Christopher walked through the cemetery in the gathering dusk, blowing on his hands in a vain attempt to warm them. Snowflakes settled in his short, blond curls and on the shoulders of his worn gray overcoat, and clouded his vision when he blinked them from his eyelashes. Part of him wished he was in his cozy apartment, curled up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate, waiting for Jimmy to come home from work. But this was his ritual, and he had never missed a year. No snowstorm would prevent him from honoring his father.
Head down, he strode past the grand mausoleums that were the final resting places of the city’s great and good. The powerful, the wealthy, the benevolent. Those who had tolerated the likes of his father for as long as it had suited them, until they had turned around and…
Sighing, Christopher fought to clear his mind of the bitter thoughts that threatened to crowd in. Much as he longed to take a crowbar to these overly ornate tombs, smashing their granite and marble façades to pieces, that wouldn’t solve anything. His father would still be dead, and Christopher would continue to live in the shadows, prevented by the will of those who governed Mokum City from fulfilling his destiny.
He paused by a weathered stone angel, whose wings and outstretched arms were covered with a thick dusting of snow. A young woman wearing a bright scarlet woolen cap stood at a nearby grave, clearly wrapped up in her own thoughts. The headstone appeared newly carved, the soil heaped in a prominent mound, and Christopher realized she must have suffered a recent bereavement. Was it just his imagination, or were her pale cheeks streaked with tears? It gets easier, he wanted to tell her, knowing that was only half a lie. But he moved on, not wishing her to look up and spot him.
His father was buried in a quiet, out of the way part of the cemetery, with only a small wooden cross to mark the location. No grand tomb for Michael Chase. It was hardly surprising, when so many in this city would like to pretend that he had never existed, even though his legacy still lived on in the lives he had saved and the crimes he had prevented.
Christopher sank to his knees and took a single red rose from the inside pocket of his coat.
“Hey, Dad,” he muttered, laying the flower down on the sunken, snow-shrouded earth of his father’s grave. “I’m here to visit you again. Just like every year. Hard to believe it’s been another twelve months and nothing’s changed.” He smiled to himself, a sudden thought lifting his bleak mood. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I met someone. We’ve been seeing each other for about nine months now. I think you’d really like him.”
He stopped, wondering how his father would have taken the news that his only son was gay. Well, he hoped. Michael Chase—at least, the version of Michael that lingered in Christopher’s fading memories—had been a kind and tolerant man. All he’d have wanted was for Christopher to be happy.
And Jimmy makes me very happy… A brief smile crossed his lips at the thought of his boyfriend. Jimmy would be hard at work now, mixing drinks and chatting with the customers in his downtown bar, oblivious to the fact that Christopher had made his annual pilgrimage to the cemetery.
His eyelids flickered shut as he pictured Jimmy. The way a lock of his unruly red hair fell over his striking, ice-blue eyes. The cute smattering of freckles across the pale skin of his shoulders. The soft, almost astonished gasp he gave when Michael took the tip of his cock between his lips…
Realizing that his dirty fantasies were in danger of running away with him, Christopher turned his attention back to the grave.
“I don’t have any other news, Dad. Mayor Van der Sloot is still in charge of the city. And would you believe he’s running for re-election again? Honestly, the guy must be like a hundred now.” His chuckle was sour. The remark wasn’t much of an exaggeration. “But I guess he loves power too much to ever want to give it up. Even though he should be rotting in a jail cell for what he did…”
A high-pitched scream came from somewhere behind him. Christopher rose, turning to see the woman he’d noticed earlier struggling with a burly, black-clad man. She was trying to prevent him from pulling her tan purse out of her grasp, but the man was too strong for her. He grabbed the bag and set off at a run toward the cemetery gates.
The woman looked around, her eyes wide and her movements frantic. Spotting Christopher as he walked in her direction, she sobbed, “Please, you’ve got to help me. Everything’s in that purse. My wallet, my cell phone…” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “The last photos I took of my husband are on that phone.”
She didn’t have to say anything further. Without thinking about what he was doing, Christopher was off and running after the mugger. He had closed more than two-thirds of the distance between them in a matter of seconds, sprinting so fast his feet barely made a dent in the carpet of snow beneath him. Then realization kicked in. What the fuck are you doing?
Consciously, he forced himself to slow down, praying the woman had not seen how rapidly he’d been moving. It took a huge effort of will, when the blood fizzed in his veins and every sinew strained to go faster. He hadn’t simply inherited his father’s super speed and strength, he also had his father’s conscience, and that drove him to stop the thief from getting away. But no ordinary man could run at such a freakish pace for any length of time, and Christopher desperately needed the world to believe he was ordinary.
