The Supernaturalist Part 5

Cosmo called after him. 'One question.' Stefan did not turn around. 'Make it quick, Cosmo.' 'I know what you're doing, but why are you doing it?'

'Because we're the only ones who can,' said Stefan, tugging the cord on the elevator grille.

I'm inside a cartoon, thought Cosmo. This is all a graphic novel. Someone is turning the pages right now and saying: 'This is too weird; who could believe something like this?'

'Stefan was a police cadet three years ago,' said Ditto, tossing his beer bottle in the recycler. 'His mother was on the force too. She was one of the city's chief trauma surgeons. After she died, he spent a year in the widows' and orphans' home. When he got out, he spent every dinar of the insurance settlement on this place.'

Cosmo glanced around. The building was not luxurious, even by an orphan's standards. The cots were army issue, the paint was bubbled with damp and the windows hadn't seen a cloth in years.

'Not exactly the Batcave.'

'The what cave?'

'Never mind.'

The blond boy pointed to a bank of mongrel computers stacked on a workbench.

The latest crystal screens sat side by side with last-century monitors.

'Most of this stuff is black market. We observe Satellite sites, waiting for disasters.'

'What? You hack the state police site?'

Ditto chuckled. 'The state police site? No, thank you. We're in too much of a hurry to wait around for the police. We hack the law firms.'

It made sense. With lawsuits being so costly, most corporations hired private teams of rapid-response combat lawyers to beat the police to accident sites.

Ditto turned his attention back to the room. 'We all have a bunk,' he said. 'Basic stuff, but it's a place to lay your head.'

'And you just happened to have a spare one for me?'

Ditto sighed. 'A spare one for you? Well, no. That was Splinter's. He used to be one of us. He couldn't take the visions any more. He left the city six months ago. He lives out of town now. He wears blue-lensed sungla.s.ses, never takes 'em off.'

'Are you a Spotter, Ditto?'

'A Spotter? Yes, we all are. But with me, it's a Bartoli side effect. Mona told you about me, right?'

'Yes. And how did you find Stefan?'

Ditto frowned. 'Stefan had an ... accident a few years ago. I was in the ambulance that picked him up. The world's shortest paramedic. That particular hospital made a big deal of hiring a Bartoli Baby. Maybe you read about me on the Sat-net?'

Cosmo shook his head.

'Well anyway, when we picked up Stefan, he was babbling about blue creatures sucking the life out of his chest. I couldn't believe it. Until that moment I'd thought I was crazy. So I visited him at the hospital and we took it from there. When Stefan decided to set up our little group, I quit my job without a second thought. Ever since then, we've been saving the world together.'

'One more question.'

Ditto shook his child's head. 'One more question. With you kids, it's all questions.'

'What's Stefan doing with real flowers?'

'The flowers? Stefan will tell you when he's ready.'

Cosmo's heart sank. He was almost part of a group. Almost, but not quite.

The LED on his plexi-cast switched to red and an alert began beeping gently.

'That's enough walking around for you today. The cast needs another eight hours to do its job. Are you in pain?'

Cosmo nodded.

Ditto pulled a pain plaster from his pocket. The rumpled tab looked about ten years past its sell-by date.

'Here. There's still a bit of juice in this.'He peeled off the adhesive backing, slapping the pad on to Cosmo's forehead.

'How's the heartbeat? Your ticker took quite a hammering.' Ditto placed his hand on Cosmo's heart and suddenly the pain disappeared.

'It's gone. The pain. How'd you do that?'

'Not me. The pad. One of my own concoctions. I get plenty of opportunities to put my medical training to use in this job.'

'And Stefan trained at the police academy?'

Ditto grinned a grin far too cynical for one of his apparent years.

'Yes, he specialized in demolition.'

'Tomorrow, do I get to be a Spotter?' asked Cosmo.

Ditto nodded at Mona Vasquez, who was snoring gently in a deep, but untroubled sleep. 'No one can teach you how to be a Spotter, kid. That's what you are. But that little innocent-looking girl there will teach you what to do when it's time to put your natural talent to work.'

The warehouse on Abracadabra Street possessed what looked like a little-used side door. In fact the door was well oiled and alarmed, but to the casual observer, the creeping rust and stacks of rubbish made the entrance seem obsolete. Outsiders were not to know that the rust was carefully cultivated and the rubbish stacks were on castors. With the simple push of a b.u.t.ton, the entire mound slid aside revealing an entrance wide enough to admit a large truck. Not very high-tech, but sufficient as long as no one tried to recycle the rubbish.

