I slowly drank the hot tea Susan had made, trying not to show too much amusement at Lisa moping around, unable to drink in her little iron shell. It was good, much better than the stuff Brian used to get at the coffee shop. Across from me, Harry was nursing his own drink, and he looked like someone preparing himself for a heavy conversation.
"So, let's talk about the elephant in the room, or rather, the eldritch interdimensional alien in the brain," Harry suddenly said, without an ounce of theatrics.
Susan almost did a spit-take, just barely managing not to get herself covered in boiling water. "The what now?"
"Powers, I'm guessing?" I said. "That thing I saw…"
"Correct, to be precise, you saw the source of my powers, my parahuman ability."
"So, Lisa and I have one as well?" I asked, thinking back to the strange thing that I had seen the first time I'd looked Harry in the eyes. It had been massive, otherworldly, incredibly powerful, but somehow locked up as well, chained down, with Harry in complete control.
"Yes, although there are some slight differences. For Lisa, It's more accurate to say that she is the source of her powers, especially since she died. As for you, I'm afraid that yours is not nearly as under control as mine," he said. He looked sad while saying it, like he was disappointed with the facts.
"What do you mean? I'm in control of my power right?"
"Well, yes, but also no. Sure, you can control the ability it is giving you, but that's by design. The problem is that, while you're doing that, it's slowly digging itself a way into your psyche, bringing the two of you closer together, until eventually, you end up like Lisa here."
"What do you mean she'll end up like me?" Lisa asked. I wondered whether she really wanted to know the answer, or was just asking it in order to make the conversation flow better. Her power gave her access to all kinds of titbits of information, and she usually didn't have to ask for clarifications.
"The more time and influence it gets, the more it influences you. At the start, it's just a gargantuan eldritch abomination that has decided to give you superpowers by digging into your brain. After a while however, especially with people heavily relying on their power, your brain and your power start synchronizing better, until the power is part of you, and you are part of the power. In some cases, that means you get a strange ghost, in other cases, well, you probably know about people like the Nine."
"Wait, you're saying I'll end up like…" I asked him. Susan and Lisa were also listening intently. The Slaughterhouse Nine were some of the most notorious capes around. A roaming gang of serial killers with up to nine members at a time, the group had a high turnover rate, recruiting as they went while they got caught up in lethal fights with both heroes and villains. The response to the Slaughterhouse being in town tended to be rather similar to what happened during Endbringer fights, although on a more localized level. For some reason, the Protectorate didn't pull all stops when going against them. Once, they'd had an excuse. One of the members of the Nine, the Siberian, had killed Hero, one of the strongest capes ever to live. But the Siberian had disappeared a while ago, and hadn't been seen for over a year.
"Probably not, but I'm afraid I just don't know. All I know is that a good friend of mine told me that, when he looked Jack Slash in the eyes, he saw that they had been merged to such a degree that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began," Harry said, and it took me a while before I realized that he must have been talking about a wizard instead of a parahuman.
"So, to summarize, the more you use your power, and the longer, the more influence it has over you, until the difference is negligible. And like you said, the really horrible people have been completely merged. So I have two questions. First of all, why? What's the reason for these things to give people powers, and then start synchronizing with them? Secondly, why am I not a crazy serial killer?" Lisa asked.
"Well, that's the problem; I have absolutely no idea, on both counts. Powers just appeared out of nowhere a few decades ago, and as far as we know, they have absolutely no relation to magic. Even worse, they shouldn't actually exist."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, we're on Earth Bet right now, and it's called Earth Bet because there's also an Earth Aleph. In addition to that, it is presumed that there is a near endless amount of alternate universes, and those alternate universes are where the things giving people powers are located. You're with me so far, right?" he asked
I nodded, and Lisa was getting enthusiastic, sensing that this was going somewhere interesting.
"The problem, however, is that there are no alternate universes."
"That doesn't make sense, like you said, we have proof of their existence," I said.
"Yes, and it seems highly unlikely that it's all some sort of highly advanced illusion. Beings far stronger than I am have checked, and concluded that whatever comes through the portal from Earth Aleph is real."
