Even while upside down, it was easy to see that we were in trouble.
Ms. Readman yelped and whirled from Hookwolf to the tattooed newcomer, who carried himself with the confidence of the supremely arrogant or the supremely powerful, if not both. Abruptly, my world flipped on its axis in a rustle of paper once more, as the paper dangling me from the ceiling whirled into a giant hand and carried me out of the room back onto the main factory floor.
I thudded to the ground a few feet outside the door to the office. Shamus tumbled down beside me a half-second later. I fought to tamp down a fresh wave of nausea provoked by this latest inversion. Even then, the feeling of floor beneath my boots had me feeling better already. Until the reality of our situation set back in a moment later, anyways.
Shamus scrabbled to her feet. "Jesus, that's Lung!" she said with a high-pitched laugh. "Oh man, we're so screwed. What the hell is he doing here? How many people in this town has she pissed off?"
Lung? Oh. That Lung. Shamus's file on him had been two things: thick and intimidating. Apparently he was almost unbeatable. Somehow, I doubted that I would be the one to put that to the test.
I hurriedly stood up just in time for the wall of the office to explode outward in a shower of brick, mortar dust, and gleaming steel. Hookwolf stalked forward toward us. Light from the office lamp silhouetted him in the gap and swallowed up the faint streetlight filtering through the nearby window.
Shamus patted her pocket, presumably for her stun gun, before realizing she didn't have it. "Perfect, just perfect," she muttered.
Ms. Readman flailed through the gap behind Hookwolf, with her book in one arm and her silver suitcase in the other. The suitcase's lid cracked open, and paper spilled everywhere. As she stumbled over the loose bricks, coughing on the drifting particulate, she desperately flung out one hand behind her. Paper leapt up from the pile around the suitcase to form a seal over the whole of the gap, just as a furious bellow came from the far side, followed by the hungry whoosh of leaping flame. The paper seal blackened at the edges, and the scent of smoke filled the air. With another wave of her hand, more paper leapt to cover the door, which still stood unopened in its frame.
By now, I had bugs of every description spilling over the windowsills, erupting out of gaps in the floor, and zipping to me through the broken glass. However, even with the abundance available to me thanks to the dilapidated state of our surroundings, Hookwolf presented a very hard-and sharp-problem.
Hookwolf lunged, and Shamus and I scattered out of the way. His claws screeched wickedly on the concrete as his landing carved furrows out of the floor. Behind him, Ms. Readman's paper seal collapsed completely as smoldering around the edges rose into a full-blown fire. She scrambled backwards a few steps. Lung's huge, muscled frame filled the gap in the wall. With a vicious snarl on his face, he tore apart the last vestiges of paper still clinging on in the way, and barked something in a language I didn't recognize. When Ms. Readman babbled back a nervous and equally unintelligible reply, I realized it had to be Japanese.
Anyways, that was entirely beside the point, given the seriously dire state of affairs at the moment.
"Are they working together?" I asked Shamus as we both edged backwards, away from Hookwolf's lazy prowl. "Didn't you say that the Empire has been trying to wipe the ABB out?"
"I did, and they are!" Shamus said. "God, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. These two geniuses had no idea the other one would be here. Hookwolf's here for us, and Lung's here for her. How's that for a kick in the head? This just isn't our week."
"Their timing could have been a little better for us," I said. With enough bugs to try something finally on hand, I opted for the old standby of an aerial assault on Hookwolf's eyes. The combination of his bladed frame and his sheer physical power would make any attempt to truss him up a total fool's errand.
As some of my flies zipped into his eyes, they abruptly disappeared from my senses. Looking closer, I saw some of Hookwolf's myriad shifting blades whirling over his eyes with blurring speed. While an irritating wrinkle, it did have hte benefit of shooting bug gunk directly into Hookwolf's eyes. He shook his head in irritation. While I had bought us a moment's reprieve, this obviously was not a winning strategy, and frankly, I didn't have any better ideas for one.
