ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS FAN FICTION — EVEN THOSE BASED ON FICTIONAL PEOPLE — ARE ENTIRELY MADE-UP. ALL DANTE REFERENCES ARE RESEARCHED… POORLY. THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS LEWD SEXUAL HUMOR AND DUE TO ITS LONG INTROSPECTIVE MONOLOGUES IT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE. _|_|_|
Kenny
Somewhere in the stretch of time between being attacked by a monstrous Hellhound and being shoved out the door by my angel of a little sister, I started to make connections. It was in the pattern of the large, wolf-like dog's movement: she went for a bite whenever we neared a painting.
At first, it was just attack after attack. The beast would strike to scratch or pin us, with claws like heavy, rusted metal that, I swear, seemed like they could rip the Shadow right out from under me. I was kind of hoping she would. It was entirely in our best interests, though, to run… and not run into corners.
She took a bite at me first, when I made the corner mistake—right near the Violence painting of the GSM symbol. Luckily, Clyde was open, and shot a few times into the hound's hind leg. She whirled on him, snarling; I caught my breath, ducked down, and ran underneath her, firing up at her ribs as I did.
The hound shook herself of whatever discomfort the two of us had caused, and leapt again. Clyde and I darted out of the way, after a silent understanding that we should probably not split up, at least not until we had backup and an opening that would allow us to grab our gear and let this fight fully fall into League territory.
We darted into the main room of the shop, and the hound bolted in after us. "Move!" Clyde shouted to me as I readied a gun. He was right—I wouldn't have been able to dodge in time even if I hit her, she was advancing so quickly. Grudgingly, I ran with him off to one side. The hound came colliding in, scattering furniture that had still been set out as she cleared her own path.
She turned on a sharp angle and attempted another bite as she sprang in our direction. The spacious coffeehouse suddenly felt very, very small, since this massive creature was having so little difficulty catching up with us. I did not want to get on the Goths' bad side if we happened to make some move that would almost send the whole place into oblivion, but in the moment, I was not exactly concerned about much other than keeping everyone alive, so on a quick thought, I hauled my teammate over toward the coffee bar, which we were able to duck behind as a makeshift bunker for a moment.
"Dude," Clyde hissed at me. "Where's Angel? Didn't you call her?"
"Yeah," I said, out of breath, "she's on her way. Hold on…"
"Are you not witnessing this?! I don't know if we can—"
The hound jumped up on top of the counter and smacked her two great front paws down on the ground between me and Clyde, causing us to scatter. I spotted a knife behind the counter and drove it into the creature's right front leg, while Clyde clambered up onto the countertop, pressed his two stunners to the nape of her neck and fired. The hound yelped and kicked out, then whacked me in the gut as she scrambled to go after Clyde.
She'd hit me hard enough to make me choke on my breath, leaving me out of commission for a few seconds. As I coughed to remind my lungs that I kinda had a job to do, here, my shadow began to wind itself around nearly anything with a hook, as if to hold me in place. I scowled at it, and yanked myself up onto my feet, only to trip forward into the counter.
I felt like I was standing in quicksand. A glance down at the ground told me that, indeed, my shadow had nestled into the other shadows cast by the multitude of objects around me, and had decided that it was not going to move away.
"Oh, we are not gonna be able to work together, are we?" I muttered at it.
Luckily, it was only concerned with keeping my feet planted, which at least allowed me to prep my guns and fire at the hound as she chased Clyde into the corner near the Limbo painting. I hit the back of her head twice as she readied herself to bite him in the neck, causing her to recoil, and giving Clyde the opening to fire his stunner between her eyes.
As I should have expected, the beast then turned on me, and in a single leap was back on the counter, reared back on her hind legs to swipe down at me, but she was yanked backward and landed on her own bony spine. The floorboards cracked underneath her, and the hound scrambled to her feet just in time to get a swipe across the muzzle from the sharp finger armor of none other than the Coon.
"How ya like that?!" he exclaimed.
Well, not very much, it seemed, as the hound smacked him out of the way. He collided into the wall near the Wrath painting, and the wolfish beast advanced on him, baring her teeth. The second she'd opened her mouth, the Coon grabbed her upper and lower jaws and kept them forced apart. His eyes widened, which read to me that even he was in shock that he'd managed to pull that off; before he had to strain to think of a follow-up attack, the Guardian Angel burst into action from behind an overturned table, pulling out two explosive weights from her belt pouch and slinging them at the hound.
The small bursts went off, leaving lingering singes in the beast's scraggly grey pelt. Sure, they were much stronger against just about anything than my bullets or Clyde's stings, but the hound's reaction to the tiny explosions was painful just to hear. She let out a bray of a howl that I did not think was a sound anything canine could make, and was tripped to the floor, where the Coon continued slashing at her face while the Guardian Angel darted behind the counter to stand beside me.
"Go!" she insisted, pushing me forward. "Don't just stand around, we need Mysterion!"
"I'm trying to move, it's my fucking shadow!" I told her in my panicked defense.
"What?"
Just as Angel was questioning the odd phenomenon, my shadow began to climb a large shelf situated at the center of the circular counter area, so that it ascended toward the ceiling. We both watched as it crept along the ducts and then stopped directly over me, winding itself into the silhouette of a noose.
Angel gasped and looked around for the rope it was mimicking—none could be found.
"Kenny, don't move," Clyde instructed me. He ran back to the counter after checking to see that the hound was still occupied with the Coon, then readied a stunner upward.
"Why?" I wondered. "What?"
As soon as I'd spoken, I felt a stiffness in my neck, as if something rough and tight really had been tied there. I thought back to the Treachery painting almost a second too late. I felt a pull.
Damien really was using a nightmare from my past to try to kill me.
If Hell wanted me, as he had claimed, why not just come get me? Was I really more valuable to them dead than alive…?
Probably. Death is the only part of human life that's really immortal. Death, and the subjects of dreams…
I really did not want to find out what that 'New Between' they were planning was.
"Oh, shit…" Angel whispered. "Hold still…"
Putting her faith in a single move, she touched her left hand to my neck, above the strain. With her right hand, she then grabbed out a Roman candle she must have borrowed from my own arsenal when gearing up, stuck the butt of it in her teeth to hold it in place, clicked on a lighter with her right hand to light it up, then tossed Clyde the lighter and tossed the Roman candle up toward the ceiling.
"Shield your eyes—I mean, bomb drop!" she shouted.
"Shit!" I heard the Coon yelp, at the same time Clyde ducked and covered his head.
I closed my eyes as instructed, just as the flare went off, illuminating the room with its sparks. I felt heat on my eyelids, and the strain eased up, allowing Angel to then free me from both her grip and the grip my traitor shadow had on me and push me over the counter. I tumbled forward and opened my eyes to keep me from going face-first into the floor, but Clyde and Angel were instantly hauling me to my feet.
Angel pushed me and Clyde toward the door, reiterating, "Gear up! NOW!"
When we made a run for it, the hound bounded after us. Angel and the Coon both shot at her, but the best shot came from the front. TupperWear had arrived in the doorway, and Clyde and I bolted to either side as he dislodged the shield from the back of his armor and hurled it at the massive beast, slicing open her left shoulder.
"Thanks, man!" I called back at him as I slipped out the door and into the street. "Hey, Red Serge," I asked into the wire once I noticed that Clyde had caught up, "you wanna unlock the car for us?"
"Happy to," was the answer. "Though I think you guys'll do good to take this whole thing on the road. You get that TupperWear?"
"On it as soon as I'm back out," his voice came back through the wire.
I glanced back over my shoulder to watch the action before the door could swing closed. TupperWear had positioned himself at the center of the hound's spine, and raised his shield up over his head, to crack it down between two of her vertebrae; the Coon stood at the ready, while Angel hoisted herself up onto the hound's back as well by use of the mangled tail as a swing of sorts.
"Any clue what exactly she is?" Clyde asked as the two of us ran toward the hidden car, around back.
"A Hellhound, I got that much," I told him. "These things're here and there in Hell."
"Couldn't Satan have picked something a little less toothy to have lying around?" Clyde complained. "She almost bit my head off twice."
"Guess he's not much of a cat person," I replied, tongue-in-cheek.
We were then silent until we reached the opposite side of the building. We'd left the van in the narrow drive behind the coffee shop, right next to a small loading dock for deliveries (where I'm sure the Goths took smoke breaks exactly as they used to behind the elementary school all those years ago). The area was such that it was completely blocked off from view of the adjacent parking lot. It was ideal for our needs that night, as the narrow drive provided a place to conveniently park our team vehicle close enough to reach quickly if the night's mission went awry, which it obviously had, while still remaining out of public view.
"Red Serge?" Clyde spoke into the wire.
"You've got fifteen," our tech replied, and I heard the automatic locks click inside the vehicle we had almost reached.
"Make that twenty." The words came from behind us as well as echoed in the wire. I turned my head to see TupperWear running to catch up with us. He was alone.
"The others?" I asked.
"The dog-thing ran off toward the street. Angel and Coon are in pursuit, but we need all hands on the field a.s.a.p." TupperWear ran over to the driver's side of the vehicle, yanking the door open and quickly slipping inside.
Clyde and I paused at the side of the van, and exchanged glances. Neither one of us had to say it, but we were both definitely worrying about the same thing in that instant: our girlfriends. The creature had run off toward the street? Had Red and Bebe had time to get away before it had come careening out of the shop in their direction? There was definitely more than a fair share of personal interest in this mission already, and the tally just seemed to keep adding up. How much longer were we going to have to wonder what it all meant and what it was all for?
Before I could get too distracted, I felt a few drops of rain hit my face just before the passenger-side window of the van slid down, revealing TupperWear leaning over to suggest our next move. "Get in."
We did not need prompting. With the Guardian Angel the Coon chasing after the hound on foot, we'd need to catch up, and fast, especially if the beast started toward Carnival grounds. I'd find out where that fucking place was, no matter who or what tried to stop me.
Once in the back of the van, Clyde and I opened our respective chests, and I felt TupperWear hit the gas the instant my key clicked in the lock. We screeched out of hiding, zero to sixty at one heavy press of the pedal.
There were no windows in the back of the van, so Clyde and I could not see anything outside as we changed. It was definitely challenging attempting to strap on our gear while the van made really sharp turns. I had complete faith in TupperWear's driving capabilities, but he sure wasn't making it any easier for us. Every once in a while I heard him confirming directions Red Serge was feeding him over the wire.
Mosquito finished before me and maneuvered his way to sit up front in the passenger seat. By then, I could tell that we had driven a fair distance from the Goths' shop, but still not far out of that area of town. I was fastening my cape around my neck just as Mosquito pointed straight ahead to the side of the street we were currently on and shout, "There!"
