In any case, I sat on the couch and listened to the police scanner instead of sleeping. Sometimes, I couldn’t sit still and paced around the living room. Other times, I lay on my back and wondered if sleep would finally come. The police scanner crackled, grainy voices alerting me to crime after crime after crime. It was enough to make me feel like the whole city was falling apart. What was the point of all those years I’d spent as White Knight if the world was still as bad as this? Had I really made any difference?
At a little after two in the morning, when my doubts and fears were overpowering me better than any supervillain, the words I’d been waiting to hear were finally spoken.
“—Freezefire and Blue Sparrow spotted—arson attempt in progress—all officers—”
I left as fast as I could.
Chapter 5
I knew I was getting close when I spotted the fire. The flames lit the night sky with an orange glow like an early dawn, pouring out of the building’s windows and belching black smoke into the air. The building itself was blocky and modern, and my headlights illuminated a sign identifying it as a DSA crime lab. Sirens pierced the air, and red and blue lights flashed from the firetrucks and police cars packing the parking lot.
The bright flames outlined the silhouettes of first responders dashing around the building. I parked the van and climbed out, sending a flash of irritation through my knee. A wave of dizziness hit me, and I gripped my cane tightly, clenching shut my eyes as I tried to fight it off. The stench of smoke hit me, the wailing sirens battering my eardrums. My stomach churned, and I swallowed. Pops like firecrackers made me jerk. Gunshots? No, it must be something exploding in the building.
I took a slow breath and forced my eyes to open against the harsh light of the fire. The police officers had their guns raised, aimed at something overhead. I caught movement above, and it took my brain a second to parse the large shape. It was a human figure with a wingspan longer than most cars. She dodged and dove, doing aerial acrobatics to avoid the hail of gunfire.
Blue Sparrow. Her wings were a vibrant blue, though it was impossible to tell through the smoky air and fiery light. And if she was here, then that must mean…
There on the ground. Fighting off a gang of cops by the building was a slim figure I recognized as Julio. No, not just cops. Julio ducked as a fireman swung at him with an axe. Why were they fighting him instead of the fire? I know Freezefire and Blue Sparrow were wanted criminals, but that was no reason to ignore a burning building. As I watched, one of them aimed a hose not at the flames but at Blue Sparrow—Jocelyn, trying to knock her out of the sky. She barely managed to avoid the jet of water in time. What was going on?
That’s when I saw her. Sitting on the hood of a black Maserati with a front row view to it all was my wife.
She was in costume, though not the one she used to wear. This one looked like a vintage gown. Black and glittering, it was cut below the knee to give her a greater freedom of movement. Black gloves reached her elbows, and an ornate black mask like something from a Venetian carnival covered the top half of her face. She was focused completely on the fight, and despite the shouts and roar of the flames, I swore I could hear her humming a cheery tune.
Then the police and firefighters weren’t attacking Julio and Jocelyn of their own free will. She was mind-controlling them. But why? What everyone was saying about her return to crime—it couldn’t be true.
“Val!”
She turned, and I searched her face for any of the small flaws that would reveal this was a shapeshifter impersonating her. But I recognized everything from the angles of her cheekbones to the soft curves of her lips. (And a shapeshifter couldn’t copy her powers, anyway, whispered a voice in the back of my head.) The wind rustled her long, black hair, and her fair skin looked flushed in the firelight. Her mask didn’t quite cover the burn scars on one side of her, and when I met her eyes, expecting a flash of recognition, relief, shock, and a thousand other feelings, I got… nothing.
“Oh.” If anything, her tone sounded annoyed. “You’re awake.”
Then the full force of her telepathy slammed into me.
I staggered and nearly dropped my cane. I was used to her presence in my mind, had grown to find it as intimate as the light brush of her fingertips in bed. But this had all the softness and intimacy of getting hit by a truck. This wasn’t the first time she’d tried to mind-control me. She’d attempted it the first time we’d ever met, back when White Knight had tried and failed to stop the Black Valentine from robbing a bank. Her strategy then had been so subtle that I’d barely realized what she was doing in time; this was pure brute force.
