by Paul Neuhaus
Meanwhile, Quinn burst like a supernova, burning the ground and any Channelers unfortunate enough to be too close. She screamed again as David and Molly skidded to a halt in front of her. Both of them held. Their entire demeanor formed a question. Now what?
But Molly knew. In an instant, she knew exactly what to do. She stood in place and straightened her spine. She closed her eyes and stabilized her excited breathing. She reached out with her mind.
A lightless space. Quinn hung suspended just as she did in the outside world. Here, however, she was not covered in white flame, though she still writhed with pain and fear. Molly went to her and, though she couldn’t pull her girlfriend down, she laid hands upon her and spoke in a soothing voice. “Quinn,” she said. “Come back to me. You don’t have to do this.”
Henaghan’s green eyes opened. She couldn’t move her head. She had no control over her body save for her eyes and her mouth. “Oh god, oh god. It hurts. It hurts.”
Molly refused to cry. She had to be Quinn’s rock. She had to get tough if necessary. “Quinn, honey, you have to fight her off. You have to be as strong as I know you can be. If you don’t fight her off, she’ll take you from me the same way she took Josie. You have to help me find Josie.”
With that, the redhead’s eyes opened wider and she fought against the demonic will straining to dominate her. She fought until she could raise her head and flex her fingers. She fought until she could bend at the waist and wave her feet in the air. She fought until she could spin along her own axis and look down at what would’ve been the ground in the shared space Molly created with her empathy.
None of it was enough. A sharp, angry voice intruded from the outside. “Good daughters obey their mother. Quinn, your mother is telling you to leave the nest and fly free.”
Like a marionette, Henaghan rolled back over and all the work she’d done with her own body was erased. She hung rigid again, but not for long. She jolted up into a vertical position and burst into flames even within the place of love Molly had constructed. Molly was blown back into the black and was lost to sight.
Molly Blank rolled to a stop next to Sam. Sam caught her and checked her for injuries. The brunette had had the wind knocked out of her but was otherwise unharmed.
Quinn, her arms stretched out to either side, hung in the air like a phoenix. She rotated so she was facing the Channelers, both Tilted and Resolute.
Nisha stepped to the side. She addressed the assembled users of magic. “You people here. You are abominations. Creations of a perverted race. You should never have existed. Now, my Herald will undo the Asura’s work.”
Quinn attacked, launching comets of alabaster flame. Some Channelers dodged, others did not. A few died under consuming fires.
David Olkin gathered his small entourage around him and gave them their orders. He also gave a psychic cry that was heard on the other side of the Celestial Pictures Ranch.
On the Resolute side, a tall man with a long hair and a full beard rallied his own troops. They gathered around him and struck combat stances. They pointed themselves at Quinn Henaghan.
Quinn pulsed with heat as the flames surrounding her pumped in an out. She made a sound like a bellows in a hot forge. Her eyes glowed and her perfect white teeth were clenched in a smile. After only a moment of keen observation, she whirled into action, a floating weapons platform with the targeting prowess of a computer. She launched a barrage of precision strikes and took out several of her new-found enemies. Many of the casters blew away on the slight breeze. Nothing left of them but black ash.
Nisha took two steps backward toward the building. She wanted to give her daughter room to work. “Good,” she said. “Excellent. Kill the ones you love, Quinn. Their deaths will stoke your fires.”
Henaghan’s face was frozen in a rictus smile. Somehow, that smile got even wider. She pivoted in the air so she was facing David Olkin and, behind him, Molly Blank. She brought her hands in, pulling even greater energies of destruction toward herself so she could hurl them at her former boss and her lover. As she made to extend her arms and unleash certain death, Olkin placed his body as best he could so that he would absorb the blow and Molly could survive. In his heart, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He knew the torrent of flame Quinn was about to let fly would cut through everything it touched.
