“Here we are,” said the man, stopping outside an unmarked white door.
The door opened and a polished woman smiled out at them. “I’m just finishing up here. One moment.” She stepped back into the room, leaving the door open. Adrian craned his head, watching her approach a simple cot against the wall, where Winston Pratt was lying flat on his back. She leaned over him and touched her fingers to his shoulder, whispering something.
Winston appeared to have no reaction.
The woman gathered up a purse and a notepad and stepped out into the hall. “I’ll be back to see him in the morning,” she said. Then, turning to Adrian, she added, “Try not to upset him if you can help it. It’s been a difficult day.”
“‘Difficult day’?” said Adrian, appalled at the sympathy in her tone. This was the villain who had brainwashed countless innocent children, forcing them to attack their peers, their families, even themselves on occasion. And the people here were concerned that he might be having a difficult day?
Adrian bit back his thoughts and forced a wan smile.
The woman slipped away and Adrian turned back to the small room. A couple of chairs were stationed beside the cot, and a plate of sandwiches, apparently untouched, sat on a side table. The lighting was dim and warm, and the air smelled of a mix of chemical cleaners and lavender room spray.
“Um … shouldn’t he be restrained … or something?” whispered Adrian.
The man chuckled. “He’s not a villain anymore,” he said, slapping Adrian on the shoulder. “What are you afraid of?” He started to walk away. “I’ll be back to get you in fifteen minutes, but if you’re done sooner, have them page me.”
Adrian stood inside the doorway for a long moment, observing the villain on the cot. He knew that Winston must be aware of his presence, but he never took his eyes from the ceiling. He had been changed out of the striped prison uniform into light blue sweatpants and a white T-shirt, and he appeared so utterly disheartened that Adrian felt a twinge of that sympathy he’d criticized the woman for.
“Mr. Pratt?” he said, shutting the door behind him. “I’m Adrian Everhart. We met once before … I’m not sure if they told you I was coming today or not … but I was hoping to ask you some questions.”
Winston did not move, except for his eyelids closing and opening in slow motion.
“I know a lot of people have talked to you lately about the Anarchists, and where they might be hiding out, but there’s a different mystery that I was hoping you could maybe shine some light on.”
When Winston still didn’t react, Adrian perched on the edge of the one of the chairs, resting his elbows on his knees. “Last time I spoke to you, the Anarchists had just abandoned the subway tunnels, and most of them have not been seen or heard from since. I’m told that you’ve been questioned at length on their whereabouts and I believe you when you say that you don’t know where they are.”
No response.
He looked so different from when Adrian had interrogated him before, without the permanent etchings of marionette lines on his jaw or the circles of rouge on his cheeks, without the sinister grin. He still had the ginger-red hair, but it now fell uninspired across his forehead.
He looked so … so normal. He could have been anyone. A math teacher. A truck driver. A shop owner.
Anyone but a villain.
Adrian lifted his chin and reminded himself that, despite his harmless appearance now, the man before him had done despicable things. Losing his powers didn’t change that.
“However,” Adrian continued, “you did give me some really useful information regarding Nightmare.”
This, at last, provoked a twitch in Winston’s cheek.
“I don’t know how much they keep you informed around here, but we were able to track Nightmare down to her hiding spot at Cosmopolis Park.”
Winston’s eyes shifted toward him, then straight back to the ceiling.
“Have you heard about the fight that happened there between Nightmare and the Detonator?” pressed Adrian. “Did you know that they’re both dead?”
He waited, and after a long silence, Winston’s head listed to the side. He seemed to be considering Adrian.
“Both dead?” the villain said, feeling out the words. “Are you sure?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t sure, of course, no matter how convinced of Nightmare’s death the rest of the world seemed to be. But Winston didn’t need to know that.
“The Detonator killed Nightmare with one of her explosives, and one of my teammates killed the Detonator. I saw it happen.”
