All Alone Pt 10 (Patreon)

Part Ten: New Kid on the Block

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

I opted to sit in the back seat with Sophia, because that way we could chat on the way to the Market without me getting a crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder all the time. She seemed about the same as she had been the previous day; that is, cheerfully snarky. Despite the previous references to her being dead, it didn't seem to be weighing on her mind. She was very much an in-the-moment sort of person, which I supposed would be a help in that situation.

"Oh, hey," she said when we were halfway to the Market, "do you remember where we stashed my gear, my crossbows and stuff? Maybe we should go grab it before someone else does."

"I think so, too." I frowned, trying to recall precisely which dumpster we'd shoved the rolled-up cape containing Sophia's superhero equipment behind. Letting her weapons (as well as the utility belt, but that was less important) fall into the hands of someone who might use them on innocents was a Bad Idea, in capitals even. "Dad, can we detour?"

"We can do that," he agreed. "Where did you leave it, exactly?"

"I'm trying to think." I leaned back in my seat and scrubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. A memory swam into focus, and I sat forward again. "Davison Street. Or Davidson. I had to check the street sign. That's where we were when I called the ambulance."

"I know Davison," Dad said immediately. "That's a not a great part of town."

"I can kind of remember where I rescued you from," Sophia ventured. "But after that it's kind of a blur, especially toward the end."

I nodded. "Okay. If we maybe go along Davison until I recognise the street corner, then you point Dad toward where they were holding me, I'll try to see if I can recognise any landmarks."

"We can certainly give that a shot," Dad said from the front seat. "Davison's this way." He slowed at the next intersection and turned right. "I'll let you know when we're on it. But if we spot one of the guys who kicked in the door last night, I can't promise not to get out and even the score a little."

"I'll be right there with you, Mr. H," Sophia promised. "I still think I should've ended the lot of them last night. And if I'd known what their buddies were up to, I would've."

Dad nodded. "I can't actually argue with that."

I wanted to object to the talk of violence, but the truth was that I'd been tortured and they'd been murdered by these people. The Merchants had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and they hurt people as a matter of course during their day-to-day activities. Sure, I'd maybe been a little out of line when I chased that one guy with a baseball bat, but burning my eye with a cigarette and going to Dad's house specifically to kill him basically beat up 'out of line' and stole its lunch money.

We rode for awhile in silence, until Dad announced we were on Davison Street. I leaned up close to the window as we rolled through one dingy intersection after the other, trying to spot where the ambulance had picked us up. As my eyes flicked from street signs to buildings to sidewalks, despite my earnest need to find the right place, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering.

The more I thought about it, the more Sophia's attitude made sense. I was through being Miss Nice Girl. If the Merchants wanted to sell drugs to kids, torture teenage girls for the fun of it and murder the families of vigilantes, then fuck 'em. What they were going to face from here on in was going to be a lot worse than a scared teenager with a baseball bat.

"Hey," I said hurriedly, tamping down thoughts of bloody revenge as a vaguely familiar sight caught my eye. "I think this is it."

Dad turned the corner and stopped the car, but he insisted on half-stepping out and surveying the area before letting me get out. There was nobody around that we could see, but that meant nothing. Sophia stepped up onto the hood and crouched there, watchful and silent.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Dad.

"Yeah." I checked for traffic, of which there was none, and crossed the narrow street with Dad close behind. If any shit at all went down, I was poised to go into the shadow realm, powering Dad and Sophia up to fight our way out of this. Nothing of the sort eventuated, and I peered up at a street sign, then down at a dark blotch on the sidewalk. "That's Sophia's blood. She was bleeding to death right there while I was calling for the ambulance and waiting for it to get here." When I stepped over next to the blotch and knelt down, everything fitted my memories perfectly.

"Okay, then." He led the way back to the car. As I got into the back seat, Sophia slid off the hood and climbed in on the other side. "Now, I'm going to need the both of you to guide me. Which way to the hideout they were using?"

