Author's note: to clarify though, there will be no sex scenes. I'm classy like that, 
The frantic ringing of the alarm vibrated the clock so much it rattled to the edge of the bedside cabinet and fell off the edge with a thud, continuing its frantic ringing on the floor. A pillow landed on it a second later and then a pair of feet stomped down. Adam peered over the edge of his bed, then stamped on the pillow again for good measure before peeling it back and shaking the cogs and wheels and springs off it in a rain of plinking metal. He put the pillow back on his bed and smoothed it with his hands before getting up, stepping over the ruined clock and walking over the boarded floor. His tiny apartment was almost bare of anything but the necessities of life, given that he hardly spent any time there when he wasn't asleep. He flicked up the light switch and stretched as he entered the windowless bathroom. The cast iron bathtub was playing host to his laundry, hung up in strings, the washing bucket still pushed into the corner with the broom handle sticking out of it. Adam put the plug in and ran some water in the sink. He tested it with his fingers and found it icy cold. With a sigh, he leaned down and splashed water over his face, he could feel the sharp bristle of two days worth of stubble on his cheeks but couldn't find the motivation to shave himself smooth.
After washing, he left himself a note on the wall above his bed, reminding him to talk to the landlord about the absence of hot water, then he pulled on his shirt and trousers, slipping his arms into the braces and making sure they lay flat against his back and shoulders, then he snagged up a dark blue waistcoat to match the trousers and left it open as he tied his tie in the mirror. Once he was neat and presentable, he picked up his suit jacket, pulling that on, and then his trench coat and hat. He held the latter until he was outside, tugging it on as he walked down the steps into the street.
He liked to walk from his apartment to the club instead of get the tram, as it felt good to stretch his legs in the morning, and his route always took him past the bakery. He could smell the fresh Danish now. A smile crept its way over his features as he drew level with it and slipped in.
It wasn't much later that he walked through the nondescript door to the club, descending the steps and passing the alcove leading to the cloak room. At this time of day, he didn't expect anyone but staff to be at the club, and that suited him just fine. He descended into the club itself, the chairs were all up on the tables, the floor being mopped clean of cigarette ash and spilled alcohol by the janitor. The stage was enshrouded in shadows and seemed shrunken, wizened, a prima-donna who had watched more years pass than she cared to.
A figure sat hunched at the bar already and he half smiled, walking over.
"Hey Dave, little early for you to be hitting the whiskey, isn't it?" he asked, equably. Dave pulled his head up from his cradling hand and looked around at him, a ferocious scowl on his face. It loosened only slightly as the man grunted and turned back to the small glass nestled in his other hand, regarding the dark amber liquid.
"Been laid off," he muttered. Adam winced, then sat down next to him, listening to the slap of the mop on the other side of the club as the janitor continued about his work.
"That's the city's loss. You're a great cop."
"Some great cop, I never busted you and your sister for this little funhouse of yours," Dave growled. Adam chuckled, lacing his fingers as he leaned his elbows on the bar, nodding to Ferdas as the bartender polished glasses, lining them all up neatly, ready for another night.
"Oh come on, Dave, you think the prohibition laws are as stupid as I do, or you wouldn't be here every Saturday night."
"Law's still a law, Midnight."
"Hey Adam, boss wanted to see you when you go in," Ferdas interrupted quietly, his bartender sense telling him that the conversation was only going to antagonise Dave into shouting, or worse, breaking the glass. Adam nodded and got up, clapping Dave's shoulder.
"Take it easy today, pal." He smiled at Ferdas and walked off to a side door by the stage, ignoring Dave's grumble that they weren't pals. Once in the back, Adam squeezed his way past a rack of ostrich feathers and sequined outfits that the 'Captain' had left in the narrow corridor. He found the manager's office and knocked on the door once.
"Come in," came the muffled reply and he opened the door, grinning at the woman behind the desk.
"Good morning, Kate," he said, closing the door behind him. His twin sister swivelled her seat to face him and flung a newspaper at him. He caught it against his chest on reflex.
"Is it?" She reached over to a pearl-inlaid cigarette case and attached a new cigarette to the long, slender holder in her other hand. Adam flicked the front page flat and scanned it.
"There was a raid on the De Marchis? Well good. Sounds like a lot of the mooks were arrested." He put the paper down on the desk, the noticed Kate's look. She flicked the spent match into the ashtray and leaned back in her chair.
"Not good, Adam. Not good. Big Jake was there last night, doing a little surveillance for me."
"Is he alright?" Adam looked worried as he spoke. Kate rolled her shoulders in a shrug.
"He'll survive. He got to my apartment despite being shot in three places. He's still on my sofa, sleeping off the brandy. Bloody cops." Adam winced at her curse. It never sounded right coming from his sister's lips, who was in all other respects, a perfect lady.
"Still, it's a raid on the De Marchis. That's a good thing."
"Bless you, Adam, for your eternal faith that justice will prevail. The De Marchi gang members will be let off with warnings or small fines. One of mine was shot and seriously wounded last night, and I will not tolerate it." She tossed the paper into the bin irritably. Adam watched the basket rock with the impact.
"Jake's good, they wouldn't have known he was there. What was he looking for anyway?" He knew that his sister usually had a specific objective in mind whenever she sent Jake somewhere.
"Never mind that. Did you hear about Detective Preston?" she asked, rising to her feet and walking to the window. Adam nodded.
"Yeah, passed him on the way in." He watched Kate, she had her thinking face on, blowing the odd smoke ring. Finally she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.
"Bring him on board. You've been mentioning getting another doorman to share the load for a while. He could use the money, no doubt. Cop pensions are ridiculous, if he's even eligible." Adam nodded, watching her look back through the window at the road below.
"Hey, Kate?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't worry about Jake, okay? He's tough as an alley cat. He'll be fine."
"I wish I shared your confidence. Go on, go do something constructive with your time. When you see Sally, tell her I want to see her." Kate made a shooing motion with her hand and Adam smiled, leaving. He wasn't too worried about Big Jake, he'd seen the man survive having a grenade thrown at him. He had the devil's own luck.
He ambled his way to the dressing room. If Sally was in yet, she would most likely be there, rehearsing for the evening. He knocked on the door gently.
"Anyone in?"
"Who is it?"
"Adam."
"Just a moment." There was some clattering and then the door opened. Sally was such a different creature during the day, wearing a floral dress and nylon stockings like any other woman on the street. Her hat was on the dressing table behind her, her white lace gloves draped over it. She smiled, her doll-like oriental features exquisitely beautiful and exotic.
"Oh Adam, you never call, you never write and then there you are, on my doorstep. What a rascal you are," she giggled slightly. Adam grinned widely.
"You were amazing last night. The new routine is stunning," he said easily. Sally reached up and pulled a pin out of her hair, loosening it slightly.
"Why thank you, Adam. I was quite exhausted afterwards. When is Kate going to get another act? I really can't keep up this pace you know."
"On the subject of Kate, she wants to see you." Adam pointed his thumb down the corridor. Sally thinned her lips.
"What's Jake done now? Honestly, he's such an oaf sometimes," she muttered. Adam didn't feel like being the bearer of bad tidings, and Kate was much better at these things. Something in his expression gave him away and Sally stared, then walked out briskly, heading for Kate's office.
It wasn't long later that the verbal explosion happened. Adam could hear it from the bar. Ferdas just sighed, rubbing wax into the bar surface, nudging Dave's arms until the now ex-cop got up and walked to one of the tables, taking down a chair and flopping into it with a creak. Adam grimaced when the door to the back banged open and Sally half ran through the club and outside. Jake was about to get his ears royally bent out of shape by his wife. He didn't envy the other man in the slightest. Everyone knew that they'd only married so Sally could get a green card and their 'relationship' was something of an on-going charade, but any time Jake did something stupid like get himself injured, Sally played the furious wife extremely realistically.
"Jake! You stupid, hulking great oaf! Open this door immediately!" Sally slapped her hand against the door to Kate's apartment rapidly. She kept up the barrage of insults and hammering until there was a click and rattle of a chain. The door opened to reveal a man of scant five foot, shirtless and wearing dark trousers, neat bandages crisscrossing his chest. Sally slapped him around the face.
"You wretch of a man, you bring dishonour to me!" she hissed. Jake sighed, reached out, took her arm and pulled her into the apartment so he could close the door and keep their domestic contained. He padded silently to the kitchen while his wife continued to insult him furiously, just bearing it.
"You broke your promise, Jake! You promised me you'd give up working alone! You promised!" Sally burst out finally, suddenly rooting through her little handbag and pulling out a handkerchief to dab at her eyes, struggling to keep the mascara from running. Jakey sighed deeply.
"I said I wouldn't do the dangerous jobs alone. I didn't think this one would be dangerous
" he murmured. Sally smacked him around the back of the head with her handbag.
"You were creeping around the De Marchi's warehouse!"
"I'm always creeping about somewhere," Jake found Kate's kettle and put it on the hob. Sally kept dabbing with her handkerchief.
"Your foolish pride will be the death of you! Then what shall I do?!" she worked his sense of guilt mercilessly. It worked and he hung his head.
"But it was important
"
"Nothing is more important than your word! I'm your wife!"
Jake had the good sense to know when he was defeated and he backed down.
"You're right, I'm sorry." He watched the kettle steam coil up. Sally sniffed deeply.
"If my mother could see me now-"
"She'd die of shock that you show that much elbow. C'mon Sal, I said I'm sorry. I'll talk to Kate this evening about it. I will. Come on, don't cry," he said quietly, turning to give his wife a hug. She was taller than him, not helped by her stiletto heels, but neither seemed to mind that much.
"I won't be able to carry on alone, Jake. I need you."
"You're stronger than you want to think, Sally."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Nice.
Thank you
"Captain, get in here!" Kate yelled from her office, going through some papers. After a moment, a man with close-cropped hair that seemed slightly frizzy peered around the doorframe.
"Yes sir?!" Kate, as ever, let the 'sir' slide. The Captain couldn't help his eccentricities, not after what had happened to him in Ypres.
"Sally's been complaining about exhaustion. I happen to agree that we need another act, if only to take the pressure off. The De Marchis have been making hiring the best singers and dancers hard though. I want you to start scouting out for talent, understood?" she asked, looking around at him, her fingers still buried in the pile of paper. The Captain saluted.
"Yes sir, acquisition of further entertainment. What extra training will they need? Artillery? Munitions? Driving?"
"For now, just entertainment. I'm sure we can educate them in anything else they need to know on the job."
"Oh, I don't know sir. Sounds risky." The Captain pulled at his handlebar moustache. Kate left off her rooting to find another cigarette.
"It will be fine, Captain," she assured him. The Captain looked like he had further misgivings, but he saluted her and left. She sighed, sitting down in her chair with a creak of old, battered leather. She couldn't think of a person she'd hired on anything but compassionate grounds. True, they could do their jobs, but they were all slightly insane. Even Adam. She looked tired as she smoked. He just hadn't been the same since he'd come back from the war in Europe and he'd refused to talk about his experience over there, mentioning only that Jake had served with him. When it came to that, even the janitor was crazy. She'd never heard him speak a single word. He'd told her in writing that he'd been consigned to an asylum for most of the war, suffering from something called 'Hysterical Mutism'. His account of the treatment and lack of treatment he'd received had made her so angry with psychologists in general that she'd hired him on the spot. She was still trying to get him to speak again, but it was an uphill struggle. She was starting to think that his condition had been left to fester for so long that it might be beyond the skill of anyone to heal.
None of this introspection was helping her finish the job she'd started. She sighed and opened a drawer in her desk, taking out the list Jake had secured last night. She still didn't know what the list meant, or what linked these seven names? Why were the De Marchis interested in them? She was sure she'd seen one of them somewhere else, but she couldn't think of it right now. With a sigh, she put the list away.
Maybe it would come to her later.
The club was in full swing when the fog rolled in off the port, turning the street lamps into disembodied orbs of gas light. Jake's long coat glistened with moisture and he kept his head down, the brim of his hat obscuring his face. He carried a violin case in his right hand and his left was in his pocket. His sigh came out in a plume from the cold night air. He knew he should tell Kate about the promise Sally had made him make, but that list of seven names lurked on the fringe of his imagination. He glanced sideways as he passed an alleyway. Seven names that meant nothing at the moment. He saw a shadow flit down the alley and turned off the sidewalk, slipping into the shadows. He put the violin case down by a steel dustbin and ghosted through the fog. He'd been feeling caged all day, the pain of his injuries and the strain of dealing with his emotional wife. He needed to let go somewhere, needed a kind of release. Ahead, he could hear a voice with a thick Italian accent.
"That Midnight [censored] will think twice about messin' with the De Marchis after this."
"Why don't we just go to her place and teach her a woman's place, y'know?"
"Later, boss just wants her scared up first."
The voices belonged to two men, one of whom was assembling a machine gun. Jake felt something harden inside, he balanced his weight and pulled a length of piano wire from his pocket.
"Fine lookin' woman though. Be a shame to mess that pretty face up," said the one with the gun. Whatever his friend was going to say didn't come, as a wire suddenly snapping around his neck and someone pulling him back into the shadows by the car stopped them. The only sound was a dull thud. The man with the gun looked around, the stock in his hand and barrel in the other.
"Tony?" The man who stepped up to him wasn't Tony, he was way too short to be Tony. The man kicked the barrel out of his hand, making the mobster yell with pain. His yell was cut off when an elbow slammed into his throat so hard he couldn't breathe. He fell onto his back, clutching at his neck. The short man leaned over him.
"You take a message to your boss from me, nobody messes with the Midnights. Next time I see any of you [censored] so much as lookin' in a way I don't like, I'll send you to the morgue. You got that?"
The mobster nodded, wheezing desperately for breath, spots dancing in his vision and a buzzing in his skull. The short man straightened and stood up.
"Good, now go to sleep." A weighted beanbag to the side of the man's head helped with the 'sleep' part.
Jake snorted out of his nostrils, pocketing the beanbag and wire, then grabbed the collar of both men and dragged them into the car. He climbed in the drivers seat and turned it on, taking a moment to admire the walnut dashboard and fiddle with the radio before driving out of the alley. He left the car on the docks, parked right on the end of a jetty, so that when they woke up, they had to perform the tricky manoeuvre of backing it down the boards themselves. He strolled back into the city, retrieved his violin and headed for the club.
Jake knocked on the door, looking up when the eye slit snapped open, revealing Adam's eyes. He looked down at Jake, then closed the slit and opened the door.
"Hey Jake, you're late," he smiled quietly. Jake nodded.
"Got a bit held up by an errand. Sally on yet?" he asked. Adam nodded, closing the door firmly behind them.
"She's just taking a small break in her changing room. You missed her singing your favourite."
"Aw hell, I'm not gonna hear the end of that, am I?" Jake grimaced, disheartened that he'd both missed his favourite song sung by an amazingly beautiful woman, but also that if she'd noticed he wasn't sitting at his usual table, listening, a handbag to the back of his head was the least of his worries. Adam looked sympathetic.
"Well, you could cry off with injuries."
"Don't carry any weight with her right now. You know something, Adam? Don't get married. The dames are nothing but trouble," he sighed, then forced a grin. Adam patted his shoulder.
"I doubt I'm getting married any time soon. You always had more luck with women."
"Sure. Luck. I'm going to see your sister for a moment." He pulled off his hat and held it loosely, letting his dark red hair stand in small tufts from where the brim had rested. Adam grinned and ruffled it.
"Go on then." Jake elbowed him playfully before walking down the steps into the club. Opening the door was like walking into another fog, this one made of cigarette and pipe smoke. Ferdas was tending the bar like the pro he was, listening to the woes of many a lonely soul as he fetched their scotch on the rocks. The stage was quiet, the brass band playing quietly while they waited for the lady of the hour to return. Conversations kept an even level of noise bubbling under the music. Jake wove his way through the tables to the door to the back. Once it closed behind him, all went quiet, the conversations muting instantly. He picked his feet up and stepped over the janitor's mop as the man washed the floor of the hallway, not looking at him. He reached Kate's office and knocked on the frosted glass pane before opening the door. Kate looked up from her habitual stack of papers.
"You're late, Jake."
"I know, little errand over-ran. Look, Kate, I've gotta talk to you about something." He said it quietly, but there was something in his voice that made Kate put down her paper and regard him. She motioned to one of the other chairs in the room.
"Well, take a seat Jake and let's talk. What's eating you?" she asked softly. Jake sighed, hanging his hat on the free standing coat rack, closely followed by his coat and the violin case set down by the clawed feet before sitting down.
"It's about Sally, actually," he said with a long sigh. Kate looked thoughtful.
"I'm looking for another act, it's not easy, what with the De Marchis muscling in and snatching all the talent up for their gawdy clubs." She stopped speaking when Jake shook his head and held up his head.
"It's not about that. She
look, I made a promise to her. I can't do the dangerous jobs alone anymore," he said. Kate leaned back in her chair, looking at him.
"She never used to be bothered by it." This wasn't strictly true, and they both knew it. It was more that Sally hadn't made an issue about it before. Jake sighed, tapping his fingertips together and looking down.
"She
ah
doesn't want our kid growing up without a dad." He let that sink in for a moment. Kate blinked, then opened her mouth, then shut it.
