Celestial Worm Pt 11 (Patreon)

Part Eleven: Clearing the Air

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

[A/N 2: For anyone in or around North Queensland, Karen and I will be exhibiting at Magneticon in Townsville on 1-2 June. Come and chat!]

The last one up on to the dockside was a grinning Manpower, covered in mud to the waist (and liberally daubed with it elsewhere) and hefting half a car of all things on one shoulder. The half-car was incredibly rusted, with no sign of what had happened to the other half.

“Wonder what happened with that?” mused Taylor as the seven-foot man climbed the concrete steps. “A boat I can understand, but a car?”

“With the way your cape battles play out,” Janesha said, as if she herself hadn’t been tossing around ships just a little while before, “and your utter lack of touch and ranged shifters, I’m personally surprised the city’s still standing.” She glanced at the bay, and the tentacle of water that had fed itself down inside her boot dissolved and spread out into a puddle. At the same time, the water that had been held back came flooding in to crash against the dockside.

“I suppose you have a point,” Danny conceded. “They do tend to be hard on cars. Especially where Brutes are concerned.” Taylor knew the topic was a running joke on some parts of the PHO boards, especially the list of “Cars Most Likely To Be Used In a Cape Fight”. For some reason, the 1968 Cadillac was at the top of the list, and the Ford Pinto was in the “will explode before it leaves your hands” category at the bottom.

“What passes for Brutes here, anyway,” Janesha observed in an amused tone of voice. “I’ve told you about my Uncle Griffith, haven’t I?”

Taylor lowered her voice. “The guy who plays soccer with whole planets?” She waited for Janesha’s nod. “Yeah, that sort of thing tends to stick in the mind.” She raised an eyebrow at her friend. “You do realise that bringing your family into this is kind of cheating, right? From what you’ve told me, the least of your people has the potential to hilariously outclass even the most powerful cape we’ve got.”

“Well, of course.” Janesha’s tone was now matter of fact.  “But I fail to see how it’s cheating.”

“Because it’s not even a contest,” Taylor explained carefully. “Comparing Griffith to our Brutes is basically like comparing you to … um, your uncle Avis. Or Belial. You wouldn’t think it was fair if one of them challenged you to a contest in something they were specialised in, would you?”

Janesha snorted. “There’s a big difference between challenging someone and comparing them. Would you accuse Alexandria of cheating just because she can bench-press any normal human under the table? Or, to drop it down another tier, if you found an African tribe in the middle of nowhere who held an annual ‘swimming across the river’ competition, and their record stood at two hours to swim half a kilometre. Would you consider it cheating if you looked at that and said, “Damn, I could beat that with one arm tied behind my back, and you really wouldn’t want to get an Olympian in here.” Something about what she’d just said brought out a deep chuckle, and she swiftly added, “Either kind.”

 Taylor didn’t quite follow her joke, because she was too busy processing what her friend had said. From what she understood, celestials of the noble families were brought up with the understanding that they would become established one day, thus taking their place within the pantheon of their realm. Becoming gods. This was part of Janesha’s outlook; when celestials outclassed everyone else, competing with mortals and winning wasn’t cheating. It was the natural order of things.

“No one would seriously bother with a real challenge to someone of lesser capability. It’s just not worth their time,” Janesha declared in the end. But then her eyes shifted to the gathered heroes, and Taylor realised Glory Girl was the one receiving the dirty look. “Unless, of course, that somebody needs to be taught a lesson on where they sit in the grand scheme of things.” Taylor suddenly remembered the race Cloudstrike had undertaken with the caped hero, such as it was.

 But that made Taylor’s point all the more valid. “But what if she doesn’t know how one sided it is?”

Janesha chuckled darkly. “She does, now.”  She laughed again and shook her head. “Look, normally, we don’t care if they know what we are. Because by then, we’re established and they automatically know who and what we are. Unestablished, it’s slightly different. We tend to play from behind the scenes, so mortals don’t get the chance to build up a belief base about us.” She smirked. “That’s why we’re not usually allowed to go off and play on mortal worlds unsupervised until we get established.”

“So how much trouble are you likely to be in, once your family shows up?” Danny waved at the surrounding situation, with the superheroes and Dockworkers having the thick, clinging mud hosed off them amid much hilarity. “A low profile, this is not.”

Janesha shrugged. “Eh, I’ll probably get yelled at, but so long as no one definitively believes I’m a celestial, I shouldn’t get into too much trouble for this.” Her cheeky grin returned. “Now, blowing off my mother for two weeks and tricking her into thinking I’m still in Asgard …” She let the words drift off, though she made the veins and cords in her neck stand out to signify the impending danger.

Danny shook his head and snorted. “As well you should be. I’d kill you, if you were mine and pulled that.” He shot Taylor a sharp look and added, “It’d be like you skipping the country for two weeks after convincing me you were at summer camp.”

Taylor could well appreciate the level of trouble that would bring her, so she decided to change the subject. “What sort of goddess do you think you’ll be?” Not only was it a more comfortable line of discussion, but she was genuinely curious about that. Janesha was incredibly powerful by any stretch of the imagination, to the point that it would take no effort at all to see her as a goddess. Stop right there, she told herself sternly. She’s Janesha. Not a goddess. Just my friend.

“Weather, most likely.” Janesha looked pensively at the sky. “I always know what sort of weather we’re going to have. That’s my innate talent. Gods don’t always get powerbases in line with their talents, but it does make things a lot easier.”

“Whether or not it’ll rain, you mean?” Taylor couldn’t resist the hoary old pun.

Janesha gave her a dirty look. “When I’m goddess of the weather, jokes like that will be declared a mortal sin. Just you wait and see.”

“How about songs?” asked Danny, a grin quirking the corner of his mouth. “If someone sang a song about the weather, would that count as prayer?”

Janesha stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Really? You two have some very strange ideas about divinity if you even think that might work,” she observed. “And it’s making me wonder if it’s a mortal thing or an Earth Bet thing.”

“That should be easy to figure out.” Taylor spread her hands. “How do your mortals back in Mystal see things?”

Janesha blinked. “No clue. It’s not like I’ve ever asked any of them.”

Danny tilted his head. “So, we’re the first mortals you’ve taken the time to get to know.” It wasn’t a question. “That’s kind of sad.”

“Well, I’m not supposed to associate too closely with mortals until I get established. If I say or do the wrong thing before then, I could screw everything up for myself for all eternity.” Janesha frowned. “Why is it sad?”

