Five • Compass
Stephen ascended the stairs, releasing his cloak and letting it fly back to its cabinet as he walked towards his bedroom at the end of the hall. The sanctum was dark, illuminated by the dim, antique sconces lining the walls and the glow from the sunset pouring through the windows. The air was still tense with the mumbling of voices downstairs, his blood still pumping with the adrenaline of the fight and the heated conversation that followed.
He made his way down the hall and pushed open the door, taking a step back when he saw Juno standing near the bed.
"Sorry," he said, tapping his knuckles against the door. "Should've knocked first."
"It's fine. It's your room." She looked down at his trembling fingers as he balled them into fists to keep them still. "Do you need me to calm your hands?"
"No, no I... I came up here to see you."
"Oh."
"Are you okay?"
"Me? I'm fine," she laughed. "I don't even think I have a scratch."
"I mean are you okay after what happened downstairs..."
She shrugged. "They think I'm a monster and it's fine. If they need me, I'll still come."
"I'm sorry. This is why I didn't want to bring you out."
"You had to. You said yourself you saw it in the future; if you hadn't sent me in there today, things could have gone a lot differently."
"That's not the only reason I saved you." He took a step forward. "I just hope you know that."
"It's okay, Stephen. I should have guessed there'd be more to it than just... wanting to keep me around."
"But I did- I mean, my main objective was always to save your life. I just needed a reason to justify it, and I found one."
"Well I'm glad you did." She gave a slight smile and sat on the edge of the bed. "Y'know, my powers turning out to be useful almost feels like the universe keeping us together."
"Yeah you could be right. After trying so hard to separate us all those years, maybe it just gave up."
She laughed.
"Anyways, sorry," he said. "I'll let you get some sleep now."
"Well I'm still on Kathmandu time and it's like 7am there so I'm actually not all that tired. I just said I was 'cause I needed an excuse to walk away from bird boy downstairs."
He dropped his head and laughed quietly. "Sam'll come around once he sees how much you've changed."
"I don't think I want him to. It's nice having someone to argue with, adds some spice." She paused, mulling over her own words. "God I've been cooped up for too long." She rolled her eyes and threw herself back on the bed.
He laughed again and turned to leave.
"Stephen..."
"Yeah?"
She sat up. "What happens now?"
He sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. I guess it does change things now they know you're not dead; there's no reason for you to hide or to stay in Kathmandu. I mean, there are plenty of rooms here at the sanctum, I'm sure you'd be comfortable, and somewhere down the line we can discuss what this means for-"
"I was talking about the bad guys."
"Oh." He cleared his throat. "Well... it's over. I'll find this 'entity' thing, get rid of it and that's that, I guess. We got 'em."
"Not all of them."
"Huh?"
"There was a guy. Their leader, I think. He got away."
His brow fell heavy over his eyes as he thought for a moment. "Well," he finally said, trying to keep his tone optimistic. "We'll deal with it."
"I appreciate you trying to sound confident, but you don't have to lie to me."
He glared at her and she held her hands up in surrender.
"Not reading your mind, I swear," she said. "I'm just susceptible to people's... auras."
"You sound like a hippy."
"Not the worst thing I've been called today."
"It'll be fine, Juno."
She nodded and the room fell quiet again. He eyed her for a moment before pivoting on his heels and making his way towards the door, only to be halted by her voice again.
"You really think that'd work?"
He turned around. "What would work?"
"Me... living here... with you?"
"Where else would you go?"
She glanced up at him, shaking her head and smiling. "Nowhere, I guess."
He sensed that his words had bothered her, and now she was the one feigning confidence, but he didn't know what to say to make it better.
"I know you said you're not tired, but try to sleep," he said. "You can stay in here."
She looked around the room and sighed. "Okay."
He nodded, finally retreating out of the room and pulling the door closed behind him.
*
There was a flower garden. A woman with long, sandy hair and green eyes crouched down tending to it as music played softly from the house behind her. The sun was beaming, warm and inviting as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting it melt softly over her freckled nose.
She turned to the little girl watching her from the back door and reached out her hand. "Come, Juno, look."
