by R S Penney
“Not right away,” she answered. “I have some obligations here in Pelor, but I can join you tomorrow.” Her face became solemn for an instant, and then she nodded to him. “Jack…It didn't take long for me to figure out that you and Anna belong together. Just give her time, and have a little faith, would you?”
“I'll try.”
“That's all I ask.”
The gardens here at Pelor University were breathtaking. Cobblestone pathways ran through a field of neatly trimmed grass dotted with elm and sycamore trees. There were flowerbeds with white tulips and yellow daffodils, orange marigolds and several species that Jack couldn't identify.
White concrete walls twice the height of a tall man surrounded him on three sides, and behind him, an arch-shaped gate led to the quad where students relaxed in the shade of Velasai Hall. The building was four stories of white bricks with rectangular windows and a slanted roof of black shingles. Universities did love to preserve their old buildings. He supposed it added an air of sophistication.
The warm sun of late afternoon beat down from a clear sky. It was hot; Pelor was about a hundred kilometers inland from Denabria, and still quite warm to his Canadian sensibilities. But heat or no heat, the gardens were a nice place to relax for a little while and try to find some of that inner peace everyone was talking about.
Shutting his eyes, Jack turned his face up to the sun. The warmth on his skin was soothing. “What do you think, Summer?” he whispered. “Is Gabi right? Is Anna the one I'm meant to be with?”
The Nassai's irritation was obvious.
Jack shoved his hands into his pockets, walking along the path with his head down. “Well…sure,” he said with a shrug. “Of course you'd think it's obvious. You were always the brains of this operation.”
Summer was amused.
Jack dropped to one knee on the path, squinting as he stared off into the distance. “I don't know, Sum,” he murmured. “I mean I've come a long way from the kid who tried to scare off every potential girlfriend, but a part of me still thinks I'm unlovable.”
His symbiont's amusement died out to be replaced by irritation twice as strong as what she had felt before. Well, Summer could suck a lemon. Unless his friends expected him to lie, there was no way he could hide the fact that his self-esteem was about half as impressive as a deflated balloon.
He yawned and covered his mouth with a closed fist, his eyes shut tight against the glare of the sun. “Face it, Summer,” he mumbled. “On a planet of nearly over five billion people, Anna could do a lot better than me.”
With his eyes closed, he could only perceive the world through spatial awareness, and though his senses were sharp, he barely noticed when a figure landed on the wall in front of him. Most Justice Keepers learned to tune out all that extra sensory information when they weren't in the middle of life-threatening danger. That was why it was possible to sneak up on one if you were careful.
Possible, but much more difficult.
Jack looked up.
A man in black was crouching on the wall, a fair-skinned man with messy hair so blonde it was almost yellow. His malicious cackle was a sound that Jack had heard before, one that still made him cringe.
Leo had followed him here.
Chapter 10
Leo was perched on the wall like a vulture ready to swoop in, a cruel smile on his cheeky face. It was all business. The man didn't taunt, tease or even open his mouth. He just drew a pistol from his belt holster and pointed it at Jack.
In a flash, Jack had a Time Bubble surrounding himself, the air seeming to ripple like heat coming off a barbecue. Up on the wall, Leo's blurry image was frozen with the gun in one hand, pointed right at him.
Falling backward, Jack curled his legs up against his chest and somersaulted over the rough stone pathway. He came up in a crouch about six feet away from where he had just been.
He let the bubble vanish.
A bullet hit the ground where he had been moments earlier, cracking the concrete and sending chunks of it flying. One flew at his face, but Jack reached up and caught it with Keeper reflexes.
He used a touch of Bent Gravity and sent the rock flying at Leo, whizzing over the garden while the other man adjusted his aim. It struck Leo right between the eyes, and the man faltered, fingers uncurling.
His pistol fell from his grip and landed at the base of the garden wall. Well, at least that threat had been neutralized…for now.
