Gift of Light_A Powered Destinies stand-alone novel Read online

  The chair stopped short of colliding with Wisp’s legs. She stared at it, then at Constantine’s face, momentarily stunned by his sudden outburst. This wasn’t the kind of man who lost his temper easily.

  Not good.

  For a short, painful moment, her mind snapped back to its default state, the one where her boots felt awfully large and she wasn’t sure how she could possibly fill them, but then Luca cleared his throat noisily and her thoughts fell back in order.

  Stay focused, soldier. The memory of her father’s voice stirred her resolve. The instant you lose it, they’ll know. They’ll look you in the eye and know you’ve transformed into prey. Her silver pendant hidden beneath her shirt felt warm against her skin.

  “You know exactly why we can’t sit down and relax,” she said, meeting Constantine’s eyes.

  The man shrugged his wide shoulders. “Oh? The food isn’t poisoned.”

  “We’d be immobile,” Wisp went on. “Locked down exactly where you want us to be.”

  Stepping around the chair, she gestured to let her companions know where she needed them. Luca moved to her right, close enough to the table that he could have picked the grapes from Constantine’s plate. Max took position to her left, though he stayed back a bit. Sara was right next to the door. She still looked a bit anxious but seemed composed enough.

  Max’s gun was holstered, like Wisp’s unloaded dud. One would think that no weapons would be allowed to a meeting between gang leaders, but since Constantine had in the past called out the Survivors as firecrackers – kids who had somehow acquired guns but didn’t know a thing about using them – he didn’t seem to care. Not as long as they made no move to draw them.

  His two guards would draw their guns faster. They were not firecrackers. Far from it. On the other hand, they didn’t hold themselves in a way that suggested a background in the army or in police special forces. Constantine didn’t pick his personal bodyguards from among the most dangerous of his men. Rumors suggested he chose the ones he trusted and who had served him the longest. No outsiders, and likely no one sent by the Conglomerate.

  A fact Wisp had already picked up on in the past and was very much planning to exploit.

  After a glance at his female companion, Constantine reached over to shovel a spoonful of cooked rice onto her plate. “If you refuse my hospitality, then perhaps you’re just intruders and should be treated as such.” His voice was brittle, though his stoic expression didn’t change one bit.

  “Was Hannah an intruder, too?”

  “Hmmm.” Constantine popped a grape into his mouth. “You tell me. What was she, exactly? And who sent her? I can’t help but wonder.”

  Was? Wisp was taken aback, struck by his choice of words. He’s bluffing to throw me off balance. She isn’t dead. I’d know if she was.

  “I know you’re keeping her somewhere in your base,” she said.

  “Why? Because of your little light show? Try it now. Try it and see what happens.” His beady eyes sparkled with mischievous anticipation.

  Wisp didn’t mind doing him the favor. Raising her face to the extinguished ceiling lights, she reached up toward them not with her fingers, but with a thread of the pulsing power that infused her mind and body at all times. Something connected – a link she sensed rather than saw – and she could feel each LED lamp’s potential to illuminate the room, currently diminished to zero since Constantine had deactivated them in favor of candles. With a simple mental command, she turned them on and cranked up their potential beyond their natural limits.

  Intense white light flooded the room. After the sparse illumination the candelabra had provided, the change was sudden and extreme enough to have a near-blinding effect. Even Wisp’s eyes, which were less photosensitive than the average person’s, watered momentarily. But the others, friends and rivals alike, suffered more. Constantine recoiled as if he had been struck. The woman beside him cried out, throwing up her hands to cover her eyes. Luca flinched, and Sara ducked low to the floor in anticipation of an attack.

  Wisp suppressed a sharp pang of guilt. They’ll be fine in a moment, she told herself even though her self-imposed stoicism was wavering. Stay hard, stay tough and this will all be over in a moment.

  “Make it stop!” the ridiculously overdressed woman pleaded. “Someone, please stop this!”

  “Stop this,” Constantine echoed in a dangerously low tone, eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Stop it, or I will have you shot. All of you.”

