by Linda Mooney
"I'll bet you've never been struck by black lightning."
Like her, he had never heard of it, either. Which meant it had to be manmade. But who would have that kind of capability?
He remembered the rolling black clouds. They have moved in almost soundlessly, which he realized now was impossible. Real thunderheads announced themselves as they moved in, growling and roaring as they gathered. The black lightning had come from those silent puffs of condensation...if they were condensation. If the lightning was artificially created, the storm had to be, also.
Find the maker, find the man responsible.
Quazar groaned. His spine felt frozen, unbendable as a steel beam. Tentatively, he reached behind his right hip and barely grazed the damaged area with his fingertips. The wound was raw but not bleeding. Apparently the heat from the lightning had cauterized it. At least, that was something to be thankful for.
Stiffly, he got back to his feet and surveyed the area. The nearest hospital was Our Lady of Mercy less than a mile away. Grimacing, he lifted from the roof and flew toward it.
He touched down in front of the emergency entrance. For several seconds he wavered on his feet, unable to move or take a step. A security guard spotted him from inside the waiting room and rushed out to assist him.
"Quazar?"
"I've...been hit," he managed to say, and reached out for help.
The guard threw an arm about his waist and began walking him into the hospital. The double glass doors slid apart, and a hospital aide ran out to grab him on the other side. Together, they managed to half-drag, half-carry him into the nearest triage room where a physician and two nurses quickly joined them.
"What happened?" the ER doctor asked.
Quazar was lifted onto the examination bed and rolled onto his good side. He caught a glimpse of the nurse's expression who came around him. Considering all the crap she'd seen during her job, he didn't expect the look of horror that flitted across her face when she saw the wound.
"I got hit by lightning," he admitted, leaving out a few details. They didn't know he was impervious to the real kind.
The physician nodded as a nurse approached with a saline bag and an IV needle. Quazar pulled his arm out of her reach.
"I don't have time for that. Just patch me up and I'll be on my way."
"Don't be difficult, Quazar. We need to run a few tests on you," the doctor argued.
An aide approached with a pair of scissors and began snipping away the burnt fabric surrounding the wound. The nurse tried to insert the IV, without luck. She squinted her eyes at him.
"Are you doing that on purpose?"
"Doing what?"
"Melting the needle before it goes in."
He gave her an apologetic grin. "Nature of the beast. Can't help it. Sorry."
"Well, at least I can do this." She clipped an oxygen meter on his forefinger and proceeded to wrap a blood pressure cuff around his upper bicep.
The doctor stood in front of him. "Are you in a lot of pain?"
Quazar slowly nodded. "But it's manageable...for the moment."
"I'm going to dress that patch and give you a prescription for some pain killers. But I'd wish you'd reconsider spending the night. Keep you under observation for the next few hours in case you should have a delayed reaction. You were damn lucky to survive a direct hit like that."
"I appreciate your help, doctor, but I need to get back out there." He started to slide off the bed when the physician grabbed his free arm.
"Quazar, if you don't take care of yourself, you may not be able to tackle your next assignment, much less finish it."
"Warning taken. Thanks."
He was given a shot and a couple of Hydrocodone after the wound was cleaned, packed, and bandaged. Getting to his feet, he felt well enough to walk himself outside, albeit slowly. Giving a wave of thanks to the security guard who followed him, he lifted away from the parking lot, circled the hospital to get his bearings, and took off toward his apartment.
Once he arrived via the smokestack, he went directly to the locker room and stripped. The torn uniform went into the shredder. Pulling on a new one-piece, he hissed in pain when it fitted snugly against the large gauze pad.
He checked his phone where it was plugged in and recharging on the workbench. No new calls, but his two hour grace period was up. Sherandar would be waiting for him at the substation.
Quazar gave the long, tube-shaped regenerator that sat along the far wall a longing glance. A few hours in it, and he would be as good as new. But first things first. I have to find out who's responsible for the blackout, and who pulled the trigger on that lightning strike.
