Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns

by Andrews, Christopher

  “... ‘coworker’ ...”

  “Yes,” Mike stated, twisting the knife that much deeper. “We’ve been work partners. And now we won’t be. It’s that simple.”

  Mark felt a surge of anger, and really, really wanted to go off on him ... but he was too dazed, too wounded. His head was a whirlwind, the whole thing feeling dream-like (nightmarish) here in the dark between abandoned warehouses as they searched for a group of sick, superpowered pedophiles.

  Mike appeared to shrug. “I just wanted to tell you myself. I’m sure you’ll get a new partner soon. And it’s not like Powerhouse and I are moving to another region. We’ll see you around.”

  And then he walked away.

  Mark stared at nothing for a good minute after that. Until he heard a footstep, thought maybe Mike was coming back, coming back to tell him that it was all a joke, a misunderstanding, something ...

  But when Mark looked up, he could just barely make out Powerhouse emerging from an alcove across the way. He gestured something, maybe telling Mark that he was still turning up empty-handed, maybe telling Mark to hurry up, who the hell could know in this stupid darkness?

  Lincoln came to a halt, looked like he was maybe squinting at Mark, trying to see him better, then made another big gesture that sure as hell communicated, “Hey, what’s up with you? What’s taking so long?”

  Did he know? Did Lincoln know that Mike was dumping Shockwave and up-selling himself to Powerhouse? Is that why they’d been getting along so much better, because the asshole knew that he had won?

  Mark’s hands clenched into fists, kinetic waves rippling over his knuckles. So he thought he’d won, huh? He thought he really was the Golden Boy after all? He thought that Mark — Shockwave — was going to just lie down and take it without a fight?

  Lincoln took another step forward, toward him.

  Mark did the same ...

  ... but then his hands relaxed, his shoulders sagged, and he waved at Lincoln and pointed further up the street. The big guy nodded and continued that way, looking around for any windows or doors, sights or sounds, that might help them locate the rogues.

  Mark wasn’t going to fight. What was the point? It wasn’t Lincoln’s fault that Mike finally woke up and realized he’d been saddled with a loser all along.

  But goddamn it, he wasn’t going to cry about it, either!

  So, with that resolved, he wiped a hand across his damp cheeks, and set about finding someone, some sick, perverted rogue who was just asking to die.

  Because tonight, Shockwave was more than happy to deliver.

  TAKAYASU

  Lieutenant Takayasu was having as much difficulty with the sudden, deep darkness as his partner — the streetlights had picked a hell of a time to start losing power, or whatever was going on. He remained reluctant to break out a flashlight, as this would serve as a beacon to anyone on watch. But how effective could their search go (setting aside how rushed it already stood, severely lacking proper intel) if they could barely see past their own noses? At least they could count on Vortex’s superior sight.

  But all of this only floated along the surface of his thoughts. He was distracted, had been inattentive to his duties since that morning’s interview with Doctor Park. And why? Because the man offered to fix the burn scars on his hands, the scars he had gotten trying to save Jason?

  He knew, intellectually, that it was absurd, even narcissistic. He had spent years dealing with the scar tissue, exercising them nonstop to maintain manual dexterity. He did not need them to remember Jason, to remember why he was here, doing this job; he didn’t need some nonsensical iteration of survivor’s guilt. So, now that a “medical miracle” — courtesy of the same Paranormal Effect that led to his getting scarred in the first place — was offered ... why was he reluctant to go with it? And why was he allowing it to interfere with his work? His disrupted equilibrium annoyed him.

  And he felt bad for Mark, too. The poor guy had covered for his panicked hesitation in Park’s office, and had been doing his best to coddle and nudge Michael back into form all day, only to have Michael be snippy and short with him.

  They were partners, had been solid partners for two years now. And they were friends. Mark deserved better, better than how Michael was dealing with this.

