Then I tried guessing the passcode, but the number pad flashed red and I decided not to risk breaking Femme's car.

Amanda returned five minutes later, just as three more police cars drove past on the wrong side of the road.

"Vandalism." She slid back into her seat and re-entered the passcode. I didn't catch it this time, either. The engine hummed. Amanda pulled her mask off and spun the car over the median.

I gasped as we bounced over the concrete. "Vandalism? There's ten cars there!"

"Surprising, right? Didn't think that many cops would risk going south of The Wall." She grinned and pushed the gear shift to 'F'.