Dreams of the Golden Age Read online

  “Have you heard from Analise lately?”

  “She calls me when her kids leave the house. They’re going out about three times a week, and we’re usually able to find them when they do. They haven’t gotten into too much trouble. Yet.”

  “Oh, give them time.”

  “I’m afraid they’re enjoying all this a little too much.”

  Celia had to smile at that. Ah, to be young and superpowered in Commerce City. “Wait until finals week, that’ll slow them down.”

  He chuckled. “Whatever you say. And Celia—get some rest, you sound like you might be coming down with something.”

  Down and hitting bottom. “I might be. Thanks for the concern.”

  * * *

  Celia wouldn’t be able to keep doing these lunches. Her appetite was failing, so she sipped water and nibbled at her salad and hoped Analise didn’t notice she was off. Not that Analise would notice, because she was picking at her own salad and looking pensive. They’d hardly chatted at all, and nothing about their usual topics. The weight sitting over them was too heavy to ignore.

  “You okay?” Celia finally prompted, which was terribly ironic, she thought.

  “It’s killing me,” her friend said, setting down her fork. “I can’t stand it. I stay up all night worrying about them, and then having to pretend like nothing’s wrong, that I don’t know what’s going on. All I can do is tell Mark they’re out there and hope he can look after them.”

  The kids had a route they used to sneak out, to the roof of their building and then down the fire escape the next building over. Analise knew about it but didn’t try to stop them, just like Anna and the escape elevator. When Mark knew that the Trinity was active, he sent a patrol to watch them. Then Mark called back when the kids were on the way home. They didn’t always have a confrontation or adventure—sometimes they patrolled and nothing came of it. But he always let Analise and Celia know what had happened, so they no longer had to be surprised by the morning news. Yes, it was nerve-racking, but less so than it might have been.

  “I’ve been out there,” Analise continued. “I know how bad it can get, but when I think about Teia and Lew in the middle of that…”

  “How old were you when you started?” Celia asked.

  “Seventeen,” Analise said.

  “Did your parents ever figure it out?”

  “My dad was dead by then, and Mom … she wasn’t around much. Not physically, not emotionally. Half the reason I started going out was to get away from that. To prove to myself I wasn’t like that.”

  “It worked, I’m thinking.”

  “I’ve tried to be a better mother to my kids, I’ve tried to do right by them—”

  “You have. They’re good kids. They’re doing good. You knew if they had powers they were going to go out sooner or later.”

  “I wish it had been later. I’ll be wishing that when they’re thirty. Assuming they last that long.”

  “They will,” Celia said, quickly, reassuringly. “I mean, look at the Block Busters, how long have they been at this?”

  “Any sign of a Block Buster the Third coming along?”

  She smiled. “I’ve got my eye on him.” Junior had two small children, a girl and a boy. No signs of powers yet.

  “That’s the way to do it, go out as a team and keep your eye on the kids.”

  It wasn’t just fear for her kids tying Analise up in knots. She had a large dose of regret in there, too. A sense of failure. So much history contained in the lines of worry on her face. Her kids were out there alone because she couldn’t help them, and she felt like she’d failed them, Celia realized.

  Celia decided to risk it. She pushed her glass of water across the table, to put it in front of Analise, who stared at it like it might bite her.

  “Have you even tried?” Celia asked.

  Analise pushed the glass away. “It’s like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it goes away.”

  Celia didn’t believe that. “What would happen if you told them who you were?”

  “I don’t think they’d believe me. I can’t even prove it anymore. You think I should tell them?”

  “I think if you did, they might open up to you.” And she should probably take her own damn advice, shouldn’t she?

  “No, I think they’re having too much fun playing secret superhero. And I’m just their mother. What about Anna and Bethy? They tell you anything?”

  “Not a word. Not that I can blame them.”

  Analise grinned. “They probably know you’re keeping plenty of secrets up your own sleeve, Celia West.”