Stefan opened the door a crack, slipping into the Satellite City dawn. Sunrise used to be orange. But now sunrises were a multicoloured affair, as the sun's light illuminated whatever chemicals were in the smog that particular day. Today the smog was deep purple, so that probably meant pesticides. The air would stink by noon.

Still, it was better than red. n.o.body ventured outdoors without a mask when the smog was red.

The street vendors were busy even at this hour, firing [ up their mobile braziers and barbecues, ready for the breakfast trade. It was too early for the gangs, though. I Hoodlums tended to keep vampires' hours. The streets would be relatively safe until late afternoon.

Stefan bought a pazza from Carlo's Kitchen, and made his way towards the crematorium. Pazzas were a new fast food craze. Calzoni pizza stuffed with pasta sh.e.l.ls and various sauces. The perfect food for a person on the move.

Stefan walked along Journey Avenue keeping his eyes on the pazza. In Westside, people would steal the food right out of your mouth. It was a sorry state of affairs. If this was the City of the Future, Stefan would take the past any day of the week.He was in a bad mood and it wasn't just the smog. In spite of all his efforts, the group had taken on another stray. OK, so the kid was a Spotter. But he couldn't be more than fourteen years old and he had absolutely no experience of surviving in the city. Mona was young too, but she was streetwise and gutsy. Cosmo looked like the streets would eat him alive in minutes. Stefan already felt responsible for the boy, though he had no desire to be. He was barely old enough to be responsible for himself. It was one thing to risk his own life in pursuit of the Parasites, but to put someone else in danger was something else entirely. Especially someone as green as Cosmo Hill.

Five city blocks down, he arrived at the Solace Crematorium. The building was inevitably pig-iron grey, but the manager had made an effort to cheer up the place by having computer graphic angels flit up and down the facade.

Stefan went round the back to the Hall of Eternal Rest. He swiped his resident's card and pa.s.sed through the turnstile. His card activated what appeared to be a wall of mirrors, but was in fact a ten-storey carousel of small gla.s.s boxes. The magnetic strip in his swipe card summoned a box from the top level. He followed its progress through the rows, twinkling down the levels to a vacant booth on ground level.

Stefan selected the no-music option on the touch-sensitive screen and entered the booth. The box slid from its compartment on to a velvet cushion.

'I don't like all this, Mum,' muttered Stefan, abashed. 'Velvet and fairies. But believe it or not, there are places a lot worse than here.'

The box was six inches square, transparent, with a bra.s.s plate on the front. The inscription was short and simple. Seven words. Dearest Mother. Much loved. Gone too soon.

Stefan pulled the bunch of flowers from beneath his overcoat, laying them on the cushion before his mother's ashes.

'Lilies, Mum. Your favourites.'

Stefan's spiky hair had fallen over his eyes. It made him look years younger.

'We picked up another Spotter, Mum. He's a good boy. Sharp. He saved Mona tonight. A quick thinker. Definitely Supernaturalist material. But he's just a kid, a no- sponsor right out of Clarissa Frayne.'

Stefan rested his head in his hands.

'But even with Cosmo, there are too many of these blue demons. Every day, more and more. They come out in the daytime now, you know. Even if you have the smallest cut on your arm, you better watch out. n.o.body is safe. Every night we pop a hundred, and the next day there are a thousand new Parasites to take their place.'

Stefan's young brow creased with the worry lines of a man three times his age.

'Am I crazy, Mum? Are we all crazy? Are the Parasites really there at all? And if they are, how can a bunch of kids ever hope to fight them? The others think I'm their leader. I see the way they turn to me, as though I have all the answers. Even the new boy, Cosmo, is looking up to me already, and he's only been awake for a few hours.

Well, I don't have any answers. There are more Parasites every day and all we can do is save a few people at a time.'

Stefan rested his head in his arms. He knew what his mother would have said.

Everyone you save is someone's son, or someone's mother. When you save them, you save me.

If only, thought Stefan. If only I could have saved you. Then everything could have been different.

CHAPTER 3:

BLOWING BUBBLES.

