“It was none of my business,” Jean-Baptiste agreed in a low, dangerous voice, “Until you got my children involved.”
Finding my feet again, I straightened up and surveyed the scene. Jean-Baptiste was somehow standing calmly just a few feet to the right of my father in Joey’s body. How had he gotten past the No-Men? But as I took a second glance around the room, the only No-Men here, besides the ones holding me, were dead on the floor. What had happened to the rest of them?
Gunshots and a crash from upstairs answered that question. Irma. How badly did they outnumber her? I pictured them swarming her, as they had Jean-Baptiste’s man, and pulled desperately against the No-Men’s grip. But it was like trying to bend an iron bar. Their strength must have been enhanced.
Dad grabbed Jean-Baptiste by the throat, lifting him effortlessly with Joey’s muscles. “And you think an unarmed blind man can do anything about that?”
Jean-Baptiste’s leather shoes dangled inches above the floor. His face screwed up in pain, and his cane clattered from his grasp. My throat closed up, and I surged toward him, but of course I didn’t get far before my arms were jerked painfully back.
“Enough!” I shouted. “Leave him alone, Dad. This is pointless!”
He only squeezed harder.
I reached out telepathically, trying to find my father’s thoughts so I could control them, though I’d never been able to before. Then Jean-Baptiste grunted.
“Blind, yes,” he growled. “Unarmed?”
He plunged a knife into my father’s chest.
“Decidedly not.”
Dad screamed, and Jean-Baptiste hit the floor as he dropped him. Dad yanked the knife from his chest, dropping it as he staggered back. Joey’s powers might make his body stronger with pain, but it wouldn’t stop him from bleeding out. He hit the couch, knocking it back, and clutched the bloody wound in his chest. Then he looked at me.
Suddenly, I remembered the pier all those months ago, when I’d lured my father to a meeting and had Eddy shoot him in the chest. Joey had been with him, and it had been Joey who’d clutched his chest in agony as my father’s lifeless body collapsed. Somehow, my father had possessed him before he died, though his superpowers were supposed to be gone after a team of DSA telepaths nullified them. Or maybe that was what he’d wanted people to think.
As he lurched toward me, jaw clenched in pain, I had no doubts about his intentions. I jerked back, slamming into the No-Men. I would have cut off my arms to escape their grip, but all I could do was thrash and tug. The moment he got close enough, I kicked him in the stomach. It felt like kicking the side of a truck. He bent forward slightly but seemed barely hurt—thanks to Joey’s powers, he was too strong.
He reached out toward me, and I braced my mental shields, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. When he touched my face, his presence swallowed my mind, and I wanted to scream. Not like this. Getting killed by my father was one thing—that had always been a possibility—but having him displace my mind and wear my body like a meatsuit? I’d rather have died when the boat went down. I’d rather blow my own brains out.
Vertigo and nausea hit me, turning my leg muscles to goop. As I sagged, my father’s presence filled my head like smoke, backing me into a corner as it encroached. I made a feeble attempt to bat his hand away and break contact, but I could barely see straight. I gripped his sleeve weakly, falling into darkness.
“Get your goddamn hands off her.”
At Irma’s growl, he let me go. Moaning, I hung limp in the No-Men’s grasp. It felt as if my skull had been split in two with an axe.
“I’ll give you one warning, Irma,” my father said. “Don’t—”
A gunshot cut him off. The No-Man to my left jerked and collapsed. Losing one of the hands holding me up, I dropped to one knee. My vision swam, and my head felt like a bottle that had been smashed. I could barely perceive Irma as she dashed into view, a pistol in one hand and a long knife in the other.
The No-Men attacked. She shot one behind me in the side of the head and got a second one right between the eyes before it could take more than three steps. Ducking under the swing of another, she surged up and stabbed it under the jaw, straight up through its mouth to the brain. Leaving the hilt buried in its flesh, she pulled another knife from her sleeve and threw it.
Dad cursed as it speared his hand, knocking from his grasp the gun he’d been about to shoot her with. The two stared each other down. Vaguely, I realized I was on the floor, the No-Men no longer holding me up. They were dead around me.
Irma raised her pistol, but Dad lunged. The shot missed, and he smacked the gun from her hand. She swung the knife, slashing him across the face. Crying out, he clutched at his face as he stumbled back. Irma surged forward, and he tried to twist away, but her knife cut deeply into his side.
Yes! I pushed myself up onto my elbows, feeling as if the floor swayed sickeningly. Irma went on the attack, jabbing and slashing, and Dad dodged clumsily. Blood drenched his shirt and dripped into his eyes, and his movements shook. One more good stab, and he’d be finished.
Get him, Irma.
She pressed the attack ruthlessly, a snarl on her face. Even in her plain gray dress, gray hair falling free from its bun, she looked like a Valkyrie. Her knife glinted in the light as it arched toward his chest—but he grabbed her wrist before it struck home.
I sucked in a sharp breath as he twisted her arm. Something popped, making her cry out, and he wrenched her around so that she was facing me. Her eyes met mine, and I couldn’t breathe as I stared back, my mouth open in horror.
