Acadian: I had fun writing January's response to her mentor's speech patterns. And of Blood Raven's own efforts to not be Sus, but rather to be included among those whom are Based.

I came up with that bag of holding at the last minute of writing. It was during one of my edits just a few days ago in fact. It seemed the ideal solution to the problem of how she was going to cart away all this evidence.

January definitely does not feel up to becoming a teacher and mentor to a youngin'. However, as you have noted, she has absorbed quite a lot of good practices from Blood Raven, making her much more suited than she gives herself credit for. Which we shall see more of today. In fact, I am picturing Xochitl's first real magic lesson being when she meets the rest of the Daughters of the Raven, and rather than Blood Raven giving the lesson, each of her protege's giving a paragraph of it in turn. Because they have all been there before.

January has come a long way from fleeing the cops arrival at the Flint Airport, and later her nervous encounter with the cops after her battle with Archie. She's getting used to the nuts and bolts of the super life.


Renee: When I was in my late teens or so a friend of mine had gotten hold of a copy of the necronomicon. It was a paperback floating around that someone had written, as if it was the real thing from Lovecraft's stories. Naturally we cracked it open and recited the first summoning spell we could find.

"Spirits, Lords the Earth!" is about all I still remember.

Needless to say, we did not summon anything. Which is a good thing, considering that you would not want to meet anything from the necronomicon.

Xochitl was in the same boat. The spell said it was to summon an air elemental. But was she really thinking she was going to call something up? Or did it just sound like a rad thing to try? Yes.

The amulet was placed for a magician to find, any magician. January notes that the original pages of the spell have an enchantment that acts like a spotlight in the astral, sure to get the attention of any mage nearby. All they had to do was use the spell, and that in turn was sure to get the attention of Blood Raven, which it did. It did not matter who used it. Just so long as someone did. And if no one did, he is not really out anything but the small amount of time it took him to prepare it.

The Hierophant planned this in so much that he knows he is being hunted by Blood Raven. He left the spell and amulet for a neophyte mage to find and use. Which in turn would draw Blood Raven, and distract her from hunting him, maybe even harm her. Like January noted, it is the same as a magical IED left in the road by guerillas.


WellTemperedClavier: I would not call Xochitl an ally at this point. More like a responsibility. She is not going to be throwing down against Abyssals any time soon. Though give her 4 or 5 years and she might when she is an adult. I put her in because for one I wanted some early action in the story. But also to expand on the Daughters of the Raven. I introduced Calypso last Book, and then at the very start of this one Blood Raven tells us about her other proteges as well. We are going to meet them all later in this book. I wanted to give an example of how someone becomes one of these Daughters of the Raven, by having a character actually do so in front of our eyes. In this way Xochitl is a stand in for the young Calypso, Riven, Kaelin, Silverlight, etc...

You are right about that sticking point January created by inserting her civilian identity into Xochitl's life, beside her Stormcrow identity. She (and I) had no idea how she was going to navigate that. It was just the thing January would do, without thinking of the consequences. However, I think I now I have that worked out.


RaderOfTheLostArk: I wanted something Native American, specific to Mesoamerica for a name. So I did some hunting through babyname sites, as I usually do. Then I came across the actress Xochitl Gomez, and read how she pronounced it "Sochi", and I knew I had my name. And really her look.

I could not think of a good generic term for the monster in that pic that I started from. I settled on Wight because it is a generic term for a physical undead being. Then the bone part is self-explanatory. I finally tied it back to the Dearg-Due, but there was no way to put that in the text from the start, as it just was not the kind of thing January would know. It's not something from an RPG or fantasy novel, and it is not an Abyssal (whom she has been researching of late).








January's Theme - VNV Nation - Illusion



Book 10.4 - Alliance


July 8th, afternoon

January explained events to the police. Xochitl's parents arrived before she could finish. They pulled up in the same car, and spilled forth with looks of shock and apprehension that weighed upon their features. The mom wore a top that was emblazoned with colorful geometric shapes, and a dark suit jacket over that with a small Burger Baron logo on its lapel. The dad sported a polo shirt from the hamburger chain as well, along with a pair of jeans.

The mom rushed inside to find her daughter, staring at January along the way. The dad looked up at the broken window, ran his fingers through his graying hair, and sighed. Then he saw the giant burned spot on his lawn where the bone wight had died, and sighed again.

Of course January left out Xochitl's spellcasting in her recounting of the tale to both parties. She simply related that she and Blood Raven had detected the Dearg-Due nearby, chased it here, and finished it. She did include that it was a minion of the Hierophant, left in his wake as a trap for them. There was no reason to keep that a secret after all.

After seeing the police off, she returned to the interior of the house to make her farewell. She found everyone up in Xochitl's attic bedroom. Her father fought to put a sheet of plastic up over the broken window. Her mother paced the room, nearly striking her head against the sloping ceiling at each end of her circuits. Xochitl herself still looked overwhelmed, and sat on her bed with eyes downcast.

"It's all this Wicca stuff," her mother waved a hand toward the teen's small bookshelf. "It brought all of this down on us."

"It's this transgender stuff," the father murmured from the window. "Being Mexican-American is hard enough in this country. You cannot stand out. You cannot make waves. We have to fit in, and be normal, like everyone else. When they notice you are different, that is when trouble starts. You need to come work with your brother and us and learn how to run the franchise. You and him are going to own it one day, after we are gone."

"That is not what is going on here," January said plainly and distinctly. Granted, she silently acknowledged that there was something to what each of the parents had said. But neither was what Xochitl needed to hear. Her well being was all that mattered to January right now. She did not hesitate to put the teen's needs first. It was just a reflex. The same as it had been when the Dearg-Due had tried to spear her with its tail.

It was not hard for January to see the similarities that she shared with Xochitl. That could so easily be her sitting there on that bed. In her mind's eye, she flashed back to the night of her suicide attempt. She had lain there in a very similar bed. Only it had been stained red with the blood from her slashed wrists. She would do anything to spare her new sister from such a fate.

"Your daughter isn't responsible for any of this. The Hierophant is." January declared. "This was aimed at Blood Raven and I. Xochitl just had the misfortune of being caught up in the middle of it all. Sometimes it happens when the bad guys pick a fight in the middle of a city."

"Your daughter being a Wiccan, or Witch, or anything else is beside the point," January plowed on. "But if her beliefs help her understand who she is and what her place in the world should be, then I applaud her. It is hard enough to be a cis teen in this world. Being trans..., well it feels like the entire world wants to erase you."

By now Dad no longer grappled with the plastic sheeting, and Mom ceased her nervous prowling. Instead both parents fixed their full attention upon January. She looked past the two middle-aged Mexican-Americans - to Xochitl - and saw that she had lifted her face from the floor.

"It sounds like Xochitl transitioned a long time ago." January continued. "I am sure you still do not understand why it is so important to her that she do so. In my experience, cisgender people rarely seem to grasp it. But the good thing is you don't have to. You never need to understand what it is like to be born of one gender identity within the body normally associated with another. Or to reject the very concept to a set gender identity that one must adhere to. Or any of the other things people experience when it comes to bodies and gender. All you need to ever do is feel empathy, and accept that you are not the arbiter of another person's identity."

"That's easy for you to say, you..." Xochitl's mother began, then her words trailed off as she looked at January.

"I know exactly what it is like to be Xochitl," January said softly. "I do not know what it is like to be you however. I probably never will. But like I said before, I don't have to, do I? I get that your daughter being trans is difficult for everyone in your family. I get that having a magical monster crash through your window is not something you want to come home to. My old therapist would have said it was... stressful. But we can deal with stress without allowing it to overwhelm us, and still get on with our lives."

"I wish I could stay," January went on."I'm not a therapist. But I would be glad to talk this out more with you all. Right now I have to rejoin Blood Raven, and find the Hierophant before he can strike again. Once this is all over maybe we can take this up again. I'll help you all in any way I can."

With that January reached into her utility belt, and withdrew one of her Stormcrow business cards. She handed it to Xochitl's mother.

"Call me any time, and I will come," she said.

She stepped over to where Xochitl sat, and went down to one knee before the young woman. She gently took the teen's hand in her own, and looked in her eyes.

"You remember what we talked about?" January asked. When Xochitl nodded, she went on. "Good. Always remember. You have agency, you have power, you matter. Now, are you going to be alright?"

"I guess so," the young woman nodded again.

"Do not guess, know," January insisted. "We don't guess, we don't doubt. These things leave room for failure. A conjure woman who doubts, is a conjure woman who fails. Banish these words from your vocabulary. Now, what say you?"

"I know," Xochitl stated clearly. She held her head high, and her features were set with certainty.

"Excellent!" January declared. She stood up and turned to leave, then her eye caught upon Xochitl's bookshelf.

"You know, I've met the writer of this comic," January picked up the four page hardcopy teaser of Artemis Argent and the Secret of Mystery Hill that sat with Xochitl's other books. "I could put her in touch with you."

"You know January Ward?" Xochitl looked up in undisguised interest. "I got to see her in Warren recently!"

"Well, I don't exactly know her. But I met her once too, just briefly," January replied. "But I know her work. It was on my literary blog after all. I'm sure that she'd be more than glad to reach out to a fan, especially one here in the same area. She's only a few years older than you. The two of you probably have a lot in common."

"Wow, that would be great!" Xochitl looked much less worried, and clearly more at ease. This made January herself feel a lot better about finally leaving.

* * *

January flew back to the Witch House and changed. She still had miles to go, and promises to keep. In this case, it was a promise that involved her changing back into her normal clothes and riding her Victory Empulse to Avery's house. It was practically an ancient ritual - going to Avery's place - and it felt so right and natural. Yet it was one she had so rarely practiced of late. It was good to get back into this old habit.

She could not shake a feeling of guilt however, as she rode through traffic on the whisper silent electric bike. Blood Raven was still out there, following leads, interviewing people, even sneaking into houses and dorms to search them. Cray did the same, following paper trails online and sifting through camera footage.

Finally Xochitl sat in her bedroom. Close encounters with death were becoming normal for January. But for most people that was not the kind of thing that happened, ever. She hoped that the young teen would be able to deal with the shock and trauma of coming so close to being killed. She felt like she should be there. But at the same time, she knew that she could not hold the hands of everyone in the world who had ever endured suffering.

In the meantime, she was going off to have fun with her friends. This was hardly the right time for that. She had said so to Blood Raven earlier. But as always, the elder heroine had a reply.

"There will never be a right time," Blood Raven had explained. "There will always be something to distract you from living your life, should you allow it. Wear the cape, but do not let it swallow you whole, as the whale did Jonah. Live your life, be with your friends, have fun. These are the things that keep us sane, and remind us of why we wear these capes to begin with."

Of course January did not see Blood Raven taking her own advice. Did her mentor even have any friends outside of her life as a superhero? She did have her writing as a Neo-Pagan author. But did she ever just hang out with friends? Somehow January did not think so.

Then again, perhaps that was exactly why the elder heroine was exhorting her to balance her heroing with a real life?

She sat at the corner of 9 Mile and Ryan Road, and waited behind a line of cars for the light to change. She idly noted that her old school - Fitzgerald High - was right there over her shoulder. That did not bring a tide of good memories. She idly wondered if anyone ever actually enjoyed public school. Or were even the popular kids - i.e. the bullies - as miserable as everyone else whom they preyed upon?

The sight of what she took for an unhoused man striding along the sidewalk beside her did not improve her mood. As always, she felt a deep pang of shame and regret when she set eyes upon someone like him. Shame at the reminder of all the privileges she had in life, which she so commonly took for granted: like having food to eat and a warm, safe place to live. Regret that not everyone was so lucky to enjoy such things.

She tried to look away, but the man fixed his one eye upon her, and January found that she could not turn aside. That single, bright blue eye seemed to pierce through to her soul. It impaled her like a spear, and she felt almost as if she hanged upon it, for nine days and nights, while the ravens feasted all around.

"Death is coming for you!" he croaked. "It comes for us all. Darkness sweeps across the land. The Age of Man is over!"

He shook a sign that proclaimed the end of the world to underscore his words. A pair of ravens leaped skyward from its rim, and screeched loudly as they swirled around him.

Then the blaring of car horns cut through the scene. January nearly leaped from her motorcycle, and jerked her eyes forward. The light had turned green, and the cars ahead were fading into the distance. In the meantime the cars behind her all crowded in close, eager to be on their way.

She shook her head and put the Victory in gear. She sped off without a second look at the strange old man. What kind of idiot was she, staring at some poor man in the street like he was some sideshow? She had to pay attention to where she was, and what she was doing. Not gape at less privileged people.

January still felt a little odd when she finally did pull up in Avery's driveway. She had to thread her way past numerous cars to reach the back yard, where she finally locked down her bike. She strode through the back door and trundled down the stairs to the basement, and once again found that she was the last one there.

She did note that while the Gadget Cave was filled with its usual mess of electronics and gizmos, there was nothing that looked even slightly like a suit of powered armor, much less a miniature fusion reactor. Just like her, Avery kept that part of his life on the down low.

The owner of the cave was there of course, looking every inch the tech nerd that he was in his Ohm's Law shirt. Ryo hovered in the shadows, as was his wont. Still, he displayed his nerd chops by wearing a sweater over a button down shirt, even though it was July. Kell was all working class hero, in a frayed Queens of the Stone Age shirt and jeans. While Rus was his usual golden god self, wearing tie-dye and bell bottoms.

The only one missing was Blackjack. Well, he was not entirely missing. His face graced one of the monitors on Avery's desktop. January could see a glass sliding door behind him, with a truly amazing view of the Los Angeles skyline beyond. Skyscrapers rose in a forest of glass and steel, and the endless blue of a cloudless sky stretched out into infinity beyond.

"Morning Star!" he cried from over the video link, referring to January by her special nerd name.

"Mister Jack!" January grinned. For a moment she forgot all about the Hierophant, and bone wights, and Abyssals, and even doomsayers. "How's LA?"

"This town is awesome!" the bearded young man crowed. "I wish you could all be here. Guess what? I'm staying for a while! The Really, Really Late Show wants me on too! But hey, look, the show's about to start."

Avery turned on the old television that sat across from the battered couch in the center of his domain. Well, it looked like an old TV, with a big wooden frame and dials that ran along the side. But the screen had been replaced with a modern, ultra-high definition one. Really, it was a band new TV in the case of an old one.

The Helen Show came on in no time at all. The long since out hostess went through her usual starting monologue. Then she brought out Jack. January had to stare from one screen to another, and reminded herself that the show had been taped, like all talk shows were. Kell produced a bowl of popcorn, which they all proceeded to throw at the screen in a festive manner.

January had to admit, she had missed this simple camaraderie and fellowship of hanging out with friends. Like the others, she reveled in Jack's success. Helen played back his new music video Crazy for this Crow in its full. By now it had taken the internet by storm. Or perhaps by Stormcrow, as Helen was quick to note.

It still felt a little odd for January to watch the video. That was her in those shaky hand-held camera clips, and rock-still security feeds. Half of the music video was just footage of her from various events such as the Flying Dutchman fire, the fight in the Flint Airport, or the battle against the Nazis at Motor City Pride. The other half was Jack alternately playing himself, or dressed up in a truly goofy Stormcrow outfit that was so ridiculous that it could only to be taken as satire. As the song explained, it was all a series of near-meetings. Every time poor Jack was never quite able to get her attention because some new disaster struck, and he could never tell her how he was truly crazy for her.

The interview that followed was fun. Granted, Helen was not grilling him in any sense of the word. This was a comedy talk show, and she was the Queen of Nice. Blackjack even had the chance to do some of his stand up. Well, from a sitting position on her couch. But he really did show that he was more than just a musician. He was a comedic tour-de-force. He even worked in a shout-out to his fellow Knights of Nerddom near the end. That brought a chorus of yells and cheers from all in the basement, even the normally quiet and reserved Ryo. When Helen asked him if he had any interest in acting, he did not turn down the possibility of doing that in the future.

They hung out after the show, and broke out the character sheets, dice, and RPG manuals. In no time at all January immersed herself in her Shadowrun alter-ego of Dora the Kneecapper: Dwarven physical adept and runner of the Seattle Shadows.

Think I see how you handled the identity issue, and well-done!

The last part really resonated with me. No matter how carefully you do things, you can't really control your own narrative once it gets into the public sphere. And this isn't bad. Jack's song seems well-intentioned, but it can't help come off as a little odd to January. That's just the price of being a public figure.

EDIT: Pressed the submit button too quickly.

Good point also about maintaining the balance. The cape can swallow someone whole, which itself is a more dramatic version of what can happen with a job, a hobby, or a relationship. All part of the delicate balancing act of being a super. She can't fully reveal herself to her buddies, and spending time with them raises the risk of her doing so accidentally. But at the same time, she'll probably go crazy without them, and that'd also impact her effectiveness as a super.

Not really any easy answers, unfortunately.

Regarding your comments to Rader about Xochitl’s name. I had no clue how to even attempt to pronounce it. But your ‘Sochi’ comment solved that! Now. . . the bad news is that it conjures images of ‘Joanie loves Sochi Chachi’.

Regarding January’s Theme, I remember when you were playing that game!

*

Stormcrow did a great job of supporting Xochitl without undermining her parents during a potentially thorny scene. And an excellent farewell to Xochitl as she passed on Blood Raven’s mantra for mages of ‘do not guess, know’.

Nice introspection as she ponders balancing life and duty – especially her suspicion that Blood Raven’s advice on keeping both in perspective was likely forged from its violation, not adherence.

And take an evening to just have fun is exactly what she did. Good on January. . . er, I mean Dora the Kneecapper.


Nits:
"That's easy for you to say, you..." Xochitl's mother began, then he {her?} words trailed off as she looked at January.’
’She had said so Blood Raven earlier.’ - - I suspect you want a ‘to’ after ‘so’?

That's cute, your story of trying to summon from the Necromicon. Yes indeed, good thing those sort of spells don't work (well... maybe sometimes they do). So from what you're saying, this is Xochitl's first success with spellcasting. But really, it's because the Hierophant is involved that it worked at all. That bastard.

Okay, I see. So the amulet was placed there merely as a distraction. I get it, now. So that's one heck of a coincidence that the person who found the amulet just happens to be on the same page as Raven and Jan, not some dirt kid who's more of a bully, for instance.

Parents show up, and they are freaked out. Yeah, and January can certainly relate to the child, who isn't going to want to "blend in". I mean, the parents are going to have to come to terms with this at some point. Jan knows exactly what to say to them though. Probably because there was nobody to speak for her when she was Xochitl's age, nobody to provide that sort of guidance.

Whoa! Stormcrow can put Xochitl in touch with January Ward! Won't they both have the same perky voice, though?



Very true. Her list of contacts of people she's saved keeps growing, too. Jan even saved a monster (Gola) and left her with a cheap cellphone just in case. But ... Just imagine how long Raven's list is. And how worldwide. Raven doesn't seem to be as interested in keeping touch with those she has saved though, right? Her motivations are different.

Uh oh. See I don't think that old man is just a homeless old man.

Nice. She's back with her crew. Ha, they're watching "Ellen'. And finally... they get to play their RPG. So much has happened. I imagine from Jan's perspective, she's now got all this real-world experience which just keeps piling on. No doubt this will slip in and out of her awareness as she's gaming.

I notice something positive about this episode: not once does she ache over Vortex.

WellTemperedClavier: The identity issue is not really solved yet. It just begs the question of how long it will take Xochitl to figure out that January Ward/Ryan is Stormcrow. As Renee noted, they both have the same perky phone voice. But I do think I have a solution to that for the future.

For January the weirdest thing is seeing herself on television. TBH, Jack making a humorous video about her exploits is probably the most agreeable option for her. Because she does not have to take it seriously. But it is still weird for someone like January, who has always tried to avoid attention in her 'normal' life. The attention of the media is one of the things she will always grapple with in the future.

I think the whole reason that Gandalf was so chummy with the hobbits in Hobbiton is what you said about balance. Being around them and part of their lives is something that brought him down to earth, and reminded him of what he was fighting for - ordinary people like the Tooks, and Brandybucks, and the Bagginses. The hobbits kept him sane. I think that is why he did not fall to the dark side, as Saruman did. In the end Saruman was not fighting for anyone but himself. So he betrayed the allies and took his own shot for the Ring.


Acadian: A couple of posts back I did have January flub Xochitl's name by having her say "Like the city Sochi". Because I do not expect anyone to know how to pronunciate it. I had to google it.

I am thinking of possibly going back to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice soon. It was a very cool game.

January's Conjure Woman wisdom was just a little example of how she might really be ready to become a teacher after all. She just does not realize it yet.

I always picture Dora the Kneecapper as looking like the famous Explorer by the same name, which of course was January's inspiration for the character.

As ever, thank you for finding the nits for me to pick out.


Renee: I know what you are saying about Xochitl's demeanor being one friendly to the Blackbirds. But then again, if she was a bag of dicks, she probably would not be doing magic in her bedroom during the afternoon. She'd be out bullying kids smaller than her.

Jan does have an ever-growing list of people she has helped, whom she keeps pledging to support. How much she can actually do so is debatable, as we will find out shortly. Keep in a pin on Gola. January has not checked in with her since she left her at Garden Island. She's too busy with other things. But that is going to come back to her.

Which is why Blood Raven does not reach out as much to people as January does. She knows her limitations, and does not want to spread herself too thin, by making promises she cannot keep. She knows that she cannot always drop everything and be there for everyone else in the world. January still has to learn that.

That perky phone voice is definitely going to be a problem for January some day...

And that one-eyed homeless man will appear once more in the story. Though not for a while yet. January would have been wise to heed him however...

And Jan gets to do the thing she loves most, game with her friends. You are right too about Vortex! I had not thought about it, but for a few hours at least, she had completely forgotten about Vortex.











Blood Raven's Theme - Two Steps From Hell - Blackheart

Flavor Aid

Torpedoes in the US Civil War



Book 10.4 - Alliance


July 8th, evening

"You worked on the house of James Henley Thornwell last December."

Blood Raven stood in the back yard of an ordinary suburban home. In the center of the space rose a half-built gazebo. A detached garage sat in one corner of the property, and the concrete driveway leading from it to the street was piled with lumber, tools, and other building supplies. A wooden privacy fence rose up on all sides, shielding her from view from the outside.

Her words had weight, and pressure, and wove around the men who stood clustered before the unfinished gazebo. Her aion wrapped about them, and found purchase within all ears who heard. This power wormed into minds, turned eyes to glass, and voices into dull monotones.

