Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns

by Andrews, Christopher

  He stepped forward, placing his hands on Mark’s shoulders.

  “Whatever you think ‘I’ said to you last night, while we were separated in the dark? Mark, it wasn’t me. It was the Skygger.”

  Mark looked him in the eye, and Michael was amazed by the degree of heartache, and the slow-blossoming relief he saw there. He knew Mark’s history, and often hoped that he was a stabilizing force in the man’s life. But he had no idea ...

  Then Mark spoke, and his voice was so small. “That wasn’t you?”

  Michael shook his head. “No, Mark. It wasn’t me. I’m not just your partner, I’m your friend. Did they ask me to switch to Lincoln? Yes, a couple of times. But I told them no. And if they ever ask me again? Or if they try to make me?” He smiled. “I’ll tell them to go to hell.”

  Mark held back one second more, as if he was afraid to believe this turn of events ...

  ... and then his eyes filled with tears, and he threw his arms around Michael, drawing him into one hell of a bear hug, squeezing tight enough that Michael found it a little difficult to breathe.

  But he didn’t mind. Not in the slightest.

  SHOCKWAVE AND TAKAYASU

  Mark felt like such an idiot.

  He tried to console himself by mulling over what Mike had shared about this “Skygger” shithead. He reminded himself that rogues (or whatever the hell it was) sometimes came equipped with some serious mind-trip powers, argued that he really could not have been prepared to deal with a monster from another freakin’ dimension!

  And yet ... he still felt like an idiot. Because no matter how he tried to spin it to himself, the plain fact was that he had fallen for it — hook, line, and sinker, fallen for it all the way, hard. It was embarrassing how easy he’d made it for the Skygger, how he’d just accepted “Mike’s” abrupt decision, hadn’t really questioned it.

  Damn, he thought. I knew I had self-esteem issues, but even I didn’t know they were that bad, for Christ’s sake.

  In some ways — fair or unfair — he felt like he’d let Mike down, that he hadn’t believed in their friendship enough to not just roll over and show his belly.

  He swore he would do better by Mike, from now on.

  After his little emotional “meltdown” (thank God no one had walked by their open door during those critical sixty seconds!), Mike got back to work on his report, something to do with rearranging hospital rooms, and Mark filled the time by making some phone calls and sending some texts, seeking any clue as to where this Skygger thing might be lurking around, any accounts of freaky, out-of-place darkness or cryptic messages written in blood — especially anywhere near the hospital where Vortex was recovering. None of them turned up anything useful, but he’d known it was a long shot — he was just trying to do something to pull his weight, to make up for sulking all night.

  But the morning got interesting again when Mike received a message from Madison Burr, the poor girl who got stuck with those gi-nor-mous tits, asking again about whether or not Park was going to fix her.

  As Mike dialed his office phone, he asked Mark, “Can you please check with Lieutenant Swanson about the security footage from Doctor Park’s office? I don’t know if we’ll need to subpoena Bendis Tower’s or not, but I’d like to take a look at Park’s ASAP.”

  “Sure thing, Mike,” he gushed, then blushed in further embarrassment over the gushing, then just bowed his damned head and fired off a Chat message to Swanson.

  By the time Mike got off the phone, Mark reported, “Sorry, Mike. Swanson says we haven’t received anything from Park’s office.”

  Mike paused at that. “Nothing?”

  “No. Seems kinda weird, since the guy was so, ya know, willin’ to help out. But it’s only been a day, so maybe he just hasn’t gotten on it yet.”

  Mike stared off into space. “Maybe. But, like you said ...” He trailed off, then switched tracks. “I know that I was a little out of it when we left, but we did give a business card to his receptionist as we left, right?”

  “Sure,” Mark said, then chuckled. “Those tits make a bigger impression than Madison’s, so I know we did. I spent the whole time tryin’ not to gawk.”

  Mike wasn’t interested in that little tidbit. “And I did write Lieutenant Swanson’s contact information on the back, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure ... yeah. Yeah, you did.”

