Inside Straight

For the first time, both the lioness and Lohengrin noticed the flames sheeting up the wall, the swaths of sword-slashed and burning furniture. To Jonathan’s profound relief, they bolted for the door.

The lioness paused on the lawn, her head shifting from Jonathan to Lohengrin and back.

“Ah. Good kitty?” Jonathan said. The lioness howled, turned, and sped away into the night. Lohengrin took two fast steps after her, and then stopped. The lioness was already half a block away, and still accelerating. Lohengrin’s sword and armor vanished.

Flames flickered inside the house. Smoke was billowing out of the movable skylight in Peregrine’s bedroom. Jonathan sat on the lawn. Lohengrin stepped over and squatted down beside him.

“The house,” Lohengrin said.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “We torched it.”

“Where are your clothes?” Lohengrin asked.

Jonathan sighed. “In the house,” he said.

“Und the key for the auto?”

“In the pocket,” Jonathan agreed. “With my wallet.”

In the distance, sirens were just starting to wail. Jonathan sucked his teeth, Lohengrin looked around, shamefaced.

“Well,” Jonathan said, “that could have gone better.”

Melinda M. Snodgrass Star Power

The front doors of the bank blew into sparkling shards. Even safety glass was no match for one of Curveball’s marbles. The robbers fired wildly with their paint-ball guns, and retreated as Curveball, Hardhat, and Wild Fox rushed through the doors. The paint-ball pellets bounced harmlessly off the web of glowing yellow girders that served as a shield for the advancing aces. The building gave a lurch and settled. There were screams of terror from the bank customers held hostage in the safety deposit vault.

Noel Matthews sat huddled among the bound and gagged bank customers. His henchmen were succumbing to Curveball’s Nerf balls and the touch of Hardhat’s girders. There was the sound of paint-ball guns firing wildly from the back of the bank. The last two of his men came stumbling into the lobby. Earth Witch pursued them, and soon had the floor cracking and dancing beneath their feet. They shouted with alarm and fell in a tumble of guns, arms, and legs. All six of his henchmen were now effectively dead or captured.

Hardhat moved to the door of the vault and gestured to the prisoners with a grandiose sweep of one brawny arm. “Okay folks, you’re safe now.”

Noel shook back the trailing curls of his long blond wig, and looked pleadingly up at the big ace. Hardhat’s chest swelled and he swaggered over to Noel, pulled a utility knife off his carpenter’s belt, and cut Noel’s bonds. Noel pulled the gag out of his lipsticked mouth. “Thank you,” he whispered huskily.

“No fuckin’ problem. It was my goddamn pleasure.”

Earth Witch had found Noel’s trademark black, snap-brimmed fedora in front of a wall of safety deposit boxes. She picked it up and frowned from the hat to the boxes. His reputation as a magician and a wild card had her wondering if he could have somehow crammed flesh and blood into a metal box.

Wild Fox and Curveball were moving to cut the ropes holding the extras who had played the bank customers. Noel flowed to his feet and stepped up behind Hardhat. With one hand, he pulled out the paint-ball gun and shot the big ace in the small of his back. With his other hand he threw a flash/bang, blinding everyone except himself, because he had closed his eyes.

Noel heard Hardhat’s bellow of “Son of a fucking bitch!”

Noel opened his eyes. A mic on its boom swung wildly for a moment, as if Hardhat’s curse words had weight. The sound man grimaced and reasserted control of the long metal handle with one hand, while with the other he mopped at his streaming eyes. Everyone else in the small vault was also knuckling or covering their eyes.

Wild Fox had vanished, using his illusion power to transform into someone else. The floor began to vibrate beneath Noel’s feet. He aimed carefully and shot Earth Witch in the left tit. She gave a yelp of pain.

Her cry drew Curveball’s attention. “Ana!”

Noel used Hardhat’s bulk and weight to spin the big ace and send him staggering into the gaggle of people, like a human cue ball. During the spin, Noel patted Hardhat down, located the cell phone in the ace’s pants pocket, and pulled it free. There were more cries of pain as Hardhat arrived. Noel thumbed the phone to camera and swept the lens across the milling crowd. A pretty girl was revealed as the Japanese-American ace. Quite a lot of gender bending going on here, Noel thought with a grim smile, as he tossed away the phone and threw a handful of smoke bombs, while simultaneously shooting Wild Fox.