by Sevan Paris
I gain a little more altitude, then fire two Grav Blasts. Tatts on Braille’s upper arms glow and swirl into an energy shield, ricocheting my Grav Blasts into the night sky.
Circular knee and shoulder tattoos flare yellow. They lift away from his skin, spreading and merging, until they form Magickal armor covering every contour of his body. He yells and flies at me.
I raise my hand in a cupping motion, queueing M for a Grav Beam. He captures Braille in the blue energy and I yank, pulling him into the bank’s concrete wall behind me. I’m about to follow him, to make sure he’s out of the fight for good when I see a blood red light reflecting off the windows of Prose Bank and Trust.
I turn to the horizon and look: dawn is almost here, but it’s different. Redder, darker. The clouds have blackened edges and quickly start spiraling around the city. Even the moon, still hanging full over Prose, has managed to become more crimson, more … evil.
Macabre is doing this. Either for effect or because he’s building up his power, getting ready to unleash who knows what on the city. I’m running out of time. I’ve got to end this.
I haul ass back to Mystick’s brownstone, fists in front of me.
Through the jagged opening in the building’s top floor, Ember’s flame-colored swords swing back and forth, barely visible through a heap of brick gargoyle. Ember cuts through the head of one to her right, kicks another at her left. One leaps onto her back and grabs her hair. It screams and bites down, squirting blood from her neck. M gets a Grav Beam ready to clear them out. The closest gargoyles turn and look at me with wide, yellow eyes. I raise my hand to fire …
When Braille tackles me into Wells Fargo.
We crash and tumble through glass and concrete—bouncing through a computer room, sparks exploding around us, and into the Men’s restroom. The impact separates us, and I skid through four stalls and five toilets before grinding to a halt on wet tile.
There’s no pain, which means M’s forcefield soaked up all of the damage. “How much we got left?” I say.
Forty percent. I don’t recommend engaging this individual for long.
Broken toilets and sinks spray water in every direction. I splish-spalsh out of my broken stall as Braille pulls himself out of a hole in the tile wall. The fluorescents flicker one last time before giving way to the emergency lighting.
“You Superheroes,” Braille says. “Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
More like having our noses shoved, actually.
“This isn’t right!” I point at him. “What you’re doing to Pink! What you’re going to do to everybody!”
“Sometimes a surgeon has to sever the arm to save the patient.”
“Don’t you dare reduce this to some sort of half-assed analogy!” I say. “This is a person’s life!”
“This is the life of everyone.”
Braille kicks a chunk of bathroom wall out of his way and charges at me.
I raise my hand to fire another Grav Beam, but he’s on me too quickly. He punches, flipping me through the air and into the Women’s restroom. I have just enough time to stand before he’s on me again, kicking me into an office space. He grabs a desk from somewhere and breaks it in half over my back, knocking me against a cracked window on the far side of the room.
I slowly pull myself up, using a spilled water cooler beside me. “M? How we doing?”
Not well. Thirty-six percent.
Macabre’s tentacles wind across the parking garage across the street. Mystick flies into the pitch surrounding his body, only to be flung away a moment later. Mariachi’s faint guitar strings sound from somewhere. Out the windows on the right side are Ember’s swords, still flicking.
And then they wink out.
No …
Braille yells and slams more desks out of his way.
I shove away the water cooler, face him. And spread my arms, grabbing every piece of furniture I see in the room with a Grav Beam. I slam every desk, filing cabinet, and chair his way. He just bats them aside with the forearms of his energy armor like they’re nothing.
So I fire underneath him.
His eyes have just enough time to widen before my Grav Blasts completely blow out the floor. He stumbles and then rolls into the wide hole. I use Grav Beams to shove all the debris on top of him.
That’s not going to hold him for long.
“Doesn’t have to.”
