“Please, Angel. Please don’t do this. Fight her. I know you can.” My tongue felt thick and heavy in my bloody mouth.
Angel’s eyes remained blank and expressionless as a piece of paper.
“Mr. Sage? Hermit? Snap out of it, guys! She’s an ubervillain! Fight it! Fight her commands!”
My two fellow superheroes didn’t respond. They didn’t even seem to hear me. Instead, they stared at their new mistress, eager for another task.
Siren laughed. “Tearful pleas won’t do you any good, Fiera. Your friends are now under my control. If you haven’t figured it out by now, this device that Intelligal rigged up amplifies my power incredibly. With it, I’m going to enslave the people of Bigtime, then the rest of the world…”
I tuned out her long-winded self-congratulatory explanation.
Ubervillains always thought they had to explain every single, tiny, minute detail of their schemes. When you’ve heard one plan to take over the world, you’ve heard them all. It doesn’t really matter what the brilliant plan is—as long as you figure out a way to stop it.
But one thing Siren said did catch my attention.
“And if city officials don’t believe I’m serious, well, I’ll just have to remind them about our demonstration at the sports complex a few days ago.”
“What? You used your karaoke thingy to bring down the sports complex?” I asked. “That’s why it collapsed?”
“Of course,” Intelligal answered. “That was our dry run, so to speak, to test the maximum power of the device, as well as its effect on solid matter. It was very effective, exceeding all of my calculations.”
Siren preened. “All it took was a couple of throaty whispers set to the right frequency to make the whole thing come tumbling down.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but the ubervillains were ready to wrap up their gloating. Siren snapped her fingers. Angel, Mr. Sage, and Hermit stiffened to attention at the sound.
“Siren says, Take her to the freezer, Angel. Now.”
Angel dragged me back toward one of the many freezers that lay inside the plant and threw me down. Siren, being ever-so-helpful, opened the door. Cold air blasted out. If my arms and legs hadn’t felt like soggy tissue paper, the frigid chill would have made even me wince. I focused my eyes on Angel.
“Come on, Angel. Fight her. Fight Siren. Do it. For me. Remember that night by the lake? When we made love? Our time together in the kitchen?” I pleaded, trying to spark some sort of memory. A super-duper memory.
“You two are an item? Well, isn’t that sweet? Superheroes in love. Or at least lust.” Siren slithered up to Angel, and her eyes roamed over his hard body. She leaned in and slid her manicured nails down Angel’s chest to his crotch.
“If you can inspire such devotion from Fiera, I just might have to give you a ride once this is over with.” She cupped him, and her face lit up. “Oh my, what a nice package.”
I wanted to rip the bitch limb from limb for touching my man like that. My hands jerked and spasmed. If only the gas would wear off, I would fireball her trashy ass. Hell, I’d boil the whole bay with her in it.
Siren snapped her fingers again, and Angel dragged me inside the freezer. It was one of those large, walk-in freezers favored by restaurants and, evidently, fish-stick factories.
Boxes and boxes of fish sticks lined the walls. Blowers set into the ceiling churned out a steady stream of air, and a thick layer of ice covered everything. Frost gathered in Angel’s tawny hair, making it gleam like pure silver.
As a superhero, I’d been in plenty of tight spots before.
I’d been thrown through walls, slammed through floors, dropped off high-rise buildings. So I wasn’t ready to panic just yet.
“Angel, please. I know you care about me. Don’t you know how much I care about you? Don’t you know how much I love you?”
I hadn’t planned on saying the words. Hadn’t really thought about them before. But as soon as they came out, I knew they were true. I did love Johnny Angel aka Johnny Bulluci. Somewhere, in the middle of this craziness, I’d fallen for the rich biker playboy. I loved him for his crooked grin, his devotion to his family, the way he could always make me laugh.
So I said it again. “I love you, Angel.”
Nothing.
Angel didn’t smile. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t even blink.
I poured my heart out to him, and he didn’t even care.
