XGeneration (Book 5): Cry Little Sister

by Brad Magnarella

She elbowed him in the side. “With a little paint and TLC, this place could be kind of nice.” She looked down the corridors of old red-brick buildings. “So, which way to the hobby store?”

  “We don’t have to go there just because my mom said so.”

  “Oh, you know you want to,” Janis said. “You talked about that place incessantly when we were kids.”

  “I talked about Murder World, too, and look how that excursion turned out.”

  Janis followed his eyes toward the amusement park’s skyline. Something cold pinched her temples. Determined not to let yesterday’s foreboding reclaim her, she picked a direction away from the park and began walking.

  “Anyway,” she said, too tightly, “these five bucks are burning a hole in my pocket.”

  Scott caught up and steered her to the right.

  “You’ll want to go this way, then.”

  The Purple Dragon was at the end of Myrtle Street, and just as Scott feared, appeared a run-down shell of its former self. The painted dragon that used to grace the front window was faded and someone had scratched out its yellow eyes.

  Outside the door, a table supported a line of sagging boxes. A cardboard sign taped to the table’s front read “CLEARANCE – 10¢ each, 3 for 25¢” in feathering ink.

  Scott lifted a handful of comic books from the nearest box. Sad Sack, Richie Rich, Barney Bear.

  Crap, in other words.

  Judging from their water-damaged condition, the owner held them in the same high regard. He probably figured he could earn more from a tax write-off than a sale—especially were someone sufficiently motivated to steal the lot of them. That person wouldn’t be Scott.

  He dropped the comic books back in the box and wiped his hand on his pants. “Ready to plunge in?”

  Janis pointed. “Explain that to me?”

  Scott flinched. Above the rim of a plastic bucket that had been set beneath the table, an assortment of baby-doll heads with smudged cheeks, broken eyelids, and scalps of mangy hair stared out.

  FREE, read the message on the bucket’s side. LIMIT 5 per CUSTOMER (BODIES SOLD SEPARATELY).

  “At least the owner has a sense of humor,” Scott said, not at all sure whether it was meant to be funny. He lifted a corner of the table and threaded a leg through the handle of J.R.’s leash.

  Janis gave the bucket a safe berth as Scott opened the door for her. A bell jangled overhead. Scott followed her through a stale draft, the bell jangling a second time as the door closed behind them. The sound prompted someone to snort and stir behind a glass counter to their left.

  “Good morning,” a man said from a reclining chair. “Or is it noon, already?” He parted the stringy hair that fell down either side of his bearded face and tensed his droopy eyelids, as though searching for a clock.

  Scott recognized the owner. “It won’t be noon for another hour, Greenie.”

  “Oh, groovy. Well…” He flapped his hand in a way that said, roam the store, take your time, shout if you need anything. Greenie adjusted the bandana he’d rolled into a headband as he sank back into his plush chair.

  He’s cool, Scott thought-spoke to Janis, who appeared dubious.

  They left Greenie to his snooze and entered a dim maze-work of bookshelves and display cases.

  Scott remembered summers past, edging around kids his age to get at the latest X-Men and Fantastic Four or the newest Dungeons & Dragons module. He would lose himself for hours in those ink-scented pages, oblivious to the intermittent jangle of the store bell or the high whine of an RC racer engine that Greenie was repairing. It was hard to ignore Greenie’s two sons, though, who would watch Scott like ferrets from the next row. One wore a red ninja headband, Scott remembered.

  Now the place was empty.

  “What do you know?” Janis said, blowing dust from a box. “There are vampires in Murder Creek. Just spelled with a ‘y.’”

  Scott sidled up beside her and squinted over her shoulder. The store windows not painted with dragons were soaped over—to keep the comic books mint, man, Greenie had once explained to him. “‘Vampyre,’” Scott read as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, “‘The Hunt for Dracula.’” He studied the image of a red-caped vampire who looked as if he was either menacing the viewer or dancing the Flamenco, one.

  “It’s a board game,” Janis explained.

