A gruesome thought occurred to Daniel: he wondered what would happen if she allowed her whole arm to become solid again while it was still inside the safe. Best not to think about that, he decided.
Daniel didn’t think it was a good idea to talk to Louisa while she was concentrating. After a minute of silence she let out a frustrated sigh. “Hmm, there doesn’t seem to be anything in there. It’s empty.… Wait, I found something.”
Louisa’s arm came out of the safe holding a piece of paper. It was a single sheet, folded over once.
“Is that all?” Daniel asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “No folders or cases or anything—”
“Daniel,” Louisa said, staring at the paper, “it’s for you.”
“What do you mean?”
Louisa held it out, and written on the front in big cursive script was his name—Daniel Corrigan.
“Looks like someone was expecting you,” said Louisa.
Daniel reached out to take the paper from Louisa and realized that his hand was shaking. He’d just seen a ghost, and now he was going to hear what that ghost had to say.
He unfolded the paper and read the note aloud.
To My Dearest Rival,
If you are reading this, I must congratulate you. Our battle is obviously at an end, and I proved the lesser man, it seems. While I am saddened that you have refused to join me in defending the world from the very real threat your friends pose, I am nonetheless impressed at the ingenuity that it must have taken to defeat me.
Perhaps you are reading this because you are looking for the photographic evidence that I kept on your friends. Fear not—such evidence no longer exists. I would not want it to fall into the wrong hands. I have spent a lifetime protecting the secrets of this town, and I would not want them exposed even in the event of my death.
I am this world’s protector, whether you have chosen to believe it or not.
And now that I am gone, this role is left to you, as I always knew it would be. But before you can bear this burden, you must know the truth. The clues are out there for you to follow, and since you have chosen to spurn my help, you are on your own. The power of the Witch Fire Comet burns in the veins of Noble’s children, and it must be kept in check lest it consume us all.
I trust you are up to the challenge.
Respectfully, Herman Plunkett
“He’s crazy,” said Louisa after Daniel had finished. “Even after he’s dead, he’s still crazy.”
Daniel nodded, but he didn’t answer right away. He was too busy looking at the postscript beneath Herman’s signature. At the only words he hadn’t read aloud:
P.S.: Have you tried on the ring yet?
“Daniel. Daniel!” Louisa reached out and put her hand on his arm. Reflexively, he folded the paper back in half, hiding the words from her.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking about—he’s dead, Daniel. This was just his last, stupid attempt to get inside your head.”
Daniel managed a halfhearted smile for Louisa’s benefit. He did not actually feel reassured in the slightest.
“C’mon,” he said. “We’d better get back. There’s nothing here but trash.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. You’re right—he’s just messing with my head is all. I’m fine.”
Louisa leaned forward then and surprised him with a kiss. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was more than friendly. It was soft and nice, but it was also unexpected. And it was still a kiss. Daniel’s first.
When it was over, Louisa blinked at him. She had the prettiest eyes. Flecks of green within the brown.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look a little pale.”
Daniel nodded. Words weren’t working so well right now.
“Why don’t you go back first, then,” she said. “I’ll follow in a minute or two.”
He nodded again. Perhaps a bit too emphatically.
“And, Daniel? Take a few breaths before you go back down there. You’re blushing like crazy.”
The grandfather’s snores sounded like a hacksaw at work, and Daniel felt suddenly silly tiptoeing down the hallway. He stopped sneaking and tried to think of what he was going to say to Eric and the others about Herman’s note, but he couldn’t form a plan. His thoughts were still tangled up in the kissing. Or being kissed. Louisa had kissed him, but had Daniel kissed her back? He suspected that he had. And badly, at that.
Why had she kissed him? Did she think they were more than friends? Did she want that? Did he? Suddenly Daniel was filled with an irrational terror that his friends would find out what he and Louisa had done, or more accurately that Mollie would find out. She’d never let him live it down; she’d tease him mercilessly forever, and Daniel couldn’t live with that. Mollie could never know. Not Mollie. Not ever.
