Playing For Keeps

by Mur Lafferty

  Pause.

  “Finally. A good reason for you to bring her here,” Colette said, and went to the stove.

  “What are you doing?” Keepsie said, startled.

  “She is going to be hungry when she wakes up.”

  38

  It was as if Peter’s spine had electrified. Excitement soaked his bones and he couldn’t keep still.

  Keepsie had released Timson and Pallas had returned.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. “Damn I missed that sound. Where the hell have they been?” Ian asked.

  “Emergency systems are instructed to shut down when a supervillain attack occurs. We take care of everything,” Pallas said.

  “Good job, too,” Ian muttered, grimacing at a dead homeless woman lying on the sidewalk.

  “What happened to Ghostheart?” Keepsie asked.

  “She’s missing,” Pallas said, not looking at her. “We think Clever Jack may have done something with her.”

  Michelle stayed back at the bar with Colette and Light of Mornings and Barry. The latter two still slept, and Colette kept watch over them with a cleaver in her good hand, but with a plate of meatloaf and orange slices within reach.

  “I’m prepared for whatever mood she wakes up in,” she had said.

  Peter hadn’t wanted to leave them, but he didn’t have a choice. They couldn’t leave Barry and someone had to watch Light of Mornings. They didn’t want Pallas to know about her yet. They had called an ambulance for Barry, but were told by a tired dispatcher that unless his life was at risk, he’d be on a waiting list.

  “So how do you know they’ll be at the park?” Pallas asked.

  “I don’t know,” Keepsie said. “But it’s where Clever Jack and Doodad have their lair.

  “What did Timson say when she was free?”

  “She demanded you be captured. But she forgot about it when I told her about Doodad’s new portal. She said White Lightning and Heretic would meet with her regarding it, and sent the rest of us away.”

  “What form did she take? Did she talk about her powers?”

  Pallas said nothing.

  “You knew she was working on that drug.” Peter did not ask a question.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t. She’s losing her mind and leading the most powerful humans alive. There is something wrong with that.”

  Pallas stared ahead.

  Some people leaned out of their windows and waved at her, and she smiled and waved back.

  “So how do you do it? Like, you’re up there fighting crime, and then your groupies fawn all over you and you can just smile about it?” Ian asked.

  “I have to. It’s the face of the Academy. It’s what they really treasure over being saved.”

  “Most of them, anyway,” Ian said.

  Keepsie looked around nervously. “Should we be walking in the street? What if a hero sees us?”

  Pallas gave her a withering look. Keepsie sighed.

  “All right, you’re so mighty you can take care of all of us if we started getting uppity. I get it.”

  Pallas stopped. “Do you want me to help you or not?”

  Keepsie walked past her. “You’re going to want to help us. Trust me.”

  “So what happened when Clever Jack got away?” Ian asked.

  “We decimated the last of his army, but Clever Jack got away while we were distracted with demons.”

  “You let him get away,” Tomas grumbled.

  “When you’re fighting a hundred demons that you have no experience with, you’re likely to put the villains you do know on the back burner. We know how to fight Clever Jack. We do it all the time.”

  “And yet he is still out there,” Tomas said.

  Pallas did not answer.

  “I’m thinking we should stop baiting the superhero who is helping us,” Peter whispered to Tomas and Ian. Tomas glared at Pallas’ back. “We can go back to hating them tomorrow, but we need her right now.” They nodded, a bit grudgingly.

  Keepsie was talking to Pallas. “I just want you to see, that’s all. If she doesn’t show, then you can take us in.”

  “She’s going to surprise you.”

  “If she were in her right mind, Pallas, maybe. But that drug has made her go bugshit crazy.”

  They arrived at the park. An electrical crew worked on a sub station two blocks away, otherwise the area was deserted. The hill where Doodad and Clever Jack had imprisoned Peter still had a jagged hole in the side, reminding Peter forcefully of the movie Alien.

  “They’re not here,” Pallas said.

  “Give them a little time.” Keepsie looked into the sky.

