Chapter 26

Ludgate’s laughter sounded over the line.

The shiver of cold Danny felt before burned hot as he clutched his cell phone tighter. “If you’ve done anything to him…”

“Calm down, Zeus. We’re just passing the time, real friendly like. See?”

“Danny?” came John’s voice, gruff and weak.

“Dad!”

“Don’t listen to him! Don’t fall for—” but he cut off abruptly, and Danny imagined Ludgate kicking him or striking him, which only made him angrier.

His eyes locked on Mal across the room. The similar coldness he found there, the firm set to Mal’s jaw, made him feel justified in that moment for wanting Ludgate’s head on a platter. “What do you want, Hades? I know what this is about. You think you have to hurt him to get back at me for killing your father. Isn’t that right?”

Ludgate huffed a laugh. “Finally figured it out, huh?”

“Enough markers prove you have to be related. Him being your father makes sense—Cassius Dougal Junior. That’s why you hate being called Ludgate. Because your father never accepted you. Maybe because he was an Elemental and up until recently, you weren’t. What a disappointment you must have been.”

Ludgate roared, “And it’s because of you he’ll never see me at my true potential!”

“Your father caused that explosion, not me,” Danny fired back, “and you still blame me for your powers?”

“The explosion? I didn’t Awaken from the explosion. Oh, it trapped me inside the mirror world, pushed me in before I was ready, but I was stuck there, unable to get out, only capable of watching. And do you know what I saw? Your fight with my father.”

Danny’s stomach sank. Knowing he’d killed Thanatos was one thing, but Ludgate saw it?

“The closest reflections looked right out at you as you murdered him in cold blood. That’s what sparked my Awakening. That’s why you’re to blame and who I have to thank. So thank you, Zeus. I hope I can pay you back in full.”

A cry sounded from the line—John and whatever Ludgate was doing to him.

“Stop! If you hurt him…” Danny clutched the phone tighter.

“Let’s move on to negotiation, Zeus. You’re working on a plan? Probably to trap me or lock me out of the mirror world again? So, tell me, do you have some new reflective surfaces for me to invade?”

Danny scanned the faces of his friends, who had all been working so hard the past few days, putting their differences aside to be a team and face Ludgate together. In the next few moments, all that could amount to nothing.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Good. Bring them. Set them up just as you planned. Wherever you want.”

Ludgate assumed they couldn’t outmaneuver him, but he didn’t know what they knew about his powers and the belt. John didn’t know either, so Ludgate couldn’t get information out of him, and everyone else was with Danny.

They still had a chance to win this.

“The field out of town where you visited the circus.”

Several faces looked to Danny in disbelief for giving up the location of the fun house.

“Clever,” Ludgate said with a note of derision. “Done. Go ahead, plan your worst. Just remember: your father’s in here with me. You have one hour.” He hung up, and Danny felt all sense of control slip from his fingers.

“Danny…” Stella said, offering a gentle hand on his arm for support.

They couldn’t kill Ludgate, they couldn’t kill him, they couldn’t. Danny wanted to be better than that. But if anything happened to his father…

Holding Mal’s gaze, an understanding passed between them that made Danny sick to his stomach, yet he didn’t know what else he should be feeling right now. He didn’t want to be the man he’d been before he learned to love Malcolm Cho, but for now the only thing that mattered was saving his father.

“Nothing changes,” Danny said, shoving his cell phone into his pocket. “Ludgate has my dad…but everything else continues as planned. He gave us an hour. Let’s use it.”

Priestly and Andre jumped into action, not even waiting for a signal. The others looked to Danny for direction. Mal continued to stare at him with a promise in the depths of his eyes that Ludgate was not taking anything else away from them.

“Let’s get to work,” Danny said, and he and Mal turned to the others, one by one, and began issuing orders as if their teams had always worked in tandem, with a captain of the OCPD in their ranks and more firepower than most armies between their Elementals and tech.

Ludgate believed he couldn’t lose; Danny intended to prove him wrong.

R

It was still early, closing in on 10:30 in the morning. Olympus City’s skyline looked peaceful in the distance, still and bright with the sun reflecting off the buildings like sparkles of crystal. The location for setting up the mirror trap wasn’t far from the woods Mal brought Danny to earlier. When this was over, he wanted to go there again, push Mal against one of those trees, and kiss him. Replace a few bad memories with better ones.

