Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

  “Which sections?”

  “The ones that control emotion and emotional responses.”

  It makes the undead man smile. “Damon, I was an unfeeling bastard before I died.”

  “As in life, so in death.”

  “I’ve given you what you want, and you’ve given me what I want, but you haven’t told me anything of which I’m not already aware.”

  Damon lifts a finger illuminated by the cone of light. “You know what’s happening to you, but you don’t understand the why. You feel what’s happening on a deep, instinctual level while we analyze that level from a scientific perspective.” He extends his index fingers, holding them a foot apart. “Two planets residing in the same galaxy.”

  “I do have one question for you: Can I ever truly die and stay that way?”

  Damon strokes his chin. “If you ever go long enough without absorbing death essence, you probably will, but that’s not as simple as it sounds.

  “When we studied you, we found that your body is constantly absorbing death essence. It’s doing it right now, as a matter of fact. Death is always around us, literally. Dead skin cells, decay, particles in the air, it’s everywhere. And you act as a magnet. Your body as well as your abilities are growing stronger with each passing second.

  “There’s more. We found strains of several viruses cultivating in your veins, some of them that haven’t even been discovered yet. Our virologists actually whooped with joy.”

  “My body’s an incubator for viruses now?”

  “Yes. Me and the others think it’s because of the constant influx and outflow of death, decay, and entropy in your system. Think of it as a mass of multicolored strands twisting together to form something new and exciting.”

  “As exciting as a virus can be.”

  “We think that with enough practice, you’ll be able to release viruses at will, but you’ll have to be careful that you don’t—

  “Accidentally infect someone.”

  Damon suddenly launches into laughter. “Think of the possibilities!”

  H E A T

  It swelters, swims, sweats, swarms, sticks, squeezes, suffocates, and slithers around them. Thornebriar is boiling.

  Perry rips off his jacket and wipes at the sheen of sweat sliding down his forehead. “Guess we’re in.” He blinks moisture from his eyes and takes a gander around the alley they’ve landed in. A dumpster overflows, an A/C unit rattles, a door proclaims DELIVERIES ONLY BETWEEN 2 AND 5. “Weren’t we looking at a backyard when we almost punched through here the first time?” He climbs to his feet, helping the others.

  “The dome was prob’ly a crack in space ‘n’ time. What we saw was a frozen moment in time ‘n’ a random area in this enclosed space. Also explains why we didn’t land on the other side of the dome, not literally at least, and the temperature change.” Noir finds staring and narrowed eyes. “What, I ain’t allowed to read and watch science documentaries?”

  “We need to focus on finding the Johnsons.” Adam wipes at his face and neck with his shirt, displaying the coating of sweat glued to his stomach.

  “Can’t just go blazing through the sky calling for them and hope they pop out waving their arms.” Perry bends down to tie his shoe. “You weren’t here when we were attacked by Officer Onyx[3]. If they have guards on the outside, they definitely have them on the inside as well.” He stands. “We need to figure out their defensive capabilities before we go charging in.”

  “And how do you suppose we do that...Detective West?” Adam folds his arms.

  Perry shoots him a glare. “That doesn’t sound like the tone of a man who’s very repentant.”

  The dumpster suddenly scrapes across the alley, banging raucously into the far brick wall and spewing trash. Bisset lowers her arm. “I’m starting to regret ever stepping foot inside of that rickety van. I’m guessing that a place like this doesn’t have armed guards waltzing around in plain sight.” She walks to the mouth of the alley, poking her head out to take a quick look around. “They’re out where everyone can see them, and they can see everyone.” Her eyes rove. “Community like this probably doesn’t have too many people who look like Noir and I either.” She looks over her shoulder. “And Leo might even raise a few eyebrows if people look hard enough.”

  “Think we’re on the same page, bonita.” Noir smirks. “The two of us walk out there and someone is gonna catch wise. Someone who may know where our adorable little A-O family is.”

  “And how much trouble we can run into between here and there.”

  “Think you can stand holding my baby-soft hand for a while?”

