Talyesin's Tales

Spending a long day with his partners facing a multitude of rejections from their potential recruits, Squirrelman and the others split up, each following their own agendas. The grey-clad defender of Lower Uptown found a mugging taking place, and stopped it, only to discover that the victim might not be as helpless as she seemed...





Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I turn around slowly and she giggles again, standing there looking coy. Tall and lush, long dark hair, crazy look in her eyes. I didn't recognize her, my attention was focussed on the mugger.

Arachnid.

"You have got to be fucking shitting me," I say.

"Language, Beloved," she giggles that little girl giggle.

"How the fuck did you get out? They put you in maximum security."

"The door just opened! And then a nice lady gave me her clothes," she says, looking down at the sweater and jeans and sneakers she's wearing.

"Yeah? Did you kill her or just pull out her tongue or what?"

"She gave them to me, Beloved. And I gave her something too," she giggles again. "I showed her heart to her. And her lungs. She had never seen them before. The blood was so red..."

She's staring at her hands, which are clean. No blood. So either she's lying, hallucinating, or she actually washed off the blood. Or licked it off, who knows. Psycho bitch.

Shit. I backflip up onto one of the walls of the alley, then use the wall to springboard straight at her, claws out and ready to slash.

She grabs me by the face and slams me into the opposite wall.

Dammit. The serum Jungle King developed for her way back when I first came to this alternity might have mostly worn off, but she's still wicked fast and strong.

I bunch my legs up between us, push her back, force her to let go. She stumbles back a couple of steps. I do a backwards somersault to grab onto the wall and jump off again, this time aiming for her legs. Get her down, pin her, something. She jumps over me. I spin and slash at her as she's mid-air, miss completely. She lands, spins, faces me.

"Now now Beloved, you know I usually love our foreplay," she says, her mouth making this huge happy smile that I'm likely to have nightmares about at some point. She's not even breathing hard.

"Yeah, trying to gut each other really pumps my nads," I tell her.

"Me too!" she says happily. Then she makes a little pouty face. "But I haven't much time, Beloved. My time is now. I'm ripe. You have to fill me with your seed right - now!"

She jumps at me on the 'now' but I was expecting it. Every time she says 'fill me with your seed', I get cold shivers.

Anyhow, I dodge away from her punch, flipping over her and landing a solid punch in the side of her head. She lets out a lustful little cry of pain. Shivers again. This bitch is going to turn me off sex forever at this rate.

I land, hands first, on the ground, kick at the small of her back, slamming her into the alley wall. She bounces off the wall and spin-kicks at me. I'm back on my feet and duck under the kick by bending backwards away from it, then do a backflip and kick her in the face. Back up onto the wall and she's rushing me. I slash at her face, she ducks, I jump over her, somersault along the alley floor, up on my feet. I grab a trash can lid, whirling and slamming it into the fist that's heading for my head. Something makes a wet snapping noise in her hand and she screams. I use the lid to slam her in the face, and she stumbles back a few steps.

I throw the lid at her but she ducks and jumps at me. I use the fire escape and swing away, flipping up onto the drop-down ladder, dropping it down on her as hard as I can, then following up with both feet hard on her back.

She drops to the floor of the alley, I'm on her in a flash, grabbing a handful of hair and slamming her head against the broken asphalt. She's out after a couple of slams, and when I'm sure she's not faking, I get up off her and look for something to tie her up.

I can't find anything. I'm going to have to start carrying those plastic riot restraints or something. I pull out my Crimefighter ID and call in the cops.

I keep my eyes on her the whole time. Too many times, I've turned my back for a second, and she disappears. And then more people die, because I don't have the guts to kill her myself. For not the first time and probably not the last, I really regret that, in this alternity, the U.S. banned the death penalty.

The cops show up after a couple of minutes, landing in the street, spotlights trained on me and Arachnid.

"Hey, Jimenez," I say, recognizing one of the cops.

"Squirrelly," he calls back, eyes and gun trained on Arachnid.

"How many dead?" I ask him.

"Two. A nurse going off duty, and a cab driver."

"You'd think cabbies would learn to stay away from the Kane."

"You'd think."

"Jesus, Jimenez," says the other cop, a big Nordic type. "When you said you met Squirrelman, I just figured you were, you know, name-dropping. You never said he knew you."

"Squirrelly, meet my new partner, Simonson," Jimenez introduces us, cuffing Arachnid with goopcuffs on her wrists and ankles.

"Officer Simonson."

I shake his hand and he gives a huge grin.

"Damn," he says. "Wait'll I tell the wife."

"I'm gonna need a lift to the Kane," I tell them. "I need to have some words with their security personnel."

"Yeah, sure," Jimenez says, nodding.

Officer Simonson carries Arachnid into the police cruiser and I ask Jimenez, "New partner?"

