Superhero

Superhero

Short Story

The city became a star-field once night fell. More often than not, she finds herself in the dark pockets between the buzzing glow of city lights. Once upon a time, she hunted knights and kings. Now, she was left to prey upon the scum of society. Those whose absence would be noted with relief but that no one would miss. Gone were the days of knights seeking to bring a blade to her neck and come the days where projectiles came after her faster than she could dodge them. So, she sticks to the shadows, the places people still don't want to look.

She was there when the setting sun turned the city into a landscape of gleaming copper and bronze. She was there when the approach of dawn washed the world in a dull grey glow. She was there when the sun set fire to the clouds as it descended once more. She was a patient creature. She'd seen mountains worn away to dust. What were days to her? She would wait until the bricks at her back and the iron beneath her feet were as much myth as the empires of old. Well, no, she was getting ahead of herself. The descendants of her query would be long gone from the Earth if she waited that long.

He would pass through the alley bellow and lead her to her next meal before his ribs cracked under the force of her jaws. No, she couldn't do that, the alley wasn't big enough. She'd take him to go. The sun was rising again and setting and rising only to set again. It made her dizzy sometimes, how fast the world moved when she was standing still. She missed the days when she could chase the sun across the sky in an endless day or endless night. She should have done more of that, now that she thought about it, but back then it had lost its appeal once she could fly fast enough to outrun the sun.

Her musings were interrupted by familiar footsteps. She felt her vision sharpen and her ears grow deaf to anything besides his heartbeat. She walked behind him, unseen by most and completely undetected by him. She could have tracked down the pimp king herself, that vile peddler of stolen flesh, but she liked to link her victims together. It was a game she played. She was their Karma come to collect early. The culmination of their Adharma. The born-monster come to dish out divine justice. It amused her.

She didn't know why the man didn't just move into a mansion somewhere. He certainly had more than enough ill-gained wealth to afford one or ten. Then again, if he was invisible to the wider world, he was easy food. As wicked as he was, he'd probably still taste better than a crusader when she finally got to him.

"You've been stealing from me!" the pimp king accused the man she had been stalking.

It wasn't often that she was troubled by anything but the thought of having her chain, her beloved chain that she had built up through millennia, broken was upsetting. The world had changed but she had her chain, her long tail of grinning skulls stretching back through the devouring sands of time. No, she couldn't lose that chain. She'd have to move ahead of schedule.

The pimp king felt a cold chill spread through his body, a cold scaly hand gripping the back of his neck. He felt as if his energy had been stolen, swept away in a tide he did not understand.

"Just take the girl and go but I've better have my money soon, you hear?" he said convincingly enough for the man that was now pulling a little girl in metal cuffs out the door.

The girl's wide eyes caught hers. It had been a long time since someone had been able to see her without training. She thought she'd eaten them all ages ago but she supposed that some of them must have fled to the new world. Her claws fell away from the man's neck, now bruised, as the little girl finally disappeared with the slam of the door.

She didn't mean to save the girl. Really, she didn't. Her chain had to remain and the stupid man had proved that he couldn't keep himself alive long enough for her to pick the perfect, poetic moment for his death. She sprung from the wall, cloak becoming wings and hood falling back to reveal a stretching reptilian head. She was big enough to swallow his head and bite him in half by the time her jaws closed over his body. He didn't have time to scream.

Suddenly, she found something clinging to her form. The child, splattered in blood, hugged her with a force that would have been painful if she'd been human. A mixture of blood and tears was getting between her scales but she didn't know what to do for the first time in her existence. So, she stood there with entrails hanging from her teeth, afraid to chew and swallow for fear of dislodging the tiny thing. It had to be her age. Her nanny-dragon wouldn't hunt human children either and some had gotten themselves killed protecting them. She was old enough to be a nanny dragon only there were no more clutches to watch over.

The girl finally let go of her, she'd have to take a swim later, and she finally swallowed the half of the man inside her mouth. She took one look at the mess left on the ground and decided that there was no way that was going near her mouth. Resigning to her protective instincts, she reached out with her mind and the metal of the cuffs curled away from the girl's skin before they fell off completely.

Later, she watched as the social workers gently coaxed the girl into the building. The child look back in her direction; she responded with a nod. The child went in without further struggle. She hadn't meant to save her. She'd never hunted children, too easy, but she'd never paid them any mind either. Curse biology. It would be even worse with no dragon-brats to watch and she wasn't exactly old enough to make any. She walked back towards where the pimp king was. She was going to wait for a white collar criminal with a nasty side this time. Then she might take his shape and start looking for a spot to hoard away precious metals she'd buy with his money. Oh, that's an idea. She could hoard treasure and keep her chain going. The incident with the child quickly slipped further and further away.