Mom chuckles as though that's not the same tired joke I always tell after teleporting to prevent someone else being making it first. “And you must be Hazel,” Mom says, taking her hands before Hazel and her personal space issues can duck away. “I've heard such wonderful things about you. Did you do all of the work on your arms by yourself? The detail is magnificent.”
It's a smart move, complimenting Hazel's intricate tattoo sleeves. Hazel didn't tattoo them herself – her buddy Jason does her tats and she handles his – but she arranged the artwork herself, a vibrant study in tropical ocean life. She shrugs even as her smile grows. “I get bored easily.” She stretches out her arms, showing off the shy clownfish and seahorse families peeking out from her skin. “It's either this or draw on myself with Sharpies, and I grew out of that when I was five.”
My mother giggles as she leans close to me. “I like her, sweetie,” she stage-whispers. “She's funny.” Something catches her eye from the other side of the room, and she tosses her hair and adjusts her posture without thinking. “Oh, and there's the mayor.”
She hustles away before I can say anything, weaving between the curious onlookers with breezy intent. Hazel shoots me a bemused look. “Are you sure she's a stone-cold bitch?”
I cock an eyebrow. “I could have imagined my entire childhood,” I say dryly, “but I doubt it.”
A moment later, Nate sidles up to the both of us, a bottle of microbrew in one hand and two champagne glasses held in the other. I recognize his standard black suit from the last few parties he attended before I left the city, apparently holding up quite nicely in the ensuing years. He must have left the cowboy hat at home, or at least had it stolen by a well-meaning coat check girl. His head's shaved so smoothly I can barely spot where persistent patches still attempt to grow, and my fingers itch to run my hand over it and make a joke about babies' bottoms. “You'll be wantin' these, I'll bet,” he says, extending the champagne glasses to us with a beaming smile.
“Nate,” I say, unable to rein in how grateful I am to see him here. I almost thought I would go the rest of the day without seeing anyone other than Hazel who could tolerate my presence without storing up snide comments to make about me after I leave the room. “Oh, good, that's one more person who can keep me from giving myself a frontal lobotomy.”
I move to reach for one of the glasses and freeze. “Which one is the sparkling cider?” I ask.
He shakes his head, his wily smile growing, and wiggles the glass in his left hand in mid-air. Trust in Nate to come prepared just in case I'm not in the mood to get plastered at one of my parents' stuck-up shindigs.
I pluck the glass from his right hand and take a quick drink, ignoring the pointed look he shoots me. “Hazel's vegan,” I point out. “She can't have the champagne.” I know Mom well enough by now that if the waiters are passing out sparkling cider, it's there specifically for the handful of heroes with dietary restrictions. Mom's gracious like that. Shame she's not like that when there's not a party or a film crew involved.
Nate waits until I take another healthy swig to clear his throat, and I blush when I realize what he's getting at.
“Oh, right. Hazel, Nate. Nate, Hazel.”
He gives her a polite nod, holding out a hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Hazel frowns as she takes the cider from him. “I don't shake hands,” she says.
I lift my gaze to the ceiling and try desperately not to have some sort of tantrum right here in the midst of the upper echelon of the superhuman community. I suppose I asked for that last one, however. Hazel's never been the cuddly type. She doesn't talk about why very much, but it didn't take me long to learn that getting her to accept a handshake or a hug from a stranger without a flinch on her part is a major accomplishment. If she thinks she can turn either down without causing waves, she will.
She knows her audience well by now, obviously. Nate just shrugs and says, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you ain't the only one.”
“It doesn't,” Hazel replies, but at least she grins when she says so.
Then it strikes me just what Nate said. “Wait, what's that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Nate bends close, appearing to anyone who might be curious like he wants our casual conversation to be heard over the rising din of six-string guitars and insistent drums pouring from the speaker system. “Everett hasn't touched a goddamn one of us since we walked in the door. Your mama, meanwhile, has been hugging everyone dumb enough to pass her like she's the world's worst pickpocket.”