A fusillade of ice and fire striking from above upset the Herald's aim. She looked up and screamed. The other Jihma had appeared, summoned by David’s call. They had their bearings right away and they made Quinn their focus.
Quinn was knocked to the ground, unprepared for such a coordinated assault.
Across the lawn, the Resolute Channelers seized upon the opportunity and they too launched an assault on the downed Aja. Their barrage knocked the girl backward along the ground so hard that she left a smoking trench in her wake.
David Olkin’s mind raced as he jetted forward. He didn’t think a simple magical attack would suffice to undo Nisha’s work upon Quinn. He doubted they could kill her; he doubted they could free her with force. A question came to his mind, What would Quinn do? She had told him about her victories against Chuck Sato and Reginald Verbic. She was a sorceress of astonishing power, but she hadn’t won those battles with brute force alone. She’d won them because she was whip smart. Since no truly novel approach came to him, he elected to use one of Henaghan’s own strategies against her.
Molly saw the newly-arrived Tilted launch another attack. She saw Olkin and his men move across the ground toward where Quinn had fallen. She saw the Resolute, under the direction of the bearded man, move to join Olkin. She knew that her lover was the object of their angry assault. She stood, Sam forgotten beside her. She ran toward the center of the mayhem. “No!” she screamed.
Sam’s orange eyes went wide when she saw the brunette dash away. She could sense Blank’s unique gift of empathy, but she also knew Blank was not a Channeler. The woman would be ground up by the blades of the multi-pronged battle taking place nearby. The woman with the gray skin sprang to her feet, ran and tackled Molly, holding her pressed to the ground. “You can’t,” she said. “You can’t.”
The Herald didn’t stand. She rose into the air again from where she’d fallen. She better understood the forces arranged around her. Surprise was no longer a weapon that could be used against her. Around her, a perfect circle of flaming spikes formed, pointing outward like a porcupine’s quills. She turned her upper body to her left. Her intention to spin to her right and launch the spikes in all directions.
Sam got up off of Molly. “Stay here if you want to live,” she said to Blank. Then she launched herself in Nisha’s direction. She understood that her actions might result in catastrophe, but if a catastrophe was the only way to end this madness, a catastrophe it would have to be.
Olkin snapped a bubble of force around Quinn just as Quinn prepared to spin her body and launch her flaming darts. The agent immediately began draining the maya out of the bubble. His intention was to suffocate Henaghan enough to break her connection with Nisha. If he could do that, he could, at the very least, ensure Quinn’s survival—although his fondest wish was that Quinn would be brought back to herself enough to join them when they turned the battle in Nisha’s direction.
Suddenly cut off from maya, the Herald’s spikes disappeared. She knew she was in a spot. She knew she had to free herself from the bubble as quickly as possible or her effectiveness as a weapon would end. Her mission was to wipe all Channelers from the Earth and she’d just gotten started. She couldn’t be stopped now by such a hackneyed tactic. She gathered her energies into herself and held them at her center until they’d taken on greater and greater potency. Then she hurled them outward with the intention of shattering the sphere around her. The plan backfired. The bubble held, and the fires fell back in upon their creator. The Herald was almost undone by her own magic.
Nisha knew her weapon was in trouble. Rather than goad Quinn into greater feats of Channeling, the Deva turned her attention to the s
ource of the difficulty. David Olkin. The woman made of light locked her stance and shot a laser-like blast of energy at the agent. Olkin was hurled backward into the trees. His concentration was shattered and the bubble of force around Quinn popped.
On the ground, not far from where David had once stood, Brad launched himself into the air after his new leader.
Molly got up and ran across the uneven ground toward Quinn. She’d heard Sam’s words. She didn’t care if she lived or died. Saving her lover’s life was more important to her than saving her own.
Sam again slammed into Nisha. Nisha’s eyes were still pointed at the spot David had stood upon and she was blindsided by the attack. Sam set her fists alight and rained blow after blow down upon the Deva.
