Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) (21 page)

“You cannot have her.”

The cyborg reached out, grabbing the angel, and hurled her to the side. Her body hit the wall and stopped moving. Jasmine turned her head toward Alyssa while trying to get to her feet quickly. The robot fired another laser, landing squarely against Jasmine’s cheek. She cried out as the heat burned her skin.

She tried to get up, but the machine kicked her in the chest, sending her to the ground. She spun over in time to see the heel of the robot’s foot descend onto her neck.

“We entertained the idea that a Child of Nostradamus could serve the human race. We see the error of our ways.” The general’s voice lacked any sincerity.

“Kill me,” she hissed.

The motor whirled as the laser charged. Before it could fire, a black hole erupted from the center of the machine, dissecting its body lengthwise. Sparks began to rain down on her.

A man in a leather jacket was propped against a wall, his arms held out wide. His chest heaved as he panted from the exertion. Jasmine returned his gaze.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

“Truce?” Conthan asked.

She nodded. “Truce.”

Chapter Seventeen

May 19th, 2032 9:02PM

The
yellow paint peeling from the walls reminded Conthan of a Hopper painting. In the painting, a woman lying in a bed exposed her body to the rising sun. Hopper used the awkward colors to create dissonance, an uneasy feeling, while he tried to delve into the psyche of his subjects.

There was a quiet that existed beyond the silence in the room. Just beyond the walls of this makeshift speakeasy, there was no movement for miles. The corpses had been removed from the immediate area, but there was a sense of death hovering over the super powered inhabitants at all times. There had been jokes in the last century that the only things to survive a nuclear holocaust would be Twinkies and cockroaches; so far there had been neither.

He was sitting at the bar, alone, removed from the others. Hopper’s painting always tugged at his heart. In Nighthawks, three patrons were at the bar in an intimate setting, two of them appearing to be on a date, but the painting spoke to him about solitude and isolation. He couldn’t help but see the figures, so close together, but worlds separating them. Behind the bar, the proprietor prepared coffee for the late-night visitors, and despite their being regulars, he didn’t dare ask why they were there.

He felt isolated as his fingers traced the neglected counters and broken cups stacked in front of him. The bar was located in the Danger Zone, and any patrons that had frequented it were long since dead. In the carved initials and embedded stains he connected with the ghosts of a time gone by. If he thought about it, it was as if the people were speaking in the room with him. He tried not to think of them dying during the fallout.

“Nighthawks,” came a silky smooth voice.

“The painting was one of my favorites. I always meant to visit Chicago again so I could experience it once I knew something about art. When I was in college, I made a replica of it, and when I was done, I realized life had treated me too well to really capture the pain Hopper must have felt.”

“So why did you do it?”

He paused to consider the question. His professor had complimented him on his execution, style, and application of the paint, but nobody had stopped to ask him why. He turned to see Vanessa sitting at the bar. She was wearing her weathered red robe, her blonde hair flowing onto her shoulders, and her collar continuing to hide her mouth as if the garments were built for a telepath.

“I felt isolated.”

“Why?”

There had been a time when he was surrounded by friends, receiving the praise of his peers and professors. Despite their admiration, he spent more time alone than with these acquaintances. It wasn’t until he met Gretchen that he found somebody who also viewed themselves watching the world like a kid staring through the window of a candy store.

He opened his mouth to speak and paused, deciding the question was far too personal for somebody he had just met. He looked at her eyes, and saw she held no judgement. They reflected a question he wasn’t ready to explore. It took him a moment to realize every thought darting across his mind was like words on a page for the telepath.

Why do you ask questions you already know the answers to?
he thought.

Her laugh was quaint, soft and short, but sounded as if it was mixed with the distant chime of bells. She pushed her hair behind her ear. “When I was young, I discovered I could eavesdrop on every thought. Nothing was filtered, the good and the bad, the happy, and the sad. What I learned, just because I could hear thoughts didn’t mean I was always listening.”

