Zephyr I Read online

  “It’s late, I’m sorry,” says I.

  Twilight keeps grinning though he turns and gestures for me to walk with him. There’s no fence around his pool. Across a hundred yards of immaculate lawn the French doors at the rear of his enormous house are open and light spills from them suggesting warmth in the form of a large snifter of brandy if not a log fire. I note the path that wends away to the right, splitting off from the way back to the house and ending at a cold, grey-looking stone building, octagonal perhaps, and with a domed roof. Twilight’s sanctorum. He steers me towards the house instead with a hand on my elbow.

  “I’m Twilight,” he says gently. “You know my time is the night.”

  I realize he’s making a joke. “My time is the night” is the phrase his action figure repeats if you press the button in the middle of his back. At that moment I can’t remember mine, but I remember the PA’s face when I suggested, “How do you like your ass, deep fried or crispy?” After regaining her composure, she politely suggested mothers might not be so cool with their kids repeating that line.

  Mothers! Reminds me I need to ring mine. Both of ‘em.

  In the end, I think my figurine phrase was “Electric, baby,” I swear, in what sounds like Austin Powers’ voice. I think it may have been a cost-cutting exercise.

  I mutter something conciliatory to Twilight and thank him again for seeing me. You would never guess we were friends. I’m stammering something about how dead it was at Halogen, repressed memories of walking to school with my neighbor’s dad coming back to me I guess because of mine and Twilight’s height difference, and I vaguely wonder if this is what most women feel, always having to look up. If I had had a father of my own perhaps I would be better prepared or might feel otherwise. Emasculation isn’t something I can feel growing on me.

  “Zephyr, what’s going on?” Twilight asks. “This isn’t like you.”

  We pass indoors. The back room has a library, a rosewood grand piano, a drinks cabinet, a big slab of woodwork that conceals a widescreen TV though it is open now and gently playing a football game, Lions versus Jets. I always went for the Jets because that was Flash Gordon’s team. Pity they’re losing. Maybe they need another Flash, though they test pretty hard for supers these days.

  “I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’m a little down.”

  I shrug and try not to bob my head or do that Joe Pesci voice I always have to resist around Twilight, like I’m trying to get myself into trouble with the Cosa Nostra or something.

  Twilight moves to the cabinet, dwarfing it, and nods for me to go on. I’m struck by the absurdity of the situation and once he hands me the expected snifter, I tip it up gratefully and indicate towards the outside bunker.

  “Forget about me, anyway. Me and my mortal concerns. What’s been shaking, Twilight?”

  “Oh, it’s been very quiet. . . .”

  “It must’ve been. No adventures. . . ?”

  “Actually no, just some . . . personal research.”

  “And uh, how are the family? You know, the Family, these days?”

  “I think my uncle and I have finally come to an agreement,” Twilight smiles. “You leave me alone and I won’t interrupt your sordid little drug deals by summoning Dimensional Shamblers.”

  I laugh, though I have no idea of what he’s referring to. I can only gather it’s more of the mystical kook Twilight’s usually mixed up in. Despite the heroic stature, he’s more Dr Strange than Superman, as I sometimes like to put it. I did ask him once that, if he was a sorcerer, why he had superhuman strength, could fly and reflect bullets off his bare skin. The answer was a good one.

  “Because I’m a sorcerer . . . and because I can.”

  I reflect on this as we sit down to drink. The brandy is warm, but that’s about all it does for me. Not a problem for him. Twilight has that satisfied look on his face I’ve only seen on housewives trying to wean off chocolate and enjoying their failure.

  “So what has been happening?” I ask.

  “No,” Twilight replies. “Tell me about you.”

  And he waves a hand and possibly says something, a spell or an oath or something, and then I’m spilling my guts like Woody Allen, telling him things I didn’t even realize I was thinking, about how I don’t think I can balance my life and my secrets any more, that I feel trapped inside my own body, that my wife seems to want me dead and home feels like a jail, and that even though I would never want to take back the fateful day I was struck by lightning climbing the wind farm tower, I hope to dear God my daughter Tessa has the chance for an ordinary life.

