Karma Girl

by Jennifer Estep

  Finally, Bobby ran out of questions. “You should rest, Bella. I know you must be tired. We’ll talk more later. Try to get some sleep.”

  Grandfather pressed a kiss to my forehead, turned off the lights, and left the infirmary.

  I settled down and tried to get comfortable. Like everything else in the Fearless Five’s headquarters, the hospital bed was the best that money could buy. The thick mattress cushioned my aching body, along with several fluffy pillows and soft, five-hundred-thread-count sheets. Despite the luxuries, I couldn’t sleep.

  And it was all his fault.

  Debonair. My thoughts turned back to the handsome thief. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I kept remembering the way he’d kissed me. The way he’d held me. How gentle he’d been.

  I even thought about who he might be—who he really was under all that blue-black leather. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t figure out his true identity. Maybe Carmen could help me puzzle it out. She had a knack for that sort of thing.

  Mostly, though, I replayed last night over and over again in my mind. The dinner, the wine, the great sex.

  Although I was as weary as weary could be, it was still several hours before I drifted off to sleep.

  *

  “Are you sure you want to come along?” Carmen asked me for about the fifth time. “You don’t have to.”

  It was the next morning. After spending the night in the sick bay, Chief Newman had given me the green light to resume normal activities and rejoin the rest of the world. Grandfather had gone home last night, after I’d insisted I didn’t need him to stay.

  Besides, Bobby had told me he’d promised his lady friend that he’d check in with her after I was safe and sound. The warm glow in Bobby’s green eyes when he talked about this mystery woman told me that my hunch was right—she was more than just a casual acquaintance or dinner date to him.

  I was happy for my grandfather. I knew how lonely being single could be. Besides, who was I to deny the old man the pleasure of a woman’s company? As long as he was responsible about things, of course. But I hadn’t let Bobby leave until he promised to introduce me to his lady friend this week.

  “Bella?” Carmen asked.

  “Yes,” I said, focusing on the other woman. “I want to go. I need to go.”

  Carmen, Lulu, and I sat in the library around an enormous wooden table bearing the F5 insignia. It was just us girls today. Sam, Henry, and Chief Newman were all busy with their day jobs. Sam adding to his billion-dollar business empire, Henry working on his latest technology column for The Exposé, and the chief overseeing the Bigtime police department and catching criminals.

  “I want to know why Hangman wants the sapphire so badly, and who Prism is.” I took a deep breath. “And I want you to help me figure out who Debonair is. I want to know who he really is. I need to know.”

  “But you hate superheroes,” Lulu said, her dark eyes never leaving the computer monitor in front of her. “You only tolerate us because Fiona’s marrying your brother. Why do you care who Debonair is? I would think you’d be happy enough to go home and forget about the whole thing.”

  Carmen looked up from the jigsaw puzzle she was working and stared at me. Her blue eyes grew cloudy, then cleared. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

  I couldn’t stop my mouth from dropping open. Carmen was an empath, a sort of psychic who could tap into people’s emotions and even their powers, but I’d never expected her to guess my deepest, darkest secret. Especially since it was only twenty-four hours old. My fingers twitched, my hair frizzed, and my power flared up like a neon sign.

  It was like something out of a cartoon. Loose puzzle pieces flew through the air, bouncing off books and walls. A few of the small missiles hit the various globes in the room, making them spin round and round in perfect time. Some pinged off Lulu’s laptop, and she ducked farther down behind the monitor. And, of course, one puzzle piece shot up into the air like a rocket, hitting the enormous film screen that hung down from the wall. Even though it was bolted to the ceiling in six places, the screen wobbled for half a second, then crashed down, frame and all, making a thunderous roar as it slammed into the floor. Carmen and Lulu jumped, startled by the sudden collapse. I didn’t even have to look over my shoulder to know that the screen had landed right behind me. If my chair had been back two more inches, I would have gotten brained by the frame. But I’d been just out range, just like always. Lucky me.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Carmen said, moving to pick up the wayward pieces.

