Love for the Cold-Blooded. Or

by Alex Gabriel

  The actual Crystal of Power was almost anticlimactic when Sir Toby lifted it out of its bed of black velvet, raising it high above his head. It was the size and shape of a cabbage, and would have looked exactly like a rough-hewn piece of quartz if not for its eldritch glow.

  “Behold!” thundered Sir Toby. “The Crystal of Power!”

  When Sir Toby slotted the Crystal into its rest halfway up the MCR, the entire structure of the ray flashed with blinding eldritch light. Someone shrieked; Pat covered his eyes, and only dared to look again when the glare against his eyelids had faded. The Crystal was not visible anymore, but the MCR was now limned by a gentle glow, pulsing in the unmistakable rhythm of a heartbeat. Pat would not have been surprised to learn that the heart in question belonged to Sir Toby.

  There was another breathless, suspended moment of complete silence. Then, the lair erupted into thunderous applause, complete with whistles, cheers and stamping feet. As soon as the racket died down a little, the minion band started up, startling Pat, who hadn’t even noticed they’d set up in the corner by the elevator. Wow, he really had been distracted.

  Sir Toby withdrew while the ray charged. The catering minions served champagne, canapés, tea, and really excellent cookies. There was even a bit of dancing, although Pat didn’t feel like joining in, not even when Cat accosted him, giggling and all but glowing with good cheer.

  “How are you doing, Patpat?” Hell looked extra regal and gorgeous in that dress. Green was her favorite color, which Pat suspected had played a part in the process by which Sir Toby had arrived at his challenger design.

  Pat shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Liar.” By rights, the way Hell could spear you with a glance should count as a superhuman ability. “We’ll talk more of this later. Now, go and fetch Sir Toby. The MCR is fully charged and ready for a test drive.”

  Sir Toby was in his office, printing out something that looked suspiciously like cookie recipes. The man was a little too slow in shuffling them out of sight beneath a manuscript entitled How I Conquered the World, Part Four. The pictures of walnuts, fudge and chocolate chips were kind of a give-away, but Pat put on his most stoically innocent expression, pretending as hard as he could that he had not seen anything but the appropriately dreadful manuscript. “Dread master, Lady Helena reports that the MCR is fully charged, and begs humbly for the boon of your presence in the audience chamber.”

