Frosted hands dug through the packed snow and ice, fingers prying firmly into solid rock. She clung to the side of the mountain, let the raging winds blast at her body, felt the cold surround her, and gazed up at the storm-covered peak out of sight. Her foot struggled for purchase on a fragile ledge, and she heaved herself up another few feet in her quest. Each moment of her harrowing climb up Mount Shasta threatened to send her hurtling back down to the forest thousands of feet below.
Zenobia smiled exuberantly at the challenge, her arm reached up to tear through the snowy cover and grip the rock beneath once more. No flight, just her raw strength against nature’s tempest and the mountain’s defiance, this is what made the struggle so exciting for her. The howling in her ears sounded like music, and encouraged her, whispered under the roar about the secrets to be found atop the sacred mountain. She pressed her foot against another outcropping and pushed up. She felt the rough-hewn rock and frozen snow caress her and she laughed. Again and again, she pulled herself up through everything that fought her, until one last time she reached for something to hold to find nowhere else to go. She slithered over the last bit of ledge, then walked to the very summit, tall and proud.
She held her arms out wide and spun in a slow circle, face lifted up into the bracing storm. “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!” she cried out and then let herself relax. “Hm...” She thought a moment more and then shrugged. “That’s all my Shakespeare for now,” she said to the mountaintop.
I’m here, Athena, I’ve made it to the top, and I’m looking, she mused as she walked around the summit, against the powerful wind, in the grip of the wet, laden clouds.
What now? I was taught to fight, not gaze into nothingness and discern secrets of the universe. Or my soul. So what now?It was beautiful up this high. She stared out into the stormy skies, as her thoughts churned and tried to understand herself. Not until Zenobia realized she had stopped, and stared off to the south, did she laugh at herself.
I’d like to see Saunders make it up here like this. “Ha!” she barked.
She’d love it. I should mention it to Onyx maybe, or Dawn, when I write. That notion rattled around in her head for a few moments and made her smile shrink, become more wistful as she squinted into the dark clouds.
Strange to be thinking about the Birds, up here, like this, on my quest. Why am I wasting my time like that? She leaned on a large boulder and peered out into the skies harder.
Platinum Flats is that way. Wonder what’s happening?*****
Onyx Adams came to a stop and looked intently over the five-way intersection. Cars honked, zipped by, swerved around each other as other pedestrians crossed from sidewalk to sidewalk when the white sign lit up and signalled safety. She stood in the whirlwind of motion, noise and lights taking it all in. Her new home, for the time being. She seemed to be gazing at the tourist-trap stores that offered “Platinum ball caps” or books that gave the solutions to beating the houses of gambling, just on the other side of the state border that neatly sliced the city apart. In truth, she was picking out alleys, fire escapes, rooftop distances and aligning this portion of her ‘mental map’ with what she’d learned already from her scouting. She knew that a person in her business needed to have all of that information down cold.
”I’ll point out one more time, you don’t have to find a job,” Jonni Thunder said to her at breakfast that morning. “It’s kind of the point of having our patron. Taking advantage of him. I can use you here in the detective agency, there’s still another room around here even with Amy having moved in. This isn’t necessary.”
“Maybe it’s not to you, but I’ve got to be my own woman,” Onyx said. “Especially now, especially after having my being a big tool shoved in my face with the whole Red Claw deal.”
“I can see the sense in that, but just make sure you leave some spare time in your busy schedule to kick bad guy ass with us.”
“Always got time for that,” Onyx replied quickly with a wry smile.Once across the city square, she wandered down the narrowest of the streets, let it lead her into an area of Platinum Flats less well-attended then those casino rows and tourist centers. Here, the paving was older, more worn and cracking. The building facades were weathered, untouched for years. Unlike the shallow trappings for random thousands of visitors, or the glittering lights of the moneyed boulevards, here the Flats became a community, despite the rundown appearance. Onyx’s eyes took in each person that walked by; they noted each littered alley; every store front holding a tenement on its head.
“What’s happening up there?” Onyx asked an older man as she noticed a crowd down the street.
The gray-haired man in the pale red shirt leaned against the doorjamb, just beneath his barber’s pole, and stared where Onyx pointed. “Some kid’s trying to open up one of them self-defense studios. Try and teach the people around here that those wolfpacks don’t need to scare ‘em.” He pointed to one part of the ring of people, and added, “The thugs, they don’t like that much, you can imagine.”
