Chapter 35

Ray

I frowned as I flew. New Girl hung over my shoulder, not moving. The sun was close to setting, and I was starting to feel a little cold without my shirt on. Though, I knew a quick way to start a fire if needed.

I glanced over my shoulder. No one was following me. Invisiguy was keeping Stoner busy. I clicked my tongue and turned my gaze forward. I was disappointed with the turnout. I wanted to be the one fighting Stoner. I was enjoying my brawl with him for a short moment, but then Invisiguy had to go and screw things up by getting distracted by New Girl’s glass wings.

Now I got the job as delivery man, and I didn’t like it. Something didn’t feel right about the whole thing, but I couldn’t put my thumb on it. Maybe it was beating up New Girl. She had challenged me to a fight that night before I touched my Star Stone, and it felt good to show her now that was a mistake. But, something still felt off.

She was really beautiful. And seemed like a nice person. I didn’t really have anything against her. My thoughts turned to Britney. I hadn’t heard from her ever since the news found out I was a superhuman. I guess we’d had a silent break up. Oh well…

Mark wanted only New Girl. He told us to separate her from Stoner and bring her to him unconscious, but not dead. He hadn’t explained how any of this was supposed to help him find his Star Stone, but honestly, Mark didn’t do much explaining at all. He was just so good at getting us to do what he wanted. And he did it by getting us what we wanted. A good bargainer.

I descended my flight toward the abandoned horse racing track and flew through one of the large broken windows closer to the bottom of the building. With New Girl still over my shoulder, I swerved around the dark corridors and eventually came to a stop where Mark was waiting for me: our headquarters.

It was a small, makeshift living space that was put together by some gang that was there before us. They had beds, a miniature fridge, a microwave, and even a large smart TV with Wi-Fi. It was awesome. Mark stood on his feet, his arms folded, as he watched the Tucson news. He was probably wanting to see if anything popped up about our Starling fight, but it looked like nothing had come up yet.

He snapped his attention to me as I flew in with New Girl over my shoulder. “We got her,” I said.

“Good,” Mark said. “And Orion?”

“Invisiguy is holding him off.”

“Great. Let me see her.”

I lowered New Girl off my shoulder and laid her on one of the dusty beds. “She was harder to capture than we expected. Those wings of hers were tough to break.”

“You didn’t kill her, did you?” Mark snapped at me as he placed a hand on her head. I thought it was very apparent that she was still breathing.

“No,” I said. “We gave her wings a real pounding, and I think she could only take so much until it knocked her out.”

“Hm.” Mark frowned. “Peculiar…”

“What is?”

“Oh, it’s just that I don’t ever remember Cygnus fainting from shielding herself for too long. Also, this girl is obviously not Alexandria.”

“Who’s Alexandria?”

Mark looked up at me for a moment, and then returned his gaze to the unconscious Starling. “An old friend,” he said softly. “And enemy.”

“Oh, so a frenemy.”

He chuckled. “The words you modern Americans invent are so queer.”

“Hey, I’d rather invent a new word than say something like queer. Only old people say stuff like that.”

“I am an old person! Older than English itself! Anyway, we need to wake her up. I need to ask her some important questions before I kill her.”

I frowned. “You’re going to kill her? Dude, I signed up to help you get your stone, not to go around killing people!”

“It is necessary in order to find my stone, Draco! You wouldn’t understand. You’re far too young. Far too naïve. Do you want me to teach you the Third Degree or not?”

I was taken aback. I did want to learn the Third Degree, but was it worth murdering someone?

Mark took my silence as an answer. “You agreed to help me find my stone, and if you don’t have the stomach to follow through with that, then you can just leave.” He turned his attention toward New Girl, waving a hand over her head as if he were some sort of shaman.

I just stood there, feeling stuck. I was fine with helping Mark find his stone, and beating up Stoner and New Girl was fun, but killing them seemed to be crossing a line. I was a god, though. No one could stop me from killing people, if I wanted. But was that what I really wanted? “What are you doing?” I asked Mark.

He was leaning over her with three fingers pointing directly at her nose. “I need to irritate her mucus membrane, just like a smelling salt would. So, be quiet. I need to focus.”

His eyes began to glow a silvery color. He concentrated on her nose. Without any movement that I could pick up from Mark, New Girl awoke with a start. She reflexively withdrew her head away from his fingers, as if she were smelling something terrible. Her eyes—not glowing—darted around as she took in her surroundings, looking back and forth between Mark and me.

“Hold her down!” Mark ordered.