The little girl ran across the grass and stopped at her mother's side, looking down at the vibrant pinks and blues and reaching out to run her finger across the delicate petals.
"Remember when I helped you plant those seeds?" the mother said. "And you were so upset when you woke up the next morning and there was nothing there? Well look now, all of this came from those seeds."
She smiled. "Can we plant more?"
"Of course we can."
"Lemonade?" A voice called from the house.
She turned to see her father standing in the doorway with a pitcher in his hand. He had long, dark hair that fell onto his shoulders in soft curls, his kind smile hidden behind a thick beard.
The three of them sat together, her parents talking as she guzzled down her drink with her legs dangling over the edge of the metal lawn chair. She could smell the grass, the soil, feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, the taste of sweet lemon on her tongue. But suddenly, the sky began to change.
She looked up to see the crisp, bright sky turning black and cold, like spilled ink soaking into a sheet of clean, white paper. There was a sudden chill in the air, her breath leaving her lips in a visible fog as she looked to her parents. But they were gone. One by one, the flowers in the garden withered and wilted, and the ground began to open beneath her into a deep, black pit. She let out a scream, pulling her legs up into the chair and calling out for her parents, for anyone, to help.
The blackness continued to spread, drawing everything into it and growing in size until it was dragging the legs of her chair into its void.
Juno woke in a sweat, breathing heavily as she looked around the warm, quiet bedroom. But as quickly as the relief set in, the feeling of dread returned. She climbed out of bed and ran out of the room, rushing down the hall and almost colliding with Stephen's chest at the top of the stairs.
"Something's wrong," she said breathlessly.
"Yeah."
They nodded at each other and ran down the stairs, hurrying side by side until they reached a small room with walls of stone. In the middle stood a pedestal, on which sat a cube of orange light, sparking and glowing with magical symbols and incantations. Inside was the cloud of dark energy Juno had drained from the changed ones. It was moving violently, bashing against the side of the cube as if it were a wild animal trying to escape its cage.
"What the hell is it doing?" she said.
"It's trying to get out," he replied, his eyes never leaving it.
"Can it escape?" She stepped closer to it and reached out, jumping back as it thrashed violently.
"No. The spell's simple but solid."
She narrowed her eyes, watching as it forced itself into a single corner. "Turn it."
"What?"
"Turn the container around."
He lifted his hands, moving his fingers delicately and curving his wrists. The cube hovered above the pedestal and turned on its side, but the dark energy moved, pooling in the same direction as before.
"It's trying to get back to its source," he said.
"We could follow this." She turned back to him. "Use it like a compass to lead us there."
"That's... not a bad idea."
*
Morning was fading in, the sun fighting through the dark sky and creating a soft, golden glow across New York City. Their plan had worked; the thing lead them to the abandoned factory, thrashing and drawing them further inside. It was quiet, the only sound coming from the steady dripping of leaky pipes and the groaning of wind against the unsteady structure. They walked carefully through the dilapidated corridors, the glowing orange cube leading the way.
"Stephen," said Juno.
"Mhm?"
"I've been having a lot of dreams lately that I wanted to talk to you about. I think they may be memories."
"Memories of what?"
"Of my life before I went into the tear. My childhood, my parents."
"Are they good memories?"
"Yeah." She smiled slightly. "I think they were good people."
He glanced down at her as they continued to walk. "They're still out there, you know? They made that appeal for you on TV. Now that you're back you could... try and see them."
She shook her head. "I don't know about that."
"Why not?"
"Because it'd be like meeting two strangers. I don't know them."
"But they know you."
"Not anymore."
"You said you think they're good people. I'd wager a guess that they'd be able to overlook the obvious changes." He nodded towards her, gesturing to her eyes.
"Maybe."
They walked further, following the dark energy around a corner and down a set of metal stairs.
"Do your parents know that you're... this?" she asked.
"Well since they're both dead..."
She closed her eyes and exhaled. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"How?"
"My mom died near the end of my surgical residency, then my dad died two years later. We never really got along, me and my dad, I mean."
"Why?"
"Well things got tense between us after my sister drowned."
His tone was so nonchalant that she almost didn't believe what she'd heard. "Wait... drowned?"
