by H. D. Gordon
As we waited for the door to the brownstone at 213 Orchard to open, I thought now that maybe those paradigms had been wrong, and perhaps, Remy was right.
“Humans…” Remy muttered, breaking into my thoughts. “They’ve got a way of getting under your skin, don’t they?”
Sam’s face flashed through my head, followed by Thomas’s…Matt’s…Caleb’s.
“Yes, they do.” I agreed. “Very much so.”
“That our guy?” Remy asked, drawing my attention back to the scene below us.
I nodded, adjusting the hood over my head out of habit. Officer Calvin Cleary had just emerged from the brownstone with the flowerpots in the windows, and it was time for him to have a chat with his friendly neighborhood…whatever the hell I was.
***
My boots hit the pavement without making a sound, and Officer Cleary nearly jumped ten feet in the air. His hand went over his heart as his eyes went wide and a small squeal escaped him.
“Jesus on a toast!” he said. It took him a moment to catch his breath. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to sneak up on people like that? Damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“I need to talk to you,” I said, the modulator in my suit disguising my voice.
“You’ll have to talk and walk,” he said. “I’m running late as is, and the Chief has called for all hands on deck. It’s been a circus the last couple days.” Cleary relaxed his shoulders and studied me. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that… Not getting much sleep?”
There was an understatement. I shook my head.
“Yeah, well, welcome to the club. We’ve got a certified mess on our hands. More escapees to round up than we can handle, and the rest of the public losing their minds over the loss of power.”
“That’s why we need to work together,” I said, keeping pace beside him. “I can help the GCPD...but I’ll need some cooperation.”
Cleary sighed, looked down at his shoes and back up again.
“Look,” he said, “I like you. I think that whoever you are beneath that mask, you’re a good person. But I’m just a patrol officer. I don’t have the kind of influence you’re asking for.”
I nodded. “But you know someone who does,” I said.
Now Cleary stopped and looked around. The fourth night of darkness in Grant City was almost upon us, and the streets were unusually silent, like the calm before the storm.
“I could lose my job just for knowing you,” Cleary said. “I know Mayor Briggs supported the Masked Maiden, but the mayor is dead now. The psycho who’s responsible for this mess killed her. Beyond that, there’s the Chief. He’s calling the shots, and he doesn’t share the same sentiment toward the Masked Maiden as the mayor had.”
I bit back a disappointed sigh, seeing in his aura that he was telling the truth, and trying to form some coalition with the GCPD would likely only serve to endanger my freedom and little else. Cleary was trying to protect me, and I appreciated it, but the whole thing still poked me in an already sore spot.
Former Mayor Barbara Briggs, after all, was yet another death I was at least partially responsible for.
“I get it,” I said. “But with everything that’s going on, you don’t think the Chief might have a change of mind?”
“He’s not really the open-minded type.”
I nodded and turned to go, wondering where Remy had flown off to and how much of this conversation he’d heard. Stupidly, I felt like crying, and I gritted my teeth and fought against it.
“Hey, Maiden,” Officer Calvin Cleary called out.
I paused in my tracks but did not turn back, just tilted my head so he knew I was listening.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “And good luck.”
***
My staff sailed through the air, still in its compact size, and hit the target dead on. The gun flew from the guy’s hand, striking the concrete and going off in the process. The report rang in my sensitive ears, like the single beat of a drum in a symphony of chaos.
My body was tired, weak, in no condition to be out here wrangling up bad guys. It seemed the nature of true disaster is never to wait for optimum conditions, as if life is always waiting to catch you off guard.
With the help of the Night Rider, things were going as well as could be hoped. I’d seen for the first time that the gender biases held by most people did not stop when concerning superheroes. The reaction Remy got when he showed up on the scene was such a contrast to the reaction I got that if I’d had the energy, I may have taken offense.
Together, we’d swooped in on a mess of riotous hooligans; people tipping over cars for what seemed the hell of it, shattering the glass of storefronts and setting the places to fire, looting, robbing, fighting. I knew these types well, and knew that every species of people—both supernatural and not—had its fair share of this bunch. These were the people who seized at the opportunity to cause trouble, who waited on the fringes of society for the optimal time to strike. Hyenas, I liked to call them, though in all fairness, that was probably unjust toward the animal.
From above, their auras matched like an army’s, and it made swooping in and saving the day all the more daunting. Red, black, green, and spikes of brunt orange lit up the evening like a secondary power source funded by human emotion. The swell of feeling that hung between the tall buildings, around the edges of the bus stops and benches, the light posts and street signs, was such that I had to shut myself off from it. I had to slam up a wall between the world and me before the world ran over me.
When the Night Rider soared into the scene, those who were misbehaving would turn, eyes going wide with recognition. Then they would make the choice between fight and flight. Their auras registered the threat upon his appearance, and the reaction was wholly different from the one I, as the Masked Maiden, received.
When I swooped in on the situation, recognition would likewise pass behind the person’s eyes, but that spike of fear, of facing an opponent who is undeniably menacing, a threat to be taken seriously, was not present. More often than I cared to admit, when I landed before a bad guy, what I got was laughed at—or worse, dismissed.
