New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet

by C. J. Carella

  Had trying to boost both of them simultaneously been the problem, though? She considered the question as she continued kneeling over the toilet, just in case her stomach decided the fun wasn’t over and another bout of reverse peristalsis was in the cards.

  Probably not. Either one of them would have been just as bad on their own; even worse, after failing with one of them, she’d have had to try with the other, which would have doubled her un-pleasure. Trying it at all had been the mistake, not trying to do both at once. But she’d had to try. What was she supposed to say, she only was willing to power-up her boyfriend, so too bad, you guys? Turn her back on two people who had risked their frakking lives for her? They were criminals thanks to her. Kestrel had gotten tortured along the way, and not in a way she would have enjoyed it. Condor had lost most of his possessions. She owed them. So she’d tried.

  What a mess.

  As it turned out, not all auras were created equal. Mark’s had been flawed and scarred but still beautiful and warm. There had been some beauty and warmth in Condor and Kestrel’s auras, but the scars had been so much worse. So very much worse.

  Christine heaved again. OMG.

  To modify Mark’s aura, Christine had to break through its protective barriers, the psychic membrane that kept it separated from the rest of the universe, inasmuch as each individual entity was separated from the rest of the universe, which was not all that much, but that wasn’t important now. She’d achieved that when she brought him back from the brink of death, and found it easier to do it the second time, when she boosted his powers. The experience had been more intimate than sex, a live blood transfusion, telepathy, a full OBGYN exam and donating a kidney combined.

  She had tried to do the same with the Deviant Duo.

  Talk about incompatible personalities.

  She’d never even gotten close to cracking the outer shell for either of them. Just the attempt had sent her running for the nearest bathroom, which thankfully hadn’t been too far, or Condor’s expensive carpets and rich Corinthian leather thingies would be in dire need of cleaning just about now. That had been one of the worst experiences of her life, which was saying a hell of a lot, given how many worst experiences of her life she’d had during the last week.

  Condor. Kyle Carmichael. Rich spoiled kid until his kidnapping and torture. She’d heard the basics of the story and – oh, so thankfully – hadn’t picked up any actual details of what his ordeal had been like. She’d only picked up the results, and they had been bad enough. Kyle had been broken and seduced at the same time, made to endure incredible torments – physical, mental and sexual – and been manipulated into developing a rapport with his tormentors. When his powers had manifested, he had turned the tables and become the tormentor, and what he had done to his captors had been just as horrible as what he had endured; the things he’d done had scarred him as badly as the things they did to him. Pain and pleasure had become inextricably linked. For the most part, however, he had repressed that side of himself. He’d controlled his urges by sticking to a strict set of rules that kept his inner demons leashed, and managed to do so for a long time.

  Then he’d met Kestrel.

  Melanie Bauer’s story had been similar in many ways, but her twisted tale of abuse had started much earlier, decades earlier, and had lasted decades longer. She was older than Kyle; Christine couldn’t tell exactly how much, but Melanie’s soul was old, old and not merely scarred; it had been mutilated by a process that had started when she was a child and had lasted well into adulthood, when, like Kyle, her Neo powers had come forth and she had escaped, physically if not spiritually. Only her incredible inner strength saved her from being completely destroyed, but that strength became something hideous, something seeking a release that was forever denied.

  The combination had been like chocolate and peanut butter blended in the deepest pit of Hell. Kyle’s inner demons were still in check, somewhat, but he was letting them out to play, more and more, every day he spent with Kestrel, and Kestrel was torn between longing for a normal relationship and seeing how much stress she could put into it before it shattered. The word dysfunctional didn’t begin to cover it.

  Mark had been scarred by the incident with his stepfather and the years of abuse that preceded it, but those psychic wounds had been nothing compared to what happened to Melanie and Kyle. It was like comparing a first-degree burn on your hand with two people who had barely survived being incinerated from head to toe. What remained was irreversibly changed. When Christine had tried to connect with them, the emotional feedback had nearly destroyed her. She had been able to survive Mark’s pain, but this was too much. There was no way she could meld her aura or soul or whatever with them. No effing way.

  Not good. Not good at all.

  Christine flushed the toilet, washed her face, and rinsed her mouth. She was glad she had sensibly tied her hair back in a ponytail before starting the ill-advised psychic experiment. Mark had tried to come into the bathroom with her but she’d waved him away. She’d needed to puke and sob in private. The combination of revulsion and pity she’d felt had been terrible, but the worst thing had been an undercurrent of fascinated attraction, a tug at some dark part within herself that had felt drawn to the bottomless pit of twisted pain and pleasure she’d glimpsed inside of them. That had terrified her. If she had pushed on, she might have ended up as warped as they were. That would be really, really bad; being Armageddon Girl was bad enough. Dark Armageddon Girl would much, much worse.

  Being empathic could suck big time. People were better off guessing at what went on inside other people’s hearts and minds.

  She dried her face and stepped out of the bathroom. Mark was waiting right outside.

  “I’m okay,” she said before he could ask. Nothing a few years of intensive psychotherapy can’t fix. That thought she kept to herself. There’d been way too much oversharing already.