For some unexplainable reason, he suspected he would find both answers to be identical.
As he knew she would be, Sherandar was standing just outside the substation, a pissed off look on her face. Nearby, two of HPD's finest held her at gunpoint.
"I tried to tell them we were working together on this case," she griped irritably as he landed. "As you can see, they didn't quite believe me."
Quazar nodded at the policemen. "You can lower your weapons, officers. She's with me on this one."
"She's still a wanted felon," one man remarked. He'd lowered his pistol, but didn't holster it. "We need to take her in."
Quazar managed to give them a smile. "Tell you what. As soon as she and I have cleared up this mystery of who blew the lights out, I'll hand her over to you. Deal?"
Both officers exchanged glances. They knew Quazar was as good as his word. But he could also tell they remained a bit puzzled over his sudden partnership with his sworn enemy. After another minute of indecision, the second officer relented.
"Okay. We'll let you babysit her until you're ready to relinquish her into our custody. Is there anything else we can do for you?"
"Yeah," Sherandar piped up. "You can shove those popguns of yours―"
"Sherandar." He used his best authoritative tone with her.
She swallowed the rest of her remark, but it was clear she wasn't happy to do so. Quazar addressed the policemen again.
"Thank you for the offer, gentlemen, but I think we can handle it from here. But if something should come up, I'll refer my questions to Captain Warkowski."
The two men touched the brims of their hats in salute and returned to where their squad car was parked. Quazar didn't wait for them leave, but slipped underneath the yellow barricade tape and headed straight to the area where the explosion had taken place. Sherandar followed right behind him.
"Listen, fly boy, if you're thinking you can just hand me over to those men when this case is over, you've got―"
He stopped so abruptly, she nearly plowed into him. Their eyes met and held, and he could see the distrust that clouded her brown gaze.
"Let's get a couple of things straight, Sherandar. First, I honor my word. As long as we're working on this mystery, you're safe with me. Second, don't you think I know better than to hand you over to a couple of innocent cops? You'd escape from them before they could climb into the front seat of their car. No. When I'm ready, I'll escort you there myself, if only to be sure you were delivered as promised." He gave a slight shrug. "Once you're in their custody, you'll be their problem, not mine. Now, let's find out what was affected. See if you can help me find the schematics for this site."
"We don't need any schematics," she informed him. "Come on. I can make my way around a couple of oversized electrical outlets."
This time she took the lead, ducking under conduits and wires as she threaded her way to where the explosion had taken place. Under normal circumstances, Quazar knew the substation would be humming with hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity. However, since the blast, the place was eerily silent.
"Wow. What a mess."
Sherandar's soft exclamation drew his attention to the bomb site. He had to agree with her. There was little left of the transformers. Unlike dynamite, C-4 didn't burn. It blew things to kingdom come.
"Well, so much for trying to find
any sort of clue as to who did this," he commented.
"Don't be such a negative Ned. There's always clues. You just need to know where to look." She tossed him a grin and began peering at the rubble, sifting carefully through the debris.
Quazar followed her lead, using his abilities to see if he could detect anything. After a good half hour, he had to stop and sit down before his knees gave way. A few feet away, Sherandar watched him ease onto the ground.
"What did the doctor say?" she asked.
"That he wanted me to stay overnight for observation."
"Which you didn't, you rebel you. What about your back? How are you holding up?"
"I'll make it. Don't worry about me. Keep looking."
She shrugged and returned to examining the blast site. He observed her technique. Her methodical inspection. Literally not leaving any chunk of concrete or metal unturned.
"I wonder how much C-4 they used," he questioned almost casually.
"Well, from the size of the blast radius, I'd guess around sixteen ounces." She pointed toward a nearby tower that appeared untouched. "This is what's strange."
"What is?"
"If you're going to go to all the trouble of blowing up a substation, or all of them, in this case, why target just the immediate area?"
He got to his feet to join her. "Explain."
