Project Northwoods

by Jonathan Charles Bruce

  “You’re not an Enforcer,” she said, the words stopping Athena short. “What are you?” If she could get the interloper far enough away from the basement door, Ariana could make a dash there.

  Surprisingly, the woman answered, “SERAPHIM.”

  Ariana’s heart stuttered. There was no way SERAPHIM should be involved in something like this. “Seems pretty drastic to send someone like you after me.” Athena wasn’t moving, which made a run for it too dangerous to risk at the moment.

  The woman didn’t respond to the flattery. “You’re just one of a handful who happened to evade the increasingly worthless Enforcers.” She let out a laugh. “If someone like you was so hard to find, no wonder they’re getting picked off.”

  Ariana swallowed as she tried to think of a way to get her moving, but nothing was coming to mind. “If you’re after my father, I don’t know where he is, I swear.”

  The woman in white cocked her head. “I don’t believe you.” She took a step toward Ariana, the latter holding her ground as the distance closed. “You’ve taken numerous jobs where his insurance was conditional to your employment. You visited him regularly for years. You don’t have a mother.” She was shaking, apparently excited by her knowledge of her prey. “It’s in your nature to keep contact.”

  Ariana felt she had the chance to make it to the basement. She bolted to her right, having to duck under a picture frame that the woman had sent flying her way. Another zipped at her and struck her in the back, the glass shattering from the impact and making Ariana stumble. Undeterred, Ariana reached the basement door and vanished into the artificial night below.

  Athena couldn’t help but smile, even if she had to strain her face to do so. The little bitch darting away from her as though she could actually escape was funny, to say the least. The slapping her around was just a fraction of what she could do, and that was usually more than enough to convince an underpowered Bestowed to give up. This one, however, was determined to die.

  She marched through the quaint living room, turned in the hallway, and stood at the top of the steps to the basement. It was dark down there, which would have been a benefit if someone was stupid enough to not bring a means of luminescence. “Bad move,” she shouted, bringing her flashlight out and turning it on. “Now you’re trapped.” She ventured downward, sweeping the light in front of her as she plodded down the steps, carefully testing each one. “We want your father alive, you know.” Another step. “I can’t promise we won’t hurt him, but he’ll be alright when all is said and done.” A creak as her foot fell on another one. She paused for a moment, scanning the corners of the room. “I wouldn’t suggest pissing me off, ma’am. I get a lot more… persuasive when I’m upset.” She took another step downward, and found that it buckled more than the others. Athena swept the light down, noticing that the step had been sawed through almost completely. She skipped it, straddling the broken step as she gave out a condescending laugh. “Bear traps and broken steps? This is what the daughter of one of the greatest villain minds comes up with?” She brought her higher foot forward…

  … When something snaked around her foot and yanked downward. Athena’s hands shot out and grabbed the handrails as her flashlight went skittering off. Before she had a chance to push herself away, a second hand tightened around her calf and yanked. The weakened step exploded under her as she was dragged down. Her face collided with the wood and rebounded off violently. She cracked the back of her head on another portion of the steps before she was finally through. Pain ripped through her, electric and molten and freezing all at once, overriding all of her senses as her nerves conspired to drown her in sensation. Her skin processed every centimeter of the wood it touched, the grain exploding in excruciating detail in her brain.

  With a thud, she was thrown to the ground and crumpled in a corner, giving the back of her head another sound thwack. Athena couldn’t even defend herself as her attacker thrust something cold, metal, and jagged into her upper leg. Instinctively, she screamed and grabbed the wound, feeling the pronged shape of a fireplace poker sticking out of her thigh. It was absolute agony, ripping through her in jagged spikes of tactile sensation.

  In the darkness, she heard something swing open, probably the door to the room under the stairs. It had been so long since she had anyone able to lay a finger on her that it was deeply distracting her from her target. It took the sound of footsteps on the wood steps above her to yank the poker out of her leg and force herself through the pain.

