Super

  Daniel nodded as Dr. Lewis lectured him, feigning interest and even surprise. But Daniel already knew what was in those caves—he’d seen them. And they were wrong about Herman’s interests. He was obsessed with the archaeological finds here and around Mount Noble. The difference was that he’d been determined to keep those secrets for himself. He’d shared them with Daniel and no one else. He’d allowed Daniel to see the cave paintings those prehistoric people had created, and he’d told him the truth of what had happened here. There had indeed been a catastrophe brought about by a meteor strike. But it wasn’t the impact of the strike itself that had destroyed those people. What had destroyed that tribe was the very first generation of Supers ever, thousands of years before the meteor strike that burned down the St. Alban’s orphange. That group of prehistoric young people used their powers to fight among themselves until they’d destroyed their entire tribe. And it was all painted on the walls of those caves still hidden beneath the mountain, just waiting to be discovered.

  And what of Herman’s meteorite pendant? Was that still down there as well? Were there still fragments of the original buried deep beneath the earth? Herman had spent a fortune excavating enough to forge the black ring, but what if they dug deeper? What might they find?

  None of this made sense. If Theo was in league with his uncle, he wouldn’t have involved the university or its team of scientists. Herman had worked too hard to keep those caves secret; he was too paranoid to share his discovery with anyone else. There was no way Herman Plunkett would let any of this happen.

  No. In that instant Daniel made a judgment call about the youngest Plunkett. Theo was spoiled and reckless and he’d very nearly killed himself on that first day in Noble’s Green. But he’d also saved Eric’s life. He hadn’t hesitated, and because of that Daniel had been betting that deep down at his core, Theo Plunkett was a better person than Herman. Maybe even a truly good person. What Daniel did know was that Theo was a new kid looking for answers, and Daniel could relate to that.

  It was now or never.

  “This all sounds very cool,” said Daniel. Dr. Lewis visibly flinched at Daniel’s choice of words to describe what the professor considered a historic discovery. Little did he know that his own team of scientists was probably inside the research tent high-fiving each other and shouting “awesome” even now.

  “Theo, are you going to be here for a while?” asked Daniel. “I thought you might want to hang out.” Although Daniel kept his voice casual, he gave Theo a look that he hoped the older boy would understand. They needed to talk.

  “Well, I don’t think Dr. Lewis really needs Theo here, do you?” asked Mr. Plunkett.

  “Oh, no. Of course not,” said Dr. Lewis.

  “Just the Plunkett checkbook,” added Mr. Plunkett with a wink.

  Dr. Lewis blushed and smiled awkwardly.

  “Do you two want a ride back?” asked Mr. Plunkett.

  “Well, I’ve got my bike a ways down the road,” said Daniel, “if Theo doesn’t mind walking me back. It’s not too cold.”

  “Sure,” said Theo after a moment. “Why not?”

  “Suit yourselves,” said Mr. Plunkett. “As long as Theo’s not behind the wheel of anything with a motor, I’m happy to let him out for a bit.”

  The two men left the boys alone, with Dr. Lewis continuing to lecture about the history of the site and Mr. Plunkett nodding and offering the occasional, bored “Mm-hmm.”

  Once they’d gotten out of earshot, Theo turned to Daniel.

  “Surprise,” he said, gesturing to the quarry and the twenty or so university scientists and grad students swarming about. “So I got your attention, and all it took was a few hundred thousand dollars of my dad’s money and a small army of archaeologists.”

  “My attention?” said Daniel. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks. You went missing in action!”

  Theo looked at Daniel for a long minute. The two boys were having a showdown of sorts. They weren’t friends, exactly, and they weren’t yet enemies. Daniel became keenly aware that these next few minutes were vital if he was to have any hope of winning Theo over.

  “I’m interested in mysteries,” said Theo at last. “I’ve been going through Herman’s study, examining his papers, and it became obvious that he’d been doing more up here than simply digging for limestone. He was paying specialists all over the world to examine stuff he found up here, but he was too good at hiding the results. Lots of clues, but no answers. But they all lead here.”

