Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel by Chris Strange Page A

the street.
    “They’re taking the woman as well as the baby,” the Carpenter said. He’d finished his prayer, apparently. Niobe followed his gaze and found McClellan’s sobbing widow in the shadow of the building opposite. They were leading her around the corner. “What the heck are they doing that for?”
    “She’s an accomplice. That’s prison time.”
    The Carpenter muttered something under his breath, his eyes dark behind his mask. “She’ll have a rough time of it.”
    “Yeah,” Niobe said. She studied the dead man stretched across the street. “You know, for a while, Amorph was one of us.”
    The Carpenter nodded.
    Niobe made up her mind in an instant. She reached into her pocket and tossed the car keys to the Carpenter. “Do you think you can get the baby?”
    He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll try.” He turned and jogged back down the stairs, and she followed. “What are you going to do?”
    “I’ll get Mrs McClellan away from the coppers,” she said. “If I can. Sound good?”
    “Sounds stupid.”
    “You always liked stupid.”
    She emerged into the morning light and followed the Carpenter towards the corner. The metas were slowly dispersing, refusing to make eye contact. Even the ones in costume walked with shuffling steps and bowed heads. No one spoke above a whisper. Niobe checked her goggles and started to move.
    The Carpenter’s head snapped around to follow one meta making his way down the street. She followed his gaze.
    “Hey!” Solomon called. “Hey, Brightlance.”
    The dark-skinned man was dressed in a yellow bodysuit with a tattered red cape pinned to the sunburst in the centre of his chest. He glanced back and kept walking.
    “Piss off, Carpenter. Now’s not the time.”
    Niobe kept one eye on the coppers as the Carpenter caught up to the ex-hero. Bloody hell. They didn’t have time for this.
    “Just give me a second,” the Carpenter said, loud enough for her to hear even a few steps behind. “We need your help with something.”
    “I know what you want. Piss off.”
    “You knew Amorph better than we ever did.”
    “Only because I was the one giving him a hiding whenever he tried to shoplift from Mum’s store.”
    The Carpenter grabbed Brightlance by the shoulders. “He turned it around. You turned him around. He got himself a family. Now you want to let the coppers take them away?”
    Brightlance planted his feet and shoved the Carpenter away from him. His palms glowed threateningly with blue light.
    Niobe reached into her coat and took a step towards them, but the Carpenter put his hand towards her, waving her back. Goddamn him. Grinding her teeth, she stopped and returned her hands to her side. She could see Mrs McClellan being escorted away. The woman had nearly disappeared from sight. Bugger this.
    “You really want them to take Amorph’s wife?” the Carpenter said, his voice low. “You really want them to have his baby? They’ll put a kill-switch in her.”
    Brightlance’s palms didn’t stop glowing. “She won’t be the only one. You think they’ll hesitate to flip my kill-switch if I try something? Go home, Carpenter. Take your pension, keep your head down, and go home. No one wants bloody superheroes running around anymore.”
    The Carpenter tried to take him by the shoulder again, but Brightlance shrugged him off and turned away, his cape fluttering in the breeze. He didn’t look back as he strode away with the rest of the metahumans.
    Niobe tried to see the Carpenter’s face, but his hat cast him into shadow.
    “We’re out of time,” she said.
    He watched Brightlance’s back for another moment, then turned and nodded. “I’ll do what I can. Meet me behind the old museum in an hour.”
    She slapped him on the arm, nodded, and broke into a run. She’d lost sight of McClellan’s widow, but she couldn’t be far. Sweat soaked into Niobe’s mask as she made her way through dirt-filled backyards and slipped over fences. She kept one hand on her