Riverside City Chronicles | Book 1 | Riverside City [Capes & Cowls]

by VanDerHeyden, Paul C.

  Kat raises her hand and Cinder waves for her to speak. “If it’s called dragon breath, why does it have to be fire? I’ve read stories of Chinese dragons with the ability to breath out rainstorms and clouds, are those not real?”

  “Dragon breath must be awakened by Fire before it can be used for anything else, those dragons most likely also had water or wood, maybe both.”

  Theo nods. “When Richter told me I was a Child of the Dragon I tried to breathe out a cone of pebbles or sand, nothing happened. After Awakening to Fire, I think I could do it if I practiced. Maybe even a cone of hot coals, that would be useful for a barbecue or something right?”

  He grins and imitates breathing into a pile at his feet, to his chagrin a single coal pops out and lands right by Kat’s hand. With a yelp, she lifts her hands away as Theo shakes his hand and the coal shoots off of the cushion and off into the void. After a second, they all burst out laughing.

  “Well, I guess breath lessons are going to happen soon, I can’t have you burning your Mate in a moment of passion, can I?” Cinder winks at the couple.

  Theo gives a small half-smile, “Can you not refer to her as my ‘mate’, she’s so much more than that to me. She’s my best friend, my lover, and my partner in crime… kinda,” he laughs a bit, “I guess both my partner in crime and my partner fighting crime, though mostly the second one. ‘Mate’ feels so… limited, she’s my partner in everything, my partner in life. Hopefully, she’ll be my wife someday, until then I’m happy to have her as my partner.”

  Kat stares at Theo for a moment, her mouth agape, then catches herself and snaps her jaw shut. ‘I’m going to get you so good for that tonight, good thing we both don’t really sleep,’ she sends, her tone indicating that he might just enjoy what she has planned.

  Cinder squares her feet and claps a couple of times. “All right, I give you an A for effort, but I don’t think you understand what it means to be the Mate of a Child of the Dragon,” the capital M in ‘Mate’ is audible, almost like an extra bit of punctuation at the beginning, it sounds like something obviously important.

  “A Mate is the person who you trust to guard your back, front, and everywhere else. It’s a spiritual contract that can’t be broken without severe damage to the breaker. It’s no mere marriage, though it is usually done as part of one now. You see, Children of the Dragon are so powerful and long-lived that we have to find a special person, our Mate, to keep us sane in our longevity. I wasn’t powerful enough to keep my first Mate alive much past her natural span of years, you won’t have that issue. Whoever you pick will be alive as long as you are.”

  She walks on a bridge of hot air, every step sending out a flare of fire until she stands with her finger in Theo’s chest. “You are incredibly lucky, so don’t you dare belittle our most sacred tradition. I hope you’re lucky enough to get to make this one your Mate.” She waves at Kat. “Though at the rate you’re going, you’ll get yourself killed before you do. That’s why you’re here, to learn how to survive.”

  Cinder steps back. “Now, let’s practice your dragon breath today. I’ll need you to focus on that target over there,” she indicates a black and white target about 30 meters away, which was definitely not there a few seconds ago, “Try and hit that with a fireball, hands or mouth, I don’t care, just hit it.”

  Theo proceeds to spend the next eight hours practicing his fire breathing. Each time he hits the target for the third time in a row, usually in one try though a few took more than that, it moves in a seemingly random direction. While Theo does that, Cinder takes Kat to the side for a chat.

  “I may not be able to read minds, but I have been watching the mortal world through moments of passion for years. Have you told him about your parents? Specifically about your father, though your mother was no saint herself.”

  “W-w-what do you m-m-mean? My parents are dead, why else would I be at RAINBOW? My mother was killed by Twitch while he fought Femme-Fatale… my father, I don’t remember him. He must have died or been out of the picture when she died,” Kat stutters, growing increasingly defensive. She holds the side of her head, it aches like she’s been using her powers too much today, but she hasn’t used her powers at all today.

