Chapter 23: Heart and Hell's Fury

Monday, July 20, 2009, 7:00 AM

It was the middle of the afternoon in Egypt when an explosion ripped open the surface of the desert, scattering sand, rocks, and debris in all directions. As the dust and smoke cleared, the glowing figure of the Hyperion rose out of the ground.

As it floated over the hole and reconfigured its systems, a column of black smoke ejected from the pit, turned, and landed on the ground, forming itself into a man. DarkMyst stumbled and dropped to his knees, weak from his endeavors. He glared at the Hyperion.

“Well?”

“SatCom.request(uplink) returns Pending ... Initiating ... Complete;”

“You’ve sent the warnings?”

“True; Protocol(departure);”

An immense explosion of fire erupted from underneath the Hyperion, and the superhero lifted into the sky, heading north-west. Sonic booms rippled in its wake.

DarkMyst watched the Hyperion launch into the sky. “Farewell my friend. Allah be with you.”

Tricia woke to the sound of an incessant beeping noise. She opened her eyes and blinked, and it took her a moment to remember who’s bed she was in. Sandy groaned next to her, rolled out of bed stark naked, and ran to her desktop computer.

“SHIT! FUCK!” she yelled as she read the message.

“What?”

“Desdemona is alive, and she’s on her way here!”

“WHAT?” Tricia sat up in bed, holding the sheet over her naked body. “I thought you said she was dead!”

“I thought she was! I’ve still got a costume with her brains all over it soaking in the laundry room!” Sandy continued reading. “Hyperion just left Egypt, and should be here in half an hour. But Desdemona left Egypt about eighteen hours ago. She’s after Joey.”

“How fast does she fly?”

“I don’t want to find out.” She turned to Tricia. “Tricia, does she know where you live?”

“I ... I don’t know.”

“What does she know?”

Tricia thought. “She knew my phone number. She infiltrated Child and Family Services.”

Sandy jumped up and ran to her costume. “We have to assume she knows where you live. Get dressed!”

Chills ran down Tricia’s spine as she jumped out of bed and grabbed her clothes. They quickly got dressed, and Quantum Knight pulled out her cell phone and hit one button. “Iowa! Get to Tricia’s apartment ASAP! Desdemona is in the area ... Yeah. Call Bullwhip and Multiplex.” She closed her cell phone. “You ready?”

Tricia pulled her boots on. “Ready!” She took a hold of Quantum Knight’s hand.

“Hold tight.” Quantum Knight looked up through her skylight window into the open air.

Reality flickered around her faster than she could make sense of it. It was a series of jumps, five or six per second, that had them in high in the air, the early morning city flashing underneath them. They were jumping so far and so fast she couldn’t figure out which way they were traveling. There was no sense of motion.

For a brief instant they were on their balcony, and then they were home. Annie’s chair sat empty in the middle of the room. Scrappy jumped up and barked.

Quantum Knight ran directly to Annie’s room and burst through the door. Annie and Joey screamed as they ran in. Annie covered herself in the blankets. Tricia breathed a huge sigh of relief to see they were still there, and safe.

“What are you doing?” Annie yelled.

“Get up! Get dressed! We’re getting you all out of here!” Quantum Knight picked up Joey’s clothes and threw them at him.

“Why?” asked Joey.

“Desdemona is alive. She’s coming.”

Annie gasped in horror. “Tricia! I need help.”

Joey quickly got dressed, and Tricia grabbed some fresh clothes for Annie. Quantum Knight watched out the window as Tricia worked, getting Annie dressed.

“I see Snow Angel,” Quantum Knight reported. She pulled out her cell phone. “Iowa! Get the boy to your sanctum. He’s priority.” She turned to Joey. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Um...” He flustered, and ran to Annie and gave her a kiss. “I need to get Scrappy.” He ran out into the living room.

Tricia watched him run out, and felt a longing to be with him. She ran out after him. “Joey! We’ll be right behind you,” she said as she reached him. She looked out the glass balcony door and saw Snow Angel standing on the balcony, knocking on the door. “Go with her. She’ll keep you safe, and we’ll be over soon.” She kissed him on the cheek.

Joey looked terrified. “Okay.” He ran to the door. Scrappy was barking madly in his hands, and Tricia watched as Snow Angel took him by the hand and jumped off the balcony.

She ran back into Annie’s room, bringing her chair. Annie was almost ready. Quantum Knight was helping her put on her clothes.

The superhero suddenly snapped her head up. “WHAT THE FUCK?” she cried out, and she ran to the window and vanished.

