8-2: The Devil In Me, Part Two

Radiance #8: No one can blame you for walking away.

Radiance is (was) a lighthearted 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, Lady Radiance and Chained Lightning were captured by the forces of Lord Hades’ puppetmaster, the shadowy villain Archangel. This time, Lady has a lot of mental adjusting to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it in.

<#8, Part One || Directory || To 8.5 || #9, Part One>

When Archangel’s presence had fully faded from the room, and she had begun to recover from being pushed so close to her breaking point, Christabel found Liam kneeling beside her silently with her hand between his. He still wouldn’t look at her directly.

“You're angry with me,” he said, his half-closed eyelids trembling.

She reached over with her other hand and swept back his black hair from his forehead. If she could trust him, she needed him on her side. If she couldn’t—but she didn’t want to think about that. She wanted to think about anything in the world except her overwhelming feeling of betrayal. “I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

He sighed. “I thought my father explained that well enough.”

“Well enough for his purposes, maybe,” Christa said. “Nothing about that convinced me that this is what’s truly best for us. You don’t look like you’ve had any better of a time here than I have.” Liam’s expression tightened, but he said nothing. “My Lord, tell me. What did I miss that made him keep me unconscious for so long?”

“You would have—complicated matters.”

“What matters?” she pressed.

“Mine, mostly.” He lowered his head to rest it against her shoulder, hiding his face. “He didn’t tell me what he wanted you for. I was afraid for you, and…furious. But so was he. When he gave me my mind back, he removed almost all of the restraint that keeps his power from destroying me. What you felt was just a fraction of it. I’d thought that I might be able to fight him if I had to, even if it killed me, but it’s not just him keeping me alive; it’s his good graces. And after that, during the fight with the others, he didn’t want to wake you up until he knew he could still trust my loyalty, since…there wouldn’t be any point in keeping you alive without me.”

So Archangel wasn’t above torturing Lord Hades into submission, one way or another. It explained Liam’s attitude, but it was a complication for her strategy; she wasn’t sure under what conditions he could be relied upon. It was beginning to dawn on Christa just how deeply compromised Hades actually was, and how neatly and directly she’d played into her enemy’s hand by trying to pursue him.

There was no good in voicing any of that. Liam would clearly be a project for the long term—or at least longer-term than finding Baz and getting them both out of Archangel’s grasp, to somewhere Hades might trust that she couldn’t be threatened. While she still didn’t fully understand what was going on, she at least owed her old associate an escape attempt—to say nothing of his prospects if Archangel’s plans worked. She was still Lady Radiance. Lady Radiance couldn’t give up so easily.

Christa squeezed Liam’s hand gently. “You saved me, then,” she said. “I’m grateful for that. But what now?”

“More or less as he said. The last we spoke about it, he thought he’d need another day or so to work on…your friend. He wanted to get that part done quickly, before anyone managed to put another rescue party together. After that, he’ll have to spend some time testing and acclimating. I imagine he’ll leave us to ourselves, for the most part.”

“And we have to stay here—wherever here is?”

Liam raised his head, seeming a bit more confident of her acceptance. “For the moment, yes,” he said. “We’re in the Radioactive Iso-Troop’s old place under the floor of Lake Erie, across from the nuclear power plant. I grew up around here. This isn’t the best side of the complex, but the rest isn’t too bad. There’s a glass ceiling in the lounge that juts up into the lake, so you can watch the fish when the visibility’s there. Very 70s.”

“That sounds nice.”

She stood, brushing him aside, but he jumped up and caught her hand again anxiously. “Where are you going?”

Christa offered him an amused smile. “I’m not a prisoner, am I?”

“Well—not once you agree to remain here freely, as…my bride.”

She hesitated, even knowing that he saw it. It would have been better to lie immediately, convincingly, since she might be the only person in the complex whose thoughts weren’t visible to its master. Although she’d become better at lying as she grew closer to Hades, though, she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to do that to him. He did love her, and he was a victim in this, too.