Before I answered, I dropped into the shadow realm for just a moment and looked around. The all-pervading darkness made the scene look eerily similar to the way it had last night, but I wasn't looking at that. Where I would normally have thought the area abandoned, I saw brain-constellations here and there. Some were lying down, but others were standing, and a few seemed to be moving in our direction.

"Pretty sure it's that direction," Sophia said, pointing down the street. "Hey, Taylor, something wrong?"

I nodded. "Yeah, that direction. Quickly. There's people in those buildings, and some of them know we're here."

"Moving off now." Dad set the car going. "Taylor, which way did you turn to get here?"

I tried to reconstruct our panicked, staggering flight, stringing the flashes of memory together into a coherent whole. It wasn't easy but going through it backward was harder still. "Uh left … maybe?"

"Wait, did you turn left, or do I turn left now?" He slowed as he approached the intersection.

"You turn left … I think." I frowned, poking at my memories. We'd leaned against a street corner, but which one? As we took the turn, I looked back over my shoulder and saw a clearly marked handprint on the corner behind us. "No, wait, that was supposed to be right!"

"You could've made up your mind a little earlier," he complained, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it. Checking behind and in front, he wheeled the car around in a U-turn and headed down the other way.

"Sorry." I shrugged. "Took me a little while to figure things out. I did have other things on my mind at the time."

"Excuses, excuses." He waved at the intersection that was just coming up. "Left, right or straight ahead?"

"Um …" I hesitated, not wanting to make the same mistake again. "Sophia?"

"I told you, I can't remember crap about this part. Slow down, Mr. H. Maybe she'll remember something if we're not going so fast."

"If we go any slower, we might as well be walking." But he eased off the pace anyway.

As we rolled into the intersection, I stared at all four street corners, trying to figure out which way we'd come. Nothing popped up in my memory, and I chewed my lip anxiously. The last thing I wanted to do was let down Sophia like this.

"Hey, down there!" She pointed past me, along the street. "Take a right!"

"Right you are." I was concentrating so hard I didn't notice the pun until it was far too late to groan. Dad slowed down even more and spun the steering wheel hard to the right. As it was, we were almost all the way through the intersection, and the front wheel mounted the curb briefly before we got around. "Did you see something you remember, Sophia?"

"No, but there's a bunch of assholes fussing around a dumpster like it's Christmas," she said, indicating through the windshield. "Think it's the same dumpster?"

I stared where she was pointing, trying to think. "… maybe?" I ventured. The dumpster by the side of the road was overflowing, just like the one we'd stashed her stuff behind last night, but that didn't mean much. Every trash can, dumpster and alleyway in this part of town was stuffed full of refuse.

Sophia nodded sharply, as if I'd answered in the affirmative. "What I thought. Let's go ask 'em politely if they found my stuff and would they kindly give it back, if they have."

"That sounds like a plan." Dad briefly glanced back at me. "Taylor, mask up time."

I took a deep breath, my heart starting to hammer. Last night I hadn't been this scared, but maybe I should've. "I wish I had the baseball bat," I said, apropos of nothing.

"We can get you one," Dad said tersely. "But your job is to stay out of situations where you're going to need it."

"Right, right." I pulled the scarf up over my face, then went into the shadow realm. It was a black scarf, getting a little tattered at the ends, but I wondered what it looked like with my eyes shining through it like headlights.

"Ooooh yeah," breathed Sophia. "Come to Mama." Making a hand motion that I interpreted as pulling a bandanna up over her lower face—a lot easier, she'd confided, than making a cloth mask that didn't interrupt vision—she waited until Dad had almost brought the car to a halt. Then she turned to mist (which made her just look a little fuzzy to my shadow-vision) and dived out through the door without bothering to open it.

"Stay in the car, Taylor." Dad stopped the car hard, then turned off the engine and applied the handbrake. Pulling up his own bandanna, he got out of the car in his turn.

