Villainous (27 page)

“Not without you!” Mollie shouted back.

But then, as Skye took another step, she tripped. She was practically cackling, then she fell face-first onto the concrete sidewalk. The burning shrubbery fell with her and rolled harmlessly away.

Skye quickly scrambled up onto her hands and knees, obviously confused. She was holding her head where she’d smacked into the ground. She looked around, but there was nothing to trip over except empty air.

Then her head jerked back as if she’d been bashed in the face, or perhaps kicked with a very small invisible shoe.

Rose appeared just feet away and kicked at her again.

Skye avoided this one, but as she did so, she backed right into a ghostly image rising out of the ground, holding what appeared to be Rohan’s overstuffed book bag. For a moment Louisa looked almost transparent as the smoke blew harmlessly through her, but then she solidified, the heavy bag in her hands solidifying with her just in time to be brought down onto Skye’s head.

One good thing about the academy course load—a pile of books can sometimes make an excellent club.

Skye sank to the ground, dazed.

“Are you two okay?” asked Louisa.

Mollie nodded, and Daniel said, “Thanks to you, yes.”

Louisa smiled and looked like she was close to saying something else, but didn’t.

Rose spoke up instead. “Where’s Eric?” she asked.

“We don’t know,” said Daniel. “We haven’t seen him or Drake— Uh-oh! Incoming!”

The four of them scattered in time to avoid being squashed by Eric, who, at that precise moment, came out of the sky like a falling star. He gouged a crater thirty feet long into the earth as he skidded to a halt.

As the dust settled, he stood up on wobbly legs. His shirt was little more than charred scraps and his skin was still smoking. “Ouch,” he said.

“What happened?” asked Mollie. “Did Drake do that to you?”

Eric nodded. “With help from his new buddy, Clay. Think he finally got the invite to join their club.”

Then Drake and Clay emerged from the flames. Drake’s eyes were glowing a bright red as wisps of flame trailed out of his mouth, and Clay was cracking his big knuckles together as they stalked forward.

“Good!” snarled Clay. “More Supers to beat down!”

“Wait!” said Daniel. “You two don’t know what you’re doing!”

“Really?” asked Drake. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“It’s the Witch Fire Comet!” shouted Daniel, pointing up at the sky. “It’s coming and this whole school’s going to be destroyed. He’s just using you, Drake!”

“Nice try, kid,” said Drake. “But Herman said you’d try to fill our heads with garbage. His orders were clear: no one leaves the academy tonight. He’s got something special planned, and as long as he keeps paying, I don’t care what it is!”

Drake began taking a deep breath, and whatever it was inside him that converted oxygen to flame was powering up.

But Clay had dropped his fists to his sides, and he was looking at Drake with a new expression.

“Wait a minute,” Clay said. “Did you say you’re working for Herman? Herman Plunkett?”

“Huh?” said Drake, and a gout of fire escaped his lips. “I told you if you helped us tonight, you’d get to be one of us! Don’t you want to be a Noble, Clay?”

From where he stood, Daniel could see the veins in Clay’s neck bulge. “Herman Plunkett is the Shroud, you moron!”

“What’s a Shroud?” asked Drake, but the only answer he got was Clay’s fist.

One punch, that’s all it took. And Daniel knew that Drake wouldn’t be getting up for a very long time.

“That’s it!” Clay howled. “No more Nobles! No more Supers! No more Shroud or Bud or new kids—I’ve had it, you hear me? From now on, it’s just me on my own. I’m sick of you all.”

Then Clay turned his back on the Supers, the Nobles, and the world and stalked off alone into the night.

“He’s really mad,” said Rose.

“Yeah, I’d almost feel sorry for him if he wasn’t, you know, Clay,” said Eric.

“Maybe I should go after him,” said Bud. “I don’t think that Hunter kid is going to bother you all anymore.”

True enough, Hunter was lying on the grass, sweaty and exhausted from his marathon puking session. He was in no shape to hurt anyone.

“After the way Clay treated you?” said Daniel. “Shouldn’t you just let him go?”

“Yeah, but …,” said Bud, searching for the words. “We’re friends. That’s it, ain’t it?”

With that, Bud started jogging after Clay, huffing and puffing as he ran to catch up with the retreating bully.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” said Eric. “But,
Daniel, what’s all that stuff you said about the Witch Fire Comet and Herman? You were bluffing, right?”