  Michael found it doubly frustrating that it smacked of his whole inept handling of the situation with Christine White. He had fallen for her, found out she was a spy, tried to go all Vulcan and shut down his feelings on the matter ... until her sister called and Christine’s whole birthday visit came up, and Michael had lost it — he still blushed in embarrassment when he recalled his immature outburst with his office phone (Mark had covered for him then, too).

  Why was it that he could be so levelheaded in the field, yet so incompetent when it came to his own feelings?

  He should take a moment to speak to Mark, once tonight’s mission was over, to thank him and—

  Michael spotted a light up ahead. Not a failing streetlight, but a shaft of light peeking around a service door into one of the warehouses, the gap for which had been created because the door had been propped open just a tiny bit.

  Michael drew his V9 and slipped his psi-band onto his forehead, then turned to signal his nearest ...

  Shit. The urge to slap himself surged when he realized that he had lost sight of the others; he could see neither Vortex on his right nor Shining Star on his left. What the hell? It had been his orders to keep within spotting distance of each other, to avoid “splitting up” like amateurs in a horror movie ... and yet, he had been so caught up with his personal issues that he had allowed it to spill over into his professional work. Granted, he had not expected it to get so damned dark around here, so difficult to see in the shadows beneath the underpass and with the streetlights sucking at their job tonight, but still ...

  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone — the PCA phones were capable of linking unit-to-unit, like walkie-talkies, so even if the overpass interfered with the cellular signal, he would be able to reach his partner and Powerhouse. This might turn out to be nothing, but then again—

  A voice. He heard a woman’s voice, coming from the ajar door, saw a shadow cross through the strips of light. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  His thumb hovering over Mark’s contact button. He knew that he should call him right now ... but that voice nagged him, insisted upon him. That, plus he had been such a pouting baby since that morning, he wanted to make sure summoning the gang was warranted, that he wasn’t overcompensating.

  He decided — against his better judgment — that he would sneak a look first. If it proved to be, say, teenagers having a private little taboo party in the old warehouse district, he could then move on without wasting his team’s time (and he ignored the fact that he should be calling them back together anyway, to regroup amidst this unexpected darkness).

  This would serve as “advance scouting.”

  Yeah, right. Objectively, he knew this was further evidence that he was definitely not himself today. And yet, he still mumbled, “To hell with it.”

  Inching his way forward, treading carefully to avoid making any noise, he reached out to slip his fingers into the tiny crack of the service door.

  The female spoke again — her voice still naggingly familiar — paused, then giggled about something, but Michael heard no response; whoever she was, she was likely speaking into a phone. If he were lucky, he only had one pair of eyes to deal with here, increasing his chances of just poking his head in and out without being spotted.

  Gripping the door with tentative fingertips, he pried it open a mere inch, mindful of any squeaky hinges ...

  The woman, a blonde, crossed through his narrow line of sight, but he could not see her face. He opened the door a hair’s width further ...

  The woman turned back his way, and she was indeed talking on a phone. Which was odd, because he did not think that federal prisoners were allowed to have phones
— nor were they allowed to leave their cells and wander the warehouse district at night, pacing around an open, dark, abandoned, and otherwise empty storage facility. All of which flew through his mind before he finally absorbed exactly who it was he was seeing in the single glowing lightbulb that hung from the high ceiling.

  He flung the door open and fully intended to level his V9 at his target, but instead his arm hung at his side, useless ... as useless as the ensnared cogs of his mind.

  “... Christine?”

  Christine White, who had been about to pace back the other way, paused mid-turn. She did not appear surprised, let alone shocked, to see him. In fact, her only reaction was to smile and wave him further inside. “Hey, Michael’s here. I have to go.”

  Michael just stood like a statue, his brain frozen in utter bafflement as he tried to make some sense of the situation. He opened his mouth to speak, but all he managed was another impotent, “... Christine ...?”

