Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups

by Michael C Bailey

  I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean I don’t feel mad at her. I try to. I think about what she did to me, to Stuart, but I can’t stir up any anger.

  But I want to be angry at her.

  Except I don’t.

  “Missy,” Astrid whispers. “It’s show time.”

  One of the things the Entity’s been teaching me, one of the non-scary things, is how to read people. He told me to pay attention to how a person stands, walks, and moves. The person entering the clearing, dressed in a black hoodie, is moving quickly and looks around constantly. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched. He’s nervous. No, not just nervous; he’s scared of getting caught.

  Astrid stands up, stretches out, and cracks her knuckles. “Good evening, Mr. Toomes,” she says.

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  Either she doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t care. She heads down to the clearing, a faint glow surrounding her hands. The figure stops in the center of the clearing and looks around again. He doesn’t see us, not until the last possible second when Astrid drops the veil and, with a muttered word, shoots out a thin bolt of electricity. The figure makes a sound, a strangled grunt of pain, then drops.

  Astrid stops short and glances at me. She’s thinking the same thing I am: whoever this is, it’s not Toomes. She stoops and pulls the hood away. A girl not much older than me, trembling from Astrid’s Taser spell, glares back at us with burning hatred. Astrid gasps and staggers back.

  “What?” I say. “Who is it?”

  “Astrid,” the girl says, spitting Astrid’s name like a curse word.

  “What are you doing here?” Astrid says.

  The girl laughs bitterly. She struggles to stand up. “You were expecting Lester, weren’t you?”

  “Astrid?” I say.

  “This is Nikki Morgan,” Astrid says. “Black Betty’s kid sister.”

  “Black Betty? That what you called her?” Nikki snarls. “What was that, some kind of sick pet name?”

  “It was who she was.”

  “She was my sister! And you broke her heart, and then you killed her!”

  Astrid holds up her hands, a gesture of peace. Nikki flinches like she expects another zap. “Nikki. I’m not going to make excuses for what happened between Black Be— between Elizabeth and I. That’s all on me.” Nikki sneers. Apology not accepted. “But I didn’t kill her. That was someone else, someone who used her.”

  “You killed her. The day you tore her heart out, you killed her. It just took a while for it to sink in,” Nikki says, a weird calm settling on her. My claws extend involuntarily. Something’s wrong.

  “All right. I’ll take the blame for that. That’s on me too, but I can’t undo the past and neither can you. Elizabeth is gone, and despite what he might have told you, Toomes — Lester can’t bring her back.”

  Nikki smiles a familiarly crooked, crazy smile. Talk about a family resemblance. “Lester isn’t going to,” she says, “but he showed me how to do it.”

  Nikki unzips the hoodie and peels it off. She’s wearing a tank top that exposes her arms, which are covered in — I think it’s writing, but it doesn’t look like any language I know.

  “No!” Astrid cries out. She lunges for Nikki. Nikki lashes out blindly and rakes her fingernails across Astrid’s face, near her eyes. Astrid staggers back into my arms.

  “Detrimena et ani me!” Nikki shouts, backing away from us. “Rediu qi asumuus! Anim mem nocu!”

  Nikki trips on her feet and falls over, kicking up a cloud of dust that reeks like rotten eggs. We rush over to her. I stop short when I see her eyes. They’re open, wide and staring and empty. Dead eyes.

  “Oh my God,” I whimper. “She’s —”

  “No,” Astrid says. She falls to her knees and paws at Nikki’s throat, feeling for a pulse. “No no no...”

  “Astrid,” I say. She’s not listening. “Astrid! The stuff on her arms!”

  The writing, or whatever it is, glows dimly, like it’s burning. Astrid looks to me as if I know what the heck is going on.

  I squeal when Nikki suddenly gasps, her entire body tensing, like in the movies when someone gets zapped with a defibrillator. She thrashes like someone suffering a seizure. Astrid grabs her, forces her into a sitting position, and holds her tight until the trembling stops.

