Chapter 20

The month after Lucy moved up, things were still going great with us. I had even put a trailer in the back that was ostensibly hers. Thankfully the city did not even care, even though like Harry’s trailer it was very much against code. But when you are a Paladin such things are generally ignored.

Of course she almost never stayed in it, that was just for show. There were four of them back there now, and for a young teacher it was a practical arrangement. She was even enrolled in one of my classes and was not bad. She would never become a crime fighter, but it would be comforting knowing she would at least be able to protect herself against some regular scumbag. And she sure looked nice in her gi.

But there was something strange in Dockside, as they had largely gone quiet. Word on the street was that Ricci was moving north, and I was trying to pick up what I could of that. Di told me that Chinatown was a bit more restless also, as they had started to move into her area of downtown.

By now I had been investigating Bohica for over a year, and was still turning up nothing. I had largely stopped running the drone on him, as none of the things I was worried about ever materialized. I was just returning from a patrol when I got a call on my phone. “Hey Di, what’s up?”

“Clint, we got a real shit show over here. You’re going to have to take over Bo’s area for a while.”

“Why, what’s wrong? He going out of town or something?”

“No, he’s been shot.”

I just laughed. “OK, so how badly was the guy broken up when Bohica stopped laughing at him?”

“No, you don’t get it. He’s been shot! In the head, with what must have been something like an anti-tank rifle. He’s down, hard.”

I felt my blood run cold. “How would that have put him down? I thought he was invulnerable?”

“He is, mostly. We’re at his place now, Doctor Carlson is with, him. Because he was hit in the head, the Doctor thinks it is the hydrostatic shock combined with the large caliber. He was hit at least twice, but the last shot to the head is the bad one. It rattled his brain, and there is swelling. I gotta go to Irondale tomorrow and will be with Bohica mostly after that. So watch my area also for the next few days.”

I asked if Gloria knew, and she sighed softly. “She was with him when he got hit. Apparently he was walking her home from work, and as soon as he realized the danger he shielded her with his body. She is here with me at his place, I had Doctor Carlson knock her out until Bohica is more stable so I can talk to her. She is pretty torn up, but she’s a strong kid and I think she’ll be alright.”

It was a tense few days, but thankfully Di came by the next week as Lucy and I were finishing dinner. “So how’s Bohica?”

She sighed and took a seat on the couch and asked for a drink. Lucy brought us all one and she smiled. “Out of danger, thankfully. He had a serious concussion and swelling on the brain, but between his healing ability and something experimental he is going to be just fine. Also, it was Paolo. Apparently Ricci is sending his henchmen out to do hits on Paladins.”

Lucy squeezed my hand tight, and I sighed. “But why Bohica? I would think he would go after me first, or you.”

“Well, remember this is a coded conversation. That information we had been getting recently on the Ricci organization? It came from a source that Bohica discovered. A month or so back Bo took a walkabout in Dockside, and we speculate that it tipped of Ricci that he was the bigger threat. Remember at the raid on dockside, Bo only missed him because he took the car with the briefcases and not the one with Ricci and Paolo. That is the closest we have ever come to nailing him, and he might have suspected that Bo was his biggest threat. Dr. Tran agrees with me that Bo was probably spotted on his moonlight walk and Ricci did not want him getting any closer.”

“OK, I can see that. But that was stupid, I suspect Bo will tear his nuts off when he gets better, and I will be right there with him to help.”

“So you’re finally trusting him?”

“Well, I never did not trust him, it is still more a sense of suspicion is all. But he is still one of us, and nobody takes out my friends and lives to laugh about it. So when will he be back on patrol?”

Di sighed and took a drink. “Give it another two weeks. We are sending him out on a small mission first. He is still recovering, but this is a simple meet and greet with a possible recovery. Nothing risky, a potential Paladin in Central America that is in a bad spot emotionally. They have a mutation that is close to that of Bohica, and we think he can calm them down, and offer a golden parachute by bringing them here.”

“Bring them here? We normally do not do things like that.”

“You’re not going to kidnap them, are you?” Lucy demanded.

“Oh no, no. Nothing like that. The person is an orphan, was sold into a kind of slavery. Bo is going to calm them down, then offer to bring them up here to get away from that. Doug, Dr. Tran and I all give Bo an 80% chance of doing that. No fighting, just talk to a scared tween and see if they want a better life.”

Thankfully Lucy agreed with me that was a good thing to do, as being even a potential Paladin at that age in Central America would not be a good thing at all.

And two weeks later when as we were wrapping up a class that I saw Bohica walk in the back of the dojo. This was unusual, and I had to clap to stop the students from watching him and pay attention to the class. And I wrapped it up a few minutes early and once he finished talking to the students and I got them all out we sat down and he told me what was on his mind.

But what I did not expect was his asking if I could handle his new protégé! Apparently the person he had gone to Central America to pick up was a girl. About 13 years old, and scared badly because she had used her powers to hurt some people badly. Then he asked how much for her to take lessons in my dojo.