"Even though it isn't," Lisa said, having made a few leaps of logic that allowed her to see where Harry was going with this. "Because there's no such thing as alternate universes. Quick question, are there wizards on Aleph?"
"Well, that's the problem, there aren't any," Harry replied, and I started trying to understand what he was getting at.
"So, under multiverse theory, there's a near infinite amount of universes, and according to what you're saying, the entities that give us our powers are located in some of those universes. There is absolutely nothing that makes this universe special, and there are a thousand universes like Aleph that are almost entirely the same," Lisa said.
"Exactly."
"Yet our universe, our world, is the only world, and it has creator gods and wizards and vampires and angels and all that sort of stuff, and it's all unique and precious, and there are no alternate universes, at least not in the way that science-fiction shows have them," Lisa continued.
"Exactly."
"And that doesn't make any sense."
"Exactly."
"Look Harry, I'm not sure if you're hearing me, but that doesn't make any sense! You can't have mutually exclusive laws of physics! It's ridiculous! Either multiverse universe is true, or its not!"
"Exactly!" Harry said for the fourth time, an impish grin spreading over his face.
"Wait, hold on. So, if I understand this correctly, powers and magic work on different laws of physics, that are somehow true at the same time?" I asked.
Harry turned to me, had a silly smile on his face, and just said "Exactly."
"So how come you're a wizard with powers, and Lisa is a ghost with powers?"
"I have absolutely no idea, but I do have some theories. For me, I think it's because, even though I'm a wizard, wizards are still largely human. I can only presume that the source of my powers latched on to me without fully understanding what it was getting into, and now it's stuck within my binding, the part of me that's a wizard and the part of me that's a parahuman being separate. As for Lisa, I have no idea, you'd have to ask her."
"Well, I don't know exactly how either, but from what my power is telling me, and I mean like my power power, not alien creature talking to me power, although they're one and the same and maybe it is actually the creature power talking to me, by the way we really need a new name for them. Anyway, as I was saying, I think my power went rogue or something. It liked me, it was sad that I died, if it could even be sad, and then it found my ghost and attached itself to that. As to how I have a soul, from what Harry has been saying, it seems more like we, my power and I, have a soul together. We were starting to merge, and when my body died, we were metaphysically close enough to each other that it was more like losing a limb than dying. But, according to the rules of physics magic works under, I still died, so I became a ghost. We, my power and I, got curious, saw the ghost, and pushed ourselves into it, creating, well, whatever I am. As for why it doesn't seem to happen more often, I think that's because of what my power does. See, most thinkers have some sort of extra senses or something; they gather information to do stuff like simulate the future, that sort of thing. Unlike them, I, or We, simply draw conclusions from the things I see on my own, without using outside knowledge. I'm pretty sure that most power creature things are just as confused about the whole thing as Harry is. We were just in a unique position to capitalize on the newly opened possibility," Lisa spoke, not even stopping to breathe between sentences.
"Which is why a couple of people I know will be very interested in our floating chatterbox here," Harry said.
"Like, dissection interested, or?" Lisa asked him.
"Some of them, maybe, but most of them wouldn't. The thing is, it seems like it is impossible for magic to cross over to other dimensions, at least without help. The enchantment on my power only works because it interacts with my brain, which is firmly located in this world. Shortly after Behemoth first appeared, some of the more powerful things in the Nevernever, the ones that are best described as forces of nature or gods, got together in an uneasy peace to remove it from reality. They gathered energy, and unleashed one hell of a spell that destroyed the entire creature in an instant, poofed it out of existence as if they'd killed its parents in the past.
Problem is, Behemoth and the other Endbringers are multidimensional creatures, and the moment its presence in this reality was gone, its presence in the other dimensions bled through, and replaced the missing matter immediately. Because it's a multidimensional creature, and no matter how strong, the spell couldn't affect the other dimensions," Dresden said.