I wanted to jump out as well, but deep down I knew I could do more for them just by staying back, keeping them powered up and not getting hurt. Still, it was irritating to be relegated to the back lines when my own Dad got to step up where I'd been. Once I acquired body armour, I decided, there would be changes.

"Hey, fuckos," Sophia addressed the group that were gathered next to the dumpster. "Mind showing me what you got there? Because I lost something around here, and—"

In the next moment, I knew for a fact that she'd been right. This was exactly where her stuff had been stashed. Partly because I recognised it, and partly because one of the group turned around with a hand crossbow and shot at her with it.

She had damn good reflexes, which she proved by going to shadow form. The arrow winged through where she'd been and kept going halfway across the street. Only halfway, because that was where it hit Dad right in the middle of the chest.

Now, normally that would've been a wound likely to put someone into intensive care, if not the morgue. In Dad's current state, I could tell it had done him a little damage—that was going to be a pain to fix, later—but he didn't even glance down at it. In a supremely badass move that I wasn't even sure he was aware of, he just kept walking toward them, arrow sticking out of his chest.

Sophia, on the other hand, went from casually enquiring to pissed-off in all of half a second. "Why you motherfucking—" Dropping back to normal, she went for the guy with the crossbow in a fluid blur of motion. Back in the hospital, I hadn't been sure if she was any faster when I was in the shadow realm. Now, my mind was made up, with a definite 'yes'.

Dad joined the fray a couple of seconds later, but Sophia was clearly holding her own. Her kicks and punches were sending people flying into walls and staggering back yards at a time, and when she got a good hit in, they just didn't get up again. One guy stepped back and reached into his jacket for something, and Dad simply picked him up and pile-drove him into the grimy concrete sidewalk.

When the car door beside me opened, it caught me by surprise. I really should have been keeping a lookout around me, so it was my own stupid fault the asshole managed to sneak up on me. But that was okay; when he grabbed me and dragged me out of the car, he gave me the chance to figure out what to do. First things first: deal with the knife he was trying to threaten me with.

"Right—" was all he managed before I smacked his wrist with the side of my arm then elbowed him in the neck, hard. Letting me go, he staggered backward, holding what my shadow-vision told me was a busted collar-bone. The cup of my sympathy would have runneth over, but it had a holeth in it.

His wrist wasn't doing too well either, but at least it didn't look broken … until I grabbed it and broke it. The snap echoed in my ears, but his high-pitched scream pretty well drowned out everything. I could kind of sympathise with him; after all, I knew what it was like to be suddenly up against someone who didn't give a shit how much they hurt me.

He tried to stagger away, but I kept right up with him. This time, I unloaded a punch into his ribs that snapped at least one and seriously bent a couple of others. It was possible, I decided as I pondered which of his bones to break next, that I had a thing against Merchants. Or just asshole gang members who tried to manhandle me.

"Okay, Tex, I think he's done for the day." Sophia's hand fell on my shoulder and stopped my advance on the guy who'd had the knife.

"He's still standing," I pointed out reasonably.

"True, true." She was holding the bundle under her arm, but that didn't hamper her in the slightest. Stepping forward, she swivelled her hips and performed a sweeping high kick that took Asshole McAsshole right across the side of the jaw and sent him sprawling into the gutter. "Okay, now he's done. You were hitting him hard, but you've gotta learn where to hit 'em."

"Showoff," I grumbled, but I climbed into the car after her anyway. "Did you get everything back?"

"Yup. Your dad's still holding one of the arrows … right, thanks, Mr. H." I watched, still in the shadow realm, as Dad pulled the arrow out of his chest and handed it back to her from the front seat.

"So, what'd their faces look like when it hit him and he just kept on going?" I asked as I buckled my seatbelt. "The shadow realm doesn't show me expressions, just skulls."

Sophia snorted with amusement. "Somewhere between 'oh shit' and 'I want my mommy'. Leaving the arrow in was kind of a genius move, just saying."

