SG: Innocent Bystander #9 -- Siblings 1/2

[Whitney Taylor]

Innocent Bystander Episode 9 1/2




Savannah, April 1994


Birds, they all know it, they showed it to me

Forgotten by man, there stands an old hanging tree

Forgotten by man, there stands an old hanging tree

Some roots are still growin', they died long ago

--"My Bones", The Pretty Reckless



Red energy pulsed from the altar, siphoning up into the top of the archway in waves which cascaded downward and around along intricate patterned veins, shifting as it did to purple to indigo to sky to finally settle on bright teal. It was a breathtaking display of beauty, as if the ancient spell sought to compensate for the ugliness that had come before. The flares of magic eventually died down, though to magic attuned eyes the web glowed with fresh strength. Doctor Theodore Kelley stepped back with a sigh of satisfaction, wiping his hands perfectly clean with an enchanted cloth.


"Another one done, and another span of power and safety ahead."


"By which time," Laylah sighed luxuriously as she lowered her arms, "we will be well settled in our new home." She made a face briefly as she skipped over a stray rivulet winding its way across the stone floor, her naked flesh bouncing enticingly even in the eldritch light. Max held the silk robe out to her, eyes on his master, determined not to give her the satisfaction of looking.


A flash of annoyance briefly marred Theodore's pleased expression. "Despite your concerns to the contrary. This one performed impeccably, and your efforts to supply an understudy? Entirely unnecessary. I would appreciate it if, in the future, you looked elsewhere for such fodder than those I have put under my protection."


Laylah lowered her eyes as she pulled the robe around her body, the picture of modesty and contrition. "Yes, doctor. I only thought it might be wise to bind him closer to us."


A bark of laughter. "Certainly! We can't have this powerless man who is dependent upon us for the life of his child become a deadly Achilles heel in the few months we have left here. Then we would never see him again, but you would have a new soul for your ledgers. Isn't that why you're looking so regretful?" He chucked her under the chin, and she let a sly smile flit across her lips. "There will be more for you at our destination. Allow me the eccentricity of sparing this one. A pact with you could throw off the results of my little experiment, after all."


Nauseating. Max turned instead to see how Damon was faring. Not well, from his looks. He stood rigid, staring at the altar, a bone deep pallor beneath his dark skin. Max stepped in front of him, blocking his view. "Are you going to vomit?" The boy fixed his eyes on Max's, shook his head. The color started to return to his face.


"It's necessary, right? That's what Doctor Kelley said."


This was not the time to share their own sleepless witching-hour doubts. "Yes. It's the only way to maintain the spell. Let it decay, and..." they shrugged. It didn't seem necessary to include Damon in this unpleasantness, but it hadn't seemed necessary to help Stefan, either. Their master's whims must be indulged, for Max could not imagine anyone taking his place...


"Did you watch carefully, boy? There's not much to it on the physical, but the magic requires concentration and finesse. One day you may have to do this yourself."


Max winced. No one could take their master's place, but if someone did, shouldn't it be the one who had observed him for years, instead of some teenaged neophyte? Desire had nothing to do with it; it was a matter of common sense.


Damon, however, was recovering his composure fast. "You told me to watch, so I did. It seemed real complicated, the magic that is. I don't think I could do it in a hundred years."


Kelley jovially threw his arm over Damon's shoulders. "Certainly you could, and you will have more than a hundred years to watch me at it. I have foreseen a long life for you."


Max sullenly watched the two of them walk up the stairs. They jumped a little as Laylah draped her arm around them, a parody of the two human wizards. "Well, Max," she breathed in their ear, "There you have it. Male chauvinism triumphs once again. Or is it human chauvinism? Either way, here we are, cleaning up the mess once again."


"Who's 'we'? I don't see you grabbing a mop." Max turned away, reaching for a rolled-up swatch of oiled linen. Focused on their task, they didn't see the calculating expression flash across her face as she watched them.