  Celia’s smile was thin.

  FOURTEEN

  ANNA spent way too much time on Rooftop Watch searching through shadowy cell phone pictures of purported superhuman sightings looking for news of Espionage—and the competition. Scattered among the usual posts were dozens of claims from people who’d seen the ghost of Captain Olympus pulling a small child from the street before said child got creamed by a car. Or alternatively that the ghost of Captain Olympus had been guiding the hand of the normal person who really grabbed the kid from the street. A whole miniature cult of people believed that her grandfather had been transformed into some divinely anointed guardian angel. She showed one of the articles to her mother once. Celia had smirked at it and observed that yes, she had seen the stories. When Anna asked her what she thought of it, Celia wouldn’t answer directly. “Doesn’t matter what I think. Never did,” she’d said.

  Anna wished she could have known him. She’d read so much about him. Her grandmother only ever said that she missed him, Dad said he was complicated, and Mom never said anything at all. None of them said anything about what Warren West had actually been like. Even the published biographies—all of them unauthorized—talked about Warren West like he was the disguise and Captain Olympus had been the real person.

  She ended up skipping over the ghost of Captain Olympus–as-guardian-angel stories because they all sounded the same and had the air of folklore. Once you cut through the fluff, Rooftop Watch really was the best place to get the most recent news on what the city’s superheroes were doing.

  The Trinity got written up in the blog four times this week. Espionage, only once. This made Anna furious, because it didn’t seem fair. They weren’t any stronger than her and Teddy, they were just flashier. They froze car thieves in ice, blasted vandals with lasers, and Lew saved a window washer who’d fallen from a building by launching a gust of wind under him until he landed safely. Even Anna had to be impressed at that one. Espionage mostly seemed to be good at voyeurism and running away.

  * * *

  She and Teddy went out on another patrol, like they’d planned.

  Teddy was already there when she arrived. He’d been there awhile—early. In the end, he’d go out on his own if she refused to go with him. She was glad she could be here to watch his back, even if that amounted to little more than calling 9-1-1 if he got in over his head.

  “Hey,” he said, when she turned the corner and jogged toward him. He was carrying the paintball gun again. “Ready for this?”

  For a moment, she didn’t know how to answer that. “Yeah,” she said with a sigh.

  He’d made adjustments to his outfit, which was looking more sleek, more official—he’d made himself a form-fitted skin-suit mask, black with a smoke-gray stripe across the eyes, and a smoky black shirt and gloves to go with his jeans. Ghostlike. She was still in a rough jacket and ski mask. When she thought about trying to put together something sleeker, her mind went blank. What would she use as a trademark? A skin suit covered in pink roses? Because that would strike fear into absolutely no one.

  She craned her neck, searching the rooftops even though she knew Eliot wasn’t around. He was back on campus. She’d have invited him along, but he still hadn’t e-mailed her, so she didn’t have a way to get in touch with him except to go find him. Never mind.

  “What is it?” Teddy said.

  “Nothing. Just thinking.”r />
  His lips tightened as he caught her gazing roofward. “You’re looking for the Human Pogo Stick—is he around, is that it?”

  “No—” Eliot wasn’t, but another familiar presence was. She tilted her head, tried to focus. Three familiar figures were moving this way, exactly where she didn’t expect or want to see them. Anna hissed a curse under her breath. “It’s the Trinity. Lady Snow and the others—they’re here.”

  “What? This isn’t their territory, they always go to the harbor.”

  “I know.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Ignore them,” Anna said, but she knew that wouldn’t be so simple. The trio wasn’t wandering but rather moving on a purposeful trajectory as if chasing someone. They’d found prey and were on the hunt.

  The trio emerged from a cross street ahead, confident shadows on a street where most of the lights were knocked out. Sam was in the lead, Teia and Lew behind, looking over their shoulders, keeping watch. The temperature dropped, a breeze picked up—Lew carrying a microstrorm with him. They’d gotten pretty good, she had to admit.