His exclamation was fairly unnecessary, as the scene before us, which I could view out of the front windshield, was certainly attention-grabbing. Angel and the Coon had done a good job of keeping up with the beast. The huge creature was laying into a car parked on the side of the street, while the Coon stood on top of the damaged vehicle, slicing at the beast's snout with his extendable, incredibly sharp metal claws. The Guardian Angel was again riding on the hound's back. She had a flare in her hand, no doubt about to try and blind the creature again to disorientate her.
TupperWear hit the breaks when we were about thirty yards away. We didn't have much time to assess the situation objectively, however. Breaking character for a moment, Mosquito loudly exclaimed, "Holy shit, that's Bebe's car!"
On second glace, I realized that it was indeed the car Clyde had driven to the event that evening. They'd definitely be needing to take it in for some serious repairs the next day. But that was not even on my radar of concerns at the moment. If that was her car, that meant that Bebe was inside.
And so was Red.
"Run it over!" I growled at Token. I knew Angel could get clear before we hit.
"I can't, man, that thing'll crumple us," he replied desperately.
"Fuck," said Mosquito. Then, he pulled out the biggest shock-gun he had and stuck his head and arms out of his window, took aim, and shot that literal bitch right under the eye.
The giant she-wolf howled in pain and turned sharply, eyeing our vehicle and growling deep in her throat.
"You got her attention," said TupperWear, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
"Then make sure it stays on us. Gun it!" I yelled. TupperWear didn't hesitate, and shifted the car into reverse just as Mosquito shot another volley at the creature for good measure. I saw the Guardian Angel do a back-flip to get clear of the best. It had apparently forgotten her, and the car with its passengers, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. Though, right after, I had to grip the sides of both front headrests so I wouldn't be flung back as the van shot forward back the way we had come. TupperWear took an alternate turn, however, fairly soon, so that we would not end up retracing our path completely.
Wanting to finally take part in the action, I asked TupperWear, "Get the roof for me, would you?" He obliged without a word and snapped the switch to slide open the sunroof. Once I could squeeze through, I hoisted myself up.
"Better hurry!" Mosquito called up at me.
No kidding. The Hound was almost on us. I drew my .45s, steadied myself on the roof, took aim—
She'd opened her mouth to bite off the hood of the car, so I fired twice down her throat. I heard TupperWear voice a rushed apology as he turned a hard right to avoid any backlash, which gave me just enough time to leap off of the car and onto the hound's snout. She tried to bite and bark, but choked on the bullets. That only seemed to make her angrier, as I should have expected. She shook her head vigorously from side to side and managed to dislodge my grip. I flew a few feet and then did a tuck-and-roll to right myself and gain my footing before she was back on me.
Thankfully, though, by that time Mosquito had managed to get out of the van and he shot again at the hound's face. It really seemed to smart when she got hit there. Good. The more this bitch hurt the better I felt. It was getting back at her for going after the girls, and doing Damien's stupid dirty-work, and being another crazy creature in a long list of insanity that I'd had to deal with in my life. Let her be the one hurting instead.
While Mosquito, and then TupperWear, kept her busy for a few minutes, I saw the Coon and the Guardian Angel running toward the new fight location. "The girls?" I asked Angel.
"They're good," she confirmed, "headed back to the base." With that, we all focused our attention on the monstrous creature before us that we were hell-bent on taking down.
TupperWear had climbed up to the roof of the van, attempting to get some height on the creature, since her giant size was so hard to manage from the ground. Mosquito continued to concentrate on her face. The Coon ran around the she-beast, choosing to focus on its hind-quarters. Angel and I took a side apiece, she springing over the hound's back, while I pulled out two shuriken from my belt and sent them flying at the monstrous thing's ribcage.
We continued to fight the hound for a good ten minutes before either side showed any signs of flagging. To my pride and satisfaction, it was the giant dog that slipped first. She had been trying to leap up onto the van to get at TupperWear, who was causing her the most annoyance, seeing as how he could essentially attack her anywhere from his position. When she swung her giant front paws onto the vehicle, though, he swiped one of his metal discs sideways in front of him, so that the edge of the disc cut into the tops of her paws. She hollered and fell clumsily back onto all fours, though her front half was obviously giving her some problems with balance.
Mosquito took advantage of this opportunity to get in close for a direct attack with one of his stun-guns. His main target had been her eyes during the entire fight.
However, she surprised him and took an extended swipe at his head. Thankfully, Mosquito was able to turn his head just before she would have dealt a pretty serious blow. She did manage to just touch the side of his head, though, not enough to leave a mark, but enough to snap the string holding his mask in place.
"Shit," Mosquito said. He was too preoccupied with trying to get out of the way of the humungous, dangerous paw that was still arching downward to save his essential costume piece.
It was like I was seeing this scene play out in slow-motion. Mosquito managed to hop backward and get out of the way. I saw the beast's menacing claw snap through the string, and the recoil from the release of the tension securing it around Mosquito's head. The freed mask sailed up and forward, right into the face of the Hellhound we were fighting. It bounced off her nose, and fell to her right side. The mask then brushed against the side of her oversized features, right across the area under her eye that Mosquito had successfully shot from the van, before continuing to fall toward the pavement a good ten feet away.
I'd followed this path of movement from where I was standing. And it turned out that there was more benefit to it than witnessing a dramatic cinematic moment. Before the mask hit the ground, I saw figures behind the path it carved into the air. My eyes re-focused, and I saw a small grouping of those Infra-Reds standing on the side of the street. They were advancing.
"Spectacular," I muttered, as if a giant Hellhound wasn't enough, we also had to deal with more of the generic cockroach-like demons. "Heads up, guys," I called to my fellow heroes, "we've got some more who want to join the party."
"Oh, Goddammit," I heard the Coon curse.
"Fuck…" Clyde muttered, his voice completely unaltered without his mask. But—the firey look in his eyes, though: he was still Mosquito. No mistaking that. He reloaded his gun, cocked it to rev the stunner, and said, "Anybody got any surprise ideas?"
"We got backup?" TupperWear wondered into the wire.
"Little busy!" Marpesia checked in. "I already had to chase down a fucking pickup truck that ran Bebe off the road!"
"We've got an infestation, here," Endgame added.
And from Toolshed, "These assholes die but they don't fucking stop!"
Well: there were five of us. At least there was that. And Bebe was gunning it back to the base. We'd have time… we'd have time, we'd have time… Beat these fuckers, spay, neuter and slaughter that dog, and run back to make sure my girlfriend could get a good night's sleep.
"Hey, I got an idea," said the Coon, as the Infras marched forward.
"Anything would be great right now," Angel said, speaking for all of us.
The Coon grinned, glad to have the floor, as it were, and announced, "We dodge ourselves around that wolf thing."
…Damn. All right, maybe I'd once again been too harsh on the guy. He had a valid idea.
"We make those assholes hit her," the Coon continued.
"Fine by me, I'd like to save some shots," Mosquito admitted.
"Right," I ordered. "Coon, you and me'll stick to the front line. Mosquito…"
"Get 'em before they come," he nodded, sidling back a few steps closer to the Hellhound, who was struggling back up onto her feet.
"Great. TupperWear?"
"I'll play nice with the dog," he said, cracking his armored knuckles.
"Nice can kiss my ass right now," I growled. "Kill the bitch."
"Oho! Mysterion!" the Coon laughed.
"While we're on duo, don't fuck around with me," I added. He rolled his eyes, but complied.
TupperWear gave us a nod, and ran back to grab the she-wolf around the neck and wrestle her back to the ground. Mosquito took a shot, and the bitch rolled over, threatening to crush TupperWear, had he not leapt from her first.
"And Angel—" I started my final order.
But she was already ten steps ahead of me. A white streak sailed over the Infra group, as she darted forward, did an acrobatic leap over the first few in line, and high-jumped it into the center of the group, coming down to deal a roundhouse kick to four of the men standing tightly together two lines back.
I love my sister.
"We're only lookin' at about eighteen, here, guys, let's make this worth it!" the Guardian Angel called back.
But a call came out from the back of the Infra group that bothered me:
"Silence the Voice of Reason!"
I did not want to know what that meant, but I'd keep it in mind.
"You wanna play, assholes?" the Coon shouted out to the crowd. "Let's go!"
A man opened fire on him, and the Coon ducked to charge. The bullet sailed over him and into the fur of the Hellhound's chest. I glanced behind me so I knew precisely where the monster was, then pulled a shuriken from my belt and rushed forward. Keeping the small weapon lodged between my knuckles, I struck out at a woman to my right, getting in a cut across her face, then bolted right into a man behind her.
He punched me in the ribs and pulled a knife on me, but the Guardian Angel darted in to pull him back. A few men advanced toward the Hellhound and I heard a few shots go off, but had my hands full when another man grabbed me around the neck. I caught and flipped him, yelling, "Incoming!" to the Coon.
The Coon stepped aside when the man I'd tossed hit the ground, and when he darted forward to claw the throat of another victim, I heard the distinct rumbling of thunder through the sky. There was a flash of lightning, off in the direction of the South Park Docks. Wasn't that where Harmony had been sent to chase down that hooded guy…? Not to give everyone else something to think about in this fight, but I did make a mental note that one or the other of us would need to locate her at some point, since she was the only one going solo at the moment.
The Guardian Angel punched down a woman who'd jumped her, and when the Infra-Red got back on her feet, I shot her down to get her off of my sister. Angel thanked me with a nod, then sped back toward where TupperWear and Mosquito still had their hands full with the Hellhound.
A few more men made it past us in an attempt to subdue the others, but the Hellhound herself provided our team too great of a shield. Shots were taken, and not one of them appeared to hit one of my teammates. This infuriated the canine, and she bit out at the clones, managing to snap a couple in half in her jaws, which only aided us further.
Light droplets fell as a haze warned of the onset of heavier rain; our opponents showed no signs of retreating. We'd done in a few, but had several to go, so the Coon and I worked closer to each other until we were shoulder to shoulder, each of us with a gun drawn. When we'd each shot down a couple others, the Coon tilted his nose to the sky, surveyed the area, then glowered back in the direction of the massive Hellhound.
Rushed and raspy in tone, he stated, "I have a question for you."
"Shoot."
"Actually, good idea. Get down."
I did as he asked, and he reached over me as if I were a personal barricade to fire at two approaching men. On contact with the bullets, the men went up in flames and shadows, allowing us to get on with our conversation. "Shit, these guys go down easy," the Coon commented.
"Yeah, but they're wearing us down, when you think about it," I complained. The more of those cloned Infras there were, the more resources they took from us. Bullets weren't cheap, and Stan could only get so many deals at Home Depot at a time for some of the stock.
"Psh, whatever, as long as we're winning."
I rolled my eyes underneath my hood. The Coon always had very straightforward priorities, but damn if he wasn't still as annoying as hell when it came to logistics.
"You ever see anythin' like this in Hell?" the Coon asked me when he caught his breath.
I'd almost forgotten that he said he had a question. "What?" I shot down another man, watching the shadow shoot out of him and sail off to join the murky blacks and greys of the shadows far off on the sides of the road.