He didn’t respond to my desperate, heartfelt plea, and that hurt me worse than anything Siren had in mind.
I’d appealed to Johnny’s feelings for me. Evidently, he didn’t have any because it hadn’t worked. It always worked in the movies. I’d seen it work for Carmen and Sam. What was wrong with Johnny and me?
I shoved that painful thought aside and focused. I knew Johnny pretty well. What else did he care about? What else was important to him? What would snap him out of his trance? Finally, the answer hit me.
“Johnny Angel,” I said in a hard, sharp voice. “Your family needs you. I need you. You’re not responsible for your father’s death. Your father made his choice a long time ago. He knew the dangers. He knew the risks. It’s not your job to avenge him and uphold the family honor. But if you don’t fight Siren, if you don’t try, we’re all going to die. Your friends. Your family. Me. All of us are… going… to… die.”
For a moment, Angel’s face cleared. His hand slowly went to his jacket, and he fumbled with something in his pocket.
Angel leaned over me. Concentrating. Trying. Something slipped from his fingers onto my stomach. I stretched my numb hand out and managed to cover up the lump of cold metal.
“Siren says, Leave her there,” the ubervillain cooed.
Angel’s eyes widened. Sweat beaded and froze on his forehead, but he didn’t move away from me.
“Stop stalling!” Siren roared into her microphone. “Get out of there now!”
With a jerk, Angel straightened. He turned and walked out of the freezer. The last thing I saw before he shut the door were his eyes. They were ice green.
Frozen.
Just like his heart.
PART THREE
Breakup
Blues
25
The door slammed shut, and the metal bar on the other side clanged into place. Trapped. I was trapped in an industrial-strength freezer. With fish sticks. Things were definitely not going as planned. Then again, they rarely did in my line of work.
But what hurt more than my present situation was my heart, which felt as if the Ringer had used it as a punching bag. Johnny had succumbed to Siren’s song. He hadn’t cared enough about me to fight her off. Neither had Hermit or Mr. Sage. I wasn’t thrilled with my team members right now, but Johnny’s betrayal was the one that wounded me the most.
Oh sure, he was under the influence of a hypnotic ubervillain with more cleavage than a lingerie model. Oh sure, she had a fancy device that could enslave 97 percent of the population. Pitiful excuses, at best. I’d told Johnny that I loved him, and he’d still abandoned me.
My fingers twitched. But maybe not entirely. Hands shaking, I uncurled my palm. Johnny’s, Angel’s, lighter lay inside. A spark of hope flared to life inside me. In the end, Johnny had tried to help me. To give me a way out. Maybe I could forgive him, if I got out of this alive.
My body felt limp and tingly from Intelligal’s powerdiluting gas, but I didn’t have time for such weakness. If I didn’t get out of here soon, I’d freeze to death. Even with my fiery superpowers, it would only be a matter of minutes before I was one big icicle. I hated to be cold, and I hated fish. But here I was, trapped with both. Ah, the glamorous life of a superhero.
“Lulu?” I asked, my voice weak and small. “Lulu, can you hear me?”
The computer hacker didn’t answer. Not even static cracked in my ear. The thick door must be blocking the signal, meaning I was on my own. Fabulous.
Somehow, I managed to roll over onto my knees. I could still taste the sickenin
gly sweet gas in my mouth, mixing and mingling with my blood. With my free hand, I scraped up a mound of frost off the floor and shoved it into my mouth. The ice crystals melted, washing away some of the gas. My head cleared, and I felt a little stronger.
I kept repeating the process until I had cleansed my mouth. My arms and legs twitched and jerked and spasmed, recovering from the effects of Intelligal’s gas. I crawled to the middle of the freezer and slung my numb limbs around until I faced the door. It was a thick metal door, designed to keep the cold in. Well, not for long.
