Blaze of Heroes

by C. J. Strange

  “No, Elder Beaumont. You shan't.”

  The next voice to speak out is Juniper's. She's shoved Spectre away (who, to my surprise, is taking no action to restrain or pursue her) and is calmly walking the length of the abandoned lifeboat station toward us.

  “I think the time has come,” she says softly, pain and sympathy evident on her face. It's still Beaumont she is addressing, her enormous eyes locked with his in a way that seems to almost hypnotize him all of a sudden. “I think I have given you all adequate time to come around. The Sun Mother's name has been tarnished with enough hatred and confusion, and I think it is time for this farce of a ritual to come to an end.”

  22 Penny's Heroes

  “Sister Juniper,” warns Beaumont, holding both hands up in a deliberate and defensive posture. “Remember what we discussed, your Magick—”

  “My Magick was a gift from my mother, Elder Beaumont,” Juniper is saying as she passes Rhys, still anchored to the floor, and Duncan, squirming against the wall. “So that I could stop tyrants like you from polluting Her children. Her tenets. Her name.”

  “T-tyrants?” stammers Beaumont. He's shaking his head. “Now, look, my sweet sister—”

  Juniper holds up a hand for silence as she pauses in front of him, her heart-shaped face hardening ever so slightly. Everyone is staring, nobody dares to move. The warriors, who clearly know more than us, are frozen in place. Sensing their terror, we're doing very much the same. The young black woman almost seems to glow as she slides sympathetic eyes over to myself and Oliver, before slitting them again at Beaumont.

  “Elder,” she says in an impossibly soft tone. “I have sat. I have watched. I have listened. And I have determined that the perverted path of Novanism you preach is too dangerous, too detrimental to love and life and light, to be allowed to exist.”

  Who is she? my brain is screaming at me, rattling around in my head. What is she!?

  “The Abyss has you trapped within its tendrils, Elder,” Juniper continues. The light radiating from her is pulsing, throbbing, glowing brighter and warmer with each beat of the rhythm. “You twist in its grasp and it taints you from the inside out. You must be cleansed.”

  Juniper's eyes flutter back to Oliver, and she extends her hand to him. “Come,” she urges. “Our mother is in control now. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Sister Juniper, I must protest—”

  Oliver turns his head and hisses at him as he passes, causing everybody else to flinch in knee-jerk reaction. Juniper scowls, pinning her gaze on Lynx; judging by the look on Alfie's face and the noise he just made, he's perhaps inches from having both arms broken.

  “Release him,” she demands, and to my absolute shock, Lynx only hesitates a moment before he complies. Alfie stumbles to his knees, massaging both shoulders in unison until they crack and cursing under his breath.

  Juniper refocuses on Beaumont.

  “The fifth tenet,” she says steadily. “Keep Your People Freed.”

  “Kneed,” Beaumont screeches, his body jerking, as if unable to help it.

  “Freed,” insists Juniper, with a presence and willpower I imagine Beaumont only dreams of. “Her children shall remain free, Elder. Always. It's my favorite tenet.”

  Smiling, Juniper acknowledges my brigade mate, who has flocked to her side. Although he's taller by a good six inches, he seems so much smaller than her. One of her hands, palm radiating, cradles the side of his face, and her smile broadens with beaming positivity.

  OP, she says, and to my shock, she's not saying it aloud, and yet I am still able to hear her. OP, I need you to relax. Relax, and don't fight me. I am giving you back to your family.

  And with that, a burst of white light ruptures the still and the silence, flooding the whole interior of the building and blinding everybody within. I squeeze my eyes shut and allow the rush of wind and sunset-warmth to consume me from all angles. There's an urge to give myself over to it, to trust, which is not an urge I get often nor one I give into easily.

  But this time, something tells me to. A voice deep inside my head. A voice I know and recognize as that of my father.

  Trust Her, the voice tells me, surreal but soothing at the back of my skull. Trust your mother, Penny.

  The light dissolves, layer by layer. The world fades slowly back into view. Oliver has sunk to sit cross-legged on the ground at Juniper's feet, clinging to both of her legs, leaning into them. When he peeks back out, my heart stands still—his eyes, his lips, his skin, it's all the way I remember it. Healthy, untainted. Alive.