"Yes," one of the contractors replied. His head was bald except for the tuft of gray stubble that ran about the base of his skull. A long mustache swept down from his lips to his jaw line. Dark hair bristled along his bare forearms and through the wide neck of his dirty Bon Jovi t-shirt. A pair of thick gloves spilled from the back pocket of his faded jeans, and a pair of worn, but stout boots sheathed his feet.

"It was fire damage, in the basement," another of the workers replied. This one was younger, with a full head of hair and dark glasses over his eyes. Otherwise he looked much the same, clad in stained clothes, bearing calluses on his hands, and a deep tan that implied many hours spent working in the sun. "We had to replace all the dry wall and floor tile. And make a new door to the secret room."

"The what?" Cray's voice normally mellow tones rose several octaves in Blood Raven's ear.

"Tell me more of this secret room." Blood Raven's eyes bored into this man. The scarlet light of her eyes shone through the dark lenses of his glasses, and flooded into his eyes. She took tight hold of his mind, and illuminated the memory like a spotlight.

"It was set in the back wall of the basement, past the washer and dryer," the builder replied. "There was a new wall put up there to partition off the rest of the basement. It even had the same paneling over it that was on the original concrete basement walls. It was burned to hell, but enough was still there to tell what it was. We had to rebuild the entire wall, put in a new secret door, and put up all new paneling around the whole basement so it all matched."

"How is it opened?" Blood Raven probed.

"That was a work of art," a third man spoke up now. His hair was a black waterfall, and a stubble of dark hairs rumpled his face. "There is a shelf there. You twist the left bracket, and the door pops open. Otherwise it looks like the rest of the wall."

"What was in the secret room?"

"It was all burned up," a fourth man replied. His head was shaved completely bald, and a tribal tattoo curled its way around his neck. "There was a big stone block, and some furniture, maybe a table, or desk, some broken glass. It's too hard to tell what most of it was."

"The claw marks," the first man spoke again.

The other men chimed in, their words a dull monotone.

"The claws."

"The marks."

"Gouges, like fingers, in the concrete."

"Were there any bodies?" Blood Raven probed. "Human, or otherwise?"

"No," the first man replied, "just ash."

"Did you tell anyone about this?" Blood Raven continued.

"About what?" the first man replied.

"There was nothing to tell, just an ordinary job," the third man said. "Some new panels, floor tile, and shelves, simple job really."

"What the?" Cray's voice sounded perplexed in Blood Raven's ear.

"Their memories have been suppressed." Blood Raven murmured in a low voice, so the workmen would not hear. "Only my spell can cut through to the truth of the matter."

She closed her eyes, and allowed her consciousness to shift completely into the aether. She moved from the pale, mundane auras of one man after another. She had to dig deeply, but in each she found the subtle tracks of a magician. She took her time and unraveled the magic that had altered their minds, and allowed the spells to dissipate into the aether.

When she was finished she finally allowed the Hypnotic Voice spell to slip away, and returned their minds and wills back to them. Their blank stares slowly dissolved into looks of confusion as the men blinked their eyes, stretched their limbs, and looked about themselves as if waking from a deep sleep. When their gazes settled upon Blood Raven, their faces blossomed with amazement.

"It... it... it's You!" one of them stammered.

"I thank you gentlemen for your assistance," she said calmly.

Without another word of explanation she rose up into the sky, and turned her own gaze westward. She had business to attend to at home of James Henley Thornwell, the former Religious Studies instructor of Julian Ward.

"That was diligent work of yours, to find the invoice of these contractors in the university's records," she said to Cray as the miles vanished beneath her feet. "Otherwise I should never have interviewed these men."

"I can't believe you didn't find that secret room when you were at Thornwell's house last week," the hacker responded. "You don't usually miss things like that."

"None of us are omnipotent," Blood Raven mused. "To believe so, is to imbibe of one's own Kool-Aid. It must be shielded in the aether. Just as the mask that Julian so cleverly wore about his aura."

"That was Flavor-Aid." Cray murmured. "Well, some of it was. Anyway, so this Professor Thornwell is our man then? Should I call the rest of the team?"

"Nay," Blood Raven replied. "Things may not be as they appear. This may be yet another torpedo that the Hierophant has buried in his tracks."

"They call those land mines now." Cray noted wryly.

"You young people constantly feel the need to reinvent - and rename - the wheel," Blood Raven waved a hand in dismissal. "In any case, we shall learn soon enough."

Agreed about Gandalf. I suppose Radagast had something similar with the animals? Power is isolating, and being isolated usually doesn't do great things for the mind.

Now I'm wondering whatever happened to the Blue Wizards. Oh well, on to the subject...

Good showcase of how Blood Raven's approach is so different. I recall her and January not quite seeing eye to eye on this kind of matter (hypnotizing people, sort of). Still, she is getting valuable information that wouldn't be accessible in any other way.

I do like Raven's struggle to adapt to the modern parlance. That's something I imagine is pretty important to her due to living for so long. Part of being a hero is, as you said, staying in touch with what you're defending. It's harder to do that if you hold yourself apart. Certainly the world's a vastly different place, in some respects, than the one in which she grew up. Changing with the times makes it easier to care about that world.

Once again, 2SfH is always a good musical accompaniment.

Blood Raven pursues a promising lead, with Cray’s help. The mind control magic suits her perfectly as a vampire. A secret room – wow! That doesn’t sound good. Especially the bit about claw marks.

Her departure from the confused construction crew without explanation gives truth to the saying that a woman is entitled to maintain an air of mystery – and Blood Raven is a grandmaster of that.

"To believe so, is to imbibe of one's own Kool-Aid.”
It is fun to listen to Blood Raven’s awkward attempts to bring her speech patterns into modern times.

Are you saying Gola could return? Kewl!

Nice, so I'm right about a few things. Sorry if my constant guessing gets annoying, btw. I frequently try to figure out stuff as I read physical books as well. It's because occasionally I'm right. I like that +INT moment when predictions come true.

Blackheart totally fits Branwen! Indeed, her theme music should be from her time period, totally different from what represents Jan.

Whoa, this is intense. What's going on in the beginning? Looks like she's hypnotizing them. The "voices in dull monotone" part is exactly what I imagined. They are sort of standing around, with blank stares. No inflections in their voices. Huh.

So that's odd. So it sounds like one of Jan's teachers is involved.

She calls Cray "young".

WellTemperedClavier: Everyone wonders what happened to the Blue Wizards! Probably Tolkien himself as well...

This was both another example of several showing how Blood Raven was hunting for the Hierophant. In this case, it is a key event. It does show how she differs from January, in that she is willing to use mind control to get at the truth.

Blood Raven's struggle with modern speech and especially slang is something that has many levels to it. On one hand I have deliberately given her a unique form of speech in order to set her aside from everyone else, and serve as a subtle reminder that she is 250 years old. But OTOH, it is also gives me the chance to interject some humor into what is otherwise a pretty intense and driven person, via her endeavoring not to fudge the bucket and avoid being sus. Finally, words themselves are something that she and January bond over, both of them being writers.

A long time ago I read a book about vampires, I think by Barbara Hambly. It might have been something like "Those Who Hunt The Night"? I don't remember for certain. But what I do remember was how the author always portrayed vampires as struggling to stay current with the times. Many of them simply could not do it, and literally get stuck in the cultural past. So their society would create new vampires over time, in order to get fresh blood into the ranks, who understood how society currently worked. Essentially their job was to navigate the modern world for the older vampire society. The protagonist was one such fledgling vampire.

That tendency of immortals to have trouble with constant change is something I have always remembered, and is something I try to apply to Blood Raven. It is hard for her to keep up, especially given the tremendous technological and societal changes that have taken place since she was born. One way that she combats it is through her many apprentices, like January. By regularly reaching out to young people and becoming part of their lives, she brings herself into the modern era (whichever one that happens to be).


Acadian: I did give Blood Raven the hypnotic voice power because it is so commonly associated with vampires. But it also works really well for a detective, and Blood Raven does a lot of that kind of work as a superhero. She has probably used it more in her 50 years as a super, than the 200 years of her life beforehand.

Blood Raven is indeed a international domestic woman of mystery. January would have stuck around and talked to the workmen for at least a few minutes and explained things to them (and taken selfies with them). But as we have seen, that is not Blood Raven's style. She's the dark avenger lurking around gothic steeples type, not your friendly neighborhood corvidgirl.

Sometimes Blood Raven reminds me of Steve Buschemi going undercover as a teen. "How do you do fellow kids?"


Renee: Gola will be back next week. She has a very important role to play in current events.

Keep guessing. I try to leave enough breadcrumbs for people to figure out what is going on.

She is hypnotizing them. That is how she gets to the truth of the matter when she is really serious about interrogating people. It is not something she usually does. But when its critical, like now, her Hypnotic Voice is her go to.

To Blood Raven, Cray is young. She is two centuries older than he is, give or take a decade...








The Hierophant's Theme - Audiomachine - Rise of the Black Curtain


Belle Isle Casino Interior 1

Belle Isle Casino Interior 2


Paulding Light

Michigan Dogman

Gnoll

Waheela

Spiky Creature

Antlered Man




Book 10.5 - Alliance

July 8 (evening)

The summer sun hovered above the horizon like an angry red scar when January stepped out of Avery's back door. She raised one hand to shield its glare from her eyes, and walked across the yard to the driveway. It was now empty of vehicles, except for Avery's yellow Geo Storm, and her own Victory Empulse. She was the last to leave, as usual.

She stepped up to the red and black motorcycle and swung one leg over its frame. She eased into the seat, and lifted her full-face helmet in her hands. She paused at the sound of footsteps on the concrete driveway behind her. She twisted in the saddle, and turned to look back at their source. Was it Avery bringing something she had forgotten?

It was not. It was a figure in a black mantle cloak and hood. Under that he wore the white habit of a Christian monk. A featureless black cloth mask obscured most of his features, but it was pulled up to expose his mouth.

It was a Dominican Black Friar's outfit. The same as that worn by her late brother Julian and his master: the Hierophant.

Before January could react, the stranger lifted his open hand to his lips and exhaled with a great blast of air. The green powder in his open palm billowed forth and engulfed January's head in a noxious cloud. Before she could stop herself, she had inhaled some of it. It burned, but worse, it sent her lungs off on a paroxysm of coughing. That only served to force her to inhale more of the repellant particles with each uncontrollable intake of air.

She swatted at the cloud of dust that now shrouded her, but to no avail. The motorcycle helmet fell from her fingers, which now felt as numb and heavy as lead. She tried to summon her armor, but the mana skittered away from her fingertips. She tried to call out to Avery, but she could not get the air in her lungs. The world darkened, and swam in her view. The last thing she knew, she was falling. Then everything went black.


* * *

January woke to find herself sprawled out on a cold stone floor. A series of circular mosaics were set into the soft brown flecked flagstones. The one directly beneath her created a white circle filled with a floral pattern of green, yellow, and red vines and flowers. Farther out a similar ring of floral decoration orbited this central design.

She raised her head, and saw that she was in a palace of sorts. To one side a white marble staircase rose up to another floor overhead, flanked by columns of black marble cut through with white veins. More marble of the inverse white with black veins decorated the opposite wall. A row of tall glass windows lay in a third direction, cut through with entirely modern steel and glass doors.

A chandelier made of gold and delicate crystal glowed directly above her. It hung from a circular skylight of unusual design. Rather than a simple window in the roof; it was crisscrossed in a waffle-shaped pattern of whitewashed wood, which matched the flat, white ceiling around it. If it had been daytime light would have streamed in through the glass panes between the wooden slats. But all she saw through them now were the stars in the night sky.

It looked like some fancy event hall for the hoity-toity. The kind of place January would normally never come within a mile of. She wished that was the case now.

Then January noted the lines of cornmeal drawn out atop the elegant stonework of the floor. One set of lines encircled her in a ring that outlined a series of Old Futhark runes, which had also been drawn with the same coarse yellow flour. This led to a larger circle set off to one side. That in turn ran to a third and final ring. All three formed a V shape, with a circle at every point.

Her heart froze at the sight. She had seen this before, many times in fact. Variations of it filled the Rauðskinna, as did the real life examples at Ferndale Pride and Jobbie Nooner. It was an Abyssal summoning ritual. Only this one was stripped down to its barest essentials: energy from the sacrifice, energy from the control, and the final endpoint for both. Or as Avery had put it, it was an electrical circuit with two voltages feeding into a load.

Within the control circle stood the same black and white-clad monk who had poisoned her. He held a book in one hand. Its red leather cover was cracked and worn with age, and the uneven pages within were yellowed from time. January could only glimpse a few of the golden characters of the title. But she did not need to see the rest. It was the Rauðskinna, the curse spawned by her eight times great-grandfather: Nátthrafn.

Likewise, January did not need anyone to tell her that this was the Hierophant. He was the wizard who had killed at least two people by simply practicing to summon Abyssals. He was the wizard who had used and later killed her brother Julian. He was the wizard who had likewise used Xochitl in order to set a trap for his pursuers. After the much larger trap he had laid at Gull Island had failed of course.

January had longed to come face to face with this monster. But not like this. Not as his next victim.

Suddenly she was back in junior high school once more, and two bullies were holding her down, while a third proceeded to pummel her stomach with kicks and punches. She squirmed and struggled and cried, but all for nothing. She could not break free. All she could do was endure the pain.

January gritted her teeth, and banished that memory from her head. She was not a victim anymore. She would not simply endure this time, while her tormentors brutalized her.

Whatever he had drugged her with was slowly leaving her system now. For the world no longer swayed, and she could see father into the chamber around her. At first she could only make out vague shapes. But they soon resolved themselves into at least half a dozen distinct figures. They spread out all around the summoning array, and waited in the gloom.

They came in all shapes and sizes. One was simply a glow of light, reminding January of a will-o'-the-wisp. But her memory reminded her of a cryptid from here in Michigan with a similar description: the Paulding Light. Another looked like a strange hybrid of a human and a dog, looming tall with a multi-headed flail clutched in one meaty paw. Was that the Michigan Dogman? Or was it a gnoll from Dungeons and Dragons? Kell would know. He collected cryptids and conspiracy theories like other people did band shirts or salt and pepper shakers.

A third was a wolf far too massive to be normal, or even for a dire wolf from the Stone Age. That also set January tumbling through the pages of her memory, until she recalled the Waheela - the white saberwolf from Alaska that ripped people's heads off.

Still more creatures loomed about. One appeared to be an antlered man with claws the length of daggers. Another was only vaguely humanoid, with sharp, angled joints that always ended with something spiky. Even its head was shaped vaguely like an arrowhead, narrowing to a sharp point in the back of its triangular skull.

It was a veritable rogue's gallery of cryptids, monsters, and nightmares. All of them looked expectantly to the Hierophant.

"I see you have awakened, August."

As it always did, a knife turned in January's stomach at the sound of her dead name. The fact that the Hierophant would even address her as such showed how petty he was. Apparently even the slightest cruelty was not something he was willing to overlook indulging within.

January could not think of anything to say in reply. What was there to say? Except...

"Why, why me?" she blurted out before she could stop. Had he learned that she was Stormcrow? Was that why he had kidnapped her?

"Why, because of your brother of course."

The Hierophant paused a moment, and threw back his hood. He stripped the mask from his features a moment later. Revealed beneath was an entirely ordinary man in his later years. His fair skin was heavily creased with age and spare folds of fat. His rubbery scalp was completely bare of hair, whether deliberately shaved or from natural hair loss, January could not guess. His neck was practically non-existent. He looked like nothing so much as a thumb-head.

"I was his Religious Studies professor," the Hierophant confessed. "For years, I worked on him. I nurtured his hate and insecurities. I let him pretend to be the victim of your non-existent slights, so that he would strive for revenge. At the same time I taught him magic. So that he would bring me this book. Best of all, I let him think it was his idea all along."

The Hierophant held up the Rauðskinna in triumph, and this time January could not miss its full title.

"A degenerate invert like you would not know it, but you two came from a once proud and noble line." The black-clad friar went on with a sneer. "The apple certainly fell far from the tree in both your cases. But nonetheless you each possessed the one thing I required: blood. For only your blood could call this great working of your ancestor Nátthrafn, and reveal to me the secrets of his return."

"Why would you want to do that?" January pressed. He was monologuing, just like a supervillain in a comic book. The last thing she wanted now was for him to stop. So long as he was bragging about his master stroke, he would not be killing her.

January had to play for time, time for Blood Raven to find her. If only there was some way to contact the other heroine. She looked around, but saw no sign of her purse, or the phone that she kept within it. Even her gaming backpack and her helmet were gone. Apparently he had taken her, and nothing else.

"What would you need this Nat-guy for anyway?" January pressed.

She could try to summon the Stormcrow suit. It would out her secret identity of course. If the Hierophant did not in fact, know that already. But she could hit the general distress beacon in Sága, and bring every member of the Alliance to her immediately.

But she had to call up her mana first. That was easier said than done. Whatever the Hierophant has poisoned her with, it had not completely left her system. Her power was fleeting. Every time she grasped for it, the mana washed through her fingers. She tried to concentrate, but her head was just too foggy to elicit that sharp clarity of will that using her magic required.

"Quite simply, he has defied death, made a mockery of it." For a moment the old man's voice sounded as brittle as wind in dry grass. It was not exultant, so much as desperate. Desperate to escape the constraints of time and age, and the inevitable end they demanded of all that lived.

Then his tone became stronger, full of purpose, and the Hierophant went on. "He has been beyond, to the Abyss. He knows its secrets, things no mortal man can grasp. He will share that knowledge with me, and I shall go beyond life and death myself."

"Really," January could not contain her incredulity. "Don't you remember what Gandalf said about the Dark Lord sharing power? What makes you think he is going to help you?"

"Why my friends and I can be very persuasive!" the Hierophant practically cackled. He turned slowly, and gestured to the monsters assembled around them. "I did not amass these worthy fellows to do battle with Blood Raven and her pitiful allies. I brought them here to lend weight to my case with your eight times great-grandfather."

While his back was turned, January tried again. This time she felt her mana rise up within her, pure and clean. She focused on her suit, and reached out through the cosmos to call it to her. But her energy slammed into the runes that hemmed her in, and bounded back like they were a brick wall. She was trapped, not just physically, but magically.

But wait, was she really trapped? Without another thought she flailed out with one arm. Her closed fist slammed against the thin air above the runes that circled her, as if against an invisible wall. The Hierophant spun at the sound of her hand clunking against the barrier, and his eyes glowed with unabashed delight.

"Go ahead, flail all you want," he preened. "You think the others didn't try? Once within that circle, there is no escape."

January fell down to her hands and knees. Her hair spilled about her in a golden cascade. She vainly slammed a fist into the stone floor, and felt pain as it refused to yield under her blow. She was trapped by the runes that sat just inches away. Nothing but tiny granules of cornmeal, piled up in little yellow hills and ridges.

"You can thank your brother for this," the Hierophant went on. "It was his idea to use you for the final sacrifice. He was squeamish about the other ones, especially at Gull Island. By then he had seen what I did to the man in Ferndale. He knew what was coming. He lacked the will to do it himself, so I had to do it, again."

"But he was looking forward to killing you. He wanted your blood on his hands. It is one of the ways I made him my servant. Whenever he wavered, you were the carrot I dangled in front of his face. The pathetic, twisted, perverse brother whom he thought was constantly stealing the acclaim he felt he deserved. You see, after you came along, he wasn't special anymore. He wasn't the center of the world anymore. And he couldn't stand that. His jealously was as delicious to stoke as it was amusing."

"But you killed him anyway, didn't you?" January sneered.

"Of course I did," the Hierophant insisted. "He gave me no choice. The coward was going to spill his guts to Blood Raven. That bitch and her brood would have been on me in no time at all. I never would have been able to complete my great work, and all of this would have been for nothing."

"But it was no great loss, really," the monk went on. "In reality, he had fulfilled his purpose once he had brought a copy of the Rauðskinna to me. It can only be accessed by one of your blood line. I spent years searching for it. But your brother stumbled upon it with barely any effort at all. It was just there one day, right in front of him in the school library. After that he was useful, but in the end, just a tool after all, and tools are meant to be used and discarded."

Damn, that sucks. She's been captured.

But hmm, so he's only captured her because of her relationship to Julian? So Higherpants might not know Jan = Stormcrow?

This is crazy. So all that time, he's training her brother in magic. Wow. He really does not seem to fully know who she is. 🎆 He's teaching her about her ancestry, like she doesn't already know. Some seer he is.

Yeah, isn't that true about so many movies in which there's a supervillain who's had the tables turned in his or her way? They ramble on and on about how everything has come to this moment, how their captured subjects never saw they'd be in their current plight, and so on. That's mostly ego, I guess. They get so proud of how clever they are.

In fact, I don't think he wants to just kill Jan, he wants a replacement for Julian perhaps (hence he's drugged her instead of courting her in some class) but let me shush for a moment.

Man, what a jerk. I can understand sucky situations, sucky weather, stuff which is beyond our control, but why do some people have to suck?

Yike! Captured by Higherpants (you go, Renee! ).

Pull away the curtain from the Great OZ wizard and there is just an old fat man desperate to outsmart the march of time. A very, very powerful wizard of an old man that is.

And things are dire.

Jan is wise to keep him babbling to buy more time. I agree with her in thinking her foe is foolish to deal with a Daedra Lord Lich. That’ll turn out well for him. Not.

It seems she may still retain the advantage that he doesn’t know Jan = Stormcrow. Hopefully his thinking he is dealing with a gamer nerd instead of a superhero will be his comeuppance. I’m hoping that her magic continues to recover to the point she can somehow break free or at least contact Blood Raven.

I should also perhaps note that my inspiration for the Hierophant - at least his appearance - was Aleister Crowley. Though I cannot find any pictures of him from his final years in the 1940s, which is how Higherpants the Hierophant would actually look. Older, rubberyer, and more withered than Crowley in that pic. OTOH, imagine current pics of Joe Rogan and you won't be far off either.

I haven't read that book, but I do remember the movie Shadow of the Vampire dealing with this. They're speaking to Orlock at his castle, and Orlock marvels that Dracula would even remember how to use silverware. Immortality does bring up a bunch of issues. The human brain can only remember so much, so unless the immortal's memory is also enhanced, they may well have a lot of weird gaps in their memory.

And what a nightmarish situation for January! Great job in building up the suspense, with her noticing her strange new environment detail by detail. Now she's surrounded by monsters and seemingly beyond help. The Hierophant is a petty and narcissistic man, which alone actually makes him pretty dangerous. Such people can do a lot of damage. With his powers on top of that, you have a very deadly foe. Fortunately, it seems like he loves talking about his plans and himself, so January can at least buy a little time doing that.

Crowley is the guy who was involved with one of the most famous modern Tarot decks too. I forget its name though.

