“That’s what I’m hoping to do,” Doc said. “Now why don’t you introduce me to your friends. You can fill me in on what this is all about on the way.”
Chapter 21: The queen on her throne
Queen Alice the First, she would be called.
That was the plan. If anyone ever showed up.
It had been such a great game at first, Alice thought. She’d painted the sky red with her hand like a brush. She’d created a palace with her mind, just closing her eyes and picturing walls of pearl and floors of marble. She wanted statues of dragons in the courtyard and there they were, with just a thought. Brave soldiers made of silver stood at attention throughout her castle, automatons at her beck and call, and ladies-in-waiting crafted of living silk.
She built all this, and waited. Perhaps, Queen Alice thought, now that I’ve built them a castle, my mother and father will be happy. When they did not come to her, she caused an entire wing filled with her mother’s favorite things to grow out of the ground like a garden, and then did the same on the other side of the palace for her father. All the space they could want, she thought. Sometimes all we need is space. That will stop them from arguing.
But they never arrived.
No one did. She thought, if nothing else, perhaps some of the neighbors would walk up the marble stairs to marvel at the beautiful structure Alice had created. She could introduce herself – in her old life, the neighbors often ignored her, as did the kids at school, never maliciously, but in a forgetful way that made her swell up with loneliness – and invite them to stay. She could dole out titles, naming them dukes and duchesses, barons and baronesses.
Look at what I’ve made, she’d tell them. We don’t have to live in that grim, old world anymore. I gave us something better.
And yet here she was, alone, except for the click-clack of her tin soldiers as they performed their patrols, the soft singing of her silk-crafted handmaidens, and the whispers of her Vizier.
She wasn’t quite sure where the vizier came from. Alice thought she might have created him, the way she created the other denizens of the palace, but she had no memory of it. Dressed like a medieval peacock and wearing a face not unlike her favorite actor, the boy from the show about the monster-hunting brothers, the vizier had simply just been there from the beginning.
“I’m lonely,” she told him. She tried not to pout. She was too old for pouting, and a queen now after all, but boredom and loneliness made her grumpy and impatient. Still, there was no need to embarrass herself in front of her advisor.
“Perhaps you should make some new courtiers,” he suggested. His voice was hypnotic, but there was something else to it, too, something dangerous. Sometimes her mind drifted when she spoke with him, in that fuzzy way she felt when her father convinced her to take cold medicine when she was sick.
“I suppose I could,” she said. “Maybe a jester, or dancers, or something.”
She wondered where her toys went, her unicorn and her fairy, her bear and her shadow. She wondered if somehow the magic she’d used to bring them to life didn’t work here, or that they were trapped back in the boring old world. She missed her friends.
“I think you’re on to something,” the vizier said. “Maybe you should go to the palace library and see what sort of characters your court should have.”
“There is no palace library,” Alice said.
“My queen… all you need to do is make one,” the vizier said, smiling radiantly. Alice couldn’t help it. She smiled back.
“You always know the right thing to do,” she said to him.
“And that, my queen, is why you keep me around,” the vizier said. He gestured toward the back of the palace, where, Alice knew, there was quite a bit of room to expand. “Shall we?”
“Will I need to remember every book I need for the library?” she asked.
“You are not only the queen, but the most powerful magician in all of the land,” the vizier said. “Books will spring forth to fill your library fully formed. Waiting to be read.”
They climbed a short staircase to a set of windows overlooking the rear of the palace. Alice concentrated, thinking in geometric patterns, and then, with a rumbling ascent, stonework began rising out of the silvery earth, creating floors and walls. A tornado filled with books spun and danced its way into the new structure, the tomes springing out to organize themselves on newly crafted shelves. Trees were uprooted and split, reforming into long, smooth reading tables. And then, with a snap like giant jaws, a roof slammed shut atop her new library.
“Amazing,” Alice said, smiling to herself.
“And to think, you did it all yourself,” the vizier said. “Now let’s go expand our minds with some research.”
He held out an elegant hand toward the steps, at the foot of which a new door had appeared, leading out to the library.
“After you, your majesty,” he said.
And Alice was too distracted to remember why she wanted the library in the first place.
Chapter 22: You’re a terrible person
The Lady finished her story, and everyone—Jane and Henry, Billy and Emily—sat in silence for a long, awkward moment. Billy broke the silence first.
“You’re a terrible person,” he said.
“Whoa,” Emily said.
Jane found herself rubbing her eyes just like Doc would when he was stressed.
“I beg your pardon?” Natasha said, clearly offended.
“Nope, he’s right,” Jane said. “You’re a terrible person.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m actually offended,” Natasha said. “I came here at great risk to myself to ask for your help and I’m a terrible person?”
Billy stood up and started counting off his fingers.
“You made a bargain with an immortal demon queen, one,” he said. “Two, you brought an immortal demon queen to Earth.”
“I was doing her a kindness, and I did it to help both your beloved Doctor Silence and myself get home,” Natasha said.
“No, you said you did it to get yourself home,’ Jane said. “Doc already had passage.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Natasha said.
