Reborn (Frankenstein Book 1)

by Dean C. Moore

  Back on the ground, Naomi used her telekinesis to push Dr. Dark—energy bubble and all—out onto the water. Did he forget to mention this entire scene was going down in a largely unpopulated parking lot, right at the asphalt-paved shoreline? The fireworks alone were upstaging the city lights framing the harbor. Okay, it was a fake harbor and a fake sea, because Syracuse was a bit inland, but that hadn’t stopped some rich bastards from building their own lakeside views on a lake big enough to show off their yachts—and keep them away from rundown downtown.

  Once Dr. Dark was out on the water—as it turned out he floats, by the way—he was subject to another of the posse’s wizards. This one had a thing for creatures both big and small. She had an elfin look about her, down to the Spock-ears which were larger than normal and pointy. Her skin was, well, flawless, in an airbrushed—can’t touch this in the real-world—sort of way. And pale. And her hair was rainbow-colored and cut short to expose her neckline, and spiky at the edges. The hues in the rainbow looked to be supplied by this month’s Kool-Aid flavor-pack variety. She also had this petite build… like any of this shit matters right now, Soren. Could you please keep your mind and not your dick focused on this scene?

  Petite Elfin Chick sent great white sharks at Dr. Dark next—which Soren knew as a fact no one had put in that lake—it wasn’t big enough to support predators that size. Not to mention it being a freshwater lake, or so he’d assumed. The sharks penetrated the energy shield without getting harmed thanks to their most talented wizard, the motorcycle chick, intervening on Marine Mammal Whisperer’s part. Their combined magic didn’t do the trick, either, however. Dr. Dark got swallowed up, all right, and his outfit got torn to shreds in the sharks’ teeth. But the fragments tore their way out of the sharks and re-agglutinated. And once they did, Dr. Dark was back.

  The Loch Ness monster surfaced next—or what looked just like it—and swallowed up Dr. Dark—energy bubble and all—like swallowing a really big egg, whole. Soren watched it pass down the colossal sea dragon’s long neck until it was safely away in its stomach. For a brief while, the situation appeared to be in hand.

  And then Loch Ness Wannabe exploded, sending blood and goop and guts all over the Fab Five.

  Floater, a.k.a. Dr. Dark, tired of walking on water, apparently, sauntered back to the shoreline. Fish Magic lady looked all but played out, in any event, after seeing her creatures destroyed like that; the sharks were floating belly up from their encounter with Dr. Dark. And the elfin chick was too attuned to animals—even ones she’d likely summoned into existence, although possibly her lake habitat makeover had been going on for some time, and all she had to do was summon them—to recover quickly from the emotional toll of seeing her creatures devastated. It was safe to say she was out of the running for Super Chic of the hour.

  That left Spell Caster. He was the timid-looking dude mumbling words of power from his incantation book in various languages, Latin, Greek, Japanese, and whatever the hell else, turning page after page, and trying spell after spell, only to find nothing worked, and just getting more exasperated in the process. Finally, he snapped the book shut and declared, “You know what? I suggest we run like hell.” Okay, timid, but practical. Soren liked him already.

  He figured he’d waited long enough to make his move. Soren ran hero-like—okay, it wasn’t like anyone had seen him refusing to intervene until now—until he came sliding to a stop before the energy sphere. He stuck his hand through the energy shield, feeling the hit to his synthetics. He was going to have to work fast.

  He pulsed the interior, and the jacket and the hat exploded like dust. And this time, they stayed gone. Dr. Dark, of course, likewise, was nowhere to be found.

  “What the…?” Timid’s question hung in the air.

  “Who are you?” Biker chick asked. It sounded more like a challenge.

  “Ah, I’m the one who just saved your ass. Well, not entirely. The Nanite Man will manifest once again, this time in solid form. The nanites will have lost too much energy to do anything but settle into a more locked-in state. And once they do….”

  As if Soren doubled as Nostradamus when he wasn’t playing Dr. Frankenstein and his creature both, Dr. Dark did indeed manifest one last time. And in solid form, Vampire dude could do his thing. Soren had wanted to give him a chance to save the day too. So he’d fried the nanites just enough for one last-ditch effort, one gasp at continued life, before losing their hold on this dimension entirely.

