Celestial Worm Part 21 (Patreon)

Part Twenty-One: There’s Always Another Mess

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Karen Buckeridge, author of Ties That Bind (re-releasing soon in second edition) and The Long Way Home (out soon).]

Jack Slash

“Words with me? Really? You’re pretty bold for two teenage girls and an accountant, facing the Nine.” Jack was barely aware of the words he was speaking. They were just for colour, intended only to keep his opponent distracted while he figured out his next move. He hadn’t survived so long as leader of the Nine by jumping feet-first into fights with unknown capes. What the guy actually was, he didn’t know, but he was skinny and had glasses, so ‘accountant’ was Jack’s best guess.

A major part of his strategy was to research his chosen enemies ahead of time, and plan according to their weaknesses. He didn’t know these three, which was a problem. A bigger problem was that they had clearly sought out his team in his hour of weakness, which meant that they were very confident, very good or very lucky … or some combination of all three, which he didn’t like in the slightest.

Yet another problem was that when he was going face to face with capes (a situation he actually tended to avoid as needlessly risky) he could usually go with his gut on how to deal with them. Somehow, he always knew just the right thing to say to put them off-balance, and of course he was a past master of anticipating how they were going to try to take him down. He’d had enough experience with the Nine from the very beginning, so actual heroic capes were a walk in the park.

Except … his extemporaneous speech was over, and he still hadn’t gleaned any insights on how to deal with them. Their stances weren’t giving him clues about what powers they were about to unleash, or which way he should jump to avoid them. Their lack of weapons and the dark-skinned girl’s costume said that they were capes; or at least, she was.

“Nine, huh?” the dark-skinned girl smirked, poking her tongue against her cheek as her eyes made a point of stopping on each of the remaining Nine. “Your maths that shit?”

The girl in the bug suit snorted, and even the accountant pinched his lips to hide the grin.

The loss of Siberian and Shatterbird still stung, but fortunately, even with this temporary setback, he had a solution to his problem.

Overwhelming force.

“Burnscar.” That was all he needed to say. Anticipating his need, she created a wall of flame that raced away across the ground, arcing around in a circle that penned in the three intruders. Flames began to crackle as the forest caught light behind them, but that wasn’t his problem. The two girls and the man didn’t seem particularly bothered by their predicament, which irritated him more than a little. He liked his opponents to be scared. Fear rattled most people, causing them to make mistakes, which he could then capitalise upon.

No matter. It was time to send his next big hitters into the fray. “Hatchet Face, Mannequin. All yours.” Combining the stereotypical Brute capability with the ability to nullify powers, the brutal cape was perfect for taking down unknown factors, simply by making them irrelevant and then hacking them to pieces. By contrast, Mannequin could tank most hits, and shred any non-Brute opponent, even ones he hadn’t specifically modified his armour to deal with.

Surreptitiously, Jack let a knife slide down his sleeve into his hand. Cheating was one thing (which he could say that they’d done, by turning up so unexpectedly) but he wasn’t against stacking the deck a little. As the hulking cape and the white-armoured Tinker stepped through the wall of flame and headed for their prospective victims, Jack brought the knife up and flicked his power into action. He didn’t seriously expect to do any real harm to them, but he’d take any win that he could get.

As he’d half-expected, the knife didn’t do anything, but that didn’t matter. With a confident grin on his face, he folded his arms, waiting for Hatchet Face and Mannequin to either finish the job or for the capes to flee from them.

A frown crossed his face as the girl in the bug-themed outfit turned to her black-costumed counterpart. A few words were exchanged, then the slender teenager started forward to meet Hatchet Face with a determined step. The massive cape, grinning savagely, raised the axe he habitually carried and brought it down in a brutal arc. There was no way she could survive this; whatever powers she was depending on to withstand the blow would have been cancelled by Hatchet Face’s proximity, and it would be purely impossible for her to—

She caught it.

