Chapter Twenty Seven
Whenever somebody asks me to define what a hero is, I remember Latane and Darley’s experiment, staging epileptic fits in front of
one, two, or three observers. A solitary observer will help immediately if he’s going to help at all, but the larger the crowd
the longer the delay. It’s the Bystander Effect: the wider the diffusion of responsibility, the greater the impulse to let
someone else go first. The hero goes first.
Dr. Mendell, Superhero Psychology.
* * *
Sometimes being the Good Guy sucks. I turned in my after-action report, showered, changed, and desperately missed Shelly. So I
went upstairs to the gym and rang the gong—the strike-plate I used for a punching bag—till the walls vibrated with each hit and
pain shot up my wrists, and tried to remember what Atlas had told me, to think strategically, like Ajax.
Most supervillains avoided direct confrontations with superheroes. Fashion-villains were mostly really gang-bangers, petty
criminals, or foot-soldiers for organized crime when they weren’t just posers—they were willing to throw down if confronted, but
not likely to target heroes. Professional villains, bank-robbers like Kitsune and professional killers like Hecate, considered a
superpowered fight a failure, win or lose. Supervillain terrorists—nationalists, religious fanatics, militant environmentalists,
whatever—generally went for easy targets (with enough exceptions for our crazy security).
Blackstone was right; the Dome attack had been a desperation move (Why? What did Kitsune know?), and Nemesis’ brief rampage didn
’t fit the pattern. He was probably just a lone nut who’d started talking to the walls and who’d latched onto Shankman’s
hateful talk. He’d grabbed for glory and committed ‘suicide by cape.’
I switched to Mr. Smith, my favorite practice dummy for targeting knee and elbow strikes.
But we didn’t know.
Tin Man had been a surprise—a burglar with no history of violence till now. Even before that, Artemis had been out every night,
scouring the underworld for leads, “talking” to people. She’d come up with zip, and we still had no in on their motivation and
methods, outside of their tendency to use bodies as messages. We saw no reason why their fight should directly involve us, but
that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
Mr. Smith came apart and I decided to stop before I trashed the place. My ribs ached and my chest felt tight. It can’t happen
again. It can’t.
We needed Kitsune, but how could we find a shapeshifter? How had Villains Inc. found her? They’d find her again and kill her, and
we’d have nothing. Who else could—?
I dropped to the floor, panting, and fell back to stare at the ceiling. The enemy of my enemy is my intelligence source. Kitsune
wasn’t the only player who knew more than we did.
* * *
When you tell a friend “I want to go visit a mob associate and convince him to tell us all he knows,” she says “Okay!” At
least if your friend is Artemis.
My displacement activity of choice had been a workout; hers had been to dive into her intelligence-analysis role, and she’d been
glad for anything that pulled her out of repeated combing of exhausted data. But once I told her exactly what I wanted to do, she
put her foot down; this had to be off the radar, and we weren’t going in cold. The night was old and a day to prepare was non-
negotiable, especially since we couldn’t tap Shelly’s special gifts right now.
Sternly ordered to go to bed!, I texted the parentals and the Bees, worried about Chakra and Blackstone some more, wondered how
Shell was doing as my head hit the pillow, and dropped into sleep.
Warm spring zephyrs danced across the moonlit hills. I lay on my stomach in the grass, propped up on my elbows, and watched the
parade of foxes circling the blooming cherry tree. As pale as the snow-white cherry blossoms, the foxes paced in silence. Glowing
points of ghostly fire drifted beside each of the elegant creatures.
One fox in the strange procession raised its head and turned to look at me with shining animal-eyes. It pricked its silver-tipped
ears towards our hill and the breeze changed direction, plucking blossoms from the tree to dance over the grass until they lighted
on my skin like flakes of fragrant snow. The beautiful creature followed the breeze, bounding gracefully over the young grass to
sit on the slope just below me. Its own spark of fox-fire followed along.
“How do you fair, human child?” it asked as I went cross-eyed trying to count its tails. Three? Five? When I tried to focus I
just saw one, but it multiplied when I looked away.
“I’m not a child,” I objected, giving up. “I’m almost nineteen. And why can’t you be John?”
“I could be, but you’d object.” It stretched its neck, like it was sore. “And I didn’t enjoy that the first time.”
I jerked upright in bed, heart racing.
Great. I was dreaming in Disney-color and even the talking animal couldn’t take me seriously. Still, an epiphany was an epiphany,
even if it was the head banging, how-dumb-can-I-be kind. Fisher was going to take away my Junior Detective badge. Pushing my hair
out of my eyes, I found my phone. He answered on the third ring.
“Astra? What time is it?” He spoke carefully, like someone who’d drunk a few too many and knew it.
“Half past four,” I said, reading off my nightstand clock. I dropped back onto my pillow, trying to shake the sleep from my
brain. “Sorry! I just thought—”
“Calm down, kid,” he said, getting clearer. “Now, what did you want to tell me?”
I took a breath, my free hand bunching my sheets as I stared at the shadowed ceiling.
“Kitsune. Kit-soo-neh. Fisher, I—” I almost said I know what this is about. But I didn’t, though I could feel it. What did I
know?
“Our elusive thief. Go on.”
“I can’t imagine why I missed it before. The fox on the business card. And when I saw her in the Dome, she looked—” Breathe.
You remember how. “She looked younger than in the bank video. Half-Asian.”
“I remember. And Jenny told me that kitsune is Japanese for fox. But the description you gave us doesn’t match anyone in our
databases.”
