Gift of Light_A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel Read online

  Gentleman leaned into the camera and threw her a conciliatory look. “Please accept my sincere apologies for the dreadful first impression. Your father was a great and noble man, and I assure you that we were not in any way involved in what happened that day. If there is anything we can do to help you find closure, we will.”

  “You knew my father?” Wisp blurted. An eerie, almost electric sense of danger tingled in the air around her. The questions of why and how lurked in the villain’s soft-spoken statement, shaking her to the core.

  “Unfortunately, no.” Gentleman mocked her with a theatric sniffle. “I did do my research when I learned of you, however, and I’ve always had a fondness for strong and compelling personalities.”

  But the voice? Wisp was still stumped. The next question slipped out unbidden. “Did you hack into our military systems to dig up audio files or something? That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Child,” the villain said through a tight smile that left his eyes cold, “you do know the Conglomerate controls a substantial portion of the world’s resources? I bought this city, and everyone in it, as a diversion. A passing intermezzo to set the stage for coming events.”

  So you’re going to destroy it in the long run. If even half the rumors about the Conglomerate are true, you totally can. Wisp caught herself rubbing her knuckles against her forehead. And there probably isn’t much I can do about it.

  “While we are having this cozy little chat,” Gentleman went on, pleasant and chipper, “four modified Stinger rockets – courtesy of Data – are lifting their noses,” he tapped his nose suggestively, “sniffing out the direction of your ivory tower. I wonder if your gang mates are home?”

  Wisp jerked in her seat as if he had just fired a bullet through her. Of all the buttons he could have pushed, he’d found the one that set her nerves on fire in a roaring blaze.

  “A simple precaution,” he went on while she fought for composure, “to ensure your full attention. Do I have your attention?”

  She wanted to ask him to please leave her gang out of this and reconsidered. Better to just play along. So she simply nodded.

  “Excellent.” He gracefully flexed his fingers and picked a bit of fuzz off his crisp, pristine white dress shirt. “Please do remember that I could have all of you killed in a matter of minutes, regardless of how boring that would be.” He made the threat sound playful and genuine. “Worry not, my anxious friend. They’ll be safe for the duration of this game we are playing together.”

  Is this really just a game to him? What does he even want?

  “Your men already hurt my friend,” Wisp said. “She’s a good person like my dad. Was that part of your research, too?”

  “An unfortunate accident.” Gentleman lifted his hands in a mollifying gesture. “My men were under clear orders not to harm the girl, but your neighbor to the north gave less concise instructions, it seems. Would you like it if I arranged for the responsible parties to be punished?” His best-buddy smile cracked into something feral and far more disturbing, revealing a glimpse of the true villain underneath.

  Wisp picked out words that held an edge while keeping her voice calm and polite. “How can I believe you? Constantine was never all that interested in me. You are. Your men were the ones asking the questions.”

  “Ah.” Gentleman’s face fell. “There must have been a misunderstanding. My men did ask questions, yes, but by then, your friend had already been mistreated by the other party. We did our best to treat her wounds after the fact.”

  Wisp hesitated, chewing on his words and testing them for lies or contradictions. Was there a chance he was actually being honest with her? She had a vague recollection of Constantine, sitting high on his horse of malignity and complacency, goading her with a not-so-casual remark about how his men were blowing off steam. The memory churned a fire in her gut, and for the fraction of a second she longed for that fire to strike back at everyone who’d done her wrong. No more groveling, no more compromise.

  “Yes,” she said with a steely curtness. “I want those men punished. All of them.” It felt wrong to say it, but also so, so good.

  “It shall be done.” Gentleman cooed. “In fact, allow me to offer compensation for the unfortunate accident. If you could ask one favor of me, what would it be?”

  “Uh.” Wisp gripped the tablet tighter, a hurricane of conflicting thoughts and emotions spinning around her head. “What?”

  The man on the screen tapped his fingertips together and repeated the question in softly spoken German, flaunting gentleness and patience.

  “I got it,” she replied in the same language, shaking her head. “Why the special treatment? Why do you want us to be on the same side?”

  “Because, my ignorant young friend…” Gentleman expelled a dramatic sigh. “We are on the same side. If my memory serves me well, you robbed a bank today. Not exactly a minor offence in the eyes of the law.”

  Right, there was that. Wisp wriggled about on her chair. I had perfectly good reasons. It’s just that no one else understands them.

  “Would you like some time to consider the matter?” Gentleman cocked his head in a birdlike manner.

  “No, not really,” Wisp said. “There is one thing I’d like more than anything else. If you could tell Constantine to let me see–”

  “Done,” Gentleman cut in before she could finish.

  “Just like that? You don’t even know what I was going to say…”

  “The request was easy enough to deduce.” The villain flashed a feral smile. “You wish to investigate the source of the vapors, correct?”

  “There’s a source?”

  “But of course. If you think about it for a moment, I am quite certain that you can pinpoint its location.”

  “The warehouses. But up until a few days ago, there was no Smog in there.”

  “Correct.” Gentleman gave a nod. “The source was moved to a new home shortly after Smoker located it. I’m sure you will find it as fascinating as I did.”