Good lord, look at this pic.

Crowley was a member of the Hermetic Order Of the Golden Dawn for a while, a magical order from the UK that got started in the late 1800s. It drew inspiration from Theosophy. But where the Theosophists were more theoretical occultists (they preferred to think about how magic and the occult worked. But they believed one had to be pure in order to do it without harmful repurcussions. By pure I mean any of: a virgin, non-drinker, non-smoker, non-drug-user, etc...)

The Golden Dawn was made up of people who wanted to actually do magic, instead of just think about it. So right there it was a reaction against Theosophy. But also Theosophy put magic and mystery in the East, namely Tibet. That is where the enchantment was in the world (and by enchantment, I mean it had not been colonized by Westerners, all of its secrets revealed, and reduced to being just another ordinary place on the map filled with ordinary people living ordinary lives.). The Golden Dawn took their magical inspiration from Egypt instead. Which they considered to be part of the Western world at this point. So again, they were reacting against Theosophy in that way.

Which is my way of saying you will see people like Crowley decked out in a lot of faux-Egyptian gear because they felt that was where magic came from. Mainly in the form of Hermes Trismigestus (Hermes the Thrice Great). Basically the ancient Greek god Hermes, with a bit of a facelift. He is where the term Hermetic Magic comes from, which is the basic template for modern Western magic, like that used by the Golden Dawn, but not only them.

Between Renee's christening our foe Higherpants and SubRosa's picture that reminds me of. . . Uncle Fester from the Adams Family, I'm afraid our foe's Big Bad image has taken some hits.

Renee: Higherpants does not know that January is Stormcrow. He is literally only doing this because Julian wanted to kill her. As you noticed, for all of his meticulous research on Nátthrafn's bloodline, he never picked up on that. It shows his priorities. He only wanted someone of Nátthrafn's, so they could get him a copy of the Rauðskinna. Beyond that, he just did not care.

I was just listening to a podcast that was talking about Iran-Contra, and how the CIA facilitated flooding the inner cities with crack by turning a blind eye to the Contras selling drugs in America, and one of the hosts pointed out exactly what you said about supervillains. A narcissistic person needs an audience, to show off how great they are. The whole world revolves around them, so they cannot resist peacocking over their master stroke.


Acadian: You are picking up on all the things I wanted to convey about Higherpants. The Great Oz (perfect analogy btw.), who in actuality is just a old man afraid of dying. But that does not make him a joke. It makes him extremely dangerous.

The Dark Lord does not share power. As the Hierophant will learn soon enough.

Likewise, his massive oversight about January's other identity will indeed bite him in the ass. Jan will be working on that this post.


WellTemperedClavier: That is right. I have seen Shadow of the Vampire 3 or 4 times now. I love that film. It is so delightfully bent. "You can't eat the writer, he has to finish writing your lines!"

I have not put a lot of thought into what you said about the immortal brain, and how accurate its retention might be. While this story has vampires in it (well, one), it is not a vampire story. So I have not put a lot of effort into working out all the details where that is concerned. I just know enough to consistently portray Blood Raven as a supporting character. Given what I have introduced about the unreliability of normal human memory vis a vis the Hypnotic Voice spell, it does not look good for the immortals though.

The Hierophant is indeed petty and self-centered, and very dangerous. I wanted him to have some simple motivations that everyone could easily identify. He's basically a bag of dicks. We have all known people like him. Just without the magical powers.





January's Theme - VNV Nation - Illusion


Gebo Rune

Jera Rune


Book 10.6 - Alliance

"Are we nothing but tools then?"

A familiar voice brought January's head around. It was an old woman's words. But the body they issued from was that of a raven-human hybrid. Her legs were long and bent backward, like a bird's. Her feet ended in talons, as did the fingertips that sprouted from the leading edge of her silky black wings. Even her head was clearly that of a raven's, with its characteristic heavy beak and gleaming black eyes.

Gola!

January had not seen the raven mocker since she had left her in her new home on Garden Island,
far in the northernmost point of Lake Michigan. She had done so after Gola had learned that she no longer needed to feed upon human years to maintain her existence. The raven mocker had confided in her that the Summoner had tried to recruit her. Or had that been the Hierophant? Whichever one it had been, apparently they had not taken no for an answer.

January had been so busy that she had never thought to even check in on Gola to see how she was doing, let alone what she was doing. She had simply left Gola a phone. If only the raven mocker had used it the second time they came for her. Had something happened to the phone? Or had Gola deliberately betrayed her after all? Was this her reward for sparing the raven mocker's life?

Gola stepped from the shadows, and began to stalk around the fringes of the summoning circles. Her beady, bird-like eyes locked with January's for a moment. Then she looked to the runes that girded the magic circles, and back to January again. It was almost as if she was trying to tell her something...

"What of the things we have been promised?" Gola looked back to the Hierophant when she began to speak once more. "Are we to receive our rewards? Or shall we tools be discarded as well?"

"Blood and souls," the antlered figure rasped with a sound like bark scraping against stone.

"You gotta break this curse on me fam," the Dogman rumbled.

The wolf-bear merely growled, and the Paulding Light glowed more brightly. Other voices murmured still more demands, for power, for killing, for vengeance...

Their demands turned out to be so, banal, so common. That is when January realized that for all their strangeness, these were entirely earthly creatures. They were magical to be sure. But they were magical creatures of this world. In her mind that stood in stark contrast to the Hierophant's ultimate designs, which was to call up a creature of what was truly the outermost darkness. A monster from beyond what we knew of as reality.

But then of course they were all from this world. Where else was the Hierophant going to recruit a pack of henchmen from, Wonderland? There probably were not too many flying monkeys that one might lay one's hands upon in North America...

"All in time," the Hierophant raised both of his hands in a placating gesture. He turned here and there to look at his coterie of monsters. "All of you will receive exactly as you deserve."

January's eyes shot back to Gola. Once again, the raven mocker looked down at the runes, and then back to January. Then she turned her gaze back to the Hierophant.

"What we deserve?" Gola scoffed. "Every time a white man has said that, it ended badly for the Keetoowah People."

January stared at the runes. They were simple drawings made of powder. So close, but so far away. Still, they were beyond the reach of her hands, and of her magic. They may as well have been on the moon.

Or were they?

She stared at the nearest character. It was the Gebo rune, looking like an ordinary "X" in English. January knew it meant "generosity" or "gift". It represented the balance of giving and receiving in friendships.

In this case, January wondered if it meant the "giving" of her body and life force for the ritual. If that was the case, would there be a corresponding rune within the Hierophant's own circle, one that was its counterpart? Could she reverse the polarity between them? It had certainly worked for Doctor Who more times than she could count.

She cast her eyes that way, and in no time at all she saw that yes, it was true. In the very same position in the opposite circle there was a Jera rune, looking like a pair of offset arrows pointing in opposite directions. It symbolized the harvest, reaping rewards, and completion. Her gift would be his harvest. Her death was his triumph.

Could she switch them?

Gola's voice droned on as she continued to press the Hierophant. The raven mocker prowled around the far side of the summoning circles, and drew the wizard's attention to her. That also meant that his back was now to January, and whatever she might try.

Their argument faded from January's awareness as she closed her eyes and meditated. In her mind's eye, she was a child again, sitting on her mother's lap. They sang together, counting the crows they saw fluttering and croaking around the front porch. Not all of them had been crows of course. They had been birds of all sizes and colors. But they counted them all the same.

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird,
You must not miss.

She found her energy. It was still weak. Still wavering like a leaf in the breeze. But it was there, and it still responded to her will. But this was not the great hurricane of power that she had in previous times been able to draw a torrent of strength from. She was not going to be able to break the stone blocks under her feet, much less the magical boundaries that hemmed her in.

But it might be enough to do something more subtle, something less overt. The magical barrier that held her in clearly blocked her from physically leaving. It also prevented her from calling her armor, and probably most other forms of magic. But it did allow sound to pass through it. Otherwise she would not have been able to hear the Hierophant's voice. It also allowed air to pass, otherwise she would have suffocated by now.

Air! That might be the one oversight in the trap!

January concentrated on the runes, and became Air. She was a ghost, a breeze, a breath, wafting through the atmosphere. The flow of air she sent forth gently caressed the tiny granules of the cornmeal. The yellow grains fell over one another, piled up, and rearranged themselves. Soon one rune vanished, and another took its place.

January moved on to the next rune, and realized that the Hierophant himself had made this possible. If he had not found a way to strip down the ritual to its barest components, she never would have been able to reverse its intent. The original summoning circles she had seen in the Rauðskinna were far too complex for this. But thanks to his efforts, it was now just a simple circuit. All she had to do was reverse the output between its two power sources.

She briefly considered just wiping all of the runes bare. That would stop the ritual from working at all. But then she shook her head. He would notice that soon enough. Then he would simply fix the runes, and do it anyway. Probably after knocking her unconscious with more of that poison he had used in Avery's back yard.

No, stopping it was impossible. All she could do was subvert the sacrifice, so that she might survive.

Thanks to Gola, the Hierophant never noticed what she was doing. The raven mocker had the wizard's complete and frustrated attention. So too did the other monsters, who were now all worked up by the Cherokee medicine woman's efforts. They grumbled and clamored, until finally the wizard shouted them down.

"Enough!" he cried. Then his voice took a low, sharp tone. "You shall have your rewards. If that is not enough, then step forward. We shall renegotiate our agreements here and now."

The monsters fell silent, and stared from one to another. None moved, until finally the Dogman pressed forward. His knuckles were white as he gripped his flail in one of his giant paws. January could swear that she heard them pop with barely constrained effort.

"You talk a lot of talk," he quite literally growled. "But what have you actually done for us? Where are the receipts bro?"

January was surprised at how colloquial his speech was. Weren't all magical beings supposed to speak with Victorian polish and correctness? Or was Blood Raven building up impossible expectations for everyone else to live up to? If she had not known better, the Dogman might be any guy standing in line at Burger Baron.

Come to think of it, he had mentioned a curse. Had he actually been a guy at Burger Baron at some point, only to be turned into this? Gola had not always been a raven mocker. She had been a regular, human woman once. That made January look across the pack of creatures with new eyes. How many of them had once been as ordinary as she was? How many had always been as they are now?

"Very well then, here is how you shall know my power."

The Hierophant curled a lip at the cryptid, and gestured a finger in the canid-monster's direction. January could sense no magic beyond the barriers that hemmed her in. But she did suspect that something happened between the two. A moment later a series of boils or bubbles began to appear all across the Dogman's hide.

He staggered, and fell to one knee. The flail that he carried clattered to the marble floor. After just a few more moments he writhed in agony, and his howls rang off the walls all around.

Then one of the boils burst open. Out crawled an army of beetles. Their legs clashed together in an unwholesome racket. Their mandibles flashed and bit, devouring all in their path. Another of the bubbles popped open, and another, loosing even more of the tiny creatures. In no time at all the Dogman was completely wreathed in the giant insects. He writhed and squirmed. But no matter how many he swatted with his claws, or bit with his teeth, hundreds more sprang from his flesh.

In no time at all the cryptid collapsed to the floor and fell still. There was nothing left but a writhing mass of beetles. With one small gesture of the Hierophant's finger, they skittered away in all directions. They poured past the assembled monsters, and in moments vanished into the darkened corners of the room. Within just seconds, they were completely gone. The only sign they or the Dogman had ever existed were a few bloody tufts of fur left upon the marble floor, and that giant flail he had carried, now awash with his own gore.

"Now, would anyone else like to renegotiate their contracts?"

The Hierophant grinned triumphantly. Not a single voice rose against him now.

"Very well, it is time to finish this," he declared. "Be on your guard. I will summon Nátthrafn in moments. Be prepared when he arrives. He shall treat with us, or pay the price for his intransigence."

"No," January shook her head. "Don't do this. You don't have to do this."

"Your whining won't save you," the Hierophant sneered. "Be silent, and at least die like man."

"This won't end how you think it will," January pleaded. "It will destroy you. Remember what Stormcrow said on TV. Everyone who tries this dies."

"Don't talk to me of that upstart catamite!" the Hierophant snapped. "His time will come too, just as yours will now. Now be silent, or else I shall gag you."

With that he began the ritual. This January felt, as the magic filled the spaces between the lines that circumscribed and connected the circles. The raw power melted into the runes. There it was transformed, given purpose and direction by the script. January could feel the spell it formed, and the Hierophant's terrible will behind it all. She had studied these summonings after all. She knew them inside and out. She knew what was coming.

Then she felt something unexpected. A point outside of the summoning popped into her awareness, like a lighthouse seen far out from sea. It touched upon the fringes of the spell, and responded to it. More than that, it immediately began to send a warning across two very specific channels in the astral, a private transmission that only two people in the entire world could ever hear.

January recognized it, for she was one of those recipients. She had made this beacon with her own hands, and sealed it with her own blood. It was Sibyl, one of the magical early warning poppets that she and Blood Raven had enchanted. She had set this one in the old abandoned zoo on Belle Isle herself.

Even as she felt the spell touch the summoning circles, she sensed Sibyl's call sidestep the barriers and connect with her aura. It warned her, just as the poppet Thetis had warned her of the summoning at Jobbie Nooner. January almost laughed at the irony. It was not like she really needed the heads up now.

But then she remembered that she was not the only one who was receiving this warning. She thought back to something she had asked Blood Raven when they had created the first of the poppets.

"I can feel the cord of energy that ties us to Cassandra here," January said. "I take it others can feel that as well? Can another magician use that to find us? Or cast magic through that link, and directly into us?"

The answer had been yes of course. The poppets were each directly tied to her and Blood Raven's auras. That was why they had to be careful lest the magical dolls fall into the wrong hands. Another mage with one of the poppets in their possession could use it to cast magic directly into their auras. But January did not need to physically hold the doll. It was already active and connected to her. That also meant that through the doll, she was now directly connected to Blood Raven.

January marshaled what magical power she could, and reached out across that link. She hoped that Blood Raven could answer in time...

* * *

Really good thinking on January's part for that rune. The Hierophant needed her to have air if he was going to do a proper sacrifice, and that gave her an opening she could exploit. Another villain foiled by his own complicated deathtrap. Well, partially foiled in this case, since the outcome is not yet decided.

So what's Gola doing here? Some of her actions seem to hint that she's not on board with the Hierophant. Maybe this is a ruse? Or maybe she's crueler than January thought.

I'm also wondering what the deal is with all the other creatures. Unfortunates who fell afoul of the Hierophant's enchantments? Or willing servants who didn't realize how deep they'd gotten in?

Regardless, it looks like January's early planning with the poppets will pay off. Just need to make sure that someone sees the warning, and will get to her in time. Failing that, altering the rune could at least buy her some time.

It seems Gola is quietly on Jan’s side, as she both eyeballs the keys and distracts the Hierophant. And that is all the break our heroine needs as she exploits her magical prison’s weakness. This should create a very interesting ritual now that Jan has swapped those runes.

Yikes, dog eating scarabs!

And one of her and Blood Raven’s poppets pops as the Hierophant begins to spin his ritual magic!

Can’t wait to see how this sabotaged ritual goes, and if the poppet will indeed allow communication and possibly even magic flow between the Stormcrow and Blood Raven.

January's theme song fits her just perfectly. Whoa, Gola is back! What a moment this is. Huh, looks like the big bad Hierophant is about to have the tables turned. What will this do for his Big Evildoer Speech Moment, though? He'll have to improvise.

Jan's wondering about Gola's burner phone. I wonder if that thing's still got batteries! This scene's pretty creepy, Florens. 👍👍

Ah, she's channeling Air. Nice. She's messing with the cornmeal. That's odd, by the way, that a foodstuff so common would be used for such a ritual. What is the reason for this?

"ENOUGH!" Hierophant yells! Classic. There's always that moment when every supervillain says "enough!" or some similar word or phrase, after being interrupted and embarrassed!

Ah, I see where this is possibly going. So if she's able to contact Branwen and if Higherpants is able to summon Nátthrafn...

WellTemperedClavier: I had this in mind when I wrote the description of the first summoning circle at Ferndale Pride. I always knew January was going to be put in a position where she would have to reverse its effects. We will see how successful she was soon enough.

Gola is back! Everyone comes back for this book.

Unfortunately I could not get into the details on all of the Hierophant's minions. Gola serves as our best example, being a magical creature that Julian had awakened from her torpor in Eloise. I used their sparse dialog to throw out some hints as to what drives them however. One wanted a curse lifted, another one blood and souls, etc... In any case, they are all going to find out that they have gotten themselves into much more than they had bargained for.


Acadian: Gola returns, with some unspoken hints that the runes which make up the summoning might be the keys to January's survival. And a very timely distraction of the Hierophant to give her time to sabotage the ritual.

When I was doing my later drafts on this, I realized that I had not really shown the Hierophant's power. He's the spider in the web, but we never saw him actually eat any flies. Aside from how he betrayed Julian of course. So I went back and added in his gruesome murder of the Dogman in order to establish his street cred. Now we know he is a scary dude.

As I said with the summoning rituals, I planned all along to use the early warning poppets this way. That worked out better than I had imagined, given Blood Raven's own ability to reach across that link and tie herself directly into January's blood, as we shall see today.


Renee: That is Blood Raven's regular theme. I love the old-time pirate feel that the instruments have. It feels like something from the 1700s. She has a second theme that I linked today, her fight song. She has a lot of killing to do today.

The batteries in that burner phone are going to prove to be absolutely critical. Thank you for pointing that out a long time ago. It is going to matter, and may be the biggest blunder that January has ever made.

I think the cornmeal is commonly used simply because it is cheap and easy to find, and works really well for drawing out symbols. The same for salt, or rice.

The Hierophant is about to deliver his master stroke, and his henchmen are yammering at him about their paychecks? Enough! You can bet Sauron never had to deal with labor strikes.








Blood Raven's Fight Theme - Imagine Dragons - Demons


As always the James Henry Thornwell house can be found on the Stormcrow Google Map



Pic of the Thronwell house

The Naked Mile

Fairy Star

Solar Wheel

Pentacle

Eye of Horus

Wight




Book 10.7 - Alliance

July 8 (Evening)

The home of James Henley Thornwell lay across the street from the sprawling expanse of the University of Michigan golf course, and of course, the nearby Michigan Stadium. The house rose up two stories into the skyline, and was painted a deep shade of charcoal. In another place that might seem odd. But this was a college town, and a black house was trifling when compared to the spectacle of students running the Naked Mile through the streets.

Unlike the last time she had visited, Blood Raven made no attempt at stealth or circumspection. She flew straight down to the front door in her armor. With a wave of her hand a stream of aion disengaged its locks and caused it to creak open. She strode inside without a second thought, and manifested Samhain in her hand.

"Remind me, is Thornwell the one who has been on sabbatical? I do not recall interviewing him." Blood Raven asked.

"Yes," Cray answered after a momentary sound of plastic keys clacking away in her ear. Clearly, he was summoning the information on one of his numerous computers. "He's been out for several months now. But you investigated the house last week, and found nothing. Julian has not had any of his classes for years, so he has been low on the priority list."

"Yet clearly Julian has been quite adept at covering his tracks," Blood Raven mused. "Far more so than I had previously given him credit for. Perhaps he learned that from Thornwell?"

She sensed nothing within. Not even a spider or ant. But given that their enemy knew how to cloak auras in the aether, that meant little. She wasted no time with the ground floor or upstairs. She went immediately to the basement and pushed the door open. As before, she was greeted by nothing but the usual suspects: a washer and dryer, old boxes and tools, a bicycle that might have been new when Kennedy was still in the White House, and the like.

She scanned the room, and remembered the words of one of the workmen she had interviewed.

"That was a work of art. There is a shelf there. You twist the left bracket, and the door pops open. Otherwise it looks like the rest of the wall."

She went to the first shelf and twisted its left bracket. It snapped off in her hand, and the entire shelf teetered in mid air, about to crash to the floor. She caught it - and the row of cobwebby porcelain mugs that sat atop it - with a golden tendril of energy. Cautiously, she balanced the rickety plank of wood on the tip of her power, and gently lowered it to the floor.

"Maybe a little gentler next time..." Cray murmured in her ear.

Blood Raven said nothing. Clearly, she was not as cool and calm as she should like to be. The fact was, she was eager to lay hands upon the Hierophant. Or in the very least reveal his identity. He had to be stopped, before it was too late...

She waded through the piles of boxes and crates that rose up throughout the dusty space, and tried another shelf. This time she was careful not to snap the thin metal bracket that supported the left side of the narrow wooden shelf. It twisted in her hand and made an audible click, without spilling the shelf and its contents of plastic model ships across the floor.

A darkened space lay beyond. Blood Raven stretched her awareness out into the aether. But her magical senses found nothing in the room. Nothing at all that was, including the room itself. So far as she could tell magically, the space did not exist. It was indeed shielded from all forms of detection or scrying.

There was nothing for it, so she stepped into the room. She braced herself for the sound of a trap activating under her feet, or spears being fired from the walls, or even the entire space being filled with fire. But nothing untoward occurred, yet...

She took a moment to spy out the chamber. A large stone altar lurked at the far end, draped with red velvet cloth that was trimmed with gold. A writing desk that would have felt comfortable in King George III's study sat near the altar, alongside an entirely modern wipe board that took up much of one wall. A bookcase of stout oak rose at the other side of the altar, along with a long table that was scattered with tools and materials. She saw a mortar and pestle, store-bought boxes of cornmeal and containers of salt, brushes, a hammer and chisel, and more.

The floor itself was made of granite, unlike the poured concrete of the rest of the basement. Or perhaps the concrete foundation was simply overlaid with a granite slab here? There was no way to tell without digging. In any case, a seven-pointed fairy star was cut into the stone, all perfectly proportioned and smooth-edged, and inlaid with bronze. A golden solar wheel graced the wall behind the altar. A pentacle of wrought iron hung from another wood-paneled wall, and an Eye of Horus gazed out from the wall opposite it.

"Well, this guy certainly got his money's worth for that religious studies degree..."

That is when Blood Raven felt it. Power stirred in one corner of the room, beside the long worktable. Cold eyes of pale light glared back at her from the shadows, like distant stars. A desiccated arm of ropy sinew reached for her, draped in rotten cloth. Another arm followed, and then a pair of iron gray claws darted for her throat. The creature's mummified body followed, leathery skin clinging tightly to twisted bones. Its bony head was wreathed in coarse white hair, and its skeletal jaws gleamed with spiky teeth. A wave of cold washed out before the wight, sending a chill through even Blood Raven's own undead bones.

