The fastest way to kill any species is by searching through their stomach cavities for their soul. It was the first thing I was taught from where I came from about combat. You shoot for the kill. Just get your hands dirty for once and don’t mind about the sounds they made if you got it wrong and didn’t plunge your arm in deep enough. That was just about all I knew about having a soul. Other species believed in it, and when you’ve seen enough bodies spill open, you kinda figured that they don’t exist at some point. The lights just get turned off one day and that’ll be that for you forever.
So the idea of selling it was like asking me how badly I wanted to get in front of a stadium full of people to explain why I killed supervillains—stupid, pointless, and maybe a little ridiculous. My hand was absentmindedly hovering over my bleeding stomach, gingerly touching soaking wet bandages. I had been taught practicality in fighting, but hey, I’d admit that I enjoyed being creative, being flashy, turning around mid-air and trying out something new just because I could. It went against what had been drilled into me since I learnt how to walk, so maybe this was supposed to be one of those times that I had to let go of what I knew, which was starting to become a recurring theme in the past few weeks of my life. Suddenly I knew fuck all about the world around me.
But on the other hand, I was also shaking, too weak to even stop myself from swaying as I tried stopping myself from puking again. A force was keeping me upright, like an invisible hand on the small of my back. Witchling, she was keeping me together, making it look like I had at least enough strength to face the kids without having to lay wheezing on the floor. I hated her with every ounce of my being and then some…but I could give her some thanks. But what options did I have left? I was scared deep down. Scared that this is where it was going to end. Scared that mom maybe wasn’t even going to have a chance at seeing how her daughter finally…died. To see if she even made this superhero thing work out and moving out wasn’t as stupid as it had sounded. Not that I wanted her to see me in this state. Gods, Ry, how did you get yourself into this kind of mess?
The ground shuddered again. Cherry bellowed louder, closer. An orb flickered, and this time Witchling’s spread hand couldn’t keep it from vanishing into nothing. The dark reached out a little bit more, meaning the kids were forced a little closer together, trying to keep away from it.
I didn’t like the idea of leaving Witchling alone with my unconscious body and all these children. I didn’t take her as the kind of supervillain who really gave a damn about doing the right thing in that split second moment when it all came down to it. She would grab Knuckles’ body and mine, get whatever she needed by force, and then get out of here without the kids, even if they were shrieking for her to come back the entire time. Fuck. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to keep my brain from pouring out of my freaking eyeballs. The headache was doing a damned good job of hammering it around my temples and making gooey pulp out of it right now. I didn’t have a choice but to believe in what a supervillain was saying about selling my godsdamned soul.
Because unless I wanted these kids to die here, then what else was I supposed to do?
“Who would I be selling it to exactly?” I asked, my voice straining in my throat.
To name It will be to call It, and you have not yet agreed to meeting It.
Great, some kind of being that couldn’t even have a name. Of course. Of course!
“She’s waking,” Kanz said quietly. Knuckles groaned as her eyes slowly pulled open, and I couldn’t help but smile a little with relief. The gash in her side was still bleeding, still large enough to make me wince as she moved, but her immediate reaction was to grab Kanz’s wrist as soon as he tried dabbing the sweat off her forehead. Her ash-blonde hair was still tousled and filthy, sweeping over her forehead and putting grit and dust right back into her eyes. All Kanz did was smile at her as he brushed it away from her eyes and used his free hand to wipe away the sweat. Hell, if my heart wasn’t trying so hard to burst out of my chest I would have felt something in it.
We don’t have much longer, Witchling said. Blood still trickled from her nose and hung in the air just above her lap, collecting into a small scarlet ball. He’ll trace my essence very soon.
On cue, several mannequins collapsed as the floor shook again. The children whimpered, kept together by a Sam who was, admittedly, doing a great job putting on a brave face for them.
“Gods, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…” I coughed, and a shard of pain lanced from one side of my torso to the other, blurring my vision with agony. “Fine. Just freaking do it.”
Kit edged out of the group, those tiny ears poking out of her short peach fuzz hair still flat on her head. She tugged at my ripped pants, looking up at me with eyes that almost glowed in the dark. “You’re going to stay with us, right?” she whispered. “You’re not going to leave us behind?”
I smiled, tried to, and said, “Only if the chick beside me isn’t trying to steal my soul.”
