Lincoln considered this a moment. “So long as there’re no reporters or smart assess running around the warehouse district taking phone-pics, I should be fine.” He reached up and removed his mask, stuffing it into the pocket of his borrowed trench coat.
Steve, on the other hand, balked. “Um, sorry, guys, but I ... I’m the only one here with a traditional ‘secret identity,’ and I know that—”
Michael waved it off. “Understood. In that case, let’s take full advantage of your black-and-gold and have you stick to the shadows as best you can.” Then he considered Callin. “Shining Star, your eye-mask looks more like a pair of goggles than a mask-mask, but still, would you mind ...?”
Callin slipped his off and tucked it into his belt. “If I need to fly with any great speed, I will put them back on.”
“Not a problem. If you need to take flight, our cover will have been blown, anyway.”
Callin nodded, Taalu-style.
“All right, like I said, we’re going to spread out, but everyone should always keep at least one other teammate in sight at all times. I don’t want anyone splitting up completely on their own. No heroics tonight.”
He pointed at Steve on this last bit, prompting Steve to place a “shocked” hand against his chest. Michael only smirked, but the rest of them grinned.
Back to business, Michael continued, “We don’t know anything about these new rogues, so let’s all avoid getting caught without backup. Understood?”
They all nodded.
And the five of them disbursed, striding into the heart of the warehouse district.
THE GLADIUS
Aidan Griffith stomped into his bedroom, spun around, and slammed the door — hard.
At least, he tried to make it hard. But the air conditioning was blowing, and the current created a buffer at the last second, so the door did slam, it just didn’t slam-slam. Well, close enough. He was sure his mom got the message: Aidan was mad — no, furious! — about being told he couldn’t go to the big party this Friday, and she was ruining his social life. So what if he didn’t do all his chores, he wasn’t a little kid anymore, he would be driving a car before too much longer, he was practically an adult, gosh dang it.
No, stupid! he chastised himself. It’s not “gosh dang it,” it’s “gosh damn it.” You’re not a little kid anymore, remember?
Yeah, he would try to remember that. But at the moment, he was gritting his teeth and trying not to cry in frustration. That had been happening to him a lot over the last year or two. He would get mad, and it made him want to cry for some stupid reason. Or he would get excited about something really cool, and then he would feel ... just weird, like he was doing something wrong, like he was being a little kid about it again. And girls ... well ...
He had tried to ask his dad about it — on one of the few weekends his dad bothered to pick him up for visitation — but it had come out all awkward and embarrassing, and the only comment his dad had offered wasn’t helpful at all: “Yeah, puberty’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
So Aidan huffed and puffed and flopped down on his bed ... then sat up and huffed some more ... then laid back down. He couldn’t get comfortable — well, how could he? His mom was being a real bee-eye-tee-see-aitch, and there wasn’t a dang (“damn!”) thing he could do about it. Why did this stuff always happen to him? Why couldn’t something good, something cool and interesting happen instead, just once?
But it’s not like he was going anywhere tonight (or this Friday!), so maybe he should just ... calm down? Not that he would let his mom know, of course. But since he was stuck here, he guessed that maybe he should just take a deep breath, like his Little League coach used to say before a big pitch. Close his eyes, draw a bunch of air in through his nose and out through ... his mouth ...
That was weird. For just a second, he thought he’d smelled ... trees?
A flicker of light glistened in the corner of his eye; small, like a static electric shock. But when he sat up and turned his head, he didn’t see anything. So what had—?
Then Aidan was being pulled, pulled hard, pulled away from his room, from his home, from the whole world, he was pulled and stretched and he was hot and cold and he had no idea what was happening but the urge to cry before was nothing nothing at all compared to the need that hit him now and he wanted his mom heck he wanted his dad someone anyone to come help him ...!
From somewhere in front of him, or behind him, he wasn’t sure, but somewhere out there in the swirling, crazy darkness that he hadn’t even realized had surrounded him, he heard a man say, “No.” And then a few more words in a language he didn’t understand ...
And then it was over. He was again sitting up on his bed, just like before. The only differences were that he was covered in sweat, and he thought he might have peed his pants ...
... and he was no longer alone in his bedroom.
A man stood at the foot of his bed, his back to Aidan, dressed head to toe in black leather, or something like it, with a weathered brown rucksack thrown over one shoulder.
The man turned toward him. The only thing Aidan could make out through his full-head black leather mask were his hazel eyes.
And then he registered that the man was wearing two swords, one on each hip.
Aidan opened his mouth to scream ...
PCA
Beyond the complications of crossing dimensions and attempting to arrive back on Earth ahead of the Skygger — which involved deliberately using the time-slip, something which Dryal and Venubis swore was nigh impossible — John had been determined to also not lose his enhanced armor and swords, not lose his rucksack, and most importantly, not displace any innocent bystanders.
He very nearly failed on all three counts.
