The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 5): Superhuman Disaster (

by Brand, Kristen

  Just what the hell was going on at the DSA?

  Eventually, my mother came back with a steaming hot plate that made my stomach growl, and I dug in. As I ate, she sat down on the couch and watched me, the wrinkles on her face growing deeper.

  “I’m fine,” I reassured her. “Really. I feel a lot better.”

  “I’m glad.” She smiled weakly. A few seconds passed, and then she said, “You’re going to confront her.”

  “She’s my wife and the mother of my child. Of course I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

  My mother considered that solemnly. “She’s going to hurt you—one way or another.”

  “That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know, Dave. Sometimes I wish you and Moreen had stayed together.”

  I opened my mouth to vehemently reject that idea, but then it hit me. “Moreen.”

  “Yes.” My mother seemed surprised at my reaction. “I always thought you two were—”

  “No.” I fumbled for my phone. “I haven’t tried calling her yet. She might know something.”

  At the very least, she’d be more willing to talk to me than Walter.

  “Oh.” My mother quieted down as I dialed the number.

  The phone rang and rang before going to voicemail—just like everything else. Biting back a growl, I left a short message and hung up.

  My mother touched my arm. “I know how hard it is to be patient, but you haven’t even been awake a full day yet. Give it time.”

  I nodded, but every minute my family was missing was another minute too long. Though my appetite was gone, and my stomach felt queasy, I tried to keep eating, knowing I needed the nourishment. I almost jumped off the couch when my phone started ringing.

  I snatched it up and looked at the number? Elisa? Val? Julio?

  It was Moreen. Of course. She wouldn’t recognize the number I was calling from, so she’d let it go to voicemail. Once she realized it was me—

  I stopped thinking and accepted the call. “Moreen? You have no idea how good it is to hear from you.”

  “Prove it’s you,” she barked.

  “What?” I jerked up straighter, glancing at my mother even though she couldn’t hear what Moreen had said.

  “Last I heard, David Del Toro was in a coma, and it didn’t look like he was going to wake up,” Moreen went on. “Prove you’re really him. Say something only Dave would know.”

  I took a moment to think. “You sleep with a taser under your pillow and wish you could bring it to office meetings and use it on people who ramble too much. You’re secretly happy you’re not with the DSA anymore, because you hated management, and you love tailing suspects and digging through people’s trash as a PI. When we were in college, you had a poster of—”

  “Okay, that’s enough.” She exhaled noisily into the speaker. “Dave. I can’t believe it. How are you feeling?”

  “Been better, but at least I’m on my feet. I can’t get in touch with anyone. Val and Elisa are MIA, apparently Julio is a vigilante now, and Walter is acting like—like he’s almost scared.”

  “Mm. That meshes with what I’ve heard. Just rumors and conspiracy stuff—I don’t have anything solid yet, but something’s going on, and it’s not good.”

  “Have you heard from Val at all?”

  It might seem a little weird asking my ex if she’s heard from my wife, but Val had hired Moreen a while back to investigate Dr. Sweet, an enemy of ours who’d mysteriously broken out of prison and was sure to attack us again eventually—and that was the second time she’d hired her, after being so impressed with her first job. The two of them didn’t get along—not even close—but they respected each other and kept in touch professionally.

  “Not since she told me about your coma. The next week, she stopped paying my invoices, and I haven’t heard from her since. You owe me a good chunk of change.”

  “You’ll get it.” I ran my hand through my hair. “But can you tell me anything concrete? What happened to Julio?”

  “I was never as close with him as you were, but I heard—” She paused. “Look, we shouldn’t be talking about this on the phone. Where are you?”

  “My mom’s. Can you make it over?”

  “Can’t. Working. I’m on my way to—”

  I heard a shuffling noise as she presumably readjusted her grip on her phone.

  “Actually,” she said, “Why don’t you meet me there. You should see this.”

  She gave me an address and said a brisk goodbye. I pocketed the phone, not having the answers I’d wanted but hopeful I was getting closer. At least Moreen could tell me something about Julio. And what was it she wanted me to see?