  “In a moment,” Wisp replied.

  It was all the time she needed to release the hidden swarm of mini-spheres from the small box inside her sleeve and direct them to key locations within the room. The lights flitted low across the ground, all but invisible in the brightness cast by the lamps above. One attached itself to the underside of Constantine’s seat, hidden from view by the wooden frame and the bulk of his legs. Another vanished beneath the drape of his companion’s long skirt. Four more scattered across the room to be concealed by the furniture.

  Wisp dimmed the lights to a faint glow once her gang squad was in position. In addition to her array of fist-sized lights, she kept two tiny sparks to light up her eyes, granting them an eerie glow. She moved to the edge of the table, stopping right across from Constantine.

  This was the other reason for the little stunt she’d just pulled. To remind this stubborn, calculating, undoubtedly dangerous man of why he hadn’t shot her two weeks ago, and why he wasn’t going to shoot her now.

  “You know the thing about Evolved and their powers,” she said in slow, deliberate German. “If you shoot me, I’ll come back and turn the rest of your life into a never-ending light show. Count on it.”

  “Oh, that’s rich. Wasn’t the power feedback theory disproven just a while ago?” He lifted a finger, prompting his two bodyguards to draw their pistols. “Maybe I should have you shot to see what happens. See if your powers actually do come back, and if the new you remembers who you were. Do something for science.”

  “So when a bunch of terrorists hijack a news show and claim science is wrong … you believe them?” Wisp retorted. “Are you sure you want to find out if my powers can make your life miserable after I die?”

  The room fell into an eerie silence. No one moved or took a breath. The air was thick with tension, and Wisp’s self-doubt came creeping back. Was this the moment she’d finally pushed too far, the moment when the fragments of her bluff came crashing down all around her? Her expression didn’t waver, but she could feel her fingers quiver against the edge of the table she was holding on to. If Constantine caught the faintest whiff of her inner strife, then this was it. She was going to die here.

  If he glanced down … if he took even one look at her hands…

  Just when she thought her mask was going to slip, Luca broke the silence. “You don’t listen to the radio much, do you?” he asked, his gaze focused on Constantine.

  The Shadow’s leader took the bait. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “The Traveler’s power-set emerged in Europe no more than two hours after he was killed,” Luca said. “If I were you, I’d listen to what Wisp has to say.”

  “I want to talk about Hannah,” Wisp said.

  Constantine shifted his jaw in consideration. “Fine. Let’s talk.”

  “Okay. Back to my first question, then.” Wisp shoved her hands into her pockets. “Was Hannah an intruder?”

  “If you’re talking about the redhead who broke into our warehouse, then yes. Can’t just let a thief take her pick of our valuables, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “If she actually stole anything, I’m taking responsibility,” Wisp replied in a cautious tone. “But the Hannah I know wouldn’t pull a stunt like that. What happened, exactly?”

  “Wasn’t I clear enough? My men caught her snooping around our warehouses. They’re blowing off some steam right now.” He tossed another grape into his mouth and chewed.

  “Blowing off some steam?” Wisp repeated, the words bitter
in her mouth.

  Max shifted uncomfortably. She could tell without looking that his expression had gone dark.

  “Well, yes,” Constantine said. “Do you expect me to coddle a thief caught in the act? On my territory?”

  “We have an agreement,” Wisp said. “If any of my people are causing trouble, you talk to me before you do anything. That’s how things have always worked around here.”

  “We had an agreement.” Constantine stared at her, unmoving. “Times change. The city changes, which I’m sure you noticed on your way here. See any guns along the way?”

  So he’s playing the superiority card. This wasn’t anything new. The Shadows with their firearms had always held the potential to overpower their smaller, younger neighbors. Even back before Constantine’s recruitment drive, when Wisp’s band of survivors, welded together by their shared experience of the Breakdown, had outnumbered any of the other groups in the area. Wisp’s powers were the element that had kept the two factions in balance. Until now.

