Celestial Worm Pt 22 (Patreon)

Part 22: Danger Close

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Taylor

The golden bird returned, the same way it had gone. Taylor watched as it came through the wall, circled Janesha once, then landed on her shoulder. And then, between one eyeblink and the next, Sagun was there as well.

“What the hell do you mean, one of them’s a celestial mindbender?” he demanded. “When were you going to fill me in on that little tiny detail?”

“I just did,” Janesha said. “For fuck’s sake, chill. We only pieced that all together a few minutes ago. Well, okay, it was Taylor who figured it out.”

Sagun’s attention turned to Taylor. “Are you certain about this? I mean, really certain?”

Taylor swallowed to get over her nerves. “As sure as I can be. When Janesha was trying to catch up to you, we realised a celestial was messing with us so we thought it was you. Then, when she was interrogating Eidolon, a mindbender wiped information out of his mind and we thought it was you again. Once we found Cauldron and called Lady Col in and you turned up, we were too busy to think about all the aspects of the situation. But afterward, while we were dealing with Bonesaw and Burnscar, I thought about it and realised that it couldn’t have been you after all. So there’s another celest around here somewhere. Maybe two or three. And they’re hiding.”

“Well, no, of course it wasn’t me.” He paused. “What do you mean, hiding?”

“We mean, keeping out of plain sight,” Janesha said. “There’s no power in Creation that can keep people off Lady Columbine’s Weaver senses if she’s in the same realm, so they must’ve ducked out of the realm when she showed up. Otherwise, with the fact that they clearly aren’t friendly toward us, she would’ve let us know, and probably sent a few gryps to bring ’em back.”

“And you think it’s the Cauldron members who’ve dropped out of sight.” Sagun grimaced. “What do you think they’re doing here?”

“Nothing good.” Janesha rubbed her chin. “It can’t be anything to do with me, because I only just got here, and you and Edeena have been here for what, thirty years?”

“Near enough,” agreed Sagun. “It can’t just be because we showed up. I mean, if they’d said this was their realm and to move along, we would’ve. The last thing we wanted to do was pick a fight with other celestials.”

“Wait a second,” Taylor objected. “Janesha, didn’t you tell me it takes centuries or millennia to draw a boundary around a realm? Sagun, how long did it take you, if you’ve only been here thirty years?”

Sagun looked at Janesha, then at Taylor. “Only about six months. Why? What do you mean, centuries?”

“Six months?” exploded Janesha. “You’ve got to be shitting me! This isn’t exactly a huge realm, but it’s not that tiny either! How in the name of the Twin Notes did you do it so fast?”

“Oh, it was easy.” Sagun shrugged. “We just followed the one that was … already … there …”

A long silence followed the trailing off of his voice, then he and Janesha face-palmed in perfect unison. He turned to her, and in a voice that begged to be proven wrong, asked quietly, “We redrew our line over someone else’s boundary, didn’t we?”

“Ya think?” She looked him dead in the eye. “Of all the fucking idiots!”

“So why is it that they haven’t shown up in the meantime to give Sagun his marching orders?” asked Danny. “Or even in the beginning? Would they have even known he was there?”

“Well, they knew Lady Col was coming, so I’d be astonished if they didn’t … wait a minute.” Taylor held up a finger. “They knew Lady Col was coming.”

“Well, yes,” Janesha said. “We’ve already established that. What’s your point?”

Taylor shook her head. “No, no, no. How did they know they should get out of the realm to avoid being detected by her Weaver power?”

“The one called the Clairvoyant was probably listening in on you,” Sagun offered, his tone all but saying duh. “The one called Doormaker’s probably the one—”

“No, no,” Taylor interrupted him, clenching her fists on either side of her head. “Even if they heard the name ‘Columbine’, how did they know to leave? How did they know ahead of time she’d be able detect them once she got here? Because I can guarantee nobody was thinking about it before Janesha made the blood-link.”

“They know her,” Danny said into the silence that followed. “They know her, and they consider her to be the enemy. Somehow.”

Janesha shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. Nobody hates Cousin Col. I mean, you guys have met her. Could you hate her?”

“Well, true,” Taylor conceded. She looked at her father. “You should meet her sometime. She takes ‘nice’ and turns it into an art form. If she’s got an enemy, it’s because they don’t know her.”

“They could be scared of her,” ventured Sagun. He frowned as everyone looked at him, but continued. “If they know she’s Mystallian, and they think Mystallians have something against them …” He paused. “Wait. If they were hybrids, and they knew of her Weaver ability, and they were scared that she’d treat them the same way all celestials treat hybrids, would that be a good reason for them to duck and cover?”

“How do celestials treat hybrids?” asked Danny. “Why would they be scared?”

“Your average celestial will kill any hybrid he encounters,” Janesha said, her voice flat and hard. “Because they’re dangerous as fuck.”

“If they can be killed by the average celestial, they can’t be all that dangerous,” Danny said. “Or am I missing something? Because this is starting to sound just a little bit racist.”