  “We’ve given them three hours. I’m going up for a look, then we’re going.” Pallas bent her mighty legs and leapt away from them, soaring upward and landing on the apartment building next to Keepsie’s, which seemed damaged by fire but still there. Colette’s car stuck out of her living room. Her power did not keep her possessions from being destroyed, sadly enough.

  “Show off.”

  “Ian, I told you—” Peter began.

  “Hey, she’s not here to hear me!”

  “Super hearing, you dolt,” Peter said through clenched teeth.

  Ian muttered something, but Peter didn’t pursue.

  Pallas jumped off the building, five stories down, and landed lightly next to them, smiling slightly at Ian.

  “I see nothing. Are you ready to give yourselves up?”

  Keepsie bit her bottom lip. She looked at Peter. One eyebrow rose slightly. Peter shook his head barely. Not yet.

  “I guess so. Just do me a favor and watch Timson, all right?” Keepsie said.

  “Good. Let’s go,” Pallas said, and started to walk back toward the Academy.

  Peter still felt the excitement in him. Something behind him pulled. He forgot the plan to have Keepsie freeze Pallas in front of the bar and then make their getaway. He wanted to return to the park.

  “Wait. Go back. Just one second.”

  Pallas began to protest, but the look on his face convinced her. They turned around.

  Pallas sniffed once and paled. “Oh no—” she said, and leapt away from them, toward the park.

  “So is that superleaping or flying?” Ian asked.

  “Shut up, Ian. Let’s go,” Keepsie said, and ran.

  * * * * *

  Pallas hadn’t gone far. She had stopped outside the park and battled the fires that raged in the trees—fires that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  “Looks like the work of an elemental,” Keepsie said conversationally as they caught up with her.

  “I thought you were wrong,” Pallas said, taking a deep breath and smothering another blaze.

  Peter put his hand on her strong shoulder and pointed. Clever Jack held the portal open again.

  “He’s alone! She’s not here.” Pallas’s voice was full of denial.

  “Look at the trees, Pallas! Timson has lost her mind,” Peter said. “Nothing she does is rational now. She kept her wits to try to hide her intentions from you, but now she has all the power she wants—and it looks like Clever Jack will welcome her strength. He has little choice.”

  He leaned in and kissed Keepsie’s earlobe. “Good guess.”

  Instead of a bunch of smaller demons, only one seemed to be forcing itself through this time. Jack grasped the portal and attempted to stretch it farther apart as one tentacle, longer than a bus and just as thick, waved lazily in the air, groping.

  “Holy fuck, what’s on the other end of that?” Ian asked.

  “Timson’s not with them,” Pallas repeated.

  “The hell she’s not,” Peter said. He knew why he had been so restless. Timson was there; she was just in her gaseous form. He launched himself forward and ran into the park.

  Keepsie yelled something after him, and he heard a whoosh as Pallas jumped over him. Was she trying to stop him?

  No. She launched herself at the tentacle and wres
tled with it. It wrapped itself around her, shocked into action at last. She struggled with it, punching it in its suckers. Peter refused to allow the struggle to distract him—Pallas had accepted him as an ally in this battle, and he wasn’t going to let her down.

  She was here. He knew it. He could feel her. He could smell her. His head still buzzed from where she had crawled around in there like a bee in a hive. He had no chance in catching her until she solidified, though, but he couldn’t lose her again. Not until he got back what she had taken.

  His logical mind paused a moment to wonder how he was going to get her to give it back, but he figured he would get to that later.

  “Keepsie! Do it!” he yelled. Then Timson appeared in front of him, flames dripping from her mouth like she had been drinking from a volcano. The madness of her eyes frightened him more than her elemental power, and he took a step back.

  She punched him with surprising strength, but the burn hurt worse than the hit. He stumbled and fell on the soft ground.

  Ghostheart appeared from inside Clever Jack’s lair, yelling something. She froze. Keepsie had started her work.

