Which was pretty much what I’d been trying to get her to do in the first place. “Okay.”
“I just need a few minutes to set up.” She hauled out a long roll of plastic.
“Need help?” Simon reached for the end.
“Nope. Got it.”
He shrugged and came back over to me. “I did some research on those two guys.”
I stopped staring at my fingers, trying to pull light to the tips. “What two guys?”
“Kyle Hameldon and Allen Wiggins.”
“How? When?” I’d told him about the encounter when they picked me up, but I hadn’t even mentioned the names I knew. He’d been driving.
“My research-fu is strong. I accessed the police report from that night—the public record—and then set a search going when we were at a red light. Then—”
“You’re amazing.”
Julie snapped a folding table into place on top of the sheet of plastic. The noise made me jump. Where the hell had she stowed a table?
Simon shook his head. “No wonder that thing was so heavy.”
Julie waved and dove back into the bin for a case full of tiny drawers.
“So what did you find out?” I asked Simon. “How did the police have their names? Sark said it was cleared out by the time they got here.” I remembered thinking how impossible that was, and that Sark could have been part of it.
“Sark?” Simon frowned. “He didn’t come out here. It was Smith on the report. He and his rookie did a drive-by. Didn’t even come inside.”
“Oh, no.” My heart sank, and a chill ran over my body. “He told me the place was as empty as ever. Simon, what if Sark is dirty?”
He patted my knee. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Hameldon and Wiggins—”
“Kyle and Wig,” I corrected him. When he looked perplexed, I said, “That’s what they called each other. Hameldon and Wiggins sounds like a law firm.”
“Whatever. Anyway, the report listed ownership of the building. A holding company called H&W Storage. Which, it turns out, is owned in joint partnership by Henry Hameldon and John Wiggins.”
“Fathers?”
“Yep.”
“So they weren’t lying when they said it was private property. I was the one trespassing. Am trespassing. Crap.” I struggled to my feet, wincing as my knee protested and thigh wound stretched. “Now I’ve got you guys doing it, too.”
“No, it’s fine.” Simon rose too. “Julie couldn’t care less, you can see that.”
Yeah, she was humming while she put together some kind of Plexiglas cube.
“And I just want to get to the bottom of this,” he continued. “There are other pieces.”
“Like what?”
“You know what this property borders to the east?”
“No.”
“Pottieger’s Field.”
That sounded familiar, but I didn’t know why. I mean, I knew what Pottieger’s Field was. Part of a giant farm that had been sectioned off years ago. Most of the land had been developed, but the field was held in trust for decades, intended for use by the town for recreational purposes. The problem was that the town always either had other priorities or no funds, so the trust was going to expire in— “Oh!” I spun on him. “You mentioned it a few weeks ago. The rec department wants to buy it for soccer fields.”
“Right, and a developer in Columbus is challenging the timeline and trying to block the sale. Guess who the developer is?”
I wasn’t playing. “Just tell me the chain of ownership that leads to Kyle’s and Wig’s dads.”
“You’re no fun. Okay, yeah. It’s connected.”
“So, what, the fathers want me out of the picture?” That was the logical conclusion, right? Kyle and Wig were here making the compound that seemed designed to kill me, or whatever the point was. I just didn’t understand why. “What do they want the land for?”
“No idea. They can’t apply for zoning and permits until they own it.”
“Something that makes them worry about the threat of Eclipse, apparently.” It was so weird. I’d never thought of myself that way. I mean, yeah, I would be happy if my name made drug dealers and thieves think twice about doing what they do. But big-time corporate criminals? Why did they even care? And if they cared, why not go somewhere else?
“When did they buy this building?” I asked Simon.
“Eight years ago.”
So, before I started operating as Eclipse. One building didn’t seem like enough of an investment to prevent them from shifting gears, but who knew what else they’d laid in place over that time?
The Q&A and Simon’s ability to get answers reminded me of his obsession with interviewing Eclipse. I studied him, trying to decide if I should bring it up. He hadn’t, and I didn’t want to remind him and make him start hounding me about it. But I also wanted to make things clear right up front.
“Simon,” I started, and he turned back my way.
“Yeah.”
“About the interviews you’ve been dying to get with Eclipse . . .”
He waved a hand at me. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I understand why you lied about being able to help me.”
My heart sank. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “You don’t want to give me interviews.”
I shook my head.
He shrugged. “I can’t ethically do it, anyway, now that I’m involved. Well, I guess Peter Parker and Lois Lane crossed that line anyway, but . . .” He chewed his lip, thinking, and then caught the expression on my face. “No, of course, Harmony, our friendship and your safety are more important. I mean it.” He flashed a grin. “But if you change your mind, let me know.”
I laughed. “Deal. Thank you.”
“Ready!” Julie had put a lab coat on over her tunic shirt and trousers and had a tablet in her hand. Ready to document results.
