by Sevan Paris
Tentacles throughout the lagoon lash back and forth. “She would not dare.”
“Before maybe. But now she’s desperate.” I clear my throat, trying to get rid of the fist that’s formed inside it. “Ready to do whatever it takes to kill you.”
“SHE WOULD NOT—DARE!” The dark cloud parts, showing me a glimpse of triangular teeth, big as my arm.
The cloud rolls back into place. The hiss-filled breath quickens in pace. “If it were possible for an individual to perform this spell, I would have done it long ago!”
I pull at the rocks again.
Don’t flake now, Gabe. He’s scared.
“You’ve been killing Sayers, absorbing their Magicks left and right,” I say. “Mystick probably knows it’s just a matter of time before you CAN do this on your own.”
“No one—no other Sayer—would dare help her with such an unstable task.”
“Before, maybe. But you’ve been changing the game.”
Macabre responds with a deep rattling sound. “…. Why come to me with this?”
“As bad as things are right now, their doing this will just make it worse. For Sayers and for everybody else.”
A black tentacle tenses and then bends, pointing at me. “That is not the only reason.”
I swallow again. “You know Black and Pink are the same now. They joined.”
“I do.”
“I want her to live. I want to free her from Mystick. I want nothing bad to happen to her or Ember.”
“And what do I receive in return?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do you receive’? You can’t stop all of them on your own, not quick enough anyway. In return, you live.”
“Do you think me soft? You Superheroes and your antiquated notions of morality; you’re worse than the other Sayers. You know my desire: to remake all that is into a masterpiece of chaos. You’ll try to stop me at the first opportunity, whether if it’s ten years from now or ten minutes. I require proof that this is happening. Proof that this is not a trap.”
“…. Pinky swear?”
Several tentacles pull at the rock wall, bringing Macabre up to an even taller height. “I believe we can do far better than that.”
The eyes glow brightly and then a beam of light leaps out of them, going right into my chest. The light from his eyes casts a shadow on the wall. It leaps away from his body, morphs into a giant mouth and closes on top of me. Random memories dance across my mind: bonding with M, becoming Galaxy, meeting Ember, arguing with Casa, Pink merging with Black, Ember kidnapping Pink.
And then … then his memories rush into me, absurdly surreal …
Not of what he is, but of what he was and he was in outer space and Mystick was somehow there, leading him, pulling him, shoving him down to Earth and then giving something to him and then he became Macabre and turned, killing and destroying and experimenting the way that he was experimented on and then—
Macabre pulls the red beam out of my mind. It’s jarring, like unplugging a television. It takes a moment to bring my mind back to where I am, to put everything together that I just saw.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected from you,” Macabre says. His glowing eyes shift back and forth.
I cough. “What?”
“That you have a … familiar entity living inside you. And that you were telling the truth.”
Macabre hisses some words and then, after a bright flash of purple light, he’s gone. The water of the lagoon rushes into the empty space that he left, throwing a large wave into the air.
The rocks around my wrists and ankles crumble. “Crap!” I shake them loose and then take to the air. “Where’d he go?”
Nowhere on the island. I’m no longer detecting the spikes in Ramma Radiation.
“Which means he’s headed to Prose. Without me. Crap! Crap, crap, crap!” I turn in the direction of home and pour on the speed. “How does he know I can get there in time?”
He did just see inside your mind.
The glistening surface of the ocean rushes under me. “Well, did you see that earlier? From inside HIS mind?”
I did.
“So that’s how it happened … Mystick created Macabre.”
***
Minutes later, I’m flying into Prose, diving towards Mystick’s home on Atlantic Avenue and mind weighted down with memories of those damn Sentinels.
A group of M’s race known as The Council created the things to watch for and kill anyone like him. They live in space, hiding in inter-dimensional nests, waiting to zero in on the slightest hint of Ramma Radiation. Earth’s atmosphere throws them off M’s scent a little, as does his hiding inside my body. But remove either from the equation, and they’ll be on top of us like white on whitest rice ever.