  Bisset puts a hand on her hip. “As long as you don’t pop your claws, I won’t pop mine.” She shares his smirk.

  Eleven minutes later, a woman’s head smacks against the brick wall. Her mouth splits open as pain cracks her cranium. She reaches for her waistband, pats it, and looks down when she finds nothing there.

  Perry crouches down in front of her, waggling her gun in his hand. “Misplace something?”

  The woman opens her mouth, inhales, and screams bloody murder just as Leo slams a force field down around them. His words reverberate and bounce oddly in the confines. “Do that again and I put the field around your head, see how you like screaming in your own ear.”

  She throws herself at Leo. Noir steps in front of him and solidly punches her in the face. Blood flies back along with her head. Ripples and tremors play out on the other side of the force field. Adam slams his fists into the solid construction, mouth working, eyes furiously wide. Noir stalks toward him. “We ain’t got time to be gentle! Now get the fuck off the barrier and watch the fuckin’ alley!”

  Adam glares at him, slides his eyes to the others. He slowly walks back to the entrance of the alley, movements tight with agitation.

  Noir turns back to the woman cradling her jaw. “Where’re the Johnsons?”

  “Fhook you.” Blood dribbles from the corner of her mouth. Her head rocks to the side when Noir smacks her.

  “Same question, different answer.” His fingers curl.

  “Fhook you shidewaz.”

  Leo turns away just as Noir palms her face in his slender hand. The sickening crunch is painfully loud inside the field. Leo looks back, notices the blood spotting the brick just behind the woman’s head.

  “How many guards does this sheep pin have?”

  Defiance.

  Noir opens his mouth to bark another question. Bisset suddenly snatches the gun from Perry’s hand, flicks off the safety, presses the silencer to the woman’s shoulder and shoots.

  The raw force of the woman’s scream might have been enough to cover the sound of the shot without the suppressor.

  “Where’re you keeping the Johnsons?” Bisset’s eyes glow golden-green.

  The woman snarls...and takes another bullet in the ankle.

  “Where?”

  The woman’s mouth cracks open, a quivering hand pressing her scarlet-soaked shirt to her shoulder. Bisset shoots her in the thigh and makes her scream out louder than before.

  Everyone but the women clap their hands to their ears.

  “Stop focusing on the pain and focus on the question. Where. Are. The Johnsons?”

  “I-i-i-in the house with the b-bl-blue shingles on Sunny Avenue. Just a mile n-north of here. Security’s light.” She looks down at the blood soaking through her clothing, back at Bisset. “I’m gonna etch your face and voice in the depths of my memory. You better not leave without putting bullets in my head”

  “I’ve told myself better threats.” Bisset calmly hands the gun back to West. “Leo, do you mind lowering the force field?” Her words are steeped in tranquility.

  Leo lowers the field.

  Bisset walks away. Noir scuttles up next to her. “The hell was that?”

  “At your rate, we would have been discovered by the time you had pulled a useful syllable out of her.” Hot sunlight catches the gleam in her vacant eyes. “You went too easy on her.”

&
nbsp; “What’re you talkin’ about? I hit her.”

  Bisset stops; Noir stumbles to a halt. “That woman is a trained soldier, she’s been hit before. Probably by men and some women a lot bigger than you.”

  Noir’s mouth works, but nothing comes out.

  “The others are fooled, but I’m not. I know who you really are, Noir. You’re not the monster you want to be.”

  His lip curls. “Then who am I?”

  She looks into his eyes. Hers melt from golden-green to brown. “You let me know when you find out.”

  The dried, shrunken husk explodes in a cloud of powder when it hits the floor, the skull snapping off and skittering to Damon’s feet. He waves a hand through the dusty air. “Only five seconds to decompose this time. You’re getting better.”

  Giorgio looks down at the crumpled cadaver. “What did he do?”

  “Creased the spine of my copy of Watchmen.” Damon eyes the hollow-eyed skull silently screaming up at him.

  “I see.”

