Super (12 page)

After leaving the mansion, the Supers had regrouped at the tree fort. Louisa’s unexplainable fainting spell gave them a good reason to end the party early and get as far away from that house as possible. Louisa honestly couldn’t tell them much. After Daniel had left the study, she’d waited for a few moments; then as she’d started to leave, a black shadow had
come lunging out of the hallway for her. She remembered being cold, then nothing at all.

Despite everything, first and foremost on Daniel’s mind was what had happened to him during the fight. He thought he finally understood the nature of his new powers, and he didn’t like it. When Clay had attacked him, when Daniel’s life had been in danger, he’d gotten super-strong and had manifested the power of flight. When the Shroud had attacked, he’d gone intangible so that he couldn’t be hurt. Both times he’d been in real danger. Both times he’d been in close contact with a Super. Eric’s super-strength and flight. Louisa’s intangibility.

Daniel was a leech. A parasite. He was the real Shroud.

“So he’s back,” Rohan said at last. “Somehow Herman escaped that collapse, and now he’s back to hunting us.”

Daniel nodded.

“Herman, or something else. It wasn’t the Shroud exactly, but close enough. If it is Herman, then he’s weaker than before. Smaller, more like a ghost.”

“Great,” said Rohan. “We’re being haunted now.”

Rohan was trying to make a joke, but nobody laughed. None of the others said a word. At the very least Daniel had expected Mollie to argue, to tell him he was seeing things and that he should get his eyes checked. Something. But all anyone did was stare at him. They’d gathered around in a semicircle, just like this was any old meeting of the Supers. Surrounding them, all along the walls of the tree fort, were the drawings and posters left by generations of super-kids,
all of whom had lost their powers and their memories to the Shroud. Those pictures—here a faded crayon sketch of a boy flying, there a watercolor painting of a girl all in yellow, shining like the sun—they were the ghosts that haunted this place too. They joined his friends in silent acceptance that the Shroud had returned, like they’d been expecting this all along.

Then it struck him that perhaps they had. They had been expecting this. These kids had been living in fear for so long that they had never really believed it could be over. Deep down, the years of terror wouldn’t let them. Of course the Shroud had returned. Far more unbelievable was the idea that he’d ever left. He was a part of their lives, and even if they wouldn’t admit it, they knew he always would be.

Now all that was left was to figure out what to do next, and for that they were looking to Daniel, the new kid. They were waiting for their orders.

“So first things first,” said Daniel. “We need to find out if this is Herman, and if so, what he wants.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mollie. “You know who he is, and he wants what he’s always wanted—our powers!”

“Yeah, after he attacked Louisa, I think it’s pretty clear,” said Eric.

“I don’t know. What I saw in Herman’s study, guys, it was different. Smaller. More like a Shade of what the Shroud used to be.”

They thought about this. It was a small piece of good news that this thing wasn’t as powerful.

“And why wait until we went into his house?” Daniel continued. “His method in the past was always to come after us when we were asleep, when we were vulnerable. We would’ve made easy targets up to now; why wait?”

“You said he looked weaker,” said Rohan. “Perhaps the collapse at the Old Quarry didn’t kill Herman, but it hurt him so much that he couldn’t come to us. He was waiting for us to come to him. He obviously knew we’d come looking—he said as much in his letter.”

Daniel had told them what they’d found in the safe, about the taunting letter, but he’d left out the part about the ring, and as of yet no one had asked to see the letter for themselves. But it was only a matter of time, and Daniel figured he’d come clean when they did. There would be time for confessions later.

“You’ve got a point, Rohan,” said Daniel. “But I don’t know how Herman could hang around that house and not have Theo discover him. Whatever that thing was, I don’t think it was waiting—I think it followed us there.”

“Maybe Theo’s in on it,” offered Eric. “Maybe he’s a Shroud Junior.”

“He did invite us over there,” said Rohan. “This was all his idea, and he wasn’t with us when the attack happened.”

“Yeah,” agreed Eric. “He conveniently slipped out.”

“But it wasn’t his idea to go snooping around the house alone,” said Mollie.

Everyone in the room looked at Mollie. It was not like her to defend a Plunkett.

“What?” she said. “I’m just saying.”

