Dogboy: Eye of the Scarab | Part 3: The Demon's Seal

PART 3 — THE DEMON’S SEAL

July 28, 2005
Inside City Hall
7:52 PM

1

Bronson flipped the page in his SPRING-HEELED JACK’S FIGHTIN’ FOURTEEN comic book as the street lights came on outside the bathroom window. The cover showed a group of Golden-Age-era heroes battling an evil cloud. When he was done, he rolled up the comic and stuck it in his back pocket. A quick peek out from his hiding spot in the last stall to make sure the hall lights had turned off automatically like John Upton-Haywood had outlined in his dossier.

He’d been alone in the first-floor bathroom since he’d hidden there after arriving at City Hall a few minutes past 5 PM. The instructions told him to wait until they turned the lights off at eight o’clock. They’d been pretty spot-on. He pulled out his costume, but as he went to put on his dog mask, he noticed a black globe mounted above the sinks. “Nice try, your highness, but you aren’t getting my secret identity today.” He held up his hand, producing a glowing orange ball of light, which he chucked at the camera. The lens shattered, glass shards shattering against the porcelain countertop. The ball returned to his hand, then he absorbed it through his palm.

Dressed in his costume, Dogboy cracked open the door leading out to the hallway. Nobody around. Everything was going according to plan until he heard voices around the corner. He saw two blurry figures reflected in the glass in the door to the Water Office.

“We are already in motion on this,” the taller figure said. “These new arrivals move up our time line. That’s all. Don’t let the forgotten one get hurt. We need to keep her safe. You-know-who’s orders.”

The other man poked the first one in the shoulder. “Sir, I appreciate the mercy you’ve shown me in extending this opportunity, but I only accepted the offer on the condition that you’d let me care for my beloved Andrus. When will you-know-who allow me to see him?”

Dogboy recognized the man’s voice: Osbert Collingwood, Andrus’s second in command in the Guild of Thieves. What was he doing here at City Hall? The last time Dogboy had seen him, he was handcuffed to a bunk bed in Curleyworld, waiting on the police to arrive.

“Andrus?” the other man said. His meter was measured, his speech deliberate. “Remember. He’s nearly dead up there. Continue your tests, or we’ll be forced to end his suffering. Keeping a criminal like him alive might be seen as too heavy a burden on the taxpayers with an election coming up.”

Dogboy recognized Mayor Lane’s voice even in hushed tones. He considered confronting them both then and there. But that wasn’t smart. Better to stick to his mission then come back later to crack the case.

Osbert hung his head then swung open the door to the stairwell. “Of course, sir. By the time your press conference starts tomorrow, I’ll have a team of teen superheroes ready for you to reveal them to the world.”

Again Dogboy’s curiosity was piqued. Teen superheroes? Cindy was always talking about how the mayor was doing something weird to those kids over on the west side. Maybe it was connected. He couldn’t ignore the scene he’d stumbled upon any longer. This was a job for Dogboy if he’d ever seen one.

“Let’s see how you handle one teen superhero first,” he said, jumping into view. He pulled back his hand, ready to strike with his patented energy blast.

Osbert smiled, reaching into the dress shirt pocket under his sweater vest. “Ah, you. I was wondering when you’d bumble your way into this mess.” Osbert tossed a black wafer with gold circuitry embedded in its surface down between Dogboy’s feet. A high-pitched whine filled the room as it rumbled around on the ground. A white shockwave ripped out then up through Dogboy’s body, freezing him in place. “Lane, go! Protect the orchid at all costs. The Osbinistration unit works better when attached to the subject, but it should hold him until I can send Destiny up to handle him.”

“Go. Get her. Then continue with the next Cycle. And never speak to me that way again, especially in front of D.B.” Mayor Lane grabbed Osbert’s collar. “Go, you snail. Before the device gives out.”

The mayor ran off, leaving Osbert alone with the neutered hero. He leaned in, staring past the mask into Dogboy’s eyes. “I know so much more now, Dogboy,” Osbert said. “I understand your powers better than you do. Wait until we bring you down to Freaktown. I have so many…theories to test.”

When Osbert left, Dogboy considered trying to force out an energy blast but realized quickly that aiming a weapon down between his legs might end badly. Instead, he focused on freezing time. It didn’t want to work at first, but then he heard a loud POP in the back of his head and the color drained from the world.

Time out. The clock stops. He feels power flowing through his veins as he puts some distance between himself and the Osbinistration unit.

Time in.

Dogboy went to chase the two men— No. Stick to the plan. Where’s the map? Ah, yes. Down these stairs to the sub-basement, then straight back to the panel. Simple. Direct. Whatever Freaktown was, he figured it would be there after he’d completed his task.

He barged through the stairwell door then jumped down the first flight of stairs. He peeked around the handrail. All clear. On down the remaining flights until he came to a large black door with a card reader mounted next to it. Dogboy took the ID card John had provided him from his pocket and swiped it through. The light turned green. The door clicked. He walked through then continued down the hallway.

He walked with purpose. With impunity. Without fear. The way was clear. A quick walk, two more locks, and that panel was toast. He didn’t notice the red light beam sweeping across the hallway a few inches from the ground, but it noticed him. When his ankle broke the beam, an alarm sounded. Before he could hide, he heard the sound of boots marching toward his position from down the hallway.

Time out. He runs toward the sound. A dozen policemen are coming for him with guns drawn. His lungs burn. Time to take a breath. He lets time flow long enough to inhale then flicks an officer’s ear’s before freezing time again. The ear freezes in the air, a blurry mess of motion. He runs behind the officers then straightens his spine to imitate their too-perfect posture.

Time in.

“Ouch,” snapped an officer as he threw a protective hand over his ear.

The officers continued down the hall. Their commander shouted instructions back to the men. “Quiet. Follow my lead. We don’t know how many there are.”

“Yes, sir,” they all said. Dogboy said it as well, but he was a half-second behind the others.

The commander noticed the delay. He snapped his neck around. “Who’s the kid?” he asked.

“Some people call me ‘the curse of Colta City.’” Dogboy said. “Others call me ‘The Bark Knight.’ I prefer Dogboy, thank you very much.”

The commander pulled out his pistol and fired it at the teen terror. Before the bullet left the chamber, Dogboy hopped out of time, ran to the gun, then pointed it up at the ceiling. Time in. The commander jumped as the bullet’s breech knocked some drywall dust down on his head.

“What the hell was that?” the commander said.

“You’d better watch your language, mister,” Dogboy said. “My mom would’ve slapped me for saying something like that. Since she’s not here, I guess I’ll do the honors.” Dogboy produced his orange ball again then tossed it at the wall. It went clean through, leaving nary a mark on the eggshell paint job. “Fetch,” he told the commander, who ran at the wall. He did not go through like the ball had. His forehead smacked against the plaster. He fell, smacking his head on a cleaning cart parked by the wall.

Before Dogboy could deal with the other cops, they started taking care of themselves. Two-by-two they slammed their heads together, knocking themselves out in the process. Their expressions as it happened looked as confused as Dogboy felt. A girl’s laugh bounced around the hallway.

“Look at me,” yelled a female voice from…somewhere? Hard to say. It was getting closer though.

Dogboy cocked his head to the side then sniffed the air. A strange scent. Perfume, oil, and sweat. “Who’s there?” he asked.

“I’m standing right here. I’m right in front of you. Look at me.” Some invisible force smacked him across the face, chipping his already worn-down mask. “Fine. Don’t look. You’re the one missing out. I can’t really… and I thought you were cute too… I can’t, like, keep fighting you if you can’t see me. Wouldn’t be fair, right?” A box labeled CARPET FRESHEST floated off the cleaning cart then turned upside down, raining white powder down. It made the air smell like lilacs. Most of the powder didn’t make it to the floor. It caught on wet, invisible skin in midair, eventually outlining a young girl’s body. From the outline, Dogboy could tell she was about his age. Her hair was pulled up in two tight, short pigtails on top of her head. Whatever clothes she was wearing must have fit her form snuggly since Dogboy couldn’t see any seams. The powder around her mouth bunched up as she smiled.

“Yeah, there you are,” she said, licking her upper lip. The powder across it disappeared “Like what you see?”

Dogboy pretended not to notice the girl’s more appealing attributes. “I like that I can see you now, if that’s what you mean. Thanks for helping me with the cops. Who are you anyway?”

“I’m the bad girl, and according to the professor, you’re the good guy. I’m here to take you back with me to Freaktown. Tell you what. I’m already a hot mess. Why don’t you surrender and maybe we can hit the showers.”

Dogboy backed away, unsure how to approach this new foe. Most bad guys were adults, bigger than him and ruthless. How do you fight a girl? Especially one who’s so… nice. Just nice.

“What’s Freaktown? Wait. That’s where Osbert was going. Do you know Osbert?”

The girl’s body faded back into view… still transparent, but her clothes were all there at least. “The professor? Sure do. You know, I would have—and this is coming from somebody who doesn’t care about celebrities at all—I would have, like… I would have come after you anyway. They call me Destiny, sweetie. I’ve been crushing on the big dog for months now.”

She sauntered up to Dogboy, running her fingers down his cape’s outer seam, following it along his shoulder, across his chest, then down to his waist. He felt a churning in the pit of his stomach like there were bubbles spinning around inside. “There’s something really hot about a boy in a cape.”

“Cindy knows I’m here,” he blurted out.

“Who’s Cindy?” Destiny asked, running her hand through his mop-head hair. “I’ll be sure to tell her you were thinking about her at the end.” She yanked his hair (and his head with it) pitched it into the wall. He stumbled then caught himself and spun around.

Time out as he stumbles. He takes some handcuffs from an unconscious officer that he uses to chain Destiny to a water fountain beside her.

Time in.

Her hand jerked against the handcuffs. She glanced down. “Ah, a speedster, huh? We got a few of you down there already.”

“Speedster? Like The Flash?” Dogboy said, backing down the hallway. “Nope, but I can stop time for—I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“Boys tell me all sorts of things after I’m done with them,” Destiny said. “Why don’t y’all stick around a while longer and I’ll show you?”

“Sorry, but I’m on a mission. Plus, if I understand you, I don’t think Cindy would like that too much.”

The girl looked distraught. He bottom lip puffed out. “You… you tell your Cindy she’s a pretty lucky girl.”

Dogboy puffed out his chest and smiled under his mask. “Really? You think?” he asked.

“Of course not, dumb ass,” she said, sticking out her tongue at him while pulling her eye open with her finger. “You better not be planning on leaving me here. Nobody ignores me, especially some stupid boy.” As she spoke her body began to fade away again until she was nothing more than some wavy lines in the air, like heat lines over a barbecue in summer.

Dogboy shook his head and ran away, Destiny’s cries fading behind him. Eventually he came to a door with two glass windows. Wire mesh ran through the glass. He held up the console diagram and compared it to the actual console sitting in the room beyond.

A deep breath. A frozen moment. An orange bolt. Shattered glass. Time in, and he’s standing before the multimillion dollar brains behind Project DOLAN.

No crowd cheered when he stuck the thumb drive into the console. The computer chirped. A grid of camera locations appeared on screen, each one represented by a square showing the live video feed. He could see the video cameras spin around in each video tile. The cameras went offline one by one, the spinning either making them fall off their stand or rip out the cable connecting them to the Project DOLAN system. This wouldn’t be an easy fix for the mayor’s technicians.

When he opened the rear access panel, there was no confetti. He fried the control boards. No fanfare. No balloons fell. The Colta City citizens didn’t know this was the first big win in the coming war. Dogboy didn’t know it either, but every kid for several generations would learn about it in history class.

Dogboy unplugged the console, then as a final precaution, he laid hands on the cold metal surface and let his orange energy flow into it. The console melted down into a lumpy, clumped up mess.