  “Ah, yes, excellent. Thank you.” Sir Toby paused briefly as he passed Pat. For a very weird, drawn-out moment, Pat had the impression he only narrowly escaped having his hair ruffled. “You’re a good boy, young Patrick. There is a bright future ahead of you — stay on this path and you will go far, I can sense it.”

  ~~~~~

  Pat knew something was wrong the instant the mayor set down the teapot in front of Sir Toby, smiling brightly. “Is there anything we can do for you, Sir Toby? I assure you it would be our pleasure to aid you by any and all means at our disposal.”

  He was a little weirded out by the usually somber woman’s incongruously perky brand of enthusiasm, yes, but that wasn’t the problem. Sir Toby had assured them that the MCR didn’t actually change anyone’s personality, and couldn’t make people do stuff that went against their convictions. In other words, the MCR would only let you make a pacifist throttle his neighbors if the dude actually wanted to do it.

  No, it wasn’t the mayor’s previously unexpected depths of cheerful excitability, or any of the various assistants and aides hovering about. It was just… something.

  Was it Pat or was it getting stuffy in here? The air was strange, almost thick and unpleasant to breathe.

  Pat fidgeted restlessly in his spot by the wall. Over in the luxurious sitting room suite that dominated the reception room, Sir Toby was nodding a graciously condescending thanks. “As a matter of fact, Mayor Freeman, there is a way in which you may aid me. I wish to install my Mind Control Ray on the City Hall’s roof garden in order to be able to reflect its emissions off a satellite and cover the entire city.”

  “What a wonderful idea!” Freeman exclaimed, eyes shining in girlish delight.

  Pat guessed this meant the mayor had no intrinsic objections to setting up a Mind Control Ray on the roof of City Hall. Pat was a bit more disturbed at this revelation than he probably should have been, considering.

  “Excuse me, Mayor Freeman, Sir Toby,” said one of the mayor’s aides — the scrawny one with the red hair. “I’m not sure there will be sufficient electricity for your needs. The roof garden’s outlets are restricted to lamps and other small electric devices.”

  When Pat adjusted his mask and pushed a stray curl from his face, his fingers crackled unpleasantly against his own skin, tingling with static electricity. He shifted uncomfortably, and carefully did not look to the side. He knew Cat would be giving him an unamused glare at his antics. She took honorary bodyguarding very seriously.

  The mayor was talking about electricians and laying high-voltage lines, but everyone stopped listening to her when the monitor attached to the side of the MCR suddenly blinked to life. The image stabilized to show the market place in front of City Hall, cordoned off by the helpful police forces commanded by Hell. Several superheroes were trying to break through the blockade in a flurry of laser rays and force fields.

  “Ah, excellent. Right on time.” Sir Toby nodded, pleased. “I’m afraid we have a schedule to keep, Mayor Freeman, and so cannot wait for an electrician. I believe you have a skylight in your personal office, do you not? That will do admirably. We need merely angle the MCR towards the sky.”

  One of the superheroes trying to break through Hell’s line of defense was Silver Paladin, force fields glowing like a miniature sun. Next to him — wow, was it Nexus on that aircycle? It had to be — nobody else wore blood-red body armor of quite that shade, and there was no way to mistake the dramatic cowl that covered her head. Pat had never seen Nexus live before, and was almost sorry not to be out there with Hell and the others.

  Almost.

  In no time at all, the tech minions had the MCR ready to go. Sir Toby strode resolutely towards the mayor’s office, trailed by the mayor, her aides, and the tech minions with the MCR on its mobile cart. Pat fell in with the small procession with a dark scowl, doing his best to forebodingly beetle his brows. He couldn’t prevent himself from sneaking another glance or two at the monitor as they went, though. Had Silver Paladin’s costume really always been quite that tight?

  Pat swallowed as Nick veered sharply in mid-air, somersaulting to avoid a collision with Nexus when they were both thrown back by a concerted barrage of laser rays. Why did the man have to be quite so attractive, anyway? It was hardly fair for one guy to have not only the kind of build that should belong to a god carved in marble, but also gorgeous, soulful dark eyes and an awkwardly sweet smile and ridiculous conversational ice-breakers and fierce intensity tempered by wry, quirky humor… not to mention a genuine devotion to helping people, to using the gifts he’d been given for the greater good.

  “Patrick!” hissed Cat, glaring. He tore himself away from the ongoing fight outside, mouthing a quick apology at her before once again concentrating on being the looming menace Sir Toby deserved in a bodyguard, honorary or no. Pat wasn’t certain how convincing an effort it turned out to be, though, especially since he was shivering, goosebumps rising on his arms. The very air seemed heavy with uneasy anticipation.

  The mayor’s office turned out to be less an office and more a luxurious suite, featuring sunken lounging areas filled with pillows and mini-bars, an entertainment system that took up an entire wall, and, yes, a giant skylight. Sir Toby had a point about the corrupt government, that was for sure.

