CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

San Ventura mornings in summer were generally foggy, the hot air sweeping off the desert inland mixing with the cool air from the Pacific, the resulting condensation dumped right on top of the coastal city. For those up early enough, before the thick gray mist was burnt off by the Californian sun, it was a pleasant relief from the egg-frying temperatures overnight. The cooler temperatures brought joggers, commuters, and old people out for a walk through one of the city's many parks. Early morning in San Ventura was the best part of the day.

Tony stood at the kitchen basin, looking out of the small window at the mural on the flat cinderblock wall of the building opposite. The ocean scene was a peculiar mix of Sixties surfer art and traditional Japanese illustration. It was beautiful, and perfectly positioned to be enjoyed from the row of apartment buildings that lined this side of the street. That it hadn't been whitewashed by the city wasn't too much of a surprise. San Ventura had a strong art community, and while the mural was probably listed on a chart of graffiti problems, the city council would have given a tacit agreement to not get around to erasing it for, oh, thirty or forty years.

"Hey," said Jeannie, padding into the kitchen. Tony turned from the window and smiled, then reaching out, took her hands and spun her around to embrace her from behind. With his arms around her waist, he planted a kiss on the back of her neck.

Jeannie shook her head and laughed. "The one time of the day the temperature is livable, and you want a hot drink? Are you sure your superpowers don't include retarded in the head?"

Jeannie pulled away, and Tony smiled knowingly at her as she turned back around. He held a finger upright in a mocking gesture of silence, then grabbed the electric jug. After filling it from the faucet and replacing it on its base, he touched its metal side with his hand. Almost at once, the sound of boiling water echoed from inside, steam billowing from the spout. Five seconds later he had poured the water into a teapot, the side of the still disconnected electric jug glowing a faint orange.

"Wow!" Jeannie's faked surprise made Tony laugh. Mouth wide, she raised her hands to her face in pretend shock, then almost jumped on Tony in a bear hug. "You're my hero! Superhero tea-maker extraordinaire!"

"Whatever." Tony laughed and they kissed. After a while he extricated himself and moved to the sink to finish making his tea. He glanced up out of the window instinctively. Now there were a couple of black vans parked in front of the mural. It briefly crossed Tony's mind that this was odd, as it was a no-stop zone, but he also knew that parking violations in this part of town were not uncommon.

"I'm on the afternoon shift at work today," he said, still looking out of the window. "How's your head? You feel like doing anything this morning?" The bruise on Jeannie's forehead was fading fast but he knew that a bump like that took a while to come right.

"Tea and apples!" Tony opened the small fridge and took out a small red apple. "They can make up for a lot of lost time, you know. People think coffee is the answer. Uh-uh." He waggled his finger again. "Apples. Tea. A magical combination."

Tony stirred the teapot, and the apartment front door exploded inwards. He dropped the apple and jerked his other hand, overturning the pot and sending scalding hot liquid across the bench and splashing Jeannie's bare feet. "The fuck…?" was all he managed before the shouting began.

The door had come completely off its hinges and was buckled at the center, and lay at an angle like a makeshift skateboard ramp. In the corridor beyond, Tony could see a black-clad, helmeted man step backwards, pulling a two-handed battering ram out of the way as two similarly attired comrades rushed in. These ones were carrying formidable automatic weapons, their laser-assisted sights firmly pressed against their protective goggles, eyes expertly trained along the stub barrels. Four letters in bold white advertised their affiliation across each armored chest.

Behind them, lingering for a moment longer just around the edge of the doorway, were two plainclothes police – detectives; a man, dark and Latino, and a platinum-blonde woman − with black Kevlar vests strapped over their shirts, regular pistols held close and at the ready. Both wore clear protective eyewear.

"San Ventura Police Department! Do not move! Do not move!" The command from one of the armored police was screamed at Tony's direction, and seemed perfectly unnecessary. Tony was frozen in shock, hand and arm still outstretched from when they had been holding his freshly brewed tea. He blinked away the dust from the shattered door and glanced over his shoulder, towards the kitchen, but Jeannie was nowhere to be seen.

The two detectives moved into the apartment. Both kept their guns pointed at Tony as the heavily armed cop who had given the order gestured for his colleague to explore beyond the room. Behind, the male detective backed off a little, and started looking around the room. His companion's gaze never shifted from Tony.

Tony nodded. The female detective adjusted her grip on her gun. "We don't have time for this. Is she here? We'll turn this place upside down if we have to."

Tony's mouth twisted into a smirk. He just couldn't help it. He saw the reaction it provoked in the detective, one of surprise and suspicion, her head moving back a little as her eyebrows dipped together over the bridge of her nose.

