by Jim Butcher
“It’s okay. Really.” She touched my hand on the bar. Her skin felt cool and soothing against mine. “You can talk to me.”
We didn’t know each other that well. Hell, we’d met only a week before. But the way she said it and the earnestness in her eyes made me believe it. Goddammit.
I gave Andre a nod, and he covered for me at the bar. Great guy, Andre. He’d walk through fire for me. He has, on numerous occasions, even without powers to protect him.
I led Nicole over to a booth in the back, close to a group of thirtysomethings earnestly engaged in some deep philosophical discussion. They wouldn’t notice us. Nicole sat quietly, waiting with her hands folded on the table. Her eyes reflected the dim light of the bar, making her look both sad and fascinated. I could tell she wanted to hear my story.
And like the drunk, fucking idiot I was, I told her.
I told her how I’d first been possessed by a demon at age fifteen, and how it had used my powers—oh, by the way, new friend, I have fucking fear powers—to hold an entire city hostage. How the team of capes unoriginally called Supergroup had defeated the demon and rescued me, and I’d joined as their newest member. Lady Vengeance, they called me: little miss bad-behavior tabloid princess who partied with rock stars, never went to rehab, and did anything but respect herself. The dark, edgy, unpredictable one on the team who could never be fully trusted, ’cuz once a villain, always a villain. They made goddamn comic books about me, and though my depicted outfit was trashier than the real thing, it wasn’t by much. Right-wing media hated me, the counterculture fucking loved me, and I drank and drugged it all away in a perpetual haze.
“It’s all online. There’re records,” I said. “Of course, the Net won’t tell you how it feels. How the demons never go away. How every person who looks at you wrong could be a demon or could just be one of the everyone who doesn’t trust you.”
I didn’t tell her all about my powers, only the basics: absorbing emotional energy, particularly fear, using it to make myself stronger, faster, more durable. Creating things. Et cetera.
I didn’t tell her the really fucked-up part. About how when Azazel had first taken control of my powers, I’d been awake. Aware. And though I’m not sure if I could have stopped him on my own, I didn’t try. Not because I was afraid, but because I wanted what he offered.
Some nights, I still do, and I drink until that impulse blurs away.
At the end of the story, she looked at me solemnly. She’d believed the whole story. It must have sounded vaguely correct to her, like something you lived through as a kid but only occasionally heard about when you grew up. Before her time, I guess. God, she was too young for me. “So, you’re, like, a superhero?”
“Like one, yeah,” I said. “I’m retired. Ten years now. I’ve . . . been in hiding.”
“In hiding?” Nicole frowned. “Why? If I could do what you do, I wouldn’t hide it.”
“You—” I paused. I thought about her—about this girl I’d just met—who’d managed to get me to tell her things I hadn’t told anyone. Ever. And it wasn’t the booze, and it wasn’t an accident. It felt purposeful. It must have been the booze. That’s why I didn’t notice it before.
My intuition flared, and suddenly everything seemed different. Well, shit.
I had to be sure, so I took her deeper.
“You remember those friends I mentioned? Supergroup?” I looked down at my clenched hands on the tabletop. “Something happened to them.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. Something happened to them? Something like—”
She stopped short and her face went pale. I nodded gravely.
I tried to give the short version. “Their rogues’ gallery—sorry, that’s powered lingo for a bunch of our frequent bad guys. The kind we fight often, put in jail; then they break out and we fight ’em again.” She nodded, vaguely understanding. “A bunch of them got together and attacked while we were having a reunion sort of thing. We all hated each other by the point, and hadn’t been together for years, but we still met. My sister—it was her idea.”
I had a sudden memory of my half sister’s bronze face contorted in pain and rage as blood gushed from her mouth. The look in her eyes . . . I took a long drink to steady myself.
“So, they— What? Attacked you and your friends? Killed some of you?”
