The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4)

by Kurtis Eckstein

  “I’m taking everyone and going away for a day or two. I can’t say where, just in case, but I’ll keep Eden, Rose, and Lily safe. I promise.”

  “Y-You think that’s necessary?” I asked hesitantly, wondering if our house was really an unsafe location. I mean, with my information being under such a tight lock, combined with the fact that Lexi was listed as living at a different location, I felt like our house shouldn’t be a target at all.

  It shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar.

  “No, not really,” Freya admitted. “But I’m not going to let your little girl die again, Sam. Don’t worry, I’ll answer your calls. But I need to know it’s safe here for our family before we return. Because I will not let you experience your worst nightmare again.”

  I took a deep breath. “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I love you too, Sam.” She sucked in a deep breath as well. “I love you so much. Stay safe.”

  She hung up.

  I handed Jackie’s phone back to her after that.

  At the top of the building, there was a helicopter waiting for us. It wasn’t even close to being the first time I’d been in a helicopter, since a lot of the dangerous, but lucrative, jobs I used to take sometimes involved helicopter drop-offs, but it had definitely been a while.

  When we got to the local CDS building, where I now officially worked, I allowed Jackie to lead me down the elevator, through the building, and to her office. It was a cozy space that was more than five times as large as Lexi’s private office, including a large mahogany desk, several comfy leather chairs, as well as a pretty large leather couch. It was decorated with real plants, unlike Lexi’s fake plants, and felt just as comfortable within as it did the first day I stepped foot in here earlier that week.

  Having sat in one of the chairs before, I took a seat in front of her desk, taking another deep breath as she sat as well. She let me have a moment while she got things ready, intending on recording the debriefing, which would also transcribe it as a written report. Once she was ready, I went ahead and began recounting the events, leaving out the unimportant stuff involving me knowing Heidi was going to call and such.

  Instead, I just focused on us arriving at the theater, the short conversation I had with Heidi’s date, and then what followed.

  It barely took five minutes, even with her questions.

  We were then both quiet while she jotted some things down, having already sent the recording of our short discussion to the appropriate parties.

  She then interlaced her fingers on the desk and gave me her attention again. “Well, we shouldn’t have any problem discovering the true identity of the date, based on his images posted on that dating app. And then, from there, we’ll track all of his activities as far back as we can, and have our AI system search for any unusual behavior, as well as have people manually working on the details. In the previous attacks, we weren’t able to find anything noteworthy. However, with cases like this, often all we need is one small lead, or one tiny slipup from the enemy, to nail our target down. We’ll also be careful with the information the media receives about this incident until we get him.”

  I nodded, hoping they’d find something. “And what’s the plan if you do get a lead?”

  “A guy like this? We rush in, fingers on the trigger. He’s too dangerous to put in prison.”

  I nodded again.

  Jackie took a deep breath. “You know, this is now the third time I’m thanking you for saving Lexi. It’s a significant failure on our behalf, but hopefully with the right pieces in place, we can eliminate this threat for good.” She sighed, her gaze becoming gentle. “I’m not sure I could ever fully express my appreciation.”

  “Of course,” I replied, only for my tone to become serious. “But you realize this is exactly what I was talking about during negotiations, right? The fact that I’ve not been able to see my evaluation yet, could have resulted in a very different outcome this evening.” I paused to let that sink in. “I got lucky this time, but that might not happen again. My ignorance might result in a lot of people dying. So if you really want to express your appreciation, then please get that evaluation in my hands.”

  She grimaced, only to nod. “I’ll try. But there’s only so much I can do. At the very least, your contract says fifteen days, so worst case is you’ll have it in two weeks.”

  I sighed, knowing it was really out of her hands. “And an attack like this can’t happen again,” I added. “Until we take this guy down, I need to know what’s safe and what’s not. I mean, is my home even safe at this point?”

  Jackie leaned back in her seat, crossing her legs and simultaneously crossing her arms, pushing upward on her chest as she rolled her shoulders, like she was trying to work out the tension. “We have extremely tight privacy measures in place for all of our public supers, including Lexi. And the pattern, so far, proves that those measures have been effective.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All of these attacks have happened in public, even though she would obviously be an easy target if she were attacked at home while she was asleep in bed. The reason why, is because the enemy doesn’t know where she lives. They don’t even know the location where she works. And, all of our public supers have anti-stalking programming installed in their cars to detect if they are being followed. Thus, they’ve been forced to draw her out into the open. They went after her at an airport, then a mall, and now a theater.”

  “Anti-stalking programming?” I repeated. “How come you never mentioned that?”

  “For yourself? Because you’re not a public super,” she explained. “No one, outside of the CDS and top government organizations, knows that you have a role at the CDS. And honestly, while that programming was still installed in Lexi’s car, she didn’t really need it anymore.”

  I gave her a confused look. “She didn’t?”

