Double trouble: the legend of crime brulee

Chapter 1.1

“YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPERS!”

The triumphant cry echoed into the smoggy night, its cool, clear soprano notes seeming to slice through the cloud cover itself as Crime Brulee fled from the police, both fists stuffed with her haul from her latest midnight jewelry-store ransacking. There were five of them and only one of her, but they had no squad car, only nightsticks to defend themselves against the balls of flame she flung their way, widening the distance between them each time they dodged, and decades-long careers of sitting in traffic with boxes of free donuts had rendered them oh so deliciously plump and slow while she remained close enough to peak form to maintain the upper hand. Now a few months past her twenty-first birthday, she’d blossomed from a teenage criminal prodigy into the biggest thorn in the side of the Blackwater City police department, although sometimes she thought it a shame circumstances had forced them onto opposite sides of the law. She was sure she’d have thought at least one of her pursuers cute, if she hadn’t already established too much of a lead to get a proper look.

Behind her, the now-distant blare of the jewelry store’s eardrum-shattering intruder alarm faded to a faint, barely-perceptible whine as she crossed from the city’s trendy shopping district into her own neck of the woods: the outskirts of the riverbank, or, as she thought of it, Blackwater’s armpit, where the cabs wouldn’t stop and the chemical dumping turned the grass the sickly teal color of Blue Razz Sun, where it would even still grow at all.

Outdoing even her impressive sprint across neighborhoods, the villainess conjured a wave of thermal energy beneath her feet, upon which she rose into the air, flying around a corner and down a deserted alleyway. Higher and higher she hovered, until she reached the open back window of her unit, a cramped efficiency on the fourth floor of a tall but dilapidated apartment complex.

Connie Cole’s villain digs had seen better days. Once a decadence-inspiring ensemble in shades of yellowy cream, sensuous amber, and glittering gold, stitched together lovingly by her younger self’s meticulous hands, her threads were starting to unravel, her boots and gloves scuffed. Even the fiery toned lenses of the reflective sunglasses she used for identity concealment had taken their scratches and dings.

Catching her breath, she stripped it all off, shoved it onto the shelf of a dark closet with the stolen jewels tucked underneath, and tugged on a ratty old bathrobe. She smoothed down her wind-whipped curls of raven hair and just like that, she was a completely different woman, worn terrycloth concealing the muscle that coated her sturdy shoulders and corded up and down her long, elegant legs from years of keeping in the practices of running, climbing, hopping fences, and breaking the law, while the tie cinched over and slightly accentuated a modestly soft tummy that her costume held in. She was pretty sure she had lost the cops, but in case they’d seen her enter the unit and decided to come knocking, she could claim, in her civvies, that ‘the criminal’ had escaped through the front door and down the hall.

As she pulled the window shut, the phone in the kitchen began to ring. She debated whether to answer it, knowing it was probably her boss, calling to ask if she could come in tomorrow on her day off. It would probably be more lucrative for her to pawn the stolen jewelry than pick up an extra barbacking shift…then again, she was everyone’s favorite employee, the consensus unanimous among both staff and guests, and last year, around Christmastime, a few of the wealthier regular diners at Antonio’s had gifted her white envelopes stuffed with heartfelt cards and big bills. That money was all gone now–perhaps if Connie were better at managing it, she’d live in a nicer apartment, or maybe even a house. She was certainly both a loved enough worker and a talented enough thief to have gathered up some savings if she wanted to. But she preferred to splurge on fleeting pleasures: nice champagne, expensive caviar, dinners in fancy restaurants followed by shows at the opera house with cute guys she picked up at the coin-operated laundromat.

It was only July, but it was never too early to start building a rapport with the people who kept her lights on, right?

She missed the call by seconds, only for the phone to ring again, and, having decided to go in, she padded into the kitchen just in time to pick it up. Only, it wasn’t Frank from the cantina on the other end of the line.

“I’d say I hope my emails have found you well, favorite sister, but I suppose I’d already know how they found you, had you bothered to answer any of them.”