"To be honest, I didn't really notice it at the time," Dad admitted. "Took a couple of seconds to realise what he'd done."

"Well, now it's out, I can do this," I said, reaching forward to put my hand on his shoulder.

It cost me a large jolt to heal the arrow wound and take care of a few other minor contusions. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed Sophia's arm and did the same for her. Doing the two so close together knocked the wind out of me as I'd figured it would, and I sagged back against the car seat.

"Whew," I panted, sliding back into the real world. "That was a thing."

"Yeah, but I got my shit back so we're done here." Sophia dumped the utility belt, crossbows and arrows on the car seat between us and started going through the pile.

"Oh, good. Where do we go from here?" I thought I knew, but the excitement of the fight had totally driven it out of my head.

"The Lord Street Market," Sophia reminded me. "So we can find proper costumes for you and your dad."

"Oh. Right. Yeah." I leaned back in the seat and relaxed as Dad started off again. "Here's hoping we find something worthwhile."

<><>

Lord Street Market

Pre-Loved Clothing & Memorabilia

Sophia

"Oh, come on," groaned Sophia. "Corsets are absolutely in, and it'll make you look totally badass and spooky in a Vampirella kind of way."

"Nope." Taylor shook her head stubbornly. "If you think it's so badass, you wear it."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "You're being totes unreasonable, here. Don't you think so, Mr. H?"

"It'll just make me look like a wannabe tryhard," Taylor argued. "Dad?"

"Hey, don't drag me into this." Danny put his hands up in surrender. "All I know for a fact is that I'm not wearing the damn thing."

"Just try it on," Sophia urged, partly from sheer devilment and partly because she actually thought Taylor would rock a corset like nobody's business. "Check yourself out in the mirror. You might actually like it."

"I might also like smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day," Taylor retorted. "But I'm not about to try that, either."

"Of the two, I'm far more likely to be okay with the corset," Danny observed, sounding more than a little amused. "But it's Taylor's choice. If she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to."

Taylor gave him the side-eye. "You think I should too, don't you?"

"I never said that." Raising his hands in mock-surrender, he took a step back. "I didn't know what teenage girls were supposed to wear when I was a teenager. You think I'm any more switched-on about the subject now?"

She nodded to acknowledge his point. "Well, thanks for not trying to push me into it. Unlike some people, who can't seem to keep their opinions to themselves." Wrinkling her nose, she gave Sophia a dirty look.

It slid off Sophia's confidence like oil off … whatever oil was supposed to slide off. Anything, probably. Oil was famous for sliding off stuff. "Well, how are you supposed to know what you like and don't like unless you give it a chance?"

Taylor grabbed the corset out of Sophia's hands and dropped it back on the pile she'd taken it from. "I don't need to burn my hand to know I shouldn't stick it in the fire."

"Okay, fine." Sophia folded her arms and gave Taylor a challenging look. "You find stuff that'll make you look like a badass cape, then."

"But I'm not a badass cape," Taylor said, totally unhelpfully. "You're the badass one. You and Dad."

"On that, at least, I beg to differ," her father interjected. "When that one gang member grabbed you out of the car, you were definitely holding your own before Sophia showed up."

"And she flattened him in one hit, while I was just using him like a punching bag." Taylor shook her head. "You two are the badasses. I'm just the enabler, I guess."

A loud bang from outside distracted Sophia from the argument. "You guys hear that?"

"Yeah." Danny glanced around. "It would've been pretty hard to miss. Didn't sound like a gunshot, though."

"No, it wasn't a shot," Sophia agreed. "Car crash, maybe? I thought I heard metal crunching."

At that moment, there was a second bang, louder this time.

"Yeah, I definitely heard the crunch that time," Taylor said. "Should we go and see what's happening?"

"Absolutely." Sophia headed for the checkout. "Buy what you've got and let's get going."

