by Rob Horner
"Get us down!" Crystal hissed.
Instead of asking questions, Tanya complied, lowering us slowly.
Still holding Crystal's hand, I realized those weren't after-images from Tanya's light. Those were demons, at least a dozen, skulking through the shadows.
They were coming closer.
And they had us surrounded.
Chapter 19
...and Errors
Neither Crystal nor I shouted down to Tanya. We had a few moments, and the red blobs weren't rushing in. The last time we startled her, she almost dropped us, and neither of us could afford an injury now, not with so many of the things closing in on us.
"Go ahead, drop us," Crystal said when we were just a couple of feet off the ground.
"I got it," Tanya replied. "I take it the experiment worked?"
As soon as Crystal's feet touched the ground, she moved over to the brunette. Grabbing her hand, she pointed into the night behind me. "Look, do you see them?"
"Them?" Tanya asked.
I moved closer to the two women, eyes scanning the darkness. Without the benefit of Crystal's power, the night looked empty. But they were out there, hiding in the shadows. Maybe they were in human form, dressed in dark clothes; how else were they able to remain so well-hidden?
"Wow, Johnny! You really do glow bright!" Tanya said.
Turning, I could feel the breeze, could smell the faint scent that means city with all the same sense of home and security that a rurally-raised person feels when they smell a cow patty, or hay, or whatever it is which makes them feel like they're where they belong. Sweaty horse, maybe. Scents of asphalt and car exhaust, a tang to the air which means industry nearby--it was as familiar to me as my own bedsheets. The sounds of the city were there, muted by our distance from the highway, a hot-rodder with a glass-pack muffler racing down Mercury Boulevard, the faint squeal of worn brakes. But my vision was limited to the pool of light from the streetlight above us, and smaller pools, spaced far apart, with yards of darkness between them, marching in rows and columns back to the Coliseum, out to the street, all the way to the farthest reaches of the parking lots.
Nothing moved.
"What are those red lights?" Tanya asked.
"Demons," Crystal whispered.
I moved over to the girls, reached out and took Crystal's other hand.
"There's so many, and they're so close," Tanya said, and though her voice dropped to a whisper, it didn't betray any fear.
As my hand closed on Crystal's, my vision shifted, like holding one of those old View Master toys up to my eyes and pushing the lever to change the slide, only instead of changing the picture, it was like a filter falling into place. The world around us didn't change, but now I could see what was invisible before, shapes outlined in red, some so close that they seemed just outside the pool of light we stood in.
They were different heights, different builds, but all obviously human, no weirdly jointed arms or legs, which would have been noticeable at this distance.
The three of us shuffled closer together, with Crystal in the middle. Of the three of us, she was the one who needed protection.
"We need to get to the car," I whispered, and felt the girls nod behind me.
One of the red forms in front of us stepped into the light, and I dropped Crystal's hand, prepared to meet it.
The red light disappeared.
There was nothing there.
The moment was like a scene out of Aliens, when the Marines are gathered in that small room, one of them holding a motion detector, its screen covered in little red blips, moving closer, somehow inside the room with them, but unseen. The only thing missing from our version was a ventilation system for them to be creeping through, and that nerve-wracking, frequency-changing electronic beep.
The evidence of our impromptu battle remained, Nerf balls and tennis balls scattered about the pavement, with the opened but unused box of Wham-o Super Ball golf balls lying forgotten near my front bumper, but there was nothing else, no person, no demon.
"He disappeared," I said.
"I can still see him," Tanya said.
I fumbled behind me, my hand brushing across something soft and rounded--no, best not to think about it--before Crystal grabbed it, and the light appeared in front of me, well within the pool of light, only a few feet away.
"There's another one to the right," Tanya said.
A quick glance showed me what she saw, another form outlined in red fire, just beyond the soft glow coming off Tanya.
"If we let go of Crystal, they're invisible," I said, the words coming out before I could think about what I was saying.
"How is that possible?" Crystal asked, her hand a vice grip on mine.
"How is any of this?" Tanya asked sarcastically. "Let's see how he likes this!"
White light flared from my right. It was exactly like Crystal said, whenever Tanya used her power, she got brighter.
"Nothing happened," Tanya said, and now she sounded scared.
"What?" Crystal asked.
"I went to grab him, and it's like he's greased like a pig. My power just slid away." She flared again. "The same with the one in front of you," she whispered.
I heard, but now the figure made from red light was in front of me, a foot away, arms reaching out, and I wasn't waiting any longer. I shook free of Crystal's grip, trusting what I'd seen before letting go.
The red light vanished, but I didn't care. Lowering my arms, bent at the elbows, fists out and turned up, I drove them forward, snapping both arms up and out. There was contact, as my arms came between the reaching arms of the invisible form. Immediately he popped into visibility, like not-there and then there, the double block having driven his arms out wide, exposing his torso to a follow-up swing. Surprised at the sudden appearance of a bearded man in his twenties, I was still able to follow through, stepping forward, bringing my arm back and launching it straight out, aiming for a spot two feet in front of my chest, meeting my opponent halfway there. Light flashed, and the man flew back five or six feet, landing heavily and sliding another foot or two.
