by Wyatt Kane
Ty gave the demon woman a smile, acknowledging her efforts. But the demon woman’s expression turned to one of contempt as she stared at the battered woman on the ground.
“What will happen to her now?” Lilith asked, unknowingly echoing Ty’s earlier question.
“Maybe we can call the police?” Ty began, but Lilith shook her head.
“I’ve mentioned it before,” she said. “The Master – he’s got people everywhere. Including the police. Handing her over to them would be the same as giving her back to the Master himself.”
Ty acknowledged her point, but didn’t have anything else to offer.
Despite Tempest’s earlier relief at finding Spit Bitch still alive, she favored them both with a glacial expression. “We could drop her in a hole and fill it back up,” she said flatly, in a way that left no uncertainty as to what she meant.
Again, Lilith shook her head. “What if she’s like me?” she asked. “What if she is only acting in the Master’s interests because he has power over her? Leverage. Something to make her act against her normal instincts.”
Ty thought back to the woman’s character sheet, in particular her alignment. Lawful evil, it had read, and it made sense to him. The woman enjoyed following rules, following orders, which explained why she wore the uniform of the Master’s mercenary army. But she didn’t care much whose orders she followed.
“She’s part of the Master’s mercenary army,” Ty said. “Which means she was acting according to her own choice.”
The demon woman wasn’t convinced. “Is a person’s alignment always a perfect predictor of their behavior?” she asked.
Ty let out a sigh. Lilith was right. She herself was proof that it wasn’t. Which meant they couldn’t just kill Elissa Black and be done with it. It wouldn’t be right.
“There’s always the safe house,” Tempest said.
“Safe house?” Lilith asked, but Ty knew what Tempest meant.
“Yes,” Tempest answered. “We use it every now and again. There are no windows, and the door has a lock. Difficult for someone to escape from.”
Ty nodded. His head was throbbing even more than usual. “Sounds good. It will give us a chance to question her as well, when she wakes up. But maybe we should take her to the med bay first, to make sure she’s going to be okay.”
The others agreed. But before they could turn the plan into action, they all heard a loud, slightly fearful voice, amplified by a megaphone, echo throughout the museum.
“We have you surrounded!” the voice exclaimed. “Put down your weapons and come out with your hands raised over your head! You have until the count of ten!”
Ty couldn’t keep the grin from his face. Lilith looked concerned, but Tempest caught Ty’s humor. After the rage the blonde superhero had shown, Ty thought it was good to see her smile, and even better when she barked out a laugh.
“Five seconds!” the voice said. “You have five seconds to come out, or we are coming in!”
Ty looked at Lilith. As much as he hated to travel by teleportation, there didn’t seem to be any choice. “Can you take all three of us out of here?” he asked.
Lilith nodded. “I’ve never tried to take more than two people at once before. Maybe I’ll take her and Tempest first, then come back for you.”
15: Overreaction
Ty was all alone in the ruined display room. Everywhere he looked there was the corrosive evidence of Spit Bitch is malice. Works of art that had survived sometimes for centuries had been destroyed by a moment of venom and spite.
Not a history buff, Ty knew his life would go on largely unaffected by the damage the woman had wrought. But that didn’t mean it didn’t impact him. In his mind, it was a waste. Hundreds of people had enjoyed the displays every week for years, and it took just one malcontent to ruin it forever.
And it stank! The remains of Spit Bitch’s efforts reminded him of the grease trap outside the Concubine Club, and it was distinctly unpleasant.
Sure, the museum would recover. Repairs would be done, and in a few weeks, new displays would be on show to appease the masses. But the specific items touched by Spit Bitch’s venom would never again provoke curiosity or wonder in the minds of those who passed by.
It was a symptom of the city he lived in, Ty thought. Sure, the megacorporations stood at the heart of much of the misery suffered by the New Lincoln residents. But they weren’t solely to blame. Casual malice and cruelty from strangers was more than enough to put a dampener on anyone’s day.
Perhaps people like Spit Bitch felt justified in their actions. Ty didn’t know. All he knew was that Spit Bitch had gone out of her way to make the city a worse place to be.
It was a sad fact that such moments of malice from a single, deranged individual could counter the combined goodwill of hundreds, if not thousands of others.
Ty wondered if being a superhero meant looking into that as well. And if it did, he wondered how he, Tempest, Dinah, and Lilith could change it, or if such behavior was simply part of human nature.
“On your knees! Hands on your head! Do it now!” The voice called out from the entrance.
Ty knew the police weren’t looking for him. They were looking for Spit Bitch. But whether they knew that or not was another question. Not wanting to find himself on the wrong end of a blaster, he quietly deactivated his shield and sank to his knees, clasping his hands on his head as the voice commanded.
As he did, no less than half a dozen heavily armored cops surged into the room, all of them looking for threats and at least half of them pointing police issue blasters in his general direction.
As soon as they spotted him, the shouting began in earnest, with many voices all competing for dominance.
“You there!” “Don’t move!” “Are you armed?” “Is there anyone else here?” “Face down on the floor!” “Don’t move!”