  Her scream was loud and terrible. In a move which simultaneously made her sick and ecstatic all in one, she let her rational mind go and gave in to her instincts.

  Ariana was at the top of the stairs when the scream started and the house shook at the foundation. There was no time to get anything she wanted out of there; photos, heirlooms, letters and other keepsakes were going to have to wait. The pile of furniture in front of the door shook and exploded, sending Ariana ducking for cover as a table cartwheeled past her and found its way to a window, wedging itself firmly in place and blocking the avenue of escape. A crash announced that something else had blockaded the closest entrance to the kitchen.

  She immediately knew what was happening and scrambled to her feet as debris lifted from the floor and whipped by her at high speed. Athena told her that she got more persuasive when she was angry, and she very much regretted making the hero mad now. Ariana shielded her face with her hands as she ran, hissing as picture frames shattered on her arms. She sprinted through the living room, streams of light from the sofa-barred window giving the room a particularly unpleasant glow. As she ran into the dining room, something large and metallic caught her eye. In the split second it took for her to dive to the ground to avoid it, she recognized it as one of the un-triggered bear traps that had been leveled at her face.

  Adrenaline fed her panic as she ran into the kitchen, toward the door to her father’s greenhouse. She got close enough to reach for the latch when something rattled behind her. She turned as the refrigerator pulled from the wall and hurled itself at her. Ariana ducked as the fridge sailed overhead before smashing into the wall, embedding itself in it. The woman in white took the opportunity to will the plants in the greenhouse to hurl themselves at the door. When Ariana got to her knees and tried the handle, she found it unmovable.

  With a rip, the screen door was penetrated by a pair of plant shears floating of their own accord. Ariana fell to the ground and pulled herself backward as they snapped in the air before darting down at her. Kicking out, she managed to deflect them, but only long enough for her to grab the shaking tea kettle and get to her feet. The clippers darted at her once more, and she swung the kettle at them, breaking the clippers in two and sending one piece to the floor and the other into the wall.

  Ariana dropped the kettle as she ran to the wall, pulled the clipper free, and fled back through the dining room. The foundation buckled, great cracks webbing their way up the walls with a terrible groan. The house heaved, but Ariana didn’t have time to lose balance. The ceiling in the living room crumbled, sagged, then finally collapsed just as Ariana cleared it and almost fell into the entryway. She turned to head up the stairs when she saw Athena at the entrance to the basement, her face twitching with anger. Their eyes met and the woman in white lunged for Ariana, snagging the villain’s foot in the process.

  Ariana fell onto the stairs, and she immediately kicked at her captor, shaking her off. She scrambled upwards, nearly making it to the top before she noticed the grandfather clock on the landing wobble just before it chucked itself at her. Instinct took over and she grabbed the railing and jumped on it in a crouch, the clock sailing by before she got back on the steps. The clock smashed with a horrible twang of music as the telekinetic woman must have diverted it out of her path and into a wall.

  Ariana wrenched the door to her old room open, diving in and to the side as the bed bucked in place and flung itself at the doorway. The contents of the room were all beginning to shake with mental energy,
but the biggest danger was the sudden shifting of the floor. The entire house groaned as, one-handed, she grabbed a large high school-era trophy which had taken to vibrating in place on her dresser and ran to the window. She released it, sending the thing through the window and giving her enough space to jump out and onto the garage roof.

  The roof was angled just enough for her to land wrong and send her rolling down the shingles to the earth below. Still firmly clutching one-half of a pair of shears in one hand, she got up painfully and ran through the paltry excuse for the backyard. She could vault over the chain-link fence and be down the street before…

  The shockwave from the house bursting knocked her forward, smashing her into the fence as it, too, collapsed from the explosion. Her ears were ringing from the concussive force, and her head swam from the impact. She didn’t know how long she lay there, one arm pinned painfully beneath her and the other pelted by debris, the remnants of the greenhouse raining down on her. Then she heard the crunch of footsteps, and before she could roll over to confront the intruder, a sharp, hot stab of pain ran through her leg.

