Dark Hunter

VILLAIN.NET

ANDY BRIGGS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

The Great Escape

The Hunt Begins

Invitations

On the Trail

A New Home

Air Force One

Splash Down

Family Ties

Freedom and Liberty

The Race Begins

Manhunt

Final Destination

Expect the Unexpected

Author's Note

Also by Andy Briggs

Imprint

For Pete—
a hero's hero …
and a villain's villain!

WHAM! Jake's head jerked back with the powerful blow to his cheek. He had a metallic taste in his mouth: his lip must be bleeding. Through a swollen eye he looked at Chameleon sitting across the table.

The superhero had been interrogating Jake since he'd arrived at Diablo Island Penitentiary, three … four weeks ago? Maybe more—days had blurred into one another.

Chameleon motioned for the heavy Enforcer to stop hitting the boy. The man was huge, dressed in the uniform worn by the United Nations' secret army whose mission was to conceal superheroes from public awareness and to capture supervillains. Like Jake.

“Had enough, Hunter?” said Chameleon.

Jake glared at the young man across the table, who was dressed in immaculate black and sporting a sharp haircut with a widow's peak. Chameleon could shape-shift, but this seemed to be his normal form.

“When I get out of here,” Jake said through cracked lips, “I'll kill you.”

A ghost of a smile flickered across the hero's face. “Fine. But you understand you will
never
get out of here. The outside world doesn't care and your family have forgotten you
ever
existed.”

Jake tried to lunge forward, but he was bound to the chair and feeling weak because he hadn't been able to download powers from Villain.net. Those superpowers kept him alive. Whatever powerless replacement Chameleon was pumping into him was doing nothing more than keeping him tired and weak.

“I saved your family,” continued the hero. “They will no longer have the heartbreak of suffering such an insolent son as you.”

Jake jerked futilely in the chair and the Enforcer raised a threatening hand to strike again, but pulled away when Chameleon gave a slight shake of the head. The hero had never physically struck Jake during the interrogations, but he was more than happy to allow the Enforcers to be heavy-handed.

“I'll get them back,” spat Jake. “Then I'll kill you and all your little superfriends when I tear this place apart!”

Chameleon smiled, and Jake wanted to rip his smug face off.

“Your family is gone, Hunter. And restoring their memories is not a power that even you possess.” He paused. “I think by now I'm starting to believe you don't know the location of the Council of Evil.”

The Council of Evil was a dedicated group of supervillains who had created an empire in retaliation to the Hero Foundation. Classic evil versus good. Both sides had started recruiting heroes and villains through Hero.com and Villain.net, and both sides had successfully hidden their headquarters away from the other.

“I've never been,” growled Jake. “And if I had, I'd slaughter them too! Basilisk did this to me, made me dependent on that stupid Web site!”

“He did more than that, Hunter, and you know it. Your body has become entangled with Villain.net. And that's what makes you valuable to both sides.”

“I told you before: I don't care!”

“You have the unique ability to absorb powers from Villain.net, far greater than experts previously thought was possible. But not only that, you can create new ones that we've never seen before.”

Jake laughed. This was the usual sermon from Chameleon, but it didn't change the fact that Jake had been tied to a chair every day and beaten for information.

Chameleon leaned forward, tenderness flashing across his face. “Hunter … Jake, please. Work with us, not against us. Use your abilities to help the Hero Foundation. Together we can eradicate evil and make the world a much better place.”

Jake took a moment to contemplate Chameleon's
offer, but it was a simple decision—there was only one important person. Himself.

With the limited movement available to him, Jake twisted his hand and threw an obscene gesture and a charming smile.

The look of fury on the hero's face was worth the punch across the face from the Enforcer.

The silence was so deep that Jake could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He'd been mentally counting the minutes since they had thrown him back into his cell. The lighting was so intentionally bright that it was impossible to tell where the floor met the walls, and it hurt Jake's eyes and made his photosensitive skin tingle unpleasantly. Aside from his addiction to Villain.net, that was another side effect of his DNA being entangled with the super-power system.

Jake was now feeling stronger than he had been when Chameleon had first apprehended him on the beach of Basilisk's volcanic island. Perhaps there was something in the replacement power they'd been using to keep him alive. But now Jake had had enough. His craving for superpowers was too strong. It didn't matter what the powers were—they always made him feel stronger and more alive. And his body was a cauldron
of hyperenergy, sloshing it all around to give him useful if unexpected powers. Most of the time.

