Super (17 page)

Georgie woke up several times that night with nightmares, but his mother always rocked him back to sleep with
a lullaby. Little Georgie was a true child of Noble’s Green now—his dreams were haunted by real-life monsters.

Daniel’s father wanted to call Sheriff Simmons and complain about the local “bullies,” but Daniel was able to talk him out of it. Next year, his father promised, they wouldn’t be allowed to go out on Halloween night alone. Dad would keep the bad kids away. He would keep them all safe.

Safe. Daniel had seen four Shades tonight. No one was safe anymore.

Like Georgie, Daniel was scared to close his eyes. He was afraid of what he might see. But in time exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a deep, and thankfully dreamless, sleep.

Early the next morning his friends showed up at his door, looking only slightly better than they had the night before. They managed a bit of small talk before retreating to Daniel’s room to talk in private.

“I touched Rose last night when she hugged me,” said Daniel. “And then she couldn’t turn invisible.”

“And I put my hand on your chest when I spotted the Shrouds,” said Eric. “But we’ve tried out touch before and it didn’t work.…”

“It must not be all the time,” said Daniel. “But until I figure out the trigger, we’d better have a hands-off policy whenever I’m around.”

Rohan and Mollie weren’t saying much of anything. And Daniel noticed they kept their distance as well. Probably smart.

“Well, I’m back to normal this morning,” said Eric. “So part of our theory is true—you don’t steal powers, you borrow them.”

“What about Louisa?” asked Rohan. “Her powers haven’t come back.”

“Do you have them?” asked Eric. “I mean, can you walk through walls and stuff now, Daniel?”

“No,” said Daniel. “I could during the fight with that Shade in Herman Plunkett’s study, but it faded fast.”

Rohan wiped his glasses on his shirt. “So Louisa’s an outlier.”

“A who?” asked Eric.

“An outlier,” said Rohan. “It means she’s something that breaks the statistical trend.”

Daniel walked over to his bookcase and pulled down the copy of
The Final Problem
.

“There’s one last thing,” said Daniel. “Something I never told you. When we fought Herman last year, he gave me something. A ring made of the same meteorite that he used to make his pendant. I haven’t worn it.… I don’t know why I kept it. To make sure it stays safe, I guess. I meant to tell you all, but … I didn’t.

“This black ring,” Daniel said. “I’ve had it hidden here since the night we beat the Shroud.”

They didn’t say anything right away, but they didn’t have to. Daniel could imagine the feelings of shock and betrayal that they must be going through. He’d hidden more than a ring—he’d hidden a piece of the Shroud. It was
a symbol of all the years of terror that they’d lived through, and here it was in Daniel’s safekeeping. Secret. Still, it felt better to say the words, to get it all in the open at last. It had been sitting on his heart like a stone for so long now.

“Have you touched it since you started developing this … power?” Rohan asked.

“No,” said Daniel. “I’m afraid of what would happen. A power thief touching a power-stealing ring.”

“Maybe you’d become superpowerful,” said Eric. “Like a double-negative-makes-a-positive type of thing.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” said Rohan. “It could be bad. Really bad.”

Daniel set the book on his desk and reached for the cover.

“Don’t,” said Mollie. “I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to even look at it.”

“Huh?” asked Daniel.

“Never mind that you two jerks didn’t tell us about these powers, why did you hide this ring, Daniel? Honestly.”

“I don’t know. I thought I was keeping it safe, and keeping you guys safe, but …”

“You kept it around as a weapon in case any of us got out of line, is that it?”

“No!” said Daniel. “Not you guys! But Herman Plunkett said that comet—the Witch Fire Comet that started all this—was coming back. I just … Could you imagine what could happen if there was a whole town of Supers?”

“So you kept it to keep the town safe,” said Mollie. “Just like Herman?”

“No!”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about it now,” she said. “You don’t need the ring—you’re a Shroud already!”

There was a gust of wind and, like that, she was gone. The window was open and the curtains were blowing in the sudden breeze, but there was no Mollie.

“I’ll find her and calm her down,” said Rohan, going to the door. He paused there for a second and looked at Daniel.

“She didn’t mean it, you know,” he said. “But you still should have told us. It was wrong not to.”

