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

by Brand, Kristen

  It was just as well, because a dizzy spell hit me in the parking lot, and Elisa had to take my arm and help me walk inside. Some help I’d be if Mr. Lucifer attacked. Moreen must be so glad she’d asked for my help.

  The lab was in an office building, a big, blocky thing covered in panels of mirrored glass that reflected the afternoon sun. A directory in the lobby listed the names of a slew of doctors’ offices and medical-related businesses, and a steady stream of people walked in and out. One of the offices must have been a pediatrician’s, because there were several mothers with small children.

  My stomach churned. If Mr. Lucifer came, he wouldn’t hesitate to use Val’s powers on innocent bystanders—anything to give him an edge. I noted cameras in the corners and a security guard behind the receptionist’s desk, but it wouldn’t be enough. With its glass walls, soothing artificial waterfall, and decorative potted plants, this building hadn’t been designed to withstand an attack.

  We found the suite number Moreen had given me, and I’d barely started giving the receptionist a vague description of my business when Moreen came out from the back and waved us in. We followed her wordlessly through a maze of plain white hallways with gray carpeting. Every so often, we passed a picture on the wall, paintings of ladies in white dresses among fields of flowers in rustic wooden frames. They looked out of place here, more at home in someone’s grandmother’s house than a laboratory.

  Moreen’s pace was brisk and tense. She didn’t speak until we’d entered one of the nondescript rooms, and she’d closed the door firmly behind us.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “No problem. Uh, I don’t think you’ve ever met my daughter. This is Elisa.”

  “Hey, kid.” Moreen glanced at her distractedly before turning back to me. “How did it look out there?”

  “Crowded.” I grimaced, thinking again of the potential for collateral damage. “Nothing obviously suspicious, but I doubt there would be. I’ve got a few associates in the parking lot keeping an eye on things.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the doc.”

  She led us past white, industrial shelves and desks stacked with Tupperware and bottles of various substances. I recognized a microscope, but the rest of the scientific equipment was beyond me. We passed a huge metal refrigerator covered in warning labels about biological samples inside and came upon a man in a white lab coat typing furiously at a computer.

  “Hargrave,” Moreen said.

  The man stopped and spun around on his chair. He was our age—Moreen’s and mine—with close-cropped salt and pepper hair and a matching beard. African American, he wore a gray suit and tie under his lab coat, and the badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck identified him as Dr. Lawrence Hargrave. He looked Elisa and me up and down with a quick, calculating gaze then raised his eyebrows at Moreen. “This is your backup?”

  “They’re plenty tough,” she said. “Trust me.”

  After a moment, he shrugged and swiveled back around to his computer. Moreen came up behind him, resting her hand on the back of his chair as she looked over his shoulder. “Anything?”

  “Yeah, I figured the whole thing out and just neglected to mention it.”

  Moreen glanced down at him. “I’m in the perfect position to smack you upside the head, you know.”

  “Have a little patience, Lee. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something. Oh, and can you tell Tonia to send everyone home early? I don’t want any of my employees getting murdered if supervillains attack.”

  “Sure.” She turned around with a sigh. When she saw me and Elisa, she shrugged. “Grab a seat and settle in. I’ve got a feeling we’ll be here for a while.”

  Elisa and I found two wheeled office chairs and placed them at a spot where we could see both Dr. Hargrave and the door. The maze of equipment and shelves would provide some cover if someone attacked, but the room wasn’t that big. If Mr. Lucifer made it through the door, we’d all be in range of Val’s mind-control. I could resist it, and Val and I had taught Elisa how to do the same, but I still worried about her. And Dr. Hargrave would have no defense.

  Elisa rubbed the goosebumps that had formed on her arms. The air-conditioning in the lab was turned up high, probably in deference to all the computers and biological samples. A low humming filled the air from some of the equipment, making Elisa glance nervously over her shoulder to find the source.

  “You okay?” I asked gently.

  “I’m fine.” She gestured weakly at the lab. “You know…”

  “Yeah.”