“Because when you get your powerbase and become a goddess, you’ll have absolute power over billions of people,” Danny explained. “But if you hadn’t met us, you would never have taken the time to learn the mortal point of view. And speaking from my own experience? You can’t be an effective leader, ruler, whatever, if you don’t know what it’s like for the guy on the bottom of the heap.”

“That’s crap,” Janesha said at once. “I don’t know what it’s like in other realms, but we’ve never had a problem with our worshippers in Mystal. They love us.”

Danny raised an eyebrow, and Taylor could almost hear his thoughts. ‘Do they get a choice?’ But instead, he went on with, “I will admit, it’s probably hard to totally screw up being a god when you’ve got all that power, but there’s a lot of leeway between just getting by and actually being the best you can.”

“Trust me. Every member of our pantheon knows exactly what they’re about and what they’re doing,” Janesha argued.

“So, nobody screwed up getting their powerbase?” prompted Taylor. “Like that uncle you told me about; Blagden?”

“And I also told you how that happened, remember? He revealed his divinity to mortals before he was established. But now that it’s a done deal, yes, he’s all over everything to do with his powerbase, just like everyone else.”

“Danny! Taylor!” The voice belonged to Kurt, a Dockworker and old friend of Taylor’s father. He approached the group of three and shook Danny’s hand vigorously. He was dripping wet, with a few stubborn mud stains on his clothing to show what he’d been up to. His boots, Taylor figured, must be full of water from the way he was squelching when he walked. “That was the most fun I’ve had in years.” He turned his attention to Janesha. “And you’re the young lady responsible for all this? I’m very pleased to meet you. Kurt Gainsborough.”

“You’re welcome.” Janesha took his proffered hand and shook it. In the next moment, all the water puffed away from him in a cloud of steam, and the mud stains drifted away as dust on the wind. “Janesha of Mystal.”

“Whoa!” Kurt let out a surprised laugh as he looked down at his now-dry clothing. A couple of experimental steps evinced a total lack of squelching. “That’s amazing. Though I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised after what you did with the Graveyard.” He looked at the neatly stacked steel blocks, off to the side out of the way. “This will really bring the Dockworkers back into the black, once we start cashing that lot in.”

“Yeah.” Danny’s voice held deep satisfaction. “Maybe I can even get the Mayor’s office to underwrite the ferry now.”

“Pfft.” Kurt rolled his eyes. “Good buddy, we’ve known each other for I don’t know how many years, now? You know I’ve got faith in you to do the impossible. How you persuaded Janesha here to do what she did today, I can’t even begin to imagine. But even I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen.”

Taylor saw the glint in Janesha’s eye and the slight squaring of her shoulders at that. She didn’t need Mystallian mind bending abilities to tell that the young celestial had just gone into ‘challenge accepted’ mode.

“How about we stick with one miracle at a time?” she suggested, looking at her father but aiming the words at Janesha. “I’m sure after Mayor Christner sees what’s been achieved today, he’ll be more likely to come around on the ferry thing. No need to back him into a corner and force the issue just yet.”

Kurt looked at her appraisingly. “That’s actually a very mature viewpoint to take,” he conceded. “And to be honest, it might just work out that way. The Mayor isn’t here right now, but I did spot some of his people lurking around before.” He took a deep breath. “Of course, you know Roy, Danny. If he can’t spin it to look like his idea or at least get some political capital out of it, he’s a lot less likely to put his weight behind it.”

Danny grimaced. “I liked him better before he was a career politician. When he was just another city councilman, he was a lot more sympathetic to my ideas.”

 “Back before he sold his soul to the devil?” Kurt gave a short bark of laughter.

“Why the fuck would you be laughing about that?” Janesha was horrified.

 “Figure of speech,” Taylor quickly interceded, before Kurt could ask the obvious question. “You know, ha-ha? It’s not like he’s actually sold his soul to the devil.”

Janesha looked Kurt in the eye and shook her head. “That ain’t funny where I come from. Not even a little bit. Only a fool enters into one of those deals, and it always bites them in the ass. Always.”

 Kurt looked at Danny. “Is she for real?”

 Danny sighed. “For the most part. Where she comes from, there’s a … a cape that’s capable of fulfilling deals like that. And once you die, you become his. Some say for the rest of eternity. Much like Glaistig Uaine.”

 “Fuck me!” Kurt swore, covering his mouth. He then looked at Janesha, his eyes just as wide in horror as hers had been, then dropped his hand. “Sorry, darlin’. We don’t have anyone like that here, so it’s a running joke. Roy didn’t really sell his soul. At least, not to our knowledge.”

 “I still wouldn’t be invoking him if I were you. He tends to sniff it out, and if enough people say it, he could very well turn up here and start making offers.”

Kurt breathed out heavily. “Good to know. We have enough troublemakers here as it is, without adding someone like that to the mix.”

“Sometimes I think politicians should only ever be elected for one term,” Danny grumbled. “That way, they aren’t stuck trying to please everybody and his dog to try to get re-elected, as opposed to doing the right thing.”

Kurt frowned. “While I can’t disagree with your logic, there’s almost certainly a loophole somewhere in your idea that opens up the gate to much worse concepts.”

“As interesting as all this sounds,” Janesha declared in the tone of voice that said I’m bored to crap, “I’m not quite finished here.” She turned to Danny. “Don’t you need the machinery refurbished as well, in order to make the docks work again?”

Without waiting for an answer, she headed off in the direction of the closest crane. Patched with rust here and there from years of exposure to salt air with no maintenance, it was almost certainly riddled with less visible damage.

“Oops, gotta go,” Taylor said hurriedly. “Nice seeing you, Kurt. Say hi to Lacey for me.” As she dashed after Janesha, she saw the other girl stop then casually wave a hand toward the ad hoc stadium seats. With a deep grinding noise (which Taylor very strongly suspected was deliberate on Janesha’s part) the seats began to retract once more into the ground. This didn’t surprise Taylor in the slightest; after all, the seats were no longer needed. And if there was one thing she knew about Janesha, it was that the girl had a distinct flair for the dramatic.

<><>

Armsmaster

Colin watched the teenage pair approach the base of the crane. His mouth bore a faint smile in anticipation of something just as impressive as the clearing of the Boat Graveyard. Janesha’s casual manipulation of solid concrete to create the stands had definitely gotten his attention. When she started pulling entire ships out of the ocean by hand before reshaping them into cubes of metal, he’d just sat there, trying to get his head around the sheer power involved. That was Eidolon-level capability, right there.