“Give me some time,” she said after a moment. “It’s all so sudden. I had a whole life before this, you know.”

His face fell, just a little, before he caught it. “Of course, my Lady.”

“He doesn’t think much about what real people need, does he?” She put a hand to Liam’s cheek, paler than usual under the dark stubble. Two days or more, and he hadn’t even gotten to shave or change his clothes. Archangel would undoubtedly run him down even further if she somehow succeeded in getting away. “You should clean up, get some rest.”

“Later,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to leave you alone in here.”

“I’ll come with you. Then you can keep an eye on me, so everyone’s happy—how’s that?”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Yeah, I guess that should work. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” the Lady said softly, forcing herself to find some internal distance from the warm confusion that having him so close stirred up inside her. There was only one way to get out of this mess now. No matter how she really felt, she had to do her best to treat Liam as her enemy.

✨💀✨

Archangel’s secret lair had probably been all right ten or twenty years ago, when Leila and Liam were living here most of the time, but walking down its corridors was enough to confirm for Lady Radiance that he really had forgotten what physical being entailed. The portion she’d been held in, which looked even more like an abandoned fallout shelter from outside her room, had clearly received no maintenance before it was prepared for her. Even after they crossed into a more residential addition, she found herself having to illume a path between the few functioning lights overhead. The vinyl of the blue-and-white checkerboard floors was yellowed and peeling; hairline cracks patchworked the ceilings. She had the uneasy feeling that after decades of pressure from the water above, the structural integrity behind the drywall might be even worse.

Hades brought her down a short staircase and into a set of rooms that he seemed to know well. The lamps here, at least, worked, though their light was quickly swallowed up by the black-painted walls and dark wood furniture around them. It entertained Lady Radiance to guess from his embarrassed air and quick movement to shut some side doors that this was his formerly untouched teenage apartment.

“I’m going to go shower,” he said as he circled back to lock the hall door behind them. “I, uh—I don’t know what’s in here now, actually, but I doubt much was moved. I left some snacks out, and there’s the DVDs if you want to see if the TV still works, or you could go lay down—well—” It was hard to keep thinking of him as grim-countenanced Hades when he blushed like that. “Never mind. I’ll try not to be too long. Just don’t leave.”

“Take your time. I’ll be good,” Lady promised, smiling even more innocently at the wordless consternation that provoked. When he’d fled the room, she tried to sit quietly on the gorgeous but uncomfortable antique chaise longue and appreciate the aesthetic, but found after only a few minutes that she was restless. There seemed no excuse at all for staying still. On the one hand, she only had a limited time before Baz might be beyond saving; on the other, she was surrounded by temptations to imagine that proposed life as queen to Lord Hades. Unprepared to make a break for it yet, she yielded to the impulse to get up and look around. There was always the chance she would discover something useful.

The apartment was small, and quickly mapped. She guessed that Siren had once upon a time done the decorating, which carried the elegant-Goth look even into the kitchenette with dusty brocade wallpaper and a tiny chandelier. Lady Radiance passed by the open box of fruit leathers half spilled on the counter—she was hungry, but now couldn’t help but feel superstitious about accepting underworld hospitality. The door Hades had disappeared through let onto a bedroom, and with that thought in mind she hesitated at its threshold while listening to the water run on the other side of the bathroom door. His whole villain motif was built off a mythic foundation, after all. Under those old fairy-tale rules, what contract might be accidentally sealed by a girl who took liberties as if she were already his wife?

Well—she wouldn’t get in the bed, even if he had suggested it, but staying out of the room altogether seemed too scrupulous for reason. Lady entered and found herself immediately drawn to a tall mahogany wardrobe standing in the corner, its door ajar. The assortment of rich fabrics inside was to be expected, but she hadn’t thought that the piece on top would be a dress in her own size. Once she saw it, though, its presence made perfect sense—it would have been nothing for Archangel with his accumulated resources to acquire her measurements and have something like this ready for her. Though not her own style at all, it was certainly fit for the Queen of the Dead. The otherwise matronly cut was rescued by a slit reaching halfway up the skirt for ease of movement, the risk of chill balanced out by a black velvet cape hanging from the shoulders by silver skull brooches set with opal eyes.