I obeyed without thinking, kindling my powers and grabbing her by the wrists. She pushed against me a few times, but gave up quickly, accepting that she was trapped. It was odd that she hadn’t turned on her powers. Something triggered in my memory, something falling…

“Where am I?” New Girl asked, looking scared.

“You’re safe,” Mark said in a non-threatening tone. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions, Cygnus.”

Her eyes widened. She pushed against me, but I didn’t budge. “Where is Michael?” she said.

I laughed. “Stoner is—”

“No, no, no,” Mark said, cutting me off. “I said I was asking the questions here. Stand her up, Draco!”

I pulled her off the bed and up to her feet. She wobbled a little, looking weak, so I stood behind her, keeping her upright. Mark paced in front of her, sweat streaking down his forehead. His eyes had returned to their dark brown color. Using only a smidgen of his powers without his stone had exhausted him. He was silhouetted by the camping light that was placed on one of the concrete pillars. This place would have seemed especially dark to a normal person, but to the three of us, it was like standing in the shade of a tree under the setting sun.

“Your name is Angela Johnson, right?” Mark said. “I’ve seen you in the news and I’ve done some research. You moved here to Tucson a couple months ago. Your father studies meteorites, which I find… interesting. He just happened to move to the part of the nation that had the most Star Stones fall, as if—like me—he knew it were coming. And you… you have moved around the nation, never living in one place long enough for someone to truly get to know you. It makes me wonder if you have been hiding something your whole life. We know you are Starling, but there were only three Star Stones that landed here: the Orion, Draco, and Scorpio stones. So, my basic question, Cygnus, is this.” He paused. “Where did you get your stone?”

New Girl didn’t answer. Her breathing quickened, at a loss for words.

“Fine,” Mark said. “If you won’t answer my questions, then I have no further use of you.” His eyes began to glow a simmering silver and he leveled a hand at her, as if he were going to shoot her with the palm of his hand.

My mouth gaped open. Should I stop him?

“Wait!” New Girl said. “I’ll tell you!”

Mark immediately turned off his powers. He tried to hide his fatigue, but I could tell he was breathing harder.

“I found my stone when I was a little girl!” she said. I could feel her trembling as I held her upright. She was about to go on explaining, but Mark cut her off.

“I knew it!” he said. “Your stone is not from this Condescension! It’s the original from my time! The Cygnus I knew! Was the stone given to you? By someone named Alexandria?”

“No. I don’t know who that is. I don’t remember it, but my dad told me I found my stone in a cooled lava bed near Mount Etna in Italy. That’s the honest truth, I swear!”

Mark frowned. “I searched near that volcano thousands, if not millions of times! You’re certain that’s where you found the Cygnus Star Stone?”

New Girl nodded. “I don’t know where exactly. My dad just told me Mount Etna, Italy.”

“Looks like your father and I will need to have a talk.”

“No! Please don’t hurt him!” She pushed against me, but I held her firm. A part of me was about to let her go.

Mark laughed. “Don’t worry, Cygnus. You won’t be around to mourn his death. But you’ve been very helpful. What you told me confirms that Alexandria died in that volcano. Her Star Stone and mine both fell in with her. Hers was pushed out by the lava, but mine may still be resting deep within that volcano. I haven’t been able to get close enough to it without my powers, but now…” He looked up at me. “I have the Dragon God to help me retrieve it.”

I raised my eyebrows. He wanted me to go swimming through a volcano for him? Could I actually do something like that? Did I really want to keep helping this psychopath?

Mark extended his hand toward New Girl. “Now hand over your Star Stone, child, or Draco will have to take it from you.”

She froze in my arms, her body tense with fear.

“Um, Mark,” I said sheepishly. “I didn’t realize it till now, but I think she dropped her stone while we were fighting. That’s probably why she fainted. And probably why she hasn’t turned on her powers yet.”

He looked at me for a moment, letting the news sink in. Then, he stared at Angela, anger boiling under his skin. “Where did you drop it, Cygnus?”

She continued to tremble. “I—I don’t know. We were flying over the city when it happened. I didn’t even notice it had fallen out of my pocket until I started passing out.”

Mark roared in anger, throwing a metal chair—the closest thing at hand—at one of the concrete pillars. It bounced off, still in one piece. I shook my head. Good thing he’s not a Cleveland Browns fan, I thought. Or a golfer; he’d run out of clubs on the first hole.

“Draco!” Mark said, pointing a finger at me. “We need that Star Stone! I’ll stay here with her; you go find it!”

I didn’t move. I stood still, just behind New Girl. Just before Mark threw another chair, he noticed that I wasn’t obeying him, and looked up at me. I glared back at him and said, “No!”