“Charlie, I don’t like this very much,” Janice protested as they rode across town in his Taurus the following evening. “I offered to stay on duty off the clock to help look for that little girl.”

“I wish you’d told me that an hour ago,” he replied from across the car. “I could have blown off the meet, set it up for another time. It’s too late now. It’ll be quicker to just get it over with, and then you can get back in uniform.”

“I feel like I’m pissing up a rope with this, when I should be doing something useful, but no, Turner wanted this done. God, I hope that kid is okay.”

“I do, too,” Charlie sighed. “But damn …”

“Yeah,” Janice agreed. Activity had been frantic throughout the department for the last few hours. It was the second time in a month that a little girl had been abducted in South Toledo, and this one had been particularly blatant. The six-year-old girl, Melissa Spangler, had been playing in the yard of a babysitter, when a man just ran up, grabbed her, and ran off. A neighbor later remembered seeing someone throw what looked like a kid in the trunk of a dark car, make, model, and year unknown. Even the color wasn’t clear, since the neighbor was color-blind. They didn’t have much of a description of the perp, except dark male, twenties or thirties, average height, short hair. That could fit a lot of people. The last time a child had been taken like that was three weeks before, and the little girl’s body had been found the next day in the marsh near the boat launch on Summit Street, just over the state line.

Realistically, though both she and Charlie hoped for better this time, they didn’t expect it.

It had really irked her to be pulled off the search to go make the meet with Hippolyta, even though Turner and Burlew had told her that she really needed to be the one to interview the Amazon, since she was more familiar with the holdup than anyone else. The interview would include the passing of a formal signed letter declaring immunity from prosecution for Hippolyta’s actions in the holdup last weekend. It seemed pretty damn penny-ante by comparison, even if there wasn’t much one more officer could do on the search for the kid, everything considered.

Out in the north part of town, Charlie pulled off the street into an industrial complex of small businesses. There was an area of the parking lot that wasn’t well lighted, and deep in the shadows, he pulled to a stop. “Seems like a creepy place for a meet,” Janice commented.

“She picked it and we’re playing this game by her rules. She trusts me, but she doesn’t know if you can be trusted.”

“Charlie, I’m not going to do that. Hell, I’ve got that letter of immunity in my pocket.”

“She doesn’t know that,” he replied. “Almost time, Janice. Let’s go. She’s not going to wait around if we’re late.”

They got out of the car, locked it, and walked around the back of one of the buildings. Janice was in civilian clothes—a pair of jeans, a blouse, and a light jacket. Wearing civvies was one of the things that Hippolyta had specified. This was not a place that even Janice would have cared to be alone in uniform, and it was good to know that Charlie was with her. She could see a lump in his jacket, about the size of a .45 automatic in a shoulder holster, to be precise. Behind a building, in darkness where it was very hard to see, they came to a stop. “This is the place,” he said.

“What now? We just wait for her?”

“Not quite yet,” he said, turning to put his hands behind her … “Naughty, naughty,” he chided as she felt his hand pull the Glock from the back of the waistband of her jeans. “The deal was that you were supposed to be unarmed.”

“But Charlie …” she protested as he checked the Glock, then stuck it in his own waistband.

“She’s afraid you’re going to turn cop on her,” he said gently, “and I think she was right. That means we’ve got to do this her way.” She saw him reach in his pocket. “Give me your right hand, Janice.”

“What the hell?” she asked as she felt the metal of a handcuff being clamped over her wrist. “Charlie, this is no time to be playing around.”

“It’s no time to be playing two-faced cop,” he replied as he closed the other shackle of the handcuff around an electrical service pipe. “I suppose Turner told you to bring that.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said sheepishly. “I didn’t want to do it.”

“Look, Janice, if you need a holdout, get yourself a little .32, maybe a snubnose .38. You could blow your ass off with a cannon like this stuck in your panties. I saw it clear back when we got in the car, Jan. Now I have to frisk you for real.”

“But Charlie …” she protested again, but fruitlessly as he gave her a thorough going over. “Isn’t this a little dramatic?”