  I glanced at my mother, who smiled sadly. “Go.” She put her hand atop mine. “Do what needs to be done. Then come back safely.”

  “I will.”

  I kissed her forehead and headed out the door, knowing that it was easy to say I’d come back safely.

  Actually doing so was much harder.

  Chapter 4

  The address Moreen gave me was a crack house. Or at least, it looked that way. The building must have once been a gas station, but the pumps had been removed, the windows boarded up, and a chain link fence erected around the lot. The walls were water-stained and covered in graffiti—and not the artsy kind that was nice to look at—and weeds grew through cracks in the pavement.

  I parked at an equally abandoned but not yet fenced off mini mart next to it, where an old Ford I recognized as Moreen’s sat. I couldn’t see her through the windshield, so she must have already entered the building. I climbed slowly out of the van and stretched, my body stiff from the short ride. My skin felt oddly sensitive; the seatbelt had been cutting into it like a chainsaw. Was that a side effect of the coma? I didn’t remember Dr. Quevedo saying anything about it.

  Two light pops that someone less experienced might mistake for firecrackers reached my ears. I tensed, and a second later the door of the gas station burst open as a figure dashed out. She shot across the pavement, and as she ducked through a gap in the fence, I got a good look at her.

  Treat. Technically a supervillain in as much as she had telepathic powers and committed crimes, she was more of a lackey than anything. A pale woman in her early twenties, she wore a costume made up of leather hot pants, lots of fishnet, and fingerless gloves. Dyed black hair and facial piercings completed the evil goth look. She’d crossed paths with me twice, getting away the last time.

  (And if you’re wondering about the codename, she used to have a partner who went by Trick. As a pair, it was a decent gimmick, but individually, they were in the running for the worst names ever.)

  She slipped through the fence and spotted me. A flash of pure hatred crossed her face before she remembered I had some of the best telepathic shields in the business, and she was helpless without her powers.

  “Shit,” she said, and dashed across the street.

  I chased her, but with my bad knee, the difference in our speeds was laughable. By time I made it halfway across the street, she’d already dived inside her getaway car and started the engine. She backed up wildly, turned with a screech of tires—

  And drove straight at me.

  I slammed down the tip of cane, punching a three-inch hole into the asphalt for leverage. Then I widened my stance and braced myself. This was going to hurt. A lot. But hitting my super-strong, super-dense body would scrap both her car and her getaway, and I was perfectly fine with that.

  She must have realized it, too, because at the last second, she spun the wheel and swerved around me. I reached out and grabbed the car’s bumper as it sped past. The force yanked out my arm muscles like a bungee cord, and my feet skidded forward. A metal screech tore through the air.

  The bumper ripped straight off, and the car kept going.

  I took two steps forward, thinking of pursuing her, but the car had already turned the corner and disappeared. By the time I made it to the van, she’d be lon
g gone.

  Somebody cursed, and I turned to see Moreen stumbling out of the abandoned gas station. I walked back to that side of the street, ignoring the approaching truck that honked at me, and tossed the warped bumper onto the sidewalk with clang. Moreen stayed where she was, so I went to her, ripping the gap in the fence wider so I could fit through. When I reached her, she had a hand pressed to her forehead and was leaning against the wall.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “The little shit tried to psy-assault me.” She winced as she rubbed her head. “God, I wish one of my shots had hit her.”

  I felt a clenching in my gut that probably had to do with how a botched psy-assault by Treat had killed one of my oldest friends. “Do you need a hospital. I can drive—”

  She waved me off. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You should sit down for a minute. I’ll get you some water.”

  “Dave, the only reason I’ll need medical attention is if you keep patronizing me and I break my hand punching you in the face.”

  There was no venom in her voice as she stood up straighter and stretched, but I backed off, anyway. Moreen wasn’t particularly intimidating-looking. Of average height, she had chin-length hair that was going gray, and she wore a pair of faded jeans and an orange T-shirt that clashed with the bright yellow raincoat tied around her waist. No, she gave off a deceptively non-threatening impression until she started barking orders or giving you her trademark glare that made everyone in the DSA joke she had laser vision.