As he cast Subcinctinin and felt himself shifting — the last sight from his adopted world being Dryal’s sad, loving eyes — he immediately felt his possessions falling away, and someone exchanging places with him. John’s last experience with Subcinctinin had felt instantaneous, but the far more magically experienced Jaydee knew otherwise, and attempted to course-correct.
“No,” he had declared to the powers that be, and repeated both Subcinctinin and other support terms his friends had impressed upon him ...
And then it was over. His heart was pounding from the strain, and he was standing back in his old bedroom.
The disorientation prompted by his surroundings was nearly as overwhelming as the dimensional transfer itself. The walls before him had been redecorated from what he remembered, a different desk with a new computer in the wrong place, and a dresser of similar design but darker wood ... but he recognized the room all the same.
And then he realized that he was not alone.
Turning, John found a teenage boy, with fuzzy black hair and brown eyes open wide as saucers, sitting upon a bed in the exact place where his own bed once stood. The boy panted once, twice, then opened his mouth as wide as his eyes and gasped a deep breath to scream—
“Loetium,” John said, followed by the silent suggestion: Relax.
The boy’s tension melted away, his eyes glassed over, and his would-be scream emerged instead as a calm sigh, as though he had done nothing more than yawn. John was never fond of manipulating the emotions of blameless civilians, but until he regained both his stamina and wits, he had little choice.
Keeping his voice low, as he had no idea who else might be dwelling in his old home, he asked, “What’s your name, son?”
The boy blinked a few times, as though trying to make sense of the inquiry, then answered, “Aidan.”
John had many followup questions, but the one that came out was, “Aidan ... what year is it?”
The boy lolled his head to one side, opened his mouth to answer, then just looked confused for a second before saying, “Mom won’t let me go to the party.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said, “but ... the year?”
Aidan sulked, then pointed a sluggish hand past John’s left arm.
John turned and saw a wall calendar, which boasted artwork of scantily clad women his younger self would have adored. But he leaned in, not to inspect the models’ bikinis, but the month and year ...
Two years. Roughly two years had passed in his old world. Two years against the nearly four hundred he had spent with Dryal! But then, no wonder someone else was living here, with their own décor and furniture. On some level, he had half-expected to return to the moment he had left, perhaps to deal some justice to the rogues who attacked his family that morning ...
No, this made more sense. In his Sentietiam vision, his brother Steve had appeared older. So time must have passed.
But the real question became: Had he arrived ahead of the Skygger as intended? He had done his best, attempted to target the day before their encounter in the church for assurance, but Dryal and Venubis had stressed, repeatedly, the notorious instability of the Subcinctinin spell. So ... was he a day early, or not?
He glanced at Aidan, but his push to relax the boy had prompted him to drift off to sleep. So much the better.
Stepping over to lock his (Aidan’s) bedroom door, he closed his eyes and whispered, “Sentietiam ...”
John reached out for the Skygger, attempting to lock down its location, whereabouts, anything useful ... but, as always, the bastard remained elusive. He had the ill-defined sense that it was already here on Earth — damn! — but beyond that, he perceived virtually nothing helpful.
All right. Perhaps a different approach.
He repeated, “Sentietiam ...” And this time, he focused on sensing his brother.
He picked up on Steve in an instant, and he had the vague feeling that it was a near-future event, something that would affect John very soon. He perceived his brother ... in a warehouse of some sort. As before, Steve was facing away from him, talking to someone, but he could not make out the other person at all, and Steve was definitely not shirtless this time. In fact, he was wearing ... what in the world was he wearing? A black robe? No ... a black cape? And the back of his head was covered in black, too. What, had he dropped in on Steve at some sort of costume party?
He needed to focus. Stop worrying about whatever Steve was wearing. Determine where Steve was, whether or not this was indeed a near-future event, and, if so, how soon he was going to be there. Then he could ...
John’s eyes snapped open, wide. Wide and horrified.
“No. Oh, no ...”
VORTEX
Steve felt a little silly at first, skulking from shadow to shadow. Not that he hadn’t done his share of sneaking around since donning his Vortex regalia, but lurking through the night to take down a rogue seemed different than this stealthy snooping, peeping into windows and pressing his ear to closed steel doors. But the further into sunset, the darker the area got, the more he felt in his element. Plus, all he had to think about were the poor kids they were rescuing, and nothing else mattered.
He would regularly pause long enough to make eye contact with one of the others, either Takayasu or Shining Star, to signal that he had found nothing useful. They would indicate the same, and they would all move on. It crossed Steve’s mind, not for the first time, that they should get some sort of radio earpieces — like the wire Michael wore during yesterday’s raid, but two-way — so they could better communicate with the PCA guys in the field. Hell, he was already wearing a psi-band underneath his mask, maybe Alan and Ardette could rig something to that?
The sun had set completely as they crossed one of the broader streets, one probably used by cargo trucks when this district was still in full swing. Steve still neither saw nor heard anything suspicious, and unless the rogues were using bright lights behind open windows, it was going to be that much more difficult to spot anything.
