Dark Hunter (19 page)

“Hi,” Jake began before the woman sidestepped and he saw a wall of flesh racing down the narrow corridor. He heard a roar like an injured lion, caught glimpses of a blue jumpsuit and powerful shoulders scraping ruts in the narrow plaster walls. Jake focused on an enormous fist the size of a bowling ball—which connected with his face.

Jake was punched over the concrete balcony and sailed across the parking lot, before landing on a rusty van that crumpled like a pancake underneath him, windows exploding.

Although his ever-present force field had cushioned the blow, he still felt groggy. He looked up to see an impossibly huge figure spring down from the balcony. It was Scuffer. Jake had walked straight into a trap. Whether Munir had turned him in, or the Enforcers had just been lucky, he didn't know. But it served him right for letting even a retired hero live.

Scuffer effortlessly picked up a small car and swung it down on Jake. Jake flipped to one side, dropping to the tarmac just as Scuffer slammed the car onto the van.

Enforcers ran out of Sinclair's apartment, spreading out on the balcony with their guns trained on the action below. Jake swore at himself for being too careless. He tried to climb to his feet—but another pile-driving
punch landed on him. The blow drove Jake one hundred feet backward, smashing through slender tree trunks that lined the embankment of the railway line. The wood splintered with each impact, the trees falling over with a loud crack.

Jake bounced across the railway tracks and rolled for some time before coming to a halt. His breathing was labored. He forced his eyes open. One was swollen. He saw that he was lying in between the tracks next to a railway station. There were only a couple of people on the long thin platform. One was so engrossed in his newspaper that he didn't even look up. Another was listening to an iPod and singing loudly, and badly, with his back to the action.

Scuffer pushed his way down the embankment, his great deformed head sweeping from side to side as he sniffed the air. The noise was disgusting, as if he had a nose full of mucus. He zeroed in on Jake and roared, one powerful fist pounding into his chest like a deranged gorilla. Jake thought that whatever the mutating power was that he'd cast on Scuffer, it had turned him into a killing machine, one powered not by the feeble intelligence his old friend had once had, but by pure animal instinct.

Scuffer menacingly approached Jake. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jake saw his chance. He lunged at the ogre, grabbing him around the throat and thrusting
Scuffer's head back—just as a commuter train shot past in the opposite direction, horn blaring.

Jake forced Scuffer's head against the rapidly moving wall of steel. The train windows shattered and metal buckled. For a second Jake hoped that Scuffer was going to collapse. Then the train passed and the brute effortlessly batted Jake away. The impact hadn't seemed to injure him at all.

Jake leaped to his feet and took a flying jump onto the station platform. Scuffer followed, leaping in one long bound. Jake heard Scuffer land behind him and turned—ducking as a fist wheeled round and shattered the station sign just above Jake's head.

Jake sprinted up the platform, between the two still-oblivious commuters. Scuffer followed like a charging elephant. Jake knew he could simply fly away; even Scuffer couldn't jump that high to follow him. But then he would be unable to talk to the Hooded Harrier. He had to get rid of Scuff and the Enforcers if he had any hope of tracking down Psych.

Scuffer was catching up. Jake flew forward, only a few feet from the ground, but fast enough to increase the distance between them and give himself time to think of a plan. To the north of the station was a rail yard with rows of rolling stock. All around the yard was an industrial complex, and reaching into the air, the steel beams of a huge construction project being built to the east.

Jake landed between rows of heavy iron open-topped hopper wagons that were filled with limestone. He had a moment to think. Scuffer possessed incredible strength, an acute tracking ability, and was able to leap large distances. Jake doubted he could win the battle of strength, and he obviously couldn't hide for long, so he had to make the most of his other powers. Jake winced as he felt his chest and eye regenerate. This was the first time he had ever been in a situation where he had to
outwit
the enemy. And the fact that it was Scuffer was just embarrassing.

