Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (34 page)

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Authors: S. James Nelson

BOOK: Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1)

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“Come see it,” Dad said.

He turned, motioning for me to follow. I did, Marti on one side, and Mom on the other as she linked her arm in mine, and even leaned her head into my shoulder. I couldn’t remember her doing that. Not in recent years. Back during my cancer, she’d doted on me. She’d hugged me often and kissed my cheeks. Granted, I was younger, then. But since I became a rock star she’d become so much more stern and distant.

The reason why had become obvious in the past night.

And I owed her an apology.

I stopped. She and Marti took another few steps, and halted, but not before Mom’s arm came un-linked.

“Mom?”

She tilted her head at me. “Yes?”

“Things changed with us when I became a rock star. Between you and me.”

She looked at me for several seconds, and shrugged. “I guess they did.”

“You wanted to protect me.”

“Of course I did. You see—”

“I see why, now. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

She shook her head and gestured to the west, toward the nuclear bomb. “Richie, I wasn’t protecting you from this.”

Marti grunted. “You didn’t know that once he got involved, nukes would start going off?”

Mom stepped back to me. She reached out and held my arms above the elbows.

“You were thrusting yourself into a grown-up world, and you were just a kid. You still are just a kid. I knew that the second you started doing adult things and being involved in adult things, you wouldn’t be a kid, anymore. I would sill prefer it if you hadn’t started doing these grown-up things.”

Marti said, “Like setting nukes off.”

Mom raised her eyebrows. “Among other things.”

Words faltered on my tongue. I hadn’t expected that from her, even if—as I considered it—I realized that she’d said things like that before. Especially about girls. I don’t know that I’d really understood it.

“I didn’t set the nuke off,” I said. “It was Nick. Although, it would be really awesome if I
had
set the bomb off. How many people can say that they’ve detonated an atomic bomb?”

Mom shrugged. “I guess I failed. I guess it’s inevitable that you grow up.”

Behind her, Dad harrumphed. “Very touching. Now can we tell him everything?”

Mom looked at him, her face resigned. She let out a sigh.

“I guess so. But not here. Not now. Let’s get to safety, first.”

I liked that idea, so started walking around the balcony, again. Mom re-linked her arm in mine, and I pulled her close. Marti still gripped my hand. A few more steps around the tower, and I had to squint to look down at the brink—or rather, at the foot-high stone urn that contained the brink. It had a marble texture to it, and the light from the brink shone through it, so it looked like a miniature sun.

“What awesome stuff are we going to do with it?” I asked. “Maybe achieve world peace?”

Dad stepped over to the urn and picked it up. “We should probably use some of it to pay back Intersoc. I think a little of this would start the process of healing the rift you’ve created with them.”

I grimaced, not liking the thought of giving them my hard-won, most-powerful-in-the-history-of-the-world brink.

“You’re the king of Intersoc?” I said.

He gave me a mysterious smile. “More or less.”

“That’s a lame response.”

Mom still had one arm linked in mine, but placed her free fist on her hip. “Quite a bit more than less.”

He gave me a weak smile. “I’ll tell you more when we’re safe.”

My initial inclination was to argue, but I gritted my teeth and smiled, trying to apply my newfound trust of them. I had a feeling it was going to be hard for a while yet.

He held the urn out to me. I hesitated for a moment, expecting the stone to be hot to the touch. But Dad pushed it toward me, and I took it. It was heavy and warm.

“So,” Marti said, “you sent Nick to Intersoc? Nice work.”

“How did you know?” I said.

Dad grinned. “Just as we were flying past you, the Council contacted me and said they had him and were ready to put him on trial. I told them to go ahead.”

Mom chuckled and grinned. “It’s about time he comes to justice.”

“Why the hate?” I said. I mean, I got it, but wanted some details.

Mom just pursed her lips and shook her head.

“Your mother is banished from Intersoc,” Dad said. “Because of Nick.”

