Celestial Worm Pt 4 (Patreon)

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Karen Buckeridge, the author of Ties That Bind.]

Taylor

The TV was just a murmur in the background as Taylor huddled on the sofa. It was a reminder to her that she wasn't in the locker, and wasn't in the hospital room. The blanket was a comforting warmth around her neck and shoulders, but she didn't pull it too tight. Being compressed into a small space was something she honestly couldn't deal with right now. Even the bathroom gave her the creeps.

And then there was … the other thing. The thing with the bugs. She still didn't know what to think about it, or how to think about it. Was it a good thing that she had powers, or was the world just shitting on her yet again? At least she'd worked out how to block out the incessant sensory inputs before they drove her mad all over again. She knew she really should learn how to interpret them properly, but one thing at a time.

Gravel crunched in the driveway, and she straightened slightly. Dad's home. Good. As much as they'd been drifting apart before this point, her distress had pulled them back together. Not that he was able to do much, but he'd been pushing hard to do what he could. And if he hadn't gone to the school, they wouldn't have given up as much as they did.

Paradoxically, he had more life in him now than he'd had in the last six months. Adversity had worn him down, but this was a target he could aim at, and she felt comforted with him nearby, fighting on her behalf.

She heard the car door close … then she heard it close again. He must've forgotten something. Because there was no possible reason she could think of for him to have someone else in the car, when all he'd been going to do was take some photos of the Boat Graveyard. Still, she sat up on the sofa. I told Dad I'd do the washing up. She couldn't see the pile of dirty dishes in the sink from where she was, but she could feel their guilty presence.

The back door lock clicked open, and she heard her father's voice. “… n't look like much, but it's home.”

“Trust me,” said a girl's voice, sounding somewhat amused. “I've seen much worse.” Whoever it was sounded around Taylor's age, but it wasn't someone she knew. She stood up, holding the blanket around herself, then changed her mind and discarded it on the sofa. Meeting a visitor wrapped up like a mummy probably wasn’t the best way to make a good first impression.

“Dad?” she called out. “Who's that you've you got with you?”

“Oh, hey, Taylor.” He sounded in good spirits, which was something. Leaning through the doorway into the kitchen, he gave her a smile and waved her towards him. “You're up. Good. I've got someone for you to meet.” He stepped back into the kitchen, out of sight.

“Okay?” She frowned as she moved towards the kitchen, not at all thrilled at having unexpected visitors thrust on her. And she still couldn't understand why her father would've just brought a teenage girl home like this. It was totally out of character for him.

A moment later, before she could cross the threshold into the kitchen, a girl stepped into the doorway. Just for an instant, it seemed to her that the newcomer was much more real than everything around her. That was stupid, of course. She blinked, and everything looked normal again. The girl's dusky skin momentarily reminded Taylor of Sophia Hess but that was equally stupid, the same as when she felt a twinge of fear every time she glimpsed a redhead out of the corner of her eye. Don't be an idiot, Taylor. It was clear this girl was nothing like Sophia. For one thing, she lacked the aggressive attitude that Sophia brought to every interaction. In addition, her features were different; more South Sea islander than African-American. As for her clothing … holy crap. She's a cape?

“Hi, Taylor!” the newcomer greeted her. “I'm Janesha. It's nice to meet you. Your dad's told me all about you.” She stepped into the living room and held out her hand.

More than a little bemused, Taylor shook Janesha's hand. There was strength there, she knew immediately, though whether that was merely athletic-girl strength or chuck-a-car strength, she wasn't at all sure. To her, it was one and the same.

“Um … okay?” Taylor rubbed her face, wondering if she'd fallen asleep and was now in the middle of a weird dream. “Why … did he bring you home with him? What's going on?”

“Plenty,” said Janesha brightly. “But first, let’s get rid of that misconception on your part. I’m no cape. I’m a celestial.”

Right, like Myrddin thinks he’s a wizard.

Janesha’s easy-going manner soured and she crossed her eyes over her nose, letting out an unimpressed raspberry. “No, not like that demented wannabe. Damn.” She then shot a dirty look over her shoulder. “Like father, like daughter, huh?”

“Be nice,” Taylor heard her father reply, warningly.

“Fiiiine,” she drawled, rocking her head from side to side like a bobble-head doll. By the time she turned back to Taylor, her mischievous grin was back in place. “To cut a long story short, your dad did a stupidly brave thing and saved my life in the process. And since he doesn’t like me using my birthright to get my own way …” For whatever reason, she said that last part at a pitch higher and rolled her eyes to where Taylor knew her father was.

“Damn right!” she heard him bark as he unlatched the basement door and shoved it open so angrily, it banged against the living room wall from the other side and made all the framed photos wobble. Taylor blinked in mild surprise. Yes, the basement door would hit the wall if it was pushed hard enough, but she'd never seen anyone do it with that level of force before.

“… he’s invited me to stay here for the foreseeable future,” the girl ploughed on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And that brings you all up to date.” Her smile brightened and she clapped her gloved hands together. “See? Everything's totally under control.”

Taylor blinked. While she'd understood each and every word of Janesha's rapid-fire delivery, her comprehension fell down when she tried to consider it as a whole. One word in particular jumped out of the mix at her. “You called yourself a celestial. Are you saying you're some kind of angel?”

“Oh, hell no!” Janesha's immediate look of disgust surprised Taylor. “I was born! Do I look like a fucking construct to you?” She shook her head adamantly. “In fact, if you ever happen to meet another Mystallian, don't even think of comparing us to angels. Uncle Avis calls them parasitic little pricks, and that's the nicest thing he's ever said about them.” Her lips twisted to one side thoughtfully. “You know what? I think it'd be easier to show you what I mean about being a real celestial.” Lifting her chin over her right shoulder, she raised her voice again. “Danny? Where’s that basement you were talking about?”

'Danny'? You’re on a first name basis with Dad?

“Down here.” Her father's voice echoed up from below. “I'm just clearing some stuff out of the way.” There was a grunt of effort, then a pause. “What the hell?” The sound of something else being scraped tentatively across the ground wafted up to them, followed by another pregnant pause. “JANESHA!”

Merriment danced in Janesha’s eyes and she immediately pinched her lips together, but couldn’t hold back the snicker of laughter that caused her whole body to tremble. She sent Taylor an utterly devilish look, then cleared her throat and called, “Yeah?” as innocently as she could.

“Why the hell am I so strong?” Which was not a phrase Taylor had ever expected to hear from her father.

