Gifted, A Donovan Circus Novel (30 page)

“He deserved to be punished
after what he did to you.”

“So you admit it then? You and
Marty beat the hell out of him? Killed or kidnapped him to make sure he never
talked?”

His face clouded over in
confusion. “Killed him? No. We made sure he got the point across he was never
to come near us again. Marty broke a few ribs and I made sure he’d need a
dentist the next day. He quickly saw the error of his ways and we left him in
his house.”

“His friends told Felix he’s
gone, that he called them to warn you might come for them too. They haven’t
seen him since that night.”

“I had nothing to do with it.
Are they sure he didn’t simply leave town?”

“I don’t know. Felix definitely
inferred you had a hand in his disappearance.”

He shook his head, lit a
cigarette and checked the space once more to prevent nosy bystanders. “We left
him broken but alive. He goes missing and Marty dies the next night. I’d bet
anything Felix is involved, trying to frame me as he’s framed you.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.
“That Mac guy may have been an asshole, but that means yet another person is
dead because of me. I’m getting tired of being the common denominator in
murders here, Sheffield.”

“We don’t know for sure.”

“Don’t lie to me. Felix doesn’t
have a great record of leaving people alive once he’s through with them. Why
would he take that guy?”

“No idea. Perhaps to question
him about that night, your power, get more specifics. I have no doubt Felix
took him, but it’s his first assault on a human.”

“Felix also told me you’re a
bully who needs to be taken down a few pegs. He thinks I can help him.”

“Do you believe him?” His gray
eyes met mine and I jutted my chin out, glaring back at him. I resisted the
urge to crack my knuckles.

“I don’t know what to believe.
No one is being entirely honest with me, that much I’ve figured out. But I’m on
your side, regardless of the rumors I’m fed.” I lowered my voice to an angry
whisper. “So you should know that he wants to make a multi-gifted being to take
you out. Seeing as how you’re a Collector and all.”

Sheffield’s face darkened; he
gave another furtive look around the tent and grabbed my arm, pushed me farther
into the dark corner where there was no chance of being overheard.

“You must not tell others that,”
he demanded.

“Why? Because everyone would be
terrified that you’d take their gift away? Or because you’re afraid everyone
would leave?”

“A Collector is very dangerous
to others. We do not have good reputations. Most fear it because they don’t
want to be vulnerable to someone who can take away their power in an instant.
Some want it for their own to so they may bully other gifted. That makes others
vulnerable too, because they might go after them to get to me. I won’t have our
people live in fear. Felix would not be the first enemy who’s tried to take my
gift for his own ambitions.”

“So what, my dad protected you?”
I crossed my arms against my chest.

“In a sense, yes, he helped
defend our group. There haven’t always been peaceful times between our kind.”

My hands went up in defeat. “You
know what, I don’t care about the past right now. You’ll explain my father more
to me at a later time. Right now, we need to worry about Felix and his plans to
take you down. I don’t want to help him.”

“Come to my office after the
show. Talk to no one about this until then.”

“All right. I have to
ask—should I be worried?”

Sheffield looked at me for a
long moment before responding. He ground his cigarette butt into the dirt with
his heel and finally looked back at me. His answer filled me with dread.

“Yes. We both should.”

Chapter
25

As he requested, I showed up at
his camper after the show later that night. I hadn’t even knocked before
Sheffield threw open the door. He ominously walked back to his desk without a
second glance. I walked in, closing the door behind me and took a seat.

Sheffield sat at his desk, his
top hat sitting by his left hand. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled
out the large decanter and two small glasses. He poured amber liquid into both
and placed one in front of me. Then he took a sip from his own drink.

“I don’t really drink,” I said
somewhat apologetically.

“Hang on to it. You might decide
to calm your nerves somewhere along the conversation.”

Sheffield kept a completely
straight face; his mustache never even twitched. I had no idea what to expect.
Oh, what the hell, Lucy—let’s get this over with and start it off.