The building window shatters from the impact of my forcefield and I bank left, back to Mystick’s brownstone. Through the hole in its side, little brick and mortar bodies climb over each other, trying to get at something at their center. I wrap the gargoyles in a Grav Beam and yank them away screaming. They splat into the building across the street and then fall to the sidewalk as brick and dust. They quickly start rolling towards each other, reforming themselves.
Ember lies on her side, eyes closed, with ripped clothing and covered in scratches. Blood pools around her neck. Right beside her, the pencil finishes its spell and then falls limp to the hardwood floor. The bands clink open, but they’re already empty. There’s no sign of Pink. “M?”
I’m not detecting her anywhere.
I look right and left, unable to believe what I’m seeing. “That means …” I swallow, trying to find my voice, “… that means she’s dead?”
CHAPTER FOUR
I just stand there, blinking at the empty space where Pink is supposed to be.
“You did this,” a hollow voice says to my left.
I turn my head: Braille hovers just outside of the hole in the wall. In the distance, a building crumbles and people scream. A scurrying sound comes from under him as the gargoyle things start poking their heads into the opening.
“I did—what?” I say. “She’s … dead! Pink is dead because of you!”
“Gabe?” Ember mumbles, eyes still closed.
I kneel and ease her head up, tightening my hands on her shoulders. “And whatever you all did—whatever you were supposed to do—didn’t work! That thing is still out there, so what now? Who else are you gonna kill to try and save the world?”
“It did not work because you took league with that foul beast and delayed us,” Braille shakes his head. “Now you, me, the entire world—we’ll all perish, the victims of a twisted Sayer’s paintbrush.”
Ember just has a mild concussion, Gabe. And the blood loss looks worse than it is. She’ll be fine.
The gargoyles come into the room, and the walls start rippling again.
Provided we all survive what happens next …
The heads of even more the things start taking shape and pulling away from the brick. I ease Ember’s head back to the floor and slowly stand. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. You’re the one that—”
A searing, squeezing pain wraps around me.
Braille has raised his right hand, fingers clawed outward. “I’m not here to quibble,” he says. “But to kill.”
I look down: a massive yellow hand matches the movements of Braille’s closing fist, squeezing and lifting me off my feet. My legs kick at the air and I jerk right to left, desperately trying to escape the crushing pain.
Braille raises his chin. “If I am to die, then I will at least die with the satisfaction that you left this world before I. And you did so painfully.” He squeezes, white knuckling his darkly tattooed fist. The gargoyles make little hops, trying to reach me with their tiny claws.
“M?” I gurgle.
Once again our forcefield is no use against this wretched Magick! If there is any way to escape this, I have no means of doing so!
So this is it. After everything … God, this hurts so much … after everything, I’m going to die right here. Knowing that the two people that depended on me to do the right thing—to do the hero thing—were counting on the wrong person that they should have depended on someone else that the whole world should have depended on someone else, anyone else but me and after Macabre is finished here he will go to other worlds and do the same thing
that he is doing here and I could be responsible for killing the entire galaxy, the entire universe, the entire—
Braille screams.
My head snaps around: the space around Braille—reality around Braille—spins into a familiar mind-bending churn. His body thins, stretches crazy long, then wraps around itself like a human twizler. His distorted body elongates even further, then pours itself backwards from the hole in the brownstone, leaving nothing behind but sparkling yellow ash.
Braille’s Magickal fist fizzles away with a series of pops and snaps. I rush to the edge of the opening and look to the street. Casa stands outside of a parked F150 with the driver’s side door open. He holds the smoking capture stick to his lips and blows off a puff of Magickal smoke at the top.
See? Told you we should have brought it.
The gargoyles rush at me. I yank Ember to me with a Grav Beam and fly down to Casa.
I land and ease her to the ground next to me. Casa crouches and looks at her.
“She’s in and out of it, but she’s okay,” I say.
“Pink?” Casa says.
I stand, looking at him, and gently shake my head.
He sighs, then his eyes widen over my shoulder.