Blushing fiercely, Leo winced and touched fingertips to the spot where the rock of concrete had hit him. “You're a hard man to track!” he said, getting to his feet. “Can you imagine what I had to go through to follow you here?”
He leaped from the wall, flipping, then dropped to the ground and landed on one knee. So, the guy was on Amps again. “All that work,” Leo said. “Just to follow you to a third-rate school.”
Jack stood.
He frowned, then shook his head in contempt. “I don't know what to tell you, Leo,” he teased. “All the cool kids are avoiding you, these days. And the guidance counselors say you're downright disagreeable.”
The other man stood up, glancing back over his shoulder to the spot where his gun had fallen. “You have a point there.” His head turned to fix a brown-eyed gaze on Jack. “I do have a reputation for not playing well with others.”
“Same old tricks, eh?”
A lopsided grin blossomed on Leo's face, and his body shook with soft, menacing laughter. “You can't beat a classic,” he replied. “But you will be pleased to know that I've updated the act since last time.”
Leo spread his arms wide and then floated off the ground to hover just a few feet above the path. The warping sensation of Bent Gravity was unmistakable. The man had a symbiont! Someone had given him one of the corrupted Nassai!
In a fit of cackling laughter, Leo flew at him while upright and then fell to land on the path right in front of Jack. “I have to admit I get it now,” he said. “That sense of smug superiority you always had. It all makes sense now!”
Leo kicked at his stomach.
Jack caught the man's ankle, holding his leg extended. He stepped forward to offer a fierce jab to the face, one that made Leo grunt as he pulled free and backed off.
Jack leaped and kicked high. Unfortunately, the other man ducked and slipped past beneath him. When he landed, he felt a pair of hands seize the back of his t-shirt and push him forward.
He was being driven toward a wall; the twelve-foot-high slab of concrete got bigger and bigger until it filled his vision. In seconds, he would be flattened.
Jack ran up the wall, then pushed off and back-flipped over Leo's head. He turned upright to land just behind the other man.
Leo spun around and threw a punch.
Crouching down, Jack brought one hand up to slap the man's wrist and knock his arm aside. He used the other for a palm-strike to the nose, one that made Leo's head snap backward and rebound off the concrete.
An upper-cut to the stomach drove the air from Leo's lungs. A second punch should have ended this, but Leo caught Jack's wrist. Before Jack could react, a grimy fist hit him right between the eyes and darkened his vision. Another hit to the chest made him back away, his lungs burning as he struggled to regain his equilibrium.
Keepers healed quickly, and the pain vanished within seconds, his vision returning in time for him to see Leo striding forward. The man looked rabid, his face flushed, his teeth bared in a rictus.
Leo offered a high roundhouse kick.
Jack ducked and felt a shoe pass over his head. He popped up in time to watch Leo bring his leg down. The man stepped forward for a back-hand blow.
Twisting out of the way, Jack caught his opponent's arm with both hands. He forced Leo to bend over, then used Keeper strength to twirl around and around and finally send the bastard face-first into a nearby tree.
Leo collided with a grunt, wrapping his arms around the tree trunk like a lover's passionate embrace. In seconds, the man got his bearings, shaking his head.
“I really have missed this.”
“You're the only one,” Jack said, moving in closer. “You should have stayed in that cell, Leo. Free meals, counseling sessions, all the daytime soaps you could watch: it was a good deal.”
The man turned around with blood streaming over his lips. “Maybe you should go there!” he spat. “Spend your days parroting all the right responses to your therapist while you dream about killing him!”
Leo charged at him.
Jack turned his body for a high, arcing kick, one that took Leo across the chin. He brought his leg down, spun and back-kicked, driving his shoe into the other man's chest. That put some distance between them.
Leo stumbled backward, one hand reaching for the sheathed throwing knives on his belt. He pulled one free, extended his arm to point the blade at Jack and loosed it with a touch of Bent Gravity.
Leaning back, Jack raised both hands to catch the weapon between clapped palms. That threat was dealt with, but Leo was quick to pull yet another knife from his belt and hurl this one as well.