  Mike leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

  “It could be that he just hasn’t gotten around to it yet, Mike.”

  “Maybe,” Mike mumbled.

  Mark had seen him do this enough times, this whole playing-things-out-in-his-head, waiting for his gut to speak to him, so that Mark knew to keep his mouth shut and wait.

  After a solid minute, Mike dropped his arms and stood up. “What say we swing by Doctor Park’s office again?”

  “Right now?”

  Mike was already slipping into his trench coat. “Unless you have more pressing business?”

  “No, but ... Mike, I got some sleep last night.” Not the best sleep of my life, he could have added, but didn’t want to drudge all that up again so soon. “Don’t you want to take a little snooze first?”

  Mike shook his head. “Several things about this whole affair are nagging at me, and one of them has been Doctor Park. Nothing I can put my finger on, but ...” He looked down at his hands. “Let’s just say, I’m considering his offer and would like a followup consultation. Right now.”

  Mark shrugged and smiled. “You’re the boss.”

  Mike smiled back, and they headed out.

  PCA

  “We’re going to push on through,” Mike said in a low voice as they approached Doctor Park’s office door. “I don’t know if he monitors that discreet waiting room camera of theirs, but I’d rather Park not know we’re coming until we get right up on him.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Mark agreed, pleased with Mike’s gung-ho attitude; usually, Mark was the one who wanted to go balls-to-the-wall, while Mike held him back as the voice of reason. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure what had lit a fire under the kid’s butt, but he liked it.

  Hell, it just felt good to be working shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike, after his twelve hours of Skygger-produced angst.

  The waiting room was more crowded this time, with six patients seated rather than the two from their last visit. Most of them were content to mind their own business when the PCA field agent barged in, his paranormal asset in tow. And this time it worked to their advantage that the receptionist’s desk had such a high front, because Carolyn didn’t spot them until they were passing right by her.

  “Oh, sir!” she gasped, surging to her feet and chasing after them faster than one would expect, considering how top-heavy she was. “Sir, uh— uh, officer!”

  “It’s ‘Lieutenant’,” Mike reminded her, flashing his badge over his shoulder as they rounded the bend toward the back hallway. “And we’re back on official business. We just need to see Doctor Park again.”

  “But he’s with a patient—!”

  “Yeah?” Mark cut her off. “What room number? We promise to knock first.”

  But then, as Mike, Mark, and Carolyn entered the hallway, Park emerged from one of the patient rooms at the far end, near his office. He was dressed in short-sleeved surgical scrubs, minus the cap and mask. He was rubbing his hands together, and when he saw them coming, he froze like a statue — his back foot halfway off the floor, his hands clasped as though he’d stopped mid-clap — and his eyes grew wide as saucers.

  “Mornin’, Doc!” Mark called. “Hope we didn’t catch ya at a bad time.”

  “Yes, Doctor Park,” Michael agreed. “You seem surprised to see us.”

  Park remained rooted to the spot for one more second, then his look of shock was replaced with that warm, charming grin from the day before, his body moving again. He let the door close behind him, cutting off sight of his latest patient, and spread his hands bef
ore him.

  “Not at all, not at all,” he assured them. “I just ... I wasn’t expecting another unannounced visit so soon. Did your office receive the video files from our security camera?”

  “That’s one of the reasons we’re here, Doctor Park,” Mike said. “We have not.”

  “Oh,” Park said, all innocence. “That’s odd. Carolyn, did you not follow up on that?”

  Poor Carolyn had no idea what to say, that much was painfully obvious. Her hand drifted to settle over her heart (as awkward today as yesterday) as she waffled between defending herself and not contradicting her boss. Finally, she settled for a non-committal, “I’ll ... look into that, Doctor Park.”

  “See you do, please.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Park,” Mike said, but Mark could tell from his voice that he wasn’t falling for Park’s little performance. Not today.