  “Now, come on,” she said. “You’ll want to have a look at this.”

  Still massaging her temples, she went back inside the building. I followed, watching her for any sign of brain trauma, but was immediately distracted. The empty merchandise shelves inside the abandoned gas station had been pushed across the filthy floor to make way for laboratory equipment. Glass jars and vials crowded tabletops, connected by tubes and suspended over Bunsen burners. A machine the size of a refrigerator hummed softly in the corner, wires spreading out from it like a spiderweb. The acrid smell of chemicals mixed with the dusty, stale air, making me sneeze. But underneath that odor…

  “Do you smell—”

  “A dead body?” Moreen finished. Then she sighed sadly. “Yeah, it’s behind that shelf over there. Homeless, by the looks of him. Poor soul was probably looking for a place to spend the night, and they killed him to keep his mouth shut.”

  I closed my eyes in a moment of mourning. “This is Dr. Sweet. It has to be.”

  “I know. We already have confirmation he’s in town. That’s why Julio went rogue.”

  I looked at her sharply. “Sweet got to him?”

  “To Agent Lagarde. You remember all those injuries she got after that mess with Bloodbath? Multiple spinal fractures, limping around with crutches, little hope of recovery. Well, she’s walking now, and apparently Dr. Sweet is the miracle-worker. She’s working for him. Practically a supervillain, though I haven’t heard anyone give her a codename yet.”

  I tried to reconcile this with what I knew of Agent Lagarde, Julio’s straight-laced, serious partner who’d put her life on the line to help us fight Bloodbath. “I… That’s hard to believe.”

  “That’s what Julio said. He thinks Sweet is controlling her somehow, but the DSA wants her captured or taken out, not rescued. He quit along with Lagarde’s daughter— you know Blue Sparrow? I don’t remember her real name.”

  “It’s Jocelyn, and we’ve met.”

  “Well, word is he’s working with her to try and track Lagarde down. They’ve committed multiple acts of vigilantism so far on top of breaking their enlistment contracts. There’s warrants out for both of their arrests.”

  I sighed. It was all too easy for me to see where Julio was coming from. His partner was in trouble, so he’d do everything in his power to help her, and damn the consequences. I couldn’t judge—not without being a huge hypocrite, anyway.

  “But we’re on a timetable here.” Moreen tossed me a pair of plastic gloves. “I already called the police, so we’ve got a few minutes before they show up. You’ve been in Dr. Sweet’s labs what—twice? Three times before? Look around. Tell me what you find.”

  She’d already put on gloves and was searching the place. I followed her example, doubting I had any special insights. My time in Dr. Sweet’s labs had been spent either chained to a table or fighting for my life, and it usually ended with the place burning to the ground. I wasn’t paying meticulous attention to the room’s layout when I was trying to rescue my daughter from that madman or—

  “Elisa,” I choked.

  “What?” Moreen turned around as I staggered and nearly dropped my cane.

  “I can’t get in touch with Elisa, Val, or anyone. If Dr. Sweet’s in town, then what if he— He’s come after us before for his experiments. He’s obsessed. If he’s taken them, and that’s why I can’t reach them…”

  My heart pounded, and my breaths grew short. My instincts shouted for a fight, to break down walls and rescue my family, beating up anyone and anything that stood in my way. But that didn’t help me if I couldn’t find them. The things Dr. Sweet did to his human experiments—the things he could be doing right now—

  “Hey,” Moreen said sharply. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Belmonte was caught on a security camera mid-robbery just two days ago. She’s fine—a homicidal criminal, but fine.”

  I shook my head. “What if Sweet’s the reason she’s changed. He could’ve done something to her mind. And Elisa. He’ll go after her again. He kidnapped her when she was eleven years old, and she still has nightmares about it sometimes.”