“I can imagine,” Onyx murmured in response. She slowly walked up to the crowd, and watched a few brave souls stepped into the shabby room. The punks the barber had pointed out called out mean names, harsh words and threats, that kept the rest of the interested people in that ring, in orbit around the would-be studio, but apart from it.
“You do what you gotta do today, yo!” called out the largest, the meanest of the street gang. Muscled shoulders bunched up as he jabbed his finger at the grimy window. “You got today, and then you gonna learn who runs things around here, Delgado! You hear me, boy?”
“He hears you. Why don’t you hit the bricks, maybe pump some iron and get ready for your party tonight?” Onyx said in a sharp voice, her fingers tapping on the leader’s shoulder.
“You like that? You like how that feels, bitch?” The man turned and glared at her, but everyone noticed him blink before she did. “You better get your lovin’ from him before tonight, ‘cuz he ain’t gonna look so good after.” He chuckled and cracked his knuckles then led his people away.
Onyx nodded as he walked off. “Yay, I got a date tonight,” she groused.
*****
“You are gathering quite the little team, Jonni. I’m glad to hear it.” Mockingbird’s smooth voice wrapped around Jonni’s head through her earphones, as she sat back and sipped her coffee in her usual seat. Before she replied, he added with a jaunty smile, “of course, I’ll be paying more attention to those out of high school.”
“I should hope so,” Jonni chuckled. “Dawn says that Amethyst has a lot of power. But there’s a lot we don’t know, that might take a while to learn. We’re hoping that by having her and Halo train together, they can both learn faster.”
A shadowy hand waved away the air in front of Mockingbird’s face dismissively. “My dear, your training and your organization are entirely up to you, for the simple reason that I don’t care for all these details. If I had wanted to be privy to so much tedium I wouldn’t have enlisted such charming women as yourself to take care of things for me.”
“Now that’s different,” Jonni said, leaning forward more over the table, scrutinizing the obscured face. “I’d have thought a man with so much money poured into a project would want to know how well it was being spent.”
Mockingbird shrugged. “My money is well under control, and I’ve more than enough of it. Tell me, what is the point in amassing riches if not to have others do your work for you, and to fritter the day away yourself?”
“Some people have passions to pursue,” said Jonni.
“I hope you haven’t judged me not to be a man of passion,” he replied with that twinkle in his dark eyes. “I’d have to lose all of my faith in you.”
“Oh, you are passionate. But in what, I wonder?”
Mockingbird’s grin widened. “You remember our agreement, Jonni. That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” With nothing more he flickered off of her computer screen, the blue sky of the desktop background nearly blinding her when the window closed.
Jonni sat back and let her surroundings come back into focus. Her friend Frankie was working at the counter as usual - although at the moment, “work” consisted of sugar-packet checkers with his roommate. When Mockingbird called, they had been in a heated discussion of computer coding languages, and when Jonni began to listen again the conversation had turned to bashing their particularly least-favorite teachers at the local college.
“Seriously, Professor, I get it. You want respect. You’ll get it faster if you’re not the kind of uptight dickweed who makes a guy stand all class at the front of the room cause he wanted to be on time more than he wanted not to wear sweatpants!” Frankie’s roommate had evidently had a hard day.
“Is that the kind of language today’s young people are resorting to?” Jonni asked with a teasing wink as she stood to return her coffee cup.
Frankie went from bent over the counter to standing rod-straight in a blink. “Is your meeting over already, Ms. Thunder?” he asked, and ignored the elbow in the ribs and mouthed “is that her?” that his roommate gave him.
“Yes. Just a short one, today. Evidently,” Jonni answered, only barely visibly annoyed. She had far from forgotten her special assignment from Mockingbird, but in the weeks that had passed she had gotten next to nothing as far as leads on his identity. He seemed to take a special delight in speaking with her so often, and giving her nothing to work with, and Jonni knew that she could hardly expect him to divulge information on purpose. She continued their talks with her ears piqued for the smallest seeds of clues. As she thought today’s call back over, one of those seeds began to take root in her mind. The idea grew so rapidly and overtook her attention, so much so that it took Frankie three tries calling Jonni’s name to get her focus back.
“So, Ms. Thunder,” he cleared his throat and continued to ignore his roommate. “Listen, if you’re not doing anything Friday night...Dave, this is Dave, he’s in this band and they’re gonna be playing here. If you wanted to drop by.”
Jonni smiled and tried not to let out her laugh. “I’m not all that old, you can call me Jonni. Thanks, but as a matter of fact, I think I’m about to be busier than usual.” She checked her watch, and started out the door.
