King Of Bad [Super Villian Academy Book 1]

by Strand, Kai

  “I need ice,” Matthias said to Mystic.

  Jeff thought Matthias was talking to him. As carefully as he could manage, he drew a deep breath and blew a thick coat of frost out.

  Matthias startled, but quickly recovered and held his fingers out to catch the frost. When they were completely coated he said, “Thank you.”

  He placed his cold fingers along Jeff’s hairline. Closed his eyes and stood completely still. For a very long time.

  The cold penetrated Jeff’s head. First it seeped in through the skin. Then it snaked around until it sunk through the skull. Fingers of cold pressed gently on his brain. They held steady, letting the cold seep along the surface of the brain until it felt anesthetized. Jeff’s ice stirred deep in his lungs. It snaked upward to mingle with the cold around his brain.

  Matthias’ eyes popped open in surprise.

  “What on earth?” he mumbled.

  “Something wrong?” Mystic stepped forward. “Don’t damage the goods, doc, or you won’t leave here alive.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, miss,” Matthias said. “He’s self anesthetizing. I’ve never seen such a thing. Now ssshhh!”

  Mystic growled, but stepped back again.

  Matthias closed his eyes to refocus on the healing.

  Jeff became aware of a probe poking around in his head. It found the injury from the inside and began to cauterize it. A thick scab had grown over the outside of the wound, but the probe repaired the still tender skin underneath the scab. Jeff’s fire stirred in his hands and he fought to keep it there and to extinguish it. But it responded to the work the probe performed and in the end Jeff couldn’t contain it. Fire licked upward within his arms and danced delicately through his head until it met with the probe and helped with the process of sealing the skin.

  Matthias sucked in his breath, but this time did not open his eyes or break concentration.

  Mystic leaned forward her gaze bouncing between Jeff and Matthias.

  The skin resealed, the probe turned inward and repaired the smaller damage left by the blow to the head. A touch here and a knit there and Jeff’s head was put back to right again. As soon as the probe left, Jeff’s fire danced and skipped back to his hands. The ice retreated to his lungs and Matthias slowly removed his numbness from Jeff’s head.

  Matthias removed the bandages and pulled the long, crusty scab from Jeff’s scalp.

  The mind-splitting pain had disappeared. Jeff reached up and wove his fingers through his blood-encrusted hair to his scalp. Sure enough, it was smooth and unharmed. He swung his long legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, smiling at Matthias.

  The burly guy that came in with Mystic moved as gracefully as a jungle cat. In a few lightning quick movements, he had Jeff trussed with chains. Both Jeff and Matthias stood open-mouthed in awe.

  “What the heck?” Jeff said.

  Mystic walked over and patted his cheek. “Can’t take our chances.”

  The girls grabbed Matthias and dragged him toward the door.

  “Wait!” Matthias yelled.

  Mystic nodded to the girls and they stopped, Matthias hung between them. He looked back at Jeff with awe. “Who is he?”

  Mystic smirked at Matthias. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  Mystic sauntered toward Matthias and Jeff looked away. He knew she intended to make Matthias forget everything, except his own name and Jeff didn’t want to accidentally get caught in the tide.

  “Thanks, dude,” he mumbled to Matthias just before Mystic’s full suave hit.

  Chapter 26

  After the exciting incident with the healer, Jeff was left alone most of the time. Girls paraded through to feed him a few times a day. To entertain himself, he created booby traps. He set a trip wire of blue fire in front of the door. Dropped fireballs for them to step on when they weren’t looking. He kept his abilities in shape by levitating his bed, the only item in the room, or gravitating his feeder, unless he was really hungry. Mystic refused to take the chains off for any reason, so to Jeff’s dismay, guys came in to assist him with his personal needs. He never saw the same person twice and if they were in there for more than about fifteen minutes, a team of people would come in to collect them.

  One time he had just convinced a girl to help him escape when the team came in and snatched her away. She screamed and cried as they dragged her from his room. Jeff realized the extractions were a defense against his charming ability. And he hadn’t even thought to use it.

