Page 108 of Archenemies

Squaring her shoulders, she made her way up the stairs.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

NOVA STOPPED TO LISTENwhen she reached the foyer. She could still hear dramatic music coming from the movie, and after a long while of standing with her head cocked, she thought she heard a shower running somewhere upstairs.

Squaring her shoulders, she began to climb the oak staircase. The old steps groaned and creaked beneath her.

At the top, a pair of double doors stood to her left. The master bedroom, she assumed. Someone inside was shuffling around, whistling to themselves. Also the direction of the running water, she noted, though the whole house seemed to hum as the water rushed through the pipes.

Opposite the landing was another hallway. Nova slinked forward.

The first door she checked turned out to be a linen closet.

The second brought a smile to her lips.

A home office.

Nova slipped inside, leaving the door open just a crack so she would hear if anyone came down the hall.

She was sure that Simon hadn’t been wearing the Vitality Charm at dinner. If Adrian had given it to him, then maybe it was in their bedroom, or in his office back at headquarters. But she couldn’t very well search either of those places at the moment.

At least, searching their home office might turn up something useful while she waited, hoping the two Councilmen would fall asleep without her assistance.

She approached the large desk, which was overflowing with stacks of papers and files, one of which had toppled over onto a keyboard. Nova grabbed the top file and scanned the label, then the next, making her way through the stacks, searching for anything useful. But these all seemed to be drafts of laws the Council was considering or had already put into effect. Ongoing social projects throughout the city. Plans for future construction. Trade deals with foreign nations.

She turned to the drawers, finding one full of statistics and reports on crime rates of various countries. Near the top of the drawer was a list of the cities around the globe that had Renegade syndicates in operation.

It was a very long list.

Nova set the list aside and turned to a filing cabinet beside the wall. Inside were fat folders outlining plans and blueprints for headquarters and other Renegade-operated properties, from alarm system details to elevator permits. Nothing about the helmet. Nothing about Agent N. But still, it wasn’t bad information to have access to.

She pulled out a few documents to review later and set them beside the list of international syndicates.

She kept searching, though she sensed her luck, and time, were dwindling.

Turning toward the room’s built-in bookcases, she scanned the spines of enormous volumes of legal guides and political manifestos, all published before the Age of Anarchy. On the bottom shelf were a handful of photo albums, and she ignored the curiosity spiked by the chance of seeing adorable kid pictures of Adrian and grabbed a box instead. She pulled off the lid and froze.

A monster was leering up at her from the box.

Breath hitching, she set the lid aside and picked up the top sheet of paper, where a creature had been drawn in frenzied scribbles of black crayon. The creature itself was a formless shadow that stretched to the edges of the paper, leaving only the hollow whiteness to show through where its eyes should have been.

Empty, haunting eyes.

Adrian’s monster.

Nova picked up the drawing that had been beneath it. Another illustration of the creature—a floating mass of blackness. Two outstretched arms almost resembled wings. A bulbous head, the only detail of which was those eerie, watchful eyes.

She flipped through a few more drawings, though they were more of the same. Same, yet each with small differences. Some she could tell were made when he was very young, when his scribbles were more emotion than skill. But some of the later drawings developed details. Sometimes the wing-like arms ended in bony fingers or sharp talons. Sometimes it was a shapeless shadow, other times it was tall and thin. Sometimes its eyes were red, sometimes they were yellow, and sometimes they were slit like a cat’s. Occasionally the monster would be holding a weapon. A jagged sword. A javelin. Iron shackles.

How long had his dreams been wrought with this creature? It was almost a wonder he hadn’t developed insomnia himself.

At the bottom of the stack of drawings, she found a collection of pages stapled together. Nova lifted them from the box and a small, surprised laugh escaped her.

On the front page—in much more skilled artistic style than the images of the nightmare monster—was a drawing of a young, dark-skinned boy wearing a white straitjacket, with a patch on his chest that readPatient Z. He was strapped to a chair and a collection of electrodes and wires were plugged all around his shaved head, each one connecting to various machines. A stereotypical mad scientist hovered over him, scribbling onto a clipboard.

A title was printed boldly across the top:Rebel Z: Issue 1.

Her mouth twitching around an amused smile, Nova turned to the first page. It showed the kid from the cover trying to buy a candy bar at a convenience store, but being turned away when he didn’t have enough coins in his pocket. Newspapers on a stand by the register sported headlines warning about missing children and government conspiracies.

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