Wonder City Stories

There has been much stress around this house this month. I'm glad it didn't (so far) derail me on writing.



Locked Room of One's Own Mystery

"Corporal," Lady Justice snapped in a deep, commanding voice that Angelica had not heard from her before, "do you know what rank I hold in the Gold Star Brigade Reserves?'

The babyfaced young man, muscularly at ease in his Army fatigues, looked surprised, but tried not to. "No, ma'am," he drawled.

Lady Justice produced a card from her pocket and displayed it at his eye level. The blue eyes widened abruptly, and he popped to attention, cracking off a salute and lifting his eyes to gaze into the distance. "Ma'am," he said.

Angelica glanced at her friend Kendis, who raised her eyebrows, then gave Madeline an interrogative look. Madeline, with a small smile, leaned over, under the cover of Lady Justice dressing down the corporal, and whispered, "She's a major."

"Ah," Kendis said, and shifted on her crutches.

"... and according to Paranormal Order 5117J, the Gold Star Brigade can, in fact, take possession at any time, and as you can see from that authorization there, I am currently in charge of the Brigade," Lady J concluded, then stopped looming over the sweating corporal. "So if you will clear myself and my duly deputized assistants, Corporal, we can get on with this."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, gratefully stepping to his desk and doing something at the computer. His printer whirred to life and shot out a half dozen printed sheets of some sort of glossy plastic. He picked them up, popped out cards for each of them and handed them over to Lady J. He also handed her a last whole sheet and gestured to the elevator door.

"Thank you, Corporal," Lady J said, giving him a smart salute, which he returned, and led her three satellites onto the elevator.

The door shut and the elevator began to descend.

"So that's what you meant," Kendis said, passing a hand over her forehead and back over her shaved pate, "when you said that you had legal rights, but wasn't sure they'd be enough?"

Lady Justice nodded and sighed. "Currently, I am the Gold Stars, because they're missing and only their reservists remain. As such, I walked into headquarters and got all the permissions put through for my activation. And now I'm activating another reservist. All legal and proper, but I wasn't sure it would all go all right, given everything that's going on."

"Who are you activating?" Angelica said.

"You'll see in a moment," Lady J said. She exchanged an unreadable look with Madeline.

The elevator stopped and the doors parted. The guards on duty had apparently been apprised of Lady Justice's status, because they all came to attention when she stepped into the room. One of them stepped forward and saluted. She returned the salute and handed him the printed sheet of plastic.

"How has she been, Sergeant?" Lady Justice said casually.

"About the usual, ma'am," he said, using a digital scanner on the sheet and returned it to her. "Calm enough during the day. You've come at a good time. Do you require a power damper, ma'am?"

"No, Sergeant, we'll be fine, thank you," Lady Justice said.

"Yes, ma'am." There was a dubious tone in his voice, but he pressed a button on his keyboard and nodded to one of his underlings. There was a loud clunk. The private went to the other side of the room and opened a door there that was at least a foot thick.

Lady Justice strode confidently across the room, almost without her usual limp, Angelica noticed. The rest of them trailed her through the door.

It was a small studio apartment with fake digital windows, pastel walls, and an array of aged and comfortable furniture. In the midst of it all, on a rocking chair, sat a tiny wizened woman with short white hair, wearing a blue sweatsuit. She looked up slowly.

"Janey," Lady Justice said. "It's Dottie."

"Oh, my god," Angelica said under her breath, suddenly recognizing in the lines of the old woman's face her childhood idol, Jane Liberty.

Jane Liberty's dark eyes focused on Lady Justice, and she got up from her chair carefully. "Oh, Dottie, you brought Janna?" She gestured at Kendis, who frowned and seemed to be concentrating.

"No, Jane," Lady J said. "She's not Janna. This is Kendis, and this is Angelica. And do you know who that is?"

Something was changing in Jane's face, Angelica noticed, as Lady J was talking. The blank geniality shifted to something more like concentration and attention. When Jane looked at Madeline, her face lit up with recognition. Then frustration.

"I can't remember her name," she said plaintively.

"Madeline," that woman said, stepping forward and extending her hands to Jane. "It's been a long time, Jane."

Jane automatically took the proffered hands, and a glow that Angelica hadn't noticed around Madeline suddenly spread to Jane.