“What do you think they’re doing?” muttered Assault. “Is she going to make the machinery into modern art, or turn it into a giant mecha?”

Given Janesha’s previous feats, Colin wouldn’t have ruled out the possibility of either thing happening. The probability, however, was something else altogether. “Neither,” he said, just as quietly. “She’s fixing the docks for Hebert, not destroying them. At the moment, that wreck of a crane would have difficulty lifting me up, let alone tonnes and tonnes of steel.”

A minute or so later, Janesha reached the crane and placed one of her hands on one of the gigantic metal struts that kept it stable. After a few second of inactivity, the entire crane began to alter in appearance. A brand-new paint job in black and gold spread over the whole thing, making it look more like a science-fiction prop than a dockside crane. Underneath the paint job, however, Colin could see that the rust was gone, and the machinery gleamed as though it had just been installed in place.

It took Assault a few more seconds to react. “Wait … did she just …”

Colin nodded. “It looks like it. I’d have to examine it to be sure, but I’m pretty sure she just repaired the whole thing with a touch.”

“Well, I was actually gonna refer to the bitchin’ paint job she did on it,” the other hero retorted. “But if she changed it structurally, is that even street legal?”

“I’d have to check the regulations,” admitted Colin. “But if it isn’t, I suspect she’ll be able to fix that just as easily.” Deep down, the admiration and respect he felt for the girl were at war with the envy he wanted to feel. The ability to maintain and repair complicated machinery in the time it took to draw a deep breath would make his job so much easier. But of course, entertaining such emotions about the teenage newcomer would be unworthy of him. She had her powers and he had his, and it was up to both of them to make the most of what they had.

He watched her move on to the next crane, the Hebert girl strolling alongside, and nodded to himself. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot when he first met the cape, but he’d quickly figured out the real situation and changed his attitude. Janesha of Mystal, he’d realised, was going to make her mark on Brockton Bay whether he chose to stand in her way or not. So, it was better all told to stand back and afford her the respect to which she was due.

After all, if heroes didn’t have each other’s backs, where would the world be?

<><>

Cauldron Base

Contessa

“Son of a fucking bitch.”

The words, softly spoken, barely reached Fortuna’s ears. She turned at once and eyeballed Clare sitting at the small table covered with Duplo blocks, colouring pencils and paper. How her brother had maintained the façade of a drooling idiot for so many years was a testament to their training, but now he seemed to be dropping the act with ever increasing frequency. Especially when the ‘ash’ of his eyes ignited with each expletive, and he straightened in the chair to stare at nothing just past where Fortuna sat. “Motherfucking brainless dumbass fucking fucker!”

Once again, they were alone, and she thanked her innate ability for looking out for them once more.

“What?” Dorian demanded, half a heartbeat before Fortuna could. Her second in command had been sitting at Clare’s side, reading a book on mortal warfare that had apparently lasted centuries as their go-to manual. Some of it he’d ridiculed, but other points did actually have merit when he showed them to her. “Clare, report!”

As if someone had flicked a switch in Clare’s head, the psychic of Abaddon became all business. He turned to Fortuna as his commanding officer and said, “That little Mystallian cow has just flat-out admitted that she skipped out on her family. As far as her family is concerned, she’s still in Asgard! They’ve got no fucking idea she’s in this realm! Shit, they’ve got no idea that this realm even fucking exists! Can we kill her now?”

Dorian looked to Fortuna. After working as her second in command for so long, he knew better than to make any assumptions once Fortuna had already binned them. But his eyes spoke volumes. They practically begged for permission.

Fortuna held up her hand and turned her thoughts inwards. Inside her imagination, she recreated every scene that had led up to this moment. The loss of Abaddon. The surprise stab that kept the female hybrid alive instead of killing her. The existence of the other hybrid from Earlafaol. And now, the arrival of an unestablished Mystallian. A very killable Mystallian.

And suddenly, everything her innate ability had been trying to tell her was now becoming clear.

“No,” she stated, once she returned to the physical realm.

“What?” Clare stared at her, his expression one of betrayal. “But she’s right there! All she’s got around her are mortals! There’s nobody watching her fucking back! She’s not even established! We’ll never get a better chance!”

Fortuna slid her eyes to Dorian, who took Clare by the back of the head and slammed him face first into table, breaking both his nose and the table on impact. Fortuna nodded her approval. He’d already been warned once. Next time, she’d have his arm ripped off. Literally. As a psychic, he didn’t need both arms to be useful to the Cause. “We aren’t going to be the ones to kill her, because if we play our cards right, we not only won’t go into the sin-bin when we go home, we’ll be fucking promoted.”

Dorian and a bloodied Clare looked at each other. “I must confess, I don’t get what you mean either,” Dorian admitted.

 In the past, he would’ve kept his mouth shut and asked her for clarification in private, but as he could never be without Clare and it was only the three of them left, Fortuna understood his breach of protocol. “How did Scion and his bitch get to live to adulthood without a celest killing them for even existing?” she asked instead.

“Dey lif’d in Ear’afaol,” Clare replied, holding his nose in position and attempting to talk around the breakage. It would take about an hour for the damage to heal entirely, but in that time, Clare could reflect on his actions and hopefully learn from them. They lived in Earlafaol.

“And do you think they’re the only two Lady Col’s been hiding?”

“Well, no,” conceded Dorian slowly. “But … the other hybrids aren’t here, so … what does it matter?”

Fortuna had no idea why Dorian wasn’t connecting the dots. “Because the Mystallian brat is unestablished. She’s killable. Sooner or later, the elders of Mystal are going to come looking for their little runaway, and when they get here and learn Scion, a hybrid from Earlafaol was the one who killed her …”

“They’re going to want the heads of every other hybrid Earlafaol’s hiding,” Dorian concluded as the light finally dawned.

“’n La’y Col ain’ gonna ’and ‘em over eiver…” Clare added. And Lady Col ain’t gonna hand them other either.

“Exactly,” Fortuna’s smile was venomous.

“It ge’s be’er,” Clare said with a matching smile, though his didn’t quite pan out because of the blood pouring down his face. “With the vam’ly she rul’d out as uncles, ’er lin’age is eiv’r Armina o’ War, Tal o’ Destruction, ‘r Amaro o’ Death. Giv’n she said ‘er inna’e abili’y’s wea’ver, my money’s on War.” It gets better. With the family she ruled out as uncles, her lineage is either Armina of War, Tal of Destruction, or Amaro of Death. Given she said her innate ability’s weather, my money’s on War.