"See that board?" She indicated a small brick building next to a tower. "That's connected to the main grid. It feeds power to every town and city within a hundred of miles. Take that down, and you disrupt more than just our little burg. You black out the entire state." She made a face. "I'll wager if we check out the other sites, we'll find the same pattern. All bark, but no bite. Whoever planned this only wanted to cause local mayhem."
"The big question is why?" he muttered. "Why go to all this trouble for such a minimal payoff? Do you think the people responsible didn't know enough to do it properly?"
"Maybe," she nodded once. "But I'd be more terrified if they knew exactly what they were doing, and how much to use, and where to put it to get exactly the reaction they were wanting." A breeze tossed her thick hair about her shoulders. Sherandar glanced upward. "Quazar?"
"What?"
Her gaze directed his own toward the darkness quickly approaching the substation. The clouds were thick and charcoal gray. And ominous.
"Quay, could that be the same sort of storm that appeared earlier? The one with the black lightning?"
He glanced around the horizon and surrounding area that were suspiciously empty of any cloud cover. "Instead of staying here and finding out, let's move to a safer area."
Before she could reply, he wrapped an arm about her waist and lifted away from the substation, banking hard to escape the roiling formation that seemed to foam and congeal as fast as if it were being sprayed from a can.
Without warning, a thunderclap burst around them, nearly deafening him. He felt Sherandar clutch the front of his uniform. She yelled something at him, but a sudden gust of wind slammed sideways into them. He threw his other arm around her, pressing her tightly against him, and poured on the speed.
He barely heard her scream of warning, when a bolt of coal-black energy raced like a jagged tear beneath the clouds, arched downward, and struck him full force in the middle of his back.
And the world, as he knew it, disintegrated.
Chapter Seven
Caged
He had never hurt so badly as he did at that moment. Every muscle was frozen. Every nerve ending blazed with pain. His whole body was unresponsive. Yet, by some miracle his heart continued to beat, his lungs breathed for him, and he was conscious. Barely.
Trying to move, to get some sense of where he was, was impossible. His hands were numb lumps, unable to feel, unable to touch. He had no awareness of his surroundings. Just the white, unrelenting agony that kept him immobile and silent.
Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard a sound. A whisper. It repeated closer to his face.
"Quay?"
He tried to peel his eyelids open, with no luck. His body refused to cooperate, but that was because it was still trying to cope with what had happened to him. Trying to keep him alive until he was capable of taking over the reins for himself.
Something touched his chin to tilt his head to the side. "Quazar, I know you're still in there. If you can hear me, stay low. I don't know who these fucktards are, but they're strong. And, as much as I hate to admit, they're smart."
His chin was released, but he could hear her breathing. Sherandar. She’d remained with him. He wondered if she'd been injured, too, but by the sound of her voice he didn't detect any pain.
Presently there was another sound, followed by footsteps. Cement. They were walking on cement. The steps ceased close by, and a male voice spoke.
"How is he?"
"Pretty good," Sherandar sneered. "Care to come inside and check for yourself?"
The man she taunted snorted. "If we'd wanted to kill him, we would have."
"You obviously wanted to take him prisoner, but why me? What have I done to deserve this humiliation?" she hotly demanded. A whisper of something unpleasant tinged her words.
Humiliation? The word whirled around inside Quazar's head, when a ball peen hammer slammed it into his gut. Humiliation? Oh, dear God, don't tell me they molested her!
Shoes slid across the floor. Feet shuffled. There was more than one man. Possibly as many as three or four. One wore hard soles. The others were in something softer, maybe running shoes, which would account for him not catching their presence earlier.
"Why you? That should be obvious for a smart girl like you."
Sherandar fired back. "What do you want, dickhead?"
"Want? It's simple. I want the both of you to die."
Something shook. Something that sounded firm, but gave off a distinct rattling noise.
"If that's the case, why didn't you go ahead and finish the job at the substation?" Sherandar demanded.