  “Correct,” she agreed. “Almost a year ago, when Lexi took a break from her job, after Blaze Maddox disappeared, she decided to terminate her public contract with us – the one that made her a face of the organization. Her last public appearance was a television interview, where she announced her separation from Blaze. Since then, she’s bought a new house, thus changing cities entirely, and she’s been removed from the public eye. At this point, almost a year later, she’s been nearly forgotten.”

  “Seriously? How could people forget her?”

  “Easily. They do all the time. We do it to them , all the time. The formula is simple – media censorship, combined with distraction. Lexi ‘takes a break’ and we thrust a new young attractive super in the public’s face. They don’t even realize it’s happening, or that it’s happened , but they’ve long since forgotten about Lexi. After all, she’s just one of many celebrity superheroes, even if she was one of the most popular at one point in time – it happens all the time with movie and music celebrities too. And sure, people might privately wonder about her sometimes, but no one is talking about it publicly. And if they did, we’d shut it down.”

  Damn.

  That was useful, but also kind of scary how much control they exerted.

  “So her home is safe,” Jackie continued. “And your home is especially safe, because Lexi doesn’t officially live there. Technically, even going out in public isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. The airport’s database had been infiltrated, which was how the enemy probably found out she was going to be there, and it sounds like her younger sister opened up an opportunity when she put her name up on a dating app. It’s even possible the assailants didn’t know for sure that Heidi was Lexi’s sister, and were just taking a chance. Had Heidi denied having a sister, or if someone different shown up, instead of Lexi, then they might have determined that there was no relation and kept searching.”

  “What about the mall?” I wondered.

  “The exact method used to find her has not been determined, but there are a lot of possibilities, especially since you were there for a while. For example, a hacked security camera
with facial recognition software. It’s also possible they have a powerful technopath on their side, though nothing thus far has indicated that is the case. Because if that were true, then the situation would probably be a lot worse. However, something like going to the grocery store, or going to a park, is all extremely low risk.” She paused, as if she was reconsidering her own statement. “That being said, I still think she should avoid going out in public for a while, but it’s really not as unsafe as it might seem.”

  I nodded, only to realize I’d neglected to ask the most important question of all. The who and why.

  “Jackie, who is this Sheriff guy, and why is he even after Lexi?”

  She took a deep breath, leaning back into her chair more. “The nickname is self-proclaimed, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, and he’s a terrorist we thought Blaze Maddox killed a couple of years ago. And, up until three months ago, we thought he was truly gone. As to why Lexi? We really don’t know. It’s possible Lexi has become a target because of her association with Blaze, maybe as a form of revenge. After all, publicly, no one knows Blaze is deceased. Only missing. So it could even be an attempt to get Blaze to come out of hiding.” She took a deep breath. “This terrorist bastard brainwashes people into doing what he wants, though we suspect the process takes a lot of time, because otherwise he’d have an army at his disposal and be a much bigger threat.”

  Shit! I didn’t like that at all. Not one bit!

  Brainwashing people? Meaning, all these assailants might have been normal everyday people who were turned into this guy’s puppets?

  Shit!

  Jackie could see the horror in my expression, quickly leaning forward to reassure me.

  “We also think he has limitations,” she added. “Very rarely are his victims female, and the few times in the past when they were, they weren’t actually brainwashed. Instead, they were coerced via blackmail, always by men who had been brainwashed.”

  “So then, the suicide bomber…” I whispered.

  She nodded. “It’s very likely she wasn’t brainwashed, but was instead blackmailed with something significant, like the life of her family. And that threat might not have even been real. For example, the guy who did the initial attack might have met her using the same dating app, and then convinced her that the people he worked for would come after her kids or parents if she didn’t do what he wanted. And while the threat might have only involved him, with there not actually being other people, she would have no way to know for sure.”

  Jackie glanced at the wall then, her eyes becoming unfocused. “Plus, the threat would definitely feel real if she’d been abused beforehand. Not to mention, the bomb she had strapped onto her body probably couldn’t be removed once it was put on her. That gave her no options at that point. It’s not like she could just take it off and walk away.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, prompting her to focus on me again.

  “Then again,” she continued. “The person you saw might not have been female. Could have been a guy dressed up as a woman. Unless you’re confident it was a woman?”

  I honestly wasn’t confident at all. The person was definitely dressed like a woman, but I wasn’t exactly taking the time to verify gender. Definitely not a priority when I was having premonitions of a bomb going off.

  Unexpectedly, Jackie’s phone rang then, and she hung up a few seconds later with good news.

  Lexi was out of the hospital, and the two sisters were already on their way to pick me up, per their own decision after finding out where I was, with them driving a company vehicle supplied by the CDS.

  Dammit, I hadn’t thought much about it yet, but both Lexi’s red Ferrari and the white Corvette were gone. Completely vaporized by this ridiculously powerful ability I’d obtained from Lily.

  And shit, with some extensive training, it occurred to me that Lily could be a serious badass in her own right, especially since she had regeneration now too. Like, that kind of destructive power was top-tier, especially if it could be controlled like that, destroying only what the user wanted it to destroy.

