Suicide Squad (11 page)

As he rose through the ranks at work, he allowed himself to believe that one day he’d be given a company car, and perhaps a driver to take him to work in the city’s midtown, then drive him back to its western suburbs where he lived with his wife Adrienne, a painter, and their two kids, Julie and Gene.

Most recently he got the raise, but he did not get the car, or the driver, or enough money to pay for either of those perks himself.

When he became a vice president, though—in a maximum of five more years—his subway days would finally be behind him. It couldn’t happen soon enough.

The soap dispenser didn’t work, but then it never did. Still he washed his hands in the dribbling cold water and shook them dry. He checked the mirror to see if he was acceptable, but where he only should have seen his reflection, there was a woman standing next to him.

In the men’s room.

The woman bounced his head off the wall. In her free hand was a pottery jar of some sort.

* * *

As Davis slumped to the ground, barely conscious, Enchantress cracked the jar’s ancient wax seal. Black, inky tendrils emerged, snaked through the bathroom, and into Gerard Davis’s nose.

His pupils dilated. His expression changed from confusion to confidence, and malice. Possessed, he was no longer businessman Gerard Davis.

He was Incubus.

Incubus peered at the woman by his side, and understanding dawned. He and Enchantress collapsed into each other’s arms like the survivors of a shipwreck.

“Brother,” she said, her voice rich with emotion. “We are free.”

Incubus took in a deep breath. He ignored the pungent vinegar that so disgusted his body’s former owner.

“Thank you, my sweetest sister.” He looked around him, unimpressed by his surroundings. “What is this world?”

“The same hateful sphere,” she replied, “only later. Much later.”

Incubus stared at his hands, trying to find the power that had always been there.

“We’re so weak now,” he said.

“And they are strong, but I will never be trapped again. I swear on the stars I’ll kill them all first.” She paused, daunted in her moment of victory. “Brother, I am their slave.”

“Their slave?” he said, confusion in his words. “But they worshipped us.”

Enchantress shook her head sadly. “We have become denied. They forget the old ways. They’re machine people now. Clock people. But I will build a machine such as they cannot imagine, and grind their cities and mountains into dream smoke.”

Incubus peered at his sister, once so vital and filled with life. She looked weak now. Used, and very tired.

“What of God?” he asked. “Will he stand for that?”

Enchantress shook her head again. “They have forgotten God, too, and he them.” A look of anger flashed in her eyes. “So who can they send against me? Their machines? Well, I now have you, brother. Feed on them. You have time now to rebuild your strength. I will rejoin you once I slip my bonds.”

Incubus reached out for her, but as he did she disappeared. There was so much he wanted to ask. She had lived in this mad world for a long time, and she knew how to survive it, but he was new here and he needed her counsel.

Overwhelmed with his rebirth, Incubus felt lost. So much had changed since last he breathed the perfumed air of his youth. Yet he knew, as always, he would make do in this new world. Once his sister returned to his side, they would rule this land together, as they once ruled the planet.

* * *

Enchantress reappeared in the hotel room to find Rick Flag sitting on the bed, gun in hand, its red laser targeting the center of her forehead.

“Hi,” he said casually. “I’m here to see June again.” An edge entered his voice. “Bring her back now. Right now.”

“Or what?” she demanded. “You’ll shoot me?” She laughed at a threat even he knew was futile. “You realize if you do, you’ll also kill her. That’s certainly not what she’d like you to do to her.”

Enchantress put her hand on his gun and gently nudged it down. “You’re not shooting anyone today,” she continued. “Besides, soldier, she’s mine. She’s been mine. I only let you have a taste.”

Flag knew his threat was a bluff, and she’d called him on it. She looked at him oddly, smiled, then wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. He tried to pull away but felt a compulsion growing inside him. She was June, even if she wasn’t.

She drew her skirt back, revealing tattooed thighs. He tried to turn away, but wasn’t able to.

She was controlling him.

“I want June,” he said again, but there was a catch in his voice. She kissed the side of his face, moving down to his neck. “Return her to me. I want her now.”