"I keep meanin' to ask you Hell shit, but then I get all pissed," said the Coon, swiping down a woman who got a little too close to him for comfort, "at—you know."
His mom.
I hadn't really had the time to talk to him about the issue, either. But he hadn't gone home, and didn't seem like he wanted to. He was definitely not going to deviate from the League, I had to believe that much (based on that night alone, if nothing else), and I did have to remind myself that he was not fully related to the son of the Devil… not entirely, as far as I knew. Unless there'd been something lingering, but I didn't want to think about that.
"I keep trying to forget Hell," I admitted, keeping my eye out for others approaching. "Duck down, now," I noticed, when three men started our way with shotguns. They cocked. Aimed.
The Coon and I hit the ground, and the men fired, directly back at the Hellhound, who took the three massive blasts in her ribs. "Nice!" TupperWear called over, returning the favor by hurling one of his sharp discs over our heads… in order to take off the heads of those three gunmen.
"We're down to two!" Angel called, yanking back on the hound's ears.
The great beast bucked, and Mosquito shot just as Angel leapt down again, hitting the back of the hound's skull. She hit the ground hard with her front paws, thereby crushing one of the two Angel had just reported.
"Last one!" Angel shouted over at us. "Coon, looks like he's yours!"
I heard another five blasts from Mosquito's .45s, and a yelp when TupperWear crunched the she-wolf's skull with an overhead blow from his shield.
I turned just in time to watch the Coon tackle the final footsoldier of the bunch to the ground, and he knealt on top of him, choking him with his taloned left hand. The man pulled a gun, but the Coon headbutted him, disarmed the man, took the gun for himself, and shoved the barrel of it in the man's gaping mouth. I recoiled at the sight of that, yet could not look away.
"Where's Damien?" the Coon shouted. He yanked the gun out of the man's mouth, and smacked him across the face with it. "Where's Scott Tenorman?!" No answer. He smacked him again. "WHERE'S DAMIEN?"
"Waiting," the man finally answered, in a strained tone.
"WHERE?" hissed the Coon.
Nothing.
I saw his eyes flare and his skin tint red with anger, as the Coon then yanked off the man's goggles, flicked the toggle that we knew to be some kind of microphone, and shouted into it, "I'm not afraid of you, asshole! I'm shuttin' you down, you got me? You're not gonna cross Coon territory, motherfucker!"
He then tossed the goggles down, shot them, then shot the Ginger man between the eyes.
When he smoldered down into ash, I felt myself let out a pent-up breath; I'd almost forgotten that he wasn't alive.
"Coon," I said sternly. He shoved the gun back into his belt but did not answer me. The light drizzle had caused his fuzzy coon ears to droop somewhat, but he did not look completely beaten. He didn't look victorious, either, though. I walked around to give him a hand up, and slightly to my surprise, he took it. "Has… more shit happened?" I wondered. "Like, to you. Letters, or threats, or Damien, or—?"
"We'll talk," he said. "Can we?"
Fear clinched my chest for a moment, but I responded as calmly as I could, "Sure thing. Definitely."
"You don't remember much about Hell?" he checked.
"Here, can we save it?" I wondered. "We've gotta finish this thing off first."
"Yeah, good call."
We glanced in the direction of the three others, at the sound of another one of Mosquito's gunshots.
She looked like she was weakening.
"Guys, listen up," I ordered from where the Coon and I stood. "I think we can beat this thing. Give it all you've got on three, got it?"
"Got it," I heard Angel over the wire from the other side of the hound. I heard my other three teammates check in as well. I reached for my weapon that did the most damage, my .45, knowing that the others were doing the same all around our canine foe. The Coon pulled out his guns again, loaded new rounds, and held them at the ready.
"On my count. One…" I began. The hellhound turned and looked at me. She snarled, seemingly knowing what we were about to do. "Two…" I cocked my weapon. The hound pulled back her massive head and howled into the night, but before she could bring it down for another attack, I yelled, "THREE!"
All the League members opened fire at the same time. I emptied every bullet I had into that creature. So what if we were using more ammunition? This was a final volley, what I hoped would be the kill-shot to this battle with this relentless beast.
Turns out, it was.
I guess we had finally beat her down more than she could handle. Yeah, that's right, the Shadow League took on and out-fought a hound from Hell. We kicked so much ass. Gotta keep reminding myself of that every once in a while.
The she-beast let out another howl, this one of pain, before collapsing onto the pavement.
The drops from earlier had turned into true rain, and as the precipitation increased, we watched as the she-beast shrunk and cracked and reformed back into a woman. Damn, that noise was horrible. Her skin looked like it was sizzling. Once the reverse transformation was complete, she groaned low and long, trying to move but finding pain every which way she turned.
We all took a moment to breath, having no more immediate threats to worry about.
Mosquito walked over to where his discarded mask lay and picked it up from the ground. Then, he almost dropped it again. Without a face-covering, I could see his features completely, and they had gone nearly white. Like he'd seen a ghost or something. I looked at the object now held loosely in his hand, as if he was trying not to touch it while still keeping hold of it or something. In spite of myself, I gasped. His mask was undamaged, but it was covered in the hound's blood.
Looking exactly as it had in that painting.
I needed some answers right now.
I walked purposefully over to where the hound-turned-woman lay on the pavement. It was raining fully by then. I noticed that her skin had started to let off some vapor, almost as if the rain was burning her. Shit, I thought. She hadn't gone up in soot and flames once we had dealt her that last blow, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't be sticking around for very long, in any shape or form.
So, I didn't waste any time.
I reached down, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face so that it angled toward me, trying to ensure her undivided attention. "What's Damien after?" I demanded. "What does Hell want from us?"
She attempted to smirk, but then coughed up some blood before she responded. "You lead a team of men that possess within them properties not usually granted by God. You are of interest to the great build the Son we provide for must undergo."
I won't lie, I was starting to get a little spooked, by all the continued references to Heaven and especially Hell. But I was a lot angrier than I was scared right then, so I tried to press for more. "Damien and the New Between… I get that, I get that, but… all of us?"
"The past lives on in blood and shadows."
"Start making sense!" I yelled.
I didn't get any more out of her, though. She smiled this eerie curling of her lips, and then her skin really did start to dissipate from the rain. I let go of her just as she started to literally evaporate from the water hitting her flesh. I've seen a lot of weird phenomena in my time, but watching that up close still managed to creep me out.
I shook it off and stood up. There was nothing left of the woman now, not even a scrap of clothing.
Fine, one less evil creature to worry about.
Returning to business, I sent Angel back to the shop with TupperWear and the Coon, to check in with the Goths and the others. Clyde and I had a little more to stay attentive to, after all. Neither of us could continue until we knew without doubt that Red and Bebe had made it back to the base in one piece. The fact that most of the others were active was promising, but still, there would be no harm in triple-checking on the girls.
So we thought.
– – –
Kyle
My captors made it quite clear from the beginning that when they said we were going to have a little chat, they meant it, and it would begin on foot, rather than wait till they'd taken me anywhere. It was almost a wonder that they could even handle both walking and speaking at once. These manufactured, false human likenesses were given orders through their goggles from a remote source, and meanwhile they walked and spoke like the hosts they had been copied from. I couldn't help but speculate exactly what, if any, 'thoughts' they even had, or if this dialogue was just a bunch of variations on information Every move they made was just a concoction of the combined wills of Damien Thorn and Scott Tenorman.
Hopefully those guys were at the top of the tier. If there was anything beyond Damien, I didn't want to think about it.
They'd certainly come up with an easy way to get the dirty work done, though. And if these guys were willing to share any of their ridiculous Ginger Separatist secrets with me that evening, I was ready to listen. Listen, but not surrender; hell, no.
I figured that the best way that I personally could oppose the GSM was not to fight them, but to play them. Sure, I was scared out of my Goddamn mind that they'd catch onto the fact that I was just going along with it, and had no intention whatsoever of joining their vague 'cause,' but while I could, I kept things simple. I nodded. I said an occasional, "Hmm, go on," or, "That's interesting."
Because, to my good fortune (in a very weird, roundabout way), these men were incredibly talkative. "The building is nearing completion," one man said, over the deep rumbling of thunder in the distance. "Do understand that you will be essential to the primary cause in more ways than one."
"Oh, yeah?"
I didn't strain myself to look at them, since there was nothing their expressions could give away that would make their words have any deeper meaning.
"You still have your recruitment papers, Mr. Broflovski?" the other asked me.
"Not on me. You know." I shrugged, and instantly wished I hadn't. The coil that they'd wrapped around my forearms was an awful vice. Movement just made the bonds feel tighter, to the point that I didn't even want to wiggle one index finger to attempt to untie the tight knot. Had to talk my way out of this, unless someone came along to untie me.
"Of course. We have more copies." No kidding, really? Papers and people.
"Remind me again," I requested, "what exactly you're needing to talk to me about. I only skimmed the letter."
"We need to match your abilities with the role you'll play for us"
I bet.
God, I wanted to ask the, And if I refuse? question that I was yearning to ask, but I had to give no indication of using any of this information against them. But at least they'd confirmed my already-standing supposition that they knew about my ability, and wanted to use it. Exploit it, even. I wasn't ruling anything out.
And no doubt they wanted Red in order to get at Kenny. Karen, too, I remembered, had received a letter. They were filtering through the people they considered most essential to this 'building' they were doing… and I wasn't going to leave the paintings out of their motives for a second. Something about the way those paintings seemed to speak to each of us could either be essential, for us in the League, or utterly destructive, depending on what we uncovered about them and when.
The men led me through town to a developing cul-de-sac, where we waited in the middle of the tar circle for a good four minutes before I heard signs of other movement. My chest tightened; my heart started pounding. Shit—
Either these guys were alive, or something was wrong, if I couldn't sense them.
The coils around my arms dug into… oh, fuck: very specific nerve endings. Within the logic of human biology, everything fits together. One little shut down can drastically alter perceptions in the brain. My own mind being as sensitive as it was, reactions came differently.
I stared straight forward at a rocky chunk of pavement and tried to tap into the pressures around it. And couldn't. Now, I knew that I had always had my quirk, that I always would, and that certain traumas could trigger it to react more wildly or shut down altogether.
But these guys were blocking it.
That was all the verification I needed that we were being tracked. Studied, even. Oh, and the GSM had plenty to work off of, too: we'd been a League of heroes since most of us were only nine years old. Twelve years—and how long had they been studying us?
Were 'they' limited only to Tenorman's group? Exactly where did the divide happen between his interests and Damien's?
I had a feeling one had to be a part of this group in order to have any hope of finding out. Now that I had very, very few options to defend myself physically, I had little else to do but wait, to see who turned up out of hiding, and what kind of numbers we'd be dealing with. At least I had confidence that I wasn't alone. Stan had to have gone active as Toolshed by now; Bebe and Red were probably bunking out at the base, safe with Iron Maiden and my brother, which would free up Endgame and Marpesia… I had backup. I had backup. I had—
Why the fuck was I so nervous?
