Sell you a Bridge chapter 250

June 3rd 2016 Prospero and Michael Scott Memorial Library, The Nightside 3:00 PM EDT

It  was shocking to me to see what Tommy was capable of with his abilities.  My powers were mostly limited by my personal strength, or at least some  aspect of it that was somehow relevant to my ability to alter the  world. Granted, Tommy didn't exactly seem to be able to shrug off  whatever he'd done either. He was on his hands and knees, face pale and  blood dripping from his nose, and that wasn't even bringing up the whole  flickering out of existence thing. But still, sickly or not the man had  pulled off something I would have trouble with, and he'd used a power  very similar to my own.

I helped him to his feet, letting  my armor retreat into its torc as everyone adjusted to the sudden  absence of the enemy. It had apparently been just as jarring for the  rest of our party as it had been for me. Artemis, who was gasping  slightly as Wally stumbled away from her looking drained, wheeled on  Tommy in confusion. "Ok, that the hell just happened? Because that was  even weirder than most of the shit that happens in this place. We were  fighting and then they were just...gone. Did you do that?"

It  occurred to me that people who weren't me and didn't have my ability  probably had no clue that was coming, so I could understand the  confusion. I helped Tommy over to sit on on a nearby tombstone. The  existential detective smiled weakly. "Yes. I simply convinced the  universe that the Harrowing had never found us. I wasn't too specific.  They may have ended up in the wrong room, or never detected us at all,  or maybe just arrived and left before we got here. Whatever happened we  never ran into them, so there was never any danger."

I had  an odd thought and drew my gun, checking the clip to see if there were  any rounds in it. There were, which bore out Tommys version of things. I  was impressed, and also fairly happy. I could reload this thing, but  I'd noticed the rounds didn't work too well unless they had been in the  gun for a while. Some weird conceptual factor of its nature apparently  needed time to sink in. The bullets would still be dangerous of course,  it just took a while to get the full effect of the weapon.

Artemis  mostly looked confused, but she didn't asking anything else, turning to  check on her boyfriend. Speaking of which I made sure Tommy was ok and  then headed over to check in on my girls. Zee was leaned against a  headstone looking winded. Apparently while the bullets had returned to  my gun, the magic she'd used hadn't reappeared, which was odd. When I  got close she gave me a wide smile, her sweaty face lighting up with  pride. "Kept my shield up. Not that it was easy."

I leaned  in to kiss her softly. "I imagine it wasn't. I felt how strong those  things were, you kicked ass out there." I looked at Drea, who was  hovering nearby with a concerned look on her face, making sure Zee was  alright. "You both did. Thanks for keeping our girl topped up. I shudder  to think what would have happened if Artemis and Wally hadn't had a  safe place to shoot from. No way I was going to keep all their attention  alone." Thinking about how dangerous that had been chilled my blood.

I'd  gotten far too comfortable being the biggest bully on the playground. I  knew objectively the Nightside was dangerous, but it had all been sort  of theoretical until now. Weird magic or obscure powers that I didn't  really have any context for. The Harrowing though...they had just been a  straight up threat. Being one of the strongest people on the planet had  made it easy to forget I wasn't THE strongest. I might be in the top  one percent in terms of power, but that left A LOT of beings I'd mostly  been ignoring.

It made me even more committed to the idea  of learning from Tommy. The better I could use my power the more  strength I could bring to bear protecting my loved ones. I also decided  to pick up a new ability. I needed to wait until I was somewhere safe so  I didn't expose what I could do, but I wanted to find something that  could be used as a safety net in case one of us got hurt in some way I  couldn't stop. This battle had made it far too clear that I wasn't  capable of protecting everyone.

I had a few ideas, emails  I'd seen before that I hadn't ever invested in because they were too  expensive, and didn't seem necessary. I pushed them to the back of my  mind though as I checked in on everyone. Jim was looking unruffled as  ever, whatever weird skeletal binding he had used had faded with the  harrowing, and my mentor never really seemed to tire or feel any strain  from casting big spells. Taylor had put away his knuckles, and he looked  drained by the roller coaster of emotion that was the fight.

John  looked relieved. He'd stowed the gold flamethrower thing back in his  coat, though I had literally know clue where, I didn't see any lines of  disruptions in the canvas overcoat that would indicate he head a weapon  under it. I turned to Artemis and Wally. "Also, what the actual fuck was  THAT? I knew you could boost Wally's ability a bit, I saw you do it on  New Genesis, but I didn't know it worked the other way around. Those  bolt arrows were seriously hardcore to be able to hurt those things."

