PHENOMENAL GIRL 5 Page 3

I took a bite of the delicious beef, determined not to let my past ruin my appetite. The sting had gone out of my history awhile ago, but I still hated talking about it. I settled on giving the edited version. “My powers are the result of a power plant accident that killed my dad. My mom survived long enough for me to be born.”

  “I am very sorry.”

  I picked at my food. “I never knew them. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. But I like to think that they would be proud of the work I do.”

  “I am sure they would be.”

  Pushing aside the melancholy that always cropped up when I talked about my parents, I continued. “My powers manifested at eleven, and I was sent to live at the School.” I eyed him. “Which you founded.”

  He nodded. “A couple of lifetimes ago, yes.”

  “I’ve worked with both the Red Knights and the Power Squad, and now I’m working with you.” I held up my hands. “That’s me. Not as exciting as fighting in World War II or learning the black arts.”

  He winced. “Do not use that term, if you please. That is for unenlightened people, of which you are not one, who think magic is the direct route to damnation.”

  “So I’m enlightened now, am I?”

  “Anyone who graduated from law school at the tender age of twenty-four is enlightened.” At my shocked look, he added, “I said I researched your career. I told Ben to accept you the first time your application went through, but he thought Pushstar was a better choice. We both know how wrong he was.”

  “Pushstar’s washout was legendary,” I said, stunned by the revelation that he’d wanted me to make it into the EHJ. The Reincarnist had told Doctor Rath to accept me? Why? And then why had he been so derisive about my powers? And asked me my name? He had to believe I was intelligent and capable if he had recommended me in the first place. “So you do know everything there is to know about me.”

  “Not everything.” He put his folded napkin down next to his plate and pushed back his chair. “We should get ready to patrol. You can assist me in setting up the detection spell.”

  I retrieved my own napkin from my lap and stood up. “Sounds great. I’ve never actually seen anyone use magic before.” I followed him out of the cavernous dining room into the hall and up the stairs toward our suites.

  “Yes, they do tend to segregate the magic students at the School, do they not?” He moved at a brisk pace. “Just do what I ask, and you shall be fine. I will wait for you to change.”

  Leaving him in the hallway, I went into my suite and dressed in a hurry. My black leather costume and thicksoled boots were with the rest of my clothes. Pulling them on, I slicked my hair back into a tight ponytail and bounded back down the stairs to the foyer.

  “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s patrol,” I said when I found him downstairs. Damn, and I’d dressed fast too.

  Elliot slid a vial into his jacket pocket. “Excellent. We can…” He trailed off, seeing me. “Why are you wearing that?”

  God, did he think he was a fashion critic? “I thought we were going patrolling. It’s my costume.”

  He shook his head. “Just as I do not use aliases, I do not use costumes. Neither will you in my company.” He motioned to his outfit: a simple dark suit, long trench coat, and a fedora. “We try to blend in with the crowd as much as we can. All the better to sneak up on a villain.”

  “How do you keep villains from finding out who you are? No wonder this place is so heavily guarded!”

  “Confusion spells. This hat.” He smiled. Was he teasing me? “And how exactly does tight, black, leather clothing and no mask protect your secret identity?”

  Okay, so he had a point. “I have no one to protect. They find out my secret identity, the only person they’re going to hurt is me. But I’m not as high-profile as you. I don’t have any arch nemeses.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. “The language we speak is so over-the-top, do you not think? Archnemeses, secret identities, villains, super-aliases…”

  I shrugged. “Our lives are over-the-top. We’re heroes. It’s what we do. I can bench-press an elephant and you live forever and cast spells. That’s over-the-top.”

  “Do you at least have a jacket to wear over that?”

  “Got just the thing. Won’t be but a minute.” I turned and flew back up the stairs, literally, to return only moments later in a lightweight black coat that was fitted to my waist and then flared out.

  “Oh, that is so much better. That certainly blends in.”

  “Sarcasm is no one’s friend,” I retorted. “I’ll wear civvie clothes next time. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We walked outside into the chill night air.

  “Which one of your cool cars are we taking?” I surveyed the line of vehicles.

  My comment got a genuine smile out of him. “You think my cars are cool?”

  “What are you, modest? You know they’re cool. You’ve got a 1957 Corvette Roadster, for God’s sake.”

  I could tell that I was winning him over. “A woman that knows her cars. I am impressed. Most women would call it ‘that cute little red car.’ ”

  “Please, give me some credit. Besides, I’m a sucker for anything retro.”

  He gave me a quick look. “Really? Anything?”

  Surely he didn’t mean that the way I thought he did. In either case, I pretended I didn’t have a clue to any hidden meanings. “Clothes, music, cars—I like anything vintage. Of course, you probably bought this when it was brand new.”

  “No, not that one. I bought it a few years ago from a collector. The 1952 Hudson I bought new.”

  “You have a Hudson? Where?” I looked around.

  “It is in the garage. I will take you to see it when we get back. But first, we have work to do.”

  “So, which car are we taking?”

  “I do not like to drive any of my cars down to where we are going. I would worry about it being boosted.”