My insides flipped. I don't get nervous like this. I don't. Not usually.
There were about forty of them, gathering in a circle from behind the buildings. Some wore the traditional goggles, but I'd say a good fifteen of them were wearing gas masks instead. The scarce light in the cul-de-sac cast uneven shadows on all of them as they closed in on me and the two men that were still holding tightly to my arms. A good deal of the men and women were very visibly armed. Guns, mostly—shotguns, at that.
Those wearing gas masks, however, were armed with pickaxes.
Wonderful. And also what the fuck.
Note to Toolshed: get yourself a pickaxe. Might come in handy.
Suddenly, two bright lights snapped on behind a large group of Infras, and I would have been blinded had there not been so many bodies in the way. I squinted so that I could at least still see silhouettes of the group through the harsh light, but they died down to the normal glow of headlights—I guessed of a good-sized van or truck—when the crowd parted.
Colors flashed in front of my eyes as I blinked to readjust to dimmer light, and I racked my brain to try to remember if I'd even heard a vehicle approaching. Couldn't tell—my heart was drumming in my ears too hard. So I focused as best I could to listen now, and did indeed hear the opening and closing of a heavy door (definitely a truck); one, and then another. One set of footsteps clacked out onto the pavement, and took slow strides as another set scuffled down.
The second set was echoed by a third click on the tarmac. And then they began to approach me.
I blinked and lifted my head, trying hard to focus as I adjusted. The realization that they'd blocked my sixth sense was bothering me to the point that I began doubting everything else I had as well.
First, the silhouette of the man came into view… I knew right away who he was. The dragging of his steps—one strong leg and one lame, echoed with the precise click of a cane to correct the limp. My eyes adjusted when he was standing only about four feet from me.
Scott Tenorman.
He wasn't what I'd been expecting. Pushing thirty, Tenorman had the eyes of a man twice his age—sallow, traumatized. He'd never, ever healed.
And that made him dangerous.
I doubted he was much of a fighter himself, though, hence the mass production of henchmen to do all his work. He could have been tall, but the limp hunched him down to roughly my own height if not slightly less; his shoulders were unevenly placed, the left ever so slightly higher than the right, but he wore clothing that would have fooled the casual onlooker: a double-breasted black evening suit, complete with the douchiest motherfucking red ascot I've ever seen (creepy as the guy was and heavy as the atmosphere was in that moment, that fucking ascot I swear…), and a wilted lily pinned to his lapel.
Tattooed on the right side of his neck was the GSM symbol. It looked recently done.
The R'lyeh scar on the back of my own neck seemed to throb out a warning. I'm kinda sensitive about that area.
To make things worse, Tenorman's entire frame, fooled to the eye with the suit or not, was almost skeletal. Thin arms, thin neck, thin face—it made his eyes seem huge and haunted, and his numerous freckles seemed to be the only hint of health in his entire figure. Several tangles of his red hair had already been shocked grey.
"Hello, cousin," he greeted me, his lips peeling back into a grin over strangely even teeth.
I could think of nothing to say in response to him, so I held my tongue.
"I said, hello, Broflovski," Tenorman scowled, leaning up into my face and jabbing my chin with the top of his cane. It was studded with something, but I had not caught a look. Whatever it was, it smelled awful. It wasn't him—it was the cane… something on there wasn't right. "Bunked with your parents a few years ago," he continued sourly, trying to bait me.
I moved only slightly, but only in a stupid attempt to shake off my bonds and get a feel for the objects around me. At least I could tell by sight that some of these Infras were clones—just had to be sure before the League made a move.
"Must be great to have them back."
My heart fluttered, as if a deep-seated part of my subconscious had seen this coming.
Almost immediately, I found myself thinking about Sally Turner. As far as I knew, Tenorman barely even knew the girl… but she was a Ginger, he needed her, and he went after her parents. His excuse for sending letters to Kenny and Karen? Their mother. Excuse for going after the Harrisons? In part, their mother. Another attack had just led us toward Craig Tucker's dad.
And Tenorman dug up the dirtiest secret buried in South Park to date: Liane Cartman's tryst with the devil.
Twelve years after Cartman's disgusting yet ultimately childish act against Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman, with all of us now into our twenties, Scott was making his move. And it involved a deal with Hell. A plot against the space between reality and subconscious thought.
"Happy ever after and all that, am I right?" Tenorman went on, smacking the side of my face a couple times as he pulled back the cane. What the fuck was that smell?
"So what do you want?" I demanded.
"Right to the point! That's what I like about you, Broflovski," Tenorman said, showing a cocked half-grin which was undeniably forced. "There's a lot to like about you, really. And there's a lot you could do for me."
"Gimme a reason why first," I said, watching his every limp move as he began to pace between two pickaxe-wielding men. "Even madmen have reasons for what they do."
Tenorman laughed gutterally as he picked up his pacing. His cane clacked furiously against the tar, loud enough to drown out his lagging footsteps. "Mad!" he chortled. "That's what I've been hearing every day since I was sixteen. Took about a year for it to sink in, and then, snap!" He stopped abruptly and cocked his head to one side. "Act out a little, and they called me mad and off to those crazy houses I went! Let me ask you something, Broflovski: have you ever experienced Hell?"
"Well," I said, rolling my eyes as I racked my brain through the years-long catalogue of cataclysmic events I'd seen in my life, "there was that one time in like third grade or something I saw my first zombie… uhh… I've been asked to kill people before, there's been a bunch of shit sinc—"
"I'm talking—about—HELL!" Tenorman erupted, stepping up and whacking me in the chest with that foul-smelling cane. I choked and had to give myself a few seconds to breathe before I could watch his expressions change, his distressed eyes appearing to burn in their sunken sockets. "Hell's such a simple fucking concept to people who don't know what it is."
"So tell me what real Hell is, then," I coughed out.
"If I tell you," said Tenorman, pulling a rolled sheet of paper from the inner pocket of his evening suit, "you join me. You work for me. You're a part of it."
"The Carnival?" I guessed, trying not to show any of my nerves. At the same time, I prayed that my wire was still on. Trying not to hold my breath, I dared to continue, "What is your Carnival all about, anyway?"
"Both of these are secrets I cannot simply share with you," Tenorman told me. "I need your compliance."
Okay, so: choices. Obviously, I wanted to and kind of needed to hear him out. This was the closest any of us had gotten to real answers thus far, other than Kenny getting up close and personal with Damien… hopefully between our two encounters, we could piece this whole fiasco together. But that meant that, obviously, I needed to get out of this. Maybe I could buy myself time.
God, I thought, please tell me my wire's still on…
And that someone was nearby…
"All right," I said, allowing myself to sound reluctant. I couldn't have pulled off anything else. Plus, Tenorman had to have been expecting that I wasn't about to join without a question. "That's a contract?" I guessed.
Tenorman unrolled the sheet of paper. At the top was the GSM symbol, and the words, Infernal Majestic Management Presents the Separatists' Carnival. Recruitment Contract: Binding. So there was my answer.
"You know what a Carnival is, of course, don't you?" Tenorman said, attempting to taunt me. "It's just a celebration. A great, big party that everyone's invited to." His eyes almost sparked as he added in a darker tone, "Everyone."
I tried to scan the page as he continued, "We have our builders, we have our guards, we have nearly everyone and everything we need to get started. We just need some attractions to bring the public in."
"I'm not an attraction," I insisted.
"Oh, but you are," Tenorman laughed. "Gonna sign, Broflovski, or are we going to end the conversation here?"
Buy time, buy time, buy time… "I can't sign if you've got my hands bound," I pointed out.
"We can't very well be cutting you free just yet," said one of the men still holding onto my arms. "Not while you're still part of this world."
This world?
Had they already broken through to the Spaces Between…?
"Then you'll have to tell me before I sign," I pointed out. "That Hell secret, there. Once you've finished saying everything you need to say, I'll sign it."
"A valid point," Tenorman nodded. "Very well. It's a gamble, but I'll take it. Though games of chance aren't really your thing, are they?" he said, as he rolled the paper up again and paced away from me. This man sure loved stalling for dramatic effect. "Better suited to a couple of your friends."
"What're you talking about?" I had to ask.
"Nothing you need to know just yet," was the answer. "Where were we…? Ah, yes. Hell. Hell, Broflovski, is a place, and it's enormous. As you can imagine, it's also crowded. You want to know why?"
"Because a lot of people die, and we're having overpopulation issues?" I shrugged.
"Funny."
"I didn't mean that to be fu—"
"But no." Fine, keep talking. "Hell is crowded because Satan let things fall into disarray. The circles of Hell became full over the years, and the place became a free-for-all. It's become almost desirable to end up there. He's been getting his act back together as of late, and a certain Damien Thorn is re-constructing the circles as they once were. But even then, there's overflow.
"Thanks to that Cthulhu event a few years back, Hell finally has its hand on some prime real estate, to expand."
"Into the space where R'lyeh was?" I wondered.
"Precisely. But I'm not interested in that, much. I'm helping out, but only because the place is nothing compared to what Hell really is."
Here we go, I thought; finally…
Tenorman walked back over to me, in order to lean in and whisper harshly into my ear, "Hell is in your own mind."
He then stood back, pinning upon himself the most gruesome and sly sneer a person could muster. That was hardly news. I'd heard such speculation before, but he seemed genuinely invested in the idea that this was a new discovery… and that bothered me.
"Real Hell," he continued, "exists in every place and time. I've been there. Some people, most people, don't realize that in their lifetimes, and spend their afterlives in a manifestation of the Hell of the collective unconscious.
"With this expansion, we're gonna have a breach," he said proudly. "Personal and collective, and so close to real life, no one on Earth will experience Heaven ever again. Don't you get it?" He tapped me with the rolled-up paper, and I felt myself shiver at the contact. "We can transcend reality. We can build the new Between."
Thunder crashed overhead. Tenorman and I were the only ones who looked up. That was more than enough of an indication that everyone in his GSM crew that evening was a clone. As much as I wanted to ask where the real people were, I didn't quite have the time.
Since that's when the laser hit.
The truck that Tenorman had come in on took the blast and the bed of it began to give off smoke. There was no explosion, only a bright red smoldering, but enough to put the vehicle out of commission. The headlights went out, and as lightning flashed twice across the sky, I was able to see what the cargo of that pickup had been: a looming mound of some kind of dust, which began to burn red and emit into the now-hazy air a bright blue flame that appeared to be laced with a red halo. And damn, did it reek.
The same awful scent of that cane topper… I knew what it was, I just couldn't place—wait.
The scent of sulfur. That topper was crude pyrite.
Yeah, that was a sulfur compound, all right; pungent, it tore through the air and burned my nostrils. The smoke rose from the rapidly-burning flames and began to fill the cul-de-sac.
"Spread out!" Tenorman ordered his team. One of the men behind him handed him a gas mask, which he pulled on and shouted out into what had to have been a built-in microphone, "We can't compromise the last of the recruitment! The building goes on as planned." He then pointed to me with the tip of his fools' gold cane, "You're coming with me."