  Christine, completely at ease, hung up her phone and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. Her smile widened as she approached him and said, “Come in and close the door, silly. You’re letting too much light out. You don’t want your buddies out there to see, do you?”

  Michael’s face was burning, his pulse was pounding in his head, and still, all he could say was, “... what?”

  Christine laughed. “Look at you, Mister Paranormal Control Agent. You’re adorable.”

  She took him by the arm and pulled him further inside, closing the door behind him — he wanted to jerk free and demand answers, to find out just what in the hell was going on ... but instead he allowed her to lead him in, like some sort of mental deficient.

  Satisfied, she patted him as she let go. “I see you got Mia’s message. Good job ditching your little squad. McLane’ll be here soon, and we’ll get started.”

  And Michael had thought that he could not get any more confused. “Who?”

  For the first time, Christine also looked a little puzzled. “ ‘Who’? Mister McLane, you dope. Richard McLane? You know, our boss?”

  That, finally, was one step too far.

  Michael moved back and raised his V9. “Richard McLane is no one’s boss. He’s a mental vegetable, and you are imprisoned at the rogue pit.”

  Christine, if anything, looked irritated. “They released me yesterday morning, Michael. Just like we planned, right on schedule. What’s going on here?”

  “That’s right, ‘Christine’,” he said, giving his V9 a little shake for emphasis; had it been a pistol, he would have cocked the hammer for dramatic effect. “What is going on here?”

  Then Christine’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a little ‘o,’ as if she’d had a sudden epiphany. “Oh. Oh! I see. Michael, I’m so sorry. You haven’t been activated yet.”

  Michael blinked, uncertain how to process what was happening, what in the world she was talking about, any of it, all of it.

  Christine cleared her throat, nodded to herself, and spoke with clear, distinct enunciation. “ ‘Apollyon burns it all, starting with Jason’.” She relaxed, smiling once more. “How does that feel?”

  To her credit, Michael actually hesitated a moment, mulling the words over in his mind and waiting to see if ... well, if something would “activate” inside of him. And he had to admit, he did feel weird — hell, that was an understatement! — but that could easily be because he was reeling from the bizarreness of this entire scenario.

  But no, nothing “activated.”

  Christine’s brow furrowed. “Huh. Okay.” She tried again, slower. “ ‘Apollyon burns it all, starting with Jason.’ Is that better?”

  Michael tightened his grip on his firearm. “Christine, I swear to God, if you don’t start explaining what the hell is going on here ...”

  She raised her hands, making little placating gestures as she spoke. “Okay, Michael, I don’t know why that didn’t work. It was supposed to work like that.” She snapped her fingers. “But it’s not working, I can see that now. So listen to me, Michael, very closely—”

  “I’m listening,” he spat. “And I better like what I’m about to hear.”

  “Okay.” She brought her hands together at mouth level, as though she were praying. She then began, “You and I first met at Mae’s Café about two years ago—”

  “I already know that,” he snapped.

  “Yes, I know you do. But what you’re clearly not remembering is our first real date, when I took you to meet Richard McLane.”

  “No,” he retorted, “you did not. What you did for our first ‘real’ date, if that’s what you call it, was to break into my apartment and make me dinner, waiting for me to get home so you could pump me for information about—”

  “I understand that’s what you think happened.” He thought he actually saw pity in her eyes. “What really happened was that McLane got through to you, made you see how hopeless it was to fight the Paranormal Effect, made you understand that, eventually, the rogues would take over, and you could either be on the winning side, or not.”

  Michael shook his head. “I’m not buying it, Christine.”

  But she pressed on. “So when we had dinner that night in your apartment, I didn’t have to pump you for information. You gave me the information, everything you had, everything you knew about the synod. That’s why the bombing went off so well! All thanks to you, honey.”