Tricia and Annie looked at each other in horror. “Help me into my chair,” said Annie.

They heard the VRAMM of Quantum Knight’s teleportation from the living room. Tricia ran out and saw the superhero standing there holding Scrappy. The dog was whining and crying. “It’s okay. It’s okay...” she said soothingly to the dog. “Good thing I entangled his collar!” she said as she handed the dog to Tricia and got on her cell phone. “IOWA! WHAT THE FUCK? YOU DROPPED THE DOG!”

“What dog?” asked Snow Angel as she hovered next to the balcony door. She was alone.

Quantum Knight spun and looked at her. “Who’s got Joey?”

“Isn’t he here?” she asked.

Tricia stared at Snow Angel in confusion, and then looked down at her dangling feet as she hovered over the balcony. Her body froze in horror as she realized what had just happened, and she dropped to her knees in anguish, screaming in terror.

“AAAHHHH!! NOO!!” Tricia pointed to Snow Angel. “SHE WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE!”

“What?” asked Annie.

“SHE WAS STANDING!” Tricia cried. “SNOW ANGEL DOESN’T STAND! IT WAS DESDEMONA! AND WE JUST HANDED HIM TO HER!”

Quantum Knight looked out the window over the city. “Oh my god...”

Tricia was in a panic, and she ran to Quantum Knight. “Please! We have to go get him! Now!”

“Calm down. We will!” She turned to Snow Angel. “Get the boys over here.” She turned back to Tricia. “We’ll get him. Don’t worry. He’s got a bracelet. I know where he is.”

“You have to take me with you!” pleaded Tricia.

“No, Tricia. It’s too dangerous. Leave this to the professionals.” She ran to the balcony door.

Tricia ran after her and grabbed her arm. “NO! You have to take me! He needs me!”

“TRICIA! I don’t have time for this!” Quantum Knight pushed her away. “We’ll get him!” She reached for Snow Angel, took her hand, and the two superheroes floated off the balcony.

Tricia ran to the balcony railing, screaming. “NO! NO! HE NEEDS ME!” She turned back to Annie. “I have to go with them! I have to protect him!”

Annie rolled to the doorway, horrified. “Tricia. It’s too dangerous.”

Tricia handed the dog to Annie. “Don’t you understand? This was in the message! I have to protect him! I can’t let anyone else do it! Even if it means...”

The words from her future self echoed from her memory. Do whatever you can to protect him, even if it means jumping out the god-damned window to go after him!

She stared at the balcony railing. “Oh God ... give me strength!” She clutched her crucifix, and looked out into the distance at the sight of the two superheroes flying off. Then she looked down at the street, fourteen stories below her. Her body went cold. Her spine trembled in fear from the thought of what she had to do. Terror flooded her mind, but she thought about Joey being carried off by this demon. A rage exploded in her heart, and there was no time to think, no time to be afraid. She climbed onto the railing.

“TRICIA! NO!” Annie screamed.

“YOU CAUGHT THE DOG! YOU CAN CATCH ME!” she screamed, and she leaped off the balcony into the empty air.

“NOO!!!” Annie cried.

Tricia screamed as she tumbled and plummeted. The world spun and flipped around her, and she was buffeted by air as she dropped to the streets. She closed her eyes, tensed her body, and prayed.

Time slowed down for her. Seconds stretched out into an eternity. Thoughts of her mother drifted into her mind. She had been dead these past four years. She missed her so much. Maybe she would see her now. She would have to tell her about the abortion. She hoped she would be forgiven.

VRAMMM! A hand grabbed her. VRAMMM! VRAMMM! She landed softly on the rooftop.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” screamed Quantum Knight.

Tricia opened her eyes and gasped. She saw her friend, Quantum Knight, growling at her. She grabbed her with both hands. “You have to take me! I have to go with you!” she pleaded.

“Like hell you do!”

“I’ll jump again if you leave me.”

“Then I’ll knock you out!”

Snow Angel swooped in low and snatched them both by the arms. The mystic fields enveloped them, and they took off into the sky. “She’s coming with us!” Snow Angel decided, and they swept past the apartment balcony. Annie saw all three of them fly by, and she clutched her heart.

“Bu-rekh-a-shem,” Annie prayed. “May God be with you.”

Snow Angel followed Quantum Knight’s instructions, and they flew south-west over the Potomac, landing on top of a tall building in Rosslyn, Virginia.

