Episode 18

On his way out of the Sin City Arena, it had occurred to Captain Rancor to snatch one of the surveillance camera videotapes that had captured Silverbullet in action. Where Rancor was going, proof of her existence might keep him from suffering the penalty for failure he had inflicted so casually upon his men. While in bat form, Captain Rancor's clothing (and anything within them--like the surveillance video) was invisible but intact until he landed right in front of a truck on the streets outskirtting the arena and reverted back to his usual form. At that point, the werewolf solider who was driving came to a sudden halt as the vampire officer whipped the videotape from his inner jacket pocket and shut himself in on the passenger side. "Do you have a solar suit back there, sergeant?"

"A couple, sir!" The werewolf sergeant grunted with a growl.

"Good, go fetch one. And whatever you were assigned to do, forget it. I've got to get this tape to Colonel Kruger immediately. ... Don't just stare at me, boy! It'll be dawn soon! Get the damned solar suit!" The sergeant fetched something that looked like full-body coveralls with a connecting helmet and a tinted. Just the sort of thing one would expect someone working with radiation to wear, and once Captain Rancor had it on, they drove off.

It was an instant phenomenon without any possible precedent. The man-sized wire chicken coops that the 7-foot-plus, 500-plus-pound werewolves had erected to keep the captives of the blood camp in were being unceremoniously torn asunder by what looked like a voluptuous woman made of metal who could change her hands to hacksaws--making the severing of the cages all the easier. No one in this world had ever seen anything so utterly fantastic (that wasn't trying to consume them) and they responded accordingly. The more people Silverbullet freed, the more cheered and gathered around her as if she were a rock star or a religious prophet.

A massive crowd of grateful humans streamed out of the same doorway Silverbullet first entered. They followed her to get yet another look and try to grasp how an entirely silver woman could be walking, talking and changing shape--but she left through that passage to check and see if Rose was safe and still in the same parking lot. What she found caused her to suddenly bolt and run ahead of the crowd, and while some (of the younger ones) tried to keep up, most simply dispersed and took advantage of the low monster count on the streets (since dawn was approaching) by trying to slip back to their homes. Silverbullet stopped short of the still-flaming wreck the Bloody Crypts had made of Rose's car and immediately recognized many of the gang members as students in the high school where Lily Sloan used to teach.

Rose seemed to be all right, albeit engaged in a shouting match with the leader of the Bloody Crypts who evidently had a crush on her and thought scaring off the two wounded werewolves who atttacked her warranted a "reward." Once the Bloody Crypts laid their eyes on Silverbullet, a sense of wonder they hadn't felt since life on the streets jaded them washed over the gang. Even the leader, "Big Poppa Pimp," was impressed by the metallic marvel. Silverbullet made full use of the moment they were stunned by her supernatural/superhuman presence and invoked Lily Sloan's most authoritative "teacher voice" to address the gang made up of former students.

"Leave this woman alone," Silverbullet bellowed, referring to Rose. "And what are you boys doing out so late, anyway?" Big Poppa Pimp made the mistake of trying to reach over and feel if Silverbullet's skin was really silver. Silverbullet then turned the hand closest to Big Poppa Pimp into a spiked mace (with small spikes--just enough to startle, not to puncture). This certainly held the Bloody Crypts in awe, but by this point, those that Silverbullet had liberated from the blood camp had caught up with and surrounded the lot of them.

The older the former captives, the more they grumbled under their breaths or even audibly how gangs were just as bad as monsters. This agitated the Bloody Crypts out of their admiration for Silverbullet and Big Poppa Pimp started daring the crowd to defy the gang. Rose DeVega gazed into Silverbullet's eyes with a look usually reserved for Lily Sloan, which reminded her of her new role as a symbol. The gaze also subliminally implied that symbols are listened to, and that if there was ever a time...

"Listen to me, all of you," Silverbullet began. "All you've got is each other. Now, Lord knows these boys need to be at home in bed right now--" At this point, the Bloody Crypts grumbled angrily but settled down after Silverbullet shot them a hard look. "--but as I understand it, all the police and national guard are gone, and they're the only ones with guns!"

"Yeah, and we got silver too!" Big Poppa Pimp interrupted.

"So the best thing for all concerned is to make the most out of it. From now on, you boys are going to be bodyguards. You see those old women over there?" Silverbullet directed the gang's attention to an older portion of the crowd from the liberated blood camp. "Or these families here? Your new job will be to see to it they get to a church or back home safe."

"Man, that ain't gonna do no good!" Big Poppa Pimp exclaimed. "Even if you got crosses all over the damn place, they can still bomb your ass from far away!"

"Then I'll stop them, just like I stopped them from bombing Saint Michael's tonight," Silverbullet said. "Don't be a hero, Marcus. Just do what I said and spread the word to the rest of your little friends to do the same."

"How--how the hell do you know my name?"

The schoolteacher within Silverbullet inwardly smiled knowingly, but still in character, she replied in an ice-cold tone, "I'm Silverbullet, son. I know everything."

TO BE CONTINUED