She looked at Witchling, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t like the way your eyes look, and you’re very scary, and you smell like that monster, but please don’t steal her soul. She needs it.”
“Heard that?” I said to the supervillain. “Screw with me and she’ll fuck you up, got it?”
“I really wish you’d stop swearing in front of her,” Kanz muttered. “She’s impressionable.”
“Yeah! I’m going to, um, what was that word you used?”
Another orb winked out, and this time, a shadow leapt out from the blackness surrounding us, snatching one of the kids by his throat. Before another dart of black could grab another kid, Witchling slapped her hands together, making a sound so sharp that Kit cried out. The shadows wilted enough for Sam to wrench the boy free before his face could turn a burning red. He gasped and wheezed, coughing up slews of saliva and curling up into a shivering ball. For a moment, that’s all anyone could hear—coughing, wheezing, then the sound of younger children breaking out into sniffling tears and suppressed cries. I shut my eyes, trying to block out Cherry’s bellow.
“Let’s get on with this,” I said. “Before I don’t have a soul left to barter.”
Believe it or not, this wasn’t the first time I had sat in the center of an intricately drawn pentagram. Junior high had been a tough time for me, and before my powers kicked in, I had this knack for doing things that made people want to hang out with me, like me that little bit more so I could sit with them at lunch and maybe say hi to me sometimes. Gods, my dad was the greatest hero the world had ever seen, and his daughter couldn’t even get an inch off the ground. Of course I was going to do something stupid (all right, maybe more than just once), and that something stupid turned out to be willingly trying to summon a demon with the rest of the track and field team.
It hadn’t worked, of course, and videos had been taken of me sitting in a circle chanting gibberish with my eyes closed like some freaking moron. By the time I found out that Harper had accidentally sent it to all of her friends, I was already swimming in the same pool as the weird kids who exclusively only watched videos of Supes doing Gods knew what to Normal women and men at lunch time. So yeah, fun times, high school, and now, sitting in the dark, surrounded by shattered mannequins staring at me with their featureless faces and hollow eyes, and listening to the whisper of frightened children, all I could do was watch Witchling as she used a tiny red flame dancing on the tip of her finger draw spiraling markings on the floor all around the two of us.
Sit as still as you can, she said, dragging her long fingernail across the floor. Please.
I didn’t have the strength to move. I was hanging on by a thread, the world around me lucid and liquid and sounding muffled as if behind a wall of damp cotton. Thoughts rumbled around my mind, jumbled and messy, sprinkled with hazy memories and doused in mismatched emotions. I wanted to puke again. Think I did. Don’t know. My head hurt like hell. Knuckles was awake, sitting beside Kanz, watching me with fine, cat-like eyes that only narrowed the longer that Witchling took to carve these dark symbols into the floor, as if she hated seeing me like this. Or…I don’t know. I blinked and she was on the floor again, resting. The kids kept moving around. Maybe because of the orbs winking out and reappearing in different places. Cold. Freezing. My stomach felt like ice was growing in it, spreading through my guts and right up my throat. I swallowed, winced. Bad taste. Spit. Dribble down my chin. I swayed forward too far, then—
A hand, cold and slender, put me back in place. Fingers snapped together, and my vision briefly cleared. Shaking my head, I saw Witchling’s face right opposite mine. She sat, for once, on the floor, her legs folded, and her hands holding mine. Our palms faced upward, and she had drawn something on them. Some kind of symbol I couldn’t really describe. Maybe a bird’s head caught in a blaze, its beak wide open as it shrieked, as if it was burning right on my palms.
I need you all to look away once the circle begins to smoke, Witchling said. If you look at It, something will be taken from you that cannot ever be replaced. Kanz, if you may, turn around. She will be safe. Our departure from this Realm solely relies on your ability to trust me, children.
I almost turned my head until Witchling gently cupped my chin and turned it back to face her. Her lips were moving, but the silence surrounding us was so loud that it was almost droning, almost painful to listen to. The air reeked of sulfur, then of burning meat—my palms stung, making me gasp sharply. I nearly closed my hands, but Witchling kept them open, forcing her fingernails into the marking until my blood dripped off my fingers. The ground shuddered again, but her lips didn’t stop moving—they moved faster, the air grew warmer, smelt worse. The children weren’t quiet anymore, maybe because of the growing darkness, maybe because the ground was shaking in steady beats now. The same way it felt when Cherry was near enough to walk toward you without missing a single step. The pain in my hands only grew. Her nails only got deeper. I breathed in, bit down on my own teeth, clenching my jaw tight as her mute words got faster and faster and—
Then she spoke, her voice all I could hear; it came from deep in her throat, deeper even than that; from a place that spilled icy vapor out of her mouth: “You are a child of this Realm. Do not let her claim you, do not abide by her terms. She is a servant of the beyond, and you are—”
“Rylee Addams.”
