Superpower Showdown Read online

  “I got your messages,” the figure hissed.

  “If … if you’d just let me explain,” Darek began.

  “Your actions seem a little ungrateful, Darek,” he said calmly. “Trying to take Aurora’s powers for yourself. Everything was going perfectly to plan. You had Aurora, you had the Light of the World, you’d booked your travel here. I must say, at that point I was impressed that you’d really managed to pull it off.” He let out a long sigh. “And then you made a hasty decision to betray everything we’d worked for. Pity for you it didn’t pay off.”

  “I got caught up in the moment. I was always going to—”

  “Excuses, excuses,” the voice whispered from beneath the hood. “I hope you didn’t think that you’d win back my favour by merely bringing her here.”

  “N-no, of course not,” Darek whimpered. “I just—”

  “If anyone should take credit, it should be Silicon over there. Aurora, you made the decision to come all this way because of the panic Silicon was causing by kidnapping public figures, isn’t that right? That will always be the weakness of superheroes. So predictable by always trying to do the right thing.”

  “Let the Pope and the Dalai Lama go,” I demanded, wriggling against Darek’s shaky grip.

  “I’m not going to hurt them. They were only ever a distraction. I wanted the precious stones, but I didn’t need the guardians,” the hooded man sneered, his voice turning sour. “You see, Aurora Beam, you were the only guardian I really wanted, but I knew that if I were to cause a little panic, then your dear Nanny Beam would put all her efforts and resources into protecting the Queen, and in the meantime, our little guardian of the Light of the World would start to listen to the suggestion that the only way to keep your precious stone truly safe would be to return it to the Aurora Borealis.” He stopped to laugh maliciously. “Clever, don’t you think? Not only did I get the other precious stones, but you brought the last one to me of your own accord.”

  “Other precious stones?” Aunt Lucinda said. “What other precious stones?”

  “Who are you?” I asked, peering at him.

  “Haven’t you worked it out yet?” He sighed. “Did you really think that Darek could be behind all this? Did you honestly believe that my incompetent son was the genius behind everything I’ve achieved?”

  My insides seemed to turn to ice and I felt as though my breath had been knocked out of me. At first I let his words hang in the stunned silence and then I found the strength to speak.

  “Your … son?” I whispered.

  “Yes, my son. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Aurora Beam,” he spoke into the darkness. “I’m your long-dead great-uncle Nolan.”

  17

  “That’s not possible,” I said, my shaky voice cutting through the shocked silence of the dark cave. “You’re dead. You’ve been dead for years. You were killed!”

  “Almost,” he corrected me. “But not quite.”

  “The explosion of light in the warehouse. It killed you.”

  “That’s what I led everyone to believe.”

  “Come into the light,” Mum croaked. “Why should we believe you? Our Uncle Nolan is dead.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything your mother tells you,” he sneered at Mum. “Fooling my sister into thinking I was dead was easier than I thought. I suppose she wanted to believe it, which made the whole thing a lot smoother. The day of the warehouse explosion, I wasn’t killed. But I was almost destroyed.”

  He moved away as he spoke, carefully avoiding the few spots of faint light. There was a sound of a drawer opening, some paper rustling and as he came closer again, he was holding an old newspaper article. I didn’t have to see it to know which one it was. The same one I’d found in Nanny Beam’s house last summer detailing the tragic event.

  “I don’t remember much,” he said, straightening the article. “The details are all a bit hazy. That day, everything changed.”

  “Why?” Mum said, and it sounded like she was crying. “Why would you do that to your sister? Make her believe you were dead when you weren’t?”

  “There are advantages to being dead,” he said simply, letting the newspaper article go and flutter to the floor. “People stop looking for you.”

  “You’ve been behind everything, then,” I said slowly, as I tried to make sense of my jumbled brain. “Not Darek. Why have you been hidden away here?”

  There was silence as he inhaled deeply.