Jack knew how strong Hatchet Face was. The man could pick up a car if he so wished. He’d brought the axe down in a vicious sweep, powerful enough to drive through the girl’s skull and continue all the way until she was cloven in half. But she’d raised one slim hand and—with no apparent effort—caught the handle of the axe. Stopped it dead. Veins bulged in Hatchet Face’s neck as he tried to force it downward, but he may as well have been trying to shove Mount Rushmore aside.

Even as Jack’s jaw dropped and his brain tried its hardest to re-evaluate its knowledge to fit what he’d just seen, the girl took one step forward and punched Hatchet Face. Ordinarily, this was a move almost guaranteed to result in a broken hand, especially given the lack of expertise obvious in the blow. If she’d ever spent any time fighting, Jack would’ve been most astonished. But not as astonished as he was when Hatchet Face flew backward from the blow, going airborne right across the clearing, until he hit the trunk of a tree some fifteen feet above the ground. There was a crack that didn’t sound good for Hatchet Face’s survival prospects, then he flopped to the ground and lay still.

Mannequin activated the spinning blades on one arm, and sent the other out to snag the dark-skinned girl. Jack could see his reasoning; the girls, in costume, were the dangerous ones. But in a surprising blur of motion, she grabbed Mannequin’s arm and started pulling, hard.

“C’mere, you!” she snarled. Chain rattled as she gave it one last haul that ended in a clang as she yanked the entire winding mechanism out of his shoulder. “Fuck! You weren’t supposed to break!”

“Language,” The accountant chipped.

The girl paused and turned away from Mannequin as if he meant nothing to her to give the accountant what Jack assumed was a look of disgust. At the very least, he was certainly wearing one. Who the fuck said, ‘Language’ anymore?

Still shaking her head when it became apparent the accountant wasn’t backing off, the teenager in black ran back towards Mannequin, and with a leap that defied logic, she was eye level with the Tinker, upper-cutting him under the jaw hard enough to make his ‘head’ fly off.

On the downward arc of her jump, she hooked her hands inside Mannequin’s torso armour. It all happened so fast Jack’s eyes could barely keep up with the action. Mannequin still had one arm which he brought around in an attempt to fillet her with the spinning blades. They were entangled in the girl’s cape as effectively as any deliberate restraint, all without taking any damage.

Then, as gravity pulled her to the ground, she ripped the two halves of Mannequin’s armour apart, and smashed them back together once her feet were on the ground. The white armour shattered, causing the Tinker’s brain and other vital organs to fall to the ground. Bereft of his life support system, Jack knew, he would die in moments.

This was rapidly becoming an untenable situation. “Crawler!” shouted Jack, then grabbed Bonesaw’s hand. Gathering in Burnscar by eye, he indicated the far treeline. “Set everything on fire,” he ordered. “We need cover, now.”

Even as Crawler charged the two girls with a roar, Jack turned … and came face to face with the tall skinny accountant. Burnscar sent a wash of flame over the guy but he stepped forward without seeming to notice it. As the flames receded, several of Bonesaw’s spider-bots came out of nowhere and swarmed up the guy’s legs, jabbing him with their mechanical injectors.

He ignored everything.

“Just for the record,” he said almost mildly as he grabbed a spider-bot and crushed its body effortlessly in one hand, “I’m not an accountant. I’m the head of hiring for the Dockworkers’ Association. Not that I expect you to understand the difference.”

Jack Slash swung his blade back and forth, back and forth, ignoring the fact that he was shredding Bonesaw’s other spider-bots. Bonesaw sent darts loaded with the most potent neurotoxins Jack had ever heard of flying into the skinny guy’s exposed skin. Burnscar held out both hands and sent a concentrated blast of flame into his face.

None of it made a damned bit of difference.

The ground began to shake. Briefly turning his head, Jack saw the girl in the black costume and cape holding Crawler by one leg and repeatedly beating him against the ground. The other girl was strolling in their direction, twirling Hatchet Face’s axe idly in one hand. “Need a hand, Dad?” she called out.

‘Dad?’….ahhhh. Now he understood the ‘language’ swipe, although that wasn’t exactly a priority right now.