  “OP—” I gasp, relief forcing his name out of my mouth. I tug against my bonds, and to my shock, fall flat on my face on the diamond plate floor with a grunt.

  Beaumont has fallen to his knees, trembling. “A true Solar Cleanse…” he's whimpering into his hands, which he appears to be attempting to stuff in his mouth. “My sun, my limitless sun…”

  Shaky and unsure, I work my way unsteadily to my feet. Several of the warriors notice me, but daren't move to intercept. A quick glance about my surroundings advises me that the webbing restraining Duncan and Rhys has also been shredded, freeing my brigade and leaving each and every one of us in the coveted position of having some sort of an advantage.

  The tables just turned.

  “You must be cleansed, Elder Beaumont,” Juniper is saying, leaving Oliver's side to take a single step in the preacher's direction. “All of you. Your warriors, your entire pride. The Abyss has taken root in the depth of your incredible, immeasurable faith. It must be flushed out, and quickly. Before it does damage I cannot undo.”

  “Yeah,” snickers Alfie, dusting himself off as he abandons Lynx to join Oliver. “And then, when she's done? Me and my lads are gonna do some damage to him ain't no one gonna be able to undo.”

  He and Duncan are working together to back the rest of the warriors toward their leader, rounding them up. How docile they are in Juniper's presence is both bizarre and brilliant, for us at least. And all the while she remains on our side. Beaumont flinches, but I speak up before I even know what I'm doing.

  “No. No, we aren't.”

  Alfie whirls on me to glare. “What?”

  I stand firm. Resolute in my decision. “It's what makes us the heroes of this story,” I state with conviction. “We don't maim. We don't kill. We don't willfully inflict suffering if there is an alternative way out. We respect the sanctity of life, lads. If we don't, what are we? We're just villains, masquerading as heroes.”

  “Aye, what we doing with them then, lass?” asks Duncan, suddenly at my side. Juniper is apparently our big gun, but even still, there's something about his presence that bolsters my resolve.

  “Wait, wait, hang on a tick—” Alfie is helping Oliver up, one arm around our youngest brigade mate to steady him. “After everything he did to OP, everything they wanted to do to us—are you seriously considering just letting them go!?”

  “As opposed to what?” I raise an eyebrow at his question. The intensity of the scenario at hand keeps the crunch of the clock at the forefront of my mind. I don't have much time to act, let alone philosophize.

  “Beating whatever's tainting them out of their bodies?” I press. “Doing to them what they were going to do to us? An eye for an eye?” I sigh heavily, throwing my head down. “Diesel, I'm done. I'm done questioning my own morality, every movement. When all is said and done, I want to be able to look back and know that I did everything in a way that let me lay my head down and sleep at night. That I was on the right side of history, every step of the way.”

  “And what if it's the wrong side?” mutters Alfie. Ever the devil's advocate.

  The attention eventually tips back over to me for my answer, and I do my best not to squirm beneath its pressure.

  “Look, I'm young. I'm impulsive. I'm really nothing more than a kid trying to make decisions that would probably right wreck most adults out there in the rest of the global community. I've done shit in the past I weren't proud of, and I'm s
ure I'll continue to fuck up in the future.

  “All I know is that we as a brigade collectively chose to do what we did so that others could keep their morality intact,” I say, avoiding all eye contact. “Did that make us any better than them? No, it didn't.” I snort, a spitefulness I don't particularly like creeping its way into my voice. “But you can probably blame the number of nights I laid awake and alone, wondering how far they would've gotten with all this fascist bullshit if they hadn't counted on us predictable liberally-minded folk to react with zero violence.”

  “We do have a habit of pissing and moaning and and doing sweet FA about it all,” adds Rhys. He's standing at Juniper's side, his arms still bound behind him, watching Beaumont with concentration creasing his handsome face.

  I nod. “And maybe that's our lot in life. All I know is that I would rather piss and moan, and do whatever I can without taking the life or liberty of a fellow human being, than have to spend even a second wondering if I'm every bit the monster they've made me out to be. Every bit the monster they are.”

