Jesseca turned and had a look on her face that Sue hadn’t seen since before Hannah had died. “I wanna go out and play.” she said.
Sue smiled and nodded, “You got it Jess, welcome back.” she said.
“Ladies, I thank you for wanting to help with the investigation, but we honestly have everything under control.” Antonio Nash said as he sat behind his desk looking over the reports of the mornings attack.
“Please Mr. Nash, if there’s anything at all we can do to help, we’ll do it.” Jesseca pleaded to Antonio.
Antonio took of his thin rimmed glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as he held his head down. “All right, we do have a small lead.” he said and picked up a file folder and passed it over to the two female heroes. “We found a Circle of Thorns dagger amongst a pile of debris at the mall. Fingerprint analysis says the last person holding it was a Mr. Franklin Ives. Go see if you can get anything out of him, address is on the back page.” Antonio finished his brief briefing and turned his chair around to face the window.
“Thank you Mr. Nash, we’ll get all the information we can and report back to you in a bit.” Jesseca said as the pair left the office.
“So, what’s the Circle of Thorns?” Jesseca asked as she and Sue flew over the city toward the address in the file.
“They’re a religious cult, big on sacrifice and mayhem. They’re constantly finding some ancient demon to worship and try to bring to life, they’re a huge pain in the butt.” Sue explained.
“So, you think a demon was what attacked the mall this morning?” Jesseca asked.
“I have no clue, whatever it was, it’s cold and uncaring, and definitely evil and powerful.” Sue said.
The pair flew in silence for a long while, both thinking about what was rapidly becoming a very bad situation as they thought of all the possible things that could have attacked the mall.
“This looks like the place.” Sue said, breaking the silence, as she carried herself and Jesseca through the air near a tall high rise apartment building.
The pair landed on the roof of the building and made their way down a few floors till they got to the floor in the file. “Ok, now we need #856.” Sue said as they stalked quietly down the hall.
As they made their way down the hall, a door at the end of the hall opened and a woman walked out of the apartment. The woman wore a hooded cloak, obscuring her face entirely.
“That’s the apartment we need.” Sue whispered to Jesseca.
The woman stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to face Sue and Jesseca.
“She couldn’t have heard me.” Sue thought to herself.
The woman slowly walked toward them, each step seeming more menacing than the last.
“Ma’am, please stop where you are, we’re heroes, and we don’t want to harm you.” Sue said to the cloaked woman.
The woman rose her hand level to Sue’s body and blasted her with a dose of green energy. The blast hit Sue square in the chest and sent her flying backward through the concrete wall behind her. Sue sailed over the street far below and crashed through the building across the street’s front windows and skidded to a halt amidst broken glass and battered office furniture.
“That wasn’t a very smart thing to do.” Jesseca said through gritted teeth and lunged at the cloaked woman.
Moving with lightning quickness the woman grabbed Jesseca by the throat in midair and slammed her against the wall.
“Who are you?” Jesseca choked out as her air supply rapidly depleted.
The woman slid her cloak off slowly, her long green locks tumbling down her shoulders. The woman smiled in a sickeningly evil way, “Mommy’s back,” she whispered into Jesseca’s ear, “and she thinks you’ve been a very, very naughty girl.”
Jesseca was starting to fade, the combination of the woman choking her and the revelation that the woman was her dead best friend was a little too much to grasp at the moment. “Hannah, how? Why?” she asked as darkness began to creep into her head.
“If you survive to the end, you’ll get your answers.” Hannah said and charged her hand up and blasted Jesseca in the face, sending her crashing through wall after wall and finally out into the cooling afternoon air.
Jesseca slowly opened her eyes, and instantly shut them again as she saw the ground rushing up to meet her. The crushing force of the impact shattered windows a block in every direction and provided a lovely view of the sewers below the street for anyone high enough above the ground level to see into the school bus sized hole.
Hannah looked down at where Jesseca lay motionless in the crater she’d created. Smiling and chuckling to herself Hannah took to the air and flew off, leaving two heroes down in her wake of destruction.