  Ever since Dr. Sweet had kidnapped Elisa when she was eleven and run tests on her in his lab, she’d had a fear of doctor’s offices and laboratories. Just another reason I’d punch the good doctor’s lights out next time I saw him.

  “I like your hair, by the way,” I said. “Don’t think I mentioned it earlier.”

  She tucked a purple-dyed strand behind her ear and smiled self-consciously. “Thanks. Jocelyn did it for me. Is she really going to be stuck in the van with Julio and Eddy the whole time we’re here?”

  “It’s called a stake-out. Boring and uncomfortable, but part of the job. I’m sure she’s been on plenty of them before. I know Julio and Eddy have.”

  Elisa’s smile faded, and she gazed off into space. As the seconds ticked by, and she didn’t snap out of it, I said, “But it’s not just the lab that’s bothering you.”

  She glanced at me then looked away. I wondered if she was still upset over her talk with her abuela. After calling my mother this morning to let her know I was okay, I put Elisa on the phone to take a scolding for not telling her she was safe and with Eddy. I hadn’t heard the whole conversation but knew from experience how bad a talking-to from my mom could make you feel.

  “I don’t know.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I—”

  Unfortunately, Moreen chose that moment to return, and Elisa’s mouth snapped closed.

  “Right,” Moreen said. “That’s everybody cleared out of this office, at least. Wish we could that to the whole building.” She paused. “I guess I could call the cops with an anonymous tip…”

  “But if Dr. Sweet and Mr. Lucifer don’t know the drug’s here, that could tip them off that’s something up,” I said. “We’re the only ones who know you stole that sample, right?”

  “I prefer the term ‘acquired,’ but yeah.”

  “Then Dr. Sweet may have no clue it’s here.”

  “I know.” Moreen folded her arms, “But I still want you on guard duty just in case.”

  “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” I agreed.

  We settled in to wait, and it was every bit as boring as I’d told Elisa a stakeout would be. The clicking of Dr. Hargrave’s fingers on the keyboard provided a steady background noise broken only when he stood up to check on a machine. I briefed Moreen on everything I’d learned last night, mainly that Mr. Lucifer was possessing Val. But it wasn’t long before we drifted into silence again, and Elisa shifted restlessly in her chair. She cast a look of pure longing at Moreen when the woman pulled out her phone.

  An hour passed. I broke the monotony by taking a walk around the building to check for suspicious activity and reminding myself that Julio and the others had it a lot worse in the van. My thoughts inevitably drifted to Val, wondering what Mr. Lucifer was doing in her body and making myself sick to my stomach. When I got back to the lab, Elisa and Moreen were laughing.

  “—so he’s completely covered in frosting,” Moreen was saying. “From head to toe. His uniform was practically pink. Madame Guillotine is getting away, and I’m still tied up—”

  I groaned when I realized what story she was telling. “Nice to see you two bonding over my humiliation.”

  “I was just telling her about the good old days,” Moreen said with a smirk. Elisa just grinned sheepishly.

  “I saved you from literally getting your head chopped off that day,” I said. “You could show a little gratitude�
�maybe by never telling anyone about it ever again.”

  “Pssh.” Moreen kicked up her feet, resting them on one of the desks. “I don’t owe you anything. I’ve saved your ass loads of times.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I shouldn’t argue with that. I opened my mouth to try anyway but was saved when Dr. Hargrave suddenly swore.

  Moreen leapt up and dashed over to him, and Elisa and I weren’t far behind. “What is it?” Moreen asked.

  “It’s…” Dr. Hargrave waved his hand vaguely. He had a chart of numbers up on his computer screen that I couldn’t decipher, and he pulled himself away from it to look at us with effort. “Okay. Give me a second.” Sitting in his computer chair, the three of us standing over him, he rubbed his beard. “It’s the same basic formula as psyc but weaker.”

  “Like the last sample,” Moreen said.