I can't help but grimace at that. If Mom's attempting to hide Dad's strange behavior, she's trying way too hard.
A raucous bang disrupts the relative calm of the party. A missile bolts past the windows of the penthouse, the glass rattling in the frames. Everybody in the penthouse tenses as one. Nate lowers his bottle with a scowl. “Aw, hell, Nucleo's sending another –“
Someone flies past the penthouse at speeds approaching sonic levels, their costume a blur of black, gold and red. I could swear I see them wave, whoever it is.
The mood tones down again, back to the normal level it was at before the disruption. “Never mind,” Nate says. “Graham's got it.”
“Graham's back in the suit? Today, of all days?”
Nate shrugs. “He volunteered. Ivy says that's just his charitable nature.” The smirk on his face as he finishes off his beer and deftly deposits it on the tray of a passing waiter displays his opinion of that particular assessment of Graham well enough.
I frown, highly doubting Graham asked to work during this party because he's just that giving. “Has she met him?”
He chuckles at that.
The demanding tinkling of a fork tapping against a glass resonates through the living room as the double doors to the balcony slide open and Dad moves into the doorway, catching everyone's attention. Mom must have picked out his suit, earthy shades of brown and red in his jacket and vest. It brings out the gold flecks in his brown eyes and the sharp angles of his cheekbones, drops ten years from his appearance and lessens the smugness in his smile. She hovers beside him with an adoring grin. If I didn't know any better, I'd firmly believe they've always been in love.
“Friends and teammates,” he announces, “it's a pleasure to see you here today to celebrate the passing of a truly vile criminal I'm sure we're all glad to be rid of.”
A voice from the balcony calls out, “You most of all, right, Everett?”
Dad tilts his glass towards his old sidekick. “Oh, most definitely, Frank.”
“This is creepy as hell,” Hazel murmurs.
I shrug. “We never claimed to be normal.”
“We, huh?”
I manage not to glare her way at that, focusing on my father instead.
“It's been a long time coming. I think we all know what a trying life it's been with Morris Kemp constantly on our heels, but I'd just like to thank everyone who came today for joining us as we cheer the loss of the Quiz Master. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.”
“I'll second that!”
A round of applause fills the apartment, and all I can picture is a lonely body on a table in a cold, badly lit room across town.
The crowd starts to move en masse out to the balcony to watch the parade. Nate trails out along with them with a parting wink, leaving Hazel and me behind to fidget and wallow in our awkwardness. Even from here, I can hear the cheers and chants of the crowds down on the street behind the party music, cheers that Morris is off somewhere on a chilled slab collecting dust. I feel like I've gotten lost somewhere and ended up upside-down and inside-out where grass is blue and the sky is green, all because I really can't find the enjoyment in celebrating the death of anyone, much less Morris.
It strikes me, however, that right now I know exactly where my mother and father are. They're holding court on the balcony like the uncrowned American royalty they are.
“Wait here,” I say before I can stop myself.
Hazel glares at me. “Oh,
no, you don't.”
“No one is at Morris's place,” I argue in hushed whispers. “The only people who know about the condo are Mom, Dad and Graham and they're all here or busy. Now's my chance. Just stall if anyone comes looking for me, all right? Say I've gone to the bathroom or something?”
What starts as a solid debate trips into hopeless pleading by the end. Hazel's lips press together in annoyance. “Fine, go,” she hisses.
I give her hand a reassuring squeeze, but she deliberately slips it from my grasp. Ouch.
“Five minutes,” I swear, then duck down the hallway towards my bedroom.
As soon as I'm out of sight, I teleport to the condo.
And land directly in the middle of an inferno.
“Oh, you've got to be kidding me,” I yell, immediately teleporting for cover out of reflex.