  An asphyxiating silence descends upon the participants of the failed 'Hunt'. I imagine nobody wants to be the first to speak, to either agree with or challenge my command. The majority of our decisions as a brigade come down to a vote, democracy pure and simple. I don't often invoke my veto rights as their captain. When I do, it's for a bloody good reason, and my lads all know it.

  “I've got yours, lassie,” Duncan says eventually, his voice gruff and gritty.

  “Quite,” agrees Rhys. “As exhilarating as a good old game of curby-stompy would be right about now, I must agree, it wouldn't be all that heroic of us.”

  Juniper is beaming at us. “My mother's message,” she says, “in flesh and blood form.”

  “Well, isn't that just sickeningly sentimental.”

  The voice is Beaumont's, but at the same time, it very much isn't. The preacher has risen to his feet, his robes billowing out around him as if floating and rippling upon some invisible aura. His face resembles Oliver's before Juniper's apparent 'cleanse'—pockmarked and ashen, blackened around the orifices, his veins pumping teal beneath taut, thinning skin.

  “Starling…”

  My name in that deep, demonic voice causes me to choke on any further words I might've wanted to speak. My resolve crumbles in an instant, and I feel two inches tall beneath the venom and evil of his stare.

  “Oh, yes, of course, the baby bird,” he's purring, clapping his hands together. “Your father has been awfully busy, little one. And a terrible thorn in our side.”

  I open my mouth, but no words come out. Something in his stare has me frozen.

  “You mean the Sovereignty?” yells Alfie, either covering my arse or determined to find out for himself. To which Beaumont scoffs and shakes his head.

  “Oh, those pretty but pitiful puppets,” he cackles. “They are but an extension of us, an arm. Our most ardent and advantageous arm, but a single arm nonetheless. No, child, your father has been facing down a foe more terrifying than some overreaching government entity. Unfortunately, we fear he may have bitten off more than he can chew this time…”

  Beaumont chuckles, chortles, and then cackles again, throwing his head forward with the force of his own laughter. Juniper's face hardens and the tiny girl steps out as if to quieten him, but she doesn't get the chance.

  In an eruption of thick, inky, black smoke, Beaumont and his warriors have all dissipated. Where they once stood and sat, cowering in a huddle from our new friend, a thin layer of dark ash dusts the crosshatch grooves of the metal floor.

  Juniper's hands drop and she stares, before making a soft noise of annoyance and stomping her foot. "Bloody hell," she mutters. "I should've seen that one coming a mile off."

  None of us seem to dare to speak up. As the brigade's captain, I take one for the team.

  “Juniper, Oliver, Alfie,” I say quietly. “I'm sorry, but I don't understand a single fucking thing that's happened within the past twelve hours. You're probably all going to have to fill me in.”

  “Later, over a cuppa?” mumbles Oliver with the tiniest sparkle of his old humor to his words, and it's a sound that I swear could set my heart ablaze.

  Alfie exhales, stumbling sideways as if to emphasize his exhaustion. Or because he's just that tired. “Fuck me,” he gasps, pressing a hand into his head. He's probably suffering from a similar headache to everybody else who's overwhelmed themselves with their Magick in the past fifteen minutes. “It's over.”

  No, it isn't.

  “The convoy.” As much as I don't want to say it, don't want to be the bearer of bad news, I have to. Our mission isn't over yet. There are innocent people out there, and if there's any chance we can still save them, you can bet your arse we're going to try.

  The collective quiet serves as a silent fuck of exasperation. Not one of us doesn't sense the urgency. Rhys, recently freed from his bonds by Duncan, walks toward me.

  “The van?” he asks. “Hastings? I presume we ride forth to slay the vigilante dragons of this once-glorious realm?”

  Before I can answer, something buzzes in my back pocket. My mobile. It rarely rings, especially when all four of the folk who might call it are in the same room as me. Frowning, I unbutton the pocket and dig it out, staring at it suspiciously.

  “Who is it?” asks Oliver timidly. I shrug.