“How is that possible, M?” How could Mystick have found one of those things? And why would she turn it into … into that?”
After our encounter with the Sentinel near the dark side of the moon, I started thinking of several ways that I could detect them, based off graviational—
“Skip the scienc-y stuff. That’s the way you use the Void energy, but it’s not the way Magick works.”
…. It is the way ‘Magick’ works, it’s just not the way it’s perceived by Mystick and the others to work. It’s possible they may have sensed the location of a nearby Sentinel through similar misconceptions, either unintentional or otherwise. As for why they did it, I can’t even begin to fathom—
A piercing wail coming from the direction of Mystick’s brownstone brings M up short.
I round the corner of a building in time to see Macabre land his hulking monstrosity of a body into the roof of a ten-story parking garage, right across the street from Mystick’s brownstone. (Actually, land is a bit of a stretch—more like a gentle crash really.)
Most of the garage’s roof buckles under his weight. The impact scatters concrete and grey dust into the air. He grinds fifty feet across the roof before his tentacles whip out, latching onto the side of the building and jerking him to a sudden stop. Macabre pulls himself to the side of the rooftop, looking down at the steeples of Ms. Mystick’s brownstone far below. The blackness briefly parts—showing a pulsing maw of triangular teeth—and he screeches a yell into the night.
Gabe, I realize that I am fairly new to the idea of this Superhero business, but remind me: We are the good guys in the scenario, correct?
M has a point. It’s almost dawn, so there’s nobody down there but still … holy crap—what have I just unleashed on this city?
“Mystick!” Macabre says, voice deep and loud. “Come! Come to me—face what you have so foolishly wrought!” One of his tentacles absently slaps the side of the garage, dumping a red Mazda onto the street.
An eerie calm follows, filled only by the distant wail of car alarms and Macabre’s hiss-rattled breath.
Then … a small yellow disk of light appears outside the brownstone.
It quickly grows in size, as does the totally hot swimsuit costumed body riding on top of it: Ms. Mystick. Her cloak and dark hair flaps into the night, arcane energy sparks from her fingertips.
Macabre turns his red eyes in her direction and shrieks. Neither of them waste time with bolstering, or any of that other Superhero/Supervillain theatricality stuff that I’m used to. Instead, they jump right to killing each another.
Magickal energies, whispering and laughing, shoot from Mystick’s hands. They stab into the darkness surrounding Macabre, flaring sections of his oily body. Two of Macabre’s tentacles come together, spinning the tips around one another. A purple fireball lights up, then streaks through the night at Mystick. The explosion knocks her off the disk, cartwheeling her through the air. Right before she hits pavement, a second disk forms under her high heels and carries her back up.
Mariachi appears from around the far corner of the garage, crouching low on a flying treble clef. It glows red and leaves a wake of flickering music notes behind him. Mariachi’s fingers pluck at a large guitar, bringing to
life a green blob of energy. It jumps from the strings and nails Macabre underneath a narrowed eye.
Macabre hisses some words and shifts his bulk towards the guitar strumming Sayer. Concrete in the garage’s wall jerks away from the building, forming a giant fist. It punches Mariachi off his treble clef, mid-note.
Poet comes in from my left. She rides on top of yellow words, flying through the night like the opening crawl of a Star Wars movie. The wind pulls at her black trench coat and red scarf.
“Macabre feel my might!” she says. “Nothing can protect/ you this very night!” Poet’s words come to life in front of her lips and slam into Macabre’s side with a quick set of thumping booms.
Macabre raises a tentacle …
But I’m too busy hauling ass for Mystick’s brownstone to see what happens next.
I stop at a hover above the tallest steeple and peer into the circular window. A hypnotic swirl of color meanders back and forth. “M, you picking them up anywhere?”
No, but—like with the island earlier—I’m experiencing a considerable amount of interference. They could be here or in Timbuktu for all I know.