  Timson kicked him, igniting his sweatshirt and cracking a rib. He rolled away from her, smothering the flames and gasping to regain his breath. She kicked him again and he curled into a ball, trying to yell for help, but not sure if he got anything out. Had Keepsie reached them? Was she helping Pallas instead of him? Was she aware that Timson had just breathed in a great intake of air and aiming her lips at him?

  The flames gushed from her mouth. Peter covered his head with his hands and waited for the end.

  39

  Keepsie hadn’t expected Peter to run headlong into a fight against heroes and a giant tentacle thing. She stared as he and Pallas charged as if they had been partners in crime fighting for years. The tentacle she put out of her mind; that was someone with superstrength’s problem.

  Of course, Tomas ran in to join Pallas, and that wasn’t good.

  She looked at Ian. He shrugged. “Peter’ll be really pissed if I try to help him. I’ll hang here and guard you.”

  “I think he’d rather be covered in shit than dead, Ian.”

  “Dude, do you even know Peter?”

  Keepsie choked out a laugh and tried to focus on the fight. Peter ran around the park, clearly looking for something. “What is he doing?”

  “Shit, Keepsie, there’s Samantha. She’ll try to control that thing. Get her.” Ian pointed, his face scrawled with dislike.

  Keepsie thought of all of the food she had eaten in her bar, and Ghostheart froze in place.

  The tentacle continued to squirm and inch further into their world. Pallas still struggled in its grip, and Tomas ran around, punching it and running out of the way as his strength failed.

  Ian shouted and ran into the park. Keepsie would have followed except that something hit her in the back of the head. Black blossoms appeared in her vision as she tried to struggle to her feet.

  But Clever Jack perched on top of her, pressing her face into the dirt. She hadn’t even seen him leave his spot at the portal. Bad luck, she figured.

  “Where is she, bitch?” Clever Jack screamed.

  Keepsie couldn’t answer even if she had wanted to. Clever Jack pushed her face into the ground, splitting her lips and breaking her nose. She grunted and struggled against him.

  “Oh, you will pay, you will pay for that and for Light of Mornings and for everything you’ve done. You’ve ruined it all. I can’t kill you but I can make you hurt. I can make you hurt a lot. And there’s nothing you can do to me.” He punched her in the kidney and she grunted again.

  Clever Jack. Clever Jack. Charming Clever Jack. Clever Jack. Always getting out of scrapes, never getting caught, always so very careful. She tried to think of everything Clever Jack had done to them, but his attacks made it impossible to think clearly for even a moment.

  He grabbed her shirt collar and yanked back violently. The tag ripped and separated from the shirt.

  One tiny rip was all it took. She finally held him.

  She rolled away from him, panting, blood pouring from her mouth and nose. “Hell.”

  Even beyond the pain and blood in her nose, Keepsie realized a new foulness clouded the air. What had Ian done? She stumbled upstairs to follow him.

  Peter lay on the steps, singed but otherwise seeming fine. Ian panted, filth covering his hands. Powerful fumes burned Keepsie’s eyes and she coughed.

  “Holy shit, are you OK?” Ian asked.

  Keepsie nodded. “Got Clever Jack and Samantha. What happened?”

  “Timson was here. She tried to fry him. I put out the fire in time, but she disappeared.”

  Keepsie tried to think beyond the pain on her face. She walked forward and checked on Peter.

  At her touch, he uncurled and looked up at her, eyes wide. “So who won your fight?”

  She managed to smile. “I did, I think, but I look at lot worse than he does. Are you all right?”

  “I’m covered in excrement and burned in several places. Never been better.” He accepted her hand up and they embraced briefly. “I think my nosebleed stopped, though.” One of his sleeves dangled, nearly burnt off. He pulled it free and handed it to her.

  “This was one of my favorite sweatshirts,” she said ruefully.

  “Well, it’s been well-loved lately.”

  Ian rolled up his filthy sleeves. “Guys, we need to help them out. I think our team is losing.”

  Pallas still lay in the clutches of the tentacle, struggling with it. She looked very small. Tomas lay on the ground, motionless.

  Ian ran forward. “Oh man, it must have hit him when he wasn’t so strong.”

