Born to Darkness

by Suzanne Brockmann

  According to Elliot, who’d gasped out the information as they ran through the brightly lit tunnels that connected the buildings in the compound, the Obermeyer Institute had never had an incident like this before. All of the jokering addicts they’d dealt with had already been in medical distress before arriving at the facility’s med-wing.

  And while OI had holding cells in a designated brig, in a building close to but separate from Old Main, they’d rarely used it.

  OI was, first and foremost, a research and training center.

  Which meant that even if their security detail was carefully trained, they were inexperienced.

  The intruder they were facing, however, was deadly.

  He’d broken free from the brig area of the main security building, and had been trapped up on a higher floor.

  That building, Elliot had informed Shane, was an older structure that also housed OI’s theater, and a ballroom-sized function room that was being set up to hold today’s meet-and-greet luncheon for the newly arriving Potentials.

  “Sirs!” another guard started yelling, too, as neither man slowed down. Her stress was evident in her strained voice. “This is not a drill! Turn around immediately! Seek shelter—”

  “Research override,” Elliot bellowed over her. “Computer, access EZ! Jot scan and identify! Vocal verify!”

  The computer’s voice—male and bland—clicked on through the overhead speakers as Shane and Elliot skidded to a stop. “Dr. Elliot Zerkowski and newly processed Potential Shane Laughlin,” the computer reported. “Warning—”

  “Warnings received and understood,” Elliot said, then looked at Shane and nodded.

  “Warnings received and understood,” Shane repeated, adding, “Open the fucking door. Now.”

  “Do it,” Elliot ordered the stressed young woman who was obviously the detail’s CO. She obeyed, but didn’t look happy. “Computer, continuous jot scan of myself, Laughlin, Joseph Bach, Stephen Diaz, Michelle Mackenzie, and any other Greater-Than in the immediate vicinity of the altercation with the intruder.”

  “Michelle Mackenzie?” Shane repeated as they went through the door. Doing so put them in a small, airlock-like holding area that had another heavy steel door on the other end.

  “You didn’t know that?” Elliot asked, glancing at him as they waited impatiently for the first door to lock and the second door to open.

  “Nope,” Shane said, heavy on the P. “Mac. She only volunteered Mac. How do we get the computer to give us a sit-rep—situation report?”

  “I know what a sit-rep is,” Elliot said as he moved toward the comm-station on the wall. “Our system’s not designed for that kind of information.” He raised his voice. “Computer, visual of Mackenzie. For what it’s worth, I think Stephen Diaz might be the only one who calls her Michelle.”

  And that made sense, going with Shane’s earlier hypothesis. Although if Mac had a boyfriend or—shit—a husband who was fricking Captain America, why the hell was she stepping out on the man? But there would be plenty of time to think about that later. Hopefully he could ask her that question to her face.

  On the computer screen, Shane could see a grainy picture, no doubt from that ballroom where … “What the fuck was that?”

  “Crap, this joker’s a flier,” Elliot said. “And—shit!—it looks like he’s already taken Mac down.”

  “What?”

  Before Shane could see what Elliot meant by down, the doctor had commandeered the comm-station keyboard, his fingers flying as the screen flipped quickly through what looked like a series of medical reports.

  “Define down,” Shane demanded, past his heart in his throat.

  But before Elliot could answer, the door finally opened, and Shane bolted toward it.

  “She’s alive,” Elliot reported, following him, “but unconscious from a blow to the head.”

  “Fuck!” The door had opened into another corridor—an empty one that stretched in two different directions. Like many of the other ornate hallways at OI, there were comm-stations spaced out about every twenty-five meters along the walls, as if ready for the research scientists to use, should they have a brilliant idea on their way to dinner. “Which way?”

  “This way,” Elliot said, going left, “to the main function room.”

  Shane raced down the hall and then around a corner—and there was another team of security guards hunkered down far back from a partly open door. Whatever was inside of that room was making a hell of a lot of noise. It was as if a lot of furniture was being thrown against the wall and broken. There was an odd roaring, too, and an even stranger crackling sound.

