Darkest Day (StrikeForce #3) (14 page)

“All the better. I want to spend some time alone with that one,” I heard a voice I didn’t recognize reply. “Takes Maddoc out like that? Bitch has some payback coming.” It was a harsh, cold voice, the kind that you would swear was born of nightmares.

“Midnight, stay close,” Raider said, and I couldn’t tell if she was talking to her companion or someone else, maybe on a comm or phone. “We’re either coming out of here with that bitch or we’re going to need to get out quick.”

“Activate your air filters, any protective measures your mask has,” I whispered to Max. “Bottom left button,” I said, showing him as I activated my own. I didn’t want to take any chances. I didn’t know Raider or whoever the hell this was well enough to know if they’d try some kind of gas or something like that.

“I’m about to piss myself here,” Max muttered, and I nodded.

I took a deep breath, crouched behind a desk, and watched the direction the voices had come from.

“Daystar,” I heard Raider call, and I took a calming breath, forcing myself to focus, to be ready.

Max glanced over at me and I gave a slight shake of my head, held my hand up, indicating that he should stay where he was. One of the doors from the back office area of the bank opened, and Raider and her companion, who I recognized as Render, the guy who’d murdered Monica and a few of our other people, came through.

“She’s here. She wouldn’t ignore a challenge like this,” Raider said, and I stood up and sent two quick energy punches at them. Raider got knocked back and fell down. Render stumbled but kept coming, and I sent another one out at him, harder, aiming for his face.

The second hit knocked him back and down onto his ass, and while I dealt with him, I heard a deafening roar and where my partner had once been, an enormous golden lion stood. It launched itself at Render, who started moving his hands in the same gesture I’d seen him use when he’d killed my teammates. I quickly sent a hard blast of power at him.

“Don’t let him move his hands. That’s Render,” I shouted as I sent another punch toward Render, knocking him off balance enough for Max to leap and get the upper hand.

I sent two more hard, fast punches at Raider, and she kept coming like some kind of robot or something, like she barely felt it even though I could see her nose and mouth bleeding.

I sent another punch at her body, aiming for the ribs, then the stomach. Other than a small huff of air, she didn’t react.

Just kept coming.

“Come on, Daystar. You really think you can beat me?” she taunted. “Not when I have so much of the best Death had to offer.”

The injection. She’d been one of the subjects, too. We’d assumed it was only Killjoy, but it fit him. He’d make sure he tested on guinea pigs first, in case it ended up killing them, or messing up their powers. Shit. “No reason we can’t have some fun before I take you back to the boss, though. He misses you, you know. Believe me, we hear it every ten fucking minutes,” she spat.

“Aw. It burns, doesn’t it? Hearing how bad he wants me?” I taunted. Honestly, the idea of him wanting me made me want to rip his nuts off. Someday, I’d do that, maybe. But now, I wanted her pissed off and off-balance. More so than she already was, I mean.

“As if I want him anymore,” Raider sneered. “What have you done with Maddoc?”

I sent another blast at Render while Max bit down on the side of his neck.

Then I hit out at Raider and she flew back. I stalked toward her and then hit out again.

“We’re getting our asses kicked in here,” Render shouted, then squealed when Max bit down harder.

“Where. Is. Maddoc?” Raider shouted, charging me, hitting me faster than I expected, sending me flying back against a bank of steel filing cabinets. What did they even keep in there? Wasn't all this shit paperless now? I wondered to myself as I picked myself up out of the twisted metal with a grimace. My ribs were killing me. I’d probably managed to undo any improvements my night of rest had given me. She was moving toward me, and I sent another blast of power out at her, sending her skidding back across the floor.

“Who killed Virus?” I asked her before I hit her again.

She laughed. “Who do you think, bitch? He was past his usefulness. Killjoy wanted hm kept alive, but Maddoc and I decided he was done. Maddoc likes taking care of shit like that. I only wish it was that Daemon prick.”

I hit her again, just for the hell of it, and watched her neck twist with the impact.

“Going behind his back again, huh? Isn’t that what broke the two of you up the first time?”

She stared at me. “He told you that?”

I laughed. “He told me everything,” I purred. “Everything. Lemme guess. Render was the one you were fucking behind his back, huh? That’s why he’s at your beck and call now.”

She snarled and charged me, and I knocked her back again.

“Midnight, now,” I heard Render shout.

“No! Not yet!” Raider screeched and an instant later, they were both gone.

But not before I caught a glimpse of Killjoy taking Raider away, using the teleportation powers he’d undoubtedly stolen from either Brianne or Portia. Maybe both. I tried to grab on to Raider, but she was gone, and so was Render. I guessed that “Midnight,” whoever that was, was another teleporter who’d grabbed Render.

I wanted to scream. Hit something. This was infuriating. There had to be something we could use to prevent those assholes from doing that. They just ran when things got hard, like a bunch of cowardly little shits. Start a fight and then run away when it got too hard. I punched the pillar near where I was standing.

“Better that than me,” Max said, and I looked over to check on him. He was fully human again.

“These uniforms are amazing,” he said. “Changed with me, just like they said it would. And here I was worried I’d have my ass out and have to be embarrassed.”

I let out a low laugh despite my irritation. “I can’t believe they got away,” I muttered. “Well, yeah, I can, because they always do this shit, but…”

“Hey. We kicked some ass. You learned for sure that Maddoc murdered Virus, and that there’s a bit of a schism in Killjoy’s team. We’re still alive,” he added.

And we learned that there was something up with Daemon. It had sounded like maybe Raider was looking for him.

Interesting.

We started walking out, and I took a deep breath. “I just hate it when they get away.”