She turned the high-necked, long-sleeved sheath of purple silk back and forth on its hanger, half-seriously examining it for poisoned pins, before laughing at herself and pulling it down into her arms. It was only a dress, and it would go very well with the short black boots she was still wearing. There’d be no better way to convince them that she was playing along. Lady Radiance moved quickly, spurred by the mortifying thought of her Lord walking in on her changing, and by the time she heard the bathroom door open behind her she was dressed again and detangling her loosed hair with a brush improvised from her solid light.

The long, breathless pause was…gratifying. The thought of giving up Liam’s intimate attention, for anything—

Lady steeled herself against that regret before she turned her face over her shoulder coyly. He’d put his clothes on already too, fortunately. “You don’t mind?”

“No. Of course not. I just feel a little underdressed now,” Hades said, walking around and reaching down to take the light-brush from her hand.

She indulged him by holding its shape in place as he made a few strokes through her hair, eyeing the stiff cut of his button-down shirt. “I would have said you were overdressed for resting.”

He shook his head. “The Master calls.”

“Already!” Lady Radiance looked over her Lord’s thin face in the mirror, cleaner and fresher but no less exhausted. “Tell him no.”

“You know I can’t,” he said.

“No rest for the wicked, then.”

“Something like that.”

She leaned back into his chest, letting him wrap an arm around her. “I don’t believe you are wicked,” she said. “Really. He can throw all the fits he wants, but there’s nothing like his evil in you.”

“Maybe so,” Hades said quietly. “But I’m weak, my Lady, and that’s worse.” She couldn’t think of an argument for that. Silently, she allowed him to squeeze her once and then step back. “You might as well come, too. He’ll be happier to see you than me, anyway.”

💀✨💀

Hades wouldn’t explain where they were going, but Lady Radiance guessed it around the time they left the living quarters and began descending a ladder into a third section of the complex, past the level of bedrock. The walls here were thick reinforced concrete, and the doors bore signs like Cloning Vats A thru. H and Biohazard 3. An additional notice on the door of Surgery 1 advised in shaky hand-lettering that entrance was strictly prohibited without prior authorization—so Archangel must not be controlling all his minions directly. Lord Hades pushed it open without a second glance and gestured impatiently for her to follow.

If the room had been a surgical suite before, it didn’t look much like one now. There was a hospital bed, true—both newer and nicer than the one she’d woken up in—surrounded by tubes, wires, pumps, and so on. The details of the equipment were unidentifiable to her; Lady Radiance had always preferred to stay clear of that kind of thing. Where it diverged from type was with the arcing scorch marks and large bleached patches across the walls and floor, and the series of smashed restraints hanging from the bedrails and adjoining wall. The unconscious man propped up in the bed, hooked into the pump system and with a set of metal cables now welded around him to keep him put, was still recognizable as Chained Lightning; but not, somehow, exactly in the way he had been. Lady’s apprehension was alleviated but not entirely helped by the presence of a clone standing next to him, just turning stiffly to face them in evident amusement.

“My Lady, very nice. So you’ve joined us,” the figure said. She smiled noncommittally, gathering from his unnatural range of motion and Hades’ air of deference that this was Archangel in a human suit, taking a bit more care around his future body than he had with either of them earlier. “Well, good, you can help. This has become a more delicate operation than expected—and by delicate, I mean that he’s become very difficult to control.”

Lady Radiance couldn’t help herself. “You didn’t foresee that boosting his powers so far might cause problems?”

