1.z (Interlude: Taylor)

Taylor's spectral hand slapped the plastic bottle off the card table and into Emma's purple where it bobbed in place amid the rest of the debris. She then lifted a plastic sword-something she remembered from when Emma and her were young-and tossed it so the blunt tip struck and sank into the mist. She concentrated as she lifted an old, water-damaged dictionary and heaved it with all of her ghost's meager might. The tome flopped open on impact, ripping but staying afloat.

Emma grinned defiantly with her hands on her hips, her magenta cloud tinting her hair blue and her skin neon pink. Sparks buzzed around both her and the clutter of trash, small toys and other hovering odds and ends Taylor had thrown at her. Taylor couldn't penetrate Emma's barrier this way, but she could overburden it. Emma tended to fumble when levitating too many objects, but so far she'd kept control, which was all the more impressive because she'd just spent thirty minutes kickboxing a canvas sack. She still wore the bicycle shorts and sweaty tank top.

"You have to be getting tired," Taylor said through her body sleeping on a mat a few feet behind Emma. It was a trick she recently taught herself, though it made her speech slow and monotone.

"A little," Emma admitted. "I can't believe you threw that freaking book. I didn't realize your ghost was that strong."

Taylor shrugged, which was silly because she was invisible. "I'm working out my ectoplasm."

"Ha ha. Now it's your turn to play catch."

Carefully, Emma piled the floating junk neatly to the side and looked at the six cheap kitchen knives arrayed at her feet. They rose in her purple until they were chest-level. Crackling with sparks, their points wobbled slightly as they aimed at Taylor's ghost floating behind the card table.

"Ready?" Emma asked.

Taylor glanced at her body. The broomstick was hidden beside the mat. "Go ahead."

The first knife shot from the purple like a crossbow bolt, passing through Taylor's midsection and penetrating a sheet of particleboard behind her. The rest sprang out in rapid succession. She slowed down three of them, causing them to strike sideways. The fifth deflected through her hand and leg and clattered to the concrete floor. The sixth fumbled through her smoky fingers, but she managed to catch the knife before it fell. She flipped and caught it and waved it in the air victoriously before resting it on the table. She then popped her ghost and woke on the mat. She breathed in the ozone smell of the garage air, but didn't move.

"Not bad," Emma said. "You said you could stretch if you concentrate. Have you tried widening your body into like a giant catcher's mitt?"

Taylor wrapped her fingers around the broomstick and sat up. Emma was about eight feet away, facing where she thought the ghost was. Slowly, silently, Taylor stood and took a single step closer.

"Taylor?"

Taylor lunged, stabbed. The purple resisted like gelatin as the blunt tip penetrated towards the small of Emma's back. But Emma turned around, and the two feet of embedded shaft disintegrated in a small burst of lightning and charred splinters.

"Taylor! That's sneaky!"

"Bad guys with knives can be sneaky too."

"With knives, they'd have to get close, and I'd zap them."

"What if they're like you, immune to electricity?"

"I don't know I'm immune, just resistant. I mean, I only tested a taser on myself."

Taylor held up a hand. "It doesn't matter. Your purple doesn't block slow attacks unless you concentrate. So, what if you're distracted? What if there's multiple slow attacks? We need to practice more. Maybe you could wear a blindfold . . ."

Emma rolled her eyes, and her purple evaporated around her, reverting her skin from pink to pale, her hair from blue to red. She gestured for Taylor to follow and they left the garage through the kitchen door. On the counter were piled empty pizza boxes from Madison and Julia's sleepover last night. Baby Bear, the Barnes' corgi, trotted across the linoleum and rolled on his back. Emma knelt to rub his belly.

"What about you?" she asked. "You should be practicing your Christmas Carol nightmares. Find some abusive assholes and teach them a lesson."

"Emma, I don't want to use that power lightly."

Emma had taken a bottle of flavored water from the fridge. She stopped as she unscrewed the cap. "I didn't say you should. But you have a lot more potential than I do. All I can do is beat up bad people. You can make those bad people good. Look at me: I was a monster, and you made me myself again. You could do that to others."

Taylor sighed and sat on a stool by the counter. She'd been dreading talking about this. Those three nights had been a desperate gambit that had just happened to pay off. It wasn't something she wanted to dwell on, much less repeat.

She stared at her bare, bony feet as she spoke. "When I first flew into your bedroom, I wasn't even sure what I'd find. Part of me was afraid the old you would be gone, that only 'Emma-the-bitch' would be left. But I tasted you, and you were there: scared, miserable and asleep in a pit in your brain. You were just as trapped as I was. You were sick. I decided then that I needed to save you, no matter what. Because you were my friend.