  It didn’t look as if Constantine was going to accept compromise anymore. Which meant…

  “Who’s your Evolved pet?” Wisp asked. The answer seemed obvious enough, but she’d get confirmation from the horse’s mouth.

  “Well, well. Now that’s a rather sudden change in subject.” For the first time since she’d entered his den, Constantine smiled. It was a cruel smile, cold and complacent.

  The words provoked a reaction from the woman beside him. “You’re working with one of those things?” she asked, pursing her lips.

  He reached over to gently pat her hand. “Nothing to concern yourself with, dear. You’re safe as long as you’re with me.”

  So there’s my confirmation. Wisp considered following up with another question but discarded the idea. He clearly wasn’t going to tell her anything useful unless she found a way to up her game and earn at least a smidgen of his respect.

  “Back to Hannah,” she said in a firm tone. “I want to talk to her. I don’t believe she’d go and steal your stuff, and I’m not going to just let you keep one of my people captive.”

  “Look, kid,” Constantine said, sounding bored. “You might not be aware yet, but you’re in no position to make demands. You waltz in here, puff up your flat little chest, and spoil my dinner with your child’s play. I’m running out of patience with you lot. Get your head on straight or get out.”

  “Is this your final answer?” Wisp said, bracing herself.

  This was the turning point. If she backed down now, she’d give in to the kind of people who respected nothing and no one. It would be the end of everything. The Survivors. The hard-won freedom they had wrested from Dead City itself. Hannah, the friend and teammate, who’d become like family to her.

  “Unless you have something to trade. Something of value.” Constantine cocked his head and eyed her from head to foot, mouth curling in a vague snarl of dismissal.

  She did her best to endure the scrutiny without flinching. “You know we don’t have anything you want. So … is this your last word, then? You’re not going to honor our agreements anymore?”

  “I don’t see the need unless you give me a very good reason,” he replied.

  I’ll give you a reason, then.

  “Firefly!” was all she said.

  “What are you…” Constantine’s authoritative posture collapsed.

  But the word wasn’t directed at him, it was for her teammates. They understood. Luca shifted into a ready stance, and Sara ducked even lower. Wisp commanded all of her spheres except the one beneath Constantine’s chair to charge at the bodyguard’s eyes before directing her power at the electric lights.

  They went out in an instant. The LED lamps died with a final flicker and a crackle of protest. Snuffing out the candles on the table took even less effort. Since their flames were fairly similar to the sunlight that fueled Wisp’s powers, all she had to do was to look at them and formulate the command in her head: die.

  The room became a gloomy shade of gray, its shuttered window allowing barely enough illumination for her to navigate. Everyone else was left in a state of near blindness, with two still-glowing spheres sticking to each guard. Bright enough to temporarily blind them but not to burn their eyes out. Anticipating Wisp’s change of tactics, their light had turned a fiery amber.

  The guards snapped into action the instant the beacons went out, but they were too late and too overwhelmed by the sudden assault of light and darkness. Max, who had spent the past few minutes memorizing the room layout and the positions of his adversaries, quickly dove under the table, preparing to disable the guard closest to him. Luca vaulted across with a martial artist’s grace and made a soft landing on his feet.

  Wisp didn’t wait to see what Luca did next, but she heard a curse and the thud of someone falling to the ground. The guard, most likely. Luca, who’d had plenty of practice launching surprise attacks in the dark, would have grabbed one leg in the darkness, and swept out the other from under him.

  Focusing on the tiny light sphere she’d left underneath Constantine’s chair, Wisp swapped positions with it, putting herself directly behind the Shadow leader’s backrest. He hissed a curse and twisted around, disoriented by the surrounding darkness, but she managed to draw her gun and disengage the safety before he could jump from his seat. He froze.

  She pressed the muzzle to the nape of his neck. He couldn’t possibly know it wasn’t loaded. To him, the cold metal must have felt convincing enough. Not even a lowly firecracker was likely to miss a shot at point blank range.