“I still think this is a mistake,” Quantum Knight said, referring to Tricia. “I can teleport him out faster than anyone else can fly him out.”

“Desdemona knows that too,” Snow Angel said. “She’ll want to take you out first.”

Quantum Knight thought, and nodded. “You’re right.”

Tricia looked out over the complex of buildings. She recognized it as Freedom Park. “Where is he?” she asked.

Quantum Knight pointed south to one of the twin towers. “Over there. On top of the big one on the left. He’s still wearing the bracelet. I can feel it moving.”

“What do we do now?”

“We wait for reinforcements.” Quantum Knight summoned a pair of binoculars and looked at the building.

They waited, and less than a minute later Tricia heard a series of cracks getting louder and louder. A huge shadow suddenly covered her, and she spun and saw the awesome figure of Bullwhip as he landed on the rooftop. Bullwhip was a huge African-American man, taller than Quantum Knight, and easily three hundred pounds of solid muscle. He wore dark brown leather head to toe and black sunglasses. His cape stretched out as two massive wings, and it moved by itself, rolling and folding as the wings compacted. He held two huge whips in his meaty hands, and the ropes coiled themselves up like octopus tentacles and hooked to his belt.

“What’s going down?” His voice was deep and smooth, a combination of James-Earl Jones, Barry White, and Isaac Hayes all rolled into one. He glanced at Tricia and nodded.

FFF-T-T-T-T-T-T A line of identical men appeared on the rooftop from the stairwell, all wearing the same blue and purple jumpsuit and mask. As soon as they appeared, they vanished, leaving only one behind. Multiplex had arrived. Tricia tried to recognize his face through the mask, knowing that she had met him before. But his face was so nondescript it was hard to place him. He quivered almost nervously, looking distracted and anxious, and he quickly glanced at the other four.

“^Hello What Is Hello ^Quantum happening ^Knight, again Snow Miss Sanchez. Angel. ^Bullwhip?” He spoke rapidly in broken overlapping sentences that made little sense.

“Good, you’re here,” Quantum Knight said. “Here’s the deal. Desdemona is back, and she’s got a boy on top of that building. She claims he’s the one she’s been searching the past three thousand years for. He’s Omega Boy.”

“Omega Boy?” Bullwhip asked. “He’s still alive?”

“Yeah. And he has a variable power transference ability. This is Tricia Sanchez. He’s attuned to her. He can give her powers like he did for Omega Man.” She handed Bullwhip the binoculars, and he looked through them. “Right now he’s tied up and it looks like he’s alone, but he’s not.” She stood on the ledge. “Desdemona has got a horde of demons with her. They’re watching us. I can feel a lot eyes looking at me from over there.”

“I can sense a lot of magic over there. Cloaking spells,” said Snow Angel. “How many do you think?”

“Feels like hundreds of eyes. Considering the number of eyes demons seem to have, we’ve got scores of them to deal with.”

“So it’s a trap,” said Bullwhip.

“Yeah.” She turned to the others. “Hyperion is on the way, and should be here in twenty minutes. I don’t think we can wait that long. So we’re going to spring the trap. Bullwhip, you handle the big ones and Snow, handle the little ones. Plex, we need to get Tricia to Joey. You run interference for her.”

Multiplex nodded.

“Tricia, you get to Joey, use whatever powers he gives you, and get yourself and him out as fast as possible. Run, fly, whatever. Don’t stop running. You got your phone?”

Tricia nodded nervously and patted her pocket. “Yeah.”

“You keep running until you get a call from us. I don’t care if you reach the Pacific Ocean, you keep running. Do NOT help us. I don’t care what you see. You run. Got it?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Quantum Knight summoned her twin katanas. “I’ll take Desdemona. I pissed her off last time, and I can do it again. Our job is to keep her busy until Hyperion gets here. Try and keep this on top of the building. If this spills onto the ground, Plex, you do crowd control. Ready?”

Snow Angel radiated in mystical energies, and she touched Tricia. Tricia floated up with her. “Ready,” she said.

Bullwhip unfurled is great winged cape. It flapped on its own. He took a single whip and it uncoiled and gently wrapped around Snow Angel’s arm. “Ready.”

“^Let’s I Let’s ^do am get ^this. prepared. started,” Multiplex articulated. He took Snow Angel’s hand, and lifted off the ground.

“Let’s go,” said Quantum Knight. “And try and stay alive.” Snow Angel took off, carrying Tricia and Multiplex, and providing an anchor for Bullwhip to pull himself on. Quantum Knight vanished with a loud VRAMM and blinked in the air far in front of them.