  “It’s just such a pressure,” I hear myself whine, vaguely aware the spell’s effects are winding down. “I’ve had my powers twenty years next March and I sometimes feel like there’s two of me, and I almost wish there was, it would be so much simpler, and so much kinder to my family.”

  Twilight sits back with his fingers steepled. I lean and wipe sweat from the back of my neck and exhale heavily.

  “Whew, what the fuck was that?”

  “Just a little trick I’ve been learning, Togamon’s Tantric Expression. It normally only works on fairly simple minds, but I guess my magic is more powerful here in my home.”

  He smiles that elusive charismatic smile of his that convinces me to take no offence, though there’s genuine chagrin there that he just slugged me with a mickey without even asking. Unless his family ties have done their research, he doesn’t know my secret identity or too much about my private life. We’re friends, yeah, but we’re not exactly swapping spit.

  “I might have an answer for you,” he says eventually. “If you aren’t put off by the solution being . . . esoteric? Leave it with me. I have to think, and consult my books.”

  I stand up because it might not sound like a dismissal, but I’m at once strangely keen to get out of there. In fact, I’m not quite sure why I’ve come. Perhaps it’s the magic in the air or maybe just a little belated common sense. Beyond the French doors, a red laser sight sweeps over the hedgerows in the garden.

  “Are you coming to this thing tomorrow?” I ask, shielding my eyes against light that seems too bright.

  “The mayor’s reception? No. They don’t like people like me at City Hall.”

  “That’s a shame, dude.”

  “Not really, as I think you’ll find out.”

  “Hmmm,” I nod. “OK.”

  “Just remember, Zephyr: I’m an anti-hero, OK?”

  “Sure, Twilight. Sure. Why are you telling me this?”

  I’m frowning at him and he seems to do the same himself.

  “I’m not sure. Just . . . go home to your wife.”

  I nod and move out into the garden, and thence to home.

  Zephyr 1.5 “A Guarded Sense Of Caution”

  IT IS WARM in the apartment. The wall of white tiles in the bathroom slips gently back into place and I press down on it hard until I hear the magnets click and engage. I’ve already stripped in the narrow wall space, the best I get as far as secret bases go until we can afford somewhere bigger, and so I have a quick hot shower just because it seems the thing to do. From there to bed is a short journey, and a mercifully quick one.

  There’s all sorts of things I mean to do. Perhaps it is leftover sentimentality from my confessional with Twilight, but I want to watch my daughter sleeping and then hold my wife in the dark. I even want to give the cat a midnight dinner. I must be high, I reason, as I slip into the cold empty bed. I assume Elisabeth is passed out on the couch where she was watching TV. The moment my head hits the pillow and I only just realize I am alone, it’s like I have fallen into a trap set by my mortal enemy, Mr Sleep (that’s me being metaphoric again folks). My eyes lag shut – and then it’s morning.

  In fact it is quarter to ten. I leap up with a start, glad not to have fried the sheets as I sometimes do, and after securing my manly bits with a clean pair of boxers, I bust out of the bedroom and careen around the flat for a minute before ascertaining I’m the only one home. />
  On the bench in the kitchenette, Tessa has left me a note: “Mum said you worked late so I called Astrid’s mum for a ride. Mum gave me the money for school so don’t worry about that either. Could you still pick me up at three?”

  She has forgotten to write any kisses on the note or sign her name. Instead, it is signed “Me,” which seems slightly obnoxious, but very much her age. Fifteen years old and no longer her daddy’s daughter. Or that’s what I’m feeling.

  The reality is I should be relieved. I can survive on five hours of sleep and I don’t bother showering, going straight into the wall cavity and hurriedly dressing in my leathers again. An old white-and-red costume, complete with floor-length red cloak, gathers dust on a hanger. I can hear the phone ringing in the flat, but I ignore it.

