Monster of the Dark

by KT Belt

  The two girls were holding each, shivering in terror. Their hair was colorful and styled badly but styled nonetheless. If fell over their faces in a tear-soaked mess. In contrast to Carmen’s all-covering body armor, their clothes plunged very low in some places and were uncomfortably short in others.

  Just before they could answer, the lights started flashing.

  “Why are the lights flashing, Ava?” one of them murmured.

  “I don’t know, Taylor.”

  Carmen involuntarily stiffened as she turned to look at the foyer. The holoprojectors shorted out and failed throughout the store, and the lights flashed with even wilder intensity.

  Artemis was coming.

  18

  Edge vs. Artemis

  It was all really very silly. Yet, for some reason, applying the nonsense was unexpectedly fun in a way she was never before allowed to experience. She puckered her lips and slowly turned her head from side to side.

  “You’re right,” Artemis said. “This color does match my hair better.”

  “Glad you like it,” the stylist said with a trembling voice.

  Artemis ignored the stylist’s quivering and examined her reflection again. She undeniably looked better with lipstick than without. Strange how such a subtle addition made such a drastic change.

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  There was a response, though it was not one Artemis was expecting.

  “What do you want from us?” one of the store patrons screamed in terrified frustration.

  The lot of them were huddled together not too far from the Clairvoyant. Ramses’s corpse was opposite them and to Artemis’s back. She could see it in the mirror but strategically placed her head so it was out of view. The stylist next to her had stood perfectly still after the outburst, as did everyone else. There were whimpers and moans of fear when Artemis glanced in the direction of her unwilling company.

  “I waited my turn,” she said nonchalantly. “You can go after me if you want. I’m almost done. So, lipstick, blush…what’s next?” she asked again, getting back to business.

  The lack of response from the stylist, still frozen in place, prompted Artemis to glare at her with narrowing eyes.

  “Oh, ah…mascara maybe,” the woman said with a start.

  “Okay, let’s try that,” Artemis agreed, still turning her head from side to side to examine her new look.

  The stylist picked up the brush, but her hands were trembling so badly that she dropped it. Artemis caught the item telekinetically and brought it to her own hand.

  “I can do it. Just tell me how,” she said.

  “Well, hold it like this.”

  “Mmhmm.” She leaned closer to the mirror as she brought the brush to her eye.

  “Just make sure you—”

  “Artemis!” came an echo from the foyer.

  Everyone in the room jumped, save for the Clairvoyant.

  “Wish I was able to finish first,” she said softly to herself. “I have to go. Sorry, but as I said, I don’t have any money.”

  The stylist swallowed hard. “That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  She stood and posed one last time in front of the mirror. Then she walked toward the huddled people and dropped to her knees.

  “Artemis!”

  The call made her eyes narrow—she could never help it. But the feeling passed quickly when she looked at the little girl and her mother. The woman still held her daughter close and squeezed her tighter as the Clairvoyant drew near. The girl had long since abandoned any fear.

  “Remember what’s about to happen,” Artemis said softly. “Don’t believe what anyone who wasn’t here says about it.”

  Then she stood and made for the exit, pausing briefly to sneer at Ramses’s body. With that, she walked out of the store, a picture of total calm. Yet there was a spark along her arm as she began to descend the glass stairway to the foyer. Then there was another spark. Shortly thereafter, the lights of the mall developed an odd flicker that only grew in intensity.

  Even the non-Clairvoyants awaiting Artemis knew she was coming and that she was preparing for battle. It took several seconds for Carmen to realize her breath was firing in rapid pulses timed to the beat of her quickening heart. Her mouth was dry when she first caught a glimpse of her.

  The fellow one-percenter descended the stairs in complete casual disregard for the force arrayed against her. Indeed, she knew Carmen was here. Her glowing eyes looked right where she was hiding before she turned her attention to Captain Logos.