  Scott snorted a laugh. In the light of a new day, and with David and his degenerate buddies sharing a jail cell, his preoccupation with bloodsuckers in this sleepy town did seem a little ludicrous.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Five on the nose. And hey…” The bell at the front of the store jangled sharply as Janis dug into her pocket for his mother’s get-lost money. “It’s on me.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He snatched the box and cut ahead of her. “You’re my date today. I’m paying.”

  “Oh, is that what this is? Classy.”

  Janis made a move to reclaim the game, but Scott twisted his torso and did a Statue of Liberty. They made their way toward the front of the store, Scott playing keep-away, Janis stifling laughter while trying not to upset the shelves of puzzles and model-train parts as she leaped for the box.

  Scott turned a corner and found Greenie chatting with a customer whose elbows were propped on the glass counter. Above the raised collar of the customer’s black duster, blond hair stood in spikes.

  Scott’s laughter caught in his throat. Janis wrestled the box from his gone-limp hands. Hooking an arm behind himself, he caught Janis around the waist and retreated behind a bookcase.

  What is it? Janis asked, wide eyed.

  Scott pointed toward the front of the store, then pressed two fingers to his lips to show fangs. Janis’s face frowned in concentration. A second later, she nodded emphatically.

  It is him.

  Greenie’s voice floated past them. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “They walked in a few minutes ago. Dude with glasses and a chick with far-out red hair. Still in the back, I think.”

  Scott pictured Greenie flapping his hand.

  Stooping low, he and Janis hustled from his voice. They cut right and left, keeping the display cases and steeper bookshelves between them and the front of the store.

  I’m pretty sure there’s a door back here, Scott thought toward Janis.

  When they reached the rear, a wall with metal pockets of comic books faced them. Scott’s eyes searched frantically around. Where in the hell is it? On a cover of Spiderman, the villainous face of the Hobgoblin seemed to mock him in answer.

  Behind Scott, in an even but growing cadence, chains rattled against leather boots.

  6

  Janis realized their mistake before Scott did. In their haste, they had gotten turned around. They were facing a side wall, one with no exit. The true back of the store was to their left.

  She reached for Scott, who was pawing between the comic books as though in search of a hidden lever. She pointed out the top of the exit door, visible over a steep metal bookcase.

  Scott’s arms fell to his sides. Lovely, he thought in her head.

  They turned toward the corridor they had entered the dead end by, the rattle of chains drawing nearer.

  Twenty feet away.

  Fifteen.

  Janis knew David was no match for her and Scott’s enhanced abilities. But using their powers would mean blowing their covers, and that was a huge no-no. She and Scott, and what they could do, were considered national security secrets after all.

  But if I can use my abilities without him seeing…

  Janis focused on the bookcase separating her and Scott from the exit. With a shudder of rust, the case swung out, creating a new corridor and blocking the one they had entered by.

  Ducking low, she and Scott hurried past it. She was preparing to land against the door bar when Scott stopped her.

  He pointed out the faded red sign: Emergency Exit. Alarm Will Sound.

  Can you…? But she could already feel him focusing on the wire running to a square
magnet in the top of the door. That was his ability: entering electrical systems, capturing digital data—and blowing the whole show when needed.

  Behind them, the rattle of chains stopped.

  Janis turned. Over the top of the bookcase she had just relocated, she made out the tips of David’s spiked hair.

  A pop sounded. Smoke threaded from the alarm wire. Janis eased the door open, and she and Scott stepped into a garbage-strewn alleyway, closing the door quietly behind them.

  “What now?” Scott’s words were more an exhale than a whisper.

  “We put our speed and agility training to use and haul butt.”

  They skirted a Dumpster to the right of the door and stuttered to a stop. Two figures straddling motorcycles blocked that end of the alleyway. Wayfarer sunglasses shielded their eyes.

  Paulo and Duane, Janis’s intuition whispered.

  The hoodlums puttered forward, walking their boots along the pavement. Evil laughter shook their thick manes of hair.