Daniel shook his head. “I wish I was. It’s coming here, tonight.”

“Oh my God,” whispered Louisa.

“All of this—the academy, the attacks on the town—it was just part of Herman’s plan to get you here on this night. He’s trying to re-create the disaster at St. Alban’s. He thinks he’ll get the powers this time and you all will be—”

“Powerless?” asked Eric.

“I was going to say
dead
,” said Daniel. “He’s gone totally insane.”

“Do you think he’s right?” asked Mollie.

Daniel looked up at the spire near the center of the academy campus. It was dark against the night sky, and the only illumination came from the fires burning themselves out on the ground below. The effect was haunting. The flickering shadows that played along the spire’s base reminded Daniel of the Shroud-Cave, of shadows and Shades slithering in the dark.

Was Herman right? Could they take the risk?

“We have to assume that as crazy as he is, there’s a chance his plan will work,” said Daniel. “Which means you have to get everyone out of here. You all open the gate and start evacuating the students.”

“
You
all?” said Mollie. “What do you mean? You’re coming with us, Daniel! You’re not running off after Herman
this time, not when this whole place might become a crater!”

Daniel held up his hands. “I’m coming, I’m coming. But we left Rohan and Johnny in the bunker, remember? Eric can help me get them out, and we’ll meet you all outside the gate. But in the meantime, start getting kids out of here, okay?”

Daniel took Mollie’s hand in his. “I’ll catch up in a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded, and giving his hand a squeeze, Mollie turned and flew off. Rose and Louisa waved and ran after her.

Eric watched them go, and then said, “Man, are you a bad liar. I don’t know why she keeps believing you.”

Daniel looked at his friend.

“We’re going after Herman, right?” said Eric. “We can’t let him get away.”

Daniel shook his head. “You’re going to save Rohan and Johnny. Just like I said.”

“Wait a minute,” said Eric. “I’m not letting you go after him by yourself!”

Daniel started to argue, but then he saw the sky. In the distance was a bank of clouds. It looked like an approaching thunderstorm, only thunderstorms didn’t produce green lightning. And it was getting bigger. Eric followed his gaze.

“Comets don’t move like that,” Eric whispered. “What is it?”

“That settles it!” said Daniel. “I need you to get me to
the top of that spire—that’s where Herman will be. Then you need to get Rohan and Johnny out of here.”

“Daniel—”

“I can’t carry them. You can. It’s that simple.”

“All right,” Eric said. “But I’ll come back for you. Be on the lookout!”

Daniel couldn’t get the specter of the academy in flames out of his mind; he couldn’t shake the picture of Herman rising up out of the ashes. The wisest thing to do would be to flee the school with the students. If Herman’s plan worked, the Shroud would return stronger than ever before. He’d have all the powers Johnny possessed, with none of that man’s restraint.

That couldn’t be allowed to happen. The world couldn’t handle such a being. If Herman was right, and the Witch Fire Comet was some sort of stealth attack from another planet, then the Shroud would be its ultimate weapon.
Herman would destroy the world while convincing himself he was saving it.

Alone now atop the spire, Daniel could see all the academy laid out below him, and above, the sky was a blanket of roiling clouds aglow with ghostly green fire. Daniel had seen that color of light before, emanating from Herman’s old pendant—the Shroud’s light. Witch Fire. Tonight they were in for a storm unlike any other.

Herman’s bunker was no longer safe now that the roof had been torn off, so where was the next best place to be when the meteorite hit? The spire looked solid enough to withstand an earthquake, but what about a meteorite strike?

There had to be a door up here, a hidden way into the spire. As Daniel circled the walkway, he stayed well back from the edge, where a single guardrail stood between him and a six-story drop.

Around the rear, Daniel found the door. It was standing ajar, and a quick glance inside revealed a spiral stairwell that led straight down into blackness.

Daniel glanced up just in time to avoid the cane blow aimed at his head. He brought his hands up and braced himself as Herman lunged out of the dark. The old man was frail, but he possessed the strength of someone who had nothing to lose. He clawed at Daniel’s face, and threw his weight into him, nearly knocking both of them over the railing.

