Celestial Worm Pt 13 (Patreon)

Part Thirteen: Lucky for Some

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

[A/N 2: Rincewind, Ankh-Morpork and the Discworld series are the property of the estate of the late, and very great, Terry Pratchett. All hail Sir Pterry.]

Foreword: On Prey

On any world in any galaxy in any realm scattered around Creation, any creature which could be possibly designated as ‘prey’ will have sensory abilities that can detect the approach of predators before they actually make an appearance. (Anything that lacks this sensory capability quickly ceases to be known as ‘prey’ and instead takes on the descriptor of ‘extinct’.) The exact mechanism for this varies from world to world, sometimes from species to species. In every case, once the prey detects its oncoming doom, the following thought process (or its equivalent) takes place:

Oh, shit. Something’s coming.

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go.

Run faster. Faster is better.

In fact, on one particularly weird world, described as being ‘at the far end of the probability curve’ (where some decidedly whimsical celests decided that flat worlds supported on giant tortoises via almost-as-giant elephants was the way to go), there exists (or has existed, or will exist) a certain wizard (or ‘wizzard’, according to his hat) who is (or was, or will be) an absolute (disc)world-class master at running away. In his calmer moments, he’s known to espouse the opinion that thinking about where one is running to is a waste of time, as the away aspect is much more important.

But we won’t go into that, because Ankh-Morpork is a silly place.

However, whether the prey in question is a freshman on the lookout for mischief-minded upperclassmen or a baby turtle taking its first dip in what amounts to an ocean full of teeth, it can be agreed upon that faster reflexes to augment the early-warning system is a really good idea. That holds true even if the nominal prey is something so powerful that ninety-nine percent of Creation would call it an apex predator.

It; or rather, him. Once known as Sagun Hawthorn of Earth in the realm of Earlafaol, now (due to a poorly-heard whisper) as Scion, the most powerful being on Earth Bet, in the realm known informally as Training Ground. Not that the locals know that there’s a realm involved, or what it’s called, or even that their world was being used as a live-fire Hogan's Alley for centuries before Sagun made an appearance and reshaped it (and them) for his own needs. Or even that Sagun/Scion is literally a god being jerked around by other celestial beings from behind the scenes, some of whom are feeding parts of his (semi)dead sister to not-altogether-deserving mortals in order to grant them superhuman powers.

To be honest, it’s almost embarrassing how little the mortals of Earth Bet actually know about anything.

There just remains one final piece of information. Growing up in the realm of Earlafaol, Sagun had come to the realisation that he (along with his twin sister Edeena) was far more powerful than nearly everyone else on Earth. The word ‘nearly’ is very important here, as they found out when another celestial paid them a visit to tell them to keep their heads down. Agent Nascerdios, ostensibly of the FBI but far more significantly a celest of some power, ordered them in no uncertain terms to cease making waves. If they did not comply, she made it abundantly clear that she would force the issue. Terminally, if necessary.

Given the choice to bend the knee or leave Earlafaol, Sagun and Edeena opted to leave. But their encounter with Agent Nascderdios had left a deep and abiding impression on them. So, years later, when Sagun’s celestial awareness informed him that there was a Nascerdios on Earth Bet and that she was specifically looking for him, he did not react like the (nearly) all-powerful being that he represented to the vast majority of the population.

He reacted like prey.

<><>

Scion

Sagun barely knew why he was bothering any more. He'd come to this world and reshaped it in the image of Lady Col’s Earth, all so that he could live out his dream of not just being a superhero, but to be a hero of heroes. The problem was, Edeena was supposed to be there as well. Without his sister, eternity had become … lacklustre. There was no point to it.

Still, he went through the motions, for want of something better to do. The ragged, angry man in England had shouted at him until he decided to go ahead with being a superhero anyway. He'd chosen not to cure the mortal’s various illnesses as he had with the sister of the first mortal he'd granted powers to; there was no sense in encouraging that sort of behaviour, after all. They might start thinking that he actually owed them something, and who knew where that would end?

Raising his hand, he let his stilling field spread out, snuffing the fire where it intersected with the apartment building. Really, something like this was utterly trivial to his power. Even using his native shifting, he could’ve demolished the entire building and reconstructed it minus the fire damage in a fraction of the time. But being a superhero required that he do things the flashier, more time-consuming way. People needed to believe in him, after all, and what they didn’t see happening they couldn’t believe in.

And then his head came up as new information impinged on his awareness. Back when he and Edeena had first set up the boundary, he’d made two slight variations to the realm’s rules. One, if anyone claimed the name Nascerdios, he wanted to know about it. And two, he wanted to know what they were doing so he could avoid them.

Just an hour ago, someone in a city called Brockton Bay had called herself ‘Lady Janesha Nascerdios of Mystal’. Now … she was looking for him. Personally.

The last time he’d encountered a Nascerdios, he’d been very bluntly informed that he was a hybrid, fathered on a mortal woman by the god Zeus himself, and his type were not welcomed by other celestials. Now there was another Nascerdios, on Earth Bet. Looking for him.

Based on what the redheaded shifter had said, all Nascerdios were celestials and the likelihood was high that this celestial had decided he needed to die because of who and what he was. And if she thought she could beat him … she probably could.

Even as space began to distort in the initial stages of someone realm-stepping into his vicinity, he stepped away himself. Let the building burn. It wasn’t his building, and the mortals could find somewhere else to live. He emerged over Paris, swooping low over the city.

Just a few minutes later, he registered another realm-step. One that put the Nascerdios less than fifty feet away. He left immediately, randomly choosing the middle of Antarctica for his destination.  How the fuck is she finding me?