I collapsed onto my face, expecting to feel cold concrete punch against my nose, but instead, it felt like I had fallen right onto a pillow. For the first time in ages, I had the strength in my arms to shove my face away from the ground, shaking my hair to set loose the particles of…sand?
I remained on all fours, and Gods above it felt so, so good to not feel like a lump of flesh anymore! I got onto one knee, energized, until I looked around myself. I remained there, paused, not moving an inch. My heart wasn’t beating, but no, that wasn’t right—it was just so slow that it sounded as if it wasn’t. Time was moving oddly around me. The particles I had flung off my hair floated in the air above me, and when I waved my hand through the cloud, they parted like bubbles suspended in a wave of water. Even my hair remained standing around my head, swaying like some wet towel as I stood. My feet kicked up more gray sand that hung in air that was just a little lighter in color. I was naked, too, which was great—but the formless kind of naked. No parts, not even my belly button—just a figure that felt numb to the touch as I pressed against my gut.
I still had scars and burns and the faintest lines of stitches all over me, but they glowed a faint white, making it look like I was a cracked piece of pottery hastily kept together by soft light.
“Rylee Addams.”
That voice again. Sound was silent here, turned down to zero, making me strain to hear anything at all. The sand didn’t shuffle or swish under my feet as I moved, and my breaths didn’t rattle out of my throat. Something touched my shoulder, sending a burst of warmth gushing down my spine that spun me around fast. I stepped back, flinging more dust into the air. A mute white sun sat on the horizon behind the figure in front of me, but it didn’t make a shadow out of It. The light didn’t even feel warm on my skin. It was like a spotlight, cold and distant. Or a dead eyeball.
The figure in front of me was…a thing, a flicker of white and black and ragged shapes. It stood like a human but moved like it was passing through a kaleidoscope of blacks and whites and grays. Its edges were sharp and then smooth. Its features leaping out toward me then vanishing.
“What the fuck are you?” I said, but the words didn’t come out of my mouth—my mouth moved a little, sure, but my voice came from all around me. “Where the hell am I right now?”
“Rylee Adira Addams,” It said, and again, Its voice came from everywhere. The sands hummed and shook, tickling my feet. “Such a lovely name, spoiled on a soul so tainted and red.”
A shiver crawled down my spine. “That’s not my—”
The thing shifted, suddenly behind me, closer, and that’s when I heard the din of melodies coming from Its being, as if something was singing inside of it as it stared at me without eyes. “Do not lie to me. I have watched you from even before the beginning of your ancestral lineage. It is a name, no doubt, that only those you loathe have called you. The humans do not know, do they, that their heroine hides a name this vengeful, betraying, and dripping with selfish blood. The blood of kings and their slaves, queens and their offspring that perish in wars that amount to nothing more than baths of sacred golden blood that ooze into the bedrock of decedent and forgotten empires.” Behind me. That touch of warmth. A burst of red color in my skin before it quickly vanishes away. “There is nothing you can hide in my Realm, Ry’ee, for I know all of your story.”
You couldn’t blame me for reacting like I usually would when someone knew too much about me, dad, or anything that would fuck my entire life into bloody oblivion. I quickly swung my fist around, cutting through nothing except the tiny grains of sand that hovered around me. The blur of black and white and gray hummed over my shoulder, watching as I panted and glared at It.
“So much anger and rage, pain and sadness—the story of thousands who have come before you, and the countless who will come after.” It moves closer, and this time I don’t back away. “You fear so much, and yet you stand defiant, even in front of the inevitability of your weakening soul.”
“Listen,” I said to It. “I didn’t come here to listen to your damned riddles. I came here to—”
“Yes, I know. That…woman sent you here to barter your soul. But I do not accept it.”
I blinked. “What?” I said, spreading my arms. “There are people out there who need me!”