“Not on their own, not usually,” conceded Janesha. “But here’s how it goes. Hybrids have the vigor and lifespan of a celestial and the rate of breeding of a mortal. Power for power, they can’t stand up to the average celestial. But. Because they have both a mortal soul and a celestial component, they can believe in themselves, and end up with near-godly power. Which works anywhere, because they are their own worshipper.”

“As opposed to any other god, who leaves their power behind when they go to another realm.” Danny nodded. “I got that.”

“Good.” Janesha took a deep breath. “So. Imagine this. Some god decides he wants to invade the next realm over. So he goes down and impregnates ten thousand mortal women. Twenty years later, a long weekend by our standards, he’s got ten thousand hybrid warriors. He trains each of them to believe that they and their brothers are immortal, impervious to damage, can throw fire from their fingertips, fly through the air, whatever. One day later, the next realm over is facing a wave of ten thousand soldiers, any ten of which can surround and pull down any one celestial and hack them to pieces.” She paused for a beat. “That shit has happened at least once. Maybe more. So now, hybrids are destroyed whenever they’re found.”

“Holy shit,” murmured Taylor, rubbing her arms. “That sounds terrifying. Even if a hybrid just wants to be left alone …”

“… nobody can take the chance,” Janesha finished.

“But when you thought Eidolon was a hybrid, you were gonna leave him alone,” Taylor pointed out.

“Wait, you thought Eidolon was a hybrid?” Sagun stared at Janesha. “Whose kid did you think he was?”

Janesha and Taylor looked back at him. It took him a moment to get it.

“What?” He shook his head. “Oh, hell no! That big-nosed git? You thought he was mine? No, whatever he had, it wasn’t from me.”

“We know that now,” Janesha said ruefully. “It just sounded good at the time.”

“Okay, all that aside, celestials kill hybrids because they might be a danger.” Danny put a certain pitch and spin on the word. “In my experience, the quickest way to ensure someone becomes dangerous is to treat them like they’re expected to become dangerous. But I’m not going to try to dictate policy to a bunch of celestials. I prefer to go my entire life without being struck by lightning, thank you very much.”

“Wow, way to profile us, Danny Hebert,” Janesha said with a snort. “Not every celestial uses lightning to smite mortals. Lord Poseidon uses really big waves, for instance. And Lord Loki would pull pranks on you that would make you wish you were merely struck by lightning.”

“Yeah, yeah, we got it.” Taylor looked at Sagun. “So you think the other celestials might actually be hybrids, hiding from you and Janesha and Lady Columbine because of the intolerance?”

“It’s the only explanation that makes any kind of sense,” Sagun confirmed. His expression hardened. “Of course, they also kept Edeena prisoner and fed bits of her to mortals to give them powers, so I’m not exactly mindful to be forgiving to them.”

“People do very rash things when they’re scared,” Danny observed. “Not excusing their actions in the slightest, but can you imagine being them, going about their business, when in pops a celestial? They can’t run and hide fast enough, so they attack and subdue her. They don’t want to kill her, or maybe they can’t, so the next best thing they can think of is to carve away pieces of her essence and store it in mortals. Stupid, cruel, and entirely uncalled for, but that’s panic for you.”

“Panic?” hissed Janesha, flames entirely overtaking her eyesockets. “Panic? Once, I can imagine. Twice, even. But over and over for thirty years? That’s not panic, Danny. That’s systematic torture.”

“Humans have done worse to each other for a lot longer, and for even less valid reasons.” Danny’s voice was quiet. “It’s not justified. They need to be punished for it. I was just trying to figure out why.”

“I don’t need to know why,” the young celestial snapped. “I just need to know who and where. So me and Sagun can go and beat their asses.”

“I thought you were tolerant toward hybrids,” objected Taylor.

“This’s got nothing to do with intolerance toward hybrids,” Janesha snarled. “It’s got everything to do with intolerance toward asshole douchebags who think it’s a good idea to cut up a fellow celestial and feed her to mortals.”

“Well. we’ve dismantled their organisation and we know what they look like, so that’s a start,” Taylor ventured, trying to bring the conversation down to a more comfortable level.

“Unless they’re shifters as well as benders,” Sagun noted. “If they’ve got people around them as camouflage and they’re wearing other faces, it would be really tricky to pick them out.”

Janesha gave him the finger. “Yeah, thanks for giving them ideas, smart guy. You know they’re almost certainly listening in on us right now.”

“So what was that about calling them asshole douchebags earlier?” asked Taylor. “If they’re listening now, they were listening then.”

“That’s different.” Janesha glanced around the room, as if expecting to find the members of Cauldron hiding behind the sofa. “I want ’em to know I think they’re the scum of creation, and that I will be coming after them. They’re scared of Mystallians? I’ll give ‘em a realm-damned reason to be.”

“Um, okay, but before you go off on your roaring rampage of revenge, how about we get these two sorted out?” Taylor indicated Bonesaw and Burnscar. “I’m pretty sure Dad doesn’t want them sitting on the couch for the next week.”

“If we could get them off my couch in the next ten minutes, I’ll be even happier,” Danny responded.

Janesha sighed. “Fine. We’ll do that first.”