Janesha's grin only deepened. “What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”

Rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Danny entered the living room a moment later. The expression he wore was somewhere between exasperation and astonishment. “Don’t you even try to play your word games on me, young lady!” He waggled his pointer finger at Janesha in a way that Taylor knew would have ended in her being grounded for a month if she’d been the on the receiving end of it. “I watched you rebuild my car from scratch, and you healed yourself of serious injuries after you woke up. Not to mention what you did to the talot.”

“Isn’t it just as likely you triggered after your traumatic ordeal?” Janesha asked sweetly.

The question would’ve had merit, if she could keep a straight face … which she couldn’t. And then Taylor realised what she’d said. “Wait,” she snapped, turning her full attention to her father. “Triggered? What traumatic ordeal?”

Her father continued to scowl at Janesha for a moment, then shifted his focus to Taylor. He must have seen the panic on her face, for his expression softened and he raised both hands placatingly. “I’m fine, honey. Honest. Janesha had a … creature chasing her, and I distracted it long enough for her to get her second wind and beat it. That’s all.” His gaze narrowed and he swung back to their guest. “And while it's technically possible I might've triggered with powers, given your propensity to act without permission, I’m putting my money on you having a hand in it.” He fixed her with a gimlet eye. “The truth, young lady. Right now. I’m not asking.”

Janesha stared at him, then huffed and shook her head ever so slightly. “You are so lucky I like you, Danny Hebert, and if you want to know so badly, fine. After that stupid risk you took distracting the talot, I didn’t want you dying unexpectedly because your frailty doesn’t match up to your courage, so I made you as tough and strong as the people here can be.” She gestured to Taylor. “I can do the same for her, if you want.”

Danny gave her a suspicious look. “'Can do' or 'have already done'?”

Janesha screwed up her nose. “Will you stop anticipating my moves. It’s really annoying!”

“Says the girl who periodically pokes around in people’s heads and makes them do whatever she wants.”

“I’m a celestial mind-bender! It’s what I do!”

“And I’m a parent! It’s what I do!” Danny shot back. “How many times do I have to tell you, you just can't keep modifying people without getting permission. Or at least warning them first!”

“Hey!” shouted Taylor. “Stop! Everyone stop talking for just one second!” She clutched her hands to her head, trying to keep her spinning thoughts in check. It didn't help that her agitated state was transmitting to the bugs in the area, causing them to act up and fly around.

“Sorry, Taylor,” Danny said almost immediately, but not without a 'look what you did' glare at Janesha, who gave him one right back, along with a poked-out tongue.

Taylor frowned. “So, you can make people do anything you want? Like the Simurgh?” It was her father’s turn to snort, even as Janesha closed her eyes for a minute to breathe through flared nostrils. “What?”

Danny shook his head. “Don’t get her started on the Simurgh, honey. They have a history … sort of. But yeah, where she comes from, her mental power’s so common it’s called mind-bending.”

Taylor eyed Janesha suspiciously. “Are you reading my mind, now?”

“Surface thoughts only, at this stage.” As she spoke, her eyes worked the room, pausing quite often on what appeared to be nothing. “Any chance you can calm down enough to get them under control? There’s too many of them for me to deal with nicely.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny asked, his own eyes skirting the room and failing to see the growing number of insects alighting on various pieces of furniture and swarming outside the window.

“Nothing,” Taylor said hastily, at precisely the same time as Janesha did.

Danny’s eyes flicked suspiciously between the two of them. “Uh-huh.”

Which made the girls meet each other’s eyes and smirk. Janesha then glanced pointedly at Danny and back to her and raised an eyebrow. As discreetly as she could, Taylor shook her head. She hardly knew what to make of her bug powers herself, without explaining them to her father. Using the eye furthest from Danny, Janesha winked again in silent solidarity and Taylor finally felt she had an ally in what had been her waking nightmare up till now. Just that knowledge allowed her to force her roiling emotions down, sending the bugs back where they'd come from.

Once that was accomplished, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go right back to the beginning. Dad, you said you met Janesha while she was fighting a talot. What the hell is a talot, and what did you do to distract it, and what did Janesha do to it afterwards?”

Danny opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it again. He held up his finger in a 'wait' gesture and disappeared into the kitchen. While he was gone, Janesha leaned towards Taylor and murmured, “For my part, I killed it, so it’s not a problem anymore.” Then straightened up as Danny returned, as if she hadn’t said a word.

In her father’s hands was a metal figurine about four inches high. Wordlessly, he handed it to her. “Okay, this thing is ugly,” she observed, looking at the creature from all angles. It had fangs, claws, horns and even spikes along its body. There were blades formed from the end of its tail. “This is a … 'talot'?” She looked between the two.

Her father nodded, but Janesha screwed up her face and shrugged one shoulder. “Was, at least partially,” she said, which made no sense at all.

Taylor frowned at her father. “Where’d you even get this from? It looks really expensive.”

He chucked humourlessly. “Janesha made it. Out of a part of the real talot that attacked her, and then tried to eat me after I got its attention. Imagine something like that, only the size of a tank. With a breath that could peel aluminum siding clear off the wall.”

Taylor tried to imagine it. It wasn't a pretty picture. Then she turned to Janesha. “So, if you can kill monsters and make stuff and modify people, what’s the difference between you and a cape? Because right now I'm not seeing much of one.” If this was a dream, she decided, she may as well play along.

Janesha looked thoughtful for a second. “Because I’m a celest, and while you can mistake a celestial for a cape, but you'll never mistake a cape for a celestial. And no, you’re not dreaming. This’s as real as it gets.”

“Janesha.” Danny glared at the girl, who gazed innocently back. “What did I just say about reading other peoples' minds?”

“It's just the surface thoughts, Danny. Looking at surface thoughts is no more invasive then looking at someone wearing a tie and knowing half the ribbon is under the collar.”

“Bullshit.”

“Stop!” Taylor ordered again, raising her hands as if that alone could stop them from arguing. “Janesha, can you really read my mind any time you want?”

Janesha gave Danny one last annoyed look, then turned back to Taylor and nodded. “That and more, if I choose to. It’s how we stay in control of mortals and lower level celests. It’s called mind-bending, and almost the whole pantheon back home can do it. But just so you know, comparing a cape to me is like comparing a double-A battery to a nuclear power plant. Your capes are just mortals with some sort of celestial construct link-thing going on.” She must have seen the confused look on Taylor’s face, or seen it in her surface thoughts, because she shook her head and added, “I haven’t been here long enough to figure out the specifics yet, but I recognise the handiwork of one of my kind when I see it.”

Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose just below his glasses. “Janesha, Taylor, how about you both take a seat?” He waved the girls towards the fold-out sofa against the far wall. Stepping into the kitchen for a moment, he carried a chair back into the living room. Putting the chair down across from the sofa with its back toward the girls, he sat down and crossed his arms across the back. “Taylor’s still not well, and I’m guessing this conversation is about to get a whole lot more complicated.”