  “I have no idea.”

  My thumb hovers over the button for a second or two before I accept the call, bringing it to my ear. Around me, I sense my lads stiffen instinctively, as if waiting for something horrible to happen. “... good evening. Iron Lillies Funeral Directors and Services, how can we assist your family with finding peace today?”

  “Ah! Good one, Kapitän. I had a feeling I shouldn't expect a simple hello on this line.”

  Izzey. My eyes widen, and a tidal wave of emotions rushes me, making it difficult to retain my professional cool.

  “I was hoping you'd call me,” I reply with mirrored playfulness and spite. “I mean, how many days has it been since—wait, I never actually gave you my number, did I, mate? I guess I weren't all that impressed.”

  “I have my ways of contacting those I need to get ahold of,” is Izzey's response. “You can put me on speakerphone, it's okay. I've missed the entire gang.”

  “You drove a hundred and fifty people to their deaths, Izzey,” I growl into the phone, my threatening tone evident in the way I pause between each word. “If you expect civil conversation, you have some serious explaining to do.”

  Izzey chuckles, a sound just as liquid and silken on the end of a static phone line as it was when we were side by side. “Oh, I am fully ready to explain! And please, allow me to. We do what we must to survive.”

  “Even if surviving means murdering people who trusted you with their safety? Their children?”

  “Kapitän,” Izzey says sharply, and it does it's job to shut me up. “I am texting you the coordinates of the convoy. I left them close to Tonbridge, to the far north of Hastings and in the safety of the Southern Fringe. They have enough supplies to last another day, but I highly recommend you reconvene with them at your earliest convenience. Some of them are likely beginning to grow concerned. As for M.O.B., well, they’re currently searching an abandoned warehouse in lower Greater London for them. Terribly off-course they seem to have ventured, but what can one do? Adieu, Lady Hope.”

  And with that, he hangs up, leaving me alone with the buzz of the dial tone and the buzz of my own total and utter bewilderment.

  23 Oliver’s Olive Branch

  It takes a full day for my headache to neutralize. I'm beyond relieved when it does. Juniper warned me to take it easy, and then warned Penny to make sure I take it easy, so I've spent the majority of the day hovering around my captain as she debriefs everybody about the insanity of yesterday's shenanigans.

  Alfie and Duncan are distracted. They seem to have taken the wellbeing of our 'cargo' very personally, for whatever reasons they may have. The din
of a crowd of voices is something we haven't had to get used to in a very long time, and I can't say I'm unhappy about the idea of living in a small tent city in the middle of the Southern Fringe.

  At least, until these good people figure out what they want to do, and where they want to go. Until that day, we will have their backs, protecting them and theirs exactly as we promised to.

  “Hey, PS—good job with the pep talk earlier, Captain.”

  I barely waited for the door to rattle shut behind Rhys, who is heading out with Tesla to make the rounds and help with securing the perimeter as we do hourly. He was his usual mysterious self, refusing to answer a single straight question about what Beaumont wanted to know of him, why he was separated from the rest of the brigade. Perhaps he, too, is waiting to be alone with her before he speaks that freely.

  “Before, I mean,” I continue. “When you did your whole… you know, non-violence PSA thingamajig.”

  Penny bites her lip, leaning against the closed door of the van. “You don't think the angle I went with was a bit strange?”

  “Angle?”

  “That whole thing about choosing to resort to violence so others don't have to.” She pulls a face. “It's a bit—I mean, that's proper fucking sad, mate, you know? How seriously do I take us?”

  I chuckle sleepily. “More seriously than people who don't understand the exact lengths of what we endure daily,” I mumble, half a smile on my face.

  “Sometimes, I wish they did,” Penny replies, sounding defeated. “Maybe then they would understand why we do what we do. But then again, maybe not. It's taken me the better part of a year to become okay with the concept of accepting my own ignorance and changing my perspective on things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Penny shrugs loosely. “Marmite. Swallowing. Whether or not I'm morally corrupt if I commit similar atrocities to those I'm rallying against, as opposed to sitting by and watching it happen with no checks and balances?”