She reacted instantly. Samhain was already clutched in her right fist. She took its blade in her left hand, and let go of the hilt with her right. Even as the wight surged forward, she whipped the sword around in a backhand blow. Its wing-etched crossbar hooked behind the monster's neck, and the force of the strike sent the creature crashing sideways into the wall.

Wood paneling disintegrated under the impact, sending shards of oak in every direction. The concrete wall behind it likewise crumbled under the blow, and hurled even more fragments and dust through the air. An indentation was thusly formed within the basement's outer wall, filled by the leathery frame of the undead being.

A dry rattle like laughter issued from the monster's throat. For such a simple assault could never harm a creature of magic and darkness. Even now it clawed its way out of the depression its body had made within the wall. Its eyes burned brighter, and concrete and wood shattered under its claws.

"The ravens come for thee," Blood Raven croaked in reply.

She stepped back, and looked to the dark patches of shadow that clung to the corners of the room. She sent her aion forth, and the darkness answered. A single raven made of pure shadow hurtled forth, and arrowed into the wight's chest. It pierced undead flesh and bone as if they were made of paper. In seconds it bored a hole clear through the monster's torso and burst out of its back. Then it winged around for another attack.

Then came a second raven, and a third, and forth. Soon an entire unkindness of the dark creatures flapped throughout the room. All focused upon the wight, diving and tearing into its body. With each strike, and claw, and bite, they tore more and more dusty flesh and dried bone from its form. Their raucous cries filled the room, lending a blood-curdling accompaniment to the frantic beating of their wings.

The creature staggered, and fell into the center of the fairy star at Blood Raven's feet. She stared as the shadow ravens devoured it, and heard herself sing the lines of the Táin Bó Cúailgne.

The raven ravenous,
Among corpses of men,
Affliction and outcry,
And war everlasting.
Raging over Cúailgne,
Death of sons,
Death of kinsmen,
Death! Death!

Soon nothing remained of the wight but dust and dried granules of bone. With a nod of her head, the unkindness of ravens flew back into the shadows, and melted from reality. Finally Blood Raven was left alone once more, and she scanned the room for more guardians. But if any others lurked in the cracks and crevices, they dared not to issue forth.

"You know, you really are scary sometimes," Cray murmured in her ear.

Blood Raven laughed. She could feel Selene's Curse inside of her - that monster that lurked within every vampire - aching to be set free. She took a moment to slow her breath, calm herself, and quell that bloodlust. She turned that fury into cold resolve, and instead approached the altar. She still had work to do, and she needed her wits about herself to do it.

She found two books lying atop the velvet-draped stone. One was the Scripta Mortis. The aged calf-skin vellum of its folios were stitched between front and rear covers of dark elm. She recognized the circle with a horizontal line cutting across it that was carved into the cover. It was the black theta, the symbol of death god Thanatos.

Alongside that ancient tome was something much more modern. It was an unnamed journal bound in cracked brown leather. It was the sort of thing one might buy in any book store today. She flipped it open with one finger, and recognized the precise writing within. It was in the same hand that had written that false summoning spell which had found its way into Xochitl's possession.

The first thing she saw was a long family tree that stretched across page after page. She knew the names. Hers was on that list, as were January's and Julian's. Clearly Thornwell had done his research with thoroughness. She flipped through more pages, and read a passage aloud so that Cray could hear.

"The rituals to summon the Abyssals are quite effective, if over complex. I am certain they can be simplified, in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to execute them. However, nowhere does Nátthrafn explain how to control these creatures. They simply run rampant. The first one nearly destroyed my basement after it was summoned. This has necessitated us moving the summonings to other locations..."

"Well he's our man alright," Cray intoned in her ear, "It also explains why he needed the contractors to work on the basement, and why they now pick different locations for each summoning."

Blood Raven scanned through more pages, and noted frequent entries related to Julian. They alternated between exasperation over his qualms at committing murder, and crowing over how easy it was to otherwise manipulate the young man. She flipped to the final pages, and found confirmation that he had indeed laid that trap for young Xochitl to find and implement. There was no mention of her name. Instead the cursed amulet and incomplete spell had simply been left in the park as bait for any unsuspecting magician to find and make use of.

The final page was simple, and chilled Blood Raven's bones more thoroughly than any army of wights ever could.

"Blood Raven and her henchmen are closing in. I must end this tonight."

"Cray, issue forth the general distress signal," Blood Raven intoned with a calmness that she did not feel. "Assemble the team at the Raven's Nest."

"And you?" the hacker asked.

"I will secure the site," Blood Raven explained as she strode from the basement and up the stairs to the surface. She still gripped the journal in one hand. She was not going to let that out of her sight. Too much lay within that might point inquisitive eyes toward her descendants. "There may be more wards and guardians. None must be allowed to enter."

"And the police?" Cray asked. "I think we should bring them in."

"I concur. I shall engage them." Blood Raven closed her eyes as she gathered her aion about her. She sang quietly to herself in her ancestral Gaelic, and stilled her mind. She was quiet in the presence of the divine.

She stepped from the house, and wove her energy all about the structure. It sealed every window, every door, even the red brick chimney that rose from the roof. She wrapped it all up in a cocoon, and bound it tightly shut. None would enter any time soon, at least not without a great expenditure of power.

With that she turned to her wrist-mounted computer. Cray wanted to give it a name, as January had done with hers. But that felt silly to her. It was just a machine, not a person. It had no power or life of its own. That was why she did not speak to the device as others did. Instead she punched her fingers upon its screen, the old-fashioned way. An icon confirming the call she was making sprang up, and in a moment a woman's voice came over her headset.

"This is Dana," the other woman said breezily.

"Madame Attorney General, this is Blood Raven," the superheroine replied. "The Hierophant is James Henry Thornwell. He is a religious studies professor at the University of Michigan, and abides in Ann Arbor. He plots to summon the final Abyssal tonight. We must find him and stop him. His domicile is empty, and I have warded it from entry. But I do not think he shall attempt to return."

"Do you have any idea where he is?" The Michigan Attorney General's voice sounded much more somber now.

"Nay," Blood Raven replied. "That is why I have contacted you. I should be most obliged if you would instruct the constabulary to begin an immediate search. If they do locate him, under no circumstances must they join battle with him. He will slay them with but a thought. Instead inform me immediately, and I shall finish him."

"Done," the Attorney General declared. "I'll put out a BOLO for all state and local jurisdictions immediately."

"Thank you. Cray shall forward you all of our data on him momentarily."

Almost as if on cue, the general distress call blared forth from her computer. She knew that it would be doing the same from the communication devices of every member of their team. She slapped her computer screen to silence it, and rose high into the sky.

She cast her gaze this way and that across the dark sky. Where would he strike? There was no guessing of course. There were too many possible locations. Yet aside from that first summoning in his basement, the Hierophant appeared to have chosen only sites far away from his home. She gambled that this time would be the same, and headed for her nearest teleportation waypoint.

It was located to the north, on the roof of a children's hospital that rose up beside the narrow Huron River. The brown and gray university building towered over ten stories in the Ann Arbor skyline, and its irregular faces were lined with long rows of windows. A giant white cross within a red square marked out a helipad atop the roof. It was to this she arrowed. But at the last moment she shied away, and instead came to roost atop a small structure right next to the landing site.

This was the top of a glassed in stairwell that ran the length of the building. She set her feet to the plain white concrete roof, and stretched out with her aion. A pentacle hidden within the cement glowed to brilliant life in answer. It smelled her blood, and unfolded space and time at her call.

A moment later she was standing within the Raven's Nest, staring at the great marble block that took up the center of the penthouse loft. She bustled past the writing desk that lay beneath her massive family history, which was drawn out across the marbled surface. Then she turned around the corner of the massive central block, and stepped into Cray's domain.

In fact, the gray-haired hacker was there himself, standing before the large tabletop computer that took up the center of the space. She could see that he had multiple holograms open above the computer, each showing the face and name of one of their teammates. She tossed Thornwell's journal down upon the computer's surface. The machine immediately opened a new holographic window above it, prompting someone to enter in a name and other pertinent data about the book.

"They're all checking in now, and I've sent that data to the attorney general." Cray nodded to her then he looked to the journal. "That's the Hierophant's diary?"

Blood Raven nodded absentmindedly. She did not care about the journal now. Someone was missing in the holograms of her teammates that glowed above the table computer. January's face was not there. That was unlike her. The young woman was usually the very first to respond. Blood Raven spun on her heel, and strode back around the loft. She set her feet atop the waypoint, and once again activated it with her magic.

She was standing within the sanctum of the Witch House a moment later. She had hoped to find January there meditating, perhaps so lost in her own power that she had not heeded the call. But that was not the case. The chamber was empty as a tomb. Blood Raven stretched out her senses, and the wards about the building answered. January was nowhere on the grounds.

"Where is Stormcrow?" Blood Raven asked Cray over her wrist computer. "She is not at the Witch House."

"She was at my place," Avery replied over the link. "But she left hours ago, along with everyone else."

"Everyone has checked in except for her," Cray's voice came over the comm next.

"That's not like her." The concern was evident in Avery's voice. "Spleck! Her bike's still here in the yard. But there's no sign of her!"

Blood Raven activated the portal once more, and returned to the Raven's Nest. Once again she strode around the loft to the computer center. But she stopped dead in her tracks when she looked out the window beyond.

A great mass of coal black clouds had gathered above Belle Isle. The long, slender island lay miles upriver. But the Raven's Nest being located atop the tall spire of Radiator Building brought with it several advantages; among them a stunning view across the region. So she could clearly see the isle beyond the other skyscrapers that clustered within the Financial District of Downtown Detroit.

She did not like what she saw. The island was cloaked in gloom, created by the thick blanket of dark clouds that blocked the stars overhead. But the thunderheads gathered only over the island. The rest of the night sky was crystal clear, and a waxing quarter moon shone brightly across the two cities of Detroit and Windsor below. A great flash of lightning momentarily lit up the entire scene, dazzling Blood Raven's eyes. All she could do was gesture however, because something had stolen the breath from her lungs.

It felt like the world had turned inside out. The smell of blood was palpable, awakening that ravening beast within. But it was not the wholesome scent of life-bearing liquid. Rather it was corrupted, toxic. This blood was poison, a poison that infected reality itself, and perverted it into something utterly alien, and absolutely terrifying.

"The summoning..." Blood Raven forced herself to croak. She continued to point to Belle Isle. Long enough for Cray to follow her finger and see for himself. Lightning played about the island, in a never-ending display of light and power, and clouds still blotted the sky from above it. The rest of the skyline however, remained clear and calm as far the eye could see.

Since it was only a few miles away, it was well within her own sensing range. But there was a poppet even nearer to the source. Sibyl lay on Belle Isle itself, within the abandoned zoo there. January had placed it there some time ago. It routed the sensation of the Abyssal summoning directly into her aura.

But that was not all Blood Raven felt through the poppet. She felt January! It was her power, of that there was no doubt, and it reached across the very link between poppets. But it was not the bright and noble aura of magic and light that Blood Raven had grown accustomed to. Instead her apprentice's magical self was tainted with poison, with a toxin that deadened her body, and dulled her senses. It was a wonder that the young woman had been able to reach out through the link between poppets at all.

There was something that Blood Raven could do about that. Using that same link, she called out to January's blood, and it responded. She pulled that poison forth, and ripped it from the young woman's body and into her own. The drug hit her immediately, dragging her eyelids down like anvils, bidding her to sleep...

It should not have affected her at all. Selene's Heirs were not vulnerable to toxins or poisons, at least not those of mortal origin. This had to be something magical - alchemical - to affect her so. But Blood Raven was not so easily laid low. She was one of Selene's Blessed. She called up one of her gifts, and washed her body clean with a rush of blood. It swept away the magical poison, and bubbled it away with an impotent hiss.

"All team members, converge on Belle Isle!" she heard Cray cry out. "Get there now, Stormcrow's in the middle of it!"

I enjoyed your opening links on various magical symbols.

Good sleuthing by Blood Raven.

The swarm of ravens she called forth to deal with the wight was well suited to her. Other vampires might use a swarm of bats but the ravens fit Blood Raven.

"You know, you really are scary sometimes," Cray murmured in her ear.’
Quoted for truth!

I really liked your description of Blood Raven’s teleportation waypoint and how it works.

The journal offers some clues that cause Blood Raven to conjure her coven of superheroes. Uh oh, one’s missing and we know who that is. Just look for the storm. Pulling the unknown poison from Stormcrow unto herself was very Blood Raven. For when it comes to her friends, she does not count the cost. I’m glad she was able to quickly dispel its effects though.

I see. I had a phase back in high school or early college (similar to the H.S. girl a few chapters ago who found that amulet) when I studied a bit of witchcraft. I remember buying rosewater for some spell I wanted to try, which was both hard and easy to find. Because rosewater? Where the heck do we buy rosewater? Especially since this was the 1980s. Can't just Google stuff.

Turns out rosewater was sold by my local pharmacist. A common ingredient, but I'd never know this if it weren't for those WC studies.

But I never got into witchcraft or Wicca much, so therefore I didn't know cornmeal could be used for such a ritual. I'd assume something more exotic would be needed, maybe bonemeal. 🦴

Thornwell House looks sort of like a plain saltbox. Jan's got the cooler house.

LOL @ the Naked Mile story!

Well it looks like the Hierophant is about to join Darth Vader, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom and Doctor Evil in the ranks of failed supervillains. Or will he?

Ah, so when she hypnotized one of those workers, she now knows how to get past the secret door. Gotta ask, who put the plastic model ships here?

WHOA... yikes. Mommy. I'm scairt!

Oh but good. She's summoned some ravens. Perfect. This story's perfect for Holloween. 🎃🎃 I Love how Cray is just sitting back in front of his control deck, just witnessing all this mayhem.



This part is really interesting. Really highlights the differences between Branwen and her personable grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandgrandgrandgrandgrand-niece. And I also get why she refuses to speak to her wrist device. Totally get it.

Spleck! Well it seems Raven's definitely on the right path to figuring where Jan is. Higherpants, your hours are numbered... hopefully.

Good thing Blood Raven's on the case!

I liked the mood of the chapter. Gives the reader a bit of a breather after the action of the previous one, but doesn't put them at ease, either. Blood Raven's dealing with some dark magic, and the Hierophant's ominous demesne brings that fact across quite quickly.

Her bringing in the police and other supers is a smart move, and one that fits in well with what I think are the themes: good works together, and evil works alone. The Hierophant might use people (and monstrous extradimensional entities), but he never works with them. He wants all the power for himself, but as he may soon learn, it's tough to get by when no one's watching your back.

Also, very cool visual in how Blood Raven dispatched the wight. An "unkindness" of ravens indeed

Acadian: I wanted to establish the Hierophant's magical cred, so I dug into my knowledge of magical symbols to decorate his inner sanctum.

In just a few weeks Blood Raven went from having one clue about the Hierophant's identity - the fact that Julian was his apprentice - to finding him. She is relentless.

I wanted a new killing power to show off Blood Raven's chops this episode. Given her nature, ravens were my go to. From there I just figured out how to make them more interesting and magical than regular birds. So in the end, I came up with Shadow Ravens.

Blood Raven is utterly terrifying.

Blood Raven is not a teleporter herself. It's a little bit beyond her to do that sort of thing on the spur of the moment. But she can do time and space travel. She just needs time to work out exactly where she is going to and from before hand. That is why she created her system of waypoints throughout the region she operates in. The transit routes are already locked in. She just have to choose which one and active it.


Renee: Honestly, I have never bothered with any of that fancy stuff for my rituals. I use water, and salt, and a few other odds and ends like a candle and a feather, and that is about it. You don't need any of that stuff to do magic. It is just stage props. Magic comes from within. It is your power and your will directed to create a specific outcome.

I had to look up what a saltbox was. Those are weird houses!

The Naked Mile was a regular thing on the U of M campus in Ann Arbor for decades. The cops finally clamped down on it about 15 years ago or so. In my universe it still happens because it is quirky and weird and fun.

I figure the model ships were from a previous resident of the house. Basements are such reservoirs for old junk.

It did occur to me that releasing these sections of the story in October was perfect timing. It is going to get a lot creepier.

When it comes to magic items, every one has a name, because they are each unique, and have power of their own. They even live beyond their creators/wielders. Blood Raven does not see any power in a computer. Even if it has been given a voice, to her it is just a thing, an object, no different from a spoon or a fork. Where January is used to living with personal digital assistants. They are just an ordinary part of life that accompanies you everywhere you go. So of course she gives hers a name. It does indeed show just how different the two of them are.

The Hierophant's life span can now be measured in seconds...


WellTemperedClavier: Blood Raven is really good at this sort of thing. Having her actively hunting you is a really, really bad thing.

There will be a lot of small breathers like that spaced through the rest of this book (there is a lot to go, we are only maybe a quarter into it). I hope they can serve that purpose of giving the reader a little rest, so it does not become an unending grind of battle.

You absolutely got one of the major themes I have tried to stick to from the start. January does not do any of this alone. She only succeeds because she has help from her friends. She sticks with them through thick and thin, and they do the same with her. It is all about collective action creating a better world. In fact, this entire book is about all the allies she had made up until now coming to help her. OTOH the bad guys indeed, are all basically self-centered, and see others as simply disposable tools. In the end, there is no one there to help them when they need it.

The Unkindness makes a for a great name for that shadow raven spell.










Nátthrafn's Theme - Gustav Holst - Mars

Ergi and Viking views on sexuality

Nátthrafn's look was inspired by RL Rob Zombie

Lamellar Armor

Danish War Axe

Inspiration for Nátthrafn's Voice - John Noble


Book 10.8 - Alliance

The summoning was quick. Perhaps thanks to the Hierophant's stripped down and minimalist approach, the magic tore a hole through reality and opened a bridge to somewhere beyond in no time at all. The invisible barriers around January glowed with power, as did the runes etched out on the floor that guided and shaped that power.

"Don't!" she cried out to the wizard. "Stop, you don't have to do this!"

"Cry all you like sodomite, your end is here!" he crowed back with malicious delight.

Then his body was thrown forcefully to the ground. It was as if some giant and invisible hand had enveloped him, and slammed him down. The air must have been driven from his lungs, for even though his eyes bulged in shock, he could form no words. Then that invisible force began to slowly drag the Hierophant's body from his circle, and down the channel that connected it to the larger one at the center of the array.

He must have intuited what had happened. For now he tried to escape. His fingers dug fruitlessly against the marble floor, and his feet kicked impotently upon its smooth surface. Perhaps regaining his wits, he finally turned to face the summoning circle to which he was being dragged. He threw forth an arcane shield in a vain effort to defend himself. But the golden magical barrier - while doubtlessly proof against both physical and magical assaults - was of no value here.

Ever he was pulled, closer and closer to his doom.

January wondered if he tried at all to teleport away. That was how he had escaped from Gull Island after all. It was apparently how he and Julian had come and gone for all of their Abyssal summonings. But just as the magical barrier created by the summoning circles prevented January from calling her armor or breaking out, she suspected that they likewise trapped him within as well. There was no escape from what he himself had set into motion.

His legs were the first to go. Before they were anywhere near the receiving circle, they stretched out hideously long, and popped apart. Bones tore from their sockets and ripped asunder, as if they were spaghetti. Blood sprayed everywhere, and flesh was shredded into ribbons. Now a high-pitched scream did rip from the Hierophant's throat. At least until it was choked off by the blood that spouted from his mouth a moment later.

January shut her eyes to the horror, as the man who had bedeviled her was torn apart. But even though she was not looking, she could still feel it. She could feel the magic all around her. Feel its intent, and feel its results. She did not need her meat eyes to see. All was writ entirely too clear in the astral, and there was no way she could block it out.

But there was something else. Blood Raven! The elder heroine had answered her call through the poppet. Even now she felt her mentor touch her aura. As she had done so many times before, Blood Raven transferred the poison to her own body through their connected blood. In an instant the drug that had coursed through her system and deadened her power was gone. In its place January felt alive once more. She felt strong. She felt furious.

She leaped to her feet and beat upon the walls of the circle that hemmed her in. But her hands bounded away ineffectually once more. Her feet stamped down upon the floor, and great chunks of marble shattered under them. The sky overhead lit up with lightning, and she brought a bolt of it down upon the building around her. The skylight overhead shattered under the impact, but once again, the electricity merely skittered off the invisible walls of the summoning circle, before harmlessly grounding down into the earth below.

Then it was done. The barriers simply collapsed as if of their own accord. Of the Hierophant, there was nothing but a crimson stain. It stretched out from his original circle to the central one. A few pieces of shattered bone, torn flesh, and ripped cloth lay in its wake. It was like something from a Clive Barker novel, and January half-expected to see Pinhead round a corner and begin demanding that she hand over his precious puzzle box.

But what she found was much worse. It was not a fictional villain that waited in the central circle. It was a real, living horror. He looked like a man, at least upon first glance. He stood well over six feet in height, and possessed a frame that burst with muscle. His hair was raven black, and spilled from his head in a web of tangled thorns, as did his long, matted beard.

He wore a lamellar cuirass made of bones that were carved into rectangular plates, which all overlapped one another about his torso. This was set over a mail tunic of black metal that fell to mid-thigh. The onyx-like material was shot through with bright orange veins, like marble. In one hand he carried a Danish war axe. Its haft was as long as he was tall, and was not made of wood, but rather shaped from a single piece of bone. Its long, bearded blade was made of the same onyx metal as his mail armor, and the single edge glowed with orange-red light.

January did not need to be told who this was. It was no mere Abyssal. It could be none other than Nátthrafn himself, her eight times great-grandfather.

He wiped some of the blood that still stained his brow, and an errant bone clattered to the stone floor underfoot.

"Requiem æternam, James Henry Thornwell..."

The Dark Lord's eyes cast briefly about the scene. They took in the assembled monsters, who now all stared with ill-contained horror. Apparently even for them, the summoning was a sight not often beheld. Nor was the presence of Nátthrafn easily ignored. January could feel it even now. He was a wrongness in the world, a stain and warp of reality that should not exist in a sane universe.

Then he turned his gaze to January. She locked eyes with him. Like his armor, they were onyx, and shot through with glowing red-orange cracks. Through them, she could almost bear witness to the tortuous landscape of the Abyss beyond: a horrorscape of piercing rock, shifting darkness, and voracious hunger.

"What do we have here?" his voice was a deep, rich baritone. As strange as it was to consider at a time like this, it reminded January of the man who played Denethor in the Lord of the Rings movies. His eyes moved from January to study the summoning circles. "You did not summon me, did you? You were meant to be the sacrifice. But you... you reversed it! He thought to trick me, but you tricked him, did you not? Ágaetr!"

"You are one of mine, if my nose serves me right," he continued. "Yes, I smell my blood within you childe. Come hither, let me look upon you."