Connie sighed. “Shit, Nellie, sorry. I’m busy, you know that. Between a fulltime job and supervillain hijinks…not to mention, MAYBE I’d have better computer skills if SOMEBODY hadn’t spent our entire childhood hogging the phone!”

“Fair,” conceded Cornelia. “Well, now that I have you, allow me to bring you up to speed: guess who’s finally been hired on by the US Division of Heroics?!”

“That’s…good, I guess?” Connie tiptoed towards the kitchen table, stretching the phone’s cord to its limit as she reached for her pack of cigarettes. Pressing the receiver between her ear and shoulder to hold it in place, she created a small flame at the end of one finger and lit up.

“Constance, I’m finally living the dream of my life!”

Connie winced at the use of her proper name; she knew Cornelia wasn’t their mother, but sometimes their voices sounded just the same…

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Nell. I’m still waiting to hear what any of this has got to do with me.”

“I just thought, now that I’m finally in, you’d be eager to start your heroic career!”

Connie took a long drag. “I thought we’d been over this.” Well, if ‘over this’ meant they kept having the same argument, neither side budging until inevitably they tired of their back-and-forth or other obligations took them away from the conversation, then yes, they’d been over it. “I’m a villain, Nellie. A dastardly villain!”

“Ha! Dastardly,” scoffed Cornelia. “You spend half that money wining and dining beggars you find under bridges. You have no criminal ambitions beyond your next lay or your next drinking bender.”

“Either way, it doesn’t matter to the cops. As far as they’re concerned, I’m the most evil criminal menace this city has ever known!”

“Ugh! Why are you so determined to play up your despicability?”

“Why are you so determined to redeem me?” Connie spat back. “It was supposed to be you and me against the world. You were supposed to be the ‘cool’ big sister who’d accept me no matter what, and yet, here you are, trying to reshape me in your own image. You’re just like Cece. You’re just like mom!”

“And you, evidently, are just like me. Expertly executed low blow, sis, and it would have hurt if I hadn’t been the one to teach you the art, but for your information, the student has yet to become the master,” said Cornelia, still cucumber-cool. “And let me be completely transparent: I could care less what you do in your free time. Crime Brulee’s reign of terror could go on until the end of the century.” Which was saying a lot, because said century had barely begun. “I can’t deny your efficacy. You’re the best of the best at what you do, and if you were to take on an additional supersona for the Division–one that played for the good guys, that happened to have me listed as a referral…”

“Right, because the last time I did you a favor, I DIDN’T become a wanted woman in all 50 states while you inherited a fortune.”

“Wanted teen, and I did offer to share my half with you.”

“I never wanted any of your blood money, Nellie.”

“Even if you spilled the blood?” Cornelia pointed out. “Does it really make you feel any morally superior to continue living in squalor, or are you simply deluding yourself?”

“Do you want me to be good, or evil? Because this is getting hard to follow,” said Connie.

“I want to be put on a fast-track to a promotion, Constance. And I know you have wants, too. When you’re a state superheroine,” (it didn’t go over Connie’s head that Cornelia said ‘when’, not ‘if’), “everyone will admire you! And some of those people will be precisely the sort of men to whom you’re addicted. Picture it, Constance! Your name in lights! Your face on billboards! And posters of you on the walls of every fat, nerdy, sweating, basement-dwelling–”

“God, would you shut up? You’re making me sound like such a perv.”

“You’re getting wet just thinking about it, aren’t you?” taunted Cornelia. “You can admit to enjoying holding a position of social superiority over your fucktoys. I won’t tell anybody.”

“It’s not even about–!”

Just then, a call came in on the other line.

“Look, I’ll think about it, okay? Email me the address where I can apply, and maybe I’ll dust off my resume. I’ve gotta get line two; it’s probably my boss.”

“Classic Constance. You could have been anything in the world, so you decided to become a bar–”

Connie switched the calls while her sister was still mid-word.