“What do you think happened to
Knox?” I asked. I half-hoped there wouldn’t be a reply.

“My suspicions tell me he is
dead. I truly hope I am wrong.”

“After I tell you what Felix
told me, will you tell me the truth? Tell me everything about my father?”

“It’s not that simple. You need
more time to adjust, to better understand who we are—“

“Who is “we,” Sheffield? You,
Knox, and Marty…and my dad?”

He sighed. “I mean we as an
entire gifted community. You’ve been away so long from this world. It’s much
more dangerous than you remember.”

“No shit,” I replied. “But
that’s over—I’m adjusting and can handle myself. There aren’t other
options…I don’t have anywhere else to go. You don’t have to kick me out.”

Sheffield sat straight up to
face me. “You’ve got it wrong, kid. I called you in here to convince you to
stay despite the circumstances.”

“What? I don’t want to leave. I
want a regular gifted existence here instead of this big game of Clue.” I was
happy he didn’t want to kick me out on the streets, but now I was off track
from my already prepared argument. I’d thought he’d tell me to run, to get away
to save everyone.

“That’s a relief to hear,” he
said, his face still unreadable.

“Yeah, I really—wait, what
circumstances?”

“You’re here for protection, in
every sense of the word,” Sheffield answered. He sat back in his chair and lit
a cigarette.

“I don’t understand.”

“What did Felix tell you last
night?”

I told him everything I could
remember of the conversation. His face remained expressionless the entire time
I talked. After I finished, Sheffield finished his drink and poured himself
another, much larger helping. That couldn’t be good.

“Sheffield, just tell me. Tell
me about Felix Hardy.”

“Did your father ever tell you
about him?”

I shook my head. A drop of
whiskey on his mustache caught the light as he spoke.

“Dr. Felix Hardy was first and
foremost a scientist devoted to parts of the gifted community. He interviewed
and examined those willing to undergo tests. Secondly, he knew enough as much
as any doctor. He used his research with our blood to save us from things like
human sicknesses, even learn how to handle wounds from our own brothers.”

Sheffield held out his left arm
and rolled up his sleeve. At the elbow, I could see a large scar that despite
being fully healed still looked nasty.

“This was from a minotaur. Damn
thing nearly took my arm off; it severed a lot of nerves and damaged tissue.
Dr. Hardy managed to find a way to not just piece it back together, but make it
good as new. If I’d been a human with everyday doctors and drugs, the arm
would’ve been completely removed.”

“Aren’t there Healers in here?
Gifted beings who can put us back together without any problems?” I asked.

“There are less gifted beings in
the world than you think. Healers are few and far between. I have a young woman
now who is a Healer, very adept with wounds, but she is still fairly new, only
a couple of years with us now. At the time, I had to rely on Felix’s support.”

Sheffield rolled his sleeve back
down and continued his story.

“Hardy compounded all kinds of
antibiotics for us that weren’t everyday aspirin at the pharmacy. He was
brilliant and personally helped many of us; he is one of the reasons we have
specialty doctors in certain hospitals that are...aware of our kind. His
groundbreaking research is one of the many reasons we can walk among humans
without their knowing and without too many problems.”

“How did he even know about us?”

“Gifted are everywhere, even in
the day to day human existence. Those who look normal, but might want to stay
connected to our world involve themselves in medicine, politics, all sorts of
things. In this case, there was a large, well-funded company with a lab; they
believed Felix could help us and still keep our secrets. He did.”

He took a sip of whiskey and
inhaled more of his cigarette. I waited, poised on the edge of my seat.

“Hardy got deeper into the
science of our DNA versus humans. He thought at one point he had a cure for
those who no longer desired to be gifted.”

“So he really invented a cure?
‘Cause Brooklyn told me what he did to her mom!”

“No,” Sheffield replied. “He
thought
he made a cure. What happened to
Brooklyn’s mother was awful, though at the time it was genuinely thought to be
an accident. Now I think he was going to take and use her gift. But to the best
of our knowledge, we can’t change who we are—gifted, whether they like it
or not, are special for life.”