Then Rohan jogged down the steps, chasing after Mollie. Once they were alone, Eric let out a long whistle.

“Boy,” he said. “You really screwed up this time.”

“I thought it would be like tearing off a Band-Aid,” Daniel said. “Hurt less if I did it quick.”

“And?”

“That was a heck of a Band-Aid. Still, I’m glad it’s over with.”

Eric nodded. “So lemme get a look at that big bad ring of yours.”

Daniel opened the cover. “Don’t get too close, though. I don’t really know what it can do.…”

Daniel’s words trailed away as Eric looked down at the book and then back up at Daniel.

“This a joke?” asked Eric.

Daniel shook his head as he felt around in the book’s
hidden compartment. In the perfectly hollowed-out,
empty
space. This was no joke. This was a disaster.

The ring was gone.

In the following days Daniel saw Rohan and Mollie only at school, and while they didn’t exactly avoid him, they didn’t really talk to him either. As a rule, the Supers didn’t speak of anything “super” on school grounds. There were too many ears in the hallways, and so it was understood that powers talk was off-limits. But now Daniel was lucky if his friends complained to him about the cafeteria food. No one besides Eric was saying much of anything at all, at least not to him. A chill had descended over their little group of friends, and Daniel was to blame.

Eric broke the news to the others about the missing ring, and of course Theo was immediately his prime suspect. Everything that had happened thus far—Daniel’s powers, the black ring, the Shroud attacks—was just a part of Theo Plunkett’s master plan to replace his uncle. Never mind that Eric couldn’t explain how these things connected, or what Theo would gain out of all of it, or how he’d managed to split himself into four Shrouds, or that there wasn’t a single piece of solid evidence that pointed to Theo other than his name. Eric wasn’t about the details, and he felt it in his gut that Theo was their man.

That was theory number one, and Eric practically shouted it in Daniel’s ear whenever he had the chance. Theory number two, however, Daniel caught only in whispers. It was
spoken of when Rohan and Mollie thought he wasn’t around, and it went like this: What if there never had been a ring? What if Daniel was having some kind of breakdown? Herman’s power had driven the old man at least slightly mad. At the very least he’d been seriously delusional. What toll might all this be having on Daniel?

It was that theory that worried Daniel the most. Even more than the missing ring. The dreams, the sleepwalking. Ever since that morning at Tangle Creek Bridge, Daniel hadn’t felt himself. And it was deeper than just the powers. It was like he’d forgotten something important. He walked around feeling as if he’d tied a string around his finger and couldn’t remember why. There was this itch in the back of his brain.…

This went on for about another week, until one day Daniel, Rohan, and Mollie got off the school bus at their home stop and found Eric waiting there for them. Daniel had spotted him through the window as the bus pulled up. Eric was smiling up at the bus driver and stepped aside as Mollie and Rohan walked right past him, as if he wasn’t even there. Daniel, at least, stopped to say hi.

Eric waved away the exhaust fumes of the departing bus as Rohan and Mollie disappeared down the lane.

“They’re even madder at me than they are at you,” said Eric as he watched them go. “They’re ticked off because I knew and didn’t say anything.”

“That’s silly,” said Daniel. “They’re just scared. Scared that I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re as sane as they come, Daniel.”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Listen to me,” said Eric, stepping in front of Daniel. “Things have gotten all tangled up. These Shades, your powers, the ring disappearing. Someone is messing with us bigtime. Everyone’s scared, and we’ve been knocked back on our butts, but we’ll get up again and figure this all out! There’s a villain out there behind all of this, but he’s not
you
. Got that?”

Daniel nodded, but in his heart he wasn’t sure if he believed it. He had once been too quick to suspect Eric of being a villain, too easily fooled by Herman’s manipulations. But Eric was just as guilty of being too trusting of his friends. Eric’s world was still based on comic-book versions of good and evil, white and black. He left no room for gray.

Daniel watched as Eric dug his hands into his pockets and hugged his arms close against the cold. These November days had turned downright frosty, but Daniel knew from personal experience that Eric didn’t feel the cold, not the way normal people felt it. He was just shivering out of habit, because that’s what everyone else did.