  After a moment of trying and failing to imagine what – or who – could possibly have been spawning enormous clouds of toxic gas from thin air for so long, Wisp took the opportunity to address her secondary objective.

  “Sounds interesting, but … would it be possible for Smoker to show me whatever the source is? I’m trying to get to know him and maybe get along better.”

  “Are you, now?” The villain’s birdlike gaze turned sharp, but his uncanny smile didn’t falter.

  “Yes, we both have powers and we might work together more in the future, right? I thought it would make sense for us to be friendly with each other.”

  “It would,” Gentleman agreed, but the wry twist of his mouth said he wasn’t buying her reasoning. “Very well, then. He is the one most suited to the task, after all. I’ll leave word that he is to meet you at the university at midnight.”

  He doesn’t believe me, but isn’t going to stop me? Wisp pondered this for a second. If she had to guess, the villain didn’t expect her to overpower Smoker or cause any trouble. No one would. She was the jamboree magic girl, after all, and a firecracker to boot. Unlike her, Smoker was more than adequately equipped for self-defense. Which worried her more than just a little.

  On the other hand, midnight was a good time for her to set the final wheels in motion. If Smoker didn’t mess with it, the Smog was bound to creep back into the underground by ten, giving the Survivors a two-hour buffer to move out of their headquarters and to wherever they wouldn’t be found if things started blowing up. Literally or figuratively.

  “What I still don’t understand,” Wisp went on, “is why you’re interested in me in the first place, and why you’re even taking the time to talk to me. My powers aren’t all that interesting and I haven’t done anything to write home about.”

  “An excellent question.” Gentleman joined his hands and settled his chin on the knuckles. “Do you know the one trait all Lightshapers have in common? Something not related to their powers.
A quality so mundane no one speaks of it.”

  “None of them ever became villains?” Wisp ventured, biting her lip the next second.

  The villain’s index finger flicked up. “An astute observation, and quite correct. But no, I was referring to something else.”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “It’s quite all right, dear. You are living under a proverbial rock after all.” He inserted a dramatic pause. “Truth is, all Gifted of your kind are leaders, activists prone to guiding others in certain directions. Look at you – you are sixteen, yes? A shy, quiet, and thoughtful girl ended up in charge of a group that numbered more than twenty members at one time. Does this surprise you at all?”

  “No, because I know how it happened, and why. There was nothing weird or supernatural about it.”

  He wiggled his fingers dismissively. “Of course. There was no voice in your head and no helpful little angel whispering from your shoulder. Still, Lightshapers are among the more common categories of Gifted, and every single one of them turned out to be a mover and shaker. Coincidence? Most certainly not.”

  Wisp pursued his line of thinking, unnerved by where it was headed. “So basically, you believe I could lead a group of people from your organization?”

  “It seems that we understand each other.” The villain’s smile widened until it was almost manic, distorting the image of his face.

  “But Constantine is running things in this city. You don’t need me.” She hid her distaste by smiling back.

  The villain’s grin faded into a strangely childish pout. “Constantine is an awfully inflexible man, and boring to boot. He does play his role, but never improvises. He does not move the audience or make them weep.”

  “Improvise?” She wasn’t sure what he meant. All of it was a madman’s ramblings to her ears.

  Holding a slender finger to his lips, Gentleman rolled his eyes upward, ignoring the question. “You, on the other hand … squirming, transforming. Reinventing yourself. A Guardian with Lightshaper powers … ah, I suppose you never realized. How far will you go to protect what you hold dear? Will you kill, and kill again once you discover the efficacy of death? Sacrifice many for the sake of a select few? Destroy with the intent to preserve?”

  “What are you getting at?” she asked. Whatever it is, it doesn’t apply to me.

  He leaned forward in his chair, his sickeningly pleasant smile filling the small tablet screen. “A simple truth, dear. The most powerful and dedicated villains are those motivated with the strongest desire. It matters not what they wish for. Only that they want it very, very much.”

  Wisp slumped back in her chair, pinching her cheek in an attempt to wrap her head around the revelation he’d just thrown at her. Yes, this explained his persistent interest in her, she supposed. The fact that his assumptions about her were wrong didn’t change a thing. On the other hand, she had to admit that she might be in deeper in the snot than anticipated. Neck deep at least. She had no intention of getting even more entangled with organized crime – and supervillains – than she already was, but something told her the villain wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer.

  Gentleman must have sensed something, because he cut through her thoughts with an alarmingly honeyed voice. “You look distressed. Speak your mind freely so that I may alleviate your fears.”

  “I’m worried about the heroes,” Wisp lied. “What if they get permission to enter the Dead Zone and come after me?”

  “Pish-posh. The heroes are preoccupied with more pressing concerns, dear, and continue to be severely understaffed for the number of doohickeys that have befallen the world.” The villain snickered, splaying long fingers against a pale cheek. “I wonder where Athena has gone. As of today, no one can locate her … how deliciously mysterious.”

  Wait. He can’t know we’ve been trying to contact Athena. No way in hell.