*****
“No, no, jump. Jump! Come on, stay calm, just try again!”
“Why does he have to jump over the pit when he can fly?”
“Because he can’t fly. If he falls into the pit he dies.”
“But I could fly out of a pit like that, look at it!” Halo pointed to the TV screen, where a squat figure in a red hat had just fallen into the abyss again. “And he can so fly, how else can he jump that high?”
Cindy sighed, and took the controller back from Halo as her turn started. “He jumps because that’s his power, but not everyone can fly. Come on, you knew that, Jonni can’t fly.”
“Yes she can, in her other form,” Halo argued. “And so can Kendra, and so can I.”
“I can’t.”
“You could make it look like you were.”
“Okay fine, Dawn can’t fly.”
“I think she’s just hiding it,” said Halo with a solemn nod.
A sound at the front door broke their argument, and Cindy and Halo dropped the game in time to see Jonni unlocking the door, Amy Winston walking behind her. “Okay, here we are. Girls, this is Amy. Amy, meet Halo and Cynthia.”
Amy was hidden behind Jonni’s body, but perked her headbanded forehead out and smiled when she saw the other two girls running to greet her. “You guys are heroes, too?”
“We are! It’s great to meet you,” Halo bubbled, her aura ringing violet as Amy stepped through the door.
“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Cindy added. “That sounded like some big magic you did back at Hudson.”
Amy grinned. “It was!” She followed Halo and Cindy to their small kitchen, and a tray of cookies that Halo had so excitedly baked for the coming guest. Amy stared in amazement at the size of the apartment. “You guys live here? All by yourselves? Ms. Thunder, can I live here too? Please, pretty please?”
“Sorry, but no,” Jonni chuckled. “Cynthia was a member of the Justice League. Halo came from a military operation in Niger. They can live by themselves. Your father is still homeschooling you, you have to live with him. Suck it up.”
“Aw, ‘kay,” Amy pouted, took a cookie and wandered to a chair to sit.
“You can visit any time, though,” Halo beamed.
Jonni eyed her watch for the fifth time in fifteen minutes, and re-fastened her scarf around her neck. “I’d love to stay but I’ve really got to get going. I think I finally have a chance of finding something more about Mockingbird.”
“Do you really?” Cindy looked up at Jonni’s face. “You found a way to trace him?”
“Well, I’ve got a little bit of an idea. I am a detective, you know,” Jonni explained. She and Cindy talked out what Jonni had in mind, but across the room, Amy had already wandered to their video game and begun to play. Halo followed her, the two paying more attention to their fun than to the intrigue behind them.
“Good luck, then!” Cindy grinned at Jonni and showed her out the door. By the time she and the cookie tray made their way back to the couch, Amy was biting her lip in concentration, fingers flying over the controls.
Halo beamed at the screen, and then at Cindy. “See! I told you he could fly!”
“He can only fly if you find the cape,” Amy corrected. The television trilled a victory jingle, and Amy passed the controller back to Cindy, who slumped down with a shrug.
“Fine, what the hey, everyone can fly.”
The three girls bonded almost instantly. Within half an hour, they were chatting together as if they had been friends for years, despite the diversity of their gossip. Cindy squirmed and refused to answer questions about her former fellow League members; Halo had to ask for clarification when Amy complained about her old school; and Amy fell quiet all of a sudden after she was asked about her magic.
“What’s wrong?” Cindy shifted closer. “I mean, you’re clearly good at it, Dawn said you had a lot of power for your age. Don’t you know where it comes from?”
Amy nodded, but her fingers tugged nervously at the ends of her hair. “People don’t really like it when I talk about it.”
“We’ll like it,” Halo promised. “We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t want to know.”
“Yeah, but...well,” Amy took a big breath, and looked at her two friends. She had already gotten that familiar look from the other Birds, Jonni and Kendra particularly. But they were so curious, and she used to love to talk about it, back when she thought someone might want to hear. “So, in another world I’m a princess.” She paused, and continued when the interruption didn’t come. “It’s called Gemworld. And I was born there, but they sent me here to protect me when I was a baby, and then a couple years ago Citrina - my friend, Citrina - she called me back and showed me how to get there and how to use my magic...you’re not looking at me like that.”
Halo and Cindy looked at each other. “Like what?” Halo asked.
“Like I’m nuts,” said Amy, starting to smile wider. “You’re not giving me that look.”
“Well, it is a little far-fetched...but I’ve seen nuttier,” Cindy smiled. “Gemworld, huh? It sounds gorgeous, do you think you can show us sometime?”
