by Matthew Cody
Mollie slapped her forehead. “We are doomed.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Eric. “I promise.”
Daniel nodded and let out a breath that he’d been holding for the last ten minutes. They had a plan now, at least.
It was decided that they should take Theo up on his offer sooner rather than later, and Louisa, Daniel, Rohan, and Eric agreed to try to meet there tomorrow. High-stakes espionage was a lot tougher when you needed your parents’ permission.
Once the meeting was adjourned, the Supers drifted away in groups. Eric followed Daniel, but he didn’t say anything about the powers, as Mollie always seemed to be within earshot. It would have to wait until another time.
The plan was set. The game was afoot.
Chapter Nine
Safety in Numbers
It wasn’t so much the lying to Theo that made Daniel uneasy (he’d actually gotten quite good at that part); it was the feeling that they might be walking into the lion’s den. True, it was his own plan, but each time he’d dealt with Theo, or Herman for that matter, he’d been alone. There was something comforting in having friends around him, but it also meant that there were that many more people he had to watch out for. Whenever he’d visited old Herman at his home, it had played out like a cleverly calculated chess match: Plunkett had used that very analogy to describe their competitive relationship. And after the bridge, Daniel felt pretty sure Theo had inherited more than a little of his granduncle’s wiles. Theo would be watching Daniel and his friends for the slightest mistake, and Daniel would be watching too.
Not surprisingly, when Daniel called Theo to invite himself and his friends over, Theo had been all niceness. Theo’s parents were leaving that morning on business, and the grounds staff had the day off, so other than his granddad, they’d have the place to themselves. Daniel remembered how alone Herman had been in that cavernous old house. All he’d had was a nurse and a few gardeners for occasional company. Herman and Oliver Plunkett had chosen very different lives, each scorning the other’s. It seemed to Daniel that Oliver had gotten the better deal. He at least had a family, something other than money to leave behind. He at least had people around him.
Daniel, Eric, Rohan, and Louisa agreed to meet outside the Plunketts’ house the next day. Daniel spent another night haunted by nightmares, and he woke up just in time to wolf down a quick breakfast before Mollie Lee appeared on his front porch. He was already in a testy mood. Perhaps it was only nerves about the mission, but it might also have been something else: Though he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, each morning he woke up hoping to be … Super. But he wasn’t. Each day began and ended with him staying the same. Ordinary. It was looking more and more like that one incident was nothing more than a fluke. So when he saw Mollie Lee scowling at him from the other side of the screen door, he really wasn’t in the mood.
“What?” he asked. He didn’t even bother to say hello.
If Mollie was put off by this, it didn’t show past her already put-off veneer.
“First, you’re a jerk for putting together your plan without including me,” she said.
“Huh?” Daniel blinked at her in confusion.
“Everyone is going over to Theo Plunkett’s house except for me and Rose. You benched me with the six-year-old.”
“But—What?”
Mollie continued talking. As usual, she seemed interested in only one side of the conversation. Hers.
“And second,” she said. “I’m going with you today whether you want me to or not. You can’t stop me.”
Daniel rubbed his temples, trying to process exactly what it was she was going on about. Mollie was mad because she hadn’t been asked along to Theo’s? Because Daniel hadn’t invited her to meet someone she clearly had no interest in meeting, on a mission she openly scoffed at?
“Uh, fine,” he said. “You’re right. So let’s go.”
That stopped her. Mollie had dug her heels in, ready for a fight. She wasn’t used to getting her way without one, and most of the time she even seemed to enjoy it. But Daniel wasn’t going to give her one today. She was right when she said he couldn’t stop her from coming along if she wanted to, so why try?
“I said let’s go.” Daniel pushed past her. “I don’t want to be late. We’re not all super-speeders, you know.”
For maybe the first time ever, Daniel was a step ahead of Mollie Lee. He was already across the lawn and to the sidewalk when she finally shook the stunned look from her face and caught up.
“Well, good,” she said, marching along next to him. “I’m glad that’s settled.”
“So am I,” answered Daniel, still determined not to take the bait.