“No, I got this.” ‘Dad’ almost casually reached out and shoved both Bonesaw and Burnscar, sending them sprawling to the ground. “I don’t like hitting women,” he said conversationally. “The girls can deal with those two. You, on the other hand …”

Jack broke the paralysis that had briefly afflicted his limbs, occasioned by the sight of his team being utterly disassembled before his eyes. He tried to dart backward, out of reach of the man who could apparently ignore fire and being injected with all sorts of poisons and diseases. If he could make it to the treeline, the burgeoning forest fire could provide him with cover—

“Uh, uh.” He’d taken his eye off the bug-girl behind him, and now she shoved him forward, back toward her father. “Dad wasn’t finished with you yet.”

Just as he tried to twist away, Jack felt his wrist being seized by the older man. The grip was like iron, far more powerful than anyone he’d ever tussled with before. Talking had always worked before, so he tried again. “You know, we could always discuss this like reasonable people—MOTHERFUCKER!”

The reason for the outburst was because the man had squeezed, and Jack felt several (undoubtedly important) bones in his wrist go crunch in a way that didn’t sound (or feel) entirely healthy. In fact, it hurt like a sonovabitch. Still, in the extremity of his pain, he liked to think he was a fighter. The knife was still in his other hand, and he stabbed forward with it, up and under the ribcage.

Where it stopped, cold. Indenting the cloth, indenting the skin, but not going anywhere.

Before he could try again, perhaps for the eyes, that wrist was also taken captive. “We’re not going to talk, Jack.” Despite being a weedy accountant type with a weak chin and receding hair, the man had the coldest eyes Jack had ever seen. “You’re just going to die. Do you know why you’re going to die?”

“Boredom, if we’re laying odds,” the dark-skinned girl suggested in the black costume and cape as she strolled over. “I know that’s what I’m about to die of, just watching it anyway. Come on, Danny. I’ll take over if it bothers you too much…”

The man called Danny drew in a deep breath, then released it in a sigh of exasperation. “I’m fine, thank you, Janesha. And I will do this my way, because I’ve earned it. Understood?”

Janesha held both hands in a carefree surrender. He turned his attention back to Jack. “Brockton Bay. You showed up there, in the nineties. You killed people. Remember?”

Jack blinked, taken aback by the abrupt change in subject. “Uh … not really? Listen, if you think I remember everything I did over the course of one week, twenty years ago—”

“He really doesn’t,” the caped girl broke in. “It’s all one big blur to him. Except the fact that Marquis defied him. He’s still pissed about that.”

Danny’s eyes went to the sky for a moment and his next breath was a short huff. “Thank you, Janesha.” He then glared at Jack. “When you came to town, you killed friends of mine. It’s not the only reason I’m doing this now, you sonovabitch, but it’s a good one.”

“Yeah, you and every other—” Jack began to jeer, but Danny didn’t seem to be listening anymore. Letting go Jack’s wrists, he grabbed him by the shoulder with his left hand, then pulled his right hand back and speared it forward. Jack felt his breastbone splinter, following by the unique sensation of Danny’s hand closing around his heart and yanking it out of his chest. Indescribable pain followed.

Fortunately (for a very specific definition of the word) it didn’t last long.

<><>

Taylor

“Really?” Janesha raised an eyebrow at Danny, who was wiping his hand clean—or relatively so—on his shirt. Jack Slash’s heart lay a foot or so away from the man’s supine body, the sturdy muscle crushed and pulped by the force that had been needed to hold on to it.

The look of surprise on the serial killer’s face was gratifyingly astonished. He had to have known he would come to a violent end sooner or later, but having his heart torn out probably wasn’t high on his list.

“What?” asked Danny. “He was a mass murderer. What’s your problem?”

Janesha stalked closer. “My problem, Danny Hebert, is that you’ve been riding my ass from day one about respecting life and all that bullshit, and then you do this? That’s it. From now on, you don’t get to judge me.”

“What?” Danny stared at her. “That’s totally different! The Nine had a Kill Order. I could’ve ripped his head off in the lobby of the PRT building, and the only problem they’d have would be with the mess I made. Killing them is literally a public service. It’s definitely not illegal.”

