Mal felt a gust of air behind him as Danny lightning jumped into action. “Wait!”
One of the reflections shattered as Danny appeared in front of it and punched it with everything he had. The pressure sensors were silent, but not the cases. Alarms blared to life, and a suit ofarmor inside the destroyed case toppled over and clanged to the floor.
Ludgate’s voice returned as a sinister laugh, still multiplied by the reflections but nowhisvoice only, as his own image finally replaced Danny’s.
He had a costume. A silver cowl covered his face with a black outline for eyes, not that his identity was any secret, and black and purple accents framed a mostly silver bodysuit with a black and silver belt. He was a showman, like Mal. He wanted the notoriety. He wanted to be introduced to Olympus City with a bang.
Danny was panting again,shaking, when Mal reached out to pull him away from any reflective surfaces. “Keep it together,” Mal hissed but squeezed Danny’s arm in support, waiting for him to look at him before he nodded. Danny nodded back.
“The police more than suspect me,” Ludgate said, “but they can’t find me, and they never will. This night will seal my place as the city’s ultimate threat.” His many reflected images spread their arms wide, giving the impression that Mal and Danny were surrounded. “You see, Zeus, I owe you, and that headline will look even better next to a photo ofbodies.”
Owe him?Mal turned that over in his mind, but he didn’t get the time to dwell because all at once the reflections vanished.
Blinking light spots from his eyes after Ludgate’s display, he pressed his back to Danny’s as they turned. The room was dark again. Only the alarms and the faint sound of police sirens could be heard. But Mal knew how to gauge the distance of sirens. Even if the cops could be of any help to them, they wouldn’t get there in time.
“Danny, get ready to jump. You can—”
“No, we can catch him.”
“Danny.” Mal risked a glare over his shoulder, but Danny wouldn’t look at him.
“There!” Danny called and lightning jumped toward another case.
“Stop!” Mal saw an image of Ludgate within, but it ran away when Danny reached it, like an awful game of tag. Danny only just barely stopped himself from slamming into the glass. When he whirled around, Mal realized what was about to happen seconds before it did. “Danny—”
An arm reached out of the glass behind Danny and hooked around his throat, trapping him against it in a tight choke hold. Mal didn’t hesitate; he blasted the arm with ice, even if some of it ricocheted onto Danny.
“Ah!” Ludgate’s voice cried out as his arm recoiled.
As soon as Danny lightning jumped back to Mal’s side, he made a point of grabbing the idiot by the back of his neck. “Stop fighting blind,” Mal warned. “Be smarter. Or I’ll blast you again myself. Now get us out of here!”
“And leave him to show up again—when? Where?” Danny shot back, shoving Mal’s arm aside. “The next time we’re with everyone we know? Everyone we care about? We have no idea the extent of his powers. Right now it’s just you and me. And we can end this.”
“End this?” Danny sounded like he was ready to—
“More lovers’ quarrelling?” Ludgate called to them, prompting Mal to spin Danny around and position them back to back again. “Don’t make this too easy on me now.”
“First sense you’ve made all night!” Mal yelled, then spoke hushed to Danny, “You don’t wanna run, fine, but if you got any bright ideas, now’s the time.”
“That trick with your amplifier,” Danny whispered.
“The cold field?”
“Turn it on. He’ll reach for us again, he’ll have to. When he does, it’ll slow him down.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll turn on the suit to go invisible and jump over to grab him. You turn the field off before it affects me.”
It wasn’t perfect, and their timing had to be exact, but Mal wasn’t coming up with any better ideas. Flipping on the switch for the cold field, he expanded it to fill the room. “It’s up. Keep my pace,” he said, turning them one step at a time, shoulders touching again, like some morbid, backwards dance, “and warn me before you do anything stupid.”
“Okay. Let’s give him some bait. Ludgate!” Danny reached a hand back to place on Mal’s hip, startling him. He tugged Mal backward, pivoting but also bringing them closer to one of the panes of glass. “I thought you said something about a name when we first met! You havemanynames, as it turns out, right…Cassius? So who are you, huh? I hope your villain title is better than…Reflector or…Fun House!”
Mal held back a snort; the kid really needed to work on his banter sometimes.
“Oh, you’ll remember my true name, Zeus. For as long as you have left to live.” Ludgate’s voice was everywhere again, but definitely loudest coming from the glass in front of Danny. “My name…isHades.”
“Now!” Danny cried just as Ludgate yelped in surprise at encountering the cold field.