“I hear ya.” He paused. “Render was actually trying to
kill
us,” he said, sounding a little shocked.

“That’s what they do.”

“I knew that but there’s nothing quite like having Render trying to slice you open to make it all feel real.”

We walked out of the bank, and I tried to settle down. Talking to the police, with the media all standing around with cameras pointed at me, was never my favorite thing. It would’t do to fly off the handle now. I was trying to at least pretend to have my shit together, even if I didn’t actually. Max kept talking.

“That was fuckin’ amazing though, overall. I mean, I think I may have shit myself a little, but damn,” he was blathering. I shook my head and watched crowd surge forward. “I mean. Two in one day!” Max was still talking.

“Not bad for a first day,” I told him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the record so far had been me and Ryan fighting five people in one day, and actually managing to bring them in. I groaned inwardly. I hadn’t even considered calling for backup. I was probably going to hear about that. The good thing with Ryan, if he was bothered by something, he’d tell me. He didn’t exactly keep stuff like that to himself. If he was pissed, which he likely was, I was going to hear about it and then it would be over with.

“Daystar! Over here,” I heard one of the reporters call, and I took a deep breath and turned toward the press.

“Three questions. I need to get back,” I said. I used a little bit of a quieter, deeper voice than usual, partly to limit the chances of anyone connecting Jolene’s voice to Daystar’s, but also because I guess it just fit the reputation I was starting to get.

“How did Raider get away? You had her cornered in the building,” the reporter asked in a haughty tone that made me kind of want to punch him.

“As has been the issue several times when dealing with Killjoy’s new team, they were whisked away at the last moment.”

“They?” one of the reporters shouted.

“Render was there as well,” I said.

“So two of you couldn’t take on two villains? You let them get away to cause this damage again another day?” the reporter asked, the rest of the press corps looking between the two of us gleefully, like they were waiting for me to go off on him.

“We didn’t ‘let’ anyone do anything. Things happen sometimes and we need to find a way to work against the transporters they have on their team. It never fails that they run like the cowards they are the second they start losing. Which is pretty much every time we come up against them. When one of their teleporters isn’t there to take them to hide in whatever hole they crawled out of, we win. As Maddoc and a few of their other people well know,” I added, crossing my arms. This led to a flurry of questions from the press, and I waved at them.

“That was three,” I said. Then I grabbed Max under his arms and flew him to the mini jet.

“I already hate the media,” he grunted as I set him down.

“They grow on you eventually. Like a fungus,” I said. We got in the jet and started circling the city again, patrolling for the rest of our shift. I sat in my seat fuming. There had to be something we could do, some kind of tech we could develop that would keep them from porting out like that. A bigger version of the dampening collars maybe? Except that it would have to affect just their powers, not ours.

I’d mention it to Jenson and David. They were the brains who could figure out if it could even be done or not.

We landed at Command a while later, and the flight crew descended on us to do the post-flight check of the jet. I ushered Max up to Portia’s office so we could de-brief her. She listened, and congratulated us on the beat-down, even if we hadn’t managed to take either of them in.

“Okay. You two have earned the rest of the night off. Excellent work,” Portia said, and I nodded. Max beamed and thanked her.

“I’m gonna drink til I can’t see,” he said, and I laughed. “Want to join me?”

I shook my head. “Not this time, thanks. I’m beat.”

“All right. Your loss,” he said with a grin.

Max left, and I turned to Portia. “We need to do something about them porting away. This is driving me nuts.”

“I hear you,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

“I wonder if there’s some kind of tech Beta can come up with to keep them from doing it. I know he’s already really busy, but—“

“That’s actually a really good idea. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll mention it to him. He can test it on me if he can come up with anything,” she said, and I nodded.

She blew out a breath. “We had a report of another kid going missing. Madison, Wisconsin, this time.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “A telepath this time.”

I stared at her. “Those are pretty rare.” We only knew of two, and as far as I was concerned, that was two too many. It made my skin crawl just thinking of someone messing around in my mind.

“I’m sending Steel and Chance to a meeting with some of the other U.S. super teams. Maybe if we pool our knowledge we can figure something out,” she said tiredly. “This is getting out of hand.”

“And I don’t think it’s Killjoy. It doesn’t fit.”

“I don’t either, but at this point I’m not willing to rule anyone out.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“I will,” she said, then seemed to be studying me. “You need to take it easy, though. You’re running yourself ragged. How are your ribs holding up?”

“Fine. She barely touched me. It was just a lot of threats and other bullshit.”

“Uh huh. I’m serious, though. You exhausting yourself isn’t going to help anyone.”

I shrugged. “I feel better when I’m busy. Less time to think that way.”

She nodded. “I guess I can understand that.” We were quiet for a couple of minutes. “You’re still annoyed with me for switching up your partner,” she said.

“I understand why. I just don’t adapt to change all that well.”

“Speaking of which, Caine was a complete pain in the ass earlier. He was ready to go out after you twice and I had to order him to stay put.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t know Render was there, then.”

“Actually, he did. Beta got into the bank’s security feed. We ended up watching a bit of it from here.”

I grimaced. Yeah, he was probably not happy that I hadn’t called for back up. “Thanks for the warning. I’m going to hear about that.”

She laughed. “Yeah, probably. Now go get some rest. Don’t let me see you taking anybody else’s patrols tonight. You need to let yourself heal up.”

“Fine,” I said. I stood up, gave her a wave, and walked out of her office then got on the elevator.

I considered just going to my room, but then I hit the button for ten instead. I pulled my mask off and ran a hand through my hair, pulled my bangs back down over my forehead. I got off on the tenth floor and went down to the third door on the left, and knocked.

Chapter Eight