Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

They didn’t know what to do – that was clear. When the meeting disbanded and they drifted off in separate directions everyone felt the aimless helplessness of their current situation. There was no way for them to get within miles of York, the city had been cordoned off by military presence and no one was being let in save for rescue personnel.

Louise drifted down to the lab, feeling that the only useful thing she could do would be to continue looking through what had been found at the warehouse. Most of the crates were weapons and uniforms, which their new allies had whisked away as soon as that was confirmed. Others were yet to be opened.

She wouldn’t admit it out loud because to do so would make it real, but she was feeling even more helpless than the others. Thick waves of grief continued to wash over her as she thought more and more about their situation. She became a doctor because she was not only brilliantly smart but because she genuinely wanted to help people, wanted to heal people. She took her oath seriously, directly to the heart – to do no harm, and in her way to do everything she could to help. What was happening or potentially could be happening to the people trapped behind that cordon, filled her with a sense of despair.

She had seen first-hand the effects of radiation sickness and would not wish it on her worst enemy. Well, maybe Vetis – he seemed next-level.

Her desire to help was not diminished by her inability to, leaving her feeling impotent. Frustrated. Unlike the others, whose abilities were seeing them into every battle, she felt like she was tagging along – there for the ride. Able to clean up the mess afterwards but never get her hands into the fray during it. How many more people could she help if she was like them? If she could heal wounds like Angel or fight fire with fire like Sandy?

Instead, she was just her – someone who could patch up wounds but who in the cold light of day couldn’t even box properly. She’d tried once and found herself nearly breaking her wrist on a man’s face – even through the gloves. She could scratch someone’s eyes out – that was a thing, but couldn’t do anything else it seemed.

The night of the Biogenesis building collapse had been the beginning of those feelings. The plane which had cut a swath of damage through the centre of the city had punched a large hole through the Biogenesis tower. She had been attempting to save some grade-A medical research onto USB sticks before the end – to some success. The plane had cut through several floors below where she and Angel had been.

The whole tower had tilted, collapsing downwards in an awesome shower of glass, fire and steel. Angel had flung them out into the night air and they fell downwards at sickening speed. Whether that was the trigger, whether it was simply coincidental timing – it was then that Angel had found his wings and not just in a cheesy nineties montage way. He managed to slow their descent as much as he possibly could.

It had not been enough. They had hit the ground hard, rained down on by bits of the building she’d worked in for less than a month. When the grinding sounds of the earth moving finally stopped she had been broken, a mess. The secret only she and Angel shared was that she was the second-ever person he had rescued from death, his healing glow meaning she didn’t even have a scratch when the others found them hours later.

If Andrew knew that she had already died once, he would likely try to keep her locked up a cage for the rest of her life – all in the interests of her safety. She hated the macho bullshit attitude and the ways of thinking but understood all too well the desire to protect, to care for someone so deeply you worried about losing.

But she was not a precious, delicate flower. She was a strong, independent woman raised in an era of destiny’s child and spice girls. She not only wanted to help and get into the fray, but she also needed to.

She would never stop later to consider the serendipity of the thoughts flowing through her mind and the discovery she made in one of the boxes. Prising open the lid was surprisingly easy and she found large attaché cases inside. Lifting one out from the packing straw she lay it on the examination table, the catches clicking open without the need for a combination. She wondered what type of weapon might have been inside.

When she opened the case she realised quite simply it was their most powerful weapon of all. Another mystery of the New Order, or the Shadow, was brought simply into the light.

Inside was a row of medical syringes. Not the type you would see on everyday use for delivering medication or collecting blood – these were heavy-duty injectable syringes. The kind you might see people jabbing themselves with on a sci-fi film to deliver a ‘tranquiliser’ to the alien or some kind of similar nonsense. She looked at them for a second, unsure why they would be there.

Then she saw the liquid inside, a fluid suspended inside the syringe. It glowed and shimmered through the glass parts of the casing she could see. It moved through the different colours of the spectrum, the way an oil slick on water rainbows the world around it. It seemed glossy, thick – its movements inviting, undulating. She had not borne witness to the radiation in the Temple, the fluid which had given the others their powers inside the Revelation Chamber, but she had had descriptions of it from the others. Sandy’s had been particularly vivid – like unicorn blood.

So that was how they did it – that was how the ‘masterminds’ of the New Order managed to give people powers. There was nothing ancient or mystical about it. They used the same damn tool that had activated the abilities in her friends – only with the 21st-century twist of using medical-grade equipment to deliver the shot. Far more eloquent than simply being showered by mistake, it was a selective tool which allowed them to grant individuals extreme abilities – in reward for undying loyalty.

“Bloody bastards,” she whispered to herself. A new thought began to occur to her, one which germinated like a bad seed at the back of her conscious mind. Were her previous thoughts drawn from her by something else? The way the liquid mesmerised her briefly, was it able to feel? To reach out and touch someone’s deepest desires?

“So that’s how they do it?”

She closed the lid a might too heavily, feeling suddenly like she’d been caught with her hands in the biscuit tin just before dinner. The feeling of shame and guilt made her face go red as she turned to see Drake standing in the doorway.

“What? I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s fairly obvious,” Drake responded, moving closer into the room. She tapped her good hand against the lid of the case, “This is how they created their army of people like your friends. Probably been training them for years to accept their gifts, who knows when the project began? The only thing I wonder, is whether this is it? Is there a finite supply leftover from God knows expedition? Or do they have a well somewhere?”

Her look became a little bit wistful.

“If he who controls the fountain of youth controls the world, what do you think they would say about the fountain of superpowers?”

“It’s not like everyone would want them,” Louise defended, “I mean people always say they want super strength but what they truly mean is they want to be able to turn invisible and perv in the showers – and so far there doesn’t appear to be a gene for that.”

“You’d be surprised,” Drake commented, “It’s tempting though isn’t it?” Louise suddenly began to wonder if Drake was reading her mind, the shame continued to blossom beneath her bosom, “If you could be stronger, better somehow. Who wouldn’t want to be able to control the rain or fly like a rocket? Or heal the sick?”

“But I wonder, is it worth it?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, look at your friends,” her visitor pointed out, “We’ve known of them for a while, even before they had these gifts. And meeting them these past twenty-four hours I have to wonder, do they seem happier to you than before?”

She said no more, simply turned and headed back out of the door. Louise found herself standing where she was for much longer than she meant to, feeling the weightiness of the conversation coming down on her. It was as though Drake had taken a lens and shone it into the depths of her soul, whether knowingly or unknowingly – and put the truth in ways it was so easy to understand it was like a Mr Men book.

Little Miss No-Powers.

Her hand rested on the case as she stood alone, contemplating. She would realise later that wasn’t what she was doing – she wasn’t contemplating.

She was deciding.