  Mystic was right, he was no villain. If he thought like a real villain, he’d have busted out already.

  As if thinking of her made her appear, Mystic sauntered through the door. Her suave pulsated from every pore of her luscious body.

  Jeff caught a glimpse of the burly, jungle cat guy just outside the door before it slammed shut. Jeff averted his eyes, but waves of Mystic’s suave broke against him. He imagined her having her way with him while he was still chained and he shuddered. He cursed how weak-minded he was. From the deep recesses of his mind he pulled out the one image that had always effectively combated Mystic’s suave.

  The surreal image of Oceanus filled his mind; her straight black hair, sparkling turquoise eyes, porcelain skin and her rosy red lips, curved into a graceful smile. With the image firmly and freshly burned onto his mind’s eye, he was able to look at Mystic.

  “What now?”

  Mystic seemed to sense the change in him. Her suave rippled unsteadily as if a rock had been tossed into her pond. She straddled his lap and bent forward to look at the back of his head. His face was up against her flat stomach. A whiff of lime and musk made him bury his face further into the thin material of her shirt.

  “I’m here to wash your hair,” Mystic said. She held his head steady while she slid down to sit on his lap.

  His face rubbed along her abdomen, between her breasts, teased along her neck, chin, and finally ended with her lips against his. Her weight settled welcomingly on his lap, and she wrapped a long bare leg up and around his waist. The image of Oceanus dimmed.

  Her tongue plunged into his mouth and she shifted forward on his lap, her body pressed tightly against his and anchored by the leg wrapped around him. Jeff tried to wrap his arms around her, but his wrists were bound behind his back. That brought some sense back to him and he began to hum the ABC song to distract himself further. The image of Oceanus sharpened and all desire he felt toward Mystic dropped away.

  Mystic roared and pushed off him. He fell backward and cracked his head on the wall.

  “How is it that you are the only one who can refuse me?” Mystic snarled. Anger distorted her features and for the first time since Jeff had met her he thought she looked frightening and far from the beauty she normally appeared.

  “I’m probably just the first one who’s ever wanted to,” Jeff said.

  “It’s the same thing,” Mystic said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  Mystic spun on her heel and stormed to the door, pounding on it.

  “What about washing my hair?”

  Mystic glared at him as the jungle cat opened the door. She spat out a nasty phrase as she stomped out of the room.

  Jeff smirked and said, “You wish!”

  Later, Jeff dreamed he was slogging through his depths. His depths were murky and thick, like a swamp. Snapping noises issued from the surrounding darkness, making Jeff think of alligators.

  Oceanus hung from a vine. “Take my hand, Jeff!”

  She stretched as far as she could while he reached as far upward as he could, but their hands did not meet. “You remembered my name?”

  An explosion sounded and Oceanus looked up the length of vine into the black sky. When she looked back again her eyes were flooded with a mix of worry and determination. “We’re coming, hang on.” She shimmied up the vine until the darkness swallowed her.

  “Wait! Where are you going? Oci!” Jeff yelled. “Oci!”

  Jeff sat up with a start. His left arm was sound asle
ep from having to lay on it while it was pulled behind his back. Jeff sighed and stood. With tiny little steps he paced across his metal room.

  Boom.

  Jeff stopped. The floor shuddered, leaving Jeff little doubt that somewhere near there had been an explosion. The sound of the blast was severely deadened by the thick metal walls.

  He stood in the middle of the room, feeling helpless and vulnerable. The facility was under attack. If the attackers were successful and then left, no one knew he was there. He could be left there forever. Surely they’d check all the rooms for bad guys before they left. Wait, if they were competing bad guys they’d just kill him anyway. Easily done with him chained up.

  He remembered Pyro’s invisibility. He’d never even attempted to go invisible before, but it sure would come in handy now. What had she said about it? That time seemed so long ago and his memory was hazy. That was it! She said you had to believe for it to happen.