  Anna stepped forward into their line of sight and crossed her arms. She was pleased when Teddy fell into place next to her, also arms crossed.

  Sam spotted them first and, obviously startled, pulled into a fighting pose—feet spread, knees bent, arms raised, hands pointed. The others came up beside him and braced in their own poses, with whatever gestures they needed to use their powers. A lick of wind ruffled the hair that peeked out from under Anna’s mask. She was the only one of the bunch who wasn’t surprised or put off balance by the encounter.

  “Lady Snow. Stormbringer. Blaster. Hello,” she said calmly.

  Fortunately, none of the Trinity let loose with their powers; even Lew’s breeze faded away, once he realized who they were.

  Teia put her hands on her hips. “Anna, what are you—”

  “Compass Rose,” Anna shot back. “And what are you doing here? Don’t you guys usually patrol the harbor?”

  Lew laughed, Teia shook her head, and Anna wondered what she was missing. He said, “We’ve cleaned up the harbor. All the crooks have moved on because they know we’re watching the place. Pretty cool, huh?”

  Sam blew on his fingers like they were the barrel of a gun, and Anna rolled her eyes.

  “There’s crime all over the city, why’d you come here?” Anna said. “This is our territory.”

  Sam looked around dramatically. “I don’t see your flag planted anywhere.” He turned to the others. “That’s car’s going to be coming up this way any second, we don’t have time to fuck around.”

  “What’s going on?” Anna asked.

  When Sam pointed at her, a shiver of fear twisted her gut—he wouldn’t really blast her, would he? “We’re busy, you kids step back and watch the real supers work.”

  Teia shook her head at that. “There’s a car full of gangbangers tearing up the neighborhood. We came this way to try to cut them off.”

  Exactly the kind of thing they could do with their powers. Anna and Teddy, not so much. She was inclined to walk off, leave them to it, and find easier pickings. No matter how degrading that would be.

  Teddy stepped forward angrily. “We’ll take care of it, this is our territory.”

  “How are we supposed to know that? We don’t know what you do, you never make it into the news,” Teia said.

  Did she have to keep rubbing their faces in it?

  Lew pointed at the gun. “Paintball? That’s what you guys are reduced to?”

  “Cut it out, it works,” Anna said. At least, it worked that one time.

  “Tag and bag,” Teddy said, like it actually meant something, and hefted the gun like it actually meant something.

  “Look,” Anna said, wanting to get away before she said something stupid, or rather more stupid. “There’s plenty of trouble for all of us. We’re wasting time standing here arguing—”

  The slide and wail of a police siren echoed down the canyon of tenement buildings. They all perked up like hunting dogs.

  “We didn’t call the cops,” Lew said. “What are the cops doing here, poaching our catch?”

  Teia turned to Anna. “This is exactly what I was talking about. We don’t even have to call the cops to clean up our bad guys because they’re always already there!”

  “Guys, incoming!” Sam yelled.

  The siren was getting closer. A car’s tires squealed against the asphalt, turning a corner at high speed.

  “Let’s go,” Lew said and took off running in the direction of the presumptive car chase. Teia and Sam followed right behind.

  Anna and Teddy looked at each other. Teddy shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind seeing what they do next.”

  “We might want to back up a little,” Anna said. They pressed back against the brick wall.

  Another siren joined the first. The Trinity was strung out along the block when the squealing tires rounded even closer than before, and a battered SUV swung onto their street. The pair of men visible in the cab—the vehicle’s headlights were off—must have been trying to lose the cops in the grid of empty streets. But it wasn’t working; the sirens were getting louder. And now the SUV raced right toward them.

  What happened next might have been choreographed, an elegant display of what everyone who didn’t actually have superpowers thought it must be like to have them. Teia—Lady Snow—acted first, jumping into the street. Anna almost screamed at her to get out of the way of the rocketing SUV. But Teia had a plan. Kneeling, she put her hand on the ground and a sheet of ice thick enough to skate on expanded away from her, covering the street to the next sidewalk and for a block in either direction, right before the SUV careened onto it.

