The Superhero's Origin (The Superhero's Son Book 5) (17 page)

“Sounds boring,” said a voice behind us.

Surprised, Emily and I looked over our shoulders to see Triplet, of all people, standing there. He didn’t look out of place in the crowd of New Yorkers walking up and down the streets or standing in line with us, but I was still very surprised to see him here.

“Triplet?” I repeated. I looked at the line we were in, but no one else seemed to be paying attention to the strange Japanese superhero detective standing behind us. “What are you doing here?”

“To talk,” said Triplet. “I have some important updates about the Savannah Jones case that you need to know about.”

“Who are you again?” said Emily, tilting her head to the side. “And who is Savannah Jones?”

“Someone who needs help,” said Triplet. He held out a hand to Emily. “By the way, I’m Triplet, private eye and owner of Triple Eye Investigations. Are you Kevin’s girlfriend? I thought he was dating that Tara girl.”

“What?” said Emily with a frown. “Who’s Tara?”

I felt my neck starting to grow hot from embarrassment, so I said, “Oh, er, this is my teammate, Blizzard. Or, uh, Emily Ricker, is her real name. We’re just on a date together. We’re not technically, you know, together yet.”

“We aren’t?” said Emily, looking at me in surprise.

“What I mean by that is …” I shook my head. “Emily, can you just wait in line here while I talk with Triplet? It will just be a minute. I’ll be back before you reach the end of the line, okay?”

Emily didn’t look entirely pleased by that, but she nodded anyway.

So I grabbed Triplet’s arm and dragged him away from the line toward a bus stop opposite us, giving us enough distance that neither Emily or nor anyone else would be able to hear us.

Letting go of Triplet’s arm, I looked at him and said, “What was that all about? Did you really have to embarrass me in front of Emily like that?”

“Sorry,” said Triplet, though his tone didn’t sound entirely sincere to me. “I didn’t know you were on a date. I was just in a hurry to tell you about what I’ve learned about the Savannah Jones case.”

“Right,” I said. “And what was that about Tara? How do you even know her? You’ve never met her.”

“Actually, I have,” said Triplet. “Or her mother, anyway. I also saw Tara at the funeral. She’s grown quite a bit since I last saw her, and since she sat so close to you, I thought you were together.”

“Wait, you know Tara’s mom?” I said in surprise. “How?”

“Did a case for her a long time ago,” said Triplet. “But that’s the past. What matters is my present case, which has nothing to do with Tara or her mom.”

I was interested in learning exactly what case Tara’s mom had hired Triplet for, but since Triplet seemed uninterested in talking about it, I said, “Why are you telling me about this case? What do I have to do with it? Can’t you tell me after my date with Emily instead?”

“I could, but this is too important to put off for long,” said Triplet. “Besides, you are, in fact, connected to it, though in an indirect way.”

I was tempted to just tell Triplet to shove it and walk right back over to Emily, but Triplet did seem to be in a hurry and I was interested in hearing how he thought I tied into the case. “All right. But be quick about it. I don’t want Emily to think I’m skipping out on our date.”

“Okay,” said Triplet. “So you know how Savannah Jones’s soul was stolen from her, right? And how I thought that your Grandfather had a connection to it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know that. So what?”

“Well, I now have proof that your Grandfather stole her soul,” said Triplet. “Tell me, have you ever heard of a power called soul manipulation?”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t. What is it?”

“It’s a power that can allow a human being to control the souls of others,” said Triplet. “It’s a very rare power, so rare that there has only ever been one known superhuman in history with it: a man named Reaper. He was a supervillain around the beginning of the century about seventeen years ago who could steal peoples’ souls.”

“What happened to Reaper?” I said.

“He was killed, by Cadmus Smith, of all people,” said Triplet. “But that’s irrelevant. What matters is that I think I’ve discovered another person with that same power: Your grandfather, Matthew Jason.”

“But I thought Grandfather doesn’t have any powers,” I said. “Why do you think he has a power?”

“Because I saw him use it,” said Triplet.

“Wait, you mean you’ve seen Grandfather?” I said. “Where?”