Ty didn’t enjoy being yelled at by anyone, and the chaos and confusion these armed and armored police brought with them set him on edge. He had half a mind to activate his shield again and make his way out of there any way he could.
He knew he could do it, and it might prove the safest. Yet, because these were the police, he chose not to. They were the good guys, and it wasn’t him they were looking for.
He stayed as he was, ignoring the command to lie on the floor in favor of those that told him to remain still.
“There’s nobody else here,” he said. “You missed her.”
“I said lie face down on the floor!” one of the cops yelled at him.
Ty didn’t appreciate the menace in the man’s voice, or the fact that every single blaster in the display room was now pointed his way. Perhaps an earlier version of Ty would have cowered under the barrage of orders, but this older, stronger, levelled-up version of him glared back.
He was exhausted, and the ache behind his eyes hadn’t let up. He didn’t much care about anything else.
“You also told me not to move,” he said. “And I’m not who you’re looking for anyway. So please point that blaster somewhere else.”
Perhaps cowering under the barrage of orders would have been a better option. As it was, Ty’s response didn’t please the cop in the least. Ty could couldn’t make out the man’s face behind his armored mask, but he sensed a thick, heavy jaw and a belligerent nature.
The man kept his blaster aimed at Ty’s head and stepped forward. “Disobey me one more time,” the man said. “I dare you.”
The situation had become surprisingly tense, and all of the police seemed to know it. Every one of them trained their attention on Ty, and they seemed anxious to fire.
He wondered if he should ask for clarification, lie down on the floor, or stay perfectly still, and was tempted to do none of the above, just to see what might happen. But in the end, his choice was made for him when Lilith reappeared in the display room, floating in midair.
Ty could see it all happen in slow motion. Lilith’s unexpected appearance caught the police by surprise. As one
, they turned toward her, uttering curses as they brought their weapons to bear.
Ty knew that Tempest could withstand blaster fire even from a close range with no ill effects. But Lilith was an unknown quantity. She was strong and tough in her own way, but was she be proof against blasters as well?
Ty didn’t want to find out.
Without pausing to think, he surged to his feet and yelled, “Activate!” at the same time. If he’d been able to do so, he would have flung his body in front of the demon woman to protect her from any blaster fire coming her way. As it was, he was too far away.
He had only one option and no time to think.
As the first of the cops off triggered his blaster, Ty unleashed his shield cannons.
Somehow, he managed to limit the detonation to just a fraction of what it could be. Even so, it was more than enough. With a blinding light and sharp smell of ozone, energy exploded from the discs on Ty’s shield.
It was a thunderclap, and the police armor was no match for it. The officers were flung in every direction, as were a number of the remaining display stands showcasing works of historical art.
When the dust settled, Ty and Lilith both stared at the carnage. In a heartbeat, Ty had inadvertently done as much damage as Spit Bitch had managed before he and Tempest had put a stop to her malice. And then there were the cops lying on the ground, groaning in pain.
It was all Ty could do to stare at what he’d done, his mouth gaping open. Yet, if he had to do it again to protect Lilith – or Tempest, or Dinah – then he would do so in a heartbeat.
Lilith had escaped it all completely unscathed. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
◆◆◆
Somehow, Ty knew it would be a bad transition even as it began. The cold of that space between two points of reality hit him like a hammer between the eyes. It was maddening, agonizing, and Ty imagined his bones turning into ice. It was a moment of cold that seemed to stretch into a lifetime, and Ty knew with absolute certainty that it was his own definition of hell.
It was a cloying at his soul that he wanted to stop. A single moment suspended in time, it came with a sensation of emptiness without end, as if it was all of the broken dreams of everyone in New Lincoln made real.
It was almost too much. Almost, Ty could feel himself giving in to the madness of the abyss. He wanted to retreat from the depths, to give up his spark of consciousness if only to escape the trauma he faced in this place between worlds.
Almost, but not quite.
If he gave up, then who would protect New Lincoln from the Master’s threats? Who would help Lilith find her way in this strange world in which she found herself? And who would be there to help Tempest return from the fury of grief when she needed an anchor?
It wasn’t much, but it gave him the strength to face the void head on, and survive it for as long as it took to get to the other side.
Yet, even as he found the way to stand his ground, he sensed that maybe this place between worlds wasn’t as empty and barren as he’d at first assumed. There was something else, he decided. Something conscious in there with him and Lilith.
Something that even the demon woman didn’t know about.
What it was, Ty couldn’t tell. All he knew was that it was there, and its purpose wasn’t benign.
Then, with an audible pop and the scent of ozone, Ty and Lilith were back in the mansion, at the main entrance way not far from the door.
Ty’s strength almost failed him. With his head pounding and the hangover in full control, his knees started to buckle. Only Lilith’s ongoing support prevented him from crashing to the ground.
“Ty?” The demon woman said, full of concern. “Ty, are you okay?”
Ty held her tight and willed himself to stand.
“I’m fine,” he said, even though he was not. Yet, after a few seconds, he found he was a little stronger. He offered Lilith a grin to counter the concern in her beautiful face. “That wasn’t much fun,” he said.