He headed back down the hallway, but something itched the back of his mind and refused to let go. Hadn’t Osbert said the mayor needed to protect some plant in his office “at all costs”? Maybe blowing this whole conspiracy wide open was just the thing he needed to get back into Cindy’s good graces. Maybe this plant was the key. Dogboy pulled out his map and followed the winding hallways to the mayor’s office.

As he reached for the doorknob an intercom speaker chirped to life. “Bzzt… Attention: Several persons have been detected exiting the building via the main level. Additionally, the individual known as Dogboy is in the building and targeting security personnel. The building is locked down until further notice. Any officers who encounter Dogboy are authorized to use lethal force.”

Well, crap, Dogboy thought. Guess I’d better make this quick. He eased the door open, expecting to find the mayor. The office sat empty, the only light shining on a pale orchid on a pedestal by the window.

“Careful, pup” said a calm, measured voice in the shadows. “Or you’ll get caught in the dogcatcher’s net.”

2

“Who’s there?” Dogboy asked, shooting an orange light from his fingertips to illuminate the room.

Mayor Lane laughed as he stepped into the light. “Whose office do you think you’ve wandered into, boy?”

“Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, you’ve made a big mistake,” Dogboy said. “That man you were talking to? Osbert? He’s a crook and a thief.”

“Yes. It’s the perfect arrangement. We have his former boss Andrus in custody, which ensures compliance from the professor. If Andrus ever wakes up, we’ll have his second-in-command to use against him. But that’s not your concern. You have to make a choice, don’t you? You-know-who won’t wait forever. We needn’t speak the creature’s name, or his purpose, but we both know he needs his answer. He grabbed Dogboy’s arm, his fingers digging into skin. “Do you care at all about your friends? About Cindy? He’ll kill them.”

Dogboy kicked the mayor and jumped across the room. He pulled out his collapsible cane, extending it with a flick of his wrist. Two taps on the ground, then a swing at Mayor Lane’s skull. “How do you know about Cindy?”

“Ah, the forgetting one. I know she means a great deal to you. I also happen to know she’s below us right now and in quite a bit of danger.”

“What have you done to her?” Dogboy said. “If you hurt her I will—”

“That all depends on what happens now,” the mayor said. He approached the teen terror, smacking the cane from his hand. “You only need to settle outstanding questions: Present or past? Fate or fortune? Make your choice tonight.”

Dogboy considered his options. Willowwood had presented him with two watches. One would send him back in time to save his parents. The other watch would show him the rest of his life, infuse it in his head like a new memory. Once this future was set, he wouldn’t be able to change anything about it. No more surprises. No more moral conundrums. He’d simply be playing a role in a tale written by someone else.

He wandered over to the white nun orchid by the window, flicking a green leaf with his thumb. Water drops sprayed across his hand as the leaf snapped back to a neutral position. He felt heat pouring off the plant’s leaves. Something pulled at the powers inside him.

“Leave that alone. Come back here and answer me,” the Mayor said, annoyed.

Dogboy shot a quick glance out the corner of his eye hole then snapped a piece off the leaf, which he stuck in his pocket. “Fine. I’ll tell him right now,” he said, turning back to the mayor. “You’ll let Cindy go, right? If I decide?”

“I trust you-know-who will be accommodating.” He held out his hand to Dogboy. “Shall we shake on it?”

Dogboy’s hand felt like it was fighting him as he slid it into Mayor Lane’s palm, slimy like the crayfish he used to catch in the ditch behind his house. The mayor’s grip tightened.

A click. The bookcase slid back. Cindy stood in the elevator. She fell back against the wall as she bared her teeth at them.

Dogboy let go of Mayor Lane’s hand. He rushed to the elevator and rattled the closed metal safety gate. “Cindy, it’s not what it looks like. He—”

“I thought following me was the lowest thing you could do.” She slid the gate open. Dogboy yanked his hands back before his fingers could get caught in the bars. Cindy barged out. “Do you have any idea what he did to us?”

“Ah, Ms. McNeil,” Mayor Lane said, a smile slithering across his lips. “Breaking into City Hall? Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t interfere with me again? And that there would be consequences if you did? Sad. I’m sure your mother, Tess, will be quite displeased.”

“What you said there,” Dogboy grabbed Cindy by the shoulders, stepping between her and the mayor. “You said ‘What he did to us’. What did he do?”

“Your buddy over there has been torturing kids for months. You remember those poor kids from the west side I was investigating? He’s been dangling some ‘job shadowing’ credit in front of them to get them here so he can turn them into his own superpowered army. That’s what he did to my friends you’ve been so obsessed with. He has more down there. Lots more. Or had anyway.”

“Other kids with superpowers?” he asked. “We could be like… the Justice League or something.”

“Welcome to the story, kid,” she said. “You can forget about meeting my friends though. We don’t let people who pal around with our arch-nemesis into the Colta City Shadows.”

“Whoa. That’s a cool name. Listen. If you think I’d ever take in with this scuzzbucket you’re nuts. He told me you were here, and he said he’d hurt you unless I told Willowwood—”

“Now you’ve done it,” the Mayor said, his face growing red as he loosened his tie. “Now he’s gonna be mad. Now he’s—” Steam poured out his ears. His face split down the middle, like a hot dog left over the fire too long. His bulbous nose fell off like a theater prosthetic, revealing a much sharper one underneath. He reached up and pulled the false flesh away in brittle chunks.

Dogboy and Cindy gasped, looking on as Mayor Lane picked the last few skin flakes off his forehead. Willowwood stood before them, still dressed in the mayor’s clothes but otherwise the same ostentatious man Dogboy remembered from his Curleyworld Follies adventure.

“It’s me, D.B. Moi! Your favorite old biddy from beyond time and space,” he said. “I always loved a dramatic entrance, and practical effects are always a bit more shocking than CG. Don’t you think?”

“See, Cindy? It was him the whole time,” Dogboy said, marching up to the older man, who was still picking pieces of the false face off his jacket. “What are you after here, Willowwood? What do you gain from giving a bunch of kids superpowers?”

“What a rude boy you turned out to be,” Willowwood said. He raised his hand, lifting Dogboy off his feet. “Your girlfriend…” He turned to Cindy. “We’ll talk about the lying with my sisters later, dear.” Then back to Dogboy. “Your girlfriend hasn’t seen the last act. She hasn’t even seen the first act. Here you go spouting off huge spoilers: Plot, motivation, character… Even my name! All will be revealed when I reveal it and not before. If everything is everything then nothing is nothing, which is exactly how much you should be telling her, D.B.”

Dogboy fought against Willowwood’s sway. Difficult to move. He caught Cindy’s eyes as she backed up toward the door. Whatever secrets she was keeping he still trusted her. Her heart was in the right place. He could tell. “I don’t keep secrets from her, Willowwood. I thought you understood that back in the funhouse.”

“Ah, but don’t you remember?” Willowwood said as he grew a mustache to twirl the end of. “That’s when I told you she was keeping things from you. You see, I’m not some villain, D.B. I’m your biggest fan. I’m only looking out for my favorite teen titan—Teenage titan. We don’t want any brand confusion.”

“What? You’re going to listen to this guy?” Cindy said. “Hey. Skin condition. What did you do with the mayor?”

“Oh he’ll be there for your team to snatch as planned, dear heart,” Willowwood said. “Your boyfriend’s your biggest concern for now. You know he’d only try to stop you. Use your power on him again. It’s for the best.” He put Dogboy down then rose into the air himself. “Until the morrow, parting’s such sweet sorrow. Ta ta.” He POOFED from the scene, the mayor’s suit landing in a pile on the thick argyle carpet.

“You have a power too?” Dogboy said, taking a step toward Cindy. “Why do you keep lying to me? Now you’re mixed up in all this crap my dad left behind? Tell me the truth. Tell me everything, and maybe we can stop this now before more people get hurt.”

“Get real, Johnny Quest. These guys do horrible stuff. So will we if we want to win.”

“Like what?”

“We’ll turn these powers against them. We’ll make him disappear so he can’t hurt anybody else. You can help.”

Dogboy took off his mask. “We’ll never win if we’re as bad as them. Not really. We’d just be the new bad guys. Anybody who thinks we would sounds like a bad guy in my book.”

“Even me?” she asked.

“Even you.”

“You know what? I don’t even feel bad about this anymore,” Cindy said. She smiled then wrapped her arms around Dogboy.

“What are you doing?” Dogboy said, squirming.

“Don’t you remember?” She kissed him. The faces from the evening flashed through his mind—that invisible girl, Mayor Lane, the police, Osbert, Willowwood, Cindy. They were there, then they were gone. Really gone. What he did remember, what Cindy let him remember, was a truncated history where he’d taken down Project DOLAN and saved her from getting caught by the mayor while investigating the missing kids.

“Come on,” she said, pulling him along as he shook off the mind wipe’s effects. “If we don’t get out quick, the whole freaking police force is gonna come after us.”

“Let them try,” he said. His shoulders spread apart as he broke into a run. “On to adventure! Nobody can stop—The Fantabulous Dogboy.”

“You’re such a dweeb,” she said. They laughed and tore down the hall.

As they passed a cracked black door, a witch’s cackle echoed through the hall. Dogboy froze mid-step then gestured toward the door. “In there. Be quiet while I check it out.”

“You got it, Dogboy.”

He cracked the door another inch, peeked through, then swung it open hard. “I knew he was here, but I never pictured him like this.” He took a step into the room. A frail man, head shaved, veins bulging through the pale tissue paper skin stretched across his chest. The surface fluttered with each heartbeat. The gaunt lines of his cheekbones were his most prominent feature, but Dogboy recognized the face even in this emaciated state. “Hello, Uncle Randolph.”

“Eww. He looks like a pile of raw chicken,” Cindy said, taking off her jacket and throwing it across his chest. “The great and powerful Andrus, leader of the Guild of Thieves. I’ve seen folks at the nursing home who look healthier.” She nodded at the heart monitor. “Well, are you going to do it or what?”

“Do what?” Dogboy asked.

“Finish the fight. Pull the plug. Put him out of his misery,” she said. “You’re the hero. Aren’t you? It’s kinda your job to stop the bad guy once and for all. Unplug these machines and you won’t have to worry about him again.”

“Don’t be dumb. Only a bad guy would do something like that,” Dogboy said. “As much as you hate the mayor, he is the law in this city. If he thinks Andrus deserves a trial, I’m inclined to agree. What’s gotten into you, Cindy? Why would you even suggest it?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty messed up,” she said, then grabbed his collar and pulled him close. “Which is what you’ll look like if you ever call me dumb again. Got it?” Dogboy swallowed then nodded. She let go. “Why wouldn’t a good guy do it though? This guy killed people and stole from a bunch more. He beat you up all the time. The world’s better off without him.”

Dogboy turned off the light as he led Cindy out of the room. “I think so too, but who says we know what’s right? We have checks and balances for a reason. He needs to face justice. Real justice. Not some kid in a mask deciding what’s best.”

“Yeah. I doubt you ever would,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, then pushed him along to the fire exit. “Go make sure the cops are gone, would you? I left my jacket back in the room.”

Dogboy nodded then burst through the fire exit into the stairwell. He ran up a few flights. Clear. Down a few flights. Not a soul in sight. By the time he returned to the fire exit, Cindy was waltzing through the door, fighting to slip her arms into her black jacket sleeves.

“Let’s book it,” she said, running down the stairs. “I think I hit an alarm.”

Dogboy cocked his head to the side and listened. He heard a high-pitched hum coming from the hallway. “Yeah, we’d better jet.”

Several rats scurried under damp cardboard boxes as the pair ran out through the side door into the alley. They heard sirens blaring in the distance. Gunshots echoed between the buildings as a flash-bang went off out on the main road.