“And Theo was so concerned,” said Louisa. “I think he really was worried about me.”

“He was totally acting!” said Eric. “That kid’s a super-villain in the making if there ever was one.”

Daniel exchanged a look with Rohan, but his friend just shrugged. The issue of Theo’s loyalty had suddenly, and perhaps predictably, divided along gender lines.

It looked like Daniel would be the deciding vote.

“I’m going to go with innocent until proven guilty on this,” he said. “But I don’t exactly trust him either. I think he’s got some of his uncle’s sneakiness, his paranoia even, but I don’t think he’s in league with him.”

“Whatever,” said Eric.

“If it was Herman, I don’t get why he would wait to come after us when he did,” said Daniel. “Louisa, can you remember anything about the attack? What you were doing when you were in the study alone?”

Louisa shook her head. “Nothing. I was just waiting to return to you guys, like we planned. I might’ve been thumbing through the bookshelf, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“You think Herman was hiding something?” asked Rohan.

“Maybe,” Daniel said. “Or maybe he’s just protecting his turf.”

“He has other turf,” said Mollie. “We can’t forget about the cave.”

Mollie and Daniel had first discovered Plunkett’s Shroud-Cave, his true lair. But that was now buried under tons of limestone rubble. It would be hard getting any clues from there.

“I still say Theo’s in on it,” said Eric. “C’mon! A new Plunkett shows up in Noble’s Green and it’s just coincidence that the Shroud returns around the same time?”

“Didn’t Theo save your life?” asked Louisa.

“Daniel saved my life,” answered Eric.

“All right, that’s enough!” said Daniel. He still didn’t understand what it was that Eric had against Theo. Other than him being a Plunkett, that is. “I’m not ruling him out, but let’s focus on one thing at a time.”

“Sounds fair,” said Mollie. “So what do we do next?”

“I’ll … come up with a plan. At some point we should check out the Old Quarry again, just in case. But we need to do that together. It could be dangerous, and there’s safety in numbers. In the meantime … just give me some time to think it all through. And be careful. Everyone.”

It wasn’t much of a rallying cry, but it was the best Daniel had to offer. If they were looking for inspiration, or courage, he didn’t have any to give. But he was determined that the Shroud wouldn’t get the drop on them again. This time Herman would be the one on the run.

As the meeting broke up, Eric took Daniel by the arm and pulled him off to the side.

“Look,” he said, “I still think you’re being too easy on Theo, but I just wanted to say thanks.”

“For what?”

“For treating this like your problem too,” said Eric. “You could have walked away from all of this, from us, long ago, but you keep sticking it out.”

“Yeah, well …”

“And you said we.”

Daniel looked at him. “I what?”

“In the past, whenever you’ve talked about the Supers, you’ve always referred to us as
you
. Daniel and the Supers were always two different things, and I know it’s because of the powers. But today you said
we
. That’s a big deal.”

Powers
. The one thing Daniel hadn’t told them about. Everyone just assumed that the Shroud had fled when Daniel had arrived, but they didn’t know about how he’d defended himself. They didn’t know what he’d done.

“Look, Eric,” said Daniel, “I need to tell you something. It’s happened again.”

Eric smiled. “The powers? That’s awesome!”

“No!” said Daniel. “It’s not! Listen, I—”

But Daniel didn’t have a chance to finish, because someone was shouting his name. It was Mollie.

“Daniel! Eric! Come quick!”

The two of them turned. Daniel felt Eric tense up, his friend ready for action. Ready for anything.

No one could have been ready for this. Mollie and Rohan were standing with Louisa at the front door. She looked shaken, but there was no Shroud anywhere. No sign of trouble.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked. “Louisa?”

“I … Sometimes I take the shortcut,” she said. “I go through the wall here and it takes me outside. Then I just float down to the ground. I don’t really weigh anything when I’m phasing.…”

“What are you talking about?” asked Eric.

Daniel watched as Louisa put her hand on the wall and pushed. And nothing happened. Nothing at all.

“She can’t phase through,” said Mollie. “She’s powerless.”

