All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault

by James Alan Gardner

  Instinct also told me that the Widow and Bride were sisters; maybe even twins. They had gone through the Dark Conversion together, emerging as a complementary pair. Now the pair bond had been severed. The Widow burned with rage—so much that her sense of loss seemed like a heat haze around her. I could see it. I couldn’t tell if that was due to my special powers of perception, or if the Widow’s boiling emotion literally distorted the world.

  One thing I was sure of: after what had happened to the Bride in the E3 lab, the Widow was now on the warpath. She’d commanded her demon companion to thrust his tentacles into our brains. We were frozen and at the Widow’s furious mercy. I hated to think what she planned next.

  THE PUSTULE DEMON SHUDDERED

  The movement drew my attention back to the demon. Four of his gray tentacles stretched unhindered through the windshield, but the fifth—the one attached to the demon’s chin—had become enveloped in strands of violet. They resembled the stringlike creepers that bindweed uses to strangle other plants. The violet strands came from outside the car, weaving rapidly up the tentacle until they reached the demon’s face and thrust themselves into his skin.

  His body jerked. His mouth opened in a scream. I couldn’t hear his cry—my perception gave sight, not sound. Still, I could see the inside of the demon’s mouth lit bright violet as the strands invaded the bones of his jaw. Some strands ran down his throat, while others stabbed through his soft palate and dug toward his brain.

  The tentacle growing from the demon’s right cheek flared with violet fire. The gray ectoplasm shriveled like burning plastic, and in less than a second it was gone, leaving a scorched black crater where it had been attached to the demon’s face.

  Another scream I couldn’t hear. The demon’s eyes fluttered, as if he was close to passing out.

  The Widow clutched his shoulder, shaking him and trying to keep him conscious. More violet fire appeared, this time around the tentacle on the demon’s other cheek. The demon’s ectoplasm flashed in spontaneous combustion. He slumped, held up only by the seat belt.

  MY CONSCIOUSNESS REELED BACK TO MY BODY AS IF IT WERE ON A BUNGEE CORD

  My point of view zoomed back on a straight-line path. As it cut through the corner of the building that had hidden the car from sight, I had a brief glimpse of wires and pipes running inside the wall, then an open area with books and desks, then more wires and pipes, then back outside. My vision sped above the frozen lawn before docking back into my body with a bump, like a boat coming to rest against a pier.

  But I hadn’t been alone on my trip back from the Lexus. My path ran side by side with a brilliant beam of violet, retracting at the same speed as my vision. At the moment when my viewpoint nestled back into my body, the violet slithered home into Shar’s forehead.

  She said something in Sinhalese—perhaps along the lines of, “Wow, I have superpowers!” She smiled broadly and said in English, “Excellent.”

  THE LEXUS SPURRED INTO LIFE

  The night was quiet enough to hear the engine, even at that distance. The car never came into sight, but I could hear it drive away—sedately, not racing. It did nothing to draw attention to itself or its passengers.

  JOOLS SAID, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED?”

  “Goddamned magic,” Miranda replied.

  “A psychic attack,” Shar explained. She began to fuss over Richard, who seemed more dazed than the rest of us. He was close to drooling.

  Poor Richard. He could strain my patience, but I felt bad for him. He’d missed out on the portal, the fireballs, and everything.

  I thought about the onset of the pustule demon’s attack: my panic at being immobilized. Richard must have felt the same, but he’d had no liberating vision to ease his hysteria.

  “What?” Richard said in a muddy voice. “What?”

  “Don’t worry, sweet,” Shar said. “Darklings attempted to violate our minds, but it’s over.”

  “What do you mean, don’t worry?” Miranda demanded. “They attacked, then just stopped? It doesn’t make sense. Unless they tampered with our minds, and we just don’t feel it.”

  “They didn’t tamper with our minds. I intervened.”

  “You?”

  Shar just gave Miranda a cat-versus-canary smile.

  “Bullshit,” Miranda said.

  “No,” I said, “she did. I saw it.”

  Miranda turned to me in surprise. “What?”

  “Open your nose,” Shar told Miranda. “The attack smelled like phenol, correct? But you can’t smell it now, because I neutralized it with sodium hydroxide.”