“And there are billions more, no, trillions who will survive if you die right this second.” It flows around me, circling me lazily. “Did you know that your birth alone will erase the lives of so many? Lives of people who will only hear of you in passing, in books, in tales of your adventures that they will soon label as conquests. You alone are destined to vanquish the stars and the earth, galaxies and solar systems—Venus, the Goddess of War, your followers thousands of years from your current age will call you; the God Butcher; the Antichrist; so many names, so many innocent lives. Your soul is one I have been waiting to encounter for eons, or possibly just seconds. I want you, Ry’ee, not because I loathe you, but because the grains you stand on are the lives you will affect, not only in your lifetime, but in the hundreds, thousands, and millions of years to come.”
The dunes of gray sand stretched to further than the horizon, vanishing from even my eyes.
“And a soul so tender, so poignant, does not deserve to turn the gears of life so violently.”
My lips drew into a thin line. The thing was still humming, harmonizing, making the sands surrounding us shimmer as if blown on by a wind I couldn't feel. Where the hell did Witchling send me? Nothing for miles and miles except dunes of gray sand. Lives, It called them, these grains underneath me, floating around me. I had questions. So, so many burning questions. About this place. About what It was talking about. God Butcher. Goddess of War. The godsdamned Antichrist. The thing in front of me was spitting words onto my face so easily as It explained what the sands were, what each and every microscopic grain beneath me really was. Some of the grains burned bright like embers, sparking with golden light before vanishing, swallowed by the shifting sands. I shook my head, turning back to look at the thing in front of me. I didn’t know how much time was passing on the outside, wherever the hell that was. No time to waste with this thing.
But It knew my name, and probably knew more about my family than I did, so I figured that It knew what I was gonna say next. “Stop talking and start making a deal with me or whatever it is that you’ve got to do so that I can save those kids back there. You think I give a shit about your gibberish? You think you’re the first…thing to tell me that I’m gonna change people’s lives? Of course I am. Everyone on the freaking planet is going to affect everyone else’s lives at least at some point, dipshit. So shake my hand and let’s get on with this, because I’m hating this voodoo crap.”
The harmonies stopped. We stared at each other, my hair flowing around me, Its form still flickering and twitching, as if in eternal pain. Then a sound. A sound that grew into laughter.
My eyes narrowed. “Wanna share the joke with the rest of the class?”
“Only two others have made me laugh, child,” It said, the harmony coming back slowly, steadily, and a lot softer than before. “That woman who sent you to me, and the All Mother. My, my, you are more intelligent than I thought, but yet you know nothing of what it is that you have said. These are the lives connected to you. Yes, a soul, like a web, tugs on strings it cannot even begin to quantify, but yours, child, is a thread that will take with it entire galaxies of people.”
“Yeah, well, unlike the rest of my people, that kinda murder isn’t my style.”
“No, not yet, and maybe not for this state of yourself, but there will come a time—”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t fu—” I was on my hands and knees in an instant, gasping. It didn’t feel like I’d been punched, but my skull rang like I had been run over.
“Your destiny is blood, Ry’ee. Your future is blood. You will do nothing but destroy, and what a shame, because you could do so much more than write your name into the stars with ash.”
I struggled onto one knee, my fist pressing hard against the sands to keep me upright. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m going to become, you hazy fuck. Only I get to ruin my life, got that?”
“You bleed ignorance.”
“And you talk bullshit.” I looked up at It, the worry in my gut only growing more rampant. This wasn’t supposed to take this long. “So that’s it, you’re just gonna trap me here for eternity?”
It flowed around me again, through me, passing over me like a fuzzy blanket of static. “To keep myself in a prison filled with your voice would be a fate worse than the one I am serving. No, child. You will perish, and what little good your soul is will be used, cleansed, and thrown into the abyss, possibly to be used once more in another lifetime, or stuck, formless, listless, joyless in the darkness for all eternity. Knowing your character, Ry’ee, physical torture would be more appealing to you, would it not?” I didn’t answer, keeping my lips shut for once, letting It continue. “So you will remain in these sands until your body dissolves, and thus the countless you are destined to murder will not die. Instead, the universe will branch, shift to better plains of relative peace.”
“So that’s your angle?” I said quietly. “Some greater good crap?”
“I have spoken to countless heroes,” It said to me. “You are all the same.”