Angelica glanced at Kendis. The other woman had her gaze locked on Jane Liberty and her jaw was set, but sweat gleamed on her dark brown skin. As subtly as possible, Angelica pulled a handkerchief from her purse and mopped Kendis' brow. Kendis gave her a quirk of a smile, but kept her eyes on Jane.

"Janey, we need your help, and we'd like to take you out of here," Lady Justice said. "Are you okay with that?"

Jane blinked several times and took a long, deep breath. Finally, she looked at Lady J and said, "You must be desperate if you're here for me, Dottie. If you're sure, then I'm ready."

"Excellent," Lady Justice said. "Back to the van then."

Jane tottered a little as Madeline backed away from her, and Angelica stepped forward to take her elbow. Jane looked up at her, then over at Kendis, with a crooked smile. "Dottie's got herself a new brigade, does she?"

Kendis gave Jane a wry grin, mopping her chin with Angelica's handkerchief, then pivoting on her crutches and leg braces. "If the Army takes handicapped lesbians, that's the first I've heard of it."

Jane waved her free hand dismissively. "She's just got a... a... thing, you know. People like her. Damn this brain of mine." She clutched at the side of her head.

Once they were past the soldiers and on the elevator, Kendis said to Jane, "I have to hang around you for a few more hours, but you should start feeling more focused soon. Losing words and stuff is the slowest to come back."

Jane looked at her sharply. "You can fix old people's brains?"

"Not permanently," Kendis said with a shrug. "But if I hang around, things improve. If I work at it, I can make a dramatic change for a while."

They went out past the saluting corporal and climbed into Lady Justice's battered old grey van. Madeline gave up the passenger seat to Jane and sat on the bed in the back with Angelica and Kendis.

"Where are we headed?" Jane said, squinting against the bright April sunshine.

"Right now, my house," Lady J said. "The kids settled me in a little mobile home at the edge of town."

Jane looked back toward the low-slung bunker as Lady J drove out the gates of Fort Wilson. "You'll bring me back when I've done whatever it is you need, right, Dottie?"

Lady J nodded slowly. "Yes, just like you made me promise, Jane. All those years ago."

Jane put her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes wearily. "Good."

Am I Invisible? Am I Inaudible?

The group reconvened a few days later in Madame's living room, after X had called them all to let them know that Madame had recovered from the session with the Oracle.

"The question of the day is," Madeline said, "now that we know, what do we do about the alien invasion?"

Ira sipped his tea. He couldn't stop himself from squinting to see his companions' faces and being frustrated, as always, by his blindness. Finally, he said, "Well, who can we contact who can take on an alien... is it an armada? Or one ship? I mean, if they're somehow... controlling things, do they need an armada?"

"Unfortunately, the Oracle is never precise," Madame said.

"And always obscure," X muttered.

"Does it really matter?" Pearl said. "Either it's one ship or many. Either they're in orbit or hidden somewhere on Earth. The facts are that they are, I think, meddling with people's minds, and I'll tell you this as mental health professional: if someone doesn't stop it soon, there will, in fact, be irreparable damage done to thousands, if not millions, of people."

There was a silence, and Lady Justice said, "Is what you're seeing that bad, Pearl?"

Pearl cleared her throat. "I have clients coming to me, week after week, who just don't remember what they said the week before. It's like they're all being reset to be maximally screwed up." Ira could tell from the waver in her voice that she was upset. "Some of them stop coming to me because they've forgotten I exist. And... I've been talking to other therapists in town, and we all agree that the rate of attempted suicides has at least tripled."

"Oh," Lady J said, and they all sat in silence again.

"I tried calling the Gold Stars," Madeline said. "They're still 'on a mission in space'. I tried calling Ruth, too, but there's no answer at home and there's... someone else in charge of her company right now. And it's not Ms. Revelle."

"They've been on that mission for at least 6 months," X said. "Sophie mentioned that Ruth had gone with them. I tried the Guardians. They're currently unavailable and, uh, I think they're compromised."

Madame snorted mirthlessly. "I think that's safe to say, given that their voicemail message is full of Biblical verses, and while I think most of the Guardians are, in fact, Christian, none of them have ever been so... forward about it."