  Condor and Kestrel were sitting where she’d left them. They both looked concerned, and the feeling was genuine. The saddest part was that they weren’t bad people, that they still mostly did what they thought was right. Condor had kept rein over his dark impulses by living up to a rigid code of honor; so had Kestrel, for the most part, although her code was a lot looser regarding who deserved her special attention. The problem was that rigid objects could break if you put enough pressure on them. Christine realized that even if she could, giving those two more power wasn’t a good idea. They had too much power as it was, and if or when they lost control over their dark sides, things were going to go very badly for everyone concerned.

  “I’m sorry,” she told them. “I tried, but I can’t connect with your auras like I did with Mark. I think it only worked that time because he was almost dead.” That was probably true, and even if it wasn’t it made for a convenient explanation, a much better one than ‘Your souls are so twisted and messed up it hurts too much to link with them.’

  “Can’t be helped,” Condor said. “Thank you for trying.” Kestrel nodded in agreement. Christine picked up their disappointment and a trace of suspicion, more than a trace in Kestrel’s case. It was natural to wonder whether or not Christine had chosen not to help them. Especially since their suspicions weren’t all that far off the mark.

  * * *

  Lunch kinda sucked, since her stomach was still not fully recovered from the morning’s festivities. Afterwards, she and Mark went for a walk around the manor grounds, which comprised enough acreage to host Coachella and Burning Man at the same time. She wanted to talk to Mark somewhere away from the others.

  So did he. As soon as they’d put some distance between them and the manor, he spoke up. “So was it a matter of couldn’t or wouldn’t?” It hurt her that he was suspicious, but she couldn’t really blame him.

  “Couldn’t. I wasn’t sure if I should have, but I tried it anyway.”

  “Okay. I thought you had. I know the puking wasn’t an act. Can’t say I was eager to see what Kestrel would be like as a Type Three,
but I’m glad you were willing to give them a chance.”

  “I was. But the reason for all the throwing up wasn’t me trying and failing. I…” She tried to think of how to say it without sounding like a d-bag.

  “You got inside their heads and didn’t like what you saw,” he said.

  She nodded. “Mark, they’re both really messed up. It’s not just Melanie. If I’d managed to do the full-monty aura meld thingy with either of them, it would have driven me insane, literally.”

  He hung his head. “I always thought Condor would make a great Ultimate. He’s always tried to do the right thing. The guy convinced me to let people live I would have put six feet under otherwise. Helped me a lot when I was just a confused kid with more power than was good for him. Taught me there were rules, and that we should stick to them. Between him and Cassandra, they kept me from killing people just because they pissed me off. Are you saying that was nothing but bullshit?” The question wasn’t challenging or defensive. He wanted to know, and he would take her word for it.

  “No, it wasn’t all bullshit,” she said. “He is a good man. He’s just…” She groped for the right words again, and again he figured it out before she did.

  “He’s bent, isn’t he?” he said. “I can see the way he and Kestrel are. She’s being one hundred percent herself, more than she ever was with me, not even after she got comfortable enough to show me her kinky side. He’s like her, isn’t he? He was before he met her, but he was better than her at keeping it hidden.”

  “You’re doing pretty well for a guy without empathy powers.”

  “I pay attention is all. I didn’t want to see it, but it was right in front of my notional nose. And when I was with Kestrel I did get to hang out with some people in her community, so I learned a few things.” He paused for a second. “How much do you know about the BDSM lifestyle?”

  “Not a lot,” she admitted. “I mean, some of the romance novels I read have stuff along those lines. No personal knowledge, not really.” Almost none, that is, she didn’t say. Once, Jerry had suggested tying her hands to the bedpost before having his way with her, and she’d politely declined. The whole thing had felt a little too rapey and scary for her taste. Jerry had made an offhand comment about how prude Americans were, and left it at that.

  “I used to have lots of prejudices,” Mark went on. “Raised Catholic, and both my Puerto Rican and Italian relatives had pretty firm ideas about what’s right and what isn’t. Homophobia and so on. Over the years I’ve learned that who people want to fuck and how they want to fuck them have very little to do with what kind of person they are, as long as we’re talking about consenting adults, of course. So I’ve grown out of most of that shit.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said.

  “Anyway, most BDSM lifestylers I met were just people, nothing wrong going on with them. When it comes to their games, the sub holds most of the power, because he or she is the one who decides when the game has gone too far and it’s time to stop. There is trust and mutual respect; a healthy BDSM relationship is not abusive.”

  “Okay.” That made things a bit less scary. Thinking back, she realized she’d shot down Jerry’s idea so quickly because down deep she didn’t trust him. He never laid a nonconsensual finger on her, but he still managed to abuse her in his own so-very-clever way, the d-bag. No way she was going to let him have all the control in a situation like that. That didn’t mean she wanted anybody to tie her up, but knowing she would be the one in control made it feel less rapey.

  “But then there are the unhealthy relationships,” Mark went on. “The ones where the doms treat the subs like shit for real, not just during play, where they get into their heads and make them feel like they are shit, like they deserve every bit of abuse they get. And the unhealthy subs take it because there’s something missing or broken inside them, and they think the abuse fills that hole somehow. The bad doms are also fucked in the head, of course, although my sympathy for them ain’t all that great.”