  Wisp turned the ceiling lamps back on, resolving all doubt as to who had the upper hand. “Everyone freeze,” she said in a loud, clear voice, “or your boss dies.”

  The threat worked like a charm. The female bodyguard currently locked into a one-on-one tussle with Luca had her gun arm pinned with a Jiu Jitsu grip and ceased her struggling. Her male counterpart made a final, desperate effort to draw his stun baton, but gave up when he felt the pressure of Max’s gun against his back. The unarmed woman sat in wide-eyed shock, hands clasped to her mouth as she tried to make sense of what had just happened.

  “Very well,” Constantine said into the terse silence that followed. “I suppose that’s a reason.”

  His voice didn’t quaver one bit. The flame of determination was burning bright within her, but her skin was sweaty and the gun felt impossibly heavy in her hands.

  “I’m only going to ask one more time,” she said. “Where’s Hannah?”

  Constantine didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced over at his female companion with a crooked smile on his lips. “Do me the favor and wait upstairs, dear. I’ll join you once I’m able.”

  Wisp half-expected the woman to protest, but she did no such thing. Instead she gave a docile nod, rose stiffly, and edged her way around the table to make her way to the door. Sara stepped aside to let her pass. Max and Luca disarmed the two guards in the meantime, collecting the weapons from their belts and placing them beyond reach.

  Once the door clicked shut, Constantine spoke up. “So he was right, after all. You do have the heart for it.” He sounded strangely chipper, pleased with himself.

  Who was right? The thought flitted by but was banished by more pressing concerns.

  Wisp pressed the gun harder against the man’s neck. “Don’t change the subject. Hannah. Now.”

  “The redhead isn’t here.”

  “Cow shit,” Wisp snapped. “When I traced her yesterday morning, my sphere flew right to your base.”

  “Try it now,” Constantine said. “See if you can locate her.”

  Wisp retrieved the sphere she’d left beneath the table and released it into the air, careful not to lose her grip on the gun. “Find Hannah,” she commanded, eager to disprove Constantine’s challenge. But the glowing orb refused to budge from its spot. The only discernible change was its shift in color from apricot orange to an ominous salamander hue.

  Wisp knew exactly what this meant. She felt a chill d
own her spine. Her throat constricted and she struggled to swallow. She wanted to tell the others but couldn’t.

  “What the hell does this mean?” Max asked.

  “He’s right. She’s alive, but she isn’t nearby. And she’s in trouble.” Her voice wavered, belying the tough facade she’d struggled to maintain. Her mask was slipping.

  Constantine seemed content to keep talking, making no move to get away from the gun she was holding against his neck. “You aren’t going to find her.”

  “When and why did you take her away?” Wisp asked, trying to put her thoughts back in order. She had located Hannah in the morning. The Smog didn’t recede until after sunset. Either the Shadows transferred their captive right past nightfall, or they had discovered a means to traverse the toxic environment unharmed.

  “The when doesn’t matter, does it now? As for the why, well … I suppose the Conglomerate wanted to have a chat with her.”

  “The Conglomerate?” Wisp blurted, stiffening.

  The man had just thrown the name of the world’s most powerful crime syndicate at her. An organization so pervasive and resourceful that according to widespread rumors, the Covenant’s heroes could never quite track down the supervillain in charge of it.

  A dry, raspy chuckle escaped Constantine’s lips. “Surprised?”

  I guess I shouldn’t be. Wisp’s gaze dropped to her hand and the gun it was holding. If this was true – and not just a trick to make her toe the line – it would explain the sudden influx of military grade weapons and imported personnel she’d spotted on the way here. What did they want with Hannah though? Hannah didn’t have powers or anything of value. She wasn’t even a thief.

  “So you were lying when you said your men were letting off steam,” Wisp said. “But this doesn’t solve the problem. I still want to talk to Hannah.” She lowered her eyes, refusing to look at her friends’ helpless faces. She’d had the edge and lost it. Hannah’s rescue – the reason Wisp came to confront Constantine in the first place – was slipping farther and farther away from her.