Bones of the Past (Villains' Code Book 2)

by Drew Hayes

  “We’ve got nothing to cook and no chill to ward off, but I do love the sound of a nice crackle, so I won’t fight you on it. Just sit tight while I grab the kindling.”

  Moving slowly, eyes watching the ground for further obstacles, Tori wandered over to the minor clearing, which was more a break in the canopy than anything. Once settled, she extinguished what remained of her current torch, a random stick picked up when the last one burned down. Helen had no issues seeing in the dark, her excellent eyes further proving that the glasses were truly cosmetic.

  Within a few minutes, Helen had returned, arms filled with various twigs and sticks. Dropping the whole load down in front of Tori, Helen wandered over to a tree and pressed her back against it, finding a semi-lean that in no way appeared comfortable.

  One bit of focus, and the fire caught, rippling through the kindling in no time to create a bright, vibrant blaze. It was strangely comforting, even without actual purpose. The monsters wouldn’t care, and Helen was right about food and temperature. Still, looking into the flames relaxed Tori, earning a cry of joy from her back as tension slowly faded.

  “Resting might not have been the worst idea.”

  “With age comes wisdom, and that includes the importance of taking breaks.”

  Tori looked the woman over for the umpteenth time that day, ever since her power had been revealed. “Seeing as you only look a few years older than me, I’m guessing part of that perfect-body package is slower aging?”

  “That’s definitely one way to look at it,” Helen replied. “Without bogging down in details, let’s just say I wear my years exceptionally well.”

  “You and Ivan both. I have to get me some of those anti-aging powers before it’s too late. Last thing I need is dementia or arthritis setting in.” Tori said it as a joke, yet as the words left her mouth, she wondered... was that on the table? She’d never dug into all the resources the guild offered, focusing on things directly related to her and her goals. Having more time to be young and full of energy sure wouldn’t hurt, though.

  “They aren’t always as great as you might think, but it’s case by case.” Helen’s gaze drifted into the fire, her focus shifting for a brief, unmistakable moment. “Besides, as I see it, you’ve got quite a useful ability already. Form-phasing, heat control, long-range attacks, flight, and that’s just what you’ve shown so far. If I didn’t know better, I might think I was hanging out with a superhero.”

  The strange notion tickled Tori to imagine, purely for its ridiculousness. “Yeah, that was obviously never on the table for me.”

  Helen’s face grew unexpectedly serious. “With all due respect, that’s not true. Anyone can choose to protect the innocent, to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. Not all on the same scale, and not all in the same way, but every sentient creature has the potential to help. To use whatever strengths they have and make the world better.”

  A strange place for a conversational dig-in, though not entirely shocking. People had strong opinions on capes; often, they’d been saved by one. Even without that personal connection, every person alive had to live with the knowledge that the world only still existed because capes had successfully defended it multiple times. Granted, the threats were usually meta-human or created by said capes, so there was a chicken-and-the-egg question to be asked, but the fact remained that the Earth was still spinning.

  “I guess I could have phrased that better. What I meant is that it was never really on the table because I don’t have that instinct. If I see things going sideways, my first thought is how to get out safely. After that, I think about how much of the shit I care about can come along, too.”

  The fire crackled between them. Tori could feel Helen’s eyes on her, more focused than ever before. The attention was unexpectedly heavy, and oddly familiar in a way her brain just refused to place.

  “Is that really how you see yourself, Tori? A selfish coward?”

  “I’m a scientist first and foremost. We go by observable data. Historically speaking, that’s how I act, so it’s the conclusion I draw.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve got a lot of bias in your data collection,” Helen countered. “Because my observations have been quite different. I’ve seen a woman stick by a someone she thought would be nothing more than a burden to drag around. I’ve watched you show concern for people in danger over yourself, both in theory and in practice. Heck, let’s take it from you directly. When I said we should stop a few minutes ago, what did you come back with?”

  Tori jumped back in her mind, trying to replay things. “I said there wasn’t enough time to stop.”