I turn and see Mystick stepping off her light disk. She points in the vague direction of Mariachi’s small guitar noises and the deep roaring of Macabre’s fireballs. “You did this?” As always, her Magicks protect her from the cold and keep her breath from frosting the air.
“You did this!” I say.
Mystick holds up her index finger as her heels clip-clop towards me. “I took action when no one else could. When no one else would.”
I hold out my hands, palms up. “Look around: Your ‘action’ has nearly gotten everyone killed.”
“Why are you looking at Ember?” Casa says.
I turn, looking at Casa. “What?”
Mystick’s eyes narrow.
“She’s talking to us, probably about to yell at us—definitely about to kill us—but her eyes keep going to Ember.” Casa looks at Ember laying on the ground and then back to Mystick. “Why?”
Arcane energy webs around Mystick’s toned arms like lightening, then collects at her fingertips. She hurls it at us.
I reach out, scooping up a parked minivan with a Grav Beam, and yank it to the space between us. The Magickal blast slams into the underside of the van and splits it in half. Both pieces screech to either side of the street, fanning sparks along the way.
Mystick builds up another ball of energy, twice as large. I step back, scanning the street for something—anything that can block another blast. She slaps her palms together. The Magicks leaps foreward, filling Atlantic Avenue with a huge crack of light.
The sound of two quick steps on metal catches my attention—I turn right as Ember leaps from the hood of the minivan and slides across the snow in front of me. She raises her fire-colored shield, splitting the Magickal lightening in two. They chase the building fronts at opposite ends of the street and disappear into the swirling sky.
From over the top of her smoking shield, Ember peers at Mystick with narrowed eyes.
Eyes that glow pink.
What?
Holy crap. That’s why Mystick wanted Ember. She knew—sensed that Pink was in there. Somehow, Ember managed to get Pink inside her body, to free her from the cuffs and protect her from the gargoyles.
Mystick meets Pink’s gaze from twenty feet down the street. Mystick’s eyes close and she whispers something. Her arms raise to her sides and a white ball of light surrounds her, lifting her into the air. Windows shatter up and down the street. A dark, angry Magickal whisper fills the air.
Gabe, there is no way that Pink can withstand another blast, even with the assistance of Ember’s abilities.
Pink doubles the size of Ember’s shield and leans to the balls of her feet. Mytick’s hands close into fists, and she opens her mouth to yell something—
When Casa’s Magickal hammer whips through the air—end over end—and bops her right between the eyes.
Mystick steps back, almost falling, shooting the energy harmlessly into the air. The hammer strikes her a second time, bending her nose to the side. It strikes her a third time, crunching in her cheek bone. The hammer strikes her from either side of her body, spurting blood into the air. She raises her right arm, only to have the hammer break it at the elbow with a wet snap. Her right hand snatches the hammer out of the air and she whispers something. The hammer blackens, then drips from her palm as ash. She turns to Casa, starts saying something under her breath …
And I fly tackle her.
We slam into the fender of the minivan’s upper half, shoving it onto the sidewalk. After tumbling to the concrete, my hand goes to the last place Mystick suspects—right between her boobs.
Her eyes widen and I manage to get my hand wrist-deep before she says, “Away!”
A Magickal glow forms at my chest and presses, throwing me to the other side of the street. I slide ten feet on my side before the energy fizzles away.
Mystick slowly stands, hand covering her breasts. Her face is a horror show—dripping with blood and snot, disfigured with crooked breaks and swollen skin. Her one good eye widens in surprise. “Why would you …?” Her eyes widen at the breath leaving her mouth—the frosted breath.
I point at her chest. “The Draining Amulet.”
She looks down and sees the green stone, firmly lodged between her blood-covered boobs.
“Just tucked it there.” I shrug. “Pretty dope, right?”
Her fist closes around it, elbow raises to yank it away—when Pink slams Ember’s body into hers, taking both of them to the sidewalk. Mystick writhes for only a second before Pink has Ember’s hands clasped behind the Sayer’s head, forearms over her shoulders, and legs around her thighs. Mystick’s blood covers both of them in dark, wet patches.
