Page 60 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

Danny landed hard on his shoulder and the sharp edge of his hip, only softened by having Cho’s duster around him.

Gasping for air, he felt, for a moment, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

But then he breathed, blinked, and rolled onto his back.

Above him was a canvas of black and a million twinkling stars.

“And to think there was a time when I was frightened of you,” Ludgate’s voice encircled him like a din from every direction. “You’re just a scrawny kid.”

Leaping to his feet, Danny spun around, fists up in a fighting stance, but his composure failed him when he took in his surroundings.

The blackness wasn’t the sky, and it definitely wasn’t a ceiling.

It was…everywhere. Even the ground beneath his feet was a void of black that he was somehow standing on.

And the twinkling lights weren’t stars; they were mirrors.

He could see dozens, hundreds, thousands of them, some close, others spiraling into the distance like a labyrinth.

And in every one of them was an image of Ludgate.

The seams in Ludgate’s suit were reflective and glowing as if infused with power, giving him the impression of something larger than life—like a god—while Danny barely had enough energy left to use his lightning.

“So easily brought to tears over Prometheus?” Ludgate mocked him, causing Danny to wipe furiously at the remaining wetness on his cheeks.

“How did all that go down anyway, you ending up as his kept boy? You secretly his partner in crime, Zeus, and the hero thing was always a front, or do you just like the taste of rough now and again?”

Using his waning strength, Danny lightning jumped to the nearest reflection and brought around a sparking punch that connected squarely with Ludgate’s image, only for a shriek to tear from his lips as he fell to his knees.

The glass hadn’t shattered, but the bones in his hand had.

He held it limply in his lap, willing the bones to knit together faster as it pulsed with pain.

Ludgate’s laughter made it so much worse. “You can’t destroy the mirrors here, Zeus. That only works in your world. This world is mine .”

Strong fingers wrapped around Danny’s neck and squeezed until he gagged, only to hurl him backwards before he could attempt to fight back. He struck one of the mirrors and felt a rib snap on impact. It all happened so fast .

Ludgate reached for him out of another reflection, and Danny scrambled to his feet, backing away even as he coughed from the pain in his side. It would heal, it would heal …

A sharp kick to his spine sent him spiraling forward into the reflection he’d been escaping, meeting Ludgate’s hand that gripped his shoulder and wrenched him down as a knee rammed up into his stomach.

Danny coughed again and doubled over, feeling like he was going to be sick, like he was seeing stars. He had to focus .

“Come on, Zeus, you’re not even trying ,” Ludgate spat.

Danny backpedaled away from the mirror, attempting to gauge how close he was to others, keep out of range, but there were so many.

Even when he spun around and tried to strike out against Ludgate’s limbs that escaped the safety of the glass, one misstep always brought him too close to danger.

He’d receive a kick or a punch or get knocked into another mirror, tossed around like a weakling.

Like he was in high school again, surrounded by bullies.

Thinking of the alley he’d come from, of Cho waiting for him, Danny desperately tried to summon the power to jump back to the normal world.

He felt electricity pulse through him, but his form flickered with a jolt like he’d hit a wall, and he remained in the exact same spot he’d started. He couldn’t jump out of this place.

The next time Ludgate struck him and Danny stumbled, he coughed blood onto the floor, and it seemed to disappear into the blackness like it was never there.

The breaks in his hand were healing, slowly.

Soon he’d be able to use it again if he could just breathe and see straight.

He had to get away from the reflections, had to think, had to fight …

On his back, bloody and bruised as bad as Cho now, Danny grabbed the next limb that came into view—an ankle. He had Ludgate now, he had him . “You can’t…hide in mirrors…forever.”

Escaping Danny’s grasp, Ludgate yanked his leg back into the mirror, and Danny was powerless to stop him.

He rushed forward and hit the glass ineffectually in an attempt to retrieve the leverage he’d lost. Then, before Ludgate could retaliate, he rolled away and pulled his own legs to his chest. Hugging them close, he sat huddled, hiding in Cho’s duster, as equidistant between mirrors as he could get.

“The real you is here somewhere!” he cried.