Lilith continued to watch him, just making sure that he was all right. When she had reassured herself, she nodded in agreement. But the worry remained in her eyes.
“They were police officers,” she said.
It took Ty a moment to work out what she was talking about. He knew then that her experience while teleporting was completely different from his own. The events at the Art Museum had effectively been wiped out of his mind by the trauma of his passage. Yet for Lilith, it was still front and center in her mind.
At the same time, he understood her worry.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
Ty’s brain felt like a bucket of sludge. He did his best to force it to work, to dredge up and answer for the demon woman’s concern.
“I’m not sure we can do anything other than hope they don’t find out who we are,” he said.
“Do … do you think they’re okay?” Lilith asked.
“I only used a fraction of my shield’s power. It knocked them over, maybe broke a few bones. But I think they’ll be okay.”
The demon woman breathed a sigh of relief. She might have been about to say something more, but if so, she was interrupted by the sound of cursing coming from the med bay.
Ty and Lilith looked at each other. There wasn’t any need for discussion. Together, still holding each other’s hands without even thinking about it, they moved to find out what was happening.
16: Spit Bitch and Naps
The sight that greeted Ty and Lilith in the med bay was surprising. The woman Ty had dubbed Spit Bitch had already proven to be tougher than his most outrageous expectations.
In his mind, she should have been barely able to function. Being repeatedly hit in the head with a steel bar wielded by Tempest should have at least put the woman in a coma. Beyond that, when Tempest had crushed the woman’s device, it should have led her to a withdrawal like no other.
She should have been a little ball of misery and despair, incapable of anything beyond self-pity and the occasional groan.
Instead, Spit Bitch was wide awake on the surgical table, thrashing about like a fish on a hook. She was cursing at both Tempest and Dinah, who were doing their best to keep her woman under control.
“Hold her,” the deerkin commanded.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Tempest responded.
The blonde superhero was holding Spit Bitch down by the shoulders, at the same time as trying to avoid the woman’s snarling fury. Nor was it just the woman’s physical efforts Tempest and Dinah had to worry about. Even without her device, Spit Bitch was still attempting to use her abilities. Flecks of acidic vitriol sprayed from her mouth, not in the endless stream like it had before, but in droplets that flew through the air in every direction.
“Ty!” Dinah said. “Lilith! Grab her feet!”
Despite his AZT-407 hangover, Ty lurched to do as the deerkin asked. At the same time, he noticed that Spit Bitch’s arms were bound to the surgical table with nylon restraints that hadn’t been there before. Even as Ty grabbed one of the woman’s legs and Lilith reached for the other, he could see wisps of smoke wafting from the restraints as the woman’s acidic exudate tried to eat through.
Tempest cursed as a fleck of acid touched the skin of her forearm. She turned to Dinah and spoke through clenched teeth.
“We aren’t going to get anything from this bitch when she’s like this,” she snarled. “If you don’t give her something to knock her out, then I will.”
Dinah paused to consider the struggling woman before her, obviously unwilling to forgo the information she represented. Yet Tempest’s meaning was clear, and the blonde superhero was right. They had no real choice.
As Spit Bitch’s struggles reached a frenzied crescendo, Dinah took a syringe from one of the drawers on the back wall, and a vial of liquid from another. Swiftly and efficiently, the deerkin filled the syringe and turned back to the woman on the table.
“Hold her,” she said again, and without waiting, she plunged the needle into Spit Bitch’s arm.
Whatever sedative Dinah had chosen, it worked swiftly. The fight went out of Spit Bitch almost right away, and within less than half a minute, her eyes rolled up into her head and she relaxed.
Ty, Lilith, and Tempest all breathed a sigh of relief. But then Tempest voiced a question.
“Now what do we do with her?” she asked.
“If this is what she’s like with a tapestry of fractures in her skull and suffering from withdrawal at the same time, I would hate to see what she’s like when she is starting to recover,” Dinah replied. “I don’t think the safe house will be enough to hold her, especially if she is able to spit acid.” She paused, wondering how to answer the blonde superhero’s question.
It was Ty who came up with the solution. “Can you get another cryo chamber?” he asked.
Dinah looked at him, started to say something, then she hesitated as if noticing something about him for the first time.
“Yes,” she said. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Ty, are you okay?” She asked.
Ty realized his exhaustion and AZT-407 hangover must have reached the point where he could no longer hide it. “Yeah,” he said. “Just tired, is all.”
As Tempest rubbed at the spot on her forearm where Spit Bitch’s acid had touched her, Dinah eyeballed Ty up and down. “More than tired, by the looks of it. You look exhausted. Why don’t you take a break? Maybe go for a nap, or something? You look out on your feet.”
Ty started to protest, but when Lilith and Tempest both added their voices to Dinah’s, Ty accepted the inevitable. He allowed the deerkin to usher him out of the med bay to her own room, where, gratefully, he sat down on her bed.
He admitted it. He was beyond tired, and the pain in his head had not gone away. Even so, he would have liked it if Dinah had chosen to stay, at least for a while.