Swan Song

By Frank Fradella

When Permafrost's father is murdered, she enlists the aid of The Swan to root out his killers, embroiling them both in a conspiracy that could have global consequences. With a viral pathogen threatening the lives of everyone on earth, Permafrost finds herself in the arms of the one person she cannot bear to lose. Swan Song is the first full-length novel in the award-winning iHero Universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Babel Books
• Release date: Nov 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452486154

Frank Fradella

Frank Fradella is the author of more than a dozen books, including Valley of Shadows (Cove Press), Swan Song (New Babel Books) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Drawing Basics (Alpha). Frank is an independent filmmaker in pre-production on his first feature-length movie, Fu & Far Between, and was the creative force behind the award-winning magazine, Cyber Age Adventures. He is the creator of two popular tarot decks, including the world’s first complete superhero tarot deck. In 2009, Frank became the host, co-writer and co-producer of the Beginner series of lessons over at ChineseClass101, putting his first-hand experience of living in China to work for those who are new to the language. In their first month of delivering lessons, the show was rated the #1 Educational Podcast on iTunes, and ranked #54 overall. While living in China, he launched a multi-lingual podcast of global pop music called LINGO that ran for several years. Currently, Frank is back in the saddle as the Editor-in-Chief at iHero Entertainment, producing the new magazine “I, Hero.”

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Dedication

For Zach Brown and Todd Martin. You are swans, the both of you.

Acknowledgments

The story you’re about to read includes characters I created in and for the iHero Universe, a superhero world I shared with some amazing creators, most notably Sean Taylor, Tom Waltz, Matt Hiebert and Andy Massari. What I began by myself as an online magazine in January of 1999 soon blossomed into something so much more than I could have imagined. I have them to thank for that.

I also need to tip my hat to my fellow Sleepwalkers, the semi-secret writers circle to which I belong. Elizabeth Donald, Jeff Strand, Kit Tunstall and Jay Smith have swam beside me as I’ve navigated the often-treacherous waters of this business. I may very well have drowned without them.

Special thanks to my family, who continue to put up with me.

To the small army that are the iHero fans, I love you all unreasonably. We are not everybody’s cup of coffee, but I love that you’ve acquired the taste.

My wife deserves recognition here, if only because she continues to listen to me talk about these characters as though they’re real people... and sometimes asks me how they’re doing.

And with that, I give my final thanks to The Swan. He is, as he has always been, the man I want to be when I grow up.

Table of Contents

Dedication and Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

About the Author

Other NBB Titles

CHAPTER ONE

Cyara was doing the dishes when the call came. Across the living room, on the table next to the couch, the phone emitted the same staccato tone it always had and she left the water running as she went to answer it.

She tore off a paper towel from the roll on the counter and wiped the suds off her hands as she padded barefoot across the hardwood floor. She wasn’t precognitive. Couldn’t see the future. But there was a tickle of something like fear at the flesh near her navel. She couldn’t know what was coming, couldn’t possibly, and she answered it, oblivious and unaware, on the third ring.

Hello? she said.

Mrs. Harris? the person asked. It was a woman’s voice. Unfamiliar. There was static on the line, the clear distortion of distance being crossed by old telephone lines, and already the gnawing dread of it began to grow in her belly.

This is Cynara Harris, she said. There was a line of damp cloth across her abdomen where she had been leaning against the counter, and she absently smoothed her shirt while the awful scenarios began to play in her mind.

Is this Mrs. Harris? the woman repeated.

No. I’m her daughter, she said.

Can I help you?

Is Mrs. Harris at home?

Who’s calling, please? Pause. Static. Silence. All populated by the little pops and scratches that can be deafening when it’s accompanied by fear or uncertainty.

This is the Atlantic City Operator, ma’am. May I speak with your mother, please?

My mother doesn’t live here anymore, she said. What’s going on?

In the sink, the water pounded steadily against the caked-on eggs she had cooked that morning. The plates beneath it shifted a bit, and there was a small clatter as the woman spoke again.

May I have your mother’s phone number, ma’am?

No, Cynara said. You may not.

Ma’am, I really need to speak to your mother. If you could just...

You’re not getting past me until I know what’s going on.

Ma’am...

Tell me.

Your mother should...

