And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (5 page)

7

All of a sudden, we needed two names, and some dude on TV was there to help us out.

The original, stone-clad monster that came out of the ocean was redubbed Gorgol Omicron — this was some reference to the O shape it made rolling onto shore. The new one was more like a sea serpent. The talking heads called it Gorgol Sigma.

Were they siblings? Besties? Enemies? Carpool buddies? Who knew. They were big and now there were two of them, and they were pretty angry at us.

Sigma was different. She — and, apologies, I almost immediately thought of her as she, despite the fact that I might have been completely wrong — didn’t look a thing like her brother. Brother, you ask? That’s just me, again. I had a feeling. In a way, Sigma and Omicron were sister and brother, alike and yet very different. Like Holly and me. But in reality, I had no more idea what their relationship might be than anyone else. Sigma was, essentially, a giant snake.

And when I say giant, that’s no lie. Not even an exaggeration. Sigma could rear up taller than Omicron, maybe 20 or 30 feet higher when she was upright, like a snake about to strike. But unlike a snake, she didn’t have to keep most of her body on the ground just to raise her head. Sigma had thin, spiky arms and legs that she normally tucked close to her sides. But she could use her legs to brace herself, so only about a quarter of her length supported the standing weight of the other three quarters. Yeah, that meant Sigma was about 300 feet long in total.

Like Omicron, Sigma could roll herself into a ball, only hers was more of a lumpy coil of rope, her head pulled somewhere inside for protection. That’s how she came out of the water, moments after destroying the navy ship.

Her skin wasn’t as rock-like as Omicron’s, but still tougher than steel, with smaller scales that formed an interlocking system of armor over her entire long body, above and below. Where Omicron seemed to be covered with huge slabs of bedrock, Sigma looked like she was wearing chain mail.

If the first two things you noticed about Sigma were that she was very large and very tough, the third thing would be her speed. Where Omicron was lumbering and rigid, Sigma was fluid and fast. Keeping her four limbs tucked in, she slithered around like the fastest, biggest snake you’ve ever seen. In a way, her speed made her scarier than her brother. Like she could suddenly appear anywhere, without warning, in an instant. Well, without warning except for the path of destruction a 300-foot snake leaves behind as it passes by.

I want to say that Sigma was angrier, too, but that’s projecting human emotions on her. Still, based on their reaction to the attack, the Gorgols must have had something approaching human emotion. One human emotion, at any rate. Anger. A lot of anger, it seemed.

As the TV cameras raced to keep up with her, Sigma smashed through the poor coastal town, crushing what few buildings Omicron and the military had missed. It didn’t take long to notice something particularly unique about this new monster. Sigma’s eyes looked like gemstones come to life. Each was a glittering ball with pointed ends, set unnaturally into her eye sockets. She appeared to have no pupils, so in every shot the news teams captured, she looked like she was staring you down. Or looking in every direction at once. In that way, Sigma was like one of those funhouse paintings where the eyes follow you wherever you go. But slightly more terrifying.

Mom finally just shook her head and wheeled Holly back out of the room. I watched Bobby study this latest round of destruction. “You still want to take on a monster?” I said.

Bobby smirked. “I liked our odds better two on one. This…” He waved his hand at the screen, where Sigma and Omicron continued on their rampage, bullets and missiles – hell, at this point, I expected the military to try sticks and stones – ricocheting off their armored bodies. “This looks like a problem.”

Then, since the likelihood of Bobby pushing me to fight a monster had decreased, I became curious. “Exactly what the heck would you do against even one of them?” I said. “I mean, sure,
maybe
you and I could avoid being crushed to death if our bodies could do their shift-away thing or something. But that’s just defensive. What could we possibly do to stop one of those?”

“You could use your mind to throw it back in the sea,” Bobby offered.

“And then it would just swim right back out again.”

Bobby paused, thinking. “You could freeze it. Like you did to Sol.”

I had no response. Sapping the heat out of a living person and shattering him into a billion fragments, while effective, was also something that weighed heavily on me. Sol was an evil man, but that didn’t absolve me. I had purposefully
killed
someone.

“That would work, wouldn’t it?” Bobby asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe.” At the same time, I felt remorse. And yet…

“Then teach me how. I can take on one, you do the other.” Now Bobby was smiling.

“What happened to keeping quiet about our powers? Living with the paparazzi has been pretty awful. We do something like this, and they’ll never leave us alone again, not for the rest of our lives.”

“But we’d be famous.”

“True,” I said.

“And we’d be heroes.”

“I suppose so.”

Bobby looked me in the eye, still smiling. “
Girls
like heroes. Even certain girls.” He took me by the shoulders. “Like Carrie.”

I shook my head. “I told you already. I don’t want Carrie, or anyone else, liking me just because I have superpowers. That’s just… weird.”