“Fucking beautiful!” Fortuna clapped her hands together in delight. “Mystal is going to want the blood of every last motherfucking hybrid hiding on Earlafaol, and there’s no way in fuck I can see Lady Col handing them over without a fight. And when Mystal tries to force the issue, Armina will be leading the charge and the agreement Mystal has with Earlafaol will be out the window!”

“Earlafaol is fucked.” Dorian sounded positively gleeful at the idea.

“Bu’ da Pryde’s still pre’y damn terr’fyin’,” Clare reminded him. But the Pryde’s still pretty damn terrifying.

“So’s Armina when she’s pissed,” Fortuna pointed out. “Look, it comes down to this. It doesn’t matter who wins. The alliance between them will be over and we can waltz right in and take the weapon without having to raise a hand. As I said, provided we play this right, any outcome is going to advance the cause by fucking eons.”

“So, how do we do it, commander?”

 Fortuna eyed them both. “That’s exactly what we need to figure out.”

<><>

Taylor

“ … and done.” Janesha took her hand away from the last piece of machinery—a gigantic travelling overhead hoist—and dusted her palms off. Taylor was pretty sure the gesture was just for show, especially given Janesha’s shifting capabilities.

“Nice.” Taylor took a moment to admire the black and gold colour scheme. Unless she was much mistaken, the newly-reborn Lord’s Port dockside had the most eye catching palette on the east coast. Janesha had stopped short of actually incorporating the Mystallian sigil into the design, though Taylor suspected it had been a near thing.

“Thanks.” Janesha took the praise as her due.

Taylor was about to ask how Janesha had known how to fix the crane, but then realised Kurt was in the celestial’s line of sight, and he’d once driven those things for a living. She didn’t want to start another round of arguments over indiscriminate use of mind bending—mainly because she’d already seen how those turned out—so she went on to another, semi-related subject. “Uh, you do shifting by touch and not range, right?”

“So?” Janesha looked at her as if wondering why she was asking a question with such an obvious answer.

“Well,” said Taylor. “I was just curious how you made the stadium pull back into the ground. You were nowhere near it.”

Janesha smirked. “That’s easy. The stadium was still part of the concrete slab we were standing on. You remember when I raised it up, how I stopped and clapped every couple of steps? Nobody noticed me stopping, because everyone was paying attention to me clapping.”

“But you said that was to give them warning that you were raising the stadium,” Taylor pointed out.

“And I wasn’t lying about that, but the stopping part was the crucial bit, as it allowed me to make a hole in the sole of my boot and grow a rubber tipped thorn down to touch the concrete slab. People would’ve seen it if I’d kept walking. And when I pulled it back down …”

“… you stopped and looked at it, implying it was ranged, not touch.” Taylor shook her head in wonder. “You did it right in front of me, and I never realised.”

“Celestials never show all their cards if they don’t have to,” Janesha stated, as if passing on a profound truth. “You never know if someone’s watching who might have a reason to want to pull you down. By implying you can hit above your tier, it makes others think twice about trying anything. Cousin Cora taught me that. And how to do the open-sole trick.” She held up her gloved hand. “We do the same thing with our fingertips, when we have to. No one notices it’s not the glove.”

“Trust me, not making yourself appear weak is something I understand perfectly,” Taylor reminded her. “Or had you forgotten the situation I was before you got here?”

“See, that’s something I don’t really get.” Janesha hummed pensively for a moment. “Being a dick to get a laugh, I understand. Doing shit like they were doing to you, over and over without any good reason, I can see it happening if it’s part of a thrall. But being dicks like that to you for as long as they did, for no appreciable gain? Not even making you pay ‘protection’ so they’d leave you alone? They’re mortals, not gods. They don’t have something pushing them to do that. If they didn’t like you, why not just walk away?”

Taylor shook her head. “Believe me, if I knew, I’d tell you,” she said bitterly. “You’re not asking any questions I didn’t ask myself a million times.” She tilted her head. “Wait a minute. You spent time with them. Why didn’t you mind bend them and find out?”

Janesha made a rude noise with her lips. “Because I didn’t care about ‘why’ until now. I was just having fun fucking their lives up for screwing with you.”

“Well, I can’t deny you’ve succeeded in doing that,” Taylor conceded. “Though I really, really want to be there when you tell Sophia that her powers are never, ever coming back.” She wondered exactly what consequences Ms Bright was going to bring down on Emma for ‘outing’ Sophia at the top of her voice.

Then she pondered Madison’s state of mind; the petite brunette had to be wondering when it would be her turn. Soon, she promised silently. It wasn’t that she was vindictive—well, mostly not that. There was some maxim she’d read once upon a time, about leaving an enemy able to strike from behind. Given that she was pretty well impervious to regular harm by now, taking Madison off the board would mainly be a symbolic act … but one that was very important to her. Also, she admitted to herself, satisfying as hell.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Janesha said airily. “In the meantime, what else is there to do around here?”

Celestials, Taylor decided, set an entirely new bar when it came to being easily bored. Janesha had just performed something that was barely short of an act of God (both literally and figuratively) and instead of I’m tired, let’s go home her attitude was what can we go do now? A bored teenager was one thing; a bored celestial teenager was quite another. Both had the potential to result in property damage. It was just that in the latter case, the property damage would probably be visible from Mars.

Fortunately, the conversation had given Taylor an idea. “Let’s go talk to Armsmaster,” she suggested. “I want to ask him about Emma.”

Janesha raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. “Really? What could he tell you about her that we don’t already know?” Raising her hand, she began to tick off points. “Shallow, disloyal, thinks way too much of her looks, has no idea when she’s out of her depth …”

“ … why she did what she did,” Taylor said, heading toward the armoured hero. From what she could tell, the Protectorate capes had stayed back to keep the rest of the crowd from mobbing Janesha while the celestial girl was fixing the machinery.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know that. Or even that she screwed you over,” Janesha pointed out.

“I know, but he will know if she’s in PRT custody or not. If I’m right, Sophia’s handler will want to make an example of her to take the heat off herself, and I’m hoping he’s okay with telling you where she is. Then we’ll go there and ask her why she was such a bitch.” It seemed logical to Taylor.