The Herald fell out of the burst bubble and, for a second, the white flame surrounding her sputtered. It kicked back on again as she regained her feet and took stock of the forces rushing toward her. She’d been caught unawares once. It wouldn’t happen again.
In the forest, Brad caught David and redirected himself back toward the battle. He was relieved. He could sense Olkin’s breathing.
The fight at the reclamation plant was upset by the sudden trembling of the ground. The Earth was made angry by the warring Deva and Asura. Nisha had spun her body so she could face her opponent. She knew that such a battle could result in world-changing consequences. Once, long ago, another Asura had fought her and the entire world changed beneath their feet. She didn’t want that to happen again—mostly because it would distract her Herald from work that needed doing. She gathered energy to herself so she could shove Sam away with magic, but Sam continued to rain fiery blows upon the Deva’s head and face. Nisha had never encountered such unbridled rage before. Though she did not understand why, this creation of Reginald Verbic’s hated her with a deep passion.
Behind the two women, the building shook itself apart.
The tremors upset everyone. The Channelers rushing in on Quinn lost their footing. Molly fell to the ground. Brad landed upon an uncertain patch of land and nearly dropped his burden. Even Quinn was shaken, although she’d again taken to the air.
Nisha sent a message only her Herald could hear. “Daughter. Come to me.”
The ground split wide. Several magic-users—some of them Tilted, some of them Resolute—were swallowed.
The Herald turned and answered her mother’s call. With her right hand, she gestured, and a wall of force came up between her and the Channelers charging toward her. With her right hand, she drove a spike of flame into Sam’s back, opening up a gaping wound with black edges.
Sam raised her head. She was made feral by the sudden, intense pain of Quinn’s attack. With her burning right hand, she held onto Nisha’s throat. With her left hand, she punched the air and a fireball shot out and flew toward Henaghan.
The tremors grew in severity. More cracks appeared on the already-fractured ground. Molly twisted her ankle and fell. She was still several yards from Quinn and she’d seen the way Quinn had lashed out at she and Olkin. She knew that Quinn was no longer Quinn and she didn’t know if she had the strength to bring the redhead back. She decided she had to try.
Sam’s fireball struck the Herald, buffeting her backward. The hybrid creature was stronger than the other Channelers on the field, but she wasn’t as strong as the Herald. The only reason Nisha was vulnerable was because of the Asura blood running through Sam’s veins. The parity between the two creatures was preordained by mystic laws.
The Herald lashed out again.
David Olkin suffered from one or two cracked ribs, but he went to Molly Blank as best he could. He knelt down beside the brunette. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” he said. “These men… They’re all going to die. Is there anything you can do? Is there anything you can try?”
Molly sat up and felt a twinge in her leg. Her ankle was badly twisted. She spoke up over the din of the fighting and the spasms shaking the earth. “I don’t know, David. I talked to her once already. But I’m going to try.”
The combined forces of the Tilted and the Resolute did their best to flank Quinn and get around the shield she erected on her right side. Many of them scrambled over the broken bricks and spouting pipes that’d once been the reclamation plant. Even as the Herald hurled wave after wave of icy force at Sam, she moved the shield so that it faced her would-be attackers.
Sam realized that the harder she pressed her attack against Nisha the stronger the evolving catastrophe became around her. Though Quinn’s fists of ice buffeted her and broke her bones, she leaned into Nisha with all her might. Nisha wasn’t complacent. She clawed back at her hybrid attacker and yelled with rage. Good, Sam thought. The more she resists me, the worse it gets. A giant fissure opened up and swallowed the interlocked titans. They plunged into the earth.
The Herald dropped her shield wall and rose higher into the air, building momentum so she could follow Sam and Nisha into the ground. As she reached the top of her arc and prepared to dive, a wave of force struck her. But it wasn’t fire and it wasn’t ice.
It was Reason.