And Tricia held on for dear life as they charged forward into battle.

Quantum Knight reached the building rooftop long before the rest got a quarter of the way over. Tricia watched her arrive and spin as dozens of demons appeared out of nowhere around her. She saw Joey at the far end of the rooftop, laying down, and possibly tied up.

Bullwhip swung on the whip that snagged Snow Angel’s arm, and he accelerated far out in front of them, using her speed, potential energy, and a telekinetic boost to quickly push him forward. As he reached the apex of his swing, the whip released her arm and he soared in the air towards the building. His cape extended into great leather wings, caught the wind, and he glided down to the rooftop. As soon as he landed, demons charged him. His dual whips cracked and sliced into the throng, grabbing and pushing the creatures and holding them back.

As Snow Angel approached the rooftop, Multiplex dropped down, flitting in a line of clones that rapidly took him to the surface. He exploded into a score of bodies the moment he touched the rooftop and was immediately set upon by a host of demons. More bodies appeared out of nowhere, wrestling and grappling and punching the demons. His bodies pushed forward, clearing a hole for Tricia to land in.

A swarm of winged demons took off the building, screeching at Snow Angel and Tricia. “Hold on tight!” the hero shouted, and Tricia screamed and held on while Snow Angel spun in mid air and waved her hand. A barrage of ice daggers ejected from her hand in a wide arc, slicing and puncturing the incoming demons. They looped and rolled, and Snow Angel dropped her off in the midst of Multiplex’s bodies.

With an unearthly cry, Desdemona dropped her cloaking spell and set upon Quantum Knight. The hero teleported around her, dodging her swipes and fireballs, and slicing her with her twin katanas.

“You will pay for destroying my sanctuary!” the demoness screamed, slashing at Quantum Knight’s throat.

“Yeah, yeah! Put it on my tab,” replied Quantum Knight as she dodged and spun, slicing into Desdemona’s leg.

Snow Angel swooped over the throng of demons and blasted out a wide hurricane of frost and cold, freezing large swaths of the creatures. Demons died by the dozens as she spun and danced over them, dodging their claws and teeth. She headed to the edge of the swarm of demons to envelope a larger number, and smacked into something huge and invisible. She quickly bounced back and watched as the air shimmered and a cloaking spell dropped. A single massive demon turned and looked at her. It was at least a fourth circle demon, a hairless orange salamander easily three times the size of an elephant. It hissed and roared at her, and its huge fangs dripped with venom.

“Um ... Bullwhip?”

Bullwhip took one look at the huge demon and leaped towards it. One whip cracked and wrapped around the monster demon’s neck, and he swung to the other side of the demon and cracked his other whip around a set of pipes that protruded out of the rooftop. Braced and with leverage, he roared and pulled, rolling the behemoth lizard over. The rooftop shook as the demon fell over.

Tricia ran amongst the mass of Multiplex bodies, as another horde of smaller demons roared and clawed at her. Occasionally one would get through and jump on her, and she fought and punched the demons as they reached her. The screeching and roaring was deafening, their stench revolting, and their single-minded madness terrifying, but she fought on, protected by a wall of bodies.

The demons were starting to thin out as the heroes took them out by handfuls, and Tricia saw a clear path to Joey. He was laying on the rooftop, bound tightly with a fiery rope, and he stared at her in fear. She sprinted to him, dropped to her knees, and kissed him on the mouth. Power flooded into her body, and she grabbed the mystical rope and ripped it apart in her bare hands. It evaporated immediately.

“Tricia?” he gasped, terrified.

“I’ve got you,” she said, lifting him up in her arms and standing up. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Did Scrappy...”

“He’s okay.” She looked around for the nearest stairwell. She saw one in the distance, but there were about six demons in the way. “Oh shit! How are we supposed to get down?”

The demons saw them and started charging. Joey’s hand burst in sparks as he touched her. “Fly!” he cried.

“I don’t know how to fly!”

“LEARN!”

Tricia saw the demons coming for her and she jumped into the air. She felt a force inside her, pushing her body against gravity and twisting her, spinning her around. The building shrunk away from her, and Joey flipped and dangled in her arms, threatening to pull out of her grasp from the force of her acceleration and spinning. He gasped in pain as she held onto the boy around his waist. She pulled him in tight, and he groaned. She could feel his ribs bending under the strain she was putting on him, and she loosened her grip on him. He screamed and clung on tight to her, nearly falling.