Sure enough…

“Connie, it’s Frank. Listen, I hate to do this to you, but Johnny slipped on an ice cube, and long story short, he’s out of commission. Think you could pick up his Tuesday and Wednesday lunches? At least for the next handful of weeks, until his tray arm heals up.”

“Yeah, that’s perfectly fine! Looking forward to it,” Connie agreed. “See you in the morning!”

“You’re a lifesaver, Connie.”

She really wasn’t, but she’d take the compliment anyway.

***

GOD HATES DEVIANTS.

The message had been hammered into the heads of the Cole sisters–along with their older half-sister from their mother’s previous marriage–since they knew how to read, the slogan emblazoned on a bright red bumper sticker on the back of the family car. When Cornelia’s powers of hydromancy came in, it was of no consequence: hers was a quiet, inconspicuous powerset, her natural level of control over it prodigious. If your child’s empty glass of water is suddenly full the next time you look, maybe she simply made it to the fridge for a refill while your back was turned. If she’s somehow unaffected when you accidentally flush the toilet while she’s in the shower, maybe she just likes it hot.

The emergence of Constance’s fire powers had been a much more over-the-top affair. After she’d vomited a fireball at the dinner table at thirteen, she was promptly thrown out of the house and disinherited, a then-fifteen Cornelia powerless to do anything about it.

A year later found Cornelia and Cecelia in the school cafeteria with twenty minutes before their next period. Cornelia, now a sophomore, had set her empty lunch tray aside and was diligently working her way through her pre-calculus homework. Cecelia, who had nothing in front of her, scanned the room anxiously. “Where is he, where is he?”

As if on cue, Tom Delancey, of old money and captain of the Mathletes, sidled up to their table. “Cece Cole, just the woman I wanted to see!” he declared with a winning smirk.

“It’s just Cecelia,” said Cecelia. “But I guess YOU can call me Cece, if you really want!”

“And it’s Cece Salvidar. Different dads,” Cornelia added.

“I’ve already said it’s Cecelia.”

Cornelia despised her half-sister, this girl she was forced to share a house with, this unextraordinary bore carrying the weight of some dead guy’s surname, along with some more dead weight in a more physical sense. Since her powers had come in, Cecelia had kept Cornelia’s secret for a price, and in retaliation, Cornelia was determined to make Cecelia’s life a living Hell.

“How about I just call you the girl I’m taking to Prom?” asked Tom. “That is, if you’ll have me.”

“I would love nothing more!” chirped Cecelia, beaming. “You can pick me up around 8?”

“Let’s make it six. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t take you to dinner.” As he walked away, Cecelia’s expression went slack and dreamy.

“Worked him over just because you know I’m enamored, huh?” snapped Cornelia, sobering her sister immediately. “You know he only picked you because you’re an easy target. How could a wreck like you ever reject him?”

“‘Enamored’? Please. You’re only interested in his fast car and fancy watch.”

“As if you’re not just the same?”

“In any case, if you so much as try to steal him out from under me, I’ll tell our parents you’re a mutant freak.”

“You mean MY parents?” said Cornelia. “You know, if my daughter was such a fat, fugly fuckup, I’d probably throw myself off the Blackwater Bridge, too.”

“At least I can lose the weight! All I need to do is apply myself. You, on the other hand? Mom will never let you go to that freak college for freaks!”

“At least I have the grades to get into a college,” Cornelia clapped back. Cecelia had her merits–manipulation, cutthroatedness, and the extraordinary ability to play dumb. Her grades may have been drowning–that is, they were below ‘c’ level–but she wasn’t an idiot; she just played one in real life. Weeks from graduating, she may not have had college in her future, but she could probably pull some sucker she could mooch off of, at least until the poor man realized what a soul-sucking leech she could be, but Cece would be clever enough to pick a man too dumb to make her sign a prenup, and if she managed to get knocked up, then she’d milk him even drier.

As for Cornelia…she’d thought about the Rivington Hero School, but Cecelia was right. Her parents would never let her attend. That’s where their other sister might come in, the one she actually liked, in the event Cornelia decided to ask for a favor.