Danny had gone with a wide-brimmed hat and a wide cape, while Taylor hadn't done much except refuse to even try on the corset. Sophia still thought that was a waste of potential, but maybe that was because she liked the concept of corsets in general. If it had fitted in any way with her costume theme, she would've gone with one herself.

The guy on checkout seemed a bit nervous, but that was more likely because of the sounds of violence outside than the fact that Taylor was wearing wraparound shades she'd found elsewhere. At the last moment, she grabbed a T-shirt portraying the full moon rising over a graveyard, and threw that into the pile. It was better than nothing, Sophia decided.

Once they were out of the second-hand clothing place, the next move was to find someplace to make the change in private. This quickly proved near-impossible, as people were rushing everywhere, some seeking safety and others trying to find out what was going on. Market Enforcers shouting sometimes-contradictory orders, didn't help in the slightest.

"Screw it," Sophia decided in the end. After checking for cameras, she stepped into a corner and fastened her cloak around her neck then fitted the hockey mask onto her face. Donning the armour padding would've been nice, but it was a time-consuming process and she was a lot tougher now anyway. As she made sure of the mask, she saw that Danny had put on his own makeshift costume and pulled his bandanna up, while Taylor had dragged the T-shirt on over her other shirt.

"Ready?" asked Danny.

"No, but let's do this anyway," Taylor said, pulling the scarf up to cover her lower face.

Sophia grinned and slapped her on the shoulder. "That's the spirit."

<><>

Taylor

When we got outside, it was a cross between bedlam and total mayhem, with a side order of catastrophe. At first I'd thought maybe the Merchant leadership had shown up to exact vengeance for the beatdown we'd done of their boys at the dumpster. But it wasn't that. It was much worse.

"You're shitting me," Sophia said blankly as she watched Hookwolf attempting to bludgeon Lung over the head with a motorcycle; or rather, half a motorcycle after Lung caught it with a clawed hand. "I know I said the ABB and the Empire could both attack here, but at the same time? What the fuck is going on?"

"I don't know," Dad said tensely, "but this is way out of our capabilities. We need to get people to safety, and fast." Because while the smart thing to do would've been to back the hell away from the parking lot full of capes duking it out, the bystanders … weren't. Some were just rubbernecking, while others were pointing cameras, or even getting pictures of themselves in front of the fight.

"Only in Brockton Bay," I said, shaking my head. "Okay, power-up coming online … now." As I said the word, I pulled the scarf up to cover my entire face and went into the shadow realm. Maybe I could get a set of thin metal eye-covers, I thought briefly. Paint them to look like sunglasses from the outside.

But that was for later. There were people in danger who needed saving right now. Some had gotten into their cars, then attempted to drive right past the battling capes, resulting in the cars being wrecked and in some cases overturned. Others were trapped by wreckage simply because they were too close when someone flipped a car on top of them.

This was exactly when I would've been happy to see the Protectorate and PRT show up, along with New Wave and maybe the Wards for backup. No such luck; it seemed the only capes on site not aligned with either the white-supremacist racists or the Asian-supremacist racists were me, Dad and Sophia.

This wasn't to say that there weren't other people trying to help, but they didn't have powers. I saw a cop—at least, he had a gun and a radio—skirting the mayhem and alternating between calling for backup and ordering people to leave the area. A couple of Market Enforcers were standing much farther back; not altogether surprising, as they only carried billy clubs and pepper spray. That stuff, as far as I knew, would only serve to piss off Hookwolf or Lung.

Dad and Sophia, with their enhanced capabilities, were doing well in the search and rescue stakes. I watched as they rocked one overturned car up at an angle, then Sophia held it there while Dad tore the door off altogether and tossed it aside. In the shadow realm, I was stronger and tougher than normal, but this really underlined the fact that my power boosted them to whole new levels of strength.

A nearby scream, abruptly choked off, drew my attention. Looking around, I saw that Hookwolf had tossed aside the shredded remains of the motorcycle. The flying wreckage had hit the cop squarely, smashing him to the ground.

