Villainous (25 page)

Standing tall, he stepped away from his hiding place on the stairs just as the rubber sole of his sneaker squeaked against the concrete floor.

Real heroic entrance
, thought Daniel.
Might as well be wearing clown shoes
.

Herman spun around in his chair, and for an instant,
the look of complete shock on the bodyguards’ faces was enough for Daniel.

But Herman, at least, quickly recovered, even as his two thugs stood there with their mouths hanging open.

“I really should have known,” said Herman, grinning. “Well, don’t just stand there in the shadows, my boy. Come out into the light, and let’s finish this chess match once and for all.”

When the two bodyguards did finally come to their senses, they grabbed Daniel roughly by the arms and hauled him forward.

“No need for that, gentlemen,” said Herman. “Really, two of you to hold a scrawny kid?”

Lawrence, in particular, seemed reluctant to let Daniel go, and he added a little shove as he did it.

“So you followed Lawrence, did you?” asked Herman.

“No way,” said Lawrence. “I would’ve seen him!”

“Lawrence,” said Herman. “This will go easier if you keep your voice down and don’t interrupt me.”

“No money is worth this,” Lawrence mumbled, scowling at both of them.

“Yes, I followed your man,” said Daniel, “but I should’ve known to look for you here.”

“Is that so?” asked Herman.

“I’m guessing we are directly under the school, right? You built a tunnel from your old cave to your new hideout—the academy itself.”

“Bravo.”

Daniel tried glancing around the bunker without
looking
like he was glancing around the bunker. If they were underneath the academy, then the door must lead up. Herman probably had some kind of hidden passage into the school. If Daniel could reach that door, he was fairly sure he was quick enough to outpace Herman’s bodyguards. They looked tough, but not particularly nimble.

First, Daniel wanted to know what Herman was doing here. To accomplish that, he’d have to play Herman’s game. The old villain loved matching wits with Daniel, testing him to see how much of his plans Daniel had already figured out. If Daniel played along, he might just find the opportunity to make for the door.

“Your new hideout is a lot more high-tech,” said Daniel.

Herman shrugged. “One changes with the times.”

Daniel made as if he were admiring the place, but as he wandered, he kept his eye on the door. Meanwhile, he felt the bodyguards’ eyes on him.

“I know you control Plunkett Industries again,” said Daniel.

“That’s easy,” said Herman. “I figured my nephew couldn’t keep it a secret forever.”

“And I know you designed the academy.”

“Which makes sense once you learned that I paid for it. Go on.”

“I guess this little room of yours isn’t on the official blueprints, though.”

“Special job,” said Herman, nodding. “Private contractor and strictly off the books, you see.”

“I also know you’ve been waging a public opinion war against the Supers. I know you used Drake and his Nobles to turn the town against them.”

Herman nodded. “Finally. There’s a bit of real detective work.”

“They’re not being mind-controlled or anything like that, so what did you offer them?” asked Daniel.

Herman shrugged. “Mostly money. Same as Lawrence and Hector here. Poor Skye’s TV show isn’t doing so well in the ratings. Drake and Hunter want to get rich without having to work for it. And Mutt, well, he just wants an excuse to tear things up.”

“But Clay’s never been in on it,” said Daniel. “Because there is no way he would join them if he knew
you
were their benefactor. He remembers what you were.”

“Clay was a nuisance, that’s all,” said Herman. “But this is very good so far. Keep going! I love it!”

“I’m guessing you put the mayor up to that little show out there,” said Daniel. “It was easy for him to act after the mansion fire.”

Herman chuckled. “Quite a good performance I gave, don’t you think?
Please, someone save my family!
”

“But you would’ve let them burn,” said Daniel. “Your own flesh and blood.”

Herman leaned forward in his chair. Daniel searched those glassy eyes for any trace of humanity, of remorse. He didn’t find either.

“I had a pretty good idea one of the town Boy Scouts would fly in and save the day. Lucky me, I got both of them.”

“But you couldn’t be sure,” said Daniel. “You were still putting your family’s lives at risk.”

“I am willing to make sacrifices for the greater good!” Herman said. “Something you were never able to do.”

