Part 2

"A maniac is putting down bear traps!"

Sitting on the mayor's front stoop, Sportacus glanced sideways at the small crowd of adults, parents, teachers and policemen, all listening to Officer Lolli by the town hall. Their voices carried on the winter wind, and a handful of them carried not flashlights but torches. In the dark morning hours, their lights sent long shadows flickering across the snow.

"We've created a rough grid to begin with," the officer continued, pointing to his cell phone. "We have paper copies inside, but we've already placed this on the town's website and we'll update as teams call in. Please come up in groups—you can mark off an area so no one accidentally doubles up. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious."

Bear traps, strange footprints, faces peering in through windows, turned over trash cans, strangers in alleys, lights left off, lights left on... Officer Lolli listed more and more clues to watch out for, swelling in importance as those in the crowd listened and took note.

Behind Sportacus, the door creaked open and pink rabbit slippers came to rest beside him.

"They're going to go crazy trying to find all of that."

Sportacus slid slightly to one side as Stephanie dropped down next to him, leaning against him. Even though she wore her coat over her pajamas, he put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder, trying to warm her.

Holding her close to reassure himself that she was all right.

"You shouldn't be awake," he said. "It's too early. The sun's not even out yet."

"They're loud." She sniffled. "Why do they have torches? Aren't flashlights better?"

How to explain to a child that Lazytown's adults were trusting in fire less for light and more for protection. Even an animal would skitter away from a wielded flame. He had no doubt that some of them had firearms as well, but there was something satisfying in holding a torch, something reassuring in the darkness when so many of them believed in wicked elves and fairies, even if they wouldn't admit it.

"The cold could drain the batteries," he offered even though he knew she was smarter than that. "Good to have a back up."

Stephanie gave him a look that said she was humoring him.

"You're not gonna go looking, too?" she asked.

He leaned his head in his hand, watching the small crowd picking parts of town and heading down winding, narrow streets. They hadn't asked him for help. They hadn't so much as looked at him, save for the questioning glare from one or two parents. He didn't have to ask what they were thinking.

He'd been there at the park. He'd been within a stone's throw.

Some hero.

"I'll go in a moment," he said, forcing a small smile. "When I know where everyone else will be. That way I don't waste time checking the same places."

"That makes sense," she said, nodding matter of factly. "You can go way faster than they can."

A thought made her frown. Normally she would not have had such morbid ideas in her brain, but even though the adults had gone to great lengths to keep the children from seeing anything, Stephanie had seen the blood on her uncle's couch, had seen the stretcher rolling out the window. The children understood without seeing that something bad had come very, very close to them.

"Wait...what if you're flipping and your foot gets caught?" she said, and she grabbed his hand as if to protect him. "What if you're alone out there and something happens and there's no one to—"

"No no no," he said, holding her hand in return. "No getting worked up like that. I'm a hero, remember? I'll be fine. And the sun's coming out soon. The clouds are gone—it'll be a warmer day. The snow will start to melt and I'll be even safer when I search."

Not convinced, she nodded despite herself, her face drawn tight, but he was insistent and she gave in to his gentle nudges to go back inside. He waited a little longer, just as soon as the last group headed across the park and down the main street. Then he heaved a deep sigh and stood.

All alone on the gray street, he put his hand over his crystal and felt its faint, constant hum. No different than yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that. Three days ago, Trixie had nearly walked into the road, distracted by her argument with Stephanie, right in front of Stingy's car. The crystal had beeped its usual warning. A week ago, Pixel nearly burned down his kitchen trying a recipe he'd found online. The crystal had worked then as well.

So what was wrong?

He couldn't be a hero if the crystal wouldn't go off.

For all he knew, there could be another child—

No!

He pressed his hands to his head, squeezing his eyes shut. The memory of blood and snow, the steel teeth of the trap digging into torn muscle, the way the red ice wasn't snow...

Breathe.

His lungs shuddered and refused.

Dammit, breathe.

In.

Out.

Sportacus clenched his hands into fists, forcing his breathing to slow down. Fogging in the air, his breath started to come in slow puffs, and he put his shoulders back, stood straighter as he breathed deep.

He wasn't a child anymore. His big brother wasn't here to hold him and do the hard work, to look at the awful things. Sportacus loved so much about being a Number, about taking care of the children and changing the town for the better. The slow, gradual improvement in Lazytown—the gardening, the games, showing the children healthy habits—was often called the tedious part of the job, but it was the part that Sportacus lived for.

The painful parts, the "flashy bits" that the others liked to call them—these were thankfully far and few between. Far less often here in Lazytown than in Bullytown or, god forbid, Mayhemtown, but violence still happened, and when it did...

"You'll have to manage on your own," Iþrottaalfurinn had said, knuckling his little brother's head so much that the blue hat had fallen off. "You can do it. I know you can. You just have to treat it like candy, something else to fight. It's hard, but that's your job. No one can do it better than you."

There. Even just remembering Iþrottaalfurinn's warmth and cheer was enough to calm him down. He nodded to himself.