Winston made a sound that suggested he was unconvinced by Adrian’s story.
“Here’s the thing,” said Adrian, leaning forward. “Before Nightmare was killed, she was overheard using a phrase. A … slogan, of sorts. She said, ‘One cannot be brave who has no fear.’ Do those words mean anything to you?”
Winston scowled. Then he sat up, without warning, and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He mimicked Adrian’s stance, leaning over his knees, studying him.
A chill ran down Adrian’s spine, but he refused to show his discomfort. Holding Winston’s gaze, he squeezed his hands together until one of his joints popped.
“Lady Indomitable,” Winston whispered. The name hung between them, filling up the silence, feeling like a shared secret somehow, until Winston leaned back and brought his knees up, crossing his legs on the cot. All signs of melancholy vanished and he sounded almost cheerful as he began to talk. “Did you know, she once got hold of my hot-air balloon and flew it all the way into the next county. I wasn’t in it at the time. Was busy robbing a bank or something.…” He snapped. “No, no, a warehouse, that’s right. The balloon was supposed to be our getaway vehicle. Didn’t quite work out that way, obviously. Took me almost a month to track it down. She’d left the thing in a cow pasture, can you believe that? Meddling little Renegade.” He stuck out his tongue.
Gaping at him, Adrian stammered, “She was my mother.”
“Well, clearly. You look just like her, you know.”
Adrian’s mouth opened and closed for a minute, trying to determine the importance of this story, if there was any. Unless …
Unless.
Rage flared in his chest. “Did you do it?” he barked, jumping to his feet.
Winston pushed his back against the wall, startled.
“Did you kill her? Did you murder her because … because she stole your balloon?”
“Did I…?” Winston let out a shriek of a laugh and clapped his hands to the sides of his face. “Did I kill Lady Indomitable? Goodness gracious, no.” He paused, considering. “That is, I would have, had the opportunity ever presented itself.”
Adrian snarled, his hands still clenched into fists.
“But I didn’t!” he insisted.
“But you know who did, don’t you? You know she was found with that note—those words on her. ‘One cannot be brave’—”
“‘Who has no fear,’ yakkity-yak. Trying a bit too hard to be profound, isn’t it?” Winston yawned exaggeratedly.
Adrian lowered himself back to the chair. “Who killed her? Was it an Anarchist? Are they still alive? Are they still out there?”
The look behind Winston’s eyes changed then. No longer hollow and distressed as they had been when Adrian had first arrived, nor jovial and worry-free.
Now he appeared to be considering something.
To be … calculating.
For the first time since he’d entered the room, Adrian could see the villain this man had once been. Or was still, despite what everyone wanted to believe.
“I will give you information, but I ask for something in return.”
Adrian tensed. “I’m not in a position to bargain with you.”
“I don’t ask for much. You can even run my request by that Council of yours if you’d like.”
Adrian hesitated, but Winston kept talking without waiting for a response.
“When I was a chil
d, my father gave me my first puppet—a wooden marionette with orange hair, like mine, and a sad face. I named it Hettie. Well, the last I saw of Hettie, he was fast asleep in his little bed right next to mine—on the subway platform at Blackmire Station.” His expression turned pleading. “Bring me Hettie, Mr. Renegade, and I promise I will tell you something you want to know.”
CHAPTER TEN
“ADMIT IT. You had a bit of a thing for him.”
Nova turned her face to Honey, her jaw dropping with disgust. They were crammed into Leroy’s beloved yellow sports car, Nova straddling the center console between Honey and Leroy. “I did not.”
Honey tittered, shooing Nova’s comment away with the tips of her glossy gold nails. “Psh. What girl your age doesn’t fawn over such golden-hearted righteousness, that boldness, that sheer … heroism.” Despite her mocking tone, there was a dreaminess in her eyes as she watched the city pass by their window.
Nova gaped at her. “Gross.”
Leroy snickered. “Believe me, it isn’t the heroics that Honey finds attractive, it’s the power.”