  “Ian, look out!” Peter yelled, but the tentacle caught Ian in a backswing, knocking him through the air.

  Keepsie and Peter ran forward, Keepsie knowing that they couldn’t reach him in time to catch him or break his inevitable fall into the still-flaming trees. He seemed to sail forever, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Then Keepsie remembered all the food and beer he’d taken since the siege began in the bar. It was all hers. He had taken her food, her drink, her trust, her friendship, her hospitality, her—

  “Keepsie?” Peter’s voice was soft.

  She cracked her eyes open. Ian lay at the edge of the trees like a toppled statue. He was frozen in a comical position, arms flailing, eyes bugging out, looking as if he was trying to swim through the woods. He seemed unharmed, and Keepsie let out a sobbing sigh of relief.

  “What are we going to do about that?” Peter asked, pointing to the tentacle. It flexed and released, flexed and released, and Pallas looked to be getting weaker.

  “Where are all the other heroes?” Keepsie asked.

  “Timson must have sent them away so they couldn’t stop her. Anyway, are there any left?”

  “Peter, she’s batshit. She probably doesn’t remember why she’s summoning the demons, just that she needs to control the city. To control the city, she has to have them scared. Dr. Timson is the one-woman mafia of Seventh City.”

  “Fine, but she’s gone and everyone else is incapacitated. What can we do?”

  Keepsie remembered Ian, and he ran up to them soon after she released him. “Dude, that was fast thinking. I owe you, Keepsie.”

  “What are we going to do about that?” Keepsie pointed to the tentacle, still waving.

  “Well. I could shoot it.”

  Keepsie stared at him.

  “It’s all we have,” Peter said.

  “Fine. Go. I can’t smell anything anyway,” Keepsie said through the torn fabric held against her throbbing face.

  Ian raised his fists again and pointed them at the tentacle.

  “No, go for the portal,” Keepsie said, pointing his upper body to the portal.

  “You got it, boss.” Ian shot his fetid stream at the portal, covering the tentacle.

  The tentacle jerked and dropped Pallas. It started questing around. Pallas lay still.

 
; “It’s interesting,” Ian said. “No one likes to be covered in shit. Even hell demons from another dimension. And the Academy said I wasn’t worthy. Ha!” He inched forward to get a better angle at the portal, shit streaming from his hands at pressures to rival a fire hose.

  “Ian, be careful,” Keepsie warned as the tentacle grew near. Ian was still laughing, coating the length of the tentacle before pointing it again at the portal. Once he hit the tip of it, it jerked again and wrapped around him with frightening speed. He uttered a surprised squawk, and then the tentacle squeezed. He screamed.

  The air temperature increased noticeably as a golden beam shot through the air and bore a hole through the tentacle. Light of Mornings stood at the edge of the park, fully awake. She grinned and ran up to them.

  Instead of dropping Ian, the tentacle squeezed again and withdrew, dragging Ian with it.

  “Ian!” Keepsie ran forward and stopped at the portal. Peter caught up with her.

  The world through the portal nauseated her. The landscape moved and writhed. The creature that held Ian was gargantuan, making Ian look like a doll in its clutches. Part octopus, part quadruped, the tentacles reached from its chest out closer to their world. The one that held Ian drew it closer to an orifice that

  looked to be a mouth. He screamed.

  “Close it! Close the portal!” he cried.

  “No!” Keepsie took a step into the portal. The searing wind of the other world baked her bare ankle. Peter pulled her back.

  “We have to close it. Look,” he pointed. More creatures ambled closer, their tentacles reaching towards Keepsie and Peter.

  Ian struggled against the beast that the most powerful hero in the city couldn’t defeat, and it brought him closer.

  “He’s my friend,” Keepsie said through clenched teeth.

  The beast froze. The others paused and stared at it. One howled something, and began lumbering towards Keepsie in the portal.

  Ian slithered out of the tentacle’s grasp and looked at them. He had something like an eighth of a mile to travel, and the large monstrous creatures could cover the ground more quickly.

  “Close it!” he yelled, waving his arms. “I’ll be OK! Close it!”