“And by that you mean, you want me to mind bend it out of her.” Janesha had a way of getting to the point.

Taylor refused to be daunted. “If that’s what it takes, sure.” She glanced at Janesha. “I mean, if you’re okay with that.”

Janesha made a rude noise with her lips. “I’d be happy with turning her into a red-haired hamster with just enough self-awareness that she remembers who and what she used to be, but if all you want to do is interrogate her, that’s fine by me.”

Taylor took a deep breath to get past the lurch of horror in her chest. The idea of anyone, even Emma, living on in the body of a hamster while knowing that they’d once been human, and having no way to return to that state … it sent chills right through her body. “Have you ever … done that?” she asked faintly.

“What, turned someone into a hamster?” Janesha paused and considered. “Maybe once, when my Uncle Barris, the sick fuck, tried spying on me in the changing rooms when he and I were the only ones in there. I figured if he wanted to be a slimy, disgusting leech so bad, I’d help him along.”

This story was new, and it snared Taylor’s undivided attention. “What happened next?”

 “The family figured out something was up when he didn’t turn up for meals and wouldn’t answer anyone’s bloodlinks. Missing the meals is a big no-no in Mystal unless someone knows where you are. The only reason I got into trouble for my part in it, was because when we were all asked if we knew where he was, I lied my ass off and said I didn’t have a clue, forgetting my Aunt Clarise was in the room.” She looked at Taylor and grimaced. “Don’t ever try that in front of an established Goddess of Truth. Aunt Clarise may not be a bender, but she has ranged shifting through the ass and knows how to use it. I’ve never felt pain like it and she didn’t move from her seat at the head of the room. She just looked at me and every cell in my whole fucking body was on fire.”

“What happened to your dirty uncle?”

 That was when Janesha chortled evilly. “He was made whole, and then grandmother Armina went into his head to see what happened from his side of things.” The chortle turned to a maniacal laugh that had the teen wrapping her arms around her waist and twisting in delight. “Let’s just say, War was pissed, and none of us heard from Uncle Barris for weeks.”

 “Well, that was kinda justified, but please don’t do it to any of us poor mortals.”

“Petal, regardless of who it’s done to, if a celestial does it, that’s usually the definition of ‘justified’,” Janesha explained. “We want it to happen, so it happens. What other justification do we need?” She held up her two index fingers and brought them together to illustrate her point.

Taylor rubbed her forehead. “Just between you and me, I get the impression that the rights of the individual don’t actually mean much to you.”

“Individuals don’t usually matter to us,” Janesha conceded. “You and your dad are my two exceptions, of course. But … okay, it’s like this. Suppose you’re eating a bowl of rice. One or two grains fall on the floor, you couldn’t care less. But if someone tried to steal the whole bowl, you’d care a whole lot. That’s basically how it is between gods and mortals.”

“I’m not exactly okay with the fact that either the rice gets eaten or it’s discarded on the floor,” Taylor remarked with a grimace.

“Don’t get technical, petal,” huffed Janesha. “You know what I meant.”

 “Yeah,” Taylor agreed, but she still didn’t like it.

 “Okay, fiiiine. I won’t turn anyone into a hamster, no matter how much they deserve it. Happy now?”

“I guess.” Taylor raised her hand to get Armsmaster’s attention, which served to change the subject. “Excuse me, Armsmaster. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Certainly,” he replied. “Though, excuse me for a second. I have to say, Janesha, your workmanship is superb. It would save so much time if I were able to repair my equipment simply by touching it.”

Janesha smirked at him. “Thanks, but Taylor’s still got that question to ask.”

Before the conversation could be derailed any more, Taylor jumped in. “Yeah, uh, I was just wondering if the PRT was still talking to Emma Barnes, or if she’s been let go already.”

From Armsmaster’s pause, he hadn’t expected that question. “I honestly don’t know,” he replied. “I’m familiar with the name—I’ve kept current with your case—but I’d have to check.”

“That would be appreciated.” Janesha’s tone was only a shade away from being a direct order. “Taylor wants to ask her a few questions, and we can’t do that if we don’t know where she is.”

Armsmaster frowned slightly. “Even if I was to find out, you have to know you won’t be allowed to join in on the questioning.”

“I wasn’t planning on asking her anything while she was in custody. But once she leaves, I have every intention of asking her why she was such a bitch to my friend.”

 Armsmaster stiffened and stared down at Janesha. “Is asking with words all you intend on doing?” he asked, and Taylor was under no illusion that he had his lie detector thingie up and running for Janesha’s answer.

 “I won’t lay a finger on her. Scout’s honour.”

For a moment, she thought Armsmaster was going to refuse Janesha’s semi-request, but then the Protectorate hero nodded slightly. “I’ll check for you.” He turned away and spoke under his breath.

“You know that only works if you’re a girl scout, right?” Taylor murmured, just loudly enough for Janesha to hear. The only reply she got was a self-satisfied smirk. For a moment, she wondered if Janesha had used her mind-bending on Armsmaster again, or if her previous orders to him were still in effect. The answer, she decided, was ‘yes’. Either way, Janesha had gotten what she wanted. This was more or less par for the course when it came to a celestial being among mortals.

“She’s just leaving the PRT building,” Armsmaster reported, turning back toward them. “Her father apparently showed up with a lawyer, so they’ve released her back into his custody, pending further investigation.”

“Cool, thanks.” Janesha shot him a beaming smile. “Me and Taylor have gotta go now. Bye.” She took hold of Taylor’s hand. By now, Taylor knew what to expect, and as Janesha took a step forward into that weird crystal world, Taylor was right there beside her.

They stepped back into the real world in the lobby of the PRT building. Not a moment too soon either. As Taylor looked around to get her bearings, the sliding doors opened and Alan Barnes stepped out of the building, closely followed by Emma. Taylor didn’t recognise the third person with them, but she figured he must be the lawyer Armsmaster had mentioned. He had the look, right down to the briefcase he carried.

“Oh, hey, there’s the bitch of the hour.” Janesha’s grasp of subtlety, as ever, was close to non-existent. “Daddy’s money get you out of trouble yet again? Word to the wise, red. Once you grow up, that shit won’t fly forever. One day, you’re gonna put your foot one step too far, and shit’s gonna go down that he won’t be able to make go away.”

“Excuse me, who the hell are you?” demanded Emma’s father, stepping in between Janesha and his daughter. “Move away before I have you arrested for harassment.”

