by Andrea Speed
Hearts of Darkness
By Andrea Speed
Kaede Hiyashi is sick and tired of living in the shadow of his father, supervillain Doctor Terror. Brilliant but crazy, Doctor Terror sends his son to Corwyn, California, for reasons Kaede can’t imagine. Sent to accompany and protect him is Ash, a genetically modified supersoldier raised and trained by an infamous death cult.
Corwyn is lousy with superheroes, led by the obnoxious Dark Justice. Kaede finds himself dancing around Dark Justice as he digs into his father’s mysterious business and teaches his socially awkward—but physically lethal—bodyguard to acclimate to “normal” life. Can these two wacky supervillains figure out what Doctor Terror wants them to do, solve the riddle of the villain known as Black Hand, and keep Dark Justice from raining on their bloody parade? The course of love—and world domination—never did run smooth.
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1
NOT FOR the first time, Kaede wondered what would happen if he decided to burn everything down. Just set it all on fire.
He wouldn’t—Fleur De Lis was a great restaurant, his favorite in Paris—but sometimes he wondered what his father’s limit was. Would he find a way to bail him out of everything? It wasn’t a boundaries thing; he wasn’t a child craving them. He was just curious if there was a line he couldn’t cross. Maybe when your dad was a supervillain, you just got used to the evil after a while.
Even though he was currently attending university under a fake identity, his father still made sure enough people knew he had some kind of connection that he was always treated like a VIP. Kaede found it awkward and tiresome, although he knew he shouldn’t complain about superior service. But the elitism of it all did bother him.
Currently, he was the only lone diner in the VIP section. There were two couples, one older and one younger, although they were a study in contrasts. The older couple looked like longtime-married folks out for an anniversary dinner, while the younger couple was a guy with slicked-back hair and a thousand-dollar suit, and a fancy, coiffured woman whom Kaede was willing to bet was a working girl. A high-class one, to be sure, but still a hooker. What kind of douchebag was that guy? Was he living out some kind of Pretty Woman fantasy? He was probably a stockbroker or something like that. Kaede hated him on principle.
Otherwise the VIP section was empty. They had faint piano music and two waiters all to themselves. The rest of the place—the noisier, more crowded part of the restaurant—was separated by a doorway that most people probably didn’t know existed. You entered and exited through a private door so you never had to associate with the riffraff. Kaede wondered if his dad liked this, and that’s why he insisted on him getting the same treatment.
Kaede’s soup arrived, and he shared polite smiles with the waiter, who was handsome enough, if on the short side. Was he gay? Kaede might have been the son of a supervillain, but he had no gaydar at all, and his father had never invented a thing that could do that for him. Or had he? Kaede should ask, if he ever saw his father in person again.
He might not. Kaede sporadically saw his father… and with little warning. It had been that way his entire life. Because so many people wanted to kill his dad or blackmail him into working for them, Kaede had been a target from day one. So his father kept him moving, with new lives on new continents with new names and new guardians, most of whom were professional nannies. His father hadn’t raised him in any respect, and Kaede had no idea who his mother was. Every time he asked, he got a different name. Since his father worked so much with cloning, he did wonder if he was his dad’s clone and not actually a son, in spite of their different names. He knew there were rumors, but he also knew better than to expect any real answers from his brilliant but certifiably crazy father.
He tucked into his soup, which was decent enough, but he found himself craving the excellent hot-and-sour soup he’d found at his favorite Chinese place downtown. It was probably home to more than a few health-code violations, but the soup was fantastic, abundant with tofu and mushrooms. Even though he was enjoying this fancier concoction, he knew he’d probably stop after dinner to get a bowl of the cheaper hot and sour. Although his father often insisted that the more expensive the better as far as food and booze were concerned, that simply wasn’t true. Well, at least not all the time.
Kaede was finally trying his wine, which he’d been letting breathe, when he heard the distant sound of breaking glass.
It wasn’t someone dropping a glass. This was a solider sound, heavier, and it seemed to be out in the public part of the restaurant. Now, it was possible a bottle of wine or a particularly loaded platter had hit the floor, but Kaede had developed something of a sixth sense for trouble. Which could have been an actual thing his father gengineered in him, but he’d never asked.
Kaede had slipped down beneath the table when the inner door of the VIP section slammed open and bullets started flying. He heard brief, aborted screams, and he was really sorry for the other diners. Well, okay, only the older couple and the working girl. Wall Street Boy could eat a bag of dicks.
“We know you’re here, Hayashi!” a man bellowed, as the sound of gunshots still rang in Kaede’s ears. “We’ll burn this place down if we hafta! Show yourself!”
What were his options? Kaede didn’t like to bring his dad’s weapons with him as a matter of principle, but he did carry a couple of small ones; he wasn’t a total idiot. In his pocket he had a small pouch that felt like it weighed about twenty pounds, but that was only because it was made with a synthetic fiber four thousand times stronger and more bulletproof than Kevlar and spider silk combined. Inside it were ten round discs that looked kind of like silver dollars, but they were, in fact, his father’s update of throwing stars, with an edge so sharp he had to be very careful when handling them. Also, they were coated with a special polymer that violently resisted anything adhering to it, so one would pinball around inside a person until it forced itself out. They were almost always fatal, no matter where they entered the body. If he could throw them at the gunmen before getting shot, it would take care of the problem. But how could he pull that off? He should have put on some bulletproof armor before going out.