“All of us,” I said. “Almost all of us. I made it out, and so did Tony, my ex.” Tony was roaring at me, and I could see the gooey flesh inside his half-empty eye socket. Attacking me. Punishing me for what he thought I had done.
“The guy you saw at the gym?” Nicole asked.
“Sort of,” I said, pouring another. I was glad I had the bottle.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” Nicole said. “That—that’s a goddamn tragedy. But that doesn’t have to define you.” She touched my hand on the table. “I’ve watched you. I see you fighting it. You can put it behind you.”
I closed my fingers so tight around the glass, I almost broke it. “Thanks for the pop psychology,” I said. “But it’s not that easy.”
“Why not?” Nicole’s eyes were burning at me now, full of youthful fire and optimism. I felt it coming off her like heat from a radiator. She probably thought herself wise beyond her years. At least she meant well. “It wasn’t your fault. You survived. They didn’t. Sucks to be them, but they would want you to move on with your life. To be happy.”
“What do you fucking know?” I slammed the glass down on the table, startling Nicole. “My friends were total assholes. They hated me. They would not want me to be happy.”
“Okay, fine.” Nicole leaned back and crossed her arms. “So fuck what they would want. You’re alive. You’re here. What do you want?”
If I still thought of her as just a bright kid, that would have sounded goddamned supportive. Trouble was, I knew the truth. Shit.
I waved to Andre at the bar, but when he started over, I gave him a curt, cutting-off gesture. The signal. His face lost some of its luster. Quietly, he started approaching the various tables to encourage them to leave. The regulars caught on quick, though some of the drunker barflies made unsatisfied noises I hoped Nicole wouldn’t notice.
“Hey.” Nicole leaned across the table and put her hand on my arm. “You survived. It’s totally okay to feel guilty about that. Totally normal. A lot of people in your situation would.”
“Would they?” I poured my fourth drink of this conversation.
“I’m sure you did everything you could,” she said. “It’s not like you killed them.”
Silence.
She stared at me for a long time, her eyes growing progressively wider. “You— You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” she asked. “Vivienne?”
I looked at the tumbler of whiskey in my hand.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t remember.”
We sat in silence, listening as trivia night progressed. They were on the final round, which commenced with a mashup of dramatic music from various movies. At first I thought it was the theme from some spaghetti Western, but an electric guitar intruded. We didn’t compare answers this time; only stared at each other. I kept her attention. I didn’t let her notice the people quietly leaving the bar. Andre had kept the music playing in part to cover up the exodus.
“You wanna get out of here?” I asked. “I know the boss, and she’d totally let me bail.”
Her face lit up, surprised and pleased. “Yes.” She smiled weakly. “God, yes.”
The plan was simple: get her out to the parking lot, onto the bike, and out of here. Maybe head down into SoDo or to one of the city’s many construction sites—anywhere away from people. Then we could have a conversation.
At the door, Nicole stepped close enough to me to hold. She felt hot as a furnace against the chilly night air from the parking lot. “Are you sober enough to driv
e?” she asked.
Damn. Hadn’t thought of that. Typical—the drunk is undone by a dumbass-drunk thing. “I’ll have you know that I’m a high-functioning alcoholic,” I said. A pretty good try, I think.
Crap. Nicole was looking around the emptying bar. Her notice fell on a twentysomething couple that was arguing with Andre about their check. It must have seemed obvious he was trying to get them to leave. Suspicious as fuck.
“I see.” Nicole drew me back into the bar—entirely the wrong direction. “You know what? I think we should stay here.” She clung close to me. “I like it here.”
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said. “It’s getting pretty late.” I checked my watch: 11:54.
“What time is it?” she asked, her breath warm against my ear.
Time was up.
“Time for you to get out of that poor girl, I guess.”
Nicole pulled away, looking at first hurt and confused. Then her expression hardened. “How did you know?”
“Other than me dumping the insanity of the century on you, and you don’t bat an eye?”
“Other than that.” She tried to pull away, but I held her hand. She stared at me. Hard.