Another roar, followed by an orange thunderclap of flame, reminded me that I'd entirely neglected to distract Lung. On the far side of Hookwoolf, Ms. Readman and the gang leader were locked in a furious struggle. Paper flew at him in all kinds of configurations, first as a massive lance, then swirling into a colossal hammer, then an oversized set of manacles, but an increasingly scaly Lung met each blow in turn with seemingly ever more furious blasts of fire. Amazingly, the paper didn't immediately flame up into nothing but smoke and ash on contact with the fire, as might have been expected from what had seemed to be bog-standard printer paper. Even so, despite the enhanced resilience no doubt provided by Ms. Readman's power, her constructs wilted and collapsed under the flame moments after coalescing.
Another blast of fire licked out at Ms. Readman. The paper wall which she barely interposed in time absorbed most of the blow, but a small curl of the fire shot over the wall and singed her hair. She yelped, sliced off the burnt hair with a sheet of paper, then said something. While I couldn't hear her over the racket made by Lung, from the way her lips moved, I was almost certain she had said "Oh dear, oh dear!" The book remained clutched tightly to her chest.
Shamus shook her head. "She should've tried to kill him right away," she said. "She might even have been able to manage it. There's no stopping the guy otherwise. She must not know about his powers."
Lest we forget that he intended to be the focus of our attention, Hookwolf snarled and hurtled through the air in our direction. While he still couldn't consistently keep his eyes open thanks to my stream of bug juices, I couldn't do much about him tracking us via hearing.
That thought had to be put on hold momentarily as Shamus and I leapt in opposite directions to avoid Hookwolf's newest charge. Hookwolf's momentum carried him in my direction. He hit the ground and charged forward, no doubt in an attempt to gore one of us if we had failed to evade in time. I managed to twist all but my right leg out of the way. One of his leg blades nicked me in a glancing hit. Thankfully, the reinforced material of my costume held against the cut, but the throbbing from my shin told me I could look forward to a nasty bruise. Under the circumstances, I had to be grateful.
Ms. Readman had fallen to the floor, and desperately scrabbled back toward us while flinging paper walls up with her free hand. Lung stalked after her with such fury that the air itself began to grow hot. Lung's body had begun to change, as scales grew out from skin which had formerly only been tattooed with them. Belatedly, I recalled from Shamus's file that not only did Lung get stronger the more he fought, but that this strength expressed itself via a physical transformation into a form that, if it wasn't an actual dragon, was as close as anyone on Earth would ever see.
"I told you, I'll only be in town a few days!" Ms. Readman wailed. "I'm afraid I just can't join your gang. I've already got a job, you see, so it wouldn't be proper at all!"
The particularly vigorous jet of fire Lung directed at Ms. Readman suggested that he remained entirely unmoved. "Too late for excuses," he snarled through alarmingly sharp teeth. "You are mine now."
Abruptly, all of the as-yet-unburnt paper scattered on the ground behind Lung twitched, then leapt up and twisted together into a massive rope with a crane-game claw on one end. The rope lashed out, and the claw slammed shut on Lung's leg. Before the sheer heat now radiating off Lung could burn away the paper, it whiplashed backward and flung Lung clean across the factory floor in a shot-put hurl. He slammed into the far wall with force that would have been audibly bone-crunching for any normal human, like me. I tried not to think about that.
With an opening created, I hurried toward Ms. Readman, with Shamus following me. Hookwolf, undoubtedly having heard the impact, loped back around in our direction.
Ms. Readman batted out some flames nibbling at the flapping edges of her long coat. "This is just terrible!" she exclaimed as she turned and saw us. "I'm sorry to have gotten you involved."
"Personally, I'm just thrilled to be here," Shamus said, laying on an extra-thick helping of sarcasm. "By the by, here comes our bladed friend. Maybe you can do something about that? I've got jack squat."
I continued to positively smother Hookwolf's eyes in creepy-crawlies, but he'd clearly fixed our position between blinks. He galloped toward us at full speed, and I prepared to leap out of the way once more. Though, it would probably be for the best if he were to go after me, seeing as my costume clearly afforded me some protection. The Empire wouldn't pull their punches much, but they did have to pull them a little - at least according to Shamus, whose word I didn't doubt. If he calculated an attack for a squishy, normal human and got a knifeproof one instead, the surprise might be enough to give us an opening.
