Project Northwoods (77 page)

Athena yanked back on Ariana’s hair, lifting her up in one smooth motion. Her arm free from underneath her, Ariana’s hand tightened on the half-clipper and swung it up at the hero’s face. The moment it connected, Athena released her grip and fell backward as Ariana carried through, blood splattering onto her body from a freshly opened wound.

The mercenary stumbled backward, clutching her bleeding face. Her hands pulled away, slick with gore. The gouge wasn’t terribly deep, but it was enough to make her wobble in place as Ariana got to her feet, prickles of pain running down her wounded left leg. Athena’s hand flicked up, and Ariana felt something gently push against her before the woman in white fell to her knees, shaking. She seemed to consider the world around her for a moment, surprisingly at peace with what was going on. Then, without catching herself with her hands, Athena collapsed face-first into the debris-strewn earth.

“Ariana!” Her attention snapped toward Arthur, running past the shattered remnants of her house. To his side, Stair and Mast were making their own way through the rubble. “What happened?”

Ariana gestured with the clipper at the prone form of Athena. “Bitch broke into my house.”

“And you blew it up?” Stair asked.

“Bitch. Broke in.” Ariana said simply. She was too exhausted to consider changing her story at the moment.

Mast ran toward Athena and stopped short, an undecipherable look on her face. “Shit.”

“What?” Arthur asked.

“They’ve brought in SERAPHIM.” She looked up at the others. “We need to go. Now.”

“She’s right.” Ariana said, turning to limp across the downed chain-link fence. “We need to find my dad.”

Stair started after her, her own limping less pronounced. “You said you didn’t know where he was.”

Ariana didn’t turn as the others followed, Mast making sure they weren’t being shadowed with cursory glances behind them. “I know someone who might.”

HIEROPHANT

MORGAN FELT TRAPPED, EVEN IN THE HUGE HOTEL
that Zombress had decided would be their safe house. The days were spent wandering the halls, gazing out at the numerous real estate agents as they wandered, escorted, down the streets. She had no real issue with them, but Steven paced relentlessly whenever he caught glimpses of the agents, tapping his gun against his shoulder as he did so. “Vultures,” he would growl before vanishing down one of the hallways. He had grown more distant as time went on, a trait which she attributed to concern over the welfare of his brothers.

The three of them had complete run of the entire building, so entire hours would go by before she would even notice a sign of life from either of her cohorts. More likely, she’d hear the distant sound of a door closing or perhaps Steven muttering to himself before fading out. Zombress was much harder to find, vanishing for long stretches only to return empty-handed and angrier than before. At this point, Morgan wanted nothing more than to be able to walk outside, but her overlord refused to allow it.

The villain’s eyes would flick up and stare right through her, a tendency which Morgan found simultaneously unsettling and infuriating. “Morgan,” she’d say with a great deal of practiced concern, “there are forces at play which we do not yet fully understand.” Zombress would rest a hand on her shoulder, sending a chill down her spine, no doubt her body’s sympathetic reaction to the Queen of the Dead’s touch. “Patience.” And, like that, she’d spin on her heel and walk away.

Nights were always the worst. That’s when she could see the glow from the rest of the city and, if she squinted, maybe make out the apartment where her mother lived. Hooligans ran through the streets, hooting and pretending it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland, trashing storefronts and generally causing havoc. And, of course, the Enforcers would roll through, sweep to check for activity, then disappear into the night. She would watch from the rooftop, making sure to take a step back whenever they would bring out a mobile spotlight to scan the buildings. Soon enough, the search drones would be out, and nighttime would be limited to secure indoor locations, lest Zombress grow angry at the sight of insurrection.

Morgan continued to feel trapped in one of the interior rooms of the hotel, sitting alone at an empty table in the dining hall, lit only by the generous skylight in the ceiling. Even though it was broad daylight, she had cloistered herself within one of the so-called ‘safe rooms’, if only out of some autonomous reaction. It wasn’t like it, or anything, really mattered. Time bled into itself in this place, five in the morning feeling identical to five in the afternoon. There was no structure, no hard rules to follow or break. Except, of course, the ones that, if broken, would likely get her killed or captured. And, up until now, that had been enough to keep her quiet and in line.

A door behind her quietly opened, but she didn’t respond to the noise. She knew it was Steven from the moment she had detected anything at all. Zombress was out on her ill-defined ‘business’ and, even if she was here, it wasn’t like she ever made a sound anyway. Steven was about as stealthy as an old truck with an engine problem, which was nice in the fact that he could never, ever conceivably sneak up on her.

“I brought you some breakfast,” he said after closing the distance from the door to the table. She didn’t turn as he appeared on her right, plopping a green-wrapped granola bar in front of her. “It’ll give you all-day energy to mope.” He sat on the edge of the table, jamming his own breakfast in his mouth. Morgan continued to stare straight ahead, not intentionally rude, but focused on some internal conflict. “Come on. It’s honey oat or something.” The words came out between half-chewed granola.

“I want to find my mother,” Morgan said, decisively. When there was no response, she looked at Steven, the mobster staring at her, motionless. His suit had seen better days, but he had been wearing it perpetually since the escape. Between the forest and not giving it a chance to not be worn, it had developed fringes in numerous spots, as well as at least one bullet hole that he had failed to notice until they had reached the safety of the hotel. There would have been a lingering smell to it had the place not had a laundry facility and enough bottled water for Zombress to grudgingly allow Steven and Morgan to wash their clothes. She fought the urge to hate the woman for being able to materialize clothing out of thin air, just one of numerous abilities which made everyday annoyances obsolete for the Queen of Fear.

