Intelligal zoomed up over the dancing flames and punched some buttons on her floating chair. Two flaps opened on the front of the metal contraption, and missiles rocketed out—straight at me. I waited until they were in range, lobbed two fireballs at them, and rolled out of the way. My fireballs slammed into the missiles, and they exploded in midair. The thunderous roar and resulting shockwave jolted the rest of the crowd out of its sheep-like state. People screamed and stampeded and sprinted down the lawn toward the metal gates a mile away. Smoke, soot, and ash darkened the spring sky.
Siren scrambled to her feet and sent a lightning bolt my way. I ducked it and retaliated with a fireball. Intelligal zipped back and forth over us, trying to get a clear shot at me with some more of her pesky missiles.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Johnny Bulluci. He ran through the wall of flames and launched himself onto Intelligal’s chair like it was something he did every day. What the hell did he think he was doing? I was the hero here, not him. The fool was going to get himself killed, and me along with him.
But I was too busy trying to dodge Siren’s energy balls and fry her alive to pay much attention to Johnny. I tried to get close enough to touch Siren, but she kept flinging lightning bolts at me. She was too smart to let me get within arm’s reach. Siren knew I could crush her to goo with my bare hands. I would, given half a chance. I’d wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze her like an orange.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth action, I started to wear Siren down. Her lightning bolts grew weaker, shorter, and slower, and she started backing away from me. I crouched down, ready to pounce on her, when something smacked into me.
“Oof!” I hit the ground so hard my flame-shaped mask left an impression in the smoldering grass.
It took me a second to realize Johnny Bulluci had fallen on top of me. Intelligal must have shaken him off her chair. Johnny didn’t look like it, but the guy weighed a ton. I knew. That’s what I bench-pressed.
“Move, move, move!” I roared.
Johnny rolled off me, onto his feet, and pulled me up in one smooth motion. I shoved him aside and raced toward the ubervillains. Too little, too late.
Siren hopped back onto Intelligal’s chair. A helicopter rotor sprang up from somewhere inside the device and started to whine and whir. Good grief, how many gadgets did the woman have on that thing? The two of them motored up, up, and away. I tossed a couple fireballs in the air, but Intelligal easily steered clear of them. Seconds later, the ubervillains disappeared from sight.
Damn. Just when I was getting warmed up.
“Fiera! Fiera!” someone shouted.
I turned. Chief Newman pointed at the lines of fire still burning on the lawn and threatening to scorch the gardens. I concentrated, pulling the heat back into my own body, and the flames snuffed out. The chief and the others started forward to see if I was injured. I waved them off and marched over to Johnny, who was staring into the sky as if he could see where the ubervillains had gone. Bella and Bobby Bulluci stood next to him, alternating their gazes between Johnny and the wild blue yonder.
“What the hell did you think you were doing? You almost got yourself killed,” I snapped.
“I was trying to take back what was mine and everybody else’s,” Johnny growled, not the least bit intimidated by the orange-red flames surrounding my body.
I leaned forward and focused my anger—and heat—on him. “That’s not your job, your responsibility. That’s what I’m here for. And I didn’t just go a couple of rounds with some ubervillains so you could try to play hero and die a horrible, static-charged death.”
“As you can see, I’m fine.” His green eyes narrowed. “And if I want to play hero as you put it, it’s no business of yours. Just because you’re a superhero doesn’t mean you can tell the rest of us what to do.”
That’s exactly what it meant, at least to me. Putting life and limb on the line for the fine citizens of Bigtime entitled me to a few perks. Bossing people around was one of them.
Johnny continued to glare at me. My hair sparked and crackled with fire. Arrogant man. First, he tried to seduce me, and now he thought he knew how to do my job better than I did. Johnny Bulluci didn’t know how close he was to getting strangled. I also had the oddest desire to singe his clothes off, yank him toward me, and kiss him until his eyeballs melted. Well, I’d stop before the eyeball-melting part. That could get a little icky.
I opened my mouth to berate Johnny some more when a white blur zipped by.
