Chapter 5

  And who could have anticipated the incredible popularity of Crown Prince Tyrell’s Super Peacekeeping Taskforce? Our future ruler has proven himself both as a capable leader, and, more surprisingly, as the brilliant mind behind the SPT’s rise to not only success, but celebrity.

  --Richard O’Malley, political analyst for the Anderia National Television Network.

  Will opened his eyes to an unfamiliar blur of colors and a raging thirst. He lay in a ridiculously soft bed with slippery green sheets and clean flannel pajama bottoms that had mysteriously replaced his bloody shorts and T-shirt, and tried to remember where he was. But his memory came up empty. He stared at the ceiling, with its indistinct painted shapes, and remembered Tye breaking into the marina, and the sweet lemon flavor of a sports drink, but nothing afterward. Awkward.

  As he lay there blinking at the ceiling, a water bottle floated into view, stopping to hover in front of his face.

  “Do you read minds now, too?” He grabbed the bottle out of the air without bothering to look around for Ghost Girl.

  You were smacking your lips in your sleep, she said.

  “Watch people sleep often, do you?” He glanced over to find her sitting on the bed, only a foot away, and raised an eyebrow.

  The blue-white lines of her face pinched together in a frown. Is that weird?

  “Yes. Especially when they’re only half dressed.” He rolled to his side, swigged the water down, and crumpled the bottle.

  He was doing it too, she said defensively, pointing toward the corner of the room.

  “Who?” Will squinted. He could see a blob of a chair, with a person-like blob sitting in it, but it was too far away for him to make out any details.

  It’s Dom, my brother’s fire super. He was on watch, but he fell asleep.

  “On watch? Am I a prisoner? Where are we, anyway?”

  No, silly, they’re protecting you. They brought you back to the manor last night, where Tye and his team stay.

  “They who?”

  His team. Are you sure you healed that concussion last night? You didn’t do a very good job on your side. You’ve still got a mark there.

  “Har har, very funny, your Highness.” Will ran a hand over his side, feeling the rough line of a scar below his ribs. He really hadn’t done a very good job. “What are you still doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be… somewhere else?”

  I’m… not sure. She tucked a strand of her ghostly hair behind her ear and regarded him with wide eyes. They were blue with his magic, but he thought they must have been blue in real life, too. She looked like a feminine version of her brother, with a round face and dark hair, and dimples when she smiled. I was kind of hoping that you might be able to help me, since you can actually hear me and see me.

  “It’s been three years, Eirwen. You’re dead. How am I supposed to help you? Even if you weren’t…” He stopped talking when she straightened up, standing in the middle of the bed like one might stand in a swimming pool, with the covers showing through her waist. She crossed her arms, and her hair started whipping around. “Poltergeist,” he coughed.

  Cretin.

  “Spook.”

  Caveman.

  “Haunt.”

  I just want my body back!

  “And I want a shirt and my glasses back, but we can’t all get what we want, can we?”

  You’re infuriating.

  “Tell that to someone who doesn’t already know it. Oh wait…”

  The empty water bottle flew off the bed and smacked him in the face. Followed by his wallet from the nightstand.

  “What are you, a little kid, that you have to throw things when you’re upset?”

  Her hair stopped whipping around, and she went very still. That was cruel.

  “How was that cruel? You’re the one tossing things. Are you going to level a city or something if it turns out I can’t help you? I don’t even see how I could. I can’t raise the dead.”

  I wouldn’t do that.

  He raised his eyebrows and held up the water bottle she’d thrown at him. “Really?”

  She looked from him to the water bottle, and her lips quirked up, then down. Do you really think I act like a kid? She went on before he could answer. Until I touched your magic last night, I could barely move anything. The rose I gave you was the first thing I’d been able to move in a week. It’s like I was… less than a ghost, before. But now I’ve got substance, no matter how flimsy it may be. It actually gave me hope, for the first time in years.

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  For a moment, Will wondered what he was truly seeing when he looked at her. Was this her soul? Or some magical construct of her consciousness? Was there a difference?

  He rolled onto his back with a sigh. “I really need my glasses. And food. Food first. I feel like a dumpster fire.”

  I’ve never seen as much blood as you lost last night. I was so afraid for you.

  He squinted at the ceiling, trying to make out the mural painted up there instead of remembering the cold, sick feeling in his side, and the weakness that had come with it. He’d healed himself any number of times, from everything from burns to broken bones to chicken pox. But never anything like that. It still ached, and he found himself reaching to rub the scar again.

  “What’s the picture up there?” he asked.

  Instead of Eirwen though, Dom answered from across the room. “You seriously can’t see that far?”

  Will bolted up in bed, then drooped over and put his head in one hand, clutching his side with the other. “Ugh. Don’t scare me like that. And yes, I’m half blind. Shocking, I know.”

  “Your glasses are on the nightstand. What’s left of them. I’ll get Tye.” There was a rustle of clothing as the Dom-blob got up and strode over to the door where he spoke with someone on the other side. They were taking their guarding pretty seriously.