Ira grappled at something in the back of his mind for a moment and finally said, "Mental!" out loud. Then he was sure everyone was looking at him, and felt his face heat up. "I... was just thinking. If it's a mental thing, why don't we ask a telepath?"

"Do you know any these days?" Lady J said.

"Yes!" Ira said. "At least, I've worked with one. Two years ago, that killer, remember? We had someone I was told was the Class 10 telepath networking us."

"Renata Scott!" Madeline said. "Of course! Do you have a way to get in touch with her? Because... well, I know her but Ruth always handled the contact."

"I don't," Ira said, slumping in defeat. Then he straightened up. "But I know someone who does! I can't count on Suzanne right now, but I bet Watson Holmes knows how to get hold of her."

"Okay," Lady J said, sounding businesslike and leaderly, "we have one person to contact. Ira, that's your job. Who else?"

Ira was noticing a lot of silence in this meeting.

"Well, let's list some of the other groups we have contacts with," Lady J said patiently. "For me, there's the Lightning Family, the Solarians, the Animal Kings, the Regulars..."

"The Regulars are just a neighborhood group," Madeline said.

"They might be under the radar of whatever is going on," Pearl said.

"They're not going to be able to fight an alien invasion," Madeline pursued.

"We're just brainstorming," Pearl said, "so let's not pooh-pooh anything right now."

Madeline said, "All right. Well, then, while we're at it, let's talk not only Wonder City and environs, but beyond. I know the Blazers in New York, and the Patriots in Philadelphia."

"The Minutemen and the Stormriders in Boston," Ira said. "I know the Minutemen's founder."

"What about that group you know in Britain, Madame?" Lady J said. "The Next Generation?"

"Have you seen the things people are saying about the UK right now?" X said. "People are saying that the cities in the UK make them believe in a zombie apocalypse. Except, you know, without all the parts falling off."

"I hadn't heard," Ira said, and there was a general murmur of agreement.

"There's nothing in the news, but there's a lot of talk online," X said. "People in the rural areas are avoiding the cities and warning other people to avoid them too, because everyone in the big cities is acting really... robot-like. No thought, no conversation... no crime, but I'm not sure about the trade-off there."

"Hmm," Madame said. "The Next Gen was based in London last I heard, too."

"What is it with London anyway?" Lady J said. "They're as bad as Tokyo with apocalypses."

X said, slowly, "There's also the Young Cosmics." Ira thought X must have looked around the room before saying, hurriedly, "I know they're not very... together. But I know they're not totally under control AND they have a Class 10 elemental, an unclassable intellect, a speedster, and a android with a range of Class 6 powers. If they can't search space, they can at least canvass Earth for the aliens, right?"

Lady J exhaled. "All right, X, you contact the Young Cosmics. Madeline, are there any other folks in the Tens who might be helpful?"

Madeline paused in a way Ira suspected was thoughtful. "Jennifer Lombardi might be helpful. Her power is, ah, being able to see everywhere at once. I can't think of a better person to have a look around. Though she's a little... random sometimes."

Lady J made a noise of agreement. "That sounds good. Also, I've been thinking that maybe we need some more people who're... under the radar like us. I mean, no one pays special attention to us. But we're... some of us are old and not very mobile. It would be good to get some more young folks in so X doesn't end up doing our footwork all the time."

X laughed, Ira thought, just a little bitterly.

"I think I can help with that," Pearl said. "And I can do it without even violating patient privacy. I know a woman who's a receptionist at Queer Energy. It's a sort of community center and low-income clinic for paras -- mostly queer people, but some not. I bet she knows some folks, but I think she'd also be good for adding to our little cadre."

"Oh, are you thinking of Angelica?" Madeline said. Presumably Pearl nodded, because Madeline went on with, "She's a smart cookie -- a good ideas person."

"Okay," Lady J said, clapping her hands together lightly, "I think we have the start of a plan. If X will give me a hand with Parapedia, Madame and I will put our heads together to see what other groups we can call, and make some of those calls."

Ira nodded, smiling. "It's good to be working with you again, Lady Justice," he said, giving her shadow a sloppy salute.

She leaned over and squeezed his shoulder. "And it's good to have something to do, isn't it?"

Ira nodded, thinking that perhaps he'd just go actually visit Watson Holmes. After all, didn't she live in the same building with Simon? Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone -- or two conundrums with one bus fare, at least.