  Logos stood in the center of the foyer, alone and without cover before one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, completely undeterred. Carmen had never seen anything like it. She couldn’t sense him with his TC2 switched on, but not one aspect of him seemed stressed in any way. Carmen felt the sweat on her brow and couldn’t help feeling a small bit of shame in comparison.

  The lights stopped flashing, and Artemis’s eyes no longer glowed. She reached the main foyer and walked toward Logos, who was still a good distance away. Oddly enough, the Clairvoyant wore a dark purple dress. In any other context, she would look like just another young woman at the mall.

  Logos slowly brought his rifle to his shoulder. It all happened faster than Carmen was ready for.

  “Get on the floor, face down!” Logos commanded.

  Artemis stopped in place. “Captain Logos, I hoped it would be you.”

  “Down on the floor, now!”

  Artemis opened her arms wide, seemingly welcoming what was to come.

  “All right, take her out!”

  Every member of the suppression team had set their rifles to full power. The combined weight of their report was deafening. The glass of the store Carmen was in shattered. Ava and Taylor screamed, though even Carmen couldn’t hear them. Hypersonic bullets that missed Artemis chewed into the floor where she was standing, kicking up a cloud of dust from the debris. Glass, plaster, and steel behind the Clairvoyant crumbled to bits from stray fire. Sparks and heat flashes from the pure kinetic energy of the bullet impacts reduced that small area of Crystal Palace Mall to a smoldering hell. Then every member of the team reloaded and unleashed a second volley.

  Yet, when it was all over and the dust finally settled, Artemis remained standing in place, arms still held wide. Now there was a smirk on her face, as well as the sound of hundreds of bullets falling to the ground after mysteriously stopping in place before they hit the Clairvoyant.

  Captain Logos and the asset looked each other in the eye. The brave captain remained resolutely in place, but the muzzle of his rifle slowly fell.

  “Artemis!” Ridley yelled as she flew in on the attack.

  Just as the young woman was about to raise her guard, she was kicked in the side by Kennedy, who attacked unseen from her flank. The one-percenter tumbled end over end across the foyer from the force of the blow before she came to her feet. Ridley was on her instantly, kicking her hard in the chest. Artemis groaned as her body wilted. She lay on the ground in the fetal position, gasping for air. Kennedy unleashed a heat beam, and Artemis only just managed to avoid it. She took to the air and Kennedy’s beam followed, cutting large swaths out of the mall.

  Carmen’s lips trembled. Some of the people she sensed since they arrived—the people unable to get of out of the mall—were no longer there. Kennedy’s beam killed them. They don’t care about the people! she realized in horror. The suppression team hadn’t been reckless with their fire. They made sure there was no one behind Artemis when they attacked. Kennedy and Ridley didn’t seem to have the same concern.

  Carmen turned around and ran toward Ava and Taylor. “You have to get out.”

  The girls looked at her with mouths agape. “Are you crazy? We can’t go out there!”

  Both shrieked as Carmen ended the argument by telekinetically snatching them off the ground. She ran toward the exit of the store with the girls floating after her. She then slid them on their butts toward Cap
tain Logos.

  “Get them out!” she shouted.

  Logos had been watching the ferocious battle with his rifle raised, waiting for an opportunity to take a shot without hitting Kennedy or Ridley. He jumped slightly when Carmen called out to him.

  “Right!” he said after looking at the two trembling girls. Then he spoke into the communicator built into his helmet, giving new orders.

  Carmen shot across the foyer toward the next closest group of people.

  Ridley and Kennedy alternated their attack on Artemis. The young Clairvoyant’s psychological profile stated that she was unstable—that, while reasonably intelligent, she was unable to focus on any one task for extended periods. Yet, for all that, she was a measured, disciplined fighter in battle. Her technique was picture-perfect in form and millimeter-accurate in execution. She was easily more powerful than both of her opponents, but she was also more efficient as well. Kennedy was able to hold her own on the defense but unable to translate the defense into any offensive momentum. Ridley attacked recklessly, though not stupidly. Her style left her horribly open, but Kennedy’s pressure kept Artemis from counterattacking.