My  best friend just shrugged. "Nothing we'd really tried much before. We'd  talked about the possibility but it wasn't something we had a chance to  test. It was pretty clear that my bow wouldn't be enough to drop them  though, so we figured what the hell. We were behind a shield anyway so  we decided to try for a hail mary." She shot Zee a grateful smile.  "Thanks for that by the way, I don't want to see what those things could  have done to me if they'd gotten their hands on me."

My  girlfriend gave her a tired grin. "I only have the one sister. It would  be a shame to lose you. Plus I hear terrible things about being the last  remaining member of a species." Despite the flippant tone I felt a pang  of fear from our bond at the idea. I hadn't realized how afraid of that  Zee was, but I supposed it made sense. After losing her mother and then  sort of her father, we were the only family she had left. She had the  bond linking her to Drea, Rana, and me, but Artemis was quickly becoming  the most vulnerable member of our little family. Yet another reason to  look into some death prevention emails when I had a moment tonight.

I'd  gotten so used to the idea of all of us as a team that I had started  taking for granted that the others would be able to keep up with me.  Granted they were all pretty tough, and they had survived the OZ and New  Genesis well enough, but I wasn't exactly the same person as I'd been  back then, and even in the OZ I'd been markedly more powerful than the  others. Wally was some sort of weird super speed godling, Artemis and  Zee were partially divine, and Drea was a literal goddess, but that  didn't mean they were all in my weight class.

It was pure  idiocy on my part to run around with them without taking any protective  measures, and suddenly I felt like we were all vulnerable and exposed in  a way I hadn't experienced since getting my power. Being so much  stronger than everyone else gave me the ability to protect them, sure,  but it also made it possible that something awful could happen and I  would be the only one to survive.

I forced down my minor  panic attack and turned to the others. "We should get our of here. Just  because the Harrowing never found us doesn't mean they can't come back  later, and I'd rather not be here if that happens. Tommy, you good to  move?" I turned to look at our savior, who was stile pale and shaking.  Despite the obvious exhaustion he gave me a weak smile and a thumbs up,  standing woozily to follow after us. I caught him under the elbow,  helping steady him, as we moved toward the exit the Taylor had  originally pointed us at.

I noted how convenient it was  that we had the heading we needed with seemingly no consequences, but  then I looked at Tommy's shaking form and realized that the consequences  had just been shifted around slightly. We moved into the next room  through a new door, and suddenly, the starlit sky was gone, and we were  standing in the sun. The crisp dew covered grass beneath my feet gave  way to sand, and I froze in place as we made the transition. The others  stepped through after me, and they all stopped too, completely stunned  by the rapid change in location.

I  turned to Taylor. "Ok, what the fuck? The horror section I got, but  what kind of books are here? And where the hell are they?" I was  completely stunned by the detail in this room. I felt the give of the  sand under my feet, which wasn't such a shock once I got used to it, but  more than that, this place FELT like an island. The low roar of the  tide licked at the beaches and I could smell the salt of the sea on the  air. I could hear seagulls cawing overhead, and when I looked up I could  see them circling beneath the endless blue expanse of the daytime sky.

Taylor  smiled fondly as he looked around. "Adventure. Treasure island and  such. The books are in the pine trees." A second glance showed me that  yes, each pine tree was a thick trunked, open faced book shelf laden  with stacks of tomes. Despite the awe I was feeling though, we weren't  finished walking. Taylor waved us all on. "Come along, we're almost  there. I saw them close to here." He led us off into the interior of the  beach, toward what looked like a jungle area, and we walked briskly  between much bigger, thicker trees as we transitioned into a rain forest  type area.

We  walked through the jungle, past rivers and waterfalls and clearings,  until we finally came to a cliff, and built into that cliff was a stone  temple, overgrown with vines and moss. Taylor led us up the cracking  steps and into the temple proper and when we stepped inside we found a  nice, well lit reading room with several long tables. There were stone  shelves lining the walls, though the humidity from outside had vanished  when we entered, the area prepared for people to properly enjoy the many  tomes nearby.

As  we entered we found a table and at the table sat a man. He wasn't large  or imposing, wasn't impressive or handsome or striking, though he  wasn't ugly either. He was just...average. Messy brown hair, grey at the  temples, and a bland face with pale blue-grey eyes. He sat next to a  stack of books, flipping through the volumes, and when we came in he  looked up with interest, though not with concern.

Next  to him sat a girl. She was...gorgeous. Busty and dark haired, with  violet eyes that reminded me of Zee, and lilac lips that looked like  Drea's. Her face was guarded, and she was staring at us cautiously. The  man just smiled and gestured for us to sit down. "Oh, hello. Can I help  you?" Apparently we had found Sinner. On the up side, he didn't seem  like he was hostile. I found myself considering his question. I really  hoped he could.