Guitar Hero (Cape High Series Book 12) (12 page)

"Yeah, maybe," Rocco says. The black and silver really works for him, Max notes cheerfully. The fact that the couple literally jerk as they only now notice him proves it. Rocco absolutely has to go villain. That's Max's big goal for this trip—well that and the healers, of course. But mostly Rocco going villain, he admits to himself.

"Thanks," Max says as he drops to the ground.

"Those teammates of yours—they won't be interfering, will they?" the man asks. "I was told you were going to throw the fight—"

"I am, and they won't," Max says as Rocco opens a large gaping tear in reality. "Man that place stinks," Max complains as the smell of the Shadowlands wafts past.

"Don't worry, he's extremely professional," Summer says. "Aren't you, Max?"

"Absolutely," Max says, giving her a brilliant smile.

"And you are?" The wife asks Summer.

"The adult supervision," Summer says, smiling slightly. A breeze tugs at her brilliant red hair.

"Wait—aren't you Lady Rose?" the man asks in shock. "I thought you were dead."

"It really IS a cliché, isn't it?" Summer says to the team as they step into the Shadowlands. The last thing the couple in the parking lot hears is the sound of laughter.

"Do you think we made a mistake in choosing him?" the wife asks as the rift disappears and they're left behind.

"No," the husband says slowly, "I'm sure he'll throw the fight properly—he's a Cape High student. I've heard good things about their super villains."

"I hope you're right, but...”

***

"I'm going to be disinherited," Rachel says as she and Kirsten take a single step in the long line of fans. "I'm going to be kicked out of the house and never be able to claim the family name, ever again—"

"Would you quit with your whining already?" Kirsten demands. "We swore, two YEARS ago, that if Justin were to ever come here for a concert we would do anything—ANYTHING necessary to go, remember?" she demands, grabbing Rachel by the arms and forcing her to look into her eyes. "That means giving up things like debuts and family titles, got it?"

"You don't have a family line, though, Kirsten—you don't understand how embarrassing the next family get-together will be. Great Grandma Jill will NEVER let me forget this. I'll be looked down on by all of my cousins—my LITTLE cousins—"

"Do you want to give up? To go back and spend the afternoon in a fake fight against some guy you've never heard of?"

"Everyone's heard of him," Rachel says.

"I've never heard of him!" Kirsten says. Rachel stares at her for a long moment—long enough for the shorter girl to blush. "Well, okay, maybe I've heard of him once or twice," she says finally, "but he's not Justin! Whoa, this place is sort of creepy, isn't it?" she says, distracted by the Gothic, almost glowing building behind the stage. "Is it really smart having him sing here? There are a TON of windows in that building."

"It's so romantic," Rachel says.

"Romantic," Kirsten repeats dryly.

"Like a vampire wedding scene. I should have worn something different," she goes on, looking down at the jeans and t-shirt covering her uniform. "Something flowing and dramatic—"

"You look perfectly fine," Kirsten says. "And since you're going to be doing something big, you need to be able to move, right?" she adds as Rachel looks like she's about to protest.

"That's true…" Rachel jerks, pulling her phone out of her pocket and staring at it for a moment before turning it off completely. "I'm going to be kicked out of the Hall, too," she says a bit mournfully.

"This is worth it, though, right?" Kirsten prompts.

"If it works."

"It'll work," Kirsten swears as they finally get to where the tickets are being checked. She hands hers over, watching as they scan it, and then heads into the clearing. For a moment she's so focused on the milling fans and their various Justin t-shirts that she doesn't even notice the heavy cloud in the sky.

"I hope it doesn't rain," Rachel says, looking up at it. "I brought a rain poncho just in case, but that'd be so embarrassing."

"Yeah," Kirsten says, staring up at the cloud for a long moment. She wants to say something else, like mention the fact that she's definitely picking up on SOMETHING strange from the cloud, but…

"Look, there he is!" Rachel says in excitement. "Oh, and there's the little water girl—she's so tiny! Isn't she adorable?"