Tell me, she said again, but the awful fear of it had already grown into a vile certainty and she knew. It was him. It had to be him. Too many things pointed to it. The damp fabric on her abdomen crystallized, turning white with frost, and a lone drop of water condensed on her wrist and fell toward the floor. It was ice when it struck.

Tell me what happened to my father.

CHAPTER TWO

The Harris Center for Women was a three-story building that sat on the business end of Wilshire Boulevard and looked like it belonged there. Ample parking for its patrons sat on either side and to the rear of the structure, but Cynara pulled into the circle out in front reserved for loading and unloading passengers, letting the shade of the overhang keep her car’s interior cool. The glass double doors swooshed as they parted before her and she tried to keep her stride even. Unhurried. But there was a stiffness in her shoulders that spoke very clearly of the trepidation she felt with each successive step.

She nodded in greeting to the young redhead behind the counter, forcing a smile and biting back the tidal wave of emotions threatening to break through the last of her façade. A few yards ahead, through the doors on the right, a self-defense class was winding down. Cynara leaned her shoulder against the wall outside and waited for the students to leave.

One by one they filed out, all of them drenched in sweat, and the last of them limping badly. Cynara watched the woman hobble away, and felt a small pang of regret that she hadn’t asked about the injury. But there was no time for that. There were things to be done.

Inside the classroom, across the cushioned floor and next to the mirrored wall, a woman with shoulder-length brown hair patted her face with a towel. She was of average height and build, and beneath the deceptively baggy outerwear, Cynara knew her to have a lithe and athletic physique. She looked at herself in the mirror, and with the exception of the chin-length blond hair, straight as sticks, they could have been sisters. In many ways, they were.

Hey, Cynara said.

Hey yourself, stranger, Janie fired back, her lips spreading into a full grin.

Cynara had always been envious of Janie’s mouth. Those lips were slightly less full than her own, but they had a distinctive curl at the corners that made every smile a heart-thawing event. The grin dissolved as she saw the grief that sat heavily around Cynara’s eyes. Instantly she put down the towel, crossed the remaining few feet, and threw her arms around Cynara’s neck. Reluctant, and unaccustomed to such physical affection, Cynara’s own arms raised, finding their home around her waist, and the flood gates collapsed.

Cynara had only cried perhaps three times since she was a child.

She had a lot of catching up to do.

They sat on the floor with their backs against the mirror, their knees touching. The cleaning crew wheeled in a rag-laden cart, and Janie jutted her chin toward the door.

We got a step class coming in half an hour, the woman said, her Cuban accent thick.

Cancel it, Janie said.

No, Cynara said. Don’t. We can go somewhere else.

Are you sure?

Yes. I’m sure.

We can cancel it, Cynara. It’s no big deal.

The world doesn’t revolve around me.

It does today, Janie said, and Cynara began to cry once more. Immediately, she stood up, her fingers wiping away the tears, and angry with herself for being so damned weak.

Not today.

Cynara...

Where’s my mother?

Oh, honey. You sure you want to do this now?

"He used to be her husband. Outside of me, she was

the only family he had. It ought to come from me. Not some operator on the other side of the country."

Do you want me to come with you?

No. But thank you.

Come see me after. I’ll be teaching the ballet class in the Belva room.

How are your students this time around?

Swans, she said, her precious mouth twisted into an ironic smirk. Every one of them a swan.

Cynara took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. They exchanged a look of mutual pity, and then she left to deliver the very bad news. There was a name in her head now, and with it, the memory of a kiss by moonlight. A memory of strength, and trust. She thought of The Swan, and by the time she reached her mother’s office, she resolved to go see him.

CHAPTER THREE

Hello, Mother," she said.

Behind the immaculate glass desk, Catherine Harris raised her head, and the thin, hard line of her mouth softened a bit. Not much, but a little.

Hello, dear. What brings you down? Isn’t this your day off?

Yes. But there’s been... There’s been a development.

What is...? Oh, my god. Cynara? Have you been crying?

Yes. As I said. There’s been a development.

Catherine Harris pushed her chair away from her desk, uncrossed her elegant legs, and went to stand close to her daughter. Close. But not touching.

What’s happened? Her tone was cold. Impersonal. As if she already knew what had happened. As if she’d been expecting this moment for years, and was annoyed that it happened on a Wednesday, between her accountant and her pedicure.

I got a call from the Atlantic City Operator this afternoon. About Daddy.