“In a small town in upstate New York,” said Triplet. “I doubt he is there anymore, since he seems to be on the move constantly now, but I did see him use it, and he probably would have used his power on me, too, if he’d known I was there.”

“Tell me what you saw,” I said. I glanced over at the line Emily stood in, which was now slightly shorter than when we first arrived.”And be quick about it.”

“I saw Mr. Jason in an abandoned alley going somewhere,” Triplet explained. “He was alone, but I didn’t approach him because I remembered his ninja girl’s powers and didn’t want her to ambush me when I didn’t expect it, though I don’t think she was there at the time.”

“She probably wasn’t,” I said. “She and I were trying to save Grandmother from the Test Subjects.”

“You were?” said Triplet. “You will have to tell me about that later. Anyway, I saw him get ambushed by a couple of criminals, who threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give them his wallet. I was actually thinking of intervening, because it seemed to me like Matthew was unarmed and totally defenseless, but then I saw it.”

“Saw it?” I said. “Saw what?”

“He raised his hands and started pulling backwards,” said Triplet. He shuddered. “Ripped their souls out from their bodies. They were in agony, screaming in pain, but they couldn’t do a thing about it. It looked like they were being split into two, but when he finished, their bodies just fell to the street. He left shortly after that, but I took that time to examine the bodies and find out what happened to them.”

“Are you sure that’s what you saw?” I said. “I mean, are you really sure you saw him steal their souls?”

“Absolutely,” said Triplet, nodding. “I saw Reaper’s powers once, and they looked exactly like Matthew’s. I am certain of what I saw.”

“What does this mean, then?” I said. “Where is Grandfather now?”

“I don’t know,” said Triplet. “I looked for him after that, but I couldn’t find him. It was like he just up and vanished.”

“That’s not good,” I said. “But if Grandfather stole Savannah Jones’s soul, why? Why would he do that?”

“I have no idea,” said Triplet. “I am still trying to figure that out myself. I just wanted to let you know in case you knew where your Grandfather is.”

“Sorry, but I don’t,” I said. “If I did, I would tell you.”

Triplet cursed under his breath. “Fine. I’m good at tracking people down. Once I find him, I’ll let you know.”

“Why?” I said. “Won’t you be able to beat him yourself?”

“Won’t be that easy,” said Triplet. “If Matthew is as powerful as I suspect, I’ll need all the help I can get, and I trust you right now more than anyone, at least with this case.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said.

I was about to ask more questions, but then I heard Emily shout, “Kevin!” and I looked over and saw that Emily was nearly at the end of the line now.

So I looked at Triplet again and said, “Looks like I’ve got to go. Call me if you find Grandfather.”

Triplet nodded. “Sure. See you later.”

With that, Triplet turned and walked down the street. He soon vanished into the crowd of pedestrians that walked the streets of New York City, but I didn’t stand still long enough to see him leave. I just hurried back over to the line where Emily stood, getting next to her just as the couple in front of us got their tickets.

“What was Triplet talking with you about?” said Emily when I stopped next to her.

“Huh?” I said, looking at her in confusion. “Oh, nothing. Just something he thought I should know. It doesn’t concern you.”

Emily looked at me skeptically. “Are you sure? It didn’t sound very unimportant to me.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. I grabbed Emily’s hand, causing her to look at me in surprise. “Now, didn’t we promise that we weren’t going to talk about anymore superhero stuff for the rest of the day? Because if you break your promise, I’m never going to let you forget it.”

Emily’s surprised face turned into a smile and her grip on my hand tightened. “Oh, yeah, the promise. I didn’t forget it. No superhero talk.”

“No superhero talk,” I agreed.

When we were next in line, we got our tickets and entered the movie theater. And for the first time in a long while, I just forgot about all about my troubles and problems and let myself get lost in the movie we watched and my time with Emily.

Chapter Fourteen

“T
hat was a surprisingly good movie,” said Emily as we exited the theater with the rest of the moviegoers a couple of hours later. She threw our empty popcorn bucket into the trashcan on our way out.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “The trailers made it look really stupid, but the movie itself was really interesting. Guess that just goes to show, you can never trust a trailer.”

“Agreed,” said Emily. “So what do we do next?”

