SCI Stories, Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1 – Jersey Deviled

Zeke Caldwell was not known as a patient man. He wasn’t known as a handsome man. He wasn’t even particularly known as a nice man. He was, however, known as a good man.

Which was ironic, considering that his ‘super’ powers gave him little more than enhanced strength and senses, and a nightmarish, demonic appearance. He didn’t even get to be one of the ‘pretty’ freaks! Well, that was why he was the Jersey Devil, and not the Jersey Angel.

The SCI was a literal godsend for him, with the free job training. Oh, sure, he didn’t have the kinds of powers that made him useful to the superhuman teams that protected various cities. His strength was only about twice that of a human’s after all, and he certainly wasn’t bulletproof. But his appearance was not something that most ‘normals’ could get a handle on. Simply put, he scared the hell out of them.

To say that looking like something out of a horror movie made getting a job ‘difficult’, would be an understatement. Even compared to the ‘pretty’ supers, who also dealt with the restrictions put in place to protect normal people from having their jobs stolen by superhumans, he had a raw deal when it came to finding work in the civilian world. Really, the only places that would hire someone like him were particularly scuzzy bars that needed someone imposing to play bouncer and keep trouble from happening as often. Except there were more than a couple supers who’d tried that route, and then gotten sued by the people they’d thrown out of the bar, because using powers against normals was a sticky area of the law.

A couple of the local gangs and criminal empires had tried to recruit him. Big and scary was perfect for their line of work, and no one was going to sue if you used super-strength to break a couple kneecaps when someone didn’t pay their bills on time. On the other hand, that road led to you getting visits from the local super team, and often getting thrown in jail, or worse. There were horror stories about Blackstone Fortress, where the worst of the worst super-criminals were held. No one ever came back from that place, it was said.

Which is why he’d gone a different route. He’d studied hard, and gotten a private investigator license. Mostly took cases for people who had nowhere else to go. Either they were ‘uglies’, like him, or they were too poor to afford more expensive PIs, or whatever. It wasn’t exactly ‘rolling in dough’, but he made enough to keep the lights on.

He’d just been finishing a case that had taken him over to Michaux State Forest in Pennsylvania, tracking a deadbeat dad who had thought that running and hiding out in the woods was a great way to avoid his troubles. Normally, not his problem. But he’d stolen a few things, that were important to someone, so he found the guy, and returned them to the lady in Cape May. After a four-hour drive and all the crap of dealing with the case, he was beat. His phone messages could wait until later.

The next morning, he’d been shocked at the message he’d gotten. Someone was hitting the Defenders, in New York. Even killed one of them, that damn pretty boy Adonis, in the middle of Central Park! They were activating SCI plans, calling in reserves. And he was a reserve. Fuck. Well, nothing for it, so he checked out of his seedy motel room, and got on his Harley for the two-hour drive to New York.

It was in the middle of the Holland Tunnel when it happened. Four vehicles blocked him in. Black, all of them, with tinted windows. The panel van to his left opened its side door, the movement drawing his eye. He found himself looking at the business end of an assault rifle! At the moment, he really didn’t have time for the NRA bullshit about whether something actually was or wasn’t an assault rifle based on firing modes and other shit that didn’t matter. It looked like an assault rifle, and that was enough for him!

He tried to swerve, to find some way out, but he was blocked in. Then, he saw the flash in his peripheral vision, the gun firing. He lost control of the bike. Was he hit, or did they shoot the bike? He didn’t feel pain. But that could just be shock. Gunshots didn’t hurt when you were in shock, right? Oh, oh shit, he’d lost control of his bike! The pavement came up to meet him, and everything went black.

(Later)

PAIN! Oh, sweet Jeebus, everything was made of pain! What the hell…

“The Foul One is awaking.”

“Good, I will inform the others so that we can begin his Judgement.”

Zeke groaned as he began to hear words again through the pain. What happened to him? Oh, that’s right. He was riding to New York when he got jumped in the tunnel. Everything hurt, so he didn’t know if he’d been hit, or just got wrecked when his bike went down. Shit, he’d loved that old bike.

He tried moving, only to scream in agony. This brought a couple very urgent things to his mind. First, he was definitely hurt, and bad. Second, he was bound hand and foot, and whoever had done it knew their business. Third, he had a gag in place, to keep his screams from being heard. This was getting better and better all the time.

Slowly, he tried to open his eyes. Only one of them responded more than a little. His right eye wouldn’t budge more than a little. Guess that’s where he hit when he went down? Or perhaps these guys decided to give him a bit of extra ‘sleeping medicine’ to make sure he stayed out until they got him here. Either way, that was bad.

Looking down at his body, he could tell straight away that, no, it hadn’t been just the slide. He could clearly see a bullet wound in his stomach that looked as though it had been rudely cauterized instead of him being taken to a doctor. They didn’t want him dead, then.

Or, at least they didn’t want him dead just yet. They hadn’t exactly gone and taken him to get medical treatment, or even put bandages on his wounds. Everything was roughly cauterized, so that he wouldn’t bleed out, but he didn’t doubt that without some medical treatment, he was going to be lucky to live through this.