"I thought it wasn't like that between you two," she said eventually. Jake scratched the back of his neck.
"We've been married for three years, Kate, that's a long time to live with a really fine woman. And
she's kind of a fiend after a few martinis. Point is, we're going to have a kid and she's coming down hard on the side jobs I do for you." He tried to keep from grinning a little. Kate was quiet for a few more moments, then split into a wide smile herself.
"Well, congratulations. I'll see to it a new act is found fast. Mrs. Kasey is going to need a lot of time off, and she's absolutely right, you have new responsibilities now. I'll not go letting you get yourself banged up and hospitalised, now when Jake Junior's on the way. This is wonderful news!" Kate got up and shook Jake's hand, the short man chuckled awkwardly, looking abashed. He looked even more so when Kate took out two slim cigars from her secret stash, offering him one.
"Have you told Adam yet?" she asked, leaning back on her desk. Jake leaned forward to the match she offered, lighting his cigar and puffing on it.
"No, we've been keeping it under our hats, so to speak. I wanted you to be the first to know."
"Well, now I know, steps will be taken. My, I fear for the world if you and Sally are bringing some wild tempered, fierce little rugrat into it. He'll be able to chew his way through walls, mark my words."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Don't hesitate to update due to the lack of comment. The people are just so blown away by your story so far they haven't reached their keyboard again just yet.
Author's Note: some liberty taken with the Allied Force placements
After another busy night that had stretched into the small hours, after the chairs had been put up and the lights turned low, after several drinks to celebrate Jake and Sally's news, it was time to go home. Adam put his hands in his pockets to warm them, sighing out weightily. Jake had been just a kid when they'd met, he'd been too young for the army and had lied about his age. Nobody had cared though. He was volunteering and so many soldiers had died already that they needed everyone they could cram into the war machine. Adam could still remember that tanned face looking up at him from under an over-large helmet.
"Hey, you gotta light, sergeant?"
That infectious grin and often filthy expletives a kid as young as him shouldn't even know. He'd survived the war, standing at Adam's side, following orders and keeping spirits high. There was something naturally buoyant about Jake Kasey, something No Mans Land and weeks of solid shelling couldn't kill.
"Hey sarge, if they keep chucking their ammo at us, we're gonna win this one by being the only buggers with bullets left!"
He smiled a soft, melancholy smile. He'd said it in a gap in explosions, pitching his voice loudly to compensate. Five men either side heard it and burst out laughing. He thought every platoon needed a Kasey. Wars were won in the will, if you could keep your will sound under heavy fire, then the battle would be yours. You just had to dig in and hold on and believe you'd get your chance to make that final devastating blow.
He was glad he hadn't been at Ypres though. He wasn't sure if even Kasey could have banished that horror with a well-timed joke. The reminders of the Great War still lived. Adam didn't think he would be able to forget the flooded shell craters and torn earth of No Mans Land. You could be hunkered down in your trench and a shell would go off and you found yourself praying that the debris raining down on you was just mud and old trees.
Adam had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't been watching where he was going. He looked up at the apartment building in front of him, his eyes automatically going to the second window across on the third floor. It was lit. He hadn't meant to come here, but when he got thinking about the War, he wanted to forget any way he could. He opened the main door and started up the bare, concrete stairs, one hand on the cast iron railing. He arrived at apartment thirty one and stood at the door, staring at it for a moment. Just as he went to knock, there was a rattle of chain and the door opened. A short man with tousled blonde hair leaned on the door, grinning slightly.
"Y'know, Adam, I'm starting to wonder if we're dating. What, no flowers? Oh well, come on in." Matthew held the door open wider, letting Adam pass him in the pokey hallway before closing it and chaining it again. Adam tugged off his hat self-consciously, running the brim through his fingers.
"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" he asked nervously. Matthew shook his head, leading the way into the living room and pushing his cat off the second armchair.
"It's nearly one o'clock in the morning. Sensible men have gone back to their wives and tucked themselves in," he said drolly. Adam sighed and put his hat on the small dining table, closely followed by his coat.
"Had any more trouble?" he asked, a tad gruffly. Matthew chuckled and went into the kitchenette, from the clanking, he was filling the kettle and putting it on the hob.
"Nice and quiet. Whatever you did, must have gotten through, Gio and his pals haven't been around for weeks. I did remember to thank you, right?" Matthew came out from behind the curtain and shooed his cat off the armchair again. Adam sat down in it, knowing Matthew was going to dither until he did.
"Several times in fact." He looked a little embarrassed. Matthew eyed his cat as it jumped up on Adam's lap and kneaded his knees until deciding it was soft enough to curl up on. He gave up on convincing the cat that the armchair and all subsequent occupants were not in fact her personal property, and sat down in his own.
"Brandy?"
"No, just a tea will do," Adam said, stroking the tabby cat absently. Matthew looked at him.
"So what's on your mind?" he asked after a moment. Adam sighed and leaned his head back on the chair, looking at the ceiling.
"That easy to read, am I?"
"You tend to come to me when you need comfort, Adam." Matthew held up a hand when he started to protest that, "I don't mind, really. It's nice to feel like I've got more to offer than physical attraction."
Adam blushed deeply, looking out the window.
"Don't say it like I'm not going to get married when I find the right woman," he muttered. Matthew smirked, picking up his bell of brandy and draining it.
"Is that what you want, or what society wants?"
"Not everyone can indulge in Anarchy, Matthew," said Adam. Matthew smirked again.
"I always thought of myself as something closer to nihilistic. However, you didn't come here to discuss my ever-present disgust with the arrogance of the State. What's bothering you?" The smirk softened into a genuine smile. Adam flicked his eyes over to Matthew for a moment and sighed.
"I was just
remembering. Feet led me here." Matthew heard the kettle start to whistle and he rose, going to the kitchenette to pour the boiling water into the teapot.
"I see. What were you remembering?" he asked, as if he didn't know or couldn't guess. Adam fussed the cat on her cheek, making her purr.
"The trenches."
"What was it like?"
Adam could almost hear it again, the whistling of an incoming mortar, feel the jostle of men as they fled past him, their screams seeming distant. He remembered standing alone for a split second, seeing another sergeant on his hands and knees in the foot deep of sludge that slicked that part of the trench. He knew that man, they'd been at training together, they'd been friends. Close friends. The mortar blew him apart. How did you start to forget seeing someone dismantled at speed by an explosive, getting covered with him and then spending weeks in a hospital recovering from the same explosion?
A hand on his arm distracted him from the too-vivid memories, he looked down. Matthew was crouched by his chair, hand on his arm. He didn't say anything. Adam took the tea he was holding mutely and put it on the small table beside his chair.
"What did you do in the war?" he asked, realising he'd never asked Matthew what he did. Matthew gazed at him.
"We're not talking about me, Adam. We're talking about you."
"I don't want to talk about me though."
"I noticed," Matthew took his hand off his arm and sat in his chair. The warmth of its pressure lingered on Adam's arm and he took a sip of tea.
"Nothing happened to me that didn't happen to everyone else. We all saw things no man should have to see."
"You served with your friend, Jake Kasey, right?"
"Yeah. He wasn't even old enough to shave though." Adam remembered catching Jake pretending to shave, scraping foam off his face with a blunt razor, just trying to fit in with the other men.
"Did you bring him back with you because you felt obligated to continue protecting him?" Matthew's words caught Adam off guard and he looked at him.
"What?"
"Oh come on, Adam, you talk about him like he's your little brother. It doesn't take great insight to know you worry about his welfare." Adam looked at his cup, the steam rising in innocent curls.
"We were both injured. A grenade landed by his feet. I threw myself over him and we were sent to hospital. The rest of our platoon got the call to move to Ypres."
Matthew went quiet.
"Oh Adam
"
"None of them came back. I don't know if they were killed in the heavy fire or by the gas. I don't want to know." Adam hissed the last part. The cat jumped off his lap and left through the open window. Matthew just regarded him.
"You believe you should have been there?" he asked quietly.
"I'm only still here because of that grenade. Why me?" Matthew laced his fingers over his lap and sighed.
"What do you want me to tell you, Adam? That there is some great, ineffable plan?"
"I still go to church every Sunday, but
God isn't there. He doesn't care what happens to us." Traitor tears were slicking his eyes and he was powerless to stop them. Just like he'd been lying powerless on a bed in a hospital that stank of blood and sweat while his platoon were being slaughtered. Matthew got up from his chair and wrapped his arms around Adam's shoulders, leaning his head against his hair. After a moment of trying to stifle it down, a sob broke from the taller man's lips. He clung to Matthew's arms like a child, choking bitter tears into his shoulder. Matthew rocked him slightly, perching on the arm of the chair and looking out of the window with a sad expression. After a while, the sobs became quieter. Matthew stroked some hair back from Adam's face as he rocked him.
"When God created Man in his own image, it didn't mean his physical image," he said quietly. Adam just listened, hiccupping slightly.
"When you threw yourself on Kasey, you may have saved his life. That compassion and courage is the image of God. You're not forsaken, Adam. God's still with you." He whispered it. Adam sniffled.
"I thought you didn't believe
"
"My beliefs are complicated, Adam. Besides, they don't matter right now. Yours matter."
Adam let him evade the question, he had his suspicions that Matthew Whithers was a Freemason, but no real evidence other than some pretty bizarre theories about philosophy and religion.
After his emotional outburst, Adam found the conversation leading back to less traumatic areas. Trivial things were explored and discussed. More tea was made and some brandy drunk as the hours waxed towards dawn.
"So now Sally's in a family way, we need a new act, desperately. Do you still play piano?" Adam asked finally. Matthew chuckled into his brandy.
"It's been a while but you never really forget. Why?"
"Come by the club later?"
"I'll think about it. So, are you going to come to my room or not?" Adam blushed at Matthew's forthright question, colouring even deeper when the short man took his hand and started to pull him to his feet.
"I-I didn't bring any money
" he stammered, always finding the situation hideously embarrassing. Matthew leaned up and kissed his cheek.
"Then consider it a thank you for getting those gangsters to take a hike," he murmured, backing up and tugging Adam to his bedroom.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Yay, update.
Not entirely what I expected, but then again I don't know Adam.
Great work.
Ferdas sighed as he stopped at the newsstand, picking up today's copy of the Paragon Free Press, flicking to the news from Wall Street.
"This ain't a library pal. Pay before you read," grunted the badly shaven man in the flat cap. Ferdas didn't look away from the paper, rooting into his pocket and taking out a few coins, knowing from touch he had he correct amount. He handed them over to the grouchy vendor.
"How about them Paladins, eh? Close game with the Sox, right?" Once paid, the vendor had clearly recovered that good humour they were famed for. Ferdas just nodded.
"Pretty good, looking forward to the World Series?" he asked, still scanning the news. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but something was wrong with the paper. Something was missing.
"Who isn't? Already got me some tickets. Take the boys to their first big leagues game, buy some 'dogs, make a day of it."
"Sounds good. You have yourself a nice day." Ferdas tipped his hat at the man, receiving a similar wish in return and he tucked his paper under his arm as he walked to the docks. He skirted places that were known territories of the Sonomas, another gang in the area. His Spanish wasn't good enough to convince them he was lost, everyone knew he tended bar at the Midnight Serenade. The Sonomas had no particular gripe with the Midnights, they were, after all, just a handful of people who ran a decent club and sold less lethal alcohol than most. But you could never tell with Mexicans, right? The De Marchis were not so forgiving, Ferdas put that down to the Italian passion, young bucks fresh from the Mediterranean trying to impress their established big men.
It was all a pain in the neck when you wanted to take the quick route to work. Ahead, he saw the janitor padding to work. He slowed down, so the janitor would arrive first. Something about that man gave him the creeps. His eyes seemed almost empty, hollow of any considerations, his hair prematurely white. Kate said it was from the 'medical' treatment he'd received during the war. Ferdas thought, quite frankly, he'd been caught by the enemy and tortured. It seemed more plausible to him. Everyone knew the Keiser ate babies, torturing one or two enemy soldiers would be a mildly entertaining diversion to someone so depraved.
Minutes later, as he hung up his hat and coat in the staff room, he heard the clank of the iron bucket and slap of the mop as the janitor began his work. He shivered slightly as he reached the doorway. He watched him pass in that focused, resolute silence and shuddered. There was something so wrong about that man. He looked around the staff room and sighed, starting to collect up the empty glasses and empty the ashtray. Normally he wouldn't leave himself work for the next morning, but after they'd closed up and drank to the new baby's health, he'd been so tired he just couldn't bring himself to do the chore then.
Kate arrived next, looking thoughtful as ever, she stopped by bar, watching Ferdas wash and dry the glasses.
"I'm going to book the theatre later so we can audition new acts. I want you and the captain on it, alright Dax?" she asked. Ferdas nodded.
"Sure thing boss. Did you read the paper this morning?" he asked. Kate shook her head and he handed her his own. She flicked through it.
"Another fire at a warehouse? Interesting." Kate closed the paper, tapping it against her hand for a moment, then she looked at Ferdas.
"When Jake gets in, tell him I want to see him." With that, she walked away. Ferdas watched her go, then cleaned the glasses. If his barman sense was right, Sally was going to be spitting fire over this.
"So, Captain, what did you think of that last one?" Ferdas asked, tapping his clipboard with his pencil as they both sat at one of the back tables. The Captain tapped some ash off his cigar with a sigh.
"Sure, they can sing, but can they field strip a rifle in under thirty seconds?" Ferdas considered this.
"If you want to call that last one's squawking 'singing'."
"She was rather foul, wasn't she?" The captain picked up a bottle of whiskey and poured himself another drink.
"These dames all want to make it big but they got none of the pizzazz. The razzle. And some of them couldn't even carry a tune in a bucket." Ferdas sighed deeply. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss today, like he'd forgotten to do something incredibly important.
There was a creak on the steps behind them and they both looked around. A short man with tousled blond hair stood there, holding a dark mulberry hat in his hands. Ferdas thought the dark purple suit was frightfully flamboyant and wrinkled his nose.
"We're not open for business yet."
"That's what the doorman said. I'm not here for a drink, I was asked to come and play a bit of piano for you fine gentlemen. Heard you were looking for help." The man had a soft voice, but an infectious smile. Ferdas grunted slightly, looking at the captain, who shrugged, then motioned to the stage.
"Alright, show us what you can do." Ferdas looked disapproving. He didn't like people just wandering in off the street into his bar, thank you very much. The blond man nodded and set his hat and coat on a clear table, walking to the piano by the stage, sitting down.
"Any requests?" he asked cheerfully. The captain grinned a little, sipping his whiskey.
"Just play whatever you like, boy." The man nodded, not taking umbrage at being called 'boy', and set his fingers to the piano.
Ferdas hadn't expected much, maybe a little light fluttering lounge music. He got something classical. He had no idea what it was called or who it was by, but he knew it by sound. It was beautiful, intricate and a pattering quick notes like raindrops in a pond, sending out overlapping ripples. Beside him, the captain's eyebrows rose and he leaned back in his chair, chewing on the end of his cigar slightly. After a minute of playing, the young man stopped and pulled a face.
"Sorry, I'm done warming up now." Ferdas's eyebrows now rose as the man returned to playing, flittering into some light lounge music. Then he opened his mouth to sing. Both Ferdas and the captain braced themselves, having been assaulted by some of the worst singing voices in the city this morning. They needn't have worried, like his speaking voice, the man's singing voice was mellow, but richer. It deepened and rose effortlessly. Clearly the man had some real fancy education to be able to sing so well. Ferdas glanced at the captain, leaning close to whisper.
"If we don't snap him up now, the De Marchis will."
"Allow the enemy no quarter!" Ferdas took that to mean that the captain agreed. He sat back and waited for the song to finish.
"Well, we have to review the applications, take our recommendations to the boss. Wait with the other applicants if you would." Ferdas stood up, motioning for the captain to rise too. "Oh yes, by the way, what's your name?"
"Matthew Whithers, sir." Ferdas wrote that down, then frowned slightly at the name. Had he heard it before somewhere? It felt familiar. As he fumbled at the memories, they slipped out of his grip and he sighed, walking out the back.
He knocked on Kate's door, rapping his knuckles against the frosted glass.
"Come in." He opened the door and nodded to Jake as he sat on the windowsill, shaking a match to extinguish it. Kate looked up at him, covering a blueprint on her desk.
"What is it, Dax?" she asked. Ferdas motioned behind him.
"I think we got our new act. Guy called Whithers. Pretty handy with a piano and can sing too."
Kate nodded.
"Alright, offer him the usual. He's hired." She watched as Ferdas nodded and left, then breathed out and looked at Jake. Jake shrugged.
"I doubt we're going to find anything more at this fire than we found at the last one. Guy really knows how to cover his tracks." He flicked the now cool match into the ashtray on the table. Kate uncovered the blueprints again.
"Still, there is a distinct pattern emerging. He always targets bootleggers, and never messes with the Sonomas, only the De Marchis. Get out on the street, Jake, take Dave with you. I want you to keep your ears open for all rumours and speculation. I may be being too cautious, but this guy targets bootleggers. I don't want my club to be the next inferno in the papers." Kate poked his nose. Jake wrinkled it, then hopped off the sill.