Mona Vasquez felt as though her insides were trying to punch their way out of her stomach. She lay on her cot, sweat pumping from every pore in her body. Mona could remember everything that had happened the previous night, but the images were blurry, as though viewed from underwater. The private police had tagged her with a dart. Stefan and Ditto had managed to cart her back here. Literally. And then what?

Then the new kid had saved her. After that she had puked for six hours straight.

And if the intestinal gymnastics in her stomach were anything to go by, she wasn't finished yet. Mona lay still as a statue. Perhaps if she didn't move, the jitters would go away.

This kind of thing was happening more and more lately. You couldn't expect to go charging around Satellite City shooting off lightning rods without repercussions. In the past eighteen months, she had acc.u.mulated sixty-seven st.i.tches, three broken bones, a slipped disc and now a puncture wound in her leg. She was lucky to be alive, though she didn't feel particularly lucky at this moment. The cold truth was that the odds were against her and were stacking higher all the time.

But what choice did she have? Stefan's quest was her quest. Someone had to put a stop to the Parasites. Her own parents had died young. Maybe the Parasites had stolen their last few years from them. And the creatures were becoming more brazen by the day. They were attracted to any illness or injury, however small and stalked their victims in broad daylight.

Mona did not share Stefan's driven hatred of the Parasites. After a night of creature-blasting with the Supernaturalists, she had no problem sleeping for eight hours solid. But Stefan could be heard pottering around the workbench, repairing weaponry or rigging climbing equipment. Often his obsession kept him awake for forty-eight hours straight.

The girl sat up slowly, waiting for her stomach to lurch. It didn't happen. Perhaps she was finally on the mend. She studied her face in the bedside mirror. She was green, no doubt about it. Not a deep green, but there was a definite hue. There were even a few green tendrils in her eyeb.a.l.l.s. What kind of poison had been in that dart?

If it hadn't been for Cosmo, she'd be nothing more than a shrub now with a couple of shrivelled leaves.

Mona sighed, stretching the skin on her cheek between finger and thumb. There was a time when she used to worry about being pretty. Her mother used to say she was beautiful like an exotic flower. Mona had always remembered the phrase. Exotic flower. Even if sometimes she couldn't remember her mother and father any more.

Thev had been lost in a food riot in Booshka.Mona wandered out into the common area, scratching her head. Stefan, of course, was already at a workbench, pouring cleaning solution on the lenses of his night- vision goggles. His dark eyes were completely focused on the job. Mona took a moment to study him. Stefan would be a big hit with the girls, if he ever stopped working long enough to bring one out on a date. He had all the right ingredients. Tall, dark, handsome in a beaten-up-once-too-often way. But Mona knew that Stefan did not have time for himself, let alone someone else. He only had time for the Parasites.

Stefan noticed her standing there, and a genuine smile brightened his face.

'Hey, Vasquez, you're back on your feet.'

Mona nodded; the motion caused her stomach to flip.

'Just about. Thanks to the new kid.'

'Are you up for some business?'

'Always ready for business, Stefan,' replied Mona, trying to summon up some enthusiasm.

Stefan tossed her a lightning rod. 'Good. Show Cosmo how to use this. We have an alert three blocks away.' 'Do you think the Parasites will show up?' Stefan looked at her through the lenses of his night-vision goggles.

'What do you think?' he said.

Cosmo was halfway through a particularly nasty dream involving two Parasites, Ziplock and a hairdryer, when Mona shook him from his sleep.

He opened his eyes, expecting to see the Clarissa Frayne dorm marshal looming over him. Instead, he saw Mona Vasquez. Incredibly, she managed to look pretty in spite of her pasty green complexion.

'You look pretty,' he sleep-mumbled.

Mona thrust out her bottom lip. 'Excuse me?'

Cosmo groaned. Had he said that aloud?

'You look pretty . . . green. Pretty green. It's the virus. Don't worry, it pa.s.ses.'

Mona smiled. 'I hear you're quite the medical expert.'

The smile woke Cosmo quicker than an adrenaline patch.

'Not an expert, exactly. I was lucky.'

'Me too.' Mona straightened. 'OK. Sentimental moment over. Get your bald head out of bed. We've got work to do.'Cosmo threw back the worn blanket.

'I know. Training.'

'Training? You wish. We got an alarm three blocks away.'

She handed Cosmo a lightning rod. 'Green b.u.t.ton prime. Red b.u.t.ton fire. Make sure the narrow end is pointing at the spooky blue creature. Got it?'