by Alana Melos
Lethal, you’re a biokinetic, I told him, using Regulus’ telepathic pathway. Use that.
Oh, yeah, right! he thought. I caught a flash of a thought that he was so used to using guns, he kept forgetting about the damage he could do close up and personal. I rolled my eyes behind the mask and shook my head slightly. It happened to all of us from time to time since we got used to our style and own particular methods.
“Take that, raping tree!” he shouted. The vine around his arm erupted, exploding outward as he laughed maniacally. Not only that, but the vines around him burst as well, coating the area in the sticky sap which ran through what passed for veins. In an ever widening circle, the biokinetic continued to destroy the attacking thorn vines, cackling madly as he did so. Even though they all looked separate, they were still connected… and so was the kaiju. It had to be, else Pangea wouldn’t be able to animate it.
Lethal! I mentally shouted at him. Sever the connection between the big tree and the big monster!
What? he asked, barely noticing me as he reveled in exploding limb after limb.
Sever the connection between the big monster outside and the tree here, I repeated. There has to be a connection. Just find it and stop it. I wished I would have thought of that before; it would have saved us a lot of trouble.
I can’t do that! he sent. I don’t know how, you dumb broad!
Let me guide you, Regulus cut in, smoothly. Though he’d kept his thoughts mostly to himself, we all caught a flash of him fighting upstairs; Pangea wasn’t just attacking us down here, but also there, trying to cut off our escape. Just relax and let me direct you.
I hate this brain shit, Lethal thought as he grunted with some effort. The living branches had, in the meantime, given up attacking us, and simply encircled our little group, though they kept their distance. Distance didn’t matter, but Pangea didn’t know that. As Lethal stopped his violent plant explosions, the Siren materialized next to Tim, panting through her gas mask. Tim moved to stand next to her, his civilian clothing tattered and bloodstained, but his flesh looked whole. Drained of so much blood, he looked as pale as the Sirene as she removed her mask to breathe in the unfiltered air. Wolf stood apart from us, but the tree hadn’t attacked him anyway. He stood there, looking alone, almost forlorn. My guess was that he sensed the end for his ‘mother’ coming.
As Regulus split off some of his concentration to guide Lethal’s thoughts, I gestured to the Nacht Sirene and Tim, “You two, go up and watch Regulus’ back. We’ll watch Lethal down here, but I think it’s almost over.”
The Siren gave me a jaunty smile before pulling up the mask and darting off. Tim moved more slowly after her. “Oh man, we gotta go through the jungle again?” He huffed and tried to keep up with her, but he was tired, and climbing wasn’t exactly the easiest of activities. To his credit, he continued to move forward, refusing to give up.
I moved down and landed next to Wolf. “What’s up?”
“You’ll kill Herr,” he said, his growly voice soft. “When She is gone, I will be the only rreminderr that She was herre at all.”
“It won’t be as bad as that, Mauler,” I said, patting his big arm with my free hand. My head, arm, and leg all ached. “You know why this had to be done.”
“Forr you,” he stated. “If not, I would have fought forr the Motherr until my last brreath.”
“You don’t have to follow me as a leader, Wolf,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “I beat you, but it wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Yourr abilities against mine,” he replied. “You defeated me and so you arre the pack alpha.”
“If that’s what you want,” I said.
We stood in silence together watching Pangea and Lethal. I thought that perhaps it might have attacked Lethal while we stood there, but it seemed to know that anything getting near him would result in instant death. It emitted a low keening sound which grew in intensity the longer it went on. When the ground above us shuddered and quaked, I smiled behind the mask. It had to be over. The daikaiju was dead. I’m sure if we would have been outside, it would have been pretty impressive watching it fall. As it was, it was like watching someone flip a semi-difficult switch. Not all battles ended in a terrific explosion. Now it was Pangea’s turn.
Mauler gave the softest of whines. Had I not been standing next to him, I wouldn’t have heard it. When I looked up at him, his bright, glowing green eyes were sad, though the expression on his furry face remained determined. He would give up what he considered his mother, his creator, all in service of me because he thought I was his leader. As Lethal cackled, rubbing his hands together with glee and swiveling towards the massive glowing tree trunk, my heart wrung for the werewolf beside me. Empathy and compassion were not emotions I was used to, but at least they present in me for strangers. I couldn’t do this to him.