When they turned back around, she was flicking the mop against the stone floor, leaving it spotless wherever she touched. On her face, an expression of serene domestication.


*****


Watch out behind you there's a

Watch out behind you there's a

Watch out behind you there's a

Watch out behind you there's a

Monster in the closet

Do you open or do you lock it?

There's a tiger with a temptress

Will your weakness outrun your fear?

--"The Ugly", Sumo Cyco


Savannah, Present


Drew watched avidly as the player maneuvered their waspish avatar through the ruins of Telly Chaddeus, deftly zipping past the slow husks. He'd never played a hymenopteran, he liked the sturdier bovid class, but he had to admit they were unbeatable for speedruns.


"Now, the biggest threat in the agriculture zone are the threshborgs, but if you avoid their aggro..." the voice in his headphones continued to speak as one of the ear pads was lifted and a new voice spoke directly into his ear.


"In MY day, young man, we played video games instead of watching them!"


"Mina!" He tore the headphones off entirely, jumping up to give his sister a hug. "If you'd done that while I was playing for real, I'da had to kill you!"


"Better than you have tried! Interesting fashion choices," she looked at the knee-length green skirt, which he swirled around, showing off. It fit quite well with his soccer jersey, she thought. "I hope the kids at school don't pick on you."


"They wouldn't dare!"


"Because they know I'll come out of retirement and kick their asses, of course. Is that the new Glowing Pneuma game?"


Drew shook his head "New? You really are out of touch, grandma."


"Maybe you can show me how to play. It looks like I'll have some time on my hands for a bit..." she sighed, and suddenly he noticed how tired she looked, and messy. She looked like she had been rolled down a hillside in her sleep.


"You look like shit! Did they throw you out on the lawn and beat you when they gave you the sack?"


"They didn't sack me, punk. It was a supervillain battle, and since you made that comment I won't even show you the footage I took. What do you think of that?"


Drew didn't think long. "You better show me or I'll tell Mom you're dating a furry."


"You little--we're not dating! Not officially! And I never said we were! We might not... ever... if I can't get back..."


The topic seemed to be getting her genuinely flustered, so Drew took pity. "Calm down Mimi, you know I'm no snitch. Why don't you sit down and tell me about it? Actually," he took a theatrical sniff, "take a shower and then tell me about it over dinner. I feel like having some fried gator bites!"


That brought her spirit back. "Brat!" She glared a moment, then stomped out.


*****


Elemental tapped her way gently down the hallway, trying to mold her copper shod feet as closely as possible to match the softness of a barefoot human against hard marble floor. A game, this, to see how stealthy she could be in this lovely but rigid metal form. There was no tactical reason for it, since she could make herself quieter than any living thing by discarding her metal body for air, but she had never tired of playing with the limits of her powers since the day she had gotten them. She checked her reflection in an ornamental mirror--patina-green eyes in a penny-bright face--and smiled.


{If you think that you've seen a pair of eyes more green

Then you sure haven't seen 'em around here...}


Someone must have heard her singing, for a voice called her from the doorway to the study as she passed. Abandoning her experiment, she pirouetted on the tip of one toe and skipped with a clatter to see what her mentor might want of her. Some extradimensional excursion, she hoped. She had done well in their most recent battle, though the smelly pest Florida Man had eluded her once again.


Her expectations would be disappointed this time, she could see that right off. Laylah, known in business by her moniker Familiar, wore a frown, and in front of her desk stood Daemon, laptop in hand and a sullen expression on his face. This sort of setup usually meant a dull and sordid murder in the offing, and with the ghost of a sigh Elemental shifted mental gears from fun to business.


And business it was, although the action in question turned out to be past rather than future.


"Elly, dear," began Familiar, ignoring Daemon's deepening scowl, "that trouble at the Bellicose plantation the other day. We understood that you were going to take care of that, yes?"


Without the unconscious action of flesh and synapse and muscle, Elemental's face would not assume a guilty expression unless she willed it there, and she could conceive of no reason ever to do so. "I did!"


