Hearts of Darkness

by Andrea Speed

  Kaede raised an eyebrow. “Why? I was invited.” Okay, technically Jason Tanaka was invited, but same difference.

  Tony shook his head, sneering slightly. “You’re really impressed with yourself, aren’t you? You’re not getting away with any of this.”

  Kaede looked around, holding his glass out to indicate the room. “Away with what? Ordering a grasshopper? It’s actually quite delicious, you know.”

  A little line appeared between Moreau’s eyebrows as he tried to puzzle out what the fuck Kaede was talking about. Eventually he gave up with a shake of his head. “How long are you going to keep up this idiocy? I’m not buying it.”

  “Why not? You’ve bought up most of this town, haven’t you? What’s one more thing?”

  Moreau scowled, but it looked vaguely pouty and petulant. “You’re an asshole.”

  Kaede chuckled. “I’m pretty sure if you’re in this room, you’re an asshole.”

  Moreau gave him an evil death stare and then was distracted by a friend calling him from across the room. He stomped off and didn’t get to see the sarcastic little wave Kaede gave him. It was a shame, because Kaede thought it was his best beauty-queen wave. Ash just shook his head, not liking Kaede’s constant low-level enragement of DJ.

  Kaede was just about done with his drink and wondering where he could leave his empty glass when a huge explosion shook the building like a toy in a hyper dog’s mouth. Kaede would have fallen right into the bar if Ash hadn’t grabbed him and somehow kept them both upright, even as the floor shifted like the deck of a boat. They were pretty much the only people who managed to keep their balance. Moreau shot him a dirty look, but Kaede just shrugged. Wasn’t his doing. He wasn’t stupid enough to set off bombs with himself in the building.

  Suddenly a man appeared in the suite’s doorway wearing the black hood synonymous with Black Hand and his cult-like lackeys, the Black Veil. “Black Hand will not be ignored,” he bellowed, like the brainwashed idiot he was. “The Black Veil will—”

  His rant was cut off by a heroine calling herself Tigress, who tackled him and sent them both flying out of the doorway. But there were more black-hooded idiots to fill in for him, and some of them had weapons. Still, most of the city’s superheroes were here incognito, and they were happy to go hand-to-hand with these doofuses. Kaede thought he saw lots of smoke behind them in the stairwell, but that was inevitable. They wanted to destabilize the building more than destroy it, and block obvious exits so none of the heroes could duck out without a fight.

  Ash took a step forward, as if to join the fray, but Kaede grabbed his arm. “No. We can’t let them see what you can do. They’ll figure out who you are.”

  Ash stared at him, and while his expression honestly gave nothing away, Kaede knew from the tension in his muscles that he was nervous and didn’t like this. Kaede couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t exactly thrilled Hand had sent his minions on what had to be a suicide mission.

  “You can’t stay here. It’s not safe,” Ash said.

  Those who weren’t fighting were stampeding for the door. To say the exits were impassable was an understatement. Some idiots were even trying the elevator, which he would absolutely not do in this situation. Sure, the Black Veil had probably booby-trapped the stairwell, but there was little doubt they had something even worse in mind for the elevators. “How do you suggest we get out of this?”

  Ash looked around, and his gaze seemed stuck to the window wall across from them. “Did you bring some of your coins?”

  He knew then what Ash’s plan was. Super risky. But as long as he was tooled up, doable, and the Veil wouldn’t be prepared for that. “Always do,” he answered.

  Kaede reached into the hidden pocket of his jacket and carefully removed one of his circular throwing stars without touching the lethal edge. He then flung it at the window. Whereas it would do terrible damage in a human body, it was a bit more straightforward with an object. Despite the windows probably being bulletproof—and whatever other kind of “proof” you could name—the window shattered, and a deadly rain of broken glass started its perilous ten-story fall. Cold air flooded the penthouse, wiping out some of the smoke that was just starting to filter up the shafts.

  “Grab on to me and don’t let go,” Ash said before they ran up to the edge. A millisecond before they jumped, Kaede grabbed Ash, who took him in an all-enveloping hug and then jumped out into the open air.