"Right you are, Kate. Tell Adam I said hello when he finally gets in."
"I will." Kate watched the small man leave, then returned to her chair and rested her chin in one hand, gazing out the window. She had a bad feeling.
"Hey, Kasey, you want a dog?"
"I'm more of a cat person," Jake said, looking at a paper, as if it was very interesting. Dave looked at the hotdogs in his hands, then shrugged.
"Your loss." He bit into one enthusiastically. Jake sighed.
"Best get to the library and check my sources."
"A library? Oh pinch me, the excitement's too much," Dave grumbled. Jake just folded up his paper and walked off with his hands in his pockets. Dave shook his head and followed him. Short guys were all the same, all fixated on having something over normal sized guys. Big Jake was into his 'mystery'. It was annoying.
The city library of Paragon was one of the first buildings that had been built when the original cities had been founded. It showed in every brick and carved lintel. The red bricks harked back to a simpler time. Dave regarded the building thoughtfully as the short man jogged lightly up the steps and pushed his way through the heavy wooden doors. He followed him after a while and took off his hat.
"Good afternoon Mr Kasey," said the pretty young librarian. Behind the glasses and hair pulled back into a tight bun, she was a knock-out. The grey skirt, faun stockings and ugly pullover couldn't hide that. Jake tipped his hat at her.
"Hey Gwynne, you mind if I take a look at some of the blueprints in the archives?" he asked. Gwynne smiled shyly, clutching a pile of books to her chest.
"Go right ahead, sir." Clearly she was used to Jake's comings and goings, and didn't think twice about giving him access. Dave frowned, clearly the short man came to the library often. It was odd, Big Jake didn't strike him as much of a reader. He followed him into the civil records section, watching him search for some blueprints. Something was bugging him. Something about the way Jake looked.
He watched the short man walk over to a reading table with several rolls of blueprint. He frowned. Something was missing.
"Hey, Metalhead, behind you! SHIN, LOOK OUT!"
Dave flinched, putting his hand to his head. What the hell was that?
"J, watch out, she's got psychic powers!" He flinched again, the voices in his head gave way to half formed images. A blinding flash like lightening and a woman in a skirt of indecent length.
He sat down heavily, breathing out. They were just flashbacks to the war. That was all.
"Only good thing to come out of the war was nano medicine."
"Dave, shall we talk about your solo missions?"
"It am sleepy tyme, come back laterz0r."
Dave felt slightly ill, he looked at Jake. The other man hadn't noticed his discomfort.
"Oh no, the scary crossdressers have come to put me in a skirt, what shall I do?"
"What are you looking for?" he asked finally. Jake looked up, then back down at the blueprints.
"I'm just wondering if the buildings shared anything in common."
"Other than them being warehouses owned by bootleggers?" Dave lifted his eyebrow. Jake grunted.
"Sometimes the most obvious connection isn't the only connection."
How like him. Dave faltered on that thought. He didn't know Big Jake by anything but reputation, why did he feel so
so
connected to him? Connected with him?
"You're always just out of the hospital, Metalhead."
It hit him like a brick. He knew what was missing now. A tail. Jake should have a tail, and he didn't know why he should have a tail. Dave stood up hurriedly.
"I'm going to find some coffee," he said, feeling the urge to run away. Jake watched as he left, then turned back to his schematics.
Dave leaned against the wall once he was outside, thudding his head back against the bricks. Was he going crazy? Why on Earth would Big Jake have a tail? He really needed that coffee.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Another nice update.
Sally finished applying her make up and put the lipstick into her handbag, closing it with a click. She checked herself in the mirror, then picked up her hat and place it on her head, picking up a few long hatpins and fixing the garment on so the wind couldn't blow it away. She checked her appearance one last time and, finally satisfied, she left the little apartment she and her husband lived in. She fancied a walk to the park today, since it promised to be beautiful. It was clear across town though, she stepped out onto the street and walked to the nearest tramline.
Since it was the time of day when the contentious were hard at work behind bank counters and in factories, the tram was comfortably deserted. Sally sat down on a vacant seat, her small handbag on her lap as she looked out the window. There were whispers behind her on the tram, a few other women passing comment on her hair, her curves, her heritage. Sally ignored them. Let them mutter their small minded comments, mere words could not find their way through her armour. She was impervious to their petty gripes.
The deep blue vault of the sky was littered with clouds that cruised over the city under the encouragement of a high wind. Sally watched them as she disembarked the tram outside one of the gates to Perez Park. She smiled, inhaling deeply the smell of damp grass and deciduous woods. In the distance she could see Bettis Hill, her favourite place in the whole park. She smiled to herself as she started down the winding dusty paths towards it, walking by the river and nodding politely to other people she passed. Overhead some birds flew and she could hear the ducks in the river and ponds quaking noisily. There was a nice pool just off from the river course at the foot of Bettis Hill, the wildflowers were challenging the tended verges of the paths and her eyes fell on the bench where Jake had proposed to her. She half smiled to remember the moment, as she sobbed onto his chest, full of fear of being deported and misery over coming so close to finding her father's killers and having the chance of justice snatched away.
She shook her head sharply, taking a heel of bread from her bag and tearing off a bit of it. She came here to feed the ducks and not think about her rascal of a husband and her concerns for raising her unborn child in an uncertain financial climate. The ducks swam idly in circles, quaking lazily until they noticed her and then they became more urgent and attentive, ready to listen to whatever she needed to say in exchange for the bread in her hands. A breeze stirred at the coiled and curled hair around her neck and Sally smiled, Bettis Hill was still her favourite place to come and think. The breeze swept up to rustle the leaves of the trees and carried with it the sound of children laughing and playing elsewhere in the park. Sally felt a bit breathless as she imagined her own child running over the grassy slopes and between the trees. He would have her eyes and elegance and Jake's freckles and smile. He would be a natural leader and an artist, a poet and a samurai. He would be as wise and strong as her father had been.
The ducks gobbled at the chunks of bread torn of the stale heel, Sally let her mind drift in bittersweet thoughts of a future promised and a past lost. She paused in her feeding, holding the heel lightly, her other hand spreading on the floral print covering her flat stomach. It would be months before she started to show. Her son was just below her palm. She felt a delicious thrill of expectation and fear mingled as one. Her sweet son, so tiny and vulnerable.
So lost in her reverie was she that she didn't immediately register the crack of a branch underfoot. She was seized roughly from behind and a knife edge suddenly pressed against her throat. She froze, smelling cheap aftershave and under it, rank sweat and tobacco.
"Listen up good, [censored]. You tell that Midnight [censored] to start payin' some respect to her betters or we're gonna stop playing nice. You want to keep your pretty face, *****, you tell her that," growled a man's voice in her ear, his breath hot and fetid. She stumbled slightly when he pushed her away roughly. She spun around, glaring furiously with tears in her eyes at the dusky man in his ill-fitting suit.
"I'd watch my language if I were you, that's no way to talk to a lady!"
The man sneered and back-handed her viciously across the face. Sally gasped in pain, her hand snapping to her face as she staggered to keep her balance on her neat heels. Before she could launch into an ear-scorching tirade of abuse, he turned and walked off, dismissing her like she was nothing.
She was so angry she was still shaking when she reached the club an hour later. The captain looked up and got hastily out of her way when she stormed down the corridor, flattening himself into the dance costumes, sequins glittering about his head.
"Kate!" Sally slammed the door to Kate's office open wildly, banging it off the wall. Kate glanced over her newspaper, one eyebrow raised.
"What's wrong?"
"I'll tell you what's wrong! Some ******* threatened me with a knife! Held me at knife point. Smacked my face!" Sally pointed to the reddened mark fringed with bruising. Kate got to her feet quickly and walked over, going to examine it when Sally smacked her hands away furiously, tears standing in her eyes.
"Keep your hands off me! This is all your fault! Whatever you send my husband out to get shot over is causing trouble! You should be shamed!" Kate stepped back, giving the other woman her space and let her rage. She retrieved an icepack from the bar freezer and brought it back to her. Sally took it and held it to her face, sitting down angrily.
"What is so worth this trouble, Kate? What are you trying to do?" she asked heavily, her anger having spent itself finally. Kate sighed and sat down opposite her.
"I don't know, honestly. Something's going on and I don't know what but I intend to find out."
"At what price?" Sally looked into Kate's eyes and held them. The two women both looked away after a moment, as if they couldn't quite bring themselves to talk about it. Finally Kate stood up.
"I've done you wrong, Sally. I should have told you what was going on before now. After we close up tonight, I'll tell you all. Oh, by the way, we have a new act, if you're ready, could you go and talk to him about timing and arrange tonight's performance with him. His name's Whithers."
The club was now empty again, the ashtrays were full of ash and stubbed out cigarettes and cigars, empty glasses stood on tables and on the bar. Eight people sat around the largest round table, smoke idling up from their cigarettes. Kate looked around at each face, Adam, Dave, Jake, Sally, Ferdas, the Captain and Matthew. She had been a little hesitant to include him in her confidence, given that he'd only been hired that day, but something told her she could trust him. Adam had vouched for his discretion and sense as well, which just strengthened her feeling. She reached forward and picked up the teapot in the middle of the table. It contained 'Irish tea', courtesy of Jake's dodgy upbringing, being equal parts tea and whiskey. She poured herself a cup in a dainty white and lavender bone china cup.
"You are probably all wondering why I called you here after hours," she began. There were a few nods around the table. She noticed that Sally and Jake were sitting closer than usual. The short man must have been furious to hear his wife's account, Kate was glad she wasn't the man who'd held a knife to Sally's throat.
"You may or may not be aware that I have been sending Jake out to keep tabs on the gangs, it's been difficult work, dangerous even." Kate nodded a little at Jake, recognizing the risks he'd been taking for her. Ferdas frowned slightly.
"Why?" Matthew asked, his arms folded. Kate sighed.
"We all know that the force is riddled with as many crooks as the streets. The system is corrupt from the inside out. If anyone is to make headway in this city, they have to do with it with a well greased palm and the edge of a knife. I refute this." She slapped her hand on the table suddenly, making more than one person jump. Dave met her sharp eyes for a moment, blinking slowly.
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that we do not have to let those with the least morals call the shots. If the police are corrupt, we must take the law into our own hands." The Captain grunted, reaching up to work the curl of his mustache with his fingers.
"Colonel Midnight, as ambitious as your words are, may I remind you that we are not so lawful as a unit."
"Yes, I know. But because we have seen both sides of the law that we are in the best position to judge what is moral and what is not. Jake may be a cat burglar, but he has already worked to protect us. Sally is an illegal immigrant but she works honestly for her living. We've all done things that have been decided to be wrong, but our reasons have always been morally driven. Whatever the law, I believe we have all done the right things." Kate looked at each of them, holding their eyes. She knew most of their secrets, she had collected them together because she saw what courts of law did not, these were good people.
"So what do you propose, Kate? Mrs Kasey was held at knifepoint and threatened. How are we to react to this?" Matthew asked quietly. The Captain poured himself some Irish tea.
"I suggest we lure the enemy out and catch him in a crossfire. Several mortars should do the trick. Do you think we could ask for a tank division?"
"Certainly, we have to respond the threat, or the De Marchis will see it as an invitation to walk all over us. However, we have a more pressing matter to deal with. This." Kate took a piece of paper out of the inner pocket of her suit jacket. She unfolded it and placed it in the middle of the table so everyone could see it. Adam frowned at the seven names.
"What is it?"
"That's what we've got to work out. Who are these people, what is so special about them and why are the De Marchi's interested in them?" Kate looked at the seven faces looking back at her. Matthew was the first to shrug easily.
"I'm sure I can find you out some choice details," he said. Ferdas nodded as well.
"I'll do what I can, Kate." Everyone else followed his lead, nodding and promising they would do what they could. Kate half smiled, feeling a swell of pride in her chest. She took a good look at each face, then picked up her teacup.
"Here's to doing what's right. Here's to Honour and Unity."
They all drank to the toast, feeling a connection with each other they couldn't easily explain. Dave looked at his teacup when it was drained of Irish tea. He looked up at the Captain who was sat opposite him.
Captain Cathode.
He looked back at his cup, unsettled. When next he looked up, he caught sight of Ferdas reaching out to the teapot again and finding it empty. He watched him get up and walk to the bar with it.
Dax Ferdas.
He looked at Kate, talking quietly to Matthew beside her.
Midnight Gaze and the Music Teacher.
Dave glanced at Jake and Sally, catching the short man reaching tenderly to his wife's cheek, murmuring something. He looked away, embarrassed.
Sally Storm and Jakey K. They're going to flip out when they realise the truth.
Dave grimaced, distinctly aware of Adam next to him.
The Midnight Avenger. I wonder how he feels about Matthew right now? 1920s weren't big on men being [censored].
He wished he didn't have all this clutter in his head. He had two sets of memories from what he could access. One set had him as a disheartened detective in Paragon City, struggling with alcoholism after the tragic death of his wife and daughter caught in gang crossfire. The other had him as a superhero, struggling to come to terms with the loss of his wife and daughter in an alien invasion.
He wasn't sure which one he favoured. He wasn't sure which was real. The second set of memories sounded like something out of those pulp magazines and comics. It was ridiculous.
And yet, it felt more right than his persona as a detective. He looked at Ferdas as he talked to the Captain, they both started chuckling and the Captain poured them both a drink. These people were a constant of both memories, as was the city.
How was he ever to work out which was the real him?
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
A month passed without much notice other than increased tensions with the De Marchis. Despite their promises to get to the bottom of things, the Midnights still had a club to run, rent to pay and Adam had a friend to worry about. He stood alone under a streetlight in the customary night fog, smoking idly on a cigarette while he waited for Big Jake to show up. He couldn't quell the feeling twisting his insides. Earlier, when Kate had called him into her office, he'd been feeling so optimistic. He'd been feeling so ever since Matthew had started working at the Serenade, filling his nights with song and music instead of his previous occupation. Then Kate had told him that they had word that something very big was going to go down at the Royal Flush. It was a De Marchi club, and normally none of them would be foolish enough to trespass on the other gang's territory without expecting to wind up in a hospital or the morgue. He closed his eyes and took the cigarette away from his mouth to knock the ash off. Apparently Matthew had provided the information. Adam wondered, almost fatalistically, how the musician had come by it, though he thought he could guess.
Why should he feel so wound up about it, he didn't know. Matthew was a [censored], for Pete's sake. There was no pretty way to word it, he sold his body and services therein to other men. Still, it hurt. He'd gotten him a job at the Serenade so he wouldn't have to keep degrading himself for money, or information.
"Hey Adam, sorry to keep you waiting." Adam jumped a little, his train of thought derailing as he whirled to look at Jake. The short man tipped his hat with a huge grin.
"Whotcha."
"Don't sneak up on me like that, jeez," Adam muttered. Jake just smirked and swivelled his own cigarette to the corner of his mouth.
"Hell, an elephant could have snuck up on you then. What's on your mind, sarge?"
"Just cold. Come on, let's get this place checked out." Adam turned his collar up and pushed away from the lamppost, starting to walk down the cobbled street. Jake fell in at his right and slightly behind.
They passed through the fog in silence, the clip of their shoes against the cobbles rang against the thick air's acoustic. Disembodied orbs of light marked each streetlamp as they walked, letting them slide slowly past over their heads. They might as well have been the only two men in a world of silence.
It was not to last. As they passed from Founders Falls to Astoria, they saw and heard more people, a near constant chatter of nightlife in full swing. Every time a door opened, streams of jazz and light pierced the fog and they could hear the laughing of people merrily breaking the Prohibition laws. The Royal Flush was in a quieter area, masquerading as a pool hall and card house. There was no way a De Marchi doorman would let Big Jake in without a thorough frisking by two men and possibly a third to make sure the Irish mutt didn't try anything. People were less zealous about Adam, given that he'd kept himself to himself for the most part and was polite for a doorman.
Jake flicked his dog-end to the curb as they cut down an alley that would bring them down the length of the Royal Flush.
"If there's a meet or a deal, it'll be going on in the back. I'll be able to get to it, don't know about you, sarge. Just keep watch, alright?" he asked. Adam repressed a sigh and nodded. Jake led him around to an even more narrow alley. Adam's first thought when he looked at the black length was of a trench. He swallowed the acid edge of bile that knifed up his throat and looked at Jake. The short man took off his hat and hung it on the corner of a bin, then clambered up onto the cast iron vessel. He tensed for a moment, then jumped up, catching the edge of an old bricked up window with his fingertips. Adam watched in amazement as the younger man fluidly pulled himself up the wall, using holds he couldn't even see. He couldn't help but grin. Climbing came so naturally to Big Jake that he wondered if he was part squirrel. Hell, he was part most everything else. Anyone who asked if Jake was Irish always to the answer, 'half Irish, half Turkish, half Scottish, half French, half Egyptian' and so on. Jake usually only stopped when he got bored.