"So, why didn't they just use indirect magic instead? Use all that power to shoot a cannonball at it or something? The Endbringers have an effect on us, so we should be able to similarly affect them," Lisa asked.
"Same reason Eidolon or Alexandria can't kill it. It's too sturdy. And sure, there are a few things that could probably destroy it in that manner, but not without collateral damage that would make us go the way of the dodo, dinosaur style. Thus, we're at an impasse, and no-one can do anything until they figure out a way to make magic multidimensional,"
"And given how I am made of magic, yet also have powers, you think I might be able to help," Lisa continued.
"Maybe, we'll see. Right now, I'm working on figuring out my pocket dimensions. Their workings are somewhat in-between magical places like the Nevernever, and full alternate dimensions like Aleph, and magic works at least partially inside of them."
"So, you said you were shielded right? Is that why we're talking about this? Because you're going to shield me too?" I asked him.
"Sadly no, I can't. Or rather, I can't do that without incredibly dangerous consequences. I would have to go into your mind in order to place those shields, and that's black magic. It's illegal, it's wrong, and it corrupts the user in a way that is much worse than the corruption caused by using your power. The reason I'm telling you is because you have a right to know, and because I was sure you'd believe me instead of thinking I was just being crazy," he replied. He looked disappointed and annoyed, like someone who disliked a rule, but still followed it because he understood, on an academic level, why it was there.
That, well, that was a disappointment. Apparently, there was a crazy alien thing in my head that was going to merge with me, and there was nothing I could do about it except hope that I'd end up like Lisa, instead of ending up like Jack Slash.
My life had just been getting better and better these days.
"Look, I know it sucks, I just don't want you to get into trouble because I didn't tell you anything about what was going on, and hey, maybe our flying flashlight over here can figure something out. And trust me, most of the things that could help you with that, you wouldn't want to pay their price,"
"I see…" I replied.
Susan, having lost interest in the conversation, suddenly arrived with a newly brewed pot of hot coffee and a few snacks. I could only assume that she'd gotten disappointed once it became clear that the conversation was centred on actual metaphysics instead of juicy magic gossip.
"Maybe spread out the heavy, worldview-smashing revelations out a bit more next time?" she suggested.
"Sure, I'll just ask the universe to stop making sense a little bit at a time," Harry returned.
"Sooooo… what now?" I asked.
"Well, I have a patrol planned in in about an hour, so I'm going to prepare myself for two hours of putting up with Campanile joking about his massive intellect, and his massive muscles, and his massive, well, you know."
"Ego?" Lisa suggested.
"That too."
"Anyway, I think we should go check out the church, try interviewing Rune, make an article about vampire politics about it or something," she suggested.
"Wait, Rune's in town?" I asked.
"Yeah, pretty much the same story as yours, except for the whole ghost friend thing, the vampires tried to recruit her as well, she got spooked, and she took refuge in a church. It's why Michael showed up in the middle of the night."
"Michael?"
"We both know you saw him Taylor, you're not all that good at pretending to sleep."
"Didn't know his name was Michael."
"So, vampires trying to recruit teenage girls? Sounds like a scoop, let's check it out shall we?" Susan said. "Interview with a supervillain, secret vampire plots, it'll be a hit."
"And this time when people disbelieve it, they'll be wrong!" Harry added in cheeckily.
"Hey, don't insult my readership!" Susan replied, half-joking.
"Anyway, she might actually react better if you drop by than if I went for a visit. The Protectorate coming along would probably just get her to panic, while you're a fellow villain from Brockton," Harry said.
"Doesn't mean we're friendly. Remember, she's a Nazi, I have, had, black friends," I replied.
"Still, she's what, sixteen or something? Can't you at least try to help her? I don't like it when young supervillainesses are left to fend for themselves in an unknown city."
I understood what he was getting at, but, I didn't really agree. Rune was different, she was an actual villain. Me, I'd just been, well, I hadn't been a Nazi. "She's literally a Nazi, are you telling me I should forget that because she has some sort of sob story background?"
"Says best undercover operative in 2011," Lisa interjected.