I turned, watching as Tanya's right leg shot out, hips pivoted and knee high and turned to the left, a perfect roundhouse kick. She'd lost none of the speed that made her a junior state champion, and I felt a moment of sympathy for her target. Though her strike didn't come accompanied by a flash of light or a surge of power, it did elicit a grunt of pain from the man she struck, who became visible even as she hit him.
Moving quickly, trying to capitalize while he staggered to his right, I reached for him, bringing my hands to his face. Instead of trying to strike, not wanting to break his neck, I willed the power through my hands, the same power that had saved my aunt. Light flashed and the man collapsed, boneless and unconscious.
From all around us arose the sound of growls, guttural voices raised in protest. They hadn't done that when either Tanya or I struck out at them. They must know, somehow, that I'd banished one of their own, driving the demon away. They knew, and they weren't happy.
"Their invisibility drops when they're hit by something," Tanya said.
"Johnny, duck!" Crystal yelled at the same time.
I wasn't fast enough. Something flashed into visibility just inches away from my head, an arm appearing out of nothing. A heavy fist crashed into my cheek, driving me off-balance and sideways.
"Or when they attack," Tanya added. "Try to stay low."
Taking another step, shaking my head, I tried to focus on the man who'd hit me. I felt exposed, like walking through a rifle range, unable to see the men behind the counter, but aware of them, knowing they were lining up their sights on me. Crystal was too far away to offer me her special sight, so other than the man in front of me, I was effectively blind to any other threat.
Standing at least six feet tall, he was barrel chested and covered in brown hair which started on his head and somehow merged into a beard flowing over his chest. Clad in a blue carnival shirt, the guy was a poster chil
d for what happens when hippies make love, not war, with bikers. Realizing his camouflage, or whatever it was, had disappeared, he paused his advance. His hands were about as big as my head! No wonder my ears were still ringing.
Behind him, rising from their places in the small, square box, a dozen golf balls suddenly became airborne. Crystal uttered a shriek from behind me as the balls zipped off in different directions, impacting various targets, changing the surrounding growls to grunts of pain. More figures came into view, losing their protection, stepping into visibility like flipping a switch.
I didn't know how Tanya managed to maintain control over so many moving objects at once, or if she even tried. Maybe she just sent them out at a single target, to nullify their invisibility, then pulled a few back in. All I knew was that when I risked a glance back at her, she still held onto Crystal's hand, and three of the balls circled around them. She turned to face away from me, dragging Crystal with her, and one ball of the three began snapping out and back in, like the old paddle ball game, except she had complete control of it. Snap out, and a demon became visible, usually holding some part of his or her anatomy. Snap back in, circle once, then back out.
The guy in front of me still hadn't charged, and I had a moment to wonder if he was waiting for help, before his shirt...exploded out toward me, flesh ripping and bones cracking and reforming in a rapid metamorphosis. Crystal screamed as I dodged to the side. The man was still standing, still smiling, still...changing.
But others weren't, others were down, or were cradling arms struck by a flying golf ball, or holding noses broken by Tanya's power, and so I moved, dashing across the pavement, touching anyone I could get close to, light flashing in my wake. Three, four, five, and a roar of outrage sounded behind me. Spinning just in time, I jumped back from the lunging, swiping arm of the giant man-beast, now fully transformed, shreds of blue Polo shirt hanging in tatters from its massive frame. Seriously, did they find a massive demon to put in the big guy, or did being a big guy translate to being a big demon? Was it some kind of mass conservation thing, the Lomonosov theory in the flesh?
Was now really the time to be worried about this?
Tanya screamed. She must have turned around from her red-people-golf-ball-flinging and seen what was coming at me.
What was still coming.
"Do something!" Crystal shouted, and I didn't know if she was talking to me, or to Tanya, and the thing in front of me wasn't going to give me time to check.
Another massive arm came across, curved claws extended, and I quick-stepped back, feeling the whoosh of air passing in its wake, then lunged forward, snapping my leading left foot up and out in a skipping roundhouse. But either the thing was overbalanced by its own swing, or it anticipated my counter, because it pivoted to my left, twisting away. All I needed was for the barest edge of my shoe to touch it, but all I got was air as our bodies passed each other.
Tanya's scream ended as her breath ran out. Pivoting, I had a great view of the backside of Gigantor as it continued on its path, straight at the girls. It had a one-second head start on me as I charged after it, but that was all the time it would need to get to them.
Shouting wordlessly, I took two steps after it, then stopped.
Someone...more than one someones, grabbed my arms, losing their invisibility as they halted my rush. There was a man on each side of me, two-handed grips holding me back. But my eyes were forward, my heart pounding, panic threatening to unman me.
Crystal suddenly shot out to the side, to my right, like she'd been thrown. Or like the massive demon had hit her, sending her flying. Then Tanya shot upward, and my brain caught up with the evidence of my senses. She'd never uttered a second scream. All the shouting I heard was my own. Even as I watched, Crystal's headlong flight to the side stopped, then she rose as well, angling to meet Tanya above the battlefield. They met and joined hands, then soared away, leaving me with one man on each arm, a seriously ugly beast turning around, looking for something to kill, and who knows how many others scattered around us, as yet undetected or not yet down for the count.