Dad and Sophia were busy with another car, this one on fire, so I couldn't call on them. Besides, the scuffle with the Merchants had proven I could take care of myself. Keeping one eye on the combatants—Lung's skeleton was oddly twisting and growing all the time, while Hookwolf's seemed to be either made of metal or clad in it—I hurried over to the stricken police officer.

When I got there, I could see it was bad. Bits of sharp steel had punched through his body, where I was pretty sure most people kept their important organs. His brain constellation was fluctuating, which I took as a sign he was dying before my eyes.

His head turned as I knelt beside him. "Get … get away," he gurgled. I could smell the sharp tang of blood, a scent I dearly wished I wasn't familiar with. "Save … save y'rself."

"Hey," I said quietly. "I can make it better. I can fix this, sort of. Do you want me to help?"

I couldn't see his eyes, but I could almost feel his stare burning into me, even as the life drained from his body. "Yeeaaa…" It was more of an exhalation than a word. He didn't breathe in again. His brain constellation went from almost unbearably bright to steadily dimming.

Well, that was good as I was going to get, where permission was concerned. Grabbing the hunk of metal, I heaved it off him, hearing the sucking sounds as the sharp bits were pulled out of the wounds they'd made. I was obscurely glad that the shadow realm made it impossible for me to see blood. I couldn't do anything about being able to smell it, but them's the breaks.

Carefully, I laid my hand on his shoulder and concentrated. Live, I told him silently, forcing down my misgivings. This wasn't going to be like the Merchant goon; that guy had been a murderous asshole. A cop killed in the line of duty was a whole different case.

While it was still a jolt, I found bringing him back was a whole lot easier than Sophia or Dad or even the Merchant. Maybe it was how newly dead he was, or possibly the fact that he'd died in the process of doing something. Whichever it was, he transitioned from glowing skeleton to uniformed (if bloodstained) cop in less than a second, then sat up and looked around a second later.

"What the hell?" he demanded, then patted his stomach and stared at the chunk of motorcycle. "Did I just die? It felt like I just died."

"You did," I informed him. "I brought you back. How are you feeling?"

That brought his attention fully onto me. "You … I thought you were going to heal me. Like Panacea does. But you didn't do that, did you?"

I shook my head. This guy was definitely switched on. "No. I can only bring back the dead. I have no idea how permanent it is. But you seemed like you needed it."

"Oh, you're not wrong about that." He jumped to his feet then looked at his radio. The microphone was crushed and useless. "God damn it. Miss … what's your name, anyway?"

"We're going with Animator, for the moment." It seemed an odd conversation to hold with a freshly-dead cop, but since when had my life been normal after getting powers?

"Got it, and thanks." He gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement. "We need to talk, later. But for now, you need to fall back a bit. Some of those gang members are getting a bit too close for my liking."

I was totally in agreement. As I'd also found out in the scuffle at the dumpster, while I could hit like a freight train, I wasn't trained in using that strength. Sophia was definitely better at it than me, and even Dad was revealing hidden depths all the time. A cop? Yeah, he had the training that counted.

As I backed off, I saw him head for the gang members who were just now beginning to come onto the property. A few of them shot at him, but I couldn't tell if they hit or not. His return shots definitely scored, but there was more of them than he had bullets and they knew it.

They closed in around him once his gun ran dry, but that was their mistake. He'd very quickly learned that he was much stronger than before, and far more capable of taking physical punishment. For him, 'surrounded' was more a case of 'target rich environment'. Anyone who came at him with ill intent found that out the hard way. And when he hit someone with his nightstick, they went down and didn't get up any time soon. Still, there were a lot of them and more than once they nearly succeeded in mobbing him down.