  I move to the tinted window and open it a crack and when the way seems clear I vault into the sky and the window pretty much swings back by itself. As I start to lag in mid-air, I push it, rocketing in an arc over the city, the traffic helicopter tipping in acknowledgement. At full speed it only takes me a few minutes to cross the city. I don’t want the complaints that come with breaking the sound barrier, so I keep it to the low five hundreds.

  Even though I’m not late, I feel late, descending with my shadow over City Hall insignificant compared to the hordes of people, cameras and news crews covering the steps and the wide marble courtyard fronting one of the city’s most magnificent surviving Modernist buildings. There are a few costumes amid the front rows of the crowd, but these are interested onlookers like Paragon and Red Monolith who have been admitted to the front rather than invited. Since I was apparently never briefed on the details or else I’ve completely forgotten them, I don’t have a clue in hell where I am supposed to be. I land on the roof and thumb the security code I was given years ago and I’m jogging down the stairwell when one of the mayor’s secretaries whistles from an open doorway and I scuttle through into the oak-paneled interior of one of the city’s plush meeting rooms, and suddenly I remember what Vulcana said.

  The seven surviving members of the Sentinels stand on the other side of the room and my late arrival seems just too much like old times for it to be anything more than heavily ironic. I can only take my cue from how I handled it a million times in the past, laughing off the odd accusatory glare (Vulcana, Seeker, probably Chamber too, if he had a face), bemused smiles (Aquanaut, Miss Black), disinterest (Animal Boy) and worried anticipation (Lone Wolf). The mayor is there as well, along with his PA, the featureless Miss Kirkness, as well as a nerdy-looking guy in a tweed jacket carrying a large black electronic device. There’s also a few cops in the chamber, but they’re doing their best to look invisible, picking over the sandwich tray at the back of the set-up.

  “Zephyr, you’re late,” Pykes says.

  “Hey, chill, baby. When have I ever let you down?”

  “Do you want me to get my diary, Mr Mayor?” Miss Kirkness asks.

  I pout at the gibe and Roland Pykes, his security blanket and gold chains around his shoulders, gives an irritated gasp and gives up. I turn to acknowledge a few of my former teammates, though Chamber seems to be looking elsewhere and Lone Wolf, looking more like a homeless person than ever in his old trench coat and barefoot get-up, nervously avoids my eyes.

  One of the secretaries fields a cell call and then sticks her head back into the room.

  “They’re ready for you, Mr Mayor.”

  Pykes turns to the guy in the jacket and asks, “Ready, Professor Prendergast?”

  “As I’ll ever be, I suppose, Mayor Pykes. Lead on.”

  They file past, followed almost immediately by Adrian’s pet wolf. It must need to pee or something, presuming Adrian eventually managed to house train the damned thing. Seeker inclines her head at me, and Aquanaut gently punches my shoulder, and then I fall in beside Vulcana and Animal Boy, pretending for a moment to sniff the air around the once teenager.

  “Jesus, Zephyr, get some new jokes, man,” he says.

  “Where have you been hiding, Tom? The zoo?”

  “Actually I’ve been finishing college, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the place?”

  I eye him up and down a moment. He’s still a weedy piece of work, but at least some of his old hyperactive energy has diminished. Shame the same can’t be said for his Adam’s apple.

  “I guess you’re old enough to shave now,” I smirk. “What’s that like when you turn into a Sabretooth? One big shaved puss –”

  “Zephyr,” Vulcana says and nudges me fairly hard in the ribs. “Is there something you were going to ask me?”

  I cease my grinning and turn back to Connie. Since we’re still in private she hasn’t made the switch yet, which means I’m looking at a handsome brunette with a peaches and cream complexion, great boobs, and eyes that seem to see into the core of my Being. I also note she’s sporting a fresh haircut, long at the front and shaved right to the nape of her neck.

  “Nice ‘do.”

  “Thanks. I had to pay an extra fifty for the first appointment.”

  “That sucks ass,” I say, and then realize my sentiment’s probably a little strong for something so mundane. I make the sheepish face that usually gets me out of that sort of thing and then gesture around.

  “So what’s all this then?”

  “Professor Prendergast is donating his latest invention to the protection of the city,” Vulcana replies in an unimpressed voice.

