PHENOMENAL GIRL 5 (30 page)

I remembered what Toby had said about her and Luke.

“So,” she asked, “think you can talk the younger and cuter version into returning to the team? Use your feminine wiles and all that.”

“He seems pretty comfortable where he is,” I replied.

“So he’s just going to let you go?” She shook her head. “Big mistake. Simon’ll snatch you up before you can even say ‘single.’ ”

“We’re not breaking up.”

“You’re here, he’s there. How exactly is that going to work?”

“We haven’t really discussed it. We’ve been a little more concerned with trying to save the world from what ever the Dragon’s planning. And I’m not into Simon.”

“He told me you went out once.”

“Once,” I stressed. “Did he also tell you he drooled all over me—literally?”

She cracked up. “Too funny.”

“He’s a terrible kisser, whereas the Reincarnist has had lifetimes to perfect the art.”

“Stop it, you’re making me blush.” Mindy smiled. “Well, if you’re not breaking up, you do have one thing on your side.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s a twenty-year-old guy now. The Reincarnist doesn’t seem to be the type to cheat, so eventually he’s going to get horny and come here.”

I burst out laughing.

She smiled. “And then you can convince him to stay.”

“So you want him here.”

She shrugged. “Luke wants him here. So do Rath and Toby. Kate and Paul do too, even if they won’t admit it. I think we all know we’ve lost our way. That’s why he left all those years ago—the team has become more about celebrity than actual heroism. Maybe with him back, we could find our path again.”

“Do you just want him here because Luke wants him here?”

She smiled. “Did Toby the blabbermouth say something?”

I gave her an innocent look. “He might have, after that involved discussion on my love life.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She half laughed and then added, “But Miss Lainey, you landed the impossible guy—so you watch Luke and see if you can give me any pointers.”

I wanted to back off the subject a bit, and decided a healthy dose of truth couldn’t hurt. “I don’t know if I’ve landed him. I’m here and he’s there, as you pointed out.”

“You’re a hell of a lot closer than I am with Luke. The Reincarnist knows you’re alive, a woman, and interested. He’s even sampled the goods!” She gulped down the last of the water. “Luke thinks of me as the kid who’s always been underfoot.” She gave me a mirthless smile. “My parents thought they could teach their freakishly smart daughter better than any school, so they dragged me along everywhere, including to the EHJ. They made all sorts of gizmos for the team back then. I was twelve when I met Luke.” She smiled at me. “You remember being twelve?”

I reflected. “I had a huge crush on that actor doing all of
those action movies at the time—and on a guy who visited the School.” I thought fondly back to Robert and how he’d changed my life before I even knew him.

“Luke was my intense puppy-love crush.” Mindy shook her head. “I was always trying to impress him, acting like I was so mature and ending up looking even more like a kid. You know the drill. I sometimes think I wouldn’t have pushed so hard to be in the EHJ if he hadn’t been a member.” She sighed. “The most he’s ever done was pat me on the head and say I was cute.”

I winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. And as far as I can tell, his attitude hasn’t changed.” She got up. “Anyway, enough about my pathetic love life. I’ve got things to do and so do you. But it was good talking to you, Lainey. I think we’ll get along.”

“Me, too.”

After she left, I looked at the time. Maybe I’d go check out the museum. As I headed toward the door, I almost ran into Simon.

I jumped back. “You scared me!”

“Sorry.” He gave me a dazzling but fake smile. “So, Lainey, I was being serious earlier. I could use a date to this shindig I gotta go to to night.”

“It’s sweet of you to offer, but I don’t think I’m the party type of girl,” I said, attempting to get around him.

He blocked me. “You’re young, you need to get out and have a little fun. You’ve spent too much time with the Reincarnist, you’re starting to act like him.” He leaned against the wall, getting too close to me. “You need to live a little with a guy who still knows how.”

“I’m not interested in the party, but thanks for offering, Simon.” I moved his arm away, a little rougher than necessary. “Excuse me.” I couldn’t believe him. Why couldn’t he take no for an answer?