Kaede was still trying to figure out how to proceed when he heard the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the floor, quickly followed by a burst of gunfire. Somehow, despite the noise, Kaede heard more thuds, but these were wet and bloody. He then discerned footsteps moving across the floor, and he braced himself as the man—he was pretty certain it was a man—moved closer to him.
“I’m not your enemy, Kaede Hayashi,” the man said. His voice had a light, curious accent Kaede couldn’t place. “Your father sent me here to help.”
“Prove it,” Kaede said, reaching for the bag of discs. It could be a trap, and if it was, he might have just given away his location.
Something metallic hit the floor with a small noise and then slid underneath his table. Kaede saw immediately it was a pin, a gold double-helix swirl against a silver background he recognized as the logo of his father’s secret lab, called Shinka (or Evolution in English). And while it just looked like a commemorative pin, the kind that might be given out at Christmas by supercheap companies, it was actually an all-encompassing ID. Coded with a person’s DNA and a sp
ecial chip, it was only readable with one of his father’s custom-built scanners that not only told you everything about a person, but automatically let them in at certain labs and bases up to their security level. Kaede didn’t have a scanner on him, but making a passable fraud of these was difficult, because they were coated with a special polymer that made them rough to the touch, even though they looked perfectly smooth. And each had a special tiny Japanese character on the back that could be felt but not seen. Kaede could feel that symbol. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t have been stolen off a corpse.
Warily, Kaede lifted the burgundy tablecloth and peered out. Standing approximately three meters away was an average-sized man with surprisingly delicate features, honey-colored eyes, and bright white hair. Actually, strike “man.” Teenager? Kaede was twenty, and he would be shocked if this guy was a day over that. He wore all black, which made him appear slighter than he probably was, and Kaede almost laughed. He looked… well, not exactly frail, but close to it. Why had his father sent this guy to help? What was he supposed to do, be cannon fodder in Kaede’s stead?
But then Kaede’s gaze drifted toward the rest of the room. He had a limited vantage point, but he could see the dead body of one gunman, lying on his back with a ski mask over his face. His head was twisted at an angle that was impossible unless he didn’t have a spine, and he was still clutching his AR-15 like a lost love. At the table nearest the gunman, Stockbroker Boy was splayed dead in his entrée, his blood dripping down the tablecloth like spilled wine.
The white-haired boy stood perfectly still, waiting. Finally he asked, “May I approach?”
Kaede eyed the boy with suspicion. There was no way he could have made the gunman’s head do a three sixty. Not without help. “You can get closer, but stay away from the table.”
The boy acknowledged that with a curt nod and then took a few steps forward before stopping again. He showed his hands—slender, long-fingered, a pianist’s hands—to let Kaede know they were empty. Or at least appeared that way. Kaede thought the kid had a spray of freckles across his ghostly skin, but after a moment he realized it was just a sprinkling of blood.
“Who are you?” Kaede asked.
“I am called Ash. I should get you out of here before the police arrive.”
That made sense. Kaede came out from under the table, Ash’s identity pin clenched in his hand. “Who were these guys?”
Ash glanced at the nearest dead body. No emotion crossed his face. “They seemed to be acolytes of the Brotherhood of the Red Dagger. Most likely they wished to kidnap you in exchange for materials and items from your father’s lab.”
“Oh great.” Kaede wondered what kind of ransom they could possibly get for him. He doubted his father would trade a designer virus or one gengineered soldier for him. The Brotherhood might have been overestimating his worth to his father. “So they were stupid?”
Ash smiled faintly, his lips barely curving upward. “It’s fair to say that stupidity is a boon in the Brotherhood.”
Kaede smiled at the weird white-haired boy. He still didn’t get how Ash had taken out all three gunmen, even if he did have a gun. But now that Kaede had a view of the entire room, it didn’t appear as if any of the Brotherhood men had been shot. They were all sprawled on the floor, some body part bent at an untenable angle, their guns not far from them. The curiosity of it all was eating at him. “How did you do all of this so fast?”
“I’m a weapon,” Ash said in a tone as deadpan as everything else he had said.
Kaede would have laughed, except it wasn’t a joke, and he had no reason to believe this was an exaggeration of any sort. Yes, Ash looked dainty and didn’t seem to have a bulging, muscular body hiding beneath his clothes, but Kaede knew from his father that you could take absolutely nothing at face value. Just because Ash looked like a teenager didn’t mean he couldn’t be thirty; just because he looked like a ninety-eight-pound weakling didn’t mean he couldn’t kill you with a snap of his fingers. Being the son of Dr. Terror, Kaede had quickly learned to distrust every goddamn thing.
Still not completely convinced this wasn’t some kind of elaborate, strange trap, Kaede gave Ash his identification pin back and said, “I don’t suppose you know a back way out of here, do you?”