"Yeah," he says quietly. "My old one... she's on medical leave."

"Medical leave?"

"Yeah. Remember that homicide last week? Turns out it wasn't so simple after all." He looks at me, his eyes a little haunted behind the clear glasteel face plate on his helmet. "The investigators think her helmet's psi-deflectors malfunctioned. Some sort of... dark ritual. I dunno. Anyhow, she got a... a full-force blast of whatever when we walked in. I'm still having nightmares, and my helmet was working fine. Whoever could do that to a little old lady... I mean, she was over a hundred years old. Sick fuck gutted her, used her insides... Anyway."

"Listen, it's okay. You don't have to talk about it."

"Nah, I'll be okay. My partner's in the hospital for a long time. Telepaths can't reach her."

"Shit," I say sympathetically.

"Yeah," he agrees.

"Look, if it's a dark ritual of some kind... well, I know someone who might be able to help."

"Thanks, Squirrelly, but the brass are bringing in an expert from Knight City."

"You're bringing in an expert when you've got dozens of them right here in Weirdsville?"

"None of the locals are registered, Squirrelly."

"I am," a voice says from the shadows.

Darklight steps out into the light of the cruiser's spotlights.

"Jesus!" Jimenez says, his hand going for his gun.

"Easy, Jimenez," I say. I turn to Darklight and say, "Hi Anna."

"Squirrelman," she smiles up at me. "Officer Jimenez. Officer Simonson."

Simonson's just staring at us, his gun halfway out of the holster.

"Where the hell did she come from?" Simonson asks.

"I was just passing by," she says with a little smile.

Darklight pulls out her ID and shows them both the registration stamp on the back.

"So where is this crime scene, Officer Jimenez?" she asks.

"Look, I'm going to have to clear this with the brass," he answers, then quietly adds, "But if you wanted to head over to Reeves Boulevard and take a walk toward Dock Street, I couldn't stop you."

Simonson is busy with the mugger whose life I just saved and doesn't hear what his partner just told us.

"Okay, Jimenez," I tell him. "If we find anything, we'll let you know."

"Sure."

"And... sorry about your partner."

"Thanks."

We're about to head off when I ask, "Hey, Jimenez? What was the victim's name?"

He looks at me and says, "O'Day. Annabeth O'Day."

"Where have I heard that name before?" I ask, mostly to myself.

"Well, investigators found all kinds of newspaper clippings from the twenties and thirties," Jimenez answers. "Turns out the old lady used to kind of be in your line of work."

"Annie O'Day... Girl Pilot?" I say, remembering what Doc Sterling said a few days ago.

"That's her," he says.

"We'll let you know," I tell him.

Darklight and I head off down the alley.

"Where did you come from?" I ask her.

"I told you, I was just passing by," she answers. "I'm often where I'm needed most."

We turn the corner and we're on Reeves Boulevard, near Dock Street.

"Whoa," I say. "That alley doesn't lead to Reeves."

"What alley?" she asks me, a little smirk on her face.

I turn around. No alleyway.

"You could have warned me," I tell her.

"Sorry," she smiles. "I sensed an... urgency."

"Then let's find the crime scene."

She closes her eyes and points to an old brownstone. She goes pale, looks like she's going to be sick for a second, then waves her hands over her face and body and colour returns to her face.

"Waitaminute, why aren't I puking?" I ask. "Teleporting always makes me sick."

"We didn't teleport," she answers without answering, then heads toward the brownstone.

People are walking down the street, no one is really looking at us. This is a little surprising, I'd expect a few heads to turn, seeing Squirrelman and Darklight entering the scene of a crime.

"Are we invisible?" I ask Anna.

"No," she says, waving her hand over the locked front door. It unlocks with a click. "Just... unremarkable."

"An illusion?"

"Something like that."

We enter the brownstone by the front door, which feels a little odd since I usually enter crime scenes through a window or back door. We just walk up the stairs like regular folks. A kid carrying a load of laundry to the basement passes us on the stairs, and we move aside to let her pass. She doesn't even register we're there.

We get to the fourth floor and Anna stops, shivering a little.

"What is it?" I ask. She just shakes her head, pressing her fingertips together and closing her eyes. Little points of light form around her fingertips, then she parts her hands and waves little circles of light in front of her. Then she reaches out and waves her hands in front of me.

"This will... protect us," she explains, opening her eyes, which are glowing slightly and filled with tears. "Powers above and below, how can they stand to stay?"

"The tenants?" I ask.

"It's so... raw, so... malevolent. So much anger and hate."

"Anna, I don't feel anything."

She looks at me.

"Of course not," she says sadly, then leads the way down a corridor and around the corner.

At the end of the hall there's a door like every other door in the brownstone, except for the yellow Police Line tape, warning people to stay out.