He nodded, accepting her answer. He looked at the warped wood underneath his hands. “It never dawned on me, but I never got sick as a kid. I think that’s how they found out about Sarah. Up until high school, my foster parents would randomly take me out of school for a week at a time. We would go on vacations and I thought they were the greatest parents in the world. I never questioned why we never went back to the same house, or the same school. We would start new every year.”

“They were protecting their child.”

“I miss them,” he said, imagining his mother’s face.

“What happened to them?”

“Drunk driver.” He looked at the woman, trying to read her expression. “They weren’t my biological parents,” he added.

“Family doesn’t require blood.”

He understood the reference she was making to the others. “How do you make your wings come and go?”

“I can’t control a Child of Nostradamus,” she admitted, “but I can give suggestions.” Out of nowhere, her wings blinked into existence. “I suggest you see nothing but an ordinary woman, you’re the one who has to accept the suggestion.”

“Why be ordinary? You’re beautiful.”

Her wings vanished again and she feigned a smile, the sentiment never reaching her eyes. “It is appreciated.”

It didn’t escape him that she batted away the compliment, not convinced at the sincerity of his words. She turned to the giant window looking out onto the street. “Not all of us have had the chance to lead a normal life. My powers appeared when I was very young. I’ve known almost my entire life I was different, and while the people who took me in cared for me, there are some scars that don’t heal so easily.”

“You mean your skin?”

Her eyebrow rose at the comment. “My what?”

“I’m not sure a telepath is allowed to play coy.”

“Someday,” she said, “I will be ready to tell you. Until then, it is a thought I choose to not hear.”

He nodded, understanding her need for secrecy. It was the first time in years he didn’t feel he was the kid staring in the window. He tried to ignore his gut. These people with powers beyond the imagination were still strangers to him. Vanessa hiding her secrets was the first real human thing he had observed. He couldn’t help but grin at the thought that the only woman he couldn’t keep a secret from was the one with secrets. A smile finally reached her eyes. “The irony is not lost on me,” she said.

They stood in silence for a moment. She gestured for Conthan to follow. They stepped back from the bar and she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She pointed to the seats where they had been sitting moments ago. She repeated the breathing pattern. She rested her hand on his shoulder as she inhaled deeply. She slowly let the breath ease from her lips. As it touched the bar, ghosts began to emerge from nowhere.

Conthan jumped from the sudden bustle of activity in the room. He saw a jukebox in the corner and several sets of young people dancing to music. Behind the bar, two men were slinging drinks down to the patrons waving money. The crowd was alive and by their clothing it was a scene played out years before his birth.

A young man sat next to a beautiful young lady. He cautiously held his hand palm-up on the bar. Conthan felt his heart swell as the woman slowly slid her hand into his. The look on their faces as they stared into each other’s eyes told a story that would play out through the decades as they grew old and died in the company of one another.

“What is this?”

“Some places carry such a strong energy,” she said, “that even years later, I feel the imprint. When I focus, I get impressions. Every bar stool, counter, and cup tells a story. It’s one of the reasons we come here. I can’t help but feel that we are this bar’s final legacy.”

“How do you mean?”

“When we die, the stories housed here along with its patrons die.”

“How can I see them?”

“You’re not seeing them,” she said. “You’re currently asleep in a bedroom and I’m in the room next to you.”

He didn’t try to hide his confused look. “Then how are we here?”

“I could feel your mind reaching out to mine. I thought it best we meet some place we both recognize. It’s not often I get to experience peace and quiet like this.”

Conthan didn’t try to understand. It didn’t faze him that Dwayne could shoot lightning bolts or that Skits could do something that made her super hot. It didn’t even bother him that Alyssa was able to learn kung fu from a video, or that Vanessa had wings. But the telepath thing, somehow that perplexed him.

