The Light of Redemption

by Natalie Damschroder

  “The stupidity never ceases to amaze me,” Conn murmured in a very low voice near my ear. I shivered.

  “I know. They won’t clue in that it’s me until at least the third one, either. Even though I did this to them last year.”

  He chuckled and tapped out a text on his phone. I glimpsed the word ‘police’ at the top of the message and nodded approval.

  John—he wasn’t one of my patrons at the library, but I knew his name from last year’s police logs—set another Roman candle on the grill and flicked the lighter. As soon as he touched it to the candle, I snagged the sparks. This time it happened so fast there wasn’t even a ftt.

  He cursed. “Whole pack must be bad. You’d better get a refund, Mare!”

  A woman stretched out on a lawn chair boosted her beer bottle and scoffed, “Yeah, cuz the illegal drifters will be there patiently waiting to accept returns tomorrow.”

  “Well, go somewhere else next time. These suck.” He rummaged in a bag on the ground next to the grill. “Oh, this will be cool.” He stuck something into the ground, lit the end, and stepped back.

  Pop. Phweee. A burst of red, white, and blue filled the air over the yard. And I took it all away. Ash drifted down, making some of the women complain and swipe at their hair and clothes.

  “What the—” And then John got it. He stomped his foot and turned in a circle. “Damn you, Eclipse! Knock it off!”

  A siren sounded a few blocks away, and he cursed again, scrambling to stuff all the evidence into the bag and hide it in his garage. My work here was done.

  Conn and I jumped down and hurried a few blocks before speaking.

  “So that’s small-town superheroing, huh?” He had his hands in his pockets again, his shoulders hunched, but his tone was amused.

  “Three or four days a year, yeah.”

  “Is that why you do it? To save your neighbors from themselves?”

  “Partly.” I still hadn’t figured out the stuff Simon was burning to know and didn’t want to talk about it now. So I turned the tables, thinking he’d get the message and move on to something else. “What about you? What’s with the Rafe thing, and trying to deny you’re a superhero?”

  He sighed. “If you know I went by Rafe, you know what happened in Chicago and San Diego.”

  “I know what was reported,” I murmured. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to pry into those events.”

  “I know. It’s all connected, though.”

  Conn’s phone beeped, and he checked the display. “They confiscated the rest of the fireworks.”

  “Hey.” I scowled at the phone in his hand. “The police department told you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They never tell me stuff like that. I never get replies to my notifications.”

  He smiled. “Because you’re Eclipse, a superhero with a hidden identity. I’m just Conn Parsons, former superhero, who notified the department he’d moved to town but didn’t plan on being an active super while living here.”

  “Oh.” I figured I knew why, but he still hadn’t explained the name thing. “So which one is your real name?”

  “Conn. Connor Parsons. I went by Rafe Karlsson because of my parents. Rafe was my grandfather’s name, and Karlsson’s my mother’s maiden name and my middle name. When I joined the team in Chicago, I didn’t want their reputations to affect my career. I didn’t expect it to go the other way, though.”

  The disaster probably had affected superheroes worldwide, and I could see how his family would be glad their name wasn’t connected, given what they did. But that must have made it lonelier for him, distancing him from the people he loved.

  “I’m sorry about what happened. Both places.”

  He grunted a thanks, as if he didn’t think he deserved my sympathy.

  “I mean it.” I stopped walking and faced him. “I had a small taste of what that feels like. From what I read, none of it was your fault, but when we do what we do—” I hesitated for half a second, since I didn’t actually belong in the same category as Conn and his colleagues, but he didn’t react, so I kept going. “Well, I suspect you all took full blame onto your shoulders. And that hurts.”

  He didn’t say anything, but the silence that stretched between us felt like sharing.

  The street we were on was quiet, a short, narrow road between two larger neighborhoods. No houses fronted this way, so we were surrounded by privacy fences and mature trees. One corner at the far end of the block had a streetlight, but it barely penetrated down here.

  A breeze rustled the oak leaves overhead and carried the sweet scent of honeysuckle from a nearby yard. Conn’s hood shadowed everything but his mouth, and suddenly, that was all I could concentrate on. His hands came out of the sweatshirt’s pockets and lowered to his sides. The air practically crackled between us. Mutual attraction had so much more power than an unrequited crush. It was amazing, and I just stood and drank it in for a moment.

  Then I eased forward one step. It was enough. Slowly, Conn eased closer, one hand coming around to press, fingertips only, against my back. His other hand tilted my chin up, and we settled into each other, chest to chest, mouth to mouth.

  He was warm and gentle, his scent both sweeter and sharper than the flowers nearby. His lips parted mine, our tongues touching, a light exploration. Conn made a noise in his throat that arrowed straight into my gut, igniting a hunger that pushed me hard against his body. I cupped the back of his neck and took him deeper, opening wider, letting him know how very okay I was with this. He tugged my hip and heat flared, making me gasp. He might have been in jeans, but I wore a catsuit made of very thin fabric, and he was already hot and hard and pressing in exactly the right place.