“Alright, direct approach it is then.” I fire a Grav Blast at the window.
Nothing happens. Whatever Magicks that Mystick uses to protect her home are pretty freaking impressive.
“M, give me a blast at fifty percent of our power reserve!”
…. Seriously?
“Just do it!”
After hearing a reluctant sigh in my head, M cranks up the power, and I fire a massive Grav Blast into the window. It smashes apart this time, taking a ten foot chunk of the brick wall with it.
I hover into the smoke, Grav Blast ready in each fist. “PINK?! EMBER?!”
“Here!” Ember says from the corner. She coughs twice.
I fly to the sound of her voice. The smoke starts to clear as she stands, shaking dust from her fiery red hair. “You do know how to make an entrance.”
“Where’s Pink?”
Ember points behind me, still coughing. I round and see Pink hovering near the floor. Her droopy eyes are hard to make out from the rest of her misty body. “Hey, hero,” she says in a weak, disembodied voice. Gold cuffs are locked around her forearms and seem to weigh her down.
I rush to her. “You okay?”
“Why is it people only care if you’re okay when you look like shit?” she says.
For the record, I’ve yet to care.
“Are these cuffs the things that are killing her?”
Ember shakes her head. “They’re just keeping her trapped and weak. Whatever’s killing her will be coming out of these walls.”
I scan the room. Most of the brick wall that I came through is completely destroyed, just chunks of it are left here and there. But … “I can just blast the other walls. Before they have the chance to—”
“Whatever she has in there will just put itself back together. Mystick has them on a sort of timer, to give the Lifelink spell enough time to—”
“They’re not finishing the spell. They’re fighting Macabre.”
Ember’s eyes widen as she puts it together. She takes two steps towards me, irises flaming up—“You and HIM? ARE WORKING TOGETHER?!”
“Hey, you didn’t leave me any options!” I say. “Mystick threw down a gauntlet, scaring the hell out of everyone in Old Prose. Everybody’s too busy running to stop and listen.”
“Can’t imagine why!” Ember points outside. Macabre’s screeches mix with echoing screams from the street. Car horns blare in the distance. Like always, the spectacle-filled battle must have drawn people out of their buildings. And, just like always, they’re placing themselves in danger to catch a glimpse at the latest crazy that has attacked the city. They’re probably counting on HEROES to save them if they need it, unaware that Mystick has placed a Magickal whammy on them.
“We don’t have time for this,” I say.
“Seconded,” Pink says. She’s mostly just a face, with one end of a long pink cloud in the cuffs.
I take a good look at the cuffs. “Can we just smash these?”
Ember’s fiery eyes hold mine for a moment before she looks down. “Not enough time. They’re too tough. Obi send anything with you?”
“No. Wait …” I power down and reach a into pocket, showing Ember the Magick pencil. “How about this?”
Ember snatches it and puts in on the floor, next to the cuffs. “Solvo!” she says. The pencil raises to an angle, and immediately starts scribbling glowing Latin onto the hardwood.
Pink drifts back and forth. “How long will this take?”
Ember watches the cuffs jitter slightly. “Just a few minutes. We’ll have time.”
The brick walls ripple. I look at Ember.
“We’ll have time,” she says again.
I power back up. “What were you going to do? If I didn’t get here in time, how were you going to free her?”
“Well, gee, guess I would’a used the keys to the Bands of Continuous Containment that you blasted into a million pieces.” Ember gestures to the gapping hole in the side of Mystick’s brownstone.
Keys? Really?
“Don’t make this about me,” I say. “You should have let me know. You should have trusted me. And it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“I did trust you,” Ember says with wide eyes. “Trusted you to do the right thing and bust us—”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Hey, look, cowboy, I know you’re used to playing the hero 24/7. But sometimes, other people are forced to make the call for something you care about. And you gotta trust them to do what’s right.”