A hero had to keep the town and the children safe. But to do that, he needed his crystal in good working order. So the first thing he had to do—

"Ship," he said, "ladder."

His dirigible came by almost immediately, trailing a rope ladder. The familiar feel of the knots calmed his nerves, the way it stretched underfoot, the climbing rhythm that took him up in nearly a heartbeat.

"Airship," he said as he came inside, "please roll out the workstation. The crystal needs a diagnostic."

"Right away, Sportacus," the airship said in her light, synthetic voice.

A white bench slid out from the wall, a row of lights and screens centered on a small sconce in which he placed the crystal. The sconce lit up, and the crystal turned delicately as it was examined.

While the ship worked, Sportacus paced back and forth, steepling his fingers against his lips. If the crystal was broken, he would have to go home to have it repaired. But how did it come to be broken? He hadn't seen any cracks in its surface. It hadn't dimmed, hadn't stopped humming. The only crystal he'd ever seen that had needed repair had been cracked nearly in half. It took a lot of force to hurt one. If anything was wrong, it should have been obvious.

"Diagnostic complete."

"And?" he asked.

"No errors detected. Crystal is within acceptable working parameters. Negligible wear or tear since first creation."

"What?" Sportacus picked up the crystal and examined it. It looked as pure as the day Iþrottaalfurinn had carved it. "But then why didn't it sound an alarm when that poor boy was in trouble?"

"A crystal's warning system is close to infallible," the airship said dispassionately, as if reading an informational page. "However, there are certain conditions that can manifest at rare times that inhibit detection of adverse circumstances."

His mouth twisted. He knew this from training and probably could have recited the page, but it never hurt to go back to basics. Grabbing the back of his flight chair, he leaned forward, stretching as he lowered his head.

"Could you list those?" he asked.

"Known conditions that can inhibit a crystal's reading are as follows," the ship began. "Leap year, twilight on solstices and equinoxes, and a thirteenth moon. Certain types of spells have also been known to evade a crystal's detection."

His head lifted.

Spells.

Magic.

That was going to make things a lot harder.

What he knew about magic came entirely from his training. He'd never actually dealt with magic beyond his own inborn abilities—a little extra lift to his jumps, a boost when he ran. The only way magic really worked in his life was how he had to wear his hat all the time around the kids, or else they'd see how his ears didn't look like theirs. His magic was all about the body, focused in his muscles and bones, sharpening his speed and loading him with energy.

But there were other kinds of magic that he had never studied, and his brother had even told him that magic users were far and far between.

"Just leave them alone," Iþrottaalfurinn had said. "I've only ever met one that was any trouble. Anyone who uses magic just wants to be left alone to study and build their craft. Not the nicest people and they won't help you unless they're inconvenienced personally, but they don't tend to go out of their way to make trouble."

He hadn't asked before, but now Sportacus wished he knew what Iþrottaalfurinn had done about that one trouble maker.

With a heavy sigh, he stood straight set the crystal back in place on his chest plate.

"Airship," he said, "what do we have in storage?"

"Water," the ship answered, "fruits and vegetables, first aid medical supplies and reading material—"

"No herbs?" he asked, already knowing the answer. "No knives, no—?"

"The last knife was broken on a thick gourd rind, and the last herb was used for tea two weeks ago."

The ship's voice had a particularly snippy tone that made him give the main screen a dirty look, but at least it didn't remind him that it had suggested a supply run after tea.

"Well, there's no help for it," he said. "I'm not leaving Lazytown to get supplies, not when I can scrounge up what I need on the ground. Ship, monitor the town for any signs of magic while I'm gone."

"Sportacus, such a comprehensive search will cost 93% of my operating memory and result in a degrading flight path."

"...right, right." He pinched the bridge of his nose. Was that a headache coming on? "All right. Just monitor for flare ups, then?"

"Will do, Sportacus."


Numbered heroes did not receive much in the way of an allowance, and Sportacus didn't usually feel the lack of money anyway. All supplies were easily gathered from their home and magically stored so that they didn't rot. Water came straight from the glaciers. And herbs were usually dried and hung up, ready to make tea and medicine.

He shouldn't have let the herb supply run out, but in his defense, winter had come quickly and covered everything with snow much earlier than he'd expected. So now he was spending the meager amount he'd saved over several months in a gourmet grocery store, counting out the coins to make sure he had enough.

Which he didn't think was going to work. This was the only place he could buy herbs without the processing that destroyed them, still on the stem with the leaves and petals intact, tied in thin bundles with ribbon and wrapped in paper. But that also meant that their prices were much, much higher, and while agrimony, willow and water violets weren't too expensive, the rock rose and sweet chestnut blossoms were not only out of season but imports as well.

It hurt, but he put back the rock rose.

At the cashier, he found himself one step behind a familiar silhouette. The line of the other person's body made it obvious to Sportacus, although it was not Robbie's usual outfit of purple and orange stripes. In a similarly tight outfit of black jeans and a purple sweater, Robbie had also added a beret that Sportacus recognized from his artist disguise.

