by Alesha Dixon
17
“No,” I whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Darek sneered, pulling out a chair from one of the rooftop tables and sitting down, resting his hands on his lap. “It’s been me all along. I must say, I didn’t think it would be so easy to fool the famous Beam women, but I overestimated you.”
“What’s going on? Let Alexis go!” I cried, balling up my fists in anger as his security team stepped even closer.
I glanced back over my shoulder at Alexis straining to free himself from the chair, wriggling against the ropes. He tried to say something but it was just muffled sounds with the gag pulled tightly between his teeth, and even though it was cold on the roof, there were beads of sweat dripping down his forehead.
“No, I don’t think I will,” Darek replied in a bored voice. “Not until I’ve got what I want, anyway.”
“You’re supposed to be our family. How could you do this?”
“Family?” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Some family you’ve been to me.”
“Nanny Beam trusted you! You’re her nephew and my mum’s cousin! Nanny Beam loves you!”
“Only once my father was dead,” he snapped back. “Didn’t she ever tell you the story? Didn’t she ever fill you in on why she took me under her wing?”
I didn’t say anything. I’d never managed to get to the bottom of what happened to Nanny Beam’s brother and it looked like I should have tried harder to uncover the truth.
“No?” He raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps she was in denial. Or maybe she was embarrassed by her brother. Allow me to tell you the story. You see, my father was a brilliant man. As a child he got top grades in everything; he was a child prodigy who grew up to be a highly intelligent and ambitious man, ahead of his time. But no one saw it. None of his family even noticed. His parents barely acknowledged him. Do you know why, Aurora?”
I kept my jaw locked shut.
“You don’t even want to guess? It was because of your precious Nanny Beam. His perfect sister,” he hissed bitterly. “As they grew up, she was always that bit better than him at everything. And then when she turned fifteen, she showed signs of superpowers, just like her mother. The Beam family trait. Not for the men; only for the women. And her parents were brimming with pride. Their darling daughter became quite the superhero. Her powers of light control were more sparkling than her mother’s, her intelligence and drive even more impressive. Why would anyone notice a clever brother, when next to him was a superhero sister? It’s no wonder he couldn’t stand her. He played ‘happy families’ though for as long as he could manage. I even remember spending time with my Aunt Patricia as a child. But he couldn’t hold in his contempt and eventually they had a big argument. My father stopped talking to his family; he cut off all contact. They barely noticed. Nanny Beam wouldn’t even speak about him: that’s how little she cared.”
“That’s not true.”
He looked up at me in surprise. “Oh?”
“She wouldn’t speak about him because she cared,” I explained angrily. “Their falling out hurt her more than anything.”
“Well, I suppose that’s open to interpretation,” he said, hardly blinking as he held my eye contact.
“What has all of this got to do with your dad?” I snapped impatiently, gesturing to Alexis.
“It has everything to do with my dad,” he replied as fury flared in his eyes. “He dedicated the rest of his life to finding superpowers for himself so that he could finally gain the acclaim he deserved! To finally get his revenge on your grandmother!”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What?”
“He made it his life’s work, proving that the Beam women weren’t as special as they thought they were,” he spat. “He changed his name to Vermore and set about finding one of the four ancient stones that he’d come to learn about, to extract their superpowers and return to the Beams more powerful than they ever could be. And he came close, too.” He paused, inhaling deeply. “He stole a precious stone from its guardian. The Jewel of Truth and Nobility.”
“It exists?” I gasped.
Darek nodded. “Oh, yes, and my brilliant father found it. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He took me to the warehouse where he was working on extracting its powers. He came up with some genius inventions, some magnificent machinery, in his attempts to transfer its powers to him. But he was unsuccessful. He died trying.”
Something sparked in my memory.
“The explosion of light in that warehouse,” I whispered, recalling the newspaper article I had found in Nanny Beam’s house back in the summer.
I’d come across it when I’d accidentally stumbled upon the secret underground spy lair of her house, and at the time I had wondered why she’d have saved a newspaper article from years ago about what seemed to be an unexplained power surge in a disused warehouse.
Darek nodded slowly, his expression darkening. “Yes. The last of his failed attempts.”
I didn’t say anything as Darek collected himself.
“The precious stone, of course, was unharmed. Nanny Beam collected it from the chaos and returned it to its guardian. Annoyingly, my father didn’t tell me from whom he’d stolen the Jewel of Truth and Nobility before he died, otherwise I could have stolen it back rather swiftly. As it was, I had to bide my time in order to finish my father’s work. And I decided to be smarter than him in doing so. You know what they say, keep your enemies close.” He smirked. “Aunt Patricia tried to contact me after my father’s death and I shunned her for as long as I could, broken from losing him and determined to become as successful as possible on my own merits. I didn’t need anyone else’s help. Then, once I had built a business empire, I reached out to my dear aunt. She came running to my side without hesitation. It’s amazing what people will do out of guilt.”
“She wanted to help you and you betrayed her,” I cried, rage bubbling uncontrollably through me.
