He seemed to sail forever, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Then Keepsie remembered all the food and beer he’d taken since the siege began in the bar.
It was all hers. He had taken her food, her drink, her trust, her friendship, her hospitality, her -“
“Keepsie?” Peter’s voice was soft.
She cracked her eyes open. Ian lay at the edge of the trees like a toppled statue. He was frozen in a comical position, arms flailing, eyes bugging out, looking as if he was trying to swim through the woods. He seemed unharmed, and Keepsie let out a sobbing sigh of relief.
“What are we going to do about that?” Peter asked, pointing to the tentacle. It flexed and released, flexed and released, and Pallas looked to be getting weaker.
“Where are all the other heroes?” Keepsie asked.
“Timson must have sent them away so they couldn’t stop her. Anyway, are there any left?”
“Peter, she’s batshit. She probably doesn’t remember why she’s summoning the demons, just that she needs to control the city. To control the city, she has to have them scared. Dr. Timson is the one-woman mafia of Seventh City.”
“Fine, but she’s gone and everyone else is incapacitated. What can we do?”
Keepsie remembered Ian, and he ran up to them soon after she released him. “Dude, that was fast thinking. I owe you, Keepsie.”
“What are we going to do about that?” Keepsie pointed to the tentacle, still waving.
“Well. I could shoot it.”
Keepsie stared at him.
“It’s all we have,” Peter said.
“Fine. Go. I can’t smell anything anyway,” Keepsie said through the torn fabric held against her throbbing face.
Ian raised his fists again and pointed them at the tentacle.
“No, go for the portal,” Keepsie said, pointing his upper body to the portal.
“You got it, boss.” Ian shot his fetid stream at the portal, covering the tentacle.
The tentacle jerked and dropped Pallas. It started questing around.
Pallas lay still.
“It’s interesting,” Ian said. “No one likes to be covered in shit. Even hell demons from another dimension. And the Academy said I wasn’t worthy. Ha!”
He inched forward to get a better angle at the portal, shit streaming from his hands at pressures to rival a fire hose.
“Ian, be careful,” Keepsie warned as the tentacle grew near. Ian was still laughing, coating the length of the tentacle before pointing it again at the portal. Once he hit the tip of it, it jerked again and wrapped around him with frightening speed. He uttered a surprised squawk, and then the tentacle squeezed. He screamed.
The air temperature increased noticeably as a golden beam shot through the air and bore a hole through the tentacle. Light of Mornings stood at the edge of the park, fully awake. She grinned and ran up to them.
Instead of dropping Ian, the tentacle squeezed again and withdrew, dragging Ian with it.
“Ian!” Keepsie ran forward and stopped at the portal. Peter caught up with her.
The world through the portal nauseated her. The landscape moved and writhed. The creature that held Ian was gargantuan, making Ian look like a doll in its clutches. Part octopus, part quadruped, the tentacles reached from its chest out closer to their world. The one that held Ian drew it closer to an orifice that looked to be a mouth. He screamed.
“Close it! Close the portal!” he cried.
“No!” Keepsie took a step into the portal. The searing wind of the other world baked her bare ankle. Peter pulled her back.
“We have to close it. Look,” he pointed. More creatures ambled closer, their tentacles reaching towards Keepsie and Peter.
Ian struggled against the beast that the most powerful hero in the city couldn’t defeat, and it brought him closer.
“He’s my friend,” Keepsie said through clenched teeth.
The beast froze. The others paused and stared at it. One howled something, and began lumbering towards Keepsie in the portal.
Ian slithered out of the tentacle’s grasp and looked at them. He had something like an eighth of a mile to travel, and the large monstrous creatures could cover the ground more quickly.
“Close it!” he yelled, waving his arms. “I’ll be OK! Close it!”
“I’ve got him!” Light of Mornings flew past Keepsie and Peter into the portal.
“Oh no,” Keepsie said. Some of the creatures swiped at the girl, and she eradicated them easily. Others continued to run toward the portal.
Peter pulled Keepsie back and she fell to the ground, sobbing. She didn’t see him close the portal, only heard a whoosh of air.