"It's not the same," I replied, idly swatting at her floating orb.
"It's not, but, she does have a relatively sad story. You know, for a Nazi. See, the thing is, she triggered in juvie, solitary to be precise. So, she had something horrible happen to her in prison, and she most definitely didn't want to go back, so her only option was to join a gang."
"So what, we ask her to go back to prison, is that the plan? You just explained why that wouldn't work."
"She helped in the Endbringer attack, doesn't have any kills on her record, and doesn't seem to have reconnected with her fellow gang members. I can probably get Heathrow and Revel to sign off on probationary membership, as long as she behaves," Harry said. "And if that doesn't sound like a good idea to her, could you tell her that we won't come after her unless she causes trouble?"
"Fine, I'll tell her,' I replied.
Saint Mary of the Angels was, in one word, massive. Most people, when they entered the building, would look around, trying to get their head around the size of the cathedral. Me? I managed to be amazed while we were still two blocks away. From what the bugs inside the cathedral told me, it was probably bigger than people thought it was when they came in. I didn't just see the big room in the middle of the building, no, I got access to the rest of the building as well. The small offices, bathrooms and other such things, as well as a room with several beds built into the wall, and two people talking to each other. One of them, as far as I could tell, was dressed like some kind of priest, probably a catholic one. The other was smaller, and wearing a robe. Rune, in all her villainous glory.
"So, how do you want to handle this?" Susan asked me, notepad and pen at the ready.
I responded by showing her how I'd hidden my costume, the silk part of it at least, under my pants, with the upper half tied around my body.
"I was thinking of going in as a cape, but, I'm not really sure. Do you know anything about this place?"
"I know it by reputation. The man in charge, Father Forthill, provides refuge for people hiding from supernatural nasties. Seems to be a good man, who's familiar with the supernatural. The building itself offers protection because it is holy ground, so most things can't enter."
"You find Rune yet, Taylor?" Lisa's voice called out. She was hiding on top of my head, inside a sunhat that Susan had provided for me. She'd even created tiny holed on the front side of the hat, so that she could see through it. Which made absolutely no sense, since the little drone she was inhabiting didn't have any optical sensors at all, but she said that it was necessary. I'd never been a ghost, so I just trusted that it made sense to her.
"Yeah, she's talking to a priest, probably this Forthill you were talking about."
"Okay, so, here's the plan. You change into the silk, but keep off the mask. Then, we knock on a backdoor, wait for the priest to arrive, and tell him Michael told us about the situation. If that doesn't work, we say we have a message from Myrddin for Rune. That should at least get us past the door. From there, just let me handle it, I'll make sure Susan gets her interview," Lisa explained.
"At least it sounds like a plan," I replied.
Five minutes later, I was dressed in nothing but thick silk, knocking on the door of a church. Inside, I felt Rune get startled, and noticed the priest standing up, walking towards the door.
As Father Forthill opened the door, he took one look at me, sighed, and asked "vampires?"
"Sort of, they approached me last night. Michael told us about what happened to Rune and we wanted to talk to her," I said, trying to keep to Lisa's outlined plan.
"Well, you might make more progress than I have. But I'll warn you, she came here for protection, so I won't allow you to bring her to harm," he replied. I wasn't entirely sure how serious he was about it. On one hand, he was just a priest, and I was a cape, so there probably wasn't all that much he could do if I tried something. On the other hand, he was a priest, so maybe he had magical priest powers or something like that. I wasn't quite sure how it worked, but you probably couldn't be careful enough. If ghosts were real, so were exorcisms, probably.
"Wasn't planning on it, just wanted to talk," I replied.
"And the spirit? Is she with you?" he asked.
Tattletale, reacting before I could, floated upward, taking my hat -which did not match my costume at all- with her.
"Yup, name's Lisa, I'm dead, but also not. It's complicated," she said, doing her best impersonation of a flying sun hat.
"Very well," Forthill said, he wasn't as surprised as I'd thought he'd be. "Give me your word that you won't cause anyone inside any harm, and I'll allow you in."