After a few minutes, Jake was perched on a narrow, now defunct, pulley arm that used to be used to get goods up to the second floor of the club. He was crouched right up against the wall, leaning dangerously backwards so he was looking through a gap in the boards that covered the old opening. Adam looked back down the alleyway to check it was still clear, then looked up at him. He dimly made out that Jake was making hand signals. He watched closely, recognising them from the service. Four men were inside, they were talking and he should stay there. Adam did so, wondering how often Jake found himself listening at windows, perched on rusty bits of metal that could fall without a moment's notice. No wonder Sally gave him hell for it.
While Adam kept watch, Jake kept all his attention on the discussion inside.
"Don't worry about the Sonamas, they're small time punks and can't survive in the real world. Is everything set for July?" asked a man in a sharp white suit. He was the only man in the room sitting down, that meant he was in charge. Jake narrowed his eyes.
"There is something else, Uncle Fred. The Midnight Serenade is still open-"
"Don't come to me with that [censored]. The Midnights are even less of a threat than the Sonamas." Uncle Fred pushed himself to standing fluidly, the other three backed of a step to give him room and he walked to the man who'd spoken, picking a speck off his jacket and straightening his tie, "trust me, kid, I've seen all kinds of wannabes, the Midnights are a bunch of nothing that just fell from don't-give-a-damn tree. All we worry about for now is Spanky. I don't want that [censored] cottoning onto us."
"A wise decision, Fred De Marchi," said a new voice from the far left. Jake strained his position to be able to see the speaker, but a rack was in the way, leaving him with only the suggestion of a dark suit, maybe blue. The four men in the room all turned to glare at the newcomer. Then Fred pushed his hand through his hair.
"So you finally decided to show? You got the next step for us?" he asked. There was a rustle of paper and something was handed to one of the De Marchi henchmen.
"Follow these instructions to the letter. As usual." There was something about that voice, that prickled the dark recesses of Jake's mind. Fred opened the newspaper that was handed to him by his nephew and glanced at it.
"Seems easy enough. We done today?"
"There is one more thing
" the gravely voiced one trailed off, almost as if he was uncomfortable. Fred arched one dark eyebrow.
"Oh?"
"The recent arson attacks on your warehouses. Find out who is responsible immediately. We must have no further set backs." Fred smirked.
"One arsonist found and killed. Got it."
"No!" The gravely voiced man stepped forward sharply, into Jake's view. He noted with interest that the suit was not dark blue, but dark green. Fred scowled but didn't interrupt when the man started speaking again.
"He is not to be killed. Acquire him by any means, then hold him until we arrive. We must deal with him personally. Limbs are optional." Jake had a feeling he knew that man, like a deep sense of déjà vu. Fred looked fleetingly curious, then schooled the flicker away, settling for a nod.
"Sure thing."
"Um
Uncle Fred, what's that smell?" Fred's nephew come henchman looked around as he spoke, sniffing the air. Fred looked annoyed at the interruption, then sniffed. He froze.
"Gasoline
"
Jake smelt it too. He suddenly had a very, very bad feeling. He was about to scramble down when he heard something that made him look back into the room.
A match was struck.
The gangsters and their visitor all spun around, putting their backs to Jake's window. Half obscured by their shoulders stood a man with a pulled down hat and a grey suit. He was holding the lit match in one white gloved hand. His hat obscured his face, but not the grin. That grin was not normal. The second stretched to a lifetime and nobody spoke, nobody breathed, all eyes were fixed on that match so intently the grin became a mere disembodied figment.
The gloved fingers flicked the match, it sailed down to the floor and there was a whoosh of air as fire shot out in two directions. Jake's eyes widened as he saw a design etch itself in fire all around the man. Then he noticed a stream of fire hitting a powder fuse on the floor. He bit down on his curse and just jumped off his perch. Adam turned around sharply when he heard him land a few feet shy of his position.
"What's wrong?" he asked. Jake just grabbed his arm and hauled him after him, breaking into a flat out run.
"We have to get the hell out of here before that fuse gets wherever it's going!" he hissed.
Ten long seconds later, there was an explosion in the Royal Flush, debris and dust blasting out of windows and doorway. Adam slowed to look over his shoulder but Jake wouldn't let him stop. They absolutely couldn't be here. If anything connected them to the blast, the De Marchis and the police would be all over them in a day.
"You saw the arsonist?! Did you get a good look?" Kate demanded, pouring brandy for Jake and Adam as they flopped, panting on her sofa. Her apartment in Woodvale was quiet, it was an ideal place to beat a retreat. Nothing happened in Woodvale of note, and nobody of note went there. It was just a few high rises and a lot of forest.
"No, he had his hat down," said Jake with a heavy sigh as he took the brandy from her. Adam necked his immediately, checking he wasn't shaking. He longed to go visit Matthew, to bury the memories of explosions and fear and running for just a little while. He cursed himself inwardly, he wasn't trying to get him out of [censored] just to have exclusive access to him. He was doing it for the sake of his eternal soul. Angry at himself for his needy clinging, he stood up briskly and went into the kitchen to make a sandwich.
"Nothing at all, Jake?" Kate looked disappointed. Jake put the glass down.
"Hey, I didn't say that. Gimme some paper a second and a pen." He leaned forward and cleared some space on Kate's coffee table as she brought him a journalists note pad and a pen. He pulled off the cap and sketched something, then showed it to her.
"Damnedest thing, he painted out a fleur de lis on the wall in gas, then lit it. The fuse was attached about here." Jake dashed in an 'X' on the design. Kate frowned at the French symbol.
"Why?"
"I have no idea, but the guy in the green suit was very keen to get hold of him alive, probably to find out what he's about." Jake looked up at Kate. Kate was still looking at the design, frowning tightly. After a moment, she glanced down to meet his eyes.
"Jake, call the others and get them over here now." Adam watched as Jake scrambled to the phone, taking the earpiece off the hook and setting his finger to the dial, turning it speedily. He looked back at Kate.
"What's the matter?" he asked, voice soft with worry. Kate's hands were gripping the pad so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She didn't look at him.
"Something is very wrong here."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Author's Note: The gang at HU have taken to calling Muse the 'princess' as he seems to have the 'kidnap fodder gene'.
An hour later, the eight of them were sitting around Kate's living, Sally nursing a cup of coffee as she tried to muster herself awake. She'd had a busy night, dancing and singing while her husband tried to get himself blown up. She reached up beside her and clipped the back of his head for no other reason. He looked meekly into his brandy glass. Matthew, lounging artfully in an armchair, raised his glass and swilled the brandy around in it.
"As much as I'm a night owl, Miss Midnight, why are we here at three in the morning?" he asked. Kate, still gripping the pad, nodded to Adam as he finished serving coffee and took a seat near her.
"Before I say any more, I have to apologise for what we are about to discuss. It will sound, at first, to be frank madness." She looked at the pad and took a breath, turning her eyes away from the curious and concerned looks of the people around her coffee table. Ferdas blinked.
"What is it?"
"Lately, more and more, I've been feeling like I've forgotten something, like something I needed to buy or a letter I needed to write, and I couldn't put my finger on it until an hour ago." She looked up suddenly, searching out each person's eyes, her face as open and honest as she could make it.
"We are not who we think we are. I don't know what happened or how, but this is not our life."
"My dear Colonel, we can't have that kind of talk in front of the troops, it's bad for morale!" the Captain spluttered. Kate passed the pad to Adam.
"I want you all to pass this around, look at the symbol and say the first word that comes to your head." She nodded to Adam. He looked at it, then frowned.
"White."
"Alright, pass it on." Adam passed it to Ferdas, looking confused. Ferdas had a look like he was only humouring Kate and he regarded the symbol.
"Laughing." The Captain received it next and he frowned tightly.
"Back up," he muttered, passing it to Matthew who scanned it.
"Love." He didn't look the least bit abashed as he passed it to Sally, who rubbed her eyes of sleep dust before she looked.
"Honour," she said, swatting Jake's head with it before giving it to him. Jake rubbed his head and looked.
"Hat." He passed it to Dave. Dave looked at it for a long time, then he looked at Kate. The others all glanced at him, wondering what was taking him so long.
"Justice," he said finally, handing it back to her. Kate nodded, taking it from him.
"We have all seen this symbol before, and not in just any old context. This symbol means something very specific to us. We have to try and remember what that is. I'm going to pass it around again, this time, I want you to write a word on the paper. Any old word that comes to mind."
With that, the pad was passed around and around. Words built up around the fleur de lis, seemingly randomly. It passed into Dave's hand for a fifth time and he wrote something very neatly in the bottom left hand corner. He passed it to Kate who scanned over the words and then she frowned, pausing. She flipped to a new page and wrote something. She then passed it to Adam who also frowned. He hesitated, then wrote two words.
It passed around to Jake again and he looked at the list presented to him. Then he realised that everyone was looking at him and a stillness had fallen. It weighed in the air, like some huge, silent ticking of a cosmic clock.
He looked again at the list. At the top of the page was written 'I am
', underscored neatly. Underneath it was written 'Shingi', then 'Midnight Gaze', then 'Midnight Avenger', 'Dax Ferdas', 'Captain Cathode', 'Music Teacher' and finally 'Sally Storm'. He cocked his head a bit.
"I don't-" he stopped.
"Hey, you, yeah you, dancing on the car!"
"Who me?"
"Yeah you, what's your name?"
"I'm the Jakey K!"
"The who?!" she laughed. He hopped off the top of the parked police car and looked up at her, tipping his hat.
"Jakey K, the cat of the hour, at your service Miss
?"
"Midnight Gaze. You can just call me Gaze though."
"As you like, Miss Gaze."
He could feel the warmth of Sally's legs beside him, something felt like it was bending inside, with the creak of soft ice. For a moment, he wanted to deny it at the top of his lungs. Of two lives, he knew without a doubt which one he wanted to live. His traitor hand moved the pen and the name 'Jakey K' appeared under 'Sally Storm'. He found himself flicking it onto the table.
The silence did nothing to mend the curving pain in his chest. He could see Sally's hand, he wanted to take it and forget the horrible truth. She was his wife and the mother of his unborn child, not his comrade in arms. He wanted to be Big Jake, not this Jakey K.
"Wow
er
" Matthew looked embarrassed and cleared his throat, it hung in the air. Then he stood up and jerked his thumb at Ferdas.
"You're in my space." Ferdas blinked in confusion, then he glanced at Adam sat beside him and realisation dawned. He scrambled up and took Matthew's seat.
"Sorry Muse." Matthew stepped over the Captain's legs and took his place beside Adam, putting his arms around him without a second thought and not caring at how awkward it might be. Adam was tense for a moment, then he just melted, looking relieved and slightly upset, wrapping his arms around him.
As if Matthew's motion had broken the final lock on their minds, the captain suddenly smacked his head with his hand.
"Now wait just one darn second here, if we're superheroes from the future, why are my eyes working right by themselves? And where's Jakey's tail and ears? And why isn't Ferdas freezing the coffee in his cup?! And how come Sally's pregnant!?"
Kate waved her hands.
"I don't know, I don't know!" Sally picked up the pad and threw it at the captain.
"Any more loud comments about me being in a family way are going to get you hurt, boyo."
"It's a good question actually, the evidence suggests we're all human," said Dave. Kate leaned back in her chair, arms folded.
"Clearly something weird is going on here. We're going to have to work out what, but not tonight. I think we've all had enough revelations about ourselves to be getting along with. For now, I suggest we all go to our homes here and then we'll try and work out what's happened tomorrow at the earliest. I suggest you all get your rest." She half smiled, feeling as lost as everyone else.
Sally nodded finally and got to her feet.
"Alright big guy, time to get me home, it's way past my bedtime," she said, poking Jake's head. He said nothing, merely getting to his feet and leading the way out.
"Hey, Gaze, is it alright if I crash here? I really hate driving in all that fog," asked Ferdas. Kate nodded and went to get some blankets from the airing cupboard. Dave cleared his throat.
"Actually, I'd like to stay too."
"Well if Ferdas is staying, I have to. I got lift in with him," muttered the captain. Kate threw a pillow at his head.
"Fine. Sleep over it is. We can do each other's hair and talk about the boys we like." She rolled her eyes, then looked at Adam and Matthew, "you two staying aswell?"
"Um
if it's all the same to you, Kate, no. We're going to have our own sleep-over, ta," Matthew grinned a little apologetically. Ferdas grimaced.
"Gah, I still have 1920s sensibilities in my head, no mentioning the S-E-X thing!"
"Prude," Matthew teased, sticking his tongue out. Adam cleared his throat, taking Matthew's hand.
"So
er
we'll see you guys tomorrow afternoon some time. Bye." And with that, he left hurriedly, towing Matthew with before the shorter man could delight in teasing Ferdas some more.
Kate nursed her head, one half of her was shocked and appalled, the other half was happy to see Adam do something other than mope and wished them well tonight. It was so confusing.
The bare window of Adam's ill-furnished flat was misted with condensation as the night brightened to morning. Adam looked at it lazily, his arm hooked around Matthew's side, one finger idly tracing shapes between his shoulders. The blond man was sprawled half over him, breathing deeply in his sleep. Adam frowned lightly as he watched the darkness become just twilight. Then it occurred to him what was off. The pane was uncracked.
He looked down at Matthew's hair. No sonic resonance. He lifted his spare hand and looked at it in a detached way. Hesitantly, he picked up a glass on the bedside table. He looked at the slightly grimy surface silently. Then he constricted his hand.
There was a moment of resistance and then it splintered in his hand. He cursed at the agony in his palm and looked horrified as red liquid dribbled down from his hand.
"[censored]!" He scrambled out from under Matthew, dumping him on the mattress unceremoniously and darted to the bathroom. After a moment and a sleepy grumble, Matthew leaned around the door frame to see him trying to prise broken glass from his palm and fingers.
"What the Hell!?" He was instantly in the room, grabbing Adam's wrist tightly, compressing the veins to slow the blood. Adam was shaking all over, shocked at the sight of the blood dripping from his hand. There was so much of it and it was so red, so fluid, sliding in trails down the curve of the sink. He barely paid any attention as Matthew pulled the glass out, cleaning up the cuts. He could barely remember the last time he'd seen his own blood.
He wasn't invulnerable.
He watched miserably as Matthew bandaged his hand up with a torn up shirt.
"We don't have our powers," he said, shaking in a cold sweat. Matthew looked at him, then pinned the bandage down.
"Funnily enough, Adam, I had noticed."
"How are you taking this so calmly? We don't have our powers
how are we supposed to get home?"
"The same we got here?" Matthew reached up and put his hands on Adam's cheeks, giving him a searching look, "this is no time to freak out, we need you to be strong for-"
Adam took his arms and pushed him back enough to let him walk past, going to where his suits hung.
"Don't you get it, Matt? I don't have my strength! I'm as weak as the next man."
"You don't honestly believe that
" Matthew padded after him, then winced at the sharp motions Adam was making as he pulled on his clothes.
"I was bleeding, Matt. Bleeding. Blood. Do you know how long it's been since anything's broken my skin?" Adam put his bandaged hand up near his head, as if he was trying to grab thoughts whirling about and just hand them over without forcing them into clumsy words. Matthew gave him a pained look.
"I-I think I know what's happened. Adam, this is a dream. It's not real
"
"Its not a dream. It's a nightmare," Adam hissed, pulling on his hat and walking out. Matthew stared at the door for a long moment, then he sighed and got to picking up the rest of the broken glass, trying not to let his own upset get in the way. Of course it would be a horrible shock to have your powers mysteriously vanish. He was struggling with the concept himself. He'd always had resonance, always. As much as he feared and resented it, it was part of him and now it just wasn't there.
He got dressed and left Adam's apartment, getting a very funny look from the landlord as he did so. He tipped his hat at him politely and jogged down the steps, then he remembered his 'occupation' and winced internally. He took a deep breath and pushed that aside as well. It was all just a dream, he was sure of it. It made sense in a twisted sort of way, as they were all more or less the same people, but with tweaked pastimes and histories. The last thing he could remember as the Music Teacher was blackness and a strange stone device. Who'd they been fighting that time? The Circuit? The Circus? The Thorny Circus? That sounded about right.
Screeching tyres broke through his deep thoughts and he looked up in distraction. He saw the car veering for him and window rolling down in a split second. There wasn't even time to swear, he just collapsed to the ground like someone had kicked his legs out from under him. Bullets bit the wall at head height, showering dust and razor shards over the pavement. The car engine roared as it swerved past and tore off down the street. Matthew's heart pounded wildly as he scrambled to his feet, cutting into a run. There were other people on the street, he envisaged them cut down under machine gun fire and felt sick, hurdling one man as he huddled, holding an umbrella up like a talisman. The car screamed in a one hundred and eighty degree turn, the tyres squealing as they struggled to find purchase on the cobbles. Matthew found himself running faster, trying to keep his panic under grips as the car gained on him. He grabbed a lamppost as he ran past, nearly swinging off his feet as he turned. There was another scream of tyres as the car skidded right past the turning, turning sideways. Matthew sprinted down the street, panicking that any second he was going to feel a bullet hitting his back when hands reached out from an alley way and grabbed him.
He didn't have time to worry or wonder about bullets, as a handkerchief was slammed against his nose and mouth and the chloroform took all his worries away.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
[ QUOTE ]
Author's Note: The gang at HU have taken to calling Muse the 'princess' as he seems to have the 'kidnap fodder gene'.
