Page 60 of Lovesick Titan (Lovesick #2)

Danny lightning jumped again without a moment’s thought, but the distance made it too easy for the mirrors to be a trick.

There was no John or Ludgate when Danny reached them, only more illusion.

With his lightning surging into his hands, Danny reached out as he collided with a mirror.

His powers poured into it, causing the glass to shatter as potently as the Miasma Field had.

“Careful, Zeus,” Ludgate’s voice echoed ominously, “you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Ludgate!” Danny howled.

This wasn’t a game, Mal thought with a grimace; this was torture.

“Heat field, now,” he ordered Dom as he dragged his friend after him, then called, “Hold your breath!” to warn Danny, who looked miserable while caught in the field for those few, brief moments but breathed relief once Mal and Dom reached him.

“He’s in a mirror,” Mal said softly, gripping the back of Danny’s neck and holding him closer than he probably should with a potential audience watching. “Breaking one freed you before. We can do the same to find your father.”

“But the way home—”

“If we keep that mirror in our sights,” Mal gestured back at the distant mirror covered in ice, “we can do this. Trust me.” For one small moment, he thought about kissing Danny, but thought better of it and released him. “Dom, you watch for Ludgate.”

Dom grunted.

“Secret, secrets…” Ludgate taunted them. “Whatever are you planning?”

They turned together toward the nearest mirror, a new resolve settling over them. When Dom grunted again to signal she’d turned off the heat, Mal switched on the Miasma Field in its wake.

A dozen mirrors shattered, giving Mal a clear view of the available radius even without his goggles.

Ludgate could project himself wherever he wanted, but he still physically existed in only one mirror at a time.

When Ludgate’s image appeared in the next mirror down from the blast radius, Mal followed him.

Again, more mirrors erupted with an explosion of glass, concentrated enough that the shards didn’t spray them even as they raced in pursuit. All the while, Mal kept his eyes on the mirror that would bring them home.

Ludgate laughed—always laughing —confident he had them beat, but they had him on the run.

Danny lightning jumped ahead of the Miasma Field’s reach, hoping to head Ludgate off or maybe to discover that blessed moment when his father would be revealed in the debris. Meanwhile, Dom stayed at Mal’s heels, both hands aflame in wait for any sign of Ludgate in the open.

One chance, just one chance for them to— there!

Dom saw the opening without Mal having to say a word— Ludgate leaping out of a mirror in the flesh. He scrambled to reach the next available reflection, but Dom blasted him with a fireball, and as the flames scorched his face and upper body, he screamed.

Lightning jumping to reach him, Danny missed Ludgate even with his near instantaneous speed just as the bastard crawled into the safety of another reflection. Mal continued to give chase, but when that next mirror erupted, Ludgate wasn’t there.

Hearing Dom cry out in surprise, Mal whipped around to find Ludgate projected behind her with a hold around her waist, tightening his grip with his tech-enhanced strength.

Ludgate was only just out of range, but if Mal encompassed the mirror and destroyed it, Dom might be seriously injured by the glass.

“I’m gonna take your head off!” Ludgate shrieked, his face looking blackened and painful. Only his arms were visible outside the mirror, but he soon had Dom partially pulled into the surface with him.

Mal had seconds to decide how to help. If Ludgate got Dom into the mirror far enough that his own hands were no longer exposed, he could close it off and cut Dom in half. Mal considered a blast of ice, but that would only freeze Ludgate’s hands to Dom’s chest.

“Dom’s amplifier!” Mal whirled to face Danny, and just as he did, a blur of white and gold zipped past him. Danny jumped to Dom, and while he couldn’t win a fight of tug of war, he was able to remove Dom’s amplifier and use the reserves of fire to blast Ludgate’s hands with a shot of flames .

“Ah!” Ludgate screamed again, yanking his hands back so that Dom collapsed forward onto her knees. Mal increased the Miasma Field immediately, but as Danny lightning jumped Dom to safety, the aftermath once again revealed nothing.

Somehow, during the chase, they’d circled back—the mirror gilded in ice was right behind where Danny and Dom had reappeared, only just out of range of the destruction.

While Danny helped Dom to her feet, Mal pulled the field back in, worried that one wrong step might destroy their only way home without Ludgate’s help.

Mal turned in place, scanning for signs of Ludgate—when he saw him. Not Ludgate but John . That last push of the Miasma Field had shattered the mirrors behind Mal as well, and there John sat, tied to his chair amidst the mess.

Turning off the Miasma Field, Mal raced to his side even as he feared another trick, but when his hand came down on the man’s shoulder, he didn’t vanish.

“It’s him!” Mal called to Danny, who had Dom leaning heavily against him from what looked to be broken ribs.

Danny’s eyes were on the mirror home, but at Mal’s words his head jerked forward and he nearly used his powers to jump to them. The only thing stopping him was Dom.

“Go!” Mal yelled, already working on John’s bonds. “I’m right behind you.”

Dom couldn’t stand; she needed Danny to take her out of there, but he couldn’t lightning jump out of the mirror world, he had to leave the slow way.

“Ludgate—”

“He’s hurt. Our lives are more important than catching him. Go!”

With one last moment of hesitation, Danny’s pained face was the last thing Mal saw before he disappeared through the mirror with Dom in tow.

Mal untied John from the back of the chair first, then went around to free the man’s arms. “Wish we could have had our first private heart to heart under better circumstances, Detective.”

It might not be the time for small talk, but John wasn’t making any noise, which worried Mal, and once he got the last of the ropes undone, the detective swayed. Mal clung to him to keep him upright, but his body gave way beneath Mal’s hands unnaturally.

What the…?

Ludgate appeared in the mirror behind John’s chair with fury on his charred and bleeding face. He stepped from the reflection, once again holding the jagged piece of glass.

Knowing he couldn’t risk a moment’s indecision, Mal pulled John’s body down to shield him as Ludgate lunged at them and drove the shard downward.

The sting of the glass driving into Mal’s back made him cringe—he’d had worse, he’d had worse ; he had to protect Danny’s father—but as John’s body toppled onto the black and empty ground, Danny’s jacket fell from his face.

Mal gaped in horror.

It wasn’t John. It had never been John.

Outside a mirror, Ludgate couldn’t keep up the ruse completely, that’s why he’d covered John’s face with Danny’s jacket. John’s body was projected by the black Zeus suit, but without the mask, Mal looked upon the face of a mannequin.

“And you scoffed at my acting skills.” Ludgate ripped the shard from Mal’s back, and he cried out at the harsh tear of skin and tissue, unable to tell how deep the damage went. “I think I pulled off Zeus’s father quite well.”

Pushing the mannequin away from him, Mal fought to roll over to get Ludgate in his sights.

The crazed Elemental stepped on both his wrists, preventing anything more than a bleed of ice onto the ground and crushing his amplifier as he loomed over Mal with the bloody end of the shard held aloft—too much blood, too far down the length of it.

Mal was helpless, injured, and without any backup.

Still, he seethed at Ludgate, “Where is he?”

Ludgate grinned manically around his frayed mask and burnt skin. “Nowhere.”