"Sorry to interrupt," I heard an altered yet still nasal voice call through the billowing smoke, giving Tenorman pause.
I glanced over, pretending to be just as surprised as the others around me, despite the fact that I knew damn well that this meant I wouldn't have to put up with this crazy extremist much longer. The man on my right arm evaporated into smoke and ash, giving me the chance to shake the second. My arms were still bound too tightly in that piercing coil, however, so the best I could do was run.
Luckily, there, indeed, was Endgame, walking toward the cul-de-sac, with Toolshed, looking pretty fucking pissed, on his right. Endgame had a sword in both hands, though his right index finger and thumb were poised at the edge of his dark sunglasses, just in case he needed to fire off another laser. Toolshed twisted his awl around in his right hand, but kept his left free for whatever he'd end up needing.
"Endgame," he said, and it echoed into my wire (thank God it had still been on), "on your go."
"Shit," Tenorman muttered. "That fucking League."
Indeed.
Toolshed made eye contact with me, which was all he had to do. I needed to stand still for just a few moments more. The iron sulfide in the truck burned brighter as the haze began to turn to light rain—I felt droplets against my skin, felt my hair begin to stick to my forehead, my clothes to dampen, and I watched as the smoldering mineral mound glowed blue and red like a beacon and then begin to singe out. But in the light rain, the smoke persisted, offering a thick, cloudy cover both threatening and useful.
The Infras scattered on Tenorman's cue, and two of them were instantly down with slices from Endgame's swords and Toolshed's awl. Once I was free, it'd be just the three of us against this manufactured army, but I had to hold to the hope that we'd manage, and that we wouldn't be on our own for long.
"NOW!"
I spun backwards; through the haze, Toolshed rushed forward and cut a clean line through the coils around my arms with his awl, and a split second later, I felt that I'd been freed. With a huge breath of relief, I yanked my arms out to either side, fraying the rest of the now-ruined binding. Once I clenched and unclenched my fists a few times to get the blood flowing properly through my hands again, I reached back into Toolshed's belt, grabbed the automatic drill gun on his right hip, and got down, crouched on one knee, bent at a perfect angle to aim forward through the smoke and fired two drill bits at one of our attackers.
The scream and red flare that followed told me I'd gotten him. Satisfied, I gathered my footing, pressed my back to Toolshed's—rather awkward, with that sledgehammer strapped directly between us, but I managed—and sent out another volley of shots, hitting three targets. Toolshed, too, grabbed out his other drill gun and opened fire; together, we disintegrated at least a dozen of our opponents before the smoke even cleared.
"How you holding up?" he asked me.
"Kinda wish I wasn't so damned exposed," I grumbled, meaning, of course, that it kind of sucked that I had no time to change into my uniform and finish this fight as the Human Kite. "But I'm fine."
"Nice. Duck."
I did as he asked; we fell down into a ready kneel at the same time, keeping our aim out as a laser blast fired over us and destroyed two men in our path. "Yo, anyone around who can clear up this smoke?" Toolshed barked into his wire.
No sooner had he asked that than someone leapt over the two of us, making a great two-point landing a couple feet away. The female, armored figure pulled two metal fans off of her similarly plated skirt—Marpesia to the fucking rescue. She kept those fans concealed on either side of her skirt, to the point that even those of us in the League forgot at times that she had recently mastered those weapons at all… she'd added them into her arsenal only a couple of years prior.
"Anyone not wearing goggles might wanna close their eyes!" she shouted as she climbed up to the top of the truck.
Meaning me.
I didn't hesitate to follow her instruction. I tucked my chin down and squeezed my eyes shut, keeping my hands steady on the drill gun. Without sight, I opened up the rest of my senses instead. Including, of course, the very one that would most likely end up serving me—and all of us—best in this fight.
Everything has matter.
And everything with matter has a code.
They'd cut off my heightened sense with that coil, but the freedom from it had given me liberty of exploration yet again.
Drawing in a deep breath, I opened myself to the air. The number of non-living yet moving Infras in the area was steadily decreasing, but we still had plenty to deal with. One happened to be approaching me, fast.
An object in motion stays in motion until it is forced to stop. Testing out the best of my ability, I thrust out my left hand, still armed with the drill gun in my right, and forced the moving object approaching me to cease velocity. I felt a twinge just above my temples, and held the figure there in mid-stride as I aimed at it with the drill gun. As soon as I released the Infra-Red soldier from my mental grip, I fired, and when I opened my eyes, his body disintigrated, leaving just the animate shadow.
The shadow, I noticed, tried snaking its way toward the large smoldering pile of pyrite on the truck bed, and climbed up along the vehicle's side.
"Marpesia, move!" I called up.
She glanced at me, then down at the moving shadow. Rather than move right away, however, she clipped her fans back onto her skirt and un-strapped her extendable quarter staff from her back and attempted to stab the black writhing mass as it drew closer to her.
…Much to my surprise, it worked. Oh, Kenny would be interested in hearing that, for sure.
"Let's keep it moving!" Endgame hollered out to the field.
"Anyone got a lock on Tenorman?" Toolshed asked.
Fuck.
Where had that disturbed ringleader run off to? I hadn't heard the helicopter come to claim him, and his truck was kind of in the slow process of melting into nothingness.
Marpesia glanced at the now-solidifying pyrite behind her and leapt off of the truck and into a puddle, which splashed up at a woman in GSM uniform just before Marpesia smacked her across the face with her quarter staff, kicked her to the ground, and drove the weapon into the woman's back.
Thunder growled in the sky, and lightning crashed at the same time Endgame cleared more of the field with another well-aimed laser. "Heads up!" he shouted toward me.
I spun to see a man and woman rushing toward me. I fired only to find that I'd already gone through a round of drill bits, so the best solution was to drop the tool and stop both Infras the only other way I could. Thrusting both hands out, and feeling an awful disturbance on my forearms as I did, I managed to halt their movement. Then, drawing in a deep breath, feeling the headache start to take an early toll, I turned and hurled first the woman, then the man, back toward the truck, where they landed into the pyrite mound, and melted into the crude mineral.
Oh, shit.
I'd just solved something else: these guys were a far cry from a wax museum. They were made of iron sulfide.
"Holy shit," Toolshed remarked. "Nice."
"Well, I try," I panted. He tossed me a new round of drill bits as he spun out his claw hammer to catch a man by the ear with the two sharp prongs and flip him down to the ground. The man hit the ground and pulled a gun on Toolshed, who held up his own drill gun and fired first. He stepped back away from the disintegrating body as I mentally yanked the drill gun I'd dropped a few seconds before back into my hand. I was then re-loaded and ready for the next wave.
"How the fuck do you do that?" Toolshed laughed. Hypothetical question.
"Not the best idea for me to get into any more logistics," I warned him, firing at one of the Infras that was heading toward me. "All I know is, at least we can bring 'em down."
"Got that right," said Toolshed. "I think it's time to wrap this shit up."
When I glanced back at him, he holstered his drill gun, stood, and un-clipped his sledgehammer from his back. He wasn't kidding.
The men with pickaxes encroached on us, but before the first of them could even lift his own weapon, Toolshed raised the sledgehammer over his head and swung it like a bat into the man's head. Explosion upon contact. He was then quick to swing his favored tool into another man's gut, sending him backwards into yet another, where the tip of the pickaxe the second held ended up jammed into the first man's back, and the two went up in flames.
Another man swung out at him, but Toolshed caught him by the forearm, disarmed him, and locked the man's arm behind his back, causing him to drop his weapon. A woman took a shot, but Toolshed held up the man he'd grabbed as a shield, then shoved the body off before it could explode. He managed to slip the man's armband off before the combustion, though—the slightly-armored gauntlet that bore the GSM symbol. Toolshed tucked it into his belt, then swung out with his sledgehammer to destroy the woman who had fired.
When Toolshed feinted back toward me, I grabbed his flathead screwdriver out of his belt and stood in time to cut across the face of a man raising his fist to strike me. A woman behind me got a two-fisted blow in on my back, which got me to my knees, but I rolled onto my side on the ground, my forearms aching as I did; I still managed to lift up the drill gun and fire.
I choked just watching the drill bits hit her in the throat before she combusted.
In all the mayhem, I just knew that Tenorman had made his getaway. He'd used the cover of smoke and the distraction his expendable crew provided.
As I continued fighting for my own life, I began to wonder what Tenorman's stance on the subject of life at all was. Clearly, he was not wasting real human lives with the things he'd created to be footsoldiers and missionaries of his still rather ambiguous Carnival, and yet he seemed not to care about putting others' lives in danger. He was particularly targeting parents of those who could be useful to him, which, twisted as the logic was, made some sense to me, given the man's background.
Closer now, thunder clapped and growled overhead, and the clouds opened up. As the downpour began, the remainder of our opponents retreated, scattering quickly so as to avoid the heavier rain. The harsh droplets put out the rest of the smoldering iron sulfide pile, and we were left around nothing but piles of dust, ash, and minerals. Just as the four of us were checking in with each other, TupperWear's van screeched into view. The back door opened for us (I was glad to see the Guardian Angel manning the door), and I heard some kind of conversation already taking place between TupperWear and the Coon, who was occupying the front seat.
Quick as he'd come, TupperWear sped away, taking the route back toward the Goths' place, rather than his own.
"What's up?" Toolshed wondered. "We're not heading to the base?"
"No, Henrietta's onto something," said TupperWear. "How'd you guys do?"
"I—holy shit," I breathed out. "Guys, he held a contract in my face."
The Coon whirled around in his seat and I swear he was baring his teeth at me. "Who?" he demanded.
"Who else?" I snapped back. "Scott Tenorman."
"WHAT?"
"So we've definitely located him," Marpesia said before an argument could erupt.
"Where the fuck is he?" the Coon wanted to know.
"If I had any idea, we'd be going there now," I told him, for the group's benefit. "How about you guys? What happened?"
"Let's just say we got a pretty good taste of Hell," Angel commented.
Didn't we all.
– – –
When we returned to the Tenth Circle, Henrietta was at the door, which had fallen almost completely off of its hinges, and gave no greeting other than, "Glad you guys are back. You can clean this crap up."
"Nice to see you, too," said Endgame.
"Do you guys have a first aid kit?" Toolshed interrupted, before Henrietta could deal another snarky remark.
"Why?"
"I might've gotten burned," I said.
"Might have? Does it feel like you did?"
"Yeah."
"Then you got fucking burned. Come on." Henrietta waved me in, then turned to the others to say, "You guys keep watch. And you," she added to Toolshed, "fix the door."
"What the fuck?!" Toolshed snapped. "Why me?"
"Cuz you have fucking powertools," the Goth snarled back. Toolshed backed off, unable to argue. "Look, he'll be fine, I'll see what I can do. Now be a good little do-gooder and fix our hinges."