“Maybe, but like I said, we’re playing by her rules. If you’d been clean, I wouldn’t have messed with the handcuffs, but at least I know you’re clean now. Take it easy, Janice. It probably won’t be long, now.”

That should have been all the warning she needed, but Janice still gave a start when she heard a flat, husky mezzo-soprano voice say from the shadows behind her, “Corporal Watkins, you wished to talk to me?”

The thing that most amazed Charlie was how Sally handled her voice. The dark apparition he knew to be Hippolyta didn’t sound to him at all like Sally. It was a deeper, sexier voice, almost threatening. Back at the cemetery where they’d done the photo session, Sally had explained that it was a result of her fencing. When she was younger, she’d had a squeaky soprano voice that she thought made opponents not take her seriously, so she’d taken voice lessons. That dark, threatening voice was only used on the fencing strips—and when she was Hippolyta, she explained. She no more wanted to be recognized as Sally at the FantasyCons than she did tonight. Just now, even Charlie was a believer. This wasn’t Sally standing in the shadows, this was Hippolyta.

“Where … where did you come from?” Janice exclaimed at the dark shape that had appeared from behind her in the night.

“From the shadows,” Hippolyta replied, deeply and mysteriously.

Charlie had to stifle a grin, glad that it was dark. He’d used this location for meets with sources who wanted to lay real low a couple times before, and he and Sally had scouted it out over lunch hour. In fact, he knew that Hippolyta had planned to already be hidden behind some nearby dumpsters while he went through the preliminary routine with Janice, which is why the timing was important.

“I believe you have a letter for me,” the dark apparition continued.

“Yes,” Janice said, pulling herself together and taking the letter from her shirt pocket with her free hand and holding it out to her. “I read it; it grants you full immunity for anything that happened last Sunday night.”

Charlie took a good look. She was mostly a darker spot in the darkness in that black outfit, but his eyes were adjusted enough that he could make out the lighter part of half of the Amazon’s face. He saw her take the letter from Janice, and in a moment, it disappeared into the dark—up her sleeve, he thought.

“Thank you,” Hippolyta replied. “Now, what is it you wished to discuss?”

“Let’s make this simple,” Janice said. “Is what you told Mr. Parker about what happened last Sunday correct?”

“Absent a few details, it is correct,” that husky voice came from the darkness.

“Could you identify the perp again?”

“Easily.”

“You just happened on the scene, you didn’t have any prior knowledge that it was going to happen?”

“That is correct. I merely stopped for gasoline and discovered the incident under way. Penthesilea and I intervened. I had no need to take the man’s life, so did not.”

“Why did you leave before Officer Mattison and I could talk to you?” Janice asked as they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle coming to a stop, out of sight around a corner but probably not far from Charlie’s car.

“There was no need, and you did not ask me to stay,” Hippolyta said slowly and mysteriously, as she began to turn away. “So I returned to the shadows, as I must now.”

“Wait!” Janice said excitedly, “Will you testify against Ferguson if it becomes necessary?”

Hippolyta stopped and turned back. “Only if it is needful. I will testify as Hippolyta, but not as my mundane self.”

Inwardly, Charlie grinned again. This was something he’d talked over with Sally earlier. Knowing what he knew about the case, he’d pretty well figured that Ferguson would be happy to cop a plea. Besides, Hippolyta’s testimony would be secondary in any case. Burlew may have been a good prosecutor, but Charlie really doubted he had the guts to put a masked Amazon dressed in black on the witness stand.

“Thank you, Hippolyta,” Janice said, amazed that she was still able to talk in the midst of this surreal scene. “If we need you, how can we get in touch with you?”