It had to be because she was a Nascerdios. He’d watched Agent Nascerdios smoke a cigarette in space as if it was the most natural thing in the world even though she said she hadn’t claimed the realm herself, so he assumed where real gods were concerned, anything was possible. Suddenly, he realised his life did mean something to him after all, and he was not going to let this intruder from Hell (hey, he didn't know for a fact she wasn't literally from Hell) kill him just because he was half mortal.

 With that thought in mind, he knew he had two choices. Fight or hide. And until he knew more about this Lady Janesha of Mystal, he needed to hide. Agent Nascerdios had shown him and his sister in no uncertain terms how woefully inadequate they were compared to her, and this one had the title of ‘Lady’, making her something more again.

 Almost as if to prove the point, the pursuing celestial chose that moment to realm-step again. Knowing she’d appear in his vicinity, he stepped again, this time into one of the alternate versions of Earth. He’d reshaped this one into a pocket dimension that only he could enter (so he hoped) and stored the vast majority of his previous space-whale body in there. Re-merging with the body took only a moment, then he opened out all his senses, watching to see if the intruder would follow him here.

Hours passed. Nothing happened. His initial terror began to fade. Who is she? What is Mystal? Why did she come here? It seemed a little bit of a stretch to come to a lonely realm in the middle of nowhere just to kill the hybrid in charge of it. None of this made the slightest bit of sense.

Relaxing as much as he could, he left his senses on high alert while he fell into an uneasy sleep.

<><>

Janesha stepped through to where the golden man had been putting out the fire in the apartment building. Fire, check. Apartment building, check. Scion, no. In fact, it seemed that Scion had only just left, from the way people were pointing and talking to each other.

The trouble was, he hadn’t put out the damn fire. While normally she couldn’t bring herself to give a flying crap about a dwelling belonging to some insignificant mortal, the fact remained that they would be left homeless if someone didn’t do something about it.

Fuck it. I can always catch up with him once I’ve fixed this.

Cracking her knuckles, she strode up to the building, ignoring the shouts from bystanders and fire services to stay back. Once she had her hand on the structure of the building itself, she had two ways to deal with this fire. She could either tell it to stop being a little bitch and not be on fire anymore, or she could take the fire away from the building. Both were much of a muchness, but with the bad blood she’d caused with Piggot and how Taylor had specifically said “No” to turning her into a waddling bird, she decided to cultivate some local credence.

At her command, the flames stopped leaping skyward and crawled down the wall to her, infusing themselves into her body. This didn’t bother her in the slightest; being descended from the Hellions meant she could endure Hellfire all day long. Compared to a flame that could turn the sun itself into a scorched cinder, a mere mortal blaze was nothing more than a gentle summer breeze to her.

When she’d absorbed the last of the flames into her body (and reduced the temperature of the building’s structure to below ignition point and repaired all the damage she could detect, just to prove she could) she turned to the attentive crowd. Not only were there the obligatory news cameras, but at least half the people had their phones out and recording. Excellent. Get a load of this, Piglet.

Taking a step away from the building, she raised her hand in the air and vented the flames from her body, blasting them skyward in a tremendous plume. It took longer than Janesha would’ve liked to disperse the heat. Fortunately for her, Janesha knew how social media worked. It was why Lady Col had them try and keep their celestial abilities down to a minimum whenever they visited her. With or without mortal belief, the mortals of her world always knew where someone of significance was.

When the rumbling of the fire finally died away, she blew the last wisp of smoke from her fingertip, then dusted her hands off and put them on her hips.

It took the crowd a few moments of stunned silence to recover, then they started to applaud. Smiling tightly, she dipped her head towards the crowd. Accolades were all well and good, but she had a celestial to hunt down and Danny would be pissed if she missed dinner. Random checks of the people applauding confirmed that they saw her as just another cape; a very powerful cape, to be sure, but still only a cape. Not one of them was even entertaining the idea that she might be a god, or considering the concept of worshipping her.

Okay, maybe this stupid superhero idea has its good points. Anywhere else, I'd need an attunement and about a century of prep before it'd be safe to show myself like this. And even then, I'd probably end up as their goddess of fire. Yawn.

"Okay, crisis over," she announced. “But, I’m going to need to borrow someone’s phone for a moment. I need to check on something.” Because of course she’d had her epiphany about Scion before she’d had the chance to actually buy a phone.

It was almost amusing how they more or less fell over themselves in their eagerness to loan her their phones. Scratch that; it was definitely amusing. She took the first one and looked it over. Fortunately, it was already open, which meant she didn’t have to dive into the owner’s mind to learn the password.

It took just a moment for her to set up a query into any sightings of the golden guy. Why did he just bolt like that? Is he that distractible? There weren’t any notifications about new emergencies that she could find. With a frown, she studied the internal workings of the phone, then altered her senses to receive and decode the incoming signal.

When she handed the phone back, it was the next model up, because she believed in returning a boon for a boon. She also had a line on Scion’s current location. What’s he doing in Paris? The image that had just popped up showed him standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe, with no emergencies in sight.

All right, then. With a jaunty wave to her admiring public, she realm-stepped away. Where it was still late afternoon in the middle of America, in Paris it was nearly midnight. She stepped back into the mortal realm and quickly had to adjust her eyesight for night-vision … only to find herself alone on top of the immense monolith.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What’s going on here? Did he suddenly notice something else he had to deal with?

She reached out with her senses, looking for the signals she’d used before. It didn’t work this time, which both puzzled and irritated her. There were nearly as many cell-phones in the continental US as there were guns, and there were lots of guns. The rest of the civilised world had even more phones than guns. Surely someone, somewhere would be taking a picture of him if he was anywhere with a population and a signal. The trouble was, she was now unable to receive that signal.

Fuck it. I need to brute-force this.

Taking a deep breath, she realm-stepped back to the basement of Taylor’s house. Cloudstrike whinnied and tossed her head as Janesha saddled her up and formed the bridle around her head.