  “As you already know,” he began, “the light explosion in the warehouse all those years ago was caused by one of my less-genius ideas: to extract the powers from the Jewel of Truth and Nobility and transfer those powers to myself.”

  “What is the Jewel of Truth and Nobility?” Aunt Lucinda asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “I do beg your pardon; I forgot it was all a big secret.” He chuckled, clearly enjoying having an audience. “The Light of the World isn’t the only precious stone with powers. There are four.”

  “Four,” Aunt Lucinda repeated. “Kiyana—”

  “It’s true,” Mum confirmed resentfully.

  “Yes. So many family secrets coming out now,” he sneered. “But the Jewel of Truth and Nobility turned out to be my downfall. Finally, I had one of the precious stones. And what did I do? I messed it all up and nearly killed myself. My plan backfired.”

  “The scars and dark marks on your hand…” I said.

  He looked in my direction, and although I couldn’t see his face, I could feel his eyes boring into me. My hands began to burn inside the gloves as my powers of light desperately tried to counteract the darkness and show themselves.

  “There was a … legend about the stones. A very old legend that I discovered,” he said quietly, as though it pained him to speak about it. “That they were protected, as it were.”

  “By the guardians.”

  “Not exactly. I thought it was a stupid warning; just a folktale to keep everyone away from them. The powers within the stone protected themselves.” He hesitated. “A curse.”

  “The Jewel of Truth and Nobility … cursed you?” I gasped.

  “A darkness was embedded into my skin,” he snapped. “I haven’t been able to go into the light for years. It’s too painful; it feels like the light is burning me.”

  “Like a vampire,” JJ pointed out in awe.

  “No, not like a vampire,” Nolan spat in anger. If it wasn’t such a serious situation, I would have laughed.

  “I don’t believe you,” I stated. “You must be able to go into the light. Otherwise, how could you have visited Darek in prison?”

  Nolan snorted. “You think I’d waste my precious time visiting him?”

  Darek recoiled next to me.

  “I assure you, Lightning Girl, I’m telling the truth,” Nolan said. “The precious stone protected itself by cursing me with a darkness. I had to retreat here where there is never much daylight. Luckily, I still had some loyal workers. The Silicons and my son… Well, I say loyal, but I suppose some things change.” As he spoke, Darek whimpered. “Darek took over the empire I had built and helped set me up here in Iceland. I had to get away from the world and rebuild my strength. The darkness … it’s…”

  His sentence fizzled out and after a few moments, he spoke again so quietly I could barely hear him.

  “It’s destroying me.”

  “That’s why you need the Light of the World. You think it’s going to save you with its powers of light. As though it could turn back time somehow,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. “Is that really what you think?”

  “It won’t just save me, Aurora. It will make me the most powerful man in the world,” he explained eagerly, almost forgetting himself and coming towards me before he remembered and recoiled again. “I’m connected to these stones now.”

  “Only the guardians are connected to their stones,” I told him firmly. “And only the Beam women have the powers of light.”

  “No, no, no,” he said
, becoming more animated as he explained. “The day that darkness got into my skin, it connected me with the powers of the stones. Haven’t you seen what’s been happening to the world with the precious stones in my power? When Silicon – or Mr Mercury to you – brought me the Jewel of Truth and Nobility, I knew that something would happen but it was better than I’d ever hoped… The world began to grow darker.”

  He moved towards the computer equipment and typed in something on a keypad, before darting back as all the screens lit up. Each screen showed a different news article from around the world before flicking to the next one, each report detailing a region or country where the light had faded.

  “I felt stronger than I’d ever felt with that stone in my grasp,” Nolan continued as we all stared up at the screens, “and while I grew stronger, the world grew weaker. The precious stones have more power than you can imagine and it would seem that when they are under my control, connected to my darkness, it strips the light from the world. With all four in my hands, not only would the world tumble into darkness, but I’d be the most powerful man on the planet. I’d have more power than even my sister.”

  “You’ve done all this because you’re jealous of Nanny Beam,” I said, shaking my head. “You never got over that she had powers of light and you didn’t.”