Ash dipped his head. His curt, modest gestures made Kaede think of several Asian countries, even though Ash appeared to be roughly Caucasian. “If you’ll follow me.”
Kaede did, as Ash stoically stepped over bodies and puddles of blood. “Where are we going?”
“Kamani has a safe house nearby,” Ash reported. The Kamani Corporation was one of Kaede’s father’s shell companies, a hard-charging multinational corporation that was, in truth, the cover for an even eviler empire. But if you were rich enough and had the right lobbyists, you could hide in plain sight. It probably didn’t hurt that his father faked his death every few years, just to keep everyone off-balance.
“Can we make a stop along the way?” Kaede asked, although if Ash was indeed an employee of his father, that meant he worked for Kaede too. But making it seem like a question was only polite. After all, Ash had probably saved his life.
ASH CLEARLY didn’t like stopping at a Chinese restaurant on the way to the safe house, but Kaede was still hungry and still craving that hot-and-sour soup. He did wonder if it was callous, since people had just been murdered around him, but that was simply another side effect of being supervillain spawn. You got used to murder and mayhem, until your skin became as thick as rhino hide.
The safe house was actually a safe condo in a swanky building with a piece of sculpted art in the courtyard that looked very much like the body of a car, warped by heat and pressure and painted a strangely cyanotic blue. It was ugly and probably cost a couple million.
The color scheme in the condo was blue and white and chrome, austere and icy, suggesting his father had something to do with it. Dr. Terror preferred everything around him have an air of sterility to it, like he never left the lab. Which was probably more or less true.
Kaede sat on the white leather couch and ate while Ash paced the room, nervously checking the door with its multiple deadbolts and the blackout curtains that kept anyone from getting a view. His obvious anxiety was making Kaede nervous.
“Sit down,” Kaede said. “Have a fried wonton.”
“I am not hungry,” Ash replied, but he did respond to the order by sitting down on the matching sofa across from Kaede.
“Tell me how you’re a weapon,” Kaede suggested, still having a hard time believing this delicate creature could be.
For a moment, he didn’t think Ash was going to tell him. But Ash folded his hands on his knee and said, “I’m from Devishna. I was raised and trained by the Tabaah Karna.”
Kaede almost dropped his chopsticks. When he discovered his father was “Dr. Terror,” Kaede had dug up all he could find on him, including internal stuff the press had absolutely no access to. Such as the fact that his father, through his shell company Genginetics Inc., owned a five-mile-long island in the Indian Ocean named Devishna, one that appeared on no maps. It was home to a lab where his dad, Goro Hayashi, did genetic experiments, ones that supposedly led to his creation of the H133 designer virus, the one that got him the tabloid-inspired Dr. Terror name in the first place. But he didn’t limit his experimenting to viruses.
He bought children, mainly from India, Thailand, and Eastern Europe, and used them as guinea pigs in his gene-alteration trials. Those who survived were sent on to be raised by an ascetic religious order in Indonesia called Tabaah Karna, or Karna for short. Karna was considered a terrorist organization by many governments. About seven years before, it had been raided by a coalition of military forces, supposedly to rescue the children being “held” by the cult. Several of the soldiers were killed, mainly by the children, who had been trained in multiple brutal fighting techniques by Karna, whose adherents believed the end times were near and their children should be ready to be rulers and warriors of the comin
g world, by any means necessary. Many of these children, who killed adult men in hand-to-hand combat, were as young as twelve. Some were taken into custody, but some of the children scattered, escaped to who knew where. There were rumors—good, solid rumors—that the kids were way too strong and way too fast to be merely human.
“I didn’t know that any of you had been released from rehabilitation,” Kaede said.
Finally a shred of emotion played across Ash’s face. Surprise, mixed with confusion. But after a moment of concentration, wrinkling his brow, he said, “Oh, do you mean the captured ones? I was never captured.”
Kaede felt a bit like the floor was shifting beneath him. He wasn’t sure how to take this information. If this man was telling the truth—and why would he lie?—he was so dangerous it would actually be difficult to quantify. He’d be the equivalent of a trained shark with Ebola-tipped missiles in a launcher on its head. “Then how are you here?”
Ash met his gaze fearlessly, no recognizable emotions in his honeyed eyes. Kaede thought he saw a tinge of red in them, but maybe it was just the way the light was bouncing off the chrome. “Your father, Dr. Hayashi, hired investigators to find us. One of them discovered me in Laos, and I was adopted by the family of one of his managers in Genginetics, Seok Han. He and his wife were kind to me, but it was clear they expected me to become a normal teenager, which was never going to happen. So Dr. Hayashi offered me a job, and I took it. I didn’t know then that my job would be to act as a bodyguard for you, but it is appropriate to my skill set.”
He was speaking at a normal pace, but it still took Kaede a few moments to absorb all of this. “How old were you when you were adopted?”
“Fifteen.”
“How old were you when the raid on Karna happened?” Kaede sorted through his various containers until he found the ones with the noodles.
“Thirteen.”