  “Close. You said there wasn’t time, because everyone is counting on us.” This time, there was nothing subtle about the knowing grin on Helen’s face. “I’ve met and known a lot of capes through the years—more than I think you’d believe. ‘Everyone is counting on us.’ That sure sounds like something a superhero would say.”

  Chapter 83

  “Professor Quantum?”

  The aide waved, trying to flag him down. Persistent fellow. Most gave up after being ignored the first several times. That meant the matter must be important, at least in the aide’s mind. Relenting his constant pace, Professor Quantum turned to the red-faced man waving a document.

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you, sir. We’ve been trying to reach out by phone, but there seems to be an issue.” The issue was that Professor Quantum had been ignoring the missives, a fact that both knew and neither would say. “Got a report that came in, flagged high priority. Some kind of orb thing appeared over a Starscout retreat and people are missing. Looks like a Cobblord piece.”

  At the sound of an older enemy, Professor Quantum allowed his interest to raise its head. He snatched the document from the aide’s hand. “Seems as though there’s several layers of warped time folded around it, which means breaking through will be quite difficult—as well as unnecessary. We shouldn’t get involved.”

  “Beg pardon?” The aide looked sure that they’d misheard.

  Professor Quantum tossed the page back over, paying no attention to if it was caught. “Lodestar has expressed her desire for the Starscouts to be an entity separate from the AHC many times. Since she’s so set on that distinction, we wouldn’t want to step on toes and go rushing in. I saw that Quorum has already been dispatched, and we all know Lodestar keeps a special eye on that organization. I have no doubt the issue will be handily resolved.”

  The aide hung in the hallway, staring with mouth agape. To him, it probably seemed as if Professor Quantum were being hard-hearted, but the truth was much simpler. As any enterprise, the Alliance of Heroic Champions had limited resources. There were only so many capes on duty or reachable at any given time, and from that pool, they had to be able to deal with any major threat to the world’s safety at often minimal notice.

  Considering all that, Professor Quantum could think of few greater wastes of resources than sending reinforcements to Lodestar. Not that the aide had any way of knowing she was there, thanks to that ridiculous secret identity. Truly, the only thing Professor Quantum held in higher esteem than Lodestar’s power was Helen’s capacity to utterly waste it.

  To tell the tale of Fornax was to sing a song of blood. Blood from Ivan, dripping off cuts in his knuckles, running down his chin, pooling in his ears. Blood from the others, felled one at a time by each other’s hands. Blood from his captors, taken in their moment of triumph. Blood from their allies, from every member of their cult, every soul connected to the horror of Fornax’s creation. So much blood there were days he’d wondered if his eyes had been stained, if he could ever see the world in terms other than flesh to be torn apart.

  These creatures had no blood. Ivan drove a fist through the skull-shaped rock of a horned beast the size of a commuter bus, obliterating the head along with the entirety of its body, rocks spraying across the rest of the herd. No blood was a blessing. It made cleanup all the easier. More than that, though,
it helped Ivan keep control. The darkness was always there, always pressing to be let out. Whispering that this is who he truly was, where he rightly belonged. Tempting him to go wilder, to enjoy himself. Reminding him of the only thing he’d ever felt made for.

  Destruction.

  If the trees were painted in viscera, it would have stirred those old memories harder, feeding his worst impulses. This was better, cleaner on multiple levels.

  Ivan smashed through the other two giant horned beasts, then shoved past their rubble. He’d been picking off the advance troops as he approached, but staring down the slope he’d reached, Ivan realized that his trek was nearly done. What he was looking at had to be the main force, based on the way the entire forest rippled with their steps. A mishmash of shapes, some animalistic, some humanoid, some truly a design entirely unto themselves. The details didn’t matter to Ivan. It was all the same. Rocks to be shattered, enemies to be broken.