<><>

Contessa

“Can we go back yet?”

Fortuna reached out without looking and backhanded Dorian so that his head bounced off the wall behind him. “Not until I say so. Clare?”

Sitting across from them in the corner table of the inn, chosen because of the depth of the shadows there, Clare concentrated. “Scion’s reading comic books. The little Mystallian cow’s just finished off the Nine with her two mortal pets. No, wait, they left two alive.”

“Get. To. The. Point,” gritted Fortuna. She knew it wasn’t time to go back yet, but she wanted to know why.

“Ah. Yeah, she’s going to depower them, then hand them over to the ‘faolian bitch.” If Clare could’ve rolled his eyes, he would have. “I don’t even get that. Why keep them alive?”

“All right then.” Fortuna didn’t bother trying to answer the question. Janesha had clearly been infected by the mortals. Leaving an enemy alive behind you was the height of idiocy. It was why the Mystallians were going to lose. They were too soft-hearted. “Let me know when it’s over and done.”

Raising her hand, she beckoned the serving wench over. It was easy to make the woman believe that she’d already been paid, and bring more drinks over. What happened to the wench once the innkeeper discovered that she’d been supplying them with free drinks all evening wasn’t even remotely her problem.

The drink was a little rough on the throat but it had a rich, full taste. Not that it had the slightest chance of getting any of them drunk, of course. But it was as good a way to pass the time as any other.

“So Cauldron’s a wash,” ventured Dorian after they’d half-emptied their second round of drinks. “Eidolon’s dead, Alexandria’s dead, Number Man’s dead, Doctor Mother …”

“I fucking know they’re all dead. I’m the one who told you,” retorted Clare snappishly. “The only—urk!”

“Talk to me in that tone again and I’ll rip your throat out,” Dorian said, his hand around Clare’s neck. Talons emerged from his fingertips and sank into the soft flesh behind Clare’s windpipe. “Give me a reason. Please.”

“Let him go,” Fortuna said after taking another drink. “The only what?”

The wounds left in Clare’s throat closed up a moment after Dorian released him, leaving blood trails down his neck. He ignored them. “The only one left of that bunch is Legend, and he knew barely half the shit the rest were up to. Scion’s decided to wimp out and be Janesha’s friend, so now we’re gonna need a new bunch of patsies. But who the fuck is left on that realms-forsaken rock that’s powerful enough to kill her?”

The idea unfolded in Fortuna’s head so neatly and cleanly that she could only wonder how long it had been germinating. “Scion,” she said softly.

Dorian and Clare looked at her. Or rather, Dorian looked at her and Clare turned his face in her direction, the grimy rag still covering his eyesockets. “I don’t understand,” Dorian said eventually, his voice carefully pitched to not sound disbelieving. “Are we going to puppet him? Because—”

“You’re not listening,” Fortuna interrupted. She glanced at the other people in the inn, imparting to them the understanding that nothing unusual was happening at the corner table. Then her features began to shift. Pulling mass from the table, she bulked out in her seat and altered her clothing until Scion himself sat before them. When she spoke, her voice was a couple of octaves lower. “Scion can kill her.”

Dorian’s eyes widened as he finally got the idea. Clare’s jaw dropped. They looked at each other, then back at her.

“She won’t even see it coming,” Dorian realised. “Because they’re all friendly now.” He made the word sound disgusting. Which to them, it was. Friendship didn’t have a place in their world. It made a celestial weak, vulnerable to being stabbed in the back. They valued it in others, though. It made it easier for a stab in the back when the time came.

“She might,” murmured Fortuna, changing back to her original form. “We can’t guarantee that she won’t see through the disguise at the last minute. Especially with that mortal pet she keeps lugging around.”

The other two nodded. Inconvenient mortal witnesses were the worst.

“So we need more patsies, to keep her occupied until it’s too late.” Clare smiled evilly. “And I’ve got three that are perfect for our needs.”

“Oh, really?” Fortuna leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

<><>

Two Days Later

Christine Mathers fumed silently as she put gasoline into her car. While she’d gotten away from the compound before anyone suspected her powers were gone, there was a good chance that they were coming after her now. Just as she’d never gone easy on anyone who wanted to cut ties with the Fallen, neither would they give her a break.

The worst thing was, she still had no idea who’d done it, and how to go about getting them back. For all her online digging on motel wi-fi … nothing. She was at a dead end, and she knew it. And if they caught her, she’d go straight in with the breeders.

Fuck that.

She knew all too well that if Elijah was with her pursuers when they caught up, fighting wouldn’t even be an option. So she just had to not get caught before she got her powers back.

Walking inside, she approached the counter. It grated at her that she actually had to pay money to these walking wastes of oxygen and genetic material. However, she knew that driving off without paying was a prime way to get caught and pinned down into one place. So she prepared to part with a little more of her dwindling resources, just so she could get a little farther.

It was only when she got to the counter that she realised that the attendant was absent on some task or another. Hissing breath between her teeth in exasperation, she settled down to wait. Every minute was a minute that the pursuit grew closer.