"She was seventeen. I was nineteen, home on vacation from college, and we were swimming in the lake at the back of our parent's house. She swam too far out and got a cramp, panicked and went under. I tried to save her but I was too late. Nothing between my father and I was ever quite the same after that."
"Stephen..."
"It's fine," he said casually, forgetting she could sense the grief like a cloud above his head. "I became a world-renowned surgeon before the age of thirty, had more money than I ever needed, beautiful homes, cars, friends in high places, a different lover in ever country. Things turned out okay for me." He looked down at her with an arrogant smirk.
"Y'know, it's that kind of big-headedness that got your hands smushed."
"I wouldn't be here right now if I hadn't been in that accident."
"Okay I guess a little arrogance is fine. But seriously, Stephen, I can't believe you never told me any of that."
"I'm not really a talker. I don't feel the need to share my personal trauma with random people."
"Excuse me, random people? I'm your one true love."
He gave a deep, throaty laugh. "Sorry, I forgot."
She would always make fun of their transcendent affinity. Often referring to herself jokingly as his wife, his true love, the mother of his non-existent children. At first it made him uncomfortable, stirring up the grief he felt for the life that was stolen from them. But over time, he learned to laugh, understanding that it was her way of coping with the loss of a future they never got to have.
They descended another set of stairs into the basement of the factory. It was cold, unnaturally so, like stepping out of a warm house into a snowstorm. There was an intense, menacing whispering drifting through the air, the dark energy inside Stephen's container growing stronger and more erratic with every step they took.
They stopped in front of the large, dark void, their eyes trailing the tendrils that glowed a deep purplish blue as they extended across the ceiling and floor, spreading over the walls like thick, black vines.
"Well there it is," said Juno calmly. "Do you know what it is?"
Stephen stared into the darkness as the whispering grew louder. "Mephisto," he said.
"What's that?"
"A demon who resides in a part of the dark dimension he likes to call 'hell'."
"Hell..."
"Not actual hell. Though from the things I've read, it's not much better."
"So you've never actually seen it yourself?"
"No. Believe it or not but I don't make a habit of visiting hell."
She ignored his sarcastic quip and stepped closer to the mass. "So this... Mephisto, he's opened some kind of doorway to his dimension?"
"No, from what I've learned of him he's more cunning than that." He stepped forward, bringing himself to her side again. "This is a succubus."
Her brow furrowed. "Aren't they like... demon ladies?"
He shook his head. "That's what mortals believe them to be. For centuries, religious texts have painted them as these beautiful seductresses that sleep with men to suck the life outta them."
"Sounds fun."
He rolled his eyes. "This is what they really are; evil forces that infect and spread to other dimensions."
"How do you know it was Mephisto that sent it here?"
"He's done this before. Not in our lifetime, but the Ancient One told me she encountered him once."
"So that's what this thing did to those people? It infected them? Took over their bodies?"
"I guess so. It latches onto darkness, humans have plenty of that."
"I mean, that would explain why those people all had different abilities, if it gets inside them and latches onto their bad qualities."
"Not necessarily bad qualities. When Peter came to see me after the first attack on the college and the bank, he said the guy who could move matter had been bullied and ignored pretty much his entire life. He felt invisible, and then suddenly the succubus gives him the ability to make himself and others disappear too..."
"So it infects and mutates."
He nodded.
"Well do you know how to get rid of it?"
"Destroy it from the inside. Make it implode on itself."
"Okay." She backed up slightly and raised her hands, conjuring a large ball of yellow light. She extended her arms and shot it into the centre of the mass, watching as it began to churn and groan. But nothing happened.
"Well it was worth a shot," she said.
"Yeah. We're gonna need something a lot stronger than that."
"Ouch, that hurt," a cynical voice chimed from behind them.
It startled them, making them turn around quickly and arm themselves with their powers. It was Spencer, glaring at them from the shadows of the basement.
"See, the entity and I, we're connected. And we don't like being shot at like that."
He stepped forward and Stephen tensed his fists, making the discs of light double in size. But Juno let her arms drop slowly, her eyes fading to their usual calm, golden hue. Stephen looked over at her, a deep line of confusion in his forehead.