Janesha and Taylor both slid down the back of the sofa into the seat as only malleable teenagers can. “The easiest explanation is also going to probably have you flipping out the hardest,” Janesha said obscurely. “You wanted advanced warning, Danny, so here it is. If you can’t handle what I’m about to say, I won’t let you remember it.” She looked at Taylor and added, “Same goes for you.” Back to Danny. “You okay with that?”

Danny’s lips pinched together as if he’d tasted something sour and he sat back up straighter in his chair. Taylor didn’t know what to think.

Janesha shrugged and clapped her hands together. “Welcome to the bigger picture, my friends, where free will is entirely relative and only the most ignorant believe in it absolutely.”

“So, what's the easiest explanation?” Taylor asked, not liking Janesha’s gloating tone at all.

“I’m a goddess, petal. Or, at least, I will be in time to come, just as soon as my mom lets me.”

Taylor looked at her father and knew the same gobsmacked expression was on her face. “Goddess,” he repeated, slowly. “Like the Greek gods and goddesses?”

Janesha closed her eyes and chuckled to herself. “I forgot that’d be your go-to where female celestials are concerned.” She opened them again at Danny, then swept them to include Taylor. “Yes, just like them, only they're not the only pantheon out there. Not by a long shot. They’re not even one of the biggest realms. We are.”

“And who is ‘we’?” Taylor heard herself asking.

“Mystallians,” her father murmured, almost to himself.

Janesha tipped her head in his direction. “Top of the class, Danny. The best way to explain the Known Realms is to compare it with your world. Every pantheon controls a realm, the way your ruling houses controls their respective countries. Insides those realms, the ruling pantheon is all-powerful. Like your American president, inside the USA. But if he was to, say, go to Mexico, his control diminishes to stuff-all except for what the Mexicans are willing to let him do.”

“But we have embassies ….” Danny argued.

“I know, and they’re all well and good, but imagine what it’d be like if you didn’t.”

“Whoa, is that what it’s really like out there?”

“Uh-huh, only worse, because while the pantheon in charge remains all-powerful, the visitors don't even have their powerbases to protect them.”

“But if the Mexicans took the President prisoner, our military would go and get him back,” Taylor said, wondering why in the world she was going along with this.

“As would ours,” agreed Janesha. “And with my great grandmother leading the charge, we would absolutely get back our supreme rulers.”

Danny frowned. “That’s why you told Armsmaster if anyone ever figured out how to get to your family, they’d be so screwed.”

Janesha nodded, with a laugh. “Yeah. My Uncle Tal has been known to punt worlds across galaxies when he loses his temper.”

“You’re serious?” The words fell out of Taylor’s mouth before she could stop them.

“Very,” Janesha answered. “Like I said, I haven’t figured out the specifics of who’s doing what here or how, but it’s definitely the work of one of my lot. He, she or they have built a series of constructs up in your celestial realm, and I think they’ve somehow linked them to your parahumans here. It would certainly explain all of the divine enhancements your supers seem to have.” She waved her hand at the walls around them. “If I’m right, everything powered that’s happened to your world … your parahumans, the Endbringers, all of it … is because a celestial or a group of celestials like me got bored and decided to make your tiny little planet into their own private superhero story.”

Taylor held up a finger. “Okay, that’s me done,” she said. “I draw the line at being accused of being a character in a book.”

Janesha smirked. “I didn’t say you were a character in a book. That's ridiculous, because then I'd be a character in that book as well. You're real, and so is this world. You would’ve been here, or someone similar to you, with or without the celestial influence. We shape things and push them in certain directions, but we can’t create life from nothing until we’re established in that field.”

“It’s … certainly a colourful picture you’re painting,” Danny said, probably because he’d had more time to digest this craziness. “But why do you think these … people like you, have been messing with our world?”

“Because I’ve seen this world before.” Janesha gestured broadly again. “My cousin runs one almost exactly like it, and the odds of having two worlds so nearly identical in nature and history with all those crystal constructs in the celestial realm overhead are highly unlikely. Someone, or a group of ‘someones’, has taken my cousin’s world, replicated it, added comic book superpowers for shits and giggles, then let it run to see what would happen next.”

“Who the hell would do that?” Danny beat Taylor to the question, but only just.

Janesha shrugged. “Could be anyone. There are billions upon billions of celests in the Known Realms if you take all the commoners into account, and most if not all of them are capable of breeding.” She rolled a pointed finger in Danny’s direction. “But when I figure out who’s behind it, you can bet your ass I’ll be finding out what their game is.”

“Does that mean there's a world out there like Earth Aleph, but with no parahumans? No Endbringers? No Slaughterhouse Nine?” Taylor thought such a place sounded like the perfect place to live. “How soon can we move there?” And get rid of my stupid bug powers while we’re at it.

Janesha gave her a side-long look and shook her head. “Everywhere has its problems, petal, no matter where you go.” She sniffed and thumbed towards the east. “Case in point. The only reason I came out here in the first place was to cool off after I got into an argument with Thor for stealing my great grandmother’s glory, and he threw me out of Asgard when I called him out on it.”

Danny choked. Or maybe Taylor was projecting, because she definitely felt like choking. “Are you seriously trying to say that the red-headed braggart you compared Armsmaster to was Thor, the Norse god of storms?” That was another question she'd never thought she would hear her father ask.

Janesha curled her lip in a sneer. “Trust me, those two assholes are a match made in the stars.”

“From what I saw, Armsmaster would take that comparison as a huge compliment.” Danny raised an eyebrow, daring her to refute it.

“I’m sure he would,” Janesha agreed, rolling her eyes.

“So what could possibly be so bad in this other world? The one your cousin runs?” Taylor asked, not quite willing to give up on the fantasy of a power-free life so easily.

Janesha shrugged. “Stupidity and violence isn't a parahuman condition, it's a human condition. People flying planes into buildings, shooting up churches and nightclubs with automatic rifles, putting underaged kids in cages and selling them for sex … are you sure you want to trade one set of problems for another?”

“If your cousin is in charge of that world … and that’s something I’m still getting my head around that by the way … why would she allow stuff like that to happen?” Danny asked, genuinely curious.

An icy look swept over Janesha's face and she turned to look at him as if he’d grown a second head, then pressed her elbow into the arm of the seat and leaned on it heavily. “Wow. Just wow. You’ve got a helluva set on you, Danny Hebert, I’ll give you that.”

Taylor’s father seemed affronted. “Why?”