“Pfft, do I look like I care about local mortal rules?” Janesha folded her arms. “Admit it, you’re a hypocrite. I’m not allowed to kill, but you are? Puh-leeze.”

From the way he was grinding his teeth, Danny was getting irritated. “Did I have a problem with you killing Mannequin and Crawler? No. I still don’t. In this one instance, killing is not only acceptable but preferable.”

“Like I said …”

“I’M NOT BEING A HYPOCRITE!”

“Dad … Dad … Janesha … Chill!” Taylor raced between them and held her arms out to keep them apart. “I mean it! Chill!”

For the longest time, both stared at each other. It must’ve killed her father to be the one to finally break that glaring contest, when he realised Janesha could literally keep that pose for centuries. Instead, he looked at where Bonesaw and Burnscar lay on the ground unmoving, and frowned. “I didn’t think I pushed them that hard.”

“You didn’t.” Janesha looked down at the girl and the young woman pensively. “I went into their minds with every intention of turning them into … fruit?”

“Vegetables,” Taylor corrected, without even thinking about it.

“Yeah, vegetables. And anyway, I saw … stuff. So I didn’t kill them immediately.”

“Stuff?” asked Taylor. “That’s not very informative.”

Janesha crossed her eyes and poked her tongue out at Taylor and it took everything Taylor had not to grin in victory. “Burnscar’s the way she is because she’s got a cross-wiring with her emotions. The more she uses her flame, the more she wants to use her flame and the less empathy she has. Bonesaw … well, Bonesaw was six when Jack Slash got hold of her. Relatively fresh trigger, emotionally vulnerable. Him and the rest of the Nine killed her parents and brother and dog in front of her a dozen times until she couldn’t handle it anymore, and gave up. Slash used that as a way to convince her that she was actually a killer like him, and he’s been reinforcing that mindset ever since.”

Taylor thought that through. “So … if you take away their powers, Burnscar wouldn’t even want to kill people anymore? And you’re saying Bonesaw is more a victim than a monster?”

“Oh, she’s a monster all right.” Janesha passed off the question with a flip of her hand. “Where I come from, that’s not exactly a deal-breaker. But she was made into a monster, instead of choosing to be one. There’s a big difference, right there.”

“So, what are you saying, exactly?” Taylor looked at Bonesaw, then Burnscar. “You’re going to take away their powers and … what, fix what’s wrong in their heads?”

Janesha shook her head. “No. Several reasons. First, all I’d be able to do is adjust their memories to whatever I wanted them to be, and to tell them what to believe. That actually fixes a lot less than you’d think. It doesn’t even touch their emotions. Suppose a man loves a woman with all his heart. If I removed every memory he had of that woman, when he met her that emotion would still find a way to express itself. Bonesaw’s so fucked in the head by Jack’s manipulation that if I just made her forget everything, she’d still be fucked in the head but now she wouldn’t know why. No, this needs a Weaver to fix.”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Lady Columbine? Won’t she be busy helping Edeena?”

“Yeah. She will be.” Janesha smiled fondly. “She’s always busy, but she’s always willing to make time. Cousin Col’s pretty amazing like that.”

Taylor didn’t know if Janesha should be so confident. “But will she be willing to make time to help two mortals who have killed so many people?”

“Remember who I said her maternal grandfather was?”

“You didn’t.”

“Well, I definitely mentioned her kids by designation. Remember what they were called, and connect the dots.”

Taylor frowned, going over the various memories. And then the title came to her with all the finesse of a trainwreck. “You called them antichrists.”

“Her grandfather is the devil himself?” If she hadn’t had Danny’s attention already, she had it now.

“The real one,” Janesha confirmed. “Supreme ruler of all Hell. Her uncle on that side is literally the archangel of vengeance who would skin you alive if you’ve ever done anything to deserve payback from anyone. And he’s one of the nicest ones.”

Danny frowned. “I understand all that, but I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up now.”