The ominous crunch of gravel and gruff breathing signaled Scuffer had caught up with him. Jake knelt down and peered between the wheels of the wagons. He could see Scuffer's feet as he prowled on the opposite side of the freight wagon. Jake held his breath as Scuffer stopped. He could hear snuffling. Then he watched with relief as the feet walked directly away from him.

Jake wondered if he could pin Scuff down by toppling the wagons on him. Evidently Scuffer must have been having a similar thought. …

Jake heard rapid footfalls and instinctively shot into the air—just as Scuffer charged into the hopper wagon with a long running head start. The wagon clanged from the impact and jumped off the track. Tons of freight teetered for a second before toppling over. The
cargo of limestone poured out across the track where Jake had been.

Jake hovered above the creature and unleashed an intense radioactive blast. The green wave rippled the air with its ferocity and knocked Scuffer off his feet. The heat was so intense that a section of the rail track he was standing on melted like chocolate.

Scuffer rolled backward, Jake continuing the onslaught until Scuffer smashed into a tube-shaped silver tanker filled with liquid petroleum gas. The radioactive heat detonated the load.

The orange fireball was blinding. An invisible shock wave blasted into Jake and sent him spinning through the air across the rail yard and into a line of flatbed trucks carrying shipping containers.

The explosion blew a crater in the middle of the yard and Jake could feel the heat singe his eyebrows as the fireball rose to the drab clouds like a mini-nuclear detonation.

For a few moments nothing stirred except the fragmented, burning remains of the tanker and the dull patter of rain. Black smoke covered the yard like dense fog.

Jake tried to climb to his feet but fell over—his leg was twisted completely the wrong way, a shard of bone poking out. He felt a jolt of pain but knew his super-powers were smothering the agony he really should be
feeling. With a crack his leg twisted around of its own accord, and rapidly began to heal.

He had been surprised by the power of the blast; it was surely a giant killer. Then he noticed movement in the smoke and Jake's mouth fell slack. Scuffer was rising from the flames, his skin red-raw and covered in cuts. He pounded his chest and roared to the sky.

Jake was beginning to get a sinking feeling that his old pal Scuffer was indestructible. That would pose a
huge
problem.

Technicians across the hangar were all talking at once as they tried to access the computer systems and internal phone lines. They were all getting a “system busy” message. Chromosome had entered the hangar with a few of the Legion in tow. It was a colossal space, housing the discus shuttles used by the Council. They were fast, undetectable by radar, and comfortable, ranging in size from private shuttles to large troop carriers containing mobile communication hubs—essentially a series of monitors and video cameras for each of the Council members so that they could talk to villains worldwide in the privacy of cyberspace without having to leave the island.

Chromosome preferred the smaller shuttles, like the one Hunter had destroyed on Liberty Island. But getting to one right now was proving difficult. Since Ernie had rerouted all processing power at her request, the entire island had become chaotic. Initially manual alarms had rung out to indicate they were under attack. When it became clear that Ernie had powered everything down,
suspicion moved toward the rogue supervillain Basilisk and his team, who had successfully crippled Hero.com. Was he turning on Villain.net too? Repeated requests for Ernie to respond had revealed nothing.

It had taken a while for Chromosome to reach the hangar, as the corridors were full of staff running like worker ants. At one point she had seen Fallout looming through the corridor and she hid. He could well be one of her coconspirators, but without confirmation she didn't want to run into any other Council member who might delay her.

Chromosome walked quickly along the raised platform at the back of the hangar where the key transportation offices were located—Air Traffic Control and the Command Post, which was her destination.

Inside, the Command Post looked like most car service depots, with a counter bisecting the room and a bored-looking man sitting on a stool behind it. He looked nervous when Chromosome entered and put down his Playstation PSP as the Legion scurried to close the door behind her.

“Chromosome, ma'am. I was not expecting you here today.”

“I need a shuttle.” Chromosome thought back to the old days when being a villain was something you did for fun, working off your gut instincts. In those days there would be no problem jumping in the pilot seat of an
aircraft and taking off. But with the current Council of Evil regulations there was so much
paperwork
.

