Super Powereds: Year 2 (47 page)

“There have been some strained holidays.” Hershel said something else, but Vince missed it thanks to a particularly fierce burst of wind. On instinct he turned to look back from where they’d come; Vince’s years wandering had made the ability to retrace steps a survival instinct. What he saw was rows upon rows of distinct houses being drowned out by an ever-thickening shower of white.

Vince squinted his eyes a bit. There was something else there, too, a human figure a block or two back. He couldn’t make out any details, not even a sex, but there was something about the figure that tickled the base of Vince’s brain. He stopped his forward movement and could have sworn the figure stopped walking as well.

“Vince! For the third time, are you okay?”

“Huh?” Vince whipped back around to Hershel, who was looking both concerned and frosty.

“You spaced out on me and kept staring behind us. I thought maybe the cold was getting to you.”

“I thought I saw something.” Vince turned back around, only to find the snow-saturated street was empty save for himself and Hershel. “I guess I was wrong.”

“The light can play some crazy tricks when it bounces off the snow. Let’s hurry and get Mom the flour for the gravy before we really do get lost in this storm,” Hershel said.

“Right.” The two quickened their pace, hurrying toward the store. Several blocks away, two other figures stepped out from the alley beside a house and watched them go. Some moments later there was a bright light that danced across the falling flakes, and then the sidewalk was unoccupied once more.

90.

Nicholas sat at a table on a balcony overlooking the casino; the last vestiges of a superb steak dinner and half a glass of red wine rested in front of him. Normally he would have taken Christmas lunch with Gerry; however, the older man had been swept up in handling a high-roller’s concerns for discretion and security. There wasn’t really anyone else it would be appropriate to mix with; the casino owner’s nephew could be seen buying waitresses drinks and slinking off to their room without issue. Spending a holiday together, that was a level of familiarity that spoke of more closeness than anyone outside of a small circle was privy to.

He heard the chair next to him pull out and the weight settle into it without turning from his view of the slot machines below. There was no need to look: with Gerry occupied, only one other person would have the confidence to sit down at his table unannounced.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Pips.” Nicholas’s eyes still tracked movement on the floor, specifically the movements of a black-haired waitress whose chest was precariously close to spilling out of her blouse.

“Good afternoon yourself, Angel.”

“You know I abhor that nickname.” At last he turned to face her, a slender woman whose face was surprisingly free of her years. She wore a pantsuit and her hair back as usual, and today she had added just a touch of makeup. People often had a fearful image of Ms. Pips based on her reputation; they rarely expected her to look so pleasant or speak so gently. Of course, after meeting her they also didn’t expect her cold-blooded tactics or policies of swift vengeance either, so in a way they were deceived both coming and going.

“Then you shouldn’t go so far out of your way to earn it,” Ms. Pips replied. “It seems the Angel of the Cards dealt Nathaniel quite a trouncing in poker the other night.” A waiter approached their table nervously and set down a glass of white wine. Ms. Pips rarely rested even long enough to sit; when she did there was a standing order for any service staff to have wine in front of her immediately. She nodded her acknowledgement to the waiter, who fled as soon as her piercing eyes were off of him.

“Nathaniel Evers is the same one-trick pony he was four years ago. I’ll admit the glowing orange eyes and creepy demeanor accentuate his power, but I’d hoped by now he would have extended his repertoire a bit.”

“The ability to see people’s fears is still enough to unnerve most players.”

“Please; my fears are the very least of my daily concerns. He’s welcome to them, just so long as I’m welcome to his chips.”

“You took quite a few of them, if reports are accurate.”

Nicholas reached across the table and took a healthy sip of his own wine. “They were.”

“Glad to hear it. Since you performed so well, I went ahead and got you a little Christmas present,” Ms. Pips said, flashing a smile that seemed too small to show so many gleaming teeth.

“Oh?”

“If you take the time to tour the casino today, you’ll find it staffed with every single new female hire I’ve made in the time since you left for school,” Ms. Pips explained.