"Did you? It's just that I've come to expect a great deal more finality from your brand of problem solving. I hear three women in old fashioned clothes were checked into a hospital by a number of boys in uniforms. Not to mention a fourth woman, perfectly healthy..."


"They're all gonna live," Daemon rumbled, "Maybe they won't be happy about it, though." The big man seemed a little too pleased with this non-lethal outcome. Daemon still thought she was just some kid who couldn't handle a little dirty work.


"Daemon has stated the problem in a nutshell, Elly. They will live, and they will not be happy. With you. With us. You maimed three of them and didn't kill a single one. They still have their powers, some henchmen and, one presumes, whatever resources they have squirreled away. What do you think their next move is going to be?"


"I can still finish them off!" She would have done so, too, as soon as Daemon had found the location for her. She just hadn't expected Laylah to interrogate him first and discover her lapse.


"Too late. They've already checked out and will take some trouble to find. Your performance has been rather erratic these past few weeks, but this incident in particular may cause us some annoyance in the future. Why did you do it? And, Elly, the answer had better not be 'because they all look so pretty in their old fashioned dresses' because I know I taught you which values were higher than beauty."


"They did look very pretty, so it was easy for them to use their powers to confound me." The half-lie slipped out almost before she knew it was coming, which was probably the only reason why Familiar didn't clock it instantly. Elly was about to continue with the news of the fourth girl, the one who could feel her coming, and how they had all teamed up against her at once, overwhelming her protective spells, and how the catgirls had come and made her even more confused and she had worried that they would become too powerful if they took everything in the house and also they were sure to ruin the furniture and how in her mixed up mind she had just wanted to maintain the balance and keep everyone in line. This babble of nonsense would have ruined everything, so it was just as well that Homunculus chose that moment to enter, their robe splattered in some foul smelling precipitate and complaining loudly.


"Daemon, the scale you set up for me is off, as I told you it would be. I don't trust these electronic things. Where's the ritual, the solidity of the weights? Elemental, give me your hand, I need copper. Laylah--what's the problem now?"


"Your magnum opus here has failed to eliminate a threat that she was trusted with."


"Not true," Daemon put in, "she ran them out of town."


"She'll realize when they run back in that she should have run them into the ground instead of admiring the cut of their gowns."


"Kill them," said Homunculus, as they reached for the hand now dangling by a single shiny red thread from the end of Elemental's left arm. "Don't kill them. So long as they're not causing problems. Just give it here, Elly!" as she lifted the limb playfully beyond their reach, then, "Oh, all right. Please!"


Elly allowed them to pull the now rather deformed hand off her body, her arm thinning as she grew a new, skeletal one. "It's alloyed, anyway."


Homunculus glared at her for a moment, then gave her a solid ringing tap with it. "It sounds pure enough. Laylah, it sounds like she's dealt with this to her own satisfaction. If you want these people dead that badly, kill them yourself."


"Certainly. I'll just drop the whole business of maintaining our business and alliances and flow of petitioners to handle every little murder that has to be done."


"If you like. A great deal of what you do seems unnecessary to our mission. Doctor Kelley went centuries without the need to expand into some kind of franchise. I'd appreciate more time to dedicate to my research..."


"Do you pay attention to the world outside this house? It will come for us in one way or another. It has done so before, or have you forgotten?"


"It was getting involved in the outside world in the first place that left us crippled! If only he'd followed the plan..."


This could go on very well without her. She abandoned her current body in its frozen position and swished out into the hallway as a gust of air. Things were getting boring here, anyway. Elly knew of an elsewhere that might be far more stimulating at the moment.


As she slipped through the glass of a window, leaving no trace visible but to the most sophisticated of magic or technological instruments, she wondered why she had bothered to lie at all. It wasn't as if she had broken that promise, made so long ago. Not *technically*. No one could have gotten mad at her. It was never a formal oath, anyway... besides, Laylah was so perceptive, it was a real triumph to get something over on her. And a girl should be able to keep some secrets, after all.