  The vamp descended, did his thing, puncturing the neck of Dr. Dark, even as Mr. Impressive Wings flew off with him. When Giant Bat Wings was done draining his victim, Dr. Dark combusted to dust once again, this time for good.

  The vampire landed. Took a beat to do a self-check. Staggered and grimaced before catching himself. “What’s happening to me?” He wasn’t asking the group. He was asking Soren. He’d sensed…. That’s right, vamps get inside people’s heads too; Soren was starting to have trouble keeping all the lore straight in Loreland. Forget Syracuse, anybody in the know could scarcely call this city anything else.

  “The nanites aren’t quite dead yet, not all of them,” Soren explained, “not the ones brought back to life by your blood. They’ll be dependent on you now to keep on living, separated as they are from the larger hive mind. Without that intelligence to guide them, they’ll rely on you to lead. With your psychic abilities, that shouldn’t be a problem. As a vamp, you just picked up a few extra tricks. Like me, you’re no longer strictly a supernatural creature; you’re also a man of science now. You’ll find being a hybrid comes with different rewards, but different downsides as well.”

  “I don’t know whether to thank you or kill you.”

  “Give it a while; let me know what you decide. Though I think we both know, the way things have been going with the city of late, we all need to take our game up a level if we expect to survive much longer.”

  The vampire grunted and flew off. It had been as Soren suspected; he was too much of a loner for this group.

  Soren turned to face the others.

  “Once again, who are you?” Timid asked. He was flipping through his book to find something that pertained to Soren, and looking even more frustrated than before.

  “Soren is my name. Though some refer to me as Frankenstein.”

  “Which one, the doctor or the monster?” Timid looked up from his tome and gulped. Between the wire-rim glasses, the dress shirt and tie, and the thin, downward-turning lips that perched best on a movie critic’s face, he looked like he belonged in the library, finding you a book.

  Soren peeled off the leather jacket which didn’t really do much to cover his ripped chest, as it wasn’t zipped—the zipper had stopped working a long time ago. And he pivoted to show off his cyber-enhanced vertebrae; the chrome-like silver, spine-over-spine attachment. With his back exposed, needles extended from the individual vertebrae, running head to waist, before retreating back on a mindchip-issued command from him to stand down. Soren pivoted back toward them and re-donned the jacket in one.

  “Oh, I see; you’re both.” Timid’s eyes migrated to Soren’s form-fitting leather pants with the LED lights. “Battery backup for your cyber system? Hive-mind enhancement, in case the nanites circulating in your body get overwhelmed?”

  Soren nodded, impressed. “I try not to rely on either, because you know what happens as soon as you do?”

  “Huh,” Timid said. “Personally, I think Cyber is a cooler moniker for you, but whatever.”

  “You don’t need to give me your names,” Soren said. “Naomi.” He two-fingered saluted her. “Lar,” he said, giving Timid the same two-fingered salute. “I’m guessing that’s short for Larynx, being as you’re the one constantly mumbling something.” Lar gave him a faint smile which he quickly withdrew. He wasn’t sure whether to be pissed or amused. Soren saluted elfin chick next, “Natura, who has a way with the natural world.” He had saved the best for last, at least for his self-serving purposes. “And Stealy, your most power
ful wizard, though largely because she steals the magic of others.” And not in the way of Naomi; she’s not a sponger, just a thief. But as Naomi is clearly passing herself off as nothing more than a telekinetic, I’m going to hold off on burning her cover, at least until I can figure out what’s behind it, or if I’m just off entirely about her actual nature.

  Soren’s time spent in the tank…. Sometimes there were aftereffects, like aftershocks. This was one of them, his psychic abilities flaring up briefly, when otherwise they existed only in the tank. Otherwise he really wouldn’t have been able to name any of them besides Naomi and Player.

  “Yeah, we heard you wanted to join up with the gang,” Stealy said. “Well, you can forget it.”