  “You don’t need whips and chains for all that to happen, either,” Christine said.

  “Nope, although the whips and chains can make it worse. You can excuse a lot of bruises that happen during play even when they really are just another version of getting slapped around by your dearly beloved. But anyway, Kestrel is definitely on the unhealthy side, both as a top and a bottom. I saw it the few times I went along with her games. So, for her to be as happy as she is now, means that she’s either gotten a lot healthier about her kinks, or she’s found someone who’s as broken as she is. And from the look you’re giving me, it’s Option Number Two all the way.”

  Christine looked down. “I think it happened to him during his kidnapping. It changed him.”

  “Okay. Makes sense.” He shook his head. “He always seemed like he had his shit together. Fuck. Does anybody have his shit together?”

  “He’s still a good guy, Mark. Look at all the good things he’s done. Sure, he has issues, but let’s face it, anybody who wears a skintight costume and runs around fighting crime has got to have some screws loose.”

  She felt a grin coming from him. “Yeah, that’s a good point. But it all boils down to one thing; he’s too messed up for you to reach him.”

  “Yes. He is.”

  “Worse than me?”

  She took his hand and squeezed it. “Nothing like you, okay? You’re angry because something horrible happened to you. It’s… it’s a lot worse with him. And more complicated.”

  “I still get off hurting assholes. I believe you wanted to discuss that with me.”

  “At some point, yes. But this is probably not a good time, again.” She wondered if there ever would be a good time.

  “Yep. Second-guessing yourself when you have to make split-second decisions is a great way to get killed. Although it’s a bit less of an issue now that you’ve boosted me.”

  “You saw John almost get killed in a couple of seconds. And I don’t think that you are tougher than him, even after I power-leveled you.”

  Mark shrugged. “No, I guess I’m not. Wouldn’t mind finding out at some point.”

  “Men!” Christine grumbled. “Do you guys really need to out-epeen each other all the effing time?”

  Well, if Mark really needs to know his and John’s relative non-e peen sizes, you could tell him, her brain threw in. After all, you’ve seen both of them.

  Yeah, that little tidbit was going on the Things Best Left Unsaid file.

  “Sorry,” Mark said. “I don’t care for the guy. No good reason why. Plain envy, mostly.”

  She started to say something in John’s defense but thought better of it. Let’s face it; she had been more than a bit smitten by the big guy, and she thought the big guy might have returned the sentiment. But that was all moot; she was with Mark. Besides, John’s age pushed just too many eww buttons for her. She’d made her choice.

  “Anyhoo,” she said nonchalantly. “Guess we have to start getting ready for our trip. And I need to go shopping again, if you think it’s safe.” Today she was wearing a borrowed skirt and top from Melanie, and even though Melanie liked her skirts very tight and very short, she still was like five inches taller than Christine, so both skirt and top were way too big even after the judicious application of several safety pins.

  “We should be okay, as long as we’re careful. I figure we can head back to New York tomorrow. Condor’s letting me borrow one of the cars in the garage. I was thinking of taking the Ferrari, but we probably should settle for something a little less conspicuous.”

  “Considering we’re in the FBI’s Most Wanted list, among many others, yeah, conspicuous sounds bad.”

  “Fine. I’ll settle for his Tucker Luxor. It’s nice, but it’ll blend in just fine with the other traffic.”

  “Cool.”

  “We’ll meet with Father Alex, set up our travel plans, and maybe we can catch a show. You ever seen Cats?”

  “You have Cats here?”

  “Yea
h, it’s been on Broadway since forever: the immortal tale of a Neo girl who can talk to cats and the vanilla boy who loves her. What’s so funny?”

  Face-Off

  Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia; March 20, 2013

  I looked out the window as the plane made its final approach, and got to see lots of trees. The airport was some distance from the city proper, with a big chunk of forest on one side, and a town or suburbs elsewhere. Christine was napping on the aisle seat; she’d said she’d seen enough high flying to last her a lifetime, and she was going to enjoy “flying inside something for a change.” For much of the flight, she’d been reading one of the three dozen or so books she had downloaded into her wrist-comp. She’d gone through Martin’s Aces and Eights fairly quickly, and had been working on the sequel, Trump Card, last time I checked. She’d probably finished it before taking her nap; Christine was a fast reader, faster than me, and I usually could devour a book in a few hours.

  When not reading, she’d spent the rest of her awake time watching the in-flight movies: an inane family comedy starring John Belushi, who was getting far too old for that shit, followed by a ridiculously over-the-top action flick about the 2009 giant monster attack on New York City. I’d been there, mostly pretty far from the action, but I knew the giant monster had been nowhere near as big as the one in the movie, and it certainly hadn’t toppled half of the skyscrapers around Midtown, either. In fact, the Legion and the Guardians had largely kept it at bay, although it and its smaller spawn had inflicted a good deal of damage. I guessed it made for a better movie if the monster destroyed most of Manhattan before its final-reel demise. ‘Inspired by real events’ my ass.