Peek-A-Boo, page 1
Peek-a-Boo
A Super-short Superhero Romance
Book 3 of The Gemini Conflict
By
Jamie K. Schmidt
Also by Jamie K. Schmidt
Billionaires Behaving Badly
Hard Cover
Christmas Cowboys
The Candy Cane Cowboy
The Gingerbread Cowboy
Hawaii Heat
Life's A Beach
Beach Happens
Beach My Life
Beauty and the Beach
Kennedy Family Christmas
A Second Chance Christmas
A Casual and Chaotic Christmas Collection
Love Bites
Swipe for Androids
Sons of Babylon
Sentinel's Kiss
Ryder's Reckoning
Necessary Evil: Sons of Babylon MC Romance Book1 (S.O.B.)
Super Short Super Hero Instalove Romantasy
Sucker Punch
Peek-A-Boo
Fast Track
Charmed And Dangerous
Fly By Night
The Truth & Lies Series
Truth Kills
Truth Reveals
Wishing for Love
A Mistletoe Wish
Standalone
Flash Magic
Naked Truth
Shifter's Price
Maiden Voyage
The Graveyard Shift
Extra Whip
Warden's Woman
A Casual Christmas
A Chaotic Christmas
A Not So Casual Christmas
Losing It
Watch for more at Jamie K. Schmidt’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By Jamie K. Schmidt
Peek-A-Boo (Super Short Super Hero Instalove Romantasy, #3)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
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About the Author
Peek-a-Boo is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright @2023 by Jamie K. Schmidt.
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Chapter One
Ari
Ari Cardone didn't have to be invisible all the time, but she wanted to be. Who wouldn’t? She came and went as she pleased. She could listen to any conversation. She could go anywhere. She didn’t have to talk to anybody, and her skills and abilities were very much appreciated by the leaders of the Gemini Initiative.
No one, aside from her boss, Gray Spark, knew she was in the room today. He had set her up in the Gemini Initiative’s conference room a few minutes before his distinguished guests arrived. Leaning against the far wall, she’d be able to observe the prisoner and the leaders of the Pollux and Castor variants. A large conference room table in the shape of a C was set out for the meeting. In the space in middle of the C was a heavy chair that was bolted to the floor. The prisoner would be addressing the heads of each of the supernatural variants from that position, as well as being surrounded by other supes.
Yaz Frost strode in first. Her dossier said she had the ability to use ice in many interesting ways. Right now, she looked like an Indian version of Elsa. Ari resisted the urge to start singing Let it Go. Yaz was the leader of the Castor Consortium. The Castor variants tended to sit on their ass and hope that the norms wouldn’t try to kill them or make more supes, so Ari was surprised that the Consortium had decided to get involved in today’s meeting. Yaz took her place in one of the three seats at the head of the rounded edge of the C table.
Yaz was followed by a pair of supes who were in power suits and holding hands. They took their seats on the side next to Yaz on the curve of the C. That had to be Nick Storm and Sarah Bennett. They were a lawyer and real estate agent by day, and flying superheroes who patrolled the streets of New Athens City by night. Nick was a Pollux strain variant, like Ari.
She understood why he was fighting crime. His “mate,” though, was a Castor strain variant. She should have been hiding from the riff-raff, not flying them out into the middle of the bay and dropping them in. They were also supposedly fated mates. Ari’s lip curled in disgust. She didn’t buy it. But she also couldn’t help but notice how happy they looked. When was the last time she saw a supe looking so happy and carefree?
The bastards at the Aethor Institute had mixed a special something in the Castor and Pollux milkshakes shortly before the Mercury variants had attacked and destroyed the place. It had been a rumor that for every Pollux variant there was a Castor who had been genetically modified to be their perfect mate. After ten years, that rumor had almost faded into legend. Until now.
Ari wasn’t worried that there was a Castor man out there that she was destined to be with or chemically attracted to. She had been long gone by the time the scientists decided they were going to breed their super soldiers instead of trying to change existing humans to supernatural beings.
Ari had taken the deal that the Aethor Institute had offered her once her powers manifested. It wasn’t much of a choice. She could have either rotted in a cage or made money. She chose to let them believe she would accept a salary of two hundred thousand dollars a year to be a spy for them. She had passed all their lie detector tests and had even agreed to be injected with a slow-acting poison. They had told her if she didn't report in every month to the Aethor Institute to get the antidote, she would die.