“Looks like the mayor found a phone after all,” Cindy said, referring to the false memory she’d implanted in Dogboy’s head.

Dogboy grabbed her arm. She bristled at his touch. “What happened earlier…me following you with the bug and all. I’m sorry. You deserve your privacy. I… I don’t know what came over me. It felt like I couldn’t trust you. Silly, huh? Must have let old… you-know-who get under my skin after our last adventure. Can you forgive me?”

Cindy smiled, pulled up his mask, and gave him a firm kiss on the forehead. “You’re an idiot, but it’s okay. Don’t ever do it again. Got it?”

Bronson nodded then pulled his mask back down. “Call me tomorrow. I need your help,” he said as he floated into the air. “I’ve got a plan to make sure they can’t get the scarab ever again.”

3

“Where did a loser like you get a freaking hovercraft?” Dogboy yelled into the sky. A man in a stained leotard leaned over the side of a beat up hovercraft, which hovered over the Colta City Credit Union. The lunch crowd, which out in full force, was beginning to scatter due to the supercharged battle above them.

“Your mom gave it to me, scuzzbag,” said the man on the hovercraft. “With my ‘Vomit Comet,’ I’m finally the best Vominator running.”

“Vominator? What’s a vominator?” Dogboy said as he floated up another inch. His goal was to keep the man talking as he edged close enough to pull him out of his flying machine.

“It’s like my supervillian name or something. I don’t know. I figure as long as I got a supersuit…” He presented the soiled garment with a wave of his arm. “…and this whacked out flashlight…” He held up a green flashlight. “I might as well get a snazzy name same as you, right? Get some notoriety going.”

“Did these ‘kids’ give you the flashlight too?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Sounds fine,” the Vominator said. He leveled the flashlight at Dogboy, who’d floated a little closer.

“Funny. I have a friend who said some ugly, fat, hairy guy stole a flashlight from him outside the city. Vominator… Vominator… That flashlight wouldn’t make people sick would it?”

“Maybe,” the Vominator said.

“Yep, that’s definitely my friend’s then. Makes me wonder who you stole the other stuff from. Why don’t you land that thing, and we’ll check the serial number.”

The Vominator laughed then switched the flashlight on. Its light washed over Dogboy. He wavered, wobbled, then fell the eight feet to the concrete below. He pulled back his mask, careful not to reveal his features to the gathered crowd, then puked up the wonderful breakfast Mr. Horum had made him all over the sidewalk. “Lick it up, doggie,” The Vominator said, wheezing as he laughed.

Dogboy pulled his mask back into place then climbed to his feet. “Run,” he yelled to the crowd. Nobody did. When the Vominator started hitting them with his beam, the retching sounds were awful. Dogboy jumped into the air as he lobbed an orange beam at the Vominator’s back. It connected, but the man didn’t even flinch. He turned, aiming the flashlight at Dogboy.

Time out. Dogboy holds his breath as he snatches the flashlight from the Vominator’s hands then turns the weapon on the want-to-be villain.

Time in.

“Enough. Maybe it’s time for you to be as disgusted by yourself as we are,” Dogboy said as the beam hit. The Vominator tumbled back into the hovercraft, staining the interior floor an awful shade of brownish green. Dogboy brought the ship down next to a metallic trailer parked on the sidewalk. The vendor slinging dogs inside it didn’t look pleased.

“How I feed customers with a big pile of puke here, huh?” the vendor said.

Dogboy shrugged then used his trick rope to tie the Vominator to the hull of the hovercraft. “Ask the cops. I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Can’t turn a corner without running into a cop these days.”

“What kind of hero are you?” the hot dog stand owner asked as the crowd thickened around them “You hurt local businesses with these stupid fights. Maybe Mayor Lane is right about you after all.”

A murmur swept through the crowd, but no riot started. As Dogboy slunk away, he felt the judgmental gazes coming from the adults around him. They whispered as he passed by:

He should be more careful. There are kids here.

He is a kid.

Somebody should do something.

Stop him.

Why are we letting him leave?

He’s just a child.

Grab him.

Dogboy picked up the pace as he heard footsteps behind him. A few at first, then more and more as he broke into a run. By the time he hit the end of the block, there were fifty people behind him easy. He jumped into the air.

“Get down here, scum bag,” came a voice over a loudspeaker. Massive black Humvees were lined up all the way down the street. Rows of policemen marched toward Dogboy. Each one wore a curved, smooth black helmet with bug-eyed gas masks. Their uniforms were green camouflage, an unsettling and nonfunctional pattern in the gray city. They held black semimachine guns on their shoulders, all aimed at Dogboy.

A tank started rolling toward him from the end of the road. The cops, in unison, stepped aside to let it pass.

This is a nonlethal sonic weapon. It will drop you from the sky like a gnat. Surrender and we’ll make sure everybody gets home safe today.

“Something tells me I probably shouldn’t trust the guys pointing guns at me,” Dogboy said. “Sorry, fellas, but I got to fly.” As he flew high in the air, he realized the police weren’t pointing the sound cannon at him. The police lowered their guns, firing rubber bullets into some teenagers loitering in the street. The crowd who’d followed him intermingled with the teenagers until it was one group. One hive mind. The crowd linked arms then advanced on the tank.

A WRDB news truck pulled up behind the police line. Kathleen Hayworth, a reporter he recognized from Cindy’s internship with the network, jumped from the van, followed by a rotund cameraman. As the cameraman threw his camera up on his shoulder, an officer approached them and talked to them for a moment. Kathleen looked livid (even from Dogboy’s high vantage point). The officer started yelling then shoved the cameraman up against the van. Dogboy could make out the officer’s words (“no filming”) as he flipped Kathleen around, leaned her against their van, then handcuffed her and her cameraman.

This is your last warning. Put your hands up and surrender.

The crowd chanted back: WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY. WE ARE YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS. WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY. WE ARE YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS.

A modulated tone tore through the air then assaulted Dogboy’s ears. He fell to the ground, throwing his arms around his head as he crawled away from the noise. It reminded him of those annoying Equalizer key chains his dad used to buy him at the dollar store, only for his mom to throw away when she found one.

The tone. Much louder. Louder than anything. Loud enough he could almost see the sound hanging in the air. A slight distortion like heat waves off the sidewalk.

Then it moved. Destiny, the invisible girl from the night before, appeared before him. She fell to her knees, pulling on her short bleach-blond-with-deep-roots hair as she ground her teeth together.

Dogboy stumbled over to her. The pressure in his head was enormous. The sound made it feel like his entire skull was going to blow out. He offered his hand to help her up, but she shook her head and pointed at the sound cannon.

Dogboy nodded then did his best to block out the noise and concentrate.

Time out.

He flies up to the cannon. Lays his hands on either side. Shoots an orange energy blast through the advanced weapon. It dissolves, singed metal fireflies floating in the air waiting patiently to fall.

Time in.

The policeman nearest the tank looked up, spotted Dogboy, then trained his gun on the canine crusader. He felt a jolt as a rubber bullet hit his shin. A quick glance revealed a huge purple welt already forming. Down the street, several officers advanced on the crowd. One shoved his gun in Destiny’s face, yelling at her to get up. Dogboy didn’t like that much at all. It made him sick, which ended up giving him the best idea ever.

He took the flashlight he’d confiscated from the Vominator and trained it on the cop who’d shot at him. CLICK. The cop doubled over, hurling chunks of nasty all over his gun. Dogboy took off down the street, hitting each officer with the nauseating beam as he went. He hit a few citizens too, but he did his best to be careful with his new toy.

By the time he reached the end of the street, all the officers were down, and the smell was downright awful.

“Get out of here. All of you. Now. Before more show up,” he said as he took off. No time to make sure they got away. He had a man to see about a scarab, and nothing was going to keep him from that appointment.

4

“So it’s done?” asked one John Upton-Haywood. The swarthy reporter tapped away on a turquoise iMac from his plastic chair in the corner by the creamer offered by the Cybermonkey Internet Cafe.

“Mission accomplished. Sorry I’m late. Ran into a supervi– dogcatcher on the way here,” Bronson said, sitting down at the next workstation over. He jiggled the mouse. An iGoogle page popped up with widgets for stocks, weather, sports. All the basics. An ominous headline (ripped from the Colta City Herald’s RSS feed) purple and bold at the top of the news widget: MAYOR LANE TO ADDRESS PROJECT DOLAN CONTROVERSY, GUILD OF THIEVES “ANDRUS” CONTROVERSY IN LIVE PRESS CONFERENCE.

Bronson chuckled. “Did you see this? What do you figure the connection is between the Guild and Project DOLAN?”

“You, probably,” John said as he took a sip from his steamed chai. “What do you think happened to that Andrus guy? He was a damn nutball, wasn’t he?”

“Mr. Upton-Haywood, could you please watch your language? I don’t mind if you curse, but other people in here might.”

John looked around. “Nobody gives a— Fine. Whatever, kid. I’m usually pretty good about that. Haven’t put a quarter in the cuss jar in years. Lately those words keep popping in my head. They seemed to fit somehow.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I have something for you.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a balled up handkerchief then placed it on the table. He turned down the corners, revealing the visor with the ear buds that controlled the scarab.

“Wow. Thanks, Mr. Taylor. Funny thing though. I called Mr. Horum from the payphone. Did you see it costs fifty cents now? He said the police let him back into the shop about an hour ago. Turns out I didn’t need your help getting this back after all.”

“Ah, but I needed yours, so I guess it turned out okay in the end.” He slid the visor over to Bronson then placed a fedora over his thinning hair as he stood. “Remember, though, in public, it’s Mr. Upton-Haywood. I’m sure you wouldn’t like me confusing your identities in public.”

“Sorry, Mr. Upton-Haywood,” Bronson said, turning his sad puppy-dog eyes up at the older man.

“Oh, it’s no big deal. If we’re going to work together, we both deserve a certain level of respect, don’t you think?”

“Working together?” Bronson asked.

“Sure, kid. Sure. Why not? You can be my ‘man on the street.’ I’ll be your ‘man in the know.’ I’ll make the plans. You carry them out. We’ll have this town cleared up in ten years tops.”

Bronson mulled it over for a moment, spinning the wheel on the computer mouse. He stopped, pushed back his chair, stood up, and put out his hand. “Sorry, but I already have somebody who does that stuff for me. She’s pretty cool too. Confidentially, I’m not the sort of dog who appreciates a master anyway.”

“You’re a feral mutt, eh?” John asked, shaking the boy’s hand.

“Sure, whatever that means. You’ll keep my secret though, I hope.”

John smiled. “Sure, kid. Anybody who can screw with Mayor Lame like you do deserves any peace he can get. Heck, if I didn’t have this whole reporter thing going on, I’d be right next to you working in that shop.” John reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out a crisp blue business card with his name and phone number. He pressed it into Bronson’s hand then closed Bronson’s fingers around it. “You get in any trouble you call me, okay? I’ve got eyes and ears and hands everywhere. Yep. I think we’ll be helping each other out a lot over the next few months. Glad to have you aboard, Spot.”

Bronson laughed then shoved the card into his pocket. He hoped he wouldn’t need the help but was glad his little personal network (Dogboy’s Army he called them in his head) who could help was growing.

As John headed up the aisle toward the front door, something occurred to him. He stopped, turned around, and put on a serious look. “This gal-in-the-know you have. Think you can trust her?”

Bronson laughed. “Trust her? If I can’t trust Cindy McNeil I might as well not trust anybody.”

5

When Cindy walked into The Old Curiosity Shop, she wasn’t sure what offended her more: the absence of ringing when she opened the door or the massive piles of crap on the floor. Bronson and Mr. Horum sifted through the mess, sorting it into smaller, neater piles around the shop’s perimeter walls.

