“Thank you,” I muttered. “The Kilodan was right. I wasn’t ready. Why is he always right?”
“Benefits of being our glorious leader,” Andy said. “You were lucky this time. Rinnie, you don’t realize how powerful you are. You have got to stay in control. You could hurt somebody.”
I smiled, knowing Andy couldn’t see it under my mask. “I’m okay now. I guess I never took that part of the training seriously.”
“I know. You never had a reason. Now you do.” He lifted my chin with his finger. “You know, the Kilodan is also right about your school. You could stop it all. Make the high school safe.”
“Smooth change of subject.”
Andy folded his hands. “It’s what I do.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, not interested. I’ve got a stalker to pummel. It’s personal now.”
“And being bullied every day isn’t?”
I thought about a typical day at school. Name-calling, humiliation, the joy of being a total outcast. Algebra. “Life can’t always be a box of chocolates. Anyway, that’s different. Out here, I’m masked.”
Andy laughed. “Our masks are just tools.”
“This tool”—I jabbed a finger at my mask—“is the only thing that hides my identity. In case you’re forgetting, I don’t dress like this at school.”
“There are ways to stay hidden without wearing a mask. Underdog didn’t wear a mask. Nobody knew his identity.”
“Underdog had it easy. He had a telephone booth to duck into. I have a cell phone. It’s a little tight.”
“Duck into your locker,” Andy said.
I did a finger wag at him. “Somebody would notice a blond girl going in and a masked vigilante coming out. I’d be captured and interrogated by the Knights until I told them your name. They would hunt you down, torture you for days, and finally kill you and hang your rotting corpse in the streets as a reminder to us all. Worse yet, I’d get detention. You know we aren’t allowed to fight in school.”
Walpurgis Knights, our fiercest enemy. Their leader is very likely the deadliest human alive. They call him Nicolaitan. Like us, the Knights also create weapons from thoughts and emotions, but they prefer jealousy, hatred, and guile, the darkest of emotions. They are especially sensitive to the use of Psi Weapons, which is why the Psi Fighters never use them while unmasked.
“Your concern for my safety overwhelms me,” Andy said. “As does your cluelessness about your school.”
“I know enough to keep my mask on. The Kilodan is never unmasked. I’ve known him for ten years, and I’ve never seen his face. Or heard his real voice. He knows how to keep his identity hidden. I’m just following his example.”
“The rest of your classmates would love to fight back,” Andy said. “They just need a leader.”
“The rest of my classmates aren’t in danger of being murdered in their sleep.”
“I thought ‘Danger’ was your middle name.”
“Not according to the jerks at school.”
“So you’ll take the assignment?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
Chapter Two
A Day in the Life
I’m sixteen, but sometimes I feel a lot older. I like Elvis Presley and the Three Stooges. I like old superhero comic books. But I do not like spiders of any age. Unfortunately, my life is infested with them. Some of the spiders attend my school. One of them goes by the name of Mason Draudimon. He’s my year, and has picked on me for as long as I can remember. I used to come home and cry on my bed, but I never let anybody see. Especially Dad. Well, I’m adopted, so he’s not my birth father, but I still call him “Dad.” If he knew Mason picked on me, he would pay the boy a little visit, and that would not be pretty. He is so overprotective. But in a really sweet way.
If Andy and the Kilodan had their way, Dad would never need to visit Mason. They pulled me from the stalker case. They were cool about it. Unfortunately, they wanted me to permanently stop Mason instead. Yuck. Oh, yeah, and they wanted me to master the Memory Lash. Double yuck.