  “So you’re a detective,” said Daniel.

  “I’m no detective, I’m just rich,” answered Theo. “I don’t even know what it is I’m looking for.”

  The smile finally disappeared from his face. “Or for that matter what I’m looking at.”

  That stung. Daniel didn’t like the implication that he might be something other than what he seemed. But then again, he supposed he’d earned Theo’s suspicion. They all had.

  “You need to convince your father to call off the dig,” Daniel said.

  “Why? I’m the one who convinced him to start it in the first place.”

  “You don’t know what you’ll find in there. It … it could be dangerous.”

  Theo laughed. “Dangerous? There’s something in there that might be dangerous? Man, even now you won’t be straight with me, will you? It’s all vague warnings!”

  “Look, Theo, I can’t explain, but you have to trust me—”

  “Trust you?” Theo said. “Like you haven’t been lying to me from the moment I first met you, Daniel! You and your friends.”

  Theo leaned in, his eyes narrowed in anger. “My car didn’t magically float in midair! Something happened at that bridge. And I saw you fighting with those other boys here at the quarry. I saw stuff … stuff that’s just not possible!”

  At the sound of Theo’s raised voice, his father and Dr. Lewis glanced over in the boys’ direction. Theo caught himself and smiled back. That practiced, smooth smile. There wasn’t even a hint of anger left on his face.

  “My uncle was obsessed with something in this mountain,” Theo said. “You and your friends obviously know what it is, but you don’t feel like sharing. Fair enough. I’ll find it my own way.”

  For a tense moment neither one of them said anything. Daniel knew that if Eric had been in this situation, the time for negotiation would have been over. The gauntlet had been thrown, and Theo Plunkett was now a threat. But Daniel wasn’t Eric, and as much as he looked up to his friend, Daniel believed there had to be another way of dealing with this problem. He often wondered if there had been a time in the past when Clay and Bud could’ve been reasoned with. It was too late for them now, but it might not be too late for Theo.

  The last thing the Supers needed was another enemy. But more than anything, he needed to convince him to stop the dig.

  “So now what?” asked Theo. “Am I your arch-nemesis? Just like in the comic books?”

  “No,” said Daniel. “I thought we’d take a little walk together.”

  “Where to?” asked Theo.

  Now it was Daniel’s turn to smile. He remembered an afternoon just over a year ago when, bewildered and frustrated and desperate for answers, he’d asked Eric the very same thing.

  “We’re going to a tree fort.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Supers of Noble’s Green

  “Mollie’s a flier, and super-fast,” said Daniel. “I mean super-super-fast.”

  Mollie snorted, but she didn’t deny it, and she might even have liked the compliment. It was hard to tell with Mollie. Next up was Rohan, who was using his shirtsleeve to scrub at a stubborn spot on his glasses.

  “Rohan here’s got super-senses,” said Daniel.

  “Super … senses?” asked Theo.

  “It’s not as lame as it sounds,” said Rohan.

  “Yes it is,” said Mollie.

  “And lastly,” said Daniel, “there’s Eric.”

  “And what can you do?” aske
d Theo, glancing over to the window where Eric been sulking for the last ten minutes.

  “Strong. Tough. Flier,” he answered without looking up.

  Theo gave an impressed nod. “Lucky you.”

  “He’s the one who caught your car at the bridge,” added Daniel.

  “Well, thanks for that,” said Theo.

  Eric shrugged his shoulders without answering. He didn’t even bother to glance away from the window. And no one missed the fact that Eric should’ve been the one thanking Theo for performing the CPR that probably saved his life. Eric had been firmly against bringing Theo inside the tree fort in the first place, but he’d been outvoted. Daniel had been able to convince Mollie and Rohan that this was the smart move. That for once, honesty was actually the best policy. In the end it was three for, one against. And the one against had taken to sulking.

  “So that’s it,” said Daniel. “The Supers of Noble’s Green.”