“Since the second I met you, you’ve been riding my ass about free will and not interfering with people, and the second … the fucking second you hear things aren’t the way you want them to be somewhere, it’s suddenly our fault for not interfering.” She sat up and placed her hands together, then pushed them apart. “Make up your realm-damned mind, Danny. Which is it?”

Taylor saw her father's face flush, but he closed his eyes and breathed through it. “That’s…actually a fair call,” he grumpily admitted.

“My cousin agrees with you, incidentally, which is why her mortals do whatever the fuck they want. To me, it’s dumb, but that’s why it’s her realm and not mine.”

“World, you mean,” Taylor said, hoping against hope that that was what she'd meant.

It didn’t sound promising when Janesha sighed. “Her Earth—not Aleph, not Bet, just plain old Earth—is the crown jewel of her realm. Most of us live in the celestial realm and visit the mortal one on occasion, but my cousin and her people have chosen to live amongst the mortals permanently, on her Earth.”

Danny lifted his chin. “So they do have capes?”

“The celestials on her Earth all fly under the radar.” Janesha shrugged. “My cousin doesn’t want anyone to know divinity is a real thing, because that’ll give one pantheon a higher boost over all the others. The mortals of her realm work off faith alone, so anyone who visits has to either stay in the Prydelands, or pretend to blend in with the mortals as one of them.”

“So how big is her realm?” That was Danny.

“It’s more of a hobby farm than a working realm, actually. But it suits her needs.” Janesha's voice was casual.

“How big?” Taylor didn’t like the way the self-described celestial was dodging an actual number.

Janesha shrugged. “Three fifty …three sixty thousand … something like that, I think she mentioned once.”

“Three hundred and fifty, to three hundred and sixty thousand worlds?” Danny exploded, just ahead of Taylor.

Janesha looked at them incredulously, then threw her shoulders back into the couch as a huge wave of laughter overcame her.

Oh, good, Taylor thought to herself. For a minute there, I thought she was being serious.

“Of course not. Damn – not even Earlafaol’s that tiny!” She continued her raucous laughter, holding her sides with one hand as she wiped tears from her eyes with the other.

“WHAT?!” Taylor wasn’t sure who shouted it the louder, her or her father.

Suddenly, Janesha stopped laughing, her face dropping into a deadpan expression. “Oh. You two were serious.” She looked from Taylor to Danny and back again. “Dang.”

“What did you mean?”

Janesha waved the subject away. “Never mind…”

“No, what did you mean when you said three hundred and fifty, to three hundred and sixty thousand … what?” Taylor insisted.

Janesha met her eyes and sighed. “Galaxies, petal. We measure mortal populations in galaxies.” She turned her attention to Danny. “Remember how you asked me how fast Cloudstrike could fly?”

“Yes … ?” Danny ventured cautiously.

“On average, she can clear twelve galaxies a second when she’s flying at full speed.” Janesha leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “And it takes a mystallion nearly twenty four hours to get from one side of Mystal to the other.” The smile she gave Taylor’s dad wasn’t pretty. “How good’s your math, Danny Hebert of Earth Bet?”

“Fuck … me …” Danny rubbed a hand over his eyes, then raked his fingers through his receding hair.

For once, Taylor didn’t feel like digging in the kitchen cupboard for the swear jar for her dad to put a dollar in, since her thoughts were right up there with his. The only thing that kept her from panicking and calling Janesha a liar was one burning question. “What’s a Cloudstrike?”

“Who,” her father answered, before Janesha could. “Not what. You know the Pegasus from Greek mythology?”

“Who doesn’t?” For some reason, Taylor was still waiting for him to jump up and say, Gotcha! Janesha’s a paid actress and this whole thing was to give you something else to think about besides what happened at school. Did it work?

Instead, he sighed again. “Apparently, Pegasus was his name, not his breed. They’re winged horses …Let me finish!” he barked, as Janesha appeared on the verge of butting in. The girl who had surged forward with a look of outrage then slumped back into the chair with a hmph and folded her arms. “Because they’re winged horses and their homeland’s called Mystal, the species is called mystallion and the people are Mystallians.” He looked at Janesha. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but do yourself a favour and don’t ever call Cloudstrike a ‘horse’ within her hearing, or she’ll get really mad. We have horses back home that the military use, and one of the herd’s pet peeves is to be compared to those wingless wimps.”

Danny turned to Taylor. “And don’t call her a thing either. When I did that, she threatened to bite my arm off.”

“They can talk?” And here Taylor had thought her eyes couldn’t go any wider.

Her father burst that bubble with a slight shake of his head. “Not in so many words. But she picked up a piece of concrete in her teeth and crushed it into powder while looking daggers at me, so I kinda got the gist.”

“Hypothetically speaking, what’s stopping us from going to this other place your cousin runs and having a look around. We can always come back here if we don’t like what we see …” Taylor’s words drifted off as she saw Janesha pick uncomfortably at her bottom lip. “What’s wrong?”

“Her family doesn’t know she’s here,” Danny answered for her, shifting back into parent-mode now that they’d returned to familiar ground of teenage antics.

“More than that,” Janesha admitted ruefully, leaning forward on her elbows again, this time to rub her temples. “I know you guys are both super-sceptical, and you both know I could change that if I wanted to, but you’re not seeing the big picture here. My family tree is literally made up of gods. The rulers of Mystal are my Uncle the god of Life, and his twin brother the god of Death. I have an Aunt of Prophecy and an Uncle of Knowledge. My own great-grandmother's our goddess of War.”

She pulled her hands away from her head and rubbed them together. “And, most importantly right now, I have an Uncle of Luck. At the moment, while I’m here in the middle of nowhere, no amount of good fortune is going to get him to me any faster than his mystallion can run. Which means if he wants me, he’s going to have to ride all the way out here to get me.”

Taylor wasn't sure if she knew where this was going. “But if you go to your cousin’s?”

Janesha poked her tongue into her cheek and twisted her lips. “All celestials have the means to reach any blood relative instantly—no travel involved—provided the recipient is willing to accept them. If I was going to take you over there, it’d be a matter of me reaching out to one of my cousins and all of us going over there in a single step. But once there, there’s no family here to bring us back. Not only that, but I can guarantee you ten minutes before we even decided to make that trip, Uncle Chance will have coincidentally found a pressing reason to be at my cousin’s side, waiting for me to make that connection. No matter who I blood-linked to, he’ll be standing next to them at exactly the right time to nail me. And the moment he lays eyes on me, I’m done.”

Holy shit. The absolute certainty in Janesha's tone had all of Taylor's attention. “Are you going to be in trouble for being here?”