I pushed aside thoughts of Simon and made my way downstairs to the museum. Scanning my card at the entrance,
the guard nodded me through—excellent security, people—and I found myself in room after room of memorabilia. Costumes, news clippings, old vehicles, and inventions were all jammed in together. Finally I found the photographs.

I paused in front of one. It was a photo of the founding of the School. I read the names written on a plaque underneath. Finding his, I counted over to the right person. A complete stranger’s face. Not Doctor Rath’s father, Walter, but the man before him, Herman Whitney. But there was still something familiar: his posture, the air about him. I shivered and moved on to another photo.

Eventually I came across the first team photo of the EHJ. I studied the picture until I found Walter Rath. I remembered learning about him in school, about his exploits in World War II with some of the others of the powered persuasion; how weird was that? I looked at the photo, again feeling that strange sense of the familiar—he looked nothing like Robert or Wesley, but there was something about him that reminded me of them. Doctor Rath bore a striking resemblance to his father.

I was about to leave when a different photo caught my eye. I paused and turned back. It was another team photo of the EHJ, a more recent incarnation, because there was Toby, Paul, Kate, and…

…. a young Robert.

It had probably been taken shortly after he had been “born.” He looked to be in his early twenties but was wearing his trademark suit, a wide grin on his face. My foggy memory again made the connection with the talent scout who had helped me out of the closet when I was eleven, who had once told me that everything happens for a reason.

My heart hurt. God, I missed him.

Without realizing it, my fingertips brushed across my chest, over my heart where he had healed me. I lifted a finger to my lips, kissed it, and touched the glass over the photograph.

“I’m going to make you proud, you’ll see,” I whispered. “I’ll show them what a real hero is.”

As I walked into the penthouse, sirens went off like crazy. I looked around for an alarm I had somehow tripped.

Toby hustled past. “Something’s up. If all the alerts go off, it means something’s going down that we need to investigate. Come on!”

I followed him into the room that we had been in that morning. Everyone else was already there, and Rath looked up as we came in.

“Alpha X is back,” he said as we sat down, and the hologram table displayed a picture of what looked like nine-foot-tall man who’d been hitting the steroids too much. “He’s wrecking the downtown area and City Hall called to see if we could take care of it. Toby, Luke, and Paul will be our assault team. Mindy, Kate, and Simon will be on crowd control and backup. I will coordinate efforts onsite with the police. Let’s go, people.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I spoke up.

Rath frowned. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Um, me perhaps?”

He shook his head. “Oh yes, Lainey, of course. So sorry. I don’t know where my mind was.”

“That’s okay.” I’d been worried for a moment.

“You’re on monitor duty. Make sure nothing else happens while we’re gone.”

“You’re kidding!” slipped out before I could stop myself.

“I don’t have time to kid.” He gave me a reproachful look. “Let’s go, people.”

Everyone rushed out of the room without a word, except Luke, who stopped next to me. “It’s a newbie thing, kid, don’t let it bother you. Newbies always stick around the home front.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and left.

I stood there in shock. I’d left a job where I’d gotten my soul eaten, was murdered, had any bit of magic I had in me
drained—not once, but twice—and fought crazy villains on a semi-regular basis to come work somewhere where I did nothing but sit in front of monitors and watch the action from afar, like a civilian.

I can’t quit
, I reminded myself.
Not yet.

I’d like to say that my first month working with the EHJ was filled with adventure and excitement. I’d like to say that, but I’d be lying.

Dark thoughts plagued me as I sat “maintaining home base” for the team. That was a fancy way of saying “watching the monitors and listening for important radio transmissions while they were out.” That, and coordinating schedules an intern might have done instead of a law school graduate, was the bulk of my duties.

I flipped to the next page in the spell-book Wesley had sent over. Since I had been relegated to the sidelines, I had decided to put my free time to good use and was working to strengthen my magic.

I spoke the Italian words and held my palm up, concentrating, forcing my will into the spell. A small flicker of fire licked my hand without pain. Frowning, I tried to push more strength into it, to make the flame grow. It stayed small, but started to curl into a ball. I was making progress.

“Lainey, clear the way, we’re coming home.” I heard Toby’s voice in my earpiece.

