Sell you a Bridge chapter 184

February 29th 2011 The OZ 7:00 PM EDT

We  slipped past the guards as they freaked out about the machine  malfunctioning and headed for the roof. A journey made infinitely more  complicated by the absolute asshole who had designed this place not  bothering to put STAIRS or a DOOR to the roof, and just slapping a  fucking ladder on the size of a fucking skyscraper like it was a decent  idea. I mean, I could fly so I was fine, but it was undeniably a pain in  the ass moving like six people up that shitty single person ladder. I  was able to carry Zee and DG (I'd been planning to bring Dreamer, but  the princess had made the decent point that we needed her to talk her  sister down).

When we got up there we found Azkedelia,  wearing that big ass emerald around her neck in a gaudy gold setting and  standing in a huge green beam of light shooting up from the tower into  the sky. A beam that was flickering, luckily for us. She was also  standing on some kind of skylight with her back to a big open room on a  marble balcony, instead of the shitty roof I'd been expecting. I cursed.  There WAS a fucking set of stairs, we just hadn't found it.

Before  we had a chance to interact though the beam flickered and doubled in  strength. I cursed. Glitch had been derailed, clearly something went  wrong. There was a shift in the sky above us and then a sort of shudder  as a wave of magic rolled over the sky. Azkedelia...or rather the witch  who had taken over her body, smiled widely. "Finally! Permanent  darkness! I've won." She had her head tilted back, staring up into the  green tinted dark of the eclipsed sky.

I cursed silently.   Cain and Jeb had stayed down with Glitch for cover but apparently  they'd been overpowered. I hoped they were both ok. I didn't know Jeb,  but Cain was a friend, and I absolutely didn't want him to go through  the heartbreak of losing his son for a third time. I was pretty sure  this one would be the opposite of a charm. Still I was positive letting  her gloat like that was a bad plan, so I shot a bolt of ectoplasm at  her.

I once again lamented the fact that this was a  brainwashed kidnapping victim who was possessed as a twelve year old and  was the sister of a friend of mine. My uncle's twenty two would  probably be perfect for dealing with something like this witch.  Ectoplasm, sadly, was not nearly as effective. She felt it coming and  flicked a hand, deflecting the bolt as she looked over at us with a  grin. "Wonderful. My guests have arrived! Please, have a seat."

She  flicked a hand and tendrils of darkness lashed out from the nearby  shadows to grab ahold of us and drag us to the ground. I snorted and  flexed my own shadow powers, stopping them cold, but I grunted in  surprise at the strain. She'd gotten MUCH more powerful. I hadn't  competed against her with shadows last time, but this was my domain, I  should be able to overpower her pretty easily, and I was having to dump  serious muscle into stopping this attack. Still it was gratifying to see  her scowl when I forced her restraints to a halt.

DG  stepped forward, and without paying any attention to the shadow tendrils  I was holding at bay, began to sing. "Two little princesses, dancing in  a row. Spinning fast and freely on their little toes." She sang the  lullaby I'd seen her mother sing to her in bed the night she died, and  her voice was soft and hesitant, but with a core of steel as she looked  her sister dead in the eye. "Where the light will take you, no one ever  knows, two little princesses dancing in a row."

She looked  at Azkedelia, whose eyes were fastened to her sisters face. I was  guessing that when they met before the witch had been whispering in  Azkedelia's ear still, but this was the portion of a possession when  subtlety went out the window and the spirit just took over. People were  much less likely to fight back when they thought they were in charge.  DG's big blue eyes were boring into her sister, and I saw some flicker  of light spark through Azkedelia's toxic aura.

DG stepped  forward slowly. "Do you remember that time in the cave? When you knew  what those symbols meant? You were always so smart. You were smart  enough to know we shouldn't go in, but I didn't listen. Your adventures  have a way of getting me into trouble. That's what you said." Her voice  broke, tears streaming down her face. "Your adventures have a way of  getting me into trouble." She repeated. "And you were right."

She  sniffed loudly. "Do you remember my spinning doll? How we made it fly  together? Concentrate, just concentrate Deej, that's what you said."  Azkedelia looked dazed, clinking in confusion at her sister. The light  in her aura got stronger. "And do you remember the bear? How scary it  was? And you stood up, you were so brave, you made me brave." Her tears  were flowing freely as she stepped up and held out her palm, reaching  into the emerald light. "Hold my hand. Nothing can hurt us if we're  together." Azkedelia was frozen, but DG just cried harder. "Take it!  Please!"

Azkedelia's aura surged but the light couldn't  break through. "I'm sorry I let go Az! Just, take my hand, and I promise  I'll never run away again." She held her hand out beseechingly. There  was a shudder and the witch appeared in Azkedelia's place shouting at DG  and trying to drive her off.

The twisted old woman in the  robe snarled at the princess. "No! " But before she finished talking  Azkedelia's familiar form flickered back in, all that remained of the  witch was a slight vibration in the voice as she said. "You're talking  into the wind girl!" DG ignored her, holding out her hand unflinchingly,  eyes locked on her sister as she waited for her to reach out for her  again after all those years.