However, he wasn't alone in his fight for long. Once Sophia and Dad finished their search and rescue efforts, they saw what was going on with the encroaching gang members and joined the battle. This allowed the cop to turn the tide from 'holding his own' to 'clean sweep'. Between the three of them, they managed to stop the oncoming members of the ABB and Empire Eighty-Eight from using the distraction of the battle to sneak through into the Market.

Sirens were approaching from several directions when the last of the gang members fell. Lung and Hookwolf were still duking it out, the latter looking a little the worse for wear, but he had Krieg and Alabaster on his side. It wasn't precisely an even match, but one that Lung apparently wasn't willing to push harder on.

This became evident when he started moving off, leaping across the street in a single bound then onto a rooftop on his second jump. Nobody followed; Hookwolf and the other Empire capes backed off themselves in good order, ducking out of sight just as the first police and PRT vehicles roared into view.

Some of the gang members had gotten up and staggered off. I wasn't worried about those. The police would round them up later, or they wouldn't. My concern was mainly with Sophia and Dad, and of course my newest revival.

"You okay?" asked Dad, coming over to me. "You've got blood on your knees and your hands."

I hadn't noticed that, mainly because I was still in the shadow realm. Fatigue was starting to build up behind my eyes, and I knew I was going to have to drop it sooner rather than later, but I still had things to do. "I'm fine," I said briefly. "That cop got killed." I laid my hand on his arm.

"So you brought him back, too? Huh. Well, better him than one of these other assholes," Sophia said. "He went in there like a boss, too." She slid her arm under mine so that when I gave Dad a jolt of healing energy, my knees didn't just go out from under me. "Okay, yeah, hold onto me. You might want to turn your eyes off for a bit, they're starting to flicker."

My vision was indeed beginning to pulse from shadow realm to real world and back again, but I wasn't finished. "I've still got to fix your injuries," I insisted.

She rolled her eyes behind the hockey mask. "I'll keep. You need to juice yourself up again, damn it."

"Okay, fine." I knew the cop also needed his injuries—pre and post demise—seen to, and there was no way in hell I was going to manage that in this state. So I dropped back into the real world and pulled my scarf down so I could see; the ravaged parking lot had a lot more visual impact than the shadowy darkness with see-through wreckage.

Looking Sophia over, I couldn't see much wrong with her. Her clothing was a little scuffed, but there were no obvious stab marks or bullet holes; no new ones, anyway. Dad's injuries had mainly consisted of physical contusions, easily fixed.

Across the lot, the freshly arrived PRT and cops started taking the remaining gang members into custody. A few gathered around my newest friend; I couldn't hear what they were saying, but their body language shouted holy shit, how are you alive loud and clear. He turned and gestured toward where I stood with Dad and Sophia, then led the way toward me.

"What the hell did you do?" shouted one of the other cops as we got within easy talking distance. "Look at him! He's dead on his feet!"

"No need to shout," I said in a normal tone. "I'm sorry, but your friend is actually deceased. I couldn't stop that from happening. Before he went, I asked his permission to bring him back, which he gave. And here he is."

"I did actually say yes, Frank," the dead officer confirmed. "It was about the last thing I remember doing." He turned to me and offered his hand. "Sorry, I didn't introduce myself before. Kenny Lagos. How does this work, anyway?"

Again, I noted the lack of emotional response to the understanding that he was dead. It felt more than a little creepy, but I was glad I wasn't having to deal with a full-grown adult in a hysterical tantrum. "Pleased to meet you too, Officer Lagos. Would you like me to heal your current injuries?"

He frowned. "Would that make me alive again? That seems a little … too easy."

"And you'd be correct," Dad agreed. "You'll still be dead. But nobody will be able to tell outside of a medical examination."

Lagos looked at him sharply, then at Sophia. "Wait … are you telling me …"

Sophia nodded. "Yup. We're both dead, too. Murdered by Merchants. Brought back by my bestie there." She hooked her thumb in my direction.

I took a deep breath. "You asked me before how this works. I wanted you up and walking, so you are. You're not under my control, but you can't hurt me. As far as I can tell, you'll keep on going indefinitely unless I decide to cut you off from my power, and then you're dead for good."