I could understand why a gifted
individual would want to be human, but I disagreed with an actual cure. I
didn’t exactly have an easy power, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I was
proud of it. It took a lot of hard work for anyone to control his or her gift.
Maybe I was biased, but I considered those who didn’t put work into it to be
lazy. If a Firestarter could do it, others certainly could.

“The next and last test
backfired,” Sheffield continued. “Hardy used his own blood for the test. I
don’t know the details, but he accidentally gave himself the DNA of a Levitator
and locked himself in his laboratory. After seven hours, he came out completely
human again. I guess it wasn’t very much. Evidently, he spent that entire time
running tests on himself.”

Another sip of whiskey but
Sheffield didn’t immediately return to his story. He looked a little lost in
thought. My impatience got to me.

“What happened to Dr. Hardy?”

“He came to me, requested that
he have more blood samples for testing. The way he said it…when he took our blood
before, it was to help us, to create medicines and vaccines. He said he could
reveal us to the world, give humans our gifts to make us all equal. I couldn’t
agree to it, not after he talked about the money he could make from the
government. They would test us or turn us into weapons. I turned him down. He
wanted to ruin us.”

“I guess he didn’t take well to
that suggestion.”

“He grew obsessed. He
experienced a gift and wanted to have it again, but this time with different
powers. Instead of going back to science to help us, he became fixated on
becoming
one of us. He wouldn’t leave
his lab for weeks at a time, wouldn’t let anyone else come near him. When his
employers learned of his new goals, they had to let him go. He was dangerous
and talked about revealing everything he knew about us to the world. They
offered him a generous severance package, along with the very sound advice not
to talk. I heard he didn’t take it well when his wife left him soon after that.
Supposedly he built his own laboratory; he kidnapped gifted off the street for
experiments, rather than take volunteers. Felix Hardy is no longer the kind,
considerate doctor I knew. He is now a maniacal, driven individual who will do
whatever it takes to be one of us, to make others like us.”

“Our people—his employers
or whoever—didn’t stop him after they told him to keep his mouth shut?”

“That’s the problem. He did keep
his mouth shut, worked so quietly no one noticed anyone missing. No one has
suspected a thing. He’s clever and won’t simply go away.”

“But you knew something was
wrong with him.”

“After he came to speak with me,
I kept an ear to the ground on his habits. Once I heard some of us were
disappearing, I eventually connected the two.”

“How many of us has he taken?” I
feared the answer.

“I can’t say for sure. Thirty,
forty gifted? An obscene number given there aren’t
that
many of us.”

“So he tested on everyone, took
their gifts? Why?”

“He eventually figured out how
to inject and retain enough of our blood with his to create a bonding effect.”

“
He’s
gifted?”

“Only for portions of time. They
last a few weeks, I think, or until he moves on to another gift. I’m unfamiliar
with his practices, so I can’t say for sure. He’s had maybe five or six years
to get this far. He’s come as close as anyone to becoming a Collector. If it’s
possible, it won’t be long before he’ll be permanently gifted. I have no doubt.
It goes against everything we believe in—you’re born this way, destined
to a unique existence. His research is rejected among most of us.”

“Only most of us? Who would
support a human faking his way into our community, terrorizing our own?”

“Some of us are cruel and
violent and only want power, regardless of the rules. Sometimes it’s easier to
support someone who takes shortcuts to the crown.”

“I’ve only heard a brief
whisper, bonfire horror stories of Felix since I’ve been here. How is this a
big secret? Or is it so awful no one talks about it?”

“I don’t go around and advertise
it to everyone. Most folks here are so centric to the show that they don’t hear
things about the human world, like a scientist gone mad. He leaves few victims;
most he kills during experiments.”

“So he takes our blood, but it
doesn’t make us human. He can’t cure us. If he only has our blood, what can he
do with it? Can he hurt us? Do you know someone Felix has tested on?”