[/ QUOTE ]
Given this story to base my perceptions on, I would prefer him over the ladies as well as a kidnapper. This way the kidnappers still have a chance to survive.
Any sensible kidnapper will not try and take down one of HU's ladies. They'll find their 'jimmies' in another hemisphere,
Waking up some unknown quantity of time later gave Matthew a foggy feeling and a slamming headache from the chloroform. His two personas warred for dominance for a moment, then the hero, Muse, receded, as he was too scared to do anything. Matthew sat up sharply, hissing from his headache and looked around. He was on an old tapestry divan and there was an ornate fireplace before him. Walnut panels coated the walls and the carpet was a deep dark red. He snorted and got to his feet, turning around to face the man he knew would be sitting at the huge desk.
"For the last bloody time, you thick-headed idiot, you can just ASK!" he snapped. The man looked up from the newspaper he was reading and arched an eyebrow. There was a surgical pad on one side of his face and a bandage around his crown making his hair stick up at odd angles.
"Mind your manners, Whithers."
"Or what? You'll smack me? I'm so frightened." Matthew walked over to the desk and picked up the jug of water placed near exquisite crystal glasses. He drank from the jug straight, gulping the water down to quell the thudding crashing pain in his skull. The man looked disapproving, straightening his tie.
"Don't tempt me, Whithers. There are plenty of [censored] in this city who would jump at the chance of my patronage." The jug slammed down on his paper, slopping water everywhere. Matthew glared daggers at the man.
"[censored]. You know you can't replace me, Frederick," he hissed, sitting on the side of the desk and plucking a cigarette out of the packet in Fred's top pocket. He swiped the lighter up from the desk and lit it, taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke out with a sigh.
"Isn't that why you saved me from the drive by? Be honest now."
"The drive by was just a warning, Whithers. If I'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead. I hear you've started work at the Midnight Serenade. This has upset me." Fred tapped the arm of his chair with his fingertips. Matthew shrugged.
"So? A lot of things upset you."
"So I've got a little proposition for you. The Midnights have been overstepping their boundaries and disrespecting my family. Since you're in with their little crowd, I want you to tell me if they're going to be up to anything I need to know about." He reached his hands up and laced his fingers before his chest, one entire hand was sporting more bandages. Matthew took another drag on the cigarette and blew a smoke ring before answering, his face revealing nothing of his emotions at all.
"Dear Fred, are you asking me to be your spy?"
"I'm not [censored] around here, Matthew. I've got some crooked FBI on my back to find them the arsonist on the quiet, I've got the arsonist himself to deal with and my boys found this outside the Royal Flush this morning." Fred reached down and pulled something out of a drawer. He flicked the burned and battered hat on the table. Matthew looked at it nonplussed.
"Amazing, your men found a hat at a club. I am
speechless, really. Awed by their detective prowess maybe."
"Cut the attitude, you cheap [censored], and listen up. There's initials in the brim and a book of matches from the Geneva Hotel in Founders Falls. Find out who it belongs to, and tell me."
Matthew resented being called 'cheap'. He was not cheap at all. He sighed heavily.
"Fine, I'll sniff around and see what I can come up with. You better pay me over time for this."
"Be grateful I don't beat the wise guy right out of you."
"I'm terrified. Honestly. Is that all, Freddy, can I go now?" Matthew asked dryly. Fred snorted.
"There's still one more thing before you can go."
Matthew sighed and stood up, stubbing the cigarette out on the highly polished mahogany desk. There was always that one more thing. He ignored the other Matthew inside who quailed and baulked at the idea. This was just business. He walked back over to the sofa, shrugging off his jacket and flinging it over the back of the chair.
Later that afternoon Matthew slammed open the door to the Midnight Serenade, walking past Dave with his jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder. Dave watched him pass in surprise, then closed the door belatedly.
"Everyone, gather round, it's story time!" Matthew yelled, chucking his jacket over a chair and spinning a hat in his hands. Moments later, drawn almost by morbid curiosity, everyone assembled around one of the round tables, all sat save for Matthew himself. Kate frowned.
"What is it?"
"I've just come from a fun fun meeting with one of the De Marchi heads," said Matthew with no preamble. Adam took a sharp intake of breath, nor was he the only one to look surprised.
"You what?"
"Snagged me right after sending some of his goons to put the fear into me via driveby-"
"You WHAT?!" Adam looked stricken, about to go over to his lover and check him for injury when Matthew held up the burned and battered hat in his hand.
"Jake, you forgot your hat." He flicked it onto the table before Jake. Sally was the one to pick it up, inspecting it and glaring at the smoke and fire damage before staring shuriken into her 'husband's skull. Jake opened his mouth to say something but Matthew interrupted again.
"Okay, this is how it is. Uncle Fred wants me to spy on you guys, see, my 'history' is that I owe him or something, pretty extensively too, as he can call on me for pretty much anything. I'm his nasty little spy and informant. However, screw that. Just because some twist of fate has lumped us all here and given us new histories and stuff, doesn't mean I have to go along with it." Matthew pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it from a match.
"Way I see it," he continued when everyone just stared at him mutely, "is that we have two choices here. We can either live like mental cases with two personalities, or we can embrace one and forget the other. I for SURE am not embracing being a prostitute with ties to some ******* mob of violent [censored]."
Adam put a hand over his face slightly as the others heard Matthew's profession for the first time. The Captain opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it.
"Alright, okay
two choices. I call superhero from the future!" He put up his hand. There were nods of assent, then Dave grunted.
"Fine enough, Whithers, but we still don't know how we got here and how to get back."
"We don't know yet, but I bet you good money it has to do with that darkdial thing we found in the dark cavern. Jake, you're what passes for our resident expert on things arcane and magical, so your happy job is to remember everything you can about that thing and work out what it really was. In the meantime the rest of us have to keep our heads above water in this suck-[censored] climate."
"Are we expecting trouble?" Ferdas asked sharply, frowning. Matthew nodded, leaning his hands on the back of a chair.
"We are. Uncle Fred told me that aside from the De Marchis, who are pretty [censored] about us, there's crooked FBI involved, and not just that, there's the arsonist."
"FBI? Did they even exist in 1923?" asked Sally. Dave nodded.
"Sure did."
"There's still the matter of the seven names," said Kate, leaning an arm on the table. Matthew tapped ash off his cigarette.
"Have we looked at them since regaining our memories?" he asked. Kate shook her head, then took out a much folded piece of paper and put it on the table. Matthew tried to find his calm place as the others conjectured about the names.
"Hey
a [censored] second. This is Maiden Justice!" Ferdas grabbed up the paper, staring at one name in particular. Everyone else stared at him.
"What?"
"Maiden Justice, one of the first superheroes in Paragon City!" Ferdas looked at them all, then something sunk in.
"The De Marchis are trying to kill the first superheroes of Paragon?" Matthew asked blankly. Jake swore suddenly and so foully that everyone looked at him. He had the grace to look a little embarrassed by his language.
"I think I just got a little idea about what the dial does. I've got to verify some stuff first." He didn't stop to explain more, he just ran out, barely pausing to grab his coat on the way. Everyone else looked at each other, then Dave sighed and slumped a little.
"I hate time travel."
Jake returned to the city library, too agitated to do more than nod at the pretty librarian before hurrying into the mythology section. The old, leather bound books even smelled dusty but he paid it no mind, running his hand along the shelves, whispering titles to himself. After a few minutes, he found one that suited and grabbed a stool so he could tug it off the top shelf. It wasn't long before he was sat at one of the reading tables, head propped up on his hand and engrossed in the book.
Sally found him there half an hour later. She'd left the club a few minutes after him, unable to keep her mind on the concept of someone trying to kill Paragon City's first superheroes.
"Hey, Jakey," she said as she sat down next to him. "What are you reading?"
"Hmm? Oh, hey Sal
" Jake blushed a little and looked back down at the book. He cleared his throat. "Just a book on creation myths."
Sally peered at the book with a frown. She couldn't read a word of it.
"What language is it in?"
"Greek." Sally looked at him, frowning slightly.
"J, how many languages do you actually speak?" she asked. It had been bugging her for some time now, ever since she'd heard him hold fluent conversations in both French and Korean. Jake glanced at her.
"Enough to get by. The others come up with anything useful to know?" he asked. Sally folded her arms.
"No changing the subject. You always do that when you don't want to give a straight answer. I'm carrying your child here, don't you think I'm owed a few answers?!" she managed to keep her voice down, her 1920's persona slipping in to keep her from causing a fuss in public. Jake winced a little and fiddled with a page.
"I
er
speak forty three languages and I can read another eighteen." He didn't look at her, colour coming to his cheeks. Sally stared at him, trying to imagine where he'd found the time to learn so many languages.
"That's
um
"
"Freakish. I know." Jake glared at the page before him. This was horribly uncomfortable for him. Half of him wanted to reach out and take his wife in his arms, half of him shied away from it. He and Sally were friends, not a couple! He looked at her.
"You spent some time in Australia while working for Crey, didn't you?" he asked abruptly. Sally gave him a sharp look, then turned her face away. While stationed near Ayres Rock, she'd witnessed a catastrophe that had, ultimately, been the result of her deeds. The deaths at Ayres Rock still weighed heavily on her conscience and had forced a wedge between her and her former fiancé.
"Yes."
"Remind me, what spiritual significance is Uluru?" Jake's use of the world's largest monolith's true name threw Sally a little. She met his eyes for a moment, knowing that he knew the answer already. She wondered why he was asking her.
"It was the site of the Dreamtime, where the first aborigines dreamed the world into existence," she said, feeling like a child at school. Jake nodded, looking back at the book. He closed it and took it back to its shelf.
"Sally
I have to ask you a question." Sally glanced at him.
"What is it?"
"Are
Are you angry with me?" he asked, his back still to her. Sally sighed and hung her head.
"I'm not thrilled about this, J. I still love Bruce," she whispered. Jake rested his hand on the shelf, his head dipping a bit.
"That's okay
you're one of my best friends, Sal. But I never thought about you
this way. I kinda have someone." He looked at a spine before him, tracing the binding with a finger.
"This was a marriage of convenience. I was going to be deported." Sally stood up and walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Everything else is-"
"Sal, what will happen when we return to our real time? I can't bare for this to be taken away
" Jake was shaking under her hand and she bit her lip. She put her arms around him.
"I don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Don't be scared, Jakey. I don't know if it'll be okay if you're scared." Her voice cracked a little. Jakey's fearless, cavalier approach to life was one of those things you could depend on. If it was taken away, then she wasn't sure they could get through this. Too much needed doing for him to lose it.
"I'm sorry, Sally. You're right." Whether he believed it or not, he pushed the shakes away. This was not the time for him to be self-indulgent with his desires. He was a Hero, his very life was lived in service to others, and if there was a time and place that needed Heroes, it was here and now. He took a deep breath and Sally felt his shoulders straighten under her hands.
"We have a lot to let the others know, and we have our forebears to protect. Whatever's going on here, I bet my future tail the Circle of Thorns are behind it."
"You think the Circle are behind everything," said Sally, amused. Jake flashed her a grin that made her feel stronger already.
"That's because they are behind everything."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Author's Note: I am having a rapid falling out with this tale
Sally glanced sideways at the short man who walked by her side back to the club. She and he had been friends for so long and yet she knew almost nothing about him beyond what everyone knew. Why did he keep himself so separate from everyone else?
Before she could finish her thoughts, Jake's hand on her elbow stopped her.
"Quick!" He pulled her around a corner and leaned to the wall, peering back around. Sally's hand tightened on her handbag.
"What is it?"
"That's the guy from last night! The guy who was talking to the De Marchis!" Jake hissed. Sally frowned tightly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, but there's not a scratch on him," he muttered blackly. Sally opened her handbag and rooted around in there. She found her compact mirror and snapped it open, angling it so she could look around the corner as well. In the round mirror, cover-up powder falling to the floor in a slow shower, she saw a man in a dark green suit reading a paper.
"Who do you think he is?"
"Circle of Thorns." Jake reached into his pocket and his wife was alarmed to see him pull out a length of piano wire and wind the ends around his hands. She grabbed his knuckles.
"Don't do anything stupid! You're not a deputised vigilante here! You're just an ordinary citizen like everyone else."
"So?" Jake looked up and met her eyes fiercely.
"So if you start trouble, who do you think will bail you out?" For a long time, they stared at each other, then finally Jake sighed and his shoulders slumped. Sally was relieved to see him pocket the wire.
"You're right. The wire's a mistake."
Her relief was short lived, as Jake suddenly snapped around from the corner and raced right at the man in the suit.
"JAKE!" Sally ran out after him. She had no idea what the reaction of the man in the green suit would be. She envisaged him pulling a gun and riddling Jake's body with bullets.
The man in the green suit looked up at her shout and saw the short man racing for him. His reaction was to suddenly scream like he'd seen a ghost and turn on his heel. Jake tore after him as the man dropped his paper and raced across the street.
"Get back here!"
Sally's shoes were not made for running, she staggered on her heel and nearly tripped. By the time she'd straightened, Jake and the man in the green suit had disappeared and she looked around wildly. Several people on the street were staring at her, as if she was the cause of the disturbance. She grimaced and hurried off before anyone could think to approach her about it.
Jake had his confirmation that the man didn't belong in this time any more than he did. He'd seen that expression so often on the faces of the Circle of Thorns mages. They knew him, knew his reputation, knew he was trouble. It was all becoming clear. He bared his teeth as the mage raced into Chinatown, jacket flapping behind him. As always, Chinatown was crowded. Everyday was market day and the smell of cooking fish, rice and noodles countered the smell of sweat and detergent. The mage darted around milling people, looking around often. Jake swore violently and looked sharply to the side. He veered hard right and jumped, grabbing the frame of a stall in his hands and flipping his body up onto the corrugated iron roof. Free of the crowd, he outpaced the mage, leaping wildly from awning to awning until he was in range. The mage looked around behind his shoulder again and Jake saw his opening.
"DEATH FROM ABOVE!" he howled, launching himself off the noodle stand. The mage didn't have time to react before Jake collided with him, knocking him off his feet. People yelled and scrambled out of the way as Jake scuffled wildly with the mage, slamming his fist into the man's head. The mage threw him off and surged to his feet, throwing a roundhouse punch. Jake ducked it and swerved to the side. The mage over-reached and staggered to compensate his imbalance. Jake grabbed his lapels and yanked him forward as he slammed his forehead into his nose. The mage howled and crumpled, grabbing his nose with one hand. People screamed when he pulled a gun. Jake spun on one foot, bringing the other up to crack into the mage's wrist, sending the gun skidding across the tarmac.
"Give up now, [censored], you're coming with me!" Jake snarled. The mage spat at him, pulling his hand away from his face, blood streaming down his nose and staining his white shirt.
"On the contrary, you are coming with me, Jakey K." He pulled a long dagger from his shoulder holster and darted in, wielding it with much more skill than he did the gun. Jake had to jump backwards, his shirt ripping when the knife tip grazed his chest.
"You and which army?"
"I'm with the FBI, there's nowhere you can run, hellcat." The mage was grinning manically, pressing his advantage. "You are powerless here, and I will be the one who bring you in. You have no idea how I will be honoured by the others, you've been a thorn in our sides for long enough!"
Jake winced when the knife caught his cheek, but not from pain.
"That was horrible!" The mage didn't seem to realise his pun, however, and spinned when he tried to dart to the side. Jake swore when the knife bit into his shoulder. He felt so slow and cumbersome. He didn't even see the knee coming up to ram his sternum until the air was forcefully slammed out of his body. He staggered but the clenched fists to the back of his head dropped him like a stone, his consciousness jolting out.
Sally reached the Serenade and slammed her fist against the door. When Dave opened it, she shoved past him, her hair hanging out of its tight bun and her breathing hard.
"Get everyone, now! It's an emergency!" she panted. Dave just nodded and slammed the door shut, ramming the bolt home before racing into the club, calling up the others. Sally kicked off her shoes, one had a broken heel but she couldn't care about that right now.
Kate came out of her office, still holding her customary paper.
"What is it?"
"It's Jake, he went running off after some guy he said was a Circle of Thorns mage
" Sally blurted out. Ferdas swore and brought her a glass of water which she gulped down gratefully.
"You think he's in trouble?" he asked. Kate nodded.
"We're used to having our powers, Jake's not exactly the type to keep in mind his limitations," she said. Ferdas looked uncomfortable and nodded. Even with his super powers, Jakey never knew when to back down.
Kate looked around when the others arrived, her hands on Sally's shoulders at the other woman sat in a chair, still breathing hard. She explained the situation to them succinctly as possible. Matthew swore suddenly.
"[censored]
it does make sense that it's a Circle of Thorns mage
after all, weren't we in one of their bases when we found the darkdial?"
"The what?" The Captain looked confused and Matthew pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over to him.
"I drew it earlier from what I can remember. Jake ran through that portal and it led to the dark cavern. Whatever that thing is, it caused this. So
probably belongs to the Circle of Thorns. Least, that's my theory," he said. Adam nodded.
"Seems reasonable. If it's the Circle of Thorns, we have to get Jake out of trouble right now."
