The rain began to fall as he stood at her grave, grey sheets of cold rain streaming down on a bleak winter's day. In the distance, far across the City, thunder burst into the air. It would storm soon.
Almost as if on cue, his crying began again, and that's how he stood there, his tears washing away in the cold rain. He felt small, weak, looking at the grave of a person he loved, a person that all his powers had been unable to save.
He wondered if he would be able to save the rest of the ones he loved. He wondered if he would be able to save himself.
Lynda Wainwright,
the gravestone read.
Sometimes, when you need an angel, sometimes there is an angel,
the inscription read beneath the name, followed by two sets of numbers that were all too close together.
Overcome, he fell to his knees in the mud, his overcoat dragging in the wet as he knelt and wept.
I couldn't keep you safe forever. I should have tried harder.
The sky cracked with thunder as the cold rain continued to fall.
I don't know how to go on without you, he said to her silently. I haven't really ever had to. You were always there for me, and it got you killed, and now I don't know how to find my way. I don't know if I'm strong enough.
He stayed that way for a while, sobbing by the grave, alone with his grief, and his loss, and his fear. The lightning illuminated the empty graveyard periodically, framing the trees as black and twisted fingers against the bright grey sky.
"You cared about her," he heard a woman's voice say behind him.
He spun around, startled. He saw a small and slim woman standing some distance behind him, wearing a black full length coat, a white scarf wrapped around her neck, her long black hair spilling over it.
"I hadn't suspected that," she continued.
He stood up to his full height, facing her in the rain. He wiped the sleeve of his coat across his mouth.
"Well, now you know," he said. "You are?"
"I'm... Anna," she told him. "Now
you
know. You wanted to know my name for some time now, and here it is: I'm Anna."
"Hello, Anna. I'm John."
"Yes, I know you, John," she told him plainly.
"Of course," he said. "Thank you for coming. I didn't expect you here."
"I've been watching you since you called Heather," Anna said. "Well, the Spider has been watching you. This seemed like as good a place to talk as any."
"OK."
"So she wasn't just some slave to you, like the others," she indicated Lynda's grave. "She meant something to you."
"Yes, very much."
"But she
was
your slave."
"It's more complicated than that. I had her under my control, yes, but it was necessary-"
"Of
course
it was."
"- it was
necessary
because without
my
controlling her, something else far worse would have. It's a long story. But first and foremost, I loved her, and she loved me, and we protected each other in various ways at various times. And my controlling her was one of those ways."
"Don't try and use your mind control on me."
"I won't."
"I mean it. If you do, I'll kill you, if I can, before you make me a slave again."
"I understand. I won't do it ever again."
"And Heather too," Anna went on. "I want her released from your control."
"Oh!" John said, surprised. "She's not under my control."
"What?"
"Well, not anymore. She hasn't been for some time. It's not permanent. I have to re-establish it from time to time. A phone call can work, but really, it's best that I be in someone's physical presence. It depends on the person how long it lasts and all that, but I can assure you, Heather nor yourself are under my control by now- haven't been for quite a while."
"Oh."
"I mean, did you think you still were or- "
"It doesn't matter. Anyway, you called. You said we had to talk."
"I need your help," he said. "And you need mine."
"OK."
"We are both being hunted by the same people or person. That person was what sent Red Eyes to the City, and that thing tried to kill me over and over. It failed. The police say that thing is dead, but who knows, and regardless it seems that the Power has been enslaved by some force."
"The Detective."
"What?"
"A police detective... Stern. He's been looking for me for months, shaking down street rats, hurting them, making them tell him what they know about me, which is never anything thank God. There's something...
off
about him."
"I know. I know him. He's not quite... human."
"And now this Fist person is looking for me. I've seen the two of them together, he's the one who is controlling her. I don't know how. He's cruel to her. Hurts her. I don't want either of them to find me."
"No you don't. They found me. A lot of cops died when they did. They killed... "
He waved his hand at the gravestone, unable to continue.
"Why should I trust you," she said. "I
don't
trust you."
"I want out," he told her in the rain. "I don't want to do this anymore. I've already lost someone I can never replace. I'm afraid I'll lose the rest of it too."