“I didn’t—not for sure,” I said. “But I think you’ve been influencing Nicole since that first night.”
“Oh?” Her voice dropped half an octave. “How so?”
“Little things never really added up with Nicole. Call it intuition.” I ticked off the reasons on my fingers. “One: a young woman running the gym alone after dark? Maybe, but there’s gotta be a rule about having at least two people at the gym at all times.” I raised a second finger. “Two: the fake Raven to distract me. What else was the point of that?” Three fingers. “The flirting. I mean, sure, but Nicole just screams alpha straight girl. And you were really goddamn pushy. And then at the bar.” I held up four fingers. “When you ordered a White Russian and a Caesar salad, and then you ate some of my tatchos. Nicole’s a vegan.”
She smiled wryly, mockingly. “Maybe I’m just a naughty one.”
“Maybe.” I shook my head. “Or maybe fuck you demon—get out of my friend.”
The demon narrowed Nicole’s eyes. “Good thought, trying to lure me away.” The voice was Nicole’s but very low—threatening. “Wouldn’t want to mess up the place.”
“Or kill innocent bystanders, but whatever.”
The kids fighting about the bill had stopped arguing with Andre and were now staring at us like frightened deer on a country road. A man sat at the bar, all but passed out from booze, oblivious to the world around him. Andre had pulled out his favorite Louisville Slugger, for all the good it would do against a demon.
Nicole chuckled deep in her throat and stepped toward the bar, but I held her hand tight. “This thing is between you and me,” I said. “Leave the others out of it.”
“They’re already in this.” The demon’s voice rolled like thunder, as tremulous as boulders cracking under their own weight. “You really think you scare me, little girl?”
“Oh, nice try,” I said. “I can tell you’re not Azazel. That fucker knows better than to try to intimidate me.” I folded my arms. “So, whose little bitch ass do I get to fuck up today?”
She waded in with a series of jabs that I deflected mostly by keeping my head down and my hands up. Her bare knuckles hurt, but I prepared for that by channeling some of my fear energy into sheaths of purple armor that rippled along my arms and shoulders. Nicole retreated, wincing and shaking out her arms. I drew fear into my hands, encasing them in glowing purple gauntlets of energy. I was drawing more emotional resonance from the people in the bar, and the more scared they became, the more power I could draw. Game over, demon.
“You’re a real loser—you know that?” I asked. “You couldn’t get me to let you in by pretending to be a human, so now you’re going to break me open? You’ve already lost.”
Nicole wrapped her arms around my waist and put me on the floor like it was nothing. A table exploded under us, and the air left my body in a rush. I landed on my sprained right arm and momentarily blacked out from the pain. Nicole leered over me, straddling my waist and in complete control.
“You want her?” the demon said over me. “You’ll have to beat me out of her.”
I caught her hands to hold them away from my face. Saliva ran down her chin from where her lips drew unnaturally far back from her teeth.
“Nicole,” I said. “If you can hear me, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry.” The demon squeezed tighter. “You won’t.”
Grappling negated all my advantages. Nicole was accustomed to fighting stronger opponents, and my armor did nothing against her holds. My right arm was useless. I did better than I had in class, but she twisted onto my back and I was huffing sawdust, beer foam, and grime off the floorboards in seconds. Should really do a better job cleaning up around here.
“Should have paid more attention to my moves than my body,” the demon said. “Then you’d know what to do when I’ve got your back.”
“Fuck face,” I said. “I absolutely know what to do.”
I channeled the last of the fear into one hot point in the center of my hand, strained to reach up, and touched Nicole’s cheek. Power flared.
Her body went instantly rigid, as though I’d blasted her with a stun gun. Her control fell apart, and she looked at me, dizzy and confused. I head-butted her, and she fell off me entirely.
As blood ran down from her nose, I grinned. “Told you.”
“What—?” Nicole staggered back into one of the booths and upended the table there with a flick of her wrist. Her head shook and her eyes rolled. “What have you done to me?”