My fingers trembled. I grasped the lighter and slowly clicked it. Once, twice, three times. Four, five. Nothing happened. I couldn’t quite grip the cold, slick metal with my weak, tingling fingers. Focus, Fiera, focus! I’d been in tighter spots than this, most notably when Prince Horrid had captured me with plans to add me to his harem as one of his pliant dancing girls. I’d gotten out of that mess. I’d get out of this one too. I was Fiera, for crying out loud. Member of the Fearless Five. Protector of the innocent. Superhero du jour. It was what I did.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it another second, the lighter sparked on. I cupped the tiny weak flame like it was the most precious thing in the world. To me, it was.
Slowly, my hands warmed. The lighter’s small flame fed my own inner power. My fingertips started to glow as the fire inside me rekindled. I concentrated on burning the rest of the limp, languid feeling from my body. High metabolism, help me now.
My emotions had always fueled my powers, and I grabbed hold of them. I remembered how Siren had tricked us, how she’d turned my friends against me, how the bitch had put her hands all over Johnny. I focused my anger, let it rage through me with the heat of a thousand suns. The fire inside me grew and grew and grew.
I formed a fireball with my hands. I took careful aim and threw it at the door. It exploded onto the cold metal, making it shriek and groan. Steam filled the freezer. I formed another fireball.
Then another one…
Then another one…
Then another one…
Ten minutes later, the last remains of the door melted away. I got to my feet, still a little shaky, and stumbled through the melted edges of the white-hot metal.
“Fiera! Fiera! Where are you?” Lulu’s voice squawked in my ear.
“Over by one of the freezers,” I said, sliding to the ground.
A motor whirred, and Lulu stopped in front of me, tires smoking.
“Where the hell have you been?” I muttered, trying to rub the rest of the feeling back into my arms and legs.
“I got here as quick as I could. I’m not Swifte, you know,” Lulu said in a defensive tone. Her eyes dropped to her wheelchair and legs. “Not by a long shot.”
I bit back my angry retort. It wasn’t Lulu’s fault. She’d done the best she could. And I had other things to think about right now. Like how to rescue the others and stop Siren’s evil plan to take over the city. “Did you hear Siren? Did you see where they went?”
“I heard everything, but by the time I got out of the van, it was too late.” Lulu shook her head. “Siren and Intelligal shepherded the others into a car on the far side of the building. They sped away before I could fix a tracker to it.”
I cursed. This was no time to be sitting around. I grabbed on to the remains of the melted door and pulled myself up. At least, I tried to. My arms buckled, and I wobbled back and forth, before falling and smacking my ass against the cold concrete floor. I cursed again, loud and long, hating my sudden weakness.
“Whoa there, tiger!” Lulu put a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re not in any position to be walking around right now. It’s a miracle you got out of that freezer alive.”
“Well, I can’t sit still. And it’s not like you can carry me out of here. Do you have another suggestion?”
Lulu patted her lap. “Hop on board the Lulu Lo Express. I can drive us both out of here.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am. Henry likes to ride around on my lap all the time.”
I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Too much information, Lulu. Too much information.”
———
In the end, I didn’t have a choice. After a good five minutes of cursing and snarling and trying to heft myself into an upright position, I crawled up onto Lulu’s lap, and she motored us back to the van.
“Damn, this thing can scoot,” I said, trying to distract myself from the fact I was hanging on to Lulu’s neck like we were lovers.
I was extremely glad it was after midnight and pitchblack, and that there was no one around to witness my humiliation.
I’d never live down the shame. Fiera, member of the Fearless Five, protector of the innocent, reduced to clinging to a wheelchair to get around. Some superhero I was. I couldn’t even stand upright at the moment.
Lulu beamed and patted the side of the chair. “Of course it can. I’ve got almost two hundred horses in the motor. It tops out at about fifty miles an hour.”
We zoomed to a stop in front of the black van. I slid off Lulu’s lap and into the carpeted interior. The computer hacker strapped herself in the motorized lift and joined me.
Lulu rustled through one of the first-aid boxes we kept inside and handed me a small foil packet. “Here. Take one of these. It should flush the rest of the radioactive gas out of your system.”
