by Lucy Auburn
I blink, somewhat stunned at this revelation, but not completely. After all, I'd suspected the killer was a member of the Shadow Fold. I just didn't know he'd also be a teacher or instructor here at Cain University. The audacity of that—to waltz around the same building as me, the daughter of the innocent woman he murdered. I can't imagine it. Even I didn't hang out with Jack's family after I killed him, and he deserved to be cut into tiny pieces. My mother deserved none of what happened to her.
"Tell me more," I urge her. "Do you know his name? Hair color? Height? Anything would help me. I haven't found any evidence of a Shadow Fold member who can turn into fog, so whatever you know, it's all I've got."
"Oh, Ellen. So single-minded. So focused." There's pity in her voice, but also frustration. "What will you do with this killer when you find them?"
I'd think it would be obvious. "Take him out. Make him pay for killing you."
"That won't bring me back." Her voice is sharp, but slightly edged with frustration. "You have to learn to let go, darling. Hatred will consume you, and anger will make you weak. Yours is a higher purpose, bigger than simple, petty revenge."
"Mom." I feel like a little girl asking for a second serving of birthday cake. "Please, just tell me what you know. I'll... serve a higher purpose once I've taken down your killer."
"Very well. I know them by their energy. The killer is somewhere in this building right now, and..." She tilts her head to one side. "Experimenting. Power—that's what they want. That's what drives them to kill. Satisfied?”¡
No. I wanted a height, hair color, clothing—something that would help me visually identify the killer. But clearly whatever spirits know about energy and souls doesn't extend to physical descriptions of people in the real world. I'll have to settle for this, and hope that I can find more.
"Thank you, Mom. Is there... is there anything else you want to tell me?"
"Is there anything else you want to ask me?" She gestures towards Mason. "Maybe how to keep your friend over there from bleeding out? He's very handsome, Ellen. Waste of a good man to just watch him drip on the floor."
Apologetically, Mason says, "It is starting to kind of turn into that scene from The Shining over here."
What he means is that I need to use my foresight with him instead of talking to the ghost of my mother for so long. Sighing, I relent.
"Mom, we're gonna have to say goodbye now. But maybe... maybe I'll see you again."
"Perhaps." She tilts her head to the side, as if hearing something just beyond our senses. Smiling softly at me, she says, "Oh, my darling Ellen, I love you so. I want you to find happiness. Do you think you could do that for me? Do you think you could find a mission in life other than revenge?"
What a loaded, heavy question. My dead mother is apparently out to make me self-consciously look anywhere but at the men around me—especially Mason, who I can sense working on his puppy dog eyes.
"I'll try," I tell her. "Once I've put your killer in the ground, I'll try to find something worth living for now that you're not in this world anymore."
"That's all that I ask, Ellen."
I don't tell her goodbye. I'm afraid that it'll be the last thing I ever say to her. Instead, to make up for what I didn't say last time, I tell her, "I love you."
And I let her go.
Her spirit fades away all at once, silvery and white at the edges, leaving the room feeling that much more empty despite the five people and one dog in here.
Make that one dog and one cat. Somehow Penny has gotten into the training room and is rubbing up against Killer's legs, purring and pressing her cheek against his fur, her little paws digging happily into the floor. He's wagging his tail slowly, looking a little uncertain what she wants, but happy enough to be warm and comfortable.
Looking to Mason, who seems a little paler from all the bleeding, I decide it's time. "Let's look into the future. Hopefully we don't see apocalyptic shit... or find out how the next superhero movie ends. No spoilers."
He snorts. "Try to see if we survive this mission. I want to know that one for sure."
Licking my lips, I nod sharply, trying not to feel scared of my own power. Having a Mental Affinity that lets me look into the future seems like it should be a good thing, but I'm afraid that what it tells me is as inevitable as Eve getting her leg scratched up. What use is it to know doom is coming, after all, if you can't dodge before it hits.