“Ready to go exploring, girl?” Janesha swung astride the mystallion and shook the reins out. She laughed at Cloudstrike’s derisive snort. “Okay then, let’s go.” Cloudstrike flared her wings open, then she stepped.

One brief transit through the celestial realm later, Janesha came out in midair. Leaning over to the side, she adjusted her eyes insect-like to give herself the widest field of view possible. Then she increased the magnification far beyond what physics would have deemed possible, had she not been a celestial. She applied the barest pressure of her heels against Cloudstrike’s ribs; with a flick of grey-blue wings, the mystallion shot forward. Faster than anyone’s eyes but hers could follow, she began the search.

Twenty minutes later, she’d covered the vast majority of the earth’s surface. Cloudstrike was doing her best, but even she had to slow down just to avoid flying off the earth’s surface. Worse, flying any higher risked missing Scion under cloud cover, of which there was altogether too much.

There was just one more continent to cover; she’d left it till last because there were no cities, no towns. There was virtually nothing there to generate an emergency worthy of Scion’s time. Which meant he wasn’t darting off to some crisis or other.

That mother-fucking golden-skinned asshole is avoiding me. Why?

Antarctica’s icy landscape rolled backward under Cloudstrike’s wing beats as they quartered the continent, faster than the mortal eye could see. It seemed forever before a golden form came into view, standing atop a ridge of the Transantarctic Mountains.  Finally! Responding to her knee signals, Cloudstrike banked over and started her descent.

And then Scion took a step forward and disappeared.

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

<><>

After an hour of searching, even Cloudstrike was starting to show signs of annoyance. They had covered the entire surface of the Earth twice over, even the ocean and the Arctic, for zero result. The world’s cloud cover was seriously disturbed (and a mid-Atlantic hurricane had been thoroughly dismantled) in the wake of their passing; she suspected mortal weather forecasters would’ve been cursing her name for some time to come, if they ever realised it was her.

Either he’s hiding behind the moon, or he’s underground, or inside a building. Or he’s underground on the moon. Any of those meant that Janesha would be looking for him forever. He knew Earth Bet better than she did; she was a quick study, but she was far behind the eight-ball on this one.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Go hide like a little bitch. I’ll catch up with you sooner or later, you chicken-shit prick.” It didn’t help her mood when she realised she was late by over half an hour for dinner, and would probably have to endure Danny’s lecture on the matter, just as she would if she were late for a meal back home. But in her mind, she was justified. All she’d wanted to do was talk to Scion. Now, she wanted to throttle him, and if Danny gave her the lecture, she probably would.

With an irritated huff, she turned Cloudstrike’s head for home. Cloudstrike whinnied and shook her head violently, then pulled a loop combined with a sharp barrel roll.

Janesha realised the problem immediately. “Oh, sorry, girl,” she said. “You thought we were actually going for a proper ride, and I kept you flying around one planet. Over and over again. My bad, babe. I got caught up in the hunt … Well, how about we go out for a quick spin now, and I’ll take you for a good long one later?”

Cloudstrike snorted and pretended to make a bucking motion. Janesha laughed and patted the mystallion’s neck. “I know, I know. I promise, okay?”

Mollified, Cloudstrike came to a hover then raised her head to look hopefully toward the sky. Janesha nodded and shook out the reins, giving the winged horse her head. Cloudstrike whinnied and brought her wings down in a beat that sent a sonic boom echoing across the ocean. Together, they shot upward, reaching space a fraction of a second later.

As Janesha had said, they kept the ride relatively quick, not even venturing out of the local star cluster. Cloudstrike would definitely want to stretch her wings later, but with commitments back at Taylor and Danny’s, Janesha judged this would do her for now. Cruising back into the solar system, she swung in past Saturn to admire the sun glinting off the icy particles that made up the rings. She wasn’t quite sure where Lady Col had gotten her ideas for this realm, but some of the planets were quite artistic.

“Okay, you’ve had your ride,” Janesha told Cloudstrike as they crossed the orbit of Jupiter and angled around to swing past Mars. She’d only ever met the Olympian god and his kin in passing, and she wondered what they thought about having planets named after them in realms that didn’t worship them anymore. Or if they even knew about it. “Are you okay to go back to your stable now? I’ll make some fresh hay for you.”

The mystallion came to a hover over the blasted landscape of the dead world, and nickered forcefully. Janesha took that as agreement, as well as a reminder of the promise to take her for a good long flight later. “Sounds good to me,” she said.

Wings barely moving, Cloudstrike took a single dainty step forward in midair. They passed through the celestial realm—Janesha belatedly looked around, but there was no sign of Scion there either—and reappeared in the basement stable.

With an aggravated sigh, Janesha dismounted and removed Cloudstrike’s tack. She still had no idea why the golden-skinned celestial—there was no way the asshole could avoid her so completely without being one—was so determined to play keep-away, but she’d get him sooner or later.

In the meantime, she’d had a big day. It would be nice to relax with Taylor and talk shit about Sophia and the others. She paused just long enough to carry out her promise to Cloudstrike, by filling her net with aromatic hay, before heading up the stairs to the kitchen.

Danny was sitting at the kitchen table; he looked up as she entered the room and closed the basement door behind her. “Hi, Danny,” she said, then looked round the room for Taylor. “Where’s Taylor?”

“What do you mean, where’s Taylor?” he asked, the tone of his voice betraying worry. “Isn’t she with you?”

“No,” she said blankly. “I left her at the mall nearly three hours ago. Unless she’s still buying stuff, she should be home by now.”

“Buying stuff?” He stared at her in a please make sense now manner. “Where would she get the money for buying stuff?”

“Don’t worry,” Janesha said absently. “It’s all perfectly legal. I even opened up a legitimate bank account and everything.” She looked at the ceiling overhead. “You’re absolutely certain she’s not home already? Asleep upstairs, maybe?” Suddenly finding out that she was a millionaire had to be tiring, right?