What’s wrong? I asked her through the telepathic connection. Who’s forcing you into this? How can I help?
Instead of replying, she doubled down on her mental assault. Hurt and confusion nearly let her take me over, but then I focused on my mental shields. The DSA gave extensive training on how to resist mind-control, recommending strategies such as imagining steel walls defending your mind from attack or putting all your focus on one specific memory or sensation. My approach was closer to the second strategy.
I sung “The Song that Gets on Everybody’s Nerves” in my head.
Laugh if you want, but I’ve yet to meet a telepath who could get past that obnoxious, overbearing tune. Val’s face twisted into a frustrated sneer that didn’t look right on her face. The feel of her telepathy was off, too. Maybe it was someone impersonating her? One way or another, I was going to find out.
I clenched my jaw and marched forward, singing the song even more loudly in my head. Val’s telepathic assault took on a burst of frantic strength, but I pushed through it. My grip on my cane was tight, my steps labored, but I didn’t slow down. If this was an impersonator, they’d regret it once I got my hands on them. If it really was Val, then I’d get her safely away from here until I could figure out what had happened to her.
She took a step back, her eyes widening. Then all the tension left her body, and she smiled wickedly. She glanced to where Julio fought the first responders under her control.
They all froze. Julio stopped but didn’t lower his fists, glancing back and forth as he tried to figure out what had happened. Then, like a mob of zombies from an old horror movie, the police and firefighters marched in unison straight towards the burning building.
Val smirked. The message was clear: I could apprehend her or save the first responders from dying in the fire.
Grinding my teeth, I turned from her and headed for the building.
Jocelyn swooped down, a burst of wind from her wings knocking two firefighters off their feet. Julio dashed between the mob, striking pressure points and taking them down. But they pushed themselves up as soon as they could, and there were too many of them. Julio couldn’t reach them all in time. I’d have the same problem once I caught up with the mob. Usually, Julio could freeze someone’s shoes to the ground to incapacitate them, but the fire must have eliminated too much moisture from the air for that.
The firehose. It was still spewing water, spasming and wriggling like an agitated snake. The firefighter using it to try and hit Blue Sparrow must have dropped it when Val commanded him to march into the burning building. I changed direction and rushed towards it.
A burst of dizziness hit me, and I stumbled. My knee screamed in protest, but I was used to that and kept going. I grabbed the writhing gray hose and quickly pulled the end with the nozzle towards me. Then I aimed at the first responders. The jet of super-strong water knocked them off their feet and completely drenched them.
“Freezefire!” I shouted.
He’d already seen me, having followed the jet of water to its source, and was staring open-mouthed.
“Quickly!” I barked.
His mouth snapped closed, and he waved his hand at the police and firefighters lying in puddles on the concrete. From here, all I could see was a slight shimmer in the air as the temperature plummeted and the water froze. The mind-controlled first respond
ers struggled but couldn’t break free of the ice that encased them—ice that would melt quickly with the fire blazing nearby. I had to reach Val and break her control over them.
I turned—just in time to see her black Maserati drive away.
Damn it. I wanted to shoot the hose at the car in frustration, but it was already too far away. I turned off the water, hearing shouts and cries of alarm from the police and firefighters as Val’s mind-control wore off. Part of the building collapsed, sending a burst of flames into the air. It was too late to save the structure, but hopefully they could prevent the flames from spreading any further—once they were free of the ice.
Julio approached me slowly. Tall and slim, he had copper skin and longish dark hair. He wore his Freezefire uniform: a black shirt and pants trimmed with fiery orange and cool blue, and a bulletproof vest with his double-F symbol stamped on the front. The symbol was scratched, though. His boots were scuffed, his pants stained at the knees, and there was a tear on his right sleeve. The whole ensemble looked more battered than this one fight could account for. If I had to guess, they were the same clothes he’d had on his back when he’d left the DSA. He couldn’t exactly go back to them for a change of uniform.
