by Carver Pike
“Let him go!” Vision demanded.
“As you wish,” Vincent said as he seemed to close his fist harder.
Hawks was about to pass out when Vincent hurled his body through the air, straight at the mirror. This time, Hawks was sure he’d hit solid glass, and he held his hands in front of his face like a drunk driver launched at a windshield. But the glass liquefied and he fell through to the other side.
He soared through the mirror and flew over a desk, his arms hitting the rough carpet as he protected his head; his feet hit the desk, scattering the papers and sending the computer crashing to the floor. He moaned in pain as he let his feet flop off the desk and onto the floor.
Crumpled up on the carpet, he gasped for air. He looked up to see an overweight man with suspenders filling a paper cone at the water dispenser. The cup was full and the water spilled over the side.
“Water,” Hawks gasped.
The man’s hand shook as he bent down and handed the cone to him. Hawks gulped it down and let his head drop to the floor. The man walked to the mirror and touched it, pulling his hand back immediately, as if expecting a shock.
“Hmm,” was all he said.
***
Lisa ran at the mirror and slapped it, thinking her hand would go through, but it didn’t. Hawks was somewhere on the other side. Where was Gabe? What the hell was taking him so long? Why was her son doing this?
She turned and ran at Vincent. She backhanded him as hard as she could across the face. It seemed to hurt her hand more than his face as she pulled back and watched the red welt rise on his cheek.
“Lisa, no!” Vision yelled.
It was too late. Vincent reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
“You wanna go on a little trip too?” he asked.
“Vincent,” she said through teary eyes.
Vincent whipped her body around and held her up in the air. She could see Vision take a step and then stop.
“Uh uh, baby brother. Not another step,” Vincent warned.
“Don’t hurt her,” Vision said.
“Me? What makes you think I’d do such a thing?”
Vision took another step and Vincent squeezed harder. It hurt so badly and Lisa could only get a little bit of air to pass through her throat.
***
Hawks managed to climb to his feet. Surprisingly, the man in the office hadn’t called Security; he just stood and watched, sweat pouring down his forehead. Hawks approached the water cooler and reached for a cone. The man scurried away and stood in the corner, watching him.
Hawks leaned against the large office window that looked out over the bright morning below. He glanced down at the lines of traffic; workers tried to make their way through the Windy City, oblivious to what Hawks and his friends were going through.
“Thirsty?” the man asked, awkwardly, as if trying to end the eerie silence in the room.
“You have no idea,” Hawks replied as he gulped down the water and reached to refill his cup.
A tinny Musak version of What if God was One of Us played softly in the background. It wasn’t the original singer, but a softer, more chilled out version. Hawks recognized the tune.
“Are you kidding me?” he said aloud, not really expecting anyone to answer.
“What?” the man asked.
Hawks glanced up at the speaker in the ceiling.
“Oh, yeah, we have to listen to that stuff all day. Supposed to be soothing or something.”
“Ironic,” Hawks said.
“How so?”
Hawks just shook his head.
“Never mind.”
“Umm,” the man said with a shaky, nervous voice. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here.”
Hawks downed one more cone of water.
“Don’t worry. I’m leaving.”
He crushed the paper cone and tossed it to the man. It bounced off his chest and landed in his open hand. Hawks figured he’d come through the mirror, so he’d have to make his way back. Hopefully Vision would be as powerful as Hawks expected and would have the mirror ready for him.
He hesitated for just a second, hoping this would work, and then ran straight at the mirror. He jumped at it, with his hands out in front of him, and smashed into it. He fell to the ground in a shower of glass.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“You could always use the door,” the man said as he pointed towards it.
Hawks was stuck, and he’d just destroyed his one possible portal back to the dark side.
***
Vincent set Lisa down and switched his grip from her neck to her hair, holding it tightly. He seemed to realize that at some point she would pass out if he didn’t loosen up. Vision was only a few feet away, but wasn’t doing much. She knew he was afraid to make a move that could cause Vincent to hurt her. He’d already hurt her a little, but Lisa still wondered if Vincent would have it in him to kill her. After all, she was his mom.
“Let’s go to the bathroom, shall we?” Vincent asked.
He stepped around Vision, leading her toward a door that was the same color as the wall. If she’d known there was a bathroom, she might’ve hidden there instead of out in clear view.
The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been used in ages. The floor was dirty, unlike the lobby outside. Only one light in the room was working, so everything was covered in shadows. Vision entered after them, refusing to leave her alone with Vincent.
“Vincent, just go,” Lisa begged. “Just leave me and go. Do whatever it is you feel you were meant to do.”