I gave him a quick glance to assure him that Henrietta was right, I'd be fine (though the burning on my skin was really trying to convince me otherwise, I mean ugh), and followed the Goth woman through the wrecked coffee shop toward the stairs. Glancing around, I shuddered to imagine what Kenny and Clyde must have been up against after Stan and I had left. Chairs and tables were overturned, scratch marks and bullet streaks lined the walls, but the paintings had not been touched.
The ten of them hung, pristine on their mounts, laughing down at the ruin their gallery had been subjected to. I glanced at Toolshed over my shoulder, to catch the same glance he'd cast at me, just before he turned to his work and began drilling the door back onto its hinges.
Henrietta led me upstairs into the bleak apartment she shared with the other two Goths, and while I knew it was pointless to ask if we could throw on an overhead light, I was at least glad to see that they had a few lamps here and there, rather than just candles. "Take your shirt off and sit down over there," she instructed firmly, more or less pointing toward the uninviting sofa that faced an open area near what I knew to be Mysterion's preferred window.
It hurt enough just trying to peel off my layers, so I was glad I hadn't been rigged with tightly-strapped guns as Stan, Clyde and Kenny had. If the Infras had to have bound my arms, I suppose I had to count myself lucky that they tightened the rope over my clothes, and that I'd been wearing long sleeves—otherwise, I may not have had any use for my forearms at all.
I made it to the sofa just as I managed to yank off my collared white shirt, which was a damn good thing, since the shock of seeing my skin at that point forced me to trip backwards and sit down. I yelped from the sudden caught fall and set my shirt down to the side. There was no blood or anything to really make a mess, but the marks on my arms were not those of a simple rope burn. I could probably pass it off for that if anyone were to ask (work was not going to be as much of a problem as explaining this to my mother), but even then it was kind of obvious.
The material the GSM had been using was more like a hot coil, and there were now swirling, unbroken lines criss-crossing around from my wrists up to my elbows. My instant fear was that they might scar. Or get infected. Or both. Just as I was about to start hyperventilating from panic, Henrietta snapped her two companions into the front room and walked in from the kitchen herself with a large silver basin full of water and ice.
Her companion with the two-toned hair was the first to answer her call, and without a word, he followed her into the front area with a circular folding table that situated itself low to the ground. It was an antique top, it seemed, Victorian or something (I'm snowballing here: just about everything those guys had was Victorian), but with modern hinges to make the legs fold up for storage.
He set it down directly in front of where I was sitting, and Henrietta hefted the ice basin onto it just after the other Goth had managed to slip a black cloth over the wood surface to prevent leak damage. "Go get that herb crap," Henrietta said, nudging her friend to move again.
"Look," he argued, "I'm not gonna be these heroes' errand boy just because you've still got some girl-boner for Mysterion."
"I don't, and yes you will," Henrietta fought him back.
"Why?"
"Because the fucking devil is conning us and that should piss you off as much as it does me."
Her friend had no argument but to dig into the pocket of his tight black pants for a slim silver tin full of cigarettes. He slid one into his mouth while studying the vortex of burn marks on my arms, then lit up with the shining flick of a Zippo before walking away, muttering, "At least we can fuckin' close the Goddamn shop for a while, but I'm not picking up any fucking hammers…"
"Um, for all it's worth, thank you," I said to Henrietta, who was sending a death glare off in the direction of her grumbling friend. "We honestly wouldn't be able to get so much done if you weren't helping us out."
The Goth took my compliment with an almost vaguely grateful look, did not thank me (I wasn't expecting her to), and walked over to the bookshelf situated on the wall to my left, where I shuddered at a Cthulhu relic that was being used as a bookend.
"So… conning you," I said, trying to transition back into a conversation that she might actually want to have, while also attempting to avoid thinking about the kind of pain I was physically in. "You mean the paintings?"
"That fucking Thorn guy," Henrietta grumbled, folding her arms. She drummed her painted fingernails on the skin of her upper arms with a ferocity that made me fear she might pierce herself if she kept it going. "I knew something had to be up, and I thought tonight's thing might be a good trap to end it and still get my Goddamn money for the use of space."
"I thought you guys didn't care too much about income," I noted.
"I need it for a trip to Massachusetts," Henrietta told me.
"Research trip?" I guessed.
"Research trip," she sighed.
"I mean… is there even more to be discovered about that?" I wondered. "Is this about that Dreamland stuff?"
"Yup." She selected a book off of the shelf, and had just found the page she needed when both of her companions returned, the shorter of the two with a slim silver box that he handed over my head to Henrietta. I'd have to pick her head about the Dreamlands later.
"Ugh, what happened to you?" the tallest of the three gawked at my new cuts.
"Hi, thanks for agreeing to let us reconvene here," I answered with a forced fake grin, "that was very kind of you."
"Whatever. Seriously, what'd you do?"
"Got a little too close to the enemy," I said.
"So here." Henrietta had opened the silver box, revealing a lined case stocked with ointments, oils, and a couple bottles of nothing but crushed herbs. I took the thing instantly to be these guys' version of a first aid kit (and found myself wondering where Token or Butters, the real team medics, were…), and watched and wafted while Henrietta poured a couple of select items into the icy basin to give it a stir. I didn't recognize the scent of anything, but at least it was better than burning iron sulfide. "Put your arms in."
"That'll help?" I wondered, leaning in closer out of curiosity for what she'd done.
"No, it's gonna singe your arms off. Just do it."
"Isn't Token back?"
"Your fuckin' doctor's just gonna give you more of the same," Henrietta said, starting to look pissed at me for not instantly taking to her home remedy.
"We just don't do mainstream medicine here," the taller of her companions added as he lit up a clove.
I was about to make a comment on how, with their smoking habits, they really should put some faith in Western medicine, but now was not the time or place for that conversation, I was lacking in options, and my arms really fucking hurt. Shrugging off my lingering doubt, I plunged my forearms into the water. The relief was instantaneous, even though the water was biting.
"Thanks," I sighed out, glad to have that burning sensation dying down.
Once again, I was given a cold shoulder on that, but I knew I had to take it. Plus, drowned in temporary relief, I didn't care. I'd need someone to talk to soon, though, since a part of my brain was still shaking from having been nearly forced into signing a contract with the GSM.
One of the Goths mumbled something about Wilcox being in the other room, at the same time a knock came from the door. The men instantly disappeared down the hallway, the store manager calling back in his raspy tone, "They can sit here and talk but they're not fucking staying."
"Don't think they really want to," Henrietta muttered back as she strode over to the door, the length of her dress hiding her feet even with her extended steps.
There were only two at the door: Ike and Karen, both still dressed in most of their gear, but without masks, which was the signal for us to be able to speak on a name-basis, rather than stick with aliases. Ike, naturally, had his Canadian flag iPad with him. He looked over at me, and was walking over just after nodding his compliance to Henrietta's demand that he and Karen be the ones letting people in for a while.
When Henrietta, too, had ambled on down the hall to where apparently Wilcox was hiding out (and, damn, did we have questions for him), my brother had walked over to where I was sitting over the basin, and greeted me with, "Kyle, buddy, you okay?"
"I, uh—shaken, a little," I admitted, glad that he was there. "On the mend. What're you doing here? Did Bebe and Red make it back to you guys?"
"Yeah, and Iron Maiden and I set up a lock-down before I left, so they should be fine for the night."
"Mysterion and Mosquito still active?" I guessed.
"Yup, so Karen's gonna get stuff rolling here once Butters is back," Ike said, setting his iPad down carefully on the floor by the closest bookshelf. "We've gotta call off the mission for the night, though, gotta re-group. I brought street clothes, so the other guys're getting changed downstairs. Wendy and Cartman are on floor clean-up, Token and Stan've got the door back on, and Craig's taking archive photos of the paintings. We're gonna talk to Wilcox, and I'm gonna scan the pics to see if I get anything. Karen and I're on reserve if Mysterion needs anyone." Good call. He paused, then removed his wide-brimmed hat and knealt over the low table, setting his hands on either side of the basin. A whiff of the ointments, and he recoiled somewhat, but the concern in his expression won out over any discomfort. "Honestly, though, are you okay?"
Now that he'd given me the time to think about it, I was a little more open to the sting I was feeling, both from the wounds and from the harsh ice. "I hope so," was what I ended up saying. Despite that, I managed a grin, when I thought about all my brother was doing for the League. He'd been active and hard-working from his first day, and had come a long way even since then. "Jeez, Ike," I commented, "when the hell'd you grow up and start taking charge in the League?"
"'Bout the time you went to college, dude," he grinned back.
Which did get me thinking again that Karen would be out of town starting this fall, and Ike the following year. …And what then…?
Again, though: a thought for another time.
I was about to say more, but Karen opened the door for the next wave: Token, Craig, and, much to my added relief, Stan. Ike patted my shoulder and stood as he reclaimed his iPad, then walked over to corner Craig. They set up a little tech corner near Karen, who hung off of Ike's shoulder and watched with a sigh as he went about his work.
Stan was through the door and rushing over as soon as he could push past the others. He'd changed out his uniform for a loose-fitting black shirt and an old pair of blue jeans, and had hastily washed his face, arms and hair. He shrugged down a duffel bag, which I knew to be full of his Toolshed gear, gawked for a second at the basin setup, then managed to exclaim, "Kyle! Everything okay? How are—"
"Hi, Stan," I got out.
He gulped in a breath, and sat down next to me. He called for Token over our shoulders, then set his arms around my waist and began hastily, "I'm sorry they—"
"I'm okay," I assured him.
"I wanted to come up sooner," Stan muttered.
"I know." I kissed Stan's cheek for his sweet thoughts, and he smiled a little before getting distracted by the basin again. "I'm fine, though, Henrietta had some kind of herb remedy that's working."
"You sure?" Stan double-checked.
"Hey, guys. What've we got?" The two of us looked up as Token approached. He set down his own duffel bag and rummaged through it, extracting a medical kit much more modern and, to my eyes, impressive than the Goths', no real offense to them. "Same thing on both arms?"
"Yeah."
I removed just my left arm, being closest to him, from the water; Stan's reaction was much more tense and animated than Token's. My boyfriend managed to settle down slightly when Token almost immediately announced, "Okay, good, it's first-degree."
"If that's a first-degree burn, then I already have cancer from the second-hand smoke up here," Stan insisted, all the same. He was right to doubt: the burn marks were blistered, which was the thing that led me to believe that they were scars rather than just points of irritation.
"You can trust me," Token said calmly. He opened his first aid kit and took out a dry towel, which he pressed lightly against my wet forearm. The contact surged and I felt slightly nauseous, but it wasn't anything too foreign. "That feel kinda the same as contact with a stove burn or sunburn?"
"Yeah," I coughed.
"Kinda the same thing, then," said our reliable medic. "It's a surface burn. Luckily, they didn't break skin."
