Star Harbor Nights

"Won?" Ray repeated. "We won? I... we... I just killed him. Is that a win? I mean, I didn't... I didn't..."

"Let's not get hysterical," Perfect interrupted. "I don't think he exactly counted as human when he--or it--died. He wasn't just activating a power… he was actually transforming. He seemed more bestial, less aware of his surroundings every second. You didn't kill a human being. You stopped a rampaging monster."

"How can you know that?" Ray asked. "How can you be sure?"

'I can't," Perfect said. "That's my best judgment, based on what we saw. It would have been good to have more information before making such a... permanent... end to the fight, but given the circumstances, that wasn't possible. Even a normal human wouldn't have gone up like that... you couldn't have known that fire would be so immediately fatal.. It looked like Bloodhound himself was surprised by that. Even if we had somehow suspected it, we weren't exactly made of options at the moment, were we?"

"We could have found another way," Ray insisted. His voice was choked, his red eyes wide and glistening. "We should have! I could have grabbed him from behind, held him, restrained him until..."

"...until he ground you into hamburger," Perfect said. "Then what?"

"Then I would have healed!" Ray shouted. "He won't... he won't."

"You don't know that," Perfect said. "You said it yourself, we can't be sure of anything regarding this. We can't be sure he won't turn up again next week, healthy and new and looking for fresh vengeance against us."

"Do you really think that's likely to happen?" Ray asked, incredulously.

"No," Perfect admitted. "But did you think it was likely he was going to transform into a porcupine skeleton in front of our eyes... did you think it was likely he would go up like an old growth forest when you breathed on him? You're freaking out because you think you killed a man. If you can't deal with this any other way, look at it like this: we don't know what he was, so we can't say for sure he was a man, and we don't know if he can't come back from it, so we can't say for sure he was killed. There's room for doubt here."

"So I might not have killed what might not have been human. Great," Ray said. "How can you possibly be okay with that?"

"Honestly? I'm not," Perfect said. "I'm culpable here, too. I'm the one who laughed off his chanting. I told you to do it... and if I hadn't been here, you would have had more room to explore other options. You could have traded hits with him a little while longer before having to make up your mind. It was my presence, my vulnerability that forced you to act decisively. No matter how much it sounds like I've got this all worked round in my mind, Ray, I'm honestly thinking this out as I'm talking, and I don't think I'm going to be done processing it any time soon. This is new, and it's big, and it's threatening to overwhelm me, and that means I have to choose not to be overwhelmed. So if I seem cold, I'm sorry, but if the choice is being coldly rational until my mind is done recovering from the shocks it's received or utterly losing my shit, I'm going to be cold for a while, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Ray said. "It's just... it's been a long time since I've... I mean, it's been a long time since I've used my flame offensively. It just brings up a bunch of old shit that I haven't thought about in a long time."

"Like what?" Perfect said.

"Bad memories... stuff you don't need to know about," Ray said. "I'm sorry. That came out... different than how I meant it. I just mean, I don't want to saddle you with my problems. You've already got enough to deal with right now."

"Burdens are lighter when they're shared," Perfect said. "I thought you wanted to get to know me outside of fighting crime... why not let me get to know you? If nothing else, it might help me understand where you're coming from, when we get into this kind of situation."

"Well, I don't plan on making a habit of getting into 'this kind of a situation'," Ray said. "And when I said I wanted us to get to know each other, I meant things like your wishes, hopes, dreams, and fears... not a bunch of messed-up origin story shit."

"Okay," Perfect said very slowly. "You want to get to know me, Ray? My wishes, hopes, dreams, and fears? Well... I've always dreamed of having a partner I could trust completely and share everything with. I hoped it would be you. I wish you felt the same about me. Now I fear that you don't. Is that a good start?"

"It's... yeah," Ray said. His mouth suddenly felt very dry. All the moisture within it seemed to have somehow ended up on his palms. "It's a good start."

"We should go somewhere and talk," Perfect said. "Should we... is there somebody we should report this to? About Bloodhound? If the rest of the Bone Lords are involved in these Rites he was talking about, people need to know."

