The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt. 06

"So what are you going to try to do?"

'Call lightning.'

And calling down the storm sounded just the sort of thing a witch queen out of legend ought to be able to do. Unfortunately the warehouse was stacked with plastic containers of reagents. She wasn't able to interpret the codes for the contents, but the symbol for flammable was very clear and Elena started to be very afraid.

The Queen was still speaking. 'It's one of those things like an avalanche. You just need the right trigger,' She said, blithely.

"We can't survive that, you maniac!" Elena bellowed above the din of the assault on the entrance.

'Don't shout, I'm right here,' the Queen chided. 'One of the advantages of being a passive observer, my dear, is seeing things that your host might miss. For instance, the door behind us. And I believe this part of the building is made of metal and therefore a Faraday cage, which, given the contents, would be most sensible, no?'

Elena cast a glimpse over her shoulder. There was indeed another door in the shadows at the back of the warehouse. "Where does it go?"

'Anywhere away from here.' The Queen chuckled with manic glee. 'Come Elena, let's make life interesting for them!'

Elena felt her eldritch alter ego take hold of the air above the building and, for want of a better word, pull.

The hair stood up on her arms and a weird metallic taste fizzed across her tongue. Her shriek of "QUE-" was cut short by a blinding actinic flash and a monumental bang. Her ears rang in the moment's silence before the screaming started outside.

'There's our cue to leave, I think,' the Queen said crisply. 'It should have put paid to the drone if I'm not much mistaken.'

"You're a mad bitch!"

'Perhaps, but I'm your mad bitch. Let's go.'

***

Another side benefit of the lightning strike, apart from the very welcome but very brief pause in hostilities, was the electronet overloading. Jess was on her feet within a twentieth of a second, and her weapons sang their fierce joy as she dispatched the aggressors quickly and cleanly, while Tony's troops watched in awe. The lightning strike seemingly having ruined their phones, all they had to tell their friends was a tale that needed no embroidering.

She came to rest in front of Tony and gave him a winning smile. Catching Errol's eye, she shivered a wink, and the unflappable Errol rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to top that, Princess," Tony said, ruefully.

"Thank you for your help. I owe you one." She leaned in to murmur in his ear, "Although you might want to think hard about calling it in. I am a bit of a sledgehammer."

He chuckled. "I'm guessing the lightning was something to do with her Ladyship an' all. Hadn't you best be getting on? We'll clean this up."

She kissed him on the cheek. "You're a star, Tony."

She sheathed her weapons, then summoned Ascalon as she strode to the centre of the space and turned to address his troops.

"Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. And ladies!" she said, noting the presence of a few hard faced young women gazing at her with ill-concealed adoration. "It was very welcome, and I am in your debt."

She smiled and swept an enormous bow. When she came up again, a group of people that did not make a habit of smiling, grinned back at her. Even the one with two black eyes and a heavily bandaged nose.

She inclined her head, turned, and hastened in the direction of the lightning strike.

'Now you are become role model,' the Sword observed.

'Since when did you speak with a cod Russian accent?' Jess asked.

'Since we watch Harrison Ford in Widowmaker. I like it. It suits me.'

'Are you making a joke?'

'I never joke.'

The Sword was starting to develop more of a personality and Jess had the sneaking feeling they would become the best of friends.

Behind her, Tony turned to his lieutenant. "Errol, dump the wounded at A&E and dispose of the stiffs. Find out where anyone else is holed up. I think her Ladyship might want a word."

***

The Folk on the scene knew that something important was about to happen as the narrative abruptly strengthened for a second time and took hold of them for a moment. Lightning came to ground less than a hundred metres away. The thunderclap was immediate and appallingly loud. The screams that erupted in its aftermath made Judy pause for a moment. Did she really want to be anywhere near this? And how was she supposed to be able to capture a woman who could make herself vanish?

She exchanged glances with a couple of the senior members of the team who wore studiedly neutral expressions. She inhaled noisily.

"Right ladies, this is what pays the mortgage. Let's hit it!"

They ran towards the agonised cries, sensing that Elena Kowalski was not among them. She was moving away at some speed. Given recent events, Judy couldn't blame her.

