Page 81 of Lovesick Titan

“One hundred percent,” Mal took a step of his own. “Give me one good reason not to ice you right now.”

“If you do,” Ludgate raised his hands in mocking surrender, “you’ll never see the real Zeus again.”

“You monster!” Grant bolted forward, forcing Dom to grab him by the arms and hold him back. “What have you done with my son?”

Ludgate laughed—in Danny’s voice. Mal ached to blast him. Finally,finallyhe had Ludgate out of the mirror world, but he couldn’t risk killing him. He had no idea where Danny was. He had a guess, but without knowing more about Ludgate’s research into the mirror world, he had no idea how to access it without the bastard’s help.

“What do you want, Ludgate?” Mal seethed, enjoying, however fleetingly, the way the man gnashed his teeth at not being addressed as Hades.

“Always asking me that. What if I have what I want,Cho?” He kept his hands raised but slowly started to bring them together. “What if this is all I’d ever ask for and there is nothing you can do to stop me?”

“No!” Mal dove forward as he realized what would happen, but before he could grab Ludgate, the man vanished and Mal’s hand grasped at nothing. He had the suit, the invisible Zeus suit, with the button to activate it on one of the gloves!

Mal spun around. Ludgate was there. He was still theresomewhere.

“Get out of the room!” he shouted at the others before calling into the comms, “Hermes—” but the air punched out of his lungs as something collided with his stomach.

Mal felt hands on him he couldn’t see, and before he could counter, he was thrown across the room where he slammed into the wall and crumbled. Desperate to get his bearings, he fought to roll back to his feet before—

Shit. He dove to the side, barely avoiding a blast of his own ice that covered half the wall behind him. Ludgate still had both amplifiers with leftover charges stored.

The others hadn’t retreated, but Mal held out his hand and shook his head when Dom made to move toward him. It was better if Ludgate focused on him. Then the bastard was back, still looking like Danny as he materialized out of the window to the med room. He stared Dom and Lucy down while keeping the amplifier aimed at Mal’s head.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “Try anything and I’ll ice him. Even he’s susceptible to the cold when it’s not under his control. Unless you really think you’re faster.”

Calling for Oz was a gamble even if one of them managed to say his name. Ludgate could attack from almost any angle before Vaughn’s program was up and running, and he was so strong. He didn’t needDanny’s powers to be a threat; he could disappear into any reflection and turn invisible on the spot. Mal had to improvise.

“Hermes…” he said quietly while Ludgate’s eyes were on the others.

“Shit, Cho, is it now or never?” Oz asked.

“Center of the room,notthe computer. Be ready to jump away again as soon as you see him.”

“The higher settings of an amplifier can be rather lethal, can’t they?” Ludgate said as he increased the output for the ice. “It’ll use the last of the reserves, but well worth it.”

Mal wouldn’t survive a hit like that; he’d be fully covered and dead in seconds. But Oz could avoid getting hit at all.

“Cho?”

“Now!”

Ludgate’s attention whipped to the computer terminal, but Oz appeared as instructed in the center of the room. As soon as Ludgate turned the amplifier toward him, Oz jumped again, behind Ludgate to the far corner of the room. While Ludgate followed Oz’s movements, skipping about at an ever-increasing frequency, Mal made his move.

Darting to Vaughn’s computer, he followed the instructions to pull up the Miasma Maker. Fifteen seconds. He just needed fifteen seconds. They had to find Danny, but first they had to make sure Ludgate wasn’t going anywhere.

Mal flicked his eyes up only briefly as Ludgate snarled and readied to blast Oz with either fire or ice, but he was always gone before his location could be zeroed in on. Oz was a good man, a healer more than a criminal, never appearing somewhere that a stray shot might hit one of the others.

Ten seconds. Mal was in the right folder, he just needed to find the program, bring it up, and—

Five—

“I don’t think so,” Danny’s voice spoke beside Mal’s ear, then the tip of a finger pressed to his temple like the barrel of a gun. Ludgate hadn’t been fooled, hadn’t wasted the charges, and Mal had a window at his back. Two more keystrokes and all he needed to do was press ENTER.

He met eyes with Lucy, Dom, and a distressed Oz who poofed into existence in front of him, before Mal took a breath he believed to be his last and resigned himself to finishing those keystrokes anyway.

“Say goodbye, Prometheus.”

Two.

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