  Park rebuilt his smile. “Now, gentlemen, if that’s all—”

  “It’s not, actually. I wanted to talk to you about these,” Mike raised his hands and waggled his fingers, showing off the scars in a way he rarely did.

  “Ah,” Park responded. “Ah, yes. Good, good. But, you see, I’d expected you to make a consultation appointment—”

  Mike flashed his badge again. “I’m afraid we do have more official business, too.” He gestured toward Park’s office as though he owned the place, rather than the other way around. “If we could ...?”

  Park finally allowed frustration to show through. “Lieutenant, I feel that I’ve been very—”

  “Won’t take long, Doc,” Mark cut him off. “The quicker you go along with us, the quicker we’ll be outta your hair, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Fine,” Park huffed, and led the way to his office.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” Mark said to Carolyn in a low voice, making sure to do as Mike would do and stick with strict eye-contact. “We ain’t mad at you. Run along, and keep the people waitin’ quiet, would you?”

  Carolyn looked more befuddled than reassured, but she nodded, offered something close to a half-smile, and hustled back to the front.

  It took Mark a moment to figure out why Park’s private office felt different from yesterday. All the furniture and stuff — what little there was — was all the same. And it wasn’t like the wall color had changed...

  Then it finally hit: All the same lights were on, but it wasn’t so gloomy in here today.

  Park moved around to sit at his desk. He didn’t offer for Mike to take the guest chair, but Mike did anyway.

  “All right, Lieutenant,” Park grumbled. “I’m here, and my patients are waiting. I feel I was cooperative and courteous yesterday morning, and I don’t appreciate—”

  “Yes,” Mike agreed. “You were all that, and more. Vehemently.”

  “So what’s the problem, exactly? Why do I feel like—?”

  “You came across as eager to clear up any mystery regarding Madison Burr’s body alteration. And then you offered to fix my hands and Shockwave’s face. At a steep discount, no less.”

  Park folded his arms. But rather than tucking his hands into the bends of his elbows, he placed them against the opposing biceps, massaging as though fighting a muscle cramp. “Yes, I did. Though I’m starting to regret that.”

  “You were the very model of a cooperative suspect ...”

  “ ‘Suspect’?”

  “ ... and yet you failed to follow through on your promise to share your office’s security footage.”

  Park swallowed. “I thought it was clear, that was Carolyn’s—”

  “Security footage which could only serve to exonerate you of any possible wrongdoing. Or not.”

  Park sat and glared at them for a few seconds, then said, “I think I’d like to consult my attorney—”

  “And then there was your kind offer. Very generous. One that could only paint you in an endearing light, right? And one that could also serve to give me something else to think about, other than the abduction case — something personal, maybe distracting. And the same goes for Shockwave’s facial scar.” Mike held up his hands, waggling his fingers again. “I think that would be pretty obvious, too, especially to someone who has daily practice dealing with his patients’ insecurities.”

  Park scowled. “You’re fishing, Lieutenant.”

  Mike shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Your whole line of reasoning — and I use that term loosely — assumes my having an ulterior motive.”

  Again, Mike said, “Maybe.”

  “Did it occur to you that I was simply being generous?”

  “Sure. That’s exactly how I took it. To the point of ignoring my gut feeling that something was off about you, something I couldn’t specify. And then I fixated on my hands, and the miraculous rehabilitation you were offering.” Mike sat forward in his chair. “But some serious shit went down last night, Doctor, if you’ll pardon my language. Serious enough to knock my hands-fixation right out of my head. And that brought me back around to my gut, and this morning, when I learned that you had failed to provide—”

  Mike was usually the one to react to things almost before they happened — that very “gut” he’d just been talking about with Park — but this time it was Mark who saw something coming at the last second.

  Park’s massaging of his arms had increased as Mike pressured him, building from casual to agitated, to almost frantic. That’s what caught Mark’s eye, and what prompted him to notice the change in Park’s biceps. Park was tall and slim, and today’s short-sleeve top had showcased his lanky arms.