"You don't have an army anymore," she said. "So maybe think more carefully about your next move. Because the ideas you have circling that little head of yours right now, they're not gonna go the way you think."
"Oh you may have taken down the others, but I'm not too worried about that."
"Really? Because it kinda looks to me like you got the short end of the stick when this thing was handing out powers."
"How so?"
"Well, your friends were all so... cool," she replied with a goading smile. "You had one girl who could shoot lights out of her hands, pretty great if I do say so myself. Another who could cause pain. The big guy basically turned into anti-hulk, and the little guy could literally move matter. But you... you just kinda look like a walking X-ray. Must suck."
"My power is not physical." He sneered. "This..." he gestured to the side of his face. "This is the scar, the markings of the entity. But my power lies in here." He pointed to his head. "It talks to me."
"He's the prophet," said Stephen quietly.
"The what?" she replied.
"A succubus is like an infection, remember? It needs bodies to spread. This guy was a conspiracy theorist; believed there was going to be another mass wipeout of the universe's population. When the succubus entered him, it latched onto that belief, used it to draw others in. It talks through him."
"I'm not a fan of the term 'conspiracy theorist'," said Spencer. "Prophet, though, I like."
"You're not a prophet," said Juno. "You're delusional."
"I'm also a lot stronger than you give me credit for."
"Strong people don't run away when their friends are getting their asses handed to them."
"No, but smart people do."
He grabbed a large steel pipe with his inhuman hand and ripped it from the wall, launching it at her with the speed of a bullet. Stephen widened his disc, shielding her and deflecting the blow, the pipe ricocheting and soaring back towards him. He ducked quickly before rising back to his full height and striding towards them.
Juno ignited her powers, hands glowing, eyes cast over with yellow light. She reached out her hand and pulled him through the air towards her until his throat was in her grasp.
"I told you this wouldn't go your way," she said.
Stephen turned smoothly, conjuring a long string of light and whipping it through the air like a heavy rope. The end of it wrapped around Spencer's wrist, Juno let go, allowing Stephen to drag him to his knees, holding him to the ground.
"I'm almost skeptical of how easy this was," she said casually before pointing her palms and draining the darkness out of him.
He struggled more than the others had, the thick, black sludge pouring out of his mouth as he writhed on the floor, the light draining from beneath his skin. The succubus behind them began to groan and pulsate, like it was feeling his pain, trying to resist her.
But within moments, it was over. She moved aside quickly, letting the cloud of dark energy soar past her and disappear into the void. Stephen let his rope evaporate as Juno settled her hands at her sides, breathing heavily as she looked down at the man lying still at her feet.
Her brow furrowed. She took a tentative step forward and crouched beside him, her confusion quickly turning to horror as her eyes trailed his lifeless face.
"Stephen," she said, so quietly it was almost inaudible.
He joined her quickly, placing two fingers on the side of Spencer's neck. He looked up at her, his blue eyes glistening sympathetically, telling her what she already feared to be true.
"I don't understand," she said. "The others didn't..."
"He was bonded to it more than they were," he replied. "It became his life source."
"I didn't mean for him to die," she said softly.
"It was an accident, Juno."
She stood up, her voice breaking as she spoke. "I don't kill people anymore. This isn't... this isn't what I am."
"Hey..." He rose to his feet, taking her face in his hands and staring into her eyes. "Don't do this to yourself. You did what had to be done."
She stayed quiet for a while, her eyes watering as she stared back at him.
"Wh-what do we do with him?" she finally said.
"I'll take care of it."
"What about that thing?" she nodded her head towards the succubus.
"For now, I'll put a protection spell around this place, stop anyone getting in until we find a way to destroy it."
"Okay," she whispered, her eyes flitting towards Spencer's body.
Stephen turned her head back to him. "He was dangerous, Juno, too far gone. What you just did, as awful as you may feel about it, has saved a lot of innocent people."
She nodded reluctantly, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh as the feeling of his thumb stroking her cheek began to calm her down.
The deep, black entity hissed and churned behind them, but he never let go of her face, keeping her eyes locked on him until he was sure she was okay.