"But are we worried?" Stan asked firmly. "I mean, that was a rope or something they used, but that is a real fucking burn, first-degree or not, dude, it's a burn."
"And I've got stuff to treat it," Token assured us both. "Keep relaxing and take some time to feel better for now, but get me when you're ready for some gauze and bandages. Don't expose the burns, and they'll start to reduce in about a week."
"Great," I sighed. "Thanks."
Token nodded, said, "No problem," where the Goths had neglected to, then added, "I mean it, just take it easy for a bit, I'd just say no longer than like eight, ten minutes."
"Thanks again," I repeated.
"Hey, Stan," Token said as an afterthought. "Here." He passed Stan the white cloth he'd taken from the first aid kit, which he kept in hand, and instructed, "Alternate pressure on Kyle's arms after a couple minutes. If the Goths have another cloth, borrow it."
Stan nodded, and Token took his leave to check in with the others. I glanced behind me to see Henrietta show up in her hallway to talk to him, and he followed her to another room. Point Western medicine: I guess Wilcox had requested that, too. Which did get me kind of worrying what had happened to the artist… probably pretty bad shock, at the very least.
Stan chewed his lower lip for a second, then rubbed my back with his left hand, while he dipped the cloth in the cold basin water with his right. I stretched my arms out over the basin, gripping the rim, and felt my entire body tense when Stan pressed the wet cloth to the burns on my right arm. "Sorry," he apologized right off, his tone quiet, "does that really hurt?"
"Yeah, but I need the cold compress, it's okay," I said. I tilted my head down and coughed a couple times, my evening catching up to me, and added, "At least this way we really do know it's not third-degree, you know?"
"I guess."
"Stan?"
His fingers curled in a little, where they were placed on my back—he unfurled them again slowly and continued stroking a circle between my shoulderblades, while he alternated pressure on different points of my right arm. "I'm sorry, Kyle," he whispered. "I shouldn't've let those guys take you in the first place."
There was no hiding the grief in his expression. Yes, we'd been on a mission, and yes, we'd been poorly armed for that level of a confrontation, but we'd made it out, hadn't we? "Stan, it's okay," I repeated.
"No, it's not," he lamented. "Kyle, it's really not."
"What're you talking about?" I wondered. That was when I realized that his hands were shaking. He dipped the cloth in the cold water again, wrung it out in his fist, and pressed it even more gently against my skin. "Stan, we're all on the same page about this," I reminded him. "League business first. We did what we had to, and it's not like I'm actually still with those crazy fucks at their Carnival base right now. I got a bunch of information out of them, and we're closer, and—"
"No," Stan interrupted, sounding angry with himself. "That might be a rule, but—or maybe it's just me or—sorry, babe, I can't do this."
Oh, shit. When we weren't joking around, nicknames only really came when Stan was really feeling down about something, or at least when he was very emotionally jarred. "You don't have to worry," I tried. I couldn't get eye contact out of him. "Stan?"
"I can't do this." He shook his head. "I can't—I can't do this."
He dropped his hand and rose abruptly, tripping just a little over his own feet. I heard his breath catch, heard him mutter a couple things pertaining to his failed footing, and turned my head to watch as he started, slightly slouched, to walk away.
"Stan?" I called after him.
"I'm getting you some ice," he said quickly, his words clipped.
I thought about calling out again, but understood that he needed a second of space to himself. Letting out a long breath, I bent my arms at the elbows to keep blood flowing, then took up the cloth in my right hand, dipped it in the basin, and applied pressure to my left arm's wounds.
I was worried about him, though—while I knew that the subject of me getting hurt, be it emotionally or physically, was something that got Stan pretty worked up, he'd generally always been good about not only knowing that I could fight my own battles, but encouraging me to. Maybe it was just the suddenness of this whole GSM fiasco, or the fact that I was one of their more focused targets. Either way, I didn't want him feeling like had no control or say with this current setback. I certainly hoped he wasn't actually blaming himself; it did hurt at times when he went that route.
We'd had a couple of scuffles along the way, but continued balancing each other out. And we were both still active in the League, and took our work seriously, but with the future of it hanging in question… shit, he wasn't having second thoughts in the midst of this fight, was he? I mean, neither of us knew how involved we'd always end up being, but the League kind of demanded our attention right now.
Whatever was getting to him, I'd be sure to find the time to talk to him about it.
Stan returned a couple minutes later with two coffee canisters full of ice and a black dish cloth. He walked up to me with a genuine, but still heavily concerned, smile.
"Sorry," he sighed again, as he slowly knealt to pour the bowl of ice into the basin. Stan dipped the fingers of his right hand into the water to test the new temperature, swished them around in the ice a couple of times, then soaked the new black cloth he'd brought with him. After wringing it out, he lifted his eyes to meet mine, switched the cloth into just his right hand, turned his left hand palm up, and requested, "Here, let me see."
I stopped applying pressure to the scabbing cuts on my lower left arm, and held both arms out over the basin again. I don't know if it was the awful light in the Goths' apartment or what, but the exposed cuts really did look pretty fucking awful, and clearly not dealt by anything on Earth.
Stan didn't wince this time. He looked over the cuts, gathered his breath, and lay the new, cold towel over the marks on my right arm. I shivered at the initial touch, and felt myself grit my teeth with the sting from the continued cold contact. The relief was pretty instantaneous after that, though, which was wonderful.
"Better?" Stan checked with me, his voice cracking somewhat with nerves.
I nodded. "Much better," I told him. "Thanks for the ice."
"Mmhmm…"
"What's up?" I asked, since I had the time, and the others were still active in their respective chores.
"Huh?"
"You just seem kinda…"
"Well, I am," Stan admitted. No matter what word I could have ended that statement with, he seemed to agree. "Sorry. I kinda feel like an asshole."
I felt my eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Why?"
"I dunno. I mean, you're right. We should put the League first. I just… kinda can't. Kyle, I can't.
"It just… it gets harder," Stan said, wringing the cloth out between my arms. "Every year, Kyle, it gets harder, and… I don't know. You know how I get. I—I don't know, switching gears like this, I mean, I say I can do it, I know I can do it, and we're here and it's what we do, but it gets harder."
"How so?"
Stan thought about that for a second, then shrugged, and gently pressed the cloth to the worst of the cuts on my left arm. He held it there gingerly, and I saw him formulating his words before he spoke, rehearsing them, even if the answer was to be simple. "Real life catches up to me," he said, sounding almost guilty to be admitting to such a thing. "Or, you know, what we get hinted that real life is, anyway. You know what I mean?"
"Take out the fire and brimstone and monsters?" I guessed, trying to grin.
"Yeah, exactly."
Stan lifted the cloth to examine my arm again, then poured in half of the second bowl of ice he'd brought back from the kitchen, so that the water in the basin would cool further. After testing the water again, he dipped the cloth, and set it down so that it draped, sopping wet, on my arm. "Ever wonder why that stuff always happened to all of us?" he wondered, as if consulting a higher power, not just me. "Why not somewhere else? Why not someone else? You know? Why us?" He shook his head, not ready for me to reply, since he continued, "I ask myself that shit all the time, Kyle, but for the most part, I don't want an answer.
"And I'm afraid that the longer we do this, the longer there are monsters and shit like that, we will know."
He definitely had a point, and I was not about to play the literal devil's advocate to speak otherwise. I hated to see him so disturbed by the idea, though. Primarily because I was feeling a little wary about having that kind of knowledge as well. Yes, growing up in South Park had subjected us to an array of odd situations over the years, and I had a feeling that such a background, as he'd pointed out, probably was going to not only catch up to us but prove some kind of importance pretty soon.
"Maybe I'm tired right now. I know I can do this, I don't mean… I'm just hoping there comes a day that…" Stan seemed more flushed and flustered as he continued speaking, but poured out his words quickly all the same, "that, I don't know, Kyle, that we can, like… stop. That we can get away. I'll stay invested for now, I mean, shit, I have to, I just—I need you to be okay, and I need to know that at some point we can… I—that we can let life happen."
It was a sweet way to voice such a thought, and more or less just what I needed to keep my mind away from the pain in my arms for a while. I smiled to show that I agreed, and leaned in a bit more, to close the conversation in further around just us. "I want that, too, Stan," I told him.
"Um. You do?" His nerves seemed almost out of place, given the confidence he finally started to display.
"Yeah," I grinned. "It'd be great to get away from this someday. For now, though, Stan, honest to God, I'm gonna be all healed in about a week, you didn't do anything wrong, and we're closer than ever to getting this whole thing worked out. Let's be in this while we're in this, and then… you know, whatever happens afterward."
Stan nodded. He hesitated to check on my burns for a second, then rocked forward, shifting onto only one knee, and cradled the back of my head with one hand to hold me in for a kiss. His fingers were frigid from the ice water; the rest of his touch, warm, inviting, healing. "Cold fingers," I laughed when we parted for a second. That got a real grin out of him, but he said nothing before stealing a kiss again.
Looking a little more satisfied, he rocked back again, and brushed a few strands of rain-plastered hair out of my face. "Glad you're okay," he admitted, hardly audibly.
"Hey," I added. "Thanks for looking out for me."
"It's what I do," my boyfriend said, beaming a little. "Thanks for putting up with me getting all stupid about this."
"Oh, you're fine. Besides, even if we can't shake this shit, it wouldn't be so bad," I offered, trying to keep my tone light. "I can think of worse fates than having to be on-call superheroes forever."
"'Kay, boys, playtime's over," said Ike, strolling over to our area with Karen, while Craig lingered back with his camera. Ike took a seat on a large—surprise, surprise, Victorian—plush chair, and Karen perched herself on the arm of it. "Pardon our intrusion."
"How dare you," I mocked him. "Any word from the other guys yet?"
Karen shook her head. "I'm kind of surprised," she admitted.
"I dunno," Stan offered. "Kenny's worried about Red. You sure he's not just sticking it out with her? And Clyde's probably feeling the same about Bebe even if she isn't a target."
"True enough," Karen sighed. "I just know how desperate Kenny was to get talking about this. You catch any conversations tonight?"
"Did I ever," I told her.
"Great. Sorry you took a hit for it."
I shrugged. "It'll be annoying, but fine. I did get some stuff out of them, though," I said. "And honestly, I'm glad we're here."
"In Henrietta's library?" Karen half-joked.
"Exactly."
Craig opened the door at the same time Stan remembered, "Oh, yeah, I've got that thing from that one guy…"
As Stan began digging through his duffel bag, Token wandered back in from the rooms beyond the oddly-decorated hall. Once in the room, he took out another clean, dry cloth, and helped get my arms dried. Stan removed from his duffel bag the arm band he'd wrestled off one of the Infras before an explosion, then washed his hands and helped, per Token's instructions, to apply a burn ointment to my arms, where Token then applied first a gauze padding, then wrapped bandages. My arms throbbed from both the burn and the new pressure, but I had to keep telling myself it'd be worth it in a week when the marks started to fade.
