“I came to see how you were doing,” “Mia” told him, sounding concerned and contrite in equal measure. “When I heard on the news about what happened to you ... I just ... I felt bad that you got hurt acting on my tip, you know? I just wanted to help those children, but I never imagined that ... you know ... that Powerhouse could be hurt.”
Powerhouse smiled. “That’s real nice of you, Ms. Singh.”
“Mia” blushed and batted her eyes, just a little bit. “Please, call me ‘Mia’.”
Powerhouse’s smile broadened. “Mia. Sure.”
He was acting smitten enough, but the Skygger was intrigued that the song also kept running through his mind.
... forty-three bottles of beer on the wall ... forty-three bottle of beeeer ...
How amusing that the Gladius had chosen to surround himself and his vulnerable brother with a bunch of obsessive-compulsives.
“Mia” glanced over at Vortex. “Is he going to be okay?”
Powerhouse nodded, closing the magazine and tossing it onto the side table. “They think so, yeah. We’re just watching out for him until the asshole who hurt him shows up.”
The Skygger almost smiled at that, but fought it off.
Powerhouse asked, “How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“The Shining Star and that weird man dressed in black said I could talk to you, just for a minute.” “Mia” took a step further into the room, closer to Vortex, trailed her fingers along the foot of Powerhouse’s bed. “And ... well, I was hoping that, maybe ... maybe when you get out, and all of this is all over ... do you think we could maybe ... I don’t know, go out to dinner or something? I’m sorry if I’m being a little too ...”
“Mia” trailed off as the Skygger grew suspicious.
Powerhouse was looking at her, listening to her, and the Skygger already knew from prior experience that he found Mia attractive. But here “she” was, extending a romantic, possibly amorous invitation his way ...
... you take one down ... pass it around ... thirty-eight bottles of beer on the wall ...
... and he was still droning on with that puerile song? That wasn’t right.
“Mia” stared at Powerhouse, and Powerhouse stared back. His face was blank. Too blank.
Calm and collected, Powerhouse said, “We found Mia’s remains an hour ago, you son of a bitch.”
Hissing, “Mia’s” head snapped toward Vortex.
Vortex’s eyes were open. “Hey.”
Then Vortex fired twin laser beams, which struck “Mia” directly in her left eye.
The Skygger screamed.
PARANORMALS, THE GLADIUS, AND THE SKYGGER
The young Indian woman screamed when Vortex’s lasers pierced her eye, and then “Mia” melted away, reshaping into something else, something worse.
All the lights dimmed, the room getting dark, fast.
But the melted woman, the “Skygger,” was moving even faster, backing into and then up the wall, scuttling left like some messed up lizard, and bringing it that much closer to Steve.
“Lincoln!” he shouted, cringing in pain as he pulled away from the scurrying monster.
His big friend was already on his feet, not chasing after the thing, but grabbing and swinging his entire hospital bed at it; Steve pressed back into his thin mattress as Powerhouse’s bed whooshed past his face.
Yet, somehow, the Skygger managed to evade the attack, scrambling onto the ceiling just as the bed smashed into the wall, hissing as it went. And the room was getting so dark, they were seconds from losing track of the damned thing altogether.
At the same time, the door had flown open, kicked inward by Shockwave, who was already unleashing a kinetic wave. The Skygger scrambled forward, toward the doorway, probably trying to get inside the oncoming, shimmering attack. Or to kill Mark. Or both.
But between the bed and the shockwave, even the Skygger could not escape entirely. The shockwave caught its legs, knocking it from the ceiling. Like a perverse version of a cat, it twisted on its way down, perfect for landing on all fours when it reached the floor.
Except Powerhouse had not stopped at throwing the bed.
As the Skygger fell, he caught it with a well-timed, roundhouse punch. The creature took the blow full in the chest with an audible crack! that couldn’t help but leave a grin on Steve’s face.
The Skygger struck the outside wall and went straight through it, tumbling out into the evening air. The lights in the hospital room returned to regular intensity.