---

Trying very hard to remember that Ira is blind while I write. Please let me know if you notice any slips.

Abiit, Excessit, Evasit, Erupit

Suzanne hurried out of the kitchen of the Stars 'n' Garters on Simon's heels. Simon, for his part, bolted out the cafe door after Nereid, speedy even on two legs. The Equestrian and Lady Justice were standing, looking after him.

"That sounded like a suboptimal result," Suzanne said, grimacing.

"Damn noisy kids!" the Damned Yankee exclaimed from behind his newspaper. "All on drugs, the lot of 'em!"

"I found out what I needed to find out," the Equestrian said, sighing and sitting down. "He arranged it all. I can check that little monster hunt off my to-do list."

"And you picked out some of the holes in the rest of his story," Lady Justice said, edging around the Equestrian to put an arm around Flo's shoulders.

"If he shows his face anywhere near me," Flo said through gritted teeth, "I will damn well shatter his bones and crush him to paste and wash the rest away into the sewers."

"I know, dear," Lady J said, her hand pat-patting Flo's very tense shoulder.

Suzanne poked her head back through the kitchen door curiously. Ebb was sitting on his stool next to the prep table, crumpling his little white cook's hat in his hands. He looked up at her bleakly. "Will she be all right?" he whispered.

She took a leaf from Lady J and patted him on the shoulder awkwardly. "Teenagers are very resilient," she said. "And she has her friends."

"I know Molly said it had to be done," he said, still in a low voice, "but I wish... I wish we could've warned her or something. It was just so brutal."

Suzanne hugged the man in a spontaneous rush of affection. He was a soft, round teddy bear of a man who smelled of fried food. "I really do think it will be all right, Ebb."

By silent agreement, everyone settled in to waiting for Simon, at least, to return. The Equestrian and Lady J fell to playing chess. Suzanne took over Madame Destiny's table with her laptop and wrote. Flo and Ebb went about the business of their cafe, dealing with a number of takeout customers as the dinner hour drew close. Damned Yankee cursed kids and drugs and the war several times. The Tinkerer never looked up, but continued to, as far as Suzanne could tell, disassemble and reassemble a pocket watch.

Molly got antsier and antsier as the hours drew on. She stood up and moved around restlessly, muttering to no one in particular that it was her responsibility to see this all the way through, and returning to her game.

It was dark by the time that Simon reappeared in the diner. "I caught up with her," he said, flopping down in the chair opposite Lady J. Suzanne got up and hugged him from behind. He gave her a tired smile over a sagging shoulder.

"Well?" the Equestrian said irritably.

"She was upset," he said, pausing to smile and thank Flo for the soda she brought him. "Obviously. He'd just vanished when he left -- I couldn't even track his scent."

"He learned a little something over there, then," Molly said. "Something for covering his tracks. Probably some other glamour too."

"Well, he did it pretty well," Simon said. "I got her to sit down and stop running around calling him and things. And then she cried a lot. But..." He stopped and looked perplexed while taking a long drink. "She didn't... like... leak at all. Usually she's so, um, soggy, you know?" He looked at the Equestrian and Flo, clearly baffled.

Lady Justice laughed without any trace of humor. "She's been learning control. Because she has to. Because she's killed someone."

"My poor girl," Ebb said from the doorway.

"She did what she had to do," Flo said, in his general direction, "and I'm proud of her for it."

Simon sighed. "She... felt different while we were talking. Anyway, she cried for a long while, and she was really angry with you guys. I don't think she'll be talking to you for at least a couple of days," he added with a twisted smile.

Lady J mirrored his smile, but Molly was on her feet again, pacing. "So what happened next? Did he show up?"

"No," Simon said. "I finally walked her back to her flat at the Cosmics. And... he'd tossed it. The whole place. Anything that wasn't nailed down and was reasonably portable, he took. Cash she had in a nightstand drawer, her laptop, her StarSeed, some jewelry -- that made her laugh in a way I'd never heard from her before -- even her clock-radio. Anything that looked like it might be expensive or pawnable, I guess, to him."

"Little bastard," Flo, Molly, and Suzanne all said simultaneously.