  Silence. Richard said, “You did what now?”

  “It smelled like phenol,” Shar said. “You must have noticed.”

  “What’s phenol?” Richard asked.

  “C6H5OH,” Jools said. “Also called carbolic acid. A volatile white crystalline solid.”

  We stared at Jools in surprise. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I know about phenol? We used it in first-year chemistry. Remember?”

  Of course I remembered first-year chemistry. It was where the four of us had met. By chance, we’d been assigned to the same lab bench: Miranda and I were partners, and we worked beside Shar and Jools.

  That was two years ago, and I still vaguely recalled the name phenol. I did not remember its formula or what it had smelled like.

  And if I didn’t remember, it was astounding Jools did. I’m sure that’s why Miranda and Shar were staring at her. But me, I stared at Jools for a different reason. Her head had flared with a bright green light when she recited phenol’s vital statistics.

  AFTER A MOMENT, MIRANDA SHRUGGED AND TURNED BACK TO SHAR

  “Explain what you said about phenol. I didn’t smell anything.”

  “It stank to high heaven!” Shar replied. “And since phenol is a weak acid, I projected the thought of neutralizing it with sodium hydroxide.”

  “NaOH,” Jools put in. “A hella strong base.”

  “That one was easy,” Miranda said. She was right. Jools hadn’t glowed.

  “The point is,” Shar said, “my strategy worked. You can’t smell phenol anymore, and we’re no longer under attack. In fact, all we smell is saffron.” She inhaled deeply and smiled. “It’s strange because saffron is chemically unrelated to either phenol or sodium hydroxide. But I like saffron. It’s soothing.”

  “So you smelled a weak acid,” Miranda said, “and you thought back a strong base. Now all you smell is a spice. Which I don’t smell, by the way. And you believe that you somehow defeated a Darkling attack? It makes no sense!”

  Shar gave Miranda a patronizing look. “I’m sorry if I can’t explain why it worked, but it’s like … like how you recognize people. You don’t follow a checklist: tall, blond, overplucked eyebrows, it must be Miranda. When you see someone, you just know who it is instantly.”

  “Automatic processing in the brain,” Jools said. “Below the level of consciousness. Face recognition is centered in the fusiform gyrus, but with participation from several other cerebral regions.”

  This time, we outright gaped. Miranda said, “Jools, what the fuck?”

  “I’m in biology,” Jools said. “I know things.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Thanks a heap.”

  “Shar,” I said, “did you smell anything special when Jools said fusiform gyrus?” I’d seen another green glow shine out from Jools’s head, and I was putting two and two together.

  Shar shrugged. “All I smelled was ale.”

  “No way,” Jools said, “I was doing shots, not beer.”

  I TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND STARED

  Which is to say, I looked carefully in every direction at once. No one in sight. “I know what’s going on,” I said. “I think Shar does too.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, enlighten the rest of us,” Miranda grumped.

  “Okay,” I said. “Someone hold up some fingers behind my back.”

  Jools shrugged and put
her hand behind my back. She held up two fingers.

  “Two,” I said. She changed her hand. “Four,” I said. “None. Five. One. Three. One.”

  “Fuck me,” Jools said.

  Miranda put her hands over my eyes. “Keep going.”

  “Two,” I said. “None. Four. Five. One. Three.”

  “Fuck me raw,” Jools said.

  Miranda lowered her hands and looked at Shar. “What do you smell?”

  “Vanilla. Quite strong.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” Richard said.

  Shar patted his cheek. “The smells aren’t real, sweet. Try to keep up.”

  “THIS IS … THOUGHT-PROVOKING,” MIRANDA SAID

  “It’s fucking awesome,” Jools corrected.

  “What?” Richard said. “Just because Kim can guess…”

  “Kim isn’t guessing,” Shar said. “What’s happened is—”

  Miranda cut her off. “No talk. We’re out in the open. Anyone could be watching.”

  Nobody was—I could see like noon in all directions. But I didn’t know whether my strange new perception could see through an Ignorance spell. I decided to say nothing as Miranda continued. “Whatever has happened, we don’t do anything till we have privacy. No tests.”