“Uh, the computers are down at the moment.”

“So? My business can't wait! Give me the ignition card.” Like some modern cars, the shuttles could only operate if the pilot had the right ignition card, similar to a credit card, which unlocked the ship and started the engines.

The man licked his lips nervously. It was never good to argue with a Council member. But still, these were the Council's own rules.

“Do you have a B161 form?”

Chromosome laid both hands on the counter and leaned forward, smiling brightly. When she spoke her voice was seductive.

“I don't need those silly forms, do I?”

The man broke out in a sweat and he felt as if his brain was trying to seep out of his ears. He knew the rules, but the sweet melody of her voice convinced him everything was fine.

“N-no. Of course not.”

“Then give me an ignition card for a shuttle.”

The man half turned, then the nerdy clerk side of his brain kicked in and he frowned as he remembered something.

“But you already have one out …”

A flash of annoyance crossed Chromosome's face,
breaking the spell. Her persuasion powers only worked if she could keep a light-hearted tone, and right now she was feeling so stressed that she snapped.

“It was destroyed, you fool! That's why I want another! And, no, I refuse to fill out any of your ludicrous insurance forms again!” She had tried to report the shuttle loss through the Council's automated telephone system, but got lost when she pressed the wrong number on her phone's keypad. The phone system was evil incarnate.

The clerk had now fully recovered himself, and he crossed his arms defiantly.

“Then you know the rules, ma'am. I just—”

“Please! You must!” The charming voice was back, and the man was briefly reminded of his daughter asking for some present for Christmas. He smiled and patted Chromosome's hand without realizing what he was doing.

“Of course, don't worry. I'll sort it out.”

He tapped a code into a safe under the counter and withdrew a small card, which he handed over to Chromosome. She snatched it, but he wouldn't let go.

“Now what's the magic word?” he said in a fatherly voice.

Chromosome was feeling too angry to keep up the pretense. She placed a finger on his lips to silence him.

“Thank you. You will tell nobody about this.”

She removed her finger—and the man's smile
faltered as skin rapidly grew between his lips. It had the consistency of melted cheese, but the stringy flesh soon covered his mouth until he looked as though he'd been born without one. Then his nostrils sealed themselves too, and the man fell to the floor, suffocating as he clawed at his face.

Chromosome watched his struggle with interest, then remembered that she had to stop casually killing people like this. It would get her into trouble, and she didn't have time to dispose of this body like she had with Grutt. She quickly crossed the hangar to the shuttle, where she would wait until Ernie announced Psych's location.

What she wasn't aware of was that Grutt's remains had been found, and at that moment Necros was staring at the pile of bones and robes and coming to correct conclusions. …

Scuffer shattered the railway sleepers with a single punch as quickly as Jake could chuck the heavy concrete slabs. Scuffer's entire body looked both raw and, in patches, black from where he had been burned, but he showed no signs of pain. If anything it seemed to make him angrier. Jake had attempted to take to the air the moment he saw Scuffer was still alive—but instead he fell flat on his face.

His flying powers had deserted him once again.

Jake was shocked. Chromosome wasn't around to cancel them out, so he knew they must have permanently disappeared. As part of him was fused with Villain.net and his powers had been amplified, he had assumed that he no longer needed to download specific powers. The last few times he'd logged on to Villain.net, he had just downloaded from
any
icon he liked the look of. Now he remembered that he had only selected two, rather than his usual four powers, before leaving the castle. He was paying the consequences, and he just hoped nothing else ran out.

He'd been so engrossed with his thoughts he hadn't realized Scuffer was next to him until a mighty fist closed around his neck and pitched him into the steel cargo container. Luckily Jake's force field absorbed the damage.

Scuffer pressed his twisted face closer to Jake and loudly sniffed at him. Jake recoiled; Scuff smelled as if he'd been living in a sewer. As the grip tightened he was finding it difficult to breathe and he realized that Scuffer was trying to pull off his head.