  Wisp froze and assumed a blank expression. “But the other Covenant members are still active, aren’t they? They still have Paladin and Samael.”

  Inwardly, she clung to the hope that the villain was bluffing, that someone – hopefully Athena herself – was going to receive the drone-transmitted pictures and send help. Because if not, she’d have to fall back on her not-plan B, which was more a set of possible disaster response operations than a contingency plan.

  “Do not worry your little head about it.” The villain clicked his tongue dismissively. “All you need to do is to play your part. Should you betray my expectations and forget your lines, however…”

  She more or less knew what he was going to say, but not how. Once again his image shifted and blurred, taking on a new shape, a new face. Only this time, it was so battered and bruised and broken she mistook it for someone else’s. Until his bloodied, shredded mouth fell open and she heard his voice. Luca’s voice.

  “…I am not going to kill them. No, it will be far more interesting to watch you do it.” He grinned at her, flashing jagged shards of shattered teeth. “To observe the anguish of a fallen Guardian, wishing she were allowed to die as she destroys everything she holds dear.”

  Cold dread twisted through her gut, strangling her breath out of her. His eyes. His beautiful dark eyes. A pair of pus-filled black pits had taken their place, gaping at her in a horrendous mockery of Luca’s characteristic faraway look.

  The tablet slipped from her hands. Without conscious thought – her mind was a black void – she dropped the device onto the desk she’d been sitting at and jumped from the chair, knocking it over. Luca – no, Gentleman – droned on through the speakers.

  “I granted your wish, you pay the price. We will speak again at another time. Would you do me the favor and hand the device to Smoker, dear? I need to have a word with my loyal minion.”

  With that, the young man’s horribly disfigured image winked out of existence and the symbol-strewn desktop reappeared.

  Wisp stared at it for a long, chilling moment, fighting to get her breath under control and convince her limbs to stop shaking. No doubt this was exactly what the villain had wanted from her: her fear. Her weakness. A spineless lump of clay to be molded as he pleased.

  You’ve gotten what you wanted, her dad said from the memory place she had carved out for him in her subconscious. Now wear your fear as a mask and charge the bastard with everything you’ve got.

  Memory-Dad was right, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt herself slip back into the role she had chosen for herself: the lone soldier with a duty. The last key elements to her plan that wasn’t really a plan – Smoker and the mystery of the warehouses – were falling into place. But at what price? Did she even stand a chance of saving the city and her friends without destroying it at the same time, as Gentleman had predicted?

  Because from here on out, failure meant more than the death of one person. It meant the death of everyone she’d sworn to protect. And if Smoker survived … Deadenings were bound to happen anytime, anywhere in the world.

  Which was why he had to die.

  Tonight.

  CHAPTER 10

  “You could take a John Doe with no acting experience, and if you gave them the perfect role, the audience would weep like it had never wept before. That’s perfection on stage, you see. The real challenge lies in the potential, in knowing the one role that will bring out the best in whoever fate sets up to walk on the stage. Now that is the divinity of directing.”

  -Scott de Luca, later known as Gentleman, in a television interview (2011)

  After her ‘meeting’ with Gentleman, Wisp rushed outside to push the tablet into Smoker’s hands and be rid of it. Part of her would have given anything to try and eavesdrop on his conversation with the villain leader, but the bigger part just wanted to head back and fill in the others while the creepy incorporeal villain was too distracted to stalk and spy on her. Even a short window to safely discuss their plans would be invaluable.

  Because they had details to go over and preparations to make. Regardless of how the nigh
t went, the coming hours would conclude the gang’s story as Dead City survivors. They had held out long enough.

  Somewhere deep inside, Wisp still clung to the hope that the heroes were going to stop by the bell tower, claim the rucksack with the money and fly off to do their thing within the northern half of Dead City, laser shows and explosives included. After more than a year of neglect by government authorities, it would have been nice to rely on adults for once. Go back to being just a kid and enjoy the small luxuries that most kids her age considered everyday necessities. Working smartphones. Internet access. Her own room.

  By the time she got back to the bell tower, the others had all gathered on the belfry and formed a protective hedge around Hannah, who was now sitting up with a large foam pillow to brace her. Luca crouched beside her, helping her with a big plastic bottle of water and a smaller one containing the gang’s supply of painkillers. Unlike the last time Wisp had seen him, he appeared calm and fairly relaxed, the vengeful fury from earlier evaporated or drawn back beneath the surface. Wisp couldn’t bring herself to meet his dark gaze. There were too many uncomfortable truths hidden in there, and the wall between them was a tower of regret.

  Max and Sara sat to Hannah’s right and busied themselves with the pile of clothes from Wisp’s duffel bag. Working on the Smog suits, it looked like. One looked about half complete, the other still consisted of a pair of rain boots and several pieces of plastic tarp that had been cut into shape. The rucksack with the money still sat on the floor among scattered supplies and equipment, eliminating the need to ask if any heroes had shown up to claim it.

  “I’m going to need one of those Smog suits tonight,” Wisp said before anyone got the chance to ask the questions she read on their faces. “I’m not sure how things went, but we need to be on the move. How are you guys holding up?”