The last she’d heard, Crime Brulee was doing alright, but she was still very, very angry about being thrown out like trash.

***

“HANDS, PLEASE!”

“Heard!” came the obedient squeak of Connie Cole as she scurried into the kitchen, hastily tying her apron strings as she installed herself on the expo line of Antonio’s Mex-Italian Cantina. Frank had almost begun to worry she’d changed her mind about picking up the extra shifts, but, as usual, his star employee came through. “Sorry I’m late, Boss. I got stuck behind that twelve-car pile-up on I-39.”

“Hey, no problem,” said Frank. “I heard about that on the radio. Here.” He handed her the shrimp pizza-dilla that had just landed under the lamp. “Table 10; the old man eating a side salad alone. And he’s drinking decaf, in case he needs a refill.”

“Heard!” she said once more, and was off.

“Gee, Frank, how do you do it?” asked Jessica, one of the waitresses, while she passed by the line on her way to the dish pit with a tray full of dirty plates. “I could never remember everyone’s drink order like that.”

She was buttering him up and he knew it, but he liked it enough to humor her. “It comes with experience. Keep up the hard work, and one of these days, you might make it all the way to management yourself!” he said, throwing her a wink that nearly made her drop her tray.

“Man, I tell you what: I hope I’m never a widow,” said Connie as she returned from table 10.

“A widow?” repeated Jessica.

“Yeah. Like, if I had some husband and he died before me, and then I had to learn to do all the stuff alone that we used to do together, like go out to restaurants and look at model houses and buy washing machines, or whatever it is married people do. I don’t know if my heart could take it.” Connie took a small soup bowl from a shelf, filled it with ice and Blue-Razz Sun from the soda fountain, and took a deep drink. Jessica stared at her, half perplexed, half horrified.

“WHYYYY WOULD YOU NOT TAKE A CUP?!”

“What, you’ve never drank out of a bowl, or ate out of a mug?”

“NOT IN PUBLIC!”

“Give her a break, Jess,” Frank interjected. “The bowls are closer to the line. She’s saving time and plastic: two birds, one stone.” To be fair, Connie’s strange quirks and earnest disregard for the way things were ‘supposed’ to be done used to weird him out, too, back when he first started working with her, but he’d found her oddity funny, and, in time, endearing.

“I guess. I suppose you do know best, Boss.”

Soon, all the tickets in the window were sold, and Frank decided to make his rounds in the dining room. Stepping behind the bar, he approached Pam and Deb, a couple of day-drinking regulars who always ordered the sampler basket and a carafe of peach Sangri-llini to split. “Ladies, how are we doing this morning?”

“Wonderful, as always,” said Deb.

“You always take such good care of us!” added Pam, laughing over her wine glass.

At that moment, Connie whooshed past him across the floor, on her way to put out a fire he had not yet noticed. Following her path with his eyes, he saw through the glass panels in the patio double-doors that the four-top table of idiots who’d insisted on sitting out there on this ominously gloomy Blackwater day were hurrying for cover, plates in hand.

“Oh, no, did it start to rain? Here, lemme hold that door for you,” Connie said sympathetically. “Now, let’s find you guys a new spot. Plenty of tables! How about over here by the pizza station, warm you up a little, eh?”

Short-staffed as the floor was, Frank winced and walked out into the culminating deluge to collect the party’s abandoned glasses of water. He struggled to balance two in one hand so as to leave the other one free to let himself back inside, until Connie came out, dumped the other two onto the pavement of the patio, and tucked the empty glasses under one elbow. “It’s already wet, right?”

Even with the rain pelting him in the face, Frank felt his temperature rise in embarrassment. “You’re way too smart for this job, you know that?”

“What? Me? Nah.”

“Maybe I’m just a ***, then.”

“Aww…well, who needs to be smart when everyone likes you?” She smiled, oblivious as to how much of a compliment that wasn’t, but he couldn’t even bring himself to fault her. Just as a fish swam or a dog chased cars, blythe irreverence was integral to her very nature, and it was just part of why she made his day-to-day life more interesting.