Shoving the crumbled bed aside, Powerhouse and Shockwave rushed to the hole in the wall, looking around for their enemy.
“Tell me you got it,” Steve spat through clenched teeth. “Tell me you splattered it against the building next door like a bug on a windshield.”
Shockwave saw something, thumped Powerhouse on the arm and pointed.
Powerhouse shook his head. “Goddamn. It hit the other building, all right, and now it’s lying on the sidewalk, but it’s still in one piece. I swear, Vortex, I hit it hard enough to knock it into orbit!”
“You probably did.”
Steve flinched. He hadn’t realized the new guy, the Gladius, was in the room — he stood back from the gaping hole, his hands gripping his sheathed swords.
The Gladius shook his black-clad head. “More evidence that it can neutralize—”
“Oh, shit,” Shockwave breathed in disbelief.
But Steve’s thoughts were preoccupied as he focused on the Gladius. Does he sound like John? Does he?
“It’s moving,” Shockwave was saying. “Shit, it’s already moving!”
“Press the attack,” the Gladius snapped. “Now, before it recovers.”
The man who might or might not sound like John Davison didn’t have to repeat himself. Powerhouse kicked the hole wider and then jumped through it; Shockwave was only seconds behind after peeling the studs from his special shoes.
Steve watched as the Gladius strode after them. The Gladius hesitated, just for a moment, when he reached the hole, and glanced toward Steve. His eyes — which might have looked like John Davison’s, or might not — tightened in some unreadable emotion. Steve expected the man to say something like “Stay here” or “Don’t worry,” but he didn’t.
Instead, he nodded, barely, a tiny hint of movement. Then he said something that sounded like, “Supratanit,” before he, too, stepped out into the open air. He didn’t fall like Powerhouse, nor did he fire off into flight like Shockwave. He just hovered there for a second before drifting downward on the gentle wind, until he was out of Steve’s line of sight.
Steve slumped back onto his bed, waiting for the arrival of the medical staff he already heard out in the hall — slapping soft shoes; shouting voices — and he hoped they were bringing him something for his raging pain. A PCA guard or three wouldn’t go unappreciated, either.
“Go get it, guys,” he said aloud as he greyed out. “Nail the son of a bitch.”
PCA
From the air above, John watched the Skygger — exposed in its natural form in all its nasty glory — roll onto all fours after Powerhouse struck the pavement ten feet from it. Like the hospital room above, the streetlights were dimming, making the shadows worse than they already were as the handful of screaming pedestrians and a couple of cars bolted away from the oncoming paranormal encounter. For now, at least, the Skygger behaved as though it were still recovering, releasing another fierce hiss but shambling backward on shaky limbs.
“Like our little trick, you ugly piece of shit?” Shockwave taunted as he landed alongside Powerhouse. “Kinda confused your telepathic bullshit, didn’t we? You can thank him for that.” He pointed up at John.
John wasn’t crazy about Shockwave giving away his secret — a different spin on his Spoetium spell, “recording” their thoughts in advance, then projecting them back and playing them on an ongoing loop — but he would be lying if he denied taking pleasure in the result: The Skygger raised its scar-covered maw, a gross pink-red ic
hor oozing from its wounded left eye, and hissed once more, this one filled with more hate than ever, at John.
“Just shoot it,” Powerhouse grumbled.
“Sounds good to me.” Shockwave fired from both fists, and the darkness surged around them all, turning the gloom into true darkness. But Shockwave had aimed wide, knocking parked cars aside as he flanked his target, and unless the Skygger had learned to phase through the pavement, that left it only one direction to go.
Still twenty feet in the air, John drew his gladius swords and crossed the blades, calling out, “Cataptis!” The greenish-blue energy net spread outward, covering the area above Shockwave’s kinetic attack. Between the twin kinetic waves, the wall behind the Skygger was crumpling, but if he could not pin the Skygger, perhaps he could entangle it.