I had no doubt that this had to do with the fact that I was a relatively small young lady with a kind face (which was apparently visible even with half of it concealed behind the mask). Remy, on the other hand, was a tall, dark, buff, and handsome man.
The fact that those who laughed at or dismissed me normally got a mouthful of my fist or staff in the next heartbeats was some consolation.
The sound of a growl I’d only ever heard once before floated to me on the dark night air. I paused, a chill running up my spine and making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It took me no time at all to place it, and yet, I didn’t fully trust my ears until the things rounded the corner, red eyes aglow with hellfire.
Hellhounds.
I stared down the street, the auras of the world blurring around the edges, funneling in on the two Hounds that had just appeared there. Their auras were unlike any other creature on earth, and that was because they were not of this earth, but rather, the one beneath it. They slinked out of the shadows as if they were one and the same with the darkness, slithering through the night like snakes through a cornfield.
I prepared myself to fight, but when two more Hellhounds slipped around the corner behind me, I knew the only option was to run.
CHAPTER 18
Omens of death. Guardians of the Underworld. Hunters of lost souls.
I’d read about Hellhounds, seen pictures in old books in Peace Broker libraries, but nothing upon a page could do them justice. There was no way to depict the feeling that engulfed a person when they were near, no way to translate the sense of dread that fell over me.
They were designed for speed, strength, and precision. The first time I’d encountered them in the sewer tunnels beneath Grant City a few months ago, it had been dark, and I hadn’t gotten the full effect. Now, I saw them clearly, if just in panicked glances back ove
r my shoulder.
They were enormous creatures, as big as bears but with the agility of felines. Their black fur was matted, their muscles both bulging and sinewy. Their ears stuck up on their heads like a pit bull’s—as though they’d been cut with blunt blades to look that way. Their eyes were a deep glowing red that seemed to look right through whatever they sighted. When they got close, (as they were right now) the temperature would drop by ten degrees, and the smell of rotting, singed meat drifted by on the air.
But, the worst by far, was the sound of their hungry, tortured growls. It was this sound that drowned out the rest, filling my head and skating up my spine. I could feel the brush of their hot breath, and thought not for the first time in my life that some dang wings would come in handy right about now.
I stumbled. Like a stupid girl in a cheesy horror movie, I stumbled. My heart jumped up into my throat as I did so, promising that this one mistake would make me a goner. In the next moment, powerful jaws would lock around my ankle and drag me away to be torn to shreds by dogs from hell.
Now I was too afraid to look back. I knew that death was coming, was literally on my heels. I darted through the night in a blur of mask and cape, the progression of my pursuers and me likely too swift to be seen clearly by non-supernatural eyes. Distant screams were muffled by the sound of those terrible growls as the city continued its descent into madness around us.
There was a shift in the atmosphere as one of the Hounds made its move, leaping up in a show of teeth and muscle, no doubt going for the back of my neck. My body acted, as it had been trained to do in all sorts of life-threatening situations. I swerved and spun, my staff arching in a blur of ancient-oak glory. This move caught the Hellhound across the jaw while buying me precious split seconds of time.
Spotting a sturdy flag post ahead, I whispered a silent prayer and leapt up to grab the pole, swinging the lower half of my body around in a semicircle like an acrobat in a circus. My special cape flapped out behind me, my boots sailing through open air as my body lifted sideways.
The second Hellhound that had been on my tail flew through the empty space where my body had just been, menacing jaws snapping shut with an audible click.
I released my hold on the flag post, flinging my body forward and landing in a crouch on my feet. There was no time to pause or catch my breath. Distantly, I was aware that Sam was speaking through the communication device in my ear, but I hadn’t the slightest clue what she was saying.
Somehow, I’d gone from being the hunter, to being hunted. It was a situation bound to occur when one spent too much time dealing with monsters. The thing that scared me most of all, however, was the part of me that wanted to just stop running. To throw the fight and give up. I wasn’t sure what exactly had caused this part of me to spawn, but as I dodged the Hellhounds for my life, I acknowledged its existence for the first time.
“Hey, Halfling,” said a familiar voice, a whisper that carried on the night breeze, like a murmur from heaven. “Jump now.”
I didn’t think twice about obeying. I let the muscles in my legs coil and spring, using a dose of energy I wasn’t sure I had. I soared upward and was caught around the waist in a tight embrace. Then, I was zooming up and up, out of the reach of the Hellhounds below. Their angry howls of disappointment followed my ascent.
With a sigh, I held onto Remy, who grinned down at me from the shadows of his Night Rider hood. Around us, every star in the sky above Grant City could be seen, a rare occurrence with the amount of light pollution that was normally present. The cool wind kissed my face, my cape rippling around my legs as Remy carried us through the night, away from the Hounds and the danger.
“Ready to call it a night?” Remy asked me, his eyes on the skies ahead.
In answer, I only nodded, resting my head against his chest and holding closer for the ride.