  But we were in the wrong one. I moaned and sank onto my heels. I hadn’t even realized I was on tiptoe, trying to get even closer to him. He slowed the kiss and let some space ease between us, but slid his hand along my neck to stroke my cheek with his thumb. “Wow,” he whispered.

  “Mm-hmm.” I rolled my lips, my eyes still closed, tremors quaking my body in delicious waves. We were so far from my house. And from his. And we were working. And it was too early to take it that far, if he even wanted to.

  “Harmony.” He nudged my mouth, his fingers rasping against my scalp with a shockwave of sensation. “I can’t let go of you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I whispered back, and then we were kissing again. This time he held back, keeping the rest of him still while he devoured my mouth like I was Simon’s mother’s brownies.

  I was vaguely aware of a car turning down our street, but didn’t pay attention until someone whooped out the passenger window on their way by. Conn and I parted, this time both of us stepping away. I put the back of my hand against my tingling lips, and he swiped his thumb slowly across his. Neither one of us said anything, but I could tell he wanted to. Tension coiled between us, the opposite of the kind we’d wound up during that first kiss. I thought of all the times his warm interest had been cut off, usually when I mentioned something about superheroism. He was obviously conflicted, and right now, I didn’t want to know why. So I turned and walked until he fell into step beside me again. Slowly, the tension faded into something comfortable.

  We patrolled in silence for a while, interrupting two more gatherings with illegal fireworks before circling back toward the park. The crowds would have thinned enough for the police to disperse elsewhere, but there would still be plenty of people around. I followed shadows that had become my home over the past five years, while Conn alternated between slinking with me through the darkness and walking openly along the sidewalk when that made more sense. Conversation jumped from topic to topic in a getting-to-know-you way.

  Weirdest. Date. Ever.

  At one point, when we were alone in a quiet area, he brought up the pit in the woods. “
If you’re right about it, someone’s not happy with you.”

  “Maybe they’re not happy with you,” I said automatically, skirting a pile of trash bags someone had put out for tomorrow’s pickup. Then I felt bad, because it sounded like I was accusing him of bringing trouble instead of just being in denial. I sighed. “Sorry, no, you’re right. There was another . . . incident.” I told him about the mix-up with the Inalbis, and how Olive had shown up, made overtures of friendship, and then turned on me. He agreed that the rumors were probably planted by her, and he was really unhappy about the leaflets that had appeared at the library.

  “She sounds like CASE.”

  “I know, but . . .” I made a moue of uncertainty. “This isn’t really their MO, is it? One person, subtle methods? All the stuff they did elsewhere has been bigger.”

  “Because it’s been bigger cities, bigger teams. And after DC, it blew up in their faces. So maybe they’re just trying to keep a lower profile.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s personal.” That made it worse. Whether or not it was Olive, there was a difference between being targeted by someone who hated superheroes and someone who hated me. But either way, I didn’t know what to do about it.

  A few minutes later, we caught some guy following a couple into an alley, a knife in his hand. I distracted him with small bits of light I still held from the fireworks, then wrapped a rope of light around one wrist and the other ankle, forcing him to lean against the alley wall so he didn’t topple over. Conn called dispatch, and a few minutes later, Sark rolled up in a squad car. After questioning the couple, who hadn’t even known they were about to be mugged, Sark gathered all three of them up to go to the station to file an incident report. I knew they wouldn’t press charges, because nothing had happened. But maybe the mugger would be affected enough by his near miss not to try again, and the couple was unhurt.

  Sark ignored me and Conn as we hovered at the edges of the alley, until he was marching the mugger toward his car. At the mouth of the alley, he turned halfway back and said over his shoulder, “Report. Tonight.” He didn’t sound happy.

  But that was okay. The couple hadn’t lost anything but time, and that was all I cared about.

  After the car pulled away, Conn returned to my side. “Report?”

  “I email them.”

  He chuckled. “Using technology to preserve your anonymity.”

  There was no judgment in his tone, but my skin prickled with a hint of something like shame anyway. It didn’t sit well with the lingering pleasure from our kiss. I straightened my shoulders and strode out of the alley, forcing myself not to limp when my knee throbbed. I’d always thought my anonymity was simply logical. I lived in a small town and worked in a public capacity. Being a superhero didn’t pay a dime, so I needed my job. If people thought they had access to Eclipse, they’d take it. Criminals would find me a sitting duck to either retaliate or try to prevent me from interfering. Well-meaning townspeople would ask for favors.

  I was tired of people, including myself, implying that I was trying to absolve myself of responsibility for my actions.

  Even if it was a side benefit. No one would know that Harmony Wilde had given Fran Inalbi a heart attack.

  A boom cracked the air, the weight of it slamming into my body, the sound bouncing off the walls around us. I whirled to stare at Conn. “What the hell was that?” I’d never heard anything like it. Not in real life. I expected him to immediately identify the source, but he shook his head.

  We turned and ran in the direction it had come from. I scanned the sky for evidence of flames, because if that had been an explosion, there would be fire. But the sky remained dark—as dark as it ever did in the suburbs of a big city.

