I try to rationalize it away as Famine's influence -- maybe he's sapping my brainpower too -- but the acid rises in my throat and I realize he's on his way. The people nearest me wobble, losing their balance, reaching for whatever they can to keep themselves on their feet.
Shit.
I look over the side of the overpass -- three lanes in each direction are empty, and construction cones keep the cars out. I see Famine flying down toward me, a thin black arrow, and jump the fence, landing easily on the pavement. Another traffic jam, and this time I hear at least three cars crunch together, but I don't have time to think about that, because Famine's on the ground, stalking toward me.
And he looks pissed.
On the ground I'm able to move fast. Famine's as fast as I am, which negates that advantage, but at least I can avoid his attacks. Of course that means he can avoid mine too, but I'll take what I can get. At least he's not throwing things at me -- but then, Famine always was the cocky one.
The moment he realizes he's not getting anywhere, he stops and raises both arms. I feel his power blast outward and, in an instant, I understand why I can't stop him.
I came into this fight with only myself. Famine, being who he is, can suck the energy out of anyone. I'm not just fighting him; I'm fighting everyone he's stealing from.
I dart forward at full speed, all my momentum concentrated into my right fist, ready to knock his fucking block off.
And he catches my hand. Catches it and squeezes. Bones grind and crack. I scream and go to my knees and he presses the advantage, his hand coming up to grab my throat again. His human body is wavering, shifting, becoming more monstrous; his face distorts until it's just those jewel-black eyes and an enormous mouth.
"You're mine now," he says, his voice rough and broken as it comes out of that horrific maw. Breath wafts over me, rancid and sickly-sweet, and his face comes closer to mine. "I'm going to eat your power, and then we'll take this world for our own!"
I wish I could quip at him, but I can't. He's pushing down on me, bearing me to the warm, rough pavement, and I have no choice but to let him. It's either that or he slams me down and the last thing I need right now is a concussion. Yeah, I can heal it, but I'm in enough trouble.
The moment I'm flat on my back, Famine puts his other hand on my throat and begins to squeeze. My head pounds and my lungs scream for air and I turn my head, trying to get a breath, but all I see is my hand trying to hit him.
My left hand.
My left hand with the doctor's bracelet on it.
"Time to die, Alexandra," Famine hisses, his mouth widening, teeth sharp and silver-white.
I rip the bracelet off my wrist and, as he brings his face closer, jam my entire hand into his mouth.
Famine rears back, the pressure suddenly off my throat, and I gulp in a huge breath even as Famine's teeth close on my arm. They cut through my flesh, the pain burning like razor slices, and I just know he's going to rip my arm off.
But he doesn't. He... he can't.
Why can't he?
Fuck that; I don't care. I force my broken hand into a fist and drive the best punch I can manage into his eye. He pulls away, letting go of my other arm.
My left hand is empty. The bracelet is gone.
No. Not quite gone. I've left it somewhere in his gullet, and judging from the look on his face, he can't do anything about it.
I suck in another ragged breath. "Time to die," I whisper.
Then I bring both feet up and kick Famine hard enough to send him flying to the next exit.
When I get to Famine, he's holding his stomach like he wants to vomit. He must have swallowed the bracelet, and whatever power Dr. Colibri imbued it with is down there too.
Awesome.
Famine struggles to his feet, his face still contorted into its horrifying visage, and I feel him try to send his power outward, feel him trying to suck down the people in the cars around us.
It doesn't work. I can tell from the way his eyes widen in fear.
This time he can't block my punch and my knuckles hit his face with a satisfying thud. He goes flying and I'm in the air, following him, faster than him now that he's not eating other people's energy, fast enough to kick him back to the ground. He slams into an empty lot, flat on his back; he hit so hard that the ground cracked underneath him.
I'm on him again, my boot on his throat, and he doesn't have the power to fight back.
Thirty seconds later, a thunderclap echoes across the lot and Famine is gone.