Is he dead? That tone again. But harder. Moving quickly from annoyance to anger.

Yes, Cynara said, her voice quiet.

Good.

Mom!

I’ll say it again, too. Good. And good riddance, too.

Mom, stop it. You and Daddy had your differences, but it’s in the past. Jesus Christ. It couldn’t be more in the past than it is right now. The man is dead. Show a little respect.

He’s getting all the respect he deserves, Cynara. He was a drunk, and a liar, and an abusive son of a bitch to boot. He never fucking grew up, playing his stupid goddamned games. What sort of life is that for a grown man, being a pitcher in the minor leagues? How can you expect to support a family on that kind of salary? I bet they probably found him face down in a gutter somewhere. Didn’t they? Didn’t they?!

True or not, he was my father.

He was a coward, and a hypocrite, and he left us the second he found out what you are.

Mom. Lower your voice.

I own this damned company, Cynara. I’ll speak however damned loud I please.

Fine. And what should we do about the body?

What body?

His body, Mother. They have it at the coroner’s office in New Jersey.

Let it rot.

Mom...

I mean it. Let it rot there. I have a business to run. I can’t afford to take off and go fetch my ex-husband’s body from the morgue. Do they expect me to bury him?

We were his only family.

And he left us. Let them put that on his tombstone. They stood there, both of them with their arms crossed across their chests. Separated by a few decades, they could have been twins. Cynara looked into her mother’s eyes and saw the wall of ice there. Sometimes it seemed so natural that her abilities manifested the way they did.

It’s been more than twenty years since the incident. Since he left. How long are you going to hate him for it?

How long have I got left?

Cynara gritted her teeth and said nothing. They locked eyes, knowing each other well enough to play out the rest of the scenario without words. Neither of them would budge. And, had this conversation happened the day before, and their roles reversed, Cynara would just as vehemently spit on her father’s grave. But it wasn’t yesterday anymore. She wasn’t the seven year-old little girl that had known her father’s love, had rubbed liniment on his shoulder, or felt his kiss on her forehead as she drifted off to sleep.

She was a woman now. A strong woman. A woman capable of many things, some of them beyond the scope of the everyday illusions she struggled to maintain.

But most of all, she was the woman who harbored the unutterable secret that it was her fault her father was dead. And something had to be done about that.

CHAPTER FOUR

She didn’t live far from the center, and the drive home through the pleasant Californian sunshine was an almost unwelcome contrast to the foul gloom of her mood. For years, decades even, the sunshine hadn’t touched her. Few things had. The ice had become a metaphor for everything. The sunlight still existed in that other place, but it passed through her, refracted and distorted, offering no warmth. But now there were cracks in the surface and everything seemed to matter in ways they never had before. Now the emotions moved beneath the stillness, and the warmth made every step treacherous. Now, for the first time, there was a fear of drowning.

It reminded her of the winters in Lake Andersen, where The Swan made his home. There was a lake there (for which the city had been named), and every year in late December, the lake would freeze over, and some reckless teenager would try to drive their car across it. Every year, someone would break through the deceptively thin surface and plunge to their deaths. Or they did until The Swan arrived in Lake Andersen.

Last year, she flew there at his request and intensified the ice on the lake, making it impossible for that tragic history to repeat itself. But now, pulling into the driveway of her home, she wished for a fraction of the strength she had exhibited then and that her odd gifts could extend to the treacherous ice field that suddenly existed within her.

Cynara unlocked the door to her house and went inside. She dropped her car keys on the small antique table by the door and went up the stairs to her bedroom. She withdrew her suitcase from the closet, set it on the bed, and began to meticulously place the clothes she’d need inside.

Opening the bottom drawer of the dresser, she removed all the items one by one and put them on the bed. Then, touching the opposing corners with her thumbs, she exposed the false bottom, and withdrew the sinuous blue garment into the light.

It had taken her months to design it, even as simple as it was. A few contacts made in the community of her other life put her in touch with a person who was very good at such things, and the result was a surprisingly durable, skin-tight costume, fashioned with all the shifting cerulean hues of an arctic field. The boots and gloves were of a deeper blue, with white trim in the shape of icicles. The scoop of the neckline showed a little more cleavage than she had anticipated, but she’d been wearing the costume for years now and had grown used to it. Had even come to like it.