  Damon nudges the skull with his sneaker. “Have you ever read it? It’s a graphic novel by Alan Moore. Very eye-opening, very ahead of its time, and quite insightful from a psychological point of view.”

  “And for that you had him killed?”

  Damon bunts the skull at the wall, watches at it fractures into separate pieces. “It was a special edition copy.” He raises a hand. “Let’s not dwell.”

  Giorgio rests his hand on the foot-thick sheet of steel on the nearby table.

  “From one of our old underground security doors.”

  “I’ve never attempted to break down something this thick before.”

  Damon tips his head on the other side of the table. “As I said, your abilities are growing stronger.” He gestures at the steel. “Give it a go.”

  Giorgio taps the steel with his fingertip. He presses his palm against it and goes still. The alloy underneath his hand begins rust and flake, a spreading deterioration that seeps over the surface...and stops. Giorgio lifts a hand, flecks of rust sticking to his palm.

  “Focus on the core of the steel. See it decaying, wasting away in your mind. Sink deep into and under the surface.” Damon nods.

  Giorgio replaces his hand and bows his head. Something ripples from his palm. Decay, desiccation, discoloring. They surge over the door, curling and furling flecks of steel, cracking the surface and erupting sores of rust throughout. He concentrates harder.

  “Why haven’t you asked me about the Johnsons, Giorgio?” Damon watches as the steel loses its luster and fades to brown-green. “Why haven’t you asked anything about me or Libera Mentis Machina?”

  Giorgio’s face remains blank as his eyes roll up. “I genuinely couldn't care less about that family and what goes on behind these lace-curtained windows. And if I did, I could kill all of you with no problem and very little imagination.” He lifts his hand. The steel has been reduced to peeling shades of sickly yellow, garish green, and putrid brown. He shakes flecks from his flesh.

  Damon pulls a small remote from his pocket and presses a button. The TV on the right wall blips to life. The image is of an alley. The faces on the screen are familiar. “I’m assuming they came with you.” Damon pushes his glasses up his nose. “Are they A-Os, too?”

  “Most of them, yes.” Giorgio looks away from the image and admires his work. “The true heroes have arrived.”

  Damon scratches at the corner of his lower lip. “We’ve already sent out a team to their location.” He turns to Giorgio. “If they’re the true heroes, then what kind of hero does that make you?”

  Giorgio touches a finger to the table and a perfect circle of decay spreads from his touch. “The villainous kind.”

  Ten minutes have passed.

  Sovereign hauls his first forward with all his might.

  The green neon man floating in the air takes the full force of the blow, a platinum flare surging out from the strike, and whizzes back down to the earth in a viridian streak.

  A woman on the ground points the first two fingers of her right hand at him.

  Something twines itself into his intestines, tugs. Gravity reclaims him, wrenches him back to the ground. His thunderous impact is marked by a large indentation that ruins a perfectly manicured lawn. He looks over with dazed and confused eyes that watch as Noir disembowels a teenage boy with a cloud of smoke where his legs should be. The boy drops, smoke melting away to skinny legs, and does not move. Noir looks over at Sovereign, lifts his bloody claws, and waggles them.

  Sovereign totters his head to the right just in time to receive a kick to the face.

  Perry fires a bullet into a man that bursts into a furious flurry of snow and swirls into his face and eyes. The man reconstitutes in front of Perry and reaches out to touch the detective’s brow. Perry grits his teeth as the blood flowing in his head slowly begins to freeze, torturous relief from the heat. He grabs the frigid man by the wrist and gives it a hard crank while squeezing off a shot.

  An eddy of snow around the whistling bullet.

  Cold sinks into his skin, muscles, and bones. The cloud coalesces and begins to reform...until it is captured inside of a spherical field of shimmering silver-blue.

  Perry gives Leo a nod.

  Bisset sprints past them, eyes wide as her arms and legs pump.

  The tiger chasing her speeds up. The panther behind her releases a growl. The lion at her heels throws itself at her, thick sinews uncoiling as it pounces at her back.