I've only ever been to the building Morris and my dad live in once, for a delusional Rockwellian disaster of a family dinner that my father dreamed up right before I departed superhero work and the city itself in a temperamental swirl of smoldering spandex. In retrospect, my dad was only trying to make up for the whole homewrecking catastrophe. It would have been almost sweet if it hadn't actually been a fascinating exercise in futility, except with more explosions than usual. You'd think my dad had never met me or Graham before considering his protesting shouts when Graham threw the silver gravy boat through the brick wall between the dining room and their bedroom. On the bright side, at least we amused the hell out of Morris.
Needless to say, the condo – or at least the professionally maintained hallway outside the condo – hadn't been on fire at the time.
All right, it hadn't been on fire long.
I pop out of the hallway and materialize on the landing in the stairwell, as close to the insufferable chaos in the hall as my powers will allow me now that they know what's going on. I can only imagine being rusty is still fogging my mind just enough to have stunned my senses into missing the fact that this particular landing point is a little more ablaze than I usually prefer.
“Oh, wonderful. Make it difficult for me, why don't you?” I say.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, blanketing the entire floor of the building with the full reach of my abilities. It's a simple trick, an effortless display any teleporter can perform even at their weakest. The one thing we can all do, even slackers like me who give up the cape to go peddle free-trade coffee and Mexican desserts from dawn to dusk, is orient ourselves to the world around us in an instant. Our minds feel out our destinations no matter how far away they may be, skim the surface for people and objects, let gravity pull at us so we land in standing positions.
A little concentrating is all it takes to crystallize the scene in my mind, building up the floor plan in my imagination in tangible miniature.
The fire is contained to the hallway, a bright blotchy block of red to my mind's eye. A single person in the hallway, wading through a pool of heat. No one else on the floor here, above or below.
Right. Fire alarm. I must have shown up too late for it.
“That was nice of him,” I murmur to myself.
Whoever it is, I doubt they've caught a glimpse of me just yet. Firestarters have a tendency to take the supernatural pyromania to deluded extremes. Once they get started, they don't notice details very well. We always needed to cover the hell out of Flashpoint. He was once so entranced by his own fire-wielding that he missed the toddler son of Professor Neutron sneaking up behind him with a wiffleball bat, although he eventually noticed when the kid whacked him behind the knees.
If this firestarter's anything like most of them, he's disabled the sprinklers along with setting off the alarms. It's the first pop quiz you take in Safe Battle Techniques 101. Once you clear out the innocent bystanders, you can cause all the damage you want.
Oh, fantastic. That just means I don't exactly have a lot of time before he destroys everything in sight.
Steeling myself, I shove past the ingrained instinct to steer clear and teleport directly into the apartment Morris and Dad shared only last week, stumbling when I appear in their foyer to a growing heat tinged with smoke. The doors here are thick, but they won't hold this fire out for long, not if this particular firestarter's motives are exactly what I expect they are.
He's destroying all evidence of the secret romance of Everett Noble and Morris Kemp in one sentient bonfire. He may not know it's the case, but he's doing so nonetheless.
I have to make this quick, scavenge whatever I can from the place and make do with what I find.
“It would help if I knew what I need to find,” I mutter in between coughs.
The condo my dad and Morris share – or shared, I suppose – possesses far more intimacy than my parents' cold and sterile glass castle in the sky. It's all dark oaks and gold accents, forest-green leather and soft warm lighting, like one huge smoking room. Of course, with the power out and the place smoking in reality rather than simply in name only, attempting to navigate around their heavy antique furniture is asking for trouble.
“Think, Vera,” I say to myself, crouching low to the ground to access the steadily dwindling oxygen supply. What to take, what to take? I don't have time to dig through the hundreds of neatly organized books lining the shelves built into the walls, any more than I can empty the file cabinets and desk drawers in Dad's office searching for an answer. If Dad – the real Dad – were going to have anything of vital importance, that's where he'd put it. Predictable and particular, that sums up Dad but good.
So forget Dad. Where would Morris hide something if he could see trouble brewing on the horizon?
I don't even have to ponder that one for long.