Chapter 20
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry
Okay, so technically that's Banner's line before he turns into the Hulk, but it was an apt analogy, considering the size of the thing ambling around and about to come smash me. If you tossed a bucket of green paint on him, the only way you'd be able to tell a difference would be by the weird extra joints, and ridges on its spine, and claws... All right, he didn't really look like the Hulk, but that wouldn't matter if he got a hold of me with those massive clawed hands.
Desperate, I jerked one way, then the other. Powerful though I might be, super strength wasn't part of the package. Both men held on. On my left was a guy about my size, in his thirties, mop-messy hair on an otherwise handsome face. He growled in that almost-demon voice, smiling at me with a mouth sporting teeth bigger and sharper than any human should have. Maybe he didn't have that great a control over his form.
On my right was the tall, skinny kid from The Steeplechase. In one of those I can't believe I'm thinking about this right now moments, I wondered if his sleeping arrangements had improved since becoming a demon.
The one on my left had a secure, over and under double hand hold on my arm, but the skinny kid had dropped down to a one-handed grip after my initial forward momentum was arrested. The natural tendency would be for him to assume I wouldn't be able to escape from two people because he wouldn't be able to. That's one of the great lessons you learn when you train to fight. No matter the skill level of the combatants, most people don't consider possibilities outside of their own abilities.
I pulled my arms back and forth one more time, selling the idea that I was trapped, then lunged to my right, towards the skinny guy. The one on my left held firm, preventing me from moving too far, but I was able to get a little elbow bend on the right, which was enough to muscle my arm up, breaking Skinny Guy's hold at the weak point, his thumb. He immediately made to grab for my arm again, but I brought it in, then slammed my palm out into his face.
Light flashed and he flew away. I'd hit bare skin, too, so hopefully when he woke up, he'd be human again, if my power worked the way we thought it did. And if I hadn't broken his neck with that hit.
The guy on the left growled again, jerking on my arm like he wanted to pull me off-balance. When I looked back at him, most of his facial features had warped, forehead widening, ears elongating, rising into points. Claws were coming out of the hands wrapped around my arm, snagging my shirtsleeve, seconds away from digging into my flesh.
Big Nasty was coming too, feet stamping the ground as he approached, right arm curled across his chest like he planned on backhanding me as soon as he was in range. In my day, we had another name for that kind of hit, but I'd like to keep this PG if I can.
I let Left Side pull me, then side-stepped as I came in, placing him between me and the big guy. The massive right arm came rocketing in, catching the guy holding my arm somewhere on the side of the head, blasting him away to my left. His claws left tears in my shirtsleeve, and a few long abrasions on my arm, but thankfully they hadn't come out enough to gouge my skin.
I ducked and lunged forward as the big right arm came back, and this time when I countered with a quick right roundhouse to the exposed torso. My foot connected and light flashed. I felt the shock of impact from the top of my foot all the way to my right hip, like I'd kicked a brick wall. The six-foot monster staggered backward four or five feet, but that was it.
"That all you got?" he said, his voice a combination of gravel and chewed glass, words a little slurred, like his tongue and lips didn't quite know how to form the sounds around all those teeth.
It was the first time I'd struck a demon and it hadn't gone down. It didn't even look winded!
It charged again, and all I could do was dance back, back again, then out to the right when it tried to bring both its massive hands together, either to squish my head like an overripe melon, or to gra
b me in a bear hug. Figuring it would be better to save the honor for a real bear, I managed to stay out of the way.
The thing was agile as well as massive, able to halt its charge as soon as I got out to the side, planting its right foot in front and pushing off, executing a neat ninety-degree shift which put it back in line with me.
My evasion tactics wouldn't work forever; I needed a way to put it out of commission and go find the girls, make sure they were okay. I hadn't heard any new screams, but I also had no idea how far away they'd gone, or if any of the demons were chasing them. As the monster came forward again, swinging those massive arms, I stepped back, and tripped over one of the men I'd touched a few moments before.
I don't know if you've ever seen a martial arts competition before or watched the way our feet work when we face off with one another. It's rarely like that cross-legged cat-stalk Jean Claude did in Bloodsport, and more of a shuffle, as our leg position doesn't change. It happens fast, a lot of power used to push off with the leading leg, almost jumping backwards. So, when you move like that, and trip over something, there's no graceful recovery. Down on your ass you go, feet up in the air for a second like one of those stink bugs which plague the southeast every October.
By reflex, I slammed both hands out to the sides, palms down, a technique used so the arms can absorb the momentum of the fall, saving your breath and your head.
At least, that's what's supposed to happen, when you don't have the ability to expel force from your extremities.
The instant my hands hit the pavement, my power activated. Light flashed, and suddenly my backward fall was turned into a weird kind of forward dive, if you can imagine my feet as the pivot point. My upper body went forward, right at the oncoming demon. Its ugly mouth made a perfect O of surprise. It tried to bring its arms up to block, but I somehow managed to get both hands up and forward, inside its guard, a graceful diver on dry land, and placed on either side of his face. My benediction generated the holy light, and he was gone.