“Mr. Parker—” Hippolyta began, then cut off as a high-pitched scream split the air, then the sound of a child’s voice:

“Help me! Somebody! Pleeeeee …”

Earlier in the evening, Sally had been as aware as Janice and Charlie of the missing Spangler girl—possibly even more so as she’d done a live remote from the kid’s house, where the tear-stained faces of the father and mother had pleaded on camera for her safe return and also offered a reward. Much like Janice and Charlie, though for slightly different reasons, she’d been reluctant to drive away from the story to do this Hippolyta business after the six o’clock news aired—there was breaking news to cover. She’d been on the verge of calling Charlie to call off the meet when Ben said she might as well take off. There was no need to put in extra time off the clock. But the thoughts of the anguished mother and father made her wish that there was something more she could do.

It had been hard, for once, to psych herself up to become Hippolyta. Only fantasies of what Hippolyta might do to the abductor helped her into the spirit of that hard-faced woman, as she changed from her work clothes into the Amazon’s garb in the darkness next to her car, a couple hundred yards away.

None of those thoughts went through her mind when she heard a child’s desperate cry for help. She didn’t even think of the Spangler kid. All she knew was that a child—any child—was in danger. It was enough. The shadow of the Hippolyta persona built up in her mind over the last dozen years took over, shoving to the side what little of Sally was still there. In a flash, she turned and ran as hard as she could toward the scream, reaching back over her shoulder to draw Penthesilea.

Hippolyta did not know that Charlie was desperately unlocking the handcuff that held Janice’s wrist to the electrical service pipe, and at the same time Janice was yanking her Glock from Charlie’s waistband. Even though Charlie had held the key in his hand all through the encounter, it still took some seconds to free Janice before they could start running after the Amazon. One loose cuff still dangled from her wrist, her Glock was in the same hand, and Charlie had his .45 out and ready and was running beside her.

The Amazon turned the corner to see a man in front of her, holding a child awkwardly to his chest, one hand over her mouth. Neither was looking in her direction, and her boots made little noise as she approached the two. She’d gotten to the meeting early and had hidden in the darkness behind the dumpster long enough that her eyes, usually good in the dark anyway, were now thoroughly adapted to the night. From the feeble light of a couple distant security flood lamps she could see that the man held a knife in his free hand, blade downward, backward in his hand compared to how a sword was held.

“Drop the knife, meathead!” she yelled, coming to a stop just within sword range of the pair. “Put the kid down!”

The man gave a start. Apparently he hadn’t noticed her approach. He looked at the nearly black apparition that gloomed faintly the dark and saw the sword pointed in his direction. “Stop or the kid gets it,” he growled.

Hippolyta paused—threatening a child, how dishonorable can a man get? She let her sword hand drift downward, to something approaching low guard, and in a voice that could have frozen a tropical ocean replied, “I said, drop the knife, meathead.”

As she spoke, the man turned and started to run, heading for the wooded area on the far side of the parking lot. Hippolyta chased after him, Penthesilea still held in her right hand and ready for use. Despite the need to hold his captive, the man’s longer legs gave him a slight advantage in speed, and he increased the distance between him and his pursuer. Reaching the edge of the woods, he started twisting and turning like a rabbit as he dodged around trees, randomly changing between the many paths that presented themselves in succession in the hopes of evading his pursuer. In a low, rough voice he started tormenting his victim. “Gonna cut you up in little pieces, little girl. When I’m done you’ll be in so many pieces your momma and poppa won’t even know it was you!”

The little girl was almost paralyzed with fear and managed another scream around his hand, a long wail of despair. The sound spurred Hippolyta to greater speed, and she gained some ground. The kidnapper faked a dodge around a large tree, and because of the very low light filtering through the trees from the few distant lights, Hippolyta lost track of the kidnapper and his captive. She didn’t know if Charlie and Janice were anywhere near or even if they were in pursuit and could help in the search. She hoped that they might herd the perp in her direction or she could run him in theirs.

The young girl’s scream had stopped, Hippolyta hoped because the kidnapper again had his hand over her mouth to silence her and avoid indicating their position. The alternative was too grim for her to contemplate, but she swore to herself that the gods would have their revenge on this most low piece of evil if he harmed her at all.