  Cinder stares at Kat, her eyes wide. “Oh darling, you don’t remember? There’s no way someone with mental powers as powerful as yours would naturally forget something as important as that. If you’d like, I can show you that day, I was able to watch all of it from here. I mostly watch battles between Supers and that was a strange one. I was able to see your mother from well before she came into contact with Twitch.”

  Kat stares over at Theo, training with a huge grin on his face, with wide eyes. “I’m scared, maybe I’m not supposed to remember, maybe my powers are protecting me?”

  Cinder pulls Kat in for a small hug, holding her for a few seconds before releasing her. Kat’s eyes are wet as they focus on Cinder again.

  “It’s almost assuredly true that your powers are protecting you from that memory, that’s why your head hurts right now. However, if you’re going to be in a committed relationship you have to understand where you come from. Are you ready for that?”

  Kat sits up, folds her legs into a lotus pose, and nods her head. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Please show me that day.”

  Cinder jumps up, obviously excited, she yells over at Theo, “I’m taking your Mate into my house for a bit, we’ll be back before you’re done.”

  Theo stops his dragon breath long enough to look at Kat and when he sees her nod, “Have fun!” he yells back.

  “Excellent!” Cinder chuckles loudly. “To the femdomain!”

  Cinder whisks Kat along on her cushion into her golden sphere of a home. The inside is split up the same as Theo and Kat’s home, home theater, and library in front with a door leading to another room closed. What is different between the two is that the walls of Cinder’s home are covered in pictures of incredibly attractive men and women, most naked and in positions of passion with other people.

  Cinder pulls Kat floating on her cushion, shocked by her surroundings, over to the home theater setup. “I see events like a TV show, I figured out how to save the events for later years ago.” She waves at each of the images on the walls. “Those are a few of my favorites, though I keep the more sensitive ones in this box.”

  She pulls out a pale blue box, which is in stark contrast to the gold and crimson decor of the home. She gently tugs the top of the box off and fishes out a picture. “This is your mother on the day she died, are you ready?”

  The picture is of a pale skinned woman with back length black hair. She’s wearing a light blue crop top that barely covers her nipples, her underboob hanging out below it. She has on a micro mini skirt of the same color; it leaves nothing to the imagination. Cinder covers the image of Kat’s mom up quickly with her hand.

  “I reserve the right to ask about all this—” Kat indicates the pictures on the walls. “—at a later date, but yeah, I’m ready.” She takes a deep breath to center herself.

  Cinder nods and holds out the picture. “When you touch this, you’ll be thrown into a mindscape of that day. You won’t be able to affect the events, so don’t try to. You will likely be able to use your powers to read the people involved, at least the emotions, including your mother. Your father, not so much.”

  “I don’t remember a thing about him, how will I be able to tell who it is?” Kat asks, her eyes held tight shut.

  “Trust me, it’ll be pretty obvious. I apologize for how this might make you feel, but you need to know who you are before you can truly become one with someone else. This should give you that, if you can take the truth.” Cinder shakes her head. “All right, no more stalling, touch the damn thing, I don’t have all day.”

  Kat smiles. “Yes you do.” She touches the picture and is thrown back to a day 13 years ago. Years later, Kat will still have mixed feelings about this event, on one hand it gave her closure on her mother’s death, on the other ha
nd, it exposed her to her father.

  Chapter 40: Mommy Dearest

  The sun is high in the sky and Kat holds her hand up to shield her face from the light coming in from the massive skylight. The room she is in is decorated in stark whites and blacks. There is a bar with a black marble countertop, on it rests a bottle of expensive tequila and a glass. The only other color in the room is the woman from the picture’s outfit. She is on her knees before a man in a perfectly tailored white suit. The man is around six feet tall, maybe a bit taller. He’s well built and bears a striking resemblance to the face Kat sees in the mirror each morning, especially his sky blue eyes.

  That’s my dad...and I think that’s my mom?