"I had to hold back. If I pushed too hard, you might kill yourself when you woke up or go catatonic or even die of a heart attack. So I was very careful. And there was more going on than just those . . . dreams. I was whispering to you, deep down. I was tugging at you, urging you to wake up and climb out of the pit."

Taylor paused, remembering when Emma revealed the ruined flute from under the sink. She'd lost control then and raged with grief until Emma triggered and metamorphosed into this . . . new Emma who now was sitting on a stool beside her, smiling with awe, her blue eyes brimming with tears. Had getting her powers affected Emma's mind as well? Had that been part of the cure?

"And . . . it worked," Taylor said finally. "But it worked because I know you, Emma. Because I love you. How could I reach someone like Lung or Kaiser? You say you were a monster, but they're far worse than you ever were. There might not be any good inside them. And even if there is and I try to draw it out, I might destroy them trying to save them."

From the slight curdle of Emma's mouth, she clearly didn't think killing Lung with nightmares would be anything to cry over. On the other hand, Emma wouldn't be the one having to taste his terror.

Emma took Taylor's hand and held it in both of hers as though she were going to read her fortune. The scars from the locker still crisscrossed her palm, but after a couple of weeks of using Emma's cream, they were now faded to nearly invisible creases.

"I trust you, Taylor. Whatever you choose, I know it'll be right."

Emma's grip felt warm. Taylor found her wide-eyed devotion unsettling.

"I'll . . . I'll do my best," Taylor said.

That night she flew her ghost north towards the Docks. She wasn't sure why. She certainly didn't intend to inflict evil-doers with nightmares like what Emma wanted-not without good reason-but if nothing else, she could uncover on some of the ABB's hideouts and maybe learn the location of their human trafficking 'farms.' And now that she was getting good at moving objects, sabotage was an option. Taylor had to admit, being a poltergeist was fun.

She wondered whether she would come across any Ward patrols, maybe even Shadow Stalker. She was supposed to be grounded, but given how badly the PRT had dropped the ball before, Taylor wouldn't be exactly shocked if she saw her. The temptation to mess with her would be unbearable.

Taylor was about two hundred feet above the downtown pier when she heard the muffled scream. The beach looked vacant, but as Taylor dived she spotted movement along the edge of the boardwalk. She phased through the wooden planks to the trash-strewn sandy ground beneath and with her ghostly vision easily saw in the darkness the three figures by a support column.

They were about her age, two boys with a drunk-looking girl braced between them. The girl's blouse was torn, and an angry red bruise was swelling shut her left eye. One of the boys-the one with a pinched face an a shaved head-held a hand over her mouth. She struggled weakly against their grip until the skinhead tossed her to the sand. She flopped and mewled. The skinhead kicked her in the side.

"We don't have to kill her afterwards," said the other boy. He was shorter and stockier than the skinhead and had a buzz cut dyed closer to yellow than blonde.

"You fagging out?" said the skinhead with disgust. He was already unfastening his belt.

"No way!" said buzz cut. "But with that shit you gave her, it's not like she's going to remember this. And wouldn't it be funnier to see her at school and act all sympathetic, like, 'What's the matter, heeb? You look upset. Did something happen?'"

Taylor was floating between them now, and she paused at what sounded like an abbreviation of her last name. No, 'heeb' had to be short for 'Hebrew.' It was pretty obvious these guys were with Empire Eighty-Eight.

"I think it'll be more fun to slit her throat," said the skinhead, pulling down his cargo pants as he stood over her. "I just want to see her eyes when I do it."

They were standing a few feet apart, but Taylor elongated her arms and planted a hand in each of their brains. Buzz cut was an ugly, weak mind, similar in broad strokes to how Emma's had been. The skinhead tasted . . . rancid, yet somehow empty. He was anger, hunger and scarcely anything else. There was no scared little boy inside him. Either way, Taylor had no time for Christmas Caroling.

*Fear!* Taylor projected, and the two boys hesitated and jerked their heads around in sudden bitter-tasting panic, buzz cut more so than the skinhead. Off a spur of the moment inspiration, she whispered, ~The ground is covered with angry fire ants! Feel their tiny legs! Feel their tiny bites!

She then drew out of their skulls and then slithered around in a low figure eight as she swept her ghostly fingers along their thighs.

"Ahh!" said buzz cut, scratching and clawing at his jeans.