  None of it slowed Shane. Mac was in there—unconscious and vulnerable.

  Another man—dark hair, grim face, slighter of build and lighter complexioned than Stephen Diaz—was running toward them from the opposite direction.

  Elliot knew him. “Mac’s down, Dr. Bach,” he called.

  “I know,” Bach called back. “Diaz needs help getting her out. A team of Thirties and Forties are on their way, but I’ve ordered them to stay back. Laughlin, you cannot go in there.”

  Somehow this guy knew his name. “Like hell I can’t,” Shane said, but before he could pull the door open farther and do just that, he was put in one of those fucking mental body-locks. “God damn it—” he started, but then he was gagged, too.

  “If you go in there,” Bach told him as he continued to approach, “you’ll be just another casualty that we’ll have to deal with before we can help Mac.”

  And okay, that was probably the only thing anyone could’ve said to keep Shane from going through that door. Assuming Shane could move. But then, he could—he’d been released—as if Bach knew precisely what he was thinking. And maybe the man did know. He was clearly one of those freaky Greater-Thans.

  But then Elliot spoke up, from over at yet another comm-station. “I’m jot scanning you, sir,” he reported, and there was urgency in his voice, as if the information he was providing was vital, instead of the non sequitur that it seemed to be. “And you’re … still only a Seventy-two—which blows up my theory. Unless …” He turned to look at Bach, who was reaching for the door. “Wait. Before you go in, shake hands.”

  Bach was as perplexed as Shane was. “This isn’t the time for—”

  “Just do it,” Elliot insisted. “Even though Shane’s registering as only a seventeen, he has the power to … I don’t know exactly what it is that he does yet, but he can somehow enhance both Mac’s and Diaz’s integration levels. Diaz was up to fifty-eight, just from shaking hands with the guy, and I’m pretty sure Mac was up even higher from, well …” He looked at Shane. “Sorry to have to tattle, but this could be vital information.” Back to Bach. “Apparently, Mac had sex with him last night.”

  Bach blinked—just once. And he and Shane spoke simultaneously. “And you think that elevated her neural integration?” Bach asked as Shane said, “You seriously believe that I was the one who—”

  “I do,” Elliot told Bach, who immediately reached out to shake Shane’s hand. “They connected, physically, and her self-healing ability went through the roof and crap, sir, your levels are unchanged. So much for the theory that Shane enhances all Greater-Thans.” The doctor turned to Shane. “Still … What did you do to Diaz, that—”

  “I don’t know.” Enough with the science experiments. “But if I did give Diaz a boost, then I’m going in, so I can do it again,” Shane announced and he did just that. Bach didn’t try to stop him—in fact, he was right on his heels.

  But after Shane went through that door and cleared the entrance, he stopped short. He wouldn’t have believed what was happening in there if he wasn’t seeing it with his own two eyes. And he still couldn’t fully accept the craziness.

  The former prisoner—short and slight and wearing a hooded sweatshirt that looked as if it had been dragged through the city streets after a rain—was freaking flying back and forth up near the high ceiling in the rear of what was a still-forma
l old-time ballroom, his sweatshirt flapping as he dipped and bobbed like some kind of remote-controlled toy dragon. The effect was emphasized by his apparently newly developed ability to breathe flames.

  All of the tables and chairs that had no doubt been evenly spaced throughout were being flung continuously back and forth, in a wide swath of destruction, from one side of the expansive room to the other. It created a dangerous barrier of sharply broken legs and huge slabs of wood between the joker and the entrance to the room that was virtually impossible to cross.

  Diaz stood several meters back from the moving shards of furniture, clearly in constant battle with the joker, working his mental mojo, no doubt trying to get the man into one of his body-locks. It made the joker’s movement even more erratic. Diaz would get a grip on the bad guy, who would start to plunge to the floor on the other side of that wall of moving furniture pieces, before he broke free and flew back up to the ceiling.

  It was mind-blowing to realize just how powerful the joker must’ve been, if he was able to get away from Diaz.