Enchantress hesitated, and he thought she seemed to be weakening. June was somewhere inside her—he would bet his life on it—and she was resisting as best she could.

“June. If you hear me, whatever you’re doing is working. Fight her, and don’t stop fighting.” Despite his words, though, Flag felt helpless. Nothing in his past had remotely prepared him to take on a fight like this. He was fighting to save a woman he had only known for a handful of weeks. He was fighting to save the life of a stranger he was certain he now loved.

“I want June,” he said again, and he gathered himself. “Now!”

Enchantress felt her control over June slipping, and she accepted that she had no choice. As long as they possessed the heart, she could never realize her full power.

“Enchantress.”

The word spilled from her, and saying her name forced her to relinquish control.

For now. But soon, very soon…

* * *

June woke, and knew instantly what had occurred. She and Flag held each other for a long time.

“She’s trying to take over my mind,” she finally said, her voice weak but gaining strength with each word.

“I know,” Flag said. “Waller warned me. We’re in a war, June—a different kind of war, but if we work together we’ll be able to beat her. We will be able to free you.”

June wasn’t sure she believed it.

“You can’t know what it’s like,” she said. “She takes control over every thought I have, and when she does, when she digs in, it feels as if my head is about to explode.”

“We will fix this,” he replied, and he looked her straight in the eye. “I will make it go away.”

“No, Rick—please listen,” she responded. “The pain is so terrible, I’m afraid dying might be the only thing I can do to make it end. My dying might be the only way to stop her.”

Rick shook his head. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I don’t know how bad it is, but I do know that you can fight through it. That’s what soldiers do. There’s too much at stake to just give up. Believe in me. Believe in yourself. We can fight her.”

“Maybe you can, but I’m not a soldier. Yes, I know how important this is, but I also know that once she gets back her full strength, she’ll have the powers of a god. I can’t fight gods, Rick. I’m going to lose unless we get her out of me. Forever. Killing me will kill her, too.”

“Don’t ask me to do that.”

“Then tell Waller to. She won’t let sentiment get in the way of saving the world.”

He paused, as if considering her words.

“Not until we’ve exhausted every other option. Can we put a pin in it? Please? Just for now?”

June held him as tightly as she could.

“She lives in my head, and she’s evil. She’s beyond evil. If you have to choose between me or her, you have to stop her. If you can’t, Waller will.”

“That’s not going to happen on my watch.”

“Rick, it’s like you said. You’re a soldier fighting a war.” An expression of calm settled on her features. “When the time comes, you will do what you have to.”

“Gerard Davis” stood on the crowded subway platform. He shut his eyes, taking in just its smells.

This world
, he thought,
is foul.
Its incessant noise offended him. The humans were, if possible, even more annoying than he remembered. His sister was correct. She understood that this Earth needed to change back to the way it was, thousands of years earlier. When the humans worshipped her… and him.

As God intended.

He stood silently and ignored the growing buzz surrounding him. People saw him and instinctively backed away, as if there was something off with him. Something very wrong.

A transit cop saw him standing, facing ahead, not blinking. Not moving.

“Sir, you okay?” the cop asked. “Can you breathe? Are you on something?” No response. The cop tapped his comm, powering it on.

“This is twenty-one. Send medical to my location.”

A doctor pushed through the crowd. He took Gerard’s wrist.

“I’m a physician,” he said. “He doesn’t have a pulse.”

“How is that possible?” the cop asked.

The doctor didn’t allow himself to be distracted. “He didn’t answer when you spoke to him, did he?”

The cop shook his head. “No.”

“Okay, help me shake him,” the doctor instructed. “Just a little. Enough to tell if he’s unconscious.” They grasped him firmly, and shook. Gerard Davis simply ignored them. His mind was in another place, at another time. A better time.

They laid him on his back on the subway platform. The doctor leaned over him, still searching for any sign of life.