"Anyway, she cried some more, and I think she would've sat there on the floor in the mess, crying, if I hadn't started cleaning up." Simon finished his drink. "That was what really took so long. He made a thorough -- spiteful -- mess of the place."

"I wish she'd gotten a chance to throw him out," Lady J said. "It would've felt much better for her."

"How do we find him now?" Flo said.

"We don't," the Equestrian said, finally standing still. "It's over, except for the crying and other things. He's got Faerie magic to help him hide out, and some money. It'll be very difficult to track him."

"But surely...!" Flo said, turning to her angrily. After a short, silent staring match, Flo dropped her gaze. "He doesn't deserve to be able to do that to my daughter," she said, hunching her shoulders a bit. "Not and get away with it."

"I promise that if I encounter him," the Equestrian said, "I will deal with him accordingly."

"Flo, I understand," Lady J said, "but we all have better things to do than go on a manhunt for this... Aloysius."

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it," Suzanne quoted thoughtfully.

Simon let out a short bark of a laugh. "Well, in terms of people who do matter, I left Pacifica in an apartment that was much cleaner than she left it this afternoon, I daresay, with an impossibly cheerful android for company."

"You're a good man, Simon," Flo said with a sigh, stroking his cheek. "Thank you for taking care of her."

"Any time," Simon said, standing.

The gathering had started to become awkward, so Suzanne snatched up her purse and laptop and they departed in a flurry of farewells.

In the car, Simon closed his eyes and laid his head back against the headrest. "Jasmine could have handled all that better," he said wearily.

Suzanne started the car and looked over at him. "You handled it as it should be handled," she said. "You did the needful things. That's all anyone can do."

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "You're the expert on that, love."

---

Note from the Author:

Here is the final episode for 2011. I expect it's just made y'all angrier at Aloysius, because he's a right little asshat. Still, Simon's getting a bit overworked in terms of helping resolve crap, poor guy.

See y'all in 2012!

Please remember to vote for WCS!

Stormcrows and Sympathy

As Suzanne was driving them through the evening sleet storm, Ira said, "By the way, hon, I found a new one in the archives."

Suzanne had been thinking about Simon and how she would get to see him next week and whether or not to try the little boutique hotel in town, or if they should run down to a B&B in New Hope for the overnight, so her entire romantic steam engine of thought had to come to a halt before she could switch over to the more prosaic Amtrak train. "New one?" she said to cover the hiccough in her usually-swift mental processing.

"Another murder," Ira said. "A guy named the Jellyfish was killed last December, not too long before... you know, everything. His body was shoved under one of the Staybird docks, instead of up in the park around the main town dock area like the rest of them. Little tiny back page item."

"Between the location and the timing, it's no wonder he was a back page item," Suzanne said, frowning. "No one likes to hear about violence in Staybird. It's supposed to be our quaint little Victorian town within the city or something, according to the tourism board."

"Despite the fact that it's always been one of the poorest areas," Ira said, looking out the window. "Anyway. I thought you'd want to know. I pulled the clipping out of the stack for you."

"Thank you, Ira," Suzanne said, pulling up at the curb. "Do you know anything about the Jellyfish?"

Ira shrugged. "He was a middle-aged thug, though he started out trying to be a hero twenty-odd years ago. Poor kid. You should probably check with your police friends to see if he was strangled too."

Suzanne nodded, stuffing her keys into her purse. "I'll do that." She thought of Ira, painstakingly poring over the clippings in that stack while she was at work, peering through his cataracts and a magnifying glass to find just one more clue, and finding it. She added, "That was great work, Ira."

Ira gave her his dazzling smile. "Glad to do it."

They got out of the car and Suzanne dropped a few quarters into the meter in front of the Stars 'n' Garters, squinting against the driving tiny stinging shards of ice. The blue door was a little kooky and inviting, though the sign hanging lopsidedly and the cracked windows were somewhat less attractive. The windows were steamed up, and Suzanne could only see a few shadowy figures moving ominously inside.