There was a cry from the kitchen. Tony turned to see the armored policeman return to the front room, machine gun in one gauntleted hand, the other wrapped around Jeannie's upper arm. She looked pissed, but didn't struggle.

"Jean Ravenholt, aka Blackbird, you are under arrest for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, treason, conspiracy to commit treason…"

"Blackbird?" Tony interrupted the detective's recitation of charges. Nobody spoke. The detective's eyes flicked up and down Tony, standing barefoot in pajama bottoms and black T-shirt.

Tony ignored her, and took a step forwards. All four guns instantly moved in his direction. The policeman who had used the battering ram appeared in the apartment's doorway, his own gun now raised.

Tony glanced sideways at Jeannie. Her demeanor had changed, her face now white, eyes wide, her whole body trembled gently in the policeman's grip. Tony's expression had turned from surprise to anger.

"You're Blackbird? You're the Cowl's bitch? What the fuck, Jeannie? Please tell me she's full of shit." He jerked his head towards the female detective.

Jeannie took a step backwards. Tony watched the fear spread over her. Things began to make sense: her schedule of training, her mysterious job, how she had access to the tech required to make his Justiciar costume. All of it. It all made sense. Clearly his new superpowers – which, somehow, she must have had a connection with – including gullibility and falling for any old made-up shit.

Tony clenched his fists and Jeannie flinched. Tony saw the look in her eyes. She was afraid, not of the police. Afraid of him. She knew what Tony was capable of now.

Huh. Superpowers. It had to be her. This might have been a strange city where weird shit could happen, but it couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Tony shook his head, amazed that he could have been so blinkered.

The first armored policeman stepped towards Jeannie, unhooking a set of powercuffs hanging from his belt as he did so. The restraints were wide manacles, complete with mini keypad control and winking LEDs, and had been developed by Hephaestus for restraining superpowered criminals. Given that Blackbird and the Cowl were the only two left, and had been for a couple of years, Tony realized this must have been the first time they'd be used in quite a while.

Tony kept quiet, ignoring the cops, and returned his stare to Jeannie. A hundred emotions coursed through him: anger, jealousy, love, and fear were just a selection.

"Tony, we need to get out of here." Jeannie's voice was low, not a whisper, but quiet and slow, emphasizing each word clearly so there could be no misunderstanding. "I know somewhere we can go," she continued. "I can explain everything."

"Fuck you." Tony's hands flew towards the cop with the cuffs. One hand grabbed the gun, the other the man's forearm. He flicked upwards, bending the gun barrel and snapping the man's hand almost off. The policeman screamed and hit the floor on one knee. As his helmeted head got close to Tony's right knee, Tony kicked outwards, sending the man careering full across the apartment to slam into the wall. The man slumped in the corner, and didn't move again.

The two less-protected detectives stepped backwards as one, towards the front room's large main window. Showing years of ingrained police training, they raised their pistols in unison, and after a perfunctory warning shout, began firing, not even pausing for surrender. At the same time, the cop in the doorway opened up, sending high caliber rounds two at a time, almost experimentally, perhaps realizing that Tony was no ordinary civilian but unsure how much punishment he could take. The one holding Jeannie spun her around and forced her to the floor on her front, shielding her with his own body.

The bullets were hitting Tony, there was no doubt about it. In a few seconds his black T-shirt was torn and smoking. He took a moment to focus on the hot water tapping on his skin as the slugs were compressed to molten slag, and dripped off, burning away his thin clothing as they did so. The pistol rounds were surprisingly sharp, but felt small, like someone flicking his skin with a fingernail. The automatic weaponry packed more of a punch, each burst of paired bullets more like being hit by a fast-thrown tennis ball. He closed his eyes, counting the shots, nostrils flaring as the tangy smoke from the burning cloth of his top curled around his face.

The detectives stopped shooting first. Sensible. The woman was on a radio. Standing ten feet away, Tony reached out with one arm, and the radio's plastic casing split in the detective's hand before the device was wrenched from her grip and tossed against the wall.

They really weren't prepared for anything like this, Tony thought. As he accelerated towards the cop in the doorway at half the speed of sound, he considered how botched the raid had been. They clearly lacked any more operational intelligence than a basic connection between Jeannie, Blackbird, and − somehow − Tony's apartment. Blackbird was only moderately powered, and they'd come with powercuffs and small arms. That was it. Which meant they had no idea that the Cowl's girlfriend was also shacked up with the Justiciar. They had no clue who Tony was. The female detective had recognized him from the CCTV footage, but there had been something in her eyes, a sign of sudden recognition, of hesitation. They hadn't been expecting him.