Keepsie had remembered the bar in much worse shape than it turned out to be. But aside from the broken glass in the front room, the several dishes from the meals they had eaten, and the broken pint glasses in the kitchen, the cleanup was remarkably similar to cleaning up after a rowdy Saturday night.
Pallas had helped out with smoothing some of the hairier questions out, from the vigilante groups to the missing toe on the frozen body in her bar. The meeting with Pallas had gone better than she had hoped, as everything she had promised had been true. Timson had been trying to work with a handful of the heroes to make the Academy stronger in the city, to thus increase tax revenue.
Her hero cronies as well as Clever Jack and Doodad were in a hero jail in New York awaiting trial. Ghostheart and Timson were still missing, and The Crane was under house arrest under Pallas, pardoned because of his full agreement to testify against Timson.
A main issue of contention was Light of Mornings. Since she had caused so much damage after waking up, Pallas was ready to condemn, but Keepsie tried to explain how Clever Jack manipulated her. Without the actual accused, Pallas decided to reserve judgment until she sent some heroes to the demon dimension to see if Ian and Light of Mornings survived.
Pallas and The Crane and the younger teens of the Academy worked out of a warehouse as they fought for revenue to rebuild. Keepsie had offered some of her friends’ unique talents to help clean up and rebuild the Academy, and Pallas offered their hero with healing powers to patch up Keepsie’s friends.
Their meetings had been frequent; some of them tense, some friendly.
Keepsie’s Bar stayed closed for a week, mourning Ian and Alex. They held a wake the next Saturday night.
Keepsie’s black dress was modest, but she covered it with her leather jacket.
When Peter had seen her, he frowned. She scowled at him. “Do you really think Ian wants me to be dowdy at his wake?”
“I see your point,” he said. He bent to kiss her.
He had told her of his loss a couple of nights before. They had been in bed, exploring each other as new lovers do, when she asked him why their intimate contact wasn’t shutting him down. He admitted what had happened to him. She comforted him, trying to focus on the positive, but it had felt hollow.
The look in his eyes when he told her hurt her, and she didn’t know how to fix that hurt.
He wore a dark suit. His tie, however, was a Hawaiian print. She tugged at it and grinned. “Yeah. You’re all proper.”
Colette had outdone herself for the wake. She and Keepsie had had a very long argument about the food for the wake, and finally capitulated when Colette had pulled the superpower card. Keepsie couldn’t argue with Colette’s superpower.
So when Colette served demon canapés, demon soup, and demon pie during the wake, everyone remarked on how delicious it was. Peter knew, and Keepsie noticed how he kept to the veggie platter and punch bowl.
Everyone wore something brightly colored along with their black clothing, and the brightest of all was Michelle. Dressed in a bright red dress, she chatted and laughed at the wake with Barry and Tomas. Although she easily swapped stories with them, she refused to speak of him as if he were dead. She had accepted Ian’s disappearance with a stoic determination that Keepsie feared was denial.
“Was he alive when you saw him?”
“Yes, but-“
“And did you tell him he was your friend, your friend, before the portal went down?”
“Yes, but-“
“And Pallas is working to understand how to work it?”
“Yes, but-“
“And if she can’t, Doodad is still alive to work on another one?”
“Yes, but-“
“And the most powerful human alive is in there with him, and she’s on our side?”
“Well, yes-“
“Then he’ll be back.”
She would talk no more about it.
Keepsie was chatting with Pallas about the new direction of the Academy when Peter came up to talk to her.
“I appreciate the offer to enroll us, but I don’t think we’re ready. There’s too much bitterness, I’m sorry to say.”
Pallas nodded. “The offer remains. Please let your friends know.”
“Keepsie, may I interrupt?”
Keepsie smiled at Pallas and followed Peter to an unoccupied corner of the bar.
“This is hard for me, Keepsie,” he began.
“Shit. You’re dumping me.” Keepsie blurted, her stomach sinking.
His put an arm around her. “No, not at all. Keepsie, I’ve been in love with you for longer than even I know. I could no more leave you than step out of my own skin.”