“She’s not.” Danny shook his head. “I checked. Why’d you leave her at the mall? I thought you were keeping her safe.”

She bridled at the cutting words. “Danny Hebert, do not use that tone with me.” Folding her arms, she leaned her butt against the table. “Especially not with the afternoon I’ve had, chasing Scion all over the planet. Taylor’s one of the very few mortals that I actually care about. I’ve made her as safe as I can. They can’t injure her, break her bones or suffocate her. Physically, she’s invulnerable. So if she’s not home yet, it’s not because she’s hurt.”

Danny paused, then shook his head. “I am not going to ask why you were chasing Scion around the world. This is more important. Taylor is more important.”

He seemed to expect her to argue, but she nodded instead. “I totally agree. I can have words with that golden-skinned chickenshit any time. Right now, I need to go find Taylor and deal with whatever’s delaying her.” One possibility, however unlikely, crossed her mind. And if she’s been talking to a boy all this time, I’m gonna see if I can remember my dad’s shovel speech.

<><>

Taylor

Weymouth Mall

One and a Half Hours Previously

It was possible, Taylor conceded reluctantly, to have too much money. Before this point, she would not have accepted that statement, but now she felt the metaphorical weight of ten million dollars on her shoulders. I can literally buy anything in any shop in Brockton Bay. I could probably buy everything in every shop in Brockton Bay.

The question was, what should she buy first? And more importantly, should she shop around to get the very best quality (as should be her responsibility, now that she could afford the best quality) or just go for the lowest price, as she’d always done in the past?

The dilemma led to a weird kind of paralysis where she stood and looked around vaguely, knowing she could have anything (even though storage constraints mandated that she couldn’t have everything) but not knowing what part of ‘anything’ was the most important, right now.

Wow, so much for my shopping spree.

Picking a direction at random, she moved off through the mall. A jewellery store caught her eye, and she entered. The counter attendant looked up, registered her, then visibly discounted her as a customer of any substance. “Can I help you?” she asked, the surface politeness hiding an undercurrent of Go away and stop wasting my time.

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “I want to buy my Dad a birthday present. What do you have in pocket watches?”

“Our pocket watches are the very highest quality,” the lady said firmly. She may as well have been waving a sign saying And the highest prices. You can’t afford them on your best day.

“Good.” Taylor was getting a little sick of this passive-aggressive bullshit. Just because she didn’t look like she belonged didn’t mean that she couldn’t buy stuff. “Show me the best you’ve got.”

“I feel obliged to inform you that we do not do credit.” The counter attendant hadn’t moved.

“Do I look like I want to do credit?” Taylor rolled her eyes. “I said, I want to buy a pocket watch. Show me what you have.”

The woman actually glanced around, as if to see if there were any other store patrons she could pretend to go serve. There were none, so she looked back at Taylor. “You realise, I won’t be able to take them out of the case until I see proof of capability to purchase.”

Taylor folded her arms. “Do you make everyone who walks in here jump through these hoops, or is it just me?” Normally, she would’ve accepted the woman’s implicit judgement and walked from the store, feeling less for the encounter. But having spent more than a little time in the company of an actual celestial being—and with ten million dollars in her purse, courtesy of the card she was carrying—her confidence had taken on quite a boost.

“Miss, am I going to have to call security?” The woman had clearly decided to deal with Taylor as a problem by making her go away. From the look in her eye, she was willing to go so far as have Taylor ejected from the store, or even the mall.

Taylor sighed. For all that she disliked it when Janesha used her bending, or even her raw celestial presence, to turn mortals to her will, she would’ve found something like that very handy right then. Lacking that, she fell back on the audacity of truth. “Why? For walking into your store and asking to buy something?” She took the card out of her purse and flourished it. “I guarantee you, I can buy anything you’ve got in the store out of the interest from this account.”

“I find that very hard to believe.” The woman glared at her, in a polite and genteel manner. In the back of her eyes, though, Taylor thought she saw the faintest hint of doubt.

“So let me prove it.” Taylor flicked the card back and forth challengingly and locked eyes with the woman. “Show me the best you’ve got, and I’ll buy it free and clear.”

The doubt was showing through more clearly now, but the woman set her jaw. Turning away from Taylor, she went to a cabinet and unlocked it. The pocket watch she took out was gorgeous; it was silver with gold highlights, the face inscribed with intricately chased Roman numerals. If the sheer beauty of it hadn’t taken Taylor’s breath away, the price tag would have.

“You can walk away now.” The woman’s voice was quiet. Carefully, she replaced the watch in the cabinet and relocked it. The key went back into her pocket, while her eyes tracked Taylor’s hands. “Because when you swipe that card and the funds fail to clear, I will call security.”

Taylor rolled her eyes at the transparent attempt to intimidate her. “And when they do clear? Do I get to take my Dad’s birthday present, along with a signed receipt, and walk out of the store with it? Or are you just going to give me more attitude?”

The woman’s lips tightened. She pressed buttons, entering the sale figure, then pointed at the swipe slot. “Go ahead. When it fails to clear, we can have you charged with fraud.”

That didn’t sound quite right to Taylor, but she decided not to argue points of law with the woman. “I am so tempted to walk out of the store right now, just so I can buy the same watch elsewhere and come back to wave it in your face, and show you just how much commission you just lost.” She shook her head. “But it’s gonna be marginally more satisfying to see the look on your face when the funds clear.” She brandished the card, then swiped it through the slot. With one finger, she tapped in the PIN the bank had supplied to her.

For one heart-stopping moment, nothing happened. The woman’s lips began to spread in a bitter smile of triumph. Then the machine beeped and a green light flashed.

PURCHASE APPROVED.

Taylor raised her eyebrows, trying (and failing) not to smirk at the look of utter astonishment on the woman’s face. “So, can I have my Dad’s birthday present now?” she asked, crossing her arms. “Or do I need to show you my birth certificate and passport too?”

