Strike 2: Dawn of the Daybreaker Read Online Free PDF Page B

tried.
    “Oh, I got it,” Strike said, holding up a finger. “The Piranha.”
    “There’s gotta be a Piranha already,” Keplar replied.
    “Ya think?”
    “Yeah, definitely.”
    “I know what it is,” Orion said, ignoring Strike and Keplar. “It’s a mer-man from Capricious.”
    “What’s a mer-man from Capricious doing here?” Keplar asked.
    “I don’t know, but it can’t be anything good. The only thing that’s confusing me is that mer-men can’t change into humans like this thing did.”
    Officer Norris walked to a computer and pulled up a report on the screen.
    “Well, when it was human, we ran its prints. It’s a schlub named Mike Rossi, some two-bit hood from Southie. Used to sell drugs, cocaine, run a little gambling operation. He was in and out of here all the time.”
    “And now he’s a mer-man?” Strike asked.
    Officer Norris shrugged. “You tell me. He had this on him.”
    The cop handed Orion a piece of paper. Orion read it aloud.
    “Sullivan’s Wharf. May 18th.
10 P.M.
”
    “Sounds like a meeting spot to me,” Officer Norris suggested.
    “Thanks, Randy,” Orion said, putting the paper into his pocket. “We’re going to look into this right away.”
    “I also wanted to show you this.” Officer Norris handed Orion a stack of photographs. “People on the T have been calling us like crazy, saying there’s some kind of giant bird-thing down in the subway. One of our guys got these pictures but that’s all we got.”
    Orion looked at the photos: they were grainy and blurry, but they seemed to show some kind of gigantic, six-foot tall crow in the shadows of a subway tunnel.
    “These two things ain’t the only weird stuff, either,” Officer Norris continued. “Werewolves, lizard-people, vampires...all the sudden, out of nowhere, people are reporting all kinds of screwed up stuff.”
    Orion looked over the photographs. “Thanks again, Randy. You did the right thing showing this to us. We’ll be in touch soon.”
    ***
     
    An hour later, after an inter-planetary jump to Capricious through a swirling, mirrored portal of electric energy, Tobin, Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt were in the Museum of the Heroes—specifically, in the museum’s science lab. Here in their hidden headquarters at the top of a mountain high above the trees, the heroes could look over the photos and data from Officer Norris and try to figure out what they were dealing with on Earth.
    “So,” Tobin asked, “you ever hear of a giant crow-man before?”
    “Not in a long time,” Orion replied. He was scanning the blurry picture of the subway crow-creature into a computer. “There used to be a team of crow-like men on Capricious who called themselves ‘The Plague’ about forty years ago, but they’re all either in jail or retired. One of them is in a nursing home in Quantum City .” 
    “So it’s not them, then,” Keplar said. “Unless we get a call about this thing stealing prunes and religiously watching ‘Wheel of Fortune.’”
    “No, it’s not them,” Orion said. “It’s something a lot worse.”
    Orion clicked on the blurry photograph, and the image became clear. The creature in the subway wasn’t a giant crow after all: it was actually a flying Gore. Tobin leaned in and looked at the picture closely, and goose bumps ran down his arms. He remembered the terrifying demons called Gores all too well from his battle to save Earth seven months ago: they were about five feet tall and dressed in hooded, black cloaks, with nothing visible in their dark hoods except for red, glowing eyes, and sharp, white teeth. The boy hadn’t seen one of the creatures since the battle, but here was one in the picture now, staring back at him. And, to make it even more frightening, this Gore had something none of the others had ever had: gigantic, ratty, black-feathered wings extending from its back.
    “Crap,” Keplar said, looking at the photo.
    “You gotta be kidding me,” Tobin groaned, rubbing his