  Stormbringer moved in. A blast of wind came from nowhere—no, it came from straight down, sliding along the side of the building behind them, hitting the ground, slamming into the street. Anna dropped to the ground to avoid getting smashed by it; they all did.

  The SUV spun out. The wind shoved it, and the frictionless ice carried it to the far side of the street, where it jumped the curb, tipped sideways, and slammed into a brick façade, with the crunching of steel and a shattering of glass.

  The crash didn’t stop the two guys from climbing out of the wreckage, brandishing guns. The team backed off, letting the men—typical hoodlum types in leather jackets, worn jeans, dressed up in too much attitude—scramble out of the car and step onto the ice. They held guns at the ready, and Anna figured it was already too late to run.

  Blaster’s turn to step forward, arms outstretched. Both hands emitted a series of short blasts, pops of light streaming out. Each stream hit one of the guys, who fell back, sliding on the ice, slamming against the wreckage of their car. They were down.

  The Trinity really was a team. They really could do anything.

  Anna felt a little more useless than usual.

  The two men were alive, struggling as they tried to pick themselves up off the ice, falling again, groaning in pain. Lady Snow leaned on the ground again, and another layer of ice grew across the first, thickening until sheets of it expanded and reached up for the men, encasing limbs, locking them in place. Their guns were long gone, shot out of their hands by Blaster’s lasers.

  Three police cars roared up, two patrol cars and an unmarked sedan. They screeched to a stop at the edge of the ice slick.

  “Guys, cops,” Lew called unnecessarily, but it drew the attention of the others.

  “They ought to thank us,” Sam muttered. “Got their guys all tied up for them.”

  For once, Teia didn’t seem inclined to pose for any cameras. “I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t stick around for pictures this time.”

  A pair of officers from one of the cars was circling around the ice patch to the wreckage of the SUV, shouting orders at the hoodlums to freeze, which should have been hilarious, but no one was laughing. The guys had started to break out of their ice shells, which ended up being quite thin, but they didn’t s
truggle when the officers picked a path to them, handcuffs in hand. They were wearing cleats on their shoes, Anna noticed. Like they’d planned for it, like they’d dealt with Lady Snow’s ice slicks before.

  A spotlight from the second car switched on, blasting their side of the street with light.

  “Guys, scatter,” Teia hissed, and the Trinity ran down the street, away from the cops. They’d had practiced running from cops just as much as they’d practiced everything else. Splitting up, each turned a different corner, in a different direction. To catch them, the police would need manpower and a concerted plan. What they had was two guys cautiously approaching as if hoping to catch a wild animal. Instead of giving chase, they cursed and stopped.

  “Anna…” Teddy started, then vanished. Turned invisible and ran. She sensed him retreating.

  “Wait a minute—” But he was long gone.

  She made the mistake of turning to look straight into the light when she launched her own attempt at escape. Temporarily blinded, hands shielding her face, she ran up the block, but she was well behind the others. In lieu of other targets, the cops went after her. They were calling at her to stop, but they weren’t threatening to shoot, so she kept running.

  She hadn’t noticed that the unmarked sedan had left the scene, circled the block, and now sat parked at the end of the sidewalk. She pulled up, trapped by the cops behind her, the car in front of her, and the ice on the street. She gave a wordless, frustrated scream. Teddy and the rest had all just left her here. The jerks. The assholes.

  The plainclothes cop leaning against the hood of the car ahead of her was Paulson, captain of the downtown precinct. She knew it before she even saw him. Thank goodness she was wearing her mask. It had been a year or so since he’d been to the house for dinner, since he’d seen her. Probably, he wouldn’t recognize her. Except he already knew, because he was working with her mother, just like everyone else in Commerce City with any kind of authority.