Hit Me With Your Best Shot
(Bucciarati)
The Silver Wasp landed smoothly on a shipping container at the farthest corner of the sprawling freight yard. We spun around several times as he shredded off his momentum, sliding to a stop at the edge of the container. He touched down one silver-booted foot.
"I'll take the ground. You keep some height," he said. "You can do that, right?"
I nodded. Gunfire erupted from the center of the freight yard, about a kilometer away by the sound. We both pointed in the same direction.
"Be careful," I warned him. "She has combat armor and a sniper weapon. She just missed a Passione shipment coming in, so she's probably after information now. Might be aiming for a hostage situation but I wouldn't count on it. Sounded like she's shooting to kill."
"It's just one baddie? No big deal. She's going down."
"Be careful. She's American."
"Huh. Good to know."
The Silver Wasp gave me a fist-bump and launched his howling motorscooter off the shipping container. Landing with unrealistic ease, he took off around a corner. A thin plume of dust marked his progress.
I scrambled to the top of the next container, using zippers for grips and toeholds, then sprinted down its length. As I reached the edge, Sticky Fingers punched the air and without pause I ran onward into a wavering purple void. The floors in my voids don't fall out unless I think about it – so I ran without thinking. Eight meters and I punched open the next void, kept going.
As the first zipper sealed behind me, daylight winked out and I ran in perfect darkness. I spread my arms and imagined the vast darkness of outer space, shot through with starlight. This was no time for claustrophobia; no time for memories of close wooden walls, splinters, a year without light before my stand arose. Leone was fighting for his life out there and my voids were the fastest route to reach him. Lightless, my voids were as wide or as narrow as I imagined them to be. I clamped down on my fear and focused on one memory as I ran: the wooden door peeling away under my stand's fists, daylight exploding into my fevered eyes. A miracle. Sticky Fingers put miracles at my fingertips; doors and walls and locks were nothing now. I could have the light back whenever I wanted it.
To prove it to myself – and to get my bearings – I opened the next zipper onto daylight, open air. I was six stories above the ground and too far from the next stack of containers to make a leap, I saw. A bullet pinged off the zipper next to my cheek. How the fuck did she have line-of-sight on me already? I sealed that zipper, dropped and rolled as bullets ripped through my void exactly where I had been crouching.
Oh, yeah. I should mention that my voids still map onto real space.
Fuck. If she could see the zipper tag and not just half my face floating in the sky, she was a stand user. And a damn good sniper. Invisible but not bulletproof, I ran forward into the next void, slanting it down to reach the next container. If I got the placement just right –
I stepped out of thin air behind the massive shipping container, lodging my foot on the narrow ledge at its base and using a zipper to cling to its wall. Now to get the drop on my opponent – but more shots rang out below me, frantic feet and the rev of a two-cylinder engine –
No choice. I leaned out from my cover, just in time to see the Silver Wasp hurtle past below and Leone disappear mid-sprint as the Vespa passed him. What the fuck! Bullets pierced the steel container walls, tracking the Vespa's progress – and the rider somehow retaliated with a rain of fiery bullets of his own!
A yell and leaping flames – as the Silver Wasp spun to a halt and rounded back on her position, the sniper fell from her perch two containers to my left. She tucked into a roll as she hit the ground and came up on one knee, rifle already aimed as the Silver Wasp accelerated straight toward her. Shit!
I cast a zipper diagonally down the full length of container wall that separated us and sprinted down it like a zipline. Halfway down, I saw the Silver Wasp was already taking fire straight to the face. Bullets pinged off his helmet visor. Maybe it wasn't as cheap as it looked. The sniper crouched with her back to me, still on fire, still firing. I launched my fist – missed her shoulder – hit the barrel of her gun! The gun metal peeled out like flower petals as a zipper spiraled up its length, while my fist bounced away. Bullets scattered, falling short, aimless.
Claws clamped around my shoulders – piercing agony – and lifted me away from my zipper line. I screamed. Above me, a huge magenta bat carried me skyward. Below, the sniper lunged aside from the Silver Wasp's path, taking another hail of fire bullets to little effect. Blazing and somehow ignoring that fact, she stumbled over my hand where it lay limp on the ground. Her eyes traced up the length of the thin zipper that still linked it to my arm like a kite string. The Silver Wasp wheeled to face her just as she picked up my hand. I saw them both realize it in the same moment I did: I was a hostage now.