The mugger glanced behind him, clearly not expecting anyone to be in pursuit. He stumbled on something hidden by the snow—a tree root, or maybe a stone, Christopher thought—and as he struggled to remain upright, Christopher caught up to him. Launching himself in a tackle, he wrapped his arms around the man and brought him crashing to the ground.
“Get off me!” The mugger grappled with Christopher, trying to get free, but Christopher held on, using just a fraction of his extraordinary strength to subdue him. If he wished, he could have crushed the man’s bones to powder, but his father had always told him there were boundaries that could not be overstepped, responsibilities that came with having the power to dispense justice.
“Are you okay?”
Christopher turned his head at the sound of the woman’s voice. She looked down at him, eyes shining with gratitude as she straightened her scarlet cap, which had come awry when she’d been wrestling to save her purse.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He stood, hauling the other man up with him. “Don’t even think about trying to make a run for it,” Christopher warned him. The mugger spat in response, blood mixing with spittle where he had bitten his lip as he’d fallen.
The woman’s purse lay in the snow. Christopher bent and picked it up with his free hand before handing it back to her.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, hugging it to her chest.
“There’s no need,” he replied, anxious to downplay his role in what had happened. “Just call the police and tell them to get someone over here right away.”
“Sure. I’m Janice, by the way.” She fished in her purse and brought out her phone.
“Christopher,” he mumbled.
“You know, Christopher, you were so brave. I mean, he could have had a knife, or… Hi, yes, can you send an officer to the city cemetery, please? A guy tried to mug me… No, he’s still here. We caught him.” She turned her attention back to Christopher. “They said someone will be with us as soon as they can.” For a moment, she looked him up and down. “You know, you really can run. I mean, like superhero fast.”
Heat washed over Christopher, despite the icy chill in the air. Had she realized what he was? “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never seen a superhero. They got rid of them all when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, me either, but my dad used to tell me stories about the days when they looked after Mokum City. All these amazing tales, like the time Miracle Girl stopped an out-of-control subway carriage from crashing off the rails by pushing it back with her bare bands. Or when The Night Guardian fought Doctor Shadow, and the sky over the city turned violet. And he said there was one they called Sprint, who could run faster than an express train.”
“Wow, that sounds cool.” He shrugged, doing his best to sound nonchalant. “But what happened to me just now, I guess that was down to pure adrenaline. I mean, the body can do funny things when it’s under stress. I read somewhere about a woman who lifted up a car because her daughter was trapped underneath it.”
A siren wailed, announcing the arrival of the police patrol vehicle. Christopher welcomed the distraction. It meant he no longer had to talk about himself, but at least he thought he’d convinced Janice she’d seen nothing that couldn’t be easily explained away.
“I didn’t expect the cops to be here so soon,” Janice said.
“Yeah, it really must be your lucky day today… Apart from the whole mugging thing, obviously.” He looked over in the direction of the cemetery entrance to see a middle-aged police officer, a bulky, padded jacket over his regular dark blue uniform, strolling in their direction. As he came closer, Christopher recognized him by his fading red hair and thick mustache. Jimmy’s Uncle Patrick. They’d met at a Brennan family wedding, back in the summer, a couple of months after Christopher and Jimmy had started dating. Christopher found it hard to keep track of all Jimmy’s uncles, aunts and cousins at various degrees of remove, but the bluff, kindly Patrick Brennan had made a strong impression on him.
Of all the strange coincidences…
“So, you’ve caught yourself a thief, have you?” Patrick smiled as he approached, but gave no outward impression that Christopher was anything but a stranger to him.
“Yes, that’s right, Officer… Brennan,” Janice replied, clearly reading his name from the patch on his jacket. “He tried to steal my purse, but Christopher ran after him and made a citizen’s arrest. If he hadn’t, I never would have seen it again. He was a real hero.”
“Is that right?” Patrick squinted at the mugger, before clapping a pair of handcuffs on him. “Well, we’ll get all the details down at the station…”
“I don’t need to make any kind of statement, do I?” Christopher said, suddenly alarmed. The less anyone knew about his involvement in the incident, the happier he would feel.
“Well, we’ll have to speak to you at some point.”
“Okay, sure. But for now, I just want to go home. Try to warm up.” He managed a smile as he clutched the sleeves of his overcoat and mimed a shiver.
“Modest as well as handsome,” Janice murmured.
The heat rose in his cheeks. Compliments always made him uncomfortable.
Patrick pulled a notepad from an inside pocket of his jacket. “I need to take a phone number from you first.”
Christopher rattled off the number, then turned to leave before Janice got the idea of asking for it, too.
“And say hello to Jimmy for me, won’t you?” Patrick Brennan called to his retreating back.
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