Idly glancing down at the counter, she felt a chill race up her spine. A padded envelope sat there, with her name scrawled across it in cheap marker. Not even ‘Christine’ but ‘Mama Mathers’. Eyes widening, she stared around her, looking for the trap. Had they gotten here ahead of her?

When she looked back at the counter, the envelope was still there, and she heard a noise in the back room. Grabbing up the envelope, she shoved it in her bag. The attendant, a young woman, emerged and said, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’d like to pay for gas.” If the woman wasn’t going to mention the envelope, neither was Christine.

The attendant hit buttons and told her it would be thirty-one forty. Not even caring about the money now, she paid. What was in the envelope?

Back in the car, she drove for a few miles then pulled off into a side-road, moving until she was fully out of sight of the highway. Then she pulled the envelope out of the bag. Careful pressing with her fingertips revealed that whatever was in it was a few inches long and cylindrical.

Her heart rate quickened, and she tore the end off the envelope, then fished out the contents. It was a vial, not the same as the one she’d gotten from Cauldron back in the day, but containing a murky fluid all the same. Holding up the envelope, she looked inside to see if there was anything more, and found a piece of paper, folded once. Once she got it out and unfolded it, her eyes widened again.

THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE IS JANESHA OF MYSTAL.

SHE LIVES IN BROCKTON BAY.

KILL HER AND ALL YOUR PROBLEMS GO AWAY.

Barely able to keep her hands stead, she shook up the vial (she remembered that much) and then downed the contents. They burned all the way down; that was also something she recalled.

The next bit wasn’t fun, either. But then, it hadn’t been, the first time around.

<><>

William Manton

“I’m hungry.”

The soft voice of the woman in the passenger seat nearly went unheard, but William knew what she’d said. More and more, he was beginning to regret picking her up, but she was a part of the old team.

The last part, if the news report was anything to go by. After William’s powers had deserted him, someone had cornered Jack and the rest of the crew and … destroyed them. The TV in the diner they’d shared a meal in, a hundred miles back, had shown teasing shots of Jack lying with a look of utter incomprehension with a gaping hole in his chest.

William knew about holes like that. As the Siberian, he had caused all too many of them. Someone had punched their hand into Jack’s chest and torn his heart out in one piece. It was a lot harder to do than most people thought, even for Brutes. The protective sac and the veins and arteries and connective tissue made it very hard to pull off … unless, as once had applied to him, physics was optional.

“We have to save money for gas,” he said. “There should be some jerky in the glove compartment.”

She wrinkled her nose in discontent. “How old is it?”

“Does it matter?” In a sealed pack, jerky survived forever. “It’s something to eat.”

“It’s something to chew.”

“It’s all we’ve got right now.”

With a huff of unhappiness, she opened the glove compartment, then stopped. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” He didn’t look around. Right now, he didn’t even want to look at her. If she’s going to complain about the brand of jerky, I swear to god, I will pull over right now and throw her out of the damn van.

“This.” She held up something yellow and square in his peripheral vision. “It’s got our names on it.”

Now he turned his head and saw what she was talking about. It was a padded envelope, with SIBERIAN & SHATTERBIRD on it.

“What the hell? Where did you get that from?”

“The glove compartment!” She pointed at him accusingly. “Where you told me to look!”

“It wasn’t there the last time I looked!” He turned his attention back to the road and pulled off into a gas station parking lot. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know!” She held it out at arm’s length, gripping it with her fingertips at two corners as though she was terrified it might bite. “What if it’s a bomb? What if Jack left it in there in case you ever decided to abandon him?”

He snorted. “Don’t be an idiot. Jack didn’t know about me.” At least, he thought Jack hadn’t. There had been the occasional knowing look at the Siberian, but those could’ve meant anything. “You certainly didn’t. How could he even predict that we would end up surviving his death?”

The look on her face when he’d explained who he was had amused him for hours.

“I suppose …” She handed the envelope over to him. “You open it. It was in your glove compartment.”

“Fine,” he snapped, and grabbed it off her. Tearing open the end, he reached inside and pulled out … two vials, each wrapped in bubble-wrap. On one was written, in the same scrawled hand, SIBERIAN and on the other SHATTERBIRD.

“What …” Her eyes went wide. “Are those …”

Belatedly, he recalled that she’d been slipped her original Cauldron formula without ever seeing the vial. “Yes, they are,” he said. “Do you want yours?”

Almost reluctantly, she reached out and took the one with her name on it. “Are you going to take yours?”

“I’m not sure,” William said, though he knew he was lying. “Are you?”

“Will they give us the same powers?”

He gave that question the sneer it deserved. “How in God’s name am I supposed to know that? I studied the things, I didn’t colour-code them.”

“Oh.” She gave the liquid a little shake, watching the sediment swirl around. “Do they taste bad?”

“They taste utterly horrific,” he said with a nasty chuckle. “It’s a good thing you haven’t eaten anything. This way you haven’t got anything to throw up.”

“Oh.” She grimaced. “What happens if you only drink part of one?”

