The Last Hero (Book 2): Rise of the Ultras Read online

  It was the only way I could keep people safe.

  I hovered just off the floor of my bedroom, being careful not to make any creaks on the floorboards. Mom and Dad were watching television downstairs. I didn’t want to scare them. Learning they had an ULTRA son might just put them in hospital for good. They’d never forgiven the ULTRAs for what happened to my sister, Cassie. Even though Orion sacrificed himself to save the world—even though I’d saved their lives as Glacies—still they hadn’t found it in their hearts to see the good in ULTRAs.

  It was cool. Something I just had to live with.

  Another reason I couldn’t be Glacies full time.

  Just when I had to be.

  I looked over the chest of drawers in front of me. Opened it with a key I kept on me at all times. I turned the lock, and then I turned the lock of the next box in there. Once I was in there, I focused on the tight wooden casing, pouring all the strength into my hands. It was so tight that I couldn’t open it with my bare hands. No one could.

  But I was an ULTRA. So things were different.

  The casing opened up, and I saw it.

  The black mask. The tight black outfit. The eagle on the middle of the chest embossed onto it as an unforgettable logo.

  I lifted up the outfit and felt pride surge through me. Pride and fear. Pride at the people Glacies had saved, but fear at the risk I took every time I embraced Glacies.

  The risk of being exposed.

  The risk of being killed.

  The risk of throwing away my life as Kyle Peters for life as an ULTRA, hunted, condemned.

  I thought about teleporting back to upstate, going back to camping. I thought about leaving all this behind because the police would handle it. Someone else would deal with it.

  But then I remembered all the fear I’d felt when I was caught up in that gunman situation back in the stadium, feeling totally afraid, totally defenseless, and I knew I couldn’t let anyone in that nightclub feel the same way for any longer.

  I lifted my Glacies outfit.

  Put it on.

  I had work to do.

  3

  I stood outside the nightclub on Richmond Terrace and waited to strike.

  The situation inside there was just as Damon had described it. There were gunmen, at least five of them, all dressed in black, all holding long rifles and pointing them to the heads of customers, who were on their knees. I saw the look of fear in the eyes of suited men. I saw tears streaming down the faces of girls in their early twenties, not much older than me. They were innocent in this. Whatever had happened for these gunmen to attack this club, those people in there had no part in it, so there was no sympathy for the gunmen from me.

  I held my breath and kept my camouflage strong. There was a weird, eerie silence about the street. People walked by but kept their distance. There were signs of police, but they weren’t stepping inside, instead trying to negotiate with the captors.

  I knew they might have a shot at coming to an agreement. But sometimes in this world, people didn’t want to come to agreements.

  They just wanted to prove a point.

  I smelled burning somewhere, and it reminded me of Ellicia, Damon, and Avi. They’d be camping upstate, in front of that crackling fire. I knew right now they’d be getting concerned about me, convinced I was playing some kind of trick. Maybe they’d be searching for me—if they could conquer their fear of bears to do so.

  Whatever they were doing, wherever they were, I was Glacies right now.

  I had a job to do.

  And I had to do it fast.

  “We’ll end this all right here, sunshine,” one of the gunmen said in a southern drawl. He had his rifle to a blonde woman’s head. I could hear her teeth shaking from here. “You just tell me where Casey Clyne is. Then we’ll let you go.”

  “I don’t know,” the woman sniveled, and I realized then from her black outfit that she worked here. She was a bartender, or hostess or something. Casey Clyne must be the guy who owned the place. The guy these gunmen had issues with.

  The gunman shook his head. “You know, when you’re on your knees like this, peeing your pants, you’re supposed to wanna do anything to help a guy like me out. Ain’t that right, crew?”

  “Yessir,” a couple of the men muttered.

  “Police,” I heard the loudspeaker crackle. “Lower your weapons and step out with your hands above your head. Do not make us fire.”