“Want to give me a hand with this thing?” Bronson said as he tugged some fallen shelves. Cindy joined him, and together they pulled it upright. The particle boards squeaked as it scraped across the hardwood floor.

“Typical cops. They never clean up after themselves,” she said. “They didn’t find any of your dad’s crap did they?”

Dogboy gestured to the hole in the floor leading down to his room. “They dug around in my trunk, and they tore the doors off the tunnels down there. Nothing big. They don’t know anything about Dogboy.”

“Where’s the scarab?” Cindy asked, spying the silver case over Bronson’s shoulder. “You said you needed my help. I’m a busy girl, buddy. Let’s get the show on the road.

“But Mr. Horum needs our help cleaning up. Maybe we can—”

“Big mess will wait. You will not, magician’s son,” Mr. Horum said. He grabbed the case, shoving it into Bronson’s arms. “You wait too long, you no do it no more, and it pretty good idea you say to me, I think. Keep cops from tearing up shop again, hmmb?”

“As usual you’re right, Mr. Horum,” Bronson said. He moved the silver case from the counter to the floor, popped it open, then pulled the bean-sized scarab free from the black foam holding it in place. Cindy went to take it, but Bronson’s hand glitched just past her reach.

“No stopping time, jerk,” she agreed.

“You would if you could.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said.

Bronson held the scarab up to his eyes, studying the tiny mechanical components. “You know what I thought after I used this thing for the first time?” he asked. Cindy shook her head no. “How’d they pack all the electronics into something this small? I mean, we need a device the size of a pack of cards to play just to play some music. How could they fit a camera, microphone, navigation, some sort of gyroscope… How could they fit it all into this tiny bug, you know?”

“Maybe your dad was crazy smart,” she said.

“He was smart but not that smart. No, it has to be magic, right? Is that fair? We can’t use this bug. Not when we just stopped the mayor from doing the same thing. Doesn’t seem fair does it?”

Cindy’s agreeable smile turned into a terse frown. She narrowed her eyes. “What’s the problem? We’re the good guys. We’re not going to act like creepers all of a sudden just because he did.”

“You don’t get it,” Bronson said.

“What I tell you, boy-oh?” Mr. Horum asked, suspicion creeping over his face as he leaned across the counter. “She never let you. Best to kick her out on butt and do it anyway.”

“Calm down, Mr. Horum,” he said. “Nobody’s getting kicked out or nothing. We’re talking here.” He turned back to Cindy, reaching out for her hand. She gave it. “Cindy, Mayor Lane set up Project DOLAN because he wants control. Control over me, the folks who live here… even nutsos like my uncle who probably have it coming. He wants to record everything then use that information against us. We can agree that’s bad, right?”

“Of course. You think I’m dumb or something?” she said.

“Of course not, but we need to do the right thing here. We can’t turn around and start acting like them. If we’re willing do wrong because we’re so convinced we’re right, what’s the point?”

“The point is we’d be saving those kids,” she said. She pictured the others: Axle, Jenn, Nuncio, Hawk. Bugs, and the other failed experiments. “They’re counting on us to do whatever it takes to shut down this conspiracy. The mayor’s destroying this city with this stuff. It has to get better.”

“Are we sure it would be better? We’d be doing the exact same stuff he’s doing now. Would it be changing, really? Dream comes true and we beat him. Am I gonna run Colta City? Are you and your friends? No, because at that point, we’d be willing to do the same exact crap Mayor Lane’s doing. If we sink to his level, that makes us the bad guys.”

“Don’t be so naive, Bronson,” Cindy said. Her eyebrows tensed up tight enough to snap a steel rod between them. “You act like your idea of right and wrong is the beginning and end of the conversation. He’s hurting real kids. We have to stop him, and your dad’s little doohickey would help. He’s coming for us. You’ve seen all the cops they’ve had out since our ‘date’ last night. I can use the scarab to help you avoid all that crap and save people from them. You know. Like a superhero’s supposed to do?”

“That might make things easier on us, but it wouldn’t be right. If there’s one thing being Dogboy has taught me, it’s that the easy thing and the right thing usually aren’t the same thing, and when they are, you’re probably being tricked somehow.” Bronson sighed then spilled out the silver case’s contents on the counter. The visor fell out, as well as several replacement parts. “Haven’t you taken World History yet? It’s a pattern that repeats over and over. There’s some slaves or whatever whose king treats them rotten. The slaves fight back, but the king likes the throne so he’s willing to do anything to stay there. The slaves decide they have to do whatever it takes to bring the king down. They kill. They burn. Then they win. A new king is crowned, who of course starts treating everybody the same way the old king treated him. Then the slaves start to think maybe the new king isn’t all that great either.”

“Yeah. And?” Cindy said. “That might be how it’s always happened, but it’s gotten us this far hasn’t it? In my American History class, I learned this quote from Thomas Jefferson: ‘The tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of tyrants.’ It’s time to grow up, Bronson. This is how these things go. Sometimes I swear it’s like you came right out of a Powerpuff Girls episode or something. Don’t get me wrong. I kind of like that about you, but that’s not the way world works any more. We all feel it. Things are changing.”

“We can make the world work that way,” Bronson said. He put the scarab on the wooden counter then pulled out the ledger below it. “I want this city to be as awesome as I always thought it was when I was growing up in Wadsworth, but if we’re going to do it, we need to do it right.

“Who says you get to decide what’s right?”

“Nobody did. I’ve got the power, and with great power comes great responsibility, right?”

“Don’t your responsibilities include saving the city from jerks like Mayor Lane?”

“First responsibility to help Horum clean shop,” Mr. Horum grumbled.

“In a second,” Bronson said, then turned back to Cindy.”Look, it’s my scarab, so I’m going to decide what we do with it. First off, no spying on people. We all deserve our privacy, right? This thing is dangerous. We can’t trust anybody with it.”

“Not even me?” she asked, batting her eyes in an unusual/uncomfortable attempt to use her feminine wiles to her advantage.

“Not any of us. It only took a couple hours before I was following you around with it. You don’t deserve somebody spying on you. I feel awful about it. If I didn’t have this stupid bug. I never would have done it in the first place. If I could do that, imagine what a bad guy like Mayor Lane would do.” He held the ledger over his head, licked his lips, then smiled at Cindy. “If I can’t trust myself with it, I can’t trust anybody with it. Time to squash this bug once and for all.”

“No,” Cindy said, but it was too late. The ledger came down on the gold body. A sickening SKITZ as the metal bug squished between book and countertop. From beneath the glass, it looked like a weird post-modern sculpture, white scratches spider-webbing out underneath the crushed circuits. When Bronson moved the book, Cindy thought it looked like a ruined toy. She jumped for the visor, but Bronson picked it up and snapped it in half before she could.

He tossed the two broken sunglasses into the wastebasket. “There. Now it’s actually fair. With Project DOLAN dead, the mayor can’t spy on us anymore. Now we can’t spy on him either.”

“Yeah, but if you keep breaking our tools, we’re gonna end up losing no matter how ‘right’ we are,” Cindy said.

“Is better to lose being good guy then win being bad one,” Mr. Horum said.

Bronson walked up to her, put his arms around her shoulders, then leaned his forehead up against hers. “I’m sorry, but I had to do it for both our sakes. I’d never want you to do something you’d rather forget. Who knows? That thing probably gives you brain cancer or something anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess. You’re still totally a dumb jerk, though.”

“I can live with it,” he said. They exchanged a quick peck, with Mr. Horum looking on, smiling. Cindy pretended it didn’t creep her out as best she could.

The three friends worked together for an hour or so, restocking the shelves and sweeping the floor. By and by, the shop looked almost like it had before the cops showed up.

Job done, Cindy excused herself for a moment to make a phone call in the office. She pulled her radio from her purse then pressed in the button on the side. “Axle?” she whispered.

A loud SQUELCH, and a voice crackled through the speaker. “Coaxle here. We’re in position. How’re things looking on your end?”

“I’m here with him now. As soon as you guys get back to the hideout, let me know so I can point him in your direction.”

“You think he’s gonna go along with it?” Coaxle asked.

“He’d be an idiot not to after you fill him in,” Cindy said. “Don’t worry. I can always delete his memories if it doesn’t work out.”

“How many times you gonna do that to him? Dog’s gonna be drooling you don’t stop soon.”

She felt a spasm in her chest, like her heart was pumping seltzer water. She swallowed and took a few deep breaths. “I… I hope this will be the last time. I’m so tired of keeping secrets. He’ll help us. I know he will. You need to convince him we’re right.”

“Coaxle out,” Coaxle said, then static.

Cindy shut down her radio then walked back into the shop.

“How’s your mom? She still sore about me sleeping over?” Bronson asked.

“Honestly I don’t think she even remembers,” she said, sliding into a stool behind the counter.

“Is good to rest,” Mr. Horum said, sitting down beside her, clapping her on the knee as his butt sagged over the chair’s sides. “Especially when you work so hard as we did. Bronson, why you no turn on TV for best girl and old boss man?”

Bronson did as he was told. The old television set hummed when he turned the power dial. A white dot in the middle expanded until the entire screen danced with static. He reached up and jiggled the coat hanger stuck in the top until an animated WRDB logo appeared. Light shimmered around the letter’s bevel as they soared above the Colta City skyline.

An announcer’s came on. “The Tyra Banks Show will not be seen today. Instead we’ll join WRDB’s Kathleen Hayworth at City Hall, where the mayor is expected to update the public on Andrus, leader of the infamous Guild of Thieves.”

“Like we don’t already know. Huh, Cindy?” Bronson said with a wink.

Cindy felt a rock hit the bottom of her stomach as she recalled the previous night. With any luck the announcement wouldn’t make Bronson suspicious. If it did…well, he wasn’t drooling yet.

“Right,” she said with a laugh. The screen faded to a crowd gathered outside City Hall. She watched as the reporter (who was also her former boss) speculated on what the mayor might have to say. Bet he doesn’t say much before the Shadows snatch him, she thought.

“Hey, hand me those crystal balls behind you,” Bronson said. She did, and he threw them in the air and started juggling as he watched. On the television, Sergeant Seville stepped out onto City Hall’s front steps, followed by Chester, then Mayor Lane. The mayor stepped up to the podium as the press conference began.

6

“Greetings, Colta City,” Mayor Lane said into the microphone. He smiled at the camera, his tongue flicking out between his teeth to scoop away a spit drop stuck to his lip. “Some have expressed concerns with my office over the increased police presence in the city.” He pointed to the tall metal guard towers set up behind the crowd. Officers watched from inside, their guns’ muzzles poking through metal slats as they trained them on the crowd.

“Extreme measures, but necessary. Dogboy and his compatriots attacked the city last night. They destroyed millions of dollars worth of city property to protect Dogboy from our watchful eye. Project DOLAN is dead. Your beloved Dogboy killed it, leaving us no choice but to increase the police presence throughout the city.”

“No choice?” Cindy yelled at the television. “We got along fine before your stupid cameras, jerk.”

“In addition to the physical damages, Dogboy also released 41 prisoners from the juvenile detention facility underneath City Hall. These are the most dangerous, violent children in Colta City. Parents. Friends. Do not engage these children if they approach you. Contact the police as soon as you can. Sergeant Seville is hopeful we’ll recapture all 41 before nightfall.” The mayor nodded to Seville, who smiled and waved at the crowd.

“I didn’t see any kids breaking out last night. Did you, Cindy?” Bronson asked, almost dropping a crystal ball he was juggling.

“Nope,” she said, eyes trained on the television.

“You sure? You were there—”

“Nope,” she said again, shushing Bronson then pointing at the TV.

“Until they’ are brought to justice the police will enforce a city-wide curfew. Effective immediately. All citizens must be off the streets by 9 PM or risk fines and/or arrest. Be warned. We’re prepared to clear the streets by whatever means we deem necessary.”