“Yes, but—. Wait, did Jenny say anything else about the name?”
“No, just that it sounds like our thief is Japanese. In Japanese folklore foxes are shapeshifters. What are you thinking, kid?”
I pulled myself up, trying to remember. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. My head was harder than the headboard.
“I think… A kitsune is more than just a fox. Jennifer’s right, but it’s more than that. In Japanese mythology all foxes are
spirits. They call them kami, I think. It’s complicated. I remember seeing a Japanese print—a gathering of white foxes around a
tree.”
What else? I’d known something when I woke up. “They can be male or female, but when they look human they’re almost always
beautiful women. And, and, as they get older they get stronger—the number of tails tells you how strong they are.”
“Number of tails?” He didn’t sound like he was laughing.
“The oldest and wisest have nine. I think the good ones serve a Japanese goddess, too—you see their carvings at a lot of
shrines.”
“So we should look for a fox with a plethora of tails?”
“No! Here’s the thing; if Kitsune is a supernatural—not a traditional breakthrough—he might think like a real kitsune—I mean
—” I sputtered and stopped.
“I know what you mean,” Fisher said reassuringly. “Do you remember anything from the stories? Motivations?”
Now I felt stupid. “No… I don’t remember them being greedy. Wait! I think sometimes they’d get attached to families. Do one a
favor, and it might watch out for your children? Or if a kitsune actually married a mortal, it might watch over its family
forever. Or take vengeance on anyone who harmed them.”
“That’s interesting. Where did you get all this?”
“Comparative mythology class. It’s all a lot more relevant since—you know. Does it help?”
There was a thoughtful silence on the other end, and I held my breath.
“It might,” Fisher said at last. “One thing I’ve been asking myself since the Dome attack is why this Kitsune is still in
Chicago. She’s got the bonds and everybody’s after her, but how can you stop a shapeshifter from skipping town?”
Now I felt really stupid.
“Blackstone talked like Kitsune was playing his own game.”
“Mm-hm. Any reason why you’ve switched to ‘he’?”
And then I knew what it was about. Part of it anyway.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“Kid?”
“I think I might have met him again last night. Yoshi Miyamoto.”
“Who?”
“Sakura Wind’s band manager.”
“Their manager is a Ren Katsu, and he wasn’t there. Kid?”
“He introduced himself as the band manager.” I pulled my voice back down. “And he had to know who I was, but he didn’t give me
his business card. And his English was too good and he knew Keats. Blackstone was wrong.”
“Wrong?”
I waved hands he couldn’t see.
“Not about—I mean—what he said made sense, but he didn’t know Kitsune was there!”
“Whoa, slow down, kid. Deep breathes now.”
I counted to five. Okay. “Blackstone assumes Nemesis was a nut-job who targeted us pretty much randomly so he could go out big.
Suicide by cape. He’s not saying that’s what Nemesis was—just starting there. But if Kitsune was at our table last night, he
could have been the target. At the Dome he—she—said ‘they’ were tracking her somehow…”
“And if they still can and want her dead,” Fisher finished for me, “it makes sense to use someone like Nemesis that nobody
would link to them. Kid, you might be onto something. We didn’t find anything pointing that way in Nemesis’ apartment lair, but
we’re going to look closer at everything. Can you tell me what he looked like?”
“Better. Phelps interviewed him while I was talking to you. Ask him—I can’t believe I missed it. I’m going to hang up and be
stupid now.”
Now Fisher really was laughing.
“Don’t beat yourself up. And thanks, kid. If you’re right, this gives us a lead to follow. And anything that adds to our psych
-profile is good.”
We hung up, but was too late to go back to sleep so I showered and dressed, leaving the mask and wig off while my hair dried. I’d
never get used to being in uniform nearly 24/7, and was already missing Shelly’s novel wakeup visits. On the plus side of
everything, I’d had no nightmares last night. After being so close to a kill I’d been splashed, from past experience I’d
expected my dreams to be no fun at all. Maybe the Word of Healing had changed the way my brain processed mental trauma.
Either that or I was getting hardened to violence. Mental note: talk to Dr. Mendel about it at our next session.
I called Dispatch to learn that Shelly was still on “sick-leave.” No surprise—it had been less than a day. Biting my lip, I
called downstairs and got Vulcan, who cheerfully reported that her transfer was “going very well” and I shouldn’t worry.
Yeah, right. I couldn’t help feeling like my BFF was undergoing an elective and risky medical procedure. To become a robot? When
Shelly’d gleefully announced her plan, I’d flashed back to the horrible, world-ending moment when Mom told me her body had been
found, that she’d jumped off an apartment building. Nearly four years ago now, and I still remembered the shock—like I’d run
into a wall that hadn’t been there. Why hadn’t I tried to talk her out of this?
Because being a ghost can’t be enough for anyone.
I sat and brushed my hair and tried to convince myself the situation wasn’t the same. Vulcan knew what he was doing. And if
something did happen, Shelly was backed up, right?
Enough. Worrying about Shelly did no good. Worrying about Chakra, or about what Villains Inc. might do next, did no good. But
there was something I could do while I waited for Artemis to green-light our little expedition.
Picking up my cell, I saw a message I’d missed when fumbling to call Fisher. Dane had texted “AB sd ys!” Good boy—he’d
probably only waited long enough to get the ring. Grinning ear to ear, I replied with multiple exclamation points and, on that
good-omened note, made a quick call of my own.