“She betrayed my father,” he retorted. “She should have paid more attention to him, but instead she enjoyed keeping all the glory to herself.”
“Nanny Beam isn’t like that!”
“I must say that she is an excellent boss,” he said breezily, flicking a bug off his cuff. “Commanding respect from the entire British Secret Service isn’t easy but she has managed it brilliantly. And teaming up with me was a smart move. Together, there really is nothing we can’t do. The only thing is, the whole time I’ve been secretly harbouring a desire to find that precious stone again, gain its superpowers and wipe out the Beam family, taking ultimate power over the world.”
He cackled loudly like an evil villain in a cartoon.
“Sadly, it wasn’t as easy as I thought,” he said, sighing heavily once he’d finished laughing. “Your grandmother is a tough nut to crack and as much as she trusted me, I had no luck in getting any information from her about the Jewel of Truth and Nobility. Only she knew its whereabouts. After years of excruciating hard work, becoming hugely successful in the tech world, creating a partnership with superheroes, I began to believe it was all for nothing. And then a miracle happened” – he did jazz hands for effect at this point in his story – “the Light of the World, the most precious of the mystic stones, was unearthed and brought right here to London to feature in an exhibition in the Natural History Museum, curated by none other than Professor Henry Beam. BOOM.” He clapped his hands together loudly, making me jump. “And do you know what the best part was? Nobody knew.”
He leaned forward across the table.
“Not even Nanny Beam,” he continued. “No one recognized the Light of the World for what it was, except for me. The perfect swirl on the stone was unmistakable, just as the legend of the four stones had described. It had been so long since the precious stones had been an issue, Nanny Beam was focused on other important things in the world. And there it was, front page of the newspaper! Discovered along with a bunch of other stones, and on its way to the city in which I lived an
d worked.” He shook his head at me. “It was fate.”
“Not for you,” I growled.
“That’s not what I believed,” he chuckled. “I got in touch with an old friend of mine. I’d worked with the Blackout Burglar in the past, funding his many successful missions, and he was lying low at the time. He was very happy to play the part of a new science teacher at the school the children of the Beam family attended. Once there, all he had to do was to persuade the head teacher to allow a school outing to Professor Beam’s fascinating new exhibition, gain inside access and scope the place out, ready for the big event. It was all very easy. Of course, there was a slight snag in the plan—”
“The Bright Sparks,” I interrupted. “We stopped you.”
“Mr Mercury failed me,” he replied breezily. “But I gave him a second chance and he managed to redeem himself.”
“The Superhero Conference.”
“Brilliant, wasn’t it?” He grinned, flashing his perfect white teeth at me. “No suspicion could fall on me because I helped Nanny Beam to protect it. It was my security system. The blame falling on you at first was particularly enjoyable for me. And then when David Donnelly was unmasked as Mr Mercury, no one looked twice at me, the caring Beam family member who had been fooled along with everyone else.”
“But I saw you that day. We were together with Nanny Beam after the helicopter had taken off carrying the Light of the World. How could you be in two places at once?”
“I wasn’t.” He shrugged, nodding towards the bodyguard standing to next to him. “My trusty right-hand man here took off with it in one of my helicopters and delivered it safely to my hideaway in Jamaica until I could return it here to London a few days later, without suspicion, and start working on extracting its powers.”
“You sent Nanny Beam on a wild goose chase,” I seethed, narrowing my eyes at him. “Helping her to track someone when it was you all along.”
Darek smiled happily. “Easy to do when you’re the one looking for them. I just made up random information I’d received and off her agents would scamper, always coming back with nothing. It has been a very fun game. All the while, I’ve been working on getting the powers from the Light of the World without interruption. Right under her nose.”
“I don’t understand.”
He frowned. “Which bits don’t you understand? Tell me and I’ll explain the details to you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I understand the details of your story. I just don’t understand the reasoning. Why would you go to all this trouble over all these years to betray your family for … superpowers?”
“Is that some kind of joke?” he asked, looking amused.
“I’m being serious. They’re just superpowers. I’d trade my superpowers for my family any day,” I said, glancing back at Alexis.
Darek shifted in his chair uncomfortably but then cleared his throat and stood up suddenly.
“Funny you should say that, Aurora. That’s exactly why you’re here.”
He walked around the table to stand directly in front of me.
“I’ve had the Light of the World in my possession for weeks, but HOW to get its powers? Nothing I tried was working. No machinery, no gadgets, no robot could crack it. I hired Alexis here in desperation. I thought maybe having a Beam under my control might help in some way. I convinced him to work on a special, secret project for me. I told him that Nanny Beam and I had considered the idea of the powers from the stone being transferable. I wanted him to help us to work out how, once we’d found the evil person who had stolen it from us. I told him we’d use it for good. To help the world. And lo and behold, he actually believed me.”
Alexis struggled against the rope as Darek spoke.
“He had no idea that I already had the stone. He was a devoted worker and I thought it couldn’t hurt to have someone with his brains and determination on the team. I was right. You told him how to do it and he told me.”
“I don’t know how to transfer its powers,” I argued.
