Villainous

  Daniel’s mother set the phone on the table and took a second to compose herself.

  “All right,” she said. “Ask me.”

  “And you won’t get mad?”

  “Daniel, just ask!”

  Daniel took a deep breath to brace himself and asked:

  “Can I get a ride?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mercy General

  Daniel had been in this situation before, chasing one final piece of evidence, one last clue that would blow the case wide open. In past adventures he’d always been flying through the air with the Supers, or charging along hidden paths through the woods in a desperate race against time. But he’d never done it in his mother’s minivan, going five miles below the speed limit with his baby brother belted in behind him.

  He should’ve snuck out the window.

  There weren’t many moments in Daniel’s life when he had regretted taking the honorable route, but this was beginning to look like one of them. And Daniel suspected that his mother was driving like someone’s grandparent just so that she would have extra time to interrogate him along the way. He knew he’d been infuriatingly vague as to why it was so important to see Theo today, but she seemed to think getting out of the house was a good way to get Daniel’s mind off his friends at the academy, and so she agreed. Even if Theo was a car thief.

  But when he asked her to wait in the hospital parking lot for him, she shook her head and unbuckled Georgie from his car seat instead. She was coming too—she was determined to keep an eye on him. If she couldn’t keep him locked up in one place, she would make sure that she was with him wherever he went.

  Together, the three of them took the elevator up to the eleventh floor (after Georgie had accidentally leaned against the buttons for floors eight through ten). On the way to Theo’s room, they passed the intensive care unit, where Mr. Madison was lying, still recovering from his own more severe injuries. Daniel was surprised to see a uniformed police officer sitting outside the unit, reading the paper.

  “Hey, buddy!” said Theo as Daniel poked his head into the younger Plunkett’s room. He was waving his bad arm, which was wrapped in a fresh bandage up to the elbow. The burns hadn’t been too bad, thank goodness, and Theo looked more than ready to go home.

  “Hello, Mrs. Corrigan,” Theo added as he saw Daniel’s mom lurking outside his door. “It’s such a pleasure to see you too.”

  Daniel’s mother gave Theo a small smile and asked how he was feeling, after which she quickly excused herself to take Georgie to find a water fountain. Daniel’s mother could only take Theo in very tiny doses.

  Daniel watched his mother go. “She’s like my own secret service,” he said. “Won’t let me out of her sight.”

  “You see all that academy business?” Theo gestured to the TV on the wall. The sound was off but the picture was of the locked-down academy. The images flipped back and forth between a news anchor and the closed school gate.

  “I was there,” Daniel said.

  “Seriously? This has really gotten crazy.” Theo held up his own copy of the Noble Herald, which had been sitting next to his untouched dinner tray. “All over the newspapers too.”

  “Yep,” said Daniel. “This is really bad, Theo. You know, when Mollie was worried about that school, when she was spouting off all her crazy conspiracy theories, I thought she was just being paranoid. After all, the place had been built by my friend Theo’s family, and surely if there was anything strange going on, my friend Theo would know about it, right?”

  “Uh, right.” Theo was licking his lips.

  “You need a drink?”

  “Yeah,” said Theo. “Water pitcher’s right over there. Should’ve offered some to your mom, come to think of it.”

  “I’ll get it for you, Theo,” said Daniel. “Just as soon as you answer one question. Who’s running Plunkett Industries now? It’s not your dad anymore, is it?”

  Theo glanced around the room, as if someone might burst in any second and rescue him. Then he slumped back onto his hospital bed with a sigh. “Oh, this is stupid. Feel like I should be asking for my lawyer!”

  Daniel walked over and poured water from the pitcher into a little paper cup, and handed it to his friend. Theo nodded thankfully as he drank.

  “Just tell me the truth, Theo,” said Daniel. “It’s important.”

  Theo finished the water in one gulp, and crushed the paper cup in his hand. “Fine,” he said, tossing the cup at the wastebasket and missing. “Three points.”

