Darkening Dawn (The Lockman Chronicles Book 5) by Rob Cornell

hurried back to her seat and checked the incoming message.
    UniLover69: Agency = police 4 supes. Easier to show you. This just in…
    He offered another link. She clicked through, shocked to find another YouTube video, this from a different user than the first.
    While the vid buffered, Elka considered another cigarette, but her stomach felt dry and hollow. Her hands shook from the buzz. She left the pack on the desk and gnawed on her thumbnail instead.
    The video started at an odd angle, bent back and aimed toward the sky. In the immediate foreground an overhang lined with a black gutter blocked most of the view. But beyond that, a billowing shaft of black smoke poured up toward the clouds, spreading out like an infection in the sky. Elka knew immediately where the smoke was coming from—the destroyed house from the first video.
    Why UniLover sent her such crummy coverage baffled her. It was hard to judge for sure, but it looked like the smoke was coming from at least a block over.
    Then the person with the camera—another obvious camera phone—swung around, the picture swirling fast enough to make Elka a little motion sick. When the camera steadied, the setting became a lot clearer.
    This new videographer stood on a porch, recording a group of six, mostly dressed in black fatigues and toting big rifles, as they ran down the street in front of the cameraperson’s house.
    The sight of the fatigues and rifles turned Elka’s heart to a chunk of coal. Memories rolled up on her as thick and dark as the smoke from the beginning of the video. She shivered while a feverish sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.
    But the one dressed in street clothes instead of fatigues…when she turned to glance in the camera’s direction….
    Three years folded into three seconds as Elka recognized the girl’s face. Older now, fuller, with a more womanly cast to her features. Yet undeniably the same girl.
    The one with the electric blue light.
    The one who had turned her dead father’s body into a glittering blue mist.
    All in an instant, after one uttered word. A word Elka could hear as clear now as on the day itself.
    Return.
    The video played on, but Elka did not see it. The face of her enemy remained fixed before her.
    Her premonition about UniLover’s message had turned out right.
    And Elka had found her path back toward vengeance.

Chapter Seventeen
    T HE PHONY WINDOW IN J ESSIE ’s living room mimicked the night outside of Agency headquarters. Through the sheer curtains she could see the mock image of the clear sky and the pinpricks of starlight littering the darkness. Billions of other worlds in space on the mortal plane alone, an infinite universe, but only a sliver of all the worlds parallel to this one.
    Way to get all philosophical, nerd.
    Jessie lounged on her couch, head propped on a throw pillow on the couch’s arm so she could stare out the window. The pillow felt stuffed with shredded cardboard. Decent throw pillows obviously weren’t within the Agency’s budget. She could probably bitch and get better ones. She didn’t really care, but maybe she would just to cause trouble.
    Causing trouble had always taken her mind off things back in the day, during her “normal” life.
    Hardy-har! What’s so normal about having a werewolf for a stepdad?
    But she’d hadn’t known he was a werewolf, so it was like he wasn’t one.
    Her stomach turned. She couldn’t believe she was yearning for a fake life. Things had gotten that bad.
    Jessie puffed out her cheeks and let out a long breath that riffled her bangs.
    Silence stuffed the room, as loud as if the TV were cranked to the highest decibel. Silence drove Jessie into fits, would make her chew off the black polish from her nails, send her pacing the room, make her squirm if she tried to sit still.
    Except for tonight.
    Tonight she couldn’t so much as stomach a Nine Inch Nails song or a cheesy ’80s comedy. No amount of Anthony Michael Hall, Corey Haim, or Molly