"Why?" Dave frowned slightly, picking up on Adam's nervous look. Sally stood up.
"Because they might know about him being a reservoir for magic," she looked to Adam to back her up. He nodded, having discovered it at the same time she did - in a mini in Egypt of all places.
"He's like a battery, or conduit for magic. He can't use it himself but the Circle of Thorns probably can. He really shouldn't be in their hands."
Kate hissed a few choice words and then ran to her office. She came back with one of her spare suits and a pair of flat shoes.
"Sally, you can't run around without shoes on. And your skirt's going to be a nuisance. Wear these." She thrust the clothes into Sally's arms. The other woman didn't argue, she just got up and hurried to the dressing room, pushing past the janitor as he mopped the corridor.
The Captain nursed his temples.
"Damnit, trust Jake to get himself into trouble like this." Dave grunted.
"And what's worse is that the Circle are more powerful in this time than they are in our time," he muttered. Kate stared at him.
"What?"
"They've existed since 1890, and if my history is correct, they ran some really notorious speakeasy in the 20s." Everyone stared at him, then Matthew slapped his head with his hand.
"The De Marchis
"
"Are a front." Adam finished, wincing. The Captain looked at Ferdas.
"I think we're going to need guns. And lots of them."
"I think I'm becoming glad you taught me to field strip a rifle in thirty seconds," Ferdas responded. Kate looked at her hands, then rubbed them together.
"And it's years too early for the Midnight Squad to be formed."
"Hey
wait a second
" Dave held up his hand and they all looked at him. He looked slightly stunned, "our club
what's it called?"
"Midnight Serenade." Adam wondered if Dave was losing his grip on reality, as flimsy as that had already become. Dave just stared at Kate and she stared back.
"It's just a coincidence," she said quietly. There was a clatter as Sally returned, wearing Kate's suit and wearing it well.
"It might not be. Before we left the library, Jake brought up Uluru and he was looking into creation myths," she said. Matthew frowned.
"Uler-what?"
"Uluru, Ayres Rock. He asked me what happened there," she continued. Kate frowned, knowing that Sally knew a bit about Australian mythos.
"Remind me."
"It was the site of the Dreamtime, when the world was dreamed into existence. And
" Sally let her voice trail off uncertainly and she looked down. "I think Jake thought that we're dreaming, but we're not dreaming, we're Dreaming. Like the aborigines did. We're
I don't know, but if the Circle could find a way to rewrite history using that myth
?"
"Then they'd take it." Dave finished, looking black. He folded his arms.
"It's not the first time they've tried to screw with history," he added. Matthew looked at Ferdas, then nodded and left. Ferdas turned his attention back to the conversation.
"Okay, that sounds really wildly farfetched, not to mention pure conjecture, but one thing is clear; Jake's one of ours and I'll be damned if I let the Circle or the De Marchis mess with us."
"Ferdas is right, we can leave the theory alone for now. We've got a team-mate in trouble, most likely." Adam pulled on his coat. The Captain nodded.
"Happily I have a stack of surplus munitions in the dressing room. Just give me a moment and I'll have us all kitted out better than the army."
When he left, everyone wondered why on Earth he kept munitions in the dressing room of all places.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Author's Note: Sorry about the slow updates, but my uni projects come first
Kate and the others left the club and climbed into the car Matthew had brought around to the front when the Captain had finished shoving grenades into pockets, handing out three Tommy guns in cello cases and various other guns. Kate grimaced as she sat beside Matthew in the front, looking at the Colt .45 in her hand. She didn't think she could fire it except in self defence, and even then she wasn't sure. What worried her more was the cello case between her and Matthew. He was one of the least antagonistic people she knew and it worried her that he'd chosen a Tommy gun of all things. She glanced back at the others. They were quiet and more than one of them had their heads down and eyes closed. She looked forward again, swallowing. If Jake and Matthew had been right, then they could be facing the Circle of Thorns and their powerful black magic, armed with nothing but human tenacity and a few paltry guns. She glanced sideways at Matthew as he watched the road. His behaviour was very odd, he seemed more focused, harder somehow than her memories of the Music Teacher suggested.
"Where are we even going to start looking for Jake?" Sally asked from right behind Kate. Matthew turned left down a smaller road.
"Fred De Marchi has his base of operations over the Black Cat in Astoria, we're going there to get the information out of him," he said. Adam flexed his fingers in the brass knuckle dusters he was wearing. He alone was not carrying a firearm of any description, but he was carrying some spare rounds and grenades for the others.
"Fred's the one you owe, right?" he asked innocently. Matthew just grunted, declining to answer to the question that remained unspoken. Kate looked ahead and frowned.
"How are we going to get in there?"
"Put your seat belts on." Matthew's expression didn't change, not for a second. Kate stared at him.
"Do we even have seatbelts?" she asked. Ferdas pulled his on.
"Captain added them this morning," he tightened it, going pale.
"Safety first, after all," chimed the Captain as everyone else scrambled to pull on the jury-rigged seatbelts.
"Last time someone told me to put my seatbelt on, we ended up jumping a chasm in Egypt," Sally muttered, not leaving this to chance at all.
Matthew's only response was to put his foot down on the pedal, the car slowly picking up speed as they hit an invitingly empty, straight road. Kate found herself reaching her hand up to the hook above the door, her knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip. There were fewer cars on the road than there were in Midnight Gaze's time, most people took the tram to and from work. There was virtually nothing to impede their car. She could hear the engine revolutions speeding up as Matthew's foot pushed the pedal down and down.
"Black Cat, dead ahead," yelled the Captain over the increasing roar of the engine and the wind through his open window. Kate swallowed when she saw that the Black Cat had a glass front, like a café.
"Um
Matthew?"
There was an audible thud as Matthew's foot hit the floor at last and Dave swore, bracing for impact. Sally did the same, wincing tightly.
There was a deep clunk and the car jolted up onto the sidewalk. Kate opened her eye for a split second and saw the window rushing up, looming huge in her vision. She snapped her eye shut again. The world was suddenly filled with a crash so loud they could hear it right through their bodies, the car lurched, the sound of the ground falling away for a moment. Clatters and crashing and a boom and high pitched squeal of tires whirled crazily and they all felt the centrifugal force slamming them to the left as the car pirouetted wildly. Demolished chairs and tables where flung everywhere by the arched wings. A bumper flew off wildly and imbedded itself in the mirror to the left, splintering it to fragments.
There was a colossal thud that shook them all in their seats as the car slammed against the far wall. Kate pulled her head out of her arms, eyes wide and shocked. Suddenly the barrel of a Tommy gun moved through her vision and there was an ear splitting thunder it fired. She snapped her head in the direction the gun was aiming and saw three men holding their legs, their own guns scattered.
"OUT! MOVE IT!" Matthew pulled his gun back and snapped his seatbelt off. Kate scrambled to undo her seatbelt and kicked open the door. She staggered out, still dizzy after the wild spinning of the car.
"What floor is Fred on?" Sally asked, slamming a round magazine home into her gun. Matthew scrambled out, a trickle of blood working down from his hairline.
"Third floor. Dave, you and Adam take point, Sally you stick right behind them and if things get heavy, you withdraw immediately and that's an order. Ferdas, Captain, hang back as much as you can to give covering fire to the guys at the front. Kate, got your field medicine kit?" Matthew's tone brooked no contradictions and Kate just nodded dumbly. When everyone had nodded, Matthew ran to the doorway the injured men had come through and scooped up another gun from the floor, pushing it into his belt as he leaned around the frame to look down the corridor.
"It's clear. Go!"
Dave and Adam ran past him into the corridor, followed by Sally. The Captain hung back with Kate as they watched Matthew follow them and hurried after.
"Okay
this is new. This is our Muse, right?" he asked. Kate shrugged. To be honest, she wasn't sure.
Fred De Marchi had heard the car going through the window downstairs. It was pretty hard to miss. He pulled a magnum out of his drawer and set it in his lap, trying to quell the uncertainty in his chest. This was just not his week. It'd all started with that FBI agent showing up. Things had been good before, he'd been sitting in the lap of luxury, patroned by the Circle. Sure, the organisation had some frankly dubious practices, but they brought him custom and fortune. He'd done some jobs for them. If they wanted someone procured quietly for sacrificial purposes, he was the one who staged the murder to cover the abduction. In return, he was given power and protection.
That FBI agent and his obsession with the arsonist were becoming a real problem for Fred, but he couldn't do anything about him because he had the favour of Karsis. He dared not anger that one. He'd seen what Karsis did to people who resisted her, he could only imagine what she'd do if someone betrayed her.
More gunfire sounded in the hall, drawing closer. His fingers tightened on the sleek handgrip of the gun. There came a loud thud at the door. He knew the tone well enough, someone had been thrown back into it. He necked the whiskey that sat beside his papers on the desk. The door thudded again, different this time, someone had kicked it. The next sound was of the lock breaking and the door slamming open, bouncing off the panelled wall.
The man on the other side looked familiar, he was sure he should recognise him. As he moved in and out of the way, allowing the others behind him to enter, he felt a cold, hard sort of shock. Matthew was with them, and there was that Midnight [censored].
"Well hello Fred, nice evening for it!" Matthew held up a handgun, pointing it at Fred. The gangster resisted the urge to clench his fist. That two bit [censored] was going to pay for his treachery. He was going to pay in blood.
"We've got some questions for you, Fred De Marchi." Fred flicked his eyes to the Midnight woman as she spoke, though he all he could focus on was that smug, self-satisfied grin on Matthew's features.
"What makes you think you can get out of here alive?" he asked, his anger making his voice tense.
"I wouldn't worry about that if I was you, we'll just let ourselves out when we're done here. Now put your hands up," said the man Fred thought he should recognise. Fred smirked.
"Of course." He pulled his gun out from under the desk and a single shot rang out.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Hehe, classic cliffhanger if I ever seen one.
I appreciate that you update at all with the apparent lack of feedback.
Author's Note: I am now done with Uni for the foreseeable future. Back to writing what I ENJOY.
"He doesn't look like much to be concerned about." A woman's voice flowed over the distant chanting in the background. Jake could feel a throbbing, horrific pain in his head and something hot was pressed up against his back.
"Trust me, Lady Karsis, this is a foe the likes of which you have never known. He hunts us with extreme prejudice and foils our plots at every turn." It was the voice of the man in the green suit. Jake bared his teeth and tried to move, his wrists brought up sharp by shackles that clinked with chain. Now that his senses were returning to his control, he could feel huge, heavy chains crossing his chest and waist and legs. It was almost overkill.
"In your time, maybe. Here
he does not seem so formidable." A finger traced down his nose and Jake bit it hard. He was rewarded by a sharp curse and the hand withdrew. He dragged his eyes open and glared at the woman standing over him. She nursed her hand, her eyes snapping with green fire for a moment. She was wearing clothes that made the word 'flapper' come to mind, her wrists heavy with gaudy bangles and her dress was a squared off sleeve that suddenly swung loose with frills at the bottom hem around her knees.
"I speak the truth, Lady Karsis." Jake turned his head with some difficulty to glare down at the man in the green suit, who was prostrate on the floor.
"Oi! You're in so much trouble, you lame-brain!"
"You had better be, I don't like to be disappointed." Karsis eyed Jake sceptically. Jake spat at her.
"Don't you think the chains are a bit overkill? You gonna sacrifice me or what? I don't have all day to wait around," he muttered. The chains were so thick and heavy they made breathing difficult.
"Apparently, you are some terrible monster who plagues us in the twenty first century. Wouldn't want to take chances." Karsis inspected her hand, but the bite marks had already faded.
"You guys read a lot of pulp magazines or something? Or are you just crazy?! I'm not from the future, that's stupid!" Jake protested, wriggling under the weight of the chains.
"We shall see. If you did use the Font of Fire then reuniting your mind and your body should be easy enough."
"The what with the what now?" Jake looked at her incredulously, "don't you put water in a font?"
Karsis beamed and patted his head.
"My, what a scholar you are! Normally yes, but this is a very special font."
"And you set it on fire?" Jake looked confused. Karsis giggled. Given that the last time Jake had met him he'd been a man, it was slightly disturbing. She beeped his nose gently.
"The fire is spiritual and representative only. Fire is the element of change." She turned around and when she turned back, there was a three foot knife in her hand, the blade gnarled and twisted like it had been grown rather than forged.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked, angling it in Jake's vision. He shrugged a bit.
"Stick with a handle?"
"It's a thorn. A very special thorn. There are no souls in it, don't fear for that. Not yet, anyway." With that, Karsis sudden gripped the handle in both hands, pulled the knife up over her head as far as she could and then slammed it down through Jake's chest. His ribs cracked and splintered and pain exploded through him, he tipped his head back and bit his tongue. Blood burned the back of his throat and bubbled up over his teeth before a wash of green vapour covered him, removing the pain as swiftly as it had come. Jake looked down at himself shakily, but the thorn was gone. Karsis turned and spread out her hands.
"Let the summoning begin!"
"Ferdas! Stay with me, Ferdas!" Kate's voice was high pitched in her panic, her hand pressed over the bloody hole in Ferdas' chest, blood seeping up between her fingers. Adam and Dave had Fred down on the floor, his hand already broken by Adam tearing the gun out of his fingers.
Ferdas smiled weakly.
"N-not going
yet," he gasped, his body bucking slightly in pain. The Captain was on his other side, shaking a bandage out of its roll.
"That's the spirit! You want to stay on the front line eh?"
Kate pulled the lid off the small, single dose morphine needle with her teeth. With her other hand, she scrubbed the skin of his upper arm with a swab and jammed the needle in. The Captain cut the last of his shirt off so he could wrap the bandage around his chest.
"Damnable place to get shot. Lucky it went right through," he muttered. Kate didn't think Ferdas was so lucky.
While the two medics dealt with Ferdas, Adam resisted the urge to break Fred's arm.
"You're going to tell us where the Circle of Thorns is and be quick about it!" he snarled. Fred, the burned part of his head being shoved painfully into the floor by Dave's hand, spat a little.
"I'll never tell yo-"
A gunshot ripped through the air and Fred screamed. Everyone snapped their heads around to Matthew as he re-cocked his pistol, pointing it at Fred's other leg.
"Cut the [censored] and tell us where they are, you snivelling coward."
"You cheap [censored]! They know you're a bed-hopping **** who'll do anything for a couple of doll-" Matthew shot his other leg, his expression cold when the man screamed.
"It's not sensible to goad the man who's holding a gun to you. Next one is your hand."
"There's an entrance
in Moth Cemetery. Trick door, you press your hand to it and say 'for fame and power'
" Fred whimpered, blood leaking over the floor. Matthew lowered the gun.
"We have to get Ferdas to a hospital now!" Kate's sharp voice broke through the silence. Adam pushed himself up, walking to Matthew and putting himself between he and Fred. He gripped the barrel, tugging it slightly. Matthew resisted for a moment, then let the gun go slowly, still staring as though he could see Fred through Adam's chest. Adam flicked the chamber open and shook the remaining bullets onto the ground and dropped the gun into the waste paper basket. The bustle of the others struggling to get Ferdas back down to the car was silent as he stared at Matthew. He put his hand on his shoulder and steered him out after the others, ignoring Fred's cries for mercy and help. He felt the shaking start under his hand and paused outside the door, making Matthew stop too. As the others drew ahead, he wrapped his arms around his lover and held him tight. Matthew was stiff as a statue for a moment. Finally he crumbled as though something just went to pieces inside and he clung to Adam silently. Neither said anything.
"How bad is it?" Dave asked Kate as he climbed into the driving seat. Kate, who was sat near Ferdas' head, her fingers on his neck, frowned.
"It's bad. If we don't get him to the hospital now, he won't make it," she whispered hoarsely. The Captain had Ferdas' legs up over his lap, in an attempt to keep him from going into shock.
"You'd better drive like the Devil himself is behind you." He glared at Dave's head. Sally was trying to keep her composure, sat in the front next to Dave. Adam and Matthew sat in the boot, the latter still clinging to the former. Sally looked at the tousled blond head and tried not to wonder who in the hell that really was and what had he done with the real Matthew. The car started and Dave manhandled it out of the broken glass front, jolting all his passengers. Kate put her hand on Ferdas to try and hold him still but she didn't scold Dave.
"He'll be okay though? Right?" Sally asked finally. Kate and the Captain exchanged a look.
"If this was the future? If we had our powers still? We'd all just shrug this off," said Kate.
"You know what the hospitals are like in this day and age, Sally. His lung's been punctured." The Captain busied himself with locating another ampoule of morphine, just in case Ferdas needed it again. Sally sat forward again, looking at Dave. He looked back with a glance that echoed every emotion swirling around her head.
They drove in silence for a few minutes as Dave sped to the hospital, he was distracted suddenly by thrashing behind him. Kate and the Captain yelled and there seemed to be a flurry of bandages and action. Sally turned around and stared, her eyes widening as Ferdas choked, thrashing his arms and legs almost on instinct. Blood was slicking up over his teeth and splattering the upholstery. The gurgling and thrashing worsened and then suddenly he arched and slumped. For a moment, it was like Kate and the Captain were frozen then the Captain straddled Ferdas' legs and put his hands one over the other on his chest.