Janesha stretched and arched against the back of the sofa, as if there wasn’t enough room on it anymore. “Don’t worry about it. I’m in trouble either way, for making a dick of Thor in his personal longhouse and not going home when I’m supposed to have.” She stood up and grinned down at Taylor. “Might as well see how much fun we can have before they turn up and lower the boom on me, eh?”

“Fun?” Taylor wasn't even sure if she knew what that word meant anymore. Though from the glint in Janesha's eye, the celestial girl certainly did. “What do you mean by 'fun'?”

Janesha's grin widened and she extended her hand to give Taylor a hand-up. “Well, first I have to go and fix up the basement. Then I'm going to introduce you to Cloudstrike. Despite what your dad said, you'll like her.” She tilted her head toward the doorway into the kitchen. “Basement's down there, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Now on her feet, Taylor led the way to the top of the basement stairs. “Why do you need to fix up the basement?” She looked down at the contents of the cellar as illuminated by the tired yellow bulb; a dusty workbench, old cardboard boxes, a washer and dryer, and about a million cobwebs. Two of the larger boxes had been freshly moved.

“Well, Cloudstrike needs a place to stay,” Janesha said reasonably, and vaulted over the rail. She landed on the rough concrete ten feet below with the lightest of thumps. Her cape, bearing the image in gold of a winged horse—a mystallion, her father had said—billowed outward before settling over her shoulders again. Belatedly, Taylor gasped in surprise, then looked up as a creak alerted her to her father's presence.

“You get used to it,” he said quietly. “Earlier, just after the talot thing, the Merchants attacked us. I think they wanted to force her into their gang. Squealer had her latest monstrosity, like a tank with a bulldozer blade on the front. Janesha hit the blade so hard it bent in half and flipped the whole thing into the air. Then she caught it and held it over her head like … like a plastic bucket. Between her and Cloudstrike, they cleaned up the gang like a babysitter putting the kids to bed early for being too noisy.”

“Danny?” asked Janesha, drawing Taylor's attention. “Do you really need this workbench?” She gestured at the solid bench with the four-inch-thick wooden work surface, stained with grease and oil and the crud of ten years of neglect. A vise was bolted to it, though Taylor suspected the working parts were rusted solid. Other tools, similarly unused, lay here and there on it.

“Not really,” Danny said. “I thought of moving it, but unbolting it … oh.” The wooden rail creaked under his grip as Janesha took hold of the bench and lifted it away from the wall. Taylor hadn't heard any sound that might suggest something breaking, but she saw the bright clean circles of sheared-off bolts showing from the concrete wall. Moving as though the bench was a bulky load rather than a heavy one—held the tank over her head like a plastic bucket, right—Janesha carried the bench and all its contents over to where Danny had originally stacked the boxes.

“Here should do it,” Janesha said briskly, and put her hands up against the wall. With only the faintest of creaking (and Taylor privately suspected Janesha was doing that to show off) Janesha pushed a rectangular hole back into the wall, about five feet high and twelve feet wide. As she did so, the floor beneath her feet slid downward into steps until she was three feet below floor level and still creating the impossible excavation back into the wall.

Slowly, Taylor came downstairs to watch as Janesha extended the basement outward. The extra area had a two foot wide stretch that was paved in granite flagstones, while the other ten by twenty area was soft soil. The walls were the same granite as the flagstones, and the ceiling appeared to be made of oak beams.

“Ugh, damn it.”

Taylor frowned at Janesha's unhappy tone. “What’s the matter?” Whatever was annoying the teenage celestial, it wasn’t obvious to Taylor.

Janesha pointed at an area of the back wall of the new construction. The texture was different, more like concrete than granite. “Your neighbours have a basement, too. And it’s in my way. I want this to be a good solid six metres, and I can only manage five without taking a chunk out of his.”

Danny came down the steps. “Well, you can’t just push into their basement. In fact, you really shouldn’t be building under their property at all.”

“Why not? It's not like they're using the space.” Janesha drummed her fingers against the concrete surface. “What if I went over there and told them that their basement isn’t as big as they think it is?”

“No.” Danny’s voice was flat. “No mind-bending.”

“Alrighty then.” Janesha shrugged. “But just remember, this is how you wanted it.” Putting both hands on the concrete wall, she shoved. There was a crunching, grinding noise and abruptly sunlight was pouring down in through a broad, three-foot-wide gap in the ceiling above.

“What the hell?” demanded Danny. “What did you just do?”

“Since you wouldn’t let me take any of his basement area, I shoved his whole house aside,” Janesha explained patiently. The ground beneath her feet grew a stone footstool that lifted her toward the ceiling. When she placed her hands on it, the sunlit gap began to narrow dramatically. Within ten seconds or less, it had closed entirely.

“You moved their house?” Danny looked as though he couldn’t believe his own words. “What were you thinking?”

Janesha frowned darkly at him. “I was thinking that I needed an extra metre of space, but since someone wouldn’t just let me use mind-bending to get it, I had to go the more direct route that may or may not leave him a little confused. This is exactly why we use bending, Danny. To smooth things over so people don’t freak out because they’re suddenly faced with things they don’t understand. His house is now a metre over, and the grass from that side is back over here on this side. Big fat hairy deal. If you’re lucky, he won’t notice, but if he does, what do I care? It’s not as if he’s gonna be able to move it back.”

As she spoke, the stone footstool retracted and posts grew out of the ground, connecting floor to ceiling along the line of separation between the flagstones and the soil. Rails extended from post to post, leaving an open-topped gate where the ten by twenty enclosure abutted on to the basement. As a final touch, Janesha installed a trough full of water and a large net filled with sweet-smelling hay.

Danny closed his eyes as if in pain, and massaged his forehead with finger and thumb. “Do you think you could talk to me about that sort of thing first?” he asked.

“Why?” asked Janesha blankly. “Talking to you is what got that home owner into the predicament he’s in. If I hadn’t said a word and just done what I do, everyone would be happy.” She waved him down with a soft swat of her left hand. “Don’t sweat it, Danny. Mistakes happen and it should all shake out in the end. You mortals are very good at deluding yourselves into thinking that everything's exactly the way it should be.” As a finishing touch, she caused a large and exquisitely-carved sign to manifest on the front of the stable. It read 'CLOUDSTRIKE'.

Something occurred to Taylor. “Uh, when you moved his house, you would've messed up his plumbing and stuff. That's gonna cause him problems.”

Janesha shook her head. “Already took care of that. I rearranged his water pipes to make way for the move and for this stable. That's where I'm getting the water for the trough from. Don't worry. Cloudstrike doesn't drink that much.” Her smirk said otherwise. She caught Taylor's eye. “Anyways, I'm gonna go get Cloudstrike now. Wanna come with?”