“Not to you—to her.” I raised my glowing purple hand. “I conjured up her worst, paralyzing fear and hit her between the eyes with it. You’re hard to scare, but Nicole? She’s only human, and we’re all afraid of something.”
Nicole turned away and vomited. At first I worried I’d given her a brain-injuring concussion with that hit, but then I saw the disgusting sludge pumping out her mouth. Those weren’t her guts she was puking out, but something far darker and worse for both of us.
“Go!” I hissed at Andre. “Get out of here!”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He slid something across the bar in my direction: a black leather satchel marked “For Emergencies.” Like a first-aid kit, only better. Then he ushered the last patrons out into the rainy night, leaving me alone with Nicole and her demon. I made a mental note to give him a raise after this.
Unfortunately, the black mess was between me and the claw. As I started to creep around, I felt an influx of power that made me stagger. The room abruptly dropped ten or twenty degrees, and I could see my breath. Here it came.
The lights dimmed, fizzling and crackling to usher in madness. The demon rose from the pool like a patch of liquid night, muscular arms stretched wide as though to soak up the power of the place. Its darkness had no firm lines but instead shifted among half a dozen shapes, from something like a man to a flow of spiders and maggots to a thing mortal minds were never meant to process. Then it took the shape of the Raven sans eye, because that terrified me most.
A shadow demon. Of course. Tricky, vicious, massive inferiority complex. Dangerous.
Empty and caught in her fear, Nicole lay senseless, leaving just the demon and me.
I started to speak, but the demon pounced on me and knocked the air out of my lungs. It raked icy claws of darkness across my body, ripping through my jacket and jeans like wet paper, then hurled me into the bar with enough force to crack it. The creature leaped on me, but I pulled fear energy into my legs and kicked it off. It flowed to the center of the room, hovering and dangerous. I blinked away the pain and climbed limply out of the crater I’d left in the bar.
“I thought you’d put up more fight,” the d
emon said in a thousand jabbering voices. Its amorphous body made it hard to see, and my wounds didn’t help either. At least its touch was numbingly cold—like being stabbed to death by syringes full of morphine. “The great Lady Vengeance, mortal consort of Azazel the Many-Eyed, hated and feared and loved throughout the bowels of eternity.”
“Ew.” As I got to my feet, I reached over and claimed the emergency kit on the bar. I took out a weapon I hadn’t worn for a long time: a silver gauntlet with sharpened claws for fingers. Even with my movements made awkward thanks to my injured right arm and the adrenaline, I fit it on my left hand with practiced efficiency. “You never told me your name, demon. After I humiliate you, I want to be able to tell the story accurately.”
“You’ll not trick me, woman.” It smiled and nodded toward the bar. “I’m going to kill you, then everyone you’ve ever loved—”
Nicole’s flying knee came out of the dim, flickering light and smashed into the demon’s back. She had launched herself with the force of a charging bull, and it knocked the demon staggering toward the bar and me. I met it with a rising slash of the silver claw, and the demon shrieked as the talons tore through its shadowy flesh. I might not be a saint, empowered to smite demons with my bare hands, but blessed silver works regardless of your personal moral standing.
Roaring, Nicole launched a blistering combination of punches, kicks, and elbows that made my face ache. I felt no more fear in her, just pure, righteous anger. I approved.
We stood in the ruined bar, arranged in a kind of fighting triangle. I panted and bled, but my powers kept me standing. Nicole looked pale but royally pissed off, hands and arms shaking with white-hot rage that tasted exhilarating. The demon cursed in its profane language, looking for an opening but finding none. Demons may not have the same emotional range as humans, but one we definitely have in common is fear, and its terror tasted like fine fifty-year-old scotch.
“You’re outmatched, demon,” I said. “I’ll give you one chance to—”
The creature roared, boiled away into smog, and flowed through the open back door with a sound like wind droning through grass. Through my powers, I felt the instant the demon left: all that delicious fear gone. What a shame.