  I grimaced, ashamed by my sudden outburst and unwanted power display. “How did you know?”

  Carmen grinned. “There are some benefits to being a psychic empath. Guessing your friend’s secret is one of them. So come on, Bella. Spill it.”

  “Yeah, I slept with him,” I muttered.

  I told the two women about Debonair asking me out, kissing me in the museum, how we’d had dinner together in the Lair of Seduction, and what happened afterward.

  “And he said the weirdest thing—that I wasn’t a stranger to him, that I was important to him. I didn’t know what to make of it then. I still don’t. Do you think I know him? The real him?”

  “Probably,” Carmen said. “He’s probably another one of the rich businessmen on the society circuit. Hell, he might have even written you a fat check at the museum benefit the other night. Either way, I’ll help you find out who he is.”

  “I feel like such a fool,” I admitted. “He’s probably seduced hundreds of women, and I fell for all his lines, just like everybody else.”

  “You shouldn’t feel too bad, Bella. These things happen. I think it has something to do with those tight, leather costumes, myself.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking at Carmen.

  “Carmen means she did the exact same thing—slept with a superhero,” Lulu chimed in.

  “You did?”

  A sheepish grin spread over Carmen’s face, and she nodded. “Yeah, I slept with Sam before I knew who he really was.”

  My confession was enough to get Lulu’s full and undivided attention.

  “Speaking of superhero sex, how was it?” she asked, her dark eyes bright with curiosity. “Debonair’s supposed to be very skillful in all sorts of interesting things. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “You’re engaged. What does it matter to you?”

  Lulu held up her hand. “Just because there’s a ring on this finger doesn’t mean a girl can’t have fantasies.”

  “Doesn’t Henry take care of all your fantasies?” I sniped.

  I was being bitchy, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened between Debonair and me. Didn’t want to admit how easily I’d fallen under his spell—and how foolish I felt that part of me wanted to see him again, despite the fact he’d lied to me.

  Lulu paid no attention to my sharp tone. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me a sly, satisfied smile. “Henry does just fine in the fantasy department. He can do more with his fingers than just type really, really fast, if you know what I mean. Lots more. But there’s always room for improvement.”

  *

  The three of us got in Lulu’s van and headed into the city. Lulu kept questioning me about Debonair and his legendary skills in the bedroom, but I was able to ignore her—for the most part.

  Twenty minutes later, Carmen stopped the van in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Bigtime and parked in front of a well-kept brownstone that took up the better part of the block. A wrought iron railing flanked the steps while a cement, urn-shaped flowerpot beside the front door held a smattering of fall pansies. More flowers bloomed in the window boxes on the upper floors. Just looking at it, you’d expect a wealthy widow and her yippy, teacup-sized dog to occupy this upper-class home—instead of the city’s foremost explosives expert.

  I’d been to this same brownstone earlier this year when Fiona and Lulu had gotten some bombs to help us battle the ubervillains who’d kidnapped Johnny
and the other members of the Fearless Five. Using Jasper’s bombs, we’d managed to save the others and obliterate most of the Bigtime Observatory in the process. The city was still rebuilding the structure. Like the superheroes, Jasper was also very, very good at what he did.

  Carmen and I got out of the van and waited on Lulu to grab her cane. A few years ago, Lulu had been used as a hostage during a battle between the Fearless Five and the Terrible Triad. She’d been crippled and confined to a wheelchair as a result. She hadn’t been able to walk at all until Siren had zapped her with a couple thousand volts of electricity during the battle at the observatory. As a result, Lulu’s body and broken back had managed to regenerate themselves. After countless hours of physical therapy, Lulu was no longer confined to her wheelchair. She wasn’t quite able to walk on her own just yet, but she’d get there someday. I admired her determination. Funny how things could change in a heartbeat in Bigtime.

  Carmen and I helped Lulu up the steps, and she punched a call box attached to one wall. A security camera swiveled over our heads, zooming in on our faces. Jasper was very particular about his security. He had to be, in his line of work.