Herman’s words trailed off into a fit of ragged coughing, and he clutched at his chest until it had passed.

“I hate being old,” he said after the coughing jag finally stopped.

“I figured out something else,” said Daniel.

“Oh?”

“I figured out that the Witch Fire Comet is coming back tonight.”

“So you read the papers. Big deal.”

“And I know it’s going to hit the academy.”

Herman stared at Daniel, his eyes glinting. He reached
over and punched a few buttons on the console keyboard, changing the display on one of the monitors from a view of the academy gate to an image of a glowing green ball of ice and dust hurtling past a field of stars. It looked like a giant fireball, but that was impossible—fires don’t burn in space.

“This is a live feed coming from the observatory telescope,” said Herman. “I own that too.”

“So you’ve built this place to prepare for it. The academy is ground zero, and you’ll be safe down here in your bunker.” As Daniel gestured to the computer screen, he positioned himself just a few feet closer to the door.

“Of course.”

“And the spire. It’s a lightning rod. You think it’s going to attract the meteor? That’s insane, Herman.”

With obvious difficulty, Herman stood. “Don’t believe it, eh? Well, let me help you. I spent decades studying a fragment of that comet. I even wore it around my neck for over seventy-five years. You could say the Witch Fire Comet and I have become intimately related.”

Herman began to unbutton his high-necked jacket. Then he opened his shirt down to his stomach, and where Daniel had expected to see the sallow chest of a man near a hundred years old, he saw instead cracked and blackened skin. The wound was centered over his breastbone, and spread up his neck and down his chest. It didn’t even look like flesh anymore; it was hard and scabbed. It looked more like rock.

Daniel couldn’t hide his gasp of surprise and revulsion. Even Lawrence looked away.

“What’s happened to you?” asked Daniel.

“Wearing the meteorite stone next to my skin for all those years exacted its price, it would seem. This”—he pointed to his ruined body—“began as soon as you crushed my pendant. At the rate it’s spreading, I imagine I’ll be dead in a few months.”

He buttoned his shirt back up. “Like is attracted to like,” he said, closing his eyes. “I can feel it, you know. Getting closer. It is coming for me. The spire won’t attract the comet—
I will!
”

His eyes popped open. “And this time I’ll be ready! There’s a reason the comet keeps returning, why the meteorites keep falling here on Mount Noble. This spot has long been associated with anomalies after all—with so many unusual atmospheric conditions, the cell phone interference.… Heh, I guess flying children could be called anomalies, couldn’t they?”

Then he doubled over in another spasm of coughing. Lawrence gave Herman his arm to lean on while Hector dug into his pockets for a handkerchief for his boss to spit out whatever it was that was choking him.

Daniel could run for it now. Nobody’s attention was on him. Daniel could bolt for the door, and assuming it wasn’t locked, be through it before they’d taken barely a step.

He could run now. He
should
run now. But he just had to
know. “What is it, Herman?” asked Daniel, remaining where he was.

The old man wiped the spittle—tar-black—from his chin with Hector’s handkerchief and smiled at Daniel. His teeth were gray. “You’d like to know, at last, eh?”

Lawrence helped Herman into his seat and took a place behind his chair. Hector resumed his post a few feet to the side. The door out had never looked so far away.

“What is the Witch Fire Comet?” asked Daniel.

“There are those who would say it’s a gift,” said Herman. “After all, look at the wondrous powers it bestows. We know it’s extraterrestrial, but I believe that it is not just a hunk of space rock. It’s an alien intelligence.”

“It’s intelligent?” repeated Daniel.

“Why not?” said Herman. “Space is vast and the idea that alien life-forms will look like little green versions of us is the stuff of fiction.”

“Then why is it here? Why does it keep coming back and giving these powers? Why doesn’t it try to communicate?”

Herman took a deep, rattling breath. With gritted teeth, he resisted another coughing fit, then spoke. “I said some would consider the powers gifts, but not all gifts are given freely, or with the best of intentions.”

“What do you mean?”

“White men once gave gifts to the Native Americans in this area. Gifts of blankets, infected with smallpox. Because
the natives had never been exposed to the disease, they had no immunity to it. They died.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“I used to think the powers were a test,” interrupted Herman, “to see if we were worthy. I thought that the comet was waiting for us to do something with those powers. Something wonderful.