Swifte stopped in the middle of the lawn and struck a heroic pose. Hands on his hips, chest out, chin up. He was a tall, thin man who reminded me of a string bean. As his name suggested, Swifte was built for speed, not strength. The afternoon sun hit his back, and all the colors of the rainbow shimmered in the superhero’s opalescent spandex suit. Silver sparkles glittered on the edges of the wing-shaped mask that covered his face. I eyed him with distaste. Swifte’s getup was rather over the top, even for me. Superheroes, especially men, should not wear head-to-toe white. Ever. He so needed a makeover.
The superhero was so quick that he didn’t even stir up any of the sooty dust or hot embers that coated the grass. A black bag dangled from his gloved hand.
“You’re a little late, aren’t you, Swifte?” I sniped. “The party’s over.”
The superhero relaxed his media pose. He shrugged. “I was around. I heard the commotion and thought you might need a hand, especially since none of your friends showed up to help. Where’s the rest of the F5 gang?”
“Oh, they’re around somewhere,” I replied in a vague voice.
“Of course they are,” Swifte murmured, looking at Carmen.
I thought Carmen blushed. But it was probably just the heat lingering in the air that painted her cheeks a bright pink.
Swifte gazed out at the smoke and debris. “Well, you acquitted yourself nicely, Fiera. Even without your friends’ help.”
I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “I always do.”
“Well, I’ll just drop these off and be on my way.” Swifte shoved the bag at me and tipped his head to Carmen and Sam. “My congrats to the happy bride and groom.”
The superhero put his hands back on his hips and struck another pose. Then, he disappeared. One second he was here, the next he was halfway to Cypress Mountain.
I hefted the bag. The telltale clink and rattle of jewels and chains sounded.
“Is that what I think it is?” Henry asked, pushing his soot-streaked glasses up his nose.
I opened the bag and peered inside at the gleaming gems. “Yep. Somehow, Swifte lifted the stolen jewels off Intelligal’s chair.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Lulu chimed in. “I didn’t even see him.”
“Swifte is quick, I’ll give him that,” I said.
He was also rather annoying, popping up when you least expected him to, sort of like a zit. And he always zoomed off before you had a chance to talk to him. The only people who ever got to say more than twenty words to Swifte were the reporters from the Superhero News Network and other media outlets. He always had plenty of time to stop and talk to them. Showboat.
“Well, now that everything’s settled, can I have my watch back?” Johnny said.
I couldn’t believe his nerve. He’d gotten in my way, let the ubervillains escape, and now he wanted his shinies back? How shallow. Even for a rich, spoiled playboy.
“I don’t think so,” I snapped. “Not after the way you behaved. You can wait. The Fearless Five will get your items back to you in a few days.”
It was standard operating procedure in cases like this. We’d sort through the items, determine what belonged to whom, and mail them back to the rightful owners. It kept people like Joanne James from claiming that certain pieces of jewelry belonged to them when they really didn’t.
Johnny’s face hardened, his lips forming a tight line. I tore my gaze away from them and tried not to think about just how firm and warm they’d been earlier.
<
br /> “Let’s go, Johnny. Now.” Bella’s voice was sharp as a stiletto and twice as pointed.
“Yes, come along, Johnny,” Bobby Bulluci added. “I hardly think Fiera’s going to keep anything for herself. We can get the watch back later.”
I eyed the grandfather. Even though he was over seventy, Bobby Bulluci was still a handsome man. He stood straight and tall, with a trim body. His hair was a burnished silver, but his eyes were the same remarkable green that Johnny’s were. If Bobby was what Johnny would look like in another forty years, then the younger Bulluci was one lucky devil.
Johnny stared at his sister and grandfather. He turned back to me and took a deep breath. “The watch was my father’s. I’d like it back. Please. It has a lot of sentimental value to me, to my whole family.”
I started to say no, but something in his eyes stopped me. A bright flash of pain I knew all too well. The pain of losing someone you loved. I remembered what Joanne had told me about Bella’s father dying.
I held out the bag. “Take it.”