I drop to my knees and take several long moments to myself, catching my breath, willing my heart to slow down, waiting for the deep cuts in my arm to close. I watch, trying to ignore the throbbing pain, waiting, but the blood keeps seeping out.
Of course Famine would be powerful enough to overcome my healing powers. It figures.
I rip the cape off the new suit and wind it around my arm to keep the wounds bound. Normally I might say something like "as tight as I can", but I do know my own strength, and I don't want to hurt myself any more than I've already been.
When I look up, there are a few dozen people standing at the edge of the parking lot. Most of them have phones pointed at me.
I slowly get to my feet and smile. "Hi."
One person begins to clap.
Then another.
And, after a few seconds, they're all doing it.
And it feels good. It feeds my vanity, feeds my ego, knowing that these people appreciate what I just did for them. Maybe they don't know the full extent, but between the interview on CNN and all the other stuff I've done in the past couple of days, they've got to be aware something weird's going on again and I'm right in the middle of it.
I walk over to the crowd and begin shaking hands. I half-expect someone to try and cop a feel -- this suit's a bit more revealing than the last one -- but thankfully no one does.
I talk to the people for a couple of minutes, until the first news van shows up. I recognize the reporter as one of my former co-workers. I realize it's petty, but I'm still kind of pissed that he wouldn't give me the time of day when we worked in the same building. Now he's just talking to me because I'm news.
"Alexandra," he says, "what happened?"
I look into the camera and shake my head. I'm about to tell him "no comment" when a kid, about ten years old, grabs my right arm. "My mom says you're gonna save us all again."
I go to one knee and put my hand on his shoulder. "Count on it."
He holds up his hand. I give him a high-five. The kid is suitably impressed, and I know that the camera caught every second of our little exchange.
My work here is done, I think. Without warning, I take to the sky, the sound of applause and cheering following me upward.
It's almost enough to outweigh the gnawing I feel deep in my soul. Famine's legacy.
I don't think food's going to get rid of it this time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CRUSH
+++++
After the fight with Famine, I really had no desire to go back out and fight more evil. I managed to get back to the lab, but Dr. Colibri sent me right back out again.
No rest for the wicked. Or... or whatever the person who fights the wicked is called.
I don't remember it being this bad last time. Sure, there were a lot of battles to fight, but I wasn't running around like the proverbial headless chicken. Not like this. Evil was on a bit more of a relaxed schedule when I was in high school, but just like everything else is moving faster in this decade, so too are the minions of the Dark King. I fight four more battles before dinner, and then three after that.
Finally, around midnight, I've had enough. I'm exhausted, I'm bloody and dirty, and I want nothing more than to get this suit off and collapse in my bed. I don't even have the strength to fly home -- I have to call the Professor and ask him to pick me up. "It must be bad," he says.
"It is." I sigh. I'm sitting on a bench in front of a closed grocery store in Dunwoody and it's tak
ing everything I have not to just lie down and take a nap. Because that would be awesome if someone happened by and saw Alexandra passed out in plain sight. "Where have you been all day, anyway?"
"Diane sent me to do your job." It takes a second for me to remember that Diane is Dr. Colibri's first name. "You're welcome."
"Thanks," I say. I can hear the frown in his voice. "I'm sorry."
He sighs. "It's all right. You sound terrible."
"Sweet of you." I'm too tired say it with much indignation. "Did your minders or whatever they are not see all those fights?"
"They saw." I see a car pull into the lot. "Hang up."
I do, and when the car stops in front of my bench, I practically have to drag myself into it. I just barely manage to get the seatbelt latched, my fingers are so numb. "So tell me about these monsters you killed."
"Just monsters," the Professor says as the car accelerates. "I trained you, remember? I can take on a few minor minions."
"I just bet you can." I imagine he's nodding, but my eyes are closed. "Why's it so bad this time?"
The Professor doesn't speak for several seconds. Finally he says, "because of the power. Because you're so much stronger."
"I was strong before."