  Ten stories up was really fucking high, which Kaede didn’t appreciate until he was falling it. He’d also just remembered he had kind of a fear of heights, at least when he was actively plummeting. His mind was starting to gibber with panic as the building started growing, or so it seemed as they streaked right by it. Ash somehow maneuvered them so Kaede was on top and he was on the bottom, and then he calmly held out one arm and deployed his hidden grappling hook.

  There was quite a jerk as the hook found purchase and the line pulled taut, but it was expected, and Kaede clung to Ash like a spider monkey. How Ash didn’t dislocate his arm, he had no idea, but he kept a grip of both Kaede and the line and swung them in toward the building. Kaede thought they might burst through the glass, but they didn’t. Ash brought them to a stop outside the window, and it was easy to see why. There was fire raging inside, and they could hear more explosions. The building was compromised and completely unsafe. Smoke pressed against the glass like the surging tentacles of an angry beast.

  Ash looked down and frowned. “Do you trust me?”

  “What kind of question is that? We’re hanging outside a building on a thin wire. Yes, I trust you.” He’d jumped out the window when Ash asked him to. There was no greater act of trust than that.

  Ash nodded. “Okay. Don’t worry, I can take this fall.” Ash then released the grappling hook.

  They were falling before Kaede grasped what Ash had done and how terrible it was. “But—” was as far as he got before there was an impact, concurrent with the sound of shattering glass. There was some glass raining down from above, but that was not it.

  Kaede rolled off Ash, who had landed back first, protecting Kaede completely, and saw they had landed on a car parked on the street. Their weight and speed had pretty much completely collapsed the roof, so Kaede was able to roll directly onto the hood. He looked up and tried to judge how far they had fallen. Five stories? A lethal distance under normal circumstances.

  But Ash was still conscious, and he groaned as he sat up. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Kaede said in disbelief. How was he okay? Ash had taken all the impact by keeping Kaede on top of him. Holy shit. He had jumped out of a ten-story building and was okay. Presumably the symtech suits they both wore under their fancy clothes took some of the damage, but they couldn’t possibly have taken it all. Kaede sat up, reaching for Ash’s arm. “What about you?”

  “I’m fine. Suit took most of the impact.” He then coughed, and Kaede hated the sound of it, as it was deep and wet.

  “Shit, you’re hurt.”

  “I’ll be fine. I heal faster than normal people.”

  Shit! And just to make things worse, flaming debris started raining down from above. The building was going to collapse, and soon. Kaede heard sirens, but he doubted they’d be in time to help. Would any superheroes actually die in this melee? He was almost positive all the members of the Veil still inside were gone, but he was sure Black Hand had to have cloning vats, otherwise there was no logical reason he’d have so many expendable henchmen. He went through them like the starship Enterprise went through redshirts.

  Kaede slid off the pancaked car and helped Ash slide off. He landed on his feet, but Ash was unsteady, and Kaede slipped an arm around his shoulders to keep him upright. There was a bit of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. They were making their way down the street when they heard the much louder noise of pieces of the building raining down—chunks of facades, of frames, of walls. The fucking Hand had actually destroyed the Moreau Building, which no other supervillain had e
ver accomplished. Had he done this because he was upset Kaede’s mystery kills were getting so much press and he wasn’t? Probably. Superheroes weren’t the only narcissistic basket cases. Kaede was going to have to do something about him. This was twice Hand had tried to kill him, even if one time was inadvertent. It was two times too many.

  Kaede had managed to text a code 9-1-1 to Trevor, who came roaring up in the company car as soon as they hit the next block. He scrambled out and opened the back of the armored car for them. “Should we head to the hospital?”

  “No,” Ash answered. “They’ll know.”

  Trevor looked puzzled by that comment, but Kaede understood. The medical staff would know Ash wasn’t a normal human. He might even break their little brains with how not quite human he was. They couldn’t risk a civilian hospital. “Take us home,” Kaede ordered, helping Ash into the backseat. Trevor still looked puzzled, but he did as he was told.

  Once in the back, Ash propped himself up against the far door, trying not to look miserable and failing, while Kaede found himself at a loss. The only reason Ash was hurt was because he’d taken this damage for Kaede. Yeah, that was technically his job, but it didn’t make Kaede feel any better. “Is there any way we can speed up your healing?”