“Hold off, Lethal,” I said.
The professional assassin groaned, “Fuckballs, what now?!”
“Just give me a minute,” I said. “Wolf? Can you talk to… her?”
“Yes,” he said, simply. “I am telling her what is going to happen and making peace now.”
“She wants to live in peace, I think,” I said, remembering how Pangea had been created to begin with, and how content it had been to simply sit and grow peacefully. “Do you think we could make a truce?”
At that, his ears perked up. “You would be willing to do this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “If we promise to stay out of her territory, will she stay out of ours?”
At that, Lethal slapped his face hard in a facepalm. “You don’t talk to plants! Or monsters! Or plant monsters, you dumb bitch! Argh! Fuck!” He turned to the tree, “I’m doing it!”
I looked at Lethal. Using my teke, I slapped him across the face, hard. “Not until I say the word,” I said. He gave me a murderous look. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Or I can rip your head off. You pick.”
He bared his teeth at me, but being dry of ammo and not having his DNA on me, there really wasn’t anything he could do about it. “Hurry it up, then!”
I hit him again, harder this time, across the other side. His eyes at first widened, then narrowed at me. “And don’t call me a bitch, bitch.” Wolf guffawed and Lethal’s face turned red, not entirely from the blows either. “As I was asking….”
The werewolf ducked his head in a nod. “I have spoken to Herr. She will.”
“That’s it then,” I said, and blinked a few times behind the mask. “We can go.”
“My record better get wiped for this,” Lethal muttered as he threw me nasty looks. I grabbed him and Wolf and levitated towards the ceiling. Pangea made an opening for us, and we flew through.
“It will,” I assured him as I set them both down. “Wolf, can she… hear us?” When he nodded, I said aloud to the room, “I’ll make sure they stay away. But if they do wander in, you can kill them, and vice versa. Keep your critters out of my city.”
The floor beneath us undulated, but there was no sound. “She agrrees,” Mauler said.
As they climbed and I flew out into the destroyed lobby, I could only turn the agreement over in my head. It seemed too simple. I didn’t have my ‘pathy, but I saw at a glance the doors were uncovered and Regulus no longer was fighting anything. Heaps of dead wood and dead animal bodies were piled around. The Siren and Tim were there as well.
“We did it!” Septimus said, looking bloody and tired, but happy. “Hot damn! I didn’t think we could.”
“Of course,” I said with confidence. That was a touch of a lie, maybe. I hadn’t thought we would without so few casualties… or without losing half the city. We’d only lost a quarter. Maybe a touch more… and some of that was uninhabited. With the deal with Pangea, things should settle down and everything would be back in its place. Gone for now, but not forgotten.
He caught me up in a hug, overjoyed at victory. I got the feeling he didn’t work in the field often, so this was a sweet feeling for him indeed. I indulged it for a moment unt
il Wolf huffed loudly. When I looked at the werewolf, he rolled his eyes at me, annoyed.
The huff brought to mind my own discomfort at Septimus thinking I could be a white hat. He’d insisted he saw something good in me. The man completely mistook my motives here. When he let me go, I took a step back, studying him as he spoke. “I knew you had it in you to be a hero.”
Gerard snickered loudly at that. “Yes, she’s real heroic.”
“She’s a fucking cu--” Lethal began to say, then changed his word when I shot him a sharp look, “--nice person, alright.”
I gave Ger a dirty look then looked back at Septimus. With a thought, I imagined a blade, made it real with my teke, then rammed it through Tim’s gut and jerked up. His triumphant look shattered into pain and hurt and betrayal. Wolf chuffed in approval while Gerard laughed louder yet, and Lethal sniggered. Rebekah blinked, her blue-green eyes wide with surprise and shock.
“Tell me again how heroic I am, Timmah,” I sneered. I withdrew the mental blade and slashed him across his throat with it. “Oh wait, you can’t.”