“Lord Hades, you’ll have to do something about the lip on your woman,” Archangel said, but his tone was indulgent. “Yes, of course I understood what I was doing. Unfortunately, one of yesterday’s doses resulted in his spontaneously developing regenerative powers, and the sedation hasn’t worked properly since. Exposing him to too much of my influence at this point would risk the entire project, so I’m afraid it’s going to be a matter of old-fashioned kinetic leverage.”

“For how long?” Hades asked hesitantly.

He chuckled, turning back to a machine to press a few buttons. “What, did the two of you have something else you wanted to get to? …I suppose I might be able to spare you when things wind down in a few hours. I finished the most recent infusion about twenty minutes ago, so the effects should be visible before long. The larger, closely-spaced doses are remarkably effective, but the activation process is just as remarkably intense.”

Lady eyed the damage around them, took the measure of Hades’ drained stance as he brought them up about six feet from the bed, and allowed herself to hope that a plan was presenting itself.

Archangel muttered some curse, catching her attention, and she saw Baz’s eyelids moving. Then his whole body jerked awake, joints popping audibly as the slack in the chains hit its limit and threw him down again. His head tossed to the side, his blue eyes glowing slightly as he fixed them on the figure standing beside him. “Well, hey, Gabe,” he slurred. “Not good enough yet, huh? Or you just like moppin’ up?”

Archangel just pulled the clone’s mouth into an irritated smile. “Go ahead—enjoy your consciousness while you have it,” he said. “Perhaps another twelve hours, at most; depending on how this one turns out, I think one more application should do it. Don’t worry. I’ll say goodbye to your girlfriend for you.”

In one swing, Baz threw a punch that ripped one side of the chain from its concrete moorings like they were wet sand and kept going until his fist stuck out six inches from the other’s back, spraying gore across a nearby computer console. The lips that were not quite Archangel’s twitched in soulless defeat as his science project began trying to extract his forearm again.

“Oh, there y’are,” he said, looking up at Lady Radiance. “Guess I missed the weddin’. That’s gonna be fun to explain to your brother.”

Christabel shrank guiltily behind her Lord. Jacob. Where had her mind been? This whole time, she hadn’t thought once of Jacob. She’d just continued to assume that, losing Hades, she had no one left to rely on. Would her brother be angry with her?

Would he care at all?

“Don’t worry ’bout this,” Baz added. “Whatever caused the super-healin’ keeps the psychic stuff from gettin’ through my skin.” His hand pulled free of the clone’s torso with a sighing squelch, which seemed to tip him off to the more immediate source of her disturbed look. “…ah. You did not wanna see that.”

She grimaced, determined not to think too much about it. “Forget it. We’re getting out of here.”

“Don’t hafta tell me twice.” Shaking shreds of viscera from between his bloody fingers, he snapped the welded links across his chest easily and started wrapping the chain around his arm for leverage. “Does ‘we’ include lover boy?”

“No. Nobody’s leaving,” Hades said, looking down at his Lady in alarm. “Christabel, nobody’s leaving, right?”

The door opened and another clone shambled in smugly. “Magnificent. You’re coming along even better than I expected. Now, Lord Hades, if you could pin him down while I reattach the restraints and get this cleaned up.”

Baz squinted at him for a moment and then thrust out his free hand. A metal cabinet across the room rattled dangerously across the floor, broke free of gravity, and sailed past the clone to crash into the wall.

“Electromagnetic manipulation? That’ll be quite impressive once I get some pract—”

Archangel’s most recent shell erupted into black smoke with the equally earsplitting but more effective application of a lightning bolt to the face.

Christa blinked at Baz. “You’re being awfully…chill about this whole thing.”

“Ain’ me,” he said, smirking loosely as he climbed down from the bed and tugged experimentally at the other attachment point. “85 hurts like hell, and I only ever got a few mils at a time before. I don’t know how much morphine they got me on exactly, but pretty sure this much is usually fatal.”

“Right,” she said, even more concerned now. “My Lord—Liam—I can’t stay here. I certainly can’t leave him here, either. You have to understand.”