"Oh, I didn't intend to kill you there. I wanted you where I could watch you waste away. Take my time, seeing you slowly disintegrate an hour at a time."
"By putting us in a cage?"
A cage? They were inside a cage? If that were the case, why hadn't she escaped by now? Why was she still here with him?
Ghosts of possible answers swirled around him, making themselves known, yet remaining invisible and hard to grasp. Did she stay because she wanted to? The same way she'd gone to that rooftop to drag him out of further harm's way during the storm?
Their captor remained scornful. "What better way to rid myself of the only two people capable of keeping me from reaching my goal?"
Quazar sensed Sherandar leap from where she'd been by his side and rush toward the man. He heard the soft thud of her colliding with something, and he envisioned her trying to reach for the guy between the bars. Apparently she nearly succeeded, as there was the quick scuffling of footsteps as the men reacted and moved out of range.
"Just you wait," she warned them with a hint of humor. "You haven't beaten us. We'll get out of here, and we'll find you. And when we do, I promise I'll get my payback first."
"I don't see how, Sherandar. We've divested you of everything we felt you could use as a potential weapon against us."
"You stripped me naked!" she barked back through gritted teeth.
The man chuckled. An oily, sinister sound. "And what a lovely vision you are, my dear. It will make watching you wither all the more enjoyable."
"It's not me you have to worry about, you sack of shit."
"You mean Quazar? But he's been hobbled, just like you. And odds are he can perish from lack of food and water, the same as you will. His powers aside, I'm gambling that he's more human than a lot of us give him credit for. So if he does manage to awaken after we hit him with that negative bolt, he won't be able to escape. Not unless he kills you first."
Silence. Quazar barely had time to wonder what the man meant, when Sherandar shook what had to be the bars
.
"Those titanium steel rods are embedded six feet down in solid cement," the man informed her. "Once we put the two of you in there, we welded the lid on tight. Real tight. The only way you will be able to escape is if he turns on his power full blast and melts the rods. That is, if he's able to summon up enough juice to succeed. But, for the sake of being optimistic, let's say he can and does. It would mean killing you in the process, and with him being such a stickler for saving human lives..." The voice trailed off.
"That was a pretty slick trick with the lightning. How'd you manage to track us down?"
That oily laugh again. "You can thank the police for that."
He'd listened in on a police band radio. Quazar remembered the two officers who had been holding Sherandar at bay when he'd arrived at the substation. And the previous time, when he had shown up at the Main Street Station. The son of a bitch had tracked him.
"Is that it, then? Is that what you have planned for us, suck face? To let us rot in here?"
"The name is Bob. You can call me Bob."
Sherandar's voice dripped with contempt. "You want me to call you Bob? As in Bob the Magnificent? Bob the Great and Powerful? Or Bob the Brilliant Yet Biggest Egotistical Son of a Flying Monkey's Ass I've Ever Met?"
If he could have, Quazar would have smiled.
"Just plain old Bob will do, thank you." The man sounded sure of himself. Too damn sure, and Quazar liked what he heard. Over-confident people were often their own greatest enemy.
"All right, just plain old Bob. Go ahead and have your jollies watching us die. Go back to whatever sludge pit you like to wallow in, and brag to your boys how you managed to capture Quazar and me, to keep as prisoners for your own private entertainment. While you're at it, you can go fuck yourself, too."
She left them to return to his side. He wondered if she'd also turned her back on them. Regardless, after a few silent moments, the footsteps retreated, and they were left alone.
The hand returned to his face. Fingertips caressed his cheek. "Guess you're stuck with me for good this time, Quay-Quay," she whispered. "There isn't anything I can see that I can remotely use to fashion a weapon, or anything else, for that matter. And I've searched you. Sorry about that, but I had no choice. Obviously you don't believe in utility belts or some such nonsense. You don't even have a zipper on that costume of yours." She took a deep, shaky breath. Her voice wavered with unshed tears.