"Damnit, Ferdas! Breathe! Breathe soldier!" he yelled, the sharp motion of his arms against Ferdas' chest rocked the car. Sally didn't realise her hand was over her mouth until her nails dug into her skin painfully. She watched as Kate tried to breathe for Ferdas, holding his nose and exhaling forcefully into his mouth whenever the Captain stopped his frantic heart massage.
Dave pulled the car into the hospital parking lot and nearly threw himself out of the car to get a doctor. It seemed to take so long for a gurney to be brought, a doctor running beside it. Ferdas was manhandled from the car to the bed and the doctor climbed up, taking over the heart massage. The gurney was run back into the hospital by the orderlies. Kate looked pale and she lurched, grabbing the side of the car when she got out, putting a bloody hand to her head.
"E-easy there, you didn't breathe enough for yourself." Matthew's voice was pale as his face as he steadied her. Kate welcomed it over the icy exterior he'd shown in Fred's place. This was the Matthew she knew. He supported her all the way into the hospital and she needed it when the doctor met them, walking back out of the emergency room.
"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. He's dead."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Glad to have you back. I love your work.
Author's note: You do? 
I don't know quite what to say other than 'thank you'?
The car was a cocoon of silence as Dave drove them from the hospital. Kate's cheeks were streaked with unashamed tears as she stared out the window, her mouth resting against her knuckles. The Captain cleared his throat a lot and Sally stared silently ahead. Adam, sat on the other side to Dave, Matthew between them, frowned out of the window.
"There's nothing we can do for Ferdas any more. We have to keep moving, keep pushing forward. We have to find Jake, or Ferdas died for nothing." Matthew's voice sounded, though his head was tipped down. Neither Dave nor Adam mentioned the tears that were dripping onto his tight clenched hands.
"What can we do against the Circle? Ferdas didn't survive an encounter with the mob," muttered Sally. Adam put a hand over one of Matthew's covertly.
"We'll manage somehow. We have to. Who knows what the Circle are doing to Jake?" he said. Matthew said nothing, but Dave took the turning for Moth Cemetery.
The cave was surprisingly warm when the six of them stepped into it. The smell of spices with the acrid edge of smoke lingered in the air. Adam looked around at the others, everyone had a grim set to their face, he expected nothing else really. Matthew was looking small at the back, rubbing his elbow and staring at the floor. If he'd had his own way, Adam wouldn't let Matthew anywhere near this place. He was deeply worried about what had happened in Fred's office, he'd never seen such cold aggression on his lover's face ever, in either of his life-times. It was almost like he was two completely different people. That thought disturbed him even more, as he wasn't sure he could deal with Matthew having split personalities, one of whom seemed pretty violently inclined.
"Let's go," he said firmly, tightening his fingers into a fist. His knuckle dusters gleamed in the dull, bluish light thrown up from the pool of water at his feet. Sally hefted the machine gun in her grip, pulling the stock against her side a bit more. Adam almost pitied the man who'd abducted her husband, she looked in no mood to negotiate.
They travelled down through the winding, descending tunnels in total silence. It felt unnatural. Finally the tunnel opened out into a pillared room, paving slabs on the ground and a carved archway ahead. They had reached Oranbega, the sunken city beneath Paragon. Adam looked around at the others.
"This is it."
Sally and Dave tightened their grips on their Tommy guns, the Captain prepped the shotgun that had been Ferdas' and Kate took the safety off her gun. Matthew looked up from the back, catching Adam's eyes. He looked so hollow it hurt. Adam was about to say something when a screaming howl echoed from the arch. It sounded intensely wrong. It must have been an effect of the echoes, but the scream juddered like it was almost mechanical in nature.
Sally started running immediately.
"Jake!" She jumped down the flight of steps, followed closely by Dave and then the others. The corridors were wide enough for three of them to run abreast at a time. Sally, Dave and Adam stayed ahead of the Captain, Kate and Matthew. The corridors wound seemingly endlessly, lit every now and then by glowing clumps of crystal and burning sconces. They had to back track every now and then, the echoes of the screaming distorting in the tunnels to give little direction.
Finally, they broke out into an underground cathedral. There were masses of robed people between them and the altar at the far end. Above the altar, suspended in midair, were three rings that spun within each other in different directions. Within the heart of the huge gyroscope was a ball of intense white light, harsher and brighter than daylight, carving the shadows out with a knife-edge precision.
"It is complete! The generator will provide us with more power than you can possibly imagine!" A woman was standing on the altar, her hands stretched up, beads and skirt flapping wildly in the thunderous wind around the 'generator'.
"What the hell is that?!" hissed Dave. Sally looked at Adam, stricken.
"Are we too late?" she asked. He knew what she meant. Had the Circle tapped the unused reserves of magic their friend possessed? He couldn't think how they'd done it, but the arcane had never been his strong point.
"It's not over until it's over," Matthew said suddenly, shaking a little with anxiety. Adam nodded.
"We can't take on this many people by ourselves."
"Then we'll create a stampede out of here. People in groups are stupid," muttered Dave, slipping to the side of the doorway. Sally nodded, catching his meaning. She moved to the other side and the others scrambled to get out of the way, squeezing into the cathedral corners as tightly as they could. Adam nodded to Dave.
Dave aimed his gun upwards and started firing. Just as he did, the generator let loose another of those warped screams that ripped at the air.
The effect was better than they could hope for. The mob of robed people were frightened by the scream, then when they heard the gunfire, the primitive part of their brain screamed at them to run. In a wave of self-preservation powered panic, the robed people suddenly screamed and massed towards the single exit.
Adam realised the danger a little too late as he saw a wall of panicked people coming towards him. He grabbed the Captain, who was standing next to him, and tried to cover him with as much of his mass as he could. The crush hit and he slammed his hands against the wall, pushing back against the heaving mass of bodies as much as he could, trying to protect the Captain.
"Hold on, Adam!" The Captain pulled a grenade out of his pocket, clamping his sweating fingers around the hammer and pulling the pin out with his teeth, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
Adam's ears rang with his shout and then the grenade went sailing over his head into the crushing mob, the hammer flying off. Seconds later there was a massive, concussive explosion. Smoke, bits of masonry and what looked like mincemeat cascaded outwards. The other side must have had the same idea, as they heard Sally's voice shout a warning and moments later, another explosion shook the cathedral. One of the pillars cracked and toppled.
"FALL BACK TO THE ALTAR!" The voice was weighted with so much authority that it cut through the panic of most of the robed people and they pulled back. The unreachable ones finally thrashed, clawed and squeezed their way out, fleeing up the tunnels.
There were a bare fifty of the robed ones left, all scrambling over the dead and the fallen pillar. Adam pushed himself off the wall and looked around at the other side. Matthew and Kate were still standing, though both bore bruises and cuts from the mob. The six of them reassembled in the doorway. Sally, her hair pulled out of its neat ponytail, wiped a bit of blood off the corner of her mouth.
"We need to break that generator thing," she hissed. Kate nodded shakily.
"There's no point in turning back now. We have to keep going forward." She looked ill and stretched. Adam swallowed.
"I don't want to do this."
"What choice do we have? If we fail, the Circle could destroy the first heroes of Paragon, and now they're armed with however much power Jake has. They're bad enough armed with just their own," muttered Dave. The Captain smiled with hollow amusement, watching the Circle mages at the other end conferring. He pulled the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder and took aim at one.
"Stay tuned for the most stark reality show yet aired, six heroes, fifty mages, one cathedral and no holes barred. It's Rumble in the Ruins, brought to you by Revenge, for all your Anger Management needs." He fired.
The mage went down, his head snapping back. The two either side of him looked down in shock, then looked back at the heroes. The Captain was already pulling another grenade out of his pocket.
"FIRE AT WILL AND DEFINITELY AT STEVE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, pulling the pin out and hurling the grenade. As it arced through the air, the hammer flying off wildly, Sally and Dave opened fire with their machine guns. Kate grabbed Matthew and pulled him back behind a pillar as the mages retaliated. Lightening snapped from metal object to metal object, its path impossible to determine. Fire balls rushed across the distance between the two sides.
The grenade exploded.
Screaming ripped through the air from the generator again, drowning out the screams of the mages who'd been caught by the explosion. Matthew clapped his hands over his ears, screaming himself and crumpling to his knees.
"GET UP, MATTHEW!" Kate shouted over the noise, looking around the pillar and up at the generator. She pulled a grenade out of her pocket and pulled the pin out. She clasped it in both hands for a moment, taking a breath and then spinning out into the open. Her throw was good, the incendiary hurtling over the heads of the mages as they traded shots with the others who were also now behind pillars.
The woman on the altar snapped her head around as the grenade exploded against one of the spinning rings, her eyes widening.
"Protect the generator!" she howled at her supporters, turning back and focusing on the ground before her. A circle of red light etched itself on the ground and the room shook even more, dust raining down from the ceiling.
"What's she doing?" yelled Dave, trying to shoot her.
"I don't know!" Sally yelled back, stepping out into the open to spray the other side with bullets. She pulled back into her shelter when a volley of green power shot her way. The Captain cursed when he saw brief sparks of light dancing before the woman when Dave tried to shoot her.
"She's been shielded, try and find the guy who's casting it!" he yelled. Adam peered around his pillar.
"I see him. Cover me!" He suddenly threw himself out from his shelter and sprinted the length of the cathedral.
"ADAM!" Dave screamed, seeing him rush past. There was no help for it, he snapped out from his own hiding place and opened fire wildly, trying to distract the mages from his friend's suicidal charge.
The mages on the left flank saw him coming and as another grenade exploded against the generator's rings, they turned to deal with him. A lance of harsh white light suddenly snapped out like lightening, earthing itself in front of them. They screamed, covering their eyes as the brilliant light seared their retinas. Adam rushed past them and threw himself on the mage casting the shield. His momentum slammed them both down and he slammed his fist into the hooded face. It did so little it took him a moment to remember he wasn't superhumanly strong. The mage tried to kick him off, but he hung on. He made a fist, doing something he hadn't done for so many years.
He hit the mage with everything he could muster.
The mage slumped, only unconscious. It was enough. From the altar, a woman's scream sounded as a bullet finally found her.
"Come Lame One!" Holding her side, the woman pulled her hand up as if against some kind of mighty resistance. Another grenade smashed against the generator and the outer ring cracked, the two halves hurtling away. White lightening hit the summoning circle, throwing up smoke and splinters of stone.
"Sorry, the number you have dialled is busy, please hang up and try again," said a familiar voice from the circle. The woman stared as the smoke cleared and a tiny man with a tail stood there. He pulled his fist back suddenly.
"You wanted a demon, you got one, Karsis." With a screaming yowl, Jakey K threw himself into the mages. Kate pulled back into her pillar, wincing as the last two rings tore apart and fell. She looked at the exit.
"Oh
oh god. MATTHEW DOWN!" She threw herself over Matthew as a wall of fireballs hit the pillar where her head had been. The Captain looked around, shocked at the attack from behind, then he swore.
"JAKEY, THERE ARE DEMONS IN THE TUNNEL! LEAVE THE MAGES TO US!" he yelled as hard as he could. With blinding speed, the cat shot out from the mess of mages and streaked past, throwing himself into the demons feet first. The Captain blinked. By comparison to his powerless state, Jakey was blisteringly fast. It was almost frightening. Was this how civilians felt when they saw heroes in action in the future? He didn't have time to think about it, he turned his attention back to the cathedral.
Adam was sprinting out from the mage line, trying to get back to safety. Sally had to pull back behind her pillar, holding her arm. A shard of ice had gone right through it, her hand flopping uselessly. She sank to the floor in pain, then scrabbled to find another grenade.
Kate looked around from her hiding place. Matthew looked up at her, about to say something when he saw a rock smash into her. She crashed backwards, the rock covering her chest and face. Without checking, Matthew knew it was fatal. His eyes widened and he scrambled over, taking her hand, trying to believe for a second she could have survived that. A scream drew his attention and he looked around.
Adam went down, a thorn sword right through his chest, his back full of eight crossbow bolts.
The cathedral became silent. He could see the flashes of gunfire from Dave and the Captain, he could see the room shaking from the blasts of magic. There was no sound. The world lurched in his vision as he scrambled to his feet. He ran to Adam, ignoring the lightening that seared past his eyes, the rock that hurtled past his back. He half fell, half scrambled to his lover's side and grabbed his shoulders, turning him over. He put his hand on his neck, his fingers seeking a pulse. Blood slicked over them and his hand slipped off. The silence penned him in. He could feel his throat moving, feeling his tongue working as if he was speaking. He shook Adam slightly. His head lolled back lifelessly.
Dave swore as he saw Matthew in the open, holding Adam. He shot a mage who looked about to try and shoot the blond.
A scream of utter despair sounded suddenly, jarring Dave's aim on the next shot, the bullet hitting a pillar. He looked back at Matthew and saw him rocking Adam, howling. The sound set his hair on end and his teeth on edge. His distraction lasted until the pillar he was hiding behind suddenly cracked. He looked up at it without understanding for a second and then he yelled, trying to scramble away. The stones fell and he felt too slow.
Sally looked around, her eyes widening as she saw the pillar crush Dave. She screamed in rage and with her good hand, snatched up her Tommy gun. She stepped into the open, intent on taking down as many of those mage bastards as she could. In a split second, she counted only eighteen of them left. Eighteen was too many. Not with Ferdas, Kate, Adam and Dave fallen. Eighteen was not acceptable.
She screamed as she fired, seeing three go down. Her friends, no, her family were lying still, she could hear Matthew's broken howls, she could see and smell the blood.
"YOU BASTARDS!" Five mages stood up, two more falling to her fire immediately. The remaining three all took aim. Lightening, green fire and ice all hurtled for her. She gave one last scream of rage, throwing the gun aside and pulling her last grenade out. Somehow she had the pin out and threw it back before the triplicate attack hit her. As she fell back, the grenade arced forward, sailing over the mages heads and exploding behind their line.
The Captain saw Sally go down, his shock made him still for a moment, he rested his forehead to the shotgun in his hands, glancing down the tunnel where Jakey had gone. He could hear the roars of demons and the screaming yowl of a furious cat. It seemed he was all tied up with the supernatural elements. He looked around at the altar and froze. Matthew was no longer cradling Adam. He had picked up Sally's discarded gun and was charging the mages. He was insane! The Captain pushed himself out from behind the pillar and broke into a run. If they were going to die, then why cower behind a pillar waiting for it?
"Puuuuulse
!" The Captain jumped up on the altar behind Matthew, firing at the first person he saw. Karsis took the round to the face and was thrown back by the force of the blast. Matthew fired his gun until it span empty, utterly silent now. It was more disturbing than if he'd been screaming. He jumped off the altar suddenly and took the gun's muzzle in both hands and cracked the stock against a mage's face as he drew his thorn sword. The Captain ducked when a stone mallet swung wildly where his head had been. He didn't want to die. He really didn't. The second swing of the mallet smashed into his side and he felt his ribs pop and splinter as he hurtled off the altar. He hit the ground, skidding across the rubble and crashing into one of the fallen pillars. He spat blood as he struggled to get up.
"
period
" he said weakly.
"It's okay, Cap. It's okay to let go. It's time to wake up."
The Captain looked up, seeing the earth thorn caster raising his stone mallet above his head.
He let go.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
He coughed, wheezing and shuddering.
"Cap! Here, pass the water over, Cap's coming round!" He felt a metal rim being pushed up against his mouth and water touching his cracked lips. He gulped it down, wincing against the raw dryness of his throat and mouth. His head was pounding, he felt cold and stiff and aching. He felt a familiar wash of energy pass over him, soothing away his pain.
"I still can't find Jakey." Sally's voice sounded from the left. Cap blinked his eyes open, though he wasn't sure if he had, as it was as dark as it'd been with them closed. He reached his hand up to his face and his fingers touched the goggles over his eyes. He felt a relief so profound he sagged. He was back and he wasn't dead.
"Ferdas?" he asked tentatively, suddenly not sure if he was dead or not.
"Yeah, it's me." Ferdas' hand found his and gripped it, as if he was trying to reassure him that they were both still flesh and blood.
"Muse is still out
" Avenger's voice sounded quietly off to the right, weighted with worry. Cap managed to struggle into a sitting position, emptying the flask with long pulls of water.
"Damn, we're out of water," he muttered. Ferdas took the flask off him.
"Our Jack, get over here," he said. There came a 'sching' of Shingi's carbon claws.
"Where is he?" he asked. There came the sound of chipping ice after a while followed by the tingling smell in the air of Ferdas using his radiation powers.
"Guys, we really can't find Jakey anywhere. He should have been right next to me." Gaze's voice broke through the darkness, she sounded as worried as Avenger had. Cap accepted the flask off Ferdas again, drinking the melted ice.
"Ferdas, wasn't he here when you woke up?" asked Shingi.
"No, I already told you. You guys were still out but there was no Jakey." Ferdas helped steady Cap.
An hour passed as they waited, the only motion from Muse was an occasional twitch, then suddenly, with a small scream, he woke. Avenger had to grab his flailing hands before he hit someone by accident.
