They kissed. And Light Stream held The Ice King as the surrounding storm cloud dissipated into harmless rain. His hapless former foe fumbled in the air and finally relented and clung to Light Stream, who continued to kiss him deeply, with a kiss of forgiveness, understanding and passion. And it was too late for the wide-eyed villain to disengage once he realized that it was one of those rare kisses hot enough to melt ice.
Lesser Evil
‘Nathan Burgoine
‘Nathan Burgoine lives in Ottawa with his husband Daniel, where he tries not to summon any demons unless it’s really important. His short fiction appears in Fool For Love, I Do Two, Saints + Sinners 2011: New Fiction From the Festival, Men of the Mean Streets, Boys Of Summer, The Touch Of The Sea, and Night Shadows. His non-fiction appears in I Like It Like That and 5x5 Literary Magazine. His first novel, Light, is forthcoming from Bold Strokes Books. You can find him online at redroom.com/member/nathan-burgoine.
The first time, I thought I had been invisible.
It was an easy mistake to make. No one reacted to me, no one had even looked at me, and so the next time I felt that pressure in my head and noticed no one looking, I gathered my first pathetic attempt at a costume—black gloves, black turtleneck, black pants, and one of my mother’s Mardi Gras masks, also painted black. My head throbbed as I walked to the mall. I’d been convinced that if anyone had seen me, I would have known. At the very least, they would have pointed and laughed. That I was used to.
But no one reacted at all, and I walked right into the sports memorabilia store and took the signed football I knew Erik Miller wanted. I walked out, went home, and took off my mask and gloves—God they were itchy—and sat in awe of myself while I waited for the headache to fade.
Me. Tristan Edwards. Meta-powered. Invisibility. No one was ever going to hurt me again. I stared at the football for over an hour, dabbing at my nosebleed, picturing Erik opening it on his birthday.
And then I turned on the television, and saw myself on the news. “A bizarre crime,” they called it, where “a masked man walked into the store in broad daylight.” I was perfectly visible on the cameras, and the newscaster related that, strangely, no eyewitnesses could recall seeing the thief, and that the only thing stolen was an autographed football.
I wasn’t able to breathe. I hid the football under the loose boards in my closet, and burned the clothes and mother’s Mardi Gras mask.
I wasn’t invisible. At least not to the cameras.
I couldn’t give the football to Erik Miller. I hadn’t gotten to hear him say “thank you,” or look at me with gratitude. My headache grew worse so I laid down in my room.
When my father came home and I wasn’t at dinner the headache was too strong for me to make myself invisible again; I cringed and tried not to cry while he yelled about how hopeless I was. I went to bed long before my mother got home.
My costume always sits a bit heavy on my shoulders. No matter the improvements or the variations I’ve tried in style or shape, putting in Kevlar adds more than a few pounds along with the protection. Not that Kevlar will help against Aleph. Still, I park my car in the empty lot and wait for a moment, adjusting the straps and tightening my gloves. I glance in the rear view mirror and put on the half-mask, though it’s not likely anyone is going to see us.
I become Psilence. Not a particularly terrifying name, but I prefer to be underestimated.
No doubt Aleph is already here. The drive-in is long abandoned, a large open space where cars used to line up to watch movies on warm summer nights. I wonder if it has any meaning to Aleph, or if it’s just a convenient place for him to meet someone he doesn’t trust.
I tap my finger on the steering wheel a few times, and then get out of the car. The door echoes like a gunshot when I close it, and I roll my eyes. Aleph can fly, of course, which is colossally unfair in the scheme of things. I have always envied the ones who can fly, or teleport, or move at super-speed. It has more dramatic impact than stepping out of a Mazda. I resist the urge to feel around with my mind.
The burst of light is nearly blinding even through the smoky lenses set into my half-mask, and I throw up a hand. Ozone crackles in the air. The white-hot energy that Aleph can generate has formed a perfect circle around me, nearly shoulder high.