  On one level, Michael was calling total bullshit on everything she was saying, a tale woven by someone who had obviously seen one too many spy thrillers ... but, on another level, he was deeply unnerved to hear the sentiments that he had always feared: That he and his big mouth were, in fact, instrumental in McLane’s bombing of the old PCA headquarters, that it was partly his fault after all.

  “So we each played our parts ...” Christine continued.

  She was pacing, slowly, around him; he didn’t like it, but it did allow him to turn so that his back was to one of the storage building’s walls, rather than a door or window that could lead to an ambush from behind.

  “You ‘caught’ me at McLane’s secret hideout, and I went to prison, to the rogue pit, where I could coordinate with the other prisoners. You waited a year, then came to see me, wrote that fantastic report to the parole board about my complete rehabilitation—”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “— urging them to release me upon my next review—”

  “I. Am not. Buying it, Christine.”

  She sighed. “Do you remember McLane’s associate, the one with the bad acne scars?”

  He hesitated before admitting, “Yes.”

  “He sold everyone on the idea that his only ability was to detect other paranormals, and those who could be turned paranormal by McLane. But that wasn’t true. His real ability was to allow others to compartmentalize their minds, to keep secrets even from themselves ...”

  She trailed off, allowing him to follow the logic.

  For a second, Michael closed his eyes, focusing inward.

  Was he feeling “off” today, not fully himself? Yes.

  Had he, and all his friends, been feeling that things around them, circumstances and rogues and all that entailed, also been “off” for the past few weeks? Yes.

  And was Christine’s little tale unsettling, in that it did sound — whether he liked it or not — entirely plausible in a world where people possessed superhuman abilities? Did it strike sensitive and disturbing cords, touching on feelings and fears he had carried with him for two years now? Oh, yes.

  But when he reached deep inside, pushing aside all his disorientation and doubts ... did he really believe that he was some sort of secret “Manchurian candidate,” working with the enemy all along?

  No. No, he did not.

  “Oh, well,” he heard Christine say, “that’s too bad.”

  Feeling more himself, more centered, Michael opened his eyes to see Christine staring at him, with disappointment on her brow but a mischievous, gleeful grin on her face.

&
nbsp; Her grin widened, growing almost distorted, as she added, “But it was fun while it lasted.”

  Michael aimed his weapon at the center of her body and fired.

  But Christine was already moving, doing a sort of half-backflip/half-cartwheel as she evaded his stun charge. When she landed on her feet, and before he could get off a second shot, she crouched low, then leaped up and backward, attaining inhuman height and disappearing into the shadows with a devilish giggle.

  Michael kept his firearm raised, tracking back and forth even as her snickering faded away to an impossible distance, beyond the building’s walls.

  What the hell have we gotten ourselves into here?

  Scanning the darkness, Michael kept his V9 at the ready as he fumbled for his phone.

  POWERHOUSE

  Unlike his PCA colleagues, Lincoln had fewer reservations about using his phone’s flashlight. Yes, he was aware that it might give away both his position and intent, but he was far more concerned about how he could barely see two feet in front of his face.

  So he pulled out his phone, tapped the flashlight icon (even the phone’s light seemed dimmer than usual), and continued his search for the mystery rogues — a search which was feeling increasingly futile, and very disorganized.

  Maybe Mia misunderstood things? Or maybe the rogues at the church had realized that she was there, hiding between the pews, and decided to feed her a deliberate line of bad information? He wanted to find these sickos as much as any of them (maybe more, given his personal history), but he was really starting to question—

  Just as he was poking his head around an open window, his phone vibrated in his hand. Checking the screen, he saw that Michael was contacting him phone-to-phone.

  Killing the flashlight, he answered the incoming call while glancing to his right — which was the first time he realized that he could no longer see Michael. “Go ahead, Lieutenant,” he whispered.

  “ ... coln? Can ... me?” came Michael’s broken voice.

  Lincoln looked to his left; he wasn’t able to spot Shockwave, either. Man, it really was dark out here. “Say again, Lieutenant. You cut out on me.”