Hero Stalker

Part Twenty-Five

I dropped to the ground. It vibrated as the sound of collapsing cement washed over me. My brain seemed to run a five-second replay loop. When the world came back to me, and I lifted my head and looked around, I saw five men in ski masks running through the rubble of the western entrance, firing semi-automatic weapons into the air.

Run. Terror locked my legs together. That reminded me of what Slasher had said. You'd use those powers you stole from me to run for your life.

People screamed and fled towards the nearest exit. No one noticed me lock myself inside a porta-potty. It took three tries for my fingers to find the zipper on my dress. I ripped it off and dropped it on the floor. Vicky will kill me for this.

I kicked my sandals off, flipped over the fake lining on the bottom of my purse, and grabbed my gloves. They slid on smooth as silk. I jammed my toes in my boots and rolled them up my legs. Magnets in my cape snapped it on to my shoulders. Finally, I shoved Vicky's dress in the bag and pulled on my mask. The purse vanished.

A shiver ran down my spine. I tapped the mask above my right ear. "Shadowcat to Tower—"

"I'm already here!" Cypher shouted over the radio. "I need backup!"

"On it." Blades shot out of my toes. I kicked the door. My foot stuck fast in the door with a dull thud, throwing my momentum backwards and nearly dropping me in the toilet. Fuming, I pulled my foot free and opened the door by hand.

In the minute it had taken me to change, the crowd had vanished. I didn't see anyone injured. Maybe the henchmen had just shot to scare.

Near the hole in the wall, Cypher stood in the center of the knot of henchmen, spinning a yellow staff so fast it blurred as he knocked two men off their feet. One henchman clambered up into the broken bleachers. He raised his gun and fired a stream of bullets at Cypher's back, knocking him to the ground.

Femme said our costumes were bulletproof! But my neck and the back of my head were both totally bare. I froze, casting a quick, envious glance back at the exit tunnels. Failure here would only justify Slasher's doubts in me. Worse, Cypher might—

Shit, I thought, and sprinted for the henchman in the bleachers.

I meant to land in front of him, but my jump threw me crashing into his side. The henchman stumbled back against the concrete. His gun flew up into the air. Blades whipped out of my fingers and sliced the weapon in four as it fell.

"Bitch!" he gasped. I punched him in the jaw with my other hand. Pow! His eyes rolled up and he dropped.

"Shadowcat!" Cypher shouted. Thank you, Lord, he's alive.

I leapt down into the gap left by the explosion. The other four henchmen had cornered Cypher in front of a pile of rubble. Three of them pinned his limbs back while the fourth steadied a gun at the bottom of his face. Why the hell don't we cover our whole faces?

My blades whipped through the second gun. Surprise flickered across the face of the man holding it before I punched him unconscious.

"Behind you!" Cypher shouted. I spun around so fast I accidentally elbowed the man behind me in the chest at superspeed. He fell to the ground moaning and dropped his knife.

I heard the snap of a cape, the slap of a punch, and looked up to see the other two men lying unconscious as Cypher's feet. He picked up his staff from where he'd dropped it and sighed. "Amateurs. Didn't even consider that driving these cars through a tunnel of rubble would completely ruin the finish. That destroys the resale value." He bent over, panting. Right. Intelligence Class. What was he even doing here?