“And you pretty much suck at lying,” Pink says. “Like, really, really hard.”
I look down at her. “How did you—?”
“Ember filled me in on the terrible, right before you smashed open that wall … as in the wall where the keys were.”
“Seriously?” I say. “You’re against me on this too? While you’re Magickally handcuffed and all?”
“Look, Gabe, I’m no stranger to secrecy,” Pink says. “And I know exactly how big time awful it can be. But sometimes it’s necessary. Either there isn’t enough time to tell who you wanna tell or the telling does more harm than good. From what Ember said, it was a little of both.”
A silence passes between us, filled only with the sound of Magickal energy blasts in the distance and the pencil furiously scribbling on the floor. Ember crosses her arms and clenches her jaw.
“You BOTH did what you had to do,” Pink says, eyeing Ember. “And whatever happens, I’m good with it. But if you frak up my rescue because you’re too busy bitching, and I get dead-like—it’s really, really going to piss me off.” Pink’s eyes pass back and forth between us. “I mean—really.”
I think about everything that Ember has been through. About everything she would’ve had to do up until this point: lying to one of the most powerful Sayers on the planet, hurting the one person that helped her during one of the most awful moments in her life … I think about the type of brutal honesty that defines who she is and realize just how difficult last night must have been for her.
“…. Thank you,” I say, barely above a whisper.
Ember flicks a quick glance towards Macabre’s wailing and gives me a small nod.
“How much longer?” I look at the pencil.
“Another two minutes,” Ember says. “Maybe three.”
The brick in the room ripples again. And again. And again. The bricks from the shattered wall slowly roll towards one another …
A long sword ignites in Ember’s right hand, a triangular shield in her left. They match the color of her glowing eyes and throw an orange glow throughout the room. “Unless of course Mystick had these things trigger if you got close.”
These … things?
Small round heads of brick and mortar rip away from the walls. They sprout long teeth and pointed ears. Tiny wings unfold from their backs and f
lap, freeing them from the three foot holes. The shattered brick piles on top of itself and slowly takes similar shapes.
At least thirty little gargoyle-looking things growl at us, odd patterns glow yellow on their forearms. Ember and I press our backs to each other, standing over the scribbling pencil and Pink’s cuffs.
“Those patterns on their arms are meant to disrupt Magickal energy. If they get their hands on Pink—”
Pink jerks at the cuffs again, her eyes on the scribbling pencil. “How about we not let that happen, Mr. and Ms. Rescuer?”
“We got this,” I say, back to back with Ember. “We can do this. We just gotta keep them away from that pencil long enough to—”
Something slams into me. Hard.
I’m suddenly outside, bouncing off a street light and crashing through the roof of a parked Yaris.
I just lie there, listening to Macabre’s angry shrieks from two blocks away. It takes me a few moments to piece it together. “M?”
Someone hit us.
“Ya think?” I kick away what’s left of the car door. “Why didn’t you give me a heads up?”
Don’t blame me. You know want this rampant Ramma Radiation is doing to my senses. Whatever it was came from the adjoining room and whacked us before even I knew what was going on.
I look up: Someone that has to be Braille hovers above me, hands balled into fists. Red and black tattoos completely cover most of his body, leaving only a little bit of brown skin around his eyes. Swirly patterns at his ankles glow crimson and ripple whispering energy below his feet. “Did you really believe that we trusted Eldtrich’s Ward so completely?” he says. “So foolishly?”
I shrug. “Can’t believe anybody with all that ink would consider himself a good guy, buuut …”
Braille’s lip curls away from his teeth.
Oh, that’s wonderful, Gabe. Agitate the very powerful individual even further.
The tattoos around his right forearm glow, spiral away from his skin and collect into a crackling ball of energy. He hurls it at me with a roar.
I take to the air, Yaris exploding behind me. Braille flings another two blasts. I turn sideways and they miss—crashing through the fifth floor of Prose Banking and Trust.