He walks out from behind the dilapidated, shuttered concession stand. He’s in his costume, too. His face-plate is a matte bronze, like most of the rest of his outfit, with the exception of the single white Hebrew letter in the middle of his chest: the aleph.
I’m a little surprised he actually came, even now. Did a message from someone as pathetic as me even deserve a response? I was hardly worth his attention.
But then he must have wondered how I’d known where he was in the first place. I’d left a letter at his front door—to his real name. That was something a villain of Aleph’s calibre would have to resolve.
“You’re Psilence?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“I had to Google you,” he says.
Ouch.
“I’m a subtle guy,” I say. It’s the best I can come up with.
“You must have a death wish,” he says.
I swallow. It all comes down to this. I veil, and vanish from his mind.
Watching Cinder land at the campsite made my stomach clench. He was lean, and tall, and never the one the magazines put on the cover. That “honor” usually fell to Lustre, with her statuesque beauty, large breasts, and that borderline scandalous suit of gold and white she wore, or Cirrus, with her genuine prettiness. If the media wanted beefcake they played up Noire’s Cajun bad-boy looks and broad chest—and the tattoos—or Touchdown, who had the look of a military man and an attitude to match. Cinder is the leader, but he was red-haired and soft voiced and didn’t like the spotlight.
A flyer, Cinder’s body sent off waves of heat as he landed. He was wearing the mirrored visor. I wondered if his eyes are bothering him again, or if he was just trying to hide most of his face from me.
“I can tell you’re here.”
His voice was jarring, something I’d never expected to hear again. I took me a second to recover, to remember how to breathe. I hadn’t meant to telepathically veil myself from him, and it had never quite worked all the way with Cinder anyway. It was something to do with the way he could feel heat, a sense I couldn’t disrupt.
I stopped influencing his other senses, and he turned to look at me. He was wearing his black uniform. Covert ops—a strength of his.
“Hi,” he said. That damned visor pissed me off. I couldn’t see his eyes, and I couldn’t bring myself to go into his mind. I didn’t dare.
Instead, I tried to keep my face blank. “I got your message, Jeff.”
His lips quirked at his name—his real name. “I’m glad you came,” he said. “You look good.”
That hurt. I cringed.
“I mean it.” Cinder shook his head. “I’m clean, Tristan. They… undid everything.”
I took a breath. Why did he contact me? There was only one way to find out.
“What do you want, Jeff?”
My father and mother stared at me, she sad, he—as always—just angry.
“You skipped school again?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but then closed it again. I had been at school. I’d even written the test. But then that asshole Jimmy Potts started to whisper behind me. He called me a fag. Told me he was going to kick my ass. I saw Erik Miller smirk and I wanted to hide. I wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere no one could ever find me. I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
And it happened again.
At first, when the whispering stopped, I thought maybe Jimmy had caught the teacher looking at him. I didn’t care and was just glad it was over. My head ached again, and a red drop hit my test-paper.
&
nbsp; Another nosebleed.
I raised my hand to be excused, mortified that everyone was going to see me like this again, but Mr. King didn’t even glanced my way.
“Sir?” I said.
He hadn’t so much as blinked.
My head had been throbbing, and my nose dripped again.
Fuck it, I’d thought, and got up. I walked right up to him.
“Mr. King, my nose is bleeding.”
He didn’t acknowledge me.
My head throbbed, duller than before—and then I heard something.
Tristan’s absent again. It was Mr. King’s voice, but he hadn’t opened his mouth.
“What?” I’d said.
Going to have to tell his parents. I leaned forward, putting my hands on his desk. Some of my blood spilled onto his calendar. I stared at his lips, but they never moved. My head had felt like it was splitting. I hope his father doesn’t go off on him again.