  Another explosion and this time Jeff almost lost his balance. He shuffled back to his bed and crawled up into the corner. He sat as quietly as he could and focused inside himself. He poked around in his mind, trying to find belief. He found arrogance and vanity, envy and jealousy. A large banging sound rocked the wall, momentarily pulling him out of his trance. His heart pounded fiercely.

  His heart. Belief won’t be in his mind. It will be in his heart. Again he looked within himself to find the belief he needed to learn invisibility. In his heart he found love and joy, grief and hatred, and he found belief. With a deep breath, he fanned the belief until it filled his heart. Then he believed that he was invisible. The problem was that he didn’t know if it worked or not. He could still see himself so he didn’t think it worked.

  He had no more time to think about it. An explosion buckled the metal door of his room. A man with razor sharp angles for hands sliced his way through the weakened door. As the metal fell away in strips the man was followed into the room by Sandra.

  She looked around. “I could have sworn I felt him in here. Let’s go to the next room.”

  “Sandra!” Jeff yelled.

  She froze and looked around.

  He scooted awkwardly to the side of his bed and then stood up, his chains gangling loudly.

  Source stuck his head in the room. “Nothing, huh?”

  He disappeared again.

  Sandra yelled, “Wait, I think he’s here…somewhere.”

  Jeff finally realized that his invisibility was working. He also realized he had no idea how to cast it off. “Sandra, Source, I’m here. Give me a second.”

  Razor sharp, guy spun in a panicked circle, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. His long bladed hands almost sliced Jeff in half. “Whoa! Get the knives away from me!”

  Sandra told the guy to watch for trouble in the hall. She and Source stepped into the room and looked around. “Where are you, bro?”

  “Give me a second. I need quiet to figure this out,” Jeff said.

  “Or you can just ask me,” Source said. He looked insulted. “To cast off invisibility, fill your head with reality.”

  Jeff filled his mind with the pain of his recent head injury, the fear of being kidnapped. Then he remembered Oceanus’ face framed by the books on the shelf at the library. Being doused by her water on the first day when he’d lost control. He remembered her salty, lavender scent.

  “There you are!” Sandra said. “Oh, you’re all chained up.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” Jeff said.

  Sandra gave him a disdainful look. She yelled over her shoulder. “Hank, we could use your help in here if everything’s okay out there.”

  Razor man came back through the door.

  Sandra eyed the chains warily. “Hold still.”

  Jeff’s eyes grew wide as he realized what she expected Hank to do.

  Source grabbed Jeff by the shoulders and spun him so that his back was toward Hank. Source stared intently at Jeff and said, “So, how’s Mystic?”

  Jeff gawked at his friend. “Seriously? You’re asking that now?”

  Two fast, sharp slices and the chains fell away from Jeff’s wrists and ankles.

  Source grinned. “Just distracting you, man. Didn’t want you to flinch and lose a hand.”

  Jeff massaged feeling back into his upper arms. He flexed both arms repetitively and shook them, trying to circulate the blood again.

  “Let’s go,” Sandra said. “We are a long way from safe.”

  Jeff followed Source and Sandra up a long hall littered with the unconscious bodies of the people who’d been attending him for however long he’d been captive. They came into a foyer where fighting was still quite active.

  He automatically ignited his fire, ready to scorch the first person to cross his path. Then he was struck dumb by the assemblage. Tubs and Sand Storm, Hush and Pyro all threw their abilities at Mystic and her minions. A group of kids Jeff didn’t know wielded powers he’d never seen before at Mystic’s people.

  “Did you bring white hats and S.V.’s with you?” Jeff shouted to Sandra. He ducked a laser blast at the last second and smelled singed hair.

  “No! Don’t hit him!” a trio of voices bellowed in unison.

  Mystic’s copper tinted locks waved wildly in the air as she pulsed out fright and timidity toward those around her. “I will not be thwarted by a pathetic mish-mash of supers. The little prince is mine.”

  “You won’t get him again, Mysty.”

  Across the room the woman who’d spoken to Mystic issued white blue flame, crumpling the villain in front of her.

  “Mother?” Jeff said.

  “Hi, honey.” Sarah smiled at him even as she shot a blast of wind into a group of villains, throwing them hard against a wall.