Johnny reached for the bag. Our fingers brushed, and I felt the need to blow off some steam. A few sparks flew out of my fingertips and landed on Johnny’s torn, dirty tux. He paused and patted them out.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Job hazard.”
“No problem.”
Johnny dug through the fancy baubles until he found what he was looking for—a simple silver watch. All that decorated the timepiece’s black face were a pair of wings, inlaid in mother-of-pearl. No diamonds, no jewels, nothing fancy. It wasn’t even a Rolex. Odd. Given how much he wanted it back, you’d think the watch would have been made out of solid platinum.
Johnny fastened the timepiece around his left wrist. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Johnny took his grandfather’s arm, and the Bullucis headed toward the gates, where the rest of the wedding guests milled about, waiting for their stretch limos to come take them home. That left just the six of us.
The chief put a concerned hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, Fiona? That was a pretty nasty fight.”
I stretched my arms over my head and did a mental inventory of my body. I felt a little sore in places, but that was it. With my superstrength, it took a lot to hurt me.
“Oh, I’m fine. It’s nothing a little liquor won’t cure. I need a drink. Fighting ubervillains is thirsty work.”
I strolled over to the bar, which had somehow survived the fires and explosions and lightning bolts, and grabbed a bottle of champagne. I yanked the cork out, took a long swig of the warm, bubbly liquid, and raised the bottle to the others. “Cheers.”
Chapter Five
“Are you sure we don’t need to stay here?” Carmen asked.
I rolled my eyes. “If you ask me that again, I’m going to burn your tongue.”
The five of us, plus Lulu, were down in the secret library underneath Sublime. Superhero Central, Carmen called it. To me, it was our War Room, despite the books and magazines and encyclopedias that clustered in the floor-to-ceiling shelves.
After calming down the frantic wedding guests and escorting them off the grounds, the Fearless Five had gone into full-fledged superhero mode. We’d spent the last couple hours in the library trying to track down Siren and Intelligal. With no luck.
“Intelligal must have some sort of cloaking device on that chair,” Henry muttered.
He was using his power, mind-melding with his supercomputer, to try and locate the ubervillains. A soft, bluish-white glow connected his fingers to the keyboard. The monitor reflected numbers and letters onto his round glasses, making them gleam. The symbols flashed by too fast for me to follow, but Henry had no trouble deciphering them with his photographic memory.
“There’s no trace of them. Not even a heat signature on the radar.”
“I’m sure you’ll find her, babe,” Lulu said, pounding away on her own computer nearby. “You always do.”
“Maybe we should stay here,” Carmen repeated.
“And abandon your honeymoon plans?” Chief Newman said. “There’s no need for that.”
Carmen paced around the room. She picked up one of her Rubik’s Cubes and turned it round and round in her hands as she slid the plastic rows of colors back and forth. “I feel like Siren and Intelligal are up to something. Something big.”
“Aren’t they always? It’s sort of what ubervillains do.” I leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on the round table that dominated the middle of the room. My black stilettos rested on top of the giant F5 insignia carved into the heavy wood.
Carmen shook her head. “This feels bigger than that. Like world-domination big.”
“Chief?” I asked my father.
He laced his fingers together. “I think Carmen’s right. They’re definitely up to something. They took a big risk crashing the wedding, and I’ve got the headache to prove it.”
“See? We should stay. Besides, those bitches ruined my wedding. They should pay.”
Carmen’s eyes flashed neon blue with rage. They only did that when she was very, very angry. Even I didn’t like to go up against Carmen when she was angry.
Sam put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to him. Carmen’s eyes brightened, taking on a different sort of glow.
“Don’t worry, they will,” Sam said. “The chief and the others will take care of them. You don’t want to cancel our trip, do you?”
An extravagant, no-holds-barred, month-long honeymoon around the world was Sam’s wedding present to Carmen. She’d be a fool to cancel on him just to track down a couple of measly ubervillains. But if she did, I’d be happy to take her place, and eat and shop my way around the globe. I could use a vacation, especially after today. As much as I loved being a superhero, there were times when the epic battles got a bit old. Unfortunately, ubervillains were a dime a dozen in this town, and somebody was always up to something. Which meant we superheroes always had to be on the lookout for trouble with a capital T.