Many in the crowd started yelling:

We aren’t children.

I’d like to see you try.

We aren’t the ones you’re looking for.

The mayor ignored them, consulted the note card in his hand, then continued.

“Some local ‘journalists’ have accused our office of neglecting the city in our quest to bring Dogboy to justice. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we’ve brought the surviving family members of the three Colta City residents who lost their lives during the events of the July 4th incident to give them… and you… an update. Come on up, folks.”

Chester, the mayor’s assistant, helped a dozen assorted denizens up onto the steps, where they stood as Mayor Lane posed with them for the cameras.

“You’ll all be glad to know we have the man responsible for your loved ones’ deaths in custody. Andrus, as he called himself, is still in critical condition at Colta City General.”

“That’s impossible,” Cindy yelled at the television before she could stop herself. How could he be at the hospital? She was sure he’d…

“Yeah, we saw him in City Hall last night,” Bronson said. Cindy relaxed as the mayor continued.

“When and if he recovers,” Mayor Lane continued, “the D.A. will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. You will know his name.”

“Let him stay in the coma as far as I’m concerned,” Bronson said. He juggled his crystal balls a bit faster.

Cindy scrunched up her nose. “What a jerk,” she said.

“My uncle?” Bronson asked. Another ball hit the ground then rolled across the floor and under a shelf. He knelt down to retrieve it.

“No, the mayor. First off, he poisons a bunch of kids, gets off because they don’t have enough ‘evidence.’ Then he lets a bunch of slime balls who live down in the sewers—no offense—he lets them take over the park, and he still gets to stand in front of everybody on TV with a huge smile plastered on his face. This isn’t fair.”

“I’m sure Mayor Lane’s not such a bad guy,” Bronson said.

“…while we all appreciate this Dogboy’s help, I must condemn his actions,” Mayor Lane said. “Vigilantism isn’t the answer to threats like this criminal or his cult. We all owe a debt to the skilled Colta City Police Department. That’s who protects the city. You can trust them. They answer to me.”

Half the crowd applauded. The other half booed. Mayor Lane waved at them all anyway, unaware of the hovercraft dropping down behind him. Coaxle, Material Girl, Hawk, Digital Boy, Jesse, and Denny looked at the crowd as the ship landed behind the mayor.

Coaxle, a silver streak painted in his hair, pointed at Mayor Lane. “Did you think we’d forget you?”

“Who are you? What is the meaning of this?” Mayor Lane demanded. Sergeant Seville and a few of his men snapped to attention, advancing on the youth’s position.

“Name’s Coaxle, and we’re here for you, your honor. Material Girl, the mayor here could use a makeover.”

Material Girl took off the stonewashed jacket she’d put on over her white uniform then closed her eyes. The jacket glowed then morphed into a fishing net with some balled up weights tied on the fringes. She handed it over to Coaxle, who swung it around his head a few times then let it fly. The net hit Mayor Lane like a snapped towel. He fell back against the podium. The weights continued with momentum, twisting and tangling themselves (and the net) around his body. Coaxle jumped down to secure the net.

A disembodied voice popped in over the broadcast. “Kathleen Haywood for WRDB. A group of… super-powered teenagers are attempting to abduct Mayor Lane from the City Hall steps. Whether these kids have anything to do with the escaped juvenile delinquents Lane mentioned remains to be seen.”

Sergeant Seville waved his men around as he pulled out his gun. Coaxle touched his temples. His blue electricity blasted out both eyes. ZRRT! It hit the policemen, who cried out then fell down the steps.

With Hawk’s help Coaxle loaded Mayor Lane into the hovercraft then hopped in himself. He stood there for a moment, looking out at the crowd. He smiled then saluted them. “We’ll take care of this villain, folks,” he said. “You can thank the Colta City Shadows.”

The hovercraft roared to life. It took to the air then flew off, disappearing behind the statue perched on the marble column on top of City Hall.

“Repeat: Mayor Lane has been abducted from City Hall by a group of super-powered teens calling themselves the Colta City Shadows,” Kathleen said, jumping into frame. The cameraman adjusted the focus as she shouted into her microphone. “The police… it appears the police are moving the crowds back against the buildings and… Hey! We’re reporters. You can’t—”

The butt of a gun filled the frame. The screen went dark, chaotic noise still coming from the cheap TV speakers.

“I know one of them,” Bronson said. “The electric guy. He taught me some stuff. You can’t just kidnap the mayor.” He ran into the office, emerging a second later with his cape tied around his neck. He tossed Cindy the walkie talkie. “Here, you’ll need this. I’m going after them.”

“You sure?” asked Cindy. “Maybe we could let them go. What happens happens.”

“I’m going to help them fix this,” Bronson said. “If Axle isn’t careful, he’s going to get them all caught.”

Mr. Horum took a bag from below the counter and threw it over to Bronson, who took his mask out then slid it down over his head. Dogboy checked his pockets. “Fresh box of Glimmers, Mr. Horum.”

Mr. Horum pulled a crate off the shelf then pulled out two blister packs labeled WEE GLIMMERS, handing them to the daring dog-themed do-gooder. “You no die, okay?”

“You got it, Mr. Horum,” Dogboy said. He walked down to the other end of the counter then out the back door.

A few seconds later, Cindy ran out, turned him around, lifted his mask, and gave him a kiss. “How do you know these guys will even want your help?” she asked.

“I don’t. If they won’t listen, I’ll do what I have to.”

“You’d better stay out of sight. There are going to be cops everywhere.”

“I’ll take the sewers,” Dogboy said, lifting up a street grate. The cavern below was dark and damp. Rats pattered through the shallow water as they moved westward down the tunnel.

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm.

“What?” Dogboy asked.

She held up her walkie talkie. “Keep it on Channel 3.”

Dogboy waved then jumped down into the darkness.

Cindy looked in the hole, watching his orange light get dimmer as he moved down the tunnel and out of sight. She stood, slid the street grate back in place, then switched her walkie talkie over to Channel 7. She pushed the switch down. “He’s coming, and you can’t let him know about me. Whatever happens, don’t let Dogboy find out.”

“Done,” Coaxle’s voice said over the radio. Cindy switched it back to Channel 3. She found herself relieved that all the lying would be over soon. For better or worse, Dogboy was about to find out everything.

“What Bronson can’t know?” said Mr. Horum’s voice behind her.

She flipped around to find the old man leaning over her, smiling a helpful smile that made her feel awful. “Don’t worry, Mr. Horum. It wasn’t anything to worry about. In his best interest for sure.” She reached out, grabbing his shoulder, digging her fingers into the fat.

Please let this be the last time, she thought. One last mind wipe. One last sin to save the city.

7

Cindy considered stopping but didn’t. She dug out his mind with her own. In her mind, she was a trail of smoke winding down the membranes of his memory. She imagined herself a smoky hand then picked through the gray matter until she found what she needed. The old man’s eyes turned dark as she sifted through his memories, grabbing ones she didn’t like then snipping them out with a thought.

Her work done, she withdrew from Mr. Horum’s mind and let him go. “Did you say something about Bronson?” she asked.

“No, no. I ask you to come inside,” Mr. Horum said. He opened the door. “You have hearing problems?”

Cindy shook her head as if waking from a trance. “Sorry, don’t know what’s going on with me lately.” She walked through the door as he held it open. “Forget I said anything.”

“You lucky Horum remember own name,” he said as he walked in, closing the door behind them. “My Bala always told me ‘Predsha, you lucky you remember any part of life you are so distracted’. I always remember her, you betcha.”

Back in the shop, Cindy snatched up her purse and started towards the door. “Uh— Cool? Look. I’ve got to run.”

“Where you go?” Mr. Horum asked. “You stay here. We help Bronson, yes?”

She flashed her radio at him. “No worries. These days I’ve got him right in my pocket. See you around, Mr. H.”

She ran out, the bell’s ringing conspicuously absent, then walked north on South 5th Street. Silent. Dead silent. Like the opening scene of that I Am Legend movie she and her mom had watched a few weeks ago. Nobody was around. Not even a stray cat. Most of the shops looked closed. The traffic lights were all dark.

She pulled out her radio, switched it over to Channel 7, and hit the switch. “Are you guys still in the city?” she asked. “Feels like something weird’s going on.”

A squeak from the speaker, and Jennifer (Material Girl, Cindy reminded herself) started talking at a mile a minute. “Like, Oh my God. There are, like, psychos everywhere with tanks and guns. Like the Army or something. They’re shooting old ladies. And kids. And us! You aren’t outside, are you? You’d better get someplace safe quick before they—” A muffled explosion sounded then silence. A squeak. “Sorry. They totally just hit our ride, but me and mi primo fixed it while Axle took them out. Hawk says we’re good now. How you like that, Mayor Strange? Your own boys firing at you. Take a pic. He looks, like, totally pissed. We’ll make it. Like get somewhere safe and send Dogboy to Curleyworld. We’ll be ready for him.”

Cindy figured Jennifer was exaggerating. Sure the police were chasing the Shadows. They’d kidnapped the mayor after all. They probably didn’t have a second to bug normal people. Not when 41 super-powered teenagers were running wild through Colta City. “Don’t worry about me. I’m safe right here.”

“Peachy, kid. Keep us posted. Material Girl, like, out or whatever.”

Cindy switched the radio over to Channel 3. “Dogboy?”

“Dogboy here,” came his voice a moment later.

“Hey, I took another look at that footage from the press conference. I think I know them too. Does the name Axle ring a bell?”

“Yeah. That’s the same one I know. I think he called himself Coaxle?”

“Him and his buddies are the ones I’ve been working with to bring down the mayor.”

“The ones the Guild captured a couple weeks back? I knew they sounded suspicious,” Dogboy said.

Good. He bought it. “Yeah. They’re probably taking Mayor Lane to our hideout inside Curleyworld. In the same building you watched me go into when you were spying on me, jerk.”

Silence for a moment. “I said I was sorry,” he said.

“Oh shut up. I was kidding,” she said. “Just get over there before they do something awful to him. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“You got it, Cindy. Any advice for dealing with these ‘Colta City Shadows’?”

“Listen to them,” she said. “Nobody else has.”

“Thanks, Cindy. Great info. See you soon. Dogboy out.”

Cindy put the radio back in her purse as she turned the corner. What she saw was chaos. Pure chaos. Police lined up like a standing army, marched in formation down Broad Street. The asphalt shook under her with their every synced step. Tanks rolled in behind them. The policemen smacked their shields with each step. CRACK. March. CRACK. March.

Sergeant Seville marched beside his men, barking orders into the radio microphone on his shoulder. “Another freak apprehended on South 3rd. Orange team has King Sparrow in pursuit. Looks like they’re heading out to— Hey! You. The girl. What the hell are you doing out here? Don’t you know the city’s on lock down?”

Cindy froze as a few dozen armed policemen aimed their weapons in her direction. “I’m… going home?” she said.

“Not now you aren’t. You’re under arrest. Standing orders. No exceptions. Link, cuff her will ya?” A female officer stepped out from the line, reaching for the handcuffs clasped to her armor’s belt.

“Baba yaga. Yaga baba. Baba yaga. Yaga baba,” came a shrill voice from nowhere.

Sergeant Seville froze in place. “Listen here, freak. Show yourself, or we have authorization to blow your ass off,” he barked.

“Baba yaga, yaga baba, there’s no flaw in the law.” a witch, a purple green ghastly thing, appeared from the ether to whisper in the sergeant’s ear. “Yaga baba, yaga baba. Bad man bound to meet bear’s claw. Baba baba baba yaga. Curse on you. We’ll end your saga.” Her eyes glowed red. Blue mist flooded Broad Street, enveloping the weapons, vehicles, and police until Cindy couldn’t see anything. It stopped at Cindy, licking at the tips of her tennis shoes.