  “What’s the word?” a low voice asked.

  “Is it boom-boom again?” Carmen asked.

  “No,” Lulu replied. “It’s not silent night either. He’s changed it twice since then.”

  The two of them bickered back and forth a minute, trying to come up with the right code. Lulu snapped her fingers.

  “I know. The word is lucky charms.”

  “Lucky charms?” I asked, not quite getting Jasper’s odd sense of humor.

  Lulu shrugged. “It’s something new he said he was working on.”

  She repeated the phrase into the call box. The door buzzed open, and we stepped inside.

  “Jasper?” Lulu called out when the bomber didn’t appear to greet us.

  “In the living room,” a male voice called out from deeper in the house. “Down the hall on your right.”

  Lulu looked at Carmen, who shrugged. But I noticed Carmen’s eyes began to glow ever so slightly. The three of us walked through the wide hallway, rounded a corner, and stopped in front of an open door.

  Jasper sat on a sofa in the room in front of us. White-plaster casts covered his left leg and arm, and his face was cut, swollen, and bruised beyond belief. He looked like he’d been used as a punching bag by the Ringer—for a full ten rounds.

  Jasper peered through his glasses at us, trying to focus through his half-shut black eye.

  “Well, it’s about time you guys got here,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Jasper, what happened to you?” Lulu asked, hobbling over to sit next to the battered man.

  Carmen and I settled ourselves on some nearby chairs.

  “Not what, who.” Jasper picked up a half-melted bag of ice from the cushion beside him. He took off his glasses and put the ice over his black eye, wincing. “I had a visitor a couple of nights ago.”

  “Let me guess—Hangman,” Carmen replied.

  Jasper nodded. At least, he tried to. His head got about halfway down before stopping in pain. “He broke in after midnight. Crashed through one of the skylights in the bedroom. Said he was here to collect some things his employer wanted.”

  “Prism?” I asked.

  Jasper tilted his neck a tiny bit to look at me. “You’ve heard of her?”

  “Sort of.”

  “That’s what we’re here about,” Lulu said. “We want to know everything you know about her.”

  “Not much. I never met her face-to-face. I don’t even know her real name, but she calls herself Prism.”

  “Dumb name,” Carmen said. “It doesn’t even say what her power is.”

  “Dumb or not, she sent me an e-mail about a month ago wanting me to do some special work for her,” Jasper said.

  “What sort of special work?” Carmen asked.

  Jasper just looked at her with his one good eye.

  “Oh. That.”

  Jasper was Bigtime’s preeminent bomb maker. If you wanted something to blow up in the most impressive, spectacular manner possible, you went to Jasper. He did a lot of demolition work for the city’s construction companies, but he also sold explosives and the like to various shady characters and greedy, desperate people who wanted to collect on their insurance policies. Jasper wasn’t hard-core evil—he didn’t deal with ubervillains—but he wasn’t lily-white either. He was sort of like Debonair, but without the sexy body. And eyes. And hair. And lips—

  Carmen elbowed me in the side. “Focus, Bella. You can think about your dreamboat later.”

  I rubbed my aching ribs and glared at the other woman. Psychics. Geez. Out of all the superheroes, I hated them the most. There was nothing you could do to keep them from intruding on your thoughts. Even my luck couldn’t help me with that.

  “What, exactly, did Prism want you to do?” Lulu asked. “What sort of bomb did she want?”

  “That’s the funny thing,” Jasper said. “She didn’t want a bomb. Not exactly. It was more like a consulting job. She wanted me to look at specs for some device she’d created to see if it would actually work.”

  Jasper was also something of a mad inventor and kept coming up with strange, new ways to blow the city to smithereens.

  “It wasn’t a radio was it?” Lulu asked. “Some sort of giant karaoke machine?”

  The two of us exchanged nervous looks. A few months ago, Siren and Intelligal had built such a device to be the ultimate human controller—and almost enslaved the city in the process.