But it's time to put on my big girl pants, woman up, and do this shit anyway. Maybe if I'm lucky, the future will show all five of us, and Eve, drinking cocoa and laughing about how easy all our challenges turned out to be, with Killer and Penny curled up at our feet.
Taking a deep breath, I squeeze Mason's hand and try to find a good subject to think about. Without prompting, my mind goes towards the mystery of the Black Serpent, his madness, his name, and how in the world he wound up like he did. I've barely thought about him the past few weeks, caught up as I was in training and dealing with tension among the guys. But now I have to wonder if he's somehow caught up in my mother's death and my father's mysteries.
Before I can stop it, my Affinity turns itself towards the man in question and shows Mason and I a scene projected against the wall.
The sky is red as blood. It almost looks like it should be dripping with it. A wind conjures up smoke and fog, and in the middle of it all stands a man in a black cloak holding two daggers. He's breathing heavily, the sides heaving, a slash across his face from an enemy's blade.
"Show yourself!" As he bellows, the vision narrows in focus, showing the space in the fog where he stands. "I know you did this to me. I'm starting to remember—she helped with that. Where are you? How are you still alive? Answer me!"
His eyes are wide with madness and rage, but there's a presence to him that was missing in the castle, like he found a little of his sanity lying on the side of the road. Whirling around, he stares into the fog, trying to find his enemy.
"You stole something precious from me. Something vital... and the bullshit you put in my head to replace it was almost as bad as what you took. But I'm not going to play your little games anymore. I won't be your pawn or help you find your victims. This ends with me."
"So it does." A man's voice emanates from the fog, and a figure prowls towards the Black Serpent, his face completely covered in black cloth save for a strip right around his eyes. "You're not needed alive anymore, Connor. I found a way to keep what I need without preserving your body. We might as well end this now."
The Black Serpent falls into a fighter's stance, narrowing his eyes at the figure. "End it? This is just beginning, and we both know it."
I watch the two figures begin to fight, more confused than I've ever been in my entire life. One of my suspicions has been confirmed, though: the Black Serpent wasn't always this fucked up. Someone took something from him, wiped his memories wrong somehow, and filled his head with nonsense. Now he's been turned into a villain running from his own madness, tortured by his lack of powers, missing something vital.
But I refuse to pity him. I just want to understand. Whatever is going on with him, it connects to my birth father somehow, and I have the feeling that my mother's death folds in there somewhere. Vincent Arizona has always been a mystery to me, and discovering that he went to Cain University hasn't cleared the cobwebs. His powers, his missions, why it was kept from me—I need to know more. Because it can't be a coincidence that my mother was killed by a someone with powers, just like her dead husband and her daughter had powers. There has to be a link there.
Leaning forward, I try to get a good look at the strip of the killer's face as the Black Serpent faces off with him. I keep hoping his hood will get thrown back or that black cloth wound around his face will be torn away. The visions fades before either happens, though, and I don't get to see how the battle ends.
"Huh." Mason takes his hand off his arm cautiously, and stares down in shock at the healed wound revealed there. "Well, I don't really understand what w
e just saw, but it seems to at least stopped the bleeding. What do you think it was, Ellen?"
"The red skies, the Black Serpent, my mother's killer... whatever it was, it happens here on the night that everything goes to shit and this place falls apart, just like we saw in that strange place we wandered into when we walked through the doors from that pocket dimension." Frowning, I admit, "But I don't have all the answers. Whatever was going on there, I think only the Black Serpent himself could explain it. And he has two screws loose, so he won't be telling us anytime soon. Though maybe if I go talk to him—"
"No way," Wyatt says, staring me down. "That guy kidnapped you and almost did worse. You're not going to risk him doing it again. Besides, he'll probably lie or tell you some nonsense."
Sighing, I nod in agreement. "You're right. I just want answers."
Carefully, I explain the vision to the others, who didn't see it like Mason and me. None of them have any answers, which is to be expected. But as we all draw away from each other, carefully severing our physical connection, one thing is answered: their weaknesses really do fade for a while after all five of us connect.
Grayson tentatively puts weight on his left leg, and grabs his cane loosely. "It still feel tender, but... far less than before. I just hope it lasts."