“And three, you brought an immortal demon queen here, but you gave her a body to live in that inhibits her from using her powers to their fullest potential,” Billy said.
“That’s a little messed up,” Emily said.
“I did that so she couldn’t… take over your slimeball little reality!” Natasha said. “Would you prefer I let her arrive at her full strength so she could cause havoc and destruction at will? I inhibited her powers to keep you little apes safe.”
“Wait, did you say inhibit her powers?” Billy said.
“You crippled her?” Jane said.
“Oh for the love of… I did it to keep her safe, and to keep us safe. I didn’t lobotomize her. I put a speed limit on her corporeal form here,” Natasha said.
“So you crippled her,” Jane said.
“I cannot believe I’m justifying myself to you,” Natasha said. “I did this for the good of your world. I’m the good person in this equation.”
“More like chaotic neutral,” Emily said.
“I have no idea what that means,” Natasha said.
Emily pointed around the room.
“Jane is lawful good. Billy’s neutral good. I’m chaotic good. You’re chaotic neutral,” Emily said.
“You’ve… determined our Dungeons and Dragons alignments,” Billy said. “Can we just once have a normal conversation…”
“If we’re done talking gibberish,” Natasha said.
“What’s Titus?” Billy said, sounding legitimately curious.
“Human form, I think he’s neutral good, but he’s more true neutral when he wolfs out,” Emily said.
“Guys,” Jane said.
“What about Kate?” Billy said.
“Guys,” Jane repeated. “Can we focus?”
“Kate’s chaotic good
, I think,” Emily said. “You’d think we would get along better.”
Jane decided to ignore Billy and Emily and focus on Natasha instead.
“However she got here, whatever you’ve done to her… you said there’s another magician who wants to capture her and use her? How is that even possible?” Jane said.
“This creature is powered by dreams,” Natasha said. “And while that may sound ridiculous to mundanes like yourself, let me assure you, having access to a being who can manipulate and manifest dreams is an incredibly powerful tool.”
“Manifest?” Billy blurted out, suddenly reinvested in the conversation. “Wait a… she can… do you mean she can make dreams real?”
Natasha shrugged.
“She’s not granting you three wishes, little boy,” Natasha said. “What she can do is use the fear or elation or emotion dreams give you to manipulate the real world.”
“How is this even real life,” Billy said.
“Tell me she does not spend time dressed as a clown,” Emily said.
“What are you talking about?” Natasha said.
“Has she ever been to Derry, Maine?” Emily said.
Natasha glared at Emily for a long, hard moment. Henry, who had been quietly listening until now, finally spoke up.
“He wants to weaponize her powers,” Henry said.
“That’s a fair description,” Natasha said.
“But she’s not a willing participant,” Henry said. “How do you weaponize a super-powered person if they’re not playing along?”
Emily and Jane swapped terrified looks.
“What,” Billy said.
“Billy, you remember the alternate timeline,” Jane said.
“Remember Earth-2 me?” Emily said. “Dark Emily?”
“Oh no,” Billy said.
“What. What is going on over there,” Henry said.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Natasha said.
“Oh, nothing, just an alternate timeline created in a parallel universe where you kill Doc and a supervillain turned me into a weapon of mass destruction and a nuclear power plant all in the same adorable body,” Emily said. “Thanks for that, by the way. Good job, Lady.”
“Are you really holding me accountable for something I did… in an alternate timeline?” Natasha said.
“Still your fault,” Emily said.
“I have lived for centuries and dealt with demons and monsters beyond imagining,” Natasha said. “And you, you are the most annoying creature I have ever encountered.”
“Thanks!” Emily said, smiling widely.
“Okay, okay, c’mon,” Jane said. “What do you need us to do, exactly? And we’re not doing this for you. We’re doing this because you’re telling us if he gets his hands on this creature a lot of people could get hurt.”
“Of course,” Natasha said. “I can’t approach her. King Tears will know. But if you go to New York, you can warn her, and, hopefully, convince her to go into hiding.”
“Preferably with us to protect her,” Jane said.
“I honestly don’t think you could handle him if he came after you,” Natasha said. “But this buys us all some time.”
“This entire plan gives me agita,” Emily said.
“I can’t imagine why,” Billy said. “We’ve only had Doc drilling into our heads since day one that magic is the most dangerous thing in the world and we should never go anywhere near it. Let’s do this. We haven’t made any bad life choices in a while.”
“In a while you mean, like, a few days,” Emily said.
“Maybe hours,” Billy said.
Again, Jane just let the banter roll past her. She locked eyes with Natasha.
“And what will you be doing while we’re out risking our lives trying to save the world?” she asked the magician.
“Running interference to keep King Tears looking elsewhere,” Natasha said. “I don’t like you, and I don’t particularly like this world, but I live in it. I’d rather keep it.”
“I still don’t know why you’re not just working with him instead of us,” Jane said.
“Because I know reckless ambition when I see it,” Natasha said. “Ambition I can tolerate. Recklessness gets you killed. I don’t care how powerful you are.”
“Says the woman who brought a demon goddess to our world like she’s got a day pass to Disneyworld,” Emily said.