"We've all lost people, John!"
"I know."
She stood glaring at him. She looked behind herself.
"Don't go," he pleaded. "Listen. If you have a life you want to return to, then you'll want to work with me. I'll leave you alone after we've stopped the Detective and the Fist- "
"If
we stop them!"
"- and you'll never hear from me again. But together we can be stronger than either of could ever be alone. Together we can beat them, and we can live. Alone, it's only a matter of time before they kill us and everyone we love."
"Stronger together? What do you mean?"
John sighed.
"Oh, Anna," he said. "I've been trying to tell you that since we first met!"
******************************
Roger Charles entered his PIN on the keypad, and then put his fingers to the sensor so that his fingerprints could be scanned.
The light turned green. The reinforced door slid open.
"Good evening," he said to the other guards sitting behind the desk.
"Hey Roger," one greeted him back. The other nodded, bored.
"Any change with our wonderful guest?"
"Nope. Always the same. She screams until she can't scream any more, then she passes out for a while, then screams again."
"Jesus."
"Yep. The doctors say that they're going to start pumping in some more antipsychotic drugs into her cell starting Monday."
"That'll be good. It's hard to watch that."
There was a speaker set up in the guard room that broadcasted what the prisoner said. They'd had to turn it off. When she- whatever her name was- was conscious, she was apparently in agony, and her screams of pain were too much to listen to. She would scream out for her master, whatever that meant, scream out for them to come and put their dicks in her, to hurt her, she would beg them to come and kill her. Insane stuff. The ravings of a madwoman.
They'd sent doctors in to try and treat her. Needles couldn't pierce her flesh. It took a broken arm and a concussion to find that out.
After that point, they'd been reduced to pumping gas into her cell in an effort to help in some way, to tranquilize her into some kind of sleep. It wasn't at all clear what they were going to do with her.
She was stronger than any dozen men. She could fly, and had brought down a helicopter with her bare hands before she had been apprehended, and was apparently only just getting started at that point. It's not like they would be able to put her in some normal prison at anytime soon.
In the meantime, they just watched her, silently, on the monitors.
"Well, my shift is over. I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you later," Roger said. "We'll be right here."
A couple of hours later, Roger stepped out to use the bathroom. He made a phone call to his girlfriend. The two of them talked about the weekend.
He headed back into the control room, entering his PIN and his fingerprints.
Something was different.
There was a small metal box on the floor, a little cage, with one end of it open. Roger knelt down.
"What's this box?"
No answer. Where was the other guard?
Roger looked in the box. Nothing. It was empty.
He stood up, and then he saw the other guard, or the other guard's legs rather, laying underneath a desk. Roger rushed over, and found the other man laying there, his eyes rolled back in his head.
A long black object was wrapped around the man's neck. Bending down, Roger put his hands on the object, which was cold, but organic. He traced the object to the back of the other guard's torso, pulling the other man's shirt away to get a better view.
There was a mouth there, sucking and pulling on the other guard's blood. It was some kind of... snake, or something. Some kind of giant leech.
What the fuck is this?
Roger stood up and rushed to the phone in order to call for more security and medical backup.
He paused. On the monitor, he could see a long, bright red line in the wall of the prisoner's cell. The line began to separate... open... and an impossibly tall and slender man with black eyes stepped out. The tall man bent next to the prisoner, and picked her up like she weighed nothing.
Roger picked up the phone. As he did so, he felt a sharp sting on his upper thigh. He looked down, and saw that he had been stung by another of those black snake things, the stinger had punctured his leg, and the black coil was wrapping around his upper leg and his torso.
The creature hissed, opening it's mouth wide like some kind of lamprey, showing rows of teeth. Roger grabbed at the creature, or he tried to. His fingers were unable to be controlled or moved, his hands numb and unresponsive to his commands.
He collapsed to the ground, the larval creature wrapping itself around him more tightly. As the paralysis set in, the creature hissed and shook its head, then plunged its mouth onto Roger's neck.
He fell to the ground as the creature began to suck, his unblinking eyes fixed on the monitors. As he lay, he watched the tall man step into the portal with the prisoner, and then slowly, the portal closed behind the two of them.