“But there’s no way around it, Johnny. I mean, if we go out and stop these monsters, save the world, people are gonna know about our powers. They’re not just going to forget about them once we’re done.”

I had a really stupid idea. “We could wear disguises.”

Bobby laughed. “Now you’re the crazy one, Johnny. You want to wear spandex and a cape?”

“No no no! Nothing like that. Jesus, what sort of nut job do you think I am? I just meant a mask or something, so no one would recognize us.”

Bobby grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Then
he
had a really stupid idea, too. “Would we need code names? You know, in case cameras were rolling and we needed to call out to each other?”

I sighed.
Code names. Right.

Super Dork. And his sidekick, Idiot Boy.

8

I woke up in a cold sweat. No, it had nothing to do with either of the Gorgols. It was Saturday morning. In a few hours, I was going on a date.

I had absolutely nothing planned. See, the
idea
of the date was incredible. I had it all pictured in my mind. We would have a checked tablecloth, a basket full of delicious food. Some bubbly (
sparkling
water; no flat stuff for this occasion). We’d eat off porcelain plates with fine cutlery. And of course, at the end, Carrie would throw her arms around me and declare her undying love.

So, problem. I had no tablecloth, food, bubbly, plates, cutlery, or even a basket. I’d be lucky just to score the picnic table on time.

“Mom!”

“Morning, John. How are you?”

“Good. Well, no, not good.”

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“I have a date today.” Why did I say that?

Mom’s eyebrow raised. “Is that so?”

“Stop. Mom. Please. I need help. I’m supposed to have a picnic all prepared before I meet Carrie at the park at one. And I have nothing.”

“Carrie? Your science-fair partner? I had no idea…” I nodded. “And a
picnic
? How romantic!” I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, that’s romantic. Nice choice, John!” She tried to punch me in the shoulder to make her point. My shoulder, of course, slid easily out of the way. “I keep forgetting that’s going to happen,” Mom said.

“Anyway, Mom. Can you help me?”

She looked at me, hard. You know the way your mom looks at you and you can tell there’s something else, like she isn’t just noticing your shirt color, she’s doing something crazy, like thinking of every moment since you were born? It was like that. She looked wistful. “John, you don’t know this, but your dad and I, well, our first date was a picnic. Please don’t make a big deal about that. I’m not saying you’re going to get married. I’m just saying, I
love
what you’re doing. And I would love to help you.” She may have teared up. I tried my best to ignore it. Even though it was incredibly sweet.

Mom got everything ready. I mean
everything
. She totally rocked it and saved my butt. Maybe even more than when she drove me across the country toward Sol. Well, no, that was probably a bigger deal. But this was a close second.

* * *

Let me just say that a picnic, or, more specifically, a romantic picnic date, is more than just the sum of its parts. Despite the fact that my mom got all the things I would need, I was still an inexperienced fool at dating. As you’d expect, considering this was my first time.

I did at least secure the table. We had a front-row view of the lake at Jeremiah Underly Park. It wasn’t a sunset on Santorini, but it was pretty great for a 15-year-old’s first date. Carrie seemed legitimately overwhelmed.

“John, this is…” She looked over the spread of food, slid her hand across the red-and-white checked tablecloth. “I don’t know. Amazing.”

“That’s good, right?”

Carrie smiled. “Yes. Definitely.
Amazing
is definitely
good
.” Then her face changed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I just wanted to say sorry about the whole dance thing, and how I reacted when you asked me out the first time.” She looked genuinely upset.

I probably turned a shade darker than the red in the tablecloth my mom had found for us. “Hey. Don’t worry about it.” I laughed nervously.

“And, that night. How’d you do it? How’d you put out the fire at the school?”

Carrie gazed deep in my eyes, and I felt the answer — the real answer — about to seep out. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Uh, just dumb luck. There were these big buckets of soap, like industrial strength or something, and I dumped them on the fire.” I made a bursting gesture with one hand. “
Poof
. It went out.”

“That’s just amazing. You’re a real hero. A lot of people could’ve gotten hurt. Including me.” Carrie put her hand on top of mine. I nearly passed out. Breathing was labored. Pupils dilated.
Get control of yourself, John.

Something about the gesture made me bold. I asked a question I hadn’t been planning on. “I’m curious, Carrie. If you hadn’t already been asked to the Middle School Prom by Larry, would you have —?”

“Yes, John. I would have gone with you,” she said, batting her lashes at me for real. Now I thought I was going to throw up. My stomach was a rolling mess of nerves. I giggled. I actually freaking giggled. “Now, I want you to answer a question of mine,” she said.

I gulped. “Okay, sure. What’s the question?”

“Tell me something no one else knows about you.” Still her eyes were locked on mine.

I had to say it. Because, you know, nerd conquers all. And throwing someone else’s joke back at them when they least expect it is the height of comedy. “That’s not a question.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, laughing.

