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By the time Shade had conquered her nausea, Knightmare was all the way inside. Furious at the loss of time, Shade leaped to the lighthouse. It was a leap unlike anything she had tried before. It was as if her thick, morphed thighs contained some kind of spring-loaded mechanism, and it quite simply hurled her through the air, hurled but also tumbled, for she had no way to control her flight. She cartwheeled, head over heels, had plenty of time to see the curved wall of the lighthouse but absolutely no way to avoid crashing into it.
The impact knocked the wind out of her but was not painful. No, the painful part was when she fell to the ground, banging off the portico.
She was mad now. Mad at Knightmare, mad that she couldn’t control her body, mad at what felt like some kind of psychic interruption from the Watchers.
With one powerful foot she kicked in the door. Inside, things were much as she expected. There was a small desk and a chair, but really the only important feature was the steel spiral staircase.
“Counterclockwise. Of course.”
Somewhere Shade had acquired the knowledge that in ancient castles the spiral staircases always went counterclockwise, because in the old days of sword fighting you defended your castle from the top down. A spiral that went counterclockwise meant your sword hand—usually your right—was free, while those coming up the stairs had their sword hands cramped.
This was one of those pieces of data Shade had never imagined being useful. But as it happened, she was in a tower, and she was facing, in effect, a swordsman whose “sword” was on his right.
The stairs were narrow, too narrow for her to squeeze past the lumbering monster above her. He had used the lighthouse to minimize the advantage her speed gave her.
Knightmare stopped at a platform halfway up, turned, and aimed his sword arm downward, waving it side to side, daring her to try to get past.
“Who are you?” Knightmare cried.
Shade vibrated to a stop just beyond the slow sweep of his sword arm. “Shade. Darby. Pleased to. Meet you.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Can’t. You’re. The. Villain. I’m. The. Hero.” The silliness
of her response would have made Shade laugh at herself if it were not for the rising nausea as ghostly tendrils tickled the boundaries of her mind, prodding, pushing, like blind burglars trying to find an open window.
“It’s not my fault! I can’t control this creature!”
“Yeah. We think. That’s. Bullshit. You’re talking. To me. So you are. In control.”
Knightmare slowly took that on board. His remaining eye glared black hatred at Shade. “Leave me alone!” His bellow was so loud, Shade worried it could bring the old structure down around their ears.
“Can’t. Hero. Villain. Monster. Long story.”
On the one hand, dialoguing with Knightmare gave Shade a moment to rest. On the other hand: They watched. They probed.
“What do you want?” Shade raged at those dark and distant objects. “What do you want from me?” Just a loud buzz to Knightmare.
Standing there on the staircase, looking up at an armored freak, reminded Shade of a very important point: she had no natural weapons. She had tossed aside the gun, and now she had only her speed.
Leave him be.
The thought came unbidden, and it puzzled Shade. Leave him be? Leave the monster who had killed a planeload of people and dozens more in the course of destroying the Golden Gate Bridge?
It made some sense: she likely could not stop Knightmare. It made sense to save her own life and those of her friends and get as far away from this terrible creature as she could.
And yet: Where exactly did that thought come from?
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, defiant, speaking to creatures who might be nothing but figments of her imagination. Somehow addressing the Dark Watchers made her feel steadier. More herself. Stronger.
No, no, she was not about to just run away. She had the power she had sought; her own actions had brought her here. This was another Gaia, a superpowered villain, the very thing superheroes were meant to cope with.
Right?
Her thoughts went to weapons. The cops outside had guns, but they hadn’t been very useful. The only vulnerability Knightmare seemed to have was his eyes. His eyes and maybe that ferocious mouth.
Run away, run away, live to fight another day. The bit of doggerel was playing on a loop in Shade’s mind. Just leave him be. Just turn and go. Live to fight another day.