“That can’t be right,” the shop assistant said blankly. “There’s no way that can be right.”

“The funds cleared.” Taylor shrugged. “What more can I say?” She gestured at the device, where the display still clearly read that her money was good. “So, one more time; I want my Dad’s watch. Right now, please.” She held out her hand and snapped her fingers.

“Just give me a minute,” the woman said, turning away. But she didn’t go to the cabinet. Instead, she slipped behind the desk and picked up the phone there. She spoke a few terse phrases, then slipped her hand under the edge of the desk; Taylor heard a distinct click.

“Wait … did you just set off a silent alarm?” Taylor stared at her. “I paid for it. The funds cleared. You saw it.”

“With a card that is almost certainly stolen.” The shop assistant moved out from behind the desk, a superior expression on her face. “We’ve got the card details, now. The police will have them soon, and we’ll be finding out exactly who you lifted it from. You can run now, if you want. We’ve got your face, too. The details on that card will be all over the mall in the next ten minutes, so you may as well leave it here.”

“Seriously?” Taylor was having trouble processing this. “Now you’re accusing me of theft? For buying something with my own money?” Janesha’s money, she amended silently. But still, it was legitimately acquired (for a very weird definition of ‘legitimate’) and to be accused of theft was positively annoying.

“I very much doubt that card belongs to you.” The woman sneered at her. “Hand it over now, and the police will go easier on you.” She held out her hand expectantly.

Taylor snorted and shook her head. “You have got to be fucking joking.” She held out her own hand in turn. “I’ve paid for that watch. I expect you to put it in my hand, or I’ll be having you charged with theft. For taking my money and keeping the watch.”

“You’re a teenager,” the woman said dismissively. “You’re what, fifteen? A minor. There’s no way someone like you can afford something like that. Not wearing clothes like that.”

“Excuse me, miss.” The voice was that of a man, from behind Taylor. She half-turned her head to look. Two large men wearing security guard uniforms stood there, thumbs hooked in their belts. “We’re going to need you to come with us. What’s the situation, Janice?”

“She paid for something with a stolen card,” the woman—Janice—said, indicating Taylor.

“The card’s legitimate,” Taylor said firmly. “She’s just made a very bad assumption.”

“Where’s this card now?” asked the guard on the left.

“Do you have proof that it’s stolen?” said his colleague, at the same time.

“She’s holding it in her hand,” Janice said triumphantly.

“She’s got no proof,” Taylor said tiredly, rolling her eyes. “Because it’s a legitimate card.” She displayed it for the guards, careful not to let them get close enough to snatch it. “It’s mine. I know the PIN. I paid for a very expensive pocket watch with it, and this woman is refusing to hand over my legitimate purchase.”

“There’s no name on it,” the guard on the right. “Why is that?”

Finally, someone’s paying attention. “It’s a temporary card. The account only got opened today, and they haven’t gotten the permanent card to me yet.” Taylor raised her eyebrows. “And yet, I know the PIN, and—hey!” Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the woman’s hand attempting to grab the card. She kept hold of it, then grabbed the woman’s wrist with her other hand. “That’s mine!” With the extra leverage, she plucked the card free of the woman’s grip.

“Ow!” shouted the woman. “Let me go! You’re hurting me!”

“Let her go!” commanded the guard on the left. He took a step forward.

Taylor twisted the woman’s wrist and forced her to her knees, driving a strangled squeak of pain from her lungs. With the strength afforded her by Janesha’s celestial upgrade, it was almost too easy. “Sure. Just as soon as this one here hands over my Dad’s birthday present.”

The guard on the left took a device from his belt; it had two metal prongs sticking out from it. “I said, let her go.” Taylor half-expected to see an electrical arc crackling between the contacts, but it seemed that was a Hollywood thing.

“Fine.” Taylor let Janice’s wrist go. “Now make her give me my watch. The one that I paid for.”

“Not so fast.” Taylor turned, as did the security guards. Two uniformed police officers had just entered the store. Neither one had their gun out, though hands were on weapons. “Taylor Hebert?”

Taylor blinked. “Uh, yes. That’s me. What the hell have I done now?”

“Come with us and we’ll clear this whole thing up.” One of the cops waved dismissively to the security guards. “Stand down, guys. We got this.”

“I’m not leaving till I get my Dad’s birthday present!” shouted Taylor. “I paid for it, and it’s mine! Why won’t anyone listen to me?”

The other cop read the scene in a glance, then turned a stern glare on Janice. “Has the watch been paid for?”

 “Well, yes, but…”

“Then she’s right. You have no legal standing for keeping the goods from her once the transaction was processed. The watch no longer belongs to your store. Hand it over. Now.”

“But—but … it’s a stolen card. It has to be!” blustered Janice.

“Do you mind if I take a look at your card, Miss Hebert?” the second cop asked, politely.

Since he hadn’t assumed anything, Taylor passed him the card without incident, to which he stepped away and pulled out his own phone. Looking at the card (which had nothing but the bank logo in the corner for identifying markers), he dialled a number and asked to speak to the manager. Seconds later, he spoke quietly, constantly looking at Taylor as if to confirm her appearance, and when he was done, he turned back to Janice and scowled, shaking his head. “The card’s hers, woman. You screwed up big-time. Hand over the damn watch before we arrest you for grand larceny and spitting on the sidewalk.”

Shocked, staring from Taylor to the cops and back again, Janice turned to the cabinet and unlocked it. As she did so, Taylor reached out and tore off the receipt that had long since printed out. She held it up as Janice turned around with the watch. “When I come back here, you are gonna be out of a fucking job. And sign the receipt.”

Chastened, Janice did as she was told. She bundled the (now signed) receipt with the watch in a small bag, and shoved it all into Taylor’s hands. “Now get out,” she spat.