Nicholas had indeed noticed a few fresh faces treading across the floor below, but he hadn’t yet noted the extensive lack of familiar ones. He cast his eyes back down to the casino and allowed a smile of his own to bloom across his face.

“Now I feel bad. I didn’t get you anything.”

“You crushed and humiliated that Evers boy in front of everyone,” Ms. Pips reminded him.

“Yes, but I took pleasure in that.”

“Not nearly as much as I did.” Ms. Pips finished her glass of wine and rose from the table. “I’ve got to get back to work. Do try to use a little self-restraint today. You’ve still got two weeks here and you can be a bit boorish when you run out of new distractions.”

“I’ll pace myself.”

Ms. Pips left it at that and turned back to her own matters. The boy would do as he wished; that was prerogative of those who served the family well. She was sure he’d go through more than was prudent; he was always so energetic on his first few weeks back home. Truthfully, Ms. Pips was impressed he’d managed to quell his appetite enough to stay in character while off at college. That was her nephew for you; just when you thought you’d found a weak point in his defenses, you discovered he’d refortified it years ago.

* * *

Mary sat in the thick heat of her trailer as a thin dusting of snow fell across her forest. She’d spent some time with her parents, but today the rest of the extended family was over. Though Mary could stop the influx of thoughts now, she hadn’t possessed that talent when she was younger. As a result she’d heard how they felt about her when she was growing up. There was something disconcerting for a child to see a smiling face offering presents and yet to hear them pitying her poor parents for having birthed such a freak. Mary didn’t spend time around them now; she hadn’t since she left home.

She sat in the streaming sunlight of a window with her bear perched on her lap. She’d waffled between reading a book and doing some of the practice techniques Professor Stone had taught her. In the end she’d settled on the book, if for no other reason than she felt the holiday entitled her to at least one day of laziness.

Dimly she was beginning to grow aware that she was a bit bored out here. Before Lander the silence had been paradise, but after a year and a half of living at Melbrook, plus a summer with Alice, Mary suspected she’d grown used to the sound of perpetual chaos. In a small part of her heart this saddened her: quiet had always been her refuge and she loathed to see it lose that quality. Most of her was happy with the discovery, after some time to mull it over. Mary had spent her whole life watching people find happiness by being around one another, a feat she had envied but never been able to replicate. Now, all this time later, she’d gone and gained the ability herself without even noticing it.

If there were any better Christmas present in all the world, Mary couldn’t have told you what it was.

91.

“Uncle!” A dark-haired young sprite of a girl came racing down the driveway, pigtails bouncing behind her with every over-enthusiastic step. Mr. Numbers didn’t even break his pace; he swept the girl into his arms with one fluid motion and gave her a solid squeeze. She hugged him back, gripping his strong neck for all she was worth.

“Hey there, Carmen. How’s my favorite niece doing?”

“I’m your only niece!”

“That’s why you’re my favorite.”

The front door Carmen had burst out of remained open; a woman only a year or two younger than Mr. Numbers stood just inside of it. She smiled as he made his way up the driveway, giving him a much gentler embrace designed to show affection without crushing her daughter.

“Glad you could make it, Luke.”

“Come on, Sara. You know I never miss a Christmas when I can help it.” He set the small girl down with some effort then reached into the small suitcase he’d kept gripped in his free hand. “Now then, can someone tell me where the presents go?”

“You can put them under the tree!” Carmen squealed excitedly. “You can’t miss it, the lights are using a new filament I designed that makes them three times brighter!”

“Three times brighter? That is very impressive.”

“Carmen, before we show your uncle the tree, you need to go wash up. We’re going to have lunch soon.”

“Awwwwwwwww.”

“Don’t ‘aw’ me, young lady. Clean hands at the table,” Sara reiterated.

“Fiiiine,” Carmen yielded. She sprinted up the stairs to her bathroom, where she would be torn between her inclination to dawdle and her desire to see her uncle.