But Daniel kept his balance, while Herman’s lunge had been wild, driven by insanity. Daniel slid to one side as he shoved Herman into the railing. The railing caught the old
man in the stomach, and Herman let out a wheezing cough as he slid to his knees. He tumbled toward the walkway’s edge, his cane clattering off the side and shattering on the ground far below.

And Daniel caught him. With one hand on the railing and the other on Herman’s jacket, he stopped the old man from rolling off the ledge. Slowly, and with every bit of strength he could muster in his skinny frame, Daniel hauled Herman onto the walkway. Then the two of them lay there—Daniel with his back up against the spire, and Herman just inches from the edge.

The old man looked up at Daniel, exhausted. The fight was over; what little strength he had left was spent.

“You may find it hard to believe …,” Herman wheezed, “but I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“It’s over, Herman,” said Daniel. “The school’s being evacuated. It won’t be like St. Alban’s.”

Herman laughed. A sickly, bubbling laugh. He spit out a glob of something dark onto his jacket front.

“It’s not over!” he said. “It’s just beginning. When the Witch Fire comes, I wonder if we will survive.”

Herman pulled himself up on one elbow, even though the effort was obviously painful. He clutched at his chest, at the wound the Witch Fire pendant had left him with.

“Will we rise as gods born out of the meteor’s destruction? Two new gods, at each others’ throats for the next hundred years because you won’t do what needs to be done.”

Herman grinned.

“Or you can just give me a little shove over the side. It’s only fair. If I die, you can have all the power to yourself. Assuming you don’t die in the fire first. Assuming you’re as strong as good old Johnny was.”

“I won’t do it,” said Daniel. “And we’re not staying here.”

“You will!” cried Herman. “Because I will not move from this spot. I will not hide from the fire this time! So, if you don’t kill me, there’s no telling what I’ll do. What will I do with all that power, Daniel?”

For a moment, only for a moment, the sheen of insanity and rage fell away from the old man’s face, and Daniel saw something else in his eyes—sorrow. Then Daniel remembered that Herman had been just a boy when this had started, all those years ago. Like Daniel had been when he’d come to Noble’s Green. Just a boy.

Something Herman had once said came back to Daniel, though it had been spoken in a very different context.

It’s not fair, really
, Herman had said.
The boy dreams his whole life of being Johnny Noble, only to wake up one day alone in the knowledge that he is something else entirely. He’s quite the opposite. He’s the Shroud
.

Daniel hadn’t properly understood what the old man had meant, or who he’d really been talking about, until that very moment.

Above them, the heavens glowed. In the clouds, there were shadows dancing behind the flashes of green lightning. Whatever was on its way, it would be here soon. Looking
out over the school, Daniel saw Drake’s fires burning themselves out; he saw the lights of the town twinkling in the distance. And something else, familiar silhouettes coming this way.

“I won’t make it easy for you,” said Herman. “Either have the guts to kill me now or I win. There’s no other way.”

Daniel placed a foot on the old man’s chest.

“You’re wrong, Herman. There’s always another way,” Daniel said. Then he called out into the night, “Catch!”

With that, he kicked Herman off the platform … and into Michael’s waiting arms.

“Got him!” shouted Michael as he soared past. And there was Eric, with Mollie right behind. Eric had promised he’d come back for him, and Eric always kept his promises.

Eric snatched Daniel up from the platform and took off into the air.

“Now what do I do with Plunkett?” called Michael.

“Get him far away from here!” shouted Daniel. “Preferably to a jail!”

Michael nodded and sped off toward the town, Herman in his arms. The old man was either laughing or crying, Daniel couldn’t be sure which.

“Let’s round up the others and get out of here,” said Eric as he landed in the courtyard with Mollie close behind.

Louisa, Rose, Simon, Rohan, and Johnny were waiting for them twenty feet from the gate. Simon was holding his arm close to his chest, and Daniel could see blood soaking
through his sleeve; Louisa had a fat lip. His friends were dirty and beat-up, but they were still standing. The Nobles were nowhere in sight, and it looked like the Supers had won round two.

Of everyone, Johnny looked the worst off. He’d recovered much of his strength, but was still several shades too pale. Whatever he’d done to save Daniel had cost him.

“Everyone else is out,” said Johnny. “But when your friends realized what you were up to, they wouldn’t leave without you—”