"It w-won't," Wyatt says, grimacing as his tongue ties itself up again. "But it's b-b-better than no... nothing."
Levi does a cartwheel that's almost silent, and as he gets up declares, "Maybe if we do this more often, we won't have weaknesses at all."
A little flutter goes through my stomach at the thought. If they don't need to hold my hands anymore to get rid of their weaknesses, I wonder if things will go back to the way they were when I first got here, with all of them at a distance. Somehow, I've stopped thinking of them as Fuckfaces, and started just thinking of them as my guys—a perilous thought to have when fate might drag them away from me just as easily as it pulled us all together.
"Now that we're powered up and well-practiced, let's go," I tell them, pulling out the map Headmaster Shu gave me. "This asshole needs to go down once and for all—permanently."
Chapter 26
Dallas is unseasonably warm. My jeans stick to my legs, and I have to pull my hair up off the back of my neck to stop my sweating. Around us, suburban kids are wearing shorts and playing soccer in the street despite the warm weather—maybe to them, this feels cool, since it's somewhere below the temperature that boils water.
The sun is setting, and it's starting to get dark, but the streetlights haven't yet kicked on. Under the cover of grey skies and fading sunlight, we're going to kill a man—then get out of here before anyone finds us. That is, of course, assuming everything goes according to plan. Last time everything went to shit instead of to plan, mostly because we didn't have one.
"Alright." Stopping around the corner from the street where Lionel was last spotted, I turn towards the guys. "So. We've got a plan, but let's go over it one more time, so the same thing doesn't happen again."
"We power up," Levi says. "All five of us, connected with you. Then we'll go in a certain order: I'll be first, sneak in without my weakness keeping me down, and weaken him with my powers."
"Then I'll go in, and weave an illusion to confuse him." Mason sounds confident. "That should make his mind wide open so that..."
"I can control him," Grayson says. "I'll convince him that he can't use his powers. Stun him while he's weakened."
I nod sharply. "Then Wyatt and I will show up, and pummel him with our Physical Affinity powers until he's... well, dead. And just in case that doesn't work, I brought this."
Reaching into the skinny backpack strapped across my shoulder, I stroke the head of the Water Moccasin I stole from the laboratory. Getting in was the hard part—getting out with the snake turned out to be easy. It was the most venomous animal in the lab, and if it comes down to it, we'll leave the snake behind at Lionel's house with instructions to take care of the rest.
Hopefully it won't come to that, though. I shudder to think of what Lionel will do to the snake if it bites him. Even something venomous like this guy doesn't deserve to get his brains smashed to bits.
"Uh, Ellen." Levi looks at me nervously. "Think maybe you could keep the snake inside the backpack with the zipper closed? Because it's kind of... unsettling."
Rolling my eyes, I look at the others expecting to make fun of him—but they all seem just as nervous as Levi. Even Grayson has one eye on my backpack like he thinks the snake is going to fly out and chomp down on his neck.
"Fine, fine. He's warm in here anyway." Brushing against the snake's emotions, I urge it down into the backpack and close the zipper up tight. "Let's hope we don't have to use him. He's cute. I might even keep him after this.”
"No," Wyatt says firmly. "Enough pets."
Sighing, I put my hands out. "Let's power up and do this thing."
Together, we put our fingers into a circle. I push down deep and use my powers one at a time, careful to make sure the kids are around the corner with their soccer ball where they won’t see us. It's easy enough to use my Physical Affinity to make a blast of wind appear, my Emotional Affinity to turn a flock of pigeons overhead into the shape of an airplane, my Spiritual Affinity to call up a dozen ghosts who hang out by the graveyard nearby, and my Mental Affinity to see the future of the snake.
I see his fangs sinking into an ankle, and hope that it's not mine or one of the guys. When I try to look further, the vision fades, making my foresight ability just as frustrating as ever. The future: it's not as easy as the horoscope pages would have you believe.