Taylor was just wondering if Mr Henderson was really going to be okay with having his house moved three feet sideways when she registered Janesha's question. “Oh, wow, can I?” She turned to her father. “Dad, can I? Please?”

Danny’s eyes were still wide and his face flushed with outrage, which meant the previous conversation of blame allocation wasn’t as concluded as Janesha probably hoped. But then he shifted his focus to Taylor and his fury morphed into concern. “Baby, I’m not sure if you’re well enough to go all the way to Scotland. It’s really cold over there and …”

“Wait, what again now?” Taylor turned to Janesha. “Scotland? Why Scotland?” It seemed that every minute she knew Janesha, another mystery raised its head.

“Well, that's where I told Cloudstrike to wait for me,” Janesha explained blithely, opening the small gate she'd built into the front wall of the stable and stepping through. “But we're not going there. In fact, we're not even leaving Brockton Bay.” She turned to Danny. “She'll be safe. She's literally tougher and stronger than any cape in the city. Just like you. Remember?”

“Oh.” Danny deflated slightly, then came back strong. “Well, don't go picking any more fights with villains. We may be tough, but we don't want official attention right now. Got it?”

“You don't want official attention. Got it.” Janesha reached for Taylor's hand. “Ready?”

“Uh, okay.” Taylor had just enough time to realise that Janesha hadn't actually said she wouldn't pick fights with any villains when the black-clad girl pulled her forward in a step that took her elsewhere.

Still clinging to Janesha's hand, Taylor swayed on her feet as she stared around at the thoroughly alien landscape. A multitude of crystal outcrops, gleaming under a glowing sky, surrounded them on all sides. “Holy crap,” she blurted. “Where are we?”

“Proof that we're not in Earlafaol,” Janesha said bluntly. “This is the celestial realm of your version of Earth. Where your gods, if you had any worthy of the name, would be residing.” She looked around, frowning. “But the more I see this place, the more … yeah, that's what I thought.” Now she was looking directly at Taylor. Specifically, at her head.

“What? What are you looking at?” Taylor felt a flush mounting her cheeks.

“You can't see that, can you?” With her free hand, Janesha pointed at an empty spot in the air. “No, you can't. Of course you can't. It's a celest thing. And it's something I've never seen before today, which makes it interesting as fuck.”

“You're not making sense. What are you talking about?” Taylor stared at the spot until her eyes tried to cross, but she saw nothing except the alien crystals and the not-really-sunlight.

“Easy, petal.” Janesha tightened her grip on Taylor's hand. “I'm gonna try something.”

“Something as in something different? Different how? I don't see any … whoa.” Taylor blinked. Between one breath and the next, there was a weird, twisty rope extending from her forehead off into the distance. It coruscated from a weird green to a deep purple and back again, but when she waved her hand through it, it wasn't there. “What is that? And why can't I touch it?”

“You can't touch it for the same reason that you can't bend minds or shift shapes or weave emotions,” Janesha explained. “It's a celestial thing, not a mortal thing. Normally you wouldn't be able to see it, but I'm boosting your perceptions with divine intervention. Which, just incidentally, requires physical contact. Watch what happens when I do this.” She let go Taylor's hand and the rope disappeared. “As for what it is, I have a pretty good idea, but I need to check a few things out before I do something about it. Anyway, we still need to go fetch Cloudstrike.” She took hold of Taylor's hand again. “And … step.”

This time, Taylor stepped forward with Janesha, and the scene changed again. She half-expected another alien landscape, but this was actually quite familiar to her. “The boat graveyard?” she asked. “What are we doing here?” Then she looked around to see vehicles with flashing lights and people clustered around a shattered heap of machinery, as well as a couple of wrecked vehicles. “And what's going on over there?”

“Remember that fight with the Merchants your dad told you about when he didn't think I was listening?” Janesha grinned at Taylor. “That's the aftermath. But we're not here for that.” Turning, she faced to the east, out to sea, and put two fingers to her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she let out a whistle unlike any Taylor had ever heard before.

It shrilled in Taylor's ears and echoed off of nearby buildings, but she got the impression that she hadn't heard one-tenth of the actual whistle, especially when she saw the ripple-pattern on the ocean, spreading out like a fan. “There,” said Janesha happily. “She'll be here in a moment.”

“But—” Tayor wanted to protest, but she didn't know what to protest about first. There was no way a whistle, however loud, would reach across the ocean. And Scotland wasn't even directly east of Brockton Bay. And even if it was, Cloudstrike wouldn't hear it for hours because of the speed of sound, so—

<><>

The 'whistle heard around the world' was a phenomenon that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a matter of seconds, propagating by some means unknown to science. Which, in practical terms, meant 'a cape did it'.

Trawler crews off the Grand Banks heard it. The pilots of airliners at fifty thousand feet over the British Isles heard it, despite the very latest in noise-cancellation headphones. Farmers in eastern Africa heard it (though they didn't tell anyone).

In the Pyrenees, a reclusive millionaire who was about to sign the papers to buy the most isolated chalet in the mountains so that he would be guaranteed peace and quiet, heard it and promptly cancelled the transaction.

Research divers investigating a sunken Roman-era ship heard it, three hundred feet below the surface of the Mediterranean.

In fact, there was not one creature or person within three and a half thousand miles of Brockton Bay, in the direction Janesha was facing, who didn't hear it.

It deafened nobody. No avalanches were caused. No windows were broken. This was because it wasn't loud. It was just audible.

Very, very audible.

<><>

Scottish Highlands, a Few Moments Before

“Maeve! Where’s the camera?”

Maeve McKinnock looked up from where she was loading the dishwasher. “Jock!” she called back. “Ye wee idjit! You’re supposed to be up here playing ghillie to relax and unwind, not go running around like the English are invading!” Straightening up, she closed the appliance and set it running. Living in a gamekeeper's cottage was romantic and all, but there was no way in hell she would’ve agreed to this holiday if it didn’t have running water, electricity and most importantly, (in her view) the internet. Admittedly, it was a low-bandwidth connection, but it was better than nothing.

Jock stumbled into the cottage, panting heavily. “Camera,” he wheezed. “Where is it?” He wasn’t exactly fit, which was why the doctor had recommended they go on holiday.

“You’ve taken pictures of everything that would stand still for you, and a few things that wouldn't,” she scolded him. “That’s why the camera's still recharging. What’s so important that you need to take a photo of it right now?”

“Horse,” he managed. “There’s a horse. Out there. Eating grass.”

“That's what horses do, you great pillock,” Maeve explained, shaking her head. “And besides, it's probably O'Donnell's old nag from over the valley. They did say he likes to wander over this way from time to time.”

