10-1: Until She Saves My Soul, Part One

Radiance #10: I'm not neat, not I, I was bought and sold / I was born to believe all these lies I was told.

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Radiance is a hopeful fiction serial about one of Earth’s darker timelines. It takes place around 2014 in a world where atypical abilities have become increasingly common, with the storyline following a group of minor-league superheroes based in Washington, DC. Our protagonist is Lady Radiance, former teen sensation, aka Christabel Jones, professional ray of sunshine—or, at least, she’s trying her best.

Previously, our heroes resolved to return to Archangel’s under-lake lair and confront him, despite the complications presented by Lady Radiance’s temporary…ish…transformation into Lord Hades’ Queen. This time, they’ll have to save the day…or, very possibly, die trying.

<#9, Part Two || Directory || #10, Part Two>

Vapor curled from Lady Radiance’s mouth and nose and into the cold, barren air, hanging there only for the space of a heartbeat before the wind shifted again and dispersed it. Up the shoreline, to the east, a much larger cloud billowing from one of the power plant’s cooling towers eddied and then smoothly changed its direction along with the wind. Lady kept her eyes on the low, gray sky, searching for the lines where one cloud ended and another began. She had nothing else to do while she waited for Chained Lightning to finish recon, and it was better than looking down at the snow.

It was morning, only an hour or so after dawn. Rather than start an assault in the dark, they’d stopped short on Leila’s advice; the hotel she’d picked was far enough away that Archangel shouldn’t notice her, and she’d insisted that the creepy-looking clerk was a strong enough telepath to generate blanket interference. Christa had purposely thought of the most boring things possible as she lay awake into the night, just in case…either way. Now here they were on Erie’s frozen shores again, in a little park tucked between a neighborhood and the nuclear reactor, sitting on the top deck of an observation tower that seemed defensible enough if it came down to that. Lady Radiance doubted, thankfully, that it would. The only other sign of life so far was a man and dog hiking down the rocky beach, nearly out of sight now. Beyond them, the lake surface was frozen solid and so heavily drifted with snow that she wasn’t sure just where the shoreline was. Beyond that, the thin blue horizon, and beyond that again the clouds.

The wind off the lake was hitting her face now, and Lady pulled the blanket more tightly around herself—an insufficient but thankfully temporary measure. She was suited up already, with no insulation to speak of, and didn’t want to run her aura while they were still trying for stealth. Sylph, standing at the railing beside her, at least had winter clothes on. To the psychic’s other side was Chained Lightning, sitting on the decking with his back to the rail, apparently impervious to the elements. The air around him hummed and crackled and, unsettlingly, a soft blue light kept escaping from under his closed eyelids.

“Power’s still shut down in the tunnel we got out through last time,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “My best guess is the collapse ain’t been cleared yet. Seems like they’re focused on interior repairs.”

Sylph exhaled sharply. “There would be no point in clearing it. I never saw anyone go to the surface once Hades was able to reliably create portals.”

“Is there another way in?” Lady asked.

“Think I found some vent fans…”

“No, that won’t work. We hero-proofed the ventilation system years ago,” Sylph said. “Is the emergency escape tunnel still in use? It should come out closer to the power plant.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” he said. “It looks fine. There’s lights on in there. Didn’t think you’d want to go through the eleven-odd guys standin’ on the other side’a the door, though.”

“We aren’t going through them,” Sylph said. “You are.”

“True. No complaints here. Lady?”

Lady Radiance pulled her gaze back down. “It sounds like our only choice,” she said. “Do you know where Lord Hades is?”

“I don’t. All I see is a lot of people down there—could be they’re all clones, could be they all just look the same from this far away.” Chained Lightning was already getting up, stretching to pop the joints in his back. “You want me to call Clarevoyante? Might could actually get a signal up here.”

The chance of pinpointing Hades ahead of time wasn’t worth that kind of trouble. They’d hoped to be able to keep communications open, but the last fight’s damage to the local physics seemed to have been slow to heal, and wireless signals still weren’t working right. “It’s fine. I’m sure he can find me.”

“Suit yourself. See you on the ground, ladies.” He hefted himself over the rail and dropped straight down to land heavily in the snowbank below.

“Is he always like this?” Sylph asked behind her, a distinct edge to her annoyance. It was a tone Christa was used to hearing just before Baz told some more reasonable type that they needed to chill.

“More or less,” she said. “You get used to him.”

“Goodness. I’d rather not.”

