"I'm Spider. What of it?"
A new voice speaks behind me: female, heavy with some sort of African accent.
The dark horde, daemon and I pause momentarily to look towards the source of the voice. My whip blade stands ready, a tilted silver torus around the kid and I. In the silence of the moment, I pick up the sound of music even louder.
Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it,
Screams from the haters,
Got a nice ring to it
I guess every super hero need his theme music…
A petite black girl with a bleached crew cut stands two stories up. She is literally standing on the wall, straight backed and poised on the vertical surface. Spiderman has nothing on this chica.
“Sssspider, sssschmider We have heard of you. Alwayss run, never sssstand and fight."
She shrugs, and smirks, “The best fights are the ones you can avoid”.
She struts downward, as if on flat ground, talking as if it disregarding gravity is an every day thing.
“You will leave now” She insists with subtle menace.
“Isssss that ssssuposed to be a banishing?” the Daemon hisses back.
She frowns. An amused smile curls up the corner of her lips and then she purrs, “I'm not that merciful”
Spider suddenly disappears in a puff of grey. She appears beside me a split second later. My quicksilver torus drops to the floor and transmutes back into a belt.
If that was a dream shift, it’s the fastest I’ve ever seen.
“Are you both ok?” she asks, concerned.
I grimace, “We're surrounded by a continuously regenerating dark horde, I have a few holes in my lung, my foot is shot and I’m far too weak to fight. What do you think. And in case you forgot, shouldn’t you take care of the horde before checking on us?”
Her brow creases again, “Which horde?”.
I look around. The darklings are trapped under fine silver mesh, squealing whilst frantically trying to break free. The Daemon is bound similarly. “How…when,” I stutter, “the ...”
She chuckles lightly, “Deception is my middle name. I took time during the chat to weave my web and now...”
She clenches a fist, in an almost delicate gesture, and the mesh shrinks, shredding the darklings into black dust. The other bodies still remain, human bodies, people who I doubt were even Society. Spider notices takes them in for the first time and stumbles away from me to hurl, repeatedly.
“Oh dear, this is definitely not good.” A familiar voice gasps.
Professor Cho strides up to us, followed by an overprotective older man holding a gun. Holding a gun like he knows how to use it. She goes up to the daemon, puzzled.
“Why is this one still here. Don’t they usually run when routed?”
“Trapped, can’t move even it wants to.” I manage to reply with a grimace.
She squints and looks closely at me for minute before exclaiming, “Carlos! I could hardly notice you. What happened here?”
She treads warily towards the daemon, thinking out loud “Only Temi could sense this space, it’s as if they used some form of cloaking. This daemon has a lot questions to answer”.
It sniggers, still full of attitude “Well, you be asking thossse questionss Honored Cho”, it twists the honorific into some sort of insult, “but I’ll be giving no answers."
The professor doesn’t give the creature the pleasure of a reaction.
“Carlos, “ She quizzes, “you say Temi has used something to hold it?... I see nothing”.
“You shouldn’t.” Spider cuts in. She pauses to wipe the back of her hand over her lower lip before continuing “my webs are invisible to non Magi. Somehow this Berserker can see them. He also managed to pierce the haze around this place with a sending.”
Spider’s real name must be Temi. Spider is her Talisman then. I’ve never met one, but I hear Talisman Magi like to give themselves odd monikers. They say those names bind their powers to them or some crazy shit like that. The Spider talisman sounds familiar though...
The olive skinned middle-aged man carefully putting his gun back into his holster doesn’t seem Society. I've never been able to tell before, but now something in my gut tells me he isn’t.
The ladies turn back to face the bound daemon.
“I don’t think this one will tell us anything useful.” The professor sighs, thinking out loud. She turns towards Spider and snaps firmly “Attend carefully as I perform this banishing”.
She draws herself up and commands, rather imperiously, “Begone!”
The possessed woman’s eyes roll up into her skull and she sags towards the ground. She is held by Spider’s web in some sort of grotesque pose; halfway between standing and sitting. The Professor just performed what has to be simplest banishment I've ever witnessed. Spider releases her binding with an almost imperceptible hand flick and the woman sprawls onto the floor.
The man walks up to me confidently and rumbles, “You stood up to what killed these men I assume? You did a brilliant job”.
Oddly his accent is a polished English one. “Thank you sir.” I say automatically.
“Which Society are you?" he asks. I pause for a second and consider, wondering how much he knows. But hell, if I know what I saw, normal folk are seeing darklings. If that isn’t a sign of the Rising, I don’t know what is.
“Name’s Carlos Estevario. Sixth Society, Level 6 Berserker of the Eastern Seaboard Sector.”
He seems to relax a bit and nods approvingly “Good man. William Fontaine, Special Supervisory Agent, FBI.”
My mind is too tired to even begin to ponder the ramifications of a non-Society Fed knowing about the Societies.
“I wonder why these… ‘darklings’ attacked here for so long.” He says, loud enough for Professor Cho to hear.
She turns back to face us “It has something to do with the girl. There are so many questions that need answering. Who is she? Why did they want her dead so badly? What does she have to do with the changes in Carlos? I wish the daemon had at least been careless enough to give us a clue”.
“The bad things are afraid of me. The skinny one said my existence was dangerous and that I came too soon” an infant voice pouts.
The child was awake. Everyone else seems as surprised as I am, except for Prof Cho of course. I could have sworn the kid was out for the count.
“Spider tol’ me to hold th' ground an’ so I started making Esscalibur. She grabs hair on the top of my hair as she pulls herself up to her feet. “This ‘s my first piece, the Knight!”
Spiders gapes in surprise. “You made him Magus! That is your Talisman’s... knack is it not, Excalibur?”
Professor Cho looks pensive and the Fed flashes an odd look towards me. The little girl shakes her head stubbornly, “Esscalibur is not me! I am making Esscalibur. Knight is the first piece!” she glares at Spider frostily, “Spider ‘s not paying ‘ttention!”.
“How many pieces does Excalibur have.” Professor Cho asks patiently. I stand up slowly. Intrigued and puzzled at her question.
The child looks at her, eyes bright, and raises a splayed right palm and one left finger. She marks them off as if reciting a rhyme.
“Kin’, Queen, B’shop…”
“Knight, Rook, Pawn.” The Fed continues.
“The pieces on a chess board!” the Psychic exclaims. “Which are coincidentally the same as the …”
“Number of societies”.
I grimace, they end each other’s sentences, how cheesy. I had totally forgotten my own shitty heartache till now.
I pick up the battered, but still functional mp3 player and wince as I straighten up. Even with rapid Knight healing, I should have been keeling over with pain. The witch-girl did me a solid.
Makes me reconsider my perceptions about Magi. I hope the Professor's theory is wrong though, being chummy with Magi is totally different from being one yourself. A chill runs up my spine as I think of it. I push those thoughts into the corner, give them a time out like a naughty child.
At least I’m alive, today isn’t the day I leave Abuela behind. I put one earplug in.
…Do you think about me now and then
Do you think about me now and thennn
Cause I’m coming home again
Maybe we could start again…
“We have to get out of here” Spider announces. “I can phase us all to your place. I’m too tired to walk back to where we left the car and these two sorry specimens will attract attention”. She smoothly moves over and picks up my little witch child.
Something tickles the back of my mind, and I know she’s lying. She probably doesn’t want to look at the bodies any longer than she has to.
The Professor nods curtly. If it was a lie, she let it pass. As we move in closer to Spider she asks the witch child “Can you tell us your name sweetheart?”.
The kid yawns adorably before she pipes, “My Mommy and Daddy called me Morgan Faye, but you can call me The Merlin.”
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