Mollie wrinkled her forehead in frustration, burying her eyebrows beneath her dark bangs. She kept up her angry pout all the way to the Plunkett house, while Daniel stayed smugly silent. Eric waved at them from the entrance to Theo Plunkett’s drive. Louisa and Rohan were standing nearby.
“Rohan heard you two coming,” called Eric. “He said, ‘Here comes Daniel, and Mollie’s with him. And she sounds angry.’ ”
“How could I sound angry?” asked Mollie. “We haven’t said a word to each other the whole way!”
“You’re breathing angry,” said Rohan, not looking at anyone in particular but seemingly fascinated with his own shoe. “It’s very distinctive.”
“You’re really annoying,” said Mollie.
Rohan shrugged.
“Since we’re all here,” said Eric, “should we head on in? No sense in waiting around.”
“Sure,” said Daniel. “But let’s just review the plan first.”
“There’s a plan?” asked Eric.
Daniel ignored him. “Once inside, we’ll hang out for a while, until I get up to go to the bathroom. After a few minutes, Louisa, you tell Theo you have to go too. I’m sure a house that big has plenty of bathrooms.”
“I’m not good at lying,” said Louisa. “Just so everyone knows.”
“It’s a tiny lie,” Daniel reassured her. “Just tell him you have to pee.”
“I get all blushy,” said Louisa.
“You’ll do fine,” said Daniel. “Just excuse yourself and instead of finding the bathroom, we’ll find Herman’s study. The safe is in there.”
“What are you hoping to find?” asked Eric.
“I’m hoping nothing,” answered Daniel. “But Herman kept tabs on everything in this town, including all of us. We’ve got to make sure there’s nothing in there that could be dangerous for any of you.”
“Just us?” asked Louisa. “Aren’t you just a little bit worried about yourself?”
Daniel avoided looking at Louisa as he answered her. “I don’t have powers. I’m not in any danger.”
See? he wanted to say. Lying is easy—it’s the easiest thing in the world. Look how good I’ve gotten at it.
He felt Eric watching him but ignored him. It was time to focus on the job at hand.
“While Louisa and I check out Herman’s safe, you three need to keep Theo occupied so he doesn’t get suspicious.”
“Easy,” said Eric. “We’ll just compliment his driving.”
“Be careful,” said Daniel. “He’s cleverer than you think.” Daniel knew they shouldn’t underestimate Theo Plunkett. He’d underestimated Herman, and they’d all nearly paid for it with their lives.
“What’s the signal when you’re all clear?” asked Rohan. “Should we come up with a birdcall or something? How will we know you’re done in the study?”
“Um, you’ll know when we’re done because we’ll be done and we’ll come back,” answered Daniel.
Mollie snorted as she started making birdcalls under her breath, and now it was Rohan’s turn to shoot her a look. “Of course. I just meant, you know, in case you two get into trouble.”
“We’ll be fine if we’re careful,” said Daniel. “While I don’t want Theo Plunkett learning the truth about the Supers, we won’t be in any real danger in there. We’re not dealing with the Sh
roud this time.”
The group went quiet at the mention of their old enemy. Even Mollie looked thoughtful. Daniel realized that they’d all been cracking jokes at each other just to keep their minds off him. Except for Daniel, none of them had ever set foot in Herman’s house. Daniel had talked to Herman Plunkett face to face, and he knew him to be a deranged and dangerous old man, but still just a man. The rest of them had only ever dealt with the Shroud—the shadow in the dark, the thing that haunted their dreams, the legend. Most of them hadn’t even seen his real face. No one wanted to show it, but they were scared.
“Seriously,” said Daniel, giving what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”
Chapter Ten
New Friends and Old Enemies
Theo was delighted to see them. He answered the door wearing his usual smile and exuding the seemingly good humor that Daniel had come to expect. What Daniel didn’t expect was the way Mollie and Louisa treated Theo. From the moment he opened the door the two girls … changed. With Louisa it was a subtle shift—she developed this new habit of flipping her hair whenever she laughed, which was often and at every joke Theo made, at every story he told about his trip to such-and-such island or so-and-so European city. With Mollie it was a more obvious and therefore more startling transformation. Mollie didn’t deck anyone, not a single punch, and she smiled. She smiled a lot and almost exclusively at Theo. This was an altogether unrecognizable Mollie Lee.