They skidded to a halt at the corner of the warehouse and took in the scene. The target was displaying multiple new abilities. What even was she? And how on earth was she supposed to contain her? Although, she thought, the Americans were out of the picture for the moment so that was no bad thing. Into every life, eh?

The visitors were all on the ground. Some of them were smoking, and not in a good way. One or two were attempting to get up but it looked like their muscles weren't working properly. She motioned the rest of her team forward and was unsurprised that under the pain and fear of the downed soldiers was an undercurrent of relief. Fighting demigods was above their pay grade.

***

The rain was relentless, and Elena started to shiver with the cold and the adrenaline, as she picked her way through the buildings, trying to dowse Alan's location. They all looked and felt the same, and yet, and yet ... She stood with her head cocked as if listening for something on the edge of hearing. Something about that one seemed to call to her. However the door to the small front office was locked.

'I can fix that for you,' the Queen offered.

"No thank you," Elena said firmly. "Besides, didn't you just electrocute the only available bunch of believers in range?"

'Hmph.'

On the off chance she tried lifting the roll top door that was the main access for deliveries and it moved enough to convince her that she could gain entry. However, it was heavy, and she didn't think she could hold it up while doing an Indiana Jones underneath it.

"How do you climb down off an elephant?" she murmured as she looked for supports and a stout metal bar. Levering the door up and wedging bricks turned out to be easier than she'd expected. Still, she cringed as she writhed through the gap she'd made and was heartily relieved to get to the other side unscathed.

The warehouse was vast, cold, and silent but she could feel he was here somewhere, a small blue note of misery.

Elena grinned and shouted, "Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!"

She felt the blue note flicker with yellow surprise and green hope.

"Elena?" came faintly in the distance.

She strode forward into the gloom. "Your Queen has need of you!"

A bubble of pure unadulterated joy escaped him. "Over here!"

Shortly she was releasing him from his confinement and bathing in his relief and happiness. He stood rubbing his chafed wrists where the cable ties had secured them to the metal shelving racks. They didn't seem to have roughed him up. He looked at her sideways with a crooked grin and she could feel his belief in her fuel the narrative. His Queen had come to save him!

She snorted angrily as she inspected him, and rage started to boil inside her. They had dared take him! He was hers! Her aura ignited nova white, and he took his goddess in his arms, murmuring words of love in a dozen languages as he kissed her neck and caressed her sides.

Elena moaned. What was it about Russian that gave her goosebumps in the best way? He would burn for her, die for her, but right now she needed something more immediate and primal. She tore at his clothes. Buttons pinged against the metalwork and distantly they felt Jess' eye roll of amusement and deep approval.

She kissed his bare torso as she feverishly undid the fastenings of his trousers to slip her hand inside and grasp his firmness. It was his turn to moan as they didn't so much abandon subtlety as shred it into tiny pieces.

Even at their remove, the mundanes and potential latents of Tony's ragtag army subconsciously reached out to one another, carried along by the wave of desire for union. Errol caught Gina's eye as she gazed at him with a certain intensity. That was news, he'd not had the slightest inkling that Gina felt that way about him. The Princess had his ... his devotion. But Errol was discovering he had other strings to his bow. His expression didn't change but Gina detected the slightest hint of warmth and her heart surged in response.

At the warehouse, Elena pivoted so that she had her back to the side of the metal shelving. It was wickedly cold, and she arched, Alan taking the opportunity to seize her erect nipple between his teeth. She shrieked and dug her fingers into his hair. Her skin was on fire, and she needed him.

Somehow her nether garments had been discarded and she thrust her hips at him. Their clasped hands took hold of his member and steered it to her opening. They stared into one another for a moment and then he buried himself deep inside her. She shuddered and bit his neck. He hoped she wasn't going to eat him after mating. Then again, he thought she might want to keep him around for a repeat performance. Or two.

***

The Trinity reunited in the small office of the warehouse where Alan had been kept prisoner. They embraced fiercely, then broke apart to inspect one another.

"Well we're all still in one piece. I'm not sure how but we are, thank goodness," Alan remarked as they looked each other up and down.