Amy’s smile fell. “I can’t. I haven’t been back for months...something happened and I can’t get through anymore. I thought it was all over, I didn’t know I could use my magic on Earth until the other day...they’ve all got to be so worried about me,” she finished sadly.
“So...you’re a magic princess from another dimension that you can’t get to anymore?” Cindy asked. “That about sums it up?”
Amy nodded, and opened her mouth to protest. But before she could say anything, Halo had wrapped her in a tight hug and given her another smile. “I believe it.”
“You do?” Amy asked, and Cindy mouthed behind her.
“Sure! I don’t even know what I am, all you all could tell me was I came out of a spaceship,” Halo laughed. “I wish I was a magic princess, that’d make more sense!”
All three laughed, and Cindy joined in the hug. “So come on, you can’t stop there. What’s it like there?”
Amy’s eyes glittered as she started to talk, her voice stronger and her hands moving to illustrate her words. She described the beauty of her world, the way that all the architecture was based around the precious gems that made up the whole landscape, her amethyst palace, her friends and neighbors, the Emerald sisters, and her prince Topaz. She talked about adventures that they had shared in the past, about the time her stray magic accidentally destroyed a national heirloom, the archery contest that the older royalty had arranged only to be won by the ten-year-old Emerald princess. She was halfway through describing the vast diamond plains where the monks lived when the doorbell rang again, and shook all three of them back to Earth.
Kendra let herself inside without waiting. “Hey, girls. Amy, you wanted to go shop for some battle gear right? I’m done with class for the weekend, and it’s a few hours till your dad wanted you home.”
“Boy would I!” Amy grinned and jumped up.
“Oh, that sounds fun!” Halo floated over the couch and over to greet Kendra as well.
Cindy smiled her sweetest smile. “I want to go shopping!”
Kendra gave the other two a long glance, and finally laughed and nodded. “Fine, there’s room in the car. But you’re flying your own stuff home if it doesn’t fit in the trunk,” she warned, and led the three outside.
*****
Jose Delgado guzzled out of the bottle of bright orange liquid and watched the meager initial class drifted out of his self-defense studio. He gave a sigh and wiped his face with a towel.
A start. Slow start. But a start.“So I’m guessing you’re the Delgado being called out for earlier?” Onyx asked as she walked up to him, slow and cautious. She stopped and stood eye to eye with the man, each of them just shy of six feet tall. He was well-muscled, there was no way for her not to notice that as he leaned on his table in his white tank top. Short black hair, scuffed skin that implied his own tough youth on the streets, the light white scars on his forearms. Clearly a tough guy once in his life.
“That’d be me. Jose,” he answered and held his hand out to her. “And you’re...”
“Onyx. Good to meet anyone stirring up the local jackals like you’re doing,” she answered. “Going out on a limb with this place, aren’t you?” She looked around at the ragged mats, and fold-up tables along the walls, one old, battered desk in one corner. “I’ve heard of working on a shoestring, but this is fraying.”
“I might, but someone has to,” Jose said. “People here need help. I can give it to ‘em.”
“Sounds like this is personal to you.” She watched him warily now, as he moved to the desk and sat down.
“A crusade, as the papers would call it,” Jose readily offered. “Been out on the streets, seen the ugly stuff, seen the nice guys get hurt. I’ve grown up now, and ready to do something good.” He kicked his feet up and gave Onyx a big grin. “That good enough for inspection?”
“Inspection?”
“You’re scoping me and my operation out, and I noticed the way you jumped on ‘something personal’,” he explained. He remained relaxed, casual as he looked up at the way the woman stepped around like a predator. “Do I pass whatever mustering is going on?”
Onyx chuckled and shook her head. “You’re smart. You know stuff. But you seem like a good guy, and I like what you’re doing here, so I’ll give you a chance, sure.”
“I’m flattered.” He stood up now and leaned over his desk. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re getting some back-up. Hope you appreciate it. You’re techniques were good, but your form was sloppy. If you’re going to teach these people how to kick ass,” she motioned with air quotes, “defensively, of course, then you need someone to help do it right.”
“I can’t hire workers. I can’t really pay myself,” Jose said with arms folded over his chest, more than a little miffed at her appraisal. “This is a volunteer effort, and there’s only one volunteer.” He jabbed his thumb at himself.
“Two now, tough guy. You lucked out.”
“I don’t even know you. Kinda makes it hard to trust bring you on board.”
