Desperately Seeking Pseudangelos, Chapter One

Joe’s subconscious self might have said they were circling the wagons.

That one and Mini-Flash Splitsville were already at the rendezvous-point, having driven down together the minute they received word. Mini-Flash Robin and Mini-Flash Juniper had gone directly in the school minibus, he necessarily sleeping out the journey. Our hero himself had opted for a needful Boston detour, for now that he remembered his crimson-coloured space-racer, he missed it. Now he was skimming sandy hills on the last stretch of a familiar childhood holiday route, bound for what promised to be anything but, his landing-party lieutenant beside him in the passenger-seat.

Nor was it that Joe was going to pretend he couldn’t hear her, easy as that would have been.

“No doubt, Flashshadow, my recollections remain incomplete,” said he. “Yet the state of awareness you have thus far brought me to can and must suffice. Two girls languish because I did not end this illusion when the chance was before me. For that I mean to make amends, ere my own interests are further served. Headmistress you may be, but suffer your old teacher to remind you how it was prior to this reversal in our roles.”

One point that had long since come back to Joe was Flashshadow’s incurable politeness. Neetra would have been the first to remark he only made horrendously clunky jokes when up against impossible odds.

Although there was a little more to it than that.

For all that Joe was eternally in Flashshadow’s debt, and for all that she had ever been far wiser than he, there was another reason he needed her to trust in him.

A reason not even Flashshadow would have thought of herself.

Which, if today went the way our hero was expecting, they were going to have to get to.

“This place, which presents our greatest danger, Flashshadow,” was the explanation to which he eventually confined himself, “also presents the only means by which we might prevail.”

Crushroom looked terrible. Desire too long unfulfilled had eaten him away. His spotty scarlet cap drooped dully, and what had been bulging eyes and a cavernous maw were sunken traces on a withered stalk. Joe saw well enough the time for old enmities was past. Indeed, it pained him that he had to be firm, but duly our hero reminded himself a young lady’s honour was at issue.

“We will save her, Crushroom,” said he. “Is it understood any promises beyond that are not mine to make?”

A growling demand Joe spare him and get on with it was all the answer that came back. So Joe did, as any General might have surveyed his squadron over this literal beach-head. They were but seven, plus a handful of Flashshadow’s students who’d have a part to play when the time came. Surviving so long was going to be the challenge, where space-vehicles couldn’t serve, and Four Heroes powers would be good for shock-value at best.

Yet in the name of Mini-Flash Pseudangleos, all were resolved. Seven turned and trooped down the road to the camp gate, in which direction thunderheads were massing.

“We’ve totes got them outnumbered, at any rate,” observed Mini-Flash Robin. Mini-Flash Juniper had allowed him to hold her hand while they marched.

After hearing his words, Joe didn’t like to say anything.

The main gates soon drew into sight, beneath an increasingly ominous sky. Our heroes were expected, and the welcoming-committee consisted of many more than five.

All about the frame of that mighty wrought-iron entrance-arch they crawled, things taller and spindlier than a man, slick spidery arms and legs busily navigating. There were gaping wet-lipped mouths, bulbous heads, toes with talons. Beneath the stray feet and swinging limbs a veritable horde occupied the pass, gaunt and hideous every one, their rubbery fin-rills suggesting the crests of so many war-helmets. Some bore tortuous-looking twisty tridents and pikes, while others appeared more than ready to rely on their fingers and fangs.

Joe might have told his army in advance, if it would have done any good, but there were twenty-four of them.

That was how many collector-cards there’d been.

Our hero had had a full set, and the album to keep them in.

Now probably wasn’t the time to brood over what Gala had said. If he’d been a little spoiled rich boy, he was paying for it now.

Joe might also have set Robin and Juniper straight on one mistaken impression they’d picked up when they were here, for the leader of this vile assembly was not Lasser, but Yon. The former boasted only the biggest mouth, while the latter was their omega, the last in alphabetical order. Most of the time Yon merely sat in silence and observed, but his vision far exceeded that of any of his foul fellows. This may have had something to do with one detail Robin had shrewdly been able to detect, behind the humanlike disguise Yon wore then.

For he’d reminded Robin of a giant eye, and that he was.

An enormous bloodshot one with a single ever-staring pupil, the sketchy slight body below draped in ornamental robes.

Yon reposed atop an ostentatious sedan-chair, his horrid henchmen arrayed about him. Joe could remember all their names, and now noted Figmar, Huraeas, Novosibirsk and Vargraflesh, the least erected of these spirits that fell, who at the corners of Yon’s conveyance had evidently been his bearers. That one for his part seemed to be aware Joe’s companions were not on such familiar terms, so granted them a moment to properly appreciate the horrifying heart-sinking vista. The first flickers of an electrical storm danced noiselessly overhead.

“You are fortunate we have use for you,” Yon announced at last.

What followed was inevitable. They were two Joes, three girls, one boy and a mushroom, most of them powerless, and the foe was legion.

If Yon said to take them, taken they’d be.

END OF CHAPTER ONE