He rolled his eyes. “Imagine if that vial you’re holding allowed you to burst into flames and fly through the air. Now imagine that you only drink the part that allows you to burst into flames, not the bit that protects you from the flames you are generating.” He’d seen almost exactly that happen, more than once. It hadn’t been pretty.

“Okay, all or nothing then.” She took a deep breath, looking at the vial. “I just want to know why.”

“Why what?” he asked, shaking up his vial.

“Why we’ve been given them. What’s the point? What does whoever gave them to us get out of this?”

That was actually a valid question. He paused his preparations and looked into the envelope. Within was a piece of paper which, when unfolded, had three lines of writing on it.

THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE IS JANESHA OF MYSTAL.

SHE LIVES IN BROCKTON BAY.

KILL HER AND ALL YOUR PROBLEMS GO AWAY.

“Hmm …” He showed her the note. “Does that answer your question?”

“I suppose,” she answered. “So now we have to kill someone?”

“Do you have a problem with killing someone to make all your problems go away?” he asked facetiously.

She snorted with laughter and shook up her vial. “Not a one.”

“Good.” He copied her motion, then worked the cork free. The contents of the vial didn’t smell any better than they normally did. “Ready?”

Nodding seriously, she opened her vial as well. “Ready.”

“Cheers.” He tipped the vial back, emptying its contents down his throat.

“Cheers.”

<><>

A Day After That

“I seriously do not believe I can’t find any other celestials in this realm!” Janesha stomped back and forth in the living room while Taylor sat on the sofa, watching her. “Even when I use the trick you thought of, nothing happens!”

“Well. you’ve only been at it a couple of days,” Taylor reminded her. “After Cloudstrike kicked a hole in her stable wall, she needed that good long ride you gave her.”

Taylor shuddered. The neighbours had been convinced that a minor earthquake had happened. Fortunately, Janesha had been able to repair the damage. Even more fortunately, the kick hadn’t busted through into the neighbour’s basement. Since then, Janesha had taken to sending Cloudstrike out to take flights on her own, knowing the mystallion would come back when she felt like it.

“Yeah, but two days should’ve easily been enough time.” Janesha was still simmering. “And your trick should’ve worked!”

“Well, I only suggested it because the birds worked,” Taylor said. “How come they did and the homing confetti didn’t?”

Janesha snorted. “Trust you to give it a name like that.”

In theory, it had been a simple idea. Janesha had created hundreds of tiny paperlike discs and given them all two simple properties. They were to travel directly toward any attuned celestials who weren’t Sagun, and send back a signal once they reached that celestial.

In practice, Janesha had tossed the confetti into the air and the pieces had fluttered to the ground. In accordance to the ‘programming’ she’d given them, once they reached the floor and stopped moving, they all sent back a signal. This had not improved her mood, especially by the third failed attempt.

“Okay, is there a chance they’re not attuned?” asked Taylor. “Maybe that’s why it’s not working.”

“Petal, they made that boundary a lot more than thirty years ago. A realm this size? They’re attuned.” Janesha shook her head. “Unless they’re jumping out of the realm every time I do anything that might find them … but they’d find that really annoying. I know I would. Anyway, I’ve been leaving the confetti active. Either they’re out of the realm and staying that way, or they’ve got a workaround.”

“Okay, you’re the celestial and not me.” Taylor looked questioningly at her friend. “Is there any way you can be attuned but suppress it?”

Janesha snorted. “Hardly. Attuned is attuned. You might as well carry around a lit flashlight at night. I mean, a seclusion ring would do it, but nobody in their right mind does it because it also suppresses … bender … abilities …” Slowly, her voice trailed off and she slapped her own forehead. “Son of a bitch! Fucking seclusion rings!”

“Okay, can we back up a little and remember there’s a clueless mortal in the room?” asked Taylor. “What’s a seclusion ring, and why didn’t you think of one until now?”

“Because ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they’re used as a punishment.” Janesha ran her hands through her hair. “They utterly negate any bender abilities for the wearer, and prevent benders from even detecting them, let alone affecting them. But they also cut you off from your attunement as a side effect, which sucks. I wasn’t even thinking of that until you pointed it out.”

“What about the one percent of the time?” Taylor was just curious now. “Why would people wear it if it’s not a punishment?”

“To hide. You lose all power except your innate ability, but no one can find you either.”

“Oh.” Taylor blinked. “So you figure they’re all wearing the seclusion rings, to hide from you? Are they hard to get?”

That made Janesha pause. “They’re not easy to get, especially if you’re a hybrid,” she admitted. “But if you’re as sneaky as these ones seem to be, it’s not impossible either. Anyway, they’ve either bolted altogether or they’re hiding out behind seclusion rings. There’s really no third choice.”

“And you think they’re still here.” Taylor raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

“They’re clearly willing to push back from behind the scenes.” Janesha flipped her hand casually. “Murdering Coil, mindwiping Eidolon, depowering you and your dad. If they weren’t invested in this place, they would’ve folded their tents and snuck off into the night the moment they realised I was here. Hell, they would’ve done it the second they knew Sagun and Edeena were in the realm. But they’ve put a lot of effort into maintaining their grip on the place.”