  “His power seems to be growing,” Diaz shouted as Bach moved to stand beside him. “I’m working to contain the furniture, too. I’ve tried to crush it into sawdust—eliminate the threat—but he’s stopping me!”

  Every now and then, a piece of broken wood was haphazardly flung in Diaz’s direction, and he had to duck or deflect it.

  Four people—clearly kitchen and wait staff—were huddled against the wall, almost directly beneath the joker, uncertain of which way to run.

  And—shit!—there was Mac, on the floor near the curtain of crashing furniture, where she’d been thrown against the wall and knocked unconscious. Lying there, perfectly still like that, she looked small and almost fragile. Shane’s heart went into his throat. Please, God, don’t let her die.…

  “Why don’t we just shoot this fucker and end this—get Mac the hell out?” Shane shouted, moving closer to get a better look at that marauding furniture as Elliot accessed the comm-station inside the room, over near the door. With a closer look, there seemed to be a small space, maybe six inches, at the bottom of the parading crushed wood, that Shane might be able to slip beneath, to get to Mac. He was willing to try, anyway.

  “Security already hit him about a dozen times, with trank,” Diaz reported. “He’s hyper-resistant.” He did a double-take. “What are you doing here?” He caught sight of Elliot, too, and his eyes widened even more. “You shouldn’t be in here!”

  “I can’t break his lock on the furniture, either,” Bach shouted. “Let’s focus on bringing him down together—try to weaken him that way!”

  Diaz was obviously distracted by Shane and Elliot’s presence, but he joined the other Greater-Than in their struggle against the joker. For a moment, Shane thought they had him, because the man went down, hard and fast, hitting the shining hardwood floor with enough force to break a normal human’s bones or at least to knock him unconscious.

  But he still writhed and kicked and screamed, which made fire shoot in flames about a yard long from his mouth. And even though Diaz and Bach were just standing there, they were both clearly working, the physical strain showing on their faces and in the tightness of their bodies.

  The broken furniture, meanwhile, went even more crazy—starting to spin in a series of miniature tornados that left behind deep grooves in the floor.

  So much for his six inches of clearance. Shane wasn’t getting to Mac that way. “Let’s take him out with a real weapon,” he said again, directing his words at Elliot this time, because he didn’t want to distract the two Greater-Thans. “You do have weapons here?”

  “Actually,” Elliot said, his intense focus on the computer, “we don’t.”

  That was a jaw-dropper. “You’re telling me that your security team,” Shane persisted, “has nothing but tranquilizer guns?”

  “That is correct.”

  A tabletop came flying at them, and Shane leaped forward to push Elliot out of its way. But another was right behind it, and shit, this one was going to hit them.

  But suddenly Diaz was there, moving at a speed that Shane couldn’t quite believe, tackling them to the ground. “I said get out of here!” he roared, as they all went down in a tumble of arms and legs.

  Shane quickly scrambled free, because their need for rescue had pulled Diaz away from his mission. Not only had the joker escaped, but he’d also hurled an enormous ball of fire in their direction. Now there really was nowhere to go and Shane tried to shield Diaz and Elliot from its impact, hoping the flames would quickly disperse when it hit his back. God help him if the joker could somehow manufacture a substance like napalm.

  But it never hit because Bach, bless him, intercepted it and flung it back toward the joker, who had resumed his crazy floating around near the ceiling. It hit the bad guy squarely—good aim—and he screamed as his clothes caught on fire. He dipped and flailed as he tried to use his hands to beat out the flames.

  Bach was no doubt continuing to fling all kinds of crazy shit at him as Diaz looked at Shane and put him into a mental body-lock. “I want you outside. Now!” He used more traditional physical might to muscle Elliot up and onto his feet. “You, too! Out of here!”

  But something on the comm-station’s monitor caught Elliot’s eye, and he pulled away from Diaz to say, “Okay, now you’re spiking again. Sweet Jesus, you’re up to sixty this time!”

  But Diaz wasn’t having it and he grabbed Elliot from behind, as if to manhandle him out into the hallway as Elliot said, “It’s Shane—he’s giving you that boost and holy crap, it’s—” He broke off suddenly, and Diaz let go of him, fast, almost as if he’d been burned.

