Masked (2010) by Lou Anders Read Free Book Online Page A

crime fighter was that he was willing to judge people. This was why he spent nights skulking dark alleys in dangerous parts of town rather than drinking brandy by the fireplace in his fifty-room mansion. He was well-known for his ability to see things clearly, in black and white, cutting through the haze of gray fog that afflicted so many of his fellow men. He sighed.
    “A: Lighting your cigarette with your powers is about as stealthy as waving around a road flare. B: Kids look up to the Law Legion and you’re its most powerful member. If they see you smoking, they’ll think it’s okay. C: You’re my friend, John. You deserve a better death than lung cancer.”
    Atomahawk nodded as he hovered closer to the roof’s edge. John Naiche was a full-blooded Apache who looked quite striking in his bright-red plastisteel armor. His long black hair flowed like a cape down his back. He’d been a founding member of the Law Legion along with Retaliator, Arc, She-Devil, and Tempo. The big Apache took a long draw on the cigarette, then flicked it away.
    He crossed his arms and said, “You know I took it up again right after your last funeral.”
    “Again?” asked Retaliator.
    Atomahawk furrowed his brow, puzzled by the query. Unlike Retaliator, he wore no mask to hide his features, only war paint that looked like swept-back hawk’s wings.
    “You said ‘again,’” said Retaliator. “It implies you used to smoke before.”
    “Oh,” said Atomahawk. “Yeah. When I was in high school. I quit when I joined the Marines. But for the last ten years, any time I get stressed out, I can’t help but think about putting a cigarette in my mouth. The last time Prime Mover killed you, I bummed one from a teenager outside the funeral home. I haven’t been able to stop. Honestly, why should I worry? My blood is more radioactivethan uranium. I have to bury my feces in lead jars because they’d kill any ordinary man that got near them. Cancer’s coming, probably, but it’s the radiation that will do me in, not cigarettes.”
    Retaliator struggled not to roll his eyes. He’d heard Atomahawk’s my-power-is-my-curse shtick often enough that he could recite it by rote.
    A long moment of silence passed as they both stared at the warehouse.
    Atomahawk said, “Anyway, I’m not the most powerful Legionnaire anymore. She-Devil’s scary now that she’s eaten Satan’s heart. And Golden Victory could probably take me in a fight, if it came to it.”
    “I could take you in a fight,” said Retaliator. “It doesn’t change the fact that kids look up to you.”
    “You dress like a refugee from a bondage flick,” said Atomahawk. “Don’t lecture me about corrupting children. How’s Nubile doing, by the way?”
    Retaliator pressed his lips together tightly. “She’s off the respirator,” he said softly, losing the deep raspy baritone he normally affected. “The doctor’s say. . . they say she might recover more brain function in time. It’s still too early to know.”
    “That’s good,” said Atomahawk, in a tone that really said, “That sucks.”
    Retaliator stood up, stretching his back. He tugged up his pants, which had slipped down a bit. Perhaps he did look a bit like a bondage fanatic in his black leather pants, knee-high boots with about a hundred silver buckles, leather gloves that laced up his forearms, and a black mask that concealed all his features save for zippered slits at the eyes, mouth, and nostrils. His shaved chest was completely bare, showing off the hundreds of scars he’d acquired over twenty years of crime-fighting. His skin wasn’t bulletproof, but his entire cardiovascular system was composed of high-tech bioplastics from the twenty-eighth century that few twenty-first-century weapons could damage.
    His outfit, he knew, made some people uncomfortable. But they’d been the clothes his father, Reinhart Gray, former chief justiceof the Supreme Court, had been found dead in. Police had ruled his death