He gestured for her to approach, but January did not move. Her fingers curled into fists, and her black raven wings sprouted from her back. A moment later she was clad in her armor, and lightning flashed brightly overhead.

"Good, good!" he cackled. "You are the raven's son indeed!"

"Or is it daughter?" He stepped from the circle that had summoned him, its barriers long since vanished. He began to pace around her, and looked upon her quizzically. "What manner of creature is this? A boy pretending to be a girl? What ergi perversion are you? I was tempted to let you live, if for nothing else so that you might procreate, and seed the world with more of my progeny. Yet that seems a dubious prospect now, does it not?"

"You're one to talk about ergi," January finally found her voice. "You would have been laughed out of Valhalla. A wizard? A man too cowardly to fight with his own two hands. It's no wonder the Varangian Guard ran you out."

He raised his axe, and took a step closer to January. She prepared to receive his coming attack. But the blow never fell. Instead he stopped dead in his tracks. The skin on his face bubbled out, as it did all across his frame. An audible hiss filled the air, as a wave of heat rolled off of him. January could smell flesh burning. Then he suddenly exploded in a superheated inferno of charred flesh and vaporized blood. It was like he had been microwaved, his insides flash-heated to gas, and burst apart. When it was over, there was nothing left of him but a red splatter on the marble floor.

January knew this. It was one of Blood Raven's signature killing moves, superheating blood into a vapor. She had seen her do it to the djieien at Ferndale Pride. Sure enough the other heroine stepped from the shadows. Her long black sword Y Ddraig Aur was clutched in one hand, and the golden runes that etched its blade glowed in the darkness. In her other hand she held the leaf-shaped raven sword Samhain, and the eyes of the raven's head carved into the center of its crossguard glittered of their own accord.

"Stormcrow, how is it that you yet live?" she stared at January with a mixture of unabashed wonder and joy.

"I had a few tricks of my own," January said curtly. She did not like to think about what had just happened, or her part in it.

"The Hierophant?"

January simply nodded to the wreckage of flesh and blood that filled the summoning circle.

Blood Raven took it all in. Then she tossed Samhain to January, who easily caught up the blade in one hand. It felt natural in her grip. The raven sword was warm and comforting, like it belonged there, like it was a part of her. Which of course it was, for Blood Raven's blood and bone lay within the steel. That meant January's blood and bone lay within it as well.

January allowed herself to briefly flourish the double-edged longsword around her head. Its black Damascus steel was lined with irregular waves of silver white, like water lapping the shores of beach. As ever, it spoke to her in the astral, whispering tales of the Morrigan, of death, and the end of the world.

Blood Raven then turned to the assembled monsters. Without a word she set upon them with a fury. She hacked the Paulding Light apart with her sword. The Waheela was next. With just a gesture of her hand, the giant white wolf simply exploded in another shower of superheated blood. The antlered figure followed a moment later. Then came the odd creature that was all angles and thorns. In moments it too was torn to shreds under Blood Raven's claws.

Those that remained alive turned and fled, except for Gola. When Blood Raven set eyes upon her, January leaped between them.

"No!" January cried. "She saved me. She distracted the Hierophant, so that I could reverse his spell!"

"Yet she was still in league with the creature!" Blood Raven snarled. She reached out and clamped her hand around the raven mocker's throat.

"No!" January insisted. She reached out, and clapped her own hand upon her mentor's wrist to hold her at bay.

"I did what I must," Gola croaked. "He came for me again. The other one. Not the golden haired child, but the old white man who died here today. He would have killed me otherwise."

"I tried to use the... thing," Gola held out the little phone that January had given her. The raven mocker flipped it open, to reveal a dark screen and number pad within. Clearly the battery was dead. "But it does not work. It has no lights, as before, and makes no sounds."

"Oh spleck, it's all my fault." January eased her grip on Blood Raven's forearm, turning it from an iron grip to a reassuring touch. "The battery's dead. I gave her a phone, but not a charger. Not that she could use one out on Garden Island anyway. I was stupid."

"Very well," Blood Raven eased back and let go of the raven mocker. "But if I learn-"

The sound of laughter cut off her words. It echoed off the marble columns and floors. It rang through the halls. It swam through the air. January recognized the baritone voice. It sent a chill of ice through her veins, and once again, made her feel as if the world was turning inside out.

"My... dear... girl..." Nátthrafn emerged from the shadows, as whole as ever. His skin looked different now however. Before it had been pale flesh - marbled with orange veins - but otherwise still human. Now it was clearly unearthly, made of some form of onyx stone or metal, flecked with white bone, and cut through with those red-orange veins that slashed through his mailed tunic and the blade of his axe. "Did you think to lay me low twice in the same fashion? I have learned much since we last met in Jack Parson's basement. Shall I demonstrate?"

He struck the bone haft of his battle axe down upon the floor, and the marble cracked into pieces. He whirled the onyx blade around with such speed and adroitness that January thought it might have been as light as paper. With each strike, its black blade carved an orange-red scar through the air and ground.

Each of these cuts formed a rune - a spell - that warped reality around him. The air rushed in toward him, as if the Dark Lord was a vacuum sucking it all in. Then the world literally caved in upon itself. Stone crumbled and flew through the air. The ceiling collapsed. The walls followed. Glass and brick shattered. Marble splintered. Everything fell into the vortex of power that now glowed around Nátthrafn.

"The old guardians built a prison about the Abyss long ago." Nátthrafn shouted above the din. "It is impossible to create such a gateway to escape from within. But here from the outside, it is simple enough to bore a tunnel into the Abyss. Behold my triumph!"

Blood Raven moved to attack. But both January and Gola held her back. They had to struggle against the tide that threatened to pull them in. But fighting for each step, they managed to stay outside of the ever-widening sphere of destruction. Lightning burst and thunder roared overhead, hailstones pelted them in a barrage, and the earth shook underfoot.

Finally that sucking vacuum halted, and January found the three of them standing in a parking lot before a sign for the Belle Isle Casino. Its name was written in golden letters on the side of a low brick wall that curved up in the center, like a hill or wave. Beyond, the once grand palace that she had so recently woken up within was gone. It was not ruined. It had simply ceased to exist altogether.

In its place rose a portal to another world. It was not the usual disc or doorway rimmed with swirling energy that January was used to seeing depicted in movies and artwork. Instead it was a glowing sphere that squatted, half-buried in the ground. It was massive, rising at least three hundred feet into the sky, if not more.

Its skin flowed and bubbled, like the surface of a lake. Cracks or bolts of red-orange energy cut through it at random, and seemed to glow around its edges, no matter what angle one looked at it from. It was partially transparent however, and through its surface January could glimpse a tenebrous landscape. Dark skies loomed there, upon which even darker clouds scudded and swarmed. Great jagged peaks rose up from the ground to cut at the firmament like claws. The ground itself was a barren landscape of rock and dust, utterly devoid of anything green or living. But shapes did move there nonetheless. Terrible shapes that lingered in the darkness, and even now shambled for the light of Earth.

Ever the White Hat, Stormcrow tries to warn off Higherpants from his pending suicide by reversed ritual. But to no avail, and I confess a measure of delight about that. Finally the end of this villain and. . . uh oh. . . out of the frying pan and into the fire. It seems the ritual actually did accomplish its purpose, simply sacrificing Higherpants instead of Stormcrow. Grandpa Nátthrafn arrives and naturally starts plotting mayhem in this plane.

Given Nátthrafn’s centuries of experience and affinity for magic, I was surprised he focused on his confusion over his many times removed granddaughter’s gender instead of her potent mysticism. I thought many great mystics of long begone times presented without a clear gender. Something about dual spirits or such?

I cheered as Blood Raven microwaved him into mist. Glad Stormcrow coaxed her into sparing Gola though. And another nice reminder that Blood Raven's blade recognizes and accepts Jan due to the blood she shares with Blood Raven.

Whew, glad that’s done. Time for a celebratory. . . uh oh. Nátthrafn’s back! Yikes!

And what kind of realm of Oblivion is this now?

Yes, I agree. Magic comes from within. Since this is so, I definitely haven't got the knack for it, or am not in touch with whatever. That's amazing that you are able to improvise ingredients instead of relying on what the books say.

Yes, VERY true about whatever it is we're familiar with, because that's what we've grown up with. It's why my daughter has no problem with smartphones and tablets and Siri and Alexa (ugh ) and that sort of technology. And if we go backward 100+ years, we have some folks fearful of the very first telephones, the very first photographs, and so on. "Taking a person's picture is akin to stealing part of his soul!" a Victorian-era person might fear.

Similar with telephones. From what I understand, the fact that people could not necessarily see each other while they were speaking to each other was a huge issue for some folks.

Natthrafn's theme sounds like Uh oh! WHOA, the Hierophant's getting pwned. Well maybe he shouldnt't been such a meanie to his minions, not that this would matter. Rob "Natthrafn" Zombie is hungry. But I mean, Higherpants really is stubborn. Several folks have told him he won't get away with this. What was he thinking? I guess it's arrogance & ego, once again.

Thornwell sounds as though he was a half-decent teacher, guy should've kept his day job.

And there he is, Natthrafn himself. Can you refresh my memory (don't be upset, my memory sucks) what is his relationship to Branwen? It's her dad, right? Or was.



I'm hearing James Earl Jones. Oh no, he did not just say that. Looks like Natthrafn has not been keeping up with the unfolding of the LGBTQ community.

Whoa, wait, what.. okay, Raven is here. Phew.
Yes Gola's going to need something called a charger. And the fact that Gola still has the phone Jan gave her confirms that what Jan says is true. Seems like it's also distracting Raven from disintegrating the bird-woman into ether, as well.

My gosh, the Zombie is laughing. He is definitely showboating. "Behold my triumph!" Nattrafn Zombie says.

Okay, so there's a portal before them, but they aren't trapped in the same world as Natthrafn, correct? I sure hope not.

Looks like January's plan with the ritual interference paid off. A rather sudden end for the Hierophant, but a fitting one. He was, after all, nothing more than a minion with delusions of importance.

Quite an entrance for Nátthrafn. I was expecting that the Hierophant would be the main obstacle for this book, with Nátthrafn saved for later, but I like that he showed up. It immediately raises the stakes.

Also liked some of the references for Nátthrafn's venue: service in the Varangian Guard, Damascus steel, etc. Gives a better picture of the world he came from.

Now with the portal open (and the casino completely destroyed?), he'll be able to pluck all kinds of horrors from his dimension. January and Blood Raven will both have their hands full just dealing with the various monsters, and worse, he'll be pulling the strings.

Dangerous times ahead...

Acadian: I did want to show January's true colors by begging the Hierophant to stop. She could have easily just kept her mouth shut and let him off himself. Likewise, I wanted to make the Hierophant's nature clear as well. It is his own lust for power and amorality that kills him. He had every chance to stop, and live a long(er) life.

Unlike some of those other cultures who have been mentioned in the past, the Old Norse were not especially progressive. I added a link about the term Ergi that explains it in great detail. But basically they were ok with gay stuff so long as you were considered the "top". Men thought to be the "bottom" were thought of as being weak and womanly, because you were submitting to another man. They were basically reviled. The same is true for men who became magicians. Magic was a woman's thing. A man who became a mage was seen as soft and effeminate. That was why January made the dig at him about being thrown out of the Varangian Guard for being a wizard.

And of course, Nátthrafn was only nominally a Pagan Norseman. He was born at the end of the Viking Era, and converted to Christianity during his early lifetime. He spent nearly all of his life (nominally) as a Christian. He was even a Bishop in Iceland at one point.

Plus Nátthrafn is a bad guy. Of course he is going to be a bigot.

Nátthrafn is back, and he is bringing Oblivion with him.


Renee: Higherpants basically killed himself. As you said, he was told to stop numerous times. He knew Nátthrafn's history. But he still pushed ahead, and got what was coming to him.

Nátthrafn is Blood Raven's father. Go back to the latter half of Book 4 to get the full story of his life and crimes.

Remember when you pointed out that January had given Gola a phone but no charger? Well this is where that tiny oversight bears fruit. If January had not made that mistake, then Gola would have called her, and they would have gotten the Hierophant before all this happened.

The Zombie is absolutely showboating. He has waited nearly a thousand years for this moment. This is his time to shine.

There is now a portal to the Abyss where they had been. As will become very important from here on out. That will become a lot more clear in today's post.


WellTemperedClavier: Back when I was doing the initial plotting I briefly toyed with Nátthrafn not making a personal appearance. But then I realized that he is basically Chekhov's Dark Lord. He needs to come off the mantle and get fired when Act 3 comes around. So the other villains: The Summoner, the Hierophant, the various Abyssals, they were all just stepping stones for the heroes to deal with before meeting the actual Big Bad. As you said, now the stakes are as high as they can possibly be. It is the end of the world.

The casino has been completely destroyed. That will become more evident in the coming posts, as the gateway continues to grow, and more Abyssals issue from it. The Zerg Rush is about to begin.












January's Fight Theme - Two Steps From Hell - Never Back Down

Y Ddraig Aur is pronounced Uh-Thri-g-Aye-Ur

Cutting with a blunt sword

Goblins

Buggane

Otyugh

Zerg Rush

Átahsaia


Book 10.9 - Alliance

Nátthrafn had been engulfed by this pustulous bubble of the Abyss. Now he strode out from it, back under the tumultuous skies of Earth. January immediately lifted one hand to the clouds above, and ripped forth a bolt of lightning. It cracked down upon the Dark Lord with titanic force. But he merely raised his battle axe, and seemed to catch the storm of electricity upon its onyx blade. The orange-red cracks that ran through the metal glowed brighter than usual. Then he buried the axe head into the earth beneath his feet, and with that the lightning simply grounded away harmlessly.

Myrkr - that was the name of that axe - "Darkness" in Old Norse. January could feel it now, across the astral. She could sense that it has once been a part of the Earth. But like its master, it had long since been corrupted and subsumed by the Abyss. Now it was as much a creature of that place as he.

Now it was Blood Raven's turn to step up. She raised Y Ddraig Aur in her hands, and strode to meet her father. He struck first, feinting with the haft of his axe, before bringing its single, long edge around to strike at her throat from the opposite direction. But Blood Raven was ready for him, and lifted her own rune blade to meet it.

Abyssal steel met meteoric iron, and fierce sparks struck up where the two ground against one another. As always when she was in the presence of the sword, Y Ddraig Aur roared like a literal dragon across the astral. Now January could swear that the golden runes set into the black steel of the blade burned like fire. She had not seen that before. Or had she? She searched her memory, back to the battle at Ferndale Pride. Blood Raven had used the draconic sword to kill the djieien, only for it to return to life, as was its wont. Had the sword glowed with the same fury then?

It had. Blood Raven had said before that it was not forged to take mortal lives. She had even deliberately put it away in the past when not fighting Creatures of the Abyss. Clearly it had one purpose: the destruction of Abyssals.

Nátthrafn actually recoiled at this for a moment, like someone accidentally touching a hot stove.

"You brought a dragon here?" he hissed in consternation. "But the ancients are all dead and dust now!"

For long moments, he stared at the blade as the two stood with weapons locked. Then he seemed to recover his bravado.

"I see... not a dragon, but a dragon's blood!" he cried. "Oh how clever dear daughter, to bring the ghost of one of the old guardians to our duel. You must have gone through some trouble to obtain that."

"After our last meeting, I traveled back in time to find a one willing to grant me the boon of its wound-dew," Blood Raven replied evenly. "I hope you appreciate how blessed you shall be to receive Y Ddraig Aur's wrath."

But January could no longer pay attention to the private duel between father and daughter. She had her own foes to match. For a horde of creatures now issued from the edge of the Abyssal portal. They were short, perhaps only four feet tall, with hairless green and yellow skin and elongated skulls. They possessed no noses at all, instead a pair of thin slits lay between their narrow eyes and their wide, toothy mouths.

They carried an assortment of weapons such as clubs, axes, and a few swords. All were of the same black and orange Abyssal metal as Nátthrafn's axe. But unlike his, they were crudely rendered, as if by inexpert hands. Nor did they burn with the magical power that her forebear's axe did. These were simple, rough tools, nothing more.

They swarmed upon her and Gola. The raven mocker leaped skyward to escape their grasp, leaving January by herself on the ground. She knew that she could have followed. But then the Abyssals would have been free to rampage across the island. That she could not allow. So she met them straight on, with hands, feet, wings, and sword.

As she had learned when she had first fought Gola, her wings could do more than fly. Their leading and trailing edges were far from sharp. But when she struck with them it did not matter. With all that force applied to an area as small as her wing's edges, they sliced through whatever they hit, at least so far. January had seen the same done with swords with completely dulled blades. They could still hack through bundles of reeds as if they were butter, and she could hit a lot harder than the ordinary people wielding those blades.

Of course, she also did have an actual sword. Samhain fit in her hand like it was born there, or like she was born for it. She did not know a lot about sword fighting. But she did know a little thanks to sparring with Ryo. Now he was a master. In the very least she knew all the basic stances, and how to attack and defend and keep her balance. Her other martial arts training certainly helped there. For it had instilled with the basics needed for any form of physical combat.

The goblins struck at her with their rough weapons. January blocked with her wings, then replied with either the sword or her other natural weaponry. Here a fist caved in an Abyssal skull. There a foot shattered their ribs. In the meanwhile the raven sword literally hacked the goblins and their weapons to pieces. Heads, arms, legs, all soon littered the ground.

January did not hold back. These were not muggers, or thieves, or even white supremacists like the neo-Nazis at Motor City Pride. They were literal horrors from another reality, that threatened to annihilate not just her, but her universe. If the paradox of tolerance was ever in effect, it was certainly here. This was purely a matter of survival. Not simply her own, but of her entire world.

Then came a much larger creature. It towered over the goblins. It towered over January. Humanoid in shape, it was covered in coarse black hair. Its eyes were torches, and its maw was founded upon a pair of curling tusks. She recognized it as a buggane, an ogre-like creature from Manx folklore.

It struck down at January with a massive fist. But she had become Earth. She was stone, she was the mountain, she was adamant. The blow had no effect upon her whatsoever. She replied with a slice of her wings, and took off one of the monster's legs at the knee. It toppled to the ground, and she leaped upon its chest to deliver the final blow with Samhain.

But another buggane came up behind it. Before January could react, it grabbed hold of both of her arms, pinning them to her sides. It leaned forward to bite her face off. Then a loud bustle of wings rang out from above, and a pair of talons swept down to latch upon the buggane's head. January felt herself lifted skyward with the beast. Upward they flew with terrific speed, putting them hundreds of feet above the ground in moments.

She caught a glimpse of Gola up there, beyond the great bulk of the buggane. She held the monster's head in both of her taloned feet, dangling the giant like a child's toy. Then the raven mocker let go, and both the buggane and January went tumbling through space.

January now squirmed free of its grasp, even as it vainly grabbed for something to hold on to in order to arrest its fall. Her wings snapped out of their own accord, and held her aloft. The buggane was not so lucky. It plummeted to the concrete below, and crushed a pair of goblins underneath its twisted and broken form. January pulled in her wings and let herself fall after it. She led the way with Samhain, and its Damascus steel blade pierced the flopping creature's skull. Then finally it too, went still.

Bright light dazzled January's eyes, and a wave of heat washed over her. She turned to see that a long slash of laser light had incinerated its way through the goblin ranks. It had even blackened the concrete surface of the parking lot underfoot. She followed the line of destruction back to its source, and saw a bright flash of silver, white, and blue rocket across the sky from the south.

"Hooaaah!" the newcomer exulted. "Party in the D!"

"Lighthammer!" January smiled. He was her oldest enemy, and one of her first allies. "Your presence is most welcome here my friend!"

"Gondor called for aid!" he laughed. "Let me light some beacons of my own."

The light-powered superhero set to work alongside January and Gola. Where they cut and slashed with their natural and human-made weapons, he turned loose his energetic armaments. Bolts of hard light sent goblins flying like bowling pins, and even rocked the larger bugganes back off their feet. Lasers incinerated them in their tracks. The hard light force fields generated from his forearms blocked their attacks, and the light that sprouted from his lower body sent him soaring across the sky.

But more creatures issued from the Abyss. There were flaming skulls that flew through the air. Creatures of shadow crept across the land, while owl-human hybrids swept past them. Strangest of all was a creature with massive oval-shaped body propelled by numerous elephantine legs. Its head mainly consisted of a massive mouth filled with sharp teeth. But worse of all several tentacles rose from its frame and snapped about in the air. Each ended in a wide spiked pad, that reminded January of a squid's long feeding tentacles.

January faced down the latter, and dodged aside its gaping maw. But one of those long tentacles slithered around her waist, and pinned her wings to her side. Before she could react, it lifted her skyward, only to slam her down hard to the earth. Concrete shattered under the blow, and January felt her teeth rattle from the impact.

Brilliant light dazzled her eyes, and a wave of heat washed over her. Then the tentacle went slack, and fell from her body. She leaped up to find that it had been neatly severed from the Abyssal's body, leaving only a charred stump in its wake. The source of the cutting instrument was clear enough. Lighthammer whooshed past through the air a moment later, and another of his lasers sliced apart a pair of goblins.

January took advantage of the monster's pause, and leaped up into the air. She came down with one hand atop the creature's upper jaw. With her other arm she dropped her elbow squarely atop the Abyssal's head. She felt flesh and bone splinter beneath the blow, and the monster collapsed motionless to the earth, only to fade away moments later.

All of the Abyssals did that. Their bodies vanished upon death. It had been the same at Ferndale Pride and Jobbie Nooner. They were not part of this realm. The stuff of their bodies could not exist here without magic to sustain them. Without that, they literally ceased to exist here in any form.

"It's a Zerg Rush," January noted as the hordes of creatures spread out in all directions. With Blood Raven caught up fighting Nátthrafn, that left just the three of them to hold back the tide rushing from the portal. But the gateway was huge, hundreds of feet across, and Abyssals issued from all sides. They could not be everywhere at once, and there were just too many for them to hold back in even one place.

"Lightning balls!" Lighthammer came down to hover in the air beside January. "You call it, I'll light 'em up."

January nodded, and lowered her sword to her side. She raised her free hand and extended it outward. Lighthammer stepped in close beside her, and thrust his two hands out around her own. She ripped the sky asunder, and brought down a crackling bolt of lightning at the spot she indicated. At the same time he let loose a double-bolt of hard light. It was just as they had practiced at Green Island - his kinetic light struck the lightning, and sent it exploding out in all directions.