  “No.” Dr. Hargrave. “The last one you brought me was confusing because it was so weak it was practically inactive. I think it was an earlier attempt at creating this—in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if psyc was an early attempt at making this, and the fact it gave people psychic powers was just a happy accident.”

  “So what does it do?” Moreen asked.

  “Nothing obvious. Ingest it, and I doubt you’d notice anything different, but it would drastically lower your natural defenses against telepathy.”

  Elisa squinted. “It makes people’s minds easier to read?”

  Moreen shared a look with me. “Or it makes them more vulnerable to mind-control.”

  “Yeah.” Dr. Hargrave grimaced. “Slip someone this, and they’d be open to control by a weaker signal at a much longer range.”

  A slimy feeling filled my stomach. “And if someone were to slip it in the water supply?”

  Dr. Hargrave gave me a disturbed look. “A city of people to attack whoever you wanted or slave away for you in factories. Or maybe the start of a dystopia where people can’t even think about resisting the powers that be.”

  I shivered.

  “Okay,” Moreen said. “I’m sending this to the DSA.”

  “Make sure you copy the data first and store it somewhere secure,” I warned.

  Moreen stared at me for a moment. “Dave, I know you didn’t leave the agency on the best of terms, but they wouldn’t bury something like this.”

  “You didn’t see Walter yesterday.” I thought back to him looking over his shoulder and muttering about whom he could trust. “That man’s a lot of things—pig-headed, grouchy, hard to please—but he’s never been paranoid. He thinks something’s rotten in the DSA, and I’m inclined to believe him—especially after seeing this. We don’t know how long ago Dr. Sweet perfected this formula. He could already be using it on people, and if I were him, I’d target the higher-ups in the DSA first.”

  The wrinkles on Moreen’s forehead deepened, and after a moment, she nodded. “Hargrave—”

  “Already on it.” He’d turned his chair and was typing away furiously again. Moreen seemed satisfied until she took a second look at his computer screen.

  “What’s that?” she demanded, squinting at a picture of a green alien on the top of the screen.

  “Conspiracy theory website,” Dr. Hargrave said. “I just put a copy of the data up on their forums. Nobody can put the cat back in the bag now. The internet is forever.”

  Moreen sighed. “You think you could save a copy on a flash drive, too?”

  “Sure. I’ll do that next.”

  Dr. Hargrave kept typing, and Moreen pulled out her phone and started texting, no doubt getting in touch with a contact at the DSA. I gripped my cane more tightly, still reeling from what we’d learned. Dr. Sweet had invented a lot of dangerous, horrible things throughout his career, but this… This had a much bigger scope than his usual monsters.

  The doctor had never struck me as the world domination-type, though. He seemed happiest when he was kidnapping people off the street and experimenting on them. Was Mr. Lucifer calling the shots? We were still missing pieces of the puzzle.

  Dr. Hargrave locked up the lab, and we exited the building. I had to force myself not to look over my shoulder every five seconds, certain Dr. Sweet somehow knew exactly what we were doing and would send an army of No-Men after us. As we crossed the hot parking lot, Moreen warned us all to lay low.

  “No worries there,” Dr. Hargrave assured her. “I’ve got a little bungalow in the Keys and will be drinking beer on the beach until you give me the okay. Try to leave my name out of it when you talk to the DSA.”

  “Given your reputation, I was planning on that already,” Moreen said.

  Dr. Hargrave waved absently and walked to his car.

  “And you.” Moreen rounded on me. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

  “No promises,” I said, thinking of the tip-off Dr. Quevedo had relayed.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She glanced at Elisa. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

  I waited to make sure Moreen got to her car alright, unable to shake the paranoia that smothered me. Then Elisa and I headed for the van.

  “She’s cool,” Elisa said. “It’s still weird, though.”

  “What is?” I asked, watching Moreen’s car as it turned onto the street.

  “You know. You and her.” Elisa made a face. “You were a thing before you and Mom. Or after you and Mom broke up but before you got back together or whatever. It’s weird.”