“Lord Belial’s main purpose is to ensure endless torment for every mortal soul that ends up in Hell,” Janesha explained patiently. “Cousin Col doesn’t care. She loves him unconditionally, just as she does Lord Uriel. Whatever atrocities Bonesaw and Burnscar have perpetrated since they got their powers, it’s nothing compared to what either one of those can do if they decide it has to be done.”

“Ah.” Danny blinked. “I see. That puts everything neatly into perspective.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Janesha bent and picked Bonesaw up. “I’ll be back in a second. I just need to take them into the celestial realm so I can detach—”

That was when Taylor got an idea. Like many great ideas, and quite a few really bad ones, it came to her in a flash of inspiration. “Wait a second, Janesha. Quick question.”

On the verge of stepping, Janesha stopped and looked at her. “Shoot.”

“Can you tell if her powers made her psychotic or if it was Jack?” It might be a great idea, but Taylor wasn’t going to be stupid about it.

Janesha frowned and looked down at the girl in her arms. “As far as I can see, it was all Jack. Why?”

This was the tipping point, the big reveal. “When you take the powers away from her, can you give them to someone else? Like me?”

Both Danny and Janesha stared at her for a moment, then Janesha raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like having powers, petal.”

Taylor folded her arms. “I don’t like the way I got them, and they never solved any of my problems, and I’m really not sure I like playing god over any bugs that happen to be in my area, but being able to control bugs isn’t going to do me any good if someone’s hurt or dying near me. With her power, I could help people a lot more than I can now.”

“Huh.” Janesha nodded slowly. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“Wait just a moment,” Danny interjected. “Is this even safe? Can Taylor take having two sets of powers attached to her?”

“Safe as I can make it,” Janesha assured him, then turned back to Taylor. “Yeah, sure, I can plug them into your head once I disconnect them from little miss murder munchkin here.” She grinned mischievously. “Did you want the other one’s power as well, while we’re at it?”

Taylor snorted. “If I recall, you told me that it was her flame powers that screwed her up. That’s a hard pass on that one.”

“Suit yourself.” Janesha indicated Burnscar’s unconscious body. “If you’re coming along for the ride, make yourself useful and grab her for me, will you?”

“Definitely.” It was the work of a moment to drape the limp supervillain over her shoulder, then Taylor stepped up alongside Janesha. “Ready when you are.”

Janesha nodded, taking her hand. “And … step.” Taylor took the pace alongside her, wondering when she’d gotten used to the transition into the crystalline landscape.

“All right, I’ve never attached powers to anyone, so I’ll do Burnscar first and get that out of the way.” Dumping Bonesaw unceremoniously on the ground, Janesha went to where Taylor was holding the pyrokinetic. Taking hold of the shining cord where it attached to Burnscar’s head, she concentrated and twisted her wrist oddly. The cord came free, and Janesha let it go to whip away between the crystals.

“That’s done. Now for the fun one.” Going over to Bonesaw, Janesha knelt next to her and detached her cord as well. However, this one she did not release. “Come over here, petal.”

Trepidation building in her, despite the fact that she’d asked for this, Taylor went to where Janesha was waiting. The end of the cord held a weird shimmery effect that Taylor had trouble focusing on. “Do I want to know why that’s the way it is?”

“I’m not entirely certain I could explain it to you in terms that you could understand. Hold still.” Leaning forward, Janesha pressed the end of the cord against Taylor’s head, and

tw

is

ted

it into place.

From Taylor’s point of view, it was a very weird experience. It felt like she’d been experiencing double vision, which had suddenly snapped into perfect focus. Or maybe she'd been living life with one eye, and had now been granted a second one. Either way, she had a whole new perspective on things.

"How's it feel?" asked Janesha.

"Freaky." A few bugs had ridden along with her into the celestial realm, and even her control over them felt weird, as the feedback she got from each bug became much more detailed. This extended to what they were looking at, including other bugs. Or herself. She looked down at the two supervillains, now safely depowered, and blinked as more information suggested itself to her. Then she looked at Janesha; for about half a second, her new power struggled to define Janesha in biological terms before it did the equivalent of saying, ‘Haha, nope,’ and reverted back to ordinary vision for her.