Again and again they did this. It felt like calling in artillery strikes in a video game. Packs of goblins and shadow creatures were incinerated in this manner. The massive outpouring of energy literally disintegrated dozens of Abyssals at a time. Those whose bodies were not instantly annihilated were often dismembered or charred to ash. They of course dissipated like all their kind who expired on Earth.

For a moment January was starting to feel optimistic. Then the largest Abyssal yet loomed from the rippling face of the portal. It was humanoid in shape, and taller than a three-story house. Its iron gray hair was long and matted, and its equally gray skin was so thick that horns appeared to grow from it. A huge axe of Abyssal metal swung from its paws, so large that its head was bigger than January was tall.

"What the hell is that thing?" Lighthammer wondered.

"I think it's an Átahsaia," January murmured. "It was in the Bestiary. It's a giant, cannibalistic monster from Zuni legend."

She trained her hand at the newcomer, and waited a moment for Lighthammer to catch up with his own fists. Then she cut loose with another bolt of lightning centered directly upon the giant. Her companion opened fire with his hard light, and an instant later a great nebula of energy engulfed the Átahsaia.

But the light dissipated, and the gray monster lumbered forth. Now its eyes were fixed upon January and Lighthammer, and it raised its axe to strike...

Lightning can't harm the Dark Lord, so the question is, what can? How are they going to defeat him? Or can they merely just keep him at bay?

I still think it's wild how inanimate objects like swords have their own lives in this tale.

Father and daughter are talking shop! They're just casually catching up as they also fight each other. Not exactly a chat over tea and crumpets, or a drive in the old convertible, as most father/daughter reunions are wont to be.

But uh oh, sounds like some DnD hordes have set upon the island. Where are all of January's friends like Ryo? How can she handle these Level 1 monsters on her own?

Nice, she's hacking them to pieces. "I'll hack you to pieces!!!"

Ha! It's Lighthammer. Soon as a lazer got mentioned I was wondering who it could be. The Hammer hasn't been around for a bunch of episodes. Glad he's here now. This does in fact seem like one of those videogames from the arcade days. Might and Magic, perhaps. A lot of stuff going on at once.

Oh [censored].

NastyNate simply ignored Stormcrow’s lightning bolt! Not so much Blood Raven’s dragon blade though.

Woot! Lighthammer joins Stormcrow and Gola with a potent lightshow.

My ESO experience with portals from the realms of Oblivion is screaming ‘Close the portal!’ I know, it’s hard to drain the swamp when you’re up to your wings in goblins. Becoming overwhelmed is a real concern here though, especially as the foes seem to getting bigger and badder. This Athsaia looks to be quite a handful. Oh, and even more help from the Raven coven would be helpful about now. . . .


Nit: "You're [Your?] presence is most welcome here my friend!"

What a battle!

While Blood Raven focuses on the boss, January has to take out the minions before they overwhelm the city. I'm impressed with her eye for the creatures, given how she can spot entities from Manx and Zuni legend, and in the heat of battle, no less. But that's important, since identifying a creature is how you figure out what tools to use against it.

Was the big creature with tentacles from a specific mythology?

Also, quite like the teamwork between Lighthammer and January. Good mix of tech and magic, to devastating effect. No surprise that the Abyssals had to bring out the big guns, since those goblins were gonna get fried.

Renee: Defeating the Dark Lord is going to be a tough conundrum to solve.

The Blood Raven / Natthrafn family reunion is worse than any Thanksgiving Dinner I have ever endured! At least no one ever died in those!

January's friends are central to this story, and to her success. They are on the way as we speak. Today and next week's posts are all about two of them in fact.


Acadian: Natty Dark is how I think of Natthrafn, since he definitely not Natty Light. He does not like Blood Raven's dragon sword one bit. That is going to become very important soon.

Closing the portal is indeed the key thing to do here. But as you noted, easier said than done when you are up to your eyeballs in goblins. The good guys need to get some more players on the field. This entire fight is essentially a meeting engagement, so both sides will be getting reinforcements throughout the length of it. It will swing from one side to another as new players enter the chat.

As ever, thank you for spotting that nit, so that I could fix it.


WellTemperedClavier: The battle is just beginning. January has spent a lot time reading the Bestiary that Blood Raven provided several books back. So she has some points in her Magical Theory skill.

The tentacle creature is literally from Dungeons and Dragons - an Otyugh. I had to look at a lot of sources for inspiration for the variety of critters in this book. There are just so many of them. I even got one type from a Transformers movie (those will show up much later)

I wanted to show that teamwork exercise that we have seen January and the others doing at various points paying off with various multiplayer moves, like the StormLight Kinetic Lightning Balls. The good guys succeed because they work together and make each other stronger.









Gadget's Theme - The Score - Unstoppable

The Gadget Armor inspiration

In Yoruba, Ogun is the Orisha of iron and technology

Ogun's voice - Djimon Honsou


Book 10.10 - Alliance

Avery picked up another empty 2 liter bottle of Diet FaeCo and stuffed it into the garbage bag he carried in his opposite hand. The good thing about hosting gaming night was the deposits from all the empties left behind. Ten cents was ten cents after all. The bad thing was cleaning them all up.

Still, it had been a good night. For the first time in a long time he had been able to forget about the Hierophant, and January's dead brother, and the impending end of the world. For a few hours, he had been able to just kick it with good friends. He didn't need a guru or Instantgram influencer to tell that that was a treasure no amount of money could ever buy.

Kell had been in rare form. Warm Diet FaeCo always brought out the best in his belch game. Usually Blackjack gave him a solid run for his money. But not tonight. Kell had - literally - blown everyone away by burping out the entire first sentence of the Gettysburg Address. It may not have been much. But was a superpower to still be proud of.

With the last of the empties safely put away he tied up the garbage bag the way Ryo had taught him to. Instead of using a twist-tie, he pulled up the open end of the bag and twisted the edges together into a long cord. Finally he tied that around itself in a knot. He had learned a long time ago that if he did not do it that way and Ryo saw it, he would take off the twist-tie and do it himself. It was just the way the other man rolled.

With that Avery walked back to the computer and logged in. Not to his normal account that was filled with school and video games and social media. He went to the work account. In no time at all he was plugged into Blood Raven and Cray's conversation. They were outside of their latest lead, apparently some house in Ann Arbor that belonged to an old professor of Julian's.

It was weird thinking that Julian was dead. Avery could not muster any actual feelings of sadness or loss. The guy had been a bag of dicks after all. The only thing that could have possibly exceeded his sense of privilege was that of his invented grievance. Needless to say, he had made his antipathy for the black, gay friend of his trans, lesbian sister eminently clear.

But he had still been a facet of life. Now he was just gone. Just like January hanging out in the basement practically every night was a thing of the past. It reminded Avery that the here and now - whatever that might be - was a fleeting thing. It might be gone tomorrow. There might not even be a tomorrow.

He brought up Blood Raven's suit cam, and the new mini-drones that Cray had bought from the Laughing Man. They were small, barely the size of a hockey puck, and could be controlled via satellite. Soon all of the team members would carry them. Cray could then deploy them in an instant and be able to literally watch their backs. It certainly saved the trouble of having to hack nearby phones and door cams to keep up on the action.

Avery had to admit feeling a shiver of ice run down his spine when Blood Raven entered the secret room, and the zombie monster stepped out of the shadows to confront her. What happened next was even more chilling. After smacking the wight down, she simply stood back and summoned an army of shadow ravens to tear it to shreds. All the while she sang the lines from some old Irish poem about death and corpses and affliction everlasting.

"You know, you really are scary sometimes," Cray murmured over the comlink.

Avery nodded his head, and filed that away with all the other ways that Blood Raven could kill you just by looking at you. She could rip the blood from your body. Or superheat it into a gas and make you explode, like a mouse in a microwave. Or just stop your heart. She could probably even create an aneurysm in someone's head. Just pop one tiny blood vessel, and end someone in an instant.

Of course none of that even touched on the claws, or swords, or magical energy bolts, or simple raw strength that the woman possessed. Thankfully she was one of the good guys.

The elder heroine was reading something now, a journal from the owner of the house.

"The rituals to summon the Abyssals are quite effective, if over complex. I am certain they can be simplified, in order to reduce the time and effort necessary to execute them. However, nowhere does Nátthrafn explain how to control these creatures. They simply run rampant. The first one nearly destroyed my basement after it was summoned. This has necessitated us moving the summonings to other locations..."

Well that was that, Avery thought, he was the Hierophant. Cray echoed his thoughts over the comlink. That meant that this was it. This was going to end, now, tonight.

He took in a long, expectant breath, and slowly exhaled. He turned his head to the pile of old junk in one corner of the basement. The one covered by a tarp and scattered with old car parts. There was nothing for it then. In perhaps just a matter of hours January was going to be fighting for her life. So too would Ryo. He could not just sit by anymore and watch from the sidelines.

It was time to suit up.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he leaped to his feet and strode across the basement. He did not try to be delicate. He simply grabbed the tarp and ripped it aside, sending alternators and water pumps tumbling with a clatter of rusted iron. Revealed beneath was a Vault-Tec steamer trunk. It was just an ordinary trunk of course. But Rus had repainted the exterior with the blue and gold colors and logo of the Fallout games' favorite soulless evil corporation.

Avery leaned down and set his thumb to the lock, then bent even further for the retinal scan. Only after both security measures had been passed would the lid of the trunk swing open. Revealed within was a suit of armor. It waited patiently for his touch. For a moment Avery held his breath. Then he plunged on.

He shimmied into the black hagfish under layer in no time at all. It made him think of a diver getting into a wetsuit. Next came the solid pieces around feet, legs, torso, and arms. Finally he locked the helmet into place around his head. The nanotwinned cubic boron nitride was heavy. At least until he kicked on the fusion reactor. The laser induced power source came to life with a loud click, and was followed by an audible hum. A soft blue glow filled the room, and an African-accented voice spoke from his helmet.

"Ogun online," his armored digital assistant declared in his deep, rich voice. Even as the computer ticked off the systems, Avery could see them pop up on his internal heads up display. Power, life-support, suit-integrity, etc... all were nominal. He took a step to shut down his PC. Then he stopped himself, and did it remotely.

Welcome to the new Gadget.

Then the general distress call rang loudly in his ear. He had been expecting to hear it. But it still made him want to jump from his skin. He had Ogun turn it off, and made his way up the stairs. They creaked ominously under his armored feet. But thankfully they did not give way under the added weight.

He stopped before the landing and peeked around the corner. His heart nearly stopped. Nana was in the kitchen, working on a crossword.

He jerked his armored head back. Thank god his grandmother had been intent upon the puzzle, otherwise she would have seen the superhero stealing up the basement steps.

Snap! What was he going to do? The world was about to end, and here he was trying to sneak out of the house to save it. He bet Blood Raven never had to do this sort of thing...

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. Panicking was not going to help. Even if it was what every fiber of his being wanted to do. He had to think this through. All he had to do was distract his grandmother long enough for him to slip past. But how? Was he going to toss a pebble into the living room?

Then he remembered the cordless phone they still had. A holdover from the 90s, the landline was the only phone that Nana would use. It was in the living room, next to her chair. That would clear her out!

He could not simply use a voice command to have Ogun do it, as the personal digital assistant was not tied into something as archaic as a cordless phone. So instead Avery did it the old fashioned way. He brought up a holographic keyboard and typed in the commands. A moment later the call went through to the landline, and he heard the phone ringing in both his headset and his normal hearing.

In moments he heard footsteps from the kitchen, and dared another peek around the corner. Sure enough, Nana was on her feet and shuffling to the living room in her housecoat. He wasted no time and tiptoed across the landing behind her. He felt like an idiot. Was he 17 again and he sneaking out to see guys? This sort of thing definitely never happened to Blood Raven.

"Hello?" his Nana's voice came over the line. The eternal ten-year old within Avery wanted to ask her if Mike Hunt was there, or if she had Prince Albert in a can. But he kept his tongue still, and simply waited to hear the second click.

"Who is it?" came the creaking voice of Auntie Ruth. She was not really an aunt of course. She had been his Nana's best friend since they were both in high school. That must have been some time back in the Stone Age. They were close enough to make them honorary family. In no time at all both women were wondering who had called who, and were chatting amicably away. Job well done.

With that Avery was out the door and in the back yard. Blood Raven was asking about Stormcrow, who had yet to check in, and apparently was not at the Witch House.

"She was at my place," Avery replied without thinking. "But she left hours ago, along with everyone else."

"Everyone has checked in except for Stormcrow," Cray's mellow tones rumbled in his ear.

"That's not like her." Avery's heart began to sink. Something was definitely wrong if January was not the first one to respond. His previous sense of triumph at outwitting his Nana completely evaporated when his eyes scanned his back yard.

"Spleck! Her bike's still here in the yard. But there's no sign of her!"

Not only was her Victory still parked in front of the detached garage, but her helmet lay errantly on its side several feet away, as was her gaming backpack. She would have never just thrown them aside as casually as that. Something was really, really wrong.

He ran across the yard, and lifted her full-face helmet in one hand. But the pink headgear had no secrets to yield up. He frantically looked about, but saw no sign of her, or where she might have gone. Just to be sure, he opened the door and looked in the detached garage. But it was empty, as it usually was. He put both her pack and helmet within, then locked it shut once more behind him.

"The summoning..." Blood Raven croaked over the comlink. The dread and horror so clearly etched upon her words made Avery's guts twist in his stomach. He knew what that meant. Another Abyssal was being called. And where was January?

"All team members, converge on Belle Isle!" he heard Cray call out next. "Get there now, Stormcrow's in the middle of it!"

That was it. He kicked in the plasma drive and rose from the earth in a veil of soft blue light. Ionized air hummed around him as he turned south and skimmed over the rooftops of his neighborhood. A block to his right, suburbia was cut by the four lanes of Dequindre Road. Dead ahead across the sea of rooftops and trees lay Eight Mile, and beyond that, Detroit and Belle Isle.

He had known January since he had been old enough to remember. He literally could not imagine a world without her in it. Through all his ups and downs, she had been there. When his father had been sent to prison, she had been at his side, with no judgments. When he had come out to the other Knights, when she had come out, when she had tried to commit suicide...

Just like that he was twelve years old again. His best friend had slit her wrists. He was sitting in the hospital with his mother and Nana. They were all waiting, waiting nervously with January's own family members. The relief he had felt when the doctor came out to tell them she was going to be ok was palpable.

But then seeing her again later had destroyed that feeling of elation. Her tiny body had been tied down to a bed with leather straps. They told him that it was so she could not try to hurt herself again. Her wrists were wrapped in gauze, hiding the scars he would later grow so accustomed to seeing. She had been so fragile, so helpless, and there had been nothing he could do to help her. Not a damn thing.

Well not again. Never again.

Then he remembered Ôkami. Like all the Knights of Nerddom, he lived nearby. Most were just a few blocks away from his house, like Rus and Blackjack. Their homes were clustered near the corner of 9 Mile and Dequindre, as his own home was, and January's old place two houses down. But Ryo was the outlier. He was clear across Shaw Park from the rest of them, nearly half a mile away to the east. That was why they had not met Ryo until the Third Grade. The rest of them had all teamed up before preschool while playing in the neighborhood.

Ryo was going to need a quicker way to get Downtown than even his hoverbike could manage. Thankfully he could rectify that.

Gadget swerved his head to the left, and before he knew it, his whole body followed. The next thing he knew he was rocketing through a tree, and his vision was filled with greenery. Branches snapped around him, and he pulled up higher to avoid further entanglements. That nearly sent him into a loop as he overcompensated. He had to push back again in the other direction to straighten himself out.

Nice to see Gadget’s pov for this episode. Loved how you moved from mundane (gathering empty bottles) to 'Oh Wow!' when he revealed an Ironman suit in his chest that Tony Stark would be proud of. And if ever there was a time to try it out, this is it!

Sneaking out of his house was a hoot as he envied Blood Raven for being so far above and beyond such unsuperhero-like concerns.

Then things start to come together that Jan is missing and she’s in trouble. Brilliant to let him provide us a flashback to Jan’s suicide attempt to remind us how much the two pals (as Sir Mazoga would say) have been through together.

Up, up and away he goes! As he was buzzing along, I began to wonder where he learned to fly so well. You addressed that perfectly as he rocketed through a tree and engaged in a few unintentional acrobatics. I’m sure he’ll learn quickly.


Nit: ’They creaked ominously under this {his?} armored feet.’

Gadget has his own theme! Let's take a listen. Ha, perfect. I don't know this artist. Sounds a bit like Tracy Chapman.

I have heard Djimon Honsou in some movie or somewhere. I know that voice. Very distinctive. Must be nice to just have "that" voice which allows somebody to make more money from one job than I'll make in a year.

This chapter starts with Avery/Gadget. Interesting. Don't know if we'd had any chapters from his perspective. And yes, y'all get 10 cents back for empties in Michigan. 🍼 There was a Seinfeld episode about that.

Nice, this is awesome. I finally got my gaming night episode! (sort of) Seriously though, this is humorous.

Wow, what a journal entry from Higherpants. He apparently had some troubles with the summoning before he finally got it right. Of course when that happened ...

Whoa, so he's got a special suit as well. Yeah, poor grannie might suffer a stroke if she witnesses some alien-looking armor-clad being in her kitchen, not realizing it's her own grandson. And if Avery tried to communicate with her, that'd only make it worse!

Mike Hunt! Okay, phew. Seems as though Avery does not have a fear of heights. He just floats above suburbia like he's one of the heroes. Except the part of flying into a tree, of course. Hey, every superhero's gotta start somewhere.

Damn, they tied Jan down after she just tried committing suicide??? How about a frickin' hug??? Shezus.

Oh, I remember the otyugh! I don't think I ever fought one on tabletop, but I ran into them in the digital arena. Unpleasant creatures, regardless (glad I didn't have to smell it).

I always like getting Avery's perspective. Do tech heroes still count as metas in this setting? Regardless, he's got a distinct view on things. Blood Raven's been a hero and a force of nature since time immemorial, practically a demigod. January has fully embraced her Stormcrow role.

Avery is still a bit more... I don't want to say "normal", but let's say grounded in the here and now. His gaming group, his Nana, his personal life are all still important to him, which I think is why he hasn't jumped into the superhero persona to the same extent as January. You can see this too in the way he cares about the people around him. The flashback to January's suicide attempt hurts, and each details brings in a sharp new stab of pain, but it hurts because we care and because Gadget cares.

But him valuing his regular life doesn't mean he isn't a superhero. And he proves that by heeding the call of duty the moment he gets it. He might not have internalized the Gadget persona the way January's internalized Stormcrow, but he's definitely Gadget.

I like the way he conceals the episode from Nana (his care for her is quite endearing). He's a good thinker on the fly.

Which is a trait I think he'll need, given that hell is (literally) breaking loose.

Acadian: This is the big battle that wraps up the season, so it is truly gigantic. In order to show it all, I broke it up into pieces, each of which we shall see from a different character's POV. So there will be a lot of segments like these two with Gadget.

Gadget sneaking out of the house was a nice callback to the very first book, when January had to explain to her mom that everything was ok and ordinary, even as she was going out to do super stuff. In that one she also imagined that Blood Raven probably didn't have to sneak out to save the world.

As you noted, Gadget is not quite as good at flying as he would like. He might indeed need to get some lessons from Lighthammer in the future.

As always thanks for finding that nit.


Renee: Djimon Honsou has been in a ton of movies. I first was aware of him back in the 90s, when he was in Amistad. He was in Blood Diamond, and even in the Marvel movies as a space guy.

Ten cents is ten cents. People actually smuggle in empties to Michigan to return them. Imagine Han Solo having to dump a cargo of 2 liter bottles because of an Imperial customs inspection?

I don't see myself doing an actual gaming episode, because I am afraid it would be boring. But you never know. In Season Two, January finds an actual girlfriend, and she might come to gaming night. I might be able to do something with that. I dunno.

Oh boy, Nana might think he was an alien if she saw him in the powered armor!

Strapping down people suicidal people is standard. It is to keep them from killing themselves. Especially if you cannot watch them every minute.


WellTemperedClavier: Tech heroes absolutely count as metas. The only reason their inventions work is because their meta-human power makes them do so. It is not science. Otherwise everyone in the world would have a suit of powered armor.

Blood Raven is very much a demigod, though certainly not all powerful nor infallible. And you are right, by now January has gotten quite comfortable in her role of Stormcrow, which likewise meanders into demigod territory (though no where on the scale of her mentor). Gadget, Lighthammer, and Isaac are fun to write, because they are a lot more down to earth. Their lives are lot less weirder, and lot more about ordinary experiences.

I have kept a light touch when it comes to January's suicide attempt. Sometimes I think I should have started the very first story with it. But while it was certainly a defining moment in her life, it is not what defines her. I also don't want to be triggering for people who are going through hard times in their lives when they read this. So I don't want it to feel like I am dwelling upon it, or turning it into suffering porn. It is hard line to walk, between acknowledging it, and not overdoing it.

Ever since the very first book, I have been looking forward to Gadget climbing into his suit of powered armor and taking to the sky. I have to say, it is exhilarating to finally get here. One of the reasons I introduced Cray as another hacker character was because I knew this day was coming, and Gadget was going to be too busy fighting to do the other tech support things.

I honestly had to wrack my brain to figure out how he was going to sneak past his Nana. Thankfully something came to my mind.








Get Your Cape On


Both Gadget and Ryo's houses are of course on the Stormcrow Map

Ryo's house

Belle Island Zoomed Out

Belle Isle

Belle Isle South-Western Tip


Pure Michigan


Book 10.11 - Alliance

By the time he had reoriented himself Cray came over on a private channel that they had set up to coordinate without distracting the others.

"Gadget, can you get in some cams on the riverfront? I'm trying the Belle Isle cameras, and not getting anything so far. I think they all might be down."

"I'm a bit tied up right now," Gadget replied, feeling more than a little overwhelmed with all the different things demanding his attention at once.

This must have been how January had felt that first night as Stormcrow, when she had squared off against Lighthammer in that Southfield hotel. Except she hadn't been obliged to pick leaves out of her helmet afterward...

"What's with your video," there was no mistaking the curiosity in the elder hacker's voice. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the suit." Even with the apprehension that knifed through his guts, he could not keep the pride from his voice. "My suit. Cam's coming online... now."

With that he tied the older hacker into his suit cameras, allowing Cray to see both ahead and behind him, as well as his face. "I'm on the way to pick up Ôkami. We can get Downtown faster if I fly us there."

"Holy smokes Indy, you weren't kidding!" Cray did not hide his amazement. Then his voice returned to its normal, mellow tones. "I'm looping you in with Ôkami now."