I took the packet, which contained a Radioactive Isotope Diminisher, or RID for short. The pills were the invention of some mad scientist who found himself constantly bombarded by radioactivity while he was researching something or other. They were like vitamins to superheroes, and the Fearless Five used them to keep from getting more mutated than we already were. They’d saved our asses on more than one occasion, especially Carmen’s last year when she’d gone up against the Terrible Triad by herself.
I swallowed the pill and felt the effects almost immediately.
My limbs grew heavy and substantial once again, my superstrength returned, and my inner fire flared up to its usual slow, steady burn. I sat up. “All right. That did the trick.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lulu asked. “We can sit here and rest a few more minutes, if you need to.”
“I’m fine. And we don’t have any time to rest. We need to get our boys back.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Lulu asked. “Carmen and Sam are halfway around the world, and Henry and the chief are under Siren’s spell, along with Johnny. We’re a little short of superheroes right now.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I know a couple of people who should be more than willing to help us,” I said. “Let’s go.”
———
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Fiona? ” Lulu asked.
I put my hands on my hips. “Of course I’m sure it’s a good idea. All my ideas are good ones.”
I tossed my hair over my shoulder, trying to look more confident than I felt. The truth was I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but it was the only one I’d been able to come up with. Lulu and I needed help, and this was the only place we were likely to get it.
We stood outside the closed iron gates that led up to the Bulluci manor. Lulu pressed the button on the call box again. No response. We’d been standing out here for ten minutes, trying to get somebody to wake up and answer us.
“Oh, screw this.” I took hold of the iron gates and looked over my shoulder. “You might want to move back.”
Lulu eyed my glowing hands, which were clenched around the metal. “I think I’ll do that very thing.” She hit a button on her chair and zoomed out of the way.
I ripped open the gate. The iron wasn’t nearly as sturdy as it looked, and the gates cracked off their hinges. I didn’t even have to put any real muscle into it. Part of the surrounding wall crumbled in on itself.
Since Lulu’s chair could move a lot faster than I could walk, I hopped back on Lulu’s lap, and we scooted up the long driveway. I was getting almost used to sittin
g on top of the computer hacker. Almost.
The chair stopped. I climbed off and pounded on the front door, which was embossed with a giant B and another freaking angel wing. “Bella! Bobby! Open up! Now!”
A light flared to life in one of the upstairs windows. A curtain on the front door twitched, and Bella cracked it open. She wore a pair of short pajamas with white clouds on them. Naturally.
Her mouth dropped open at the sight of me. “Fiera? I mean Fiona? I mean… oh, you. What’s wrong?” Her eyes flicked to Lulu. “And who is this person with you?”
I took a deep breath. “Johnny’s in trouble. We need your help.”
26
Lulu and I explained the situation to Bella. She woke up Bobby, they threw on some clothes, and we piled in the van and headed back to Sublime. Normally, I would have knocked them out or blindfolded them to keep them from seeing exactly where we were going, but I didn’t have time.
Besides, sneakiness wasn’t my strong suit. That was more Sam and my father’s thing.
We led Bella and Bobby through the underground garage to the library. It was a good thing I hadn’t used blindfolds, because it was painfully slowgoing with the two Bullucis stopping every three feet to stare at something else.
“Come on, come on,” I snapped. “You guys can ooh and aah over the super-duper, supersecret superhero lair later.”
The two of them picked up their pace, and we reached the library. Lulu wheeled around and plugged her laptop into Henry’s network of computers. The Bullucis stood at the doorway, mouths hanging open.
“Oh, come in. It’s not that sacred.” I marched over, pulled them inside, and closed the double doors.
Bella and Bobby cautiously crept farther into the massive library.
“Please forgive my surprise. It’s just that I never thought I’d be invited in here,” Bobby said, running his hands over the F5 insignia carved into the table.
“Me either,” Bella whispered. “This is incredible. Look at all the books you have!” Her eyes flicked over to Lulu and her computers. “And the equipment. It’s so amazing!”