  “Theo!”

  “Okay! After Herman reappeared last year, he reasserted his share in the company, and secretly bought out the rest. It was a hostile takeover, and my dad didn’t even see it coming. Herman let us stay in the house as long as we promised not to make a big deal about it.

  “I didn’t tell you guys—I didn’t want Ms. Starr to tell you guys—that Herman’s in charge of the company again, because I was embarrassed. The truth is, we’re totally broke. My dad made a lot of money but he ran up even more debt. Without Plunkett Industries we’re sunk. There’s no way we can keep up with what we owe. My dad’s overseas trip with Granddad is just an excuse to look for another job.

  “I’ll have to sell my car for sure.”

  So there it was. What Mandy Starr had really been about to say that day was that she’d recently met the academy’s chairman of the board—Herman Plunkett—but Theo stopped her just in time, and covered it up with a ridiculous story about his dad being some kind of womanizer. So Herman now controlled Plunkett Industries, a billion-dollar company, with all its connections and influence. Which meant …

  “Herman built the academy,” said Daniel.

  Theo nodded. “He chose the spot, hired the architects, oversaw every last detail of its construction. He was weirdly secretive about it too. Now he runs the board of trustees. Dad says Herman rarely sits in on meetings, but he still calls all the shots.”

  Daniel had once compared Herman to a spider sitting in a web. It was a good metaphor for the old villain, who for years had sat back and manipulated the whole town into doing his bidding, waiting for any enemies to fall into his trap.

  Now Daniel had found out that Herman had built that school on the side of Mount Noble to his own exact specifications, a secret project costing millions. Shining, magical, designed to be impossible to resist.

  Herman had spun himself a new web.

  “Thanks, Theo,” said Daniel. “I was afraid you’d say that, but it’s what I needed to hear.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” said Theo. “But I didn’t think it mattered. I thought Herman was pretty much finished with the super-villain stuff. Now he’s just picking on his own family.”

  “I gotta tell you something else, Theo,” said Daniel. “I think Herman’s bodyguard set fire to the mansion.”

  “What? Why would he do that?”

  “To win the public’s sympathy, I think. To give Herman something really terrible to blame on the Supers. And to keep me from getting too close to the truth.”

  “But my mom and I almost died! If not for Johnny and Eric, we would have.”

  “I don’t think Herman cared.”

  Theo shook his head. “I figured that since he couldn’t be the Shroud anymore, since you busted that magic pendant of his, he’d be powerless to actually hurt anybody.”

  “His real power was never the pendant,” said Daniel. “The Shroud wasn’t our real enemy; it was always Herman the man.”

  “He’s got everyone in his pocket, you know,” said Theo. “The mayor, the papers. He owns just about everything in this town.”

  “I know. What I don’t know is why he built the academy to begin with. Why does he want everyone there?”

  “I don’t think it’s because he thinks children are the future,” said Theo.

  “I wonder if it has something to do with Johnny,” said Daniel. “Herman acted like he was afraid of him, but after all these years, something has finally lure
d Johnny out into the open, and Herman built it. I wonder if Johnny knows.”

  Daniel shook his head. That earlier brainwave was spent, and now he was staring at the wall again.

  “And that’s as far as I get,” said Daniel, rising. It was so frustrating to be this close to an answer that he just couldn’t quite grab. “You get better, okay? You’ve been a big help.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” said Theo. “That’s what you do, remember? Daniel the Detective!”

  Sure, but would he figure it out in time? The clock was ticking, although what it was counting down to was still a mystery.

  “Hey, could you do me a favor on your way out?” asked Theo. “Could you put this tray of disgusting food outside my door with my compliments to the chef? Gray meat and brown peas. It’s making me sick just looking at it.”

  Daniel nodded and took the tray off of Theo’s side table. It really did look terrible, like they were trying to make their hospital food live up to its reputation.