Kirsten looks up at the cloud one last time before shrugging it off. Justin's concert is way more important!

***

It's good, I decide as we launch into the next song. Nothing is wrong, that whole kidnapping thing is almost completely forgotten—

I grab the mic as the music falls silent, and open my mouth. I'm supposed to say something important right now, right?

"Help… me…"

Wait, what? Did I just say that? I force a laugh, "Sorry, sorry, that's not what I meant to say—" I start out, only to feel the mic slip out of my hand. It thumps to the ground, squealing with feedback. "Help… me…" I whisper, falling to my knees and grabbing my head. "She's… in… my head," I hear myself say. The audience is starting to panic, and I feel someone pull me into a hug.

"We need to take him back to Aubrey," I hear Malina say above me. It sounds like she's so far away, but I think she's the one holding me. "Someone call Nico!"

Before I hear anyone reply, a dark wall rises up to surround us. Suddenly the world is quiet, save for the sound of Malina's heartbeat—it's fast. I can sense that we're moving, I just can't see anything. We're floating in this ball of darkness. "What—we—" Malina says. I force myself to focus, since the fear in her voice is so obvious.

"Malina—it's—" I start out, reaching up and grabbing her hand weakly. It's so tiny compared to mine, I think.

"Justin, I don't know anyone that can do this," she says, her hand gripping mine. "I think we're being kidnapped."

"Again?"

"No," she says, pulling away from me and standing up. She reaches to the belt of her uniform and pulls out a small vial, "not this time." I watch a bit blankly as she pulls a thin hose out of her sleeve and attaches a small nozzle to the tip before attaching the vial in her hand to the side. "They keep saying I could have cut through the glass," she tells me almost casually as the hose squirts water. "It's a lie—see, I didn't have one little thing necessary to do that."

"But?" I say.

"Thanks to Nico, I do now," she says, grinning at me. She aims the hose at the black wall that surrounds us and shoots. It rips apart like tissue paper. Mentally I note to NEVER make her mad. She turns off the water and pulls me to my feet. I feel better—not great, but better, at least I do until I notice a pink haired hero glowering at us angrily.

"What do you think you're doing?" the girl demands. "You weren't supposed to be in there!" she says, pointing at Malina. "Who ARE you?"

"Raindrop," Malina says, "and you have NO RIGHT to kidnap Justin!"

"If I might," a voice says from overhead. We all turn and look up at Max, who's just staring at the girl, "YOU are the one that's not supposed to be here. I have a schedule, you know? And you’re kidnapping a few of my classmates, on top of messing it up! Sure, I'd let you keep Justin if you wanted, but nobody takes Raindrop!" he declares dramatically.

I look at Malina, who looks away, her shoulders shaking with laughter. She covers it up quickly, but I definitely just saw that. "You are encroaching on MY part of this debut," Max goes on, coming down so he can look the girl in the eyes. "Running away in the first place was enough to give me reason to complain to Negatia—but kidnapping innocent teenagers on the very same day, well, that's enough to ruin all of your chances to get into the Hall, ever. Are you a moron?" he demands.

"I'm—I love Justin! For him, I'll even go super villain!" she declares dramatically, but she looks rather pale and I can hear her heart pounding a mile a minute.

"Really," Max says blandly.

"Where are we?" I ask Malina. We're no longer at the concert, but we couldn't have gone that far, right? I look around, searching for some sign of where we are, or better yet, Max's team. "I have to get back to the concert."

"You have to go back to Aubrey," Malina says, tapping on her com bracelet. It blinks a few times before the new healer girl appears as a hologram in front of us. She's got a few splatters of blood on her snow suit, which she's dabbing at with a towel.

"Alyssa here, what's the problem," she says, "and do you think this is going to stain?"

"Alyssa, this is Malina," Malina says, "There's something wrong with Justin, still. Do you know how to fix it?"

