This was not a great position. Lucyfar’s knives were hard to avoid in this tight hallway. Then Chimera pushed past her, swelling up, coppery metal spreading over his shoulders from his neck. He just about filled the hallway. Leaning forward, he took the first two steps of a charge that we couldn’t dodge because there’d be no room. Ray’s arm hooked around my middle, and he pulled me through the door to escape both problems.
I wasn’t giving up either. As Ray pulled me off my feet, I pulled my jacks out of my pocket and threw them at the floor. Let Chimera play with those for a minute.
Chimera thundered past the doorway and let out another pained roar, this time with a ringing bell note to it. He didn’t like playing with jacks at all, apparently! Maybe they’d stuck in his feet.
Okay, so where was I? These doors opened into history. History looked like a barn. I didn’t think much history happened in barns. Not the kind of history that got written down in library books.
Not to mention this was the most squalid barn I’d ever seen, ever imagined. The planks didn’t match in size, many of them were bent, and sticks had been stuffed into the cracks. The roof was mostly sticks glued together with a charming mix of black slime and hay. There was way more hay on the ceiling than the floor, since the only things the barn seemed to store were a few battered tools and some straw in one lone animal stall with no animal in it. Only the open doorway lit this charming shack full of nothing.
The barn contained exactly one interesting thing before we charged into it. A boy in what I’d swear was clothing made out of burlap bags kneeled in the animal stall, watching us. No, she was way too pretty to be a boy, even filthy. I’d been fooled by her raggedly short cut black hair, and her clothes. She could be a stick or have Claire’s Mom’s figure, and I couldn’t have told the difference in those rags.
I had other things to worry about than a cowering medieval farm girl. I had Lucyfar, walking into the barn with a knife spinning above each open hand. She twisted, dodging the rubber ball that shot into the room after her. “Come now, Bad Penny. You can do—ow!” Ha! She’d ducked it again once, but the ball bounced off the back of the barn and then off the back of her head. When she swatted it away, it rebounded twice and smacked her in the rib cage. As tough as Lucyfar was, that got a wince.
Ray picked up the theme, and a flower pot, which he flung straight at Lucyfar. She dodged, but he followed up with a rusty old knife, then a weird, curvy blade on a broom handle. “Is this what fighting me feels like?” Lucy gasped, one hand busy directing a knife to slap the rubber ball away as she lurched to the side, out of the way of Ray’s throws. Not that she wasn’t fighting back, but Ray sidestepped three knives with ease, grabbed a wooden wheel off a hook to throw, then ripped off the hook and threw that.
The knives, ball, and Ray’s missiles all moved in a blur. I had two breaths I used to grab one of the rock candies out of my sugar tank and throw it at Lucy’s feet. On the third breath, I saw what Lucy was doing. Ray had dodged her knives easily, but each one drove him toward the kneeling girl. Lucy was handing him a hostage crisis.
I threw myself forward. Ray had moved yards away from me, but I could teleport. In a blink I made up the distance, tackling the girl and driving us both into the hay in the animal stall. Pathetic as it was, the wooden wall should protect her.
Before I hit the pile of straw I saw black flash and heard a hard smack. Lucy had seen me move and thrown ahead of me. Wetness poured over my hip, but when I looked down my prostrate body I wasn’t hit. Instead one of Lucyfar’s knives stuck out of the side of my sugar tank, puncturing the glass and leaking the thick cola everywhere.
Blast! My ammunition!
It hadn’t been an accident. Lucyfer laughed and confirmed, “Sorry, B.P., those toys of yours are a little too—ow! See?” The rubber ball bounced off her head again. As much as she tried to make light of it I watched her reel, throwing one knife and then a second trying to skewer it, while one hand grabbed her sore skull.
Ray used that time to charge.
Chimera used that time to shove his way into the room, pulling Lucy aside with one arm. Ray didn’t stop. He moved so fast, he was already back in arm’s reach. He punched Chimera right in the throat. I winced, then shuddered as a second mouth opened there, snapping fangs at Ray’s fist. Ray kicked Chimera in the gut and shoved off.
I needed to do something, but I moved too slowly. The teleports were wearing me down. We’d been running hard since we hit the library.