“I’m just supposed to believe in some shadow telling me that I’m going to wipe out entire galaxies worth of people? Are you freaking nuts? Don’t tell me you’re reading off some script.”
The thing in front of me flared, making me flinch. “It is your destiny, this bloodshed.”
“Yeah, said who?”
The harmony became shrill. “Time. Fate. The order of the universe and its laws.”
I stood and took one step toward it, getting as close as I could get without having to listen to the shrieking melodies coming from Its being. “Say that again, I dare you, about how fate and the universe are the reason I had to watch my own father get murdered in front of the entire world by his own brother.” Closer, fuck it—the song it sand was agony, rage, making Its form jagged and violent. “I dare you to tell me why I had to listen to my own mother cry through the walls because my stupid powers decided to kick in just right then. You think I enjoyed getting beaten around, tested on, thrown onto the surfaces of burning planets, drowned in the seas of frozen moons, just because the universe said that was just how life was going to be for me?” I lowered my voice as I stared at It, stared hard into what might be Its eyes, but I didn’t fucking care. “Blow me, is what you can do with all that talk. If I’m destined to kill people, it’s gonna be the villains out there.”
“Your soul,” It said, Its voice resonating through my skin, bones, and through to my core, “belongs to me, and me alone. You dare talk to me this way, a being beyond your understanding?”
“Fine,” I said, folding my arms. “But I’m telling you now—you keep me here, then I’ve got all eternity to understand you, and when I do, my destiny, my fate, is gonna be hurting you.”
Silence prevailed for several beats, until It finally said, “Trillions will die because of you.”
“And a dozen kids are gonna die, too, if I don’t get back soon.”
“Your sacrifices are supposed to be noble.”
I shrugged. “Until I get my statue, that ain’t happening. I’ll do what I have to because I hate being told what I’m supposed to do as a superhero. Everyone seems to have an idea, but they’re not the ones wearing the costume and making the decisions. I am. Selfish? Self-righteous? Yeah, well, that’s tough, because I didn’t survive this long in my life to die with nothing but a whimper.”
“That is your final decision, child?” It asked, now quiet. “To drown yourself in red?”
I smiled. “It’s always been my color, I guess.”
“Astounding, the gaul of you humans.” An appendage broke free from Its form, a shard that grew and grew until it touched the sands beneath It. “I am both entertained, though scared, of what you will do to those I beckon. I understand your thoughts, your emotions—you vow in your heart right now to make sure blood will not spill because of your name, simply because you are too proud to acknowledge the intricate cosmic threads that weave together the universe. Your ego, Daughter of Zeus, goes beyond even your Realm, and by the All Mother, is it a pain in the ass.”
“I’ve been told that I’m an acquired taste—guess we can learn from each other.”
It raised the length of flickering black at its side. “You wish to barter your soul? Fine. But you will not know peace in death, and there will never be rest for you in any form. I do not know what will happen in your Realm, but the grains of death you stand on will grind you to nothing. Your time will come, and you will see me then and then only, and next time will be the last.”
Before I even had the chance to speak, the shard of black struck me through the right side of my chest, and a sudden ferocious explosion of heat washed through my blood, my…soul.
At least, that’s what I think it struck, because all I knew was that it freaking hurt.
And this time, when I fell, I kissed the grimy concrete floor as hard as you possibly could. I choked on spit and air, on my own tongue, as I knuckled away the blood trickling out of my nose and down my lips. I immediately felt heavier, more solid, but every single dull ache and pain that I had gotten used to over the years made sure to remind me that I wasn’t over there anymore, but back in a room full of old broken mannequins and husky shadows. Groaning, straining in a physical body as I got onto all fours again, felt like I was shifting the world off my shoulders. Did it work?
I pulled at the bandages woven around my midsection. They spilled onto the floor. Nothing. Good as new, as if my stomach had never been gouged open by a supervillain before.
The only thing that stung on my body was the new scar just above my left breast.
It was a short lightning bolt, thick, too, just like the one I wore on my suit. It glowed a little, the same soft light that the sun in that Realm had just a moment ago, before it turned a deep black. I gingerly touched it, but it was simply a part of me, like I had gotten a tattoo. I was about to look up at Witchling to see if it had worked, and what the symbol meant, but there was nobody around me. No glowing orbs of light. No children. No supervillain staring at me with black eyes. A splatter of blood on the floor to my left. The circle of burnt tiles was shattered by a foot about as large as me.