"Um... probably best not to get anyone official involved," Ray said, giving the question serious thought before answering. "The cops wouldn't know what to do with the information. Confused cops are nobody's friend, and then it would get back to 4B and we'd be busted... well, I'd be busted... for unregistered powers."

"So we'll just tell Broker about it," Perfect said, pleased to watch Ray's mind functioning on a more logical level now. "And he'll make sure the information gets where it's needed."

"Yeah, we'll tell Broker," Ray said. "But..."

"But not right now," Perfect finished. "Not tonight."

"No.. not tonight," Ray said.

“We should still go somewhere else,” Perfect said.She was trying not to look at the five skeletons on the ground. “Not the bar. Somewhere… quiet.”

"I know a place," Ray said.

"I'm just not sure where to begin," Ray said. He faced away from Perfect, looking out over the scattered lights amid the dark rooftops and streets of Star Harbor at night.

They had left the scene of their battle and went, without a word, to the fire escape of an old apartment building. Ray had led, and Perfect had followed. Only a few lonely windows were lit in the building, and together they had made their way up the rusty iron stepladders to the roof without disturbing any of the slumbering occupants.

"The beginning's a good place," Perfect said, with only the ghost of a smile. "Generally speaking."

"That's not always as easy as it sounds," Ray said, giving a massive, slow heave of his shoulders... a shrug's older, stronger brother. "Maybe I should say that I know where to begin, but I'm not sure if I can."

"Well, maybe I can make it easier for you," Perfect said, gently. "I get the feeling that you've used your flame breath on people before. Ordinary people, I mean... or at least, unpowered ones. Isn't that true?"

"Yes," Ray said. "My God, yes, I have... but I swore I'd never do it again. I don't know how I could expect you to understand, I can't excuse the things I've done..."

"So don't try," Perfect said, her voice soft, without reproach. "Just explain. Whether I can or can't understand, we won't know until you've tried... but consider this: I started to guess at the truth when I saw your reaction to Bloodhound's... destruction, and I'm still here, standing before you. That tells you something."

"I guess it does," Ray said. His big, wiry body quavered visibly and violently, as if he were just holding back soul-wrenching sobs. He managed to keep his voice level, but only by speaking around the fits. "I just...need a minute, okay? I haven't... thought about this stuff... in a long time, and I never... well..."

"It's okay," Perfect said. "Take all the time you need."

They stood there in the open night air, chilly with the breeze off the harbor, looking at the stars. There were rather more of them visible over that dark city than there would have been over another. From the advent of electricity, Star Harbor had always had strict light pollution ordinances lest its citizens lose their view of the night sky. In the cool and the quiet, above the nightly struggle for the streets, Perfect felt a quiet strength suffuse her, and knew she was ready to receive anything that Ray was willing to share. Maybe Ray felt a bit of that strength, too, for presently his mind and body quieted and he found his voice.

"My folks were carnies," Ray said, slowly and evenly, when he finally began. "My father was the... well, he was a sword-swallower and a fire-eater, kind of an all-purpose stuntman. He taught me his tricks, and so did everybody else. I was a bright kid. We had a 'karate master' who made a big show of hai-yahing and breaking bricks, but he knew his stuff and he taught me how to really fight. For a while, we did kickboxing exhibitions, too, and I learned that. I mixed my fighting skills with what I learned from watching the acrobats. I had a natural talent for just about anything I tried. You'd be surprised how much a repertoire of circus skills can help a crime fighter. Balance beam, tumbling, escape, sleight-of-hand, animal handling, even a little hypnotism and ventriloquism... by the time my dad got too old for the life, I could do everything he did and more."

"And real fire breathing," Perfect finished. "You don't mean to tell me you learned how to do that in the sideshow?"

"In a way, I did," he said, the barest hint of a gleam in his eyes. "Some of the folks' families had been in the business for a very long time, and a few went back before that, the original traveling entertainers and fortune tellers of history."

"Gypsies," she guessed. "Rom."

"Yes, exactly. They're still around, in places. They have a hard time adjusting to modern life, though... some settled down and joined society, some are out-and-out con artists, and some very few get by the way they always have, living in between it all. Some found that circus life suited them. They work as performers or laborers or roustabouts. Some play fortune-teller for the rubes... they've got centuries of expertise in telling people what they want to hear and making it sound good. And some of them have a real talent."