  Will felt for his glasses and put them on, closing one eye to accommodate the missing lens. Dom came into focus over by the door. He had his back turned, but his fiery red hair and short stature were unmistakable. The fire super was only a couple inches over five feet, but compensated with bulging muscle and a tight shirt; his signature look. He was always played up by the media as the group’s comic relief. The one always cracking a joke or mouthing off. When he wasn’t helping save the country from rogue super villains, he sometimes put on impromptu street performances with his fire.

  The room was half as big as Will’s entire house, with a couple of lounge chairs and an antique card table, a massive wardrobe, chest of drawers, and vanity, all the same polished cherry as the table. A glance at the ceiling surprised Will. It was the words to a hymn, painted up there and illustrated with stylized animals and ocean waves. His stomach started to roll and his head swim though as he looked up, so he took off the glasses lens and closed his eyes. He’d barely been able to even seal up his wounds last night and make sure the swelling around his brain was under control. Magic use and blood loss didn’t go well together, especially after a full quota of healing and then some earlier in the day. He was still paying for it this morning with a pounding head and throbbing hand, and the echoes of trauma lingering in his side. And he was still exhausted.

  You’re still pretty sick, aren’t you? Eirwen said as if responding to his thoughts.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Dom turned from the door. “You’d better be. Tye would lose his mind if something happened to you at the moment. He’d kill all of us.”

  Dom really couldn’t see Eirwen. But to Will, she was the clearest thing in the room. Probably because she was hijacking his magic to give herself form, which bypassed his lousy optics.

  “Breakfast is on its way up,” continued Dom. “Then debriefing, if you’re up to it.”

  You don’t look up to it, Eirwen said.

  Will glared at her. With an effort, he slid out of bed and stood swaying, leaning against the tall bedpost. Then he used his broken glasses to navigate to the bathroom, where someone had left a pile of clean clothes for him. He closed the door and leaned against it, thumping his head against it a few times for good measure.

  When he’d stepped into that hospital yesterday afternoon, his goal had been to remain anonymous. Now, he had Crown Prince Tyrell and his whole freaking super team breathing over his shoulder. Not to mention Eirwen. Speaking of which, he looked suspiciously around the room to make sure she hadn’t followed him. The girl seemed to have a problem with personal space. Maybe it came of being a ghost. Maybe because she’d died, or whatever had happened, when she was fifteen—still basically a kid.

  Which begged the question, how was she so grown up now?

  After a brief shower he staggered out of the bathroom to find Tye, Dom, and Angelica, the empath super, waiting for him.

  “Uh. Your Highness. Angel,” he addressed Angelica by her super name, with a nod to each of them.

  “Just Tye. Your breakfast is there on the nightstand. Better eat before you fall over. And these are yours.” He reached out and pressed something into Will’s hand.

  It was his glasses. His good ones, with the wire rims and correct prescription, and they were blessedly whole and undamaged. He put them on and cursed the feeling of relief that rushed through him when the room came into sharp focus.

  “You went to my house.” He observed, sitting on the edge of the bed and picking up the tray of steak, eggs, toast and fruit that had been brought in. His hands trembled, so he put the tray in his lap so the others wouldn’t notice.

  “Yes. We weren’t the only ones. The Huntsman was there. He looked like he could use your healing services, but he was there.”

  Will scowled as he attacked the platter of food. In the space of a day, his entire life had been hijacked. And now what? He’d quite possibly rather be dead than trapped here under guard for who knows how long. They’d no doubt put him to work, healing the royals, healing the team, healing whoever they deemed worthy to be brought into his little plush prison.

  He felt a jolt of cool energy touch his arm, and glanced over, unsurprised to see Eirwen’s hand resting there.

  You must be so scared, she said sympathetically.

  Will stopped eating and stared at her. “Scared? I’m pissed. That freak stole my life. And made me wreck my car.”

  Oh. She removed her hand, biting her lip.

  Across the room, Angelica, the empath, made a quiet choking sound and covered her mouth. She’d always been one of Will’s favorites on the team. A classy brunette with a great figure, she could not only feel what anyone in the room was feeling, but, if she chose, could manipulate their emotions or even give them phantom physical sensations if she touched them. One time she’d defeated a psycho storm super by flirting with him, then making him feel like he had spiders crawling everywhere. The way Tye looked at her as she struggled not to laugh made Will think perhaps there was something between the two of them. She would make a good catch, and a powerful ally, for a prince.

  “I couldn’t find your cell phone, so I’ve got someone picking up a new one for you. We’ve already notified your family that you’re all right, of course,” Tye continued after a pause.

  “Phone’s in my car,” Will said, going back to his breakfast. “Which is at the bottom of the sea cliff, a couple miles north of the lighthouse.”

  “Lucky you’re not down there with it,” said the prince, settling into the chair in the corner like a throne.

  “I drove it off the cliff myself. Figured if I was going to die, might as well take that freak with me. Didn’t know he could teleport.”

  Dom swore.

  Tye cleared his throat. “Whoever gifted you with healing seriously misjudged on matching it to your temperament.”

  Will’s spoon paused its descent for a moment as he recalled his conversation with Jesamin last night. “No kidding,” he muttered into his bowl of blueberries topped with sweet whipped cream. He’d already scarfed down everything else, and was feeling significantly better, though he still needed another round of healing.

  “If you’re feeling up to it, we need to talk,” said Tye.