In the Quinspace…
Koyu was thinking about his youth, reminiscing on his time flying through the exotic colors of space.
He was born on the Quinspace Mars and lived much of his life there. He traveled to Earth and became fascinated with the First People that dwelled there and he was soon addicted to the admiration he could milk from those eager to believe in something. He took the form of his great ancestor, the great Kauyumari who had the power to manipulate the energies of the Quinspace as well as A-space, or the physical realm. Kauyumari looked like a deer and is a peer of Anansi, the legendary spider, and they inspired generations of Quinspace offspring. Koyu could give his servants in the physical realm the ability to discern energy signatures and to absorb and manipulate energy, a gift he reserved for the most loyal, the one who gave him the most attention and sustenance.
He had explored a lot of space before he settled for the servants he found on Earth, and he often thought back to the exploration of his youth. He had plenty of time when he was occupying Anansi’s wives, he could satisfy them without paying much attention. But his thoughts of whizzing through the void were regularly interrupted by updates from the annoying Anes who was plotting with Desperation to retrieve their powers from the current human holders. They were using Anansi’s vast powers to attack the home that the holders occupied, inundating it with malicious energies that were rebuffed by the ever weakening efforts of the homeowner.
Humans were paltry in comparison to the First People, Koyu thought, they did not deserve the awesome powers that they had stolen from him. They could hardly wield them and they paid no mind to the source, to Koyu, who had not tasted genuine admiration in so long. He was able to inspire tiny miracles in the religious whose customs overlapped with his reality, but he had to scrape together a lot of magic for that and it was laborious for him to satisfy the hunger for attention from the physical realm.
He hated his reality, scheming with a spider, touching spider private parts robotically to satisfy ladies long neglected by a distracted king of a husband.
Remember the time, Koyu thought before the anger overwhelmed him, when you flew out of this galaxy and into the stars that eventually became a new solar system…
At Bernadette’s house…
Ivan was ready to go to war. The entire situation had rattled him; Desperation’s initial attack had changed Clay. Ivan had never seen Clay so wounded even though his aunt Bernadette had mended his face and he was largely healed. Clay’s greatest injury was a mental one and Ivan was scared for him. The spiders were scrambling with more intensity and Desperation was flying around the perimeter of Bernadette’s barrier, searching for the inevitable weak spots that would soon present themselves. She had been holding it for months, they had easily broken through the latent barrier she had set as a tripwire to alert her to the presence of Quinspace spiders. And she had to concentrate to combat their intensity, their clawing to get at Clay to do God knows what.
It was chaos. But things could change, if only Ivan could get Clay on his feet.
Ivan watched Desperation exploring the barrier in the backyard of the house. He looked back and up at the second story window where Clay stood watching him. Ivan exploded into a blue flame as he levitated. When he reached the window, Clay opened it.
“Your aunt has done more than enough and you know it. We have to give her a break Clay. We have to handle this. I’m going to handle it.”
He said it because he meant it, and he knew that Clay would not let him face any danger alone.
“I’m not afraid of those spiders, Ivan, I’m not. I just don’t know what to do. I should listen to auntie, she knows what she talking about. But what if I give it up and I ain’t enough to help? What if I give it up and you can’t protect yourself? I can’t make a decision. I don’t know what to do and I just want to be here, safe in my auntie’s house for as long as I can be because I ain’t never felt this safe. But I worry about you doing something stupid, and here we is. When you turn blue?”
Ivan shrugged. “Suit up big man, we got some spiders to handle.”
“I can’t do what I normally do, I don’t have that power here.”
“Apparently I can, it’s just a different color. So we can try this,” Ivan said and focused his blue flame on Clay who levitated out of the window and the two came to rest in the backyard.
“Just like I remember,” Clay said with a smile as his body grew noticeably bigger. Ivan created a helmet of fire to protect Clay’s face and he looked fearsome with a head engulfed in flames. “So I guess I’m not giving anything up?” he said to Ivan.
“I say we take it back long enough to get rid of all this mess, and then we make a decision when things are settled.”
Clay nodded and the two focused their attention on the threat at the barrier. As Clay marched toward the spiders scurrying the edge of the barrier, Ivan floated along behind him. Just as they reached it, they heard Bernadette call to them.
“We can do this together…” she started.
“Drop the barrier auntie,” Clay said looking back at her. “You can cover us, or hang back inside, but we’re gonna end this today.”
Bernadette nodded and a blue horn protruded from her head. She raised her hands and as she dropped them to her side, the spell dissipated all around them. The blue flame of Ivan and Clay turned green. The spiders swarmed toward Ivan and Clay and they looked like a sea of glowing, yellow legs. Desperation walked slowly among them, smiling, relishing the fight.
Clay jumped at Desperation, intent on punching him as hard as he had been hit. He cocked his fist back as he sailed through the air, and Ivan sprayed a nepalm of green flame at the spiders. They screeched as the flame swallowed them up and Ivan worked hard to clear the field of the nuisance.
Desperation quickly dodged Clay’s assault and he countered with a punch of his own. Clay took it on his flame helmet and Desperation pulled his hand away in pain. It was burnt and smoke issued from it. Clay attacked without regard and pummeled Desperation. He didn’t let up long enough for Desperation to form a counter assault and soon, Clay knocked him unconscious.
Anes yelled in agony as the remainder of the spiders disappeared and Ivan and Clay saw her then. She was beautiful, large on her legs with the lithe torso of a human woman. She was broken, sad, and her skin looked hard and cold like it was made of ice.
Clay approached the spider. Ivan was hesitant and told him not to get too close. Bernadette gathered the small reserves of her magic that remained to lay hands on the unconscious Desperation and she used the repulsive force in the subtle way that she knows how to rid his mind of his adventures with the Quinspace beings. And then she sent his body far away.
When Clay was close enough to touch Anes, she grabbed him with one of her legs that had a hand at the end. Clay felt a power enter him that he had never felt before, and Anes shot another energy from another hand that hit Ivan, who was not hurt. Clay did not notice Ivan instantly repelled from him, sent in the opposite direction that Bernadette had sent Desperation.
“Give me what is mine and you can reunite with your love. Until you both give up the powers, you will be repulsed from one another.”
Suddenly a pterodactyl picked Anes up and flew away in the blink of an eye, and she scooped up Koyu just as her influence on Anansi broke. Anansi awoke in the Quinspace, groggy and confused, and he went angrily in search of a wife who could console him.
“So we failed again,” Koyu said as they flew. He was not angry, mostly disappointed.
“I have contingencies, even better than the original plan apparently. They cannot be together, I repulsed them with some of the energy that woman used. Even she will struggle to undo it. I told you, we can use their love against them. And we don’t have to do a thing. We just wait.”
Koyu shrugged. Anes was optimistic.
Back at Bernadette’s house, Clay was confused.
“What happened auntie?”
“She used my magic against you and Ivan.”
Clay looked around. “Where is he?”
“I’ll find him, but we gotta lift that curse or y’all can’t ever be together again.”
PRL Serials 