“You think maybe destroying Cauldron will make them change their minds?” asked Taylor. “Convince them that it’s too much trouble to stay here?”

“Pfft, no.” Janesha shook her head. “Those idiots were just mortals. To people like that, mortals are basically interchangeable. I’ll admit that losing their own private essence well is gonna sting ’em a bit, but you know we don't need that to give mortals power. You’re as tough as they come, and you didn’t nom down on any bits of celestial.”

Taylor shuddered. “Thank goodness. Though the powers I do have are from Sagun’s side of things, right?”

“Yup.” Janesha grinned. “They’re all consensual.”

Crossing her eyes, Taylor stuck her tongue out at her friend. “That sounds dirty and wrong. He’s older than Dad.”

“Hey, you’re the one whose mind went there. And ninety-nine point nine percent of all celestials you’re ever going to meet are older than human civilization on Earlafaol. Age differences aren’t really frowned on, once someone reaches adulthood. Hell, anyone who’s less than a thousand is considered to be in my age group.”

Taylor couldn’t argue with that, so she cut back to the original question. “So if they’re wearing seclusion rings, how do we find them?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, petal. There is no shortcut.” Janesha shook her head in frustration. “We can keep looking, but if they’ve got any shifter blood at all, they can be wearing any face they like. The absolute only way I’m gonna find them is if they do something stupid, which they haven’t done yet, or if I literally run into them on the street and try to mindbend them and it doesn’t work.”

Taylor blinked. Wait, is it that easy?

“You’re right,” she said. “It looks like they’re smarter than the both of us put together.” Lifting her hand casually, she tapped the side of her forehead.

A moment later, the living room shifted and reformed into … well, the living room. “Okay, we’re in your head,” Janesha said, raising her eyebrows. “What bright idea have you come up with now?”

“Okay, you can create constructs, right? Can you make a construct that’s more or less impossible to see, hear or feel? Like an invisible speck of dust?”

“Sure,” Janesha said cautiously. “But why?”

“So you make six billion of them, and tell them to seek out every person on earth. Every last living person. They wouldn’t differentiate between celests and humans, correct?”

Janesha frowned. “I can’t see why they would. Especially if I gave it such broad range. So what’s this construct supposed to do?”

“Every time one of these smart dust particles lands on a new person, it tries to do a basic touch-mindbend on them. Look into their memory from one second ago, or something as trivial as that. And if it can’t, it sends a signal back to you, showing its exact location.”

For almost twenty seconds, Janesha stared at her. Then she facepalmed. “Motherfucker!” she snarled. “Taylor, are you sure you’re not a really, really sneaky celestial? I would never have thought of something like that in a million fucking years. And no, I’m not exaggerating for effect there.”

Taylor felt a flush of pleasure and she tried to hide a smile. “I guess it’s part of the mortal condition. We don’t have all the extra capabilities that a celest gets, so we have to figure out workarounds.”

“Yeah, got it.” Janesha frowned. “I’m mostly sure I can make it so the dust motes don’t get detected by celestial senses, but the instant they light up and transmit back to me, they’ll be picked up. If they’ve got any shifter ability, they’ll be able to destroy the dust motes more or less instantly, so I’ll only get a flicker of a signal. And they’ll know they’ve been pinged, so they’ll be on their guard. Plus, they’ll probably move to another location. But this’ll give me a really good starting point.”

Taylor grinned. “Cool. So, how are we doing this?”

“Hmm.” Janesha scratched her chin for a moment. “Okay, how about this. We go out for a stroll on the boardwalk. I release the dust particles. As soon as we get a signal, I realm-step there and get in their faces while you get a bus home.”

“Whoa, whoa, time out.” Taylor tapped the palm of one hand on the fingertips of the other. “Great plan, right up until you got to the part about going on without me. We’re a team, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re a mortal, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Janesha grimaced at the expression on Taylor’s face. “Look, petal, there’ll be three maybe-celests right there. I’m not sure if I can deal with them and protect you at the same time.”

“I’m damn sure you can’t deal with them and watch your back at the same time,” Taylor snapped. “You said they’re hybrids, right? They’ll have seclusion rings on, so they won’t be able to do bender shit, and I can hurt them if I punch them because of intent. That just leaves shifter shenanigans. Can you handle a hybrid in a shifting contest? More to the point, can you handle three hybrids in a shifting contest?”

“One, yeah.” Janesha’s jaw firmed. “Three … that might be pushing it a little.”

“So bring in Sagun,” Taylor said promptly. “Two full celests plus one improved mortal versus three hybrids. And he’s attuned, and probably established, given all the damn powers he has—”

“Yeah, he’s established.” Slowly, Janesha nodded. “And yeah, he’ll jump at that in a heartbeat. Okay, as soon as we get to where they are, I’ll let a bird go, telling him where we are and to get his golden ass to our location.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Taylor said happily. “Let’s do it.”

Janesha dropped them out of the internalisation. Three seconds later, the windows blew in.

<><>

Contessa

A Little Earlier

“Okay, they’re heading toward Brockton Bay, and they’ve all got motel rooms,” Clare said. “What do we do now?”