  Theo sat there for a moment, studying them, his face impossible to read. Daniel could imagine what must be going through his mind right now, because he’d been there himself not long ago. The tree fort, the faded posters and yellowing old comics that littered the place like relics. This whole place was a museum of super-kid history. In many ways it was their only link to a past that had been stolen from them by the Shroud. But for someone like Theo, who’d arrived in town speeding in his dad’s stolen sports car, it probably all seemed like kiddie stuff. Only these kiddies could fly.

  “Okay,” said Theo. “So what about you?”

  “What?” asked Daniel.

  “What do you do? What’s your superpower?”

  Daniel had forgotten about that part. He was now a Super too. As much as he might wish it otherwise.

  He could feel his friends’ eyes on him. “I steal other people’s powers.”

  “Well, how about that?” answered Theo after a moment.

  “He borrows them,” said Eric, pulling himself away from the window at last. “It’s temporary.”

  Theo nodded and smiled. “Got it. So where are your costumes?”

  “We don’t wear costumes,” said Rohan.

  “Eric sometimes wears a costume,” said Mollie.

  “Only on Halloween!” said Eric.

  “Well, you really need costumes,” said Theo. “Isn’t it against union rules not to wear a costume? Won’t they expel you from the fraternal brotherhood of crime fighters?”

  “He’s making fun of us,” said Mollie.

  “What?” said Theo, looking around the tree fort. “You’re telling me that you all get together here and fight rampant neighborhood crime without costumes? I mean if I woke up one morning and discovered I was a superhero, I’d certainly take on the diabolical bad guys of the safest town on earth. Isn’t that the Noble’s Green slogan?”

  “The situation’s more complicated than that,” said Daniel. “Nobody here thinks of himself as a superhero.”

  “Well, some of us …,” said Mollie, looking sideways at Eric.

  “We help people,” said Eric. “Call it what you want.”

  “Do you have superhero names at least?” asked Theo. “Like Super Smell Boy? Or Talks Too Fast Girl?”

  “How about Super-Kid Who Drops Smart-Alec Rich Boy into the River?” said Eric, standing. “How’s that?”

  Theo laughed. “I don’t know what I was expecting, coming here, but I thought you’d have a better story than this load of bull.”

  “We’re telling you the truth,” said Daniel. “I know it’s hard to believe—”

  “Look,” said Theo. “I know there’s something … strange going on. I’ve seen enough to understand that. But if you actually expect me to believe that the nerd king here—”

  “This nerd king has a name, thank you very much,” said Rohan.

  Theo continued as if Rohan hadn’t spoken at all.

  “If you expect me to believe the nerd king can smell a flower on the other side of the mountain, and that girls and boys can fly, then you are crazy. You might get your tweener friends to buy this, but I’m not.”

  “Believe it or not, Theo, for generations there have been super-kids in this town,” said Daniel. “And we can prove it to you. No one knows exactly how it happened, but your uncle believed that it was caused by a meteor crash over a century ago. The quarry where your dad’s men are digging is ground zero of that crash. Herman excavated the site for years in secret.”

  “Why?” Theo asked. “What was he looking for?”

  Daniel looked around at his friends’ faces. Eric’s eyes were full of warning. He did not want Daniel to continue; he did not want Theo to hear what came next. But Daniel couldn’t think of any other way to stop the dig without telling the boy everything. If the university discovered those caves, they might discover the Witch Fire meteorite, and that kind of power would be a risk to the world. In that, Herman had been correct. It was best left buried under the mountain, forever.

  Confiding in Theo was a risky move and Daniel might be courting disaster, but it was their only shot. Daniel didn’t exactly trust him, but he was convinced that the only way to keep the secrets of Mount Noble safe was to get Theo Plunkett on their side.

  “The meteorite that landed here gave the children their powers. But it could also be used to steal them away too. As Herman did for years and years.”