"Oh, and one other thing," added Dad, sounding amused. "You don't sleep anymore. I found that one out last night. If you don't have a hobby, I suggest you take one up."

Lagos shook his head, as if trying to settle his thoughts. "You said you could fix my injuries." He gestured toward where his chest had been half caved in by the motorcycle wreckage. "Can you fix that, so they don't keep trying to drag me off to the paramedics?"

"Okay, sure," I said. "My eyes are gonna glow for a bit, okay?" Taking a breath and bracing myself, I dropped back into the shadow realm. Lagos, Sophia and Dad remained the same, while everyone else became a glowing skeleton with a blinding galaxy for a head. "Here we go."

Reaching out, I put my hand on the officer's arm and exerted my power. The jolt seriously drained me, but I managed to stay on my feet with Sophia's assistance. I was glad to be able to drop back into the real world afterward, though.

Lagos patted his face and chest and looked down at himself in what I interpreted as mild disbelief. "That's amazing. Can you do that every time?"

I nodded. "Yes, but it's not exactly easy, especially if you're seriously beaten up. On the upside, you can get around with life-threatening injuries and it won't particularly bother you. Also, you don't have to breathe, though you can if you really want to."

"Right, right." He glanced to the left and right, then leaned in toward me. Lowering his voice, he murmured, "Does this mean I'm a … you know, a zombie?"

I sighed, remembering Rodney's idiocy. "No. It doesn't. It means my power has told your body and brain that you're still alive, all evidence to the contrary. Please don't try biting anyone to test that one out, as I can't be held responsible for what people might do in retaliation. However, I would be careful about taking catastrophic injuries to the head. That might just break the link."

My matter-of-fact approach seemed to disarm his worries. "Okay, right, I won't. Is there a range limit involved? Can I go back to the precinct house? Can I go home?"

I shrugged and decided to go with what I'd told the PRT. "If you don't leave Brockton Bay, you should be fine. And when you do go home, it's up to you what you tell your family. But please be discreet. And don't use the Z-word, even as a joke. I've already had to deal with one moron who thought I was patient zero for a plague of the undead."

"Ah. Right." He blinked. "I, uh, live with my girlfriend. Um …" His voice trailed off.

I raised my hands as if to ward off the unspoken questions, some of which I thought I'd figured out, and many I didn't even want to think about. "I honestly have no idea how to address that. It's seriously between you and her. I mean, there's a chance you'll simply lose interest in physical relationships, but then again you might not. I literally have no idea how my power works in that situation."

He grimaced and nodded. "That's fair. I guess I should think about taking some paid leave to figure out my situation."

Dad shrugged. "If you've got life insurance, you might want to think about trying to cash it in. Though good luck with convincing them that you're actually dead. Walking and talking tends to be a counter-indication to that sort of thing."

Officer Lagos rubbed the back of his head and grimaced again. "Is it just me, or did my life just get a whole lot more complicated instead of less? I thought death was supposed to be the other way around."

"Hey, buddy," Sophia said. "It is what it is. Welcome to a very exclusive club."

"And if you think your life just got weirder," I added, "look at it from my point of view."

From his shudder, he'd gotten my point. "No, thanks. Pass."

"We'll leave it up to you to decide exactly how you're going to explain to your superiors what's happened to you," Dad said. "Feel free to get checked out medically. It'll just confirm what we've just told you. If we need to get in touch, we'll contact you through the BBPD. But apart from that … make the most of your second chance, I guess. And keep in mind what I told you about hobbies."

"Thank you, sir." Lagos offered Dad his hand and they shook firmly. "What are your plans now?"

Dad gestured at the Market. "Shopping."

"Really?"

Sophia rolled her eyes. "For costumes." From the elbow-jab she gave me, I knew she hadn't forgotten the corset.

"Ah."

Part 11