  “Not while we’re here!”

  Jeff spun around. “Dad?”

  Frank Mean, or rather, Chill Tohler, hovered in the air as if he stood on an invisible surfboard. He tipped forward and “surfed” across the room, his long shaggy hair blowing in the breeze, his tanned muscles hard and lean. He shot villains with blasts of water as he surfed past them, knocking them over and suctioning them to the floor with large starfish and octopi. He looked incredibly cool and intimidating all at once.

  “I kinda get what Mom saw in him all those years ago,” Sandra mumbled to Jeff.

  Caught off guard, Jeff was hit with a full suave from Mystic.

  “It ain’t over yet,” she said. Her voice caressed his senses and the haunting image she’d implanted the very first day they’d met, of their entwined, sweaty bodies, filled his mind. “Come to Mama, Polar bear.”

  Against his own will, he moved stiltedly toward her. An internal battle caused his body to jerk in Mystic’s direction and then fall away. As a distraction, he whistled the ABC song.

  “No, no,” Mystic soothed. She hummed Hush Little Baby. Her voice dripped over him like melted caramel.

  “Give me a break!”

  A shower of cold water fell over Jeff, snapping him to his senses.

  “Oci!” His crooked smile broke across his face, momentarily distracting both sides of the fray. To Jeff, she appeared to be lit from within. A beautiful white aura pulsed around her. It looked as though she floated. Suspended in the deepest part of the ocean. He moved toward her, oblivious of the fighting around him. “Now I get it! You are my depths.”

  He folded his arms around her and breathed in her sea salt scent. Reflected in her eyes were his hopes, his love and his desire. “Why didn’t I realize it before?”

  “No!” Mystic yelled.

  Jeff pressed his lips to Oceanus’ and was swept into a tide of emotion and need. He imagined himself immersed in a pool of lavender scented water and wanted to float there forever. He moaned and deepened the kiss. Oceanus gathered hunks of his shirt in her fists and pulled him against her tighter.

  The room was suddenly dipped in pitch. A darkness so complete that all movement ceased, all noise was swallowed. All feeling, all senses were snuffed out. A penetrat
ing cold ushered in a great despair. For a long moment all was wrong and finished with the world. The world ended. Killed by villainy.

  Then a light beyond bright burst from Jeff and Oceanus. It blinded and pulsed and blotted out all sunlight. Warmth flooded in with a deadly contentment. For a long moment everything was too right and concluded within the world. For a second time the world ended. Completed from goodness.

  Then the world righted. The world balanced. The world was reborn into a union of good and bad.

  Their long kiss ended. Disoriented and dizzy, Jeff blinked Oceanus into focus.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you good or bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Her gaze was unfocused and serene. “I guess I’m the complement of you.”

  Frank and Sarah walked up beside them. Sarah held her hand over her heart and placed her other hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “Are you two okay?”

  Jeff saw the stunned look on his dad’s face and nodded at Mother.

  “Jeff, we suspected you were special at a very early age when you would pull the legs off of spiders and then carry them around for days afterward and try to feed them. But a couple of years ago you turned into such a delinquent, setting fires and dodging law enforcement, and then SVA recruited you.” She shrugged. “We thought we were wrong.”

  Frank scoffed. “Boy, were we off-base. Should’ve stuck with our gut, Sarah.”

  She looked across the room at a forlorn Mystic. “She had us believing that she could set you back on the right path.”

  “How did she even know about me?” Jeff asked.

  “Known Mysty her whole life,” Sarah said. “Frank recognized her sham when the two of you returned from your trip to Mexico. If she’d truly been your equal, she wouldn’t have fallen prey to your charms. She’d let her guise slip just enough.”

  “But then you disappeared the next morning,” Frank said, jumping in. “When I got back to the school, Hans told me you’d left. I spent days trying to find you. If only I’d realized your sister knew where you were all along.”

  Sandra blushed. “If only you and Mom had trusted me enough to fill me in, I’d have trusted you enough to fill you in too.”