“What do you think, brother?” he asked Vision. “Want to just stop this bickering and let me step aside?”
“Just hand her over to me and we can talk about it,” Vision said.
“So you think you make the final decision?” Vincent asked.
“Just leave her and go. She’s your mother,” Vision reminded him.
Vincent laughed.
“She is my mother. That is true,” he said as he looked up to the ceiling, as if contemplating letting her go. “And being that she is my mother, don’t you think we should spend some quality time together?”
Lisa felt her heart sink. She knew this would end badly. Where was Gabe? God, she hoped he was still alive.
“Yeah, let’s spend some time together, Ma.”
Vincent lashed out and kicked Vision’s chest, sending the good brother crashing backwards through a stall door. Then he wrapped her up in a hug, jumped over the sink, and rolled into the mirror with her.
Vincent let go of her as they fell through the other side, and Lisa hit the ground first. Vincent fell down beside her on the tiled bathroom floor. Lisa almost had to shield her eyes from the brightness of the room.
Vincent was on her again in an instant, clutching a handful of her hair and dragging her to her feet. She was tired of being dragged around. For fuck’s sake, she’d fought her way through a bunch of shit on the dark side of the mirror and she was sick of being dragged around by her infant son.
She pulled back and kicked him in the balls as hard as she possibly could. Vincent let go of her and grabbed at his crotch.
“Aww, Ma!”
“Take that, you inconsiderate little shit!” she yelled as she slammed her elbow into his nose.
She was sure it hurt him, but she wasn’t sticking around to double check. She bolted for the door. On the other side was an empty hallway that seemed to open up to other halls. It was like an office building labyrinth. Where the hell was she going to go?
She picked one and ran. She heard the bathroom door open behind her, but she didn’t care. She kept running. That was the plan, until her feet were yanked out from under her and she was suddenly floating in the air.
“Didn’t know you had it in you, Ma,” Vincent said with a snicker.
She looked back as he made a “Come hither” motion with his hand and her body flew back to meet him. He grabbed her hair again, kicked an office door open, shattering it in the process, and p
ulled her into the open doorway.
“Excuse me! What the hell!” the man inside the room said as he stood and jabbed a finger in Vincent’s direction.
Vincent grabbed the finger and broke it. The man howled in pain, but only for a second before Vincent ripped the man’s throat and jaw open. The howl turned to a gurgling sound. Lisa screamed. Vincent pulled her towards a large closet mirror. He touched it and it liquefied. Then he pulled Lisa through with him.
***
Gabe ran into the empty lobby. Where was Lisa? Vision? Hawks? Where the hell was everybody? He’d left Traven outside with Ayana. Bronc and Tact were dead and he had no idea what Bronc had done with Emma. He was loosing everyone.
His heart beat wildly and there was a sinking feeling in his gut. Was this how it would end, in a bullshit battle in a fucking parking lot in Chi-Killian? This couldn’t be what all this Haisem talk was about.
He heard a door open behind him and turned to see Vision walk out of the bathroom.
“Where’s Lisa?” Gabe asked.
“With Vincent,” he replied, as calmly as ever.
“Why do you say that like it’s okay?”
“It’s not okay, Gabe. But it is what it is.”
“That’s not good enough for me. Where are they?”
“On the other side of the mirror.”
“What? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
“So let’s go get them.”
“We can’t.”
“You mean you can’t go through the mirror?”
“I can go through the mirror, but it’s pointless. He has to return here. He has nothing over there. This side is where he must make his stand. If we are to save Lisa, we must wait for their return.”
Gabe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His demented, psychotic, powerful son was prancing around on the other side of the mirror with his wife.
“I am sorry,” Vision added.
“I don’t…I’m not sure…what do we do?”
***
Lisa’s desire to fight dissipated. At this point, she was back on the dark side, making her way through a maze of dilapidated offices and hallways, being led around like a dog on a leash.
Finally, Vincent seemed to find what he was looking for. He shoved his way through an emergency exit to a dark stairwell. He pulled her down the steps, so quickly that she missed a few and stumbled from time to time. The sharp pain from the tug on her hair forced her quickly back to her feet.
At the bottom of the stairwell, Vincent kicked the door open and pulled her out of the building. The sun had risen a bit now and brightened up the bloody battle taking place outside. She saw Ayana, huddled behind a car, with a couple of bodies lying on the ground next to her.
Lisa wanted to call out to her friend, but she knew it could put her in danger. After seeing Vincent rip the businessman’s throat out with his bare hand, she knew not to doubt his power or brutality again. Vincent seemed to sense her desire to call out for help. He wrapped his arm around her head and placed his hand over her mouth.
