The months have flown by, or it seems that they had now that Ivan and Clay have survived them and are arriving home. In the moment, things were difficult, and Clay felt that he was lost in a labyrinth of his own anxieties, and Ivan was afraid that he would never again have the Clay that he had fallen in love with. And Ivan remembers feeling hopeless standing in Bernadette’s yard watching the spiders collect, Desperation poking around among them with his empty smile. And Clay remembers looking at his own face in the mirror and wondering if it was possible for him to ever look the same again. Without conventional medical treatment, Clay’s wound was grotesque when he removed his bandages in the early days after the fight; Desperation had hit him extremely hard and the bones had done plenty of damage that made Clay hopeless.
But as they land in Clay’s driveway, they appear to be the same men who had left the house all those months ago; they are even wearing the same clothes. And neither can believe that the past nine months had been so filled with chaos.
They see Alia sitting outside on the front porch as they land. Clay had spoken with his sister Brittany who had recently stopped in to check on Alia, and she had told him that Alia could no longer see. Clay thinks of Alia as another sister and he had rushed Ivan as they jumped and floated to reach home as soon as possible. Ivan loves Alia as much as Clay does, but the two are more like best friends because Clay often forgot that the Alia rarely ever needs a bodyguard, or a protective older brother. Alia has taught Ivan a lot about accessing his abilities and he has often looked to her for answers. He can’t fathom her blind and stumbling around a dusty house.
They stare at Alia who sits in a chair on the front porch. She isn’t staring up into the sun like they had seen her do before.
As they approach, she calls out to them, “Why are you guys walking so slow?”
They jump, startled that she had sensed them.
“That is you right? Ivan, Clay? I can hear you guys slow walking.”
“Sorry,” Ivan says and pulls a chair next to her. “I’m just trying to wrap my brain around this. What happened to you?”
“It’s complicated, but I’m getting better. I can show you later. Ivan, you won’t believe where I’ve been.” She looks in his direction and Ivan notices the milky centers of her eyes. Maybe he has never been this close to her before, but he can’t remember ever noticing her eyes like this.
“But that’s for later. I’m fine Ivan, I’ll be back to my old self soon enough. What have you guys been up to? Clay? Where’s the big man?”
“I’m here,” Clay says. He is kneeling next to her and Ivan can see that he is angry with himself.
“You’re mad aren’t you?” Alia says and she reaches out a hand until she finds his shoulder. “This doesn’t really have anything to do with you. It would have happened even if you had been here.”
“We here now,” Clay says. “Whatever you need.”
In Clay’s absence, his neighborhood has returned to it’s previous ruler, the drug dealer/purveyor of prostitution, Jamar. He had been optimistic that the assassin Desperation had finally done what he had paid him to do; to kill Clay and rid the neighborhood of his superheroics that cut his profits to near non-existent. He chose to believe that Clay was dead and the pretty girl who lived in his house was the new owner who would stay out of his business. But then Jamar is walking to his car, practically whistling, headed to a baseball game, and before he gets inside the car, he notices his nemesis across the street on the front porch.
“Sunnavabitch,” he hisses and he wants to break something. He hops into his car and heads down the street and deep into the neighborhood, turning onto Cloud St that comes to a deadend. He parks at the deadend and gets out, and walks over to the house where two shirtless young men stand on the porch, seemingly distracted by their cell phones.
“The fuck!” Jamar yells when he is on the porch and the two men snap to attention. He slaps the phone from one of their hands and then he punches the other in the nose. “Why the fuck we pay y’all niggas to look out when all y’all do is stand out here staring at phones? What the fuck?”
He doesn’t wait for a response. It is a pointless exercise, the police who patrol the neighborhood are well in the pockets of Jamar and don’t care what goes on at that house as long as no bodies turn up, but Jamar needs to flex his muscles. He needs to feel powerful.
Inside the house, Jamar walks into a living room that is an amateur pornography set; three men have sex with one woman while two other men film it. He pushes past the scene, unfazed by the stench in the room, and he makes his way to the kitchen where the back door of the house is open and another young man tends to drug customers. There are two other young men sitting at a table playing a card game and making jokes. When they notice Jamar, they stand like soldiers greeting a superior.
“Where the girl at?” Jamar growls.
“She..upstairs. We didn’t…know you was coming today, else she woulda been ready for you.”
“You mean it wouldn’t smell like ass and pussy all up in here?” It is funny to Jamar but he doesn’t laugh, he likes to petrify his employees.
He goes upstairs where he finds the girl in a room berating young men.
“Ain’t no excuses for this shit! Ain’t no reason money should be this tight. Fucking Superman been gone for a long time, y’all just bitches.”
“We really is trying though,” one of the men protests. “But all them fiends done moved to other places, they coming back now that we back out there, but it take time.”
The girl slaps him. She glares at him, and then she slaps him again.
“Who the fuck you hitting?” Jamar yells, and it startles the whole room.