Daniel should have seen it coming. Theo was good-looking enough, but it was more than that. Theo had what Daniel termed the Girl Wink. Pizza was offered to everyone, but Mollie got hers along with a wink. Tour of the house? Everyone was invited, but Louisa was invited with a wink. Daniel didn’t think Theo was consciously flirting—after all, the girls were each at least two years younger than he was. But for Theo it just kind of came naturally. He had two modes that Daniel had witnessed so far—snide and charming—and today he was switched to full-on charm.
Eric noticed it too, but whereas Daniel was bemused, muddled, and bewildered by it all, Eric seemed to be experiencing something else. He was quiet. He rolled his eyes at every girlish giggle. When Theo wasn’t looking, he mimed that he was shoving his finger down his throat and vomiting. Eric was jealous.
As thrown as he was by this sudden upending of his once-stable, predictable circle of friends, Daniel forced himself to put who-was-flirting-with-who out of his brain and focus on their mission: to get inside Herman’s hidden safe. Theo gave them a brief house tour, but touring Herman’s old home was awfully depressing. Even with the windows thrown open, the house couldn’t shake the feeling of claustrophobia. What little warm sunlight managed to find its way inside was gobbled up by the water-stained carpeting and peeling wood paneling. The Shroud’s gloomy mansion was where cheer went to die.
As the tour passed the closed door to Herman’s study, Daniel caught Louisa’s attention and gave her what he thought was a conspiratorial look. She just blinked her eyes back at him shyly and smiled, causing Daniel to go an instant burnt red. Now she was back to flirting with him! Things were going terribly.
Fortunately, the billiard room was at least bearable, and once they’d settled in, Mollie’s competitive instincts overrode the spell cast by Theo’s looks and charm. After getting soundly thrashed three games in a row playing pool, Theo dropped the wink. Meanwhile, Rohan and Eric were having a contest to see who could hold the most pizza in his mouth.
It seemed as good a time as any to do a little spy-work.
No one seemed to even notice when he announced he was going to the bathroom, and for a moment Daniel worried that his friends had forgotten the plan. But on the way out he caught Rohan crossing his fingers for luck, which Daniel assumed was meant for him and not the pizza-eating contest. Herman’s study was up the stairs from the basement game room and just down the hall, past the grandfather’s room. As he tiptoed quietly past the old man’s door, Daniel could hear him snoring away. He must be napping. Daniel couldn’t picture the old man’s evil twin, Herman, napping in the middle of the day. The Shroud had probably been too busy plotting, pulling at his webs, to ever sleep.
The study door was unlocked, so Daniel didn’t wait for Louisa. Inside, it looked just as Daniel remembered. The air in there was stale and smelled of musty paper. Of all the windows in the house, these had stayed shut, the curtains drawn. Stacks of books were balanced upon more stacks of books. The well-worn reading chair sat empty against a wall covered in framed sketches, ink-and-brush illustrations of Herman Plunkett’s comic-book heroes and villains. Among the drawings was a picture of a man in a black domino mask: Herman’s most memorable creation, Johnny Noble. Of course, Johnny had been both Herman’s real-life nemesis and his greatest work of fiction. The stone pendant that gave the Shroud his power-stealing abilities had come from the same meteor that had made Jonathan Noble into a superhuman. Although the historical Jonathan Noble had disappeared in a dreamlike blur of childhood hero-worship and town folklore, Daniel knew that the real Johnny was the one person Plunkett feared. The old man had taunted his enemy in the pages of Fantastic Futures, Starring Johnny Noble, replaying their rivalry in four-color, nine-panel grids. He recast their roles as those of superhero and supervillain.