Skinhead slapped at his bare skin and bent over, squinting. It was too dark for him to tell for sure. "Shit!" he said, more out of annoyance than anything.

Taylor reached one hand into buzz cut's head. Her other she pressed through the denim covering his crotch.

~Ants in your pants! Ants in your pants! Hungry, hungry ants! Her fingers pinched him, again and again.

Buzz cut screamed like a little girl and danced in panic as he yanked down his jeans and boxers. "Get them off! Get them off! Oh god! They're eating me!"

"Shut up, assfaggot! I . . . I think it's just our imagination. I mean, I . . . I don't see any-"

Taylor touched the skinhead's mind. He was afraid, but he wasn't showing it. She ran a hand up his thigh, making him squirm.

~The ants are real. There are millions of them below your feet. Run now or you'll both be skeletons in the morning!

The skinhead shook his head and pulled up his pants. "Fuck it. Let's get out of here. Leave the Jew for the ants."

Buzz cut didn't need to be told twice. Together they sprinted for the beach, buzz cut naked from the waist down. Taylor floated beside the half-conscious girl. Her one open eye rolled around in confusion. She had an olive complexion and curly black hair that could have been a match for Taylor's own. Taylor pressed her fingers into her brain. The clouded fear had a sour, pungent flavor that reminded Taylor of liquorice. Taylor hated liquorice.

*Safety, calm.* ~Don't worry. They're gone now. I won't let them hurt you.

". . . ants?"

the girl subvocialized.

~There are no ants. At least none that I know of. I'm going to go get help.

"Who are you?"

Taylor ignored the question, and instead focused on her body lying miles south in Emma's bed. Her body spoke aloud, "Emma! Emma! Don't wake me up! I need you to call the police. Use my phone, so it can't be traced."

With her physical body asleep, she had to concentrate to 'hear' Emma's reply, though the words came seemingly half-imagined in her mind.

"Wait . . . what? Where . . . where are you, Taylor? I mean, where's your gho-?"

"Just do it, Emma! Tell them there's a girl who's been drugged under the pier by the south ferry station. There's two teenage boys nearby, one without any pants."

"Oh! . . . Um, okay, okay, I'm calling . . ."

Two police cruisers and an ambulance showed up within five minutes. Offering the officers subliminal 'hunches' and a few instances of, 'did-you-hear-that?' Taylor led them to the girl, as well as to the two boys hiding in the shadow of a dock a short ways down the beach. Taylor tripped the skinhead as he ran; he tried to get up again but got tased for his efforts. With a little applied *fear!* and *guilt!* the handcuffed, half-naked buzz cut quickly confessed what they'd intended to do. The enraged skinhead spat curses.

Later, as Taylor floated above the beach and watched the vehicles drive away, she said, "I saved her life."

"I'm proud of you,"

Emma said.

Taylor popped her ghost and opened her eyes. A small purple star glowed dimly along the bedroom's ceiling, half-eclipsed by Emma's face staring down at her. Emma brushed hair from Taylor's eyes.

"It feels good," Taylor admitted. "Being a hero."

Emma's smirk was nearly lost in shadow. "I'm jealous. I want to join the fun."

She'd like for Emma to come along too, but unlike herself, Emma would be in actual danger.

"Let's run some more tests, first."

Emma groaned.

"Stop that," Taylor said.

Floating in mist, Emma drifted in lazy circles a foot above the garage floor. Tiny streaks of lightning crackled along her skin and her shorts and tanktop. Her blue hair waved around her head in slow, snakelike motions as if submerged in water.

"It looks dramatic," Emma said. "Bad guys will shit themselves."

"Or shoot you." Taylor motioned at Alan's unloaded handgun laying beside the trash bag on the card table. "Levitating makes you tired, and you're already sore from all that digging. Anyway, your powers look like a deep space electrical storm: I think you have 'dramatic' covered."

"It sucks 'Nebula' has already been taken. 'Tesla' too. Both would have really fit, don't you think? There really aren't any good electricity or space-themed names left. What am I going to go with, 'Lightning Girl'?"

"'Stardust' is available."

"Too soon. He only died a few months ago"

"'Purple Haze'? She's been dead a decade."

Emma shook her head. "That name's cheesy. I don't want people to think I listen to hippy music."

"How about 'Faraday'?"

"What, like a Faraday cage?"

"Well, your power sort of looks like the effects of a Faraday cage. Without the cage."

Emma drifted down until her bare feet touched the concrete. She frowned thoughtfully. "Hmm, maybe."