When this was over…

“Hey,” Stella’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, his gaze distracted on the view of the city and the remains of the power station nearby. “I know this might seem like a stupid question, but…are you okay?”

He turned to her, wearing the Zeus suit but with the cowl drawn back. Behind Stella, the trap stood tall as it received its final touches, the mirrors all facing inward, though with a few crevices and corners within the closed off space to tempt Ludgate. There was a single entrance that teased them with the edge of the first mirror, its surface muted from the Miasma Field.

The others all had their parts to play. Oz was back watching Mal’s neighborhood in case Ludgate strung them along with decoys and tried to play dirty. Carla was still safely tucked away at the morgue with Mai and Michael. They’d always been out of earshot from the group’s planning because Carla didn’t want Michael to worry about his favorite superheroes. Michael had hugged Danny and Mal goodbye before they left, only knowing that they had a bad guy to catch, so he wished them luck.

Captain Shan sat vigil in his office. Someone had to be ready to send in the cavalry once Ludgate was on ice and ready to be taken into custody. The rest of the team was all within Danny’s field of vision.

Lynn, regardless of her injured arm, refused to stay back in case medical attention was needed. Joey had insisted on helping Andre and Priestly, and of course Stella wasn’t willing to be left behind either. Not this time. Not if something went wrong.

Then there were the Titans—Mal talking with Dom and Lucy with that deliberate way about his gestures that Danny found hypnotic. Dom had a cigarette between her lips, and Danny had seen her roll her eyes more than once in just the span of time he’d spared a glance at them. Lucy stood with her arms crossed, frowning at her brother, worried. They all were.

“I’m scared for Dad,” Danny said, dropping his eyes to look at Stella, “but I’m okay. Really. Because I know we can do this. Half of me keeps thinking if only I’d realized Dad was missing sooner. If only I’d stayed away from that damn mirror in the hospital and never let Ludgate take me…”

“Danny…” her brow knit in sympathy.

“But the other half of me,” Danny pushed on, “that other half knows it isn’t my fault. So if I’m not going to wallow, then I am going to do something about it. Right now I’m focused on the plan. If it works, this will finally be over and…we can celebrate by taking Dad to lunch.” He snickered, not wanting to envision a scenario where John needed to be rushed to the hospital.

“That sounds wonderful,” Stella said, smiling back even through her downturned brows. “Burgers or someplace nicer?”

“Actually, there’s this Korean café attached to a corner store in Mal’s neighborhood.” His stomach rumbled at the thought of Mrs. Pak’s bulgogi. “There isn’t room for everyone, but I bet the owner would figure something out.”

Stella’s eyes crinkled as she poked his stomach. “You two are ridiculously domestic, you know that? Who would have thought? Before you started seeing him, I think I saw more of you pretending to be happy than the real thing.” Reaching to take Danny’s hand, she squeezed before he could protest that. “A real smile, real happiness, looks very different on you. I’ve started to realize that the few times I’ve seen that were always because of him. I have to admit, I wasn’t okay with the thought of you two in the beginning.”

“I wouldn’t have expected you to be. Any of you.”

“But that was before I saw how much he was willing to fight for you. The fact that this group of unlikely allies managed to pull together a plan this huge, working side by side in close quarters for days, proves that you and Malcolm finding happiness together is not the strangest thing we’ve dealt with. If you want to work through the complications that might come up and just be happy with him, I believe you can do it, Danny. I want you to do it. Not that you need my blessing…”

Danny squeezed her hand, ready to tug her in for a hug, because no, he didn’t need her blessing, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate it.

“Isn’t it Dad’s blessing you should be worried about?”

They shifted their attention in unison to see Joey having snuck up on them. He wasn’t looking on in disapproval, but Danny was stunned anyway. Joey had never called John ‘Dad’ in front of him without correcting himself.

“What she said,” Joey nodded at Stella. “Prometheus isn’t so bad. And if Dad hasn’t already, I’m sure he’ll give his approval when this is over.”

“A month ago he would have cursed and hollered,” Danny snickered.

“Maybe,” Joey snickered with him, “but he definitely loves you, Danny. I’m sure Dad would rather have Prometheus watching your back than using it for target practice.”

“Me too,” Danny laughed harder.