  The main guy laughed. “Like they’re gonna send a spray of bullets through the windows and risk you lovely people,” he said. “Nah. Nah, they got this wrong. They got this wrong ’cause I don’t negotiate. Ain’t that right, boys?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Yessir. And now it’s time. Time to ask you kindly one final time. Where’s Casey Clyne hidin’, princess?”

  The woman squeezed her eyes together. Her head lowered further towards the floor. “I—I swear. I swear I—I don’t—I don’t… Please.”

  The masked man tilted his head to one side.

  “Well, that’s just too darned bad.”

  He lifted the rifle.

  Pressed it to the back of the woman’s head.

  Squeezed the trigger.

  The gun shot out of his hands before the bullet could pierce through that woman’s skull.

  I kicked it away. And then I punched the man in the neck, right in his Adam’s apple.

  I held my breath and kept my camouflage, moving on to the next four men. I could see some of them looking around, confused.

  I had to be quick. I had to act fast.

  I kicked the next guy in the shins. Sent him flying back into his friend, knocking the pair of them down like dominos.

  I kept on fighting, determined for nobody to see me as Glacies. I couldn’t give up my disguise. I had to have everyone believe the last moment I’d been alive was when I’d disappeared into Krakatoa with Nycto, buried him in the lava.

  Otherwise, they’d be onto me. Whether I’d done good or bad, they’d be onto me.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  The fourth man lifted his rifle and fired in my direction.

  I dodged the bullet. Jumped around him. Appeared at the other side and smacked him in the back of his neck.

  When he was down, I lifted the final hostage off the floor, keeping my camo as active as I could.

  “Casey Clyne,” I said. “Where the hell do I find him?”

  The guy, again clearly someone who worked here, shook his head as he tried to see where my words were coming from. “He’s—I don’t—”

  “I don’t know what your boss has done to get into this mess. Frankly, I don’t care. But if you don’t tell me where he is, I can’t promise I’ll be able to keep him safe—”

  I heard gunshots from the stairs opposite. I pushed the man out of the way and saw two more masked men coming down the stairs. I focused on them. Felt the anger at them holding innocent people hostage.

  I flew right into the path of the bullets, dodging them as well as I could.

  Right into the chest of the first guy.

  I knocked him down. Sent him crashing to the stairs.

  And then I heard a shot and felt an agonizing burning sensation in my shoulder.

  I looked up at the guy. I knew I was still camouflaged, but he was staring at me like I was there. So for that reason, I couldn’t let him leave this place.

  “You shouldn’t’ve done that,” I said.

  I punched him hard in the stomach.

  Held my breath.

  I split through time and space.

  The next thing I knew, I was standing in the icy cold, snowy mountains of Tibet.

  The man looked around, teeth chattering, so out of place with his black mask, with his gun in hand.

  “You’ll find your way off this mountain,” I said. “Eventually.”

  And then I bolted myself back to that club in New York.

  When I got there, I was on the top floor. I knew I needed to check this place was
safe. I had a bad feeling there’d be more hostages in here. Plus, there was Casey Clyne. Sure, he didn’t sound an angel, but whoever he was, he couldn’t be worse than the people threatening to kill his customers.

  I rushed down the corridor, checking each and every door. Kept on going, eager to find more people to help, eager to catch the people responsible for this.

  A door creaked behind me. I could feel someone focusing on my footsteps as my camouflage wavered. The bullet wound was hurting like hell, but I’d have to deal with it later. I turned around. Saw a man pointing a little pistol right at me.

  He was short and plump, with a balding head and a white shirt drenched in sweat. I didn’t even have to ask him to know he was Casey Clyne.

  “Casey?” I said anyway.

  He looked around, unsure of where the voice came from. “P-please. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you as soon as I—”

  I shifted behind him and grabbed him. “Don’t turn around. When you’ve closed this place down, you’re gonna pack your bags and you’re never gonna show your face in New York City again.”

