Revelations: Book One of the Lalassu by Jennifer Carole Lewis

don’t look so good.” Genuine concern silenced at least half of her levels.
    “Late night. And a rough morning.” He straightened, discreetly removing his hand from her range. It would have been easy to lie and claim to be ill, but after years of discovering people’s secrets, he hated even the slightest hint of an untruth. He might be forced to look beneath their masks, but he didn’t want to have to wear one himself.
    She rattled on for a few minutes, giving him time to recover. “Did you at least enjoy the show last weekend? Brad and I tried to go but couldn’t get a sitter.” The show had been a special presentation called Page-Bound Heroes, featuring original art by artists from Marvel and DC Comics.
    “It was great. I got some signed cover art.” She rambled on, but Michael extracted himself as soon as it was polite to do so. He felt guilty for cutting her off as he thanked her and left the center. Their mutual love of animated stories had come out during his first job interview. They’d talked for hours, debating Marvel vs. DC and sharing their favorite lines. Somehow, he’d still gotten the job. Knowing he had a kindred spirit in the office made coming to work easier.
    He walked slowly back to his car, remembering the bad old days when he was younger and couldn’t keep other people’s thoughts and emotions at bay. Comics provided the ultimate escape. Inside the pages, people who were different became heroes, not freaks. He liked to imagine himself as one of the heroes, using his secret abilities to help others while maintaining a mild-mannered persona as part of his disguise. He stared down at his gloved hands. It wasn’t really a disguise, but he was doing what he’d dreamed of. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t find a way to help Bernie. This might not be a comic book, but he had a promise to keep and a little girl to save.

 
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    The smoky, rundown bar called Last Down barely clung to the edge of the Perdition city limits. It was the home of the desperate and the parasites who fed off them and would have required extensive renovations to qualify as a dive, except for the bank of state-of-the-art televisions mounted on the walls. They showed everything from dog races to an ESPN feed—no bet too small or too large.
    Bracing herself, she sauntered into the bar as if she owned it. It had been six years since Dani last set foot inside the wretched bar and inhaled its ingrained stench of cheap liquor, stale cigarette smoke, and toner ink. Not long enough, in her opinion, but this was where her brothers’ journey had begun. The jacket fragment and the invisible man would both wait until she’d searched the more traditional routes.
    A few patrons blinked in surprise before hastily turning back to their private machines. The mix of ex-jocks, strung-out gambling addicts, and slovenly couch-coaches all added a cloying layer of grasping desperation to the fetid air. In her fitted leather jacket and tight pants, she did not fit the typical clientele. Unusual people tended to be potentially inconvenient at best or dangerous at worst. The patrons here knew that it paid not to pay attention.
    “Hey there, Chomp. Long time.” Dani sat down next to a paunchy man in a bright Hawaiian shirt. He’d been nursing a beer and eagerly avoiding making eye contact with her, but her brothers had come to him, and now it was her turn. It took effort for Dani to remain relaxed and not grit her teeth.
    “They’re not here, Dani.” Chomp might have been attempting to play cool, but his pale skin and the biting scent of his terror gave him away. “They haven’t been here in weeks.”
    Disgust tugged Dani’s lip downward. Vincent and his fucking “system” to make easy money. She’d refused to have anything more to do with bailing him out or asking for extensions from people who used body parts as loan collateral. Her disgust deepened as Chomp sneaked glances at her breasts despite the