“You can try to bite me if you want, but it will just end badly for you,” he warned with a whisper in her ear.
She knew he was telling the truth. Through the purple haze of the coming dawn, she saw the Clan ship parked and waiting. Bodies had piled up all around it. A few people still fought, but only haphazardly as anyone still alive was injured and exhausted.
She hadn’t been outside since the beginning of the battle, so she’d been spared most of the bloodshed. Seeing the bodies lying one atop the other brought back memories of the dark alleys in the Slums of York. She was no stranger to blood and gore, but she’d hoped they’d left that life behind when they moved to the mountains.
“When I say go,” Vincent whispered in her ear, “we’re going to run to the ship. If you make a single solitary noise, I’ll rip your tongue out. I think you know I won’t hesitate to do it.”
She nodded. Vincent took a moment to scan the world around them, probably looking for Vision.
“Go,” he said.
She did as she was told, not that she had a choice with Vincent dragging her by her hair the entire way.
***
Gabe left the building, no longer caring if Vision was around. He needed to find Lisa and his son’s insane idea to just wait around didn’t make any sense. He knew if Vincent wanted to leave, he’d have to come out of the building at some point.
He found Ayana hunched over, clutching at her side, trying to pull an arrow out of a fallen enemy who’d apparently gotten way too close to her before she shot him down. Traven was unconscious on the ground next to her. Bronc was there too, dead.
Gabe walked over to him and dropped to his knees. He made the sign of the cross on Bronc’s forehead.
“You were a good man,” Gabe said. “You were a true, honorable, great man. Image or not, God will be waiting for you.”
Ayana plopped down next to him and it startled him. He jumped a little.
“Here,” she said, offering him a gun she’d pulled from the grip of a dead soldier. “It’s loaded,” she added.
She toppled over and fell to her hands and knees. Saliva dripped from her bottom lip. Her teeth were clenched and her lips shook.
“You’re in bad shape,” Gabe said.
“Thanks to your son. Stop him. Make him fix this.”
Gabe knew that getting Vincent to reverse any of the damage he’d caused would be impossible. He looked towards the Clan ship and saw Vincent pulling Lisa toward it.
“Lisa!” he shouted as he sprung to his feet and charged after them.
“Gabe!” she cried just before Vincent clamped a hand over her mouth.
***
Lisa kicked at Vincent and tried to escape, but he was too strong. They’d reached the ship, and Vincent used his powers to elevate them both up to the main deck. Once there, he shoved his arms forward and she flew like a rag doll, flipping through the air. She hit the deck with a belly flop, her chin bouncing off the wooden planks.
She nearly slipped from consciousness, and probably would have if the pain in her jaw hadn’t hurt so much. She rolled over and forced herself up to a seated position, leaning against the side of the ship. Vincent stood in front of her. He pushed strands of hair away from his face and took a deep breath.
“I thought we had a deal. I told you not to make a sound.” His voice was much more peaceful than it should have been. He didn’t sound angry at all.
Lisa watched in complete silence as a man, or was it a woman, no, definitely a man, stepped out from behind a pillar with a gun pointed at Vincent’s back. The man was limping, with an arrow sticking out of his thigh. Lisa recognized the arrow and almost laughed through her pain, knowing that the creep carried a gift from Ayana.
“Take that pistol away from my back or you’ll be shitting it out in the morning,” Vincent warned without even turning to look at the man…woman.
This time Lisa was pretty sure it was a woman.
“Are you with us?” IT said in a manly voice.
“The better question is, are you with me?” Vincent replied.
The strange man with the gun didn’t answer. Vincent shrugged and finally glanced over his shoulder.
“I assume the answer is yes. Now, prepare what’s left of your crew for take off.”
The stranger nodded his…her head and walked away.
“You’re pretty good at getting people to bend to your will,” Lisa said.
“You have no idea.”
“So, what’s the plan now? You’re just going to take me away? Kidnap your own mother?”
“Vincent, don’t!” came a thundering voice from below.
“Stay seated,” Vincent told her as he walked over to the side of the ship.
***
Gabe was only a few feet away from the ship when he heard Vision’s voice call out from behind. He felt better having his angelic, powerful son right behind him. But suddenly he stopped moving. His f
eet would no longer advance. He was frozen in place.
“Let me go,” he yelled. “Lisa!”
“Stop,” Vision ordered. “Going up there won’t solve anything. He will kill you.”
“I don’t care! Lisa!”
Vision passed Gabe and moved closer to the ship.