Lives Lost In Time: Chapter 3

Interlude the 1st: Timeless Promises

The voice was a silken caress across his flesh as he slept, whispering “You have done well my disciple. Have I not given you everything I have promised? Have you not destroyed your rivals? Have not your enemies died beneath your feet, screaming?” The doctor twitched restlessly, his eyes darting beneath closed eyelids. The long, delicate fingers of a surgeon bunched handfuls of sheet by his sides as he dreamed on. “Yet even now you have failed me, failed your benefactress, your true Mistress!”

A quiet whine escaped from bloodless lips as the sweat-soaked body on the bed jerked as if struck by invisible whips.

“This magic you call science is but a wan reflection of the power I offer you. You have but tasted of the glorious power I can give to you! Your heart and soul belong to the Mistress. You are filled with the darkness you dance with and that darkness is my home. The shadows between your desires are my hunting ground.” The voice inside the mad doctor’s brain grew sibilant with menace, the razor-edged words slicing across his mind.

“Do not disappoint me.”

Chapter the 3rd: Predators and Prey

Spyker wasn’t familiar with this area yet. She had only recently had a reason to travel to Kings Row, away from her normal haunts in Atlas Park or sometimes Galaxy City. She had followed rumors and whispers and hidden innuendos regarding the deadly Eidolons of Dr. Vahzilok to Kings Row, confirming her information with her own brand of first-hand intelligence gathering. Those punks should be out of the hospital soon enough. Spyker was determined to find the Skull leader named Bonebreaker. He was the brains behind the operation that stole and smuggled equipment to the mysterious doctor and his organization. She had narrowed down the possibilities until finally she had arrived in the grimy section of Kings Row called the Gish. This was her fourth night in the area. Her initial forays had been primarily scouting missions, the first move in her campaign. Terrain familiarity was a prerequisite for any successful mission. She had found a bolthole in the area: a place to hide her equipment and a safe place to rest. Then Spyker had started her real work. Tonight the huntress in her heart was looking for Skulls. Prey.

Spyker cautiously sent tendrils of thought questing ahead of her through the chill night air. The moon was a huge silver eye glowing in the sky, dominating the air and casting deep shadows between the worn-down and burned buildings around her. Throughout the Gish the homeless used discarded oil barrels to burn refuse in, trying to stay warm outside shelter. The acrid scent of smoke from the numerous fires wafted on gentle currents, alternately tickling the nose and suddenly stinging the eyes.

“Give it up, lady! I ain’t got all night.”

Spyker wasn’t sure if she had heard the words or only sensed them. There were so many things about her abilities that weren’t clear to her yet. They seemed to be evolving, changing as she used them more and more. Perhaps they were just like any other skill and the more she used them the better and stronger she would grow with them. Time would tell. With scarcely more noise than the papers that blew between the empty lots, Spyker slipped through the shadows toward her prey.

“Lady, what, are you nuts? Gimme that purse!”

“C’mere little chiclet, the party’s just starting!” The two men had bracketed a young woman and one held her while the other tugged at her purse. She was still fighting them but was obviously losing the struggle. The two Skulls were mostly playing with her now, jerking her back and forth between them. Her black hair whipped about her face as she screamed for help. The Skulls just laughed harder. They knew that after dark the cops only came into the Gish in flying squads of at least three cars and all the gangs watched the roads leading into the Gish carefully in order to give plenty of warning.

“Stop it! Stop it! Leave me al… OH!” the young woman screamed as the purse strap finally broke and the thug behind her wrapped his arms around her petite body as she fell against him.

“Boys, boys. You think the two of you are enough to handle one little lady? And to think I’d heard the Skulls were tough.”
Snarling, the two hoods spun to face the voice that emerged from between the buildings. The leader pulled out a semiautomatic pistol and fired a shot into the shadows. The other Skull dragged the still struggling woman backwards, away from the silky voice, using her body like a shield and pulling out a knife with one hand.
Spyker stepped out of the shadows, completely ignoring the wild round that whined down the alley. Focusing herself, she gathered the power inside her mind into a tight ball and wrapped it in the ever-present anger of her soul. The punk’s gun clattered to the pavement as a glowing ball of force slammed into his face. Spyker let the darkness slip from between her hands, watched it boil up her arms and then shoved both hands directly at the Skull. He screamed as the claws of blackest night tore through his chest. Spyker felt the rush as part of his life-force flowed back to her, strengthening her. Spinning down low, Spyker thrust out one leg, catching the crook just above the ankles and jerking his feet out from under him. As he bounced off the gritty asphalt she drove a flat punch directly into the hollow of his jaw. The Skull flopped once bonelessly and then lay unmoving. He would be out for some time Spyker knew from experience. Even though her powers didn’t cause actual physical damage, the psychic trauma was something these punks would never forget.

“Back off, bitch! You move and I’ll kill her. I’ll do it!” the last punk screeched at her. Panic waffled through his voice as he jerked his victim backward.

“No problem, half-wit. I’ll just wait here while you run away. See look, nothing in my hands.”

Spyker slowly brought her hands upward as she straightened to her full height. The punk’s eyes widened as he took in the tiger-striped face paint, the black thigh-boots and her leather wrapped arms. He tried to stutter something but the black fire of her power had already seeped through the ground beneath his feet. Feebly, the Skull tried to cut the throat of his hostage, but missed completely as the young woman twisted away and ran pell-mell down the street. Spyker held him in the talons of her dark powers as she slowly stalked toward him.

The skull mask on his face flew off into the night as the hood’s head snapped back under the strength of Spyker’s mental bolt. Snapping a hard left hook into his jaw, Spyker drew the sinister black flames back into herself. She grabbed the staggering Skull and jerked him around, spinning gracefully to throw him against the wall behind her. She heard an audible crack as the back of his head impacted the rough bricks and he crumpled to the ground.