The upper-left edge of the glowing net spasmed and began to misshapen, suggesting he had partially succeeded, but he knew from experience it wouldn’t last long. And the Skygger’s darkness didn’t help, as the net’s moderate glow was reduced to almost nothing.
Shockwave called, “Gladius, you get it?!”
Then the glow of the net faded completely from sight, and the shadows between the hospital and neighboring building plummeted into a Stygian void.
Shockwave cursed. “Where should I shoot?!”
John didn’t know what to tell him, and he was starting to worry that their backup had actually fallen for the Skygger’s—
“I can help with that.”
Ah, he thought with relief. There he is.
The silvery hue of the Shining Star’s aura announced his arrival on the scene. John glanced up at the arriving hero, virtually the only thing he could see at the moment ... and performed an actual double-take.
Gone was Shining Star’s glorious silver cape, and in its place, the Taalu bore two items that prompted a brief wave of almost-homesickness to wash over John: In his right hand, a sword; on his left arm, a shield. Augmented within his aura, both items glistened a similar silver to his absent cape ... no, not “similar,” they were the exact color of his cape. Did that mean ...?
Don’t suppose you’ll be doin’ that thing with your cape? Shockwave had asked the alien.
I’ll be damned, John marveled. And these people have trouble believing in magic?
In the meantime, unlike John’s slow drift downward to join the others, Shining Star halted about four stories up, spread his arms wide, drew a deep breath, then released a bark of effort.
Shining Star’s aura expanded and brightened, fighting against the unnatural darkness. And while he failed to achieve the sun-like heights Shockwave had described, it was enough to illuminate the scene.
The Skygger was indeed caught by John’s magical net, but only barely. Its right leg was snagged, trapped between the brick wall and the net, but it was already tugging itself free, its leg moving as if it possessed numerous joints.
Shockwave fired again.
The Skygger folded over backwards, avoiding most of the kinetic attack as it pulled its foot loose and scampered over the outer surface of the net.
“Traecanes!” John called out as he settled onto the pavement, blue energy rushing out of his two swords, not in another net, but in an eldritch wave.
But the damned creature continued its frustrating escape artistry, the eldritch attack only glancing across it as it shifted course with unbelievable agility and rushed at an upward diagonal across the damaged wall — which could not take much more abuse. A random car tire, thrown by Powerhouse, missed it by a wide margin as it headed for the edge of the building.
“It’s gettin’ away!” Shockwave warned, adjusting his aim once more.
Except the Skygger wasn’t trying to escape.
Spinning on the head of a pin, the Skygger leaped up and away from Shockwave’s latest attack ... directly at Shining Star.
“Callin!” Powerhouse called.
The Grand Lord heard the cry, and his aura dampened a bit as he twisted to face the oncoming danger. Rather than evade, he brought his illustrious sword to bear and attempted to hew the Skygger once and for all.
He missed.
The Skygger screeched in pain when it collided with Shining Star’s aura, and the unnatural darkness all around them evaporated.
But that did not stop the beast from sinking its fangs deep into Shining Star’s throat, ripping away a mouthful of tissue, spitting it aside, and lunging forward for another bite.
Shining Star gasped — or tried to, but it came out as a disturbing gurgle. The Skygger had a clawed foot up against his sword arm, but he jerked up his left arm and slammed the edge of his silver shield against the side of the Skygger’s head; the blow, solid and true, landed with a gratifying clang! that knocked the creature off and away from him, spinning it around to collide with the neighboring building once more.
... but then Shining Star’s sword dropped to the street below and his shield sagged from his forearm as his silver-gloved hands went to his ravaged throat, a torrent of blood pumping between his fingers. He gurgle-gasped again, then his aura faded, and the Taalu leader fell to earth.
Powerhouse and Shockwave rushed to their fallen comrade, while John moved alongside them and spoke, “Cipimon.” His magical barrier went up around all of them, but as ever before, he worried about its true effectiveness against the Skygger.
And where was the Skygger? Had it escaped after all?
Or was it already creeping its way back up to Steve’s hospital room?