The flames playing over the sniper's bulletproof bodysuit guttered and wisped out. Gripping my hand, she nodded to me – no, to the bat. Her stand. With thumping wingbeats, it lifted me higher. The zipper connecting my hand to my arm reeled out, spiraling up past my elbow. I couldn't release it because the zipper couldn't close.
"What happens when you unzip your ribcage?" the sniper called up to me in rounded, melodic American English.
Nothing good, obviously.
Where was Leone? The question battered around in my head like a moth in a jar. He was right there and then he was nowhere. My voids can do that, but it wasn't me.
"Bring him down," the Silver Wasp growled, switching into surprisingly good English. "You can't defend against both of us without your weapon."
The sniper laughed. She sounded truly delighted. "Oh, I totally can, though. What's he gonna do, throw the other fist? Okay, he might, might, hit me at that range – but I can take him out first. Or can't you see stands, little man?"
Neither of them had a stand that could make Leone disappear like that. I racked my brain. Stands that caused invisibility. Stands that open dimensions. Stands that cast illusions.
I cursed midnight Bruno's bad life choices. The sun glinting off the Silver Wasps's mirrored visor was hurting my eyes and I just couldn't think.
Oh, right. Mirrors. Leone was safe. I breathed again. My head cleared. Okay. Let's fucking do this.
"My gasoline bullets may not impress you," the Wasp was yelling at the sniper below me, "but I can still run you over where you stand. Have you considered that?"
"Oh, you don't care about your ally? Cool."
The bat tossed me in the air like a ragdoll, caught me by my bad shoulder. Claws twisted; I yelped as the joint dislocated. Again. Below, the Silver Wasp flinched and the sniper laughed some more. She tugged on my hand and my good shoulder unwound like so much ribbon. Any further and she'd incapacitate one of my lungs.
"This isn't really complicated," the sniper said, winding my unzipped arm around her torso twice to forestall that vehicular manslaughter plan. "I just need some information from you dumb fucks. Basic shit. One. Where are Passione storing the virus? And two. How is it guarded? Tell me that and I'll let you choose which one of you lives."
The Silver Wasp winked out of existence. His muscular Vespa remained poised and revving, but its rider was gone.
"God fucking damn it!" the sniper yelled. She rounded on me, holding the zipper to my arm taut. "Tell me where they went. You know, don't you, you goddamn pussy? All three of them, how did they just disappear like that?"
Three? Oh, of course, Moody Blues must have made an appearance.
"I can tell you because you can't do a damn thing about it," I said, gritting my teeth against the fireworks going off in my shoulder. "His name is Illuso and he pulls people into mirrors. But he's inside the mirror himself, so you can't fight him. It's the ultimate safe zone."
"Mirrors…" Her eyes scanned the area and lit on the Vespa. "You mean like these mirrors here?"
She stalked over to the idling motorscooter and smashed the butt of her rifle into its two side mirrors. Silvery glass shattered onto the dusty pavement.
"Just like those," I said. "Thanks for doing that."
"I don't understand–"
Just like that, she blinked out of existence. So did her stand, which had been holding me. I was falling. As I tumbled, I got a confused impression of Leone running toward me, screaming my name. Sticky Fingers was struggling to orient itself from within me, punch something, weakly with that disjointed shoulder –
Wait. Left shoulder. Right shoulder?
What?
In my frenzied twisting, the joint popped back into place just as Sticky Fingers punched the ground. I was sliding into the dark at an angle, light receding above me – until my head slammed against the end of the void, which was inconveniently solid only because my fear-drunk brain had conceived of it that way as I fell.
Reality spun. My vision went dark and I started to panic. I clung to the sound of Leone's voice and his grip on my hand – still unzipped, eight meters above me. Wrong hand. Mirror realm. Okay.
"Pull yourself up," Leone kept saying. "Bruno! I've got your hand, but I can't pull. You have to do it yourself. Come on! Start climbing!"
"Is he alive?" The Silver Wasp leaned over the mouth of the void, cutting into my light. Leone pushed him aside.
"Of course he is," Illuso said, sounding as genial as ever. "Stand effects end when people die. Or go unconscious. The space he's in would stop existing. Huh. Can Bruno accidentally erase himself?"
"That's exactly what I'm worried about, asshole!" Leone snapped. "Can't you find a way to help?"
Illuso sniffed. "Help? Like get you both away from a fucking military-grade sniper? Sure, maybe I could help a bit."