“Yes, you do,” Darek said. “You found all the information in that book. You just didn’t translate it properly. Alexis overheard you telling your little superhero friends and he stole the book and gave it to me.”
“The precious stone book from the Natural History Museum?” I whispered, the truth dawning on me.
“Yes, Alexis took it from your room.”
Darek paused and tilted his head at Alexis. “Don’t let me forget to give you a pay rise. Excellent work.”
Alexis glared at him and tried to shout something through the gag. Darek turned back to me.
“All the information we can access online these days, and in the end the answer was in a grubby old book. It’s funny, I used to have a book just like it, but the police snatched it up after a raid. I haven’t lent Mr Mercury any of my possessions since. So handy of you to find another copy; it didn’t have a huge print run. To think I had the answer right there in that book all those years ago, and I had no idea. And the answer was very simple. My father and I had gone about it all wrong, throwing money at advanced equipment and technology development, when all I needed was … you. Aurora Beam.”
I clenched my jaw.
“So, as it suddenly began to dawn on Alexis that I hadn’t been completely truthful with him, I got my trusty security team to step in and make sure he couldn’t go leaving you any more voicemails that might give my plans away, hence his current state of affairs,” he explained, as Alexis hung his head. “Then all I had to do was send you a few texts from his phone begging you to come here, and here you are. No questions asked.”
He grinned.
“You’re very predictable, Aurora. Which makes you easily fooled. Anyway, the book says that you need the guardian of the stone to transfer its powers, correct? And once you have the guardian, you need to hold the stone with them underneath the power of the natural light and its powers will be transferred from them to you.”
He blinked up at the sky.
“A lovely crisp day, isn’t it? Cold, a bit blustery but” – he pointed his finger upwards – “the sun is shining. And here we are.”
I stepped backwards away from him, stumbling into the strong arms of one of his security men. I tried to break free but he had me in a tight lock. Darek watched my effort to wriggle out of his grip with a bemused expression before nodding at another one of his bodyguards. They picked up the briefcase he’d been carrying with him and brought it over.
Darek entered the codes into all the locks and the briefcase popped open. He lifted the lid and there was the Light of the World, sitting in the middle.
As soon as the briefcase opened, I could feel something happening. Just by being in the stone’s presence, my powers heightened, and I began to feel the tingling warmth run through my arms out of my control.
“I had the briefcase made in the exact likeness of that clever safe box your parents had put it in at the conference, so that your powers wouldn’t be affected around it. I even brought it round to your house the day I asked Alexis to intern for me. The Light of the World was in your house and none of you had any idea. That must be very frustrating to know now.”
He rubbed his hands together. “And now for the big event! Finally, it’s time.”
“How do you know this will work?” I cried out desperately. “You might have the wrong guardian of the stone!”
He shook his head. “No, Aurora. I’m certain I’ve got the right Beam for the job.”
I stared at him. “How do you—”
“Your scar,” he said simply, glancing at my hand. “The one on your palm. It’s the same swirl as the one on the Light of the World. No one else in your family has that. And you’ve always wondered what your extra ability is, haven’t you, Aurora? Your mum is abnormally fast, your aunt is impossibly charming, your grandmother has a connection with animals that no one else in the world can dream of making. It’s not by accident that you are the only one in your family with the same mark as the precio
us stone from which your superpowers come. You don’t have an extra ability, Aurora, because you don’t need one.”
He took a step closer to me, coiled his fingers around my wrist and lifted my hand up.
The swirled scar on my palm was glowing. And so was the matching pattern on the stone.
“You, Aurora Beam, are the chosen guardian of the Light of the World.”
18
Everything became a blur.
I felt dizzy and weak as Darek gripped my wrist so tightly I thought my hand was going to snap off. My brain was still processing everything he’d explained and for some reason, I felt like crying, my eyes prickling with hot tears. It was all too much for me to handle. When I’d first seen Alexis tied up on the roof, I’d felt so angry and courageous, whereas now, I felt like I could crumple at any second.
I couldn’t be the guardian of the Light of the World.
Could I?
With his free hand, Darek gestured to the bodyguard to bring the briefcase closer. Another bodyguard came over to help him hold me as I struggled to get away.
“Stop, please don’t!” I cried out, desperately trying to pull my arm free as Darek reached for the Light of the World.
Suddenly, the door to the roof swung open with a loud CLANG. Darek and his men spun round and as I looked up to see who it was, I felt as though I could breathe again.
An ostrich, wearing a pirate hat with a large purple plume feather sticking out of the top, appeared in the doorway.
“Aurora!” Kizzy shouted, running through the door past Alfred, followed closely by Fred, Georgie, Suzie and Aunt Lucinda.
“It’s Darek!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “He’s had the Light of the World all along!”
The man holding me tried clapping my mouth with his hand, but I was so fired up at seeing them, I didn’t hesitate to sink my teeth as hard as possible into his finger. He yelped, pulling his hand away in pain.
“Darek’s the bad guy!” I shouted, just in case they hadn’t heard me the first time.