Fortuna finished prepping the second envelope. “Dorian, give me a doorway to the middle of each room, letterbox sized. Work with Clare to make sure they’ll see these when they go through.”

“I love it when you pull shit like this,” Dorian said with an evil grin. “What’s in them?”

“Pictures of the Hebert house, and a warning to get ready.” Fortuna shrugged. “This way, they don’t ever see our faces, so if anyone mindbends them, we’re some random people who pointed them at Janesha. No faces, and no hint of who we really are.”

Just the way we like it, she didn’t bother saying. She knew they were both thinking it.

Dorian nodded. “And in a couple of minutes, give them Doorways to the house?”

“Now you’re getting it. Now shut the fuck up and give me the openings to put these things through.”

Reaching out, Dorian took Clare’s hand. Fortuna knew they could form the link without touching, but it was easier this way. A moment later, two slots appeared in the air in front of her; without a moment’s hesitation, she slid a letter through each one in turn. The slots vanished again.

“Now we wait?” asked Dorian.

Fortuna nodded. “Now we wait until Clare tells us they’ve read both letters.”

<><>

Mama Mathers

Christine stretched out on the bed, ignoring the musty cheap-motel smell. For her it was free rather than cheap, for which she’d ignore quite a lot of problems. She also had a lot more money than she’d had earlier, thanks to the oh-so-helpful guy at the front counter.

The vial hadn’t restored her powers exactly, which was a pain. Still, it was a pain she could deal with. She could still access peoples’ senses once she’d been noticed by them, but instead of messing with those senses she could force them to do things, and she had the choice of letting them remember it or erasing it from their memory. Thus, the shithead at the front counter had opened the cash drawer and handed over all the big bills there, then closed it and not remembered a damn thing about it, much less handing the room key over to her.

To cover that little peccadillo, she intended to wait until he went home that night and make him slaughter his family in various inventive ways, and force him to remember everything. That should drive him far enough out of his mind to forget all about checking room forty-three.

Closing her eyes, she pictured his anguish and smiled lazily. Oh, I missed being able to reach out and fuck with people.

Something hit her in the middle of the stomach, and her eyes popped open again. “Hey, what the hell?” As she half sat up, an envelope slid off her stomach onto the bed. She looked around with some confusion, wondering if some asshole had taped the envelope to the ceiling or something.

Then she looked at the envelope proper, and saw her name scrawled in the same marker pen as before. This had been done by whoever had left the vial of powers for her. She had a better idea of who it was, now.

Theoretically, anyone could’ve left that padded envelope for her. But she knew of only a few people who both had access to power vials and could teleport envelopes into thin air. And those people were both unforgiving of mistakes and had been wiped from her internal database of people she could fuck with using her powers.

Which meant she was stuck following their directives for the moment. This was slightly galling, but for the moment she was good with it. Killing the little bitch who had cost her her powers and (potentially) her place in the Fallen was a worthy objective.

If they wanted to keep using her as a patsy after this, however, there would need to be some changes in the arrangement. I’m Mama Mathers. I give orders. I don’t take them.

Right now, though, she had an envelope to deal with. Ripping the end off, she shook out a photograph of a house and a simple note. BE READY.

Rolling off the bed, she reached for her shoes.

<><>

William Manton

“Where did you say it came from?” Shatterbird was looking at the envelope with extreme suspicion.

William didn’t blame her. She’d never interacted with Cauldron in her life. “It got dropped out of a hole in midair. I saw it.” He sighed. “That’s a trademark move of the people I got my powers from in the first place, and of the people that those who slipped the formula to you in the first place got your powers from. I suspected it was them, but I wasn’t sure. Now I know.”

“And what does that mean?” Now that she had … well, not her powers back, exactly, but a powerset very like them, she was a lot more confident and willing to question matters. Which was a huge improvement from the whiny child he’d had to endure after the Oregon debacle, but was not something he wanted to deal with right now.

“It means that we open the envelope and do whatever the contents tell us to do.” He tore it open, and removed the contents. “Okay, now we know where Janesha is going to be. Get ready.”

“For what?” She put her hands on her hips.

He wanted to smack her, but he didn’t want to have to kill her, so he refrained. “I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect we’re going to be going on the attack.”

“Oh. You could’ve said so.” She concentrated and changed, becoming a woman made of glass, with a thousand razor-sharp shards orbiting around her. The motel room windows blew in, adding their mass to hers, giving her gorgeous wings.

Manton also changed, his form altering to the black and white striped image of the Siberian that had terrified a nation for a decade. His shape was more androgynous than female in this new incarnation, but he could live with that.

Barely had he finished altering his form when a doorway silently opened before the two of them. Through it, he saw a concrete sidewalk. “Time to earn our keep.”

They stepped through onto the driveway of a house in the middle of suburbia. Directly across the street was the structure that they’d been given a photo of. Oddly enough, though he’d been holding both photo and note when they stepped through, neither item was in existence now. Not that it mattered. He knew where their target was.

“You too, huh?”