The door opened again in advance of a swarm of replicated foot-soldiers. Christa started to turn towards them, already raising her arms to summon a shield, but Liam seized her hands. “If you’re not on our side, just stay out of it,” he hissed. “Please. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Hades!” It was one of the identical clone voices, choking. Chained Lightning had gotten free of both the wall and the tubes and unleashed some kind of electrical wave into the crowd around him, totally unconcerned in his current state by anything they might try to hit back with. Not that he had much to be concerned about. Already, there didn’t seem to be more than one or two left who weren’t twitching, on fire, or slumped to the floor in some combination. Hades gave his Lady a hard look and threw a blast of red energy across the room that resolved itself on impact into fiery ropes holding Chained Lightning down.

Christa pulled fruitlessly at his arms, outstretched to keep the spell going. “Let him go,” she begged. “You can come with us. Or if you won’t, I—I’ll stay here with you. I’ll take your side in everything. Just let him go.”

“I told you, my Master has to be able to trust me,” he said. “I can’t risk him deciding to take you from me. You’re the most important thing there is, Christabel.”

“No, I’m not,” she said, reaching for his face. Pressing her fingers into his skin to bring him closer, she got up onto her toes and kissed him.

At first, Liam’s mouth tasted bitter, like a fly-bitten fruit—so bitter that Christa almost pulled away. Then the chill running down her throat and into her veins became a free-flowing warmth instead, and she understood all at once what he’d been trying to say. She was more important than anything to him, and that was exactly what she had always wanted: someone to love her for herself. Even if she couldn’t be a star, or a hero...even if she couldn’t be perfect, or even good…her Lord would have her. Everyone else she knew had expectations of her, but not him. He didn’t want to control her. He only wanted to hold her close, whatever it cost him.

She couldn’t imagine ever leaving his side again. There was nothing she could possibly want more than to marry him and be his Queen.

In the haze of the kiss, of finally realizing how much she was wanted, Christa forgot that she’d only been trying to divide his attention. She forgot everything except the two of them. One of Liam’s hands came hesitantly to rest on her back, drawing her further in; then, more confidently, the other. She floated up slightly so she could loop an arm behind his neck. He stroked her shoulder and breathed softly against her as that inner warmth began to flicker into a hungry fire.

Then a hand emerged from outside her awareness and materialized in the act of tearing her from his embrace. She stumbled as she hit the ground, regaining her footing only in time to see Hades rebounding from the attack in a halo of flame. A trail of black slime dripped from the corner of his mouth.

The Dark Lady found herself pushed aside further as Lord Hades and Chained Lightning ran at each other. It was hard to breathe, and with her vision dimming she struggled to parse exactly what was happening beyond the basic framework of blows exchanged. Other senses were rising to fill in the gaps—voices murmuring at the edges of her hearing, and strange colors adding dimension to the shadows. As she straightened up, trying to adjust to the blurriness of the world, the fight ended as quickly as it had started: a sharp crack and a flash of light saw Hades thrown down hard, and his opponent grabbed her again by the arm.

The Lady slapped at him, trying to get free and run to her Lord. “What was that for?!”

Chained Lightning dragged her back a few steps. “Christa, I have t’get you out of here.”

“I’m not leaving him!”

She was struggling, but her former ally was stronger now than she could ever have hoped to be. He picked her up and let her flail wildly in anguish. “A’right,” he said, batting away a kick aimed for his face. “I have t’get you out of here the hard way, then. But we’re goin’.”

The Lady screamed. Her Lord lay shuddering on the floor, and she screamed for him and he said nothing. Even as he got smaller in her vision, he only gasped silently as the darkness began to pour out of him. Searching for something she could do with the powers Lady Radiance had, only one thing came to her desperate mind—converting light into heat—but the process was slow. By the time her skin was hot enough to glow red, they were out into the hallway, leaving Lord Hades invisible behind a closed door. She grabbed at her assailant’s exposed neck. “Let me go! I can’t leave him!”