The thought of living through this forced him to take stock of his situation. He was stripped of his gear, the body armor and weapons he carried when he was expecting trouble. The sick bastards had even taken his clothes, forcing him to wear a loincloth, of all things. How the hell did they even have something like this on hand?

He looked around, and saw that he was indoors somewhere. The walls were wet and moldy, and there was the smell of rot and decay in the air. The only light came from a single naked bulb hanging above. The walls were bare concrete blocks, without even a coat of paint, and there was exposed plumbing running through the room. Some kind of warehouse or maintenance space, then? Possibly abandoned, judging by the smell.

The metal door opened, and in walked two men dressed in dark red coats with silver trim on it, with skull motifs on them. Each wore a black shirt with the picture of a book on it. Over the book was a demonic skull wreathed in flames. On their faces were tatoos, showing eight arrows arranged in a circle, pointing out like the eight principle points on a compass.

Both of the men were armed. Each had what looked like a freaking hand cannon at their side, big enough to take down an elephant with. But at the moment, he was more concerned with the sharp pointy bits he saw in their hands. The one on the right held a hammer, or spiked maul, decorated to look like something out of a game. The other, though? He had freaking metal claws the size of my head coming from the gauntlet on his hand! And they looked razor sharp, which was bad enough without the way he grinned at me, before making lightning cover the blades.

I knew who these guys were. They were Wordbearers. Religious nutjob gang in New York. Made other religious fundamentalists look like Mother Theresa. They weren’t even Christian, but followed some kind of ‘Eightfold Path’, or whatever. He’d never really paid attention to them, since they limited their operations to New York City, so as long as he kept out of the city, they weren’t a problem for him.

A third man entered, dressed similarly to the first two, except he was larger, and carried what looked like a large metal staff, topped by a demon’s skull, complete with horns. Clearly, this guy was more important. What did they call them? Librarians? Something like that. Big shots in the gang. Supers. Fuck. Superpowered fanatics were always the worst. And I was their prisoner.

The third man spoke. “Unclean soul beholden to the false masters! Long have we sought to end your heretical existence, and show to these sheep the true path to salvation that lies with the Four Great Ones, along the Eightfold Path. You have been tried, and sentenced by a jury of your betters. And yet, there are those who would give you an opportunity to prove that you can throw off the chains that bind you to the False God, and its spineless minions in the world. Give yourself to the Eightfold Path, and your life may yet be spared, as you are awakened to the truth of all things.”

Oh, that was great. That was just great. The ‘convert or die’ routine. Problem was, that wasn’t going to fly for him. He just had to find a way to get his hands free. If he could just do that, then he could ram that staff up the librarian’s backside and make a break for it. If the Wordbearers were getting bold enough to do daytime attacks like this, then someone needed to warn the Defenders. And that someone would have to be him.

“Go to hell.”

The librarian nodded. “So be it. Prepare him. We shall offer his soul in sacrifice to the ruinous powers of the world, so that we might gain their favor, and advance the Master’s plan.” And with that, the librarian turned away, while the two guards advanced on Zeke.

(Central Park, Later)

Screams split the early morning air.

A crowd quickly gathered. Police just barely beat the reporters to the scene. The sound of sobbing could be heard, and there was a smell in the air, as more than one person had vacated their breakfasts onto the ground at the sight before them. Shock and disbelief were the order of the day.

On the top of Cedar Hill, a fire had burned. Carefully controlled, the symbol of eight arrows arrayed like a compass was burned into the grass. Not just burned, but burned with flames intense enough that the ground was scorched and turned to glass. How the perpetrator had managed to make this obscene monument without being spotted was a distant second on everyone’s minds compared to the centerpiece of the display.

A man with red skin, horns, and a tail, his skin covered with abrasions, gunshot wounds, and burns, his hands bound behind his back, had been killed. Not just killed, but executed in a way that shocked those who saw it to their core. An iron spike, nearly ten feet long, had been driven into the ground in the center of the symbol. The man had been stripped naked, beaten and burned, dark symbols carved into his chest, and then impaled upon the spike, from end to end, with the iron escaping through his mouth. There was no one who was unaffected at the sight of the execution.

While police began investigating and the reporters started asking questions of the witnesses, a man passed unnoticed through the group, a young woman walking arm and arm with him. He, too, had seen the grotesque display, and, unlike others who saw it, he simply sighed. Turning to his companion, the man said, “Vicky, make a note. The Wordbearers are not to be trusted with any more actions until after the city is completely within my grasp.”

Lady Victory, in costume but unnoticed by all those around her, simply smiled worshipfully at the man, her Master, Mesmero. “As you wish, Master. Would you like for me to collect their leader so you can ‘adjust’ him?”

“No need. There will be time for that later. Now, we must prepare for the next wave. They will be coming quicker now. They can’t allow two heroes to die in so quick a time frame without a response.”