Jocelyn glided down and landed lightly beside him. A petite black woman, she had short hair dyed a vibrant blue the same shade as her wings, a color that her eyeshadow matched. Her uniform was nowhere to be seen. Dressed in sneakers, workout leggings, and a tank top all a mix of black and blue, she looked like she was on her way to the gym.
“Are you both okay?” I asked. “We need to move. You’re—”
Julio slammed into me and gave me a bear hug that would crush anyone without super-strength. “You’re awake!”
I paused. In my frantic rush to find him and protect him, I’d forgotten about how worried he must have been about me. Dr. Quevedo’s words about him visiting every week came rushing back.
“Yeah.” I returned the hug, patting him on the back. “Long story, and we should catch up, but last I heard, you’re a wanted criminal, and those cops are breaking out of the ice. My van’s over there—”
“I already called our ride,” Jocelyn said.
On cue, a white van barreled into the parking lot. Some of the first responders had already broken free and stood up. The firefighters rushed to deal with the burning building, but the police moved in this direction.
The van screeched to a halt in front of us, and the back doors flew open. I caught a brief glimpse of a figure in artfully torn jeans, a baggy black jacket, and a bandana covering the lower half of her face, and then a telepathic compulsion washed over the crowd.
They’re gone. You don’t see them anymore. They escaped.
The compulsion wasn’t directed at me, and I had no trouble ignoring it. The police didn’t have my training, so they stood there in confusion for a moment before regrouping.
“Are you okay?” the telepath in the bandana demanded. “I told you that you should’ve let me come with you!”
“No,” I said immediately, because bandana or no bandana, I recognized my daughter. “You should not come with them to fight the murderous supervillain masquerading as your mother. That’s a terrible idea. Why are you even in the getaway van? You should be in a safehouse somewhere.”
She stared, noticing me for the first time, and when she spoke again, her voice was small. “Dad?”
“Come on.” Julio pushed me inside the van, Blue Sparrow climbing in ahead of us. The moment he closed the door, the van lurched forward. I grabbed the wall to keep from falling. The back seats had all been cleared out, leaving only empty space. I settled carefully down on the cheap gray carpeting covering the van’s floor, and Elisa knelt next to me.
She pulled off her bandana, her eyes wide. She’d cut her hair into something asymmetrical and presumably stylish, and there were streaks of purple in it. “Is it really you?” she asked.
“How do we know it’s him?” Jocelyn shot Elisa and Julio an apologetic look, her wings fidgeting behind her. “I don’t want to spoil the reunion, but do we have any proof? Can you read his mind?”
Elisa glanced at me uncertainly.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll try not to block you.”
She nodded, and a second later, I felt her presence push hesitantly into my head. “The Song that Gets on Everybody’s Nerves” sprang to mind instinctively, but I didn’t focus on it. I tried not to focus on anything at all, to let Elisa look carefully through my memories of the past day and what I could recall from before that.
“It’s him,” Elisa said.
“Are you sure?” Julio asked.
The contradiction of being a parent meant that while I didn’t want Elisa anywhere near this dangerous lifestyle, I also didn’t like anyone questioning her capabilities to handle it.
“I can prove it by saying something only I would know,” I offered. “How about I describe that wardrobe malfunction you had the first time you tried on your uniform? Or when you turned twenty-one and Harris and I took you to White Lightning for drinks and you—”
“Okay, it’s him,” Julio said loudly.
“I’m not convinced.” Jocelyn looked at me seriously, but then her poker face slipped, and she nearly snorted with laughter before trying to look stern again. “He could’ve heard those stories second-hand. We should make him tell us all the details just to be sure.”
Julio shot her a look, and she grinned.
“Nice of you to finally wake up from your nap,” said a gruff voice from the driver’s seat.
“Eddy,” I greeted.