He shook his head, still red in the face but not panting as hard now. “It's not O'Donnell's nag,” he stated with absolute certainty.

Maeve raised her eyes to the hand-shaped wooden beams that comprised the ceiling of the gamekeeper's cottage. “And how would ye ken that, ye daft wee git? We've neither of us laid eyes on the blessed thing before today.” She'd been a farmer's daughter before she moved to the city and married Jock, and when she was excited or angry, the country girl came back into her speech.

“Wings,” he said. “It's got wings.”

Sharply, she rounded on him. “And what has the doctor told you about indulging in whisky at this time of day?” she snapped. “It's the fresh air and good food you're supposed to be having, not the drink!”

“I haven't had as much as a dram all week, and you know it,” he protested.

“If you're seeing horses with wings, then it's more than spring water that you've been drinking,” she stated flatly.

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Come see. You'll know I'm right.” Grabbing her by the arm, he marched from the cottage, towing her with him.

Maeve was taller than Jock and stronger, but whatever he was talking about had now taken hold of her curiosity. She was certainly wondering how he knew without a doubt that the mystery horse did not belong to Fergus O'Donnell, or how he came to think it had wings.

And then, as he guided her to the top of the low hill near the cottage, she saw. Cropping the grass fifty metres away was indeed a horse, but it definitely didn't belong to Fergus O'Donnell. For a start, this was a young, strong animal at the peak of its strength; nobody with working eyes would call it a 'nag'. Secondly, it had a coat that gleamed gold in the weak winter sunlight. While she'd seen colour like that on a horse before, there was none like it within fifty kilometres, she was sure. And finally, of course, there were the wings. No animal on Earth had wings like that, especially not horses. I'm stone cold sober and I see them too.

“Camera,” she managed. “Have to get camera.”

“That's what I was saying, woman!” he retorted. His tone said much more, along the lines of if you'd just listened to me, we'd have the camera now, but she wasn't listening.

Turning, she hurried back toward the cottage. “Don't let it go away!” she called back over her shoulder.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” he demanded. “Jump up and down really high?”

Ignored his sarcasm, she hastened into the cottage. As she'd told Jock, the camera was still recharging from his latest attempt at taking pictures of every last thing he saw up in the Highlands. Unplugging it, she noted that the battery had forty-three percent charge. That will certainly do.

Being a practical woman, she set the picture to the highest possible resolution before she got back to the top of the hill. The last thing she wanted to do was still be fiddling with the camera when the winged horse decided to fly away.

It was still there when she came to the top of the hill again. Hands shaking, she raised the camera and framed the impossible creature in the viewscreen. Taking a deep breath, she began to press the button to take the picture.

Just at that moment, a distant whistle shrilled across the hills. As it echoed endlessly, the horse tossed its head and snorted explosively. She completed the tiny motion, her finger pushing the button home with a click. As the sound reached her ears, she realised that between one instant and the next, the horse was no longer there. It hadn't run off or even flown into the sky on those magnificent wings. It had simply vanished, as though it had never existed.

“What?” Jock stared blankly at the empty hillside. “Where did it go?”

Maeve carefully pressed the button that would bring up the last image captured by the camera. Silently, she showed it to Jock. The picture of the hillside itself was clear and sharp, but there was a blurry image in the middle of it. At the near end, it could almost have been a horse if she squinted. But that image smeared into a gold streak that vanished over the horizon to the west, all frozen by the camera in the instant she'd activated the electronic image capture.

“America?” she guessed. But even as she said it, she knew how ridiculous it sounded. Why would something like that go to America?

She guessed she would never know. In that, at least, she was correct.

<><>

Taylor

Clop-clop-clop-clop.

The sound, accompanied by a rush of wind, brought Taylor’s head around. Her jaw dropped as she stared at the apparition before them. Her father had described Cloudstrike as a 'winged horse’, but that in no way came close to doing justice to the beauty of the animal before her. The burnished-gold coat gleaming in the winter sunlight, the proud arch of her neck ... and the wings. Widespread and magnificent in blue and grey, they were only now folding in toward the mystallion's sides.

“—oh,” she managed. “Oh, my.” She had never been horse-mad. In fact, she’d never been this close to a horse before—or a mystallion, she added hastily in her mind—but now she had some small inkling of how people could get that way. Though every horse she was ever going to see from now on was going to suffer considerably by comparison. “She’s gorgeous.”

Her father had warned her that Cloudstrike could understand her, and this appeared to be true; at her admiring words, the mystallion actually preened. Arching her neck proudly, Cloudstrike turned side-on and ostentatiously shook out her wings before furling them again.

“Well, yes,” Janesha said, in the same kind of tone that others would use for saying water is wet, sky is blue. “She’s a mystallion. They’re all gorgeous. Of course, Cloudstrike is the most beautiful of them all, aren’t you, my pretty?” Stepping up next to the mystallion, she snuggled her face into Cloudstrike's cheek while reaching up to scratch behind her ears.

Cloudstrike nickered, apparently in agreement, and rapped the concrete sharply with her hoof.

“Wow, I mean seriously,” Taylor said. “I'm not surprised you guys get worshipped. Turn up on Cloudstrike, and there's probably people in Brockton Bay who'd line up to declare you their personal lord and saviour. Especially if you just happened to turn Hookwolf into a gerbil or something.”

“We actually need that not to happen,” Janesha said seriously. “Not the Hookwolf thing—the worship thing. I mean it. I'll talk it over with you and your dad later, but no talking to other people about gods or celestial worship. Okay?”

“Um, okay,” Taylor replied dubiously. “So, uh, how are we going to get Cloudstrike back to the stable?” The obvious answer seemed too good to be true; she could see the saddle on Cloudstrike's back, but actually being allowed to ride such a magnificent creature? It was beyond her wildest dreams.

Janesha grinned, and Taylor felt her heart leap in her chest. “Exactly the way you think we are,” replied the celestial girl. “First, we climb on Cloudstrike's back. Then we go flying.”

“You mean it?” whispered Taylor, an uncontrollable smile crossing her face. Is this a dream? Good things don't happen to me. Especially things like this.

“If there's anything you should know about me, petal, it's that I'm a Mystallian.” Janesha gathered up the reins and vaulted effortlessly into the saddle. Leaning down, she offered her hand to Taylor. “I've been taught to own my space since I was old enough to know what it meant. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say, and I don't say sorry to anyone, for anything.”

Wonderingly, Taylor reached up, and felt her wrist grasped in an iron-hard grip. A single jerk upward, and she found herself seated on Cloudstrike's rump behind Janesha. Fortunately, she was just tall enough to look over the celestial's shoulder.