  “Nikki? Nikki!” Astrid says. Nikki blinks and looks around frantically, her skin pale. “Nikki, look at me! It’s all right! You’re okay! Nikki!”

  “Wha—? I’m — what?” Nikki pants.

  “Nikki. The spell didn’t work,” Astrid says gently. “I’m sorry. It didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t work?” Nikki says. “Spell? What?”

  “The resurrection spell. It didn’t work. I don’t know what it did, but...I’m sorry. I told you: nothing will bring her back. Elizabeth’s dead.”

  Nikki stares at Astrid for a minute, completely silent, her face a total blank, then looks down at her arms. Her hands start to shake again, and she makes a choked noise that turns into a shrill wail. Astrid pulls Nikki close, holding her as she sobs, and says “I’m sorry” over and over.

  “I will make this right, Nikki,” Astrid says. “I don’t know how, but I swear to you, I will make this right.”

  The sobs die out. Astrid helps Nikki onto her feet and guides her out of the clearing. We each take an arm to keep Nikki on her feet as we make the slow hike back into the center of town, where the party has kicked into high gear. The streets are packed with people in costume, and I swear I smell booze on, like, every third person we pass. Police officers weave through the crowd, looking for trouble. A cop glances at us but doesn’t say anything. Nothing to see here, sir, we’re just helping our friend who’s had too much to drink.

  “Hang tough, kiddo,” Astrid says, shouldering her way through a clump of college kids who took the lazy way out and came dressed as college kids. “We’ll get you home soon enough.”

  “Get off me. Get off of me!” she bellows, shoving us away. The college kids, expecting a fight to break out, hoot and cheer. Shut up, jerks.

  “Nikki, please,” Astrid says, “I’m trying to help.”

  “Help?!” Nikki laughs that crazy laugh again. “You’ve helped enough, Astrid.”

  “Hey! Break it up!” A cop pushes through the circle of spectators that’s formed. “Let’s keep it friendly here.”

  Nikki whirls, gestures, and screams something that isn’t English. The cop flies back and crashes into the crowd, taking a bunch of people down. The drunk idiot college kids whoop again.

  “Nikki?” Astrid says.

  “Wrong guess!” Nikki roars.

  “Oh, no,” Astrid whispers.

  “Oh, yeah!”

  She lifts her hands skyward, shrieking what sounds to everyone else like complete nonsense. I don’t know exactly what she’s saying, but I’ve spent enough time with Astrid to recognize an incantation when I hear it.

  “Bam-a-lam, bitch!”

  Her hands drop. Lightning rains down out of a clear October sky, striking cars and buildings, punching through the street and the sidewalk, exploding in the middle of the Halloween crowds and sending them hurtling in all directions. People panic, scream, start to run, but no one knows where the attack is coming from, so they just run into each other. They shout and shove. They fall to the ground, giving other people something to fall over as they try to escape. Within seconds, Salem has been reduced to terror and pain and chaos.

  Just the way Black Betty likes it.

  5.

  “What happened after that?” Edison asks.

  “Black Betty slipped away in the confusion,” Astrid says.

  “Did you attempt to track her?”

  “Not right away. Missy and I stayed to help first responders, then I took Missy home, then I went home and attempted to locate Black Betty with a tracking spell. I couldn’t find her. I checked Nikki’s foster home, a few other places, but...”

  Edison nods, t
hen whispers something to Bart. Natalie slips me a sympathetic smile. Carrie mouths “Almost over” at me. God, I hope so. I hate debriefings. I always feel like I screwed up somehow.

  Somehow? Three people died in Salem on Halloween night. Nine more were injured by Black Betty’s attack and dozens more were injured in the stampede that followed. I screwed up.

  No one asks any more questions. Edison tells us to step out of the conference room for a while. Astrid and I head to the common room to wait.

  “What do you think will happen to us?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” Astrid says.

  “But...people died.”