  “I hate touching things, do you know that?” The woman must have stabbed her with the poker. “Overload my ability, have to fucking touch everything!” She ended the sentence in a scream and punctuated it with a kick to Ariana’s side. Ariana wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of screaming, even if it felt like a rib popped inappropriately. Athena knelt by her side and waited for Ariana to turn her head to face her. Hair had fallen into the villainess’s face, preventing a clear view of her attacker, but she saw the heroine cock her head in curiosity. “That.” Athena pointed to Ariana’s face. “Right there. Fear.” She puffed. “I wish I could feel that sometimes.” She wound Ariana’s hair into her hand. “Instead of having to feel everything else,” she muttered angrily. “But dragging your sorry ass to the Heroes’ Guild has a certain charm to it.”

  Athena yanked back on Ariana’s hair, lifting her up in one smooth motion. Her arm free from underneath her, Ariana’s hand tightened on the half-clipper and swung it up at the hero’s face. The moment it connected, Athena released her grip and fell backward as Ariana carried through, blood splattering onto her body from a freshly opened wound.

  The mercenary stumbled backward, clutching her bleeding face. Her hands pulled away, slick with gore. The gouge wasn’t terribly deep, but it was enough to make her wobble in place as Ariana got to her feet, prickles of pain running down her wounded left leg. Athena’s hand flicked up, and Ariana felt something gently push against her before the woman in white fell to her knees, shaking. She seemed to consider the world around her for a moment, surprisingly at peace with what was going on. Then, without catching herself with her hands, Athena collapsed face-first into the debris-strewn earth.

  “Ariana!” Her attention snapped toward Arthur, running past the shattered remnants of her house. To his side, Stair and Mast were making their own way through the rubble. “What happened?”

  Ariana gestured with the clipper at the prone form of Athena. “Bitch broke into my house.”

  “And you blew it up?” Stair asked.

  “Bitch. Broke in.” Ariana said simply. She was too exhausted to consider changing her story at the moment.

  Mast ran toward Athena and stopped short, an undecipherable look on her face. “Shit.”

  “What?” Arthur asked.

  “They’ve brought in SERAPHIM.” She looked up at the others. “We need to go. Now.”

  “She’s right.” Ariana said, turning to limp across the downed chain-link fence. “We need to find my dad.”

  Stair started after her, her own limping less pronounced. “You said you didn’t know where he was.”

  Ariana didn’t turn as the others followed, Mast making sure they weren’t being shadowed with cursory glances behind them. “I know someone who might.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  HIEROPHANT

  MORGAN FELT TRAPPED, EVEN IN THE HUGE HOTEL that Zombress had decided would be their safe house. The days were spent wandering the halls, gazing out at the numerous real estate agents as they wandered, escorted, down the streets. She had no real issue with them, but Steven paced relentlessly whenever he caught glimpses of the agents, tapping his gun against his shoulder as he did so. “Vultures,” he would growl before vanishing down one of the hallways. He had grown more distant as time went on, a trait which she attributed to concern over the welfare of his brothers.

  The three of them had complete run of the entire building, so entire hours would go by before she would even notice a sign of life from either of her cohorts. More likely, she’d hear the distant sound of a door closing or perhaps Steven muttering to himself before fading out. Zombress was much harder to find, vanishing for long stretches only to return empty-handed and angrier than before. At this point, Morgan wanted nothing more than to be able to walk outside, but her overlord refused to allow it.

  The villain’s eyes would flick up and stare right through her, a tendency which Morgan found simultaneously unsettling and infuriating. “Morgan,” she’d say with a great deal of practiced concern, “there are forces at play which we do not yet fully understand.” Zombress would rest a hand on her shoulder, sending a chill down her spine, no doubt her body’s sympathetic reaction to the Queen of the Dead’s touch. “Patience.” And, like that, she’d spin on her heel and walk away.