A shrill giggle escaped Honey and she leaned forward to peer around Nova at him. “Oh, the Sentinel’s obviously not for me, all those muscles and gratuitous masculinity.” She stuck out her tongue. “But Leroy makes an excellent point. Power like that, it does make my heart pitter-patter. If you claim otherwise, you’re lying.”
Nova shook her head and peered down the line of red stoplights stretched out before them, knowing that Leroy would ignore most of them. Luckily, this neighborhood was a ghost town this time of night.
“Absolutely not. There was nothing attractive at all about that pompous, arrogant, attention-craving—”
“Renegade?”
“Wannabe.”
Honey smirked. “Your protests speak volumes. But they haven’t found the body yet, have they? Who knows, maybe your Sentinel survived.”
Nova crossed her arms over her chest, sensing that she was fighting a losing battle. “I watched him get thrown in the river. That armor sank like it was made of concrete. No way he could have gotten out of it fast enough.” She hesitated, before adding, with some annoyance, “Though he has surprised me before.”
“Shame,” Leroy mused. “I was beginning to enjoy your heated griping on his egotism and … how did you put it that one time? That his personality was as interesting as a bloated carp?”
“That might have been a little harsh, in hindsight,” said Nova, “given the whole drowning thing.”
Leroy shrugged, but the jerkiness of the movement sent the car careening into the opposite lane. He smiled impishly as he course-corrected. “Regardless of your personal feelings, whatever they might be”—he cast Honey a sideways smirk—“I’m saddened by the vigilante’s death. He’d done more to benefit our cause than any underground villain these days.”
“The Sentinel? He made it his personal mission to hunt me down!”
“When the world believed that Nightmare was alive, yes, he was problematic. But since you were proclaimed dead, he’s been quite helpful, embarrassing the Renegades at every turn.”
Nova shook her head. She didn’t like to think of the Sentinel as being a benefit to their cause. She didn’t like to think anything positive about that inflated action figure at all.
But maybe Leroy had a point. The Sentinel had been active since the attack on the carnival, frequently showing up at the scene of a crime before even the Renegade patrol units arrived, though no one knew how he was finding out about the crimes so fast. He’d captured more low-level criminals than some Renegades had in their entire careers, and his success was largely thanks to his refusal to adhere to the Gatlon code authority. In fact, something told her that he would have had no problem shooting that guy who had held the barista hostage, potential risks or not.
But there was still something about him that made her skin crawl. The way he talked—like all the world should stop to listen and be enraptured by his brilliance. The way he was always striking those silly poses in between battles, like he’d read far too many comic books. The way he had tried to intimidate her during the parade, and how he’d threatened Leroy in the tunnels. He acted like he was superior to the Renegades, but he was nothing more than a hero reject with a power complex.
But it no longer mattered. He’d been a nuisance both to the Renegades and Nova, and now he was gone. Soon his body would be dredged up from the river, his identity would be revealed, and his story used as a bulleted talking point for the Council to remind people why vigilantism was a bad idea. Prodigies needed to join the Renegades, or they needed to keep their powers to themselves—at least, that’s what the Council wanted everyone to believe.
Annoyed with the conversation, Nova was glad when she finally spotted the cathedral looming at the top of its hill.
Or, what had once been a cathedral. Now it was merely a shell of a structure. The northeast side was relatively unscathed, but the rest had been demolished during the Battle for Gatlon. The nave and two elaborate towers that had stood at the west entrance had been reduced to rubble, along with the high altar, the choir, and both of the southern transepts. A handful of columns still stood around the open cloister, though they looked more like the ruins of an ancient civilization than destruction wrought only a decade ago.
Leroy parked outside the gate. The ruins stood in the midst of a dead neighborhood. The battle had destroyed the surrounding city blocks. On top of that, some people worried that dangerous radiation and various toxins had leached into the ground as a result of so many colliding superpowers, leaving the area uninhabitable and feared by most of the populace. There was no one to see them. No one to wonder about the yellow car parked outside the wreckage or the mysterious figures trudging through the wasteland.