  As he turned to leave with the dinner tray, his eyes glanced over the folded copy of the Noble Herald. The front page was the same one the cop had been hiding behind, only now Daniel could read the headlines clearly. Above a picture of the academy were the words “Super Trouble.” Daniel groaned. The headline writers in this town were really getting lazy. Beneath that, in the lower corner, was a photo of Mount Noble Observatory, with a much smaller headline that read “Unusual Comet Offers Local Stargazers a Show.”

  The dinner tray slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

  “Whoa!” said Theo. “Watch what you’re doing!”

  But Daniel wasn’t listening. He ignored the off-color peas rolling every which direction, the spreading lake of milk soaking his shoes. He scooped up the fallen paper instead and began reading.

  Thanks to clear skies and unseasonably low humidity, careful stargazers will be treated to a once-in-a-lifetime experience tonight as a celestial anomaly, designated Comet B9-111, makes an appearance in the skies above Noble’s Green. Famous for its unmistakable green tail and formerly ominous name, the newly christened comet was once …

  The paper was shaking in his hands, making it hard to read, and Daniel realized he was trembling. With a deep breath he tried to steady himself and read on.

  As it passes near Earth’s orbit tonight, modern scientists are anxious to get a good look at B9-111, an object that has long baffled astronomers.

  “We call it a comet, but the truth is, we’re not really sure,” said Professor Lewis Larson, director of the Mount Noble Observatory. “People have been quick to label it a comet, I guess because that has a better ring to it than ‘unclassified celestial phenomenon.’ But after we get a look at it with our modern telescopes, we’ll know for sure.

  “Regardless, keep your eyes on the skies, because it’s coming tonight!”

  Daniel saw his father erecting a lightning rod on the roof of their house.

  Daniel saw Johnny pointing and laughing at the metal spire standing in the exact center of the academy. Taller than any building, taller than the tallest tree, like a rod pointed at the sky.

  And the answer was right in front of him, like a lightning bolt … like a comet.

  “Oh no,” breathed Daniel. “I know what Herman’s planning, Theo. I’ve gotta go. I know what he’s trying to do.”

  “What? Hey, wait!” shouted Theo. “What about the dinner all over my floor?” But Daniel was already halfway down the hall. People were giving him looks, a kid rushing through the hospital corridor, but he didn’t care. He only slowed down when he passed the intensive care ward, but the cop was no longer there, so he full-out ran until he found his mom and Georgie, sitting near the water fountain.

  Daniel was so breathless that he could barely get out the words. We have to leave now. No time to explain.

  Johnny was wrong when he’d said that spire in the middle of the academy served no purpose. It had been built by Herman Plunkett, and as insane as he was, Herman never did anything without a purpose.

  It wasn’t art and it wasn’t a mistake. It was a lightning rod aimed at the sky, and it was designed to attract just one thing.

  The Witch Fire Comet was coming back tonight, and the Noble Academy for the Gifted would be ground zero.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Good Cop, Bad Cop

  “I don’t know how Herman’s done it,” Daniel was saying, “but I think that spire is designed to work like a lightning rod, only instead of attracting electricity, it’ll somehow attract the Witch Fire Comet. The last time the comet appeared in the sky, a meteorite burned down St. Alban’s. Tonight it’ll hit the school. At least that’s what he thinks is going to happen.”

  “The academy? But that’s where—”

  “Where most of the Supers are, yes! And Johnny! Herman’s got them all trapped right where he wants them. The kids he despises, and the only person the Shroud ever feared. After tonight—boom!—all his problems solved.”

  “Daniel, slow down,” his mom said. “Start from the beginning. What is a Shroud exactly?”

  Daniel put his head in his hands. This was hopeless. They’d gotten as far as the car before she’d demanded he tell her everything. Why were they rushing out of the hospital? What had Theo said that upset him so? Just what was Daniel involved in?

  He’d tried. He honestly had. He had tried to tell her everything, in a sort of Cliff’s Notes version, but she’d understandably had trouble following along.