  “I can see that.” I paused, not sure how to talk about something like this with my daughter. “Honestly, I try to ignore that we were ever together romantically and just focus on how we’re really good friends. We never should have tried to be anything else.”

  “Then why did you—” Elisa’s eyes widened, and she stopped. “No, never mind. I probably don’t want to know the answer.”

  I chuckled. “When you get to a certain age, and you’re not married, a surprising number of friends and family begin to ask when you’re tying the knot. Everyone expected us to get together, and I guess Moreen and I just went along with it.” I shrugged. “So learn from my mistakes and don’t bow to societal pressure—you know, assuming you and Rosa aren’t already happily married after you graduate.”

  I expected her to blush and stammer that she and Rosa weren’t that serious yet, but instead, the smile fell from her face, and she looked like I’d slapped her.

  “Oh.” I wanted to kick myself. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. What happened?”

  Elisa blinked rapidly and kept her gaze glued to the van ahead. “We’re not… It’s not over. We’re on a break.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “The Prophet King kidnapped her to draw out Mom when you were…unconscious, and that was really hard on her. And now I’m off the grid doing this kind of stuff, so… We said we’d give it another try when things calm down.”

  “That must have been a hard decision to make.” I sighed. “But it’s probably the right one under the circumstances. If it’s any consolation, it could be the right person but the wrong time. Look at me and your mom. It took us a couple tries to make it work.”

  Elisa nodded miserably, and I wondered if this was what had been bothering her before, or if she’d had yet another problem on her mind. I’d have to ask her later, because we arrived at the van, and the second she opened the door, everyone stared at us expectantly.

  “It’s worse than we thought,” I warned, then climbed inside and told them everything. By the time I finished, even Julio agreed with me. Trap or no trap, we were going to that water plant tonight.

  Chapter 8

  We had a plan, but it fell apart the second we got there. Julio was going to have Elisa use her telepathy to keep any security guards from noticing us, but when we approached the entrance—big glass sliding doors that should have been sealed firmly shut—we found the doors hanging open and a guard slumped forward at the front desk.

  I couldn’t tell from outside whether the man was dead or merely unconscious, but either way, I shot a look of alarm at Julio. Desp
ite it not being in his powerset, he read my mind.

  “Elisa,” he said. “Go back to the van and wait.”

  The bandana covering the lower half of her face did nothing to hide her widening eyes. “But—”

  “We don’t need you for the guards. Mr. Lucifer beat us to it. I’d rather have you outside as backup—none of which I should need to explain, because you promised not to question orders in the field, remember?”

  I expected her to argue. She certainly argued about this kind of thing with Val and me, and we were her parents. Instead, she hung her head and went back to the van. I felt a twinge of fatherly concern, but I couldn’t dwell on it, because Julio and Jocelyn entered through the open doors. I went in after them, feeling my chest tighten as he checked on the slumped guard.

  “He’s breathing.”

  I exhaled, but the tightness didn’t leave me. I doubted Mr. Lucifer had spared him out of mercy. More likely, he was planning on waking him up and altering his memories to cover his tampering with the water supply.

  Julio waved us forward, and we went through the double doors on the far side of the room. The lobby had been brightly lit, the walls covered in colorful diagrams of the water treatment process, but the hallway we entered was dim, half the lights off, and the only break in the whiteness of the walls was the occasional scuff mark. I caught sight of a security camera in the corner and hoped Mr. Lucifer had already shut it off.

  Julio wore his Freezefire uniform—or most of it, anyway. His pants had been traded for a pair of black jeans, and it was just a black T-shirt beneath his bulletproof vest, but the vest, gloves, boots, and masks were originals. You could tell by the dirt stains and how they still smelled like smoke from the burning lab.

  I was wearing jeans and a jacket, a cheap domino mask bought in the costume section of a party store on my face. It was more for tradition than disguise. If the cameras caught Freezefire and Blue Sparrow with a big, burly guy who carried a cane, Walter would figure it out no matter what mask I wore.