  “Talk tough all you want. You’d all be dead right now without me. And I’d be just as dead without you.”

  That took Stealy by surprise. “Why you? You seemed immune.”

  “Yeah, sure, after you drained that nanite hive mind enough for me. There was no way I could have survived a hit from that thing otherwise.” He surveyed the group. “Look, guys, we can feel testy toward one another all we want. We don’t have to be besties; we just have to agree to keep one another alive by combining our abilities when needed. It’s what we do instinctively, anyway. So don’t act all put-out, like I’m asking you to be something other than what you already are.”

  “Yeah, well, trust means more than cooperation with my kind,” Naomi said. “Sorry, but so long as I lead this gang….”

  “But you don’t anymore. We do,” Soren said. “Sorry to break it to you this way, but you’re more the people person. I don’t have time to rein in these guys and make them see sense. That’s your job. And the rest of you will have to surrender control to me whether you like it or not. Otherwise I won’t be able to help you strengthen and broaden your magic.”

  “If they need more magic, I can steal it for them,” Stealy said, “the same way I steal it for myself.”

  “Yes, you could do that, but I sense your hesitation. That’s because you’re coming apart at the seams from all the different forms of magic you’ve absorbed so far. One more straw on that camel’s back…”. She lowered her eyes at his words.

  Player moved to the front of the pack. “I think you’re confused about who’s the most powerful one here,” he said. “There’s a reason they fear me and not you. I may just be an elemental, but, so far, no one, using any form of magic, has been able to get past me. And I’m just as happy to put you in your place.”

  “Have it your way then.” Soren bowed to them. He noticed with a certain smug satisfaction that Player looked more relieved that Soren was backing away from the challenge rather than taking it on. But the truth was, Soren didn’t know how to check Player’s power just yet. That would require steepening his learning curve—or perhaps steeping some more in his bowl of embryonic soup back at home, dialing up his supernatural abilities to match his scientific acumen, hoping that the merger of the two would find a way around what no other wizard had been able to find their way around yet.

  Just as well. He was going to need more time to figure out how indeed to boost each of their powers, not just his. And for that, he’d need the pool, the chair, the rest of his lab, and perhaps a little help from a couple people in the group who might be approachable individually, even if they couldn’t show their hand in group. He sensed a few of them were more swayed by his rhetoric than they let on. But there was a power dynamic at play in the posse, and he was disturbing it. Like he’d realized previously, this wasn’t going to be easy.

  He took a couple steps away from them and then turned back. “In case you’re wondering who’s behind all this, it’s Victor Truman.”

  From the gasps and the looks they were giving one another, it was clear that Naomi had gotten a lock on his identity, as well, when he chased after her in the tunnels, and shared with the group what she’d picked up on him.

  “So what if he is?” Player asked, with his usual bluster, which sounded less convincing than the bluster coming from Stealy. “Better someone than some cosmic phenomenon we’re powerless to do anything about. However powerful he is, there’s at least a chance he can be brought down. Especially by me.”

  Soren smiled. “Did it occur to anyone why he lets us live? He’s well aware of who we are and what we can do, and yet he can’t be bothered to rein us in. Just what do you think that means?”

  “That he’s afraid of us, of course,” Player said. Maybe Bluster would have been a better name for him. Perhaps he was sounding just full of hot air because of his command of the air element.

  “Just the opposite. We’re not a threat to him, or he’d have stomped us but good already.”

  “He tried and failed,” Stealy said. “And for the second time.” But she wasn’t sounding so confident either.

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Soren said, running his eyes up against all of theirs. “He’s not trying to kill you. He’s trying to identify who the most powerful players are on the planet. And he wants to know exactly what they can stop and what they can’t. The day he gets a creature past all of us, that’s when he’ll have everything he needs to conquer this planet. And his creatures will be unstoppable by anyone—except for him. And in case you weren’t paying attention, he came damn close to doing that today. I suspect next time, he’ll get his wish. I’m the only gift horse staring you in the mouth, offering you a way to boost your powers to at least buy us some time to find if this guy has any real vulnerabilities we can capitalize on.