  Ash shook his head. “I just need some rest. I’ll be fine in a little while.”

  Kaede didn’t like that answer, especially after Ash had another one of those racking coughs. He wished he knew exactly what had been done to Ash so he’d know how to help him, but knowing his dad, it was proprietary information he made sure to keep out of everyone else’s hands by making sure he forgot it himself. It wouldn’t be the first or last time he’d done such a thing. He was crazy, and that wasn’t an epithet Kaede used lightly. In fact his dad was barking-at-the-moon skullfucked. He was a genius, and the worst thing to happen to pretty much everyone.

  But while Kaede was scouring his brain for possible solutions, one occurred to him. Could it work? It was risky, and if he was wrong, he might kill Ash. But if Ash was already dying, there might not be much risk at all.

  When they reached home, Ash was semiconscious, and that pretty much made up Kaede’s mind for him. He was going to help Ash, or he was going to burn this city to the fucking ground. Maybe both. He hadn’t decided yet.

  Ash insisted on going up to the penthouse under his own power, but he had to lean heavily on Kaede, and once they were inside, Kaede left him practically comatose on the sofa while he went to the hidden lab. The nanobots were right where he left them.

  Kaede loaded them up into the machine and started programming them, but they needed a little more information on who they were supposed to be fixing, so he dashed out into the living room and found Ash right where he left him, collapsed on the couch and bleeding from the mouth. Kaede took a swipe of his blood and ran back to the lab.

  The only reason he managed to work any of this was because all his father’s work was variations on a theme, which was why designer viruses, gengineering, and microscopic killer things were always popping up in his repertoire. He didn’t believe in working on one thing and moving on to the next; he believed in total domination of a category and refining something until it was as close to perfect as it was ever going to get.

  Looking at Ash’s blood under the microscope, Kaede realized why Ash didn’t want to go to the hospital. Usually blood was made up of red cells and white cells, but Ash’s had a third kind of cell in it. Kaede didn’t recognize it and had no idea what it could be. It could only be something completely artificial or completely alien. Maybe some other time, he could investigate that, but why? It didn’t matter either way. Ash was Ash. The fact that he wasn’t human didn’t make him any less of a person in Kaede’s eyes. Conversely, it might have made him more. Humans sucked, so if he wasn’t one, that was great.

  Kaede double-checked and triple-checked the nanobots, but he was pretty sure they were as ready to go as they ever would be. He put the nanobots in a saline-filled syringe and returned to the living room, where Ash was still semicomatose on the couch. Kaede found a vein, made up a god of science, and silently prayed to it while injecting Ash with the nanobots. He didn’t have a violent reaction, or drop dead immediately, so Kaede felt like he was ahead of the curve.

  He didn’t know what to do, so he hovered nervously, pacing to the bar to take a swig of the first thing that caught his eye and then wandering back to check on Ash and make sure he hadn’t just killed him.

  Eight minutes passed before Ash opened his amber eyes and stared up at him.

  “You okay?” Kaede asked.

  Ash sat up, frowning in confusion. “Yes.” He turned to glance out the window behind them. “How long has it been since we returned?”

  “Ten minutes, give or take a minute on either side.” Since Ash continued looking puzzled, Kaede added, “I shot you up with nanobots programmed to heal you. I’m gonna guess they worked.”

  Ash put a hand on his chest. “You made them work?”

  “I did, but it wasn’t hard. My dad made them to be programmed. They’re useless otherwise.”

  “Why do you always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Downplay your accomplishments. You’re a smart man, and you’re not your father.”

  Kaede shrugged. “I kinda am, but—”

  “No, you’re not. I’ve met your father. You are not him.”

  He smiled. He appreciated Ash trying, but he wasn’t sure anything would ever assure him he wasn’t some unholy abomination of his father’s. If he wasn’t a clone, he was lab built. Honestly, he hoped the latter was true, because it was so much better than the former. Kaede patted Ash’s hand, which still felt lukewarm. His average body temperature had to be about five degrees lower than everyone else’s, and that was another thing an emergency room would have picked up on immediately.