  Nights were always the worst. That’s when she could see the glow from the rest of the city and, if she squinted, maybe make out the apartment where her mother lived. Hooligans ran through the streets, hooting and pretending it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland, trashing storefronts and generally causing havoc. And, of course, the Enforcers would roll through, sweep to check for activity, then disappear into the night. She would watch from the rooftop, making sure to take a step back whenever they would bring out a mobile spotlight to scan the buildings. Soon enough, the search drones would be out, and nighttime would be limited to secure indoor locations, lest Zombress grow angry at the sight of insurrection.

  Morgan continued to feel trapped in one of the interior rooms of the hotel, sitting alone at an empty table in the dining hall, lit only by the generous skylight in the ceiling. Even though it was broad daylight, she had cloistered herself within one of the so-called ‘safe rooms’, if only out of some autonomous reaction. It wasn’t like it, or anything, really mattered. Time bled into itself in this place, five in the morning feeling identical to five in the afternoon. There was no structure, no hard rules to follow or break. Except, of course, the ones that, if broken, would likely get her killed or captured. And, up until now, that had been enough to keep her quiet and in line.

  A door behind her quietly opened, but she didn’t respond to the noise. She knew it was Steven from the moment she had detected anything at all. Zombress was out on her ill-defined ‘business’ and, even if she was here, it wasn’t like she ever made a sound anyway. Steven was about as stealthy as an old truck with an engine problem, which was nice in the fact that he could never, ever conceivably sneak up on her.

  “I brought you some breakfast,” he said after closing the distance from the door to the table. She didn’t turn as he appeared on her right, plopping a green-wrapped granola bar in front of her. “It’ll give you all-day energy to mope.” He sat on the edge of the table, jamming his own breakfast in his mouth. Morgan continued to stare straight ahead, not intentionally rude, but focused on some internal conflict. “Come on. It’s honey oat or something.” The words came out between half-chewed granola.

  “I want to find my mother,” Morgan said, decisively. When there was no response, she looked at Steven, the mobster staring at her, motionless. His suit had seen better days, but he had been wearing it perpetually since the escape. Between the forest and not giving it a chance to not be worn, it had developed fringes in numerous spots, as well as at least one bullet hole that he had failed to notice until they had reached the safety of the hotel. There would have been a lingering s
mell to it had the place not had a laundry facility and enough bottled water for Zombress to grudgingly allow Steven and Morgan to wash their clothes. She fought the urge to hate the woman for being able to materialize clothing out of thin air, just one of numerous abilities which made everyday annoyances obsolete for the Queen of Fear.

  Steven rasped a squeak of surprise before cutting himself off. “You want to leave this place?” He quickly looked over his shoulder to double-check that no one else was in the room. “You, number two on the heroes’ hit list, want to go outside?”

  Morgan’s eyes flicked away, staring off toward empty space again. “It would only take a couple of hours.”

  He hopped off the table and pulled out a chair. He was at her eye level, intently focused on her even though she refused to return the favor. “That’s more than enough time for people to recognize you.”

  She turned to him now, indifferent. “I don’t care.”

  “Well, we do!” he shouted.

  A half-shrug and a shake of her head was her response. “I need to explain things to her.”

  Steven rolled his eyes. “Look, I know this is a tough time for you right now, but this is suicide.”

  “She can help me.”

  “Help you what?” He leaned back in his chair, almost laughing. It was more than clear he thought she was being silly, but if he was content to just stay hidden in a hotel for the rest of his life, he was welcome to it. “Clear your name? Did you forget that she tried to kill you a few days ago?”

  Morgan swallowed and broke eye contact. “It was a different time and place.”

  “Your mother was on national television basically disowning your stupid ass,” he snapped. “You were out cold at the time, but it still happened.” She didn’t say a word, merely continuing to stare. Steven licked his lips, apparently pondering something which was incredibly unappealing. “You’re not going alone.”