  It was basically how Lexi could generate and use lightning, even though she wasn’t fireproof or capable of surviving a lightning strike. Her ability to fully control the energy in her body, including the transfer of heat, was how it was possible for her to survive her own otherwise lethal superpower.

  Asking if I could borrow Jackie’s phone again, I went ahead and gave Freya a call to update her on the basics of the situation, including my new boss’s assessment of the level of risk we were dealing with.

  All of which Freya agreed.

  She knew her decision to leave the house was probably an overreaction, especially since these attacks were in public and separated by four to eight weeks each time, but she preferred to be safe rather than sorry.

  Especially since we had two little girls to protect.

  They were already on the road after packing in record time, and despite everything, she still intended to spend the night at a safe location, where the four of them would be completely alone and secure. Freya also shared that she left Lily’s phone on the table for me, as well as hid a note with the address for where they would be, since she disabled her own phone’s GPS. She explained that the message was in a place where only I would find, and told me to search without using my eyes.

  I assumed she meant that I’d be able to see it with my second-sight.

  But then Freya said something I hadn’t even thought of.

  “Honestly, based on what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy thinks Lexi is dead now. Like, this attack was overkill. No one would have survived had you not been there. And, even with you there, over a dozen people still died. There’s no way for this guy to know that Lexi wasn’t one of those victims. And he won’t know, so long as we’re very careful from now on.”

  Shit, she was totally right.

  I put her on speakerphone so she could have a short discussion with Jackie about it, only to find out Jackie was already well aware of that possibility. It was what she meant by controlling the information the media receives about the situation, and was why she suggested Lexi should avoid going out in public, even though the risk was low.

  Because for now, this guy had no reason to believe that his attack wasn’t a complete success.

  That fact certainly made me feel a ton better.

  Once I talked for a few minutes with Lily as well, and also told Rose goodnight and that I loved her, Jackie proceeded to walk me down to the ground floor to wait for the Stockton sisters. When they pulled up, night having long since fallen, I was relieved to see that they appeared to be alright, but what I was shocked to discover was that they weren’t alone.

  They were both in the backseat, with someone else entirely driving them.

  Someone with jet black hair, pale green eyes, pale skin, and black lips.

  “Winter?” I said in surprise as she climbed out of the driver’s seat, the black car still running.

  She simply nodded in my direction, ignoring me completely as she spoke to Jackie. “Nothing significant in either of their memories of the incident.” She then focused on me. “Mr. Archer, get in.”

  Well, okay then. Not sure why she was being so formal all of a sudden, but whatever. Maybe it was because she was essentially working right now, although I recalled she also referred to me by my last name when she seemed annoyed previously.

  Giving Jackie one last farewell, I began climbing into the passenger seat, only for Heidi to speak up.

  “Sam,” she pleaded simply.

  Ah dammit.

  I stood back up, closed the passenger door, and climbed into the backseat, prompting Heidi to bury her head against my chest, barely managing to stay in her own seat. My hand was then taken by Lexi, who scooted closer to Heidi and held it in her lap.

  Shit, three people, and we were basically squished into just two seats!

  I leaned my head back, and took a deep breath, as Winter began driving, ac
tually thankful she was here, but also uncomfortable again knowing she could read all my thoughts.

  Oh well.

  I was sure she’d heard worse.

  And it wasn’t like I was thinking anything bad right now. Honestly, I doubted she even cared. After all, the last time I’d seen her, she’d chastised me for thinking the universe revolved around me. Even now, she was probably in her own head, rather than hanging out in mine, or listening to it, or whatever it was she did.

  Either way, it was fine.

  She could focus on my thoughts if she wanted to, and ignore them just the same. It didn’t really matter, and I shouldn’t worry about it. Honestly, it wasn’t much different than Freya’s ability, even though one was my fiancé and the other was some chick who seemed to be barely tolerating me right now.

  Okay, enough thinking about it already!

  The trip back home was a quiet one, and it never even occurred to me that I hadn’t told Winter where we lived. But I just assumed that she might have found out from either Lexi or Heidi’s heads earlier. As we pulled up to the gate, I told Winter to stop so I could punch in the code with an astral limb to open it, since it didn’t appear the key-fob in my pocket was working.

  She then pulled right up to the house for us to get out.

  Heidi was sound asleep against my chest, appearing wiped out after everything.

  Carefully wrapping her up in my astral limbs, I got her readjusted in my arms without jostling her around a ton, and then climbed out of the car, silently thanking Winter for the ride. It wasn’t until we got inside that Lexi realized something was up – that everyone was gone.

  I carefully explained that when I first told Freya about what was going on, she assumed the worst, not knowing if even our home was safe. And I also added that if it truly wasn’t secure, then we might have ended up at a hotel or something. However, while we knew otherwise now, it wasn’t best to be dragging Eden and Rose around everywhere this late into the evening.

  Unfortunately, I could tell from Lexi’s expression that she was beating herself up about it all. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was upset at ruining Heidi’s date, in the sense that Heidi would have had a normal guy going out with her were it not for Lexi having a target on her head.