Tony brought his arms up and hit the policeman with his own body at Mach 0.7 before stopping almost instantly. There was a surprisingly loud and wet crunch as the man's chest imploded, his head thrown back and helmet knocked clean down the corridor with the force of the impact. Tony spun and flicked out three globes of blue plasma, the force of their impact sending the policeman's burning body after it.

Already the male detective was radioing for superpowered assistance − Tony swore as he realized he'd overlooked the second detective's radio − and there was a very real possibility that the officer pinning Jeannie to the floor would get nervous and not look when he started shooting.

Tony took three steps forward, his bare feet sticking slightly to the melted carpet which had been seared an inch into the floor by his burst of superspeed. The officer was lying directly on top of Jeannie. Without a second thought he reached down, grabbed the man by a booted ankle and, swinging him directly upwards, embedded him in the ceiling. He was still moving, so Tony pulled him back down, snapped his automatic weapon clean in half, and broke his neck in one clean sequence of moves. Dumping the body, he carefully helped Jeannie up, concentrating on winding his superstrength down so he didn't throw her across the room too.

Tony looked Jeannie in the eye. She smiled, looking almost apologetic. Tony sighed, and shook his head. The cops had got it wrong, there was no way Jeannie was the Cowl's dumb bitch. No way.

The pair turned around. Behind them, the two detectives had retreated into the corridor, but if help was on the way, the front door was not the best exit. Tony turned, glanced around the apartment, and decided on the main windows that led out to the street below.

"Mr Prosdocimi," called the female detective from the corridor. "I don't know who you really are or why you're protecting her, but Blackbird is wanted on multiple counts. We need to take her in, to stop the city being torn up. It's just one step from her to the Cowl."

Tony smiled. "You really don't know who I am?" He looked at the wrecked bodies of the two armored cops. Smoke curled around the apartment's front door as the body of the third continued to smolder out of sight.

There was a sound from the corridor. Tony turned his hearing up and caught the end of a whispered conversation between the two detectives. The Seven Wonders, apparently, had acknowledged their call and were on their way. Then the female detective answered Tony's question.

Then the male detective spoke up. "The Seven Wonders are on the way. All of them. Give it up before they teach your sorry ass a lesson." The words were slightly braver than their delivery.

Jeannie grabbed Tony's arm again. He flinched, irritated at the interruption to his thoughts. He was calculating an escape, working out whether the detective was right or not. Maybe he was… it would only take a second to kill the pair, evaporate them with a plasma blast perhaps, but if that second was enough for the superheroes to arrive, they'd be finished. So much for becoming the Eighth Wonder. In his haste he'd killed three police already. But… he'd had to, hadn't he? It was necessary, to control the situation and to stop them all making a big mistake, thinking that his girlfriend was Blackbird.

She looked him in the eye, and nodded at the window. Tony grabbed Jeannie in a bear hug that buried her head in his chest and under his arms, and exited the apartment via the apartment window. The force of the impact tore half of the exterior wall open as well.

Detectives Sam Millar and Joe Milano gingerly walked back into the apartment, now half in the open air. The pair stood there, unmoving for a moment, then lowered their guns. Sam ran to the hole in the wall in time to see Tony and Blackbird speeding across the sky. Then the wind from the opening changed direction and caught her hair, pushing it in front of her face. She brushed it away, and gasped. Floating in the air outside the apartment were Aurora, Bluebell, Linear and the Dragon Star. Aurora's arms were folded and his face set as he floated forward, stepping onto the apartment floor, the others following. Sam stepped back, giving the team room and trying to get away from the heat of Aurora's rippling corona.

Joe slapped his thigh. "Gee, thanks for coming, but you're too late!" He waved at the partially demolished wall in frustration. "Pardon me for saying this, Mr Aurora sir, but Blackbird and that new creep with superpowers just took off, and you don't seem to give a shit. You should be chasing after them right now!"

Aurora stepped closer to Joe, his gray hair swimming with agitation in the plasma that flared off the top of his head. Still his mouth was set in the expression that wasn't quite a smirk, his eyes empty white ellipses in his half-mask. Now the context of the conversation had changed, Aurora didn't look quite as friendly as the noble leader of San Ventura's finest should.

"Don't worry, Detective Milano," the superhero said after a beat. "Hephaestus and SMART are tracking the felons, and even now are moving to apprehend the pair with Sand Cat." He glanced at his team, then turned back to Sam and Joe.