No time for that, Penny. Fight first; be tired later.
My rock candy went critical, stabbing out of the floor at Chimera. Ray back flipped over it with ease. Chimera’s hoof kicked the crystal and smashed it into bits with the same ease.
That hoof was huge. Chimera was getting bigger, bulking up like a hunchback under a mass of muscle and bristling fur. Tusks grew out of the mouth of one head, while the head forcing its way out of his neck gleamed wet and froglike. His upper head brushed against the ceiling as he ground the rock candy into powder. He’d grown as big as the barn!
My rubber ball battered against him, and he didn’t even seem to notice. Not until it bounced around behind him and disappeared. Then Lucyfar crawled up onto his shoulder, holding the struggling ball in one hand, and fed it into the mouth of the frog head. Smoke hissed, and a little slime dripped down to form frothing puddles on the dirt floor. Acid drool. Lovely.
Ray’s retreat dropped him right next to me. I grabbed his shoulder and whispered, “We have to get back into the hall. I’d rather fight Lucy in a tight space than Chimera in the open.”
“That gone be hard wif me in door,” Chimera snarled, his fanged animal mouth garbling the words. Great. He had super hearing, too.
I stood up next to Ray anyway, eying the monster. I could teleport behind him, but Lucyfar would be right there and I did not want to be close to her. If I took Ray with me, that would be it. I’d pass out.
Ray had another idea. He slapped his palms together to activate his blasting gloves. Chimera responded by spitting, and Ray’s gloves shot sparks as he pulled them apart too fast, grabbing me instead and yanking me off my feet. A glob of slime shot past us, burning into the wall.
Projectile acid drool. Lovely. I had enough time to see that Ray had jumped us away from the farm girl when Ray jumped again and my world spun. Another wet sound, more hissing, and now this wall had a smoking hole in it. A hole that for added weirdness looked into another, completely different barn.
We needed a distraction. I had just enough breath back. Maybe I could teleport onto Chimera’s shoulder. Even with a hole in it, my tank probably had enough cola for a good slice. Chimera’s reflexes weren’t good enough to stop me.
Of course, Lucy’s were. She lounged on Chimera’s hunch back like it was a bed, but now she raised a hand. “Time out for a second. Give up, guys. We’ll get the Orb, and we’ll lie through our teeth to Spider that we couldn’t have done it without you. You’re good, but you’re losing.”
Chimera emphasized her point by taking one lumbering step toward us. At least, he tried. The intimidating effect lost a lot when he winced, reached down, and pulled one of my jacks from the bottom of his hoof. Grunting in irritation, he threw the jack back over his shoulder.
Lucy caught it and looked at it curiously. Maybe she hadn’t seen one before? She turned her head, mouth opening to ask me a question.
If she wanted to know what it did, she found out. Jacks imbedded in other spots on Chimera’s hide flashed, and they both yelped as electricity arced through their bodies. That gave Ray a chance, not to attack, but to smash his shoulder into the acid-damaged wall and break down a doorway into the other barn.
Not enough of a chance. Lucy clung to Chimera’s back in spasmodic pain, but the monster lunged at us. His arm grew, telescoping and adding another joint as it flew at us. We staggered back through the hole, but it didn’t matter. The arm missed because Chimera fell crashing to the floor.
The peasant girl pulled her
ugly old shovel out from between Chimera’s legs, and as if tripping him wasn’t enough she jammed the butt end into one of his eyes. Lucy grabbed at the haft of the shovel, and the flat spade end smacked her in the face.
I gaped. I think we all gaped. Chimera recovered fastest, roaring and ignoring the unexpectedly dangerous farm girl, scrambling forward on four legs after us. Behind him, she raised her shovel and yelled something in… French? It sounded like French. That first word sounded like “France,” and I caught “angle” as part of the last word, as in English?
No time. I ran for the door, the suspiciously out of place regular wooden door in a severely old-fashioned barn housing one blasé cow and an oil lantern hanging from a hook. I couldn’t just run. I had a fight to win, so I grabbed pennies out of my pocket and threw them on the floor behind me. I knew when Chimera stepped on one, because he slipped and hit the ground again. What happened next was painfully obvious. The lamp fell off its hook, the glass shattered, and the hay underneath caught fire.