The witch cackled. “Baba yaga, yaga baba. Smoke erases what you saw.” She waved her hand back and forth. A tremendous wind swept between the buildings, clearing the blue mist away.

The policemen were gone. Their weapons and vehicles lay abandoned on the ground. Their uniforms and armor were stacked around in piles. The scene reminded Cindy of the “rapture” her grandmother used to tell her about. The story goes that their god saves the righteous from the evil in this world and takes them to Heaven. But what would happen when evil men got called home? She didn’t remember if her grandma had mentioned anything about it. If the policemen had gone where she suspected, the clothes would probably burn up anyway.

“What are you?” she asked the witch.

The witch laughed then spun a few stories above the ground. She cried. Crimson tears dripped down her ghastly white face. Her tongue licked them away as she spoke. “Baba yaga, yaga baba. Moon was full on night of straw. Yaga baba, baba yaga. You’ll find out before too long.” A high-pitched whine as she spun faster and faster and faster until Cindy could look right through her. Then all at once she was looking through the empty space where the witch had been.

Cindy looked around and found a bike was chained to a rack on the sidewalk. She snatched up Sergeant Seville’s gun (which he wasn’t around to hold anymore) and aimed it at the chain. She turned her head away, gritted her teeth, and put her finger on the trigger. A silent prayer. She pulled. POW! The force sent her flying back. The sound was so loud her ears shut down to protect themselves. She couldn’t even hear her own breathing. She landed on her butt, terrified, but somehow managing to release the trigger and put the gun on the ground.

She pulled apart the broken chain. A quick look behind her to make sure there weren’t any cops, and she started peddling. As long as the rest of Colta City’s finest left her alone, she could take the bike trail all the way to Curleyworld. Maybe she’d even get there before Dogboy.

8

Dark clouds gathered in the skies above Curleyworld. Dogboy winced as he flew toward the abandoned amusement park. Raindrops like bullets ripped across his forearms (which he held out before him). The wind rippled under his dog mask, the brittle plastic crackling in his ears.

The main stage came into focus down below. He aimed himself toward the bunker in back. As he floated down beside the building, he saw lights on through the window. He peered inside.

Mayor Lane sat strapped to a folding chair in the center of a dusty old jail cell. Coaxle and a girl (was it Material Girl from the news?) stood outside the cage conferring over a broken iPod. Coaxle motioned to a young Hispanic boy who took the busted iPod from the girl then held it tight in his hands. An orange glow. A wish. The iPod was now a digital audio recorder.

Dogboy climbed down from the window then looked around for a way in. He found one door on the east end. Locked tight. He thought about using his weird energy to dissolve the door but reconsidered when he realized it was right next to the cells inside. No sense letting them know what trouble they were in for until he had to.

He continued around the building until he discovered another door on the building’s west wall. He spied a tiny notebook page, folded into a tight triangle, wedged between the jam and the door. Dogboy grasped the handle. A gentle tug. A loud creak. His heart pounded as he waited a precious few seconds to see if they’d heard him. After a moment, he felt he was safe, but he wasn’t going to depend on the hinge’s lubrication levels for his safe passage a second time.

A deep breath. Time out. Color runs from the world. He flings the door open. It stays open as he enters the building. Thankfully nobody waits for him in the hallway.

Time in.

Dogboy crept further into the building, slid by the open dressing room, then the closed one until he reached the door that (by his estimation) led to the room housing the mayor and his captors. He squeezed himself tight against the wall. Then muffled whispers, like somebody yelling at you from the ladder in the pool while you attempted a shallow end handstand. He put his hand against the metal door. Subtle vibrations, synced to the voices he heard on the other side. Concentrate, he thought. Put it together. After a moment, the shakes and sounds blended together into intelligible speech.

“You got one chance, Lane,” he heard Coaxle say. “You gotta tell us every nasty thing you done or you’ll never see City Hall again.”

Dogboy didn’t like the sound of that at all. Still, if they were using the recorder he’d seen through the window, a full confession would do a lot to put him back into Cindy’s good graces. Let them talk. He could always freeze time to get Lane out if he needed to.

“You think you have power here but you don’t,” Mayor Lane said, his voice weak and scratchy. “You-know-who wouldn’t have let you take me unless this all runs to his divine plan.”

“Like, we don’t ‘know who.’ Why don’t you fill us in, pendejo?” said a girl’s voice. Dogboy assumed it was the “Material Girl” again.

Mayor Lane chuckled. “That’s spoiling the game, isn’t it? You’ll know in time. If he needs you to know. His eyes are everywhere, watching all of us.”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Coaxle said. “Smarter than some stupid poor kids nobody’s gonna miss. My grandma said it this morning. She said she could feel it in her bones. This old world moving on or something. She was right. I can feel it now too. The way I see it, if it’s moving on it’s moving on from something.” A whine. A hum. An electric crackle. “I’m betting that something is you.”

Dogboy couldn’t wait any longer. It didn’t sound like the mayor was open to confessing, and Coaxle’s patience was wearing thin. He flung the door open.

There were more kids in the room than he’d seen through the window. They were standing along the walls, looking at the mayor with hate in their eyes. Dogboy cocked back his shoulders, put his hands on his hips, and barked out an order.

“Okay, you guys have to stop this now,” he said.

“Oh, look who decided to come play,” Coaxle said, letting his electricity fall back into his palm. “You gonna help put this bastard out of commission, or are we gonna have to put you down?”

Dogboy held up his hands. “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Calm down, guy. I know Mayor Lane’s bad news. You guys know Cindy, right? She’s my good friend. You can trust me.”

“Material Girl, Digital Boy, you think we can trust this mutt?”

Material Girl giggled. “You’ve, like, been trying to talk to him for weeks now. You practically have a crush on him.”

Coaxle crossed the room, kicking the mayor as he passed. “If you know Cindy, you know what he been doing to all of us, right?”

Dogboy put his arm on Coaxle’s shoulder. “Maybe, but I’m sure I don’t have the whole story. Why don’t you tell me? After everything you taught me about parkour, listening is the least I can do.”

A quizzical look flashed across Coaxle’s face. He peered deep into the eye holes on the old dog mask. Past the artifice, down to the boy underneath. “Hey. It’s… You. Br—”

Dogboy held a finger up in front of his dog mouth. “Shut up. You realize that guy in the chair has it out for me, don’t you?”

“I— Dude, you’re right. My bad,” Coaxle hooked his hand into Dogboy’s then pulled him in for a brisk hug. “So that parkour lesson helped you out, huh?”

“That and learning to fly,” Dogboy said. “What are you doing here? Start at the beginning.”

Coaxle did. He told Dogboy about the day the mayor captured him and his friends. About meeting Cindy in the facility beneath City Hall. The break out. The formation of the Colta City Shadows. The rescue mission and, finally, the abduction.

“Holy crap,” Dogboy said, swinging his legs over the side of the desk he sat on. “One thing confuses me though. Why’d he capture Cindy and not give her a power? It doesn’t—”

“Does any of this make any sense? That costume for one,” Cindy said from the doorway. Her cyan t-shirt was soaked through, her hair matted to her skull with sweat like a tight wool cap.

“Hello, Ms. McNeil. Well, Cindy, I guess,” Dogboy said. “So what’s the plan? You’ve got the mayor captured fair and square. He’s a bad guy, that’s for sure. I say we get a confession then turn him over to the cops.”

“You stupid, stupid children,” Mayor Lane said. “I will tell you nothing, and even if I did, the judge would never believe you. A confession under duress is no confession at all.”

“He’s right,” Cindy said. “If we take him back, he’ll never get punished. We’ll get arrested, but he never will. Guys like him never do. They always find a way out. You want to know the plan? The plan is to make sure he never hurts anybody again.”

Dogboy pulled Cindy away from the others. “Outside. Now.” Once out in the hallway, he pulled back his mask, looking her straight in the eyes. “What are you saying? You’re going to kill him or something?”

Cindy looked down at her shoes. “Or something.” she said. “We’ve got a kid who can wipe memories. After we’re done, he’ll be another crazy homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk over on the west side. He won’t know who Mayor Lane even was.”

Dogboy couldn’t speak for a moment. His jaw hung open as he processed what he’d been told. “What happened to…? Cindy, I could never— You told me I should never—”

“He isn’t following some grand moral code. Why should we?” Cindy said. “Have you seen what he has the cops are doing to people out there? They’re rolling tanks down the streets right now for God’s sake.”

“I know, but he’s obviously guilty. We have to trust the system to—”

“Screw the system,” she said, then took a deep breath so she could really get going.

“Cindy McNeil,” Bronson exclaimed, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. A phrase popped into his to his mind. One he’d used a lot lately. “Watch your language.”

“Oh, grow up,” she said, exasperated. “Why do you always act like such a kid sometimes? We’ve got serious problems going on here. If we take him back now, I could get arrested.”

”We all could,” he said. He thumbed at his mask for a moment then looked at her again. “You’re right. I can be naive sometimes. But what’s so wrong with wanting the world to be like it is in the comics? It’s easier there. When Superman’s right, he is right, you know? Like completely right. I’m only trying to do what’s right. Just like him. I’m with you. Mayor Lane’s a bad guy for sure, but there’s got to be a better way. It’s like I was saying before. If we sink to his level, then the next bad guy is gonna sink even lower. Then we’ll have to do something we’d never do to beat him. Pretty soon, we’ll be the bad guys.”

“I won’t let any of it touch you. Don’t worry. This is on me and the others, but if you got any better ideas, I’ll listen,” she said.

Bronson’s eyes lit up. “I know.” He fished a card from his pocket. “We can tell Mr. Upton-Haywood over at the paper. He hates Lane. He’ll help.”

“He’s been trying to stop the mayor for years. If he hasn’t done it yet, he’s never going to. Trust me. We’ve thought this through. It’s the only way.” She reached over then tucked a tuft of hair behind his ear. “When they realize the mayor’s gone for good, all hell’s gonna break loose. I think they call it a power vacuum. You’re the kind of person who could fill it. It’s like you said. You always try to do the right thing. I can’t think of anybody better to put this city back on track.”

Bronson laughed. “I’m just a kid. I don’t know anything about running a city. It sounds so boring.”

“Which means you’re the perfect guy to do it. People who want that kind of power? Well, we have one tied up in the room back there. This city needs somebody who cares about more than his own ambition. Somebody who’ll do what’s best for everybody. A hero. Like you.” She leaned in. Kissed him. The tension she’d carried in her shoulders for weeks melted away.

Bronson took her hand, a single tear rolled down his cheek. “I wish I could. I want to say yes. It would make this all easy, but if I let you do this, I won’t be a hero anymore. I won’t be worthy of the title anymore. If I don’t stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life, then how can I go out there and tell people I’m the guy they should trust to do what’s right? If I let you do something this bad, Dogboy is dead.”

“No, that’s the whole point,” she said, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them. “Why don’t you understand, Bronson? Why can’t you see it? I need you to be better because I’m not. I can’t look away while he does this to other kids and hope he’ll get in trouble. I want blood. I want to hurt him like he hurt— them. Like he wants to do to everybody I care about. Did you know he threatened my mom when he found out what I knew?”

“I think he’d have his hands full there,” Bronson said, recalling the time he’d had a run-in with the formidable Tess McNeil.

“I’m not going to give that bastard the chance,” she said. “I need you to be better than him because I can’t be. He’s done too much. He—”

The door slammed open. Material Girl slid out across the smooth linoleum floor and into the opposite wall. She recovered then flipped around to face them. “Guys. Guys! Like get in here right now. You gotta see what’s going on outside. It’s the end of the freaking world!”