Or so I fervently hoped, anyways.
As I steeled myself to meet his charge, Ms. Readman's arms flashed out to meet him, then whirled clockwise. A hulking, yet elegantly assembled paper tiger no smaller than Hookwolf took him in the side in a ferocious pounce. The two of them rolled together in a tangle of tearing paper and slicing steel.
"Paper seems to be no good against these two, I'm afraid," Ms. Readman said, rather morosely, as scraps of her increasingly ragged construct fluttered in every direction. She had fastened the book to her body in a paper sling, which permitted the use of both her arms.
"Speaking of our other problem," Shamus said, "he's looking increasingly pissed off. Which, I'll admit, I wouldn't have thought was possible a minute ago."
Lung had clambered back to his feet on the other side of the room. The flames puffing out of his mouth with every exhalation illuminated his simmering glower.
After a moment to permit his glare to sink in, Lung strode across the floor towards us. Despite the distance, his pace remained measured, suggesting a supreme confidence that he had his prey trapped inextricably within his grasp.
On our other side, Hookwolf tore the remnants of the paper tiger in two with a victorious snarl. We thus found ourselves trapped between a very hot place and a very sharp one. I didn't much care for either option.
"Well, fuck me," Shamus said. She laughed, though it came through a bit sharp. "I definitely wouldn't have listed `simultaneous char-broiling and impalement` very high on my list of expectations for the night."
Ms. Readman shot worried glances in both directions.
"This, er, certainly doesn't look very good," she said. She glanced down at her book. "But I really must get this to safety. Perhaps if I provide a distraction, you two could escape with it?"
"Sold," Shamus said. "Here, gimme."
I finally managed to corral the thought rattling around in my brain and hammer it out.
"Hold on," I said. "We can't just leave you behind for them. Shamus, isn't there something we can do?"
Shamus sighed. "It's a long shot, but there is something," she said. " Ms. Readman cocked her head in interest. I directed a fresh swarm of flies and hornets into Lung with the intent of buying us a few moments, with special attention to his eyes and ears. Lung roared and clawed at his head in irritation, but the heat rolling off him kept crisping my bugs after no more than a few seconds.
"They hate each other, right?" Shamus said. "So they're as likely to fight each other as they are us. We just need to remove ourselves from the equation. If we can get away for even a few seconds, they'll turn on each other. But getting away's the trick, isn't it?"
"Indeed. My paper's almost entirely gone," Ms. Readman said with a mournful shake of the head.
Lung and Hookwolf circled closer, still exactly opposite, with us very uncomfortably in the middle. They eyed each other, with neither seeming to want to be the first one to commit to a charge.
Inspiration suddenly struck me. "As soon as they get close, Ms. Readman, please try to cover their eyes with whatever paper you have," I said, my voice just above a whisper. I arranged every bug under my command still living. They scuttled over the floor or circled through the air behind our opponents, poised to strike. "I'm going to make things as uncomfortable for them as I can. Then we run for that window."
Ms. Readman nodded. "I'll do my best," she said. She adjusted the book in its sling.
Shamus gave me a fierce grin. "Atta girl. Hey, If I don't make it, you've gotta clean up the rest of my papers. I'll haunt the shit out of you if you don't."
Only forty feet-and our distressingly frail bodies-now separated Lung and Hookwolf.
Lung tensed and sprang into a jump impossibly far and fast for any normal human. Hookwolf loped and leapt to match. We scattered in three different directions as the two of them crashed back into the ground. I felt the fresh wave of heat off Lung through my mask. He had begun to seem more reptile than man, and exuded all the presence of a living, walking furnace.
No sooner had their feet touched the ground than Ms. Readman and I struck. Sheets of paper flapped through the air and slapped themselves unerringly over Lung and Hookwolf's eyes as though yanked there by a powerful magnet. In Hookwolf's case, shreds of paper stuck to his eyeballs directly. At the same moment, I lunged forward every last one of my remaining bugs with the goal of sending up a deafening racket directly inside their ear canals.