"This is different. And I think, to some extent, the King's afraid of you -- that's why he sent the Horsemen out so quickly."
I yawn again. It's getting really hard to stay awake, and the sound of the road under the tires is hypnotic. I don't think I've ever been this tired before in my life -- I wonder if that's because of what Famine sucked out of me. "'Fraid of me?"
The Professor's hand covers mine where I've rested it on the center armrest. "He should be. You're going to win. Just like last time."
I nod. It's the last thing I remember doing before falling asleep.
I barely feel the Professor carry me into my apartment and place me gently into my bed, pulling a duvet over me. I'm just too exhausted; I can't even thank him.
I'm already asleep again, and I'm starting to dream. This time, though, I'm dreaming in costume. Usually, if I have powers in my dreams, I have them in my normal clothes. But I'm Alexandra in this dream.
No. Not a dream.
A memory.
For all the crazy crap I had to go through to get to this point, the Professor told me it wouldn't be difficult to defeat the Dark King.
"Just... kill him?" I asked. "Like, with a gun?"
"If you want," he said. We were sitting in the living room; he had coffee and I had a large plastic cup with a chocolate protein shake. "That didn't work the last time, though."
"I know," I said. "I have to beat the hell out of him."
"So to speak."
I sucked up some of the shake through my straw and looked past the Professor, watching the morning sun trying to push its way past the gauzy curtains. If today was going to be my last day on the planet, I'd have liked to see the outside world while I had my breakfast, but then the Professor's neighbors would see that Alexandra lives here. Not a problem either of us needed.
"Are you ready?" he asked after a couple of minutes of silence.
I sighed. "How do you get ready to die?"
He put his cup down, leaned forward, and took my free hand in both of his. "Andrea, you're not going to die. You're going to defeat him."
"Am I? I'm glad one of us is feeling confident."
He frowned a little at that. "You've trained for this. You know what you have to do. And you know it'll just be you and him -- no minions, no unfair advantages. Not like the last time."
I couldn't help but chuckle dryly at that; the last time I fought the Dark King, he'd called up some sort of armor-plated lizard-things out of thin air and I'd barely escaped with my life. If I hadn't had the kind of healing powers that came with being Alexandra, I might still have a broken back from where one of the lizards slammed me with its tail. "So nice that he's honorable," I said. "I thought the myth was that Lucifer never lied, not this guy."
The Professor looked vaguely pleased that I remembered that little factoid about Satan. Honestly, I kind of wished I was fighting him instead of the Dark King -- not that Satan was real, and I certainly didn't believe God, but if he was and I was fighting him then maybe God would've been on my side.
Instead all I had was the Professor and my own abilities.
I guess that wasn't anything to sneeze at, but I still didn't feel good about it.
No one ever told me how good guys and bad guys figure out where the final fight is going to be. Every time I'd seen it on TV, it seemed to be some sort of unconscious consensus -- like, "we're going to make this particular fight the Big One". Okay, sure, sometimes it's obvious, like at the end of The Dark Knight Rises when Batman and Bane fight. That's pretty clearly going to be the big finish. But, other times...
Maybe the Dark King knew I was planning to take his ass out for good. Maybe he didn't. I didn't know. But what I did know was that I'd been watching a lot of action movies lately, trying to think of ways I could trick him, ways I could beat him without him getting the best of me. I didn't think I could get him to fall into a trash compactor a la Superman III, and I certainly wouldn't have had much luck dropping something heavy on him, because he could move as fast as me -- maybe faster.
No. This fight would have to be fought the old-fashioned way -- mano a mano -- and that scared the crap out of me.
I felt him coming long before I saw him -- stomach cramps, acid crawling up my throat, knees going watery with fear. At least I didn't pee myself, though the thought of getting up in the King's face on purpose certainly made it an option. But Alexandra didn't show fear, and so I kept the fear hidden away, under the suit and behind the mask. When the King finally coalesced in front of me, the early-morning sunshine painting the ground with gold, our shadows long and thin, all he got to see was my strong side.