She grunted. “You’re not the first one he’s tricked.”

“I bet,” I said, “I’ll have to wait until we get to safety for the full story.”

Mom nodded.

“And you guys—how did you survive the nuclear bomb? Congratulations, by the way. Not many people can say they’ve survived the hypocenter of a nuke.”

“Marti saved us,” Mom said. “No doubt about it. She did an outstanding job on the barrier spell. It saved us from the radiation, heat, wind, and the force of the explosion.”

Marti beamed. “I’m just that good. But it did help that Nick had some kind of spell around the bomb, the emotion, and the multiplier. We’ve never seen the spell, and don’t know exactly what it did.”

“And the soldiers?” I asked.

“They seemed fine,” Dad said.

“Physically,” Marti said. “Mentally, they looked pretty shaken. But who can blame them?”

“I’m a little shaken, myself,” I said. “And you flew out with wind sprites?”

Dad nodded. “It took a little bit for our paralysis spells to wear off, but once Marti saw we would be fine from the blast, she extended the barrier out little by little, toward the brink. She had to make sure we didn’t go outside the barrier, or the firestorm would cook her.”

“There was a firestorm?”

Marti nodded. “If there’s one thing you never want to do, it’s be caught in the middle of a nuclear explosion. I know that seems obvious and all, but I just wanted to warn you. You know, just in case.”

A thought occurred to me. “Will SOaP want the brink?”

“Of course,” Dad said. “Agent Maynerd will try to get it from us, but we didn’t come here on assignment from him. He has no right to the brink.”

“Where on earth can we keep it?” I asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” Dad said. He lifted an arm, reached under, and pulled a vial off from a string. He unscrewed the lid, poured some brink into his hand, and put the lid back on. A few paces away, he began to draw a zip-door. “We should get going. It’s too dangerous here. The government is bound to show up.”

“And if not them,” Mom said, “the Sunbeams. Surely they’ve got word of this, by now.”

“Who
are
the Sunbeams?” I asked. “Or don’t I have clearance for that information?”

“Nick is a Sunbeam,” Dad said. He started to draw a zip-door. “Or was.”

“The Solar Flare?” I said.

“Yes,” Marti said.

“No,” Dad said.

They frowned at each other, and after a moment Dad shrugged.

“We used to think he was,” Dad said. “Until just a few hours ago.”

“He is,” Marti said.

“We don’t think so, anymore,” Mom said. “We’re starting to think he’s more like the personal assistant to the Solar Flare. Small potatoes compared to the Solar Flare.”

Marti rolled her eyes. “Then who do you think the Solar Flare is?”

“We’re not sure,” Dad said.

Finished drawing the zip-door, he turned to me and tapped the urn. “In fact, when you ask what we’re going to do with this, I highly recommend that we use it to take him down.”

I smiled. “I’m perfectly willing. But someone is going to have to teach me how to use some magic.”

Dad pulled out his lighter and touched it to the emblem. The flames lit, and the white doorway appeared.

“Very well,” he said, reaching his hand out to Mom, “let’s get on that. There’s no time like the present.”

Mom took his hand, and reached out to me. “Except,” she said, “that it’s way past Richie’s bedtime.”

I took her hand and nodded. “It’s practically child abuse that you haven’t tucked me in yet.”

Marti hadn’t let go of my hand, and so we were ready to go.

Dad led us through the door to his apartment in Washington D.C.

Not long after, the Solar Flare attacked.

THE END

Find out who the Solar Flare is, what plans he has for Richie, and how Richie copes with it all in Book 2 of the Van Bender Archives:
Van Bender and the Incendiary Blade
, available now.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Security up the ying yang

Chapter 2: The Inner Sanctum

Chapter 3: The ploy

Chapter 4: The coolest guy I’d ever met

Chapter 5: I didn’t learn this in science class

Chapter 6: Safe from what?

Chapter 7: The power of a crowd

Chapter 8: I have to go number two