“Wait until morning then. You can check out my resumé, and if you approve, we’ll save the world one crummy neighborhood at a time. Deal?”
“Gotta see that. It’s a deal.”
*****
It was a simple enough plan, standard really for Jonni’s line of work. She needed information; there was information in the files inside the building; Jonni would get inside the building. That was the easy part. The tricky thing was not getting caught snooping where she wasn’t allowed, and not letting anyone recognize the Jonni Thunder they may have seen around town, or even called on themselves for help. But that was the part Jonni found most oddly freeing. People were used to seeing her dressed meticulously, nails clean and painted, suit perfectly tailored and hair straightened.
The woman who stepped up to the buzzer for the credit union offices, on the other hand, had her hair in a messy ponytail under a plain gray baseball cap. She had scrubbed the polish off her nails and intentionally stained her thick work pants with smudges of charcoal and oil. The shirt above it was two sizes too big and baggy enough to make her look much larger. Jonni’s own father may have recognized her, having taught her all the detective tricks that he knew, but against anyone else she was more than safe.
When Jonni got off the elevator, the receptionist gave her the kind of disdainful look that assured she would never remember the frumpy woman she saw. “Can I help you?”
“I can help you, actually. IT boys called me to look at those faulty wires. Third time the whole system just cut out in the last two weeks, can you believe it?”
“The whole system? I think I’d be aware of a problem that big, Miss...”
Jonni pulled a face and shrugged her shoulders. “Oops...didn’t mean to get the guys in trouble. But how dumb can you be, not telling the one person who keeps track of all this BS? You know, I better make sure they understand just how much work you do for everyone, Heather,” she picked the name up off the desk. “If I have to smack it into them, they’re gonna learn to respect you.”
Heather put a hand to her lips to keep from laughing. “Well, I hope smacking isn’t exactly necessary. Though wouldn’t it be nice?” she added wistfully, and handed Jonni the visitor’s sign-in sheet. One fake name later, she was inside and as invisible as any other maintenance worker.
The computer that she found tucked away in an empty office was perfectly serviceable, hooked into the credit union system and functioning well. It looked as though this particular office had just lost its employee resident, and low enough on the list not to be renovated and re-fitted with the latest upgrades just yet. “We’ll probably get along better anyway,” Jonni said, patting the top of the monitor as she sat down to work. Passwords for the whole system took her a few minutes, but the password for an ex-employee’s email account was simple enough. A little bit of digging, and she found the most recent email announcing the system security changes. Within ten minutes of sitting down, Jonni could browse through the records of every customer. But there was only one she needed to find.
The Birds of Prey card was under Jonni’s name, although she had had copies made for Kendra and Dawn to use freely. The purchases were lined up in neat rows, and Jonni let herself smile to see the list of retailers. Kendra had been spending Mockingbird’s money on textbooks and school supplies, while Dawn had gotten her archival and office supplies re-stocked. Nothing on the account would give anyone who didn’t already know about the Birds any suspicions about their secrets. Especially the frivolous expenditures from Cindy and Halo. “Gotta give them an allowance,” she muttered with a chuckle.
And yet, someone would be looking at them, Jonni knew. Mockingbird’s offhanded comment that morning had finally given her a clue.
“I wouldn’t have enlisted such charming women as yourself to take care of things for me.” They were hardly the words of a man who bothered to personally keep track of his underlings’ spending. Besides that, the Birds were not likely to be Mockingbird’s only project. If Jonni could follow the money, she could find more clues, and perhaps even another of Mockingbird’s special interests.
With her stolen identification, and her own account information, Jonni quickly made the computer give up the bank that paid off all of their expenses. There was no personal name attached to the account - the checks were coming from BSSL Inc., a corporation that Jonni didn’t recognize. A quick search brought up the home page for the financial company, based out in the Midwest and boasting a long legacy of safe and reputable accounting.
“It’s a start,” Jonni said to herself, already preparing her next steps.
*****
Kendra Saunders shoved open the front door to her apartment and collapsed face down on the couch. She just laid there, sprawled out and finally let out a small whimper.
“What’s wrong? You okay?” Dawn Make-Strong-Move asked as she peered out from her office, a little concerned at the sounds drifting in from the parlor. “God, what was it? Merlyn? Cheetah? I didn’t hear anything bigger, but you look like you slugged it out with Prometheus.” She stepped up close and knelt next to her fatigued friend.
“The girls,” Kendra moaned. “Shopping.