“I’ve been thinking about your powers,” Eric said. “How sometimes they seem to be touch activated but not always. For argument’s sake, let’s say this started back at the bridge. On the day of Theo’s accident.”

“Okay.”

“On that day, when Theo’s car lost control, did we touch?”

“I don’t remember. I might have grabbed you, to get your attention.”

“Good,” said Eric. “I thought so.” Eric was rubbing his hands together as he spoke. He was animated, the way Daniel normally was when confronted with a mystery. But Daniel had lost his zest for puzzle solving.

“Now when we fought Clay and Bud, I know we touched, because I tried to push you out of the way. So I could clobber Clay.”

“Yeah.”

“And on Halloween Rose hugged you, and I held you back from running to help Rohan. Double touch, double powers!”

Daniel thought about it. Eric did have a point. He’d touched all the Supers he’d stolen powers from; even Bud had backed into him before Daniel had turned into a moving stink cloud. Even …

“So that leaves Louisa. Did you guys, you know, touch before she was attacked?”

“Yes,” said Daniel quickly, remembering the kiss. In some ways that had been scarier than all the rest.

“And each time, there was some kind of danger. Something exciting or threatening was going on.”

Daniel thought for a moment. “Maybe.”

“It’s instinct! Fight-or-flight response!” said Eric, clapping his hands. “Look, did I ever tell you how I discovered my powers?”

“No,” said Daniel. “I don’t think so.”

“When I was eight, my mom hooked up with this salesman named Ted. He seemed nice at first, but he had a temper. Bob’s bad, but he’s just a drunk. Ted, it turned out, was a hitter.”

“Wow, Eric. I’m sorry.”

Eric held up his hand. “That’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because I discovered my powers the day I threw Ted through a window.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He was trying to record a big basketball game on our TV and I messed it up by playing with the remote. Mom had run out to get pizzas, and Ted, well, he came at me with a belt. A big metal buckle too. So he swung at me with the belt and I just shoved him away. Didn’t realize what I’d done until the dust had settled and Ted was outside in the driveway with a broken arm and bunch of cracked ribs. I could’ve killed him without even meaning to.”

“But, Eric, he came at you! And you were just acting out of—”

“Instinct?” interrupted Eric.

“I was going to say self-defense.”

“Same thing,” said Eric. “And you’re right—I don’t blame myself for what happened to Ted. But I am careful about how I use my power now. I have to keep a lid on my temper. Ted had it coming, but when a simple shove can put someone in the hospital, you have to watch yourself.

“You’ve been acting out of instinct, Daniel. You can’t tell
someone not to flinch when you clap your hands in front of their face.”

Daniel threw up his arms. “So you see? It’s not something that I can turn on and off!”

“Not yet,” said Eric. “But with practice, maybe you can. Maybe you can learn to control it. To be more careful.”

Daniel wished that was the case. But how could he even begin when he had no idea when it was happening? It wasn’t like he had any warning.

“It just happens,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “Whenever there’s danger, I just do it without thinking.”

“So it’s a response to something physical. Great. That’s something to start with.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about what happens when a person’s in danger,” said Eric. “Our bodies release adrenaline, the heart speeds up. Maybe it’s one of those things that activates your power.”

“So what? The next time there’s danger I should take a nap?”

“Not too far off, maybe,” said Eric. “I think you have to practice not being scared.”

Daniel laughed. Now Eric really was trying to be funny.

“I can’t help it when I get scared! I can’t change it!”

“If I clapped my hand in front of your face enough times, you’d stop flinching. You’d train yourself not to,” said Eric. “Maybe you have to teach yourself not to be afraid. In the meantime, think about your power like this: it works on
touch plus fear. If you’re afraid, make sure you don’t touch anyone.”

Daniel kicked a pebble and watched it roll down the road.

“It’s controllable,” Eric said.

The two of them stepped onto the shoulder as a small caravan of work trucks came barreling by. Dump trucks, flatbeds carrying bulldozers and cranes. As Daniel watched, the pebble he’d kicked was thrown up and battered around by the passing tires. He felt like that pebble now, being tossed about by forces well beyond his control.

“The truth is we don’t have time for this,” said Eric. “I know you’re worried and Mollie and Rohan are scared and angry, but we’ve got problems to deal with. Real problems.”