“Freaky good or freaky bad? If this is a problem for you, I’ll take it out again.” Janesha looked critically at Taylor. “It doesn’t seem to be making your head explode or anything. Are you feeling any more psychotic than normal?”

“No, not psychotic.” Taylor shook her head. “Or at least, I don’t think so. But I’m a whole lot more aware of biology than I was before. I’m pretty sure I can make bugs do surgery on each other now. Actual surgery, rather than just ripping each other apart.”

Janesha raised an eyebrow slightly and smirked. “Well, whatever amuses you, petal. Let’s get back to your dad, and then I’ve gotta contact Sagun.”

“Sagun? Why?” Taylor picked up Burnscar and slung the unconscious ex-supervillain over her shoulder. “I thought you and him had sorted things out as far as me and Dad were concerned.” It still sounded weird to be talking about the celestial she’d always known as Scion in this way, like he was just another person. It was even weirder that she’d met the guy and he’d acted like just another person.

“I’ve just got to make sure he’s okay with us handing these two over to Cousin Col.” With Bonesaw in her arms, Janesha took Taylor’s hand. “And … step.” As they emerged into the sunlit clearing where the Nine had met their end, she kept talking. “Killing off these morons was one thing, but taking mortals out of Earth Bet and sending them on to Earlafaol is something we actually have to notify him about. I doubt he’ll get pissy, but there are courtesies we have to observe.”

“That took longer than I expected,” Danny said as he got up from the rock he’d been sitting on. “Complications?”

“No, we just took our time.” Taylor dropped Burnscar on the ground. “Holy shit, Dad, your posture’s for crap. Why didn’t you tell me about the neck pains?”

“Neck pains?” Danny had barely enough time to ask the question. “What neck pa—whoa!”

In the time he’d taken to ask the question, she came up to him and spun him around. Grabbing hold of his shoulders, she leaped lightly into the air, jammed her knee into his back between his shoulder-blades, and pulled. There was a solid crunch, then she let him go and dropped to the ground again.

“Those neck pains,” she explained as she headed back to Burnscar.

“Huh,” muttered Danny as he ran his hand over his neck. “I’d had that for so long I totally forgot it was there. Thanks. Uh … how did you know to do that?”

“Bonesaw's power, duh.” Taylor grinned at him, then turned back to Janesha. “If Sagun did get pissy … what would happen then?”

“Well, for starters, he’d probably tell me to get the fuck out of his realm. He’s already relinquished you two to me, so you’d have to come with.” Janesha grimaced. “And there’s not a whole lot of options for places to go that my family wouldn’t zero in on me shortly thereafter.”

“Sagun … oh, right. Scion.” Danny looked from Taylor to Janesha. “Could he force the issue if you decided not to go? I mean, we both know it won’t get that far, but I’m a little curious.”

“You’re damn right he could force the issue.” Janesha snorted. “I might have ranged mindbending over him, but he’s got attunement and establishment on his side, which means he’s got all the powers people believe he’s got.”

“Which is a lot,” agreed Danny.

“A whole fuckton.” Janesha twisted her lips. “But he doesn’t need to confront me over it. Even if he didn’t feel like tapping into his attunement and having the whole world turn against me, all he has to do is get in touch with my family, and tell them exactly where I am. There’s a few different branches of the family with ties to the Olympians. One bloodlink later, and I’d have all the elders standing around me faster than a planned intervention, and a lot less pleasant. So I’m not gonna go there.”

“Okay, how do we locate him to get permission?” Danny raised his eyebrows. “As I recall, the last time you went looking for him, it didn’t turn out as expected.”

“Yeah, well, then he kept running away from me, for what reason I have no idea, but now? He’s got the rest of Cauldron to locate and ask questions of, which means he won’t be doing his usual public heroics.” Janesha glanced at the girl in her arms and stood her on her feet; Bonesaw just stayed standing there. She blew out a breath in frustration. “I’ve never been in this situation before. It’s annoying the fuck out of me.”

