The Superhero's Origin (The Superhero's Son Book 5) (21 page)

The sudden
thunk
startled me, but I bent over to pick up the picture and put it back on the wall. But when I grabbed it, I noticed something bright blue on the picture. Standing up, I held it in the light of the open doorway to get a better look at it.

The picture depicted a smiling, nice-looking family of three, wearing their Sunday best. The father was a tall, thin guy who looked eerily like Dad, except without the glasses and with a much wider smile, while the pretty young woman at his side was obviously his wife. The young boy, who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, stood between them, and he looked just like Dad, too, except smaller and younger, like Dad had been de-aged at some point.

I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Was this a picture of Dad when he was a kid? And were these two adults Grandfather and Grandmother from when they were younger? That’s how it looked to me. There wasn’t anything written on the photo, so I couldn’t identify the people in the photo for sure. But if this was them, then why was this family portrait here, of all places?

But my thoughts were interrupted when a voice in the shadows said, “Hello, Bolt. Glad to see you came.”

I looked up and saw someone standing in the shadows. I didn’t recognize her at first, until she stepped into the light pouring in from outside and revealed that she was Emma. Emma looked much the same as she had last week, except her wounds had clearly healed by now and she had a sword at her side, though due to the way the sword was positioned, I couldn’t make out too many details of it.

“Emma?” I said. “Were you standing there the whole time?”

“Yes,” said Emma. “My master gave me orders to stay down here in the living room to greet you and take you upstairs to where he is. But first, you should replace that picture.”

I nodded and placed the picture back on the wall where I had knocked it off. I considered asking Emma if she knew who that photo depicted, but I decided to ask Grandfather instead, so I just followed her up the creaking stairs to the light at the top, which I could now tell was coming from underneath the doors of one of the rooms.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Emma opened the door and motioned for me to enter. I stepped inside, and as soon as I did, Emma closed the door behind me, making me jump in surprise.

“Emma can be a little abrupt sometimes, can’t she?” said a familiar voice that made me look toward the back of the room. “She’s a fine young lady, but still a little too youthfully zealous, I am afraid. Much like you.”

Grandfather was sitting on a comfy-looking recliner near an old fireplace that clearly hadn’t been used in years. He had a newspaper in his hands, which struck me as bizarre, because I could not remember the last time I’d seen a newspaper in real life. His clothes hadn’t changed since the last time I saw him, but his hair looked a little messier, like he had not combed it in a while. He lowered the newspaper into his lap, which showed me that he was reading the sports section.

“Grandfather,” I said. I straightened up, but did not yet lower my guard in front of him. “Reading the paper, I see.”

“Of course,” said Grandfather. “I don’t own a smartphone or a tablet, so I prefer to get my news the old-fashioned way. I must admit, though, that the quality of newspapers has gone down perceptibly since my youth. Or maybe they’ve always been this bad and I just didn’t notice it.”

“Why don’t we just get straight to the point?” I said. “You wanted to talk to me, right? Well, I’m here. So let’s talk.”

Grandfather sighed. “There’s no need to use that tone on me, Kevin. I’m your grandfather. You should speak to me with some more respect.”

“Respect?” I said. “Why? What have you done that is worthy of respect?”

“Given your father life, and through him, you as well,” said Grandfather. “But I guess that isn’t enough for you, is it? In any case, please sit down so we can talk like rational human beings.”

Grandfather gestured at the chair opposite him, which looked a lot like his, though it was blue instead of red. I didn’t sense anything dangerous or suspicious about this, yet I could not help but feel like this was part of a trap anyway.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll just stand. Standing is better for you than sitting, anyway.”

“I see,” said Grandfather. “Well, these old bones of mine make it hard for me to stand for very long. I guess we’ll just have to do what we each think is comfortable.”

“Right,” I said. I glanced around the room for a moment, and then looked at Grandfather again. “Why are you in New York City? I thought you were on the run from the Test Subjects.”