  While the tech minions got to work, Sir Toby graciously accepted another cup of tea. Pat and Cat stood against the walls with their arms folded across their chests, glowering behind their satin masks.

  Everything went entirely to plan until the skylight shattered and a screeching pastel tornado descended, a
whirlwind of poisonous green energy, whipping scarves and diaphanous wings.

  For a suspended moment of frozen shock, Pat thought his eardrums would burst from the unearthly shrilling that crashed through the room, or that he would split apart, or lose consciousness. It was like nothing he’d ever heard, like nothing he’d even thought his ears were capable of hearing — a screech so penetrating it was like a physical assault, as stunning as a bat to the side of the head.

  Inaudibly and seemingly in slow motion, every window in the office burst, glass shards glittering as they expanded outwards. Sir Toby was on his feet with one hand extending towards the tornado, mouth wide open as though he was shouting something. Cat was next to Pat but unreachably far, dropping like a stone. Her eyes were twisted so far back in her head that Pat could see only the whites.

  The whirlwind hovering above the MCR turned in a swirl of trailing silks and golden curls, and Pat’s mind finally wrapped around the fact that it was Bitterfly. Bitterfly, screaming and poison-green, translucent wings shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow. Bitterfly, opening her hand to release something — something green and luminous, something that twisted and billowed in the air, inflating —

  Pat still couldn’t think, couldn’t truly process the information his senses were bringing in. Fortunately, no thought was required for Pat to recoil from the expanding wall of poisonous energy. He must have gasped, or even called out, but his ears felt stuffed with cotton and he couldn’t hear anything anymore, not even the screeching. He nearly stumbled over his own feet, and then did stumble over Cat’s prone form, tumbling head-first into too-soft cushions.

  He’d fallen right into the smallest lounging area. By the time he’d sorted himself out enough to push up, carefully peering above the cushioned rim, the green whatever-the-fuck had expanded into a semi-spherical energy field — a smaller version of the dome Bitterfly had erected over the city a short while back. Sir Toby was still right in front of Bitterfly, but now his skin and suit were saturated with the hue of a particularly artificial jelly dessert. He was trapped; the dome must have engulfed him within seconds. It was still growing at speed now. The tech minions were already trapped in it, too, as was the mayor —

  Bitterfly turned to sweep a cool, assessing gaze through the room, and Pat hastily dove back down, out of sight. He dug through a sea of pillows to the other side of the sunken area, coming up barely ahead of the advancing green wall of the dome. Bitterfly was still hovering in mid-air underneath the skylight, but now, her back and glittering wings were turned towards Pat. She seemed to be staring at the MCR, and Pat was sure she didn’t see him scrambling across the floor, retreating from the energy field as fast as he could. His feet made no sound on the expensive marble tiles — no sound he could hear, at least. But then, he couldn’t hear his own breathing either, couldn’t even hear the panicked sound of the blood rushing in his ears.

  Then he was trapped, the wall right ahead of him and no more escape possible. Pat whirled around, setting his shoulders against structured wallpaper to face the shimmering barrier of energy. Every hair on his body was standing straight up, his skin crawling. The field was right there in front of him, poisonously green and vaguely nauseating, and for the space of a long, shuddering breath — two — he didn’t even realize it wasn’t moving anymore.

  It wasn’t, though. It wasn’t coming closer. If he’d reached out, he could have touched it… could have plunged his arm into it to the elbow without ever moving away from the wall. But it had stopped expanding, leaving Pat in a curved, thin slice of open air that ran along the wall to the door on his left, and narrowed down a bit more to his right before opening up into the larger wedge of normality that held the MCR, Bitterfly and the shattered skylight.

  The entire rest of the room was dipped in green. Over where Pat had been standing earlier, where Cat was still sprawled over the floor, limbs limp; where Sir Toby pushed against the dome angrily from the inside, trying to break through to the MCR; where the mayor and her aides clustered anxiously and the tech minions were spread out in a useless defensive formation, staring at the intruder in shocked astonishment…

  Pat needed to get out of here and get reinforcements, needed to inform Hell. If he moved quickly, if he sidled to the door real quiet-like and then threw it open and ran as fast as he could… he was damn fast when he put his mind to it. He’d get away, and he’d tell Hell, and Hell would know what to do.

  Pat was already reaching for the door handle when an eldritch light pierced through the sickly green, playing over the wall in the throbbing bursts of a quick, fluttery heartbeat. What the hell? What was Bitterfly doing?