"You mean... real magic?" Perfect said, perfectly incredulous. "I mean, I saw the runes with my own eyes… and Bloodhound's weird chanting... and I know you talk about 'mystic types' and everything, but I always wondered..."

"...if we weren't just another kind of mutants, covering up our unsavory genetics with a little fantasy role-playing?" Ray finished.

"More or less," Perfect said, blushing a little.

"Yeah, I know, that's what everybody thinks. But really, what's so more believable that a random genetic fluke, in a single generation, would allow me to produce flame and not burn myself? I mean, stranger things have happened... but when you get right down to it, why does 'magic' as an explanation require more suspension of disbelief, just because we admit it can't be explained? Do you think our scientists really know why a slight, random genetic change would make some kid wake up with laser eyes? They don't know how it works. For all they know, it's magic, too, but they can't admit that, so they call it a mutation and say it's a natural evolutionary process."

"I take your point," she conceded, "and I'll accept magic as an explanation for now, but how exactly did it happen?"

"Well, hardly anybody ever got rich running a traveling show... and unless you're one of the big, multinational circuses, times have been getting tougher and tougher. Ours was staying afloat, but a lot of others weren’t so lucky, and we kept taking in performers from other troupes. There was kind of a sanctuary mentality at work. Our group dates back to World War II. The original members were refugees who fled the Nazis… so it was kind of natural… anyway, when I was sixteen a gypsy fortune teller and her grand-daughter joined us.

“We knew they were running from something, but I was just a kid… nobody told me what exactly. I put it together it eventually, though. They’d pulled a scam on some pretty well-connected guys who were looking for their money back. The final notice came three months or so after… an acid attack on the face of the girl, Selena. It blinded her, scarred her horribly,” Ray said. “Mentally as well as physically. In one day, she went from being beautiful to a freak… at least in her mind. I‘d loved her from the moment I first saw her… and I still did.. So... I was given the power. Her grandmother was a bit more than a palm reader, and she wanted vengeance more than I did. I became her vessel."

"How... how did she do it?" Perfect asked breathlessly.

"I can't tell you the details," Ray said, "even if I remembered them. I was sworn to secrecy on the actual methods. It was very long, and very painful. I was burned from within, with pure elemental fire... don't ask me what exactly that means. I asked and was told that, and I quote, 'earthly fire is only a pale and cold imitation of true elemental flame'. As I felt my insides burned away, I was scarred, painted with these brands, these sigils, which bind the fire with me and provide me with protection... but only after the flame was within me. If the protective runes were placed first, the fire wouldn't have caught, it would've died. The pain only fueled my rage, and the rage fueled my new inner fire. I found the bastards, and I... I made them pay. For Selena. For vengeance, and to prove my love. Even with her scars, I still would have loved her."

"What happened to her?"

"She... she left me. She told me... she said... even if I could love... if I could love..."

"I'm sorry, Ray, you don't have to tell me this."

"No... it's okay... I want you to understand this... to understand me. She said that even if I could love a monster... she couldn't," he said. "She saw that's what I had become. More than my fire, my rage... my lust for vengeance, for death... it threatened to consume me and everyone near me. I wasn't the man she'd fallen in love with."

“She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved, before or since,” Ray concluded. “That's why I don't use my fire as a weapon. That's why I try to use minimum force to subdue an opponent. That's why I do this, all of this... why I use my gifts, my training to try to make a difference. That's why."

He turned, unwilling to face her in that moment, unwilling to look down into her eyes, but her hand, small and soft, touched his shoulder, and he stopped, and then he turned and looked on her face, honest and unjudging. Her skin shone pale and silvery in the shadows, framed in black like the moon in the sky. She put her other hand on his other shoulder, and pulling herself up, standing on her tip-toes, she kissed him, cautiously... experimentally.

His lips were more than warm, and his doubts and insecurities melted at the delicate touch of her lips.

She kissed him again, with more force, as much as she could manage with the height difference... a problem which vanished as he caught her up in his arms, sweeping her off the ground and into an embrace...