Molly had once again pulled Quinn into a black space. Quinn was wide-eyed and terrified. Terrified that Molly was keeping her from her mother’s rescue. Molly wasn’t terrified. Molly was enraged. “Stop!” she screamed. “You tried to kill me! You tried to kill David! You’re abandoning Josie! Why? Why would you do that? That’s not you. This isn’t who you are, and you know it. We need you out here and you’re fucking it up! Stop it now!”
Henaghan froze, looking back and forth between and her soulmate and the woman who’s DNA she shared. She started to rush out of the dream-space and rescue Nisha.
Molly screamed at her again. “Stop! Stop, goddam it! Don’t you leave me all alone. I can’t do this without you. We’re a team. I can help you if you’d just listen.” Blank took tentative steps toward Henaghan. Her hands were out. “Let me hold you,” she said. “Let me bring you back.”
Again, Quinn hesitated. She seemed less certain. She was confused. She was torn.
Still, Molly came closer. “Quinn… Do you love me, Quinn?”
“I…” Henaghan was struggling. She put her hands on the sides of her head and shook all over. She wanted to shake the conflict out of her frame. She wanted to free herself from indecision.
“I love you, Quinn. Do you love me?”
The redhead dropped her hands and spun her head toward Blank. Every word she said was a battle with herself. “I. Love. You.”
“Come to me, Quinn,” the older woman said. “Meet me in the middle.”
Henaghan took two steps toward Molly and then she pushed her violently away with the force of her magic.
Far beneath the ground, Sam and Nisha fell and fell. Shifting plates of shale and dry earth shot past them as their speed increased. Below them—far below them but coming up fast—a river of slow magma flowed. Sam punched Nisha’s face and Nisha dug into Sam’s flesh. Sam realized that not only was the catastrophe accelerating with the violence of their battle so was an unseen force ripping the two of them apart. The disintegration of their bodies was mirrored by the natural violence surrounding them. Sam pressed her attack.
The Herald stumbled backward, dropping her defensive wall. The frost and flame coming at her from the attacking Channelers got through and rocked her left and right, right and left.
But the Herald didn’t fight back. She didn’t plunge into the crack in the ground to rescue her mother. She looked with wide eyes at Molly Blank and shot into the sky. The sudden acceleration sent rocks and clods of dirt rocketing through the air like shrapnel.
A wide, flat rock struck Molly in the face and she went down.
Nisha and Sam crashed into the lava and it ate at both of them. Between the relentlessness of Sam’s attack and the melted rock burning her back, Nisha screamed. Sam screamed too as she tried to hold the Deva’s head beneath the molten river. The magma burned the Asura’s fingers and pulled the skin away from the bones.
Nisha finally realized she was in mortal danger, so she gathered whatever fetid air she could and balled it tight between herself and her enemy. Then she expanded it and Sam shot upward off of her. The force also pushed Nisha further under the lava. She felt something then she was not used to feeling: the weakness of lower creatures when their bodies are damaged, and they fear for their lives.
The Herald broke the sound barrier as she rose. The sonic boom was heard by everyone below. She was Quinn again, but not. Two consciousnesses warred inside her. A master and a servant. Quinn was the master, the Herald was the servant. Quinn fought herself for renewed dominance over her own self. The Herald was reluctant to surrender the ground it had gained.
The Herald, a creature of power and of appetite, did not realize how smart Quinn was.
By taking to the sky, Henaghan hoped to diminish her mother’s grip. Maybe, with distance, Nisha’s hold on her would attenuate.
The plan was working. As the blue earth slipped further and further away, the redhead reclaimed more and more of herself.
The Herald realized what was happening, but it realized too late. By the time Quinn broke through the top of the atmosphere and ran out of air, she was, again, fully Quinn.
On the ground, the earthquakes had stopped, and an eerie stillness had descended over the reclamation plant. No one was quite sure what had happened. No one knew where their enemies had gone. Resolute and Tilted looked at one another, equally confused, and equally out of breath.