Of course, what the Aethor Institute hadn’t known, was that Ari already had the antidote’s ingredients list and had been in the lab watching the scientists make both the poison and the antidote. With that data firmly in hand, she’d agreed to do whatever they wanted her to do.
Ari pretended to be an obedient employee until she had perfected the antidote. Then she put the Aethor Institute in her rearview mirror and did whatever the hell she wanted to until the leader of the Gemini Initiative contacted her. And she had been working for them ever since. She didn’t make two hundred grand a year, but she didn’t work for assholes, either.
The next supe to show up to the meeting was Rick Charming, the Pollux Legion’s director. Ari resisted the urge to look for a tin foil hat to put on. Rick was a mentalist. The Aethor Institute that had created all of them must have put something extra special in the drink they had given Rick. Or he had some talent to read minds and control them before the Institute enhanced him. Either way, he was the most dangerous to her. If he sensed her mind in this room, her cover was blown.
Forcing herself to keep her mind blank and her breathing calm, she remained still until he took his seat at the top of the C next to Yaz and started to chat her up.
Another couple came in next. Ari remembered from her notes that this was Peter Strong and Brynn Davis, another matched pair. Peter was a reporter and the reason they were here today. His other half—literally, if you believed that the Aethor Institute genetically altered pheromones and body chemistry to find a perfect breeding pair—was a physical trainer. Ari was glad that there was no fated mate out there for her. She was alone and liked it that way. The last thing she needed was an overabundance of hormones flooding through her system and clouding her judgment.
Peter had been kidnapped by an unknown hostile force who had been sailing for an underwater laboratory out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere. Brynn and Peter had managed, with the help of a few Gemini Initiative operatives, to bring one of the kidnappers back alive.
They were all going to take turns questioning him today. Ari had her money on Rick Charming getting all the data. Hopefully, he’d do it in a way that they would all hear what the kidnapper had to say.
Striding into the room next were two supes that always made her want to run the other way, even if she was invisible. All conversation stopped as the Castor and the Pollux strain variants stared at the newcomers.
The newcomers were mutated humans who were built like bodybuilders and could probably give Peter and Brynn a good fist-to-fist battle. These supes had gills in their necks and webbed hands and feet. They were covered in iridescent scales. Their eyes were as black and soulless as a shark’s, and when they smiled, it was the stuff of nightmares, all jagged teeth and rotted fish breath.
“All that’s missing is their tridents,” Gray Spark, the head of the Gemini Initiative, said as he appeared in the doorway. He paused for dramatic effect and then continued, “This is Pisc and Ichth. Mercury strain variants.”
The supes at the table took in a collective breath. Pisc and Ichth chuckled, and it sounded like glass shattering.
“I thought you had all been destroyed,” Yaz said. Crystals of ice were forming at her fingertips.
“We spent most of the war in the oceans,” Pisc said.
“Doing what?” Yaz asked.
“Whatever we wanted,” Ichth said.
“How many more of you are there?” Rick asked.
“Legion,” Pisc said.
Ari wasn’t sure if he was being serious or doing a play on words with the Pollux Legion’s director. In any event, they moved into the room and stood uncomfortably close to Ari. They smelled like ocean brine and seaweed.
“What are they doing here?” Yaz asked.
“Who better to investigate an underwater lab?” Gray said, sitting at the head of the table. “Although they haven’t found anything in their scouting patrols.”
“The ocean is vast,” Pisc said.
“But that boat was small,” Peter Strong said. “The lab has to be close to shore.”
“Or they were taking you to a bigger boat,” Gray said. “Let’s save our questions for the prisoner. Vera,” he called out.
A few seconds later, Vera Seer brought in a large, tattooed man in a standard prison rig. He had long, stringy hair. His face was scarred, and his nose was broken. He wore an orange jump suit, and his wrists and ankles were secured with chains.
“Ask your questions quickly,” Vera said, sitting him in the seat that faced the conference table. She buckled the chains to the supports in the chair. The prisoner wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why?” Yaz asked.
From behind the man, Vera shook her head, her lips compressed in a firm line. Ari knew that Vera could see into the future of some variants. It made her only slightly less terrifying than Rick. If she was shaking her head, that meant that the prisoner wasn’t going to be around for very much longer. Whether that meant a threat from the outside or someone in this room, Ari didn’t know. Ari eased closer to the table. If someone was going to pull a weapon, she wanted to be able to protect Gray and the rest of the Gemini team.
“Who do you work for?” Rick said.
“Captain Markson,” the prisoner droned. He already looked half dead.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.” The man pointed at Peter. “He killed him.”
