been busy. Seeing him now, he looked like a half grown puppy-dog; lean, angular, hands and feet still a bit too big, with the ropy muscles of a runner. He wore a blue cotton jumpsuit, presumably till Andrew could do up a sidekick costume, and if the fight had shaken him I couldn’t tell. Rush had taken the time to thank me—apparently Quin had considered my request and come to him with the idea of mentoring Jamal as an alternative to the academy. I didn’t say how the deal was going to work, but maybe the new, more serious Rush could do it. I hoped so.
Artemis looked cool and together as ever, her cuts already gone; obviously being alive again hadn’t compromised her ability to shrug off injuries. Where did she find a ‘blood-donor’ in all the chaos? Lei Zi wore ointment on her burns; she’d gone head to head with Furnace, the psychotic and now deceased pyrokinetic villain who’d tried to burn down the place using bystanders as fuel.
Beside Vulcan, a banged-up Galatea grinned at me. She’d given me a broad wink when I came in. “Just wait,” Shell had giggled in my ear, and I so wanted to know how she’d convinced Vulcan to let her cybernetically possess his favorite toy.
“Thank you, everyone,” Blackstone said, nodding to include Dr. Cornelius and Orb in his greetings as we all sat down.
“As an update, you’ll be happy to know that the most critically injured are now listed as stable. Thanks to the efforts of The Harlequin, Rush, and Crash”—he didn’t stumble over the name at all—“there will not be more fatalities. Thanks to Astra, our attackers were unable to attain their goal; the removal of a new guest from our custody.
“Unfortunately,” and now he lost his smile, “our guest’s stay was short-lived. When Willis evacuated the residential levels, she made her departure.”
We sat in stunned silence, and he sighed, folding his hands.
“While it is highly probable that Kitsune was the bank-robber who’s successful heist last week precipitated events, we are not the police; without a warrant, we cannot detain an individual who is not caught in commission of a crime or a clear and present danger. She was free to go, and she did.”
Rush swore. “So she waltzes in here, we kick the crap out of the scumbags after her, and she waltzes back out?”
“At least now we know what she looks… Well, hell,” Seven said, and we all laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh, but it helped.
“The good news,” Blackstone continued, “is that although Villain-X, the unknown Atlas-type escaped, we did capture two of the new Villains Inc.: Warp and Ginsu. The clay monster turned out to be a magic construct, a golem according to Dr. Cornelius, more of Dr. Millibrand’s work. Although some here—” he looked at me and everyone chuckled—“refer to her as the Wicked Witch, I have decided to designate her Hecate. Both Warp and Ginsu are talking to the police at this moment, but Detective Fisher has let me know that they appear to be low-level soldiers at best and won’t be able to tell us much we don’t already know beyond the location of a “lair” that is now empty.”
“So what do we know?” Seven asked.
“We know they’re desperate, and they’re less a “supervillain team” than they are a master-villain and a bunch of supervillain henchmen recruited and kept loyal by money and threats. At this point, I believe I can piece together the chain of events. Kitsune, whoever she is, got far enough inside the Outfit to learn the identity of the ‘rogue associate’ Mr. Early informed us about. The heist alerted this associate of his danger, at which point he precipitously dispatched Hecate to tie up all loose ends—which included the unfortunate Mr. Moffat since they couldn’t be sure how involved he was. I suspect that, but for the invaluable intelligence provided by Dr. Cornelius, an untroubled Hecate would have been able to capture Kitsune and wring the identity of any contacts out of her. One of those contacts would have been me, so I am eternally grateful that members of this team were proactive on my behalf.” His look took in me, Artemis, Seven, and even Galatea.
Vulcan looked lost. “So, if you’re a contact, why doesn’t she turn herself in to you? Or at least pass along what she knows?” Heads nodded around the table.
“I can only assume Kitsune is playing her own game. Fortunately it seems to include the destruction