A quick jump to the side saved Jack's life, but the blade still cut close enough to rip his shirt and leave a fiery gash across his rib-cage. Knowing his luck, the damn thing was probably poisoned. No time to think about that. This had just been a diversion.
Leo was coming for him.
The man jumped and twirled in midair, one foot lashing out for a kick that took Jack across the cheek with enough force to knock him senseless. In a daze, he stumbled away while Leo advanced on him.
Jack dropped to a crouch and flung the knife he'd captured, watching as it tumbled end over end through the air. The tip sank into Leo's thigh just above the left knee, blood soaking into the man's pants.
Leo nearly lost his balance, hunching over, and clutching his wounded leg with one hand. “Bastard!” The man's face was crimson, his blood-stained mouth twisted in a snarl. “Why don't you just die?”
Leo turned and ran for the wall, for his gun.
“Oh no you don't!”
In a flash, Jack was chasing him. He leaped with a surge of Bent Gravity that lifted him into the air and carried him over the other man's head, his skin tingling as he landed in front of the wall.
Bending over, Jack snatched up the fallen pistol. He rose and turned around, lifting the weapon in both hands as he watched his enemy come closer. Leo was hobbling, trying to move nimbly despite a bleeding leg.
The other man stretched a hand out as Jack pulled the trigger, colours blurring until Leo was a smear of black. Bullets converged on him only to veer off to the left and hit the concrete wall instead.
Jack kept firing.
It stood to reason that Leo hadn't carried a symbiont for very long, and that being the case, he might not be aware of the limits of his powers. Bullet after bullet sped toward Leo only to curve away from him at the last second.
Bending his knees, Leo jumped. A surge of Bent Gravity propelled him over Jack's head to the top of the wall, where he landed in a crouch with his back turned. “You really shouldn't have come here!”
Jack whirled around.
Craning his neck, he squinted at the other man. “Why's that?” he asked, shaking his head. “You were hoping to get your ass kicked somewhere a little more comfortable? Say a pillow factory, maybe?”
With some effort, Leo stood up but kept his back turned. He didn't seem to care if Jack decided to shoot him. “Because you led me right to her,” he answered. “Ms. Gabrina made such delightful sounds before she died.”
He leaped off the wall to land on the other side.
Blood drained away from Jack's face as he stared upward with an open mouth. He blinked a few times, then tossed his head about to clear away the mental fog. “Gabi,” he whispered. “Oh god…”
He turned and ran from the garden.
Through the arch-shaped gate, across the quad where Velasi Hall stood four stories high. Students practically leaped out of his way as he passed. Leyrian guns were almost silent; most of these kids probably didn't even realize that a duel between two men who intended to kill each other had just taken place.
He slammed his shoulder into the heavy wooden door that led into Velasi Hall and found himself in the intersection of two corridors. One went straight, toward the back of the building. The other was on Jack's left.
He turned and ran through a hallway with windows on one wall and doors on the other, gasping as he tried to find Gabi's classroom. The door was still open. He had only been gone ten minutes. Had Leo slipped in during that time?
Jack ran through the door.
Gabi was sitting at her desk with a tablet in one hand, frowning as she perused its contents. The sound of his entrance startled her, and she looked up to blink at him. “Jack. Is everything all right?”
Biting his lip, Jack trembled as a shiver went through him. He shook his head and let out a breath. “Leo,” he panted. “Leo was here, at the university, and he bragged to me about killing you.”
Gabi's face went white, but she composed herself quickly, nodding as she took in the information. “It seems the threat is more immediate than I thought,” she said. “Did you call the police?”
Did he call the police?
Of course, he called the police! That was standard procedure for…Except he hadn't. He had been so consumed with the thought that something might have happened to Gabi, it completely slipped his mind. Jack wasn't in love with her anymore, but she still meant the world to him.