Lady wondered if Sylph had also always been this way. Severe, manipulative, hiding things…was that just her personality, or had what she’d done under Archangel’s years of control left more of a mark than was obvious at first glance?

Would Liam—

“Keep up!” Sylph called, already down the first flight of steps. Lady Radiance bristled, laid the blanket across the rail for whoever might need it, and took off to follow her.

The snow crunched and rocks shifted under their feet as they followed the shore, banded by the long shadows of skeletal trees. It was impossible now not to think about the cold and the dark water so close by; Lady Radiance was relieved when Sylph, dropping over a fence behind her, turned suddenly alert. “He knows we’re here,” she said.

The Lady smiled—sweetly, serenely, she hoped, but she knew there was too much satisfaction in it for that. “Oh, good.”

The snow melted under her feet almost immediately as she lit up like sunrise. Without the hesitation and half-efforts she’d made since coming out of cryo, the full extent of the powers at her command yawned before her. This wasn’t the hard-won progress of training and winning fights, so gradual she couldn’t see how far she had come without looking back. This was everything she’d had, and everything she knew Hades had, all at once—not added together, but multiplied—rushing straight to her head.

Lady steadied herself, knowing she’d come too far to forget herself at the first distraction. Lord Hades loomed dark and insistent across her consciousness, visible in her mind’s eye by a sixth sense. This time it was for him to summon her, and she was happy to oblige.

The door, such as it was, was open when they got there. A hatch uncovered a deep well in the ground, and a few of the clones stood behind it. Lady Radiance let her gaze skim across their bloodless faces to focus on the figure hovering over the entrance, his black cloak trailing the void beneath. Lord Hades’ red eyes were unveiled and alight like coals, his hood thrown back for the wind to catch his hair. He was haughty, he was perfect. She would have trembled a little if she hadn’t been so determined to show him that she didn’t care.

Hades spoke first, the distance of his expression making it impossible to tell which of them he was speaking to. “You came back.”

Sylph pushed back the hood of her own coat, showing him the whole of her thin face. “Let me through, Liam,” she said tautly. “It’s over.”

“No,” he said. It was his own voice still, not the played-up accent, but it had the full force of Lord Hades’ infernal personality behind it. “It’s not over by a long way.”

“Where is he?” Sylph said.

The muscles twitched in his high cheeks. “He’s too powerful for you.”

She raised her hands, showing him their soft glow. “Not anymore.”

“Leila,” he said. A tense silence hung between his words. “Don’t make us fight you now. It would be such a waste. Leave now, and I can restrain him. Our forces are still too depleted to be a threat anywhere else, and he won’t risk a fair fight if it might mean losing me.”

“I’m sorry,” Sylph said. “I didn’t want it to end like this, but you didn’t leave me any choice.”

Hades lowered his chin to direct his gaze into Lady Radiance’s eyes. “You had a choice,” he said.

Lady smiled bitterly. “Not much of one.”

“And you?” He flicked his head back to Chained Lightning. “Here for revenge, I suppose?”

“Just tryin’ to do the right thing,” he said.

“More’s the pity. I might have enjoyed at least part of this.” Hades extended his arms towards them. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

Sylph threw herself forward as electric sparks began to discharge over her head. Floating effortlessly out of range, Lady Radiance reached into her new reserves of power to spin cords of light and then let them fly, wrapping them around Hades before he could make another move. He looked up at her through the chaos breaking out, utterly calm, while she paused in surprise. Why wasn’t he fighting her?

Then he moved through his bonds like they were nothing. As she watched, Hades rose to join her, flames shimmering into view around him. The punishing heat washed over her once and then softened into a comfortable warmth. He couldn’t fight her, she realized. They were made of the same thing now, heat and light radiating together from one flame. Her breaths shortened as he came to look down on her again. Her senses were doubling and redoubling on themselves under his and her clashing demands for control, and his presence was close to overwhelming.

Lady lashed out, boldly throwing one rope after another in hopes of overwhelming him instead, but he only leaned in and pulled her closer with an arm around her waist. This time, she easily kept her consciousness as a portal opened beneath them and the world rushed by.

The place they landed in was bright but undefined, as if they hadn’t quite made it back to the rest of the world. Hades let go of her as his feet hit the ground, barely letting her catch herself and find her footing again before he rounded on her, leaning down into her face. “You were safe!” he growled. “You—what do you think you’re doing? Don’t you have any sense?”

Lady Radiance shoved him back, her heart pounding. “You have an interesting idea of ‘safe’, my Lord.”