I swore as the spell shattered, along with my concentration. As Wesley would have told me, villains weren’t going to let me have absolute silence to work my magic. I moved to check the monitors.

“Everything’s clear,” I reported, picking up my books and
spell ingredients and stacking them neatly in a small cupboard. Closing that, I walked over to the hologram table and pulled up the readings from today’s case. All of the members but me had been called to act as backup to a visiting dignitary who had a hit out on him—never mind the fact he oppressed the women of his country in the name of religion. It wasn’t that I wanted to act as his bodyguard; I just wanted to be able to do
something
.

Everyone appeared in the room in an instant, thanks to Mindy’s personal teleporters.

“Status?” Paul asked, walking to the holo-table and looking over the readings.

“Everything checked out. Security didn’t pick up anything.” I punched a few buttons. “Here’s a guest list, and you can check it against facial scans the cameras did.”

Kate put a hand on his shoulder. “Everything went smooth, Paul. Maybe our presence was all that was needed. Let’s not obsess over it. It’s over and done with.” She didn’t sound any more thrilled than I was about helping the chauvinist pig.

“We got paid and we got noticed,” Simon said. “And the cash cow got to live. I think it was a win-win situation.”

“Why does it smell like sulfur in here?” Toby asked.

“I did a spell,” I said in a low voice.

“Which one? The fireball?” Mindy asked, excited. The only bright spot of this job so far was my new friendship with her and Toby.

“You should quit wasting your time trying to become a magic-user and concentrate on your job,” Paul chastised.

“Leave her alone, she is doing her job.” Luke came to my defense.

“She gets coffee every morning. What more do you want her to do?” Simon said, managing to offend and defend me at the same time.

Rath wandered into the room. He’d had a separate mission that night, one I was more interested in. “Everything go okay?” he asked the team.

I sidled up to him. “Have you found out anything new, Doctor Rath?” He had gone to speak to a real psychic about the Dragon.

He looked as if he wanted to say something but changed his mind. “Not yet, Lainey.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Be patient, okay?”

“Did you see Wesley?”

He nodded. “He says hello.”

He hadn’t said it himself of late. Wesley was getting more and more into his own world of research and magic and forgetting about the outside one. And that included me. Had I had driven him away by coming here?

“Hey, Lainey, we’re going to Chi’s,” Mindy said, referring to the latest hip restaurant that had just opened. “Want to go?”

“Why not? I need to get out.”

“I’m in, too,” Simon said, eying me. I tried not to sigh. It seemed like anytime Mindy, Toby, and I tried to go anywhere, Simon had to invite himself along so he could spend every available moment hitting on me.

Mindy gave me a sympathetic look. I decided to pay her back the favor.

“Hey Luke,” I said. “We’re going to Chi’s. Want to tag along?”

He gave me a vague smile. “Thanks anyway, Lainey. I’ve been feeling off-center lately; I just need to take an evening to decompress.”

“Well, if you change your mind.” I gave Mindy a slight shrug. So everyone’s love life was stalled. We could at least make the scene with our loveless selves.

“This sucks.”

“Paparazzi; look sharp,” Simon said, as we sat pretending to have a good time. He cared a lot about that sort of thing, and we all turned in the direction he was looking and gave
bright phony smiles. Simon put his arm around me just as the photo snapped, and I shrugged it off.

Photographer gone, Toby turned to me. “What sucks? The food or the service?”

“So far, I haven’t seen either.” Mindy held up her empty glass. “Hey! Who does a girl have to screw around here to get another drink?”

Three men looked in her direction and waved to their servers.

“Yell ‘I’m a big whore’ next time, Mindy.”

“Look who’s talking, Simon.”

He gave her a glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
You’re
the one bedding B-list starlets and groupies while at the same time serving as Kate’s plaything when she gets bored with Paul.
I’m
the one who hasn’t gotten laid in ages.”

The guy at the next table over was frantically waving at his waiter.

“And this is her when she’s
not
drunk,” Toby said to me.

“It isn’t like that with me and Kate anymore.” Simon gave me a quick look.

Mindy noticed. “Quit gawking at Lainey. She’s got a man.”