  “And we feel like crap about it. We always will. We’ll carry those deaths with us for the rest of our lives. That’s why the Protectorate won’t punish us; we’ve already taken care of that part.”

  Yeah. Guess we have.

  After a half hour, Carrie comes in to let us know we’re all set, no more questions, we’re clear to leave. Astrid gives me an I told you so look before she leaves to “spend some quality time with my friend Jack Daniels.”

  “She means she’s going home to get drunk,” I say to Carrie.

  “Guess I can’t blame her, all things considered. I’d probably drink too if my worst enemy came back from the dead,” Carrie says with an uncomfortable laugh. “Man, saying that out loud...”

  “I know. I still haven’t wrapped my head around it.”

  It doesn’t help that Astrid isn’t positive what “it” is, but her best guess is that the ritual wasn’t a true resurrection spell. She said it was more like a demonic summoning except instead of a demon, Nikki summoned the lost soul of her dead sister and allowed it to take over her body. Astrid can’t even say whether Nikki’s soul is still in there or whether she sacrificed herself to bring Black Betty back. Either way, it’s messed up.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Carrie says. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “Um. Actually...can I go home with you?”

  “Yeah, sure, but...” Carrie pauses. “You do know Sara’s going to be there.”

  “I know. I want her to be there.”

  Carrie smiles. “Okay. Let’s go, then.”

  TEN – SARA DANVERS AND MEGAWATT QUANTUM

  FIRST DATE

  1.

  “So. How have you been?” Bart asks.

  The cool thing about having a therapist who’s also your friend is that an opening line like that feels like it’s coming from Bart rather than from Dr. Connors. It feels like he actually cares about me outside our scheduled hour together.

  “Good. I’ve been doing all right,” I say. “Staying busy.”

  “Are you still visiting your parents?”

  “Every week.” That’s a standard question during our sessions. I keep waiting for him to tell me whether that’s good because it shows I’m a caring girl who regrets her actions, or that it’s bad because I’m holding onto my guilt and should learn to let go. Bart never comments about it one way or the other. I tell myself it’s because I’m caring and full of regret. I’m fine if Bart never tells me otherwise.

  “Still active with the LGBTQ group at school?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh. I feel like they’ve been really good for me.”

  Bart smiles and nods, and then says, “But?”

  “I didn’t say ‘but.’”

  “Didn’t have to. I can hear it in your voice.”

  I squirm in my seat. I’m about to dive into some extremely uncomfortable waters here, but Bart has one hard and fast rule about these sessions: always be honest. Don’t lie, don’t withhold information, and don’t — what’s the word he used? Don’t obfuscate. I can’t make progress if I’m not completely honest with Bart and with myself.

  “I feel like a total fraud sometimes,” I say. “All the kids in the group know...well, they think they know what happened to me over the summer.”

  “Your ‘suicide attempt,’ you mean.”

  “Yeah. There are three other kids in the group who’ve tried to kill themselves. Bo, the student chair? He has these big, jagged scars,” I say, showing Bart on my own arms. The scars run up both arms, from the heel of his palms all the way up into the crooks of his elbows. “He slashed himself open with a broken bottle. He doesn’t try to hide the scars at all. He wants people to see them. He wants people to ask about them because he wants to talk about what happened. He’s so brave. They all are.”

  “You feel like you’re lying to them,” Bart says.

  “I am lying to them, about something terrible, and I feel lousy about it. They trust me and I feel like I don’t deserve it, but I can’t tell them the truth.”

  “No,” Bart agrees, “but in a situation like this, I think the important thing isn’t whether you talk about yourself, but whether you listen to them. You do listen, yes?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then keep listening. The details may be worlds apart, but you can sincerely empathize with these kids. They need someone like you, who will listen and understand and not judge them.”

  Then there’s the one downside of having a friend-slash-therapist: I can’t always tell when he’s offering me good advice and when he’s rationalizing something to spare my feelings. I end up taking a lot of our therapy sessions in good faith, which is a horrible thing to say. Bart’s always been there for me. He’s the most important person in my life after Carrie and Matt and — um. After Carrie and Matt.