“Hold on tight,” Janesha said cheerfully. “You won't get hurt if you fall off, but it'll be embarrassing as fuck for you and me both. You ready?”

Taking a deep breath, Taylor leaned forward slightly and wrapped her arms around Janesha's waist. “No, but let's go anyway.”

She heard the grin in Janesha's voice. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. Cloudstrike—hup!”

Whether it was the vocal command or some other signal, Taylor had no idea. All she knew was that the mystallion's wings suddenly snapped up and outward, spreading wide before sweeping down again. And then … she knew what it was like to fly.

Holding tightly to Janesha, Taylor whooped with exhilaration as the ground fell away beneath them at a dizzying pace. She could feel the stretch and snap of Cloudstrike's muscles, and somehow she knew that this was the closest thing to a casual stroll that the mystallion could manage. Twelve galaxies a second …

They flew south over Brockton Bay, swooping lower and lower over the Boardwalk until the people below pointing up at them were almost recognisable. Taylor grinned so hard that her face hurt, barely able to believe that she was riding a creature from myth and legend, behind the daughter of a god. Even in a world with superheroes in it, this was a little over the top.

“So, you ready to—” began Janesha, then broke off. “Oh, hey. Heads up. Incoming local.” She twitched the reins, and Cloudstrike banked slowly into a turn. “I think it's the one you call Glory Girl. Want to meet her, or are you good for now?”

One day ago, Taylor would've been thrilled to meet Glory Girl. She wasn't Alexandria, and she was pretty and bright and popular (not actually selling points for Taylor), but she was still a superhero. However, after meeting Janesha, the glamour of superheroes wasn't quite so shiny anymore.

While she was still trying to make up her mind, the gold and white figure slid in beside them, short cape flapping in her slipstream. “Hi there!” Glory Girl called chirpily. “Can I see your flying horse license, please?”

Even from where she was, Taylor heard Cloudstrike's displeased snort. “She's not a 'flying horse', she's a mystallion!” she called back. “She can fly twice around the city before you can get out your front door. Show some respect!” She knew she was understating Cloudstrike's capabilities by a huge amount, but there was no way Glory Girl would believe the facts. From the look on the heroine's face, she didn't even believe these ones.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” Glory Girl retorted. “Your friend's got a nice line in costumes, but as far as I can tell, you're just along for the ride.” She indicated Cloudstrike with a careless gesture. “And there's no way that anything with wings can fly like I can.”

“Oh. Really.” Taylor tightened her grip on Janesha's waist in anticipation, then raised her voice. “Cloudstrike, care to prove her wrong?”

Cloudstrike snorted again. Taylor felt she was getting to know the mystallion's moods; this time, she sounded happy. Her wingbeats increased in tempo and she slowly pulled ahead of Glory Girl.

“Oh, come on. Really?” The teen hero drew level with them again. “That the best you can do?”

“Not even close.” That was Janesha; Taylor caught the flashing grin that she gave Glory Girl. “Cloudstrike … tag.”

With a ringing whinny, Cloudstrike pulled a complete three-sixty degree barrel-roll around Glory Girl, ending up in the same relative position. Taylor had a brief instant to savour the blonde's shocked expression as a single wing-feather slapped her across the face, before everything disappeared in a blur of motion.

When it subsided, Glory Girl was nowhere to be seen. So, for that matter, was Brockton Bay. The city below them was one Taylor had never seen. She leaned forward and raised her voice slightly. “Where are we?”

Janesha shrugged. “Search me. I'm not good at your geography.” Shading her eyes with one hand, she pointed with the other (which was also holding the reins) at a very recognisable looking mountainous outcrop with a spread-armed statue atop it. “Well, well, well. Now there's a familiar face I wasn't expecting to see.”

“Wait … I know this place too.” Taylor stared at the outcrop as Cloudstrike banked lazily in that direction. “That's Mount Sugar Loaf. This is Rio. Holy fuck, we just went to Rio in about half a second.” Then Janesha's words finally registered on her. “Hang on … you know him?”

“Well, yeah.” Janesha's voice was totally matter of fact. “He keeps inviting me over to his place to “catch up”, but Heaven’s one realm I’m not interested in messing with. If he wants to catch up with me, he can come to Mystal, where we have all the power.”

“You mean he ‘likes’ you?” Despite sitting behind Janesha, Taylor couldn’t help but waggle her eyebrows suggestively.

“Ewwww! Hell, no! Yuck! We are absolutely not into that crap!” Janesha did an all-over body shudder as she spoke. Then another one. “No, definitely not.”

“So, it’s just friends?”

“That’s all he’s angling for, though a few of my cousins in Earlafaol … that’s my cousin’s realm with the original ‘Earth’ ... would rather wring his neck then socialise with him.”

“Why?”

“Because they followed their dad into the NYPD homicide division and every time the date you guys picked out for his birthday comes around, everyone goes absolutely bonkers and their workload quadruples. It’s ironic when you look at it, I suppose.”

“Why?”

Janesha sighed. “Because those NYPD cousins are also the great grandsons of the true ruler of Hell. Each of them has the power to be the anti-Christ, yet they spend a month of every year cleaning up the fallout made by that idiot’s fake birthday. Meanwhile Yeshua hasn’t been back there to lift one realm-damned finger to help since the mortals crucified him a couple of thousand years ago, and those nit-wits still think he's all-wonderful.” She raised a hand and flicked it dismissively, shaking her head in annoyance. “Go figure.”

“Wait.” Taylor thought she'd spotted a flaw in what Janesha was saying. “If he's a celestial like you, how did they even …”

“Let's not get into that right now, petal.” Janesha's voice was firm. “This is something I need to fill you and your dad in about at the same time. So let's put a pin in it for now, mmkay?”

“Um, sure, okay.” Taylor was willing to go along with what Janesha said. Every time she thought she had Janesha figured out, she ended up with a curve ball like this. The biggest problem was, it made sense.

Janesha turned in the saddle to look back at Taylor. “Anyway, should we do more sightseeing, or did you want to head home?”

More sightseeing was tempting, but Taylor knew her father would be getting worried. “Home, I guess. Hey, did you see Glory Girl's face? That was hilarious. I didn't even know Cloudstrike could do that.”

Abruptly, they were in that other world again, this time hovering over the crystalline landscape. A single wingbeat forward, and they were in the underground stable. Cloudstrike's hooves sank into the soft earth and she looked around with a nicker of interest.

“Oh, hell, yes. It's how we play tag with mystallions.” Janesha swung her leg across in front of her, and slid off Cloudstrike's back. Reaching up, she helped Taylor down as well. She smirked as she let them both out through the gate into the basement. “I think I'm gonna like it here.”

Part 5