“He’s breathing abnormally,” he said anxiously. “Okay, I’m starting compressions now.” He placed one palm on the center of Davis’s chest, his other over that, then pushed down with a fast, forceful movement. He lifted his hands for just a moment, then lowered them back to perform a second compression.

Still no reaction.

The doctor moved to repeat his actions when the prone figure suddenly convulsed. His limbs jerked as his neck and chest twisted impossibly, spinning as if there were no skeleton under the flesh. His body began warping before the eyes of the onlookers. His hands shot up and grasped the doctor in an iron grip.

His flesh unfolded. The doctor tried to fall back, to get away, but the figure wouldn’t let go, and the doctor began to transform as well. His arms bent back and collapsed in chaos, as if he had ten separate elbows.

The cop let out a bellow and tried to pull the doctor away, only to be caught in the insane transformation. His body folded and distorted in ways the human body was never meant to go. The three of them collapsed into each other and somehow, impossibly, they merged, becoming a single mass—continuously churning, folding, unfolding, rotating.

At first transfixed, the onlookers were jolted into action when one of them screamed. Then more of them were screaming, and scrambling to escape. Utter terror swept through the crowd as they shoved and stumbled to get away, climbing over one another in the attempt.

If the thing even noticed, it did not care. It kept folding and unfolding and twisting into knots. A fleshy extension snaked out from the mass—not quite an arm but functioning in much the same way. It reached into the crowd and latched onto another man, dragging him bellowing into the hideous mass.

It continued to grow and it continued to fold and unfold. It shook and oozed, surging and moving. It dragged in others and it grew, reforming into something almost human.

The new form of God.

Incubus.

The thing rolled onto the tracks, extended a crystalline appendage to the third rail and absorbed its electrical current. With the sudden surge the Incubus grew. Bigger. More powerful.

A lattice of glowing energy enveloped him. Red, green, and blue fractal fire sparked from his body, which itself was still writhing and twisting beyond human capability. Finally he stood, and his combined mass was larger than the sum of his components. He exuded power and energy.

His sister had told him to grow stronger. She was, as always, right. He felt so much better now.

There was a sound and he turned, only to be blinded by the headlights of an approaching train. A hand grew and extended from his chest and slammed into the train with a burst of magical energy. The leading subway car, with all of its passengers, instantly exploded with light, then just as quickly it imploded, the energy spiraling inward.

Incubus saw the light, and it was good.

* * *

June looked out the hotel window. The distant sky was beginning to glow. Dawn was approaching, but it seemed to take forever. Flag sat in the hotel chair.

She was supposed to be asleep in the bed, but both of them had spent the night staring at each other.

“You can’t watch me forever,” June said.

Flag shrugged. “I’d like to try.”

A soft chime brought them back to reality. His phone buzzed with a new text. He swiped the screen and read his updated orders.

Crap.

“Recall message,” he said. “Gotta go.”

Before he could move, though, June received the same text.

“Looks like we’re going together,” she said.

Griggs loved it when it all went to hell.

When the guards armored up, carrying riot shields and gas masks, and thudded down the hall, it meant that Belle Reve’s army—his army—had a situation to deal with. It also meant that whatever they had to do would pretty much be swept under the rug.

Civil rights are hereby suspended
, he mused with glee.
There are heads to crack and bones to break.
Griggs was in seventh heaven.

“We hit ’em hard and fast,” he shouted to his boys. “We can do anything we want to keep the peace. We’re in charge here.” Dixon gave him a thumbs up, and whooped as they gleefully moved in.

* * *

Floyd Lawton heard the commotion outside, and prepared himself for the fun and games. This happened right on schedule, pretty much every other month, when the guards could no longer scratch their own itches. They needed a release of some sort, and taking out their frustrations on the prison population was their favorite way to go.

He heard Griggs shout from the hallway.

It wouldn’t be more than a minute or two.

His cell door flew open and guards wearing gas masks and plastic-knuckled gloves moved in, carrying riot shields. He was swarmed with boots and fists. Lawton knew he could try to resist, but sooner or later he’d be overwhelmed. Better to let them tire themselves out.