For the others, at least, he thought with humor and just a dash of hubris as he willed his cybernetic eyes to flip over to infrared.
He was a little surprised to find that the area was nearly as dark as before. But then, even his IR vision needed some source of light or heat to key off, and given how few lights were working in this area, he should have expected ...
He paused, stared at the nearest functioning street light, then flipped his eyes back to the normal light spectrum.
That was weird. Even outside infrared, his night vision was exceptional, and yet, both the nearest light and the two past it appeared dimmer than ... well, than just a few seconds ago. Was the area losing power? But, if that were the case, shouldn’t the lights be browning-out rather than looking as though some giant dimmer switch were turning them down?
Looking back the other way, it took him several seconds to spot the movement of Shining Star’s white legs peeking below the borrowed trench coat ... or was that Powerhouse? And wasn’t Takayasu the closest to him the last time he had checked?
He started to call out, but remembered that they were trying to keep this whole mission clandestine for as long as possible. Talk about needing earpieces! Should he pull his phone from its pouch at the back of his belt and call the lieutenant? But what if Michael had forgotten to set his to vibrate?
He waved an arm over his head, but the others were already out of sight in the dark. Switching back to infrared, he stepped further back into the street ...
Nothing. Even with his infrared vision, he could no longer see any of them. And that should not have been possible.
He moved forward, only to stub his booted foot against a raised ... curb? Steps? He wasn’t sure, because even with IR switched on, he was practically blind out here in near total darkness.
What the hell was going on?
SHOCKWAVE
“Shit, it got dark fast,” Shockwave grumbled under his breath. Seriously, the sun only dropped a few minutes ago, but just like that, Mark felt he was wandering around an urban jungle at oh-dark-thirty. He was bumbling around between two of the taller warehouses, and when he looked up past the damned overpass, he could barely make out the stars. Had it been cloudy earlier? It must’ve been.
Unless one of the rogues could affect the weather? Man, that would be a big time Class One paranormal to deal with.
It crossed his mind to use his lighter, and then he remembered that, duh, he hadn’t smoked since he got kicked out of the Army. And he figured the flashlight feature on his phone would draw too much attention.
He tried to look on the bright side, so to speak: This kind of dark meant that any light leaking through windows or under doors would be a dead giveaway, and he sure as shit didn’t hear anything, so these two particular buildings were probably empty. He glanced back over his shoulder ...
Damn. Okay, seriously, no more than thirty seconds ago, he’d been able to see the PCA’s Golden Boy across the way. Mike had wanted them to keep in sight of each other, and he’d been doing pretty well so far, but with this sudden-midnight crap, he couldn’t make out Lincoln anymore. And that big guy was hard to lose track of, so what the hell—?
“Mark.”
Mark spun around at the startling sound of his partner’s voice — right next to his freakin’ ear! — barely holding back on a counterattack as he hissed, “Je-sus Christ. What the hell, man? Young’n, you almost got a shockwave right in your damned face.”
“Sorry,” Mike said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Mark picked up on Mike’s flat tone of voice right away. “Hey, kid, you okay?”
It was so freakin’ dark, he could barely see his partner, but his silhouette was enough to reveal his bowed head, his slumped shoulders.
“Hey, Mike ...” He placed a reassuring hand on Mike’s arm. “Look, I know you’ve been a little ... weirded out since this morning. That thing with the doc offerin’ to fix your scars.”
No response from Mike.
“I mean, now’s probably not the best time, you know what I’m sayin’ ... but if you really need to sit down and talk about this, we can—”
“I’m switching partners.”
Mark felt like Mike had slapped him across the face, his m
outh hanging open as he took a step backward. “Wh-what ...?”
Mike appeared to look up at him, a little, but Mark still could not see his face. Which made the whole thing more surreal, and colder.
“This had been hanging over me for a while,” Mike admitted. “I’ve been getting pressure from above to switch up and partner with Powerhouse. I’ve been thinking about it ... and I’ve decided to allow the transfer.”
Mark swallowed. He had secretly known about this pressure, going back to a call Mike got from Admiral Dunham, not too long after Powerhouse joined the PCA. Back then, he had been nervous that Mike would go for it; he liked Mike a lot, and it would’ve been just one more rejection in a lifetime of rejections. But to his pleasant surprise, weeks, then months went by, and Mike stayed put. It had been well over a year ... and now ... now ...
He wanted to rant, to spout out something like, “Well, that figures!” or maybe even to throw his pride to hell and plead, to point out that he had cleaned up his own act because of Mike’s example, because they were really, truly friends ... but all he managed was a pathetic, weak, “But ... why?”
Mike sighed, and its trace of impatience, even irritation, stung Mark. “Look, like I said, it’s been a long time coming, okay? I appreciate the work we’ve done together. And I appreciate your covering for me during my stupid lapse with Doctor Park this morning. You’ve always been a good coworker.”
Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns Page 18