Then Ira opened the door, and the cheery little bell dissolved the threatening illusion. The inside was brightly lit and warm and comfortable, if a little shabby around the edges. The melamine tables were occupied by, mostly, Ira's contemporaries, several of whom she'd last seen at Josh's funeral. She smiled at Madame Destiny, who gave her a little wave. She nodded at the Damned Yankee, who blinked at her in confusion, apparently not recognizing her as the cute young thing whose posterior he had smacked with such vigor at his centennial birthday party. The Tinkerer, swathed in coats and sweaters and scarves and goggles and a hat, didn't even react to the door. Lady Justice rose to greet them, her straggling grey hair more or less captured by a rubber band at the nape of her neck. A slight, short-haired Hispanic woman in her twenties rose with her and grinned madly at Suzanne.

Ira shook hands with Lady J and said, "Lady, you remember my daughter-in-law Suzanne, right?"

"Of course," Lady Justice said in her husky voice. "You know, don't you, dear?"

"That one of your powers is to cause people around you to tell the truth?" Suzanne said. "Yes, ma'am." She laughed inwardly at herself -- she hadn't called anyone "ma'am" in quite that tone of respect in a long time. Simon was rubbing off on her. "If I hadn't known it before, reading Ms. Hernandez's excellent article would have told me." She extended her hand to the younger woman. "Ana Hernandez, I presume."

"Suzanne Feldstein, of course," Ana said, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. "You've been one of my journalistic idols since I was in school. We read your classic 'Masks In Silence' piece on sexual harassment on para teams. It was brilliant! It's such an honor to meet you."

Suzanne managed to keep her face from showing too much; she wasn't certain how she liked being a "classic." "You're very kind," she said, one of her standard platitudes dug up for the occasion. "And this is Ira Feldstein, my --" she quickly discarded her temptation to call him her "trusty sidekick" and just said "-- father-in-law."

"Mister Metropolitan!" Ana said, shaking Ira's hand. "I feel like I'm meeting so many legends because of meeting Lady Justice. It's all so amazing."

Lady J patted her on the shoulder. "You're seeing that we're all just human after all." She gave Ira a wry smile and shot an ironical glance toward the Damned Yankee. "Just one more word of warning," she added to Suzanne. "If you don't want to be forced to tell the truth, don't try to say anything at all."

"That's interesting," Suzanne said.

"No one's ever figured out if she just stops up the part of the brain that lets you spin tales," Ira said. "Didn't have the science to find out back in the 40s."

"And now no one seems very interested," Lady J said, mock-sadly. "Ah, well."

Tthey all settled down at their table. Flo, her orange beehive hairdo resplendent and her traditional waitress uniform crisp, emerged a few seconds later with a single menu that she handed to Suzanne. "Everyone else want your usuals?" she asked, snapping her gum.

"Yes, thank you," Lady J said, and there were affirmative murmurs from Ira and Ana.

"Just a cheeseburger and a diet cola for me, please," Suzanne said, returning the menu.

Flo nodded. "Flo," Lady J added as the woman turned to go. "Still no word?"

Flo gave the table a tight smile. "Not since the message from the Equestrian, no." She hurried into the back.

Suzanne and Ira gave Lady J quizzical looks. She said in a low voice, "Her daughter went off with the Equestrian -- some quest for the Young Cosmics, after one of their friends that got lost. Molly sent word back that Pacifica got separated from the group and they were looking for her."

"Lost in Faerie?" Suzanne said, voice low but appalled. "That's awful. Poor Flo."

Lady J nodded and Ana made a sympathetic noise. "Anyway, she's been waiting for any more news, but you know... Faerie." Lady J grimaced. "I just hope the poor kid doesn't have an experience like mine; it's hard to come back to a world that's run past you. At least now she's not likely to be declared dead while she's missing."

Ira patted Lady Justice's hand awkwardly. "She'll be fine. Molly'll find her, and everything I've heard about Pacifica tells me she'll find her way all right. She's got that true-of-heart thing going for her."

Lady J gave him a twisted smile. "So did I," she said.

They all fell silent at that, until Ana pounced on Suzanne in a frenzy of trying to overcome the mood. "So! You're taking up blogging! I've been reading your coverage of the murders, and I have to say, your evidence is pretty convincing. I can't understand why the police won't acknowledge it."