Assuming there would be any. My palms were sweating. I didn’t think that was a real thing. I rubbed them on my skirt and went over to the table. She had a bunch of stuff laid out that meant nothing to me. At one end of the table was the Plexiglas box with a shelf across the middle. A sliding door on one side would give me access, and on the shelf sat a slightly charred bit of wallpaper backed by torn drywall.
“Okay, so all you have to do is slide this back a little.” She demonstrated on the door. “Aim a finger or whatever.” She shrugged. “I’ve never seen you do what you do, so . . .”
“Actually, I haven’t, either,” Simon realized. “Harmony, why don’t you just show us regular use of the light? Without any danger. Then you can loosen up and stop being worried about control.”
“That’s a good idea.” I took a deep breath and turned away. I wanted to just use new light, but I’d already busted one of the bulbs in the office, and the lights out here in the main warehouse didn’t work. Maybe Julie had a flashlight in her stuff.
But that could cause a whole new set of problems. It was like putting fresh, hot coffee into a mug holding yesterday’s dregs. I needed to get rid of what I had before I took in any more.
Okay. Start small. Don’t overthink it. Do what you always do. I tossed a ball of light into the air. Except nothing happened. My breath caught in the back of my throat. Pressure increased on my chest. I refused to have a panic attack or to let any of this defeat me. Trying not to think about it was still thinking about it.
I turned to Simon. “Attack me.”
“What? No!” He backpedaled and almost tripped over the bin lid.
“I’m putting too much pressure on myself. I need to just react, but that means having something to react to. So attack me.”
“I can’t. I’m not good at that kind of thing.”
I laughed. “You don’t h
ave to be! Just do it.” I waggled my fingers at him. “Come at me. Just pretend you’re going to hit me or something.”
“No way. What if you miss and I do hit you? I can’t hurt—”
A screaming roar came at me from the left. I whirled, a ribbon of light already whipping out of my hand and wrapping around Julie’s waist. She’d been running full-out, a broken piece of two-by-four held over her head like she was a mad ax-man. My ribbon halted her in her tracks, and she screamed a laugh, trying to jump up and down, her hands wringing with glee. The two-by-four clattered to the ground.
“See? Like that,” I told Simon, then sucked the ribbon back and threw my arms around Julie in a grateful hug. “Thank you.”
“What the hell?” he demanded.
She beamed at him. “I was demonstrating what she wanted you to do.”
“It was perfect,” I told her. My whole body was less tense, and the light felt part of me again, not just something held prisoner inside me. This time, when I tossed a ball, it zipped up to hover over us just like always. I did a second one, then a third, fourth, fifth, and sent them spinning in a big circle.
“That is so awesome,” Julie breathed, the light reflecting in her eyes as she watched them. A little surprised that Simon didn’t say something, I turned and found him watching her with a soft smile and just a hint of longing. Wow. That happened fast. Did she return the interest? I thought she had a boyfriend. I’d have to ask her later, when he wasn’t around. I knew the hell of unrequited crushes and didn’t want him to fall into that.
“All right, I can do this now.” I dissipated the light balls and went over to the box.
“Can you release the light and then control it through the glass?” Julie closed the door, then opened it again. “Then you won’t even risk burning your finger.”
“Yeah, the connection isn’t affected by other matter.” I studied the confined area. About two feet cubed, cut in half by the shelf, which didn’t extend to all four sides, allowing circulation around it. “I think I’d better practice first. I don’t remember ever doing anything this small.”
They watched as I held out my index finger and concentrated on forming a ball on the pad. The first one flared to life about the size of a baseball. Way too big. I pulled it back and tried again. Golf ball. After a few more tries, ping-pong-size was the smallest I could create. I was getting frustrated, but Simon suggested, “Keep that and then try to shrink it, instead of creating one that’s small.”
“Good idea.” I concentrated. It didn’t work. But what about breaking it up? I imagined splitting the ball. That worked, and then I had six marble-sized balls. I blew five of them away and let them dissipate, then carried the last one to the box. It was easy to ease it inside and close the door. Then we watched as I floated it to the chunk of wall.
As soon as it touched, a fireball burst out against the glass. It only lasted a second, and the chunk of wallboard was still there when it flared out.
“Did you see that?” Julie tapped the glass, then felt all the sides of it. “It only went in one direction.”
“Yeah, and not the right one.” Instead of up, the direction the compound was facing, it blew against one side. My side.
“Crap.” Simon got out his phone. “I forgot to record it.”
No. I clamped my mouth closed on the refusal. Documentation was everything to these two, and my need to stay anonymous wasn’t relevant right now. I trusted them, but the phone wasn’t secure. “Just keep me off the screen, please.”
“Way ahead of you.”
Julie squinted at a Petri dish she’d just picked up. “Did it get darker in here?”
“Sun’s going down.” Simon looked up at the windows. “Angie should be here soon, right? Dinner rush will be about over.”