Wendy and Cartman were the only ones to enter the room, and while they made their non-communicative way toward us, Craig silently offered his assistance by clearing the water basin away back into the kitchen.
"Anything?" Ike asked the newcomers.
"Well, I can't find Butters." Cartman's voice wavered somewhat. Which was strange, considering how on and off he was about this whole having the same mother as Damien thing.
"Keep on his wire," Wendy instructed.
"You think I'm not? I told you, it crapped out."
"If you care," I reprimanded him, "why aren't you out there looking?"
"I don't care. I'm just sayin'."
"You're an asshole," I muttered, looking away.
"That's not news." Stan rolled his eyes after he'd spoken, but moved to sit beside me so the others could form a circle with us around the table.
"Well, I'm still in search mode, Eric," Wendy said sharply, nonetheless sitting beside him with the huff of a trainer trying to get a stubborn dog to heel. "How about you do the 'best friend' thing rather than taking the 'my half brothers are evil psychopaths who want to bring on some kind of mentally-situated apocalypse' asshole route."
"Hey, I's an asshole before I knew about Damien, a'ight?"
"Wow," said Token, walking around the table to sit on the other side of Wendy, "did I just hear Cartman admit to that?"
Cartman was none too pleased with that, and spat, "Oh, fuck you, Token."
"Jesus. Can we try to make this civil?" Stan interrupted. "Please?"
"Agreed," I sighed.
Henrietta joined us again, just in time, carrying a stack of weathered volumes with her. Something about that woman was that she never seemed tired. It got me wondering just a little about this whole subject of dreams… if someone who seemed sleepless as she was even had them, and, of course, what that continued research was that she wanted to do on the other side of the country.
"Wilcox is asleep," she said.
"Isn't that kind of a bad thing?" Token pointed out. "If we're up against a group trying to break the barriers between dreams and the afterlife, here…"
"That guy already lives in his own Hell," Henrietta said, very plainly, straightforwardly. She sat down on one of the velvet pillows and presented her stack of books on the low table; her eyes passed briefly to my marked-up arms, then picked up the top book in her stack: Dante's Inferno. Underneath it were a notebook, the Dhol Chants, and, just in case, the Necronomicon. "I think the message we're getting is that Hell's coming for everyone else around here, whether we like it or not."
Great, go ahead and add insomnia to my list of problems, then.
"Question is," said Karen, "how are they doing it?"
"All anyone's saying is that they're 'building,'" I noted. "No elaboration on how, just that we know that they're trying to add the Spaces Between into Hell territory, meaning that they might literally be able to suck people into some kind of Hell even before death."
Karen shuddered. "They can't do that," she said tersely. "That upsets so many balances…"
"And that 'building,'" Token reiterated. "Do they mean, like, physically?"
"Well, they had some kinda cargo tonight," said Craig. "I'd guess, yeah."
Suddenly, Stan lifted his head. "Hey, Ike."
"Yeah?" My brother perked up from the screen of his white tablet to give Stan his attention.
"What are all the properties of those goggles again?"
"Uh…" Ike consulted his digital notes, swiping his fingers across the touch pad for a run-down of all he'd thus far collected. "Infra-red… x-ray… ultraviolet… night vision… subterranean…"
"Yes!" Stan whisper-exclaimed. "I knew it."
"What?"
"Look." He presented the arm band he'd made off with during the struggle in the cul-de-sac, and patted off some of the dirt into his palm, which caused a little scatter of the stuff on the floor.
"Hey, hey, hey," the red-haired Goth warned.
"I'll clean it up," my boyfriend said, rolling his eyes. "But… yeah, I thought I recognized this."
"What is it?" Wendy wondered.
Stan grinned, and held up the dusting of little grey rocks. "Iron ore."
"Iron or what?" Cartman asked. The rest of us groaned (Wendy to the point of tugging at her hair; living with him must have been destroying the poor girl).
"No," Stan corrected as rationally as he could, nodding down at his palm, "it's ore. It's not surface dirt. These guys are miners."
"Look old enough to me," Cartman shrugged.
"One more pun and I fucking kill all of you," Henrietta practically erupted, smacking Cartman over the head with her quellazaire.
"Aye!" Knowing she was serious, though, he laid off, allowing Stan to continue.
Stan stood to continue with his discovery, his face lighting up now that he'd touched on something that could potentially lead us directly to the GSM. "We haven't found the Carnival location because right now they're in the mountains," he speculated. "They really are physically building something," Stan went on, passing the ore sample to Ike to scan into his iPad. "If they've found an iron ore deposit, there's no knowing what else they've got… let's see, sulfur… fuck, uranium?!"
"No," said Henrietta. "No, they can't just build actual bridges between Circles." I craned my neck to look up at her, and instantly felt insecure. The thing that all of us generally liked about Henrietta was her consistent ability to stay calm under pressure. The rest of us could be stressed and beaten to hell, but she kept her calm, did her research, did not flinch.
"Well, they definitely had a truck full of iron sulfide," I pointed out.
"For fuck's sake, assholes, speak English!" Cartman shouted at me and Stan. "You fuckin' nerds talk science in bed, too? Goddammit."
"Pyrite," I said forcefully. "That better?"
"That your safety word?"
"It's fucking fools' gold," I said more quickly, to shut Cartman up. "Tenorman had a cane with some of it, and it still had the smell the mineral gives off, meaning they'd just made it."
"Good point," Stan noted. "So they've definitely got some kind of iron deposit."
"Can you track it, buddy?" Ike wondered.
"Yeah. It might be helpful if you could come with when I head to the lab, too."
"Lab?" Henrietta wondered.
"Yeah, I work at my dad's geology lab," said Stan.
"Oh, and that brings me to something else," I remembered. "You know how these guys explode on contact? I think they're made of pyrite, too. Or something like that. They're some kind of iodized iron, or a sulfide, or…"
"Golems," Henrietta said suddenly.
"What?"
"Hold on." Henrietta pursed her lips and shuffled around us to return back to her room. "One more book."
"Golems?" Karen wondered, calling after the Goth.
"I can just look it up," Ike offered, typing furiously into his tablet.
"For God's sake, Ike, put that thing down!" Karen fumed. "I trust Henrietta's sources, okay?"
"More than Google?"
Karen smacked Ike upside the head.
"Ow! Kar, what?" Ike sputtered.
"Yes, more than Google. Can you use that thing for one task at a time, please," Karen requested, "and finish the scan? I'm sorry, it just—it bugs me."
"Just helping," my brother said under his breath.
"How about the coil?" I wondered to keep conversation moving.
"Huh? Oh." Stan caught my drift, and passed his mineral sample to Karen so that she and Ike could continue the scan of it while he rose, brushed his hands off on his jeans, and moved to sit beside me. He washed his hands with water that hadn't yet been added to the large basin, and gingerly grasped my left hand in his, while he hovered the fingers of his right hand over my bandaged right arm. "Shit," he whispered. "Yeah, this might've been a mineral burn. I think—they will go away, just as long as we keep treating 'em like any burn."
"That's good," I sighed. "I'd just be interested to know what compound they used."
"I'd guess it's whatever they've found in the mountains," Wendy offered.
"Well, at least I can use these ore samples to try to track them," Stan offered. "There's been some interest in mine preservation at Dad's lab lately, anyway, I'm sure I can find something."
"Find what?"
I hadn't even heard the door open. Neither had Stan, apparently, since we both nearly jumped at the new voice in the room. Mosquito and Mysterion were back, looking like they'd taken more than their fair share of hits from their fight. While Mosquito hung in the doorway, Mysterion stormed in, yanked off his hood, and began scouring the bookshelves and surrounding area of the front room.
"I, uh, I think I can track the GSM to wherever the Carnival is," Stan repeated for the two of them.
"You guys lock onto the helicopter radio waves?" Clyde wondered, as he slid off his mask. There was then movement behind him, and, dejectedly, Bebe limped in through the door, her dress torn, hair matted, and face streaked with dirt and tears.
"Oh, my God," I let out under my breath. "Guys, what happened?"
Clyde led Bebe in with an arm around her shoulders. Shaking, Bebe held her hands out to take her fiancé's mask from him, and she held it delicately as she made her way to a chair near a bookshelf to the left of the door. When she set the mask down on the table beside the chair, which held nothing else but a dish of keys, I noticed that, just as it had been illustrated in the painting downstairs, that iconic mask of Mosquito's had been splattered with blood.
Bebe didn't look at it. She didn't focus on anything, just stared down at her hands, where she clutched the fraying hem of her dress.
"What happened?" I repeated. "Bebe? Guys? What—"
"You can track them?" Kenny demanded of Stan, slowly working his way out of his Mysterion tone as he disposed of his own mask. Stan nodded, bewildered. "How?"
"Dirt," Cartman tried to pass off judgmentally.
"It's true," Stan cut in, before Kenny could retaliate. "I-I found ore on this one guy tonight. I bet they're at a site from one of the old mines. I'm going to track them, Kenny, don't worry."
"Can you start now?"
Okay, if I wasn't worried before, I definitely had to be now. I stood, and involuntarily winced a little when the burn marks on my arms sent jolts through my entire body. That couldn't bother me, though, I couldn't let it. Not when Clyde, Bebe and Kenny all looked so downright miserable. Looking at them, you'd think someone—
"I can't right now, dude," Stan said, giving Kenny all his pre-empted sympathy. "It's late and I don't have the key to the geology lab—"
"Pick the lock," Kenny said sternly.
"Kenny—"
"Pick," he repeated forcefully, through clenched teeth, "the lock."
"What," I demanded again, "is going on?"
Just like Bebe had, just as Clyde was doing, I realized, Kenny was avoiding eye contact with anyone. As if doing so would push him over the edge.
"They took her."
That was all that needed to be said… and pretty much the only thing I expected to hear from Kenny for quite a while. Angered at the situation, and probably a great deal at himself, he turned away from us and stormed down the hall to Henrietta's room, in search of answers I could read in his expression he was not expecting to find.
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Authors' Note:
South Park is -c- Matt Stone and Trey Parker!
Chapter ten! In which Stan's geology background becomes handy. XD Couldn't resist… and they're going to start the hunt in the next chapter… ^^
Again, this chapter goes hand in hand with chapter 9; there will be a bit of overlap in the next chapter as well, but for the most part, things are going to be moving forward. We may or may not find out exactly what happened to Red… D:
Wow so our schedules are totally wonky lately (during Cthulhu Fhtagn we were way more open haha), so the next updates will be posted in my profile, but I do want to have one up by… Wednesday, September 26th! Because the second half of Season 16 starts, hurrah! So we'll aim for then. Regular updates should be back in October. :3
Thank you so much for sticking with this series! (And a big thank you to the new recommendation on TV Tropes, that was very kind!) We're really excited to bring you the continuation of this story, so just another couple weeks of a slow schedule, but we shall see you on the 26th! Many many thanks for reading; we'd love to hear your thoughts~ ^^
~Jizena and Rosie Denn~
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