"It's your fucking realm! Can't you… do something?"
"Too dark down there."
"Find some goddamn rope or something!"
"I guess I could go possess a crane," the Silver Wasp said noncommittally. "Might take a while to run there and drive it over here."
"I'm fine," I said. Tried to say. All that came out the first time was a groan.
"Do it! Go!" Panic edged Leone's voice.
"I'm fine," I said again, with a breath behind it this time. With a massive contraction of will, I inverted the void and ejected myself onto the ground at their feet. The zipper closed behind me, sealing all that darkness away as if it had never been.
"Hey, not bad!" Illuso clapped me on the shoulder as I sat up.
"Ow!" That was my bad shoulder. "Fucking hell!"
Leone was winding my unzipped arm into a coil. He handed it to me; I fitted it into place and released the zipper. I fumbled a bit; it was strange doing it with the wrong hand. I flexed my fingers, then used them to pet Leone's cheek. It was wet.
"Leone?"
He shook his head. No. Instead, he lifted me gently to my feet and wrapped me in his arms, buried his face in my neck and fought the sobs that tried to steal his breath.
Panic attack, I mouthed at Illuso.
"Come on," he told the Silver Wasp. "They both just almost died. I think they're gonna need a minute."
"That's cool. I can still direct my stand from in here, right?"
"Negative. But that sniper bitch is waiting for us outside, so no big. Got a light?"
So I worked my fingers through Leone's tangled hair while they walked off for a cigarette break.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Whatever I said last night – and for not telling you where I was today – and all those missed calls – God, I got you into this mess, didn't I? You were trying to track me down?"
Leone nodded and held me tighter. He was crushing my ribs but his hand was gentle across my wrecked shoulder.
"I told you not to follow me like that," I said carefully. "Why didn't you wait at the restaurant like we agreed?"
He leaned away and looked into my face. A complicated look. Even when his words came back, I wasn't sure he'd be able to make me understand.
"Okay," I said, framing his face with my hands. "You felt like you had to, for whatever reason. I should have unmuted my phone after Polpo's meeting and you should have waited, but we both made it. We're alive. Mostly thanks to Illuso."
At Polpo's name, Leone frowned. He tapped my chest and gave me an inquiring look.
"Am I okay? After Polpo?" Memory stirred uneasily just beyond my grasp. Still, nothing came to mind. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Raised eyebrows. The way his hand cradled my shoulder, so aware of its history that sometimes enveloped me and sometimes eluded me. The original injury was from Nicolas's enforcers, the first time I tried to escape. It's easy to re-injure a dislocated shoulder and I occasionally had help in doing so. Still, it was sometimes pain-free.
"I'm fine," I told Leone. "But you. Gunshots aren't good for you. You gonna be okay?"
He nodded, rubbing a hand back through his hair. But he kept his other hand on me and when he met my eyes, that haunted look was back.
"Stay with me," I whispered, pressing my face into his. I didn't know why yet, but that look of his scared me. "I can't lose you."
Leone wrapped his arms around me again. I didn't fit under his chin anymore, but in those days he could still tuck my face into his neck and rest his cheek on top of my head. The tension flooded out of me. The pain in my shoulder eased with it.
Then we got spattered in warm, sticky blood.
"Oh hey," Illuso said, escorting the Silver Wasp back from around the corner of the nearest shipping container. "Looks like Zo got our girl out there. I'm gonna drop you guys at a café in town. You get your stories straight; I was never here."
"What?" The Silver Wasp watched in confusion as the scene around us turned into so many mirror tiles, each changing to a new scene. "What about my ride?"
"It's been implicated in a mafia shoot-out. Get yourself a new one."
Then Illuso was gone and we were standing in the mirror-tiled entrance of a café in the tourist district. Looking at ourselves covered in fresh blood. An American couple opened the door and backed away screaming. Police would arrive any second.
"Mi scusi," I muttered, dragging Leone out the door and into the nearest alley. Damn, damn, damn! I did not want a mugshot with this much blood on me. I pulled off my jacket and used the clean back to wipe my face. The chain leash slithered out of the pocket, clinking to the ground. "Funny. Risotto sent the Silver Wasp to me, with this. I was sure he meant me to rescue you."
Leone narrowed his eyes. "Think he meant you to survive?"