  “Thank you,” Kaede said. “How do you feel?”

  “Normal. Much better than I should. It usually takes twenty-four hours or so to recover from serious injuries.” Ash looked at his hands as if they had changed in some way. “This is amazing. So they’re not only weapons.”

  “No. That was their purpose, though. I’m sure if my father heard I’d used them for good, he’d have me banished to a desert island. Or maybe the moon. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if he had his own rocket at this point.”

  Ash smiled at him. It was crooked and showed too many teeth, but he was clearly not used to doing it, and Kaede appreciated the effort. “You saved my life. Well, the fall probably wouldn’t have killed me, but you healed me. That’s amazing.”

  Kaede shook his head. “It was noth—” Ash cut him off with a kiss, which was sloppy and hungry, and all kinds of amazing. For a guy who was new to everything romantic and physical, he was a fast learner.

  Kaede had to push him away for a moment to catch his breath. “Wow. I’m going to do that more often.”

  To his surprise, Ash pushed him down on the sofa and crawled over him, equal parts sensuous and predatory. “I want this,” he said, peeling off his shirt. “I don’t want to die without doing this.”

  “You’re not gonna die at all, not if I have something to say about it.” Kaede lay back and watched as Ash peeled off the top of the symtech suit, revealing his ghostly white skin and the colorful, elaborate dragon tattoo that wrapped around his torso. There was almost more erotic power in submission than in domination. Kaede reached up and touched Ash’s chest, trailing his hand over Ash’s smooth skin. He was beautiful, and alien, which made him even more beautiful.

  When Ash leaned in to kiss him again, Kaede wrapped his arms around him and decided he wasn’t going to feel guilty about this. Ash had made his choice. The fact that Kaede was happy about it didn’t mean it was bad.

  To his credit, Ash had clearly done some homework. He might have been new to physical intimacy, but he knew what he wanted, and Kaede knew what he wanted too. When Kaede woke up in his bed, he was a bit sore and tangled up with Ash in a new
kind of way. He managed to slip out without waking him and went to take a shower.

  Curiosity about last night—who had survived the fall of the Moreau Building, who hadn’t—got to him, and once he was in the shower, he finally used a feature he had rarely used in any of his dad’s safe houses. His father had made most surfaces not explicitly used for something else—standing, sitting, sleeping, eating—“smart.” Meaning, Kaede could turn any wall in the shower into a computer or television screen. He just had to ask the house AI to activate it. He did, and as he washed his hair, he saw a news report on the whole thing.

  Yes, Black Hand had successfully brought the Moreau Building down, which was amazing. They had tentatively identified fifteen dead and at least forty-seven injured, so people on the street must have been hurt as well, because there weren’t that many people at the party. Only one superhero was listed on the known dead list, and that was just Jetstream, who was third tier all the way. Black Hand had released a video on YouTube at about the same time as the attack on the Moreau Building and basically brought up the same shit he always did. Corwyn was his city, blah-blah-blah.

  Despite having a huge (clone) cult, Black Hand was a slippery one. No one supposedly knew his real identity, and any time he did one of his videos, he was always wearing a white mask with a black handprint on it, a theme echoed on his tunic (so tacky). He also used a voice filter—a lot like the one Dark Justice used, but turned up to eleven. Basically, he sounded like Darth Vader with a head cold. It was probably intimidating to someone, but Kaede couldn’t imagine who. Three-year-olds?

  From what Kaede had gathered, he lived by extortion, and despite his great number of followers, no one knew where his home base was. He was everywhere and nowhere, ubiquitous and anonymous. Kind of a pain. Rumors had him as immortal, but Kaede didn’t believe that for a second. He was a mortal asshole, and it was about time someone dealt with him. Kaede figured if he didn’t do it, no one would.

  The smell of the crepes Kaede decided to make woke Ash up, and he hugged Kaede from behind and leaned into him, sleepy and warm. Wow, he could get used to this. So could Ash, if the neck nuzzling was any indication. Now that he’d discovered how great sex was, there was no turning back. At least Kaede hoped so.