Both Lung and Hookwolf reared back, swatting at their ears. I broke into a dead sprint away from them, raced across the factory floor, and vaulted the nearest empty windowsill with surprising grace. The bugs I had placed on Shamus and Ms. Readman moments before informed me that the two of them followed right behind me.
We dashed across the street without hesitation. I had to weave out of the way of an onrushing station wagon, which screeched to a halt with an angry blast of its horn. Behind us, there came a roar and the rising whoosh of flame, followed by the ring of metal on metal. We didn't stop running for at least ten blocks.
Ms. Readman came panting to a halt first. "I'm afraid I'm a bit out of shape," she gasped between hurried breaths. "What's more, this text is rather heavy." She hefted the large book clasped firmly in her arms.
"And here I thought you could've been a long-distance runner," Shamus said with a roll of her eyes. "We ought to be safe here. Those two are definitely tearing into each other by now. With Lung involved, we might even see a Protectorate response, if they roll over into an area that's a bit less of an uninhabited dump."
I nodded. A mixture of relief and triumph flooded through my veins. Somehow, our plan had actually worked.
Shamus nodded at me.
"Nice work with the distraction," she said. "You too, paper lady, I guess. Did Lung seriously try to recruit you? He must be getting desperate under all the pressure from the Empire."
"Er, well, I suppose he did," Ms. Readman said, with a sheepish shrug. "I had thought he was simply being polite, you know, so I thought nothing of turning him down. In fact, I thought it was rather lovely for somebody to go out of their way to welcome me to town when I would be staying only a few days. It seems I rather misunderstood the nature of the meeting."
Which was an understatement, to say the least.
Shamus shook her head. "Honestly, I'm amazed that you've made it this far. But the ABB are pretty hard up for cape muscle, and your power's not half bad, so I can see the appeal. Hookwolf's little appearance is on us, so I can't get too mad."
"The wiki really didn't do the weirdness of that transformation justice," I said. "I'm assuming we can consider him the Empire's formal response to our last couple of cases."
"I'd say that's an extremely safe bet," Shamus said. "But we left some egg on his face, and the way Lung was going in there, I'd say he's probably about to put Hookwolf in the hospital, unless our neo-Nazi friend has the brains to skedaddle posthaste." She shrugged. "He is smarter than you'd think at a glance, so even odds he does get away, unfortunately. PHO should have the deets by tomorrow morning, so we won't need to wait long."
Ms. Readman glanced back the way we had come. Due to our having turned several corners, the factory where we had almost become shish kebabs could no longer be seen, and we were too far away to hear any sounds of the fight. "This city is much more dangerous than I had imagined," she said. She held her book closer. "My, that was a close one. That dreadful man almost caught this in one of his fire blasts before we escaped."
Whatever you thought of Ms. Readman's priorities, she certainly knew what was important to her.
Shamus sighed.
"Yes, thank goodness the book is safe," she said. "I don't know what I would have done if it didn't make it out. What a relief. Do we need to check it for injuries?"
"Oh, I've already done so, never fear," Ms. Readman said with an oblivious smile. "Not a scratch! Isn't that wonderful?"
I decided to intervene before Shamus could be driven completely over the top.
"I'm glad we're all safe, but now what? Either gang could have other members out looking for us, couldn't they? I know the Empire has a ton of muscle, especially in these neighborhoods."
Shamus nodded with a grin.
"Sharp as always, Flutter! Yes, we do need to worry about followups, but the ABB and Empire are equally likely to be tangling each other up at this point. You can bet as soon as Kaiser hears the name Lung he and his whole racist mob will jump straight to red alert."
"I hope you're right. After that, we deserve a break. My heart's still trying to jump out of my chest."