“How about we take them back home, instead of hanging about here?” suggested Taylor. “Dad could do with a shower, and I’m pretty sure I need one too.”

Janesha nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

<><>

Danny

Half an hour later, Danny was sitting in the armchair while Janesha shared the sofa with the two ex-supervillains. They were still in what he privately called ‘zombie mode’, under Janesha’s direct control. He knew they were in no way dangerous, but that didn’t stop them from being creepy as hell. Which was why he was only watching TV with half his attention, the other half taken up with the young woman and the girl on his sofa.

Upstairs, Taylor had apparently finished her shower because the water stopped running. Then there were footsteps along the corridor to the top of the stairs. “Hey, Janesha!”

“What?” Janesha called out in reply.

“You’re a shifter, yeah? You can make stuff?”

“Sure. What do you want made?”

“Can you make a bird or something that can find Sagun for you?”

Janesha’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered, then raised her voice. “Taylor, you’re a genius. I can definitely do that.”

By the time Taylor came down from upstairs, Janesha had gone outside and gotten a rock from the failing garden. In her hands was now a tiny silver bird, with a wingspan maybe three inches across. “Okay, testing.” She held up her hand with the bird perching on it. “Begin message. General Tagg makes other mortals look bad. End message.”

A second or so passed, then the bird opened its tiny beak. ”General Tagg makes other mortals look bad.”

“Perfect.” Janesha looked pleased with herself. “Resetting … okay. Recording message.” Stretching her arm out, she plucked the remote from Danny’s chair arm and put the sound on mute. “Begin message. Greetings to Sagun from Janesha of Mystal. Just so you know, we’ve ended the Slaughterhouse Nine and killed everyone but Bonesaw and Burnscar. I’ve depowered both of those, but they need extensive therapy, so I was hoping you would be okay with me sending them over to Cousin Col. I just wanted to check with you before I went through with it. End message.”

Danny watched as the tiny construct fluttered up from Janesha’s finger, flew in a tight circle, then vanished in a straight line toward what he judged to be the south. In doing so, it passed clear through the wall without leaving a mark.

“Wow. I didn’t expect something that quick,” Taylor said, going into the kitchen and bringing a chair out. “Going through walls is kind of cheaty, but why not. How’s it actually going to find him?”

Janesha stretched her arms out with her fingers interlaced, and cracked her knuckles. “He’s the only other celestial in this realm. I told it to ignore me and find a celestial aura. When he gets it, he can either come find me or send it back with a message of his own.” She looked quite pleased with herself.

“Which reminds me,” Taylor said, looking suddenly pensive. She turned the chair around and sat on it backwards, resting her arms across the top of the back. “Sagun’s not the one who mindwiped Eidolon, is he?”

That got her a frown from Janesha. “Well, no, I guess not. For the longest time, I thought he was, but if he’s from Highborn Hellion stock he probably doesn’t even have any bender blood in him.” She paused, and her frown deepened. “Shit. Now I see what you’re getting at. If it wasn’t him … who was it?”

“Would any members of your family be more interested in trolling you than making you come home?” asked Danny practically. “You know, prankster types?”

“Well, my cousin Nuncio is a prankster type, and I can see him pulling this sort of crap on me, except for the stuff that happened to Edeena. Nobody I know would be onboard with that shit. Which means it’s not one of us.” Janesha pulled on her lower lip. “The weird thing is, when Cousin Col was in Earth Bet, she didn’t mention any other celests in the realm.”

“Would she have even noticed them?” Taylor sounded a little dubious. “I mean, is it line of sight like the other abilities?”

“Pfft, nope,” chuckled Janesha. “Cousin Col’s the first Weaver, and by far the most powerful. She can feel emotions all the way out to the boundary of a realm. If anyone had a vested interest in stopping us from finding out about them—say, by mindwiping Eidolon—then she would’ve found them in a heartbeat, and probably sent someone after them to fetch ’em back. That didn’t happen, so whoever it was wasn’t in the realm at the time. Which only makes it weirder.”

“Shit!” exclaimed Taylor. “When we got depowered! I bet it was the other celest, not Sagun! He never had a reason to do it, and Eidolon wasn’t the hybrid we thought he was!”