  Jools said, “You’re no fun.”

  “I mean it,” Miranda said. “We go and pick up the van…”

  “Dibs on picking it up first!” Jools said.

  Miranda glared. “We see if the van is still there. If so, we drive home. Or even better, into the country where we can experiment without being seen.”

  “Experiment? What do you mean?” Richard asked. He looked worried, as if Miranda meant trying a fivesome.

  “Experiments,” Jools said. “Like this.”

  Without warning, she grabbed my waist and hoisted me like a male dancer lifts a ballerina. She held me high for a couple of seconds; I forced myself not to fight her. Finally, she set me down with a sigh.

  I glowered, but couldn’t help asking, “Well?”

  “I could have held you up longer, but I don’t think I can toss you into orbit.”

  “Praise be,” Miranda said. “Now can we please just chill until we’re sure we’re not being watched?”

  “Can’t wait,” Jools said. “Let’s pick up the van.” She gave me a wink, then trotted toward E3.

  THE REST OF US FOLLOWED

  Shar took Richard’s hand. They soon lagged behind. When they were well back, a beam of violet shot from Shar’s forehead and hit me in the back of the skull. I said, “Hey! I can see that. Eyes in the back of my head, remember?”

  “Don’t worry,” Shar said. The beam didn’t go away.

  “Stop it,” I said. She didn’t. “I mean it, Shar, cut it out right now.” In my mind, I added, Or I’ll see if I can shoot lightning up your ass.

  Shar made a face and the beam disappeared like a flashlight being shut off. “You’re always so defensive,” Shar said. “I was just curious what you saw. A demon with sores on his face and a woman dressed in black?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You saw them? In my mind?”

  Shar nodded.

  I said, “Fuck me raw.”

  5

  Tectonic Collision

  RICHARD’S VAN HADN’T BEEN TOWED

  It was parked where Richard had left it, with the van’s front touching the dock and its rear hatch toward us. E3 has several loading docks, but Richard had chosen the least accessible—on an alley off a side road off a service road off the ring road, with the surrounding buildings cutting off your view unless you were right in the mouth of the alley. Richard seriously hadn’t wanted his van to be seen.

  Yeah, sure, his late-night equipment removal was totally legit.

  On the plus side, I couldn’t think of a more sheltered place to test what we could do. Only a few windows overlooked the alley. I scanned them and saw no one. No security cameras either—Waterloo students are so well behaved, there’s never been a reason to TV up the campus.

  “This is perfect,” Jools said. She clutched her hands in a begging pose and pouted at Miranda. “Please, Mom, please, can we try a few widdle experiments?”

  Miranda eyed the area. I knew she hated giving in, but she had to realize she couldn’t keep Jools in check much longer. Besides, Miranda could play the ice queen all she wanted, but I would have bet she was bubbling like a vat of champagne wondering what she could do herself.

  “Okay,” Miranda said. “Let the Sparks fly.”

  JOOLS SPRANG INTO ACTION

  She jumped, hit one wall of the alley, bounced off on an upward trajectory, and somersaulted in midair to land hands first on top of the van. She let momentum carry her forward, doing a handspring to her feet. From there she kept going across the van toward the opposite alley wall. With a leap, she caught the top of the wall and pulled herself up to E3’s roof.

  “Ta-da,” she said, bowing. “Eat your heart out, Jackie Chan.”

  “Wow!” Richard said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “I couldn’t,” Jools said. “I hated gymnastics in high school. But that was then, this is now.”

  “How did you know all that was possible?” Miranda asked.

  “I didn’t. When I took the first jump, I was hoping I could fly. But then the moves came so naturally…” Jools shrugged. “Automatic processing in the brain. Something inside me knew what I could do and how to do it.”

  I hadn’t seen her glow green at any point during her moves. Did that mean she wasn’t using superpowers? The tricks Jools had done weren’t superhuman—as she said, they were pure Jackie Chan. But Jackie carefully choreographed his stunts, with prearranged props and rehearsals. He also got multiple takes. Jools had just winged it.

  “Jools,” I said, “what’s the fine structure constant of the universe?”