"Hope? Pshaw. I'm always right, hon. Not a peep about any rooftop incidents, thank you very much." She turned to Ms. Readman, who still looked rather bemused, as though she'd just woken up, expecting to roll out of bed into her slippers, and thumped onto the cold concrete of a strange city sidewalk instead. "What about you?" Shamus asked. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you this - at least, I really hope I don't - but if Lung's gunning for you, it'd behoove you to get the hell out of Dodge as soon as humanly possible. Ideally, sooner. His gang may be on the back foot thanks to the sheer manpower deficit, but his lieutenants are almost as scary as he is. Frankly speaking, they're liable to mess you up something fierce if they catch you again, and even if they're busy tonight, you can bet your ass that they'll be looking tomorrow."
Ms. Readman nodded. "Yes, I suppose you're right," she said. "I'll have to arrange for an extraction tonight." Her face fell. "But I'll be leaving all my students in the lurch. That's rather terrible of me, don't you think?"
My mask thankfully allowed me to smile as wryly as I cared to.
"I'm sure that they'll be all right," I said. "Hearing about how a teacher got murdered in public by super-powered gangsters probably wouldn't do much to inspire them to stay in school, anyways."
"Yes, yes, you are right, aren't you. That wouldn't do at all," she said, her accent no less refined for all the running and fighting. She shifted the book over to one arm and rummaged about in one of the pockets of her coat. Her eyes widened. "Oh, my, I've entirely forgotten that I picked this up! Here you go, dear." She withdrew Shamus's stun gun, none the worse for wear, from her pocket, and handed it over. Shamus took it with a look of near despair.
"You couldn't have mentioned that during the fight?" she said. "Without this thing, all I'm out here with are my good looks and scathing one-liners."
Ms. Readman tapped her chin, her expression quizzical. "I suppose it must have slipped my mind after the second blast of fire," she said helpfully. Were it absolutely anyone else, the line would have been devastatingly sarcastic. As for Ms. Readman, well, she had probably read about sarcasm in a dictionary at some point.
Shamus's sigh proved her deepest one yet. She pocketed the weapon. "Well, thanks for returning it, anyways. And with the plastic unmelted, no less. Though, that might've made for a neat souvenir."
Personally, the memories of being face-to-face with Lung had scorched me almost as badly as his actual fire, so I doubted I would need any reminders of the encounter anytime soon.
Ms. Readman dug through her pockets once more, and this time came up with an ancient brick of a cellphone which contrived to make even my plastic convenience-store model look cutting-edge by comparison. She punched in enough digits to suggest an international number, then turned away from us to make the call.
"Hello, Mr. Joker? Oh, hello, Ms. Wendy! Yes, I've got the book. Oh, it was the most awful time! I must get out of this town as quickly as I can. There's this horrible dragon man-" She paused and listened for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. I will be there. Thank you, Ms. Wendy." She ended the call, and replaced the phone in her pocket. "Thank you for helping me escape those brutes, and for helping me keep this safe," she said. She gave the book an affectionate pat and a satisfied nod. "Meeting you two has been lovely, but I'm afraid I must be going now."
Shamus snorted. "Yeah, it's been a real pleasure," she said. Once again, the sarcasm seemed to sail well over Ms. Readman's head, as she replied with a friendly nod.
"Have a safe trip home," I said, for want of ability to come up with anything better.
Ms. Readman waved cheerfully and took three steps down the street away for us before coming to a halt. She looked into the distance, where the end of the boulevard opened out onto the ocean, then back over her shoulder at us, then back at the ocean. She turned around slowly and cleared her throat.
"Could either of you girls direct me to the Fairfax Building?" she said. "I'm told it is the tallest one in the city."
"Sure thing," Shamus drawled. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "It's that one looming over us that's taller than every other building."
Ms. Readman's face brightened. "Oh, splendid!" she said. "Thank you ever so much!" She dashed past us, her coat flapping in the breeze. I watched her as she hurried down the block across from us. Horns blared as she darted through the next intersection without looking.
"That lady is a real weirdo, and I don't use the term lightly," Shamus said. "I'll be amazed if she makes it back to Britain alive, and not because Lung is on her case. Do you know, I'm pretty sure that she's looking for that building to jump off the top."
"But using her powers, right?"