  Carmen slid to a stop in front of a hotdog stand. She sensed an adult and a child hiding inside of it.

  “Come on out. You need to get out of here,” she called.

  There was no reply, save one from the middle of the foyer.

  “Priss! Priss, we need you! Get her!” Ridley cried desperately.

  Carmen ignored the summon. “Come on,” she tried again, her attention completely fixed on the hiding normals.

  “We’re coming out,” she heard a man say. A few seconds later, an older man and a young boy emerged from the booth.

  “Get to the suppression team,” she said, pointing at Logos and his team. “They’ll get you out.” The man looked at the battling Clairvoyants in the center of the foyer. “You can make it. Don’t worry about them,” she added when she saw his reticence.

  The man nodded and scooped the boy up in his arms. Then he started running as fast as his aged legs could carry them.

  Carmen flew to a higher level. She sensed about ten people, but just then a heat beam—she didn’t know who shot it—blasted right above her. The people were all right, but glass rained down on her. She flinched, though she didn’t actually need to; her bioelectric field made the shards flow around her. She did, however, hear a groan from down below. She turned and saw the old man getting pelted by the glass. He hunched over, sacrificing himself to protect the boy. Shards stuck in his back, shoulder, and arm, but remarkably he was able to keep his pace. Logos grabbed the man and took the boy himself before giving Carmen a thumbs-up. She nodded sharply and went back to her task.

  “Come out,” she called. “I’m here to get you out.”

  “It’s about fucking time,” someone who had yet to emerge said.

  Eventually, all ten came into view. It was a group of boys and girls only slightly younger than herself. If she didn’t know better, they looked like a school group. At the sight of their rescuer, they paused. Carmen ignored their expressions and instead gestured for them to follow her as she ran to the railing.

  “Whoa, look at that!” one of them muttered upon seeing the devastation to the mall and the battling Clairvoyants.

  All ten started pulling out PDDs, which made Carmen to roll her eyes. She crushed two of the devices telekinetically before the group got the point that this was no time to take pictures.

  “Jump,” she said, looking over the railing to the foyer below, where Logos’s team was ready and waiting.

  “We can’t jump. It’s better to stay here than to jump.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes again. “I’ll catch you telekinetically. Jump. Trust me.”

  The teens looked at each other and then, one by one, jumped over the rail. True to her word, each of them slowed to land softly on their feet just before they hit the ground. The suppression team took them from there, and she flew to the other end of the mall.

  Both Ridley and Kennedy breathed hard. For their part, Artemis’s clothes were torn to shreds, and she had a bloody lip and a burn on her arm. Neither Space Force officer was injured in any way, but in this brief battle pause, they looked on their adversary with eyes wide. Artemis wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

  The girl’s eyes narrowed just before she took a step forward. Ridley went on the attack first, as she always did. This time, however, Artemis didn’t try to match force for force, as she had thus far. Instead, she fell back from the attack, drawing Ridley into a deeper and deeper commitment. Kennedy rushed to join the battle but was somehow always out of position. Eventually, both women realized Artemis was inducing each frustration on purpose.

  When engaged with roles reversed neither of them was as fluid. The defensively-minded Kennedy was unable to mount the required aggression to intercede on Ridley’s behalf. Ridley’s over-aggression soon turned against her. Every attack she made was countered with sharp punches or kicks from Artemis. After a few more exchanges, she was reluctant to attack, pushed to be totally defensive. In that uncomfortable state, Artemis was able to completely neglect her own defense and attack with hard, dominating strikes. A strong punch to the mid-section dropped Lt. Ridley to the ground. Artemis then turned to face off against Kennedy as Ridley spat blood.

  Carmen slid to a stop in a makeup store. She briskly walked inside and then stopped when she saw Artemis’s dead handler, Ramses, on the floor. This was where it all started, she thought. About a half-dozen people were huddled in the back of the store, and she went to them at a rush.

  “Come on,” she said, helping a few to their feet.