"Let's go home." Elena paused and shook her head in frustration. "I mean to the safe house. It's not home! Home is back with Sylvie and Shawna in Sussex Street, not some gangster's hidey-hole in this godforsaken place!" She chopped the air with her hands, her voice cracking.

Alan grimaced. Her distress was understandable: she was fresh from two abduction attempts, she had performed one, possibly two, feats, nay miracles, that her training would have denied as flatly impossible, and she was host to a precocious meme, whose original purpose was to leverage her off-the-scale talent into world domination. And there was still no clear path to an alternative.

Jess caught his eye and jerked her head at Elena. The two of them enveloped their lover, her shoulders heaving with barely repressed sobs. After a minute or two, Jess judged that she was a little calmer.

"Come on, love, let's go and get some dry clothes."

Elena sniffed and nodded. They made their way to the front of the warehouse. Cautiously opening the door they discovered the rain had stopped and Errol was loitering nearby in the BMW.

"Errol!" Jess said in surprise. "How did you find us?"

In reply he jerked his thumb. The magpies were ranged on the branches of a scrubby tree overhanging the parking lot.

Jess took her partners' hands and they all bowed to their little flock of supporters. One cawed loudly in acknowledgement and they watched as the Trinity collapsed into the comfort of Errol's motor.

***

The safe house 6pm Sunday 5 ^th June

Back at the flat, Elena declared herself physically and emotionally exhausted and went straight to bed. Poking her head round the door half an hour later, Jess discovered that she'd not even undressed, simply fallen face first on to the pillow. She summoned Alan and quickly and gently they removed Elena's shoes and outer clothing while the woman grumbled sleepily without heat. Together they reached into Elena's aura to calm and soothe, allowing her to fall rapidly into very deep sleep.

***

The safe house 10am Monday 6 ^th June

The following morning only Jess was awake when there was a knock at the door. A soft tentative knock rather than the rapid tattoo of officialdom. They weren't expecting any callers. Jess heaved herself from the sofa and trotted to answer. To her surprise two of the girls from Tony's crew hovered in the hallway.

"Um, hi," one of them said. The other just looked horribly embarrassed, like she was standing outside the head teacher's office waiting to be reprimanded.

Jess smiled in bafflement. "Gina and, um ..."

"Andrea," supplied the one at the door.

"What do you want?"

"Can we come in?" begged Gina. "I hate standing around out here."

Jess stood aside as the two hurried past her to stand awkwardly in the small living room. You didn't need extrasensory powers to pick up on their apprehension. She wasn't manifesting as The Sword so what could they be worried about? The silence stretched as their eyes darted around the room.

Jess folded her arms. "Come on, out with it!"

Still they said nothing. Jess looked heavenward. "Look, it's just me, not the Sword, there's nothing to be scared of."

"It's not you," Andrea ventured.

Jess' eyes widened. "You can't be scared of Elena!"

Gina shuddered. "You're scary enough. She's mental!"

The tale of Elena not only teleporting but calling the lightning during the fight with the Americans had been discussed in awed whispers.

Jess chuckled. "Dudes, you're with the supers now. Gotta accept the odd minor miracle!"

Andrea unwound enough to crack a smile.

They sat at the kitchen table and Jess observed how they skirted the chair that Elena habitually sat in, to leave it vacant while they plonked themselves down. Jess clasped her hands and rested them on the table in front of her.

"Now, what's this all about?"

Gina and Andrea looked at one another, willing the other to be the first to speak. Jess watched them patiently as they fidgeted and twisted their hands together, for all the world as if they were either in trouble or as if they were about to ask for money. The latter observation made something click in Jess' head.

"You want something from me! Well, go on, spit it out. I won't bite; promise."

"We want you to teach us!" blurted Andrea.

"Some of that kick-ass stuff you do. We know you can't teach us how to make swords appear ... can you?" Gina said hopefully.

Jess chuckled. "No, that's just for me I'm afraid, but the Sword will be happy to teach you some combat skills."