So much shopping. How can anyone do that much shopping?” She opened an eye, her face squashed into the cushions so Dawn could only see the one staring out at her. “Do you know how many shoe stores Platinum Flats has? Do you? I do. Good lord in heaven, I do!”
Dawn laughed in relief and gave a pass of her hand over Kendra’s disheveled, short-cropped hair. “Poor dear. Sounds like someone needs some water.”
“Beer.” Dawn chuckled again as the plaintive call for something more than water followed her into the pantry. She fished in the fridge and called out, “Did you at least succeed in finding ‘battle gear’ for our magic girl?”
“Yeah. At least that much,” Kendra said as she rolled onto her back now and kicked her shoes off. “Her...costume is fine, for someone our age. But now, we can take her out in public without feeling like we should be on some pervert registry.” She laughed at that and pulled herself up to sitting. “But Cindy and Halo insisted on coming too, and after getting taking care of Amy’s outfit, they insisted on more. And more. And more.” She stared off as she remembered the day, and shuddered. She glanced over to the pantry, and waited a few more seconds. “And then they insisted on going to the casino, and they had me worn down by then, and I said yeah, and then they bet Halo on a big roulette gamble,” Kendra continued to speak gibberish as she slowly, cautiously approached the other room, wondering at the silence. “Are you even listening?”
“Hiya, Kendra, good to see you again.” The young man in the shimmering white turtleneck, lavender trousers and red sash waved his hand, and peered out over his red-lensed sun-glasses at his friend. “Miss me?”
“Kid Eternity,” Kendra muttered as she leaned against the archway into the small room. She saw Dawn on the other side, glaring at the spectral hero, beer bottle in hand as she rested against the refrigerator. “I can’t say
I missed you as much as others, perhaps,” she grumbled as she also joined in the staring.
“I’m sensing...hostility,” Kit tried to joke, and glanced back over at Dawn. “What’s wrong? Did you think I wasn’t going to come back? I don’t get what’s the issue here.”
“You don’t get what’s the is--?” Dawn pushed off the fridge now and took a step closer to him. She reached out through his chest to pass Kendra her beer. “You didn’t just ask that did you?” She looked over Kit’s shoulder. “Did he really just ask that?”
“He really did just ask that,” Kendra answered as she took the beer and popped the cap off. “Why did you just ask that? Did you really think you can walk off like you did and then waltz right back in? Did you think being dead was going to save you from Dawn killing you for that?”
“I’m a ghost, we do that, I had things, ghostly things, spirit things I had to deal with,” Kid Eternity protested, slowly realizing where the conversation was going. “That’s what happens with dead people that hang around. Occasionally, we do things that the living can’t know about.” He took the glasses off and looked into Dawn’s soft brown doe eyes, his own being chilling swirls of darkest deathly black. “I thought you understood that? You of all people have to understand the spirit world has its own stuff going on.”
“I thought you of all people would remember that the spirit world is what I do, it’s who and what Manitou Dawn is all about!” Dawn yelled back at him, furious now. Her eyes flashed with anger and grief. “I cross into the spirit world, what goes on there is my business as much yours.” She took a deep breath and then released it with, “And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’d very much made your...life a part of my life too! That’s what people who care for each other,
do for each other! I even found a way to kiss you, damn it! And then you just...go gallivanting off and not even think about what it might have meant, or that it might mean anything at all and not tell me and...and...”
She was out of breath, red-faced and tears welled up in her eyes. Kendra stepped up to Dawn and wrapped a strong arm around Dawn’s slim shoulders, and let the woman shake safely. “I think you should go, Kit. Grow up a bit, and come back and maybe,
maybe we’ll talk to you again. But right now...right now, it’s fresh, and painful and you being here just makes it ugly.”
“Sorry, Dawn,” a shellshocked Kid Eternity said. He reached out to put fingers on her shoulder, but couldn’t, the ghostly touch falling short as always. “I really never saw it, not as a likely thing, not as...as something you’d share in return.” He stepped back and started to fade from view, letting the ethereal winds catch him and carry him away. “I will be back, Dawn, and I
will make this up to you, I will grow up I promis--”
Dawn sniffled and tried to pull herself from Kendra, to shake off the emotional outburst, but the pain in her heart prevented it. She leaned on a counter and then struck it angrily. “Damn him! Why did he have to come back? What am I supposed to do now? I--” She glanced over her shoulder at Kendra. “I have to do something, I have to get my mind off this, I have to get out or, or...”