"I think I've shamed them with Yanaye Smallwood's story," Suzanne said, thinking back to the funeral, where she hadn't approached the family, but one of their friends came over to earnestly shake her hand and thank her. It was only after a short frenzy of conversation that she found out the woman was the sister of Renata Scott, her contact. Theresa Price was a dignified, matronly black woman of fifty-something, with only a few silver hairs in her perfect coiffure that weren't concealed by her hat, wearing a black dress that fit her perfectly, who had made Suzanne feel both welcome and awkward, as well as terrifically underdressed. She sighed inwardly and chalked it up, again, to a learning experience. "One of my contacts says that they're reexamining all the evidence, and they've contacted the Pittsburgh PD."

"I'm glad, though I doubt the impetus came from within," Ana said, with a cynical twitch of her eyebrows. "I'm betting you have a reader in high places who made a few phone calls."

"Oh, you're probably right," Suzanne said with a sigh. "I like hoping that maybe my golden prose will make a difference in and of itself."

"It probably did, dear," Lady J said. "Just not the way you hoped."

"As long as they're starting to take the serial killer proposal seriously," Ana said. "Maybe you can prevent any more deaths."

Suzanne pursed her lips doubtfully. "I expect we're going to get a few more bodies before the police manage to spot anything useful. Or maybe the killer will just move away, wait a little while, and change his victim profile again."

"They usually don't," Ira said.

"But he might, since he's done it once already," Suzanne said. "Or maybe we really are dealing with two separate killers and the Pittsburgh killer just moved to town to join in the fun."

"You'd think that in a town full of people who can see through walls and jump tall buildings in a single bound," Lady J groused, "we wouldn't have issues like this."

"What if it's one of the rooftop-dwellers, though?" Suzanne said. "What if it's someone all these noble protectors trust? Or are just used to seeing out there every night, and suppose him to be fighting the good fight?"

That silenced the group again, long enough for Flo to deliver their food and drinks.

Suzanne cleared her throat. "So. Anyway. Yes, I'm blogging. And I saw your call for fellow feminist journalists to work together on a group blog. If you don't mind an old fogey joining up, that is," she added with a lopsided grin.

Ana's jaw dropped open and her eyes shone. Suzanne kept her grin on her face, but was aware of Ira and Lady J at the edge of her vision, both trying desperately not to laugh. "Oh, Mrs. Feldstein, we'd be SO honored to have you on the team!"

"On one condition," Suzanne said.

"Anything!"

"Do me a favor and never call me 'Mrs. Feldstein' again," she said, and swatted at Ira, who was giggling into his hand.

---

From the Author:
If you don't remember Ana Hernandez, you may want to read the Wonder City Interlude, "Truth, Lady Justice, and the American Way" as a refresher.

Have you seen the cleaned-up sketch meeks did of the faerie wedding? Go! Gaze upon its awesomeness! If you can tip, do tip, or at least leave a comment. You know artists and writers LOVE comments. It always makes my day to see my readers' reactions.

Speaking of which, through May, I'm running the commenting incentive again, because reading your comments is the most fun on the Internet I have all day. So if I get 50 total comments in May, I will post twice weekly through June. As before, if you all post 75 comments, I'll post twice weekly through July too. Get up to 100 comments, the twice-weekly postings continue through August.

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Of Blessed Memory

Suzanne stood between Andrea and Ira, looking down at the plain wooden coffin with its Guardians flag drape. Ira held her hand tightly, his fingers cold in the frigid air. The forest green pavilion was all that stood between them and the sleet that was resolutely and appropriately falling on the company.

Attendees were a little sparse for the death of a superhero, even if he had turned villain in the end. The full set of Guardians, even the Golden Guardian, who was almost never seen any more, stood in the precipitation, tiny, sharp ice droplets hissing off their armor, black bands with a bronze metal stripe conspicuously present on everyone's arm (though there was no clarification as to which Bronze Guardian it applied). A smattering of Gold Stars -- Midnight Mask, the Ultimate, and Sekhmet -- stood in a cluster near them; the Ultimate and Sekhmet were out of costume in black suits and long black wool coats, but Mask was in his dark blue (and hopefully insulated) spandex. Behind Suzanne and the rest of the family, huddled under the inadequate roof, were some of Ira's friends from the old days: Lady Justice, Carolus Lew, Harry Dash, Atomica, and a wizened, bent old man with a walker that she suspected might be Nox the Night-stalker. Madame Destiny stood to the side of Ira, resplendently plump in a long black gown that had a rather daring neckline for a woman of her years, arrayed in her best mystical jewelry, including a vast gold pendant set with a dozen or more different cabochon stones that reclined luxuriously against her cleavage. Mother Necessity's three granddaughters stood near Andrea, who had been a good friend of their mother's, as well as being their honorary aunt.