“I am,” said Grandfather, nodding. “Granted, I am not running quite as quickly as I used to, due to the fact that four of them are now behind bars. Still, I can’t stay still for long. I have to keep moving, lest they find me.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Why are you in New York City?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you, of course,” said Grandfather. “It has been a long time since we last saw each other. Plus, I feel safer here than I did in upstate New York, mostly because I am so close to Hero Island.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that so? I thought you were going to say that you had come here to look for Grandmother.”

Grandfather averted his eyes, like he was ashamed of something. “She is still out there somewhere, but I decided to come here to this house, which I’ve made into my temporary base due to my history with it.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I mean that this was the house that Jane, Ted, and I lived in when your father was a child,” said Grandfather. He gestured at the room. “I had this house built before your father was born. It was very expensive, but worth it. Unfortunately, I had to abandon it when Echo and the Test Subjects came after us, which is why it seems so abandoned and sad.”

“Is that why there’s a picture of you, Grandmother, and Dad down there next to the door?” I said, pointing at the floor. “I saw a family picture when I entered.”

“Yes,” said Grandfather, nodding. “I didn’t get to take all of my things before we left the first time, so I had to leave some of it behind. I would have preferred to spend my retirement in this house alongside Jane, but unfortunately that was not to be.”

Grandfather suddenly gestured at the fireplace between his chair and the empty one. “This fireplace here, I remember when Ted bumped his head against the mantle once when he was a young boy. He cried hard that day, even though it was just a bump. And Jane … well, she comforted him as always. Jane was such a kind woman, a good mother and an even better wife.”

“Is that why you tore out her eyes?” I said. “Or did you do that because you thought you were ‘helping’ her?”

Grandfather immediately looked at me. There was fear and confusion in his eyes, like he didn’t understand what I was saying. Or maybe he did understand and he was shocked that I knew.

“Who told you that?” said Grandfather. His tone had gone from nostalgic to deadly quiet now.

“Dad told me,” I said. “Technically, it was a video recording left by Dad, in which he told me all of your sordid little secrets.”

Grandfather shifted in his seat, like he wanted to get up and run, but he stayed put. “Well, I didn’t expect you to say something like that. I thought we had put that little episode behind us.”

“Behind us?” I said in shock. “You make it sound like no big deal. Do you even know how crazy you sound right now?”

“You don’t understand,” said Grandfather, shaking his head. “And Ted, for all of his hyper intelligence, never did, either. Then again, Ted was just a small kid when that happened, so I imagine that his memories were distorted by the lens of youth.”

“What is there to understand?” I said. “Look, there’s a lot about you and Grandmother I don’t know or understand. But I do know this: You are planning something. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s no good.”

“Then are you here to kill me?” said Grandfather. “Have you sided with the Test Subjects, then?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want anything to do with them, either. But that doesn’t mean I’m on your side, not if you have anything nefarious planned.”

“Kevin, I’m not some sort of supervillain with a devious plot to take over the world,” said Grandfather with a shrug. “I’m just an old man who has made some mistakes and who is trying to survive in this cruel world, just like everyone else.”

“Then what about your soul stealing powers?” I said.

“My what?” said Grandfather.

“You heard me,” I said. “Do you remember Triplet? He told me that he saw you steal the souls of some gangsters who ambushed you in an alley in a small town in upstate New York. You never told me that you had powers.”

“That’s because I don’t,” said Grandfather. “Your friend did not see what he thought he saw. That much I can confirm.”

“Right, I’m sure he didn’t,” I said. “What about Savannah Jones? What did you do with her soul? And don’t deny that you stole her soul. I’m not as smart as Dad, but I’m not an idiot, either. I can see right through whatever lies you’re going to use to distract me.”

Grandfather was silent, no doubt because I had anticipated his next move before he even got a chance to do it. I didn’t know what he was going to say next, exactly, but I at least expected him to start telling the truth, if nothing else.

Finally, Grandfather folded his newspaper up and said, “So you want the truth, is that it? You want to know what’s really going on here?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“That I cannot tell you,” said Grandfather. “You are only supposed to know what I am allowed to tell you. If I told you more, I would get into trouble.”