9

As they reentered the cell block, Dogboy thought it odd that they all were standing around the window he spied through earlier. Even stranger, the light coming through the window cast a purple hue across the gray walls. Questions buzzed around the room.

Have you ever seen anything like that?

What is it?

A hologram? An octopus? A dragon.

These monsters gotta be fake, right?

Like a projection.

Isn’t he too heavy to float so high?

Dogboy pushed his way up to the window. The sun hung high in its usual spot, but he didn’t remember it being purple before. The clouds were a putrid green, like rotten clumps of moldy bread hanging in the sky.

Then Dogboy saw the monsters. A pulpy, tentacled head mounted on a grotesque scaled body with rudimentary wings. Whatever the strange creature was, its body was roughly the same size as the clouds surrounding it.

More gigantic monsters filled the heavens. Flying soldiers with men’s bodies and the head of a chicken waved spears as they flew in formation. An elephantine eyeball shined its yellow beam southeast toward the city. The other creatures followed as the eye flew toward the skyline.

“Hey Dogboy, how’s about you fly up there and take care of big ugly?” Coaxle said. “I’ll let you handle my light work.”

“Gee. Thanks,” Dogboy said, pushing through the kids to the front of the room. “Listen. Nobody touches a hair on Lane’s head until I get back, okay? We can still fix this. I just need to save the world first I guess. No big deal, right?” He unlatched the window, but it locked itself again before he got it open.

“It’s time,” said a voice. The voice laughed. Quiet at first but then louder and louder until it sounded like somebody was screaming in Dogboy’s ear. The building shook. The bricks in the walls ground against each other, making the building pulse like it was breathing. Outside green fire rained from the sky. Smoke wafted across the pavement.

“Ay dios mio,” Digital Boy said. “Santanas himself is here. Abuela said they would come like banditos in the night.”

“What?” Dogboy asked. “What is it?”

Digital Boy wrapped his arms around Material Girl in haste, not as a sign of cousinly affection but as a means to protect. “The end of things. The last days.”

“Like the tribulation?” Jesse asked. Nuncio nodded.

Mayor Lane screamed. The disembodied laugh grew louder. As the ropes fell away from his arms, the mayor stood up.

“What the hell?” Coaxle said, running toward the freed captive. “Get down now or—” A hefty fist materialized before him, landing a punch that sent Coaxle flying. His soft head smacked against the hard wall. His skull’s occipital plane caved in, the brain below soft and malleable as a marshmallow twist. He groaned and slid to the ground as the oversized fist vanished.

“The demon’s hand,” Digital Boy said, pushing his cousin away as he knelt down beside his old friend. “Mi hermano. Wake up. Protect us all.” Digital Boy drew a cross across his chest then bowed his head.

Dogboy jumped into the air, zooming across the room. He held his hands out. Orange light particles floated around then gathered themselves into a hard light sphere. The sphere drifted across the room to the other Shadows. It grew in size until it surrounded them.

“Show yourself, you silly man. Come out here and fix your mess,” Dogboy said. “Get out here and fix what you’ve done.”

A shimmer on the wall. A gold door from nowhere. The handle, ornate with bear and snake etchings, clicked. When the door opened, a man waited on the other side, silhouetted by the blue and purple galaxies swirling behind him.

“Master, you’ve finally come” Mayor Lane said, falling to his knees as tears flowed freely down his cheeks. “Quick, kill the rest. They want to stop us from fulfilling your vision.”

Willowwood stepped through the doorway. It vanished, leaving the plain wall behind. “Take a valium, dear” he said, adjusting his pink cardigan sweater (which had bunched up around his midsection). “If I cried every time some special interest group tried to shut down a ‘Willowwood Original,’ I’d have to buy stock in Kleenex.”

“You two know each other?” Dogboy asked, orange flames licking out through the eye holes on his mask. “Then you’re the one who turned—”

“Yes, I arranged it all, D.B.,” Willowwood said, grabbing imaginary lapels as he struck a proud pose. “The kids. The powers. They were your understudies in case you failed to perform. Good news. Doesn’t look like we’ll need them after all.” He waved his hand, and the room was empty, save for Cindy, Dogboy, and Mayor Lane.

“No you don’t,” Cindy said. She somersaulted across the floor, popping up behind the still-kneeling Mayor Lane. She reached behind her back, pulling out a long throwing knife from a sheath she had fastened to it.

“Hey! That’s my last good knife,” Dogboy said. “I’ve been looking all over for that thing.”

“I’m using it,” Cindy said, pushing the knife into the mayor’s back. “Willowwood, you told me last night I’d get my finale.”

A tiny Willowwood with angel wings poofed into existence perched on her shoulder. “Oh, you’ll get your finale, Ms. McNeil.” The angel disappeared. Another tiny Willowwood, this one with horns growing from his head, appeared on the opposite shoulder. “But that finale might not be the one you’re expecting.”

“Wait. You know him?” Dogboy asked Cindy.

“Good, D.B., you’re finally asking the right questions.” Willowwood paced at a ludicrous speed, wearing a ditch five feet down into the concrete foundation. “What a quandary. What a puzzle,” he fretted.

Cindy pulled Mayor Lane back by his collar then pushed the knife against his neck. The mayor didn’t fight against it, letting her blade slice his skin. A few red drops slid down his neck, staining his bleached-white collar.

“No, Cindy. Please don’t do it,” Dogboy said. He stood between his girlfriend and the multidimensional theater director unsure which way to move. If he went after Willowwood, Cindy might do something awful. Something she couldn’t come back from. If he stopped her, Willowwood would send them to who-knows-where. Maybe to face off against his Puppet Players or creatures like the monsters in the sky.

An impossible choice, but he knew he had to save Cindy from the mistake she was about to make. When he moved toward her, he found he couldn’t.

“I have an idea,” Willowwood said, popping his head up from his ditch. “Why don’t I send you two into the next scene? That should work splendidly for you two little lovebirds. You patch thing up, and I’ll talk with his mayorship here then come right over.”

The room shimmered. Dogboy and Cindy found themselves back in his room under The Old Curiosity Shop. He felt sick, like his stomach was still back at Curleyworld. Cindy lay on the bed fast asleep. Two pocket watches rested on the pillow: The first watch was a generic silver thing, the other embossed in gold. Dogboy picked the gold one up then pressed down the crown on top. The front popped open, revealing a face covered with a hundred intricate dials tracking of complex data points. The Cyrillic labels were unreadable, but Dogboy could make out one that tracked the stability of Earth’s magnetic fields.

The silver watch would let him live his life as he had been. If he picked the one in his hand (the gold one), he’d find out about his future…everything about his future, but he wouldn’t be able to change it. Then again, it might not even matter. Willowwood would send him into the past first to (hopefully) save his parents. If he succeeded, who knows what might happen to the present? He might not even be Dogboy when he returned. He had to make a choice before Willowwood arrived. He knew that much.

A witch’s cackle rang out from the two tunnels on either side of the room. The doors themselves were still off the hinges, propped up against the openings. Green light poured through the cracks.

Baba Yaga, yaga baba. One more chance to do what’s wrong. Baba baba, yaga yaga. Tear your flesh with our claws.

Cindy sat straight up in bed. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

The doors blew over. Three familiar witches oozed though, floating around Dogboy with their poisonous shrill cackles. The teenage girl he’d seen burned alive in the orphanage a few days prior opened her mouth. A million black flies buzzed out, moving like a large sentient vibrating cloud. Her two sister witches followed her lead, dispelling millions more from their open maws.

The bugs surrounded Dogboy. Crawled through his mask, across his eyes, until he saw nothing but black. He felt Cindy pull his arm, but it didn’t matter. The flies had him now. Clogging his nose and throat. Choking him with their translucent wings.

The world slipped away. For a moment, he felt relief. No more battles. No more choices. No more secrets.

No more Dogboy.

10

Willowwood sat on the bed’s edge, playing with a Rubik’s Cube. The witches were gone, but their flies remained behind (although they’d dispersed around the room). Cindy held Dogboy in her arms, shooing the tiny nuisances.

“Wake up, you dummy,” Cindy said, shaking the boy. She pulled back his mask. Flies poured from it, spilling onto the ground in buzzing clumps, stuck together with sweat and spit and mucus. Bronson’s blue lips didn’t move. His eyes looked lifelessly at the ceiling. “No, no. Not you too,” she said through her mounting tears.

“Oh, don’t be such a sissy,” Willowwood said, tossing the Rubik’s Cube on the bed behind him. “He’ll be fine. I only asked the Baba Yaga sisters to scare him a little. He’s too cocky, don’t you think?”

Cindy’s eyes narrowed. “Wake. Him. Up.”

Willowwood flew into the air, sending his body into barrel rolls as he zipped across the room. “Oh what a precocious girl you are, Cindy McNeil. Like you could ever threaten me. I have apple juice in my office fridge with more bite than you, dear. It’s older too. You want him awake?” He alighted on the ground beside her. “Come here.”

Cindy didn’t know if obeying was her best choice, but if he was half as powerful as Bronson had told her, she knew she’d be better off play along…for now anyway. She laid Bronson’s head on the ground, turning it to the side in case he had more flies in his throat, then faced the dandy fop waiting on her. “What do you want from him?” she asked.

“That list could take decades to cover. Four decades in fact. We’ll get there. The more important question is what do I want from you?”

“From me?” Cindy asked. “What could you possibly want that I have?”

“It’s not only what you have. It’s what you will have.” He grabbed her head by the crown. She felt her joints lock tight. A loud POP in her ears accompanied by some pressure on her skull. She felt…breezy. “Here, take this,” Willowwood said. He grabbed her hand, then placed a white semi-circle with…was that her hair?…growing out the bottom. She tried to scream, but before she could, her lips sealed shut. “Still now. This is delicate work.”

She felt his long, bony fingers poke and prod around…and this was impossible…poke and prod around inside her head. She could hear the squishing sounds her brain made as he moved bits around. The sounds came not only through the air to her ears, but also sent a vibration through her skull bone down to her inner ear. Every sickening sound was accompanied by a muffled echo a microsecond later.

Willowwood’s smile stretched back to his ears as he worked. She caught her reflection in the glint of his eye. She looked half-dead, her mouth hanging open as spit dribbled down her chin. As the minutes passed, she became more and more concerned. Was he working toward a purpose, or was this some sick experiment that wouldn’t stop until she bled out on the basement floor?

“There we are,” Willowwood said, snatching her skull from her hand and slamming it back down on her head. He produced a large cosmetic mirror from behind his back (like the one she kept on her desk) and held it on his outstretched arm to show her his handiwork. “Not even a scar. I learned it from Doctor Mullinax over in Beverly Hills. He did great things for my belly fat.”

Cindy felt whatever force was holding her in stasis power down. She jumped back, throwing her fists up. “What the hell was that?” she asked.

“I was only giving you an upgrade, dear. Don’t be such a drama queen. Jeez. What’s a little brain modding between besties like us two girls, huh? Besides, it needs to happen. If our little dog here doesn’t succeed, you’ll be my last chance.”

“Last chance to what?”

Willowwood snapped his fingers. In a flash, he was sitting in a rocking chair, a tattered old quilt folded over his lap. “Come closer, sweetie pie. Grandpa has trouble seeing you all the way over there.”

Cindy took a cautious step forward.

“You see, I’m long for this world. In fact, I predate most of it. Your reality isn’t what you presume it to be, you see. My seal is cracking. People like your friends or the mutt over there. The freaks. They’ve been around as long as I have. You’ve all forgotten, haven’t you? You sweet dumb things.”

“I didn’t forget crap.”

“How fantastic and magical this old world is. There are people like them…like you…everywhere, but they don’t know it anymore. That’s why I had to use that slimy mayor to wake some of you up. Now I’ve had to send them away, which means I need you to make the old ones remember.”