They both watched as kids danced and music filled the air. The bartenders did a well-choreographed dance, moving around one another as they flipped bottles and pushed drinks out to the patrons. Vanessa smiled as a young girl twirled about. Conthan noted from the corner of his eye she was watching the girl, and suddenly it dawned on him this wasn’t just a memory of the bar, it was the yearning of a woman cheated out of her youth.

“Perhaps Hopper had it wrong,” she said calmly. “Perhaps the emotion wasn’t meant to be isolation. Maybe the bar was meant to be where lonely souls came to find one another.”

Conthan smiled at her optimistic interpretation. “Maybe we really are Nighthawks.”

***

The
hood over her face smelled of dust and disuse. The cotton was uncomfortable, pulling tightly on her face. She could make out light through the black fabric, but she had no idea exactly what was on the other side. With a few taps from the toe of her boot, she could tell by the echo the room was small.

She began working at the tape over her mouth with her tongue. She forced spit onto the tape, loosening its hold on her skin. As it gave way, she began chewing at it until it was pulled from her face. She pushed it to the side of her mouth and began gnawing away at the hood, trying to pull it from over her head.

There was motion in the room.

“Who’s there?”

Jasmine pulled against the plastic around her wrists. As she struggled, the material cut into her flesh. She focused on her skin, searching for any point of contact between her and a denser material. She recognized the plastic, duct tape, and even the fiber of rope around her torso. None of them were a material capable of aiding her escape. Her captors weren’t fools.

“Who are you?”

Whoever the person was, they hovered just out of her swinging reach. They were cautious. As the person took a step, she recognized them as a man, perhaps over two hundred pounds. He wasn’t wearing shoes; the scrapes of his feet on the pavement told her they were in a disused room, perhaps a basement?

Liquid poured down over her head. She coughed as it soaked through the mask. He was drenching her. She sniffed the air. It was water as far as she could tell; nothing that seemed to be capable of burning.

“If you’re attempting your first waterboarding, you’re failing, sparky.”

The mask was slowly lifted off her face. She had been right; it was the lightning-hurling member of the group. The room looked like the basement of an old building. Behind the human lightning bolt were several massive water heaters. For this many, so tightly packed together, she had to assume they were in a large office building or hotel.

Her captor was barefoot, wearing only a pair of ripped jeans. She eyed the man, studying the expression on his face. He didn’t blink, staring straight into her eyes.

“You’re going to need to do more than give me a shower, sparky.”

His face was stern, but his demeanor gave a general disinterest in her. She didn’t let it show, but she was impressed with how well he could hide his thoughts. She followed his skin down to his chest and torso. He was a bit overweight without a single hair on his body. It dawned on her there might be a reason he was half-dressed.

“Rape? Really?” she asked.

He laughed hard enough it sent her back in the chair. The laughter wasn’t condescending; he was genuinely amused by her comment. She couldn’t fathom what he found so funny. He braced himself against a wall as he continued roaring at the comment. He let it go on far longer than the inside joke warranted. He wiped the tears away from his eyes.

“You haven’t got what it takes to get me hard.”

“Oh,” she said, seeing the joke.

He straightened and took a step toward her. It wasn’t the first time she had been captured. It was the first time it had been against her will. It was also the first time somebody had the foresight not to use handcuffs on her or to bind her with wire. She wondered just how much the man knew about her abilities.

“The telepath,” she hissed.

“Surprisingly, no,” he said. His words were distant. His mind seemed to be occupied, only coming back to the present when he spoke. At first she thought he was daydreaming, going through a memory, but it dawned on her that he was detaching himself from the situation.

“You’re going to torture me?”

“Yes.”

She could only hope his plan was to beat her. If she was lucky, a pipe or even brass knuckles would prove to be his undoing. If he got close enough, she could even brush against the button on his jeans. Her face went flat as she masked her plan.

He shuffled his foot a little closer. She raised her eyebrow as she waited. He had no demands, nor did he seem like he was in any hurry to begin beating her.

“Normally people torture to get information.”