The smell of melted polymer turned to burnt hair, but he only broke into a jog. The Lady tightened her grip as tears started to drip from her chin, intensifying the incandescence until the skin beneath her fingers blistered and then broke. He didn’t understand. Nobody else could understand. Her place was here now.

The ink-black tears hitting the now exposed flesh sizzled, and Chained Lightning shook her off with a roar. She tumbled, struggling to orient herself in the smoky haze as her temperature dropped. It would take too long to try to burn him again, but if she could sight his legs—there. Ropes of solid light, ultraviolet rather than golden, shot from her hands without conscious thought and wrapped around him, pulling him down to the floor too. She had to get away somehow, find her Lord. Were his armies depleted already?

Somebody help me!

The Dark Lady was on her feet, but an electric shock knocked her back, breaking her concentration. Before she knew what was happening, she was being hauled up again. Footsteps echoed further down the hall, now, but there was nothing she could do. There was the ladder up, and a hatch bouncing closed behind them, and a shower of sparks from the metal hinges being turned into solder, so bright that for another minute she was blind.

Liam!

Her throat was raw; she must be shouting still, though her consciousness was starting to flicker and her hearing going in and out as well.

I can’t leave him! It’s killing me!

The violence with which they took a turn pushed her face into bare skin, and she bit down until the blood pulsing across her teeth started to burn her and she had to spit it out, blackness streaming from her lips and into the wound. Her body slammed into some hard surface and then she was upside-down by her ankles, helpless, continuing to move further and further away from the only thing in her life or death that mattered.

Fresh air suddenly hit her face, reviving the Dark Lady from a blackout she hadn’t realized she was slipping into. Around her, static-swathed voices broke haphazardly through the whispers of the dead.

—go back in—couldn’t just leave—were finalizing—

—CALL IT OFF—WHAT YOU’RE DEALING WITH—GET—

—cryostasis—only chance—

Reality warped around her as someone pulled them through a portal, and the Lady screamed wordlessly in protest until blotches of color filled her vision from lack of breath.

The flashes of awareness continued more and more sparsely as the darkness closed in further. A long hallway. A tall room. A coffin?

Chained Lightning was having to wrestle with her, whether she’d grown stronger or he was weakening. She was howling and scratching at him, but he only pushed back harder to get her into the box. She could see his face now, empty-featured, blood-spattered, his skin seeming to bubble around the long streaks of black just under its surface. Blurry figures moved behind him—that outline, that gait—

Jacob—

Something pierced her spine just below the waist, and the blood in her veins began to turn cold just as a glass lid closed between her and the world. Icy liquid rushed in at her feet, quickly rising to cover the fists still banging uselessly on the window. Then it poured into her nose and mouth, air bubbling up out of her lungs as she tried in vain to breathe.

They were drowning her. She had no one, after all. She would die here alone.

💀💀💀

A face appeared at the mirror that was not quite a mirror, a face that was not quite her face, contorted by emotion.

As paralysis climbed her body, the Queen of the Dead regarded the other face impassively through half-closed eyes. One unsecured hand had drifted up to the glass, and she rotated her shoulder until her fingertips pressed against it.

On the other side, a much larger hand came into view and matched the position as best as it could.

It was the last thing she saw before the cold took her.

<#8, Part One || Directory || To 8.5 || #9, Part One>

Thanks so much for reading, and a very blessed, VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS SEASON to all of you. (I know, you’re thrilled with your present this year. Just what you wanted, right? My timing is impeccable…) I also appreciate your patience with my posting this month. Sometimes stories just don’t work out, and there are clearly some seasonal limitations to my writing schedule. These and other lessons learned to be discussed very soon, as I have a quarterly update post due.

Well—onward. Radiance #8.5, Stay Under Glass, will be posted January 9. (In which some hard conversations are had—finally!—and our heroes start to pick up the pieces.)