“Gladly,” Taylor retorted. “I was gonna buy something twice as expensive for me, but you just shat all over that idea.” She turned to the cops. “Thanks, guys. Do we still need to go somewhere, or has that been dealt with?”

“Still gotta go to the station.” The cop on the left tilted his head toward Janice. “While we’re sorting out the other stuff, maybe you might want to swear out a criminal complaint against her.”

“I just might.” Taylor tucked her card away in her purse. With the bag containing her watch firmly in her hand, she followed the police officers from the mall and climbed into the large van with police markings that was waiting at the curb.

“I gotta say,” she began, then realised that the vehicle was already full of police officers. “Uh … what’s going on here?”

Too late, the sliding door behind her slammed shut, then she became aware that several pistols were pointing at her.

“What’s going on,” the cop who’d just been so nice to her sneered as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “is that you’re coming with us. To be honest, we expected to have to go grab you, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Taylor had to take a few seconds to process this new information. “Wait … you’re not cops?”

That got her a round of harsh laughter as the van engine started. “What makes you say that?” asked the guy sitting next to her.

“Well, because you’re kidnapping me?” It seemed obvious to her.

“What, just because we’re cops, we can’t pursue alternate revenue streams?” The guy pointed at the empty seat. “Sit down. Shut up. We were told to bring you in. The state you’re in depends entirely on you.”

Okay, so I am being kidnapped. By cops, no less. This is different.

Taylor obediently sat down. She could, of course, rip the entire side door off and escape, but this intrigued her. Someone wanted her kidnapped; someone who could either pay off a lot of cops or outfit an entire bunch of guys with really authentic-looking cop gear.

In short, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to get their hands on her. Someone who, if she wasn’t careful, might hurt innocent bystanders if they had to try again. She reminded herself of the modifications Janesha had made on her. I’m bulletproof and I can juggle this vehicle like a cardboard box. I also don’t have to breathe. There wasn’t a huge amount they could do to her, and a lot she could do to them, but as far as they were concerned, the opposite was true.

“Um … so what’s going on here?” she asked. “Why me?”

“You don’t ask questions,” growled the man sitting next to her. He took hold of her wrist and handcuffed it to the frame of the seat. Another man pulled a bag over her head. It was stuffy and smelled faintly of cologne, and cut out all light.

“Okay,” she said, her voice muffled from inside the bag. They weren’t going to give her answers anyway; that much was clear. She settled back to try to enjoy the ride in relative comfort, keeping a tight grip on her possessions.

While the bag cut out all sight and did a fair amount toward muffling her hearing, it did nothing to attenuate her control of her bugs. She had a clear picture of her surroundings, extending a couple of blocks in all directions, so no matter how the van changed direction—which it did far more often than it normally should have, given the route it was travelling—she knew where she was. The cop beside her had warned her to stay quiet, so she didn’t ask stupid questions like ‘where are we going’ or ‘what do you want with me’. She’d find out the answers to those questions, she figured, when she got where she was going.

<><>

Coil

Normally, in a situation like this, Thomas Calvert would have kept one timeline as a ‘safe’ line, where he did nothing. In the other, he would set up a risky situation, then drop whichever one came out with the least acceptable outcome. This was anything but a normal situation.

Cauldron, via the person of Contessa, had specified that they wanted Taylor Hebert to be permanently separated from Janesha of Mystal. This, to Calvert, said they wanted her dead. Why they weren’t just doing the job themselves wasn’t obvious to him, but he had no particular squeamishness when it came to dead teenage girls.

Calvert was no common assassin, of course. People usually didn’t call him in on contracts to make people dead. When they did hire his services, it was usually for something more elaborate. So Cauldron’s requirement puzzled him more than a little. Also, he definitely wanted to know more about Janesha Nascerdios of Mystal, who had been making serious waves around Brockton Bay and who had been seen in Taylor’s company more than once. Scuttlebutt in the PRT building, whispered around the water cooler but not even making it on to the PHO boards, was that Janesha could remove powers, something that had very definitely made Calvert’s radar. Setting up a multimillion-dollar bank account using a duffel full of gold bars was par for the course when it came to Nascerdios; the ability to casually remove superpowers was not.

Taylor Hebert would die. His tame cops would work out a sequence of events between them that left them all in the clear, all the while delivering her to a location of Calvert’s choosing. Calvert would then wring every single secret out of her, using all the tricks and techniques he’d acquired over his PRT career, before disposing of her body in a location where it would be discovered, having suffered a ‘mugging gone wrong’. This sort of thing happened to teenage girls all the time, after all.

Still, there was always room for caution. In the first timeline, she was being delivered to his main base of operations. The second had her being brought to an offsite backup base, where she would be interrogated over a closed-circuit TV channel, with men on site to provide the appropriate brutality.

This wasn’t his first rodeo, after all.

<><>

Taylor

The bag was taken off Taylor’s head as heavy leather straps were fastened over her arms, securing her to the wooden chair she’d been shoved into. She knew where she was; an underground complex somewhere to the west and south of the Trainyards, one she hadn’t even known was there. It was composed of half a dozen rooms and housed twenty men, though it had room for maybe three times that number.

Blinking, she pretended confusion as she looked around. “Okay,” she said. “What now? And careful with that package. I just paid good money for that.”

The armoured mercenary holding her purse and the package containing the pocket watch shrugged and shoved them into pouches at his belt. Taylor marked him with a bug, then did the same to his compatriots. They might think she wasn’t going to live to reclaim her property; she had different ideas.

Another mercenary answered her question. “What happens now is that the boss asks questions. You answer the questions. If he doesn’t like the answers, we hurt you till you give him answers he likes.”

Taylor thought that over. “What if the only answer I’ve got is one he doesn’t like?”