Cherry wasn’t that big. No, he wasn’t big enough to make a crater out of the floor when he walked. This had been something bigger, something that had taken every single one of the kids.
The door on the other side of the dark room was open, swinging on its hinges, creaking in the silence. Emergency lights were flashing outside in the hallway, making the shadows blossom a harsh red. I stumbled my way there, leaning against the splintered hospital doors. The shrieking sound of an emergency siren echoed down the corridor, coming from far away. I glanced down one end: blocked off by debris, maybe from when Witchling had been protecting Knuckles and I. The other end: a pair of double doors, and a pool of blood that sat just underneath both of them.
Shit, shit, shit. I ran my way there, and the suddenness of how fast I got to the doors nearly caught me off guard. I barely registered the first spark of golden light that jumped off my fingers as I crouched at the door and pressed my ear against it. Nothing but silence. I pushed against it slowly, but it was stuck in place—something heavy was on the other side. I only had to push a fraction more to shove that something out of the way. My heart was already racing in my chest, but thank the Gods that the pile of body parts keeping the doors shut was just Cherry. That’s what I think it was. It was difficult to tell with how much meat and flesh, organs and brain matter was splattered all over the walls and floor and dripping down from the ceiling, as if he’d exploded.
I stepped over what I could, but whoever had killed him had been very thorough.
And also very considerate, because his arm still remained, and so did part of his torso. Just enough to keep his arm upright as it pointed down the hallway, its index finger rigid and extended.
It didn’t occur to me that Frankie could very easily be screwing with me, making me fall for something stupidly obvious, but I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the pools of blood down the hallway, and each of them was showing me the same thing: baby, my eyes were glowing gold.
And that meant my feet didn’t have to touch the floor, and nor did it mean I had to spend my time hunting for the kids in some labyrinth of a mortuary and hospital. I heard their cries, their shrieks, their heartbeats and Sam’s swearing and Kit’s tear-jerking pleas for me. It led me straight through one wall and then the next, worms and maggots, eyeballs and sinewy meaty walls be damned. The ground shuddered. The light fixtures hanging from the ceiling swayed the more I shot through walls and the more I came out on the other side drenched in bloody bits and pieces. The wiring in the lights wasn’t even metallic, I learnt, as one fixture collapsed in front of me. They were thin human hairs, braided so tightly together it made it seem as if it looked like cable wiring.
I had run out of patience asking all these questions today, questions about this place, about my life and, if that thing was to be believed, cosmic fate, and so, when I heard Kit scream my name—not Olympia, but my name—I was already halfway through the thickest wall yet.
I skidded to a halt on the tiles, the tiles slippery because of the blood under my feet. The room I had burst into was frigid, so cold that my breaths spilled out of my mouth like vapor. To my right was a wall of metal cabinets that climbed higher and higher the more I strained to look up at them; morgues kept dead bodies in those things, and there were thousands, tens of thousands of them packed in one single room. I could smell them, their frozen muscles and the slow, slow decay. To my left, a regular wall now with a Rylee-shaped hole in it. Behind me: one, two, three…all the kids, thank the Gods, were still there. Kanz’s wing was broken and bleeding, hanging limply onto the floor. Some of the kids had broken arms, missing tails and gouged out antlers. All covered in blood, in fright. Kit, the smallest of them in size, clung onto Sam with her good arm. The other arm was a stub. The bleeding had only slowed because it was dousing a balled up shirt deep red.
The room was silent, so deathly silent I swear I could hear atoms moving in the air.
I turned. Knuckles lay in a heap on the floor, her arm twisted at a vile angle. Witchling had a shard of what looked like whittled down white bone pinning her to the wall I had just burst out of, going right through her stomach. She was still awake, gasping, clutching at the bloody shard.
Finally, I looked at the thing—yeah, another fucking thing—in front of me. It took up the entire hallway, its spindly arms and legs bending it onto all fours. Its body was made from woven flesh, not like Cherry, but skin that had been stretched and pulled and braided together like a noose. Its face was large, jerking, twisting and turning to examine me. No eyes, just pits in its skull. No teeth, just a large gaping slit in its mouth. No head, just a plate of glistening white bone clinging to its thread-like body. The ends of its appendages clicked against the floor as it took a step closer.
Something was swaying from its long, long neck—a pendant holding onto a book.