What happened after that was downright surprising. The cow, no more bothered by fire than strange children or rampaging monsters, stepped on the gathering flames and stomped them into embers.
Tesla’s Mystery Safe, that was one smart cow.
And then Chimera, snarling in frustration, spat fire instead of acid and the whole opposite wall went up in flames. What was most important here? That Chimera could breathe fire, that we’d just ignited history, or that my cursed pennies were obviously making him stupid?
Most important was getting out of the barn as fast as possible. Not bothering with subtlety, Ray rammed the door down, and we bolted back into the hallway while I felt for another penny. If I could hit Lucy, we might win this.
We really did end up in the same hallway we’d left. We’d only moved down a door, to the opposite side of Cybermancer and Claire.
They blinked at us. Claire cinched up her oversized rag doll tighter, eyes wide with surprise and worry. Looking away from her had given Cybermancer some focus back, which he used to pull a little vial out of his jacket, twisting the lid to release a spray top button. Giving Claire a direct stare he asked, “You know I know about your power, right?”
She punched him in the solar plexus. He wheezed, bending forward, but under her lumpy bear suit Claire had the muscles of a mad science enhanced athlete. Her knee shot up and hit his chin, then she dropped her doll and grabbed his upper arms. As she did her hands uncurled, flashing purple and blue from her static-cling gloves. When she shoved him back against the wall, he stuck.
“Doesn’t help as much as you’d think, does it?” she asked him back, her tone light and playful. Bending down, she picked up her doll and the vial Cybermancer had dropped. Then she spritzed him with his own formula.
The results were all I might have hoped. He turned gray and sagged limply against the wall.
Lucy stepped out of the doorway between us and Claire.
Claire’s power had sucked me in. I’d forgotten the fight!
There was no missing the fight anymore. Knives surrounded Lucy, spiraling in a very dangerous-looking shield. I had to backpedal, but the knives didn’t bother Chimera. Crouching, he squeezed through the door, then pushed Lucy rudely aside to get at us. He’d shrunk just enough to fit into the hall, but didn’t look human. One sharp-toothed furry head snarled and snapped, while giant eyes rolled in the scaly head hanging below it. Bony plates jutted off an oversized arm that he walked on like a third leg, and the other two twitched, flashing claws as long as sickle blades. He had completely lost it.
I still couldn’t help looking past him at Claire. Lucy and Chimera ignored her completely as she twiddled with the vial’s cap, dainty but determined. When she got it just so, she threw it at Chimera’s back. That was too much. It looked like an attack, and one of Lucy’s knives flew up to cut the vial in half.
Which, of course, dumped the whole contents on Lucy and Chimera both, coming out in a gray powdery puff. Chimera turned gray and fell over onto his stomach. Lucy turned gray and fell on top of him.
“Is it my turn to win a fight for us?” Claire asked with bright eyes and a coy grin.
We’d done it.
Black fire flickered up off Lucy’s body. We hadn’t done it.
The fire spread, removing the gray from her body and replacing it with a gleaming, oily black surface that spread into an elegant dress, then oozed up off her back into skeletal wings tipped with knife blades. She started standing up, and I remembered my priorities. I threw the penny I’d collected at her. It smacked into her shoulder and stuck.
Lucyfar pulled herself up completely straight and plucked the penny free of her dress. A black, burning crown roared into existence above her head, and she announced in a strained but just barely calm voice, “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I am the morning star, the fallen one, the first and most damned child of creation. Magic is the power of creation, children. It cannot harm me.”
In case she hadn’t made her point, she clenched my penny in her fist. Flames leaked between her fingers, and a painful knot twitched in my belly. I heard a girl’s voice shriek in the distance. My voice.
I still was not going to take the self-proclaimed Princess of Lies at her word, and let out a snort. “If you’re immune to magic, why are you afraid of the Librarian?”
Lucyfar grinned, and it was the old, playful Lucyfar grin despite the black fire and wings and oozing gown. “Because she can hit me in the head with a fifty-pound book.”
“Like this?” Ray asked. He stepped forward, swinging the door he’d broken off to let us back into the hallway.