I jumped at the sound of a heavy engine snarling its way into the alley. Leone and I pressed back against the alley wall, but the Silver Wasp screeched to a stop right beside us.
"Where the hell did you find a souped up Jeep in the middle of Napoli?"
"Don't question it, just get in. Come on, you guys got a date with some cops or something? Let's go!"
As we screeched around the corner back into the road, a thought occurred to me.
"Damn. I wish we could have asked that sniper some questions about who she was working for. What she was after."
"She asked us where Passione was storing the virus and how it's guarded," the Silver Wasp said, swerving up onto the sidewalk to pass a line of stopped traffic. "You guys know something about a virus?"
Leone clung to the Jeep's frame. He looked like he might be sick at any moment. But he was never one to let a good mystery elude him. "Virus! That's what she was saying. I didn't hear it correctly in English."
"What else was she saying?"
"I'd have to go back to pick up the replay. Something about speed, over and over. Speed-drago? Speed dragon?"
We all laughed.
"I'm gonna rename my stand!" the Silver Wasp yelped. "Oh, better yet, that's what I'll call my band! Silver Wasp and the Speed Dragons. Has a ring to it, doesn't it?"
"Isn't that already an American band? 'Take it on the run'?"
Leone gave me a quizzical look.
"What? It's a song."
"Just wondering where you take your inspiration from," he murmured, casting his eyes across the gulf of space as we rounded a corner onto a breathtaking vista.
"Alright, boys, ride ends here," the Wasp said, swerving onto the side of the road.
"What?"
"Get out. I don't need another auto theft on my record for a goddamn joyride and I don't need any more Passione brass tracking me down to ask questions about some goddamn virus. Not unless it's that lanky blond with the so-called kiss of truth again, in which case, sure, send him my way."
I choked back a laugh as Leone handed me down from the monstruous Jeep.
"So…" Leone said amicably.
"Start walking, rookie." The Silver Wasp gave us a mock salute. He rapped the Jeep with his knuckles and it reverted to an ordinary, modest Jeep. No more spiked wheels, no more muscular flanges, one ordinary tailpipe.
In fact, it fit neatly in the parking spot where he abandoned it – as he took off walking at a brisk pace around the bend in the road and out of sight.
"Well," Leone said, working his fingers through his blood-caked hair, "no one's going to pick us up as hitchhikers. We look like axe murderers."
I shrugged off my jacket and looped it over my arm, inside-out. What's black and white and red all over? My tailor would not appreciate that one, either. I strolled across the road and looked out over the view of Napoli, the surrounding countryside, and so distantly winking, the sea.
"Bruno, come here."
When I looked over my shoulder, Leone wasn't there.
"Leone?"
I ran back to where he'd been standing beside the Jeep and the world rippled briefly silver, then with another fish-scale flicker, my confused surroundings resolved into the interior of my own cottage home. On the south side of Napoli, by the shore.
What?
Leone pulled me into his arms, sticky with drying blood. He was waving at our bathroom mirror, straight down the hall through an open door – which clearly showed a third individual lurking behind us. Illuso. I turned, but of course he wasn't in the room. And with a mocking peace-sign, he vanished from our mirror, as well.
"Bastard," I said, stripping as I walked into the bedroom.
"Bruno – what?"
"Fuck," I muttered, taking my bloody tanktop and pants back out of the hamper and dropping them into a void instead. "Here, let me take your jacket, love."
Leone took a step back from the doorway, eying me warily. "Listen, Bruno, it's not really a good time–"
"What?" Then I placed the cautious, noncommittal look he was giving me. I couldn't help it; I laughed. "Lover, you've got me mixed up with someone else. I'm not trying to get physical with you right after escaping a shoot-out and witnessing a murder together. We just need to lose these crime-scene outfits fast and wash up. Polpo wants us at the division meeting at 16:00."
"Are you serious? Bruno, we've got twenty minutes!"
"So let's hurry up!"
Eight minutes later, we were out the door with dry clothes over damp skin.
"Oh, shit." Leone stopped walking, hands in his hair. It was a proper bird's nest by now. He was trying to pull it back into some kind of messed-up braid.
"Come on, I'll do that while we walk." I pulled him by the hand.
"Not that," he said, picking up the pace again and tucking his hair down his collar. "Your jacket, Bruno."
I glanced down. "What? It's fine!"
"No, your jacket from earlier. I think you left it behind with the Jeep."
Oh, shit. He was absolutely right and we did not have time to go back for it.