  “Use it,” Elliot urged, his eyes blazing as he turned to look at Diaz. “For God’s sake, man, don’t fight it, use it!”

  The joker managed to fling another fireball at them, but Diaz turned toward it with a roar and the damn thing disappeared. It just vanished in a spray of sparks.

  “Mac’s vitals are dropping,” Elliot reported, back at the computer as Shane, too, was released from Diaz’s hold. “We need to wake her up—right now!”

  Bach and Diaz must’ve been having some kind of silent communication, because they turned in unison, and the joker went down again in a nosedive to the floor. He was still thrashing, though—probably because the two Greater-Thans used a portion of their combined power to push that wall of furniture back, like opening a curtain, to the side of the room away from Mac.

  Shane wasn’t sure what had happened, what had changed—where Bach and Diaz had gotten the extra power to gain the upper hand—but there’d be plenty of time later for his What the hell? Right now he used the opportunity they’d given him, and with Elliot right behind him, he rushed to Mac’s aid.

  “Go! Now!” Shane shouted at the kitchen staff, and the four civilians scrambled past both the joker and the still-heaving furniture, and out the door.

  And there was Mac.

  Shane hesitated, afraid to just scoop her into his arms, thinking that if she’d injured her back or neck, he might do more damage.

  But Elliot seemed unconcerned about that. The doctor grabbed Mac’s upper body, so Shane took her legs, and together they carried her back to the comm-station by the door. Shane wanted to take her all the way out into the more protected hallway, but Elliot had already started putting her down. Jesus, with her eyes closed and her head lolling back, she looked lifeless—vulnerable and broken—like a doll that had been cast aside and forgotten.

  “We need to get her to the medical center!” Shane was as close to frantic as he’d ever been in his life. He was ready to pick her up again, but the other man stopped him.

  “There’s no time.” Elliot ran a portable medical wand across her. “She’s bleeding internally, plus there’s a head injury.”

  What, was he going to do field surgery, right there on the floor? “We should at least bring her into the hall!”

  “I need to be in here.” Elliot opened the med kit he’d been
carrying in the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a syringe. “It’s nothing she can’t fix herself, but she’s got to be conscious to do it. Just relax.”

  “Relax?” Was he kidding?

  But Elliot was intent upon selecting the correct dose. “Remember her ankle?” he said as he gave her the injection. “This is easier. This one she could probably even do without your help.”

  Shane understood the concept—that Mac could allegedly heal her injuries herself, right here and right now. Allegedly.

  He looked back at the furniture that was heaving and pulsing and pushing at Diaz and Bach’s mental restraint. The joker was doing the same on the floor—occasionally sending badly formed fireballs up toward the ceiling as the two Greater-Thans strained to keep him in place. It was only a matter of time before he broke free again. When they’d first come in, Diaz had said that the man’s power was growing.

  “We should get Mac and Elliot out of here,” Shane said, raising his voice loudly enough for both Diaz and Bach to hear him, “then get me some kind of real weapon—an M-16 or, shit, a grenade launcher—so I can blow this motherfucker to hell while we still have the chance!”

  Bach spoke, his voice tight. “We want him alive.”

  “We need him alive.”

  Holy shit, that was Mac. Shane turned back to see Elliot helping her sit up. Whatever was in that injection had brought her around.

  “What is he doing in here?” she asked, and she was talking about him. Her face was pale and drawn with pain, but her eyes were sharp and alert—and as beautiful as he’d remembered them to be. Except she was the icy-cold stranger who’d left him alone on the street, not the laughing, passionate woman he’d made love to in the warmth of her bed. “Get him out of here, Elliot. Now.”

  “Use him,” Elliot told her, his voice low, “to heal even faster. You were right, Mac, he’s special. Just by being here, he’s enhancing your power.” He looked at Shane. “Touch her.”

  “What?” Shane wasn’t sure what the doctor meant, and that combined with the chill in Mac’s eyes made him hesitate. Her body language screamed stay back.