Lucy’s wings lashed out. It didn’t help. The hallway wasn’t big, and there wasn’t enough room around the fast swinging door. Yes, she chopped big furrows in the wood, but the door still slammed into her sideways, knocking her into the wall. Ray pulled the door back and hit her again, and she was too dazed to even try to dodge. Then he pinned the door against Lucy with his foot, clapped his hands together, and pulled out the glowing energy ball he hadn’t had time to form before. He shoved it against the door.
Crack! Bits of wood flew everywhere. The door split in half, and the wall crumpled, leaving Lucy slumped under the broken door. All I could see clearly were her limp hands and a section of her stomach where the black dress had disappeared, leaving a regular gray t-shirt.
Ray yelled. Chimera’s huge hand had locked around his ankle. The gray, animal bulk shuddered and started to push up.
I teleported two yards up onto his shoulders, stabbed my wand against his back, and turned on the knife. Blood and frothy cola bubbled out, but my swipe didn’t even reach his spine before the cola gave way to hissing air. Maybe I wouldn’t have to cut his spine. His bulk shook beneath me as he fell back against the floor, making some very ugly coughing gurgles. I must have punctured a lung.
That would kill anyone else. Chimera had already stopped bleeding. To my great relief, Vera floated up the hall to me and I realized I had backup. “Stay down, Chimera, or I’ll order Vera to melt you.”
Wait. Forget backup, Vera had been here the whole time. I’d had a trump card weapon since the beginning and forgotten to use it!
Or been unwilling to use it. As far as I knew, Vera had no “stun” setting. She only had a “melt” setting.
“I officially vote that we surrender,” Cybermancer mumbled, still stuck to the wall.
From underneath the door, Lucy agreed, “Ow, my head. Okay.”
Chimera gurgled. The vote was unanimous. We’d won!
Claire giggled. Ray grinned at me. He held out his hand, and I slapped my hand into it and squeezed.
Then I pulled my helmet off, pulled him up close, and kissed him.
A second of Ray’s wide eyes staring into mine, and his arms went around my middle, bending me back as he kissed me back harder. After the tension of the fight, suddenly all I could feel was my mouth and his, a warm pressure that made my heart thump in my chest.
I push
ed my way out of his grip and caught my breath. Okay, kissing was all it was cracked up to be.
Still staring at me, Ray mumbled, “I should have trusted the card.”
Claire’s loud groan of frustration interrupted us both. “Finally! Why did it take you two this long?”
I stopped staring at Ray and stared at Claire instead. So did Ray. She gaped at us. “You didn’t know. You really never noticed how you’re always watching each other. Oh, for pity’s sake!” She slapped the heel of her palm against her forehead, and leaned back against the wall opposite Cybermancer with a thump.
Next to my shoulder, Vera’s head turned, the thing I’d taught myself to always be alert for. She didn’t just move; she dived, down and past me. I spun in place, grabbing at my empty wand, preparing to teleport.
I didn’t teleport. Instead, I watched The Apparition rise out of the floor, gray and insubstantial except where her palm met Vera’s tiny hand. She’d been reaching out to possess me, but Vera had blocked her.
“How…?” The Apparition whispered, shock enlivening her normally sad face.
I hadn’t known, but I wasn’t surprised. Conqueror tech seemed entirely compatible with magic. I didn’t get to tell her. Vera answered instead with those meaningless bell chimes she had for a voice.
Meaningless to me. The Apparition stared at her, eyes widening further. “That… that can’t be true.”
Vera rang again.
“For me?” The Apparition asked.
Vera’s bell ringing voice went on for several seconds this time, almost a song. As they played, The Apparition’s face twisted up. Phantom tears welled up in phantom eyes, and she wrapped both arms around Vera, pulling her floating body close and hugging it tight. Bending her head over Vera, she sobbed, “Yes. Yes, please. I didn’t think I’d earned one.”
What was I looking at?
I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question. A book about lonely alien beings had inspired Vera’s creation. The Apparition was the loneliest alien being I knew. Vera wasn’t a tool, or a weapon. She was a gift. This was why I’d made her.
Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain Page 41