Page 95 of Lovesick Gods

“You’re notdifferent,” Danny spat. “You’re just like your father.”

The eruption of his powers almost surprised Mal, he was so startled by his own snarl. But as Danny flew away from him, this time he didn’t feel bad about it.

Covered in ice and still caught within the range of the cold field, it was easy to see where Danny landed beside one of the display cases. Mal had increased the field nearly enough to encompass the entire room. Danny tried to get up, but he moved even slower than a normal person now and lifted to his feet only to crumble to his knees.

Mal stalked toward him. He couldn’t see Danny’s face, just the frost-etched outline of the eyes on the mask, but he could feel the glare, the fury radiating out from Danny like palpable heat struggling to melt the ice. The suit was doing its job to keep Danny protected, removing the ice almost as quickly as it formed, but the cold field was too strong.

Danny looked up at Mal from his prone position and sparked with lightning all around his silhouetted form. When Mal got close, Danny sent out an attack he couldn’t avoid. It jolted through Mal, hurting worse than he remembered as electricity surged down into his limbs. But Danny was too weak from the cold. His sparks were already dwindling.

Shivering, Danny prepared for Mal to prove him right and blast him again, attack, gloat—like he’d done many times in the past. But Mal crouched in front of Danny and turned the cold field off.

He knew it was a risk, a stupid risk he never would have taken a month ago, just to appease some damn bleeding heart hero. He was putting too much faith in someone else, leaving himself vulnerable and open to be hurt, something he’d promised he would never, ever do.

But Danny didn’t mean this. Danny wasbetterthan this. And Malcolm Cho did not give up on something he wanted just because the plan went to shit. He adjusted. Planned again. Did things better the next time around. And always,alwaysgot his mark.

He pulled the goggles from his eyes. “You could stand to have a little more evidence, Sparky, before you assume the worst. But then…I never gave you any reason to think I wouldn’t betray you again, did I? Can’t blame you for coming to what seemed the logical conclusion. So let me say it again.”

Leaning forward, he looked Danny in the eyes, even as the ice melted faster from the suit’s defenses and Danny’s own power, leaving less and less for Mal to see. He’d be at Danny’s mercy the second he was no longer visible.

“I amnotworking with Ludgate. If you ever catch me in the act, I’ll come clean. No fun playing out a con you’ve already lost, trust me. I had nothing to do with the glassworks or Virgil Labs. Why would Ludgate even need me? Why would I need him? I had the diamond just fine on my own, and he reached through a god damn mirror to get it. He could have done that any…time…” Mal tilted his head as the truth of those words dawned on him.

Ludgate didn’t need him. So why had he waited until the very moment Mal was about to claim the diamond to take it for himself? Something was rotten about this whole ordeal…

As the ice finished receding from Danny’s suit, Mal stared at the empty space left behind, waiting to see how his gamble would play out. Tension wracked his body in anticipation of a blow or another bolt of lightning, but none came. The image before him shifted, and suddenly there was Danny in the black suit, visible and panting. He dropped to the side onto his hip.

“He could have done that any time…” Danny repeated. “He wanted me to see, wanted me to think…” Jerking up straighter, he made Mal flinch despite himself. “He used a mirror! Mirrors.Reflections. That’s how he’s been doing it! I thought he was phasing through matter or teleporting, but he was using mirrors and glass to travel through reflections!” Danny’s voice filled with that energy Mal so loved about him. “So if he could have taken the diamond at any time, why wait, unless…”

“Unless he wanted us to fight,” Mal finished Danny’s thought. “Which means he knows…”

“Everything about us.”

They stared at each other as the truth sunk in, because reflections were everywhere and they hadn’t seen Ludgate until he wanted them to, which meant he could have been anywhere at any time, watching them, learning about them.

Mal slid his goggles back into place. Slowly, he and Danny rose to their feet.

“Welldamn,” that same powerful voice echoed around them, like it was coming from every shimmering surface in the room, “you two are just no fun at all.”

The room erupted in a flicker of color and light, as every faint reflection of themselves in the mirrors and translucent surfaces around them turned tolook at themlike entities of their own. Dozens, hundreds of themselves stared their way in eerie unison.

Keeping the many reflections in their sights, Mal and Danny instinctively moved back to back. “If I turn on the cold field, you’re protected as long as you stay close to me,” Mal spoke beneath his breath. He could feel the heat from Danny’s body behind him.

“Wait. If we can find the real him, I can lightning jump to grab him,” Danny muttered back. But which reflection was the real one? Were any of them something they could catch?

“I’ll admit,” the sound came out of the mouths of their reflections—or at least out of Mal’s since Danny wore a mask—only…only it wasn’t just Ludgate’s voice but theirs too, “it was asurprise to find out that the local superhero and the city’s most notorious criminal are engaged in an illicit affair. But it does make for a juicier story.”

The images rippled, changed, and suddenly Mal was looking at himself and Danny from a few minutes ago, moving footage of them embracing,kissing, and then of Danny lightning jumping away as only Zeus could.

“It’s a shame you’re not wearing your signature suit, Zeus, but I think the people will see the truth with the right evidence. Imagine the headline? ZEUS AND PROMETHEUS SEX SCANDAL LEADS NEW SUPERVILLAIN TO GLORY.”

“We disabled the cameras,” Mal whispered as he and Danny pivoted, shoulder blades nearly touching, watching the reflections for any signs that might tell them how to attack. “He must have turned them back on.”

“Or he cancaptureimages in reflections.”

“Now, now, no fair keeping secrets,” Ludgate said as the puppet images of Mal and Danny returned. “You’ll find it’s hard to keep secrets from me anyway.” All at once, the images turned into copies of Danny alone. “Nice name, Zeus.Danny, is it?”

Shit. Careful as Mal had been after he realized Ludgate could be listening, it was already too late.

“You’re harder to track, of course, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the detective on my case isDanielGrant, do you? Operating right under the OCPD’s nose as a vigilante. Of course they turn a blind eye to Zeus’s activities, but do you think they still will once they learn your real identity? And who you’ve beenscrewing?”

---