“Mr Barnes,” began Taylor. “I just want to ask Emma—”

“Miss Barnes is not answering questions from anyone without a court order,” the lawyer put in, interposing himself in front of Taylor. Even now, he held his briefcase like a shield in front of him. “If you do not step back, you can be charged with assault.”

“But I—” Taylor looked toward Mr Barnes, trying to convey an appeal with her eyes.

“Taylor, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he replied. “Bringing a cape to school to bully Emma and force her to say things against her will? I thought you were her friend.”

Taylor’s mouth dropped open at the sheer audacity of what he was saying. No doubt Emma had put it into his head, but surely he had to see how idiotic it sounded. “But … I didn’t … I … wait, Emma’s saying I stopped being her friend? That’s stupid! She—”

Suddenly, the lawyer was shoved aside, and Alan Barnes was in her face. “Not … one … more … word,” he hissed. “Emma was questioned by the PRT because of what you …”

Janesha pulled Taylor back and took her place. “Back off, bozo,” she snarled, with a depth of tone that didn’t belong this side of Hell. Fearing the change of depth meant another of those mental commands had been issued, Taylor nudged her friend between the shoulder blades in warning, even as Alan Barnes stumbled backwards in terror. In just a few seconds, he seemed to recover himself, but he was nowhere near as confident as he had been.

 “Your lies are on her permanent record!” he insisted, though the statement was uttered behind the lawyer, whom both Emma and her father were using as a shield. “You stay away from us, and stop spreading stories about her, unless you want to end up on the wrong side of a defamation lawsuit. Do you understand?”

“Get your daughter to stop doing them, and then Taylor won’t have to stop reporting it. That’s the way it’s really going to work … Alan.”

He squared his shoulders and glared at the girl. “If you’re this ‘Janesha of Mystal’ that Emma’s been talking about, I have to warn you that you’re playing a dangerous game. You might think that because you’re a cape you’re above the law, but that’s the farthest thing from the truth.”

 Images of Janesha spinning a thirty-thousand tonne ship on her fingertip (the chorus of “BULLSHIT!” had scared off every seagull in a hundred-yard radius) came back to Taylor, underlining the futility of any kind of blowback. Alan Barnes had clearly not seen the footage (that there would be footage, Taylor was certain) and as such, he frowned when Janesha laughed in his face. “Honestly, I don’t give one-gazillionth of a percent of a shit about what you think you could do to me. But I do know this.” She sobered just as quickly. “You will not threaten Taylor or her dad with the law, ever again. Do you understand me?”

Taylor noticed Janesha hadn’t included herself in that ban, probably because she just didn’t see the law as a threat. And who am I to tell her she’s wrong? Alan Barnes took another two steps backward before regaining his equilibrium. “I never planned on suing Danny. He’s been my friend for more years than either one of you have been alive.” Scowling, he looked to where Taylor stood behind Janesha and huffed. “Which, I suppose means I shouldn’t go after his daughter either.” He turned to the side to include Emma in his next statement. “Just stay away from each other from now on, okay?”

 Poor Emma looked as if she’d swallowed a watermelon. “B-But Daddy …”

 “No buts, pumpkin. You stay away from her, and she’ll stay away from you. And then this all goes away.”

Don’t bet on it, Taylor thought, but wisely kept that snarky comment to herself.

Janesha nodded. “Good. Now we’re got that straightened out, me and Taylor have got better places to be. Basically, anywhere but here.” Janesha stepped away from trio and took Taylor by the hand. The other was raised in a fingertip wave. “Toodles.”

“But I want to—” Taylor’s protest was cut off as Janesha pulled them both through a realm-step. They came out in the living room of Taylor and Danny’s house, where Janesha let go of Taylor’s hand and flopped back on to the sofa. “ —ask Emma some questions,” Taylor finished. “Janesha, seriously? Why’d you pull me away so quickly?”

“Because unless you wanted me to make it obvious I was messing with her head in a place that has more cameras than Fort Knox, she wasn’t going to give you any answers just by asking. And because neither of you are benders, I can’t take you into her imagination with me. Failing all of that, there’s no way she’d have answered you honestly. She’d have ducked and weaved and hidden behind her father and that lawyer, just like he did.”  Stretching back in the lounge, she hooked her hands behind her head and grinned. “Besides, I already got all the answers you wanted. While you and Alan were having your little chat, she and I were having ours.”

“You went into her mind?” It was still hard for Taylor to get her head around. “I didn’t even see you do it.”

“Come on, petal, get with the program. You know it’s an instantaneous thing.” Janesha sat up and patted the sofa beside her. “Sit down. I’ll set up a room in your imagination where you can interrogate her as long as you want. Hell, you can even beat her up like you did with Sophia.” A grin quirked one corner of her mouth upward. “Whatever it takes to help you get past the little skank. I promise you, her answers will be absolutely on the money.”

“Oh. Okay.” Taylor sat down and made herself comfortable. “So, what do I have to do?”

“Nothing. I’m in the driver’s seat.” As Janesha leaned back again, the front door opened and Emma walked into the house.

Taylor blinked. “Wait—Emma? How did you get here so quickly? The PRT building’s miles away, and I thought the door was …” She trailed off as she realised what was going on. “Oh, wow. We’re already in my imagination, aren’t we? I didn’t even notice the transition.”

Janesha winked. “Gotcha. I did it halfway through you asking what you had to do.” She snapped her fingers (more for effect than from need, Taylor was sure), and a plain wooden chair appeared on the rug in front of them. ‘Emma’ crossed the room and sat down on it, facing them. Taylor couldn’t get over how like the real Emma she was, except that she wasn’t reacting to anything. She was just looking at them. “So, go ahead. Ask.”

Taylor took a deep breath. “Emma. Why are you being such a bitch to me?”

The simulacrum of her ex-best friend frowned. “I don’t really think I’m being that much of a bitch to you.” She held up both hands, palm up, as if comparing the weight of two objects. “We started doing it because I was in a really bad place, and Sophia was telling me I had to be strong. And one part of it was that you were getting back on your feet after your mom died, which meant you were strong. But on the other hand, you still weren’t all the way there, which meant you weren’t strong enough yet.”

“Wait.” Taylor held up a hand, and ‘Emma’ stopped talking. “What’s Sophia got to do with all this? What happened to you? Is this about when you stopped taking my calls?”