  He realized early on that to explain everything, he’d have to start at the beginning, all the way back to that long-ago night when the Witch Fire Comet had appeared in the sky over Mount Noble—the night Johnny Noble and the first Supers had been born in the ashes of the St. Alban’s fire. He tried to lay it all out for her, to describe how that alien meteorite had killed the rest of the adults and had changed Johnny and the children.

  Because the Witch Fire Comet was coming back tonight, and if Herman was right and there was going to be a meteorite strike on the academy, many lives would be lost. Johnny and the Supers would be at ground zero, and the same comet that had given them their powers would take them away. In the aftermath of that explosion, they’d be at best powerless, at worst dead.

  But there was still time to warn Johnny and the Supers. The hospital wasn’t that far away from the academy. A ten-minute drive at most. Cell phone coverage was spotty up on the mountain, and Daniel hadn’t been able to reach Mollie, but he’d already sent her several messages telling her that the academy was in danger and to get Johnny and the students far away. There was still time to save everyone if they acted now.

  If he could only get his mom to cooperate. She was driving along the mountain road now, and soon they’d pass up their exit. Just one turn and they could be there within minutes.

  “Really, Daniel,” she was saying. “It all just sounds like … such a story! Even if you’re right, and Mr. Plunkett is this Shroud person, how do you know what he’s up to? This whole comet thing sounds crazy, I have to tell you.”

  “I know,” said Daniel. “It is crazy, but that’s how Herman thinks. There has to be a reason he built the academy in the first place, and I think this is it.”

  “And even if I did believe you,” said his mother, “why would I want you closer to that academy when it looks so dangerous as it is—”

  “Mom! Stop!” shouted Daniel, and his mother slammed on the brakes, squealing to a halt on the side of the road.

  “Whoa!” shouted Georgie, clapping.

  “What? Are you okay?” asked his mother. “Did I hit something?”

  Daniel calmly pointed over his shoulder to the turnoff they’d just missed. The Old Quarry Road.

  “Please, Mom,” he said. “The academy’s that way. My friends need me.”

  She looked at him, not saying anything.

  It wasn’t going to work, Daniel could tell. She wasn’t about to let her son get involved any more than he already was. He thought about making a run fo
r it. He could hop from the car while they were parked here and head for the trees. It would take longer to cut through the woods on foot, but he knew the way, as long as he kept the road somewhat in sight. He could be there in half an hour. After dark, but at least he’d get there.

  “Uh-oh,” his mom said. Uh-oh? That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting.

  Then he saw that she was looking in the rearview mirror at an approaching car, its red lights flashing as it slowed to a stop behind them.

  “You have a taillight out or something?” asked Daniel. She certainly hadn’t been speeding.

  “He probably just wants to make sure we’re okay,” said his mother.

  Daniel took his hand off the door handle. He could hardly make a run for it now with a cop standing outside.

  The police officer got out of his car and crossed over to the driver’s side door. He was shining a flashlight into the car even though it was only dusk. There was still plenty of light to see by.

  Daniel’s mother rolled down her window. “Hello, officer.”

  “Evening, ma’am.”

  “My son and I were just having a talk—well, an argument really—so I pulled over. There’s nothing wrong.”

  “He your son?” the officer asked, gesturing to Daniel with his flashlight. From where he was sitting, Daniel couldn’t see the officer’s face.

  “Well, yes,” answered Daniel’s mother. “These are both my sons.” She gestured back to Georgie.

  “Hi,” said Georgie.

  The officer ignored him and placed his hand on the door. “I’m going to have to ask you and your son there to step away from the car,” he said.

  “What?” said Daniel’s mother. “Why?”

  “Just cooperate, lady.”

  Daniel could see his mother tensing up, and he felt it too. Something was not right.

  “Officer,” said Daniel’s mother, “why haven’t you asked to see my driver’s license?”

  Daniel saw his mother’s hand slowly drifting back to the ignition.