“Bohica my man, you should know better than that! I never charge mutants, especially somebody who might be a Paladin. Of course I’ll train her, and for no charge at all. Just give me a chance to meet her first, as I like to get to feel for all my students a bit before I start their training.

Well, what I did not expect was him to pull out his phone and make a couple of calls. And when he was done he gave me one of his goofy grins. “OK, it’s all laid on. Dinner at my place, tonight. Di and Doug will be there too.”

I looked into his eyes, and raised one of mine. “Di and Doug? OK, this is news to me. Can I ask how long you have known her other identity?”

“Oh, maybe a month or so now. Come on by tonight, we can talk more when we are done eating.”

“Can I bring Lucy?”

He looked at me a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry my brother, not quite yet. This needs to be just between us Paladins tonight, I think. Gloria will be the only one there that is not a Paladin or mutant. But as she is living with me now and Alicia sees Gloria as an older sister you might say, there are no secrets from her.”

He gave me his address and with a handshake he headed off. I went into the back and took a shower, and was just getting dressed when Lucy came back from work. And she was not happy when I told her I was going out to dinner alone.

“Why is it I never get to meet this mysterious Bohica?” she asked.

“Well, he is a bit stand-offish you might say. Heck, just today I finally learned he is now living with his girlfriend. And knows who Di really is. And apparently has a thirteen year old girl he is taking care of. No details, but from what he and Di said she is a future Paladin. He wants me to train her, and if that happens I can promise you’ll meet him soon. But he invited me to his place, this is a first ever for him. That dude is seriously mysterious, his past is a complete blank check.”

“But Dire Wolf is also a blank check when you look at it that way.”

“Yes, but I know she is a Chameleon, and I know both of her identities. Here is the funny thing, even as I am now my face will ping off a facial recognition program most times. I’m bigger, but the structure is still the same. For Bohica, he pings nobody.”

“Well, you had that hit last month that you agree is a dead ringer for him.”

“That don’t count, the guy’s been dead for decades.”

We talked as she made dinner and I had a bit also. Thankfully I had an almost bottomless pit for a stomach when I needed one. And just a bit after dark I drove over to Bohica’s place. And it was a bit of a surprise, as it was a fairly large building in Darktown. The bottom floor had been a garage at one time, and a minute or so after I hit the buzzer Bo led me in.

And it was not bad, a complete auto shop downstairs, and an apartment upstairs. And as I was the last to arrive after, I met everyone else I was introduced to Alicia. She spoke with almost a British accent, and was on the small side for 13. But with a complexion right between Gloria and Bohica, so she could almost pass as their daughter. If Gloria had given birth when she was 5.

And soon we were discussing the changes that had to be made to the place, as it was basically a single bedroom loft and they needed to make some changes to give Alicia her own room. I looked around, and was soon telling them about how they could make some changes that would be better, as well as keep a patio over the store next door that Bohica apparently owned also.

And after I finished describing a better way to set it all up, Doug surprised me by offering me a job. “You know, if we had somebody like you before we did this we might have done that from the start. We’ll just put you down as a consultant for projects like this. You come in and give an impression with the Paladin, and help us plan it more with an eye for expansion and actual living than as just a simple safehouse. Especially as we are now starting to get married Paladins that this might be a good thing for.”

I agreed, and Bo excused himself to go use the bathroom. I pointed out to Doug that was a big mistake that would have to be fixed. “I mean, you get to the bathroom through the bedroom? That was not really good thinking, you know.”

“I know, but that was how it was when Bohica got it. This was an office then though, not an apartment.” I then looked around again, and was telling Gloria that I would suggest a skylight to allow in more natural light. And I looked up when the bedroom door opened again, and gaped. And while it was Bohica that had walked in there, a girl in her early 20s came out, maybe 5’5” with shoulder long brown hair.

She stepped partway into the room, and I looked at her closely in confusion. She was a cute girl, and there was something about the eyes that struck me. I stepped closer, as my mind was finally putting everything into place. “Bohica?”

“Actually, when I’m like this you can call me Chris.”

Alicia yelled out “Chris!” and ran across the room and threw herself into her arms, and suddenly things fell into place. Alicia had said that name a few times and been quickly shushed. So this was something I had never known, and now it all made sense. Bohica was a Greater Chameleon!

Soon we were all sitting on couches and chairs, and Chris went and poured each of us some very fine scotch. “Dude, we have known each other for what, five years now? And I am only learning about this now?”

“Clint, don’t feel bad. I only learned the secret about a month ago. He had me meet him one night, and we started talking and he told me about being XX-XY. And I think it helped, as there were many things he, err, she did not know. And why Chris here was selected to go to Belize and help Alicia.”

Chris nodded, saying that as they were both XX-XY, she was the best choice to help Alicia understand that she was not alone in what she was going through. And then I found out that Alicia turned into a tall Indian warrior named Gabor.

Well, even I learned things that night I did not know before. Like that while an XX-XX can change forms freely while pregnant, an XX-XY could not. The moment they changed, the baby simply vanished as if it never was.

“So we can’t have babies?” Alicia asked.

“Oh, we can have babies. We simply can never become a male during that time or the baby vanishes.”