Eddy Capello was a bulky man in his mid-seventies. Tattoos and sunspots covered his thick arms, and he wasn’t even trying to hide the gun holstered under his shoulder. He drove five miles under the speed limit, cool as a cucumber as a group of police cars with wailing sirens zoomed by us on the other side of the road.
“You driving getaway cars for superheroes now?” I asked. “That’s really noble of you. I’m proud of how you’ve finally given up your evil ways.”
“Hey, these two are outlaws now.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of Julio and Jocelyn. “I’m aiding and abetting fugitives. My evil ways are going nowhere.”
“Sure,” I said. “I bet Irma hasn’t teased you about it at all.”
Eddy’s arms tensed, and the van wobbled. Julio looked down, and Elisa paled. For a second, I thought she might cry. I looked around, hoping someone would assure me that Irma—Eddy’s partner in crime and an ex-assassin who’d practically raised Val—was just fine, but no one did. I squeezed shut my eyes and leaned back my head. I didn’t ask, didn’t force them to say the words and confirm she was dead.
“I’m sorry.” I looked at Elisa before trying to catch Eddy’s eye through the rearview mirror. “I’m really sorry.”
The words were pathetic, but there was nothing you could really say at a time like this. I took a deep breath. “I think it’s time I got caught up on everything I’ve missed.”
Chapter 6
As Eddy drove slowly through the dark city streets, Elisa described our family vacation. It was a weird feeling, hearing her talk about me swimming, shopping, and steering the boat when I didn’t remember any of it. I remembered planning the trip to the Keys, but there was absolutely nothing in my head related to the actual event.
“Then the other boat started shooting at us,” Elisa went on. “It was dark. We could barely see them. Mom fired back while you pulled up the anchor so we could escape, but that’s when they hit us with the rocket launcher.” She shuddered. “The next thing I remember is being in the water. Mom swam up, but you didn’t. We—We looked for you. Then we found you washed up on the beach. I did CPR, but you didn’t—you didn’t wake up.”
Her voice broke at the end, and I put an arm around her, gently rubbing her back. She took a deep, quivering breath, and stared resolutely at the floor.
“You were air-lifted to the hospital.” Sitting on the floor across from us, Julio picked
up the story. Dirty from the smoke, his face gleamed with sweat, and even in the dim light, I could see how tired he was. “That’s when I got the call. You were in a coma, and they didn’t know if you would wake up. Val was going to find out who attacked you.”
I shifted position, anxious to hear anything that could explain why my wife had apparently just tried to murder two dozen people.
“She thought it was the Prophet King at first.” Julio couldn’t help but scowl at the mention of Miami’s criminal kingpin. “It wasn’t.”
“I dunno,” Eddy cut it. “Technically, it was him. He ordered his men to do it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah but he wasn’t—” Julio exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Long story short, Joey Giordano had kidnapped The Prophet King’s kids to coerce him into attacking you—”
“—which he did,” Eddy added.
Julio groaned. “Which he did, but only because the other option was to let his kids die.”
“Understandable,” I said, hoping to head off an argument. “I’m guessing Val went after Giordano?”
“Yeah,” Eddy answered. “And I don’t know what went wrong, but the next thing we know, she’s missing, and Irma… We found her body in the living room, Giordano and a dozen No-Men dead around her. She took ‘em all down with her, at least.”
I was trying not to imagine the horror of Irma’s last moments alive when the rest of Eddy’s sentence hit me. I jerked up straighter. “No-Men?”
No-Men were mindless zombies created by Dr. Sweet for grunt work. Was he behind the attack? Before Eddy had mentioned them, everything had made complete sense. Of course Giordano would want me dead; I’d married the woman he loved. But he’d never been an ally of Dr. Sweet. Had the doctor taken advantage of a fight already in progress to swoop in and pick off both Giordano and Val? Or had he been manipulating things from the start?
The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 5): Superhuman Disaster ( Page 4