“Trouble?” I said. “Trouble with who?”

Grandfather looked me straight in the eye. I could now see fear in his eyes, fear that I had never seen there before.

But then I realized that Grandfather actually wasn’t looking me in the eye at all. He was actually looking over my shoulder, causing me to look over my shoulder just in time to see that the door to the room had opened. I did not see anyone out in the dark hallway, which made me wonder if Emma had opened the door, but then someone stepped into the room, someone I had never seen before.

She was a short and plump woman, with the largest and roundest mouth I had ever seen on another human being. She wore a dark leather jacket and leaned on a black cane. She looked like she was in her late fifties at most, though she still had a few black hairs among her gray ones.

“Who are you?” I said, turning to face her. “How did you get into here?”

“Who am I?” said the woman. Her voice was high and screechy, almost like she was shouting. She smiled, which made her look crazy. “I’m Echo, or, as I was known back in Project Neo, Test Subject Zero Zero Two. And I have you where I want you.”

Before I could react, the woman opened her mouth and unleashed a powerful sonic scream that filled my eardrums. It felt like I had been punched in the gut by a huge fist and I fell to the floor, where I knocked my head and completely lost consciousness.

Chapter Seventeen

H
ow much time passed between me losing consciousness and me awakening, I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I woke up what felt like one second after I hit my head against the floor, only this time I was lying down flat on my back on a slab of concrete. I tried to sit up, but thick steel clamps held me down, clamps so thick and strong that even with my super strength, I doubted I could break them very easily or quickly.

My ears started hurting the second I woke up, making me groan in pain, but I couldn’t rub my ears to make them feel better thanks to these damn clamps. My head felt dizzy, like I had just gotten off a roller coaster.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying directly underneath a whole bunch of really bright lights that forced me to squint. That made it almost impossible for me to see where I was; in fact, I even thought about just closing my eyes entirely to avoid the glare.

But then I heard movement and heard Echo’s annoying, screechy voice say, “He’s awake.”

A second later, Echo appeared above me. She looked as ugly and fat as I remembered her, almost like a stereotypical witch than a real woman. Her face was silhouetted by the lights above, but I could still see her gleaming blue eyes from within her large face.

“Look at you, look at you,” said Echo. “How do you feel? You look awful.”

“Ugh …” My head throbbed. “What happened? Where am I?”

“In the basement of your grandparents’ house,” said Echo. She patted the clamps that held me down. “And thanks to these reinforced steel clamps, you are not going anywhere else anytime soon.”

“Huh?” I said. I struggled against the clamps, but still couldn’t break them. “What’s going on? Why are you here? Did you kill Grandfather? Is he okay?”

“The old fool is still alive,” said Echo. She grimaced. “Unfortunately. The mistress told me to keep him alive. She can be so sentimental sometimes.”

Echo said that like I would understand, but frankly, I didn’t. “Who is ‘the mistress’? Is she another one of you Test Subjects? Maybe the real leader behind all of this?”

Echo opened her mouth to reply, but then an incredibly aged and frail-sounding feminine voice said, “There is no need to answer him, Echo. I am here and am capable of speaking to him myself.”

I tried to turn my head to see who was speaking, but my neck had a brace around it that kept it down and severely limited its movement. I just noticed a look of surprise appear on Echo’s face before she said, “Are you sure about that, mistress? You are still ill.”

“Yes, Echo, I am,” said the aged and frail feminine voice. “But please push me over to him. I do not have the strength to move myself.”

Echo frowned, like she disagreed with the idea of her mistress—whoever she was—talking with me, but she nonetheless nodded and then walked around the table. I tried to follow her movement, but like I said, the clamp around my neck made that impossible. I could just hear Echo’s heavy footsteps as she made her way over to her mistress, and then I heard the sound of squeaky wheels being pushed across the floor. It sounded kind of like a wheelchair, which made me wonder just how frail and weak Echo’s mistress really was.