“And I’d bet a large amount of money they were behind whoever blew Coil’s head off when you were going after him,” Danny added. “All the crap that’s been happening behind the scenes, that wasn’t bad luck. That was someone else playing to their own agenda. I’ve seen it far too many times before.”

“Should we warn him?” Taylor looked worried. “If he’s not the bad guy, what if the bad guy comes after him?”

Janesha nodded. “Couldn’t hurt.”

<><>

Sagun

Floating cross-legged in midair, the golden man frowned. Alexandria, otherwise known as Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, had known little more than Doctor Mother and the Number Man. He had taken the time to leave a construct in her office, a physical double of her that would ‘die’ of a simulated heart attack in several hours’ time, so that the mortals of this world would not hinder him in his search. But look as he might, no group of mortals matched the descriptions of Contessa, the Clairvoyant and Doormaker.

So he’d decided to do something else until a clue popped up. Specifically, catch up on his reading. He’d been out of the loop for nearly thirty years. Thirty years worth of comic back issues to read!

It had been almost child’s play to locate a comic store which still held copies going back to when he’d first come to Earth Bet. And now, as the store ebbed and flowed with more customers than the shop had seen in years, he floated in midair with comics suspended around him, their pages turning of their own accord. It occurred to him that Earlafaol comic book companies probably had a far greater output than what he was reading right now, and that alone almost convinced him to seek out Lady Janesha and ask her to contact Lady Columbine on the instant … but no. I have a job to do, and I can’t do it from there. These will have to do for me right now.

Just as he was getting into the latest multi-issue arc, a flash of silver caught his eye. Turning his head and slowing his personal time rate, he saw that a small silver bird had come in through the wall of the shop, arrowing its way directly toward him, moving faster than any avian had a right to. As he looked more closely, he saw that its wings were not moving.

Just for a moment, Sagun suspected an attack of sorts. But his combat sense immediately informed him that there was no danger inherent in the bird-shaped construct, so he relaxed. It flew around his head once, then landed on his shoulder.

“So what are you?” he wondered. “Why are you here?”

As if it had heard him—and maybe it had—it answered his question, in a way.

Opening its beak, it spoke in familiar tones. “Greetings to Sagun from Janesha of Mystal," it said. “Just so you know, we’ve ended the Slaughterhouse Nine and killed everyone but Bonesaw and Burnscar. I’ve depowered both of those, but they need extensive therapy, so I was hoping you would be okay with me sending them over to Cousin Col. I just wanted to check with you before I went through with it."

He pursed his lips. He kinda wanted to get mad over the destruction of the Nine, but really, they’d just been a bunch of derivative villains anyway. The only way they could’ve been any more edgelord Nineties would be if he’d had them wearing pouches everywhere and carrying unfeasibly large guns. And he was feeling too good about Edeena being okay (even if she was there and he was here) to be upset with Janesha.

Putting his hand on the bird, he figured out how to erase the message and replace it with one of his own. “Sure,” he said idly. “But just those two.” A tap of his finger on the bird’s head sent it flying northward again, passing through the wall of the shop once more.

He didn’t even care that phone cameras all around were clicking almost nonstop as he turned back toward his array of comics. That, of course, was when the golden bird came through the wall.

Okay, what does she want now? he wondered. She can’t have any more mortals. It’s the principle of the thing.

The bird landed on his shoulder, and its beak opened. This time, Janesha sounded somewhat more flustered. “If you haven’t caught up with Contessa, Doormaker or the Clairvoyant now, it’s probably because one or more of them is a celestial. Dunno where from, but there’s a ranged mindbender involved. Just thought you should know.”

The comic books fell to the floor. Unmindful of the store owner’s pained cry, Sagun extended his legs down until he was standing. He stared at the golden bird. Alexandria had said it was Contessa’s idea to feed bits of Edeena to everyone. Up until now, he'd taken it as a bloodthirsty idea from a stupid mortal. Now ...

“Fucking WHAT?”

 Part 22