Danny shifted again, twitching in want to scratch his neck or run his hands through his short, ginger hair, which was foofed enough on top that it tended to disobey him. “He killed my partner. What do you think?”
“Detective—”
“Olympus had never seen an Elemental like Thanatos before.” Danny leaned forward over the table. Even a city like theirs with close to two million people would only see a few dozen Elementals every other decade, though the numbers were unreliable since many of them chose to live in hiding. “The things he could do… He could drown someone in their own shadow, did you know that? Did you know that’s how he killed Rick? Right in front of me. Darkness shoved down his throat until he choked, and there was n-nothing I could do.” Danny grimaced at the catch of emotion in his voice. He could feel the tears forming. Twenty-eight years old and he was still so quick to cry. “Thanatos started to do the same to me, but then…”
“Then?” Liu prompted when he didn’t finish.
Then Danny’s latent Elemental powers had triggered.
Electricity had discharged from his body like a power surge, forcing Thanatos’s shadows away from him. Danny hadn’t been able to control any of it at first. Thanatos had reached for him, and he’d lightning jumped for the first time. One moment he was on the ground next to Rick’s body, Thanatos leaning toward him in all his awful glory, tendrils of black and deep purple shadow slithering off of him like snakes, and the next moment Danny was blocks away in an alley near the precinct.
He couldn’t use that part of his powers too frequently in too short a time, but he couldbecomelightning itself when the need arose and teleport long distances in the span of seconds. He’d saved himself that night from whatever Thanatos might have done to him, but his powers hadn’t triggered in time to save Rick.
“Detective,” Liu said with impatience again.
That had been a year ago. It was time to close the case against Thanatos for good, however many pieces to the puzzle remained unsolved, which was the only reason they were having these follow-up interviews now.
“Then he let me go,” Danny said, falling into the lie easily, “because it was more fun to let me squirm than bother killing me too.” Looking across the table at her, for once he didn’t try to hide how wrecked he was.
The knit to the lieutenant’s brow smoothed out as she collected herself and maintained a professional tone. She flipped a page in her notes. “Let’s talk about how, six months ago, the night Thanatos was defeated by Zeus, among the victims that died in the explosion at the power station was your mother.”
ß
Danny blinked dazedly up at Camo as the Elemental snatched the bag of loot from the ground and made a break for it around the nearest building.
“Danny!” Lynn cried again. “Your heart rate—”
“I’m fine,” Danny coughed. He sucked in air as he waited for his healing factor to steady the jagged rhythm of his heart, making his chest feel like he had a hot iron pressed to the insideof his ribcage. He was lucky he was one of the few Elementals whohadaccelerated healing.
Five seconds…ten…finally, the pain dissipated.
“A high volt electrical charge is how he controls the reflectors in his suit. But I think he shorted it out with that trick. I can catch him.” Danny lurched to his feet, wondering for the thousandth time why he had a mostly white suit, because now it was scuffed with dirt at the knees.
His costume was white leather head to toe, save knee-high boots and elbow-length gloves in gold, as well as golden lightning bolts at his hips and the larger bolt off-center from the top of his left shoulder down to mid-chest to mimic a toga clasp. The lenses for his eyes shone with golden light, and a second larger lightning bolt etched up the center of his cowl from his eyebrows over the crown of his head and down the back of his neck.
“Be careful,” Lynn said.
“You got this,” Andre assured him.
Bouncing on the balls of his feet once, twice, Danny took off in the direction Camo had run. Three possible options for where he’d gone presented themselves once he rounded the corner. “Left, right, or straight up,” he muttered.
“Right,” Andre said.
“How do you know? You can’t even see what I’m looking at.”
“Dude, I’mMetalleaning. I have a great sense of direction.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” As far as Danny had ever heard, Metal people were adept at technology and architecture, not navigation.
“Metal,” Andre said like the answer should be obvious. “Magnetic? Hello. It’s totally a thing.”
Danny shook his head as he gauged his options more carefully. Left down an alley back out to the street—likely not. Up a fire escape to the roof of the building—doubtful. Or right beneath aloading dock door that was just barely over a foot up from the ground—a tight fit, but it was possible the man had slid his lithe form underneath, and Danny could easily follow suit.
“Right it is. Going dark until I have him in my sights.”
“If we get any obvious biochrome readings, we’ll let you know,” Lynn said.
Scuffing up the suit as he crawled on the ground to get under the door was more of a nuisance than dangerous, but it still made Danny feel low and annoyed when every night lately felt like an exercise in dwindling patience. Someone whose best trick was being sneaky and giving off a one-shot electrical charge should not put Danny on his ass.