The girl pushes the men aside and stands before Jamar. She doesn’t look intimidated as the other men are to see him. She looks mad. She is called the girl by everyone who knows her because she looks very young for her age that she refuses to reveal. She likes the name, it makes her seem like nothing, and it conceals a true heart of darkness.
“I’m hitting your sorry ass excuse for drug dealers. It’s fucking crackheads all over the place, we got to be the capital, and these niggas can’t seem to scrape two together to make me some fucking money.”
“That’s why you got niggas fucking in my stash house?”
She smacks her lips and makes a dismissive gesture with her hand, “Please, you be selling bitches out your house, don’t act like you scandalized. And that shit make a lot more money.”
“All y’all get out,” Jamar says to the room of young dealers and they eagerly leave the room. When they are alone, the two sat. The room is laid out like an office and the girl sits behind a desk. “What you making off that shit?”
“Enough that you ain’t noticed the dip in the drug sales.”
Jamar smiles. “You a bitch, but I’m glad you work for me.”
The girl doesn’t smile. “Nigga you the bitch! And I don’t mean in the good way I’m a bitch, neither. You ignoring the headline. That Superman nigga done changed the game and even if he gone and we back out there, them fiends ain’t coming back. And I’ve already proven myself successful in other ventures, I’m wondering why I’m even fucking with you at all. Your shit it ghosting nigga.”
Jamar is furious, but he knows she is right. He can’t punch her either, the girl is his sister and he’d never lay a hand on her. Plus, she is extremely aggressive and if she didn’t immediately shoot or stab him, she can probably beat him up in a fight and he has no desire to test the theory. He’d seen her in fights before and she gained a reputation for beating girls twice her size. She wasn’t afraid to fight men either and she was often successful because of her hidden weapon; she produced razors that she stashed in her hair that was usually elaborately styled. She was like a Tasmanian devil when she was angry and she could not be satiated until she saw blood.
“He back,” Jamar says grimly.
“You fucking kidding me.” the girl says calmly. “What about Desperation? Laura said y’all paid that man. Why is this superhero nigga still around?”
“He a superhero nigga, Kadeeja, you answered your own question. And he must have killed Desperation cause I ain’t heard from him since he got out.”
The girl is silent. This is a very bad development. The man Clay has proven himself stronger than their strongest weapon and she looks at her brother with a sense of exasperation.
“Well, I guess I’m making fuck videos,” she said calmly. “If that nigga killed Desperation and he after you, you don’t stand a chance.”
“This is a family business, Kadeeja…”
She snaps at him and cuts him short, “Use my name one more time,” she leans close to him with a vile look on her face and she points a finger at him threateningly. “We in the stash house nigga.”
“Sorry, but this ain’t the time to cut and run. You think he gone just stop with me? You don’t think he coming for every nigga like us he don’t like? And you my sister. If he don’t know you by now, he will once he done with me. Who you think all these dumb niggas gonna follow once I’m gone? You.”
Jamar thrust a finger back at the girl and she retreated ever so slightly.
“This is our problem. What we gone do about it?”
Clay is happy that he is hired back at his old construction job. He had left suddenly, but his reliable work was sorely missed and they welcomed him back. He was even promoted to foreman and Clay proved extremely capable of ensuring the productivity of the men under his watch. He welcomed the raise in pay and though Brittany had ensured the mortgage was paid, Alia had been sitting in the dark because that bill hadn’t been paid in months. Brittany paid enough to turn the lights back on, but Clay had to catch it up and every other utility at the home. Ivan went back to work shortly after they arrived home and he was looking into becoming a nurse. They would be comfortable, and they could take care of Alia who Clay was sure would never see again despite her optimism.
They got back to their routine fairly quickly and Clay settles into a tentative optimism. He knows that Jamar is just across the street and he has a neighborhood to protect, but he wants to appreciate his normal.
Meanwhile, in the Quinspace…
Koyu and Anes sit across from one another as the colors of the Quinspace swirl between them. They are in Ivan and Clay’s neighborhood and there are a lot of trees around them with leaves that sparkle like plastic in the light and showing the multiple colors that they would normally exhibit in the fall season. The two sit on the ground and they stare at one another.
“We should just give up, let the humans have the power. We’re smart, well I am at least, and there is a lot of magic in this universe as we have both learned over the long time of our existence. I am ready to be done with these schemes on Earth. I am ready to live out the rest of my days traveling the universe.”
Koyu spoke very calmly like he was reasoning with an old friend, which is not how he would describe Anes. Circumstance had shackled them together and they had been unwilling and often hostile partners for all of their time together trying to wrestle back their natural gifts that had been lost in A-space.
“You are free to do what you will. Just know that once I retrieve the powers, I will have them all to myself. I will not be returning your portion.”
So the two parted. Koyu incanted in the way he had learned and an explosion took him off planet.
Anes watched the scene from a distance. She is glad that he has decided to leave. She will be a very powerful spider when she manages to obtain her gifts from the humans. It is not apparent yet how she will do it, but Anes will not give up and she is always looking for something to help her get what she wants.
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