Barely slowing her speed, she chose one of the dirt paths and redoubled her efforts. She heard rustling ahead and to the left and hurried that way when another dim path presented itself. There! She thought she saw movement like someone running well ahead of her, though the light was too bad to know for sure. She lost sight of the dark form again at a bend in the path and was again forced to choose between several branches.

Where the hell were Charlie and Janice? She wasn’t sure she wanted to give her own position away by shouting for them. She just hoped they’d seen her before she’d disappeared into the woods, though she knew they’d likely be too far back to be able to tell which direction she and the kidnapper had gone after leaving the asphalt. She thought there was a creek along here somewhere, but not sure exactly where it was or how close she was to it. She didn’t want to end up taking a header into the water.

Luckily for his victim, the kidnapper was now too winded to keep tormenting her with descriptions of the tortures he planned for her. He knew he had to keep moving now, at speed, but as quietly as he could to avoid detection. He’d been in this area before but not on all these paths, and not in the dark, so he wasn’t sure how far he’d run. Another jog in the trail to the left this time put him out into the parking lot again—not where he wanted to be, so he slowed to a stop, ready to backpedal. His car was at the other end of the parking lot, so of no immediate help.

He turned again to reenter the woods, but almost immediately that same dark form appeared, running for him. He brought the knife up again…

“Drop the knife, meathead!” Hippolyta yelled as she stopped again just within sword range and at low guard. “Put the kid down, now!”

It was a standoff for a second or more, then Janice and Charlie burst out of the woods themselves, less than a hundred feet away, guns in hand. “Stop!” the man yelled as the hand with the knife flashed toward the little girl’s chest.

Hippolyta didn’t hesitate in the slightest. With strength and reflexes born of thousands of hours of training, hundreds of hours on the fencing strip, her arm flashed upward, and for the second time in a week, Penthesilea’s razor-sharp Spanish steel sliced into and through flesh and bone.

The knife went flying, and part of the hand that had carried it was left dangling. An involuntary scream of pain rolled from the man as he dropped the child and grabbed at his half-severed hand with his good one. And then he was down—not from falling, but from a flying tackle to the midsection launched by two off-duty police officers.

Seeing that the perp was down, Hippolyta instinctively turned to the child crying on the ground. Slowly she knelt down, Penthesilea still in one hand, and tenderly gathered the crying, screaming child up in the other. “It’s going to be all right,” she said gently. “He won’t hurt you anymore.”

Eyes full of tears, the child looked up at the dark presence that held her gently, trying to comfort her. “Who … who are you?” she asked, the strange sight of her rescuer actually overcoming her hysteria, for she was young enough to still really believe that there were beings like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and masked superheroines. “Are you a Power Ranger?”

“I’m an Amazon named Hippolyta,” the dark presence replied quietly, hoping that with her voice calm she could make the child believe everything really was all right. “I came to rescue you. And who are you?”

“I’m Missy,” the little girl said, remarkably composed now with the realization that a superheroine had really come to save her. “Missy Spangler.”

That wasn’t just luck, Hippolyta thought, the little girl’s name reverberating in her mind. God or Zeus or someone had something to do with this. “Are you all right, Missy?” she asked. “Did he hurt you?”

“I thought he was going to hurt me when he took me out of the trunk,” the little girl said quietly. “He said he was going to cut me up into little pieces, but you came and saved me.”

“Come with me, Missy,” Hippolyta said, standing up, holding onto the little girl with one hand, resting her on her hip. She seemed light as a feather, just then. “We’ve got a couple things to do, but you’ll be going home soon, and everything will be all right.” With the little girl riding on her hip, she walked over to where Janice was getting Charlie’s cuffs on the perp as Charlie held his .45 on him. “Corporal Watkins, Officer Parker,” she said, still in her Hippolyta voice but with a discernible happy note. “I wish to introduce you to Melissa Spangler.”

“Holy sh … cow!” Charlie exclaimed. “Are you all right, Melissa?”

“I’m okay,” the little girl said. “Hippolyta saved me.”

“Charlie, you got a portable radio in your car?” Janice asked. “Call in, get backup and EMS coming, then bring the first aid kit.”