"Gratis," Gadget replied. That allowed him to concentrate on flying, something that he was still getting used to. The field of charged particles that he created around his body had no issues with defying gravity. But sometimes it seemed to do it too easily, and the smallest motion could send him careening far off his intended course.

Thank goodness Cray was there to handle the communications behind the scenes. Because right now there was no way he could set up a link without flying straight into an elementary school at the same time. That allowed him to swoop over said school without incident instead, and turn back to the north.

Shaw Park now stretched out to his left, while a subdivision sprawled out to his right. Most of the park was just open grass. But a copse of trees did rise up in its center. Nearer to him was a pair of tennis courts, and a small parking lot. He reduced power in order to slow down there, and made a hard right turn into the subdivision.

Once more, he went too far. A pair of trees seemed to leap from the street right in front of his new course. He ducked low, and plummeted earthward to avoid their spreading branches. But that created a new problem: the electric power lines that hung right beneath them.

He skimmed along the black cables, and was sure he could feel the electricity that flowed through them. Ogun noted in his ear that his power reserves were rising, even as he saw lights flickering down the street in front of him. Being partners with Stormcrow had taught him the wisdom of creating a suit that was a giant capacitor. But obviously it was not just her lightning it could absorb.

He swerved aside again as the tall wooden pole that the power lines were attached to rose up in his view. But then there was the light that jutted from the pole and out over the street. If it was not one thing, it was another! He swerved again, and found the pavement rising up in front of him. He was just able to stop in time before he went head-first into the concrete. That is when he noticed the headlights of an oncoming car. He jetted directly upwards, in time to avoid the Chrysler that darted past under him, horn blaring.

Flying was not as easy and Blood Raven and Stormcrow made it look. Maybe he was going to have to get some lessons from Lighthammer after all?

He took it slower this time, and turned in place in the air. His latest overcorrection had sent him a block in the wrong direction. Once he was reoriented, he hovered forward at a steady pace, rather than just barreling head first as he had before. Houses rolled past beneath him, and he was finally on the right street. He counted over from the avenue that ran beside Shaw Park. One, two, three, that was Ryo's house. He had never noticed before, but his roof was gray, while the others around it were red.

January had said that the world looked a lot different from the air than it did from the ground. She was right. This was going to take some getting used to.

He paused a moment to engage his video camouflage. He did not want this on a dozen porch cameras. It was bad enough that he was glowing. It was the nature of plasma to do so after all, and that was where most of his suit's abilities came from. He was going to have to see if he could do something about that. Otherwise people might be calling him Mr. Nightlight.

He brought himself over the back yard of the house. This was going to take some delicacy. There were not only trees in front of the house, but also two massive ones behind it. He had never really appreciated how tall they were, until now that he had fly through them to reach the ground. Branches cracked and snapped as he descended feet-first to the earth. He winced each time and was thankful when he finally touched earth.

"Ôkami, I'm in the back yard," he said over the comm. "I can give you a lift downtown."

A shadow stepped out of the wall of the detached garage, nearly giving Gadget a heart attack. In seconds it resolved itself into the familiar form of a high-tech samurai, decked out in white, black, and gray. The newcomer's helmet left only the strip of flesh around his eyes bare, and for the briefest of moments they betrayed a look of shock. But only for an instant, and then his gaze returned to its usual, detached state.

"So you did build a suit after all," was all Ôkami said in the end. That was his style: low key and nonchalant.

"Come on, let's roll out," Gadget said. "The clock is ticking."

Without another word, Ôkami climbed onto Gadget's armored back. His weight felt, well, practically negligible. What was a few hundred pounds to a fusion-powered suit of armor? Gadget took a moment to center himself, then he turned his head skyward, and they jetted toward the stars above.

"Yatta!" Ryo exclaimed as they left the earth below. Gadget echoed the sentiment, and laid in a course for Belle Isle. A quest marker appeared in his HUD, and he turned to line himself up with it. This time he did not overcorrect. He pulled up a little higher, enough to insure that no more trees or power lines or even tall buildings would be an issue. Not that there were many of the latter around. Those were mostly in the Financial District Downtown, in the area January had taken to calling Jotunheim: the land of the giants.

He turned on the plasma, and the ground underneath sped past. The streets below were rivers of light that flowed through an otherwise darkened landscape. In just seconds they winged over 8 Mile and crossed over into Detroit proper. The divided boulevard was just a few blocks from their homes after all.

After only a few more moments Gadget recognized the trap house where Stormcrow had wrestled that tiger just a few days before. To his other side was Global Titanium, the site of her second battle against Archie and Isaac's junkbots. He had never grasped just how close to home those places had been. But now that he saw them from the sky, he realized that they were each only about two miles away from his house.

Then City Airport was coming up dead ahead, and he turned aside to give the runway a wide berth. He did so gently this time, so he did not over steer and end up at Mackinac Bridge. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a plane taking off from the runway, and he was glad he had done so. Ramming an airliner head on would not be a good way to start his career as an armored superhero.

That also reminded him to turn off the video camouflage. There was no longer any need to protect secret identities up here. In fact, it was better that other fliers could see him clearly on their electronics, as well as their Mark I eyeballs.

His quest marker soon became superfluous, and Gadget shut it off. The night sky ahead was lit up with great flashes of lightning. At the same time the stars that glittered in the sky above were blotted from one patch of the firmament. It was that same place that rained electrical fury. That became his target as the old Packard Plant passed by his right shoulder.

With only a few miles left, it only took moments to close the distance. The neighborhoods thinned out, to be replaced by a row of tall apartment buildings to his left. Dead ahead and to the right were the open fields of a park. Then he was over the Detroit River, and traced a path along the single bridge that linked the western shore to Belle Isle beyond.

The island sat at the north-eastern end of the strait that separated the United States from Canada. It was a slender finger of land nearly three miles long from end to end, running from the south-west to the north-east. Starting from a narrow angle at its south-western tip, it widened out to perhaps half a mile for most of its length. Much of this area of the island was open fields dotted with occasional trees.

Concrete roads crisscrossed its length and breadth, leading to various pavilions, towers, shelters, and boat houses. Finally the island widened out to nearly three quarters of a mile across as it neared Lake St. Clair at its north-eastern end, and in that stretch it was almost entirely taken over by forest.

The Detroit-facing coast of the island hosted both a beach and the quays of the Detroit Yacht Club. Gadget knew from memory that the opposite shore that looked out toward Canada held a small Coast Guard station. Finally an old lighthouse rose from the island's north-east tip.

Just a short distance to the east stood was Peche Island. It was a much smaller isle, and from the air its outline reminded Gadget of a claw. Given the lack of lights on its surface, it appeared to be completely deserted. Beyond it the river widened out into the expanse of Lake St. Clair. The latter was now a featureless obsidian sheet that blanketed the Earth.

Gadget followed the five-lane bridge over to the island proper. The brilliantly lit action was all taking place straight ahead and slightly to his right. A narrow creek looped its way inland from the Detroit side of the island, ending up in a large pond near the far shore. On the south side of this lay a vast parking lot. Farther south rose up a huge white marble fountain surrounded by a traffic circle. A large pond and the very southern tip of the island lay beyond. While dead ahead lay the old Belle Isle Casino. Which Gadget remembered from his last trip was built in the old Spanish Colonial style. Not that it was actually a casino. It was really just an event space.

But the casino was not there anymore. It was just gone. Still, it was perhaps hosting the largest event in its century-long existence. A gigantic bubble of energy had swallowed the historic building in its entirety. All that remained of it was a brickwork sign that bordered its parking lot.

The bubble itself just screamed inter-dimensional portal to Gadget's science fiction-trained eyes. Not in the least because he could vaguely glimpse a darkened hellscape of tortured rock and alien skies through its bubbling surface. Of course the hordes of alien creatures that poured forth from its borders also sort of gave the whole thing away.

Most noticeable of the monsters was a giant that stood at least fifty feet tall. Its iron gray hair was long and matted down, and its skin was so knobby and wrinkled that it looked like horns or barnacles grew from it. It swung a huge axe of black metal that glowed with orange veins, and hacked open a deep trench in the concrete of the parking lot. Gadget saw a small figure with black wings there, who seemed to flow aside from the titanic blow like she was water.

"Stormcrow! She's alive!" Ôkami cried out. It was the first time had spoken since his initial exuberant shout at going airborne back in Warren.

The gray giant brought his axe back for another blow at Stormcrow. But she was now occupied with what looked like a pair of trolls that were coming at her from both sides at once. She would never see the blow coming.

"Not today shovelhead!" Gadget growled through gritted teeth. He thrust both hands forward, and routed all of his power through the plasma projectors in his palms. His gauntlets blossomed to life with brilliant light, as a pair of tiny suns sprang into being there. Twin rays of blinding blue light and heat gushed forth, and slammed into the falling axe. The streams of charged particles literally threw the massive metal head back into the body of the giant. Great chunks of the stuff disintegrated under the blow. Even more gobs of the superheated metal were liquefied, and splattered away like a rain of lava.

Gadget came to a halt directly above Stormcrow. Maintaining the overcharged plasma blast did not leave him enough spare energy to do anything other than hover in place. Even his HUD began to dim, and he saw warnings begin to spike that his heat levels were reaching the red lines.

"Ei!" Ôkami shouted.

Gadget felt the other man's feet scramble across his shoulders. Then the samurai was airborne, and he leaped out into space directly at the giant. The monster had enough awareness to attempt to swat him aside with one hand. But Ôkami faded right through the creature's fist and forearm. He was solid again an instant later, when he struck the Abyssal's head feet first.

No, not feet-first, sword first. Chujitsu buried itself to the hilt in the giant's forehead. The Abyssal went still for a moment. Then the kinetic energy of the plasma beams threw him back, and Gadget hurried to cut the power to them. Even after the energy attack winked out, the creature continued to topple. Ôkami withdrew his sword from the monster's skull, and rode the body down to the ground as it crushed a dozen lesser Abyssals underneath its bulk. The samurai leaped out and used the momentum to propel himself through a pack of the creatures, leaving severed heads and arms in his wake.

"That's Pure Michigan baby!" Gadget heard himself trumpet over the suit's PA system.

Is Gadge still stuck in that tree?? Sounds like it. It's so weird how Lighthammer started off as an opponent.

Oh my gosh. He's terrible at this! Maybe he should've practiced flying around first. Yeah, the camoflauge thing is good. Not just for porch cams, but just imagine all the cellphones getting aimed his way if somebody sees him. Plenty of memes aimed Gadget's way.

There goes 8 Mile. We don't have this Mile thing on the east coast. Makes me think of Eminem, every time.

Sheez that is creepy, as he approaches the place that battle's going on. Just like when the hobbits headed near to Mordor. Yeah, this is creeping me out (compliment). How are they going to survive?



Maybe this can be his superhero catchphrase.

‘Get Your Cape On’ was adorable!

Good call establishing Cray as a reliable ‘command center’ in plenty of time to support your plans for Gadget to take a more ‘direct action’ role.

"I'm a bit tied up right now," Gadget replied, feeling more than a little overwhelmed with all the different things demanding his attention at once.’
- - Well put as Gadget and his new suit get to know each other under the pressure of an actual crisis. He is learning quickly though.

Love the quest marker in his HUD – gamer turns superhero.

What an entrance Plasmaman and his samurai passenger make!


Nit: ’Even with the apprehension that knifed through is {his} guts, he could not keep the pride from his voice.’

Makes sense about tech heroes. Plus, it explains why their tech is a little extra.

It is tricky to deal with traumatic episodes like that. You need to take it with due seriousness without having it become overwhelming. You handled the balance well, I think.

Damn, now that was a nice critical hit from Okami and Gadget! Takes out a big one, and the big one takes out a bunch of little ones on the way down.

Liked how Gadget has to get used to flying. I remember reading that during WW1, militaries weren't really sure how to train pilots for combat, since typically you only had to worry about enemies to your front, back, and sides. No one had ever needed to think that much about foes above or below. Granted, Gadget mostly seems to be doing air-to-surface attacks for the moment, but I'm quite sure he'll be dealing with air-to-air pretty soon.

Renee: Gadget is kind of bad at this powered armor thing. At least so far. But he is learning. January was not very good at the beginning either. Her first act as a superhero was to send her and her opponent through a plate glass window in a high rise. Her next move was to fall through a skylight while trying to fly.

I think Eminem made 8 Mile famous. It really isn't that big of a deal here in Metro Detroit. It is just another street. Though it does happen to be the northern border of Detroit proper, and the 'burbs beyond.

"Pure Michigan" would be an interesting catch phrase. I had not thought of one for Gadget, like January has "Valhalla Awaits", and Blood Raven has "The Ravens Come For Thee,". I will have to workshop it.


Acadian: I loved the DC Super Hero Girls movies. As you said, they are delightfully adorable.

One of the things I really latch on to when writing Gadget's personality is his video gamer side. Much more than January, he is a PC gamer. So quest makers, cheat codes, mods, that is all part of life for him.

As always thanks for being my editor and finding that nit for me.


WellTemperedClavier: Gadget has a long way to go with mastering flight. January did too. She spent a lot of books just going from jumping and gliding with grace to actual flight. Plus she had an actual pilot teaching her. Professor Lighthammer's flight school will probably be back in session once this is all over with.

And yes, Gadget will get getting a lot of experience at air-to-air combat very soon.








Blood Raven's Fight Theme - Imagine Dragons - Demons

Belle Isle showing Blood Raven's battleground vs Nátthrafn

Nancy Brown Peace Carillon Tower (The Belle Isle Casino is the red-roofed building in the background)

Nancy Brown Peace Carillon Roof

Nancy Brown Peace Carillon Ground level

Annihilator

Belle Isle Conservancy


Book 10.12 - Alliance

Blood Raven created an arcane shield just in time to deflect a decapitating blow from her father's axe. Myrkr impotently slid off the force field. She had long since learned to angle them, so that rather than absorb the full force a blow, they caused them to ricochet away.

She followed up by reaching for Nátthrafn's blood, or whatever it was that now flowed through his orange-red veins. But while she could smell it within his flesh, she found her magical assault skittering away from his aura. He had been telling the truth. He was learning. Blood magic would not avail itself against him another time.

Holding his battle axe with one hand, he gestured to Blood Raven with the other. Darkness flowed from his open palm, and rushed to engulf her. She replied by creating a new force field. This time rather than a ubiquitous arcane shield that would defend against all threats, physical, energy, or magical; she created one of pure light. Her father's darkness was annihilated upon contact with the screen of opposing energy.

He immediately followed with a bolt of arcane power from his other hand, which still gripped the axe. She was obliged to drop her light shield, as it would only defend her against the darkness that was its polar opposite. Now she called forth a new ward against magic, and the aion of the attack dissipated harmlessly against its orange surface.

She replied by calling her Unkindness. The ravens took shape from the darkness around them, and arrowed into her father's body. He did not try to dodge or deflect their assault. Instead he simply stood there, and laughed. The creatures of shadow vanished into his frame, and did not emerge again.

"You think to use the darkness against me, dear daughter?" Nátthrafn laughed. "I am the Darkness!"

Now the same shadow ravens launched from his body, and arrowed directly at her. She brought Y Ddraig Aur around, and sliced them in two as they neared. Bright light flashed from the blade with every strike, and soon surrounded her in a brilliant glow.

That light remained after the last of the ravens had been destroyed. Her father flinched from it. He created a wall of darkness in front of him, hiding him from both her view, and the light's rays. But she could feel him through the aether behind it, moving away. That was not going to happen. He would not escape.

She leaped directly into the wall of darkness, and hammered at it with Y Ddraig Aur. For a moment the blackness seemed to stretch and mold around her like rubber. Then the blade flared hot and bright. The darkness recoiled. But it could not escape the golden dragon's light. It burned away like parchment in a bonfire.

Blood Raven strode forth to find her father standing on the flat roof of the nearby Flynn Pavilion. Unlike most of the other pavilions on the island it was more than just a simple shelter from the sun. This was a building of mortared stone, with glass windows that ran from floor to ceiling, and afforded a view of the pond that skirted its eastern length.

She came down upon the black tar of the roof an instant later, and struck out with Y Ddraig Aur. The rune blade flashed as it hammered against Myrkr's Abyssal steel blade. Nátthrafn side stepped behind an air-conditioning unit. His foot swept out, and kicked the entire thing loose. The iron missile shot directly at Blood Raven. Rather than dodge the attack, she brought her longsword down and hacked into the massive projectile. It shattered under the draconic blade, raining jagged metal fragments everywhere.

Nátthrafn leaped away once more. Blood Raven sent a tendril of golden power after him. The spell wrapped around his leg. But the elder wizard simply brought his axe down, and cut the magical cord asunder. It did not even slow his progress, and he came to earth atop the spire of a stone tower even farther to the north.

Blood Raven recognized it as the Nancy Brown Peace Carillon tower. The four-sided Neo-Gothic bell tower rose nearly ninety feet into the air. The narrow moat and wrought iron fence that surrounded its base lent it the air of a medieval castle. She remembered when it had been built, as a monument to peace. A peace that had not lasted to see it constructed, given that the Second World War had broken out before the first cornerstone had been laid.

She grabbed spacetime in her metaphorical hands, and warped it to her will. A moment later she stood atop the sandstone tower beside her father. She struck out with Y Ddraig Aur, but he slipped aside at the last moment. Sandstone shattered under her rune blade, and a full quarter of the roof shattered under the blow.

He replied by lowering a shoulder and hammering into her chest. She was sent careening backward, and took out another half of the tower's parapet as she flew through the structure and out into space. She hung there in mid air as building stones plummeted to the moat below.

She responded with an arcane bolt. But her father brought Myrkr around, and used its Abyssal haft to deflect the magical attack. The golden energy reflected down at his feet, and the rooftop beneath him disintegrated. He plummeted along with it, and Blood Raven darted forward as he vanished from sight.

She followed him down into the tower. Building stone and smashed electronics gear rained down all around them. He somersaulted in mid air, and put his feet beneath him. Then the shadows thrust out from all around him and took hold of his body. The darkness held him aloft, even as debris rained past.

He gathered up a ball of aion and hurled it back up at Blood Raven. It erupted into a great explosion of fire when it struck her. The blast hammered the walls, and blew them out in all directions. But neither fire nor force could slow Blood Raven. She charged through them both to land upon Nátthrafn.

She brought Y Ddraig Aur directly down toward his skull. He was only just able to slip aside, and the blade slid down beside his body. He was too close to strike back with his axe. So he butted his forehead directly into Blood Raven's face. She tasted blood in her mouth. That was all the push she needed.

Selene's Curse had been there all along, roiling beneath her skin like a seething chamber of magma. Now it finally burst loose. Claws sprouted from her fingers, and fangs from her jaws. She tore through Abyssal armor and rent flesh beneath. Orange-red liquid glowed in the night air, and splashed about them. It was not blood. What it carried was not life. In fact it tasted foul, corrupted. Even incensed as she was, Blood Raven spat it from her mouth.

As quickly as it had come, that quelled the beast within. Even though he walked the Earth once more, there was nothing alive about her father. Even his flesh was not true meat at all. Rather it was a strange, black gravelly substance, like dirt or stone. Yet here and there she saw white flecks of bone among it all. That must have been all that remained of the Hierophant's corpse, now subsumed into Nátthrafn's being.

Some calm, analytical part of brain noted that. It meant that attempting to banish him would be pointless. Thanks to the ritual sacrifice of the Hierophant's blood and bone, he was now a part of this realm, at least enough to be immune to magical dismissal. He would have to be dealt with the old-fashioned way.

A kick slammed her through one wall, and brought more of the tower down between them in a waterfall of stone and mortar. She heard laughter from beyond, and a moment later her father emerged, standing atop a wave of darkness. His body stitched itself back together before her eyes, and in moments he was as whole as ever.

"I should thank you, dear daughter," he said in that rich baritone voice she had so grown to loathe. "You have freed me from the last vestiges of flesh and blood. Now I am truly one with the Abyss. Allow me to bequeath upon you a gift."

He swept his arm out in a wide motion. Behind him Blood Raven saw a horde of goblins and buggane issue from the gateway. They swept across the landscape like roaches. Then the earth directly beneath them swelled up, and a behemoth burst forth. It was a long, insect-like creature. Its back was covered in row after row of sail-shaped plates. Its mouth was ringed with rank after rank of triangular teeth, each row turning in opposite directions.

As she watched, this new destroyer rose up through the foundation of the tower. Stone disintegrated within that spinning maw, along with everything else in its path. What remained of the bell tower collapsed into a pile of broken stones. Even as a cloud of dust boiled up in its wake, the massive Abyssal burst forth once more, intent upon Blood Raven.

She did not dodge or shy away. Instead she darted forward, directly into its maw. A golden bubble of force surrounded her frame. The monster's spinning rows of teeth clashed against it. But her will was stronger than Abyssal brawn. Its fangs snapped against her power, and it reared back in sudden shock. It tried to spit her out. But it was already too late for the beast.

Y Ddraig Aur lanced forward and up. Blood Raven pushed herself behind it. The roof of the monster's mouth split apart under the rune sword's meteoric steel. A dragon howled in the aether, tasting the blood of its mortal enemies. It hungered, and devoured. The annihilator's head was torn asunder from the inside out, and Blood Raven burst from the ruined skull.

She found herself looking north, toward the tall glass walls and curved domes of the Belle Isle Conservancy. The horde of Abyssals had passed her by, and now bore down upon it. Within lay a priceless treasures of rare and exotic plant species kept safe within its temperature-controlled greenhouses. Her father and his minions had already destroyed two landmarks today. She was not going to allow them to add a third to the list.

Before she could spring out ahead of the pack of rampaging beasts, a glowing curtain of energy shimmered into being between the Abyssals and the sprawling conservatory. Standing atop the force field was a familiar figure wearing banded metal armor, with a medicine wheel emblazoned upon her breast. It was Blackhawk! Goblins and buggane slammed against her ward, but to no effect. Their weapons broke upon its surface, and their claws and fists merely bounced harmlessly aside.

Then Blood Raven caught up with them. These creatures did possess blood, however foul. She reached out in the aether, and took hold of it. Great gouts of the stuff ripped from splintered bodies. She hardened it into steel, and gathered the shards of blood into several large spiky masses that floated in mid air above the horde. Then with a single gesture of her hand they all exploded like a series of artillery shells. They rained jagged fragments down all across the field before the conservancy, and tore apart the bodies of those Abyssals that remained.

Yet a few survived the onslaught of hardened blood. She allowed it all to turn liquid once more. Then she once again set her will upon it. In just seconds all of it now boiled with heat, and transformed into steam. Those Abyssals that had been left now exploded into a haze of charred fragments, burst inside out by the superheated gas.

"When you get to Hell, tell the Das Reich division who sent you," Blood Raven growled.