Daniel turned around and headed back to the study. He needed to explain to Louisa that they were just friends. That the kiss was nice and all, but that was that.
But when Daniel reached the study doorway, he saw … something. Louisa was lying on the floor, unmoving, and standing over her was some kind of dark shape. It lacked depth and weight—as if someone’s own shadow had peeled itself off the wall and was floating in midair. But it felt threatening, malicious. Daniel could practically taste the spite in the air as the creature sucked the light and warmth out of the room, stretching its long fingers toward Louisa’s unmoving form.
Daniel’s first thought, the only one that made any sense, was that the Shroud had returned. But even as Daniel’s stunned brain struggled to come to terms with what he was seeing, he recognized that this was not the same Shroud that he’d fought just months before. This thing was smaller—there was hardly any real mass to the creature at all. And gone was the burning heart of fire that had marked the Shroud’s Witch Fire pendant. This thing was solid darkness. A Shade.
The creature lifted its featureless face toward Daniel as it caressed Louisa’s head. She was alive but unconscious. She stirred as if she was fighting something in her sleep, as if she was in the grip of a terrible dream.
Daniel looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing in here but books. He reached for the sturdiest one he could find, thinking he could at least lob it at the creature’s head, but when he grabbed for it, nothing happened. He couldn’t pick up the book! Why couldn’t he get a grip on it?
The Shade had abandoned Louisa and was coming for Daniel. It reached for him, its fingers looking more like claws now as they raked at his face … and passed harmlessly through him. It didn’t miss—it just couldn’t touch him. Daniel had become as intangible as a ghost. As Louisa.
Reeling back in fury, the creature came after Daniel with attack after attack, unable to connect. It might as well have been trying to strangle the very air. Then all at once the assault stopped and the Shade cocked its head, as if listening for something.
And like that, it was gone. It blew out of the room like a chill wind, moving so fast that Daniel didn’t even have time to see what direction it headed in. It flew past, or through, Daniel and out the doorway in an eyeblink.
Footsteps were coming up the stairs. Someone was running.
Daniel knelt by Louisa’s side. She didn’t appear hurt, but she was still unconscious. Daniel reached out and watched as his hand passed right through her. He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t touch anything.
“Daniel?” a voice called.
Theo was standing in the doorway, out of breath.
“She’s unconscious,” answered Daniel. Theo knelt down too and gave her shoulder a gentle shake. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked at the two of them.
“Hi,” she said groggily. “What’s everyone looking at?”
The rest of the kids appeared in the hall, Mollie in the front. “What’s going on? You guys were gone so long, we got worried!”
With Theo’s help, Louisa sat up. Daniel wanted to give her a hand, but he dared not touch her.
“I’m fine, I think,” said Louisa.
/> “You’re in my granduncle’s study,” said Theo, looking around. “Do you know how you got here?”
“Uh, no,” she answered, glancing quickly at Daniel.
Theo looked questioningly at Daniel.
“I … was on my way back from the bathroom when I passed by,” said Daniel. “I saw Louisa lying there on the floor.”
Theo kept his eyes on Daniel for a minute. Daniel knew that look, and he didn’t like it. He felt like he was under an interrogation lamp.
“Yeah,” said Theo. “I heard something in here. Decided to check it out.”
“You weren’t with the rest of them?” Daniel asked.
“He was supposed to be getting more soda from the kitchen,” said Eric. “We told him we weren’t thirsty, but he’s too good a host.” Daniel understood the unspoken warning beneath Eric’s words: Theo had left soon after Louisa, and they hadn’t been able to stop him. Eventually the rest of his friends had gotten suspicious and come looking for them.
“I guess I got turned around,” said Louisa.
“Well, obviously I’m not that good a host,” said Theo. “My guests getting lost, fainting. Daniel here is the real hero. He was already on the scene.”