“But now I know better. The power of the Witch Fire Comet is a smallpox blanket. We have no experience with it. No immunity to its corrupting effects. Give us mere mortals the abilities of the gods and watch us tear ourselves apart.”

As Daniel listened to the old man talk, he couldn’t help but picture the night sky, the vastness of space above and the greenish light in the distance growing closer. Daniel had always assumed the comet was a natural phenomenon, a source of extraterrestrial energy that by pure chance had changed first a sleepy little Pennsylvania town, then the world.

But if it wasn’t, and if Herman was right, then Daniel felt a new fear creeping up inside his gut that he’d never experienced before. It was a fear of that night sky, of the unknown. Daniel felt suddenly very small.

“So, even if you’re right,” said Daniel, “even if that comet isn’t a comet, why are you doing all this? If another meteor falls, it will kill everyone up there! Are you just here to enjoy the show?”

Herman leaned back in his chair, his eyes mere slits.
“Hector, Lawrence, why don’t you give us the room for a minute?”

Lawrence did an actual double take. “You sure? You want us to leave you alone with him?”

“Daniel Corrigan is not likely to murder me,” said Herman. “Wait outside.”

The two bodyguards exchanged looks, then stepped through the door, which Daniel was happy to see was not locked. The only problem now was that about four hundred pounds of thuggish muscle was standing on the other side of it. He could always make a run back toward the tunnel, but that would just put him farther away from the one place he was trying to get to—the academy right above his head. Still, if it was his only way out …

“Not thinking of leaving that way, are you?” said Herman as if reading Daniel’s mind. The old man typed in a code on the control panel, and Daniel felt a sudden pressure change in his ears as a door somewhere in the tunnel sealed shut.

“You’ll be going home soon enough,” said Herman. “Don’t worry.”

“You expect me to believe that you are just going to send me home?” asked Daniel.

“Yes,” said Herman. “Lawrence was only supposed to detain you. Since he botched even that, I’m sure the authorities will be out looking for you before long. By morning you’ll be home. You have my word.”

“Like that means anything,” said Daniel. “Why go
through all this trouble and then just let me go? Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell everyone what you’re doing here? Even if you get away with it, I’ll still know the truth!”

“Come morning it won’t matter what you know, or who you tell,” said Herman. “Haven’t you solved the last mystery, Daniel? Haven’t you figured out why I’m here?”

“You’re crazy and you want to see Johnny and the Supers destroyed.”

“Johnny? Johnny?” The old man practically spat out the name. “He could have done anything. No one can hurt him, no one can stop him. The world would have had no choice but to do what he said. Instead, he walked away. He was a coward. I am not.

“When I was a little boy, I stood by as the Witch Fire Comet turned an orphanage of children and one ignorant trapper into gods. I missed my chance because I was hiding in the outhouse, crying with fear! Well, tonight I fix that mistake.

“One touch of the Witch Fire and you can become powerful. A second touch takes it all away. Tonight the Witch Fire will strike the academy and make Johnny and all the rest of your Supers mortal again. As powerless as yourself. But I … At last I will be what I was always meant to be.”

“But the fire,” said Daniel. “The destruction. People will die up there!”

“Regrettable. But things cannot go on this way. You’ve seen what’s happening to this town already—people are afraid and these Supers are out of control.”

“Only because of you!” said Daniel. “Those Nobles are your creation.”

“I merely poured accelerant on the flames,” said Herman. “This world doesn’t need a town full of super-kids—it needs a hero. One hero, to change the world. To mold it in his image.”

Herman pointed at the monitor that showed the bright green comet tumbling through space. It was so large now that it filled the screen.

“Let that be a message for them,” Herman said. “Someone will defend this world. Someone has been all along.”

Daniel laughed. A deep belly laugh. He couldn’t help it, even though he knew that it was absolutely the wrong time. It was like getting the giggles at a funeral. Sometimes something, no matter how depressing, just makes you laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Herman, plainly annoyed. Laughter was not the reaction he’d been looking for from his victory speech.