*****


The Generic Thug (unaffiliated) watched his quarry optimistically as they approached. A skinny white girl in a hoodie, early twenties, walking beside a black kid, thirteen or so, wearing the same plus a skirt. Unimpressive little freaks, they looked like easy targets. Plus, they were probably selling each other drugs or something, and wouldn't report a robbery. Even if they turned out to not have any drugs or cash, their expensively comfortable athletic shoes would be worth something, GT(U) thought.


The boy was listening intently to the girl talking about some kind of Civil War reenactment that sounded like it had gone horribly wrong as they passed his shadowed nook. Sliding the butcher knife from under his jacket, GT(U) stepped out behind them. "Freeze, punks." He said. They obeyed before he had even finished speaking. Good. "Now turn around, real slow."


Of the two, the boy began to obey. The girl spun quickly around, tugging a small pistol from her sweatpants. GT(U) froze for an instant, both at the gun and the look in her eyes, which brought to the front of his mind, with unusual and uncomfortable vividness, memories of some of the more hardened criminals he had known. But he shook those memories aside quickly. He was about to step forward to wrestle it from her--most people would hesitate to pull the trigger on a person even if they had fired a gun before.


This one didn't.


A blinding light pierced his skull, and for an instant GT(U) was certain he was dead.


---


Mina screamed with months worth of suppressed rage as she kicked the mugger between the legs with all her strength. As he went down to his knees, she expressed her displeasure further by taking her weapon in both hands and bringing the butt down on the criminal's head with a thump! Fortunately, the noodle-esque consistency of her upper body muscles ensured that nothing she might have regretted later was broken.


"Sick!" Exclaimed Drew, who was a teenaged boy and easily impressed by violence. "That was totally badass, Mimi!"


But her fury was mostly spent. "I think I might actually *be* sick..." She swayed back and forth, clutching Lucy's handle for dear life. If she puked, she told herself, she would do it in the mugger's face.


"Damn, bitch... you got some PTSD or somethin'... go to therapy..." the thug wheezed.


Mina kicked him again, in the ribs this time, but without the same conviction. "How are people supposed to afford therapy when they keep getting robbed by oil companies and landlords and ASSHOLES who jump at them from out of nowhere?"


Drew, who finally seemed to realize that violence didn't always mean action hero nonchalance and cool catchphrases, took her gently by the arm. "It's okay. You did great but you didn't tell me about that thing, it looks just like a gun! You better put it away before a cop comes along."


"Cops!" Mina thought about the usefulness of cops, and stifled a giggle. "Right." She pulled away from him, trying to shove the barrel back into her waistband, and he took the opportunity to give the mugger a kick himself, in the solar plexus this time. As Drew played center midfield on his varsity soccer team, this put an end to any plans of immediate retaliation.


GT(U) watched the pair of them hurrying away through streaming eyes. He reached out for his knife, vague thoughts of payback coalescing in his shocked brain.


As he grasped this hilt, an astonishing thing happened. The metal of the blade warped and twisted like a silvery hand, which curved back until his fist was tightly imprisoned by thin--but not sharp--metal fingers. GT(U) stared, mouth agape. He was wondering how those damned brats had managed this when the wind whispered with unmistakable clarity into his ear.


{Put on the rope

You knew the day was coming

Say your prayers once more

You're part of the hangman's body count}


After Sammy "The Snip", last person in Savannah to see GT(U), reported that the man had been shaking constantly and speechless with terror while Sammy cut a strange contraption off his arm, it was generally accepted in the city's criminal underground that their colleague had fallen afoul of one of the local mages, and succumbed to a terrible curse. In reality, he had that night hopped on a bus to Atlanta, where he eventually got his therapist's license and led a productive and pointedly unexciting life. Which just goes to show that terrifying supernatural encounters are far better rehabilitators than American prisons.


Continued in part 2...

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