  “Have to admit, your cohorts are quite skilled...except for the man with the gun. I’ve seen him somewhere, but I can’t quite place it.” Damon scratches at the bridge of his nose.

  “He was the lead detective investigating the disappearance and murder of your five-ring circus of a family.” Giorgio leans on the console as he watches the bank of monitors giving aural and visual testimony to the heated fray. “He appeared on the news; you might have seen him there.”

  Damon’s lips part in a silent ah. “Wonder how long they’ll last.”

  “How much more do you have to throw at them?”

  The smile on Damon’s profile is illuminated by a flicker of platinum on the large screen in the middle. “Much. They haven’t even reached Eric yet.”

  Noir streaks past the screen.

  Damon looks at Giorgio. “Shouldn’t you be snapping my neck and joining them? Your abilities could give them just the edge that they need.”

  “I’m brain damaged, remember?”

  Pause.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a nice merlot breathing around here, would you? I’d like to see if my taste buds are as dead as the rest of me.”

  A house explodes in a pillar of fire that rattles the ground. Shattered shingles pepper the air along with lengths of burning wood and warped metal. Sovereign darts out from the wreckage in a diagonal line soaring back up into the sky. “You could have killed someone!”

  “All of these houses were built with underground bunkers; Damon sent out a community-wide alert as soon as your little Justice Quintet arrived.” The flame-wreathed body extends its arms.

  A massive B O O M as a plume of fire and smoke rends the air and sends Sovereign spiraling back. Platinum flames bend and twist with red, orange, and gold. Then it starts to rain human bodies. Identical human bodies that reach and tear and seek to claw him from the sky. They grab hold of him, amassing themselves on each other and weighing him down.

  Platinum flames sputter out from beneath the thrashing limbs.

  Bisset ducks her head as Perry shoots an androgynous assailant in the chest as they raise tentacled hands.

  “Let us help you.”

  She looks over and sees The Dragoness standing calm and composed amidst the incessant pandemonium. A comet cuts a screaming trail through the sky behind her.

  “No.”

  Directly to her right, Perry cries out as a blade gnaws into his stomach. He punches a woman in the head, yanks the dagger from his gut, and holds his palm over the gushing wound. He starts
to sink to his knees just as Bisset catches him beneath the arms. She puts her hands over his wound and concentrates.

  Nothing happens.

  “The angel is slumbering.” The Dragoness hovers over them both, straightened locks fluttering in the smoke-choked breeze. She looks up at the sun. “It’s daylight, and yet here I am. I’m starting to think that Noir was right, time and space are in disharmony here.” She bends and touches Bisset on the shoulder, golden-green eyes going to Perry bleeding out in her arms. “We would heal your friends, but it wouldn’t prevent them from being harmed in the first place.” She brings her mouth close to her hostess’s ear. “Let us help you, Bisset.”

  Perry’s narrowed eyes narrow even more as he looks over Bisset’s shoulder. “The hell...is that?”

  Bisset stares down at Perry, at the redness staining both their hands and his shirt. Screams. Explosions. Smoke. Hollow eyes. Blood. Her tongue feels heavy and thick. A corner store collapses in on itself. Goosebumps on sweating skin. She gently lowers Perry’s body.

  Then she lets The Dragoness take control.

  Her soul becomes effervescent and her body becomes rigid with unadulterated power. Flesh smolders with sensuous heat, her hair sizzles into straight strands of copper steel. She blinks and her eye color shifts along with her vision. Nails lengthen and harden into glimmering talons. The wind halts around her, chaos quiets, her eyes slip shut. Simmering heat waves rippling from the pavement slow their ascent.

  Thornebriar goes silent.

  The flame-wreathed body lowers itself in front of The Dragoness.

  Her eyes remain shut. Her chest rises and falls as she samples the air. Not a muscle twitches.

  The flaming form presses at her forehead with a burning finger.

  Nothing.

  The burning finger is held to her forehead.

  Nothing.

  The flame dancing at the end of the finger intensifies, brightens.

  Not even a bead of sweat.

  The smoky gaze in the burning face narrows.