But my mind wasn’t focused on that, or what it was, or the head that jerked and snapped and turned in twisted angles, or how its body was forced to break and mend over and over to drag itself forward, or the terrible, harrowing mewling noise that it made from its gullet. I was already crouched. My fists were already tight. Light flickered around my hands, burning away the dark and illuminating the kids and that god-forsaken creature’s mask of a face. First of earth’s trillions.
A pause. A sighing breath.
And it simply wasn’t fast enough to avoid my fist smashing its jaw into shards of bone.
The plate of white shattered, raining down pieces that skittered along the floor and pelted against the metal storage cabinets. I shrieked, backed away. I shot beneath it, grabbed its hind leg, got my feet onto the ground and twisted until I heard the meaty snap of its leg coming off its body. The sound that exploded from its broken maw nearly shook me to my knees. I gritted my teeth, swung the shard of leg bone into its side, making sure the serrated end gouged deep into its tissue. I rammed it into the cabinet filled wall, turning the leg, twisting it, then shredding the barbed ends along the length of its body and spilling black fluids out from its tail end right up to its throat. Like unzipping a jacket, its insides spilled out—not much except blood and goo that turned into foul paste. It slumped to the ground, a husk of itself. It was still twitching, though, so I asked the kids to do me a solid and turn around, cover their ears, and count to ten as I used my fingers to finish it.
Who knew monsters like this had such oily layers of skin? I figured it was the fats, whatever fats it had on its body, anyway. Freaking disgusting, I thought, shaking out my hand.
What, did you think that would take a lot longer? Gods no. Not anymore.
Besides, it had hurt the kids—it didn’t deserve flashiness.
I wiped my hands on my thighs, then grabbed the leather-bound tome off the floor. It was the same one that Frankie had been reading over me just a moment ago. That’s….The book, yes, that’s the one, I heard Witchling say. She was still stuck in place, the barbed ends of the spindle of bone stopping her from pulling herself along without ripping apart her insides. Congratulations, you succeeded in bartering with It. Witchling was smiling despite the blood lining her teeth.
I ignored her, flying toward the kids instead. “Hey,” I said softly, kneeling. “It’s okay now, you don’t have to be scared. But don’t turn around just yet. I’ll need you all to hold hands for me.”
Kit was the first to latch onto my fingers. My heart was twisted violently in my chest as I felt how rapid her heart was beating through her fingertips. Kanz told them all to hold hands, and seemingly, he was the only voice they were going to listen to now. Once they were all holding one another, I told them to keep their eyes shut and their footsteps high. Don’t open your eyes, don’t stop, even if the ground is wet under your feet—you’re going home now, just trust me. Promise.
Huddled around Witchling, I said, “All right, you’re going to feel a bit of a jolt, but it’s gonna make you feel a lot better for at least ten minutes. Make sure your tongues are inside your mouths and not next to your teeth, and…” I sent a soft pulse of golden electricity flowing through each of them. They all reacted differently, some gasping, some cursing (words I had proudly taught them), but most importantly, the relief that washed over them, loosening their shoulders and their pinched faces was what mattered most. Kanz was already helping carry Knuckles in his arms, struggling to do so, but making sure that she wasn’t just a listless form on the floor again.
I also put a bolt of electricity through her, but she didn’t wake up. For a moment, Kanz’s face screwed together in worry, but she was fine, I told him—the girl was just asleep for now.
Gods knew she needed it. Ruslana wasn’t too bad, I guessed. Not in Ava’s pocket anymore at least, and if that didn’t put a bit of joy in my heart, then I didn’t really know what else would.
After I had made sure most of the wounds were tied off and as cauterized as I could manage (kicking myself because I didn’t pay attention in first aid), I was free to turn to Witchling, who was still on the wall, and still clutching onto the barbed spear. I didn’t have a clue of how she was still alive with that thing in her guts, but I knew by now that I had no idea about anything.
“So,” I said, waving the book at her. “This is what you wanted, right?”
Witchling nodded weakly.
“Get the kids out of here,” I told her. “Then I’ll think about helping you.”