“You weren’t here,” he said with a wide, frustrated gesture. “He couldn’t get to you anymore. I’d already lost you, I didn’t care what happened to me. Don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see.” She watched uncertainly as he began to pace the other side of the room. “I thought you and your master would be only too happy to get me back in your clutches, so I’ve obviously missed something, if you’d care to explain.”

Hades paused, his eyes flickering. “My precious Lady,” he said, “You don’t have a heart at all, do you?”

Heat surged through Lady Radiance’s body, and she clenched her fists to hold it back. “Explain, I said. Before I remember how things ended the last time I tried to talk to you instead of strike you down.”

“Oh, no, of course. We can’t have you feeling sorry for me.”

“Hades,” she hissed, fire streaming through the gaps in her fingers as she felt her heels lift off the floor. “If you try to pull a villain speech on me—”

“Which is it?” He sounded faintly, darkly amused. “Talk, or don’t talk?”

“Talk. But just the facts.”

“Facts.” He sighed and walked towards her, ignoring that she kept backing up to keep their distance. “What a Queen you would have been. Under your iron rule, nobody could ever have accused us of worse than wanting to be happy together.”

“You know that wasn’t possible,” Lady said. “It would have just been him telling us we were happy.”

“Not once he’d corrupted you. You really would have been content here.”

“That’s worse.”

“I know,” Hades said. The bravado was starting to leach out of his voice, and it made her stop and let him catch up to her. Underneath it, something had changed in him. “I know it is, my Lady. And I keep telling you to stay away, and you just won’t listen.”

Lady Radiance released the magic, surrounding them both in a whirlwind of flame that began gradually to subside. “You tell me which it is,” she said. “Do you want me, or am I supposed to leave?”

“Oh, you don’t have any sense,” he groaned. “That’s wonderful. Catch me falling in love with Goody Two-Shoes-No-Logic again. Of course I want you—he didn’t have to lean on me for that. But although I’m sure it would simplify things if I were evil enough not to care, I also don’t want to see you hurt, and even I can see that the world is better off if we’re apart. The Master’s whole plan rested on using you to control me. Yes, it broke me to lose you—I don’t know what you were doing all that time—I’ve been in hell. But I was glad to know it didn’t matter anymore what I did. You were free, and you didn’t need me to stand between you two anymore, so if he hurt or killed me, it—wouldn’t—matter, you idiotic, beautiful girl. There. Are those facts enough?”

She hadn’t even figured out yet if she should feel flattered or insulted, but she thought she had caught enough threads to see his point. Lady looked up into her alleged enemy’s face with tentative, anxious hope. It had been a long time since she’d seen him so obviously in control of himself, if she ever had. “No,” she said. “Tell me something else. The last time I saw you, we were both in his thrall. I know how I got out. How did you?”

Hades’ grim lips almost smiled. “I keep saying this. He never thought he would have to make me really fight you, remember? You were supposed to be on his side. When you rejected his influence, he wanted me to go after you…but he didn’t have any leverage left.” He raised a hand as if he wanted to touch her face, but faltered and dropped it again. “You were safe, and it already hurt so badly that you’d left us. I didn’t care what he did to me. The next thing I knew, I—I saw everything clearly. Now that I know I can fight him…I’m a worm, my Lady, but I’m a worm with a conscience. I’ll do what I can to keep his plans from going too far. You just can’t be in the way.”

She found herself too shaken to respond. It had worked, after all. It wasn’t just knowing for sure that Hades was on her side—Sylph’s pretended plan, which she’d never intended the Lady to actually succeed in, had worked.

“How did you get out of his control?” he asked.

“Oh.” Lady Radiance let her breath go softly. “I suppose I did some of that. Leila had to show me which parts were myself and which were him, and then I was able to kick him out. She thinks she can get through to Gabriel and take Archangel apart the same way.”

“Really?” Hades’ brow contracted in thought as she watched his face, afraid of everything she saw there. “If that works…yes, it would be for the best.”

“She thinks it’ll kill you,” Lady said.

“She’s probably right. It’s better than I deserve.”

“No!” It was her turn to move towards him and then stop herself. “I know you cooperated with him before, but you regret that, don’t you? You deserve the same chance at your own life that anybody else does. I came back to do what I can to make sure you get that.”

Lord Hades was watching her even more closely now. “That’s your sense of justice, is it?”

Lady knew he would want her to make it easier on him. If this didn’t work, and he was left with his impossible plan to try to resist Archangel by himself, he didn’t want the additional temptation of knowing that she wanted him to reach out for her. She believed it would work, though, and she wasn’t going to lie to him. “I still love you,” she said.