“No, of course not,” Carmen said, leaning into Sam that much more. “But you know how I worry.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Sister Carmen,” Lulu said. “Henry will track them down, and then Fiona will fry their asses.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said. “I’m always up for a good barbecue.”
In the end, Carmen gave in. She and Sam got into a limo and headed for the Bigtime Airport, where Sam’s private jet was waiting to take them to London. They didn’t even make it out of the driveway before they tinted the windows and started canoodling in the backseat.
After seeing them off, in more ways than one, the rest of us talked for a few more minutes about the ubervillains and what they might be up to. But nobody had any bright, earth-shattering ideas, so we sorted through the stolen jewelry and packed it up to mail back to its rightful owners. Then, we closed down shop for the night. Too tired to make the drive back to my apartment in the city, I went to my suite down the hall.
Our underground lair beneath Sublime took up almost as much space as the manor house did aboveground. Wing after wing contained training rooms, gyms, kitchens, sick bays, and everything else a superhero could ever want or need. My suite was an enormous area, bigger than most apartments, and featured a bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen all rolled into one, along with a pitifully small closet. The others’ suites all had a similar setup except for one thing—mine boasted three oversized refrigerators.
I rustled around in one of the metal behemoths and came up with a platter of cold cuts, three kinds of cheese, and a loaf of crusty French bread. I made myself seven sandwiches and downed them with a six-pack of lemon-lime soda and a box of chocolate snack cakes. Due to my fiery metabolism, I could eat whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, and never gain an ounce. A whole pizza for breakfast, ten burgers and a bucket of fries for lunch, a couple of steaks and a pound of pasta for dinner. The only downside was that I constantly had to eat to keep up my strength. It got a
little tiring sometimes. Not to mention grossed people out. My father and Travis were the only ones who didn’t seem disturbed by my never-ending hunger and enormous appetite.
Travis. An icy hand squeezed my heart. I plopped down on the king-sized bed and picked up the picture of him on my nightstand. Blond hair, brown eyes, terrific smile. Travis Teague beamed at me. I’d missed him today. A lot. Carmen and Sam’s wedding had only reminded me of what I’d lost when Travis had been killed over a year ago. Of what I should have right now. I turned my ring around on my finger.
But as I looked at Travis’s picture, my thoughts drifted back to Johnny Bulluci and our encounter in the game room. The man could kiss, that was for sure. A couple of sparks flew from my fingertips and landed on the tile floor. If Johnny could work with his hands as well as he did with his lips and tongue, well, he could seduce me anytime.
Johnny Bulluci could be my rebound guy, I decided. Someone to have a little fun and a lot of steamy sex with before I started looking for the next Mr. Right. Travis had been my Mr. Right, but he was gone now. I would always miss him, but he wouldn’t want me to be a nun the rest of my life. Travis had been generous to a fault. He would understand me moving on. He’d encourage me to. I put Travis’s picture on the nightstand and carefully positioned it so he was smiling at me.
Yes, it was time to get out and live a little.
It was time for Fiona Fine to get back into the dating game.
*
The next morning, I drove my convertible into the city. I put the top down, stepped on the gas, and let the warm wind whip my blond locks into a tangled mess. The sporty car had been my present to myself for my thirtieth birthday a couple months ago. I loved the sleek design, the smooth ride, the fire-engine-red color. The four hundred horses under the hood weren’t too shabby either.
Before work, I swung by my apartment, located in the penthouse in Tip-Top Tower, one of the most expensive and exclusive buildings in Bigtime. I opened the door, flicked on the lights, and tossed my keys onto a table. My apartment featured ivory-colored granite floors and walls, fireproof up to three thousand degrees. No thick, shag carpet for me. I’d ruined too much of it in my life to risk having it in my home. No chintzy curtains either. Instead, metal screens covered the tall windows like blinds, giving me privacy from prying eyes, without being a fire hazard.