Placing the outfit in the suitcase, she replaced all the clothes from the bottom drawer and closed it. Then she sealed the valise, carried it downstairs, and turned on her computer. The familiar chime reverberated through the satellite speakers, and she went to the kitchen to fetch a drink while it proceeded through its startup routine.

In moments, she was sitting in front of the screen, her beverage chilled by the contact with her hand, and scant minutes later had reserved a flight for upstate New York. She was getting pummeled on the rate, needing to fly so soon, but with a bitter little grin, she paid for it with the Women’s Center corporate card. She rented a car while she was at it.

The flight was early, obscenely so, but it would put her in Lake Andersen by nightfall. The following day, she’d drive down to Atlantic City and see her father. But for now, with the arrangements taken care of, the rest of the day was hers.

She was restless. She also felt drained, but knew that a nap now would only hurt her later on. Cynara puttered around online for a few minutes, and when she began to feel the brain in her skull take on the consistency of oatmeal, she shut it down, got back in the car, and returned to the center.

This time she parked around back and avoided eye contact as she entered. Janie would be teaching, or on her way home, and her mother would be too preoccupied with the day-to-day affairs to realize she had returned. Both suited her just fine. She hadn’t come back to socialize or argue. She came back for the burn.

In a quiet corner of the locker room, she stripped off her clothes and changed into a soft white t-shirt and loose sweats. She bound her hair behind her in a ponytail, laced up her sneakers, and strode into the workout area with a fierce determination in her step.

For a long time, Cynara lost herself in the steady rhythm of the treadmill. Fictional miles melted beneath her feet, and she gradually raised the incline until her face was red with exertion and she was nearly at a full-out run. With her heart still pounding she hit the weights, her uncommon physiology instinctively lowering her body temperature the harder she worked.

Slowly, the exercise area thinned out, leaving only the committed and the insane to exorcise their demons. Cynara pushed harder against the metal rod, forcing it up and away from her as she lay flat on the bench. In front of her, there was a line of frost where her hands touched metal, and she made a conscious effort to throttle back her power.

Inside, she hurt in ways that she hadn’t believed possible. The guilt pressed against her chest, and she focused on the ever-increasing weight of the bar in her hands, wishing it were this easy, that all her pressures could be so easily be pushed away.

People believed that being born different was a gift. That the power that made a home within her made her life so much easier. But it simply wasn’t true. Had she let herself be a victim, had she succumbed to that first rape attempt, or refused to let those abilities breathe thereafter, they would have, like any other muscle, atrophied in time. But there was the wonder of it, at first. Wonder, and the shameful horror that she was so very different from everyone else. Different enough to make her father leave, and her mother take her out of school and move them across the continent.

Using her powers had never been easy. It took work, and discipline, and the harm it did to her body could not be ignored. It required strength, and stamina, and a force of will that could only come through pain. People liked to joke about how all the costumed folk were all incredibly toned and fit. Where are the fat superheroes? they’d say. Cynara remembered the vomit-inducing convulsions that racked her body the first time she formed a snowball, and had all the answer she needed. They looked the way they did because their powers demanded it.

Taping up her hands, she slammed her fists into the heavy bag, panting so hard that her vision began to blur. Jab. Jab. Overhand right. Short blows to the body. Combinations thrown in rapid succession, punctuated by haymaker rights that sent the jolt of impact through her shoulder and into the muscles of her back.

She could have helped him. Could have saved him. But the ice wouldn’t melt and the warmth of his love was just another memory she kept frozen.

Uppercut. Left hook. Left hook. Right cross.

She should have been there. Should have been the hero. She knew he was in trouble. She knew from whom, and what they would do to him. But she didn’t. And they killed him. Just as surely as if she had killed him herself.

Cynara’s arms hung limp by her side, her head hung low and the stray hairs shaken loose from her efforts hanging like melting icicles around her face. Her breath came in huge lungfuls of air, the pain inside finally drowning in the sheer exhaustion she’d earned.

Heroes didn’t kill people. It was a rule. You stepped outside that boundary, and the rest of them would come for you. It was bad for business. Most law enforcement agencies turned a blind eye to their operations as long as the pajama party gang didn’t create more paperwork than they solved. What’s more, it was a rule she believed in. Heroes didn’t kill people.

But very bad people murdered her father. Maybe, just this once,