He’d known. He’d known about my dad, and… he was thinking about it. I stood up straighter, ignoring the pain in my skull. I had always been good at ignoring pain. Hearing someone’s thoughts, not as much. I squinted. Looking into his eyes seemed to make it easier.
Poor kid isn’t even that smart. He’s got nothing, Mr. King thought.
I’d pushed off from his desk and walked out of the classroom.
No one had reacted at all—and I started to think I knew why.
But with my mother and father standing in front of me, fresh from their call with the school, I’d not quite gotten it together enough to concentrate. My head felt funny—sort of throbbing—but I hadn’t heard what they were thinking.
“I had a nosebleed.”
“Jesus, you’re such a wimp,” my father said. Then he clenched his fist.
I flinched. My mother took his arm but he shook her off.
“You’re barely passing,” my father voice dripped with contempt. “If you don’t get good grades, what are you going to do? You’re no athlete.”
“Yeah, I know,” I snapped back.
“You giving me guff, boy? Football got me through college. I didn’t have parents willing to foot the bill. I’m not throwing money away on nothing.”
“Jack,” my mother said, touching his arm again. “He had a nosebleed.”
“Pansy ass boy.”
“Shut up!” I yelled. It exploded out of me. My head felt like it would burst with the pain, and my nose had erupted again. I leaned forward, gagging and pinching my nose, waiting for my father’s tirade but it didn’t come.
“Jack?” my mother’s voice croaked with worry.
I looked up. My father’s mouth was open as he stared wildly around the room.
“Jack? Are you okay?”
My father shook his head. He broke out in a sweat. His mouth moved silently.
I can’t talk! His voice panicked inside my head. I can’t talk!
He met my gaze, eyes wide.
I smiled.
“Lewis Nicolas,” Cinder said.
I hadn’t expected that. One good thing about barely being a member of the team had always been having time to read the files. I still remembered most of it.
“Aleph?”
Cinder nodded. His jaw was tight.
I was confused. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me, but I’m afraid I can’t rat him out for you. He plays in the big leagues, Jeff.” I raised my hands. “We don’t belong to the same golf club. I’m nothing.”
Cinder looked at me, or at least I thought he did. Bloody visor. “Tristan.”
“I’m nothing,” I said.
It had been weird seeing them up so close. I hadn’t thought they’d ever been anywhere near our town, yet here they were, gathered around my favourite campsite up in the hills outside of town. Me—a twenty year old part-time gas jockey—and two agents from the North American Metahuman Defence Agency. Superheroes.
Cirrus had been pretty, her chestnut hair back in a ponytail, and up close I’d been able to see that behind the mask, her eyes were also brown. I’d always liked her simple costume—a rich blue colour with a white sash. Cinder was taller than I thought he’d be, wearing his gold and red costume, which I’d always thought was a bit over the top.
“Tristan Edwards?” Cirrus asked. Her eyes glanced at my left eye—which was puffy and swollen and an ugly purple colour.
I nodded.
Cirrus smiled. “Don’t be nervous.”
That made me laugh. “Right. I nearly killed someone.”
“So you said in your e-mail.”
I hugged my arms around myself. It was freezing up there in my t-shirt.
Cinder raised a hand, and the air in the small clearing grew noticeably warmer.
“Thanks,” I said, my first words to him.
“What happened?” Cirrus sounded genuinely concerned.
“There were these guys who were shoving me around. I could tell they were bashers—they were thinking about beating me up.” This had made Cinder frown a little, and I rushed on. “I think I’m a telepath.” I bit my lip. I clearly remembered telling the first bruiser to pick on someone his own size, and he turned and started attacking his friend.
I took a deep breath. “I think I can make people do things.”
“We know where Aleph is.” Cinder’s voice was quiet.
That stopped me. “What?”
“We know where he is.” Cinder worked his jaw. He kept all his stress there. I always liked that about him. He ground his teeth at night, and had to wear a mouth guard. The man could fly, could project and manipulate heat and flame high into the Kelvin scale, but at night he tried to grind his teeth down to nubs. Sometimes I gave him a face massage when N.A.M.D.A. was on a heavy assignment and he was working insane hours. It had been a way he was vulnerable with me. I loved that.