  Bart jumps to a happier topic. “How’s the adjustment been? Any more anxiety attacks since that first one?”

  “Nope. Not a one. Not even a close call,” I boast.

  “Good,” Bart says, and maybe it’s my imagination, but I could swear he’s a little disappointed to hear that. It’s nothing in his voice or his body language, just a gut feeling.

  The problem with Bart’s number one rule of therapy: it doesn’t apply to the therapist.

  We fill the rest of the hour with small talk, which I take as a good sign. It means we’re running out of heavier subject matter.

  Or maybe not. Bart’s apparently been saving the best questions for last. “Where do you see yourself a year from now?”

  “Um...you mean personally, or job-wise, or —?”

  Bart spreads his hands. D: All of the above.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been a little preoccupied dealing with a lot of here-and-now kind of stuff.”

  “Understandable, but you’d be surprised how quickly tomorrow becomes the here and now. Personally, then. Where do you see yourself in a year?”

  “Not in this room, for starters. No offense.” Bart smiles; no offense taken. “I imagine I’ll still be living with Carrie and Christina, which is cool. Assuming they still want me.”

  “I think that’s a safe assumption. How about your education?”

  “Easy. Senior year of high school.”

  “And then?”

  Good question. Then what? I haven’t given any thought to what I’m going to do after graduation, and I haven’t had viable options handed to me on a silver platter like Carrie and Matt.

  I shake my head. Bart moves on, and the last question is a bit of a shocker. “The Hero Squad?”

  “The Squad? I don’t have a future with the Squad,” I say, a little defensively. “I’m a normal person now.”

  “Magic gloves notwithstanding, Matt’s a normal person,” Bart points out. “Natalie could cut it as a super-hero without her powers.”

  “That’s them. I’m not them.”

  I wait for Bart to push, to hit me with a follow-up. He doesn’t.

  “Looks like our hour’s up,” he says.

  I head to the café across the street from Town Hall Square and take a seat at the big picture window to wait for Carrie to meet me. Ms. Punctual shows up at three thirty-five on the nose.

  “Coffee sugar caffeine,” she says, dashing past my table to go order a snack. She returns with a latté and a piece of cheesecake to share. She shovels a bite into her mouth and sighs
contentedly. “And all is right with the world.”

  “That kind of day, huh?”

  “And it’s not over yet. After work I have to head over to HQ for Astrid and Missy’s debriefing.”

  “The Salem thing, right?” Carrie nods. “Jeez, that ought to be a wild story.”

  “To say the least.”

  “Will I see you at dinner?”

  She shakes her head. “And if it comes up? I’m working late, helping Mr. Crenshaw with an important case. Wink wink.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “We’re still on for movie night, though. You promised to introduce me to Oklahoma! and I’m holding you to it.”

  “You just want to see Hugh Jackman shirtless.”

  “Well, yeah. Come for the music, stay for the hot Aussie man-god.”

  The fifteen minutes passes too quickly. Carrie returns to work, leaving me with my coffee and the last few bites of cheesecake. I sit there, poking at the cheesecake with no real interest in finishing it, and stare out the window. Main Street fills up with cars as people slip out of work early, eager to start the weekend. A woman walks by, hand-in-hand with a little girl carrying a bag from the bookstore down the block. They pass an old man shuffling in the opposite direction, a newspaper rolled up under his arm. He’s smiling for no apparent reason. In the middle of it all, a chipmunk sits on a low branch of a tree at the edge of the sidewalk, observing the world around him. No one notices him, but he sees everyone else. For a split second, he looks right at me. The moment passes and he goes back to his people-watching.

  Everything’s going to be okay.

  The thought jumps into my head, and with it comes an odd but not unpleasant sensation, like a weight lifting off my chest — a weight that’s been sitting there for so long, I’d forgotten it was there. I’d gotten so used to it...

  What a weird thing to hit me out of the blue like that.