The most twisted part of it all was that, in the real world, Herman truly thought himself the hero. He had deluded himself into thinking he was saving the world from a generation of reckless and dangerous super-kids. It was only in the pages of his own art that the truth came out and his villainy was exposed.
Being alone in that old study brought back too many disturbing memories, and Daniel was glad when Louisa stuck her head in the doorway.
“Mollie’s telling stories about the Old Quarry,” she said.
But when she saw the alarmed look on Daniel’s face, she quickly added, “Not those kinds of stories. Old ghost stories and stuff. I think she’s just showing off for Theo.”
“I guess he is sort of good-looking. Or whatever.”
Louisa smiled. “He is, but it kind of wears thin after a while. To get out of there I used the bathroom excuse, but I don’t think he believed me. I warned you, I just hate lying.”
“Sure he believed you,” answered Daniel. “He has no reason not to. After all, why would you sneak off just minutes after I left? Why would we want to be alone together …?”
Louisa raised her eyebrows at him.
“Oh,” said Daniel. “You think he thinks that we … I mean you and me …”
Louisa didn’t say anything. He wished she would say something.
Daniel cleared his throat, but even that sounded awkward to his ears. This was not part of his plan. Detective work and ungainly romance did not work well together.
“Let’s get to it, then,” he said at last. “The safe, I mean! Before, ah, before anyone comes looking for you.”
Daniel walked over to the cabinet on the far wall and swung it open, revealing a small mounted safe. If Daniel had been half the detective he dreamed of being, he would have memorized the combination when he’d watched Herman open it all those months ago. But Daniel was bad at numbers.
Luckily, he had the best safecracker in the world—one who didn’t even have to open the door.
“Well, there it is,” he said. “What do you think?”
Louisa studied the safe’s dimensions. It was maybe two feet wide. “Well, I could poke my head in there and look, but I wouldn’t be able to see anything,” she said. “Could be tricky, but I suppose I could just reach in and pull out whatever’s in there.”
Louisa could extend her intangibility power to other people or objects that she touched. It would be simple for her to reach inside, but Daniel understood her hesitation: without being able to see in first, she’d have no idea what she was actually grabbing. Daniel imagined Louisa’s hand reaching toward a viper, coiled in the dark and waiting to strike.
But that, of course, was ridiculous. They had more cause to worry about tripping some kind
of silent alarm. They would have a hard time explaining that to the police.
“If you don’t want to try it, I’ll understand,” said Daniel. “We could always try to sneak in when Theo’s not home and let Eric just pull the door off.”
Louisa shook her head. “No. I can do this. If Eric opens that safe, it’s going to be obvious Eric opened that safe. He’s not exactly subtle.”
She looked at Daniel and smiled. “I want to help you guys out. I’m part of the team, even if I sometimes don’t act like it. I just don’t get the same … thrill out of all this that you do.”
“I don’t get a thrill out it,” Daniel answered. “But it’s important.”
“Of course it is. It’s important and you are trying to help us all. Your heart’s always in the right place. But don’t fool yourself that you don’t love it, Daniel. You love the mystery, the adventure. Admit it. So does Eric. The detective and the superhero; you guys are the world’s finest partners.”
Daniel opened his mouth to protest but stopped himself. She was right. Daniel didn’t enjoy the danger his friends were in, but he craved the excitement of a new mystery to solve. He hadn’t realized just how bored he had been, especially these last few months of worry-free summer. And especially now, he felt like he needed this focus, he needed something to occupy his thoughts other than the memory of flying. This, at least, kept his mind off it.
“Stand back,” said Louisa, “and let me at that safe!”
Daniel positioned himself in the door to act as lookout while Louisa placed her thin brown fingers on the safe’s door. There was no outward sign that she was activating her power, no flash of light or whoosh of sound. Her hand just slipped inside. As easily as one might dip their hand in a tub of water, Louisa had reached in through the solid steel door until it was nearly up to her elbow.
“Now’s the tricky part,” she said. “I have to let my hand go solid again so I can feel around, but still keep the rest of my arm intangible. This always freaks me out a bit, to be honest.”