  Janis and Scott wheeled around. The one with the patch-work jacket and throat goiter—Markus—was approaching from the alleyway’s other end. His sunglasses were aviator goggles. When the headlight on his bike shook, Janis saw it was held in place with electrical tape. A casualty from their last encounter.

  Crap, Scott thought-spoke. Left my laser at the house.

  The back door slapped open. A cold draft pushed out, billowing David’s black duster. He emerged in visor shades. As Janis eyed the canines dimpling his lower lip, she realized this had been his plan all along: to flush them out the back and into his gang’s waiting arms.

  “We had an interesting night.” David strode forward. “And I understand we have you to thank.”

  Scott pushed up his glasses with resolve and moved in front of Janis. “You were wearing my dad’s stolen shirt. What should I have done, offered you a matching pair of boxers?”

  David cackled like a crow. Above the soft chops of their approaching bikes, the others echoed his laughter.

  “What are you doing out, anyway?” Janis asked. “You were supposed to be in lockup until tonight.” For the space of a second, she imagined the four of them turning to mist, seeping from their confinement. She pushed the absurd thought from her mind.

  “Well, you see, Janis, we are a nation of laws.”

  She backed up a step. “How do you know my name?”

  “And everyone is governed by said laws,” he continued in the same mocking voice, “regardless of background or station. To wit, ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…’” He raised an eyebrow. “Sound familiar?”

  “It’s the Fourth Amendment,” Janis said, trying to hide her surprise that David would even know about it, much less be able to recite it from memory. “So what?”

  “It is because of the Fourth Amendment, Janis, that Murder Creek’s fine judge denied the application for a search warrant.”

  “Denied it?” Scott looked like a geyser ready to erupt. “B-but the shirt!”

  “Ah, the shirt,” David said, pacing with his black-gloved hands clasped behind him. “If you must know, an officer took a trip to the roadside where I picked it up. And lo and behold. He found some of the very items he was planning to search for at our place. So much for probable cause.”

  “Yeah, because you planted them there,” Scott said.

  “Tsk, tsk.” David wagged a finger in front of Scott’s face. The tips of the leather glove had been cut away, revealing a fingernail the length and sharpness of a talon. “Ye of little faith.”

  Scott slapped his hand away, prompting David into another fit of laughter and the others to creep their rumbling bikes closer.

  Janis moved a hand to Scott’s forearm. His muscles thrummed beneath her touch.

  We need to be careful, she warned. There is something different about these guys. They give off an energy. An energy like … I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  She had very nearly said an energy like death.

  Let me handle this, she finished.

  “So you’re innocent.” Janis peered around. She was tapped into the threads connecting her own mind with their brain stems, her trigger finger on a psionic blast. “Congratulations. End of story.”

  David’s laughter ended like a giant Off lever had been thrown. He swooped more than stepped in front of them, a smell like spicy sweat following him. “No, not end of story. My men and I are involved in, shall we say, delicate work. To perform that work, we require a degree of seclusion. And you’re compromising that seclusion. From now on, you’re to stay out of Murder World, and you’re to keep our good names from Chief McDermott’s ear. Are we clear?”

  A chilling anger emanated from David, hardening the angles of his face. Around Janis, the backs of the brick buildings seemed to close in, turning the atmosphere beneath the strip of blue sky cold and dim.

  “Stay away from us,” Scott spoke up, “and my parents’ house, and we’ll be on the same page.”

  David’s reflective shades fixed on Scott for an intense moment before his face broke into a sharp grin. “Well, you’re no fun at all, are you? Your lady friend, on the other hand…” Janis felt his eyes shift toward her. “If you would ever like to come to the amusement park alone, my dear … well, I suppose we wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss.”

  The others chuckled.

  David reached past Scott with a fingernail as though to caress her cheek.

  A scuffle of bodies broke out. In the next moment, David was on his back. Scott was sitting astride him, his blows landing between his words. “Don’t you … ever … touch her!”