  “But—”

  “If you value the safety of your customers, you’ll close this place down right now. If you value your own safety, you’ll—”

  “Police! Hands in the air!”

  I heard the footsteps running down the corridor. I tried to push for my camo, but the bullet wound in my shoulder was stinging. I could only focus on one thing at a time. And right now, I couldn’t be seen.

  I tried to teleport away. Tried to shift somewhere with Casey.

  But I wasn’t strong enough to carry another person with me.

  “The police,” Casey said. “I—I got set up. I got set up bad. They’ll throw me inside, and they’ll leave me to rot.”

  “Hands in the air!”

  I heard doors kicking in. I saw that my camo had fully deactivated. The police were going to see me. They were going to know that Glacies was still alive.

  I had to leave this place.

  “Please. I got a kid. I can’t just leave. Please.”

  I felt the guilt inside at knowing what I had to do. Mighta been an ULTRA—and a damned powerful one at that—but when I was wounded, I had my limitations.

  And I had Kyle Peters under this suit, too.

  I had the life of a seventeen-year-old to live.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Just… just try and get outta here.”

  “Please don’t—!”

  The police stepped around the door.

  But it was already too late. I was gone.

  I walked back through the trees towards the crackling fire. Damon, Ellicia, and Avi were still sat around.

  I felt guilty for having to leave Casey behind. Sure, he was probably an asshole. But he was worried about someone. He had a kid. He was gonna end up in prison for something he didn’t believe he’d done.

  I’d walked away because I didn’t want anyone to know that Glacies was still alive.

  I’d walked away because I wanted to be Glacies when it suited me—and only when it suited me.

  ’Cause I had a life to live.

  I twisted my shoulder. It was fine now. Bit of a sting, but fine as it could be.

  “Boo,” I said, as I approached my friends.

  The three of them glanced over. They were playing cards.

  “Nice try, asshole,” Damon said. “I’ve seen scarier bears in the kids section at Target.”

  I sat down by Ellicia’s side and picked up my hand of cards.

  My friends still thought I was a weak-ass—a weak-ass who’d just failed at scaring them in the woods.

  And I was cool with that.

  4

  “Pass me the spanner.”

  I handed Dad the thing that looked most spanner-like to me.

  “That’s not a spanner.”

  “How am I supposed to know what a spanner looks like?”

  Dad scoffed, in disbelief. “Kyle, everyone knows what a spanner looks like.”

  I was in Peters’ Parts. Again. Seemed like I spent my entire life in here these days. Since the confrontation between Glacies and Nycto, a lot of people around the world had found a new purpose in life. Just like the end of the last Era of the ULTRAs, people were learning to take advantage of life. To start at new hobbies, to pick up dropped dreams.

  If you’d told me my dad would be one of those people, I’d never have believed you.

  But weirdly, he was. He actually had turned over a leaf.

  I watched Dad disappear under the car. We’d been working on an old red Ford Escort for a couple of months now. Classic car, real neat looking. I didn’t tell Dad I’d nearly destroyed it when I was training my ULTRA abilities, of course. There’d have been a hell of a bigger cleanup job to work on.

  In truth, I kind of wished I was destroying things, though. If there was one thing I was sure about in my life of many uncertainties, it was that I wasn’t quite cut out for a job in the car repair industry.

  I mean, hell. I didn’t know what a spanner looked like. Doesn’t that tell you something?

  I listened to my dad whistling away while he worked under the car. I walked around the garage, which smelled like rusty metal and oil. There always used to be a dustiness to this place, a dampness lingering in the air since it closed down. But Dad had been working at getting it up to scratch all over again. He wasn’t quite ready for opening again, he said. But he wanted me to help him fix up this red Escort so it was in working shape. Truth be told, I didn’t believe it was possible. The thing didn’t look functional. But then, what did I know about fixing cars?

  And I didn’t want to disrupt my dad. He’d been positive lately. Way more positive than I’d ever seen him.