  This was nothing. Sliding down the dry grass, Ivan leapt into the air, coming down on the back of a horse-sized stone monster covered in spikes. It burst into pieces as his limbs made contact, a wave of power washing out from where Ivan hit the ground, cracking several nearby opponents. Ivan had never cared much for wielding widespread magic, even if his fighting was inherently suited to it. He preferred a one-on-one match, or at least to take down each enemy with his own fists. Tonight wasn’t about his preferences, however. It was about keeping that camp protected.

  Not even caring what his hand landed upon, Ivan grabbed the nearest stone limb and swung it around, turning the creature into a club he used to bludgeon the first movement that caught his eye. Down here, surrounded by chaos, Ivan’s mind couldn’t help flashing back to the pit.

  Everything was a fight: food, water, a place to sleep. Their captors’ favorite method had been to turn everyone loose in the pit, and then allow the winner first choice of their prize while the others were left with scraps. When Ivan showed a bit of talent early on, he inadvertently made himself a target. For years, they would come at him together, making him alone even in a place meant to drive all to isolation.

  The limb crumbled in Ivan’s tightened grip. He barely even registered the loss, dashing forward, deeper into the thick of combat. He grabbed a pair of gorilla-sized stone monsters by the heads, decapitating both. Multiple opponents meant nothing to him; that was the benefit of surviving all those group attacks. Without meaning to, the others had made him even stronger. By the time the numbers thinned, Ivan had already been winning fights against them collectively. One-on-one... well, there was a reason he was still alive, and they weren’t.

  Ivan came to a stop, realizing that, without noticing, he’d torn through a bunch of stone spheres held aloft by spider-like limbs. Whatever unexpected function they’d had was lost; their rubble revealed no secrets. Pausing, Ivan forced himself to breathe, mentally getting out of the pit. It was dangerous to lose himself in the past, even for a moment. He couldn’t give in, couldn’t let that piece of him escape.

  Something huge moved in Ivan’s periphery. Not quite a stone dinosaur, but the sizes of these things were starting to get ridiculous. It had only been one day, why was the labyrinth pushing so hard on the second wave?

  Hesitantly, Ivan felt more power flow into his fists. Releasing condensed waves of pure obliteration magic on every hit would cut down his time, but he loathed using the technique like this. The more destructive Ivan became, the deeper he verged into Fornax’s territory. There was a reason that name had stuck, coined as it was for a black hole. In his early days, before he learned better control, Fornax truly was a walking disaster—collateral damage was almost a feature of his abilities. Ivan had already spent a lifetime fighting to win at all costs; paired with the sudden increase in raw strength, he’d barely been able to throw a jab without creating a corpse.

  This power was meant to destroy. Always had been, since before it was Ivan’s to wield. He’d met its source, overcome that endless appetite to unmake the world with his own will for survival. But putting his burden on a leash didn’t change its nature. As Ivan stepped forward, moving toward his giant target, a stone quadruped with long, lashing limbs bounded toward him. A single blow not only shattered his opponent, it sent the shards flying like shrapnel, tearing chunks off the other nearby enemies. Ivan repeated the trick on the next one he could reach, then another, all while moving toward the big beast. It had been a while since he used this technique—a few calibration shots always helped.

  The head of this enemy was massive—easily the size of the horned beasts he’d slain not too far back. As for the rest of it, Ivan could see a long stone neck leading to a body he imagined would be covered in thick armor, spines, maybe even some surprise defenses meant to shake off anyone who climbed on board. With his higher vantage point, Ivan opted not to mess with the head. Probably a fake target. The body would be where the real vulnerabilities lay. Cobblord was no rank amateur; he knew how to build a decent monster.

  Decent by most people’s standards, anyway. To Ivan, these were all the same. The same as those frail cultists whose bones were so easily torn out. The same as so many big-talking opponents who’d raised his hopes only to break after a single blow. The same as the countless challengers who paled in horror upon realizing the fight they’d picked. The same as every piece of fodder these unstoppable fists had effortlessly crushed... until the shining one who was different. Until the punch that was stopped, and everything else that unexpected moment had started.