“Yes.” ‘Emma’ seemed to take a breath. “Me and Dad were driving, and we got trapped in an alley by some ABB. They dragged me out of the car and cut some of my hair off and were making me eat it. Then they were going to make me decide whether I wanted to lose an eye or both ears or have my face cut up some other way. Sophia was there, as Shadow Stalker. When I fought back, she jumped in and kicked the shit out of them. But afterward I fell apart. I wouldn’t leave the house for days. When I went back to the place it happened, Sophia was there. She started talking to me about how strong I was. I didn’t feel strong at all, but I decided to fake it until I made it.”

Taylor shook her head, shocked by these revelations. “Geez … Emma, you could have spoken to me about it. You know I would’ve been there for you.”

“I know,” ‘Emma’ agreed. “But I didn’t want your pity. I wanted to prove I was as strong as Sophia said I was. And, in the beginning, I suppose I wanted you to be strong, too. So, we started pushing you down, to make you prove you were strong enough to be friends with me and Sophia.” She frowned again. “I think Sophia’s got something against you. I’ve occasionally thought it was time to let up, but she keeps telling me to push you down harder, so you can show your true strength.”

“So why don’t you just step back and leave me alone?” demanded Taylor. “Surely you’ve pushed me down enough!”

“Because somewhere along the line it turned into something easy and fun that made me feel better about myself. It makes me feel strong.” ‘Emma’ made the admission without blinking an eye. “I see you as weak now, and I congratulate myself for not letting your weakness infect my friendship with Sophia. I suppose once I might’ve let you go your own way, but now it’s just too much fun. It’s a real challenge sometimes, thinking up new ways to make you react. I mean, it’s not like we can pull off something like the locker twice in a row.”

Taylor stared. “So … that’s it?” she asked. “That’s the entire reason you’ve been fucking up my whole life for the past year? Because it was fun?”

‘Emma’ shrugged. “What can I tell you? I’m a shallow, insecure, spoiled, overprivileged bitch who didn’t know true friendship when it was staring me in the face, and I’ve replaced you with people who’d backstab me in a heartbeat to save their own hides.” She chuckled. “Though I’m pretty sure Madison’s got a secret crush on Sophia. Sophia would absolutely kick her ass if she ever found out.”

Slowly, Taylor turned to Janesha. “Are you putting words in her mouth?”

“Nope, not me.” Janesha shook her head. “After I went into Emma’s head, I got a thorough understanding of her reasons and motivations. I even watched that ambush scene she’s referring to. Then I went over into her imagination and spent a few hours interrogating the shit out of her.” She looked at Taylor and added, “Don’t ask how creatively. Let’s just say I lost my temper a few times and my dad’s hellish ancestors would be super proud. If I’d let her remember any of it, what’s left of her intellect would’ve been dripping out of her ears along with a thin trail of blood.”

“Graphic,” Taylor said, blanching slightly.

Janesha shrugged. “I didn’t start it, petal. Initially, I set us up in a private room in the school just to see what she’d do if we met under civilised circumstances. Crazy bitch set the pace by literally jumping me and trying to claw my eyes out for stealing Sophia’s powers. And since that was the road she wanted to take,”—Janesha held up her fingers and through the gloves she grew some wickedly evil talons—“We danced.”

“And what is this?” Taylor asked, waving at her former friend’s image.

 The talons retracted into Janesha’s glove and she turned her attention to the girl seated before them. “This is a culmination of all that information in the form of Emma Barnes, without any of her usual filters. This version is saying exactly what the real Emma knows and thinks; even the stuff she’d never admit out loud in a million years. My only stipulation was to nix any aggression on her part.” She rolled her hand at Emma. “And this is the end result.”

“Wow, holy fuck.” Taylor rubbed her hands over her face. “Whatever I thought this was about, that wasn’t it.”

She was a little surprised with herself that she wasn’t yelling and screaming and ranting the place down or punching ‘Emma’ into orbit.  Which, given that this was her imagination, she could actually do. Her self-control, she decided, was due to the thing Janesha had done to her to take away the immediacy of her painful memories. She was able to face up to them, and to the proximate cause of them, without losing control altogether.

“So, you got any more questions?”

“No, I don’t think … wait.” Taylor raised her hand to stop Janesha from erasing the scene. “Emma. What was the look on Sophia’s face like when she realised she’d actually lost her powers?”

‘Emma’ shook her head slowly. “Oh, man. She was so goddamn pissed. I’ve never heard anyone swear so much since that friend of your dad’s dropped a chair on his foot at the Dockworkers barbecue you and I snuck into that one time.” The TV flared to life, showing Sophia in the bathroom in what Taylor guessed was soon after Janesha left. The depowered cape’s curses came thick and fast, filling the room and Taylor had to admit that ‘Emma’ was spot on with her judgement. Sophia certainly could swear with the best of them. And yes, the look on her face was pure gold.

Slowly, she stood up from the sofa. “Emma,” she said softly. “I know you aren’t you, but I don’t really care right now. I’ve wanted to do this for the last six months.” She took a step closer. “I understand you’ve been through some serious shit, but there’s no excuse in the world for taking it all out on me. Especially when I would’ve helped you through it without thinking twice.” Stopping in front of the image of her once-best-friend, she clenched her fist and drew it back. “So, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you.”

Swinging her fist in a huge looping uppercut, she felt the jar as it impacted with the underside of the image’s jaw. In real life, she knew, Emma’s head might’ve exploded from the force behind the blow. Instead, just as she wanted, ‘Emma’ was sent rocketing upward, smashing through the ceiling and the roof beyond, dwindling into the sky beyond until there was nothing left to be seen. Just like the cartoons she’d loved as a kid. Maybe that’s why she’d done it—to enjoy the strike but keep it firmly in the category of ‘unrealistic’.

“Nice punch.” Janesha joined her below the Emma-shaped skylight, shading her eyes and looking upward. “Want to go again, or are we done here?”

“We’re done here.” Taylor sighed sadly. “I got my answers. I just don’t get why it’s not making me feel any better.”

“Because, like a lot of people, you’re confusing answers with solutions.” Abruptly, they were both sitting on the sofa again, and the hole in the ceiling was gone. Janesha shrugged. “Usually, you can’t begin to craft a solution without getting answers first.”