“Sure, Zeus,” Ludgate chuckled in pure amusement, “but you’ll never find me. Just like you’ll never find your way out. See, I can use any of the mirrors here. But you can only exit out the mirror you came in through. Do you know which one it is?”

Peeking his head up out of the duster, Danny looked around. The mirrors were everywhere. There was no discernable incline or decline in the darkness, but he could tell that some of the more distant mirrors were higher up or beneath him. Otherwise, they all looked the same.

“All of these mirrors connect to the material world, Zeus. Mirrors, other surfaces with strong enough reflections, I can reach them all, but you can’t.

You’d starve and waste away before you ever got close to finding your way home.

It would take an eternity to explore the vastness of this world without my powers. ”

“Your powers?” Danny breathed, dazed and grimacing as his wounds struggled to heal when he was so tired . “They’re more than traveling through mirrors?”

“Traveling through—” Ludgate broke off into his loudest laugh yet. “That isn’t my power, Zeus. I learned how to reach the mirror world long before I Awakened. No, my power is why I can do this when no one else can.”

Danny didn’t understand. If Ludgate traveled through mirrors without powers then how did he do it?

“That suit of yours is something else though,” Ludgate said, large and menacing around Danny like he might step out of his reflections as an army at any moment.

“The way each of the pieces work together…it gave me such wonderful ideas. And you’re in luck.

Because it means I’m not gonna kill you yet. ”

The images winked out, leaving Danny staring at glittering surfaces that filled the blackness with soft, faint light. He could finally see himself, reflected in the mirrors closest to him, and also see the way the mirrors reflected each other, creating an illusion of infinity.

“I jumped the gun, Zeus,” Ludgate’s voice filled the vast space.

“Been planning to take you down for six long months, yet I got ahead of myself. If I really want you to pay for what you did to me, we can’t end the game now.

We could have so much more fun together.

Besides, you ruined the show. Can’t make a splash with the museum heist anymore.

Well…maybe I can. But we’ll have to think of something better for next time.

Something bigger. Because now, Zeus, now I’m gonna make sure your suffering lingers.

So, in the meantime, why don’t I introduce you to someone? Though I think you’ve already met.”

Pivoting his head between reflections, Danny was terrified that Ludgate had gone back for Cho, that he’d hurt him in front of Danny or worse, but Cho’s image never appeared.

Danny only saw himself. And then, once when he turned his head, he realized that the reflection he was looking at was staring at him with a twisted smile.

Danny scurried back despite himself. His shoulders hit a mirror and he flinched, expecting Ludgate to push him or punch him or throw him around again, but nothing happened.

While Danny remained pressed back, knees pulled in, staring forward, his reflection started to get up.

He looked just as beaten as Danny, wore only his underwear and the duster like Danny, but his wounds started to heal and fade away faster.

Dropping the duster from his shoulders, in its place a suit materialized.

But it wasn’t The Invisible Man or his usual white and gold.

It was deep purple like Thanatos.

“This is better, isn’t it?” Danny’s reflection spoke, standing there in Thanatos’s suit, purple with highlights in black. The mask was pulled from his face, but the image still shook Danny. “White was never our color. I think we’re better in darker shades, don’t you?”

The yellow of this other Danny’s eyes turned black as he said that—and remained that way, voidless and terrible.

“You’re not real,” Danny clenched his own eyes shut, chanting into his knees. “You’re not me. You’re just a construct. A trick of camera footage and vocal recordings.”

“You sure about that?” the voice whispered from behind him.

Jumping up, Danny spun about to scramble the other direction, seeing his reflection in the mirror he’d been leaning against, grinning at him as he rose from a crouched position.

“See, Danny, I’m the you that you keep trying to run away from.

You know who you really are. What you are.

” He tilted his head and the black in his eyes roiled like moving shadows.

“You’re a monster, Danny. Just like Thanatos.

You’re worse than him. Because you make everyone see this sweet, innocent face, this heroic facade,” he spread his arms, and for a moment the suit was white as it should be, before it shimmered back to purple, “but where you really get your kicks is when you bash someone’s head into the pavement.

When you manipulate them for your own amusement. ”

The image shorted out like a faulty television and reappeared behind Danny again.

“When you play Cho like a fiddle until he begs for you to fuck him.”