Before Daniel could react, Theo reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. It was a solid, reassuring pat that Daniel could feel.
Daniel breathed a sigh of relief.
“Little jumpy?” Theo asked.
“Just worried about Louisa,” Daniel answered.
“I’m fine,” Louisa said. “Really. Must’ve gotten lightheaded or something.”
They helped her to her feet and one by one filed out of the study. Theo was the last to leave. As they exited, Daniel noticed Theo’s eyes searching the room.
“Strange that she’d end up here,” he was saying. “Bathroom’s at the other end of the house.”
“It’s a big old house,” said Daniel. “Easy to get lost.”
“Yeah, well, we should get back. Dad says this room’s off-limits. This was Herman’s private space. The old guy sure was a reader.”
Daniel nodded, but as he turned to go, he glanced back at the cabinet and saw the door slightly ajar, exposing the wall safe inside. They’d forgotten to close it. If Theo had seen it, then he probably knew that someone had been snooping around in there. Today’s strange events would only make Theo more suspicious, not less. Daniel’s hand went instinctively to the letter in his pocket.
“After you,” said Theo, giving Daniel room to pass. “Heroes first.”
Daniel nodded and walked past Theo Plunkett. The situation had changed, and frankly, Daniel couldn’t care less about Theo’s suspicions. They had bigger problems now.
The Shroud had returned.
Chapter Eleven
Aftershocks
When Daniel told the others about what he’d seen in the study, about what he’d really seen, the reaction was silence. He’d expected as much from Rohan, who was thoughtful about everything, but the others were quite honestly freaking him out. He’d just told them that the Shroud had returned, and they greeted the news with open stares.
After leaving the mansion, the Supers had regrouped at the tree fort. Louisa’s unexplainable fainting spell gave them a good reason to end the party early and get as far away from that house as possible. Louisa honestly couldn’t tell them much. After Daniel had left the study, she’d waited for a few moments; then as she’d started to leave, a black shadow had come lunging out of the hallway for her. She remembered being cold, then nothing at all.
Despite everything, first and foremost on Daniel’s mind was what had happened to him during the fight. He thought he finally understood the nature of his new powers, and he didn’t like it. When Clay had attacked him, when Daniel’s life had been in danger, he’d gotten super-strong and had manifested the power of flight. When the Shroud had attacked, he’d gone intangible so that he couldn’t be hurt. Both times he’d been in real danger. Both times he’d been in close contact with a Super. Eric’s super-strength and flight. Louisa’s intangibility.
Daniel was a leech. A parasite. He was the real Shroud.
“So he’s back,” Rohan said at last. “Somehow Herman escaped that collapse, and now he’s back to hunting us.”
Daniel nodded.
“Herman, or something else. It wasn’t the Shroud exactly, but close enough. If it is Herman, then he’s weaker than before. Smaller, more like a ghost.”
“Great,” said Rohan. “We’re being haunted now.”
Rohan was trying to make a joke, but nobody laughed. None of the others said a word. At the very least Daniel had expected Mollie to argue, to tell him he was seeing things and that he should get his eyes checked. Something. But all anyone did was stare at him. They’d gathered around in a semicircle, just like this was any old meeting of the Supers. Surrounding them, all along the walls of the tree fort, were the drawings and posters left by generations of super-kids, all of whom had lost their powers and their memories to the Shroud. Those pictures—here a faded crayon sketch of a boy flying, there a watercolor painting of a girl all in yellow, shining like the sun—they were the ghosts that haunted this place too. They joined his friends in silent acceptance that the Shroud had returned, like they’d been expecting this all along.
Then it struck him that perhaps they had. They had been expecting this. These kids had been living in fear for so long that they had never really believed it could be over. Deep down, the years of terror wouldn’t let them. Of course the Shroud had returned. Far more unbelievable was the idea that he’d ever left. He was a part of their lives, and even if they wouldn’t admit it, they knew he always would be.