Steven rasped a squeak of surprise before cutting himself off. “You want to leave this place?” He quickly looked over his shoulder to double-check that no one else was in the room. “You, number two on the heroes’ hit list, want to go outside?”

Morgan’s eyes flicked away, staring off toward empty space again. “It would only take a couple of hours.”

He hopped off the table and pulled out a chair. He was at her eye level, intently focused on her even though she refused to return the favor. “That’s more than enough time for people to recognize you.”

She turned to him now, indifferent. “I don’t care.”

“Well, we do!” he shouted.

A half-shrug and a shake of her head was her response. “I need to explain things to her.”

Steven rolled his eyes. “Look, I know this is a tough time for you right now, but this is suicide.”

“She can help me.”

“Help you what?” He leaned back in his chair, almost laughing. It was more than clear he thought she was being silly, but if he was content to just stay hidden in a hotel for the rest of his life, he was welcome to it. “Clear your name? Did you forget that she tried to kill you a few days ago?”

Morgan swallowed and broke eye contact. “It was a different time and place.”

“Your mother was on national television basically disowning your stupid ass,” he snapped. “You were out cold at the time, but it still happened.” She didn’t say a word, merely continuing to stare. Steven licked his lips, apparently pondering something which was incredibly unappealing. “You’re not going alone.”

She looked at him. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Bullshit.” He stood up from the chair. “If Zombress comes back and you’re gone but I’m not, I will be dead.” To emphasize the point, he dragged his thumb across his throat. “This way, I can at least pretend I was temporarily insane.”

She smiled, faintly, probably for the first time in days.

Jack Cleese lay on the pool table, a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other. Above his head, the bottle of booze offered barely a finger’s worth of the amber liquid, most of it having ended up in the glass, in his mouth, or on the table. Sunlight streamed through Fisticuffs’ windows, but quickly lost its strength through the haze of smoke that provided a cloudy layer of weather on the bar’s ceiling. The building was as squat and ugly on the inside as it appeared on the outside, an aggressive affront to any upstanding villain who wished to imbibe spirits there. The floor was scratched and stained with years of fights, and even before power had been leeched from this part of town, the jukebox never worked. But, having squandered the paltry remnants of alcohol from the nicer abandoned bars, he was left with nearly no other choice save sobriety, and he’d be damned if he’d allow that to happen.

“Mr. Marsh,” he called to his compatriot, the equally drunk man semi-passed out on the bar counter itself. The noise made Weston grunt in response, and he groaned slightly as he shifted his weight. “You were in that musical some years ago, weren’t you?”

Marsh expelled a wheezing breath. “I don’t remember.”

“Yes, it was the one where you…” He had to gesture in the air with his cigar to mentally push his brain forward. “… You were a soldier in World War One.”

“Oh…
Ypres
.”

Cleese laughed and let go of his scotch to clap his hands together. “Yes, that’s the one.” His hand fell down to the table and nearly knocked the glass over. “It was terrible, you know.”

“Yeah, it was,” Weston said in a way which betrayed no embarrassment. “If I didn’t show up wasted, I didn’t show up at all.” He turned his head to look at Cleese. “My agent at the time said that if I did the picture, I’d be throwing my career away.” His head lolled back to stare up at the ceiling.

Jack picked up his head to look at him. “And where is the insufferable prick today, hm?”

“Lying on a bar without a career.”

Cleese laughed, harder than normal thanks to the liquor in his system, and brought the back of his head down, hard, on the table. The laugh continued for a moment before petering out and ending with a cough. “Ow.” He brought the cigar to his lips and pulled off it before spouting a great cloud of smoke up into the swirling mass on the ceiling.

“Alright, my turn,” Marsh announced after the lull in conversation turned toward the suffocating. “What happened to you? You were this badass fighter pilot and now you’re some paper pushing bureaucrat.”

The villain guffawed. “Well, to be fair, I am unemployed at the moment, so my prospects are looking up.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

He wobbled his head, trying to think of an appropriate response. “Prop planes were my shtick, dear boy. As time moved on, my Bestowed ability did not move along with it.”

Marsh scratched behind his ear. “Want to get tank… even more tanked and take that news helicopter we saw for a spin? Maybe ram it up Arbiter’s ass?”

For the briefest of moments, Cleese looked lost in thought. “I’m afraid my flying days are over, Mr. Marsh.” He brought the cigar to his mouth and took a long drag. “I heard through the grapevine,” he began with an ‘O’ of smoke, “about your sister.”

Marsh sat up on the bar and swung his legs over toward the racks of remaining cheap alcohol. “Less talky, more drinky.” He pointed to a bottle of whiskey and lurched toward it, grabbing it around the neck roughly and scanning the label.

“I had a sister once, too.” Jack picked up his glass and hovered over his chin. “Wish I knew what happened to her.”

Content with the label’s description, Marsh untwisted the cap. “I have never seen someone drink as much as you and only now, after days of being completely blitzed, enter the melancholy phase.” He put his mouth on the bottle and tilted it up violently, feeling the room temperature but surprisingly burning liquid hit his mouth.