Judging by my internal clock, it had to be somewhere around three or four in the morning, and we’d been rounding up criminals and fighting wrongdoers for what seemed an eternity. Morning was less than a handful of hours away, beckoning the close of what seemed an endless evening. With the sunlight I could only hope that the right mind of the city would settle back into place, but my fatigue was such that even if it did the opposite, there was nothing more I could do right now to help.
More than anything, I needed to escape into my dreams, but I would find the only thing waiting there for me was nightmares.
***
The world was gray, and it took me several moments to pinpoint the cause of its dullness.
Auras. There aren’t any auras. Not around the grass, the trees, nowhere in the sky or on the land.
What was this place? I wondered, and received the answer quickly, a murmur from my subconscious.
A dead land. A land of the lost.
I moved forward, not sure why I was doing so, but feeling compelled to walk on. Before, around, and behind me, the landscape was all the same, a mixture of grays that darkened almost to blacks. Shapes began to appear as I moved onward, taking on familiar forms, growing into something both recognizable and alien. With a realization that felt lagging, I saw that this was Grant City, or some overlap of it—a Grant City that those on the other side were not privy to.
I continued my stroll as buildings and storefronts sprang up, the ground beneath me morphing into dull asphalt. Lampposts and mailboxes appeared on the sidewalks. Streetlights and manholes took shape in the deserted lanes.
I wandered on, the only life to speak of in this dreadful, dead version of Grant City. My feet carried me around the corner and into an alleyway. There, I stopped. My head tilted, my eyes blinking as the shadows slowly cleared from the space to reveal the secrets waiting for me.
With sluggish cognition, the place revealed its relevance. My stomach did a terrible flip. The urge to turn and run struck me hard, but I found that I was unable to move my body. Instead, I stood there, staring like the village idiot as a thick knot wound itself tightly in my throat.
When the girl appeared from the shadows, I recognized her immediately, her face and name branded into my memory as if with hot iron. Shaylee Taylor looked exactly as I had seen her last. The last and only time I’d ever seen her. For all intents and purposes, she was a stranger, but the image of her as she’d been that night was one that would live as long as I did.
Her skin was the grayish pale of death, but the Scarecrow had applied rouge to her cheekbones. Her lips, dry and pulled down in a slight grimace, were painted a similar red that stood out in this lifeless world like a bad grade on a paper. Her hair was braided in two pigtails that hung over her shoulders. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, like those of a doll that seems to look at you no matter where you move in the room. Her attire was the same—a doll’s dress and frilly white socks, black dress shoes shining listlessly in the dim light.
I wanted to scream, but as I’d been unable to make my feet move, I was likewise unable to work my vocals. My eyes burned and I felt hot tears spill over and cut tracks down my cheeks. My hands trembled. My knees felt incapable of holding me, and yet, I remained upright.
Shaylee Taylor moved with the ephemeral speed of a spirit, though I’d never before seen one and didn’t know how I was sure of this. The air didn’t even stir with her movement. I blinked and she went from the edge of the shadows to standing directly in front of me, close enough to reach out and claim for a hug.
There was little else to do but meet her dead, doll’s gaze. Terror stole over me in the process. My mouth fell open. To say what, I didn’t know—perhaps an apology. The only thing I managed was to suck in some of the foul air, which was thick enough with the scent of death to choke.
Shaylee Taylor’s head tilted, or maybe twitched was a better word, kind of like a bird that has spotted something that might be interesting. Slowly, as if for nothing more than dramatic effect, her face shifted. The alabaster painted skin began to melt away in sections, like the burning of a page. Her nose became a gaping hole, her cheeks sinkin
g in like earth with too much moisture. One by one, her teeth dislodged themselves and tumbled out over her lips, falling to the concrete with little clicks that made my stomach constrict.
She was rotting right before my eyes. I could feel the look of horror taking over my own features but was helpless to stop it. My hands came up and fluttered, as if they might attempt to hold the decaying girl together, but she gripped my wrists in a hold that was both strict and cold, like a hand that has just emerged from a grave.
Her mouth unhinged like something rusty, and words floated out to me on breath that smelled of death and dirt. “Your fault,” she told me. “It’s your fault I’m dead.”
I shook my head, more hot tears burning in my eyes before spilling over to track down my cheeks. I tried to apologize, but all that came out was an agonized groan.
“If it wasn’t for you,” the girl continued, “The Scarecrow wouldn’t have been anywhere near Grant City. He wouldn’t have taken me from my bed, tortured me, and turned me into this abomination. If not for the Masked Maiden, I would still be alive.”
Her grip was tightening on my wrists, burning where her cold skin met mine. I yanked away, but was unable to free myself, and she leaned in closer, her dry red lips kissing my earlobe.
“Your fault. Your fault I’m dead. You’re no hero!”
I kicked, pulled, and urged my muscles to follow any of my commands. From somewhere faraway, I thought I heard screaming, and my throat began to ache. I lashed out, closed my eyes, but found that no matter what I did, I was trapped.
“No hero! No hero! No heeeeerrrrroooo!” she screamed. My struggles became nothing more than whimpers. She continued screaming these two words, and finally released me. I used my freed hands to cover my ears, but it was no use. Her words penetrated right through, past my hands and my ears and down to somewhere deeper, somewhere close to my heart and soul.