I cannot do that without—
“Don’t bullshit me,” I said. “You needed it because you wanted me to kill this thing for you, right?” I walked up toward her, resting my arm on the bone spindle, making her groan. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that? You can’t teleport people properly? You really think I was gonna fall for that? I’ve watched your videos on the internet, read the police reports and the SDU documents that break down what you’re able to do and just how well you can do them. Someone of your caliber doesn’t just fuck up a teleportation. You’re an S-Grade, Witch. You put me in that position so Frankie could snag me. I didn’t think of any of this because I knew you’d just answer me and try to trick me into believing you. So, let’s cut the crap. Snap your fingers and get the kids to a hospital, and then you and I are going to have a chat, and then I’ll give you the book, okay?”
Her eyes narrowed, staring at me, staring into me. I’d prefer looking at the heap of body parts behind me than at her. Finally, she said, You’re more well-read than I thought you were.
I patted the javelin of bone sticking out of her. “Your fault for doubting me. Now, get them to a hospital, somewhere safe, because if these kids end up getting hurt again, I’ll gut you, ‘kay?”
Witchling snapped her fingers, and the group of kids, Knuckles included, vanished.
“Where are they?” I asked.
Peacemaker Memorial, she replied. In the lobby of the superhuman emergency wing.
“I won’t take that as gospel, but I’ll have to trust you for now.” I handed her the book, and she clutched onto it like you would a wounded baby. “What’s so important about this thing?”
To put it bluntly, it is an artifact older than modern civilization. It will change everything.
“For you, or for everyone in the city?” I said, readying to grab the book just in case.
For the better, Witchling said, smiling. For your generation of heroes.
Getting Witchling out of her little predicament took about two seconds, and I made sure she felt both of those seconds as I snapped the bone and pulled it out of her. I didn’t know what that meant, and couldn’t even begin to guess. She had plunged me into hell for this damned thing, and now she was holding it close to her chest, as if it would slow the bleeding gash in her stomach.
It was important, anyone could figure that out—but for once, her smile wasn’t thin or cold or too wide and expressive, but genuine, soft, almost hopeful. Thank you, Olympia. I owe you my life and more than even that. And even though your soul is now bound to this Realm for eternity, I hope we can meet in another life and not have to be natural enemies. A teacher and student, perhaps. Though I can guess that you were not the most obedient of students in school.
“Hold on,” I said. “What do you mean my soul is bound here forever?”
It means just that, I am afraid. There will be no rest. No heaven nor hell. Just purgatory.
I tentatively touched the scar on my chest. “What does purgatory look like?”
The same as heaven and hell: unknown to me because I have never seen them.
“Right,” I said quietly. I nodded, then nodded again. “Okay, just don’t die for now. Got it. Before we leave, though, I need to go see Frankie. We have to talk about something personal.”
A snap of her fingers later, and we were in the surgery room. It felt like I had been thrown forward and yanked backward in a split second. Frankie was sweeping up documents and swearing, frantically jamming everything she could into shadowy pools Wraith was holding open for her. She startled, yelped, then I shot toward her, her throat in my hand, and shoved Frankie against the wall. Witchling flicked her wrist, slamming Wraith against the metal operating table.
“What, surprised?” I said. Her eyes were wide, and suddenly, she wasn’t as willing to be touchy with me. She reeked of fear, of sweat and panic. Her eyes couldn’t focus on me for more than two seconds without glancing at the door. “My costume. Where did you take my gear?”
“What?” Frankie said, annoyance in her voice. “You won. Congrats. Now leave me—”
I frowned as something caught my eye around her neck. I pulled her shirt apart, and… Oh, Gods, I wanted to puke. She was wearing my freaking costume! It didn’t even fit her properly!
“I’m gonna puke,” I said. “Take it off. Now.”
Frankie grabbed the straps of my sports bra, tried to pull me closer but ended up pulling herself right up to my face. “You think I give a shit right now? You know what’s gonna happen to me if he finds me here? Fuck. I’m so fucked. Rip your costume off of me. I wanted a souvenir just in case you died, something to pin up above my bed, but who cares? Not me! Not if I’m dead.”
She did the job for me, stripping out of her clothes and down to her underwear. I didn’t even want to touch my costume as she stuffed it into my hands. Quick as a bullet, she swept her clothes off the floor, ran toward her brother, slapped him awake, and soon got swallowed whole by a tide of shadows. I glanced at Witchling, confused. She just shrugged, just as dumbfounded as I was.
“Well I guess we’re done here,” I muttered. “Now, let’s get back to New Olympus.”