“On the way, Janice,” Charlie said, still holding the .45 in his hand as he raced for his car.

“Missy,” Hippolyta said gently, but loudly enough that Janice could hear. “These two people are police officers without their uniforms on, in regular clothes like they wear at home. There will be other policemen here soon, and soon you’ll be going home to your mother and father. You can trust these people, and you can tell them what they want to know. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Hippolyta. Are you going away?”

“You know how it is from television. Some Amazons can’t let other people know who they really are. You know how that works?”

“Like Power Rangers, right?”

“Just like Power Rangers,” Hippolyta said gently. “Corporal Watkins is just as much of an Amazon as I, but she doesn’t have to keep it a secret. She and Officer Parker had as much to do with rescuing you as I did. You’ll be safe with them. Now I have to put you down and go back to the shadows before the other policemen get here.”

“Thanks, Hippolyta,” Janice said, not taking her eyes or her Glock off the perp, who was writhing in pain on the ground. “I’d shake your hand, but I can’t right now. Some other time. You better get out of here before the backup comes.”

“Some other time, Sister. You can contact me through Officer Parker if you need to.” She set Missy down and took her hand. “You be strong, Missy. Strong like an Amazon. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Hippolyta. Thank you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome, Missy,” the woman in black replied. “Now I really must go.”

“Good luck, Hippolyta,” Janice said, seeing Charlie hurrying back.

It was hard to turn her back on Missy, but Hippolyta knew that she’d already risked staying too long. Besides, she realized there were now other things to do tonight—things Sally had to do. She slid Penthesilea back in her scabbard and walked quickly toward the corner of the building, but as soon as she was around the corner, she took off running for her Mustang as fast as she could go.

Somewhere in that mad dash, Hippolyta became Sally again. There was no time to reflect on this miracle that she’d been a part of, no time to think about how good it had been to be Hippolyta for real again, and again in that persona, doing so much good. That could come later.

As she got close, she pulled the car’s remote from under the corset, where it had rested against her breast, and popped both the doors and the trunk. By the time she reached the car, the wig and hood combo was already off her head. She pulled the car’s trunk wide open, thankful that she’d thought to remove the light bulb earlier. In another instant, Penthesilea and the .357 were off and in the trunk, the corset was unzipped and off, as was the spiked collar. The platform boots took a little longer. They had zippers, too, but were still a bit of a struggle to remove. The black pants followed. It took her a moment to find the tan stretch pants she’d worn earlier in the day and pull them on, followed by a pair of loafers. She’d practiced the quick-change earlier today, though it still took her a couple minutes. Finally, she pulled her Channel 5 First to Know News blazer from the trunk and pulled it on over the black top, then grabbed a couple important things Sally would need from the trunk and made sure it locked.

She went around to the driver’s side of the car, got in, and shoved the key in the ignition. In the glow of the dome light, she inspected herself in the rearview mirror. There were a couple of minor red marks from the hood still on her face, but they would fade in minutes. She grabbed a comb from the visor and ran it through her mussed-up brown hair, straightening it reasonably well. She glanced in the mirror again, grateful that she’d decided to skip the black lipstick tonight. Since this entire meet was supposed to be in the dark and it was a pain to get off, she’d thought she could do without it. Good thing, as it didn’t go well with a quick change. Maybe Hippolyta would have to abandon it if she ever appeared again.

Knowing that she would have to leave in a couple minutes, she started the Mustang but let it idle while she checked the equipment she’d grabbed from the trunk. Off-duty police officers usually keep a weapon in their cars. Off-duty print reporters usually have a camera, just in case they happen to be around when something interesting happens. It’s no less true for off-duty TV reporters, and Sally’s video camera, while not professional quality, was very good for home quality, and with a little bit of luck—as if there hadn’t been enough tonight already—it was going to put the icing on the cake.

There! … There was a police car coming, lights going, siren blaring, and a second, and a third. All the excuse she needed. She dropped the Mustang into drive and got moving.

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