The armoured man snorted. “Then you’re shit out of luck, kid.”

“Can I know who it is who’s going to be asking me questions?”

“Sure. His name’s Coil.” He gestured at the large screen in front of them both, currently dark and silent. “No big secret. He’ll be talking to us through that.”

“And afterward I get to go home?”

“Yeah, kid. If you’re good, you get to go home.”

That was the first lie he’d told. Everything else he’d said, he’d been a little tense, thinking over what he was saying. Saying she would be free to go home, he’d just flung the statement out there. He didn’t mean it, and he didn’t believe it. It was just something he was saying to keep her on side.

She didn’t contradict him. Getting answers out of him would be easier if she didn’t call him on his lies.

The screen flared to life. Imaged on it was an almost skeletally thin man, clad in a skintight costume that covered every inch of his visible form, which was from the mid-torso upward. It was a charcoal-black with a white stripe winding around it, culminating with what might have been a snake’s head overlaying the top of his own head. She could see why he called himself Coil.

“Good afternoon, Miss Hebert,” purred the gaunt man. “My name is Coil, and I have some questions for you today. How well you answer them will determine how well my men treat you.”

And how soon I bust out of this chair and come looking for you, Taylor decided. “Wh-what do you want from me?” she asked, pretending fear.

That was the cue for him to steeple his fingers together and look at her over them. “I want to know everything there is about Janesha Nascerdios of Mystal,” he intoned. “What you know, what you think you know, what she likes and dislikes. What her motivations are. In other words, I want to know what it is that makes her tick. Can you oblige?”

<><>

Coil

In the timeline where the Hebert girl was being held in his base, he had the men asking her about herself, to provide a baseline for the questioning. Where she was being held off-site, on the other hand, he began asking her about Janesha of Mystal.

She answered questions about herself reasonably promptly. This was a tried and true interrogation technique; if the subject can be induced to begin answering questions, it is easier to keep them answering questions, even when said questions start getting more sensitive. Her middle name was Anne; her mother had died in a car accident when she was thirteen; her best friend was the aforementioned Janesha of Mystal; her favourite school subject was Computer Studies. All extremely innocuous.

About Janesha, she was somewhat more guarded. The first subject they queried was the origin of the term ‘Mystal’. From the title she’d given herself, it seemed to be her place of origin, but no amount of research had turned up any evidence of a nation or even a wealthy family of that name. Taylor claimed adamantly that she didn’t know where it was, leading Calvert to surmise that the name was actually the title of an obscure superhero team. Presenting the Hebert girl with that supposition elicited a certain amount of amusement and agreement.

From there, he moved on to Janesha’s powers; specifically, her limits and possible weaknesses. Taylor waxed lyrical over Janesha’s matter-shaping powers, going into some detail over what the strange cape had achieved with them. Calvert would have liked to poke holes in her story, but he actually had footage of what had happened at the Boat Graveyard that afternoon. Watching the girl juggle seventy-thousand-ton ships while standing on water made his stomach cramp, especially when the ships obligingly folded themselves into cubes for easier storage.

Someone of that power level has no good reason for being in Brockton Bay. What is she doing here, and how soon is she leaving?

When he posed that very question to Taylor, she shrugged as best she could. “She’s doing what she wants, and she’ll be leaving when she feels like it,” was her answer.

He preferred not to think too hard about the line of questioning regarding the winged horse, or ‘mystallion’ as Taylor was quick to describe it. According to her, it was a member of a distinct species rather than a unique creature. He flat-out refused to believe her fanciful description of how fast it travelled, or even that it was able to leave atmosphere. That it had travelled to Rio in a matter of seconds, he could grasp; Mover abilities, after all, were a known concept. But to take a jaunt out among the stars, watching the very heavenly bodies jump aside to allow them passage … that was where he drew the line. Perhaps it was travelling so fast that she couldn’t breathe properly, and oxygen starvation caused hallucinations? It was the only real explanation.

Where he hit a brick wall, however, was when he had his men press her on Janesha’s weak points. Some instinct had him ask the gentle questions of the version of Taylor in his home base, while his men became much more stringent with the other Taylor. There was no specific reason for him to do so, but he did it that way anyway.

It didn’t take very long before he was very happy for that decision.

<><>

Taylor

She stared defiantly back at the mercenary. So far, it had been more or less like a game. Janesha would figure out where she was sooner or later, and she wanted to string these morons out long enough that they were horrifically surprised when the celestial girl busted in on them.

The trouble was, she’d been in their hands for more than an hour by now, and Janesha still hadn’t shown up. It was getting boring. Also, they were starting to ask questions she didn’t want to answer. Lying was definitely an option, but each time she tried it, she was caught out immediately.

“Incorrect, Miss Hebert.” She couldn’t see Coil’s face, but she was sure his smug expression matched Emma at her worst. “Janesha’s weakness is not cold iron. Nor is it custard pudding. I see we’re going to have to work on our trust issues.”

Pithily, she told him exactly what he could do with his trust issues, and where he could insert them. She couldn’t see his face, but she hoped he was annoyed with her. It was actually a pretty good insult for one made up on the fly.

“I see. Mr Brooks. Kindly break Miss Hebert’s little finger. Left hand, if you will.”

Taylor raised her eyebrows as Brooks approached her. “This is a really bad idea. Janesha is a Nascerdios, she’s really rich, and she’ll be seriously pissed that you tried to hurt me.”

Just for a moment, it seemed that Brooks hesitated, then he reached out for her left hand. She responded by curling her hand into a fist. With the power to crush diamonds in that fist, there was no way he was going to open her hand. He tried anyway, for at least a minute.

“Well, get on with it.” Coil was not the most patient.

“Sorry, sir. I can’t get her hand open.”

“Hit her, you idiot. Just don’t knock her out. Rattle her head a little.”