"Aubrey suggested he talk to Mastermental," Alyssa says. "She says his brain has healed, but there could be unseen problems—what happened?"

"I can help!" someone yells, making all of us jump. We turn, watching blankly as the purple haired girl from the Justin fan club rushes out of the shadows. "I'm a healer! No one believes me, but I swear I am—I even started floating the other day! I think I leveled up or something—"

Alyssa's hologram turns, looking around. "Can someone aim their camera at her so I can get a look?" she demands. "I've memorized the faces of the outed healers—we watch it every night."

"Oh, um, sure," Malina says, moving so the purple haired girl is in sight. "Is she one?"

Alyssa frowns, striking an unconscious pose, "I guess," she says finally, not sounding very impressed. "Let her try, but call in Mastermental—that's what Aubrey says."

I'm too occupied to reply. The broadly grinning purple haired girl is reaching for me with way too much enthusiasm. It gets worse when the pink haired girl grabs me from behind and goes, "I'll hold him for you, Kirsten."

"Help?" I whimper, this time completely of my own free will.

"No grabbing him unless it's absolutely necessary for healing him!" Malina declares bossily.

"Oh, it's absolutely necessary," the purple haired girl says. She reaches forward—and touches my forehead gently. It's almost shocking how quickly her expression turns serious. It IS shocking when the world around us starts to spin and an image appears around us. It's faded, and see-through, but as soon as I see it I know where I am.

The beautiful woman with kaleidoscope eyes steps forward, reaching out with a ghostly hand, and I know what happened. "Her—she—" I start out, but my mouth slams shut on its own.

"Hey, it's Mother!" I hear Skye say excitedly from behind me—she must be a hologram like Alyssa, but I don't look back to find out. "Oops, I wasn't supposed to mention her, huh?"

***

"We've got their coordinates," Emily says over the com-link, "but we don't need them—it's pretty obvious where they are."

"What do you mean?" Freddy asks. The audience is relatively calm, thankfully. He's positive they think this is some sort of super hero gimmick. In fact a few of the guys are yelling about speeding up the show. He ignores them, climbing higher up the side of the church. The higher he is, the more he can see, right? He turns, looking around.

"See the cloud?" Emily asks from above him. "Malina's working."

"Malina can't do that," Freddy says.

"What?" Emily asks. The question is repeated by both their team and Max's. In fact, Freddy's positive he hears Malina herself ask it.

"What do you mean, cloud?" Malina asks, proving him right.

"Malina? Are you okay? How's Justin?" Falconess asks.

"We're fine—but we found the healer girl and she's trying to fix what happened to Justin," Malina says. "I think she's a mix of a psychic and illusionist, or something—I'm not exactly sure. But what cloud?" she demands.

"There's a massive dark cloud right over the building you're in," Freddy tells her, feeling a chill go down his spine. "It's getting bigger and darker with every moment—"

The cloud starts to rain. It's only raining on that one building, he thinks in wonder. That's not possible. Malina's not able to call the rain—at least she never has before, and from the sound of it, she didn't even know the cloud was there.

"I see," she says.

"Malina? Is there something you're not telling us?" Falconess asks. “Is this about the cloud-shifting hero you asked me about earlier?”

"Yes," Malina says, "but we're starting to flood in here, so we’ll discuss it later."

"Can't you just kick it out?" Emily asks.

"I'm trying."

***

The water is rising, Malina thinks as she steps on top of it. The others are starting to get worried, and most of them turn to look at her. She holds out a hand, shoving it as if she were shoving the water out of the room. For a second it moves, flowing with her, and then it comes right back.

"It's getting really hard to concentrate over here!" the healer yells as her illusion is wiped out.

"Everyone out of the building!" Malina shouts. "There's something strange about this water!" She stops and stares as a massive hand composed of the strange water wraps around the pink haired girl and Justin, covering them completely. They're both going to drown, Malina thinks in horror. "LET GO OF THEM!" she bellows, racing over the top of the water and grabbing one of the liquid fingers. "Let them go! Now!"