Chapter 23: The powerful and the powerless
Kate, Titus, and Bedlam hit up a half-dozen abandoned sites owned by the Children of the Elder Star before they found anything interesting. Mostly they found old offices, covered in dust, looking as though they were evacuated rather than simply closed. In one, a conference room was adorned with the rotting remains of a catering spread, a birthday cake collapsing in the center of the room, complete with candles.
The next site, though, things got interesting.
The building was located on the outskirts of the City, an area that had been taken over by small businesses and young professionals, where this empty structure looked like a blight waiting to be reclaimed. The trio were crossing the street toward the aging brick building when Titus picked up on the stench. Kate, of course, immediately noticed him grimacing.
“What do you smell?” Kate asked. “I am never going to get used to asking you that. I can’t believe that’s a thing I ask you.”
“I hope you never get comfortable asking me what I smell,” Titus said. He swallowed hard, wrinkling his nose. “It smells… wrong? Something is here that doesn’t belong. I can’t explain it. It’s not rot, it’s not poison, or chemicals. It’s just not natural. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
“Well, that’s encouraging,” Bedlam said. “I’m going to kick the door in.”
“Maybe we should enter with a bit of stealth,” Titus said just as Bedlam’s cyborg foot booted in the front door. “Or we can just do that. That’s fine.”
Kate pulled her mask, which had been coiled around her neck like a cowl, up to cover her face, and walked in. She unzipped the coat she’d used to hide her uniform. Bedlam peeled off the knit cap and sunglasses she wore to hide the robotic features of her face. Together, they entered, Kate pulling out a flashlight and clicking it on as she walked in.
“Something is not right here,” Bedlam said. “My sensors are picking up all sorts of strangeness around us. The walls are warm. Can you sense that? I’m picking up a steady heat signature in the walls.”
Kate placed her palm against one drably gray office wall.
“That’s odd,” she said. “Titus?”
Titus pushed ahead, leading the way down a corridor, passed more abandoned offices, a break room with moldy coffee still in a pot, a bathroom, the door slightly ajar, faucet dripping slowly. A dusty film seemed to hang in the air.
That unnatural stench smelled even closer now. He turned to the women and nodded for them to follow.
The corridor ended with an elevator and a spiral staircase. The trio opted for the stairs, of course, descending into a space that opened into a sort of atrium. Only this atrium was unlike anything they’d ever seen.
“What the hell is that,” Bedlam said.
“It’s alive,” Kate said.
The center of the room was dominated by a what seemed like a Christmas tree of amorphous flesh, a conical pile of patchwork skin, pulsing with life. It wasn’t until Titus took a step closer that he could make out parts within the cone. Hands, legs. Faces. There are faces, he thought. Please don’t be alive. Please be dead. I need you to be dead.
One of the faces opened its eyes.
Bedlam yelped. Kate took an involuntary step back. Titus felt his lips curl back over his teeth like a dog, and found himself choking down the urge to transform. He needed his rational brain right now. Not yet, big guy, he thought. Soon, but not yet.
“Help,” the face said.
“No,” Bedlam said. “This is too much. This is too grotesque. This can’t be real.”
Kate took a step forward.<
br />
“Who are you?” Kate asked.
The face, a boy’s face, a teenager’s, seemed to ponder the question.
“I’m… Patrick,” the face said. “I think that’s who I am. I was Patrick. Now I’m not.”
“Patrick, who did this to you,” Kate said.
Again, the face struggled with the question, processing.
“The painted man,” Patrick said.
“Can you tell us about the painted man?” Kate said, walking closer. Titus admired her cool—he was battling a fight or flight urge so powerful it was making him nauseous. In a struggle to be useful, he scanned the room, as much to look away from Patrick’s mangled form as to look for clues. But clues he found: mystical glyphs painted on the walls, sigils and runes, power words, arcane symbols he couldn’t translate. He took out his phone and snapped a few photos surreptitiously.
“He said he would give us power,” Patrick said.
“What kind of power?” Bedlam said, her voice rising.
Patrick blinked, then shook his head awkwardly, the flesh it was embedded in impeding his movement.
“Why do we keep finding these places?” Bedlam said. “It feels like over and over again we find terrible places where terrible people do terrible things to people who can’t say no.”
Like you, Titus thought, watching the pain and rage twist on Bedlam’s face. He knew exactly why she was angry. She’d been a failed experiment by the Children herself, and this was not the first lab they’d found since meeting her.
“Because the powerful will always use the powerless,” Kate said. “This is what powerful people do. Whatever they want, because they can.”
“Patrick,” Bedlam said. “We’re going to find a way to get you out of there.”
Once again, Patrick struggled to shake his head.
“We can’t be fixed,” he said.
“We?” Bedlam said.
Titus closed his eyes and grit his teeth. He’d already seen the other faces. He wasn’t ready to watch them all open their eyes and look at Bedlam as one. But he couldn’t stop it. Titus opened his eyes and saw each face, six of them, embedded in this mountain of living matter, unable to move. Elsewhere, hands clenched and unclenched uselessly, disconnected from the bodies they once belonged to.
The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child Page 11