  Daniel left the comment dangling there, but instead of watching for Theo’s reaction to the news that his relative was really a villain, he watched Rohan. Rohan was Daniel’s secret weapon in all this. He’d decided to come clean with Theo, but if his friends had any lingering doubt as to whether Theo was in league with the Shroud, then Rohan’s job was to watch Theo for signs that he was being less than honest himself. If the news was truly shocking, if he was as innocent in all of this as he claimed, then Rohan’s sensory powers should be able to detect it. Theo’s reaction would, hopefully, tell them all they needed to know.

  They never got the chance. No sooner had Daniel glanced in Rohan’s direction than his friend’s eyes grew wide with alarm. He was hearing something that had nothing to do with Theo. And it wasn’t good.

  To Daniel’s ears it was little more than a scratch at the door, like an animal pawing at the boards. One scratch … two.

  “They’re here! Get down!” shouted Rohan an instant before the door exploded open, ripped from its hinges, and clattered to the floor. In flew two long black shadows. The Shades had found them again.

  Eric was the first to react, throwing himself in their path and tackling the first one straight out the window. Daniel could hear the crashing of branches outside as the two carried their fight out among the trees. Daniel saw what Eric was doing—he was getting far away from Daniel. He wanted to put enough space between them that he wouldn’t accidentally bump into him and risk losing his powers. He’d try to take care of the first Shade as fast as he could, but he’d do it outside. Then he’d come back for the second. Unfortunately, that meant they still had a Shade to deal with by themselves.

  Mollie was already in the fight. Using her speed, she dodged around the creature, hitting and retreating in the same instant. But here in the tree fort she couldn’t use her flight to maneuver, and the Shroud was already starting to box her in. Her punches were little more than a distraction, and still it just kept coming, driving her into the corner where it wouldn’t matter how fast she was. It was just a matter of time.

  Daniel forced himself to close his eyes and take a deep breath. He needed to find calm. He was careful not to touch anyone, for fear of what his power might do. But what help was he if he just stood there?

  He nearly shouted when someone grabbed him by the shirt collar. It was Theo, pale and shaking. Daniel had never seen the boy so afraid. Not even when his car had careered off the Tangle Creek Bridge.

  “What’s going on?” he was shouting. “What are those things?”

  “Shades,” answered Daniel. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Daniel,” said Rohan, ?
??another’s coming. I can hear it slithering through the trees.”

  The trees?

  “Eric!” said Daniel. “He’s alone out there!”

  There was a scream then as Mollie came hurtling toward them, skidding to a halt at their feet. She looked up at them with dazed, unfocused eyes.

  “Wasn’t quick enough … that time,” she said weakly.

  The Shade was coming toward them, stretching itself to its full height. It filled the room, robbing it of its light. It might be midafternoon, but it was darkening to full night inside.

  The creature reared up like a wave of shadow, but just as it seemed ready to envelop the four of them, it paused. Then it leaned close to Theo. And sniffed.

  “What … what’s it doing?” whispered a terrified Theo. The Shade’s featureless face was just inches away from Theo’s own.

  “I don’t know,” said Daniel. Why wasn’t it attacking? What was it waiting for?

  “It recognizes him!” said Rohan.

  “I’ve never seen one of these things in my life!” said Theo. “How can it recognize me?”

  “Herman’s your granduncle,” said Rohan. “Maybe it smells him on you.”

  “I smell like Herman?” asked Theo, eyes wide.

  “You smell like a Plunkett!” answered Rohan. “All families have different smells, if you have the nose for it.”

  That gave Daniel an idea.

  “Theo, tell it to go away,” Daniel said.

  “What?” Theo asked. The Shade was moving its “nose,” if it had such a thing, all over Theo’s body. It seemed confused by him, but it wasn’t attacking. At least not for now.

  “Do it!” said Daniel through gritted teeth. The Shade was obviously confused about whether this young Plunkett was actually a threat, and they needed to act before it made up its mind.

  Theo swallowed. A long, thin tendril of Shade stuff was now flicking in and out of the creature, like a snake’s tongue. It couldn’t figure out Theo’s smell, so now it was resorting to taste.

  “Ugh,” said Theo, shrinking away from it. “Go … get!”