I wanted to do it. I really, really did. To tell her about the powers. “I have —” I started.

“Have what?”

No. She was going to think I was a freak. I couldn’t tell her. No way.

But.

Carrie had told me that she
liked
the idea that I was double-jointed. Maybe she’d like it even more to know the truth. Since it was actually an infinitely more awesome truth, in many ways.

“I can, um. Well, how do I put this?” Carrie leaned close to hear what I had to say. I could smell her perfume. Something floral and sweet and intoxicating. “I can —”

And then people started shouting.

The first thing I thought was
Cut it out, I’m trying to say something important.
That didn’t matter.

“There’s someone fighting the Gorgols!” Two people were huddled close together, staring intently at a phone.

Um. Of course. The military has been fighting the Gorgols all along
, I thought. But no, wait, did this person literally mean there is some
one
fighting the Gorgols? A single person?

No, stop. I was about to say something.

“What’s happening?” Carrie said, leaning away, starting to stand. The moment seemed to be over. As she stood and turned, I sighed deeply. There would be no truth told on this day after all. I followed Carrie into the crowd of people.

“Look!” the man with the phone said, pointing at the screen. As if we were going to look at something else, given the commotion. “I can’t believe it! Some guy is fighting the Gorgol! The slower one,
Armigon
.”

“
Omicron
,” someone else corrected. “Like the Greek letter?”

“If you say so,” phone man replied, eyes still glued to the screen. He chuckled in an
I’m stupid and I don’t care
kind of way.

We pressed close together, all of us strangers. On the screen, live news footage showed Gorgol Omicron standing on the rubble of some seaside building. And something tiny was standing before it. Something human. In a red mask.

Oh my God, what is Bobby doing?
That was my first thought.
Dammit, the mask was
my
idea!
That was my second thought. But the figure seemed different. Thinner than Bobby. And whoever he was, he held a sword or long stick. Like he knew how to use it.

Omicron swooped down with one massive, clawed hand, and common sense told you that the human figure was going to die. But he didn’t. His body sluiced and shifted. And as it reformed just to the side of the blow, he struck hard with the long weapon in his hands. It shouldn’t have done anything to the giant monster. But again, that was wrong. Omicron was slashed. The creature screamed in anger, a pained cry.

“What the hell?” someone in our group yelled. “How did that guy do that?”

“This isn’t real. This is special effects. It’s gotta be,” another person said. “Where’d you find this video?”

“No, it’s real. This is live from 24News.”

“He’s hurt the thing!” someone shouted. A cheer went up. People were rooting for the masked human warrior fighting the giant creature.

Bobby was right. We should have gone and fought it
. Easy to say when you’re a couple of thousand miles away, watching someone else do the dirty work.

In pain, Omicron slashed again, and again the fighter’s body shifted.

“How is he doing that?” a person behind me asked. Beside me, Carrie clutched at my arm, maybe in fear or maybe just to angle for a better view.

The person slashed at Omicron once more, and the monster screamed again, definitely wounded. Then, gesturing with one hand, the fighter sent large rocks heaving off the ground and crashing into the creature’s newly gaping wound. Physical and mental powers, basically the same that I possessed, had just been demonstrated on live TV. This was more than Sol’s little shows. This was the whole package. I was simultaneously relieved and really pissed.

Someone who had powers like me had revealed it to the world. Which meant that I could, too, maybe.

It also meant that, when I did, I would be… I don’t know,
unoriginal
.

Shit.

Still, this masked person, who I no longer thought was Bobby, looked like he was hurting the monster. Could he kill it?

Then, as if to answer my question, from nowhere Sigma crashed into the masked person and sent him flying through the air, to be dashed on the large, jagged rocks of the shore.

For a moment, he didn’t move. News cameras zoomed in. Was he dead? People held their breath. And we noticed… something had changed. The red mask had been knocked partly aside.

Long hair spilled out.

Curls of red.

Familiar hair.

“Pip?” I said aloud before I could think better of it. I don’t know why, but I was suddenly
sure
this person in the red mask was a she — and I knew her. It was Pip, one of Sol’s students. All my memories of her came streaming back, even though I’d never truly met her. I had a lot of dream memories of Pip. In fact, I thought of her as my redheaded dream girl. Which was awkward, because I was standing next to my very first date, who was also a redhead (and rather dreamy). It was a conflicting moment, I can tell you that.

“What?” Carrie said.

“Oh, nothing. Sorry,” I said in a lame attempt to cover up. “But I don’t think that’s a man. Look!” Now everyone was noticing the red hair.

“It’s a woman!” a lady next to us shouted. “A super woman! Everybody — some kind of super woman is fighting the Gorgols!”

Which was technically incorrect, because at that very moment, Pip turned tail and fled.