We stopped next to the bus stop where I had had my conversation with Triplet hours before. The sun was higher in the sky than it had been before we entered the theater, but my watch showed me that it was just after lunch. That meant we still had plenty of time to do stuff together.

“Let’s see,” I said. I rubbed my stomach. “I’m hungry. And that popcorn didn’t cut it. Let’s go get lunch somewhere. There’s this great deli down the street that I used to go to all the time with my—”

A loud
crash
interrupted me, followed by the screams of innocent people and the mad laughter of someone who didn’t sound very sane. Emily and I looked in the direction that the crashing sound had come from and saw people fleeing from a nearby street, with cars backing up in the streets and loud police sirens going off, though I noticed that the clogged streets made it impossible for the police cars to get close to the scene of the incident. A huge burst of water briefly appeared in the sky above several nearby buildings before falling straight down, sounding like water dropped into a very large pool when it splashed against the concrete.

“What was that?” said Emily as the people ran past us screaming. “A supervillain attack?”

“Most likely,” I said with a sigh. I looked at Emily. “Do you think we should go and help?”

Emily sighed as well, but said, “We should at least check it out, since we seem to be the only superheroes in the area. But call for backup, in case this guy is too strong for us to beat on our own.”

I nodded and tapped my watch, sending a pre-written message for backup to the House. Carl would get that message and then tell the rest of the team about it and send them here. Until then, though, it would be up to Emily and I—or, I should say, Blizzard and I—to see what we could do.

We ran down the street in the direction that most of the other people were fleeing from. No one seemed to notice where we were going, which was good, because I didn’t want anyone to suspect our real identities.

A few seconds later, we reached the site of the area where we’d seen the water and heard the crash and stopped to look. We saw a strange sight playing out before us.

In the center of the alleyway was a sight I’d never seen before: A man made entirely of water, throwing water balls everywhere. He was much taller than either of us and he didn’t wear any clothes, although we thankfully couldn’t actually see anything on his body. It looked like he had burst out of the sewer, based on the open manhole next to him, and he was laughing maniacally, though his voice sounded slightly distorted and gurgled.

Emily and I quickly moved out of his field of vision.

“Who is that?” Emily whispered.

“No idea,” I said. “Never seen him before, but since no one else is here yet, we’ve got to stop him on our own. Get your suit on.”

Quickly, we ran into a nearby building, where no one else could see us, and then activated our suit-up watches. In seconds, we were both in our costumes again and then we ran out the building into the alley where the water man was still throwing water balls. But it looked like a police officer had arrived at some point, because there was an officer facing the water man, shooting bullets at him, but the bullets just flew harmlessly through the water man’s body and didn’t even seem to affect the guy.

“Pathetic,” said the water man with a sneer. “Perhaps you should take a swim.”

The water man hurled a large water fist at the officer. I instantly zoomed over, grabbed the officer, and pulled him out of the way just as the water fist crashed into the spot where the officer had been standing mere moments before.

We stopped at the other end of the alley, well away from the water man, who was now growling in anger at us.

“Are you okay?” I said to the officer, putting him down on the street. He was trembling, but he looked unhurt.

The police officer nodded, albeit very shakily. “Y-Yes.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m Bolt, leader of the Young Neos and part of the Neohero Alliance. I’m going to need you to make sure that the people are safe and no one enters this alley while my teammate and I take down this guy. Okay?”

The police officer, however, shook his head. “No way. I’m part of NYPD. I should be fighting this guy, not you.”

“Listen, I know you want to protect the people, but you are no match for that guy,” I said. “Your bullets didn’t even scratch him. Just go and do what you can, which is to ensure that no one gets hurt or killed.”

The officer looked like he was about to argue with me, but then he nodded and said, “Okay. But I’m still calling for backup to help me keep civilians out of the area.”

“Good idea,” I said.

The officer got up and ran out of the alley, already shouting into a walkie talkie for backup. I immediately turned around to face the water man, while Blizzard ran over to join me.

The water man was now looking down at us in annoyance. “And just when I was having the most fun. I was looking forward to drowning that police officer on dry land, but I guess I’ll just have to settle for drowning you two instead.”