I’d told her to meet us when she could get away. One of her servers had called in sick, or she’d have been here already.
“Here.” I spread some light overhead, illuminating the whole table.
“Super! Thanks!” Julie lifted the top half of the box and flipped it over, grabbing a handful of giant cotton swabs. “Let me just get some residue samples to test.” She swiped a few of them over the different sides of the box but frowned, examining them first visually, then under a magnification unit. “No way.”
“What?” Simon and I crowded her.
“I don’t see anything,” I said.
“Exactly. There’s nothing to see. No residue.”
“Are you sure?”
She made a face at Simon. “Of course I’m sure. I know how to do my job.”
“Sorry.” He held up his hands. “What does that mean?”
“No idea. It shouldn’t be possible. Everything leaves traces. And that couldn’t have been hot enough to burn up the compound, because the box was cool. Only one side had any warmth, and it wasn’t very hot at all.”
“What’s the sample look like?”
She retrieved it and carried it to the microscope at the other end of the table. After a minute, she said, “The compound is gone where the light touched. But still there where it didn’t.”
“Good to know. Now if only I had an early warning system so I knew where exactly it was.”
She switched off the microscope and stored the sample. “You ready to do the wall, now? Some of those could be meant to act differently, rather than different batches of the same thing.”
Great. So maybe I had to worry about more than just exploding.
“How much ammo you got left?” Simon asked me.
“Plenty. I don’t plan to use much on those spots.”
“Okay. Let’s figure out how to do this safely.” We walked over. The wall in question appeared to have been part of an office or records room or something like that, but the other walls had been ripped out. The splotches were on the end of the wall, which was about eight inches wide.
“If we stand back here.” Simon went over and pressed his back against the bricks of the exterior wall. “We should be safe. Because any blast will go toward you.”
“Yeah, but I can’t dodge it, since it’s attracted to me. So I can’t go on the other side of the wall and send the light out and around, it will just bend back toward me.”
“Ooh, we should see if that’s what happens.” Julie flinched. “Sorry, that sounded cold. If we can find a way to shield you safely, I mean. How much does it defy the laws of physics?”
I opened up a shield of light like the one I’d used the last time I was here. “This stops bullets.”
They made ooh noises. Julie came over and stretched out a hand, hesitated, and looked to me for permission. I nodded. She petted it as if the shield were a giant house cat. Simon joined her and poked it with a finger. It didn’t move.
“This gets cooler by the minute,” he said.
“Well, I’m about to heat it up. I’d prefer if you guys were outside.”
They shook their heads.
“I can’t assess the results if I don’t see them myself,” Julie said.
“I need to record it.” Simon lifted his phone. “But you could go out and be safe, and watch the video,” he told Julie.
She pouted. “No, I need to see it live. It’s not the same. The video can help us look deeper, but it’s different in real time.”
He opened his mouth to argue, shrugged, and started the phone. We all got into position.
I shaped the shield so it covered all of me, but was narrow from side to side, then created a tiny ball of light to send out. “The problem is that I can’t see which splotch I’m touching.”
“Ooh! Wait! I can fix that.”
I dropped the shield and watched Julie run to her Mary Poppins bin and take out a box. In moments, she’d unfolded the contents into a portable mirror propped up by a folding stand on th
e back.
“Unbelievable.”
“I know, right? My lab has incredible funding. We get all the cool toys. Okay, hold on.” She disappeared behind the wall. “Is that positioned okay?”
I could see the whole side of the wall and clearly tell where each splotch was. “Perfect.”
“Go for it!”
I carefully and slowly moved the light into position, aiming for the bottom splotch, which Julie said appeared to be most like the compound from the jewelry store. I had the shield up to my chin, which was as high as I could go and still see. “It’s close,” I warned them. “Be ready . . .”
The light touched. The blast was immediate and seemed to be just as large as the one at the store. The concussion went outward, shattering the mirror. The wall absorbed some of it, and my body rocked back as it hit my shield. I barely registered that the roiling flames were acting just as we’d predicted in time to raise the shield higher. I wrapped it around myself, which was smart because instead of bouncing off it, the flames tried to come around or over it when they hit the shield. The resultant roar pressed against my eardrums. I squeezed my eyes closed and ducked, covering myself with the shield. Angie was right. I’m going to go blind. The roar seemed never-ending. Was the blast going to continue as long as it had contact with my light? Or until it got me? This thing wasn’t sentient.
Was it?
I didn’t know how long I cowered there, but eventually the roar faded, and I could hear Simon and Julie yelling at me. Only my name was understandable. That and their fear. I hadn’t been hearing flames and a sustained explosion. It had just been the damage to my eardrums.
I put away the shield and straightened. My legs were stiff and my back hurt. I arched it and tried not to feel stupid. “Um. How long was I under there?”
Julie had her hands up to her face, pressed over her mouth and nose. She blinked over her steepled fingers.
The Light of Redemption Page 20