“Why did you kidnap me?” Peter asked.
“We get paid a thousand dollars a supe.” The prisoner twitched, and his breath hitched.
Rick’s eyes grew glazed, and he leaned in forward slightly. “To do what?” he asked.
“Deliver them to the Witch.”
“What witch?” Yaz asked.
“Don’t you mean which witch?” Rick joked.
“The Witch of November.”
“On it,” Nick Storm said, his fingers tapping wildly on a laptop.
“Where were you meeting with the Witch?” Rick asked.
“The captain knew the coordinates.”
“Was it in the middle of the ocean?” Yaz asked.
“I don’t know.” The man coughed.
“You’re running out of time,” Vera said. She put a hand on her forehead and swayed.
“Get away from him,” Gray said.
Vera staggered out of the middle of the C and headed toward the door.
“What was the witch going to do with the supernaturals that you delivered?” Rick said.
“Take them to the base.”
“What base?” Yaz asked.
“The underwater one.”
“Where is it?” Yaz asked.
“He doesn’t know,” Rick said, his voice strained.
A drop of blood appeared under the prisoner’s nostril. Shit. Ari knew what this was. And that meant she knew who was behind the kidnappings. It was impossible, but data didn’t lie.
She became visible and startled all the supes at the table, but she had to get the answer to this question from the man before it was too late.
“Do you need the antidote?” she asked.
“It’s too late,” the man said.
“Did the Aethor Institute poison you?”
“No.”
Then his eyes rolled up into his head. His body convulsed. Foam poured out of his mouth, and he died.
“Bullshit,” Ari whispered.
Chapter Two
Xavier
Xavier Smoke finished up his magic act to a full house and came back to do two additional encores because he couldn't help himself. Then he turned invisible and wandered through the crowd as they left the auditorium. He loved to listen to the reviews of his work.
"He does it all with mirrors," one man said.
"He’s so good," the woman said. "Do you think he’s single?"
Xavier took note of the woman but decided that it wasn't worth his time to follow her back home and get her address so that he could send her flowers. A magician who did tricks on stage was entertaining. The same magician that showed he knew where you lived could be creepy.
It was a fine line between charming and creepy these days.
"I loved the part where he brought the card that had my name on it out of my pocket and into the sealed case,” a man up ahead of him said to his date. “That's impossible stuff. That's like next level supe stuff."
Xavier frowned. Actually, that had been an old human magic trick. But he didn't want that type of rumor going around. Yes, he was a supe. But no supe would be doing magic in plain sight when tensions against supernaturals were at an all-time high.
Moving deeper into the crowd to hear the conversation a little better, Xavier concentrated on the man who thought he was a supe. The last thing he needed was to attract the attention of the pure human movement. He deliberately played up the campiness in his act so no one would take him seriously or be threatened by him. Maneuvering through the jostling crowd with experience, Xavier was intent on hearing the rest of the conversation.
"Don't be ridiculous. He's not a supe. A supe would be doing important things, like saving the world or spying on the White House or something," the woman with him said.
Yeah, like the White House didn’t have things like infrared detectors. Xavier was invisible, but he was still solid and gave off a heat signature. Anyone wearing night vision goggles would see him as if he was a normal human. Besides, what he was doing was important. He was entertaining people. He was making them laugh and providing positive experiences. Lately in this world, people needed all the positive experiences they could get.
"I'm just saying, better safe than sorry. Look, I know a guy. He's a supe detector."
That’s a new one, Xavier thought. As far as he knew, the only way to confirm that someone was a supe—aside from seeing them lifting a car with one hand or lapping racehorses around a track—was through a blood test.
"How do know this guy?"
"You hear things around the dock."
Bingo! A few weeks ago, Peter and Brynn, Xavier’s newest mentees, had been involved in a foiled kidnapping attempt to take Peter into an underwater laboratory.
Xavier was a Castor strain variant and one of the first people to escape from the Aethor Institute. Even though he was sure that security at the Aethor Institute had gotten better after he’d left, it was very difficult to keep track of an invisible man, especially since installing heat detection was a lot more expensive than a ten dollar an hour security guard. They’d only had him for a week before Xavier figured out to use his magic tricks to entertain the guards enough to let them get sloppy. Then it had just been a matter of slipping out the door before anyone knew he wasn't in his cage.
Xavier followed his two audience members until they got to their car. He took note of their license plate and the make and model of their car. After they drove away, he called it into headquarters.