"I have an offer for you," he said.
Huh. I wasn't expecting that. I swallowed hard, just to make sure my voice wouldn't shake, and then spoke. "What kind of offer, exactly?"
"The same one I give to all you heroes: join me. Forfeit the fight. Let me have the world." He smiled, his teeth dazzling in his blood-red face. "I promise you'll live a long and happy life by my side."
"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to let you fuck me for all eternity." He looked taken aback. "What? You didn't expect me to figure out what you wanted?"
The King made a tut-tut sound with his mouth. "So cynical," he said. "I blame the internet." He reached out to one side and made his trident appear. "I know you're not a virgin, Alexandra." I hoped he couldn't see me blush. "As long as you have your powers, you'll live in fear every time you sleep with someone. But not with me." His smile turned to a leer. "Never with me."
"Ugh." I took a couple of steps forward -- we were still several yards apart. "Can we just fight now? Please?"
"You're sure?" He brought the trident up in a ready position, and I shifted as well, ready to fight.
"I'm sure." Then I had a thought. "Question, though."
"What's that?"
"Do you make the same offer if it's a guy?"
The King's body shifted before my eyes, the suit turning to a clinging black dress, the muscular form becoming lush and curvy, the face softening even as the horns changed to something a little less imposing. "I can look like whatever I want," he -- now she -- said, his voice dripping sex. "If a young man had ever said yes, he would have said yes to this." He raised an eyebrow. "If you like girls, I could stay in this form."
I growled. "Does it always have to be sex with you? Really?"
In an eyeblink he was back in what I was calling his 'usual' shape. "Just because I want to take over the world doesn't mean I don't have needs. And let's be honest here, Alexandra: you're a lovely specimen of young womanhood. You're strong enough to keep up with me, smart enough to talk to me, and willful enough to stand up to me. What more could I want?" He paused and cocked his head a bit. "Besides the world, that is."
&nbs
p; "Yeah, well, you're not getting the world. Or me."
"If that's your wish."
"It is." I brought up my hands. "Let's end this."
He lowered his head, holding the trident vertically in front of himself with both hands. "Let's."
There was no music. There were no special effects. There wasn't a rainstorm; there wasn't an audience. As the sun rose, there was nothing but the sound of flesh hitting flesh, of grunts and moans, of bodies sliding across the gravel surface upon which we were fighting. I'd picked this place because there wasn't a school around for a few miles and it didn't get much traffic during morning rush hour. For some time the county had been trying to do something with the area, but they'd had no success. It was just broken ground, dirt, and debris, about the size of a football field.
Perfect.
Except that the fight wasn't going my way. Sure, I was a better fighter now than I'd been the first time we'd met, and unlike the second time I didn't give him a chance to get the drop on me. The third time would be it -- one of us was going down, right here, today.
It looked like it would be me.
One thing I'd learned in my three years of having powers was that they weren't perfect, and they weren't unlimited. No matter how much I fueled my body, eventually my abilities would slow down. The healing powers were always the first to go, and while I still had them, they weren't going at full blast anymore. I was forced to guard my left side, where the King's trident had smashed into my ribs. At least two were broken, and it was getting harder to breathe after every flurry of blows I parried or avoided. I definitely had a black eye and the powers had fixed a broken nose twice now.
At least it wasn't totally one-sided. The Dark King seemed to be depending upon his trident -- that was something the Professor had taught me when I'd been learning how to fight: if your opponent has a weapon, he tends to lean on it, even if it's a liability. Several times now I'd gotten inside the King's reach, and once there he was reluctant to let go of the trident. With my speed, I'd been able to drive punch after punch into his mid-section before he finally dropped the weapon; the last time he did that, I slammed my knee into his face and, as he fell to the ground, drove my elbow into the back of his neck and stomped on the back of his knee for good measure. Now he was limping a little, the trident still in his hand, and black blood had dried on his face from where it had hit the ground.
After The Apocalypse Page 23