"Alright. Did it work?" As an experiment, Grayson puts weight on his leg, and Levi takes a single step—no pain, no loudness. "Let's go, fast. Before the effects wear off. He's just around the corner."
We make it to the house he's been located in, which just like the one we found him in before, seems to have no power on. It's listed as a pre-foreclosure house on realty maps, so at least this time we can be absolutely certain he didn't have to kill the owners to get rid of them—the bank took care of that. Looking at the sheer size of the house, I'm not surprised whoever bought it got behind on their mortgage. There's even a bright blue pool in the backyard as we slip in, staying low to the ground to avoid being spotted through the windows.
"Now, Levi."
He hurries around the corner to the back door, his feet surprisingly silent, movements agile. Jimmying the lock, he finds that the doorknob won't turn, and pulls two pins out of his dark navy pants pockets—apparently navy clothing, more than black, blends in with the night. Levi slips the pins into the lock and works on getting it open.
I check my watch, which unlike a phone doesn't glow or report your movements constantly; we all have one courtesy of Instructor Abarra and the Shadow Fold’s twenty-first century paranoia. It's twenty minutes to complete sunset, meaning we have just enough time to pull this off before it'll get dark enough for Lionel to give us the slip again.
Thankfully it doesn't take Levi long to pick the locks, and he slides into the house, disappearing. My heart jumps up into my throat; I hate that we don't have a good way to communicate while he's in there. We all have radios, but until the moment he strikes, Levi has to be as silent as he normally isn't.
"Move into position," I tell Mason and Grayson, and they nod sharply, crouched low against the side of the house. "We'll only have a few minutes to pull this whole thing off. Grayson, don't forget to give the signal."
"I've got my radio. We can do this thing." His blue eyes are steady in the grey fading light. "Trust us."
I try to as they slip around the corner and quietly follow Levi's movements into the house. Right now, the poisoner should be weakening Lionel, siphoning off his strength and hopefully keeping him from transforming or using his immense light-burning powers. But I'm afraid that he'll get hurt doing it alone, and I can't resist reaching out to grab Wyatt's hand.
It's not just support or comfort I want, thou
gh. Expanding my awareness into the house, I search for living things, and find far more than I expected. There are dozens of mice in Lionel's squatted house—not because it's under foreclosure and mostly abandoned, though. He has them in little cages covering the kitchen counter. Their minds are blurry and confused, but they respond as I reach out to touch them one by one, asking them if they sense anything amiss in the house.
It only takes me a moment to find Levi: he's crouched in the kitchen behind the island, not yet using his powers. As Mason and Grayson ease into the house, he motions for them to stop, and points towards a figure around the corner.
Lionel Copenhagen is standing in the hallway with a rifle in his hands, facing away from the back door, looking for an intruder.
My eyes pop open. "Wyatt, we've got to get in there. Things are going wrong."
"Wait," he says, tugging at my hand. "Trust them. They need to do this themselves."
I frown at him. "And if they get hurt? Last time, you almost got burned to a crisp. I can't let that happen."
"Just give it a minute," he insists. "They need to know that they can do this on their own. They've failed so many times—don't make them think that's happening again by moving in too early. Besides, this was the plan. We're supposed to stick to it if we can."
He has a point, but I still hate the tension of waiting for something to happen. As noise breaks out inside the house, I reach for the mice again, but they're too worked up to stay still and let me use their senses to observe what's going on.
Thankfully the signal comes: a beep from my radio as Grayson pushes the button on his. Moving quickly, I rush with Wyatt around the corner towards the back door, neither of us trying for stealth. At this point Lionel should be completely aware of our presence—and weakened enough not to fight back.
There's a gunshot right before we make it inside, and my heart nearly splits in two in panic.
Bursting through the door, I find Levi standing in front of a now-kneeling Lionel, who's moaning with his hands over his head. Mason has the rifle and is standing over Lionel's shoulder, looking surprised, which is when I realize that there's blood coming from the side of the Mark's head. He didn't hurt one of my guys—Mason hurt him by shooting him in the ear, and there's a crater in the floor that proves it.