  Jasper halfway shook his head. “No, it was more like a giant laser—the sort of device that can cut through anything—bank vaults, steel doors, iron bars, even solidium. Only an ubervillain would want something like that, which is why I didn’t take the job. She offered me a nice fee, though. A very, very nice fee.” His one open eye grew soft and dreamy at the thought of the money.

  “Focus, Jasper. Fees aren’t everything,” Carmen said.

  Jasper’s good eye cleared. “I don’t know what she planned on doing with it. She just wanted to know if it would actually work.”

  “What did you tell her?” Lulu asked.

  A sly grin pulled at Jasper’s lips. “Nothing, of course. I didn’t agree to accept the job. Even if I did, I would have demanded double the fee she offered me before telling her the time of day.”

  “Why would Prism need to steal the sapphire if she’s building a laser?” Carmen asked.

  “What sapphire?” Jasper asked.

  “You haven’t heard? About the robbery at the museum?” I asked.

  He tried to hold up his plaster-covered, broken arm. “I’ve been a little under the weather. Please, enlighten me.”

  I filled Jasper in on what had happened at the museum—starting with Hangman’s attack and ending with the Fearless Five rescuing me. I didn’t mention any of the superheroes’ real names, of course. Jasper knew Carmen and Lulu were friends with the Fearless Five, but he didn’t know Carmen was actually Karma Girl or that Lulu was engaged to Hermit. At least, I didn’t think he did.

  “I still don’t understand what she wants with the sapphire, though,” Carmen repeated. Her fingers twitched, as though working on an invisible puzzle no one could see or feel except her.

  Lulu snorted. “Haven’t you ever seen a science fiction movie? She’s going to use the sapphire to increase the power or focus of the laser, maybe both. Right, Jasper?”

  The bomber nodded and winced. “That could be what she wants with it. The reflective properties of something like the Star Sapphire could be used that way—to great effect if you had the proper know-how.”

  “What we really need to see are the specs for the laser. You wouldn’t happen to have kept a copy, would you?” Lulu asked.

  Jasper gave her another sly grin.

  *

  Carmen and I put our arms under Jasper’s shoulders and helped him downstairs to his bomb-making lair. Lulu
hobbled along behind us, her cane thumping against the steps. Jasper leaned against Carmen’s shoulder and punched in a series of codes on a keypad next to the thick, metal door. My eyes flicked to the center of the door, which sported a fist-shaped dent as big as my head. I didn’t need Jasper to tell me that Hangman had come knocking.

  The door whispered back, and we stepped inside Jasper’s lab. The air smelled like rusty metal, even though a fan whirred in the back of the room. I looked around at all the wires and weird gizmos and blackened bits of metal stacked on the long worktables. I hadn’t come inside the house with Lulu and Fiona when they’d gotten the bombs last time. Bombers were too close to superheroes and ubervillains for my liking.

  On a normal day, the workshop would be cluttered enough, but it looked like a tornado had swept through the underground lab. Wires, springs, and tools littered the floor, along with clocks, timers, and other strange devices. Papers had been yanked off corkboards, while various technical manuals had been ripped in half and tossed aside.

  Lulu let out a low whistle. “Hangman really did a number on the place, didn’t he? What did he take, Jasper?”

  The bomb maker sank down onto a wooden bench and scratched the side of his face, careful not to touch his swollen eye. “Nothing too important. Several explodium grenades I had lying around. He was really after the machine blueprints. Prism didn’t take too kindly to me rejecting her offer. Hangman dragged me down here and demanded I show him where I’d hidden them. When I didn’t give them up, he decided to tap-dance on my face. Lucky for me, Hangman set off my alarms when he busted through the skylight. Swifte showed up about three minutes later, and the police five minutes after him. Hangman split, and Swifte rushed me to the hospital.”

  “So you’re the guy in the newspaper, the one Swifte took to the hospital.” My eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. The papers and SNN said muggers attacked you, not an ubervillain. Why did you lie?”