  “To think how different all this could’ve been,” he mumbled.

  I looked around. He was still under the car. “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, Nycto. If he’d got his way. We wouldn’t be in here right now. Working together. Or… well, you watching me work, anyway.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Dad rolled from under the car and glared in my direction. I raised my hands and smiled, showed I was only joking. He slid back under again. I enjoyed the time with my dad, to be honest. Didn’t enjoy working on a car, standing around like a lemon. But just seeing him with a sense of purpose in his life again. It made me feel good.

  It made me feel less guilty about Cassie’s death.

  And it made me feel less like an ULTRA and more like a normal teenage kid.

  “If Glacies hadn’t stopped him then… hell, I dunno where we’d be right now.”

  I scratched the back of my neck. It was strange hearing my dad talk about Glacies in front of me. Kind of like he was chatting about someone he’d seen in the street without realizing they were a best friend of mine or something. Besides, he never spoke about the ULTRAs anyway. Neither of my parents did. They were still a sore spot for them after what happened to Cassie.

  “We never really spoke,” Dad continued, as if reading my mind.

  “About what?”

  “You know. The ULTRAs. The fight…”

  He left it hanging there. And I swore I must be dreaming because Dad never, ever discussed this kind of thing.

  “Well, what is there to say?” I asked.

  He rolled back out from under the car. His hands were covered in oil, as were his blue overalls. “I dunno. I guess I’m saying I kinda respect Glacies. For what he did. The sacrifice he made.”

  He glanced at me just for a split second, but I felt something in that look. Something I couldn’t explain. Something that made me feel uneasy.

  “Yeah, well,” I said, feeling my cheeks blush. “I feel a lot safer now both of those ULTRAs are long gone.”

  “Hmm,” Dad said.

  “Hmm, what?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Go on, Dad. We never talk about this, like you said.”

  He stood by the side of the car wiping
his hands. “It’s just I keep thinking about Orion. About what he did. The Great Blast.”

  The taste in my mouth soured. Uh oh. I could see where this was going.

  “Dad, we don’t have to—”

  “No,” he said. “No, we do. I’m sick of dancing around the past like it never happened. What happened was horrible. Crazy. For so many people. So many lives lost. But after what happened with Glacies and Nycto, I guess I’m startin’ to wonder whether Orion wasn’t so bad after all. Whether he was… just tryin’ to do the right thing. To take down Saint.”

  I felt stunned by my dad’s admission. It was the first time he’d said anything of the kind in… well, ever.

  “Maybe he was different after all,” Dad said.

  I thought about nodding. Thought about agreeing. In the end, I just cleared my throat and shook my head. “I’m not sure what to think.”

  Dad and I held eye contact for a while. I saw that glimmer in his eye again, that unplaceable look.

  And then he looked away. “Anyway.” He leaned into the car. Turned the key. Went to sit down, then stopped. “Actually, why don’t you try starting her up?”

  I gulped. “Me?”

  “Well, you might as well seeing as she’s about to be yours.”

  I stumbled when Dad said those words. Wasn’t sure how to take them at first. “It’s… it’s mine?”

  Dad smiled. He wiped his hands again, then patted me on the shoulder. “As soon as I get her fixed up completely, she’s all yours. You’re my boy, Kyle. And I’m proud of you. Way, way more than you realize.”

  He squeezed my shoulder, and I felt warmth fill my body as he looked me right in my eyes.

  “You too, Dad,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. “You too.”

  “Anyway, enough of the sappiness.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I stumbled into the car. Almost banged my head climbing in, which was a good start.

  “She comfy?”

  “She’s… a car.”

  “Go on then. Start her up.”

  I turned the key and held my breath. And as I sat there in the car, beside my smiling, relatively healthy looking dad, it started to dawn on me that he was recovering. Finally, after over eight years of grief and pain, he was recovering from Cassie’s death. He was returning to normality.