Lifting his left hand, he tapped commands into his multi-tool with his right, calling the local police department. “This is Special Agent Jack Hunter with the Justice Keepers, Denabrian Division,” he said. “There's been an incident at Pelor University.”
Scrambling through the field behind the garden, the university's buildings rising up on either side of him, Leo panted as blood leaked from his nose and ran over his mouth. “Damn him!” he shouted. “Why won't he die!”
At the edge of the campus, a road lined with trees was nearly empty except for one car that drove slowly past and another that waited by the curb for him. He had to get out of here before anyone called the authorities.
Leo skidded to a stop at the curb.
Pulling the door open, he ducked into the back seat where the air-conditioning had dropped the temperature considerably. They were moving before he even had a chance to get his seat-belt on, the car's automated systems following a preprogrammed route.
Next to him, Valeth wore a simple yellow dress as she sat with hands folded in her lap, staring blankly ahead. “Your assessment?” she asked in the typical down-to-business tone he had come to expect from Slade's minions.
Grinding his teeth while he exhaled, Leo hung his head. The sweat upon his brow made his skin itch. “He's grown stronger since the last time I saw him,” he answered. “I did not expect him to put up such a fight.”
“This was not unexpected.”
“No.”
“Is that all?”
Leo closed his eyes and let the back of his head rest against the seat cushion. “No,” he said softly. “He didn't chase me after I insinuated that I had killed one of his friends. It seems Jack Hunter still has a soft heart.”
Valeth tapped her lips as she thought it over, then nodded her approval. “This may be a weakness we can use to our advantage.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Ben was thrilled when Jack asked to meet him for a drink; they hadn't had a chance to really catch up last night, at Harry's party. He wanted to ask about his friend's visit to Earth, but Jack had spent most of the evening with Anna. Ben couldn't really say that he minded; if those two were sorting out their issues, so much the better.
He had his own concerns to deal with. Trying to decide whether he wanted to speak at a conference on cyber security was leaving him feeling anxious. On the one hand, Ben wanted to impress his new colleagues, and the opportunity might finally put an end to his days as a pariah. On the other hand, doing so would be opening himself
to the scorn of people who would judge him for his crimes. He'd been burned enough in the last year.
Six hours of mulling over the options, and he was no closer to a decision than he had been this afternoon. Quite the contrary; he had tangled himself in knots. Maybe Jack could help him find some perspective.
This small outdoor restaurant on the sidewalk across from the Denabrian Art and Culture Museum was lit by lanterns hung on walls that were overgrown with ivy. Warm golden light washed over plastic tables that were positioned under an overhang to keep the elements at bay.
Ben wore a tight frown as he peered into the mug of bubbling beer in front of him. The drink was practically untouched. He was too preoccupied with his thoughts to have much of a thirst.
By the way Jack stepped onto the patio with shoulders slumped and face twisted in pain, Ben knew something was wrong. That can't be good, he thought as his friend came over to stand across from him.
“What's wrong?” Ben asked.
Jack sat down across from him.
The man was pale, his mouth open as he stared at Ben and blinked slowly. “Leo's out,” he said in a voice that grated. “So far, he's killed at least one person, and earlier this afternoon, he attacked me at Pelor University.”
“I'm so sorry; could you repeat that for me?” Ben asked. “It sounded like you just told me that the man who terrorized Ottawa is loose.”
“He's loose.”
Sitting back with arms folded, Ben frowned and shook his head. “So, let me get this straight,” he began. “Leo somehow escapes his cell on Station Six and follows you back to Leyria. And this is the first I'm hearing about it.”
Jack bit his lip as he studied the table's surface, a ragged breath exploding from his lungs. “I've only known for about thirty-six hours,” he said. “We didn't think Leo would come here.”
“So you knew before the party?”
“I don't see what-”
Ben's hand came down on the table with a thwack so fierce it knocked over the salt shaker and spilled little white flecks all over the place. “Did you tell Harry?” he snapped. “Was that why he was so edgy last night?”