Dad grabbed her head with Joey’s thick hands. I tried to push myself up, to get to her, but time seemed to slow, and my limp arms wouldn’t lift me fast enough. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t do anything.
My father twisted, and her neck broke with a snap.
Her body hit the floor, and my father stared straight at me.
“She had it coming.”
For a moment, everything was silent. Then it started in my chest, a painful pressure that slowly squeezed my insides. Bit by bit, it crawled up my throat like a swarm of ants through a tunnel. When it burst from my mouth, the scream cut through the air.
I surged up, rage strengthening my weak limbs. In that moment, I wasn’t a grieving woman or a defeated supervillain; I was one of the Furies, vengeance personified, wrath come to life. Grabbing Irma’s knife from the carpet, I tackled my father, plunging it into his chest.
We both went down in a tangle, but I kept my hand clenched around the hilt of the knife. I pushed myself up to my knees, yanking the blade from his flesh. He hissed, unable to rise as I stabbed him again and again.
Hot blood splattered my face, and I hadn’t stopped screaming. My arm burned as I slammed down the knife as hard as I could and immediately wrenched it out again. It wasn’t enough. I could stab him a thousand times, and it wouldn’t be enough. Tears spilled from my eyes, mixing with the blood on my cheeks. Irma…
Fury so consumed me that I didn’t notice my father’s presence in my mind until it was too late. I pushed with all my telepathic power, but it was like trying to push back a flood. The dark waters rushed over me, and everything went black.
Epilogue
Slowly, I woke.
My eyes opened, and all I saw was red. Groaning, I pushed myself up and saw the crimson came from the blood on Joseph’s shirt. I didn’t bother to check his pulse, having seen enough corpses in my time. His chest was still, his skin ashen. It was a shame, but there had been no way around it.
Faster.
What the hell just happened?
Did you hear that?
It sounded like gunshots.
I clutched my head, people’s thoughts as loud as a train whistle next to my ear. Telepathy. That would take some getting used to. The voices swirled around my head like a tornado, each attempting to drown the others out. One of those mental voices belonged to Jean-Baptiste Dupree, urging his sole surviving man to get them out of my range before
I psy-assaulted them.
I reached out telepathically to do just that, but Dupree slammed down his mental shields. It knocked me back like a door hitting me in the face. My head pounded, other voices shouting over Dupree’s. Bent over, I clenched my teeth and tried to block them all out.
I knelt there for a long time, Joseph’s blood soaking the carpet beneath my knees, before the voices quieted. It seemed Valentina’s powers were more difficult to control than I’d anticipated, but I’d master them in time.
I always did.
I stood, the ache in my head spiking for a moment. Dupree had left the range of what I could sense, but it didn’t matter. I had everything I needed now and could deal with the Prophet King at my leisure.
Spotting Valentina’s gun, I picked it up and made my way quickly to the front door. One of the neighbors had heard the gunshots and called the police—that much I’d sensed before all the voices had become too much. I could impersonate my daughter and pretend to be the victim of a home invasion, but I didn’t want to risk a DSA psychic poking around in this head so soon after I’d settled in it.
I stumbled a bit; Valentina’s legs were longer than what I was used to, and it had been a while since I’d worn heels. But I adapted quickly, and by the time I reached the front door, I walked with her confident stride.
As I opened the door, I took in a deep breath of fresh air and spared a moment to appreciate the opportunity before me. I had a new body now, one with enough power to murder a room full of people in the time it took to blink. My men knew Valentina, and when she came to them after the death of both Joseph and her husband, ready to take her place as the head of the family to avenge them, few would challenge her. And I could easily kill those who did. This was the start of a new chapter, and I knew exactly how it would go.
Smiling, I left the house and went to work.
Note from the Author
That’s the end of The White Knight & Black Valentine Series. Thanks for reading! It’s been a fun ride.
No, wait. I was just joking. Stop throwing rotten vegetables at me, please.
The fifth and actual final book in the series, Superhuman Disaster, is due out in December. I know I left you off on an evil cliffhanger, so I’m working to finish this last book more quickly than my usual snail’s pace. Head over to KristenBrand.com and sign up to get new posts by email to make sure you get all the updates on it. You can also get sneak peeks and excerpts by following me on Twitter.
And in all seriousness, thank you so much for reading. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.
Want more Val and Dave? Read the prequel about how they fell in love for free online at kristenbrand.com!
David Del Toro just wants to make the world a better place. It would be nice if he could find a way to do that without punching people, but as the superhero White Knight, that’s kind of in the job description.
Valentina Belmonte has one small, simple goal: to be the greatest supervillain who ever lived. Unfortunately, meddlesome heroes and her own backstabbing allies aren’t exactly making that goal easy to achieve.
The two of them really shouldn’t fall for each other. But even with incredible superpowers, they just can’t fight true love. Yet if they want to survive long enough to be together, they’ll have to battle invisible assassins, their own personal failings, and a power-hungry, ruthless crime lord who can kill with a single touch.
The White Knight & Black Valentine Series (Book 4): Kill Them All Page 17