A blink and a wish later and I'm standing in the cramped bathroom of the spare bedroom, a hideaway no bigger than a closet which Morris showed me during the grand tour of the apartment, right before Graham started pitching expensive place settings through the wall and housewarming fell by the wayside. “And since we plan on having so very many guests,” Morris said dryly, gifting me with a knowing glance that made me fight the urge to immediately teleport home, “I'm sure we could hide the Hope Diamond and a substantial supply of yellow-cake uranium in the toilet tank and no one would ever find it.”
Sometimes, I wonder if that man is psychic or just always planning ahead out of habit.
I topple the box of tissues from atop the toilet tank and lift the lid, peering inside with thinly veiled disgust. I swear, the things I do for these people. At least it's not at the bottom of the toilet bowl, I suppose, although I don't rate this much higher.
Sure enough, something catches what dim light is available and issues a sparkling greeting from the depths of the murky water. Not bothering to think too hard about what I'm doing, I slam my eyes shut in disgust and plunge my hand into the tank, fumbling blindly until cool metal brushes my fingertips. I snatch up whatever it is, unsurprised when I pull it out to reveal a common house key, a rubber cover encasing the top.
Wonderful. Now if only I knew what door out of the hundreds of millions on the planet it's meant to open. He certainly wouldn't hide a key for any door in the apartment in the well of his toilet tank. So what's left?
A wracking cough shakes through me, brought on by a sudden curtain of smoke sweeping through the spare bedroom. I tuck the key away in my bra – my outfits rarely have pockets, but you can't go anywhere without decent support when you've got a chest like mine – and take a shallow breath of ash-soaked air, readying myself to teleport to safety.
I stop before I go, shaking my head. No, I can't just leave. Not without knowing who's destroying the last vestiges of my father's life with Morris.
I only give myself a split second, just enough to catch a quick glimpse of the perpetrator and hasten my exit before I go up in flames like a bottle rocket. I pop from the bathroom to the stretch of hallway right behind him, a blur of red-orange heat in my mind's eye. If I leap quickly enough, hop in there and out again, I should be able to refrain f
rom lighting up like a Roman candle and be able to identify the guilty party before making a break for it. I've done it before, surviving freezing conditions in a clinging thin wiggle dress, escaping without a scratch from supernovas. It should be nothing.
And it is, a single peek in and out before I teleport home. It should be routine.
Except I know it isn't as soon as I see the familiar red, orange and gold SLB-issued costume on the person.
I reappear in my bedroom at the penthouse with an audible whoosh, an errant fog of smoke trailing after me through the tear in reality I traveled through. I slap at the air to disperse the smoke, focusing on fanning the smell from the air rather than on the firestarter I recognized instantly once I could see him past the whipping smoke and bubbling flames.
Flashpoint.
What in heaven's name is a hero and a Brigade member doing scorching away the last remnants of my father's hidden life?
I rest my hands on my hips and says softly, “Oh, this is not good.”
I find Hazel a few minutes later, tucked in an out-of-the-way corner away from the mingling party guests pointedly ignoring her, paying more attention to one of my mother's more expensive Aztec pieces than to anything else in the room. She jerks her head up before she even looks my way, sniffing at the air with a disgusted look on her face.
As soon as she spots me she takes another sniff and declares, “You smell like a marshmallow roast at summer camp. What the hell happened?”
“Don't ask,” I say. If I tell her I just left a spreading conflagration, I'm just going to get my head ripped off.
Thankfully, she doesn't prod, at least not about that. “Find anything interesting?”
I remove the key from my bodice and pass it over.
She stares at it for a long moment, then frowns. “Is that a no?”
“Hell if I know,” I mutter. “That key could be for anything.”
“It looks like a regular old house key,” Hazel says, picking at the stiff rubber key cover until it starts to flake off in jagged little chunks. She narrows her eyes at the revealed metal, and I peer over her shoulder at the letters and numbers engraved in the bow of the key.
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