He had decided it was time to leave.

On his first night on Diablo Island he had found a cell phone tucked under the pillow in his chamber. On it was a link to access the Villain.net Web site, and he knew from past experience that he could download limited powers from this device. But he had resisted using the phone in case it was some kind of trap set up by Chameleon.

The second night he had received a text message on the phone telling him not to delay escaping. The message was just signed “Your Caring Benefactor.”

He had no idea who that person was. He'd speculated it could be Basilisk, who had claimed they were now genetic twins,
almost
clones. But why would the archfiend help? Jake had sworn revenge after he'd made him addicted to Villain.net.

Now, as midnight approached and the Enforcers who patrolled the cellblock had returned to their barracks for a scheduled break, Jake pulled the cell phone from under his pillow and stared at the screen. His fingers trembled, both from excitement at the prospect of escaping, and from a lack of strength. He pushed the control pad to highlight the Villain.net link, a lengthy mixture of foreign alphabets and numbers, and clicked on it.

Within seconds the screen changed to a miniature version of the Web site. There was a list of icons, all representing superpowers and all too small to identify …

He blindly chose several powers and saw a thin tendril warp out of the screen and tap him on the forehead. Then a sensation like pins and needles rippled through his body and he went from being weak and lethargic to feeling as if he could conquer the world.

Jake leaped off his bed and stretched his arms, feeling the blood flow to his muscles and his mind sharpen to primeval alertness. He had gleaned a little information from the Enforcer guards who escorted him to and from his cell each day. They had talked freely, assuming that Jake was no longer a threat. His cell walls were a few feet thick, and at the end of the corridor, which was lined with security cameras, lay an open courtyard where some prisoners were permitted to exercise, although Jake had never been allowed outside. He was being housed in the minimal security wing; after all, he was now just a boy with no superpowers. Hardly a threat to Diablo Island Penitentiary—the very name of which made seasoned supervillains tremble.

Jake tucked the phone into his jeans pocket—the same worn black jeans he'd been wearing for weeks. He knew that the moment the alarms were triggered, hundreds of heavily armed Enforcers would be upon him,
and he wasn't sure he had the strength to fight them all. The situation called for a tactical approach.

His fingers traced the edges of the cell door in the hope he could find a gap, but it was made with such precision it could have been airtight. Jake was beginning to think he'd have to resort to brute force when the lock suddenly clicked open as he moved his hand across it. Puzzled, Jake gently pulled the door open and stepped out into the dark corridor beyond. He experimentally waved his hand across the lock several times and each time it slid back and forth through some kind of telekinesis.

“Now that's cool,” Jake murmured to himself, shutting the door behind him.

He looked around the corridor and immediately identified three surveillance cameras. He wafted his hand like he was swatting a fly, and all three cameras quickly snapped aside, as if he'd physically struck them.

Jake stealthily approached the double security doors ahead, his mind running through his options. His overwhelming urge was to find Chameleon, who he knew was somewhere on the island, and exact his revenge. But the new cautious side of Jake's mind urged him to flee as quickly as possible. He might have superpowers, but nobody had yet managed to escape from Diablo Island, as he was constantly reminded.

As he took several more steps to freedom the double
doors suddenly gave a loud beep and began to slide apart—somebody was coming in! Evidently he had miscounted while lying in his cell, and this was the scheduled security patrol. Fighting panic, he moved into the shadows—and felt a sensation just like falling into water. He gave a startled yelp as he saw his body transform and disappear into the pool of blackness. His head popped from the shadows on the floor, just enough to comprehend he had become part of them. Two Enforcers had entered, weapons cradled in their arms. They walked past Jake without noticing him, both doing bad impressions of a TV comedian they had just been watching.

Jake gave silent thanks that, by chance, he had the right powers to slide him out unnoticed. Then a second thought hit him—perhaps his mysterious benefactor had ensured that he'd downloaded exactly the powers he'd need, just like Basilisk had done before.

Basilisk. Again that name brought a wave of anger. Jake was sure that he wanted to kill the villain on sight, and he figured Basilisk realized this. The fiend was responsible for ruining his life, getting him imprisoned—everything that was bad in Jake's life had been a direct consequence of Basilisk's involvement. But if it wasn't Basilisk helping him out, then who could it possibly be?