“Then what?”
“Well. I have to leave you.”
She blinked at him.
“Timson is still at large. No one can find her except me, and I know she’s not in Seventh City anymore. She’s mad, volatile, harmful, and, on a selfish note, she may have the answer to why my powers are gone. She took them, after all.”
Keepsie swallowed. “So, where are you going?”
“Wherever my nose takes me. I can sense her pretty well, it’s all I can sense now.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I… don’t know that part. I am sorry. But I will be back. I promise.”
He took her hand and kissed it. She clung to his hand for a moment, then withdrew it. “Leave tonight. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back.”
She turned her back on him, gritting her teeth against the tears that sprang to her eyes, and bumped into someone rather unexpected.
“Ah, Mr. Mayor, I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said, wiping her eyes. Pallas stood at Mayor Bell’s elbow, her creased face in an unfamiliar smile.
“Ms. Branson, I wanted to come and offer my condolences about the loss of two heroes who helped the city during a very dark time,” Mayor Bell said. He was a tall, African American man with gray eyes and a politician’s smile.
Keepsie was suddenly very aware of her splinted nose.
“Yes, they did a lot for us. Alex kept us alive, and Ian got rid of that thing.”
Mayor Bell frowned and took her hand, half-intimately, half-shaking. “I understand you were close to both men. I am so sorry for your loss. We are giving both of them posthumous medals in their honor, to be granted in a ceremony two weeks from tomorrow. Will you honor us by attending?”
“Oh, uh, sure, I’d be glad to. They deserve some recognition.”
“I wanted to include you in the ceremony, but Pallas has recommended I do this sooner than later. You will be honored as well, but I wanted to give you this now.”
He handed her a leather case about as long as her forearm.
She clicked the case open and saw a large, brass key sitting in a velvet bed. “To Keepsie Branson,” it said along the length. “For service to Seventh City.”
“The key to the city. Huh.” Keepsie hefted it into her hands and then turned and grinned at the mayor.
“My city. Mayor Bell, I accept. Thank you.”
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice.”
“What’s on your mind, Keepsie?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. So much has changed.”
“Ian and Peter are gone, most of Seventh City’s heroes are gone and you’re a hero now - in reality if not in name. Saying a lot has changed is an understatement.”
“I know that, Pallas, but I mean within me. The drugs changed me. It terrifies me.”
“Do you want training?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. Oh come on, don’t look at me like that.”
“Training would give you control and teach you ethics.”
“Like it did Heretic and Tattoo Devil and White Lightning?”
“That was uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just, my powers scare me. I don’t want to be associated with the Academy, even now. Not yet. But I don’t want to scare myself.”
“Every hero goes through this. It’s frightening knowing you can kill someone with a thought or break into a house by walking through walls or stop time. Or cripple everyone who breathes your air. Think about the training.”
“That’s twice you’ve called me a hero.”
“It fits.”
“I still won’t join.”
“I know.”
“See you tonight at the bar?”
“You couldn’t keep me away.”
“Actually, I could. Quite easily.”
Pause.
“You know, Pallas, maybe I will take some training. Off the books.”
“I thought you might.”
Parasite Awakens by Mur Lafferty
The worst thing about the fall of the Academy is not the fact that many of the heroes are in jail, or that they fled town as traitors, or that there was a big mess to clean up of the ruined building. The superheroes of Seventh City had dealt with unpopular publicity - even traitors - before. With heroes on your side (and, yes, she still had a few heroes on her side), cleanup of a mess is not a problem.
No, the biggest problem facing Pallas right now is loneliness. She had been the first hero. The best. She’d made friends in her youth that had been taken from her. She had tried to bond with fellow heroes, but she was older, and stronger, and they always felt a definite chasm between them. She had felt close to her mentor, Dr. Timson, but Timson had just gone insane, caused the destruction of the Academy, the deaths of at least one hero and scores of civilians, the release of the strongest villain there had ever been, and the creation and misuse of a new, dangerous drug to cause a magnification of superpowers (or creation of powers in people without).