  “But you all go ahead, go curl up with your trust issues. So long as you hold your fears dearer than your good sense, you’re no good to me anyway.”

  With that, he turned and left them speechless. He had been blowing some hot air of his own by that point. He needed them more than ever. But he had to soften up their resistance. Or whatever timeclock Victor Truman was on—they were never going to catch up.

  And the truth was, he really didn’t know what Truman was up to. What he’d divined so far just made sense, that’s all, now that he was out of the tank and more of his rational mind was engaged. But understanding the wizard’s plan wasn’t the same as getting around his magic. And that was where the real battle was to be fought. Without understanding the source of the magic, its underlying science, all other understanding was meaningless.

  FIVE

  “All you have to do is surrender to me,” Player said mockingly. “The nerve of that guy!” His eyes were focused a million miles away and his fingers were digging into the arm rests on his ratty easy chair he was using as a throne to hold court.

  Their secret lair amounted to the basement of Victor Truman’s building. Not exactly the irony of ironies—but close enough, Naomi thought. They used the tunnels, specifically the sewer lines running under the city, to get to and from here. The truth was the throwaways of rich people, which tended to end up in basements like this, beat the castoffs of orphans like them. Even Player’s ratty throne chair was a plush, leather delight to sit in that a male lion would have been happy to use his entire pride to defend.

  The rest of them made use of the spacious, warehouse-size space to put some distance between them and Player’s ego, which tended to suck the air out of the room better than his elemental magic.

  No one bothered them down here because, unless the tenants were dropping off some choice item the gang was only too happy to get their hands on, they simply forgot there was a basement. The spell protecting the lair kicked in the instant anyone got too close, including any of the building’s residents, the owner, far less any maintenance people coming through. Unless of course, deterring them would just draw more attention to Naomi’s posse, not less, when building maintenance for rich people suddenly started going unattended.

  Stealy was staring transfixed at her own ball-fire magic, watching the orb, levitating inches above her left palm, rotate and sparkle. She looked like a weird kind of fortune teller, divining the future in a ball of fire, rather than a crysta
l ball. She could make faces appear in the sphere by manipulating the fireworks inside, just as if getting visions from a real crystal ball. She was folded catlike over her easy chair, legs flopped over one armrest, her back arched so far over the other armrest that she was also staring up at the ceiling. “I, for one, think Soren has a point,” Stealy said.

  “Well, he doesn’t!” Player sounded more unsure of himself the more forceful his voice got, and right now it was sounding like a burning building’s fire alarm. Naomi suspected that was because he’d already surrendered to the truth at an unconscious level even if he couldn’t get his conscious mind to play along. That would mean accepting playing second fiddle to Soren. But it would allow him to live long enough to find a way to retake his throne seat again someday, which beat the alternative of having some nasty-ass devil spawn from dimension-X cast him off to oblivion where he’d have no chance of drawing minions to him to bolster his fragile ego.

  Stealy flashed the room. Naomi didn’t mean like one of those streakers from the 1970s that ran naked through your Girl Scouts jamboree or Lion’s Club picnic just to freak people out. The light show left residue, suggesting that a lot more than just light had escaped her entire being; brute energy, too. Cracks trailing along every support beam caused the roof to shift over their heads.

  “Oh, shit.” Lar reached for his spell book, flipped to the pertinent page. “You’d think I’d have these incantations committed to memory by now. There.” He mumbled something in Latin and the building healed itself. No more cracks. No more shifting.

  “Sorry, guys,” Stealy said. “But I’m afraid Soren’s right. I can’t stabilize the powers I have now, far less steal anymore. Unless we get our hands on an ace alchemist, I don’t like my odds for fusing any more abilities. As for the rest of you, you can take your chances, but four abilities is my limit. And something else you should know….”

  She waited until Player locked eyes on her, and for his little game of pretending to not care to play out, by looking every other way and whistling. “Spill!” Maybe if he said it more like a command it’d be more like he was controlling Stealy with his emotions and not the other way around. God, this guy is so transparent, Naomi. How did you ever fall for his ‘meet true omnipotence’ act?