  “But she’s not eleven anymore, Dave. She had her breakthrough—she got both your powers, right? And I assume you’ve taught her how to use them. Give the kid some credit. If she’s anything like you, she can hold her own.”

  I inhaled deeply and held it for a few seconds before letting the breath out. “You’re right. You’re right. It’s just…”

  “I know.” Her voice was soft for a moment before it switched back to her usual no-nonsense tone. “Now keep searching. We don’t have much time.”

  We picked our way carefully through the room. This was a crime scene, and what we were doing was technically illegal, so we had to make sure we didn’t disturb anything. I opened a drawer full of tarnished surgical blades, rifled through bottles of chemicals, and made the mistake of lifting the lid to a cooler and finding frozen eyeballs inside. (What the hell did he need those for?) It made me hesitant to open one of the brown boxes stacked in the corner, but I didn’t find another horror show inside—just plastic baggies filled with a silvery powder.

  “Over here,” I called. “I think it’s psyc.”

  If I’d had any doubts this lab belonged to Dr. Sweet, this erased them. Psyc was a street drug of the doctor’s invention which gave people temporary psychic powers. It had given Val a lot of trouble a while back.

  “Hm.” Moreen picked up one of the baggies and slipped it into the pocket of her raincoat.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Removing evidence from a crime scene?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said angelically.

  We searched a little longer but didn’t find anything else. A computer would’ve been nice, something we could use to find out the extent of the doctor’s operations, but he wasn’t stupid enough to leave something like that lying around. (Sadistic, yes, but not stupid.) Moreen hung around to wait for the police, but with the fake ID in my wallet and my wife’s status as a wanted criminal, I didn’t want to tempt fate.

  “I’ll have the powder analyzed,” Moreen said, “Once I know if it’s psyc or the other thing, I’ll text you.”

  “Other thing?”

  She blinked at me for a second. “Right.” She shook her head. “I talked to Belmonte about it, but you were… Well, a couple weeks ago I busted another of Sweet’s operations. I assumed it was psyc they were making, but when the analysis came back from the l
abs, it turned out to be something different. Same active ingredients but a much lower concentration—not enough to make anyone telepathic even if they injected the whole inventory. The DSA’s looking into it, but last I checked, they had no idea what the stuff could be for.”

  “Which probably means it does something more twisted than we could imagine,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, probably,” Moreen agreed with a wry smile.

  After saying our goodbyes, I headed home. Then I caught myself and changed direction to my mother’s. My palms were sweaty on the steering wheel. Even if Val and Elisa were sitting safely beside me, I’d be worried with Dr. Sweet in town. I vividly remembered finding Elisa strapped to an operating table after Sweet had kidnapped her, just as I could still see the machine he’d plugged Val into so that he could control her telepathy like she was a puppet. Not to mention the time I’d woken up, bound, in one of his labs. Dr. Sweet was a sociopath, and he had a disturbing obsession with my family.

  And he kept coming back. I’d seen him die twice—had caused his death once—but that didn’t stop him. I didn’t know if he’d cloned himself or had some kind of superpower, but nothing seemed to stop him. The only question was what his plan involved this time: distributing psyc or something more insidious?

  I thought back to Walter’s paranoia, to the rumors Moreen had heard about something bad in the DSA. Was Dr. Sweet behind it?

  My mother was sitting on the couch when I got back, doing a crossword puzzle as she listened to the police scanner. The sun had gone down, and in the distance, I heard sirens.

  “No mention of Freezefire yet,” she informed me. “What did Moreen have to say?”

  I caught her up, and we theorized about Dr. Sweet’s plot, debating what he was after and talking ourselves in circles for hours. Eventually, she went to bed for the night. She’d made up the guest room for me, but I didn’t use it. Maybe my body recognized that I’d gotten a month’s worth of rest and didn’t need anymore. Maybe, deep down, I was afraid that if I lost consciousness again, I wouldn’t wake up. I’m sure the anxiety and fear over Val and Elisa contributed to my sleeplessness. Most likely, it was all these factors combining their powers into a form of super insomnia.