“Just be careful, alright? I know you always are, but don’t let Ludgate get to you. This family keeps getting bigger.” Joey fidgeted and looked down at his feet. “I kinda like that.”

Danny understood what he meant—he didn’t want their family to get any smaller. He wanted to hug his brother like he’d felt the need to hug Stella, but he held back. This wasn’t goodbye; he shouldn’t be saying goodbye. That would only make this harder. It was just a fight, just a villain he had to face like many others before him. This was Danny’s job, and he wasn’t doing it alone.

“Danny?” Mal called before he could think of anything to say.

Joey and Stella parted, and there he stood, gear on, duster and all, including the new goggles Priestly had tweaked. He nodded once to Joey and Stella, no smirk in place, just assurance in the task ahead. Then his eyes fell on Danny.

“Ready?”

R

The hour was almost up. Only a few minutes remaining. They couldn’t risk making Ludgate wait. With Priestly and Andre on comms and Captain Shan listening in for when it was safe to send in reinforcements, the others hung back while Mal, Danny, and Dom entered the mirror trap.

Once Danny gave the signal, Mal looked at the Miasma Field through his goggles and slowly began to bring the radius in closer until it only struck the mirrors nearest them, then he turned it off completely.

‘Fun house’ was definitely a close approximation of their surroundings once the frosted look disappeared and the mirrors around them shimmered with renewed reflections. Dozens of copies of them looked back—more than dozens, since the placement of the mirrors multiplied the reflections infinitely into the distance.

Mal sensed Danny fidgeting at his side, being on his left with Dom at his right. Danny was always antsy, always ready to move, but these nerves were different. Despite standing tall, Danny was afraid down to his core because of what Ludgate had done to him. It didn’t matter if they needed Ludgate to get out of the mirror world once they were in it; if Mal found an opportune moment to kill the man, he doubted he could stop himself from taking it. Like he’d told Danny, sometimes people got what they had coming.

At least that was what he wanted to believe. Taking in all the many Dannys he could see reflected in the mirrors, standing between him and Dom as a unified front against a common enemy, the thrill and adrenaline Mal loved about the best laid plans of a successful heist surged through him like never before. Side by side with Danny Grant, he could admit he didn’t want to let him down.

“Such a lovely gift you’ve brought me,” Ludgate’s voice echoed through the chamber, causing the hair on Mal’s arms to prickle. One by one, the images of him, Danny, and Dom flickered out, replaced by the visage of Ludgate in his silver suit.

Mal side-eyed the exit, just to see the glimmer of light to remind him there was a way out, they weren’t trapped, this was a trap for Ludgate. Still, he couldn’t help thinking, why’d they have to build it with a ceiling?

“So nice of you to invite me,” Ludgate went on, grinning within his cowl. “But just the three of you? What are the others up to, I wonder?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Ludgate,” Mal said, smirking when the man twitched at the use of his name instead of his moniker. “Busy schedule this morning. So why don’t you hand over Detective Grant, and we’ll be on our way.”

Ludgate tossed his head back with a laugh. “Always did love your sense of humor, Prometheus.”

The reflections shimmered and shorted out like a faulty connection, and when Ludgate’s image returned, it was focused further back, showing off his entire body, with John Grant tied to a chair in front of him.

“Dad!” Danny cried, flinching forward but managing to hold himself back.

John did not look well. His face was bruised, lip bleeding, teal eyes tired like he’d been interrogated all night, beaten for information he couldn’t offer. Again, Mal wanted to give Ludgate what he had coming, but however this ended, they had to be smart, careful, patient.

“I’m alright, kiddo,” John said between labored breaths. “Whatever he wants, don’t give in. Don’t worry about me. Don’t—”

“So noble,” Ludgate spoke over him, and with a flourish, John was obscured by a stretch of fabric that covered his head and shoulders. It was Danny’s jacket from the night at the hospital. “But we wouldn’t want any distractions now, would we? We have so much to talk about.”

“Cut the bullshit and get on with it,” Dom growled.

“Prometheus,” Andre spoke over the comms, “turn on the cold field. We need him on the defensive. Time to make him mad.”

Mal complied without saying a word, just a subtle shift and tap at his wrist that Ludgate wouldn’t notice as anything but nervous tension. He spread out the cold field to fill the space, meaning he had to stay in tight quarters with Danny and Dom, but if Ludgate poked even a finger outside a mirror, he’d get a taste of frostbite.