  “Latest invention?”

  “Yeah, the Hermes Foundation, you remember that?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Hermes is the donation.”

  “The . . . Greek god?” I know I’m straining and the pain shows.

  Vulcana gives me a nod, but I don’t have a chance to ask any more. I still haven’t found out what the hell the mayor thinks he is up to, assembling the Sentinels without discussing it with me first. First though, we troop down the last of the hall’s main staircases and out through the foyer, following the rapidly-striding mayor and the diminutive scientist trying to keep up. Beyond the main doors there’s the sort of crowd that has become a rarity these days. The day is overcast, the sky smeared with clouds the color of lead pencil. I check my mask and fix a rakish smile in place and then the cameras start flashing.

  *

  I AM ALARMED to finally understand Hermes is a fucking robot.

  Me and robots don’t exactly have the best history and this one is bigger than me and designed to resemble a buff super-warrior in an off-the-shoulder toga-cum-miniskirt kinda thing. His enormous silver head is styled with Classical curls. Beside me, Seeker mutters something about wondering where’s the fig leaf and I laugh derisively as the mayor’s ambitious speech overshoots his ability to deliver. I sense journalists in the crowd lying in wait to ask fresh questions about the latest scandal about his deputy’s expense account, and like a good psychic, anticipate an adjournment so we can get together behind closed doors once the photo ops are over. As I have foreseen, so it comes to pass, and we’re only fifteen minutes out the front of City Hall before the first raindrop falls.

  Pykes stops mid-speech and turns back to me.

  “Zephyr, can you do something about that?”

  There’s something I’ve never liked about the mayor and he knows it. I think he thinks it’s his post-doctorate qualifications, his aid work in the Middle East, and his self-indulgent interest in paleontology. Actually it’s his ruddy schoolboy complexion, the handsome-but-evil-Nazi-bad-guy scar running down one cheek, and his habit of consulting with no one before making big policy decisions – like assembling my defunct super-team without asking me, Zephyr, who’s saved his worship’s ass more than once.

  With the city’s entire media watching, the best I can come up with is a strained “Wh-at?” It’s irritating that people still don’t understand I can’t control the weather. I can generate weather and make a stink when I’m up among the clouds, but simply magicking away a rain shower isn’t in my vocabulary, so to speak.

/>   Pykes simply hisses, “The rain,” and turns back, beneficently smiling for the cameras as he resumes his speech about commitment to safety not just for the city, but the entire eastern seaboard, which is pretty much just saying the whole city.

  “So, you gonna do somethin’ about that, Zeph?” Seeker asks.

  Those around me chuckle and I just sigh through my teeth, head shaking.

  Five minutes later, we’re corralled indoors, this time into one of the really really big meeting rooms, an impressive one on the first floor. Almost immediately, Lone Wolf’s dog jumps up on the food table and starts chowing down on the buffet and Chamber reaches over with one of his big tensile-steel mitts and flicks the beast across the room.

  I haven’t seen Adrian this fired up in years.

  “Don’t ever touch Hero like that,” he snarls, feet spread in a fighting stance and bo-stick upraised like a sword.

  Chamber folds his arms over the metal trunk of his chest and says nothing. Perhaps because I have known him the longest and I always felt kinda bad about the circumstances of his leaving the team, I move across to Lone Wolf and try to smile.

  “Hey Adrian, long time no see. How’re you doing?”

  “It’s a long time? Yes, Zephyr,” he replies softly, looking anywhere except into my eyes. “I haven’t exactly been around.”

  I clear my throat and wonder why the hell I didn’t just zero in on the free drinks.

  “Yeah, so, how are you now? All . . . better?”

  “I’m still in treatment, Zephyr, if you must know,” he says.

  Because he won’t look at me, I can get a good look at him and how badly he’s aged in the past five years. His hair and stubble are grey, his skin the complexion of a cadaver. Although there’s still that suggestion of sinewy strength Lone Wolf always possessed, I can’t help conclude something of the fight has gone out of the guy.

  “Cool, yeah, OK, but are you like, OK?”