“We could do what all the girly-girls are supposed to do,” Kendra suggested. “Go shopping. Get new shoes?” She smiled weakly, and then more confidently as Dawn started to break out into giggles.
“We are so not girly-girls,” Dawn said as she wiped her eyes and shook herself out a bit, recovering. “We should do what Birds of Prey do best.”
“Oh, now you are so talking!” Kendra said with a wicked grin and then chugged at her beer.
*****
The residents had retreated into their locked apartments with the arrival of night. Tall metal curtains and iron-wrought draperies guarded the darkened store fronts of Nicholl Street. A mixture of darkness and neon glow from the distance gave a weirdly burnt orange color to the night sky. The only movement came from the pack of human animals that stalked the center of the street, entitled to their territory by right of intimidation, of numbers. They were eight strong, and came to a halt at their target: Jose Delgado’s defiant little studio.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, Joe D!” the pack’s alpha called out in a sing-song voice, as he tapped a baseball bat on the cracked pavement. “We tole you we be comin’ back, and we be back now!”
One of the others laughed and chucked a brick through the glass, between the slats of the gate that barred the entry. “Where’s your tough guy talk now, Jodie?” the thrower taunted with that hyena-like laugh, and hefted another brick, pulled out from a pillowcase. “Huh? Not so big now?”
“Your machismo has me overwhelmed, bro,” Jose said as he walked out from the alley. “Guess you’re just too much for me, all tough with all your numbers, and your weapons, and breaking such big, strong sheets of glass with a brick.”
“Hey man, he’s dissin’ yer bricks,” another guy said to the thrower.
“You got stones comin’ down here to mess with us, I’ll give you that,” the leader said as the gang spread out, half-lit and eager for the beatdown. “But you gotta go down, Joe D. We can’t have you messin’ with a good thing.”
A grunt of pain preceded the soft thud of a body hitting the pavement, and the group looked anxiously behind them. One of their smaller members had been picked off, laying face down in the pavement with nunchuks laying across his neck. Onyx dropped from the traffic signal that stretched out over the street, touched down lightly next to her prey and unhooked her sheathed sword from her back. “I can’t have you messing with a good thing either, so you can leave. Now, or in a few minutes in an ambulance, I don’t really give a damn.”
“Girlie, you gotta pick your dance partners better than that,” the leader said with a leer and tapped the bat on the pavement again. “I don’t care what kinda hardware you packin’, I’m gonna lay this upside your head and show you how we party in the Nickel.”
Jose had been momentarily off-balance by Onyx’s sudden attack and appearance as well, but he didn’t wait to mouth off. Mouthing off didn’t do anything in a fight. Instead, he stepped up to the brick-thrower, spun the teen by the shoulder and laid a powerful right cross across the punk’s jaw to put him down fast. He moved over the first thug with a leap kick that struck the thrower’s buddy in the chest and sent him sprawling as well. “Two down,” he said louder than he intended, so Onyx could hear, ignoring his own earlier advice on conversational combat.
Onyx let her actions speak for her, however, and crossed her blunted sword with the leader’s bat after tearing through the three people in between them. “You are seriously pissin’ me off, puta!” he growled as he backed up a step and swung the bat at her head with both hands.
Onyx said nothing; she just dropped into a crouch, and slid the sword from its sheath. With the same motion, she sliced through the bat, sending the upper half flying off into the distance, as she jabbed the leader’s knee with the hard scabbard. He dropped down onto the bad knee and she leaped up from her crouch and let her kick finish her wordless speech.
“Three. I got three at least,” Jose said as he stood over the last of the gang, looking over at the leader crawling away with a nerveless lower leg and battered mouth.
“I’ll be back, this ain’t over, I got a gang, I got a big ass gang, I got a lot more than this, and I’ll be back!” The leader got to the side of a car and pulled himself back up onto his good leg, and snarled with a combination anger and fear. “What you gonna do against all that, huh? Even you can’t beat ‘em all up on yourself!”
“I have my own gang, and we don’t need numbers,” Onyx calmly replied as she sheathed her sword. The sound of wind heralded the arrival of Hawkgirl, mace in hand and mean grin on her face. Manitou Dawn coughed from down the street, behind the leader. She leaned against a brick wall and thumbed her tomahawk, with a foul look in her eyes.
“Please,
please, be a guy and give me a reason to beat you like a tom-tom,” Dawn growled. Instead, the last of the alpha’s defiance fled, and he hobbled off as fast as he could. After a few frozen moments in the weird half-darkness of Platinum’s night, the three women started to laugh.