Shamus shrugged. "I think so, but with her? Jury's out, my friend. Her encyclopedia's missing a few entries, if you catch my drift." Shamus checked her very expensive wristwatch. "Anyways, we should be going. A full-on flare-up between the ABB and E88 should be going by now, and we do not want to be caught in the middle of that, trust me."
"One encounter with Lung sounds like enough for a lifetime to me," I said. "Bakuda and Oni Lee are his lieutenants, right?"
Shamus nodded. "They're both incredibly bad news," she said. "Especially Bakuda. Oni Lee strikes me as the kind of guy who follows orders, though he's certainly no saint; kind of an amoral enforcer, if you will. Bakuda, on the other hand? That chick is N-U-T-S nuts. I've never run into her in person, and I'll be just thrilled if I can keep that streak going until whenever the Protectorate gets fed up and finally ices her."
"That's all I need to hear," I said. "I like my insides on the inside. Let's get back to the office."
Our trip back across town featured quite a bit of skulking in shadows and darting down alleyways, but thanks to my bugs and Shamus's intuition, we reached the office without further incident. After changing out of our costumes, we headed out the hidden passage in the back door, locked up, and snuck through the passageway to the basement of Lisa's apartment building.
A quick trip up the stairs and a twist of Lisa's key later, we were in her apartment. I strung my insectoid tripwire across the entrance and the surrounding block. Lisa bustled about in her gleaming stainless-steel kitchen for a few minutes preparing tea, then emerges carrying a mugful of it in each hand. Naturally, she hadn't needed to ask what kind I'd like. I nodded gratefully as I took mine. With a deep, relieved exhalation, Lisa collapsed into her very large, very gray, and very generously padded easy chair. She swung her legs up onto the wooden surface of the coffee table which squatted across from the chair. I myself opted to sink into the equally soft and equally expensive couch, and to luxuriate in the sensation of not having to worry about being burned alive.
Lisa yawned. "Man, what a couple of days it's been," she said. "I don't know if I've ever been more relieved to be done with a case." She craned her torso forward. "Can you still see the egg on my face, or did I manage to wash it all off?"
"All's well that ends well," I said. "Speaking of endings, what about our client? If he even still merits the term, anyways."
Lisa made a disgusted face. "He's rabbited by now, undoubtedly. Anybody wily enough to pull that stunt in the first place won't be coming back to provoke us further when we've already lost what they want. I'll have to see if I can't track him down online, maybe turn the FBI on to him for some heinous shit." Her grin was positively predatory. "Now, that sounds like exactly the kind of stress relief I need after this mess."
"I won't be much help there, but if you need any bugs sicced on this guy, give me a call," I said. "I'm a little resentful over the whole mess too."
Lisa smiled, pleased. "Taylor, the hardened private eye! Next you'll be tossing back highballs while you oil your Colt and mutter about the 'detective's code'. I must be a good influence. No, don't answer that."
"I may have started feeling the urge to lurk in dive bars, but I still draw the line at fedoras," I said. I looked out across the room. Through Lisa's broad and impeccably tasteful windows, the lights of Downtown glimmered. As I took in the sight, a worry from earlier nagged at me once more.
"If the Empire sent Hookwolf, they're seriously after us now, right?" I said. "What can we do about that? Even handling him alone might be almost impossible, but the whole gang? I want to believe we can do it, but I'm concerned, I can admit."
Lisa's expression grew serious, and she nodded. "I won't say that you're wrong to be, because obviously that would be ridiculous. We're clearly on their radar now, if they thought we rated a visit from Hookwolf." She sunk back into her chair, her gaze distant, as though mulling over a particularly thorny problem. "If tonight does turn into a blow-up between the gangs, that'll necessarily drag in the Protectorate and New Wave, so I expect that the goose-steppers will be too busy to bother with us for a while. We're absolutely going to need some long-term insurance, though. It's time I get working on that."
"Insurance? What did you have in mind for uncovering it?"
She grinned.
"Oh, you know me. I'll figure something out. I'm very good at that. More's the trouble for them, right?" She sipped at her tea.
I smiled back at her. "I almost feel sorry for them."