  “Cobblord, I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re monitoring any of this. But just in case, I wanted to pass along a message: you should have let them kill you.” Ivan leapt over the head of the monster, toward the main body. All around it, he could see smaller stone forms, the army circling its strongest asset. How convenient of them all to group together for him.

  Landing on its back, Ivan reared back, ready to throw a full-strength punch before thinking better of it. That might crack the entire mechanism of the orb, tripping Cobblord’s fiercest defenses, if not a full collapse of their prison. Holding back, Ivan thrust his arm into the nearest patch of stone he saw. The initial hit left a crater, but it was the aftereffect that truly got the show started. Just like the earlier monsters, charged flecks of stone went flying off as shrapnel. Except, thanks to the opponent’s greater size, these shards were fist-sized at their smallest, tearing through his massive enemy’s inner workings as much as through the peons on the ground.

  “Whoever it was, whatever threats they made to get you on board, you should have let them kill you. Because I don’t give a shit how much you knew about their plans for this. I’m going to find you. And when I do, I’ll show you the folly of your ways. You should have let them kill you, Cobblord. It would have been an easier death than the one I’ll bring.”

  Ivan truly had no idea if Cobblord could watch the happenings of his creations, or if the threat had merely been for his unthinking audience. It was mostly habit, either way. Terrifying an opponent was often an easier way to win than bothering to make a fist. Besides, when it came to both Ivan and Fornax, the words were never really the message.

  Explosions of energy tore through the giant monster as Ivan struck again, this time leaving his hand wedged inside. Rocks burst forth, shooting into the nearby hordes and blowing them into rubble. As he stood there atop his giant prey, watching the sea of enemies fall against his power, Ivan tried very, very hard to remember that this was purely a defensive necessity. Otherwise, an especially mad part of him would take too much joy in the spectacle.

  Destruction spread like a spiderweb as Ivan rained down more blows, triggering blast after blast. A maelstrom of violence, a parade of obliteration. Like the black hole his other name was stolen from, Ivan wiped out his enemies, the forest, and everything in the surrounding areas. There was no distinction between them; they were all simply objects to be broken.

  He wouldn’t let one of these things slip past, couldn’t risk the life of single scou
t. Ivan would never be like Lodestar—his powers didn’t function the same way. If he had to fight with others around, it put them in danger. Acting before the threat arrived, preemptive annihilation, that was the only real tactic that worked for him. Ivan would be just as meticulous, thorough, and patient as he was at the office. One by one, until the last movement halted, he would crush this army.

  So much of his life was about hiding who he was and what he could really do. For tonight, a brief and beautiful moment, Ivan felt united. His better self was determined to protect those kids, whereas his darker impulses were gleeful at the chance to rampage. Everything in him agreed that the only course of action was to wipe these bastards out.

  Raising a fist overhead, Ivan felt a mad grin try to wiggle its way onto his face, an impulse he immediately squashed down. This was not Fornax running wild: this was Ivan Gerhardt sending a very clear, explosive message about what happened to anyone who threatened his family.

  He hoped Cobblord was watching somewhere. Ivan wanted him afraid, wanted him cowering. The reputation of Fornax was one of the few things that kept his family safe. A little wanton decimation here and there was a nice way to remind people why they should be so afraid. Of course, in all likelihood, Cobblord probably wasn’t watching. There was so much to keep track of, even if he had surveillance. That was fine, too, though.

  When it was all over, Ivan would be sure to hunt him down and explain the error of his ways in person. For as long as Cobblord could endure.

  Chapter 84

  In spite of her steadily weakening state—a quite natural reaction to extended effort with no nourishment or water—Tori insisted they press on, taking rest only when she had to in the form of a few catnaps, grabbed under the starlight and Helen’s watchful eye. At least Tori was accustomed to keeping late hours; it meant they didn’t have to worry about drowsiness becoming a factor just yet.