  Other possibilities ran through my mind. A vehicle striking a building or bridge abutment. Something large falling from great height. Please, let no one be hurt.

  Heads popped out of windows as we passed, and people were coming out onto their front porches or lawns, trying to see what had caused the noise. I heard “Eclipse” and “The Brute” a few times as we passed, and Conn made a scoffing noise at the latter. I knew he wouldn’t like that name.

  We turned the corner onto the street I was sure had been where the boom came from, but there was nothing. Just neighbors standing in clusters, looking around, wrapping robes and sweaters tightly around themselves.

  Conn grabbed one older man’s arm. “What’s going on?” he asked in that modified voice I kept forgetting to ask him about. It probably had something to do with his shockwave ability.

  The man shook his head. “Don’t know. Seemed like it came from a few blocks that way.” He gestured back the way we’d come.

  I frowned. There was no way it had been that close to us. I crossed the street and asked a woman the same thing. She indicated a different direction. This didn’t make any sense.

  I found an empty spot by a darkened house and dialed police dispatch with my Eclipse phone. When they answered, I said, “This is Eclipse. Any reports on the source of that sonic boom?”

  “Negative,” the dispatcher told me without hesitating. “Plenty of calls about it, but no sightings of anything unusual. Some people think it was a cannon blast, given that it’s Memorial Day, but we have no working cannon in town, and it would have caused damage somewhere.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll keep looking.”

  Conn raised his eyebrows when I disconnected the call.

  “Some think it sounded like a cannon,” I offered.

  He shook his head. “No, it was different. I’ve been at a lot of ceremonial events in Europe,” he explained. “This was . . . more like a sonic boom at ground level.”

  I’d been speaking euphemistically when I called it that to the dispatcher, but maybe he was right. A sonic boom would be difficult to trace, but wouldn’t there have been damage? Windows blown out? And what the hell could cause something like that? There was no space to move anything that fast in town.

  Unless . . .

  I felt my eyes go big. This wasn’t my first encounter with an odd sound. I’d definitely heard evidence of a sexual assault a couple of weeks ago. There was the baby crying at the accident scene when no baby had been there. That could have been anything—equipment or someone else crying—but then there were the screams in the woods, with no signs of the person who’d done the screaming. Was there someone . . . ?

  I watched Conn’s expression as he went through a similar mental process.

  “There’s another superhero in town,” I murmured.

  But Conn shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s a super-villain.”

  I couldn’t help but bark a laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You think there aren’t people like us who are bad?”

  “Of course there are. But this is Pilton. Why would any super-villain want to set up shop here? There’s no point.”

  He ran his hand over his face. “Okay, we won’t call them a super-villain, though when you break it down—”

  “I get it. They have powers. That makes them super. They might be bad. That makes them a villain. I’m not focusing on the exaggerated connotation of that. I’m just not seeing why they’d be here. What could they possibly gain?”

  Conn’s response was interrupted by shattering glass. We whirled to look back down the street toward town. This neighborhood was on the edge of the transition from commercial to residential, and the shattering sounded like a plate-glass window. One of the storefronts.

  We headed that way, and I was glad none of the bystanders followed. They’d creep in that direction, I was sure, but hopefully they put their own safety over their curiosity, at least for a little while.

  My knee screamed with every step I ran. I’d pushed it too far. But I kept going, refusing to give in or let Conn take over. He still pulled a
head of me, but I was close behind when he stopped a few dozen yards away from the jewelry store. The large front window was now a gaping hole, with jagged shards still stuck to the top of the frame. Some of the glass glittered on the sidewalk, but most was probably inside the store.

  “Again?” The owner had beefed up security after the deputy was killed, and no one had bothered them since. Had the boom been a distraction to cover a simple break-in? There was no sign of movement and no audible alarm.

  A siren wailed from far away, slowly growing louder. I stepped around Conn, and he grabbed my arm.

  “You can’t. You don’t know what’s in there.”

  “I’m not letting another cop get killed.” I shook him off and hurried across the street, no longer able to hide my limp. I almost stumbled getting up onto the sidewalk, and Conn’s low curse reached me a few seconds before he did, a strong arm wrapping around my waist.

  We pressed against the wall between the window and the door. “How’s your supply?” he whispered against my ear, sending shivers cascading down my body.

  This is not the time. I made a circle with my forefinger and thumb, the other three fingers in the air, and he nodded. But even though I still had plenty of light from the fireworks, the streetlight overhead would cast us in silhouette when we tried to go in. It also made it impossible to see inside the store. I drew it down to me, and then grabbed the light from two more in either direction, making the whole street darker.

  That was a lot of energy, more than I typically took in—even more than I’d instantaneously grabbed back in the woods without knowing I was doing it. My arms burned and twitched, and I drew it deeper, trying to spread it out so it agitated less. Then I signaled to Conn what I was about to do. He nodded, and I formed a small ball of light, flinging it into the store so that it zoomed around the room, illuminating all the corners.