  “I have to say, I hadn’t fully worked out my plan right from the start,” he said, ignoring my accusation. “Darek shared my love of the precious stones from a young age and agreed that we couldn’t let the Beam women take all the powers for themselves. As I’ve mentioned, after the light explosion, he helped me to retreat here and I instructed him to gain Patricia’s trust. I knew that I would one day have my revenge and an inside man would be key to it. Darek began working alongside Patricia and MI5, while I spent years in isolation, recovering and plotting. Learning everything I could about the precious stones and where they were.”

  “You knew that the Queen had the Jewel of Truth and Nobility. Why didn’t you go after it again when you already knew where it was?” I asked.

  “A question Darek asked me plenty of times,” Nolan replied. “But I knew it would be wise to bide my time. I had to wait until their guard was down to take what was rightfully mine. The only problem was how.”

  “The Jewel of Truth and Nobility is rightfully the Queen’s!”

  “It’s mine now!” he thundered. He took a moment to collect himself and continued in a calmer voice. “In the end, Darek’s betrayal provided the answer to everything quite out of the blue. The plan had originally been to bring you and the precious stone to me but, at the last minute, when he worked out how to harness the powers of the Light of the World using you, Aurora, he decided to try to get your powers for himself.”

  I remembered Alexis’s confusion over why Darek would secretly organize a private plane to Iceland and then, right before he was due to go, attempt to take my powers.

  At Nolan’s explanation of his actions, Darek had loosened his grip on my arm and cowered slightly behind me.

  “I’m s … sorry, Dad,” he mumbled.

  “His vanity and weakness landed him in prison,” Nolan said matter-of-factly, ignoring Darek’s apology. “I was disappointed at the betrayal of my son. After all these years under my guidance and knowing the possibility I might waste away from the darkness in my blood, he felt he was more deserving of the precious stone’s powers.” Darek cowered even further behind me and let out a small, barely audible whimper. “But the best thing about it was that Patricia and the Queen thought they’d got the culprit who was after the precious stones.”

  “It was the perfect time for me to strike!” Mr Mercury interjected with a low cackle. “I had been working in Buckingham Palace for ages in disguise, biding my time and—”

  “Yes, thank you, Silicon,” Nolan interrupted coldly. “I’ll relate my own story if that’s all right with you?”

  I saw Mr Mercury’s shadow duck at the sharpness of his boss’s tone.

  “As Silicon mentioned, I’d placed him in Buckingham Palace after his stint at the Superhero Conference, ready to take the Jewel of Truth and Nobility when the time was right. Darek’s intentions being discovered led to just that – the presentation of medals to the brave Bright Sparks.” Nolan snorted and I saw his hood move as he shook his head in disbelief. “It couldn’t be more perfect. The Queen needed the stone in the crown present at the ceremony and ready to be on display so that she could show it to Lightning Girl. Its security was halved and when the Queen—”

  “I snatched it right from under your nose!” Mr Mercury exclaimed and I suddenly saw his large finger waggling before my eyes. “You had no idea I was in the ROOM! I got you again, Aurora, and this time—”

  Nolan cleared his throat. Mr Mercury stopped talking and shuffled backwards, away from me.

  “As I was saying,” Nolan said tiredly, “the crown had less security than normal and Silicon was perfectly placed to take it. When he brought it to me and I held the Jewel of Truth and Nobility in my hand, the first report of dark, overcast skies came in. My new plan came together and now, with the loss of Darek on the inside, I just had to wait patiently for you or Patricia or the Queen to make a mistake and reveal where the other stones were. I’d take them and then you’d come to me. It wasn’t long before the mistake was made.”

  “None of us told a soul,” I cried angrily. “We would never put the precious stones in danger.”

  “You didn’t have to tell anyone for me to discover where the other stones were and who was protecting them,” he explained calmly. “Selena Silicon told me all that.”