Silently, he sank to his knees. He was so much taller that it brought him just low enough to look up into her eyes, holding her fast with that slack and burning gaze. Slowly, gently, the barely-perceptible pressure of a hand on her waist brought her closer until his lips were resting on hers.

She stayed there, holding her breath, just to be sure nothing would happen this time. Then she put her arms around him and let him kiss her.

The moment didn’t last. Of course it couldn’t. Liam broke away from her suddenly and pushed his face into her shoulder, gasping for breath.

“Liam?” Christabel brushed his hair back, trying to see his expression. “Liam, what…” Then she felt it, too. The power they shared was simmering and heaving just beneath the surface of her thoughts. From the other side of her connection to him, she could sense the shadow of terrible suffering.

“It’s all coming to pieces,” he whispered. “He’s calling me, he wants me to stop her.”

“You can’t.”

“I know.” His fingers curled painfully into her back. “It’s—it’s going to—burn me up. If—”

“Let me help,” she said. “Give some of it to me.”

“No. You’re not used—to it—”

“Let me. Please.”

He stilled against her, and then she felt herself consumed by flame.

The unearthly wails that she’d so often heard around Hades threatened to overcome her, but they held each other up. She clung to him as fire and light poured through them both—distant faces, animated by rage and regret—pain— rejection—an existential anguish which she recognized, finally, as the unmet and unmeetable desire of something immortal for annihilation. She held onto him, and gradually it passed away.

All at once, it all disappeared. Liam collapsed underneath her, and they fell.

Lady Radiance landed on her feet and rolled across a cold tile floor and into a familiar wall. She was in the depths of the base again, somewhere—but that wasn’t important yet. She pulled herself up and looked back to see a heap of black fabric and long limbs, unmoving.

Time seemed to stop as she ran back to him. His head was heavy, his neck limp like a sleeping child’s; she leaned over him without seeing or feeling, her hands shaking as she tried to make them move.

It was cold down here. Everything was so cold.

Sylph found them first. The sound of running footsteps startled the Lady back to herself just before she threw herself down on the floor, grief running down her face, pulling Liam from her arms and into her own. Lady let him go, and they sat with the sounds of jagged breathing and the faraway creaks and groaning of the building’s seams.

“Is he alive?” Lady asked, finally.

“Mostly,” Sylph said.

Relief washed over her, despite the uncertainty. “Is—is that an improvement from being mostly dead?”

“That, I don’t know.” The emotion she’d shown was gone, replaced with her usual cold mask, as she rolled his body gently into Lady Radiance’s arms. “You were able to hold him together, but having his connection to Archangel ripped out of him was a severe metaphysical injury. He’s not responding to me.”

Lady tried to stand up and stumbled, not finding the strength she’d expected. “What—”

“Shared powers. It’s not all upside; you can’t access the full extent unless the other party’s working with you.” Sylph helped her to stand, supporting part of Liam’s weight. “Archangel must have used up your power to make the bond, not his, so you wouldn’t have much to fight him with if Hades had to cut you off.”

She nodded and dialed back her aura, trying to balance her output so she had enough strength at least to carry him. “What now?”

“Find your friend and head back to the surface. If Liam survives, I know someone who can treat him—”

From somewhere in the facility came the noise of concrete and metal suddenly giving way, and they both crouched instinctively as the lights flickered and a cloud of debris descended slowly from the ceiling. As a door slammed open down the hall, the noise of something like a landslide grew louder and then ended in a massive crash that shook the hallway again. Chained Lightning emerged from the renewed dust cloud, coughing.

“You coulda told me he was holdin’ the place together!” he yelled to Sylph.

“If I had known, I would have,” she said. “It’s that bad?”

“Yeah, it’s that bad. We just lost the stairs back to the emergency exit.”

Sylph’s hand tightened on Lady’s arm, and she looked over to see the other woman’s face had paled even further.

“Hey,” he said, slowing as he reached them. “Come on, it’s like a warren down here. There’s another way up, right?”

Sylph jerked her head sharply. “No. That’s part of the addition—there was only ever one connection. Those stairs were it.”

Lady Radiance looked down the corridor towards a renewed rumbling in the walls, her muscles tensing.

<#9, Part Two || Directory || #10, Part Two>

Thanks so much for reading! No, I couldn’t leave you without one last cliffhanger.

Next time…the conclusion.

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