  In his anger, Scott’s Champions training had gone out the window. David winced from side to side, his forearms held up defensively. From Janis’s vantage, it looked like a playground brawl.

  Which means you’re going to need to keep your cool, she thought to herself.

  She turned toward Paulo and Duane, who were jumping from their motorcycles, blades popping from gloved fists.

  A psionic blast will be too obvious, she thought. But if I can slow them…

  She roped their limbs with threads of space.

  Duane was the first to reach Scott. He drove his blade toward his side. Janis arrested the motion, reducing the thrust to underwater speed. Her heel met his wrist, and the knife clattered away.

  Grunting in surprise, Duane twisted toward her. A kick to his stomach silenced the sound. A second kick, this one crack in the jaw, dropped him onto the seat of his torn black jeans.

  Like a ghost image, Janis sensed Paulo changing course, coming up behind her. Precognition, her trainer called it.

  Janis timed her back kick, driving her heel into the hollow of his bare chest.

  He flailed, his feet struggling to keep up with his retreating body. Janis gave a telekinetic nudge to help him along. He landed against his bike, knocking it to the ground.

  “Markus!” David shouted. An order.

  Scott hadn’t stopped swinging, though it was clear that fatigue was setting in. His punches had begun to slap. Janis raised her eyes to Markus, the member with the neck goiter. He hadn’t moved from his bike, except to reach into a battered leather bag whose strap looped across his torso. He hooked his hand under something and began lifting it out.

  Fear squeezed Janis’s heart. “Scott, stop!” she cried.

  Scott twisted his neck toward Markus. In a single motion, he pushed himself from David to his feet, the blush of anger and effort already seeping from his cheeks. He took a step forward.

  “Hold on, there,” Markus wheezed, pressing his blade to J.R.’s throat.

  The toy poodle’s eyes flickered between Scott and Janis, a whimper shaking his muzzle.

  “If you hurt him…,” Scott warned.

  “Your dog’s fine.” David stood and shook the dust and gravel from his coat. Paulo and D
uane gained their feet, as well. Paulo righted his bike and inspected a new set of scratches on its body.

  David strode over until he was standing beside Markus. If David had been injured by Scott’s assault, he didn’t show it. He propped an elbow on the handlebar and ran his nails over the curls on J.R.’s head.

  “Let him go,” Scott warned.

  “You should be a little more careful where you leave this noble creature,” David said. “Word is there’s a bloodsucker on the loose. Or bloodsuckers.” He made a slurping sound as he flickered the pale tip of his tongue between his fangs. “Have a special taste for canine, I hear. For now, anyway.”

  J.R. tried to shrink from David as he lifted a metal tag from the dog’s collar. “1214 Beach Drive,” he read. “Is that you?”

  It was. Scott’s mother had switched J.R.’s tags in the car to what she called his “vacation set.”

  Janis and Scott remained silent.

  David let the tag fall into the others. He nodded at Markus. Janis raised a hand, ready to perform a telekinetic snap of Markus’s wrist. But he sheathed his blade. Leaning forward, he set J.R. on the ground. The poodle’s paws skittered across the pavement as Scott knelt to receive him.

  “Are we done here?” David asked.

  Scott stood with J.R. against his chest. “Just stay away from us.”

  “Remain far from our interests,” David answered, “and we’ll remain far from yours.”

  His coat swirled, and he began walking from the alleyway. Markus turned his motorcycle in a half circle and followed. Paulo and Duane pushed their bikes past where Janis and Scott were standing.

  “Oh, and Janis,” David called without turning. “You would be wise to pay for that. Despite what the locals call it, the Murder Creek slammer is anything but a Marriot. No turndown service, either.”

  What’s he talking ab—

  Janis realized she was clutching something to her side. She took the box into her hands and turned it right side up. It was the game from the store. Vampyre: The Hunt for Dracula. A pallid, red-caped creature with talons and pointed canines stared back at her.

  Only now Janis didn’t find it so funny.