The two women sighed with relief and relaxed, letting their age show. Jess assessed them as being in their late teens to early twenties, no more than girls really. Ones that had had 'a hard paper round' as her mum used to say, getting ahead in the hardscrabble of poverty. No wonder Elena had some grit in her if she'd coped with this environment. One that the Folk did not experience, she realised grimly. There were life skills that could only be learned in places like this. Some of them good, others ... not so good.

"I wanted to ask you about ... her." Andrea said.

"Elena?"

"No, like ... what ..." The young woman struggled to put her question into words.

Jess reached inside her for what Ludmilla might want to say and to her amazement found that her super suit wanted to respond for herself. Outside of a combat situation it was the first time she had ever asked to do so, and Jess stood aside.

Gina and Andrea stiffened as Jess took on her Aspect, coral gilding her form.

"Girls," Ludmilla said, nodding to each of them.

"Fuck! You're Russian!" gasped Gina.

"Only because I like accent. Is beside point. You want me to teach you to fight?"

"Fuck, yeah!"

"First lesson, no swearing. It distracts. Understood?"

Jess chuckled to herself. The Sword knew how to swear quite fluently.

"You smoke?"

"Um, yeah," Andrea nodded.

"You stop."

"What, not even weed?" gasped Gina.

The Sword bobbed its head side to side. "For occasional recreation only. Do you exercise?"

The two young women goggled. "Exercise?"

"Run. Weights. Now you run every morning. You finish run, you lift weights. Start slowly, do not hurt yourselves. Is there gym?"

Gina and Andrea looked at each other. "Tony's got a gym. But it's just for the boys."

"We speak to Tony. To fight, to fight men, you need strong foundation."

'I thought we weren't building a following,' Jess commented.

Ludmilla sounded melancholy. 'Not building following. Teaching girls how to defend themselves. Is always desirable.'

"Meet me out front, 6am tomorrow."

Gina moaned, "6am!"

Ludmilla chuckled. "Be careful what you wish for!"

***

While Jess entertained two of Tony's crew, Elena was immersed in another eldritch dream.

Even in sleep, her lips curved in a smile as she found herself in a location where her parents had taken her on holiday just after her graduation. A posh hotel on the Amalfi Coast nestled into the steep hillside, with gorgeous little balconies to the rooms where you could take breakfast or have a glass of wine and just drink in the view. This being a dream, the weather was perfect, and Elena sighed at the memory of one of the few convivial holidays she had spent with her parents.

Her mother had been satisfied with the accommodation for once and the fact that the waiters were sheer eye candy was mere icing on the cake. The flattery they lavished on Alice Kowalski allowed them the proximity to exchange meaningful glances with her golden haired daughter. Elena had had huge fun flirting with them. With her looks she'd attracted molta attenzione from the young men. Some of the women had also looked at her slyly from behind their outsize sunglasses and Elena had wondered what it might be like to swim in those waters.

Now though, she was seated near the waterside in the early evening. Further down the coast, the slopes came alive with the lights of homes and businesses, whose reflections then twinkled in the sea as if the rocky slopes were garlanded with fairy lights. It was one of the most beautiful places she had ever been, and she promised herself that one day she would be back.

To her immense surprise, she had not one, but two companions. The Queen she had expected but the burly, older Black man with chestnut skin she had not. Bald with a salt and pepper moustache and neatly trimmed beard, his heavy brows shaded intelligent brown eyes. A black tee shirt covered an athletic but not overly muscular torso. He looked very solid and very at ease with himself, leaning back in his seat, arms folded, watching the glow of the sunset.

He glanced sideways at her and then looked back out to sea. Elena's gaze strayed to the Queen whom she determined was studiously avoiding looking at their companion.

"Oh, my gosh," Elena laughed. "You're Leviathan!"

His eyes flicked to her once more and she detected the tiniest lift of one corner of his mouth, but he said nothing.

"Are there going to be any more inhabitants of my head?" she wondered.

"I can summon some of your sub-personalities, if you wish," he rumbled.

Sub-personalities? Elena felt faint, which was the most peculiar sensation in a dream. "No, thank you," she said, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.

She picked up the glass of white wine that hadn't been there a moment before. Her subconscious had obviously concluded that she needed a drink and hastened to oblige.

"Why are you here?" she asked.