  She was taking the Crystal of Power out of the MCR, that’s what she was doing. She was, in fact, already pretty much finished doing it, the Crystal’s odd light splashing prettily against the bright pastels of her wings and outfit.

  “Hey!” Pat shouted, outraged. “Pastel Girl, what the hell!” Sound was coming back to him now, and he could hear himself as though from a great distance, muffled and indistinct.

  Just, what the hell, dude, this was simply not on. Bitterfly was stealing the Crystal of Power, that much was clear as the nose on her face. The whys and wherefores didn’t really matter right now, and there was no time for a plan, or a strategy or whatever. Instead, Pat went with his strengths: He acted, no thought involved at all.

  Bitterfly had descended to hover a bare meter or so above the ground as she pulled the Crystal of Power clear of its port. Pat took a running start along the entire length of the non-green corridor and leaped for her like a panther pouncing on his prey, throat vibrating with a muffled battle scream.

  Jarring impact with someone slender, but hard with muscle; silky fabric and a surprisingly sturdy, leathery wing, a lungful of too-sweet floral perfume. Confused impressions of blond curls whipping against his face, his hands tangled up in loose gauzy scarves and trailing sleeves and —

  Pat’s vision exploded in bright light as the back of Bitterfly’s skull collided with his face, snapping his teeth shut with an audible clack. Something sharp and solid impacted with his stomach at the same time, forcing a weak grunt from him as all the air was driven from his lungs. Blood. Taste of blood in his mouth.

  He blinked confusedly, finding himself on his back on the ground. He heard the quiet sound of his own pained wheeze — was hearing the low hum of the MCR and the babble of several muffled voices, angry, frantic, confused. Bitterfly was in the air directly above Pat, her wings filling out his entire horizon. She was immensely impressive from this angle… an avenging angel with flashing eyes, glowing with power, lost in beautiful, terrible rage.

  “The fuck!” she screeched, thoroughly ruining the impression. She smoothed back her hair quickly with one hand, pressing the Crystal possessively to her chest with the other. “Back off, asshole!”

  Pat scrambled up as quickly as he could, but by the time he’d regained his feet, she’d already flown up to the skylight again, pausing only to tuck in her clothes and wings before slipping through the jagged opening with care.

  “Patrick. Patrick!”

  Sir Toby. That was Sir Toby, voice muffled and slightly distorted by the dome that held him and everyone else in the room prisoner. The hum of the energy field set Pat’s teeth on edge when he stepped closer to the barrier; he felt slightly nauseous, too, although that might have been the result of getting beaten up by Bitterfly. (Who would have thought that Bitterfly of all people would be so familiar with brawling techniques? It seemed unfair, somehow. She wasn’t exactly the ‘mystic martial arts’ or ‘fists, guns and grenades’ type of challenger.)

  “Patrick, this is a serious problem.” Sir Toby’s expression was carefully controlled, but he swept two fingers over his mustache in a gesture Pat had only ever seen him use in news footage, usually shortly prior to being forced to abandon his schemes and flee. It was doubly disconcerting to see this alarming gesture performed entirely in green, with a green face, a brighter green mustache, and e
legantly gloved neon-green fingers. “You must stop her, young Patrick. Go after her and bring back the Crystal. Lady Helena will help you.”

  “Uhm,” said Patrick. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the need to regain the Crystal of Power — without it, the MCR lacked power to sway more than a bare handful of people to Sir Toby’s cause. But Bitterfly could fly. How exactly was Pat supposed to catch her before she got away safe and clear? And even if she nonsensically decided to take to the ground as soon as she’d cleared City Hall, or stop for tea or whatever (which she wouldn’t, because she wasn’t stupid). Even then, what could Pat do against her secret ninja fighting skills?

  “Patrick, listen to me.” Sir Toby pushed right up against the unyielding barrier between them, fixing Pat with a compelling green-tinged stare. “The Crystal of Power is a highly dangerous artifact. To be a controllable power source, it must be integrated into a well-shielded mechanism specifically designed for the purpose. In the hands of someone who does not understand its nature, and who is likely to regard warnings as transparent lies to prevent her from utilizing its might for her benefit…” Okay, Pat officially had a bad feeling about this. “In the hands of someone like Bitterfly, the Crystal is deadly. It will suck her energy and rot away her mind until there is nothing left. If you do not stop her, Patrick, she will die a horrible death.”

  No pressure or anything.

  It would have been nice to believe Sir Toby was exaggerating for dramatic effect, but unfortunately, Pat didn’t think so. There was no help for it, then; Pat would have to find a way to make it work, because the alternative was not acceptable. So he simply nodded curtly, spared a quick glance for Cat (who was stirring now, thank all the gods, and must simply have been stunned by the screeching because of her superior hearing), and took off.