  But they weren’t lanky anymore. They were huge, bulging with muscle, and all the more odd-looking in that the rest of his frame remained the same as before.

  Mark opened his mouth to say something, to warn Mike, but before he could, Park moved.

  Dropping those newly-massive arms, Park seized the edge of his desk, heaved, and tossed it right at them.

  Mike, sitting in the guest chair, should’ve been the most vulnerable target, but that instinct of his must’ve kicked in after all, because he dove down and to the side, out of harm’s way.

  Mark, having seen that something bad was coming, pulsed up a shockwave shield at the last second, but although it halted most of the desk’s momentum, it still knocked him back and on his ass. The desk almost rolled over on top him, but a second shockwave took care of that.

  Park was making a run for the office door. Mike had rolled over backward and onto his feet, rising to stand between Park and his goal, V9 already in hand.

  “Freeze, Doctor Park!” he commanded.

  Park probably couldn’t have stopped in time even if he had wanted to — the office was a little confined for all this action — and he collided with Mike. Mark saw his partner shifting his weight; maybe trying for an up-close shot, maybe getting ready to toss the guy over his hip, and almost for sure trying to avoid those freaky new arms of his. Mark scrambled to his feet, wanting to take his own shot but reluctant to fire a shockwave with Mike so close ...

  All of that had happened super fast. But the next part felt like the slowest of slow-motion to Mark, as though he were trapped in a waking nightmare.

  Park reached up ...

  Mike pulled back his firearm, probably thinking Park was grabbing for it ...

  Park’s right hand instead closed over Mike’s face, his thumb along the right side of his jaw, his fingers along his left cheek ...

  ... and then, rotating his big arm and twisting his wrist, Park smeared Mike’s face like it was wet clay.

  Just like that, Mike no longer had a face, just a messy splotch where his face used to be, with his left cheek stretched over the front of his skull, and a mass of excess skin bunched up along the right side of his head.

  Mark screamed, “Mike!”

  Mike dropped his V9 and collapsed to the floor, clutching at the front of his head. Park pushed past him, drew back an arm, and knocked his office door off its hinges.

  “You son of a bitch!” Mark bel
lowed. No longer having to hold back, he fired a shockwave after the fleeing doctor, but all he accomplished was punching a hole through the wall as Park ducked into the hallway.

  Leaping over his flailing partner, determined to drag the asshole back here to fix what he had done to Mike, Mark dashed through the doorway in pursuit. He should have had a clear shot down the hall at Park’s back, which he intended to thump between the shoulder blades with a shockwave, hard enough to knock him down but not to kill him, yet.

  Instead, he found Park running into what seemed like the depths of an underground cave — the nearest patient doors were still visible on either side, but beyond that, it was like gazing into outer space, minus the stars.

  Weird-ass darkness! he thought. Like last night!

  Park was already disappearing from sight, even though he was no more than fifteen, maybe twenty feet away.

  Uh-uh, not gonna happen!

  Mark raised both fists, ready to send out a massive shockwave, big and wide enough to flatten the entire hallway, if that’s what it took to prevent Park’s escape — the darkness might hide the escaping asshole from sight, but that wouldn’t protect him from ...

  His shockwave was a split-second from eruption, the air around both fists rippling and blurring together, ready to explode outward ... but then Mark not only remembered that he needed Park alive, he thought of Carolyn and the waiting room with its half-dozen patients. The hallway might look like it was disappearing into space, but that was the weird darkness tricking his eyes.

  If he cut loose, he could kill them all.

  Cursing through clenched teeth, he willed his shockwave to power down. Reabsorbing that much kinetic energy back into his body made his skin burn, but he did it.

  He heard some confused cries and a scream, and what might’ve been another door getting knocked down. And then something else, something that might’ve been laughter, mocking laughter, and it didn’t sound like it came from Park.