D
aniel took the long way home. He rode his bike alone along Route 20, the Old Quarry road, until he could see the lights of houses in the distance; then he turned off and walked the bike along a twisty footpath that would eventually curl its way onto Elm Lane. The Supers usually avoided this route because it passed by the outskirts of the abandoned junkyard that Clay and Bud had claimed as their territory. But tonight Daniel walked the junkyard’s chain-link fence without fear. It was quiet, minus the usual sounds of senseless destruction and Clay’s cursing. The two were not around, not that it mattered. What could the pair of super-bullies do to him now? He’d just steal Clay’s strength, take
away his toughness, and use it against him. What did Daniel have to fear from any Super? He’d just do to them what he’d done to Eric. What he’d done to Louisa.

Daniel squeezed himself through a tear in the chain-link fence and walked through the junkyard until he found the gutted old van that the two bullies used as a hideout. Badly misspelled graffiti covered every inch that wasn’t already rusted out, and the floor was littered with empty potato-chip bags and cigar butts. It looked much the same as the last time Daniel had visited—it was a dank, smelly hole. There was only one new addition. In the corner was a carefully stacked pile of rocks. It looked like an amateur’s collection, limestone mostly. The pieces were different shapes, and of different Shades, but not one of them was anything special. But it was clear that they’d all come from the same place.

The junkyard sat roughly halfway between the town and the tree fort. But if you dared cross it, you could find another footpath that took you farther up the mountain and curled around to the north face and the Old Quarry road. The path cut across Elm at the precise point where Daniel and Eric had discovered Clay and Bud several nights ago. If you were hauling rocks from the quarry to this junkyard, you couldn’t avoid it.

Daniel wasn’t sure when he’d started to cry—he wasn’t even sure what he was crying about. He wasn’t sure if he was feeling sad about Louisa or sorry for himself. He certainly wasn’t crying over this latest discovery. He’d guessed what Clay was up to when they’d met on the road: the two bullies
were looking for a way to take away Eric’s powers. If Clay could, he’d take away all their powers and make himself into the one Super in existence. A super-bully in a world of victims.

Funny. Clay was digging through a mountain of dirt and rubble looking for a power Daniel already had.

Now that Daniel had begun to cry, he couldn’t make himself stop. If he’d been as strong as Clay, he’d have twisted metal. He’d have punched holes in cars. He’d have smashed their useless rocks. But he couldn’t do that. Such things were beyond him, such
strength
was beyond him … that power belonged to someone else, until he took it.

He’d taken Louisa’s powers when she’d needed them the most, and he’d left her at the mercy of that Shade creature.

The mountain overhead had never seemed so ominous as it did this night. Daniel wasn’t super—he was cursed.

As he left the rusted-out hulks of the junkyard behind and started along the wooded footpath away from the town, he pictured a young orphan named Herman Plunkett walking in those same woods, beneath that very same mountain, on an evening so many years ago. Had it begun like this for him? Plunkett was only a boy when he discovered the terrible power of the meteor stone, and his first victim—Daniel’s own grandmother—had been an accident. Did Herman cry too when it happened that first time? Was he filled with regret and shame for what he’d done? And how long did it take before that shame softened into acceptance and, eventually, pleasure? How many children did it take?

He walked his bike along the footpath until he reached Route 20. Then he pedaled away from Noble’s Green, away from the tree fort and his friends. He followed the poorly kept road, broken and gravelly in places, as it curled around the mountain’s deserted north face.

Daniel hadn’t been back to the Old Quarry since the collapse, since their final battle with the Shroud. The limestone quarry had been owned by the Plunkett family, but it had only ever served as cover for Herman’s true purpose: the meticulous excavation of the hidden caves beneath the mountain and Plunkett’s obsessive search for remnants of the Witch Fire meteorite. Daniel supposed that the quarry technically belonged to Theo’s side of the family now, although if Herman was back, that wouldn’t last very long. The Shroud wasn’t one to share.

It looked just like Daniel remembered. The Old Quarry was a creepy place to begin with, hidden away in the constant shadow of the mountain’s north face, but the once-steep walls of the deep ravine had collapsed in their fight with the Shroud, and now the dark caves were buried beneath tons of broken earth and rock. Somewhere underneath all that rubble was Herman’s body, or so they’d thought. No Super was especially anxious to visit the Shroud’s grave.