Mal’s new goggles didn’t merely display the radius of the fields, they also transmitted everything he saw back to Andre and Priestly. Dom’s mask was the same. Ludgate had them surrounded with different versions of himself to watch every move they made, but they had extra eyes too.

“What do you want, Ludgate?” Danny demanded, emotion making his voice catch. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

“I beg to differ.” The mirrors flickered again, and John’s image disappeared. “You see, you took everything from me, Zeus, but you gave my father exactly what he wanted. To ruin you. His little project that blossomed right before his eyes. I knew that if only I could Awaken as you had, he’d finally see me too. Then you killed him, but in doing so you gave me the opportunity I needed to carry on his good work. You, Zeus, are nothing but a shadow,” he boomed from inside the mirrors, “created by my father. An echo of him. The people of this city don’t see that yet, but they will.”

Mal nudged Danny’s arm to make sure he didn’t teeter too close to the edge Ludgate was pushing him toward. After a subtle nod from Danny, the three of them moved as a group, pivoting slowly while Ludgate monologued.

“There’s been no real press about me and my exploits. All my heists have been small, even the diamond was barely headline news at six o’clock. ‘Prometheus, at it again’,” he mimicked in an announcer voice, “had more coverage after your foreplay the other night than how I had you both on the run.”

“The OCPD knows you’re worth bringing in,” Danny said, scanning the mirrors around them section by section.

“‘Course the rest of the Joe Schmoes out there recognize a chump when they see one,” Dom added.

“Now, now, Dom, be fair,” Mal jumped in. “‘Chump’ implies someone else is duping Ludgate. But he’s only duping himself. More of an amateur with delusions of grandeur. Don’t beat yourself up about it,” he grinned at one of Ludgate’s many reflections. “We all have to start somewhere.”

“Ah!” Ludgate yelped, and Mal and the others spun to where the sound had come from.

Wasting no time, Mal shot a burst of ice at one of the mirrors, but if Ludgate had been there reaching out, he’d already retreated. One mirror was useless now, coated in ice.

“Coward,” Mal said with a lofty grin. “Afraid I’ll nip at your nose? Maybe we should make things easier on you.”

“Switch to the heat field,” Priestly agreed. “When he tries again, he’ll get further out before he realizes something’s different.”

Mal turned his field off. A moment later, he saw the red ring of Dom’s field fill the space where his blue had been. Even inside the eye of safety, Mal felt the edge of stifling heat creep into his limbs and shorten his breath.

“Give him some bait to try again,” Andre said.

“Guess ya are a coward. Just ask ol’ Spark Plug here!” Dom called. “Ya think we ever ran scared facing him down?”

Mal and Dom followed Danny’s lead, moving together as best they could to back toward a mirror. Whenever Mal was too far out of the eye of the field, he felt it, the sudden suffocating heat, and shifted accordingly.

This time, Ludgate’s yelp of surprise came out as a gasp and gulp for air, and it was Dom’s turn to fire at the mirror nearest them. The arc of flames singed part of Ludgate’s arm, but he got away with only a few scorches.

“You think these tricks will save your father?!” Ludgate roared.

“Don’t hurt him!” Danny cried. “Please. Just let him go and we’ll give you the fight you want. You can broadcast it to the whole city for all I care!”

“Oh…” Ludgate said in a low, menacing tone, “I already am.”

For a moment the mirrors displayed their own reflections again, and Mal imagined that same view being seen by thousands of people throughout the city—Prometheus and Helios bookending Zeus against a greater threat.

“He’s right,” Shan’s voice came over the comms. “I got reports coming in from all over about a livestream of the fight. Good thing is it didn’t start ‘til after your father’s head was covered. Uniforms are on standby ‘til you give the order, but be careful. You got an audience now.”

Shit. That was one thing they hadn’t planned for.

Mal could see on Danny’s face that he wanted to respond, to express his alarm, but they couldn’t risk Ludgate or the watching public learning too much.

“Heat field off. Give him a window,” Priestly said.

And Andre added, “Keep him running from mirror to mirror just a little longer.”

The circle of red disappeared, and Mal relaxed into the cooler air that followed. They had to make Ludgate think they didn’t have a better plan. Too long and he’d start to get suspicious, but they couldn’t act too quickly either.