  Kat walks around the room, avoiding the black leather couch and white leather chairs out of reflex. She moves until she can see her mother’s eyes. They are a bloodshot brown, nothing like the sky blue eyes Kat has.

  It’s her, I don’t remember her very well, but I remember those eyes.

  The man speaks, “No. That’s my final answer, Mercy. You go through more of my product than any three other junkies in town, you need to get clean before we can talk about you getting Katrina back. She’s safer with me and my men than she could ever be with a burnout like you.”

  He starts turning to grab the bottle of tequila and the woman, Mercy, grabs his hand, she pulls it down against her ample bosom. In a shaky soprano she speaks, “Just one more hit, Baby, then I’ll get clean. I’m almost there. Maybe two or three more hits and I’ll have the project done.”

  She unzips the man’s suit pants and goes to move farther when the man spins away around the bar. The sound of him zipping up his pants is in stark contrast to her gibbering about “the project”, and “Zip”.

  Wait a second, I remember her as a proud woman, no one phased her. Though I guess that could be the drugs. Zip...that’s a powered drug! It’s very effective, but almost instantly addictive. They did a purge of it around five years ago in Riverside City, it was Jolly’s big break, they made him Station Chief after that operation.

  So, my mom had powers. Maybe I got my powers from her?

  I wonder what they’re feeling? Also, from what I remember, a Zip overdose is almost always lethal. She looks so strung out, I bet something happened there.

  Kat opens up her usually tightly controlled emotional senses. Her mother has waves of orange and green rolling off of her, a dark red undertone mars the other colors.

  Greed, fear, and rage. She was completely unstable! I’ve never seen someone like that in their right mind.

  The man reaches for the bottle and pours a large glass of tequila for himself, he knocks it back and pours another.

  “You know I hate it when you call me that; we’re not kids anymore. We have one of our own, I’m not your ‘Baby’ anymore. If you would try and be a better mother and not walk around high as a kite all of the time, maybe we could be something again, but you wasted your last chance. I can’t believe you’re still in contact with that loser Twitch. Even when he’s not high he’s unstable.”

  He walks back in front of Mercy, but there are no colors rolling off of him, not even one.

  That’s odd, the only person I’ve ever met without colors was Magenta...so I get my powers from him...great. I still wonder what her powers are.

  Marseilles straightens herself up, smoothing out her micro mini skirt as she does, her ass visible as it becomes clear that she isn’t wearing any underwear. She’s just a bit shorter than her husband, maybe 5’11”. She looks around frantically, her hands vibrating. He laughs.

  “You think I’d leave anything you can use in here? No phones, no televisions, no PDA’s, no beepers, nothing you could make a weapon out of is allowed in this room. Besides the view, that’s one of the reasons that’s my favorite outfit on you. I can tell you aren’t carrying something dangerous, there’s nowhere to hide anything!”

  He walks up and holds her by the chin. “We’re done, get out. If I catch you in my compound again, I’ll have you shot. You can use the downtown apartment for three months. If you can prove you’re clean, I’ll let you use it longer. I loved you once, I won’t leave you on the streets, but you’re a liability here. Also, Katrina doesn’t need to see her mother tweaking around, she deserves a stable environment, I’ll provide that.”

  With that he releases her and walks away.

  “I hate you, Emilio. All that power and you still have to take the one thing I care about,” she spits.

  He laughs. “Your drugs? Yeah, I took them. If you meant Katrina? You don’t love her; if you did, you wouldn’t do what you do. Did you know that I know about your infidelities? Did you forget that I’m a telepath?”

  She gasps.

  “I knew the minute you came home, you couldn’t stop thinking about how you couldn’t wait to do it again. If you’d asked I would have done anything for you, as long as you stayed clean, but you couldn’t do it.”

  Infidelities? She cheated on him?

  He spits into a nearby sink when he sees her shocked face. “The thing that kills me is that you’re so powerful already, why do you need the Zip? It just brings out the rest of your potential all at once, you’ve been at full power for years.”