  “What happened to the lady?” a little girl asked her. “She was doing makeup.”

  It took Carmen a moment to realize she was referring to Artemis. Carmen looked at the counter next to her and, sure enough, used lipstick, blush, and mascara were strewn about. It was the exact last thing she expected to see.

  “She didn’t hurt anyone?” she asked no one in particular with a small degree of amazement.

  “Just that man,” the girl’s mother said, pointing at Ramses on the floor. “They had a terrible argument.”

  Carmen nodded. “Well, I have to get you out of here. It’s not safe while they’re fighting.”

  The group ran toward the exit with her in the lead. But she sensed and then heard someone trip and fall behind her. She turned to help the fallen person just as the group reached a railing that overlooked the foyer. They all screamed at once in horror.

  The despairing cry, “Sandra!” reverberated throughout the mall.

  Carmen ran back to the ledge to see what had happened. She arrived just in time to see Lt. Kennedy fall to the ground, dead. A hole was burned right through her.

  “Damn you! Damn you!” Ridley screamed, blood dripping from her mouth.

  She charged Artemis, abandoning any idea of self-protection. Carmen also flew at her. Artemis raised her hand and pointed it at the charging lieutenant.

  “Artemis! Artemis, don’t!” Carmen shouted.

  The girl’s first heat beam ablated Ridley’s body armor and made her wail in pain, yet she kept coming. The second burned her arm off at the shoulder and caught her hair on fire. Carmen hesitantly raised her own arm to fire, but it was too late. Artemis’s third attack hit Ridley in the face. She screamed for a moment, and then there was nothing as the Clairvoyant fell to the ground, mangled and broken, to slide to a stop at Artemis’s feet.

  Carmen landed near Kennedy’s body and could only watch as Artemis slowly dropped her hand. A million thoughts and a million emotions went through Carmen. In the fog, there was nothing—nothing at all that could avail her.

  Artemis stood still with her back to Carmen. She looked at Ridley’s charred remains and then half-turned to look at Kennedy’s. There was a quiet second of nothing. Then, all at once, her body slackened like a marionette with its strings severed and her eyes fell.

  Carmen had no idea what to make o
f the expression. She stood transfixed as Artemis seemed just as confused and unsure of what to do. Slowly, the other girl gave her a hesitant glance. Then she looked up and shot into the sky after a pause, breaking through the glass roof of Crystal Palace.

  Carmen followed immediately, unsure if she would be able to keep up. She hovered over the mall as she tried to sense which direction she’d gone before she realized Artemis hadn’t gone anywhere. She looked down to see the Clairvoyant sitting on the roof, legs dangling over the ledge much like how Carmen often sat at the bluff.

  She landed behind her and raised her guard. Artemis didn’t even turn to look.

  A small stream of blood ran down one of Artemis’s arms. Her short hair was beaded with sweat and caked in a few places with blood. Her breathing came deeply and evenly, though at an elevated pace. She swallowed hard and then took a deep breath.

  “They ripped my dress,” she said, as if her mind was far away.

  Carmen looked at her adversary and subconsciously dropped her guard. “…It didn’t look very good anyway,” she remarked.

  Artemis glanced at her over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “What do you know of style?” she scoffed. “I remember that pink monstrosity you had way back when.”

  Carmen smirked slightly but gave no reply. The other one-percenter also said nothing, nor did she change her position.

  The sun was just beginning to set. The night was calm, tranquil even. Down on street level, however, the crowd and police were still waiting…and not quietly. Their din could be heard from up here. A few police aerocars eventually spotted them and hovered a safe distance away. Carmen ignored them.

  “Are you going to kill me?” Artemis asked simply, without fear or threat.

  “Do I have to?” Carmen asked back.

  “I don’t know,” she said after a short pause. “I would fight you if you tried.”

  Neither of them said anything else for a long while. Carmen looked at Artemis, but she still had her back to her. The girl took a deep breath again but this time let it go with a shudder.