“There are five ways Ember knows how to subdue somebody,” Pink says through Ember’s lips. “Which means there are five ways I know how to subdue somebody. The other four use those lightsaber looking things.” She gives Mystick a good jerk. “So give me a reason.”
Mystick goes limp. She closes her good eye and the air around them shimmers with a Magickal glow.
Gabe, I believe she’ll be able to circumvent your neck jewelry in a matter of seconds. Whatever you’re about to do, you’d best make it quick.
“You created Macabre,” I say.
The shimmering stops and Mystick’s eye opens, looking at me.
Casa steps up beside me, capture stick resting on his shoulder.
“And I may know how to stop him. For good. But I need to know the details. How was he created?”
Mystick’s bare legs and arms redden, no longer protected from the cold by her Magicks. “Why would you expect me to believe, for a moment, that a mere Super has the ability to—”
Pink gives Mystick another shake, cutting off the Sayer with a creak of pain.
I crouch next to them. “You found him in space, probably just outside Earth’s atmosphere. Your Magicks told you he was there, and that he was kind of like you.”
Pink gives me a confused look. “You mean like a Sentinel?”
“He means exactly like a Sentinel,” Casa says, looking in the direction of Macabre.
I nod. “Only a lot bigger, and given a will, purpose, and a shit load of power through Magick.”
Mystick raises her chin and narrows her eye at me. “How could you possibly—”
“How much longer you think Poet and Mariachi are gonna last?” I say. “Or the rest of the world for that matter? You gonna help me stop this thing or what?”
Pink brings Mystick’s ear close to Ember’s lips. “Remember that ruthless stuff I was telling you about earlier?”
Mystick swells her double D’s with a brief sigh. It leaves her broken nose, frosting the air at an odd angle. “We found Macabre and others like him, just like you said.”
“We?” Casa says.
“Oth
er Sayers. And it was our concern that others would approach them. Slay them. And gain their Magicks, finding a way to make it fuel their own.”
“So, you guys what—wanted to be the one who killed them first?” I say.
“We were trying to protect these creatures,” Mystick says. “Not use them.”
“Protect them?” I say. “From what?”
“She was trying to give them the means to defend themselves,” Casa says. “By teaching them how to access their powers. You started small with Macabre, hoping he would teach the others.”
Mystick nods. “By the time I realized Macabre’s true nature, that he wanted to reshape everything similar to the way that we reshaped him, it was already too late. He had killed the others Sayers responsible for changing him and grown far too powerful for me to deal with by myself.”
“What about that thing that crawled out of the river ten years ago?” Pink says. “You told me that was something he did?”
“He brought another one like himself here. And I merely sent it back. By that point I realized the situation had grown far more complicated than I could control. I joined HEROES to use their resources to help me find him.”
Macabre yells again. Chunks of buildings tear loose somewhere.
Silence passes. I think about the thing—the things—that can probably beat Macabre. And about how if I’m wrong …
I point at the amulet around Mystick’s neck. “I think I may have a way out of this. Take that thing off.”
“What?” Pink says, looking up at me. “Are you crazy?”
As a bed bug.
“She knows her plan won’t work,” I say. “Not anymore. And she knows Macabre is going to kill the three of them in short order. Which means she doesn’t have a choice but to let me try my thing.”
Mystick’s head lowers. And she nods.
“Oye,” Pink says. “Freaking oye.”
Seconded.
Pink takes Embers arms away from Mystick and they both stand. Mystick takes off the amulet. She whispers something, and her nose shifts back into place, the swelling on her face decreases.
I point to the roof of Wells Fargo. “Pink, I need you up on that building, facing Mystick’s place. Keep Macabre’s attention focused that way. Mystick, if you can get the other Sayers to go along with it, I need you all up there too.”