From the corner of her good eye, she noticed Simon, sharply dressed in a tailored black suit but still on crutches, accompanied by the Hispanic-looking giantess she now knew was Megan Amazon, in a less well-fitted black suit. Megan held a golf umbrella over both their heads. They kept a respectful distance from the proceedings, not coming within conventional earshot, though Suzanne guessed that Simon could hear everything anyway.

She herself wasn't really hearing what the rabbi was saying. She stared at the coffin, felt Ira's fingers squeezing her hand painfully. He'd watched Josh's body stop breathing, the Outsider had said, weeping the whole time, and had let himself be led away and put to bed after it was over. He'd barely said a word since and didn't seem to be sleeping much, though he'd eaten when someone had put food in front of him. She was going to have to discuss the situation with Andrea, who was already fairly harrowed by events and the media. But Andrea at least had David, who worshipped the ground she walked on and took meticulous care of her.

And Suzanne had Simon.

Ira had no one but some hired companions. Would the Guardians stop footing the bill for those now?

She glanced aside at the old man, and felt both oppressed by the responsibility he represented and desperately sad for and protective of him. She loved Ira, as troublesome as he could be. Her own parents were gone -- dead, possibly, but she'd never bothered to find out. They'd given her far too much insanity over the years for her to care.

The coffin was pale wood with brass fittings. There were no flowers.

Suzanne had always known that Josh was a bit of a bastard, but hadn't known that he was a killer. Wasn't that always the way, though? Hardly anyone really expects her or his husband to come home from work one day, having decided on committing mayhem. Not really. Really? She'd always known it was possible -- hell, she'd specialized in stories like this when she was a reporter. Well, at the end of her career, anyway. Maybe she should've paid attention to the things that were catching her attention then, after being married to Josh for several years.

She tried to summon back a memory of loving him and failed. All she could remember was Mitch -- the sweet, unkempt, desperately poor Southern boy who sent nearly all his money home to his mother and the siblings living with her. He was a tall and thin and dark-haired, with a farmer's tan and a tendency to have five o'clock shadow at eleven in the morning. He worked as the Guardians' receptionist and administrative assistant when he wasn't in his Guardian armor, and they paid for him to take his GED and start college. They'd made him have extensive dental work done on his teeth, which were brown and chipped and full of cavities, since he'd grown up without fluoridated water or even a single dentist appointment. She'd first met him -- out of armor -- when he'd come back to the Guardians headquarters, face full of novocaine and giddy from three hours in the chair. Josh had been busy, so she took Mitch out for drinks. He slurred out his life story to her in a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about what had just been done to him.

She thought that, perhaps, she'd fallen for him then.

The rabbi was wrapping up his speech, whatever it was he'd said, and she found herself weeping. She covered her mouth with her handkerchief and choked a sob. Poor Mitch. Poor idealistic superheroic Mitch. He'd just been doing the right thing, like he always had. And Josh...

And Josh...

Andrea put an arm around her waist and patted her shoulder. Ira turned his watery gaze to her and tightened his lips in something close to a smile.

The coffin was lowered into the grave. She took her turn with the spade, and bit her lower lip to keep herself from grinning vindictively as the clods of earth echoed on the wood.

Then it was finished. The rabbi was shaking her hand, and Ira's, and Andrea's.

Netted between Josh's parents, Suzanne turned away from the grave and started into the sleet. Various black-suited undertakers with golf umbrellas materialized to escort them to the limousine.

She looked up from the ground once, and squarely met Simon's gaze. He hadn't replaced his shattered glasses yet, and the wolf's eyes probably disturbed other people. But not her, not now, not any more. She wanted to throw herself into those eyes and not have to think for a while.

He mouthed three words to her. She stared at him for a moment, stricken, and opened her mouth to respond, but was gently pushed into the limo by Andrea.

The door closed, and she indulged in a savage torrent of weeping, though she couldn't have explained why.

---

From Jude:

And here is a bonus episode because I couldn't think of a better way to thank my latest donor! I hope you all enjoy it. :)

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