Читать книгу 10th Muse: Blade of Medusa - Darren G. Davis - Страница 5

The Muse leapt from building to building. She was happy to

live in a city like San Francisco where the buildings were

close together. If she lived in a suburb, she’d probably have to

drive from place to place — or to a potential crime scene, where

she was headed now.

On the rooftops, she went unnoticed. People rarely looked

up, especially now, at night. And if anybody did spot her, the

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T H O M A S J . M I S U R A C A

Muse would be gone so quickly, they would assume she was a

bird or a squirrel.

Even after the recent press, the world had quickly forgotten

about her. There were one or two articles wondering about the

identity of the woman who’d fought a fury beast on the Golden

Gate Bridge, but the consensus was she’d been killed by the

creature.

Nothing much exciting had happened since then — not that

she was complaining. One Minotaur in a lifetime was all she

needed, and she was happy with her nightly routine of prevent-

ing such mundane occurrences such as robberies, car thefts and

vandalism.

But now that summer was approaching, nocturnal activities

were on the rise. And more people meant more suspicious noc-

turnal activities. It also meant less sleep for the Muse, who was

of course in reality Emma Sonnet.

In two weeks, that wouldn’t be a problem — it would be

summer vacation, but now was the beginning of finals. That

was enough to keep most kids stressed, but Emma also had to

add patrolling the city to that tab.

If something happened on the streets below, it felt like an

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C H A P T E R T W O

alarm clock going off in her head — she’d immediately focus

on the source of the disturbance. This evening, it brought her to

the jewelry district.

The Muse stood in the middle of the boulevard. At first,

nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, but as she scanned

the street lined with various jewelry stores, she noticed a hole

cut through the window of the nearest one.

A small hole, but big enough for a man to crawl through.

Cautiously, the Muse approached the window. It was dark

inside, but she detected a shadow lurking within. As her eyes

focused, she saw he was dressed in black. Either he was a pro-

fessional cat burglar or a poet with nothing better to do. Either

way, she would stop him.

But suddenly something struck her hard on the back of her

neck. The shock and pain sent her crumpling to the ground.

“What’re you doing?” a man’s voice whispered from inside

the store.

“She was snooping,” a woman’s voice returned. “ So I clob-

bered her.”

“ With a crowbar!” the man said, terror filling his voice.

“ You probably killed her. I’m not taking the rap for you on this.”

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T H O M A S J . M I S U R A C A

“Relax, sweetheart,” the woman said. “She’s still breathing.

She’ll just wake up with a really bad headache. And she’s

dressed like one of those homeless punk rockers. Nobody’ll

believe anything she might say anyway.”

The woman crawled through the hole into the store. She

held a large, wool sack in her hand.

“Besides,” she told her partner, “we’ll be well outta town

before she wakes up.”

“I told you I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”

“She was snooping, she deserved it. Now let’s get to work.”

Using the crowbar, the woman pried open the cases that

held the smaller pieces of jewelry and then filled her sack. Her

partner carefully cut open the display cases to subsequently

remove their contents.

As the woman began to pull open the next case, the crow-

bar was suddenly yanked out of her hand. She lost her balance

and toppled into her partner.

“What’re you doing?” the guy whispered. “ This is delicate

work.”

“Like whacking somebody with a crowbar?” said a girl’s

voice through the darkness.

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C H A P T E R T W O

The two froze in fear. They assumed the girl the woman had

clobbered had a friend with her. But as the speaker stepped into

the light, the crooks were even more surprised when they saw it

was the girl herself!

Luckily for the Muse, she had a somewhat harder head than

your average person (though not in the way her friends would

think). Yes, being hit with a crowbar hurt, and kids don’t try this

at home, but when you’re a superhero you generally shake it off

pretty quick.

But, this woman and her accomplice were dangerous and

she obviously had no problem hurting innocent people. The

Muse didn’t like that one bit.

“It’s not very nice to sneak up on someone with a crowbar,”

said the Muse. “ Flowers perhaps, or maybe even chocolates,

but…”

“And you’re gonna get it again if you don’t get outta here,

little missy!” the woman threatened.

“Did you take a course at the Learning Annex to learn how

to speak thug?” said the Muse. “ Something tells me you didn’t

pass.”

“Looks like we got a comedian here,” said the woman as

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T H O M A S J . M I S U R A C A

she ran toward the Muse, raising her fist to strike.

“Shouldn’t that be comedienne?” said the Muse.

Calmly, she grabbed the woman’s wrist, giving it a gentle

twist. The woman fell to her knees.

In quite severe pain, she tried to scratch at the Muse with

her other hand. “ Sorry,” said the Muse. “I’m not into catfights.”

The Muse grabbed the woman’s other hand and twisted

them both behind her back. The Muse always carried a few feet

of rope in her pocket for just such situations, and quickly bound

the woman’s wrists. She tied the other end of the rope to one of

the display case’s legs.

The Muse then turned to the man, and his eyes widened

with terror.

“I didn’t hurt you, lady,” he managed to get out.

“But you would have left me there,” she reminded him,

“and that’s just as bad.”

The man whipped out his glass cutter. “ Don’t come any

closer. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but—”

But the cutter was snatched out of his hand.

He didn’t even see the Muse take it, but now she stood

across from him, holding his now useless weapon.

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C H A P T E R T W O

“W-what are you going to do to me?” the man stammered.

“Wait.”

“W-wait?” the man’s voice cracked. “Wait for what?”

The Muse shushed him.

Some vehicles were approaching.

“ That should be the police,” said the Muse. “I took the lib-

erty of hitting the silent alarm when I came in. Now, I want you

to be a good boy and surrender. Then tell the police all about

what you and your girlfriend do for a living. You can leave the

part about me out.”

“And if I don’t?” the man said defiantly.

“Well then, you shouldn’t write your name on your burgla-

ry tools.”

Two patrol cars rolled up to the jewelry store. When the

officers peered inside, all they saw was a frightened man and

woman tied quite securely to a display case.

Surprisingly the man told them everything.

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