“Callin,” Powerhouse was saying as he pulled the loose shield away and tossed it aside, “let me see, let me see how bad it is.”
But Shining Star kept his hands in place, shaking his head as he knelt on the pavement. He mouthed something, but only another gurgle came out.
“Gladius!” Shockwave snapped. “Help him! Like you did Vortex!”
John kept searching. Was it getting darker again? He thought it was. “I can try. But without being able to focus my attention, it won’t be nearly as effective.”
“Whatever you can do, man, just do it!”
Allowing his magical shield to drop, John side-stepped until he was alongside Shining Star. “Keep watch.”
Shockwave, followed a second later by Powerhouse, stood and took over scanning the area. Shockwave then voiced what John had been thinking: “Shit, it’s gettin’ dark again. Guess Callin’s glowy stuff didn’t burn the asshole enough.”
Gladius sheathed one sword to free his left hand. Kneeling next to Shining Star and placing his hand upon the back of the Taalu’s neck, he whispered, “Sanitasto ...”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s going to be enough, dear Gladius.”
The baiting voice drifted in from all around them. Powerhouse and Shockwave tried to watch every direction at once, but they were stumped. John knew better than to try, but also took heart that, if the Skygger was resorting to taunting, it was probably buying more time to recover.
Shining Star’s breathing came a little less ragged, the blood flowing between his fingers slowed, but only a little, and he was slumping more than before. John suspected he would pass out at any moment, either from the trauma or blood loss.
Like the Skygger had said, with John unable to drop his guard and concentrate his effort, it might prove too little, too late.
“Tick-tock ...” floated the Skygger’s words, “tick-tock ...”
“Come on ...” John gasped under his breath, willing Shining Star to heal, to recover enough so that John could get back into the fight before someone got—
A blur of movement, a near-whoosh! of speed. John might have leveled his one gladius for a Traecala bolt, or at least given a cry of warning, but it happened too fast for him to react: The Skygger emerged from the shadows, struck Powerhouse on the back of his already injured skull, and disappeared again into the darkness.
Powerhouse cried out and dropped to his knees, both hands cradling his head in pain.
“What?!” Shockwave shouted, whipping his head back and
forth. “What happened?! Lincoln, you okay—?”
“Watch out!” John called.
The Skygger reappeared behind Shockwave this time, its claws, lengthened into talons, poised to sever his spine.
But Shockwave surprised both friend and enemy: Without bothering to turn around, he flexed his muscles and fired a kinetic wave in all directions — the wave washed inches over the heads of his kneeling allies, but struck the Skygger full-on. The beast yiped!, not unlike a dog, and tumbled backward, rolling along the pavement and onto the sidewalk, to slam against the base of the hospital wall. Shockwave turned and fired a one-fisted attack, but he held back while firing toward the medical building, and the Skygger was able to roll out of the way, then leap once more into its sheltering darkness.
Shockwave shouted, “Kinda levels the playing field when you have trouble readin’ our minds, huh?! You still think I’m thinkin’ ‘bout tits-and-ass, dumbass?!”
“I’m growing tired of you ...”
Shockwave barked a laugh. “Well, that doesn’t sound up to your usual creepy standards. What’s the matter? Are we gettin’ to you, shithead?”
The Skygger did not reply.
Sooner or later, John thought, it’s going to cross the Skygger’s mind to go back after Steve. We need to finish this, somehow.
Powerhouse chose that moment to groan and slump onto his side, barely conscious.
“Somehow ...” John echoed under his breath.
Then a door banged open behind them. John whipped his sword around and Shockwave leveled a fist, but thanks to the new light coming from within the hospital, they were both able to identify Jeremy Walker.
“Walker!” Shockwave shouted. “Get your ass back inside, man!”
Ignoring him, Walker sprinted straight toward them, sliding onto his knees to the other side of Shining Star. Placing his hand on top of John’s, he scooted and shuffled around until he could just barely reach Powerhouse’s ankle.
Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns Page 34