“Nice try, ‘Gramps,’ but in case you missed the memo, I can only make people forget things.”

“Until now,” he said, winking at her over his round spectacles. “I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. Well, not quite, but I remember hearing that somewhere and loving it. I love little references like that. Don’t you? They always make me feel smart when I get ‘em. Look at me on a rant. Back to the subject at hand: I’ve changed the way your power interacts with the hippocampus. ”

“Wake him up, or I’m not gonna help your sorry butt out one bit,” she said.

“Your old Grandpa won’t stand for backtalk, young lady.” The chair disappeared. Willowwood was different now. Dead skin. Pressed moldy-brown suit. Like a zombie with a stylist. “Literally. It’s a matter of self-preservation.” He used his magic to lift Bronson up into the air. “This boy. The one you’re so fond of. His father stripped all the fun from this world to stop me. I’ll need D.B.’s help to stop it from ever happening at all. Frankly, I’m not too hopeful. Kid’s a dope.”

“Takes one to know one,” Cindy said with a sneer, thinking it a clever thing to say.

“Granted,” Willowwood said with a judgmental tone that betrayed his feelings about the joke’s cleverness. “If he fails, I’ll need you to find the old ones, the heroes of the past, and make them remember. You’ll like them. Capes and tights and bright colors for days.”

“Why don’t you have the mayor make you a new batch of super kids?” she asked. “You might even get volunteers if you ask nice.”

“The time has passed, dumb dumb. Thanks to D.B.’s interference, Dexter Stonehouse can no longer produce the activation agent we require. That pink stuff floating in the river? The rare flower we use to unlock your nubile monkey brains to use your the powers has gone extinct. Professor Osbert, the idiot, used the last one trying to unlock a power in your mouthy red-headed pal.”

“Fine, I’ll do whatever you want, but first you have to wake him up.”

“Well, that means it’s time for your audition,” Willowwood said. “I want you to use your new ability on him. Make him remember everything you’ve made him forget. It’s the least you can do after all. If it wasn’t for your meddling, he might’ve put this together ages ago.”

Cindy walked over to Bronson, who was still floating in mid-air. She touched his temple, feeling the familiar tingle in the center of her mind. The past few months appeared like thought bubbles in the air. All those time she’d told him only to rip the knowledge back out. She felt Bronson’s mind convulsing as she restored the memories. His body was rejecting them, trying to push her out with more resistance than he’d ever shown when she was taking memories away. “I can’t,” she said between gasps. “He won’t let me push them through.”

“Try harder,” Willowwood said. A bag of popcorn appeared in his hands, and he started munching. “Careful though. Too hard and the whole thing might pop like a pimple on opening night.”

Cindy took a deep breath, put both hands over his head, then tried again. This time, he fought memories with memories. She lived through the moments that had shaped him: The fight with Arthur Tillman, the car crash, the first day at Woodrow Wilcox Junior High. She saw the events as he had, and she felt ashamed.

Cindy had always assumed when Dogboy did his grandstanding superhero schtick he was imitating the comic book heroes he knew. She didn’t think anybody could be as naive as he acted sometimes. Not really. When she saw the heart of him, she realized it wasn’t an act. He was a true believer through and through. As his story progressed, as more recent memories revealed themselves, she realized that any darkness in his life came from outside it. He loved. He cared. He lived.

One more push. Roaring waves shook the room. Bronson’s eyes popped open. Willowwood let him fall.

“What’s the idea?” Bronson said, rubbing his head as he sat up. “Cindy? Where did—?” He spied Willowwood standing in the corner with his ear to the wall. “You. Enough of this. Nobody else needs to get hurt. I’ve picked a watch like you wanted.”

Cindy put her hand on Bronson’s shoulder. “Do you remember?” she asked.

“Remember what?” Bronson said. A beat. He looked like a kid on Halloween who just found out he wasn’t going trick or treating. The sadness disappeared in a second, replaced by a fury unlike any she’d ever seen in Bronson Black.

“What did you do? Every time you told me I tried to help you. I wanted to, but you didn’t care.” He turned to the wall, folding his arms.

Sirens, then a loud banging from the shop.

“Hold horses,” said Mr. Horum from upstairs. They heard his heavy feet clomp on the wood planks above them as he hurried to the front door. “You forget things, or only want to hassle old man again, hmmb?”

“Hands in the air,” shouted a muffled voice. A crash. Glass breaking. A gunshot. Something heavy hits the ground. “Dogboy, show yourself. We know who you are.”

11

“Ooh. Is that the police? Wasn’t expecting them. Zombies? Sure, Eye crabs? Hopefully. But never police,” Willowwood said as the sound of boots marching grew above them.

Bronson jumped into the air, tackling the older man to the ground. Willowwood laughed, snapped, and Bronson was the one on his back with Willowwood holding him down.

“You. You’re responsible for this,” Bronson said through gritted teeth. “My parents, Andrus, Cindy and the Shadows. Now you bring the cops here to shoot Mr. Horum? I’m done with you.”

“The police weren’t my doing, D.B. Why would I want your identity exposed? And your funny foreign fake father? Everybody loves him. I’d never kill him off this late in the game. Honestly. Wait. I can check on this.” Willowwood disappeared then reappeared a second later over by the desk. He blinked a laptop into existence that, when he opened it, played a video of Bugs (complete with abdominis dentata) talking with the mayor.

Willowwood pressed the volume up key (PLUNK, PLUNK, PLUNK), and they caught the last few seconds. “Bronson Black,” Bugs said.

“So it was the school bully the whole time? Goes to show you should never trust a bully. That’s the moral of this story. Don’t worry. I’ll stop this for now.” He snapped his fingers. The commotion upstairs ceased. Cindy found herself frozen in place.

Willowwood walked over to the bed, retrieving the two watches, then handed them to Bronson. “I’m growing weaker all the time, D.B. Don’t take that as weakness. I have just enough power to make your life a living hell, but I won’t have to. Your boss is already dead upstairs.” Two quick claps. The three witches reappeared, closing in on Cindy. “You’ve met the Baba Yaga sisters I take it? They used to think I was weak. You see how that went for them.”

Bronson noticed a look in the Baba Yagas’ eyes he hadn’t caught in their previous encounters. A deep despair. A hopelessness. The same things he felt pulling at his own heart in that very moment.

Willowwood popped open both watches. Their loud ticking echoed around the sparse room as the witches lifted Cindy into the air. “You have sixty seconds to settle your affairs and decide. Hurry, or we’ll have to kill her too.”

“She can hear me?” Bronson asked.

“Sure, D.B. Shake your caboose though. The curtain waits for no man, or boy, or dog.”

Time started for Cindy, who looked around her in horror as the witches picked at her hair. “Put me down, you freaks.”

Bronson flew up and looked her in the eyes. “Why didn’t you trust me? Why wouldn’t you let me help you? I thought we were friends. More than friends, even.”

“I wanted to do it. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to make sure he couldn’t hurt anybody else,” she said.

“Did she tell you what happened to your dear Uncle Randolph?” Willowwood asked. Andrus’s hood danced in the air with a smiley face painted on the black fabric.

“Oh great. Did you mind wipe him too?” Bronson said.

“Oh, it’s far worse than that, D.B.,” Willowwood said. “She cleverly defeated him by turning off his life support. They’ll be no sequel to his story. He’s as dead as a Disney villain.”

“Is that true?” Bronson asked.

Cindy said nothing.

Bronson sneered at Cindy. Orange energy lit up his pupils. “None of this had to happen. I may be ‘naive’ or whatever, but I understand cause and effect. If you hadn’t hid everything…if you’d asked me for help…who knows? Maybe we could have saved everybody from this pompous playwright.”

“Hey, gentle boy,” Willowwood said. He held up a book of flash paper then tossed it at Bronson as it burned up. “I may have thick skin, but there are limits.”

Cindy bit her bottom lip, her eyes swollen with tears. “I… I don’t know. I thought you’d think I was stupid, and then when it got all complicated, I knew you’d never go along with it. I knew you were better than that. I needed you to be better.”

“You ruined it,” Bronson said, fighting back his own tears as he sunk down to the ground. “I thought I could be a real hero and do good things. That’s what you do when you lose everything, right? You make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody else. Maybe it’s my fault. I should’ve never told you I was Dogboy. Trusting you is the worst thing I ever did. That’s basic stuff. Don’t tell anybody your secret identity. Stupid. Should’ve known once you knew you’d turn out to be the villain.”

“Bronson, I’m not the bad guy here. There are freaking witches who breathe flies behind me for God’s sake.”

“Cindy, not only are you a villain, I think you might be my greatest villain.” Outside they heard screams and explosions. A loud growling that sounded like it was getting closer. “The world’s crumbling around us because I didn’t notice what Willowwood was up to because you made me forget all the clues. You are the absolute worst.”

Cindy bowed her head. “I’m… I’m sorry. Please, we can fix this. Let me—”

“Choose now, Bronson Black,” Willowwood said. Light bled through the tunnels on either side: silver light to the right, gold light to the left.

“Chill out, Willowwood. I’ve made my decision.” Bronson said. He threw the silver watch into the wall with the superhero cutouts he’d pasted there weeks before. It shattered, the cogs and gears spilling across the cold concrete. “I have to know who I can trust. I’d rather know my entire future then risk being betrayed like this again.”

“Yippie skippy! I was hoping you’d say that,” Willowwood said. He clapped twice. The Baba Yaga sisters set Cindy on the ground then vanished up through the floorboards. “Now before I fill you in on the future, you have to do something for me.”

“I know. You want me to go back and save my dad. I’m ready. If I succeed, these monsters all goes away, right? Things go back to normal. Everybody lives?”

“Of course,” Willowwood said.

“How do I know this isn’t some weird plan to get me out of the city so you can make yourself king or something?”

“Hold on, D.B. I saw something around here that might ease your mind.” Willowwood ran over to the bed and dove underneath. He threw out several items: comics books, folders, dirty socks. A second later, he emerged with the green flashlight. He flicked the switch back and forth a few times. “Still works,” he said. He handed it to Cindy. “Go ahead, ‘Arch-Villain McNeil.’ Hit me with your best shot.”

Cindy looked to Bronson, who nodded, and she trained the beam on the dramatic imp. He smiled.

“It doesn’t even make you throw up,” Bronson said.

“I’m not some ordinary human. It does different to me. I’m what it was made for. Right now? That light hitting me? I’m powerless. Go ahead. Come on up and slap me sometime.”

Bronson walked up to him, smacking him as hard as he could.

“Ouch, D.B., is that the way you treat all your fans?” Willowwood said, rubbing his cheek. When he pulled his hand away, Bronson saw a dark purple welt. “This flashlight takes away my powers for as long as it shines on me. Your frienemy, here, can keep me civil until you get back. Then again, if you succeed, we won’t be here when you get back. You’ll have a whole new life.”

Bronson looked at Cindy. “I don’t know if I can trust you, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice. Cindy, can you do this for me?”

She nodded.

Bronson knelt down and retrieved his mask off the ground. After dusting off the fly carcasses, he pulled it down over his head.

“Drama, drama, drama. Now hurry, boy,” Willowwood said, a wince crossing his face. “Let blue river take you where you’re needed.”

Dogboy took a deep breath and walked through the door. He felt like he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Willowwood’s voice called after him, reminding him to keep his father from getting the powers at any cost. Cindy screamed something about an evil yellow cloud.

He drifted on. Years flowed past him. Big block numbers: 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002. On and on, floating along the waters of time. Behind him were monsters, death, and destruction. His world was coming to an end, but the fantabulous Dogboy hoped he’d find a new beginning.

PART 3 — THE DEMON’S SEAL

July 28, 2005 Inside City Hall 7:52 PM

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July 28, 2005
Inside City Hall
7:52 PM