Before Mal even noticed that Ludgate’s hand had breached the surface of a mirror, Danny lightning jumped forward to grab it. His speed meant he almost got a hold of the bastard, but Ludgate could play bait too. Slamming into the hard surface seconds later, Danny caused a large crack to form up the middle of the mirror.

Ludgate’s laughter ricocheted to taunt him. “Same tired tricks as last time, Zeus? Don’t you ever learn?” His hands darted out of the mirrors on either side of Danny to grab his arms, pulling taut and stretching him against the cracked surface like he meant to split Danny in two.

Mal and Dom jolted forward, but they had nothing to shoot at other than the mirrors. Ludgate’s hands had disappeared into the reflections, taking Danny’s along with them. Firing into the open reflections might cause Ludgate to retreat, and Mal shuddered at the thought of Danny’s hands being severed.

Crying out at the strain of his stretched arms, Danny was at his breaking point, but Mal held a hand out to keep Dom back.

Smart. Careful. Patient.

“Come out and face us, Hades!” he called to mollify Ludgate. “If you’re really worthy of owning this city!”

“Come out?” Ludgate scoffed. “Where’d the fun be in that?”

The whine that left Danny when Ludgate released him proved both his pain and relief at being let go. He sagged further against the broken mirror, drawing his arms into his body. Mal and Dom hooked him around the waist to pull him back into the center of the fun house.

“You okay?” Mal whispered.

Danny cringed as he held his shoulders, but when he ducked his head toward Mal…he winked. Looking over Danny’s shoulder at Dom, Mal nodded.

“Now,” Andre said, seeing the signal.

Together, Mal and Dom turned their respective fields on, and in the moment that the opposing temperatures collided, there was an eruption of snowfall. The ceiling closed them in, but it was high, high enough for just this purpose. If they were right, there should always be at least one active mirror whenever Ludgate used his tech.

Mal and Dom turned the fields off as soon as the snow began, and as it drifted toward the ground, much of it landed on the surfaces of the mirrors and stuck there, either building up or starting to melt. But for any mirror that was an open gateway, the snow should drift straight in.

“Pretty backdrop, Prometheus,” Ludgate jeered, “but hardly enough to save you or Zeus’s father.”

Ignoring him, Mal scanned for the mirror they needed.

There.

In the corner near the exit with its strip of light from outside, the snow wasn’t collecting on the surface of the mirror, but disappearing into it. Reaching for Danny’s hand, Mal squeezed and tugged the kid his direction, just as the fun house reflections coalesced into a single image like a wall of monitors building a mosaic, with Ludgate and Danny’s father centered in front of them. Ludgate held a shard of glass in his hand, raised up, above John’s back, whose head was still covered with Danny’s jacket. He had no idea…

Most people would have been trapped by their fear and Ludgate’s threats, but Danny turned to Mal, trusting in his firm grip.

“Now we end this,” Ludgate said.

“Yeah,” Danny nodded, not looking away from Mal, “we do.”

He had Mal around the waist the next second, had Dom somehow too, and with a jerk of motion faster than any eye could blink, Mal’s stomach got left behind where he’d been standing as he suddenly found himself somewhere else.

They hadn’t lightning jumped to wherever Ludgate stood, but they were inside the mirror world, and it was not what Mal had expected. The landscape glittered like stars with countless mirrors in an indecipherable pattern stretching further into infinity than what the fun house created, only these mirrors weren’t reflections; they were all real. Standing equal in height and width, some below them, some above, the mirrors existed in every direction, with a floor and ceiling made of pure black that gave no sense of stability even though Mal could feel something solid beneath his feet. It was jarring, nauseating. But there wasn’t time to be overwhelmed.

“Where is he?!” Danny called, spinning about, used to this place enough that he was able to ignore the strangeness of it, while the widening of Dom’s eyes proved she wasn’t enjoying the view one bit.

Mal spun around as well, looking for signs of Ludgate, John, or both. He tapped the side of his goggles to gauge the width of the seemingly endless room, but the tracker zeroed out and started blinking—not usable in a pocket dimension, apparently. When he didn’t immediately see any signs of life, he paused to coat the top edges of the mirror they’d come from with a frame of ice. If something went wrong, at least they’d have a chance of finding their way out.