  “How? How is that possible? I’ve never met Selena Silicon!”

  Nolan cackled. “Yes, you have, dear Lightning Girl! You’ve met her several times. But her methods of disguise and ability to blend in are even better than those of her brother.”

  “Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” Mr Mercury huffed. “And let’s not forget that it was I who—”

  “Who is Selena Silicon pretending to be?” I asked impatiently, cutting off grumpy Mr Mercury. “How have I met her?”

  “Why, she’s one of Nanny Beam’s most trusted agents. Her right-hand woman.” Nolan pressed a button on the keyboard and a face came up on all the screens.

  I gasped. It was the MI5 agent who had been so nice to me that day at the bowling alley. The agent who had always been at Nanny Beam’s side. She was Mr Mercury’s sister?

  “That’s how you knew we were coming to Iceland,” Mum said. “She was in the background of Nanny Beam’s call to us when we had broken Darek out of prison.”

  It all suddenly began to make sense. That’s why she looked so familiar to me. Now that I thought about it, she had the same sly smile as Mr Mercury! Mrs Silicon had even mentioned to us that her daughter had a top-secret job. She was a secret agent at MI5, working with Nanny Beam. And she’d been betraying her all this time.

  “Selena has been invaluable to my whole operation,” Nolan explained triumphantly. “She’s been at Nanny Beam’s side every step of the way. She managed to tear out that page with the useful information from that precious stones book while it was in Nanny Beam’s custody. Any time that Nanny Beam visited Darek in prison, she brought along her trusted secret service agents. Selena was able to sneak messages from Darek during those visits and send them to me without any suspicion. She kept me updated on every meeting you and Nanny Beam had with the Queen, Aurora.”

  “Like that was hard?” Mr Mercury snorted. “I was the one who had to do the actual hard work but no one cares about—”

  “Stop whining, Silicon,” Nolan hissed angrily. “Where was I? Oh yes. Aurora, after you begged Nanny Beam and the Queen to check on the other guardians to make sure they were safe, Selena was able to secretly track the locations of the two phone calls Nanny Beam made straight after that meeting. One to the Vatican and one to McLeod Ganj, India. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to fill in the gaps.”

  “The Pope and the Dalai Lama are guardi
ans, too?” Aunt Lucinda asked in amazement. “Now our world tour makes much more sense.”

  “You are the last piece of the puzzle, Aurora. You and the Light of the World,” Nolan said. “It’s been a long time coming, but it has been worth the wait. Yours is the stone I really want. It’s the one that will save me and enhance my powers.”

  “Enhance?” JJ asked. “You don’t have powers. Only the Beam women—”

  “Oh, didn’t I mention the other charming side effect of the warehouse incident? I’ll have to come near the light for this trick and, Silicon, if you wouldn’t mind shining your torch at the opposite wall.”

  Mr Mercury did as he was told. My heart was thudding against my chest at what was about to happen. Nolan approached one of the pools of light, still keeping his face hidden by his hood but pulling his sleeves up so that his arms and hands were on show.

  There was a collective gasp as everyone saw what I’d glimpsed earlier. What I had thought looked like his tendons outlined in black marker across his hands was actually every blood vessel of darkness running beneath his skin. Around them, the skin had sunken so that the dark lines protruded boldly. He held his palms towards the wall and I heard him begin to breathe in and out in a slow, controlled pattern.

  Suddenly, dark energy beams shot from his palms, hitting the wall lit by Mr Mercury’s torch. It was as though he could blast shadows from his hands.

  Aunt Lucinda screamed and I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mum behind me as everyone watched in horror.

  “The dark energy inside me is expanding,” Nolan explained, lowering his hands and letting the sleeves drop to cover his arms again. He steadied himself on the chair next to the books. “I didn’t have these powers at first. With the help of the stones, I’ll be more powerful than I could have imagined.”

  “You’re mad!” Mum shouted. “The darkness will destroy you! The Light of the World is the source of light, not darkness. How can you think it will help you?”