He was also really warm. Most nights we’d managed with just a sheet.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted. Part of me itched to just go into his mind and make him tell me what he wanted. But I didn’t.
Cinder pulled the visor off. Hazel eyes. Nothing special, but God they cut through me. Because Jeff looked at me with a mild kindness, and a little pity. No love.
“We know where he is,” he repeated. “But we…” He swallowed. “We can’t handle him.”
I knew him well enough to know how much that had cost him to say. Especially to me. There was a coldness in the bottom of my stomach. “Jeff –”
“Aleph can manipulate energy like that,” Cinder said and snapped his fingers. “He can collapse Lustre’s lightfields, put out my fire and Cirrus’s lightning, even block Noire’s bolts. Touchdown can’t get near enough to him. Every time Aleph’s been knocked back even a little, it’s been a telepath.”
“I know,” I said. “I do watch the news. Didn’t Mentaliste almost knock him out cold last time? I’m sure she’d be up for it again. Go team, and all that crap.” I’d raised one fist.
“Mentaliste’s pregnant.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “No shit. Touchdown gonna make an honest woman of her?”
Cinder’s mouth twitched again. “They got married last month. On the sly. Vegas.”
“Well, I’d ask you to pass on my congratulations, but…” I shrugged. “I hear she’s not a fan of my work.”
Cinder’s smile vanished. Wrong thing to say.
“Tristan,” he said. “You owe me.”
Recon had become my code-name, not that it really mattered. I was unofficial. Everyone remembered Titiritero—the Mexican telepath who dominated others into committing crimes—and no one wanted the Agency to go public about bringing a telepath on board. It would have been a PR nightmare. I found that my first trick had been my best asset—making the minds of other peopl
e ignore me completely—and it had been the one I ended up using the most. Touchdown quickly grew tired of trying to teach me hand-to-hand combat, something for which I hadn’t the strength or the aptitude. On the rare occasions when they brought me along, I mostly stayed veiled and used my telepathy to let them know what was going on inside a building with hostages, or force a surrender before things could become violent.
Noire thought I was creepy—I’d found that hilarious coming from a guy who could manipulate shadows—and though Cirrus and Lustre had always been polite, it had been obvious that I was in every way a “reserve” member. I was never on the posters or interviewed in the magazines. I had been strictly a back-up, a telepath that had been useful for a few types of missions, but mostly stayed at home.
That had all been okay by me. All I’d ever wanted was a place where I could be quiet. I’d been getting much better at reading minds—once I begun actively using the ability it seemed to grow stronger whenever I truly pushed myself—and in time, the challenge had instead become not hearing thoughts.
Which was how I figured out that I wasn’t the only gay guy on the team.
Cinder had taken my accidental snooping well, and I redoubled my efforts to stop reading thoughts by accident, mostly succeeding. He was a calm guy, though I knew he carried a lot of stress around from being the leader, and also from keeping a part of himself hidden from the others.
By the time I’d been with the group for almost three years, I knew I had fallen in love with him. The arrival of the time-traveling Quantum—Colin Reichert—warning us of a villainous temporal incursion had put us all on the edge—I’d been constantly exhausted trying to help the temporally displaced hero figure out who was from our timeline and who wasn’t by reading their thoughts. Maintaining a secret in that atmosphere had been impossible, and Cinder came out to the rest of the group. They were nothing but happy for him, which was nice. Colin stayed, and Quantum became a powerful new addition to the team. Jeff remained as quiet as ever, though he opened up to me a little more once we started to spend more time together on our own. When it was all over, and I finally worked up the nerve to invite him on one of my camping trips, I was pleasantly surprised when he accepted.
The Lavender Menace Page 11