Danny darted between nearby mirrors, scanning as far into the distance as he could, before using a lightning jump to search the other direction and leaving behind the faint afterimage of white and gold. “I don’t see him!” he cried.

“Zeus,” Mal reached out, careful not to use his real name in case the citizens of Olympus were still watching.

Crackling came over the comms, a few cut off words in Andre’s voice, but nothing substantial followed, only static. They’d anticipated this, but now they knew—the comms didn’t work in the mirror world. Mal could only guess if their cameras did for the others to still see what they were doing.

“Thought you could sneak in uninvited, did you?” Ludgate blinked into existence in every reflection around them.

“Where’s my father?” Danny’s arms jolted with electricity as he clenched his fists.

Ludgate’s many copies gestured to the left in a trail of motioning hands. “Right there.”

Although nothing had been there a moment ago, the image of John sat tied to a chair, head and shoulders still covered with Danny’s jacket. He was a good dozen meters in the distance, but reachable in seconds with Danny’s powers.

“Don’t.” Mal grabbed Danny’s arm before he could move.

“I know,” Danny said softly, even though his arm felt tense beneath Mal’s grip.

“Can your suit detect if it’s an illusion?”

“Not here. My sensors are going crazy. They see Elemental power all around us.”

“Option three?” Dom said, holding up her amplifier.

“Not yet.” Mal said glanced back to make sure he had a sense of where the mirror they’d come from stood. The coating of ice framed it like a gilding of diamonds. He turned to Danny, “Let’s—” only to feel an impossibly strong grip on his shoulders lurch him back and then throw him forward into a mirror so hard his head smacked against the edge.

“Mal!”

The world spun as Mal hit the ground. His goggles fritzed in front of his eyes, broken, because a crack now marred the right lens all the way down the center. If he hadn’t been wearing them, that would have been his skull.

Danny and Dom lifted Mal from the voidless floor, and he shook off his dizziness, dragging the ruined goggles down to his neck.

“New plan,” he huffed, wiping a trickle of blood from his forehead. “Risk the lightning jump. I’ll follow.” He tapped his amplifier to get the point across that he didn’t mean on foot.

Danny nodded, while Dom cursed and moved to stand back to back with Mal to keep watch behind him. Everything was guesswork without the goggles, but Mal remembered the distance the cold field had last stretched and his steel trap of a memory would not dare let him down today.

Setting his sights on his father, Danny ignored the looming, laughing figure of Ludgate in the reflections. When his lightning sparked and he took off, Mal turned on the cold field, widening the radius further and further until, in his mind’s eye, it reached just shy of John’s chair.

Danny appeared again in front of his father, but when he reached forward to grab him, the image vanished through his hands like smoke.

“No.” Danny whirled around, dread on his face as he scanned for where his father might be. John had to be trapped inside a mirror like Danny had been, and every image they saw of him was an illusion. “Ludgate, please!”

That laughter again, which set Mal’s teeth on edge. “I do love it when you beg, Zeus.”

Seething on the inside, Mal fought to keep his wits about him and turned the cold field off so Danny wouldn’t stumble into it. They had options. They had backup plan after backup plan. They could still do this.

“Please, do try again,” Ludgate called, and as Mal continued to pivot with Dom at his back, he caught sight of John once more, about the same distance away but in the opposite direction.

Danny lightning jumped from where he’d been standing, but not to his father. He appeared with Mal and Dom again, still thinking smart—good.

“Option three, Dom,” Mal said. If this image of John was another illusion, then the Miasma Field would make him disappear.

As soon as Dom turned the field on, every mirror around them shattered.

“Turn it off!” Danny cried.

Like an eruption, the area around them was covered in debris, a perfect circle of glittering carnage. Mal and Danny both looked to the mirror they’d entered from with its coating of ice. It was still there, just barely out of range of the mirrors that had been destroyed.

“We can’t,” Danny said. “If we destroy the mirror we came in through…”

“We won’t have a way out,” Mal finished.

“By all means,” Ludgate’s laughter picked up again, “keep making things harder on yourselves. And on him, of course.”

In the distance, Ludgate stepped out of a mirror behind John’s chair. He had the shard of glass again, poised threateningly above the man’s head. But now he was out in the open. He was vulnerable.

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.”