Now all that was left was to figure out what to do next, and for that they were looking to Daniel, the new kid. They were waiting for their orders.
“So first things first,” said Daniel. “We need to find out if this is Herman, and if so, what he wants.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mollie. “You know who he is, and he wants what he’s always wanted—our powers!”
“Yeah, after he attacked Louisa, I think it’s pretty clear,” said Eric.
“I don’t know. What I saw in Herman’s study, guys, it was different. Smaller. More like a Shade of what the Shroud used to be.”
They thought about this. It was a small piece of good news that this thing wasn’t as powerful.
“And why wait until we went into his house?” Daniel continued. “His method in the past was always to come after us when we were asleep, when we were vulnerable. We would’ve made easy targets up to now; why wait?”
“You said he looked weaker,” said Rohan. “Perhaps the collapse at the Old Quarry didn’t kill Herman, but it hurt him so much that he couldn’t come to us. He was waiting for us to come to him. He obviously knew we’d come looking—he said as much in his letter.”
Daniel had told them what they’d found in the safe, about the taunting letter, but he’d left out the part about the ring, and as of yet no one had asked to see the letter for themselves. But it was only a matter of time, and Daniel figured he’d come clean when they did. There would be time for confessions later.
“You’ve got a point, Rohan,” said Daniel. “But I don’t know how Herman could hang around that house and not have Theo discover him. Whatever that thing was, I don’t think it was waiting—I think it followed us there.”
“Maybe Theo’s in on it,” offered Eric. “Maybe he’s a Shroud Junior.”
“He did invite us over there,” said Rohan. “This was all his idea, and he wasn’t with us when the attack happened.”
“Yeah,” agreed Eric. “He conveniently slipped out.”
“But it wasn’t his idea to go snooping around the house alone,” said Mollie.
Everyone in the room looked at Mollie. It was not like her to defend a Plunkett.
“What?” she said. “I’m just saying.”
“And Theo was so concerned,” said Louisa. “I think he really was worried abou
t me.”
“He was totally acting!” said Eric. “That kid’s a super-villain in the making if there ever was one.”
Daniel exchanged a look with Rohan, but his friend just shrugged. The issue of Theo’s loyalty had suddenly, and perhaps predictably, divided along gender lines.
It looked like Daniel would be the deciding vote.
“I’m going to go with innocent until proven guilty on this,” he said. “But I don’t exactly trust him either. I think he’s got some of his uncle’s sneakiness, his paranoia even, but I don’t think he’s in league with him.”
“Whatever,” said Eric.
“If it was Herman, I don’t get why he would wait to come after us when he did,” said Daniel. “Louisa, can you remember anything about the attack? What you were doing when you were in the study alone?”
Louisa shook her head. “Nothing. I was just waiting to return to you guys, like we planned. I might’ve been thumbing through the bookshelf, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“You think Herman was hiding something?” asked Rohan.
“Maybe,” Daniel said. “Or maybe he’s just protecting his turf.”
“He has other turf,” said Mollie. “We can’t forget about the cave.”
Mollie and Daniel had first discovered Plunkett’s Shroud-Cave, his true lair. But that was now buried under tons of limestone rubble. It would be hard getting any clues from there.
“I still say Theo’s in on it,” said Eric. “C’mon! A new Plunkett shows up in Noble’s Green and it’s just coincidence that the Shroud returns around the same time?”
“Didn’t Theo save your life?” asked Louisa.
“Daniel saved my life,” answered Eric.
“All right, that’s enough!” said Daniel. He still didn’t understand what it was that Eric had against Theo. Other than him being a Plunkett, that is. “I’m not ruling him out, but let’s focus on one thing at a time.”
“Sounds fair,” said Mollie. “So what do we do next?”
“I’ll … come up with a plan. At some point we should check out the Old Quarry again, just in case. But we need to do that together. It could be dangerous, and there’s safety in numbers. In the meantime … just give me some time to think it all through. And be careful. Everyone.”