He stumbled backwards, his hands over his wounds. The hardest part of this was remembering how kind he’d been to me, and how he’d comforted me when I needed it. I hadn’t minded working with him, but I wasn’t a damn hero. I took a step forward as he knelt down, his body already putting him back together. “Why?” he croaked.
“Why? Why help the city?” I looked down at him. “It’s my city… and no one fucks with my stuff.” He shook his head as the skin closed over the wound in his throat. “Oh, why that? To remind you.” I smiled. “Relax, it’s not like you were going to die or anything.”
When he stood, the wounded look on his face was replaced with tight anger, kept under control. “Caprice… you’re going to go to jail for this.”
I arched a brow. “Record’s clean now… ah, but I suppose that is after the the wipe.” I snapped my gloved fingers together. “Aw, shucks.”
“I’m going to arrest you,” he said, voice stronger as his wounds healed completely. He took a step towards me, then stopped as Wolf tilted his ears back and growled. Ger played absently with one of his knives. Hell, even Lethal put a hand on a gun butt at his belt, even though it was empty of ammo. We didn’t like each other, but us black hats had each other’s backs, at least against the cops. Only Rebekah didn’t react in my favor, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking either. Her eyes had gone blank and her perfect doll’s mask had come over her face, making her expression pleasantly neutral.
I looked around at my allies. “You and what army, Tim? Not today. Not ever.”
He seemed to be on the edge of saying something more. In the end, he shook his head, turned, and walked away. It was just as well. You couldn’t trust a white hat.
Epilogue
A week later found me at the building Wolf had sort of moved into. It wasn’t proof against the weather, but I didn’t think he spent much time there anyway. Pangea accepted him into her forest, him and no one else. There, it was warm and lush, a paradise in the middle of snow covered country. I named it the Savage Land in my head, in honor of the tropical lands in the middle of Marvel’s Antarctica. Everyone else was just calling it ‘the forest’ or ‘Pangea’.
People had no imagination.
I stood there, waiting. Trying to stretch out my mental senses, a pressure built on the left side of my face. I’d gotten an MRI done at a shady underground clinic and been told that no, there was nothing wrong with my brain, confirming Alistair’s diagnosis. I didn’t believe them. Every time I tried to use my telepathy, it was blocked. Things were harder to create in my mind now. It was… not as real anymore. Instead of pain, pressure built. I could keep trying and trying until I finally did get a headache, but I abandoned it for now. I took the pressure as a good sign. It didn’t hurt. Maybe whatever was wrong was healing. For now, I was learning to live mindblind.
It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. I’d associated a lot of expressions with emotions already, and these burgeoning emotions in me made them easier to understand. I couldn’t see my own threads anymore, but I worried they were a thick mass of writhing serpents, a waiting trap. Even the worry worried me. My mind was not mine anymore. I didn’t know who I was. I saw the old me, with her dark and bloody smile, but… she was a dream. Some people’s nightmare, maybe, but just a dream to me. Close and vivid, almost so close I could touch her.
It wasn’t being mindblind which vexed me so, it was these emotions. I had no regulation of them at all. They simply went through me until something else took its place. Having never had feelings like this before, I had no idea how to stop them… except to get angry. Anger was my salvation, the one thing which remained familiar, hot and red and thick. I knew my anger. It would expand and contract, but the core of it remained the same, always. It was so ingrained in my psyche, I don’t think I could have changed it if I’d tried. Something Malech said once came to me, that he thought lust would have been the worst of my sins. I could have told him it wasn’t, although it did play a big part. My number one was, and would always be, wrath.
Rory opened the roof access door behind me. “Aw, jeez, were you waiting there long?” he said, his voice somewhat ashamed but jovial still.
I turned and shook my head. “No…” I paused and looked him over. His eyes were hopeful. “It’s still a no, Rory. I talked to Freyja ‘til I was blue in the face, but she won’t have you back. Says you’re corrupted.”
He gave a heavy sigh, and closed his pea coat against the wind. “I thought as much… but thanks for tryin’,” he said as he crossed the distance to stand in front of me.