Obediently, Brooks backhanded Taylor across the face. Taylor let her head rock back under the impact, but showed no other reaction. Brooks tried again, harder. Again, Taylor went with it. On the third time, Brooks threw a full-blooded punch at Taylor’s jaw. In response, Taylor tensed every muscle in her chest and neck, and held her head absolutely still. When the blow hit, she didn’t move even a fraction of an inch. The crackle of breaking bones was clearly audible, along with Brooks’s muffled scream as he cradled his hand.

“Report! Mr Brooks! What happened?”

“I think I broke my hand … sir,” gritted Brooks. “Her jaw’s like rock.”

Rock, hah. My jaw’s considerably harder than that.

The screen went off at this time, and Brooks staggered from the room. Taylor heard the door click behind him. A few moments later, a yellowish gas began to curl in through wall vents. Taylor felt her vacuum adaptations kick in automatically. Her eyes stung, until the nictitating membranes Janesha had installed swept across them to protect the delicate surfaces. Her clothing started looking older and more tattered, so she guessed the gas had an acidic factor as well as being poisonous in nature. Fortunately, it didn’t fall apart altogether, for which she was grateful.

After a few minutes, she got bored with sitting in a yellow fog, so she snapped the restraints and stood up. Heading over to the door, she pushed it open; metal screeched and rivets ricocheted from the wall. The yellow gas curled out with her, forcing the mercenaries back from the doorway. They held rifles, which they raised in a menacing fashion.

<><>

Coil

Calvert watched through the CCTV cameras as they opened fire. The bullets damaged her clothing slightly, but did no damage at all to her. Even the vaunted undermount lasers—for which he had paid a fortune—did nothing but scorch holes in her clothing, which irritated her but did nothing more.

She stalked through the base on what seemed to be a random path, until he finally realised that she was following one specific mercenary, by the name of Travis. Literally ignoring what the others were doing, even when they threw tear-gas grenades—not to mention actual grenades—she followed the man implacably, unstoppably. Locked and sealed blast doors slowed her down right up until she forced a gap between door and frame, then with strength he’d only ever seen in footage of Alexandria, she wrenched the obstacle aside and continued her hunt.

Finally, she cornered the man. Out of ammunition, terrified out of his mind, he launched an attack on her with a combat knife. Some Brutes (because surely that was what she was) were vulnerable on the inside, so Calvert was cheered when he managed to lodge the blade inside her mouth.

She bit it off, and spat the piece to one side. When he attacked her, she’d gotten a grip on his equipment belt; now, she hit him with an untrained palm strike that nonetheless snapped the belt and sent him flying across the room into the wall. He lay there, disarmed and unable to get up, staring at her. She ignored him and rifled through his belt, retrieving her purse and the package from the jewellery store.

<><>

Taylor

“Thanks for looking after this,” she told the idiot who’d attacked her, shoving her purse in her pocket and opening the package to make sure the watch was still okay. “That acid fog shit might’ve damaged it, and then I really would’ve been pissed.”

When she turned around, the mercenaries in the doorway shrank back under her gaze. Rifles were pointed, but nobody was stupid enough to open fire. Nothing they’d used on her had worked, anyway. Janesha, you’re amazing.

“Okay,” she said. “This has been fun, but I’ve still got to get my dad’s watch engraved. Which way’s the exit, or do I have to make my own?”

One of the mercenaries pointed wordlessly, and she started in that direction. As she headed up the stairs, two more armoured men appeared at the top of the steps. She shook her head. “Seriously? Come on, guys. This public display stuff’s not usually my thing, but do you really think Janesha is the only cape in our friendship?” There was a long pause. They looked at each other, then stood aside. She rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

<><>

Coil

Calvert watched impotently as she reached the outer door to the base and kicked it off its frame. Then she stepped through the now-open portal and left his line of sight.

The base was a wreck. The mercenaries had burned through most of their ammunition just trying to slow down Taylor Hebert, and in turn she’d done tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to the base. It was just a good thing that all this had happened in the offsite facility rather than his main base. With a shudder, he dropped the timeline where the version of her in this base had just casually torn through the restraints and was pushing the door open. He didn’t need that sort of damage in his main facility.

Dropping his elbows to the desk, he put his face in his hands. Cauldron had given him one job, and he’d utterly failed to do it.

Worse, he’d pissed off Taylor Hebert (who was apparently an Alexandria-class cape, and he had no idea where that had come from) and by proxy Janesha Nascerdios, a girl who was richer than God and who could demonstrably walk on water and reshape matter to her heart’s content. And the Hebert girl knew who’d had her kidnapped. If either one of them had a vindictive bone in her body, he was screwed beyond belief.

What the fuck do I do now?

<><>

Janesha

The mall was closed by now, but she figured maybe she could go and ‘ask’ to see the security footage, and see what had happened to Taylor. Then she had a better idea. Having Cloudstrike fly straight up, she reached an altitude of around fifty thousand feet, and looked down at Brockton Bay. Her enhanced sight picked out every single person in the open … including a lone figure, walking eastward through a semi-abandoned section of town.

“Down, Cloudstrike,” she directed her mount. The mystallion obeyed, dropping like a stone. Ten miles went by in an instant, then Cloudstrike flared her wings, landing with the lightness of a feather.

Taylor looked up. “Oh, hey,” she said. “What kept you?”

“Oh, this and that. Mainly, the fact that Scion’s a cowardly chickenshit who doesn’t want to talk to me. But what happened to you?”

Taylor trudged over to Cloudstrike and patted her muzzle. “Hey, girl,” she said. Cloudstrike nickered and rubbed the side of her face against Taylor’s chest. Taylor raised her tired gaze to Janesha’s. “I’ve been finding out how much easier you make life for me. And how many idiots there are in this city who think a teenage girl is just a teenage girl.”

Janesha raised her eyebrows. This sounded like some story.

 Part 14