"Wait, you're the Ange de la Mort?" Blackhawk allowed her energy field to vanish. Now the First Nations heroine rode the Earth's magnetic field down to her. There was no disguising the horror in her eyes. "You destroyed the 2nd SS Panzer in France?"

"The francs-tireurs played their part as well," Blood Raven murmured. She was surprised. She had not expected the other woman to know what she had been talking about. Clearly, the First Nations heroine knew a thing or two about history.

Blood Raven turned from the meta-human and looked back south. While she had been busy with her father, more and more of the Abyssals had spilled from the portal. If anything it too, had widened since its initial creation. It had now engulfed the small parking lot and field that had sat before the Belle Isle Casino, along with the pond behind it.

Damn! She had been a fool. While her father had distracted her, the foe had expanded their foothold on Earth. She had to put a stop to this at once.

The brilliant displays of lightning beyond the portal told her that Stormcrow and the others were still in the fight. Here on her side of the gateway more of the Abyssals spilled forth. Yet worst of all, a third pack of them now headed west, along the narrow stream that bisected the island. At its far end lay the bridge to the mainland, and the entire sprawl of Metro Detroit. They must not be allowed to reach that shore!

"Prevent them from reaching the bridge, at all costs." She pointed to show Blackhawk what she meant. "Cray, we shall require more assets there."

"And you?" the Canadian heroine asked.

"I am going back to that portal to kill my father. He is the key to all of this."

Nátthrafn certainly qualifies as a ‘Big Bad’. I’m glad for Blood Raven’s terrifyingness as she matches his attacks and even drives him back. Like the casino, that poor bell tower will never be the same.

Nasty Nate conjures a Daedric siege engine! Blood Raven counters by entering the maw of the beast and destroying it from within.

Nice reminder of the vampire within Blood Raven when she takes a bite out of Dad. Similarly, Blackhawk’s recognition of the Ange de la Mort is tribute to Blood Raven’s bloody WWII history.

The arrival of Blackhawk reminds Blood Raven that she needs to shift her focus from draining the swamp to taking out Dad which should close his abyssal portal. And enough of her coven is there now to let her focus on doing just that.

I hope Blackhawk doesn’t have to destroy that bridge to accomplish her task.


Nit: ’Yet a some survived the onslaught of hardened blood.’ – Looks like during your editing you were debating between ‘a few’ vs ‘some’.

Oh wow, that's where this final brawl is taking place. Quite scenic, when the sun's shining and there aren't hundreds of goblins running about.

Father and daughter, going at it. They aren't exactly cordial are they? I like how they keep trying to 1-up each other. Oh no, don't destroy the Peace tower.

Jeez, that's harsh, an actual headbutt, what the heck? I suppose since this is family related this could be construed as parental abuse.

Whoa, it's Blackhawk! Still, it seems like they're overwhelmed. Hypothetical: but what would happen if, let's say, the National Guard or Air Force or some other armed forces scrambled to this location? Would they stand any sort of chance without magic?

Better question: will be able to pwn her father? I kind of doubt it, but let's find out.

Quite a back-and-forth between Nátthrafn and Blood Raven here. It makes sense: they've been after each other for a long time, and both are seasoned combatants.

Loved the moment when Nátthrafn headbutts Blood Raven, and just ends up giving her that boost via her blood. I suspect he may not know his opponent as well as he thinks he does.

And those pyrotechnics! Or... hemotechnics? Nothing like wiping out a bunch of the baddies with a bloody artillery strike. It's an impressive showcase of Blood Raven's power. But the sheer number of beasts gives them an edge, and it looks like Blood Raven has no choice but to take out the head of the army.

I suspect she'll need some help from Stormcrow on this...

Wow, that was tense. I was on the edge of my seat while reading this one.

Acadian: This was the point where we finally got to see Blood Raven in her full, terrifying glory, with no ethics or morals to hold her back. She has not done anything like this since WW2, which is why she brought it up.

Blackhawk's recognition comes from her own career out of costume, which is as a historian. I have not had a place to work it in yet, but she is currently writing a book about First Nations veterans of WW2. That will come up in a few more segments however, when we get to some events in the battle from her POV.

Unfortunately, Blood Raven is going to need more than just her coven to stop this. The good news is, there are plenty more covens on the way.

It won't be Blackhawk destroying the bridge...


Renee: Belle Isle is a state park. So it is really nice place to go visit. Unfortunately, because it is a state park you have to pay to get in as well...

I can't imagine what Thanksgiving Dinner would be like at the Nátthrafn and Blood Raven household. Probably absolute murder...

We will see exactly what happens when the Air Force, Army, Marines, Coast Guard, and others get involved. This battle has only just begun. In fact, Selfridge Air National Guard base is just about 10 miles away. January flew over it during the Book where she first met Vortex. IRL they have a squadron of A-10 bombers stationed there that will be making an appearance.

Pwning dear old dad is a tall order. We will see if Blood Raven is up to it eventually.


WellTemperedClavier: Nátthrafn and Blood Raven are literally two of the most powerful supers in existence. It is like Superman taking on General Zod. So their fight had to feel titanic in proportions. Likewise with Blood Raven pulling out all the stops that her ethics normally prevent her from using against earthly foes.

Blood Raven is going to need a lot of help with this. But luckily for her, there are a lot of Champions of Earth on the way.


macole: The battle is just starting. There is a lot more coming, and it will only grow larger and larger in scope and stakes. Just like that portal to the Abyss...













Isaac's Theme Song - Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?

The Fred Hampton Size Comparison (in meters)

The Real Life Fred Hampton

Thunderbolt riding a column of lightning was inspired by one of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in Little China



Book 10.13 - Alliance

Isaac checked the straps that secured him to his seat for the tenth time in the last minute. They were as firm and inviolable as the previous nine times he had pushed and pulled at them. His eyes scanned the indicators and displays within his cockpit. Again, they were green, showing all systems nominal and ready for action.

He stared out of the canopy and licked his lips. He should have brought a water bottle. His mouth was dry as a desert. Then why did his hands feel so slick with sweat? It was probably for the same reason that his heart was beating faster than a jackrabbit's. He was about to do something really stupid, or really brave, or both.

There was nothing to see outside of his mech except for green metal walls of course. The interiors of garbage trucks were not made to be aesthetically pleasing after all. They must have run into a pothole, because a sudden jolt sent him and his vehicle lurching down and then back up again, hard. But his safety harness held him firmly in place through it all.

He heard everything over the communications gear of course. Cray had tied him in. He could even see the drone camera footage through one of the TV sets he had mounted within his cockpit. It looked grim. It reminded him of nightly news during 1968, when the Tet Offensive had taken place. He had watched the Marines fight street by street through the city of Hue during the evening news. Now the same was happening here, at Belle Isle.

It also reminded him of 1967, and the Uprising. It was not like his mother would let him outside, so he never saw most of it. But he remembered the tanks rumbling down the street outside. Just as he remembered how his mother had pulled him away from the windows when he had tried to peek through the curtains to see what they were doing.

It was strange how time seemed to turn in a loop. Some people said that history repeated itself. Isaac would say that it was so unoriginal, it was constantly making reboots instead of coming up with a new plot. Like every show on television these days.

Just a few months before that girl Stormcrow had talked him out of going out in a blaze of glory with his mech. Well, here he was again, about the do the same damn thing. Only now it was on her behalf. Now that was crazy. But so was a white girl who thought she could change the world. But then again, she was full of surprises. So too was Blood Raven.

He still remembered the first time he had come face to face with the elder heroine. It had been just a few months after the '67 Uprising. So he had just been little then. The memory of the Iron Scorpion looming over him like an armored giant was indelibly burned into his brain. Isaac could still feel the supervillain's steel claws on his neck.

Then Blood Raven had been there in front of them. A cord of golden power had torn the villain's hand from his throat. The heroine's own claws had come out afterward. That had been the end of the Iron Scorpion. Isaac could still remember the supervillain falling backward through a tall display of canned peas, his rent and torn powered armor sparking and shorting out the entire time. Even today, he could not walk through the vegetable isle without thinking of it.

"Prevent them from reaching the bridge, at all costs." Blood Raven's voice came over the comm. "Cray, we shall require more assets there."

Then she said something about killing her father. As a father himself, that sent a chill through Isaac's spine. Having met Blood Raven more than once, he would not want to be that man...

Archie beeped and booped in his ear. They were almost there. Once again, he wiped his sweaty hands on his stained overalls. What was he doing? He was a sixty year old man. He was no superhero. He was a tinkerer, a glorified mechanic. How was he going to do this?

With that the garbage truck paused. He felt the gears shift under him, as the transmission switched to reverse and went into a turn. After a few moments it shifted forward again with another lurch, and completed the 180 degree rotation. Then metal clanged all around him, and the walls of the garbage truck fell outward, turning it into a flatbed truck.

Isaac did not think. He just acted. He hit one of the controls within his cockpit, and the mech unfolded from its storage configuration. Arms and legs rotated out, and locked into their final positions. In moments it rose to its full sixty feet of height. With hands gripped tightly on the controls, and feet slung into the pedals, he stepped forward. One massive titanium foot followed the other onto the concrete surface of the MacArthur Bridge. The great structure trembled with every step he took. But the bridge held. It had to hold, no matter what.

"Come on Fred, we can do this..." he said as he scanned the readouts and screens within his cockpit.

"What is that on the bridge?" he heard that young kid Lighthammer ask over the communications link. "It looks like Optimus Prime..."

"This is the Fred Hampton, thank you very much," Isaac heard himself snap back over the link. "And I'm here with my Panthers."

Archimedes bleeped to underscore his words. With that his sidekick floated out beside him. The robot's rounded head sharpened to a triangular tail section, sporting antenna and gravity manipulation arrays. The two glowing circles of his eyes and long line of his mouth made him feel as human as anyone else, at least to Isaac's eyes. Granted the multi-limbed mechanical arms that trailed from where his ears would have been did kind of ruin the look of a human head. So too did the plethora of hands, pincers, and tools that sprouted from each metal arm.

The truly anthropomorphic robots followed. Made of scrap car parts such as leaf springs and axles, they still had a distinctly humanoid shape. With two arms, two legs, and one head, they were definitely metal-men. Each had a clenched black fist painted on their torso. The same Black Panther symbol was emblazoned upon Isaac's own mech: the Fred Hampton.

He switched on a few toggles, and the quad gun arrays snapped off of his back. One of the four barreled guns slid down each of the mech's arms, trailing conduits to the blue-lit fusion reactor built into his back. Set right beneath Isaac in the cockpit in fact. Like the much smaller Panthers, Fred too was humanoid in design. Like any good mech was.

He stomped Fred down to the end of the bridge, and his pack of smaller robots marched in lockstep alongside. Archie as ever, floated in space beside him. A dull shape resolved itself on the horizon. It was like a carpet that billowed and grew. Then it drew near, and Isaac saw that it was actually a horde of individual monsters, all packed together in a great, seething mass.

It was like something out of the Lord of the Rings. He was tempted to quote King Théoden's speech from the Battle of Pelennor Fields. But the words escaped him at the moment. All he could see was the horde of orcs closing in. He knew that he had to do something. He should be shooting. He should be charging. But his hands were as frozen as his heart and tongue.

Archie beeped loudly in his ear. With that whatever spell had gripped him was broken. Isaac squeezed hard on the triggers in each of his hands. The quad cannons mounted on each of Fred Hampton's arms blossomed to light. Brilliant streaks of blue plasma cut through the sky. Monsters exploded in a haze where they struck, literally vaporized by the tremendous heat and force.

The Panthers opened up with their own array of lasers and lightning guns. So too did Archimedes. Just like that the night was lit up like it was noon. But the horde of monsters just kept coming, straight into the curtain of searing light. The heat from the plasma made the air shimmer and waver, like heat haze on a highway in the summer. Goblins and shadow creatures and other, less wholesome things exploded and disintegrated under the gunfire. Yet still they came on.

Warning lights began to glare at him from within the cockpit. The quad guns were overheating from the constant firing. He toggled them off, and with barrels glowing white hot, they slid back up his arms and into their storage units on his back. With another set of commands the long twin barrels of his railgun rose from his back. The double-tined weapon pivoted on his shoulder, and locked into firing position. The firing light turned green, and he loosed his first shot a moment later.

The twin rails of the weapon hummed to life, and sent a wave of glowing magnetic energy down the length of the barrels. The resultant magnetic field shot a projectile at ten times the speed of sound out from between the twin forks of the weapon. If the plasma cannons obliterated targets, this went father. The kinetic energy annihilated not only what they struck, but the shock waves created by each impact destroyed everything nearby. The ground shook with each titanic impact, and massive gouts of earth and dust rose with each hit, practically blotting the sky from view overhead.

Isaac was careful to keep the barrel low, and only shoot down with this. The entire city of Windsor lay over the heads of the onrushing monsters. One errant shot could level a skyscraper. In no time at all the land in front of him had transformed into a cratered moonscape, and looked more like the moon than a city park.

Then the horde was on top of him and the Panthers. The creatures slammed into his metal minions with a great crash of metal on metal. Swords and axes rose and fell against oil pan chest pieces, leaf-spring legs, and axle spines. It was too close for the railgun. So Isaac simply bent and swatted at the Abyssals with his titanium fists. Each of Fred Hampton's hands was the size of a phone booth. A phone booth made of solid metal. So when they hit, they splattered whatever was in the way.

Then a goblin was on top of Fred's head. Isaac stared at it through his canopy. The monster brought his sword down upon the projectile-proof glass. It bounded off, but left a scratch behind. Isaac reached out by reflex, and grabbed the creature with one hand. He flung it aside, and turned it into a smear upon the concrete below.

But there were too many of the monsters. Now that he was not laying down a field of long range fire, they were filling up the space between him and the horizon. He switched back to the railgun, and began hammering magnetically accelerated shells in at medium and long range. That softened them up as they came in.

That left Archie and the Panthers to deal with those that came in close. For several minutes they held the monsters at the end of the bridge. Then the soil erupted at the edge of the span. Out came a dozen giant centipede-like creatures. Their hides were covered from front to back in rows of sail-like plates. Their mouths were spinning vortices of teeth, which devoured all before them, earth, metal, or stone.

They swept through the Panthers like a scythe through wheat. In moments half of his robots were dead. In another moment another quarter was gone. Soon he and Archie stood alone against the monsters, who pushed them ever back across the span.

Archimedes squawked in his ear.

"Yes, that's right!" Isaac agreed. He lowered his railgun to his feet, and turned loose the magnetically accelerated weapon. He only had to fire once. With that half of the width of the roadway simply vaporized under the titanic force. The other half literally exploded, sending great chunks of iron and concrete tumbling through the air and down into the river below.

Nearly two dozen concrete arches held the bridge aloft from end to end. His shot had created a gap between two of these arches, and completely annihilated the span between them. From one side of the bridge to the other, there was now nothing but open space. That left no way across except through the air or water.

Yet the monsters still came on. But now they plummeted into this makeshift moat. Isaac did not give them good odds at surviving the Detroit River. It was not very wide. But its riptides were treacherous, and the mud that lined its bottom was infamous for never yielding up its victims.

That gave him and Archie a little time to breathe. It was a good thing too, for the destruction of the bridge's end had sent the Fred Hampton reeling. He fell to his hands and knees, and the twin forks of the railgun scraped against concrete. That of course threw him forward in the cockpit. Only the safety harness that strapped him in held him in place. He was just working on rising to his feet again when something clasped around one of Fred's legs.

It was a tentacle that rose from the river. Another followed it a moment later, then a third. These ropy cables pulled him downward, even as Isaac struggled to lift the mech to its feet. Then a great maw of triangular teeth filled his vision. It chomped through the edge of the bridge in front of him. Shattered concrete flew everywhere under the great teeth. Chomp went more of the bridge, and with another chomp, even more. Soon it would be him and his cockpit in that maw.

"I could use a hand on the bridge!" he cried out, with more panic evident in his voice than he would have liked.

Then something really weird happened. Yes, that was ironic, given the circumstances. But Isaac literally saw reality fold and twist around itself in front of his eyes. It was like someone had grabbed the universe and twisted its fabric in their hand. It wound down into a tiny vortex of impenetrable blackness. Then it snapped out to normal once more, and four figures stood in its wake.

One was a woman wearing a blue and white suit. A mask covered her face, but left her mouth and chin bare. It also allowed a long mane of dark hair to spill down one side of her head. But the real thing that drew his eye was the black hole that glowed on her chest when she turned around. The circle of pure darkness was ringed with an accretion disk of brilliant colors. It was not simply a decal. This halo of light literally twisted and turned as he looked on, as if it had a life of its own.

Isaac could not help but note how the black hole depicted there so perfectly mimicked that similar hole that had briefly formed in space before him, only to vanish again to deposit the newcomers.

Isaac knew that had to be Stormcrow's girlfriend, or not girlfriend. Or whatever she was. Given how young they were, he imagined they did not really know either. Vortex was her name. That meant the man in black camo gear and sporting a metallic staff beside her must have been her father: Hungry Ghost.

The final two needed no introduction. They had been all over magazines and television for the past twenty years after all. He had even seen their wedding photos in Person magazine. It was Thunderbolt and Riven, San Francisco's preeminent super partnership.

Thunderbolt was a man in a suit of white armor with a blue cape and accessories. He was sheathed in a field of electricity that hissed and sparked every instant. He held out one hand, and a glowing pillar of lightning grew from it. One end shot down into the bridge underneath, the other lanced up into the sky above. He rode this pillar up into the air and out over the broken section of bridge. A moment later he began hurling bolts of lightning at the creature below.

The last figure was Riven, a woman wearing a suit of glowing golden light. It was shaped like armor, but Isaac could literally see through it. In fact, it reminded him of the force fields and golden tendrils of power that Blood Raven liked to create. It was like she wore such a force field as if it was armor.

Underneath the golden light, she wore a suit of red and white, and a cape swept out behind her, shaped like numerous sword blades. A pair of goggles covered her eyes, but allowed her long blond hair to flow free.

She held out one hand, and a sword of golden light formed there, with a blade sheathed in white flames. An axe took shape in her other hand, and once again, its crescent blade burned with white fire. She leaped upon the tentacles that had wrapped around Fred Hampton's legs. Her sword and axe flashed, and limbs fell to pieces beneath their flaming blades.

A new tentacle came up behind her, and snapped at her like a rocket. But she seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. The axe in her left hand vanished, and was instantly replaced by a shield of shining light. She did not even bother turning around. She simply held the shield behind her back. The creature's appendage smashed against it a moment later. Riven did not so much as flinch under the blow. It was like she was a part of the Earth, rooted to the spot.

Her husband followed an instant later with a bolt of lightning that lanced down from one of his hands. The thunderbolt slammed into the monster, and completely incinerated it before Isaac's eyes. He could likewise see Hungry Ghost lashing out with his staff, and each time he hit, it was with the force of a mountain falling atop his targets. Finally the new girl reached out with one hand, and a shimmering field of energy sprang up between his mech and the rest of the monsters.

"The bridge will hold," Riven declared over the comlink. Her voice was absolute in its certainty.

* * *

If I was a supervillain, I’d sure hate my demise to be remembered as crashing into a tall display of canned peas.

Enter Isaac the junkyard mech warrior! Isaac makes an awesome entrance but before long risks being overrun. More heroes arrive to save the day, including that white girl’s girlfriend – or not girlfriend!

You weren’t kidding when you said this would grow into a full scale production!


Nits:
’Isaac knew that had to {be} Stormcrow's girlfriend, or not girlfriend.’
’It was Thunde{r}bolt and Riven, San Francisco's preeminent super partnership.’

Absolutely what I was thinking... I don't know how remote Belle Isle is, but it seems like it's a bit away from the rest of town. Still, I'd imagine radar or some such would pick up all this activity, or maybe just flashes in the sky. Which means some armed forces would get curious what's going down...

Isaac... this is the guy who built those machines?



KSSSHHHH!!!

Whoa, Isaac and Raven met way back then? Wow. Yikes,,, Iron Scorpion??? What an early memory that must be. No wonder he got so involved with building metal things.

Yeah, it sounds like Isaac is inside a giant Transformer. More than meets the eye, right? Robots in disguise. WICKED!!! Smaller robots, too, which means they'll hopefully be impervious to fire or some other elements which'll no doubt get strewn about during the battle. Basically, sounds like Isaac has been busy all this time.

Also smart that his monster or whatever has more than one set of guns. So the first ones overheat but this is okay. He's got a whole other set he can use.

So the question is, why did he build this monstrosity? 🤖 "Well this bank of guns is known to overheat, gotta do something about that..." Seems he's been anticipating some sort of brawl just like this one, eh?

Uh oh... reality is shifting. Is this Vortex? Yup, sure it. That bi---... well she's here to do good works, I guess.

Phew. Overwhelmed here, Florens. I need a drink. Except I don't drink. 🍷

Mech battles make everything better. And explosions. And vaporizing. Practically zero-summing things out of existence.

"Isaac checked the straps that secured him to his seat for the tenth time in the last minute. They were as firm and inviolable as the previous nine times he had pushed and pulled at them." Sounds like me checking my alarms on my clock and phone to make sure they are on, or that the front door of the house is locked.

Barely even tangentially relevant, but any time I hear the word "pothole" as in "They must have run into a pothole..." in your third paragraph, I think of this amazing local government candidate ad.

Lighthammer comparing the mech to Optimus Prime while I can't help but think about Liberty Prime. Isaac should make sure that these monsters know that democracy is non-negotiable.

If you scale the production value of this fight any further, you might have to pay million of dollars just to write this.

Interesting that we've got a different character the story is focused on temporarily.

"Then a great maw of triangular teeth filled his vision." Ech, made me think of sea lampreys for some reason. I hate those things.

"'The bridge will hold,' Riven declared over the comlink. Her voice was absolute in its certainty." Well if she is certain, then I am certain, too.

Great to see Isaac again! He's one of my favorite secondary characters in this series. And damn, what a comeback. Loved the flashbacks to his earlier history, and also how aware he is of the amount of damage his 'mech can do. He's clearly someone who's made himself a lot better.

The sheer amount of firepower he lays out is also impressive. A wave of (localized) destruction against the forces of Hell.

He shows good tactical awareness, too. His robot army's powerful, but needs to keep things at some distance to be totally effective. Unfortunately for him, self-preservation isn't a priority for the demons, so they keep coming.

Also, interesting information on the Detroit River. I wasn't aware of that.

Lucky for Isaac, he's got some help. Vortex has some issues, but she knows to put them aside when the situation demands. And it looks like she brought in even more firepower. This is turning into one hell of a brawl!