“Not all’s lost,” I said. “I did bring a friend.”
At those words, Adira stepped out of the shadows. She’d been with Nosferatu during Pangea’s invasion, helping him to protect his territory. The vampire had been vague on the details, and snapped at me when I pressed her. I let it go. Whatever it was would remain between her and Nos. When Rory saw her, his eyes lit up, then immediately after he shook his head. “The other guy--”
“Doesn’t matter when you’re in charge, Rory,” she said, stepping forward. “Who would know better than I?”
“It’s not like you guys,” he replied, his dark green eyes looking torn. “It’s not… it’s not like another person. It’s another side of me.” He shook his head and held a hand out to forestall her coming any closer to him, at a loss for words.
“What I know is that people who are pack don’t abandon each other,” I interrupted. “She hasn’t. She wouldn’t give up on you. She made me not give up on you. Don’t you at least owe her a chance? To see if you can get past this anti-vampire thing?”
Rory gave me a dark look. “Are you ordering me?”
“Fuck no,” I said. “It’s your choice. I’m not going to take away your choice, Rory. But you haven’t even tried.”
“You are my wolf,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I love you. I’m bound to you, and you are to me. If Caprice would have me, I’d join with her to be closer to you.”
I blinked. “Uh, what?” I hadn’t expected that.
“Adira, I don’t think… I mean, I can handle it now, but when the other guy comes out… he really hates dead things,” Rory said, his eyes glued to hers. When he bit his lip, looking down at her, I knew he was going to agree with us girls, like he should have from the beginning. “But I’ll try. If you’re willing, I mean, yeah, I’m good with you joining the pack.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it again. No, the real me whispered. If they want to give you their loyalty, then let them. It didn’t seem right. They would follow with unquestioning loyalty. It was a step too close to fanaticism, but… wasn’t that kind of what I was thinking about, in the grand scheme of things? Looking down at the rooftop, I frowned to myself. These thoughts, these hesitations, this morality… these were what troubled me the most.
“We will take it slow and easy,” she said, not approaching any
further. “I shall begin converting this building into something suitable for us, something safe from the daylight.”
“What about Nosferatu?” I asked, looking up. “Your real leader?”
“My real leader is in Axis,” she said, looking at me. “You told me as much, and you were right.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “There are many similarities, but the hosts… there are a couple of very big differences. Your Nosferatu is an anarchist. Mine is not.”
I smiled a little. “They both like to get their way though,” I observed. “Is he gonna come after you?”
“We have reached an… agreement,” she said, an enigmatic smile upon her lush lips.
“Whatever floats your boat,” I said, but I smiled more broadly at the both of them. “And I’ve got a better idea than you guys crashing here. I’ve got plenty of places you can use until you find some--”
Rory interrupted me, “You want us to move in with you?”
“No,” I said, trying to correct him. “I mean I’ve got other hide--”
“That’s very generous,” Adira said. “It would have to be a big apartment, so we each have some space, I think.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” I stated, shaking my head. “I meant--”
“Or we could throw in and get a new place,” he said. “I don’t have much cash, but it shouldn’t take long to land some work.” He flexed his arms and grimaced comically. Adira laughed at his antics, covering her mouth with her maimed hand. When I opened my mouth again, both of them waited. A twinkle in Rory’s eye and the cool, knowing look on Adira’s face told me they were interrupting me on purpose.
“You’re not going to let me say no, are you?” I asked as I crossed my arms.
“It’s so nice that you asked us,” Adira replied, her voice smooth. She raised a brow, and Rory cracked a grin. I knew they would back down and listen if I wanted to push the issue, but the urge to do so didn’t stir in me. My instinct was to protect my personal space, but it was just an instinct. The idea of someone else being there appealed to me, as did the thought of not being alone. It made an unknown future less uncertain. The fact was both of them accepted me as I was. They didn’t try to change me. They didn’t try to force me into a role I didn’t want to play. They knew nearly all of my darkest secrets, my most depraved desires… and still accepted me with a warm embrace. On top of that, neither of them wanted to own me, like so many other of my lovers, or would be lovers, did.
