Blue Bloods

Katrina watched as Damien ran a final check on his video equipment. Her heart raced in counterpoint to the bursts of gunfire in the distance. Her phone jangled in her ear. She tapped the case secured to her hip.

"Dammit, Eduardo, I told you I'd call you when I had the video ready! You're going to get me killed ringing my phone one of these days!"

"You're supposed to turn it off." Damien's voice was harsh, but she saw the ghost of an affectionate smile on his lips.

She rolled her eyes at him, pulled the phone from its case, and set it to vibrate with exaggerated care.

"Where's your mask?"

She shook her head, smiling at his rigid adherence to the rules. Even rules they'd worked out between the two of them less than two weeks ago.

He sighed, straightened, and walked over to the van. His camera trailed obediently behind him, hovering in midair. When he got within arm's reach of the doors, they swung open. The messy contents of the interior rose into the air and floated apart. Her mask, a big, horned thing she'd cobbled together from a Mardi Gras mask, scraps of leather from an old jacket, and some Bluetooth gear from the cell phone store.

He wandered back, attention on his camera again. She slid her eyes closed, and the mask slipped on, the straps connecting themselves without her having to touch them. The ear buds crackled to life, and she whispered, "Sound check, Katrina Wells, Damien Watkins, Siren, Centurion."

"Sound is good. Shriek and Guardian Angel are ready to roll."

Her frown should have seared him to the bone, but he just grinned at her. "You know I hate that name."

"You know you should use it. It's what they call you."

"Hey, I'm the one reporting here."

His equipment checks done, Damien laid his hands on her shoulders, staring deep into her eyes. "If you keep using a name they don't call you, someone will ask why."

"The only ones who know they call me that are behind bars."

"Yeah, but they're not all stupid."

He was right, but she couldn't help her pout. She didn't want to be known as some kind of screaming harpy, she wanted to be a sultry, seductive heroine. She opened her mouth to argue again, but gunfire and deep, masculine screams cut her off. Damien shook his head once, impatiently.

"We don't have time for this now. Watch my back."

"You don't mind if I watch a little further down, do you?"

That earned her an eyeroll and a blush, but he slipped out of his coverall. The gleaming breastplate beneath it glinted even in the smoke-filled gloom of burning New York. The coverall floated into the van, passed a kilt made of thick metal plates coming out. The van sprang upward on its springs as the last plate lifted from the van's floor. The armored kilt wrapped itself around his waist, covering him from waist to knee in quarter-inch-thick metal.

Damien rolled his shoulders, settling the armor in place, then slipped a helmet over his head. Like the rest, it looked vaguely Greek, but thicker than any classical armor ever worn. Teeth glinted in the shadows of the helmet. He loved this stuff. God help her, she loved him for it.

"Let's go be heroes."

***

Angie stripped the paper and tinfoil wrappers away, tossed them at the pile where the waste basket used to be, and gobbled greedily. The angry poopy head voice in the back of her head went silent, smothered under chocolate and sugar and almonds.

Almonds were gross. She wanted to spit them out, but she was a good girl, and good girls didn't spit. The cranky voice started muttering again, and she grabbed another bar from the box. The angry voice made her feel bad. Chocolate and sugar and almonds were the magic that made the angry voice go away.

The cartoon on the television stopped, replaced by some old guy. He seemed really excited about something; pictures of a man in a helmet and a woman in a devil mask showed up beside him. He was boring so she reached one chocolate covered hand out and changed the channel. That channel had another boring old guy too. The angry voice recognized him and started complaining, so Angie shoved the whole chocolate bar into her mouth to shut it up. Each bar made the angry voice angrier, but it also made it quiet for a little bit, and Angie was so tired of people yelling at her.

She flicked the television remote again, poking the button really hard to make it work. Her fingers were sticky, covered in a thin film of chocolate. She licked at them to get it off, but her tongue was still covered in chocolate and nuts, which only made it worse. Tears leaked out of her eyes, and she threw the sticky gadget into the pile of trash covering the basket.

The boring old guys weren't on the television anymore! There weren't any cartoons, though, just two adults dressed up in costumes. She had red tights, a tight red shirt, and a mask with horns. He wore old fashioned armor. He ran down the middle of a street, and gunshots pinged from his chest.

A superhero show! Those were okay, too. The special effects in this one weren't very good, and instead of anyone making jokes, a lady talked through the whole thing.

"This is Katrina Wells, live from Herald Square in New York City, where the remaining members of a New York City ESU team are pinned down by gang members. My source tells me the gang members tried to loot Macy’s, but were initially repelled by the store's security team, who barricaded the doors and called for police."

The armored man ran toward a group of bad guys with guns and bandanas. They shot at him, but the bullets bounced off his armor and shield. The angry voice sounded in Angela's head, so she grabbed another candy bar from the box and shut her up so she could watch the super hero beat up the bad guys.

When he got to about ten feet from them, the armored hero grabbed the bumper of a car, pulled, and the whole car lifted off the ground. He swung it into the bad guys like a huge bat, and they flew backwards, rolling a bit before they lay still.

The camera swung around to show a big blue police truck. It sparkled, and the whole thing rattled and smoked with each spark. A police man in a police helmet stuck his head out and fired his gun, but a moment later he fell backward into the truck again.

Angela reached for the remote. This wasn't a kids show; kids shows never had blood, even fake blood. This was a grown-up show, because the good guys only died in grown-up shows. The sticky remote didn't work, and the angry voice got louder. She scrabbled at the bottom of the box, but the box had no more bars. Tears flowed down her face, washing away a little of the chocolate. She needed more to make the angry voice go away, but she had no more left.

"I wish I had more magic chocolate," she pouted. A second later, a huge cardboard box settled to the floor in front of her. The chocolate bar logo covered one side of the box. She ripped the top off, revealing carton after carton of chocolate bars.

They all had almonds, but she could spit those out. She tore into the first carton, ripped away paper and tinfoil, and stuffed a whole chocolate bar into her mouth. It was good, just what she'd been craving, and it buried the angry voice under sugar and chocolate and nuts.

"I wish I had a new remote," she muttered, her mouth full of yummy chocolate and yucky nuts she couldn't spit out, because good girls didn't spit. A comforting weight settled into her palm. Without looking, she thumbed the controls. Instead of changing the channel, the remote increased the volume.

A bad man said a naughty word, then shouted, "It's Shriek! Get the blue, man, get the blue!"

One of his friends said an even naughtier word, lifted his gun, and yelled back, "no time! Just shoot her!"

Before he could shoot, the devil mask woman, Shriek, screamed. The bad guy flew backward, just like he'd been shot, tumbling end over end, his gun skittering down the street on its own. When he lay still, she yelled again, only this time there were weird, warbling words in her shout.

"Put your guns down and surrender!"

"As you've just heard, The Siren has called for the gang members' surrender. It looks like this is just about over." All around the police van, bad guys stepped out with their hands raised up over their heads. A few still struggled to put their guns down, but they had straps across their backs that wouldn't let them. These were really stupid bad guys. Adult shows were so weird.

Angie's thumb pressed another button, but again the channel didn't change. A bad guy charged out from behind a car. He carried a huge rock in his hands, and before he'd taken two steps he broke a piece off and threw it at Shriek. When she fell down, the bad guys looked around, confused, and some of them started shooting again.

Angie barely registered any of that. Instead, she stared at the man with the rock. His eyes glowed blue.

Crying, she ran over and shoved the television. With a crash of shattering glass, it fell into the door. She dove into the box of candy bars, trying to drown the angry voice in chocolate and almonds and sweet grey dust.