  How does he know that?

  “Did you know I never cheated on you? Even when you were out screwing anyone who would give you a whiff of that cheap shit the street dealers call Zip.”

  He’s scattered, that’s unusual for someone as obviously powerful as he is. This has to be killing him.

  The smallest bit of maroon and blue leak out from him as he yells one final line.

  “Get out now! I’ll send what little is yours to the apartment. If you go near Katrina, I’ll kill you myself!”

  Marseilles looks at Emilio, she couldn’t be more surprised if he slapped her in the face.

  “Can I say goodbye to her?” she asks, her head bowed low as she walks to the door.

  Emilio shakes his head. “I’ll tell her you went away on business. If you get clean in the next three months, I’ll tell her we separated and that she can see you sometime. If not, I’ll say you died in a plane crash.”

  “All right,” she says as she slips out the door, a hint of silver leaking into her aura. Emilio missed it as he turned away from the door, tears in his eyes.

  Silver, that’s for scheming. What’s she planning?

  As he hears the door click shut Emilio sinks to the floor on his knees. He raises his head to the heavens, his hands folded.

  “God, what have I done to deserve this? I don’t deal to children, I donate to charities. My men are paid well, I take care of the families of those who die in the line of duty for me. I’ve done everything to protect my darling girl from the future you gifted my mother, but everything I do brings me closer to that. I can’t lose my daughter, Katrina is my everything!”

  With that last impassioned sentence, a wave of red energy bursts out from his form. It rolls through the room, destroying everything but the suit he’s wearing in a wave of telekinetic force. All that’s left are the doors, even the skylight and windows are blown out. The scene fades out as he prays on his knees with his face toward the now open sky.

  ___

  A few moments later, Kat finds herself in a well appointed hallway with white marble floors, wrought iron decorations, and black wall sconces. Mercy is walking toward a black metal door with a purpose, her face is determined, but her eyes are still twitching.

  She approaches the door and knocks on it. A dull thud is all that can be heard, this door is obviously reinforced steel.

  “Jose, open up. I just want to say goodbye to my daughter,” Mercy pleads with her head pressed against the door. She sighs, the cool metal must feel nice against her feverish forehead.

  A small eye-slit opens up in the door, just above where Mercy’s head rests.

  “Mrs. Navarro, I’m sorry. We were told that you were not to be allowed access until further notice, boss’ orders. I can bring her over to the door
if you want, but you can’t come into the East wing,” a rich baritone voice that sounds genuinely sorry comes through the slit.

  Jose, that name and voice...I think I spent a lot of time with him. He must have been my personal bodyguard.

  “Come on Jose, you’re going to stop a mother from seeing her daughter before going to rehab, have a heart,” her voice is sad, but there is a hint of scorn in there.

  What is she doing? Didn’t Father say it feels weird calling someone that, say he would kill her for doing this? She’s got to be working an angle.

  Jose sighs on the other side of the door, “Sorry Mrs. Navarro. I’ve got my own little girl on the way, I get how devastating this must be, but orders are orders. Do you want me to bring Katrina over to say goodbye?”

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” she says, her tone low and breathy. “Your wife Maria is pregnant right? She can’t be putting out much and if she is, she’s all loose down there, being pregnant and all? Take a look at me.” She steps away from the door and does a seductive little turn, “You know you want a piece of this before it leaves, yeah? If I can’t have Emilio inside me, I need some other Latin meat to take his place. That meat could be you.”

  I can’t believe she’s whoring herself out like this. Father was right, she’s got bigger issues than her Zip addiction.

  “Mrs. Navarro…I’m a happily…I’m a married man. I shouldn’t do something like that.”

  Marseilles flips up the little bit of skirt covering her privates and starts fingering herself right in the hallway, “Oh, how I wish I had a big strong Latin piece of meat to put in here. My tight little snatch is so lonely.”

  She has no shame! How can I be related to her? She has no self respect! Even if it’s a ploy, she’s going too far.