Azkedelia  grabbed her sisters hand and threw her head back to scream. Or rather,  the witch screamed. There was a warping shift of Azkedelia and the witch  shifting places over and over until DG gave a mighty heave and hauled  back, yanking her sister free of the spirit and leaving the witch  standing in the beam of light, though the color shifted to a darker  bluer hue without the emerald. She sneered. "Have the little bitch, I  care not. For the heavens do my bidding!"

So  I slapped her. She stumbled back, flabbergasted. "But...I don't have a  body? How?" Her puzzlement was once again interrupted by the back of my  hand upside her face. She went flying, still reeling with confusion as I  show ported over to her and punched her in the mouth. She roared with  fury. "Enough!" Throwing her hands out a wave of dark shoved me  backwards as she stood to her full height, which honestly wasn't much.

She  glared down at me, which considering she was like five inches shorter  than I was, was actually impressive, but I was pretty sure it was just a  perspective thing. "Fool! I am eternal, unending. I am primordial and  inescapable. I am the blackness that casts a shadow on darkness itself! I  existed before time and space, before light and reason! You think to  defeat me? To stop me? Even if you bind or banish me I will always ret-  wait what is that?"

I  held up my hand, which was now holding a twenty two pistol with a  pacifier silencer. "Oh this?" I weighed it in my hand casually. "It's a  gun." I grinned nastily at the spirit, who was staring at the weapon in  my hand with a very wary expression on her previously smug face. I took a  step forward. "Why? Do you want to see it?" I extended my hand, but  kept the barrel of the weapon trained lazily on the witch.

She  took a hurried series of steps back. "That's..." Her face hardened.  "Your abomination doesn't frighten me boy. What is a tiny piece of metal  to one suck as I."  She spread her arms, grinning nastily, and began to  grow. "Your despicable device may indeed be a threat to me, but it is a  limited thing, an insignificant piece of metal at it's core. A wound  from such a thing would be devastating for something the size of a  human, but not for a being that towers over this very land itself. I  control the darkness of the sky above, all of the OZ is at my command!"

She  floated off the balcony into the air, growing in size until she towered  of us all. I was not impressed. I raised an eyebrow. "I'm gonna shoot  her." I turned to look at the others. "Any votes against me pulling this  motherfucker's muffin cap back?" I had no clue what that statement  meant, but I heard someone say it once and had always wanted to say it  myself.

No  one argued. DG and Azkedelia were holding hands, a shield around all of  my friends I hadn't noticed when I'd been smacking a witch up. Artemis  was smirking proudly and even Wally looked like he had zero issue with  me putting some supernatural lead in the ancient ghost's spectral  breadbasket. Zee shot me a thumbs up and dreamer giggled behind a raised  hand.

I  opened a Hole. Specifically, I opened two Holes, a small one at the tip  of my gun, and one the size of a fucking bank vault behind the witch's  head. She didn't notice, partly because void is a sneaky fucking  element, and partly because she was doing that bad guy gloating thing.  She grinned malevolently down at me, clearly relishing her superiority  over my tiny insignificant form.

Then  I shot her. Six times. In the back of the head. The bullets shifted  through the Hole, going in a normal twenty two round and coming out more  like the giant bullet things from a Mario game. Despite being a ghostly  witch spirit of primordial darkness, she stood no chance. Her head  exploded all over the tower, showering the whole building with dark  brains that turned to smoke before they made contact.

I  looked down at the gun. I expected it to hurt her but not that much. I  looked down just in time to see the nearby black mist being sucked up  into the gun, which turned from a shiny chrome color to an ominous pitch  black. I blinked. That...could be either very good or very bad.  Regardless it was done, so I put the gun away in my spatial ring  carefully. I'd consult Zee and Dreamer about it, or Jim and Madame X if  we got back to Gotham soon. I turned to the princesses. "I killed your  ghost witch. You're welcome."

DG  burst into giggles and dragged her sister over, still clutching her  hand to hurl her arms around me in gratitude. I looked past them at the  others. "Well...not reason to make this a private party, you guys going  to get in on this?" Apparently deciding leaving me in a princess  sandwich would be awkward everyone filed over throwing their arms around  us in celebration of what we'd accomplished. With the emerald and the  witch both gone the eclipse faded, showing the two bright moons behind  it.

Smiling  down at everyone I exhaled in relief. This whole thing was over now.  We'd ended it. Now we would reunite DG with her parents and sister, and  hopefully catch a ride back to Gotham via whatever a travel storm was. I  wondered who was coming with us. It would certainly be something I'd  offer most of our new friends. I was pretty sure Gotham could use a man  like Cain, though I'm not sure it would survive him and his rebel leader  son. For now though we needed Azkedelia to order the longcoats back and  go pick up our reinforcements. There was a lot to be done.