The night was overcast. With the nearest street lamp four blocks away, it was almost pitch-black as they stepped over the DANGER—DO NOT ENTER sign strung between two metal posts. Honey dug an industrial-size flashlight from her industrial-size handbag and went on ahead of them.
It was no longer safe for them to enter Ace’s catacombs through the subway tunnels, for fear they were being monitored by the Renegades, and it had taken a full day to clear away the rubble that had divided Ace’s sanctuary from the fallen cathedral since the Day of Triumph. But now they had a new secret entrance for their visits—a narrow staircase tucked between a crumbling archway and a fallen stone column, hidden by a muddle of splintered pews and toppled organ pipes.
As soon as Nova descended the first set of steps, it felt like stepping into a different universe. There were no hints of the city down here. No sirens or angry voices coming from apartment windows or the rumble of delivery trucks ambling down the streets. This was not Gatlon City. This was a place forgotten. This was a place without Renegades, without law, without consequences.
She sighed.
That wasn’t true. There were still consequences. There were always consequences, no matter which side she was on. No matter who she fought beside. There was always someone left disappointed.
Her hand went to her bare wrist. She’d gotten used to the feel of the Renegade wristband that she usually wore, and now felt strange without it. She had left it at the house, so that if anyone back at headquarters tracked her whereabouts, they wouldn’t notice anything suspicious about her location.
They reached the first crypt, overcrowded with stone sarcophagi, and Nova sensed Phobia’s presence, first by the shiver that coursed through her body and then by the way the shadows converged in one corner, solidifying into his tall, cloaked form.
Honey shone the flashlight straight into the overhang of his hood, where a face should have been but was, instead, only more darkness. Phobia shrank away slightly, blocking the light with the blade of his scythe.
“How nice to see you,” said Honey. “I was beginning to think someone might have conducted an exorcism and sent you back to the underworld.”
“You believe that’s where I’m from?”
said Phobia, his raspy voice eerier than usual in the dank chamber.
Honey hummed to herself. “Well, I don’t think you’re from the suburbs.”
Phobia sauntered in their wake as they descended another stairwell, spiraling down into the earth. Faint light could be felt as much as seen, emanating from the deepest sublevel. Leaving the stairs behind, they passed through a chamber with vaulted stone ceilings and ancient pillars. The walls were lined with more coffins, many carved with the faces of knights and holy men, others chiseled with Latin proverbs. Beyond the chamber was an open door and the source of the light—a standing candelabra lit with nine taper candles. The ground beneath was covered in wax that had dripped into a series of small hillocks over the years, puddling and splattering across the stone floor.
Inside this final room, there was an old writing desk, teetering stacks of books, a stately four-poster bed, and bones. So many bones. Countless eye sockets watching from their hollow skulls. Femurs and rib cages stacked neatly across open shelves. Tiny finger and foot bones lined up side by side, as precisely as mosaic tiles.
And there was Ace, sitting in the room’s only chair, drinking a cup of tea while a small book of poetry hovered in front of his face. He took a sip from the porcelain cup at the same time one of the brittle yellow pages turned.
Ace Anarchy. The catalyst of a revolution. The world’s most feared villain. But also, Nova’s uncle. The man who had saved her. Raised her. Trusted her.
His gaze moved slowly across the worn yellow page of the book, and only when he had reached the end of the poem did he look up.
“Acey, darling,” Honey cooed, “you’re skinnier than half the skeletons down here! Haven’t you been eating?” She snapped her fingers. “Nova, there are a few jars of honey up in the car. Would you be a dear and go fetch them?”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Ace, his voice gravelly and tired, “but I have had enough honey to last several life times.”
“Nonsense. It’s food fit for gods.”
Archenemies Page 9