  Somehow, the word boosted mixed in amongst his proper speech threw me. “So, what, you have a junker you drive to patrol?”

  “Not exactly.” He reached out and took hold of my arm. He pulled a vial from his coat pocket, poured out a handful, and threw the contents into the air. “Apra il portal.”

  “Italian?” was all I was able to get out before a thunderclap filled my ears and I was hit with the sensation of being turned inside out while hanging upside down. If not for Elliot holding on to me, I would have fallen. As it was, I steadied myself on his arm, bent over in severe pain and nausea, and tried not to throw up.

  “Wh-what was that?” I managed.

  “Teleportation spell. I should have warned you it was going to be unpleasant,” he said as I breathed in and out slowly, the rancid air not helping matters.

  “The dentist is unpleasant. This is worse. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “The dentist?”

  I shot him an annoyed look and tried to straighten slowly. My head swam again, and this time I did fall to my knees, feeling my stomach revolt. I will not throw up, I told myself.

  “I am accustomed to inter-dimensional travel,” he said. “You will become so as well. The first couple of times are always the worst. Do you want me to perform a healing spell?”

  “No more spells,” I gasped. “I’ll be alright. Just give me a few minutes.” I looked around from my position on all fours on the concrete. “Where are we?”

  “In the old industrial district. The dirt scraped from the missing child’s shoe was matched to here. There used to be a coffee plant over there.” He pointed to somewhere I couldn’t see. “The members of the Elite Hands of Justice are all occupied at the moment, and this is in my jurisdiction, so I told Ben we would do a quick search for the child.”

  “How long has the kid been missing?” I found that I was now able to sit up. Progress!

  “Two days. The police have not been able to turn up anything yet. She was abducted during the day, in front of a lot of witnesses, at the park on Seventh. Her moth
er was watching her, but she had a baby with her as well. The baby cried, the mother went to pick it up, she looked around, and her six-year-old was gone. Witnesses said they saw a strange man looking at the girl minutes before she disappeared. One of the shoes she was wearing at the park turned up on the front step of her house that evening, as if from nowhere. No fingerprints were on the shoe.”

  I got to my feet, watching as he pulled another vial out of his coat pocket and began to shake what looked like salt around him in a circle. “How do they know the kidnapper took her here?”

  “Why else would she be here? Her mother lives on the other side of town. No reason for a child to be down here.” He took out another vial. “Can you stand back, please?”

  I did so. “But why would the kidnapper send her shoe back?”

  “To taunt the police.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and spread his arms out wide. “I am going to cast a detection spell to see if I can find the girl.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He opened his eyes. “Stand there and be quiet. If the spell pinpoints one particular building, I will have you do a flyby, then we will go inside. If the spell centers around several buildings, we will have a large area to search.” Closing his eyes again, he spoke. “Trovi il innocent.” He poured the contents of a vial on the ground in another circle around him, then made one large puddle in the center that he then stood on.

  “Is that blood?” I squeaked.

  He ignored me and continued. “Lustro d innocence.”

  I jumped as my skin suddenly felt warm, like the sun was shining on me even though it was night. I looked down at my arm and realized I was glowing. “What is going on?”

  He glanced over and his eyes widened. “At least I know now you are not corrupt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My spell casts light on those in the area that are an innocent.”

  “But I’m not a…I mean, I’ve…”

  He rolled his eyes. “The spell speaks of your soul, not your virginity or lack thereof.”

  I blushed furiously at his matter-of-fact tone. Good to know my heart was pure, but did I have to go and blab that my body wasn’t?

  “Now, go fly around the buildings and see if you can see any light.”

  “But what if she’s not by a window?”

  “I will keep working the spell. As long as I am in the circle, it will continue to get brighter. If she is in a building, it should give the building a slight glow. Circle around a couple of times and then come back and tell me if you saw anything. It takes a lot of energy to run this spell.”

  “What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be a big bright glowing thing in the sky. Won’t that kind of warn the bad guy that we’re coming?”

  He smiled. “Good thinking, Miss Livingston. I will have to filter you out of the spell.” He reached forward, plucked a hair from my head, and dropped it in the center of the puddle. He reached back into his coat, pulled out another vial full of powder, and with a few soft words in Italian, I felt the warmth fade from me.

  “There we are. Remember, circle a few times, and if you do not see any glow, come back here.”

  “Got it.” I took off into the air.

  After circling a few times, my eye caught on one of the buildings. There was something faint, almost like steam, rising up from it. I landed easily on the roof. It wasn’t steam, it was light; the same that had radiated off of me.

  A thought dawned on me as I stood there. The Reincarnist had said the spell worked on those whose souls were innocent.

  He hadn’t been glowing.

  I didn’t have time to mull that over, because the light below me went out. I looked back in the direction from which I had come. Had Elliot quit the spell?

  Oh, God. What if the girl had just died? Or had she somehow been corrupted? I hurried to the door on the roof, broke the lock, and headed inside. Something had gone wrong.

  The building was dilapidated. It looked like junkies and squatters had taken up residence at one point—dirty needles and stained mattresses lined the floors. But there was no sign of anyone, innocent little girl or no.