  “7.29735257 times 10−3. Approximately.”

  This time she glowed. Interesting.

  Miranda muttered, “I want to edit that number on Wikipedia, then ask the question again.”

  “WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO?” SHAR ASKED

  “You name it,” Jools said. “I feel so damned strong and clearheaded. Not super-duper strong—I don’t think I’m off the charts. But human-max in everything. I could win Olympic gold in weight lifting, sprinting, fencing … even that weird thing with the skiing and the guns. And chess. And violin. And car repair. Hey, I think I can finally knit!” She grinned. “I am so going to rule League of Legends.”

  Richard grumbled, “I’m not following any of this.”

  “We’re Sparks now,” Shar told him.

  “We are?”

  “Well, we are,” Shar said. “Not you, sweet.”

  “Why not?”

  “We had an origin,” Miranda said. “In that lab. We were exposed to”—she raised her fingers and made air quotes—“‘otherworldly forces.’” She grimaced. “Is anyone else embarrassed to become super from something so dumb?”

  Richard said, “You’re Sparks and I’m not? That sucks!”

  Shar patted his arm. “If you’re careless, maybe you’ll have a lab accident of your own someday.”

  “I’ve had plenty of lab accidents. Just not the good kind.”

  “Blah blah blah,” Jools said. “Aren’t you guys going to check what you can—”

  My superpowered sight caught movement at the mouth of the alley: the barrel of a weapon poking around the corner.

  “Gun!” I shouted, and threw myself behind the van.

  MIRANDA INSTANTLY SURROUNDED HERSELF WITH A GOLDEN BALL OF LIGHT

  The ball seemed perfectly spherical, with a handsbreadth of clearance above Miranda’s head and below her feet. So yes, her feet were off the ground, lifted above the pavement.

  Shar also sprouted an aura. Instead of gold it was violet, and instead of being a sphere it was more like a suit of armor: only as wide as my thumb and tailored to Shar’s body. It moved when she did.

  I thought, Two different types o
f force field. I wondered if I had one myself. Nothing had flicked on around me, so it didn’t seem likely.

  Jools had jumped off the roof as soon as I yelled. Now she hit the asphalt with a breakfall roll that brought her up to her feet right beside me. We both crouched behind the van.

  Richard, with mere human reflexes, just said, “What?” Then, “Oww.” A feathered dart hit his thigh, piercing his jeans and burying itself in his leg. He reached down and pulled it out. “What the…”

  His face went slack. He crumpled to the ground.

  I SHIFTED MY VIEWPOINT OUT OF MY BODY …

  Wait. Clarification.

  I’ve talked about out-of-body experiences, but that’s too mystical. I’d become a Spark, and Sparks are creatures of science. Call it weird science or pseudoscience, but it’s the absolute opposite of magic: the counterweight on the reverse end of the balance.

  So when my viewpoint leaves my body, it’s not astral projection. It’s remote sensing. No different than seeing through the lens of a distant camera.

  Except my camera transmits its images telepathically instead of by electronics.

  And the picture is a full 360 degrees.

  As bright as day, even in the absence of light.

  And the camera doesn’t really exist.

  But apart from that, there’s nothing weird about how I see. Just imagine I have detachable virtual eyes: Spark-o-Vision.

  I LOBBED MY VIRTUAL EYES TO THE END OF THE ALLEY SO I COULD SEE AROUND THE CORNER

  Three Darklings lurked out of sight: a skeleton in a powder blue tracksuit; a were-bat in feroform, wearing nothing but urban-camo jeans; and Lilith, the vampire who had once barged into the wrong Midwestern roadhouse.

  Uh-oh.

  I KNEW IT WAS LILITH BECAUSE I’D MET HER ONCE IN PERSON

  She’d attended a party at the Vandermeers’. That’s when I heard the story of Lilith in the roadhouse. Nicholas’s brother, Derek, told me the tale. Lilith was a celebrity in the Darkling world, and Derek wanted me to be impressed.

  He even introduced me to her. I don’t know why; from the look on her face, I could tell she considered me just another dispensable blood-cow. When Derek introduced me, Lilith barely glanced in my direction.