"Ooooh, I get to swear a magical oath? Sure, I promise not to harm anyone inside," Lisa replied. I wasn't quite sure if something like that was actually binding or not. Was there some sort of magical rule that meant spirits like Lisa couldn't lie? Was it just promises? Or was it just good manners not to break them?
"Very well, come in," Forthill answered, leading us into the building. Susan was waiting outside somewhere, fully aware that Forthill probably wouldn't be as forthcoming if we'd started out the meeting asking for an interview.
"I presume you're from Brockton too?" the man asked us.
"Yeah, we are. Made it out alive after the fight was lost," I replied.
"Well, you did at least," Lisa continued. "Me? I had to wait for Myrddin to help me out."
Forthill opened the door to the room Rune was sitting in. "Catherine? I've got some visitors for you here."
Rune, or Catherine, apparently, looked at us, recognizing the dull grey silk of my costume.
"Skitter," she said.
"Rune," I replied.
"Tattletale!" Lisa added, feeling left out.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Heard you had a run-in with some vampires last night, wanted to talk to you about it." I told her.
"What, you're here to make fun of me for that?" she asked, accusingly.
"Not really, the same thing happened to me last night. He got me with that drugged spit of his, I just barely managed to stab it and get away," I replied.
She calmed down when hearing that, becoming less combative, but still wasn't entirely off guard.
Lisa flew forward, until she was floating in front of Rune's face. "I was thinking they probably recruited one of the Merchants, who then got them into this whole spit-addiction thing. I mean, unless this is general vampire behaviour, but I presume they usually just turn people with powers they want. If they can, I'm not quite sure on what part of vampire movies are actually real. I mean, Stoker didn't have anything in it about heroin-based saliva, but then again, it didn't really come up. But, assuming that they can turn people, and that they keep their powers, that sounds like a better idea. Only if you do that, you've now got a cape vampire that probably doesn't like the idea of working for an older vampire that's not a parahuman, paravampire, whatever. Anyway, that would probably lead to internal rebellion and paravampires leading the vampires, so the current boss vampire, this Bianca woman, probably didn't want to go there. So there's that, and the fact that they obviously just started doing this, so I presume it's one of the Merchants that got her the idea. I just don't know which one, because I'm not use which ones survived. I just hope it's not Skidmark, because he's just a complete asshole and-"
"Do you ever shut up?" Rune said, interrupting her.
"No, she doesn't," I told her.
"So, what do you need me for?" she asked.
"Two things," I said.
"First of all, Taylor got a kick-ass internship with a local journalist, and we were wondering if you wanted to do an interview about this whole vampire thing. Second, we had a talk with Myrddin, and he wanted us to pass a message," Lisa said.
"Tats, the fuck? You just gave my name to a Nazi," I said.
"Come on Tay, you came here without your mask, and you already knew hers, it's not like a big deal. Plus, ex-Nazi, I presume?" Lisa said, turning back to Rune.
"Sort of… mostly they were family, and they're all dead now," Catherine said.
"So, anyway, Myrddin wanted us to tell you he can get you a place in the wards, or failing that, leave you alone."
"Me? Join the Protectorate? Are you crazy?"
"That's the same thing I said," I replied. "Just saying, there's option."
"If I may interject?" Father Forthill said, suddenly joining the conversation. I'd almost forgotten he was there. "If it's the Protectorate specifically that the two of you have problems with, there are other options."
"Haven," Lisa said.
"Amongst others, the Catholic church is also known to take in devout parahumans looking for a higher calling,"
"Sorry, not really religious," I told him.
"Same here, and hey, I'm already dead anyway."
"I don't know…" Rune said. Unlike me, it seemed like she was actually thinking about taking him up on the offer.
"There's no need to be hasty," Forthill said. "If what these girls are saying about the Protectorate's disposition is true, then you can stay here as long as you need in order to come to a decision."
"He said that, as long as you didn't start doing any crazy shit, they'd stay off your back," I said.