“That will give us a few minutes,” Sara said once the child-shaped cache of energy had left the room. “Let’s get you settled.” The two walked briskly down the hallway, their shared heritage evident in the way they moved and the general shape of their bodies. Sara opened a door on the right of the hall and ushered her slightly-older brother through it. He set his bag on the bed, but only after removing a few crayon drawings that already littered the top of the comforter.

“So, how is she doing?” Mr. Numbers flipped through the papers, admiring his niece’s handiwork. She wasn’t much of an artist, but he did like the sketch of a pony jumping over a differential equation.

“Better,” Sara replied, moving some clothes she’d meant to put away before he arrived. “It’s still hard on her with her father on the road for work so much. I think she’s less lonely since she got into her new courses. Some of the tenured professors there are able to speak on her level, which seems to make her feel a lot more included.”

Mr. Numbers folded the drawing and slid it into the breast pocket of his jacket. “She’s doing better than I did at her age.”

“That’s not a terribly high bar to make it over,” Sara said with a sly look. From anyone else it would have been an insult; from his sister it was endearing sass.

“Granted. Has she had any luck making friends her own age?”

“Not really. She gets along fine when they’re talking about cartoons and games, but sooner or later she’ll reference the gravitational equation during a round of jump rope and then she’s back on the outside.”

“I’ll talk to her. If nothing else I can take her to an ice show or something while I’m here. Carmen deserves to be a kid.”

“She’ll love that.” Sara hesitated a moment, then continued. “You know, Luke, when we were kids I always thought you were full of it every time you talked about how hard it was to be different.”

“You thought I was just being a whiner.”

“I did. I couldn’t fathom how having a brain like yours was anything but a blessing. Now, raising Carmen and seeing her always trying so hard to find a place where she belongs, I get what you meant. I’m sorry I wasn’t a little more understanding back then.”

“Sara, it was absurd for me to expect you to understand. You had no frame of reference, no way to comprehend what I was talking about,” Mr. Numbers reassured her. “I’m just glad Carmen at least has a mother who can make her feel loved and accepted. Hopefully that will keep her from ending up like me.”

“Oh yes, heaven forbid she end up like her uncle, the wildly successful corporate accounts analyst,” Sara said. “Come on, let’s go put your presents under the tree. You and I both know if Carmen so much as hears them slide in the box she’ll deduce what’s inside.”

Mr. Numbers pulled several brightly colored boxes from his suitcase and followed his sister back down the hallway.

* * *

There was a thick layer of snow on top of the steel roof that protected the seemingly abandoned concrete building. Occasionally a sheet of frosty white precipitation would slide onto the ground with a muffled thump. Had there been any passers-by, they might have assumed the interior to be water-logged and decrepit. They would have, at the very best, presumed it to be cold and barren as the chill soaked through the concrete walls. They would certainly never have imagined that Christmas lights glowed along the doorways or that the pleasant smell of cooking turkey permeated through its halls.

Persephone was in a small room that had once been an office when this place had been functional. Now they’d stuffed it with free weights and a boxing bag to create a makeshift gym. It wasn’t much compared to the facilities she’d left behind, but it served its purpose. A series of quick blows to the bag made echoing thuds throughout the room. Persephone loved that sound; it brought a multitude of memories flooding back every time.

“You should clean up. We’re going to eat soon.” Persephone didn’t have to turn; she knew His voice by heart. She turned anyway. He stood in the open doorway, sporting the usual unflappable smile. A few flakes of snow trickled out of His hair, remnants of His trip earlier in the day.

“I’m fine. I’ll eat when I finish up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s Christmas, this is a time for being with family.”

“None of us are related,” Persephone quipped, turning her attention back to the bag.

“You say that like it matters.”

“Of course it matters. Isn’t that the basis of family?” Persephone could feel Him looking at her without turning her head. No, it was worse than that; she could feel Him looking through her. A gentle hand settled on her shoulder and it was all she could do not show any reaction.

“Blood means nothing more than similar genetic markers,” He said, His voice both firm and calming at once. “Family is who you care about, and I can assure every person at that table cares a great deal about you.”