He and Shatterbird looked around at the voice. It was a wispy-looking woman of uncertain age; he would’ve taken her as a housewife with extremely unfortunate timing, except for the words and the fact that she was staring across the street with almost unsettling intensity.

“And you are?” he asked bluntly.

“Mama Mathers, of the Fallen. The little bitch in that house over there took my powers away, but now I’ve got more.” It was impossible to miss the bitterness in the woman’s voice. “I think we need to go and fuck her up.”

Shatterbird smiled. Her voice, when she spoke, was all sharp-edged chandeliers chiming. “Let’s do that thing.”

They strode across the street, ignoring the possibility of traffic. When they reached the curb, Shatterbird waved her hand and all the windows of the house blew in, filling the interior space with a howling maelstrom of razor shards. William stepped up to the front door and smashed it open without breaking stride. Mama Mathers followed him in, and Shatterbird flew in through a now-open window.

Two teenage girls, apparently unharmed by the barrage of glass splinters, stared back at them. Their clothing looked somewhat the worse for wear, and the rest of the interior of the house had been utterly trashed.

“What the fuck?” yelled the taller girl. She stepped forward to throw a punch at Shatterbird. “This is my house, you bitch!”

With a sneer, Shatterbird put her hand up to catch the inexpert blow. The girl’s fist shattered her hand and continued through to drive into her torso. Explosive cracks radiated everywhere through her body, and she disintegrated into chunks and shards of glass. With a look of extreme astonishment on her crystalline features, she fell to the floor in bits and pieces. All the floating pieces of glass dropped to the floor.

Okay, I was not expecting that result. William watched as the clothing on both girls reformed itself into pristine quality. “Why did you let that happen?” he snapped.

“I tried to stop it!” Mama Mathers retorted, staring intently at the pair. “They’re ignoring my power.”

It was time to bring this to a close. “Okay, which one of you is Janesha of Mystal?”

“That’ll be me,” the darker skinned teen in the black outfit said. “I thought the Siberian was a naked woman, not some twink in a polo shirt.”

“Thank you,” purred William, and lunged forward. Even with his altered powers, he was able to ignore any and all physical laws that he felt like. It didn’t matter how tough this Janesha thought she was, the Siberian was—

<><>

Taylor

“Eww.” Taylor looked down at the headless Siberian, with the head lying a couple of feet away. Like Shatterbird before him, the striped features bore an expression of no, no, this isn’t happening. This doesn’t happen to me. “Did you have to decapitate him with your bare hand? In our living room?”

“I am sick and tired of this shit.” Janesha made the blood vanish from her hand, then folded her arms. “The assholes we want to catch up with are nowhere to be found, and fuckwits I never wanted to meet keep popping out of the woodwork. What the fuck was all this in aid of, anyway?”

“Ahem. I think you missed one.”

They both looked around, as Sagun stepped in through the front door, his hand around the neck of a struggling woman. She was easily recognisable as the one who’d just tried to control their minds.

“Nice one.” Janesha grinned at the golden skinned man. “Who is she, anyway?”

An expression of distaste crossed his features. “Her name’s Mama Mathers. She’s one of the leaders of the Fallen.” He stopped in front of Janesha. “Do you want her, or shall I dispose of her?”

“Fuck it.” Janesha waved her hand. “She’s yours. Feel free.”

“As you wish.” Sagun flexed his hand, and there was a distinct crack. Mama Mathers stopped struggling, her features going slack. When he let go, she fell to his feet like a puppet with its strings cut. “She was only another mortal, anyway.”

Taylor’s head came up and she stared at Sagun. That was not how the golden superhero spoke. “Ja—”

Before the second syllable could come out, a blade emerged from Sagun’s hand, driving up and through Janesha’s armoured skin until it burst out her back, just between her shoulderblades. Taylor’s warning turned into a scream, and she went to launch herself forward, but two sets of hands grabbed her from behind, one on the left and one on the right.

“Sh-sh-sh-shhh,” whispered a voice in her ear as a hand clamped over her mouth. “Shut up and watch as she dies. As your precious hero kills her.”

Desperately, Taylor wrenched at the hands gripping her as blood covered Janesha’s costume from the wound in her stomach and cascaded from her mouth. Come on. Do something. Please. But the sudden attack had taken the Mystallian off-guard, and she didn’t seem to be able to respond. Taylor watched the life dimming in her eyes.

With a vicious grin on his lips, Sagun drew back his other hand, which held a second blade. “Goodbye, you troublesome little—”

With a scream of pure fury, wings spread wide, Cloudstrike burst in through the side of the house. Mere mortal matter gave way to enraged celestial power, and the house burst asunder. Taylor felt her captors’ grip torn free, and she tumbled, thrown through the air. But in the midst of the cloud of rubble thrown up by Cloudstrike, she saw Sagun, blade still embedded deep in Janesha’s gut, the other blade preparing to decapitate her.

There was just one thing Taylor could do. It was something she’d been told never to do, over and over, but now she had no other choice.

Clasping her hands together, she clenched her eyes shut and prayed.

Janesha of Mystal, I have faith in you.

 Chapter 23