What the villain had placed on the counter, however, would have been enough to send him into a crash just looking at it. Refined sugar, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, espresso powder, dark brown sugar and rum syrup, cream, amaretto, almonds and marzipan...

"How are you still even functioning?" Sportacus heard himself gasp.

Robbie glanced over his shoulder, tilting down his sunglasses when he recognized him. Dark half-circles smudged his eyes.

"Nonsense," Robbie said with a wave of his hand, complete with a put-on accent to fit the disguise. "I wouldn't be caught dead with anything but the best ingredients. There is simply no comparison between fresh and bottled cinnamon."

"Not exactly what I meant," Sportacus said, taking a better look at him. "Did you sleep? You look like you haven't been to bed at all."

"Sleep and me don't usually go together," Robbie said, and he lifted his head so that the shades better covered his eyes. "That's all right. Midnight's the best time for baking. No noisy children or flippity flopping Sportasporks running everywhere."

The insult rolled off of his back like nothing. Robbie never liked to talk about things that were bothering him, instead bottling it up until he snapped at Sportacus or the children. If he wasn't sleeping, Sportacus thought he might be able to offer a healthy remedy that perhaps Robbie had never tried.

"Was it..." Sportacus grimaced as the image of blood and steel flashed in his mind. "Was it because of yesterday?"

Robbie bowed his head slightly. He swallowed once, but he gave a small shake of his head.

"It didn't help," Robbie admitted. "But no. It's normal. Don't worry about it."

Biting his lip, Robbie glanced sideways at him.

"Thanks for not mentioning me to the cops," he said softly.

Sportacus smiled ruefully. "That would have been mean after you were the one who spotted him. I understand a...villain...wouldn't want to deal with police."

"Lots of questions," Robbie agreed. "Dangerous questions when people are running around with torches. They...you haven't heard anything?"

Was that concern? About the boy or about the maniac putting out traps? Sportacus shook his head once.

"I know the boy is stable at the hospital, that he's doing better. But I don't know if they found more traps. ...I wasn't invited."

Robbie nodded as if that made perfect sense. He noticed the dried herbs as Sportacus put them on the counter, and despite the sunglasses, he gave an obvious blink of surprise at them.

"Infusing oils?" he asked. "Trust me—you're wasting your time. Those won't help you get to sleep in the slightest."

That sounded like the voice of experience, and Sportacus would have winced in sympathy if he hadn't been thinking of how he was doing without a very important ingredient.

"Not quite," Sportacus said, not giving more of an explanation. Grinding herbs down to make ink wasn't the sort of thing one told to the uninitiated. "I just wish it was summer. It'd be easy to find most of this growing around nearby. Then I could've bought everything else I needed."

Robbie pushed ahead his last spices, not really answering. He watched the cashier's read-out showing the cost pushing into the hundreds of dollars. As his orange blossom honey went across the scanner, he reached out suddenly and scooped up the dried herbs, gently moving them onto his own items.

Sportacus froze, watching Robbie pay for his herbs on top of everything else.

"Wait," Sportacus stammered, not sure how to react. Robbie handed over a handful of bills, one of which fluttered to the floor. He didn't bother to pick it up, holding the cashier's look, and she swept the bill into the last bag as if it were just one more item.

"Relax, flippy-flop," Robbie said over a growing grin. "It's literally nothing."

That smile was the most diabolical thing Sportacus had seen on Robbie's face in ages. Chortling over some hilarious secret, Robbie handed the bag of herbs to Sportacus and somehow clamped down on his rising joy enough so that he didn't quite dance out of the shop.

"You didn't have to do that," Sportacus said, holding the bag in both hands. "I wasn't asking...I mean, I appreciate it, but you...I..."

"Oh, you act like you never got a gift in your life," Robbie said. "I didn't do anything wrong. It's not as if we stole it together, right?"

"I...um. I know it wasn't wrong," Sportacus said. "Um...if you're sure—?"

"Positive. Just being friendly." Robbie laughed, rearranging the bags in his arms so they weren't so heavy and giving a clumsy wave. "See you later."

Sportacus watched him go, not knowing how to feel. That was the nicest thing Robbie had ever done for him, but it felt...off. Like Robbie wasn't being nice in doing it.

Was this how it felt to be friends with a villain?

Still, it left him with enough money to go back inside and buy the herbs he'd wanted. When he returned to his ship, he carefully brought out each bundle and lay them side by side, unwrapping them from their paper. He tipped out the bags, catching little bits of dried leaves and petals that could still be used.

And a large leaf.

Frowning, he held it up and examined it. He hadn't bought this. Long and flat, it was a regular birch leaf. The shop hadn't even had any. So where had it come from? The only extra green thing he'd seen going into Robbie's last bag—

His eyes widened.

—had been a single bit of paper money. That the cashier, that no one, had paid attention to.

As he turned the leaf in the light, a purple sheen glimmered over the surface.

A suspicion began to grow.

TBC...