“Dammit! I needed him conscious!” Spyker berated herself. She took a chirper from the top of her boot and placed it between the unconscious thugs. She was running out of time. Soon she would have to return to the main city and deal with her business there. Reclusive or not, Elektra Duras still had to make decisions on her investments so that Spyker could continue her alternate life. Another three nights was the most she could afford to stay. This time anyway. But next time she promised herself she would not leave until she had found her quarry.

There’s never a thug around when you need one, Spyker mused to herself as she melted back into the shadows and quietly climbed up a nearby fire escape. Stepping around bits of refuse and other things she tried not to think too much about, Spyker emerged on the rooftop. For a moment she simply stood there, basking in the silver light of the unobstructed moon. Then her eyes turned back to the alleys and streets, their darkness alleviated only here and there by the waning glow of decrepit streetlights and oil-drum fires. She simply had to find this Bonebreaker, but where?
Her quick eyes spotted motion in the wasteland of the park several blocks over. Spyker spun into action without a wasted motion or thought, leaping from rooftop to abandoned rooftop, clambering over exposed HVAC piping and electrical conduits with sinuous grace. When she reached the last building in the line she launched herself off the parapet toward the park entrance, diving through the darkness. Her outstretched hands grabbed the steel bar at the top of the open gateway to the park and arrested her fall. She spun in a complete circle around the bar to kill her momentum before she released her grip and landed, quietly as a cat, to scoot instantly over into the deep shadows cast by the brick walls around the park. She ran lightly around a huge boulder blocking her view. Some landscape architect had probably spent hours finding just the right spot for it, she thought to herself cynically. As she cleared the dark grey shoulder of the massive stone Spyker stopped dead in her tracks. Oh my dear God, she thought to herself. Not that, surely not that! But it most surely was.

Standing directly in front of her were three absolute monstrosities; patchwork quilt giants and the patchwork was of human flesh! Mismatched eyes stared dully at her from faces that had been stitched together over ill-fitted bone, some of which still gleamed whitely in the moonlight. Subliminally, Spyker noted the constant buzzing of flies around these monsters as her horrified gaze took in the hump-backed appearance and incredible size of the three zombies shambling aimlessly through the ill-lit park. Human skin of at least a half-dozen different shades had been sewn together and it was painfully obvious that an equal number of different size bones lurked beneath the repellent exteriors. Had it not been so sickening to see, the zombie’s jerky motions would have been comical, but Spyker realized the incredible cost in human anguish that each of those terrible monstrosities represented. Nothing she had ever seen compared to this wanton disregard of people’s lives and bodies.

Spyker back-pedaled, trying to reach the safety of the shadows. Street punks, even drugged up and insane street punks, were one thing but this was something from the realm of bad science-fiction horror films. She moved too late however, as the previously unseen fourth man, if the other three could still be called men, pointed a stiff arm in her direction, yelling something. Suddenly they were all headed directly toward her! Spyker spun away from the lurching monsters. Instinctively she leapt up to the top of the boulder, hopefully out of their reach. She gathered herself and launched a sizzling mental bolt full into the face of the nearest monstrosity. The dark fire coursed through her arms and full into the chest of another of the zombies. Her body shook slightly as the corrupted life of the zombie was pulled back through the black lines. The power that flowed through her seemed tainted although it did make her stronger. Slashing down with her right leg, Spyker cracked her boot across the forearm of the third monster. For an instant it looked stupidly at the ends of bone protruding through decaying flesh, then it turned it’s flat eyes back to her and simply reached for her with the other arm.

Spyker brought her hands to her temples, desperately trying to gather her mental energies for another strike. The blazing energies erupted from her forehead and slammed full against the head of her first victim. It crumpled in slow motion, falling backward like a tree falls to crash into the packed earth below her. Spyker switched opponents in a fraction of a second, but that was still far too long. Her body shuddered with the impact of a crossbow bolt that slammed into her just above her left breast. Throwing out her right hand, Spyker called up the ebony energies beneath the marksman and his next shot went wild. She had time to see the words “Reaper” stenciled across the mockery of a surgical apron the man wore before she tumbled off the boulder. She thudded painfully to the ground. Her reinforced costume had stopped the full penetration of the crossbow bolt but she could feel the point gouging into her muscles, slowing her down. The two zombies remaining closed in around her. Spyker collected her inner strength and released it in a terrifying shout as she drove the first two knuckles of her right hand into the outside of the slimy knee closest to her. The zombie’s leg twisted inward as it fell to the ground. Spyker was up in a flash but couldn’t escape the powerful backhand of the other monster. Stunned, she staggered backward.

“Ahhhhh!” Spyker screamed as another crossbow bolt embedded itself in her side. She fell to one knee as the pain ripped through her. Then suddenly she was enveloped in revolting green goop that the zombies vomited forth. The smell alone was repellent enough, but the caustic slime burned across her exposed skin and into her wounds. Fighting only for survival now, Spyker used the last of her will to once more send twin bolts of ebony fire toward the closest patchwork giant. She felt her wounds heal somewhat as the monster took the full brunt of the strike, yet the energy returned seemed fouled and it burned through her blood. Or perhaps that was poison on the crossbow bolt, Spyker thought muzzily. She knew with frightening certainty that whatever energy she had stolen would not be enough. The next backhanded slap sent her flying backward to crumple at the feet of the crossbow-wielding Reaper. She looked up into maniacal blue eyes above a bloodstained surgical mask. He dropped the crossbow and pulled out a rusting butcher’s cleaver. Cackling like the madman he surely was, he reached for Spyker with one rubber-gloved hand.

Author: D. D. Wolf | Category: City of Heroes / Villains, D. D. Wolf | Comments(0) August 2010