"Come on," Taylor said. "Let's get this started."

Emma wirelessly connected her phone to a set of large speakers in the corner. After a few screen taps, hip hop music blared through the garage so loud that it made the air tremble. Cringing, Taylor twisted foam plugs into her ears and handed Emma a pair. It scarcely blocked the noise, but the booming sounds would drown out any gunshots the neighbors might hear.

Taylor lifted the pistol and magazine and backed a couple of yards from the table. Emma stood by her side.

Pointing the weapon downward and keeping her finger away from the trigger, Taylor slid in the magazine and pulled back on the slide to chamber a round. She didn't know much about guns, but from her research online, she knew this was a nine millimeter semi-automatic. The caliber wasn't particularly powerful, but this at least would give them an idea of how bulletproof Emma's powers could be.

Taylor had to shout to be heard. "Ready? Start at your default strength."

Emma nodded and conjured a beach ball-sized orb of pinkish-magenta in front of the trash bag on the card table. The double-thick black plastic was half-filled with soil from the Barnes' backyard. Taylor had helped dig but had soon grown dizzy with exertion, and so Emma had to finish on her own. To her credit, she hadn't complained too much. They'd had to use a wheelbarrow to get the bag in the garage, and together had just managed to lift and flop it onto the tabletop.

Taylor raised the gun in the two-handed grip she'd practiced from a Youtube video. Lining up the rear and forward sights, she aimed for the center of the glowing orb. She waited, and Emma cast another mist that enveloped both her and Taylor completely except for the pistol poking through its barrier. It was a shield against ricochets.

Slipping her finger over the trigger, Taylor breathed in the ozone that surrounded her. Translucent pink tinted her vision. The mist tickled like static across her skin. She squeezed the trigger gently.

Even through her earplugs and the pounding of music, the gunshot's 'pop' still made Taylor jump. The firearm bucked slightly in her hands.

"Shit, I felt it slip through!" Emma exclaimed, her voice barely audible. She pointed: dark brown dirt bled from a dime-sized hole in the trash bag.

"Make it a little denser," Taylor said.

The magenta of the target darkened into a lavender shade. Taylor fired again. This time the bullet struck lower, punching through the cheap wood where the table met the bag.

"I almost had it," Emma said. "I know I slowed it down."

"A little more," said Taylor.

The lavender deepened into a rich purple. When Taylor fired this time, hair-thin lightning writhed within the orb before fading away. The cloudy ball was too thick to see through clearly, but it then spat out something small like a pebble which arced neatly into Emma's outstretched palm.

"Ah! Hot!" Emma flailed her hand, but her protective mist caught a hold of the falling bullet and made it rotate slowly in place. Smiling smugly at Taylor, she reached for her phone and turned off the music.

The sudden silence was more of a relief than Taylor would have expected. She tugged out her earplugs.

"Impressive, but you have to concentrate to make your mist that dense. And then it slows you down, right?"

Emma collapsed the cloud, dispelling the pink tint and the ozone smell. The suspended bullet dropped and clattered on the floor.

"I can't run when it's that thick," Emma admitted. "It's like trying to move while underwater."

"So you have to concentrate to be bulletproof, and when you're bulletproof, you lose mobility. In that case, we'll want look into finding you some body armor. Relying just on your purple could get you killed."

"But . . . do you think I'm ready?"

Taylor stepped over to the table and slid out the magazine from the pistol. Carefully, she pulled back the slide and turned the weapon until the round in the chamber fell out of the ejection port and rolled along the tabletop.

"Almost," she said, though she felt silly saying that, as if she were a qualified judge. "But first I'm going to do some scouting while I'm on my ghost-patrols. Let me find a good place for us to hit. Maybe one of the ABB's 'farms'?"

"Oh, I'd like that!" Emma said excitedly. "And in the meantime, I can work on my costume."

Taylor snatched the dropped bullet off the floor and began searching for the spent brass casings behind boxes of old paperbacks. "You're going to lose the metal mask, right? I admit Shadow Stalker's costume has style, but I still don't want you copying her that closely. How about a helmet, instead? That'd be more sensible, anyway."

"Okay, fine. But you think I should keep the longcoat, right?"

Taylor picked up a casing and grinned. "Of course. The longcoat's badass."

AN: This is the end of Arc 1. Arc 2 will be called 'Candescence.' I'm going to take a brief break from the story to focus on my other writing projects, including 'Weaver and Jinx.' I also plan on starting my first Quest thread on SB.

Anyway, I'd like to thank Racheakt for is his advice and creative input.