"Whoa! Ferdas, pass me the water, he's up." He took the flask as Ferdas reached out and found his hand, pressing the water into it. Avenger supported Muse's body as he held him up to drink.
"It's over, Matt, it's okay. You're awake," he whispered quietly. Muse gulped down the water noisily, then pushed it away.
"I saw you die!" he sounded hoarse, his voice cracked. Avenger pulled him into a tight hug, shaking himself.
"I-I know. It wasn't real, I'm still alive, so are you," he said quickly. Muse sobbed, clinging to him with shaking, weakened limbs. Cap turned his head in their direction, slightly glad that Avenger hadn't seen how viciously Muse had turned on the mages who'd killed him. He listened to the shattered sound of Muse's crying, putting a hand to his stomach as it gurgled so loudly everyone heard it.
"I'm starving," he muttered. Ferdas sighed. Cap realised that his breath stank.
"I don't know how long we've been down here, but it's been a while. If I'm not hungry, my stomach just hurts like blazes."
"Where's Jakey gone?!" demanded Sally, after there was some splashing. She sounded frustrated and worried.
"Could he have slept walked?" asked Gaze quietly. Muse hiccupped, sounding muffled as if he hiding his face in Avenger's chest. Which he probably was.
"N-never known him t-to."
"Hellooooo?" A voice sounded distantly and everyone looked around. In the distance, a series of small lights danced.
"I think the dark got to me, I can see fairies
" muttered Cap. There was a crunching sound as Shingi stood up.
"That's not Venji and Muse, that's a rescue party! Hey, over here!"
"TEH SHINGI-GRUMP BOT! IT AM ESHER COME R3SCU3 J00!" There was a lot of splashing and one of the lights surged ahead of the others. Moments later, Esher had jumped on Shingi, loudly proclaiming himself to be the winn0r and find0r of missing Shingis.
"You people, tch, have you any appreciation for what this water is doing for my boots? This was fine Italian leather I'll have you know." Raphael De Arca, who was the only one not wearing a miner's helmet, picked his way onto the dais with a disgruntled expression. He helped Gaze to her feet.
"My dear, you look radiant for a woman who's not washed herself for several days." He wasted no time, despite his words, in wrapping a foiled blanket around her shoulders.
Cap found himself being helped up by Lionheart, she pressed a thermos into his hands as she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.
"It's soup," she said. Cap gulped a mouthful, not caring for a moment that he burned his tongue.
"How did you find us?" Shingi had his helmet off, taking some soup from Awai, his peacebringer 'friend'.
"Jakey told us where to find you. He's probably still unconscious at the base. Wilkins is there, keeping an eye on him," Raphael said.
"Wilkins is here?!" Sally demanded, letting Esher do his best to provide her with blanket and soup, even though he seemed more interested in poking the back of Shingi's head.
"We called him after you guys failed to report back in. We've been looking for you all for five days. Now is not the time to talk, come, we're to get you home."
Gaze stepped out of the shower, feeling like a new woman. She smiled to Sally as the other woman attacked her hair with a hair-dryer.
"I always wondered how you got it to stick up like that," she chuckled. Sally sighed and looked around. She turned the dryer off.
"Gaze
can we talk?" Sally rarely asked to 'talk'. Gaze blinked, then wrapped a towel around herself and sat down on the wooden bench.
"What is it?"
"In the dream
god, it's so messed up. I
I was pregnant and married to Jakey
what the hell does that mean?" Sally blurted out suddenly. Gaze sighed, then reached out and put her hand on Sally's, squeezing it gently.
"I think it means that in any other occupation or lifestyle, the strong feelings and bonds we have for and with each other would have different outcomes. We don't talk about it much, but you know
what we have, all of us, is something deeper than friendship. Something closer to family, but different."
"I get that but
why was I pregnant? I'm not, you know," she said. Her expression was hard to read. Gaze sighed.
"We have instincts, Sal. Desires built into us on a genetic level that our lifestyle doesn't really leave much room for." She rose to her feet and went over to her locker and opened it.
"Will J
will he be ...?" Both Sally and Gaze knew how desperately and earnestly Jakey wanted to be a father. Gaze shrugged.
"I don't know, honestly. He's not very easy to read at the best of times. I'm going to go check on him now and say hello to Wilkins."
Sally averted her eyes as Gaze started to get dressed, sighing deeply.
"I still have all my other memories," she said quietly. Gaze fastened her bra behind her back, then pulled the straps over each shoulder.
"I do too."
"It felt so real."
"That's because it was real." Shingi looked in the mirror, poking his ribs. Cap glanced at him, spraying deodorant under his arms.
"How do you figure?" Asked Ferdas, who cursed when his natural aura turned the shower water into hail again. He cranked up the heat again, steam billowing up from behind the curtain.
"I asked Raph to get me some archive information on the way back. Check this out." Shingi picked up the now slightly damp manilla folder from the bench. Cap took it, ignoring Ferdas' observation that mixing paper and water was somewhat redundant. He flicked through the old newspaper articles.
"This can't be right."
"It's true. I asked Raph about it and he looked at me like I'd lost my marbles. Said that everyone knew the old Serenade club was the birthplace of the Midnight Squad. The Dream Doctor apparently went to the club every night in it's boom years, then took over the management of it when the previous owner, one Miss K Midnight disappeared with several of her friends and her brother."
"
We control the horizontal, we control the vertical," Cap muttered. Shingi nodded, pulling on a sweater and running a comb through his hair with a total lack of interest in his personal grooming. Avenger turned off the water to his shower and picked up his towel, wrapping it around his waist as he stepped out.
"Are you suggesting we changed the past?" he asked. Shingi shrugged.
"I'm suggesting that maybe that device did a little bit more than transport people."
"Either way, I'm going there later and strapping C4 to it and blowing the bugger to smithereens." Jakey was lying on the bed in the infirmary still, the blankets pulled up under his chin, his small body curled up tightly.
"Is it really a time machine?" Muse asked, his hair still wet from washing. Jakey sighed deeply, flicking his inhumanly green eyes to his friend's.
"Yes and no. It creates a
a doorway for your mind to travel backwards. It's a Dream Fountain. No offence, but it's hard to put into simple terms." He sounded exhausted. Muse looked around a Wilkins, who entered with a tray, teapot and tea cups.
"So it's a brain time machine?"
"Yeah. Time machine for your brain." Jakey pulled himself up into a sitting position. Muse noticed that he was not wearing his normal clothes. He was wearing a tie-dye tee-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and beads and leather bands on his lower arms. Muse had to look again to check he hadn't miss-seen the first time.
"What on Earth are you wearing?"
"Never mind. Look, there's something I got to ask you." Jakey accepted the tea cup from Wilkins. Muse accepted his next, still not sure if he should salute Wilkins or not, as though the man had retired from hero work, he was still the co-founder of Honourable United and Jakey's oldest friend, Gaze a close second.
"What is it?" he asked, sipping his tea. Wilkins settled in a chair, picking up a custard cream and nibbling it before placing it on his saucer.
"I want you go start going to therapy. Properly," Jakey said. Muse stared at his tea, his hand shaking a little.
"I'm fi-"
"You're not. You might have been able to hide it before, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back. You've got problems and you need some professional help. We can do this one of two ways. You agree with me and I trust you to sort this out yourself, or you disagree with me, and I get everyone united in a concerted effort to get you the help you need. That means Venji, Gaze, Sally, Shingi. Everyone at you to go to therapy. How fun does that sound?"
Muse looked down, silent for a long time. It wasn't until a tear dripped down his cheek and landed on his hand that he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Wilkins. The older man looked concerned.
"Son, it's okay to need to talk every now and then. I know the pressure you feel to be there for someone else, I was a defender too, but you have to look out for yourself sometimes. Jakey didn't give me any details, but he's worried about you. He cares for you a lot, just has a funny way of showing it."
Muse noticed that while he and Wilkins had been looking at each other, Jakey had found the energy to slip away silently. He looked down again.
"You sure he cares? He calls me a lot of names for someone who cares."
"Believe me, the more he insults you, the more he likes you. What's your decision?" Wilkins asked quietly. Muse sniffed.
"I'll
get help. I guess."
"That's good, son. I know a lot of people would be worried about you. You're one of the family, you know."
"I must be the obligatory crazy member then." Muse tried to force a smile. Wilkins waved the falsehood away.
"Oh no, the obligatory crazy member will always be Captain Cathode. Or maybe he's the very eccentric uncle who jumps out a the little ones every holiday dressed as Santa Claus."
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
It was much later, he'd left a note with the front desk telling the others to head to debriefing without him. Jakey K shone the torch on the plastic explosives he'd attached to the Dream Fountain, holding it in his teeth as he stuck two wires into it from the remote controlled detonator. In the torch light, scattered from all the earlier action, several human bones could be made out. Jakey gave them no more thought than he'd given any of the other detritus on the dais. He looked at the inscriptions again, rubbing the word he'd had difficulty translating before.
'Breuddwydio'. It meant 'to dream'.
He straightened and walked away to a safe distance. He pulled the detonator out of his pocket and flipped the safety housing off the switch.
"Three bloody years you ate out of my life," he muttered, as if the device could hear him or heed him. "Three years, some nice new scars and a bloody thorn in my chest. Hell, why am I talking to you, you don't care. You're just a machine. I could blame the Circle of Thorns, I guess. Still, I've given them enough hell on and off for the last eighty years for us to be slightly even now. Oh well, sayonara."
He pressed the switch and in the darkness, a brilliant flash went up and the Dream Fountain was blown apart. He dropped the detonator into the water and crushed it under his boot, thankful that at least his friends hadn't figured out who the janitor really was. That would have taken some serious cover up on his part.
Small mercies.
Fin
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Author's note: Thank you everyone for reading this. The narrative arc started in 'Case of the Missing Cats', through 'Cosmos' and 'Breuddwydio' will conclude in 'Believe'.
Watch this space.
Well not this space.
This forum.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)
Another great piece of work.
[ QUOTE ]
Author's note: Thank you everyone for reading this. The narrative arc started in 'Case of the Missing Cats', through 'Cosmos' and 'Breuddwydio' will conclude in 'Believe'.
Watch this space.
Well not this space.
This forum.
[/ QUOTE ]
So where can I read "Case of the Missing Cats"? I managed to miss it first time around. Can't see it on the Honourable forums either.
Feed me
Author's note: This story WILL contain adult themes such as sex and violence. If this bothers you, then don't read, but I promise you, you'll be missing out,
Breuddwydio
"Good morning, Honourable United! My name is Captain Cathode and I am coming to you live from knee deep in some foul toxic sludge in a cavern far below the Earth's surface! With me today are special guests, Jakey K, Sally Storm, Midnights Avenger and Gaze, Shingi, Dax Ferdas and for the first time ever on the Cathode Show, Music Teacher!"
"There's a 'Cathode Show'?"
"Would you watch where you're going?"
"I think I found the edge! There's a wall here!"
"Hard luck, J, that's Our Jack."
"Oh wondered why it was so cold."
"Whoever's got their hand on my butt has three seconds to move it before I break their fingers."
"Didn't anyone think to bring a flashlight? Jakey, can't you see anything, I thought you had night vision!" Gaze's exasperated voice broke through the bickering, but not the dark, that remained as implacable as ever.
"I still need some light to see. There's no light here at all, so no. I can't see." Jakey muttered from somewhere down at knee height.
"Explains why only Shingi's heat vision is working," said Sally.
"For all the good that's doing us. There's blobs of heat that's us in a blanket of purple and dark blue."
"I like purple." Avenger decided it was the best moment to inform the rest of them this.
"I know, love." Muse's voice came from higher up than the others, he was probably doing his customary hovering, keeping his tender feet well clear of the floor and the icy cold water.
"We all know. The purple suit and hat give it away. Today on the Cathode Show, a pop quiz! Name the film and actor. 'My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father, prepare to die'."
"Oh jeez, start with a hard one any day you like, Cap," Dax Ferdas muttered, jumping out of the way of Shingi again. The air around the mutant was so cold that he didn't show up in his heat vision very well.
"I'm sorry, your answer must be in the form of a question."
"What is the Princess Bride and who is Mandy Patinkin?"
"You know, a better question would be where the hell are we and how the hell do we get out?" Shingi interrupted.
"That's two questions," piped up Sally.
"I had a thought-" Ferdas said suddenly, there came a chorus of gasps and small sloshes as all present feigned astonishment. He ignored the compulsory cries of 'did it hurt', 'need a lie down' and 'blimey, you okay'.
"If Muse can send out a series of sonic vibrations, can't Shingi's suit pick them up and build a picture of our surroundings?"
"I suppose," Shingi muttered, his metallic hand groping about wildly before finding Muse's ankle and tugging him down to his level, "it's worth a shot anyway."
"You don't have to grab me like that, I'm not some kind of pistol," Muse tried to prise the metal fingers from around his ankle to no avail.
"Just start singing, songbird. The dark is getting samey." Muse sighed and obliged, feeling he was being under-appreciated.
After a few moments, there was no sound by the strange humming from Muse's throat and hands, then Shingi grunted.
"Next time, J, when you jump into a random portal screaming 'I know the way', you are all kinds of on your own."
"Hey, at least we're out of the house and doing stuff, right?"
"There's a small object ahead. I can't make out much more, measuring the vibrations is a bit hit and miss," Shingi said.
"Alright, everyone, grab hold of the person in front and sound off so we can get moving," Gaze said, her voice weighted with authority. There was some sloshing as everyone groped about for someone else.
"Get your hands off my boob!"
"Er, Venji, Muse, which one of you has his hand on my butt?"
"Gah, sorry Ferdas! I thought you were Muse."
"Clearly."
"This is why I don't like being on a team with couples."
"Why's that?"
"They keep being lovey."
Gaze sighed internally, then reached down and found Jakey's head, putting her hand on it while someone groped down her arm, finding her hand and taking it.
"Sound off. Everyone got something?"
"I'll say."
There were a few more sloshes, then everyone declared themselves to be 'okay' and Shingi led the snaking line of eight heroes to the object he'd detected ahead. He cursed liberally when he hit his foot against submerged stairs, his muttered comments warning everyone else of the sudden incline. The floor felt and sounded like paving beneath their feet, but there was some kind of litter, as several things went crunch under boots and armour. Moments later, they were all ringing the slender object that, to their fumbling hands, felt like a sundial of sorts.
"I know the Circle of Thorns are pretty special, but why would they have a sundial so far underground, there's no chance of it every seeing the sun?" Cathode asked finally. There came a sigh from the chilly space that indicated Ferdas.
"Maybe it's a darkdial?"
"A what?!" Muse asked, he wasn't sure what a darkdial was and he didn't think, given the Circle's penchant for summoning demons, that it boded very well.
"It's a ley indicator," Jakey muttered from Shingi's knees, his voice was lower down than usual, he must have been kneeling or sitting.
"A what?" Muse sounded less scared this time, as far as he knew, ley lines didn't have that much to do with horrible rending death. Though he couldn't be certain.
"I agree with Muse. What?" Gaze ran her hand over the surface of the dial, or indicator, feeling raised, ornate bumps and a dip in the centre.
"Hang on, there are inscriptions, I'm trying to work out what they say by feel, so give me a few moments," Jakey said. The others gave him a few moments.
"Today on the Cathode Show, our guests stand around a mysterious object in total darkness while a former house-cat tries to decipher what's probably ancient and enigmatic carvings using just his fingertips. We're here live with Dax Ferdas. Mr Dax, do you have any insights on this procedure?"
"Well Cap, I'm glad you asked. As we all know, Jakey has on occasion been prone to flashes of keen insight despite his catnip habit and general ridiculousness."
"So you're confident that this is one of those times he does something useful?"
"I sure do hope so, Cap."
"Thank you, Mr Dax, you've been great."
"I feel sorry for anyone who manages to pick up on our frequency," said Muse, now sitting on his lover's shoulders. Avenger nodded, giving his legs a reassuring squeeze.
"They'll probably think it's some kind of elaborate code and try to decode it," he chuckled.
"And contract a high fever in the process, end up speaking in tongues," Shingi added.
"Oh come on, we're not that strange," Sally said, inspecting the raised bumps of the dial's surface with her slender fingers.
"So, Sally Storm, in a recent survey of the men of the supergroup, you were deemed to be 'undeniable hotness'. Would you care to comment on that?"
"Well, you know, I like to keep myself in shape and all that."
"This is weird." Jakey's mutter distracted Gaze from the conversation, and she crouched to hear him better.
"What is?"
"This word, it's being used in an unusual context. See, so far we've got reference to the element of fire, memories and this strange word. I think it's some variant of the old Celtic languages. A bit of it is worn away. It's 'infiltration' or something but the context is all wrong." Jakey sounded like he was thinking aloud.
"Hey, this bit turns!" Sally's voice declared suddenly. Jakey stood up sharply, banging his head on the overhang of the dial's top and grabbing his head with a yelp. There was a quiet, but very ominous click.
"Oh dear." Muse had time to say before there was a whoosh and they all crumpled to the paving stones, unconscious.
Don't ask me about joining Honourable United, I'm lazy. Ask Captain Cathode.
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/honu/
"If I had a punch, I would so hit that guy." - Millenium (because drinking nail varnish remover is for real men)