Onyx turned to Jose and put her hand out to him. “So, my resumé meet your approval?”
“Be here first thing in the morning,” Jose answered. “I got a lot of glass to clean up before class.”
*****
The Moon was huge and yellow-white, low in the black velvet sky, littered with shards of diamond that twinkled in its light. It shown down on the forest, a silvery sheen coating all beneath it. Wenonah Littlebird looked up into the face of the Moon and called out her chant, arms lifted up high in her plea for wisdom and understanding. She was thirsty, hungry, and so tired, but she had worked for three nights on her dance. She knew she teetered on collapse and failure, but parched lips continued to plead.
Suddenly the darkness opened like a massive lid, and a second Moon joined the first, massive eyes staring down at Wenonah impassively. Slowly, the eyes started to drop down toward the forest, picking up greater and greater speed as a great horned owl shape appeared from the night-sky, wind rippling across night-sky feathers. It screeched a horrible loud noise and talons lunged for Wenonah, so small compared to the cosmic raptor descending on her.
The two locked gazes, then all she could see were the lunar eyes bearing down on her. In less than an eyeblink from the woman, she looked out on the forest around her, the skies above her, the world beneath her with those pale yellow orbs, unleashing a bloodcurdling scream.
The same scream that made her body jerk upward as best it could, and her mind awaken. The sun struggled to break through the slate-gray early morning, as Wenonah skittishly glanced around. Her fire had long since extinguished itself, and she slowly picked herself up to her feet. Not even a trail of smoke from the fire; at least an hour or more she’d been in her vision quest. It slowly crossed her mind that despite the dim orange flickers of morning in the distance, she saw things like it was daylight. Very little seemed to be hidden from her sight, and she smiled. Brighter and broader she smiled as she spread her arms out, focused on the clouds above and began to soar on winds only she could feel. She laughed aloud as she looped up into the air.
“Thank you,” she called out to the heavens above her. “Thank you!”
*****
After a thorough shower to remove the dust and grime she had applied to her hair, and a night to sleep and rejuvenate, Jonni took some small pleasure in wearing her favorite navy blue suit the next morning. She sipped her coffee and dug daintily into a plate of eggs and toast, and smiled when Onyx made her way into the building’s courtyard to join her. “Morning. Rough night?”
“Had much worse.” Onyx rubbed a small bruise on her leg before she sat down with a glass of orange juice. “Out winning friends and influencing people, I guess you’d say.”
“That’s good to hear.” Jonni drained her cup and placed it back on the table. “More job-hunting today?”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” Onyx tapped her fingers on the tabletop with just a hint of what might be nerves. “I think I need to take you up on your offer.”
Jonni smiled. “Really? You were pretty adamant about your independence yesterday. What changed?”
Onyx began to tell her the long version, from finding the tiny dojo during the day to fighting for it that night. “Jose needs people. And I think this city needs him,” she explained. “But I can’t put in the time this place needs, be one of the Birds and still hunt for and hold down a day job.”
“Say no more. First thing this morning, I’ll get you on the Agency’s payroll,” Jonni promised. “Kendra has the same thing. You’re free to do what you need to do without starving. Of course, it would be
nice if I could get my ‘employees’ into the office every so often for a little help,” she added.
“Don’t worry. Part-time, I can manage,” Onyx was actually grinning, lighter and less-burdened than Jonni had seen her yet. “I’m not taking charity here. But...thank you. It does make this all a lot easier.” She picked up her empty glass and walked back toward her apartment. “I’d better get going.”
“Maybe I’ll have a chance to go see your dojo for myself this afternoon,” Jonni offered.
Onyx grinned back. “I’ll be busy on my lunch break. I still need to find my own apartment. I did tell you, I like my independence.”
With that, she ducked inside, leaving Jonni in the courtyard to chuckle to herself. The air was full of birdsong, pleasant chirps and unpleasant squawks alike as the city woke and the crumbs fell onto the sidewalk from its breakfast. As for her own birds, Jonni was happy to see the team bonding, growing closer and stronger even as she inched nearer to the answers that would make the team truly her own. She pulled out a little notebook and ran over her checklist of questions: Who was Mockingbird? Why did he need Jonni’s skills to lead his team? What did the BSSL financial company have to do with the rest of the mystery? Jonni stood, stretched and went to rinse out her coffee mug. To Mockingbird, these questions were just a game; but to Jonni, they were something else. They were the key to keeping her newfound friends safe, strong and united. They would keep them just like they were this very morning, and it made Jonni smile.