"So, translated from bureaucrat speak, if you're joining up with another team, change your cape name and pretend to be someone completely different, they won't look into it too deeply," Lisa said.
"Now, about that interview?"
***
Catherine's story had been rather similar to mine. She'd made her way to Chicago, roamed the streets being restless and reckless, and eventually got approached by a vampire girl that called herself Kelly, that Lisa determined was probably the sister of the man that approached me. Susan immediately latched on to that, and I could already read the headlines about lesbian vampire recruitment in my mind. I dimly wondered if there was any truth to it. On one hand, Catherine was apparently a religious neo-Nazi, so she was probably homophobic. On the other hand, she was probably homophobic, which meant she was probably actually gay.
Unlike me, she hadn't been poisoned. Instead, she'd managed to get away and crush the vampire with a piece of an old building. The vampire, or at least its true form, had survived, at least until she'd crushed it again. The whole thing had thoroughly freaked her out, and she'd looked towards the faith she'd long since left behind for support. All-in-all, it was a nice little human interest story about religion, wayward youths, supervillains and vampires. Or as Susan called it, jackpot!
After the interview, we'd started talking about some more mundane things, like life as a teenage supervillain, and the situation in Chicago, as opposed to the bay.
"Don't really know. I mean, Brad talked about stuff every now and then, things he killed. Mostly when he was drunk, which was most of the time. Thinking back on it, maybe some of those were vampires," she said.
"Could be, would be pretty well hidden though. Then again, Brockton was quite clearly a cape town, maybe that kept out most of the supernatural nasties. Or maybe we just didn't recognize them as such. Seems like it's rather easy for them to hide by pretending to be parahumans," Lisa replied.
"Just to check, you're sure Hookwolf wasn't a werewolf?" Susan asked, still looking for proof of her hypothesis.
"Pretty sure he was just a normal psychopath. Fun guy to hang out with though, once you get over the violence. Brewed his own ale and everything. "
"Speaking of werewolves, you hear about the ones in town here? I heard they're cops, changing into wolves to take down supervillains outside of the law. Interdepartmental rivalry with animal transformation, whoda thunk it?" Lisa said.
"Yeah, I heard about those, though without that backstory. I just heard they hung out around the university somewhere."
I looked at Susan and Lisa, and they returned the gesture, "university?"
***
The campus around the University of Chicago wasn't as interesting as I'd thought it would be. Then again, that was mostly because it wasn't the college in Brockton Bay, which I loved because my mother had worked there. Sure, the buildings were nice, and there was a lot of greenery, but it just wasn't the same.
Susan was running around, interviewing people, and I was looking for people who might know something, all the while scouting with my bugs. We hadn't brought the cameras, mostly because we hadn't brought a laptop, so I had to do it manually, trying to figure out what the senses of the bugs were seeing. It was hard work, and was giving me a headache, but Lisa told me it would probably get better from her position under my hat.
"Ask her, the one in the yoga pants, she looks like she might be a werewolf sympathizer," she whispered softly.
"Lisa, this is a college, all the girls are wearing yoga pants," I replied.
"Well, it's not my fault I can't see anything in here," she sassed back.
"Yeah yeah, whatever," I whispered back while approaching a new victim for Susan.
I started walking towards Susan's next victim when something startled Lisa, and she suddenly started talking again, barely able to keep quiet.
"Paras!" she whispered in my ears.
"What?" I asked.
"Paras, the name for the thing that's our power. Because together with a human you have a ParaHuman, and they're also Parasites of a kind!"
"That… is actually quite good. Did you come up with that on your own, or did your Para help?"
"On my own, I think. Not sure," she replied.
Then, having reached the student, a short Middle-Eastern girl, I cut off the conversation with Tattletale.
While talking to the woman, my bugs sensed something on the edge of my reach, in an alley behind one of the student housing units.
It was larger than a normal dog, hairy, walked on four feet, and seemed to be wearing something approximating clothes. Within seconds, it was joined by a second figure, then a third, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth.
Absolutely fantastic. That meant that there were more than just four hexenwolves in town.