Taylor looked across at her friend. It was moments of insight like this that reminded her they were on two very different wavelengths sometimes. “Oh. Right.” She popped back to her feet again, knowing they’d spent no physical time while in her imagination, but still feeling as if they’d spent too much time away from reality. “Okay, so I got my answers. The rest I’ll figure out in my own time.” She turned to Janesha. “What did you want to do?”

Janesha’s return grin would’ve sent shivers down a shark’s back. “I understand you have other supervillains apart from the Merchants in this city. I’m wondering if the PRT would object if we went and paid them a visit.” Tough shit if they do, her tone promised.

“Sure, we could do that.” Taylor smirked. “Or … we could go shopping in the mall.”

Janesha’s eyebrows shot into her fringe. “Actual shopping?”

Taylor nodded. “In actual shops. A place where everything you could ever want is in one place, and you walk down the aisles picking what you like. I’ve only ever window shopped before now.”

“Shopping for windows doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“It means to look without buying. But with your ability to make things, we could go to a bank and set you up with gold bullion. So long as what you’re creating is the real deal, I see no difference between you creating whatever gold you need for cash, and some random person finding a million-dollar lump of it in the ground.” But just as quickly as she’d spoken, Taylor’s plan derailed itself and she let out a huff of defeat. “Never mind. There’s no way you’ll get a bank account without ID, and I doubt you have a driver’s licence in that uniform anywhere.”

“Maybe not, but we might not have to,” Janesha said, thoughtfully.

Taylor had her doubts. “Dad’ll have a fit if you walk in with a bank account when he knows you don’t have any ID on you to get it the legal way.”

“True, but this place is creepily similar to my cousin’s realm. If this is a replication of her realm, her base rules might still be in play even here.”

Taylor’s eye twitched. Whenever Janesha said something like that, more weirdness was on the way. “What do you mean?”

Janesha stood up beside her. “My full name is Lady Janesha Nascerdios. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t enter the Empire Eighty-Eight?” She waved a hand suggestively at the dark skin of her face.

Taylor thought it was the most pointless question she’d ever heard. “Apart from them being a pack of racist assholes that you could do better than, why should I … holy fuck!” She leaned away from Janesha, both hands covering her mouth as she realised what had naturally come to mind. “You said you wouldn’t fuck with my head anymore!”

Janesha held up a hand. “Calm down, petal. I didn’t touch your mind. I promise. It’s a realm-wide conditioning that was put in place long before your species ever evolved. Celestials often visit Earlafaol, but to avoid awkward questions, Lady Col put a last name in place that made all mortals not question anything from appearance to background to wealth of the person claiming the surname. With that name, females have entered previously male dominated fields. Race or shape was no longer a problem either. Backgrounds don’t matter. Length of life doesn’t matter. Lady Col has owned property for over a thousand years under her Nascerdios name, and no one’s batted an eye. Daily actions are still very much gauged, though. If a winged demon turned up, they could pass as a Nascerdios if they walked through the crowd. But as soon as they used their wings to fly, or attempted to eat someone, the name wouldn’t save them. Do you see the difference?”

Taylor rubbed at her temples. “I can kind of understand the concept, but how do you even make something like that happen without mindbending everyone on the planet?”

Janesha sighed and sat back down on the sofa. “Okay, class is in session. Celestials one-oh-one. You know how power-bases and thralls work, right?” The look on Taylor’s face prompted her to amend the question. “I mean, the principle behind it.”

“I know what happens when you get a power base and how you can’t fight against a thrall, yeah,” Taylor conceded.

“Good.” Janesha spread her hands. “Well, when you set up a realm, if you know what you’re doing, you can institute a thrall for the whole realm that will affect everyone in a pre-determined group in a particular way. In Chaos for instance, Lord Belial’s realm, there are the Damned. Anyone who ends up there as one of the Damned has certain strictures on them at all times. They can’t escape, they can’t fight back, they lose all hope and even the lowliest Hellion can easily push them around.” She raised an eyebrow. “My Uncle Avis once spent a couple of years in Hell as one of the Damned. Long story; tell you later. Now, you’d think that one of the most powerful ranged benders in Creation, dropped in among a bunch of Hellions with no bending ability whatsoever, should’ve had the lot of them marching to his tune in about ten minutes flat, right?”

Taylor didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”

“Fucking right it didn’t. The moment Belial named him one of the Damned and got him into Hell, it was all over. He was lower than the lowest. Using his mind-bending would’ve meant resisting what they were doing to him, so he couldn’t do it. Got it?”

“Got it.” It sounded horrifying. Reality itself making them unable to fight back, even if they wanted to? Screw that.

“Good. Now, in Earlafaol, my cousin’s conditioning has put a similar thing in place, though with a very different effect. If a celestial declares themselves Nascerdios, mortals around them lose all critical judgement about what they’re doing, unless what they’re doing is blatantly impossible or illegal.”

Something occurred to Taylor. “What happens if a mortal decides to pass themselves off as a Nascerdios? Tap into some of that fame and fortune?”

Janesha snorted. “Sorry, petal. Mortals just plain don’t have the chops for that. Not only does the thrall prevent mortals from even seriously considering it, but you have to be a celest to make it work. It’s like everyone’s got computers, but we’re the only ones with an internet connection to the right website.”

“Right. Okay, that’s weird as fuck, but it kinda makes sense.” Taylor frowned. “So, you’re saying there’s a real connection between your cousin’s realm, and ours?”

Janesha nodded. “I wasn’t sure before, but now we’ve established that both realms have the same conditioning, hell yeah, I’m sure of it. If this was all just one big coincidence, that conditioning wouldn’t be here. And that’s going to make my life here a whole lot easier.”

“But you’ve been telling everyone you’re Janesha of Mystal.”

Janesha shrugged. “And for the sake of official paperwork, I’ll be Janesha Nascerdios of Mystal. I won’t change the way I introduce myself to anyone, but the second my paperwork from the bank lands in the PRT’s network, everything should smooth itself out.” Her grin grew as she locked her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. “And unlike Earlafaol, this place has capes, which means it’s game on for everything I can do, baby.”

Taylor tried to make sense of what Janesha was saying. “So, if I’m understanding things correctly, we just need to go to the bank with a duffle bag full of gold or diamonds or both, fill out the paperwork, and they should automatically give you an account and accept what you want to deposit into it as a normal transaction?”

“Yup.”

Slowly, Taylor shook her head. “That’s nuts.”

“Nope.” Janesha grinned. “That’s Nascerdios.”

Taylor stuck out her tongue at her.

 Part 12