  I deliberately hovered over the floor, so my footsteps would not sound my presence. Most of the doors had been ripped off, which saved me from having to open one blindly. But at the end of the hall was a closed door, and a dying glow was coming from it.

  I hurried forward, sailing past the other doorways, ignoring them for the one obvious one.

  “What’s your hurry, do-gooder?” a voice growled from behind me, and I was yanked backward by an unseen force.

  I was slammed through the wall, plaster and wood breaking around me. A man stood in the hallway, staring into the room through the hole my body had made. A red ball of energy crackled in his hand.

  “That sweet little thing sure did taste good,” he said, the light from the ball giving his features a red glow as he stepped into the room with me.

  I jumped up and he made a motion with his hand, stopping me in my tracks, hovering in the air. I tried to move but couldn’t. It was as if my muscles had forgotten how to work.

  “Stay still,” he said. As he neared, I could see black tattoos covering his pasty white skin, all some sort of arcane symbols the Reincarnist would probably recognize. His lank black hair fell into eyes that were also black—and not just his pupils; the corneas were black as well. I shivered in revulsion.

  He studied me like a kid ready to pull the wings off an insect. “You’re not the magic-user.” He made a motion and my body went flying to him, stopping only inches away. Up close, he smelled of decay and sulfur. He sniffed me, and I almost threw up. He smiled at my revulsion and ran a finger across my cheek, trailing down my arm to my breast.

  “You smell sweet, too,” he said, sharp teeth like knives showing in a hateful smile. “You wouldn’t believe how many do-gooders actually have no good inside them.” He gave my breast a hard squeeze, and then slid his hand so that his palm was right over my heart. “That little thing was just a snack.” His hand glowed red again. “You will be the main course.”

  A searing pain worse than anything I had ever experienced tore through my chest and in deeper. I heard someone screaming, a gut-wrenching sound that seemed to go on forever. My mind could barely comprehend that it was me.

  Then what looked like a glowing white thunderbolt blasted the villain in the throat. He gasped airlessly, head snapping forward, and he lost his hold on me. I collapsed bonelessly to the floor, my whole body tingling as if I had been electrocuted. Clutching at his throat, my assailant glared hatefully at the man in the doorway behind him.

  The Reincarnist.

  As I tried to drag my injured self out of the way, I heard Elliot’s commanding voice. “Syn, you have stolen from your last soul. Come without a fight, and I will not ruin you.”

  Syn still couldn’t speak, but his bottomless black eyes conveyed his intentions even as he made a quick but intricate gesture and a black splatter of light shot from his outstretched fingers and into Elliot. I had a feeling it was not only an attack, but something obscene—like the magical equivalent of giving someone the finger.

  Elliot grunted as the sizzling blast hit him straight in the chest, but he didn’t take a step back, nor did he betray any of the pain I could tell he was feeling from his slightly widened eyes. But then his dark eyes darkened further, with an odd magical glow that elicited a whimper out of me as I scurried to get out of the way. There was something dark and scary lurking under my partner’s calm demeanor that I had a feeling, if ever released, would be ten times scarier than the villain in front of me.

  His tone of voice only furthered that conviction. “Fine,” he said. He stretched out a hand in Syn’s direction and growled two words, “Legatura magica.”

  The instant the words left his mouth, Syn collapsed onto the floor next to me, convulsing. Elliot himself slunk back to lean against the wall, breathing heavily and looki
ng pale beneath his 1920s detective hat.

  I staggered to my feet and over to him. “Wh-what did you do to him?”

  “I bound his magic according to our old laws. He will not be able to access his abilities anymore.”

  “You can do that?” I was impressed. It had seemed so easy!

  He nodded. “I am one of the few who can. It takes a lot of will to do such a spell, especially after the power drain he hit me with.”

  Oh. So maybe it hadn’t been that easy. Now I was concerned for him. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

  He gave me a reassuring smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I will just need to rest for a few days.” All I had to do was look at his pale face and the pain he was masking, and knew he was lying. But I knew how much male heroes wanted to look invincible, even when they weren’t, so I said nothing.

  He straightened and ran both hands down either side of my body, but not touching me, almost like he was feeling up my aura. A warm quiver of desire shot straight through me. “He did not get much.”

  “Much of what?” I half-whispered.

  “Your soul.”

  That shot me back to reality. “What?”

  “He uses magic to steal your essence and feast on it. It gives him power. He escaped to the Higher Planes once before, but not this time.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “He may be powerful, but he is still only a child. I have been doing magic since before this country was founded.”

  “We need to try to find the girl. There was a light at the end of the hallway, but it was very faint.” I started toward the hall.

  “Do not bother,” he said. I turned back, and saw the dark look flitting in his eyes. “You do not want to see what is in that room.”

  I froze. “Oh, God. Why not?”

  “She is dead. I saw you land on the roof and followed you here when you did not return. I thought you could handle him long enough that I could get her out, so I went in.” He cleared his throat. “I found her body.”

  My stomach rolled, but I tried to stay professional. “I’ve seen dead bodies before.” A sad but true fact in this business.

  “A child?”