Dark Moon - Michael Langdon

Part 39 - Return to Kineros (pt 1)

"You asked for us?" I ask as Michael and I enter Cordelia's office. I look at her couch to realize that Marie Laveau is awake. "Oh, good, you're awake."

"I have some news about Satan," she sighs.

"Did you have a vision?" Michael asks.

She scoffs. "Oh, I had more than a vision."

Cordelia hands her a glass of water. "Take your time, Marie," she comforts her.

Marie brushes off Cordelia's words. "I was in my salon with Satan, and he had quite a bit to talk about. He was trying to win me over to his side, offering me everything I could ever wish for and shit. Of course, I said no, and he wasn't a fan of that."

"What did he do?" Michael asks.

She shakes her head. "He tried to kill me, but something happened to put my powers into overdrive. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was our power-sharing. Did you two happen to share any moments of heightened emotion recently?"

Michael and I freeze up and look at each other. I look back at her. "I suppose you could say so."

She scoffs as she stands up. "I guess I won't complain since it got me out of my little problem."

Cordelia chuckles. "You two are lucky that I have been more lenient with the rules recently."

I roll my eyes. "Cordelia, you can't enforce the rules that you don't follow."

She blushes. "I appreciate your keeping my relationship a secret."

Marie scoffs as she looks between the three of us. "I'm obviously missing something here."

Cordelia shakes her head. "I'm redirecting the topic here," she declares. "Marie, didn't you say that Satan told you where he was?"

"He said something about these 'idiot Satanic cokeheads' helping him out," she states.

Michael and I quickly turn to each other. "Jeff and Mutt?" I ask.

"Why the hell would they be helping him?" Michael asks.

"We explicitly told them not to, and that was basically the only thing we told them to do," I scoff.

"Leave it to those coked-out nerds to fuck things up," Michael rolls his eyes.

"You mean those two men from Kineros Robotics?" Cordelia interrupts.

We both nod.

"They gave you access to Cooperative information, didn't they?" she asks.

We nod again and Michael pulls out his phone. He opens up the app that they installed on our phones. "It seems that everything is running normally," he mutters.

"I thought you said you were going to kill all of the members of the Cooperative?" I question.

Cordelia nods. "We've been a bit busy with, well, everything lately. That was put on the back burner. I suppose we'll have to put that higher up on our list of priorities."

"How are we supposed to figure out how the hell Satan got to Jeff and Mutt?" Michael asks.

She sighs. "It looks like the two of you are going to need to pay Kineros Robotics a visit."

......

"You know, I can feel the rage emanating off of you," I tell Michael as I look over the familiar coastline.

He shakes his head, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. "As if Jeff and Mutt being idiotic enough to betray us wasn't enough, we also had to have something block us from long-distance transmutating to Kineros Robotics."

I sigh as I turn to Michael. "Honestly, I don't mind having to drive down this road again; although, I would like it if it were under different circumstances. On the bright side, we get to look forward to beating up a few asshole-Satanists."

He smiles smally, allowing his grip to loosen on the steering wheel. "I just want to know how the hell Satan got to them. We warned Jeff and Mutt to go nowhere near him because he would have powers."

"Maybe we needed to spell it out in coke for them to understand it," I scoff.

He chuckles as he looks back over at me. "You know, I-" He turns back to the road and seems to notice something in front of us; however, I see nothing. "Shit!" he gasps, slamming his foot on the brake.

The car swerves to the side, then the side of it slams into an invisible forcefield, making us hit it at the perfect angle for it to flip over and fly back onto the road. "Fuck!" I shout as I fly out of my seat and across the road, not having put my seatbelt on; I didn't think I would need it considering that I'm driving with the Antichrist.

I'm not sure how fast we were going, but it must've been really fucking fast. I slam into the pavement, and I'm pretty sure every bone in my body is broken. I lay face-down on the concrete, limbs bent in the opposite direction of how they're supposed to bend.

I groan as I begin to heal myself and my arms and legs snap into place. I stop from exhaustion after I get to the point where my injuries are no longer life-threatening, then I force myself to roll over and look for Michael.

He is laying under the car, barely conscious. Maybe it's a good thing I forgot to put my seatbelt on; he's in much worse shape than I am. "Michael!" I yell. "Can you hear me?"

He tries to call back, but blood sputters out of his mouth.

"I'm coming!" I yell out, slowly beginning to pull myself towards him. I groan with each movement, but it becomes easier as my body begins healing itself; undoubtedly another benefit of my supernatural nature.

I sigh as I get within Michael's reach and collapse, holding my arm out to touch his. He weakly reaches his arm out to hold my hand. "Just hang in there," I say weakly. "I just need a bit of time for my body to heal, then I'll heal you."

His ring slides against mine, and my body jolts with the contact. I gasp as my body completely heals from the sheer amount of power that just entered it.

Michael begins coughing up blood, and I sit up to help him. His bones begin cracking as they heal themselves, and I realize that he must've had the power surge as well.

"The car," he gasps weakly, barely able to breathe. I realize that the car is on top of his whole body from his stomach down, and I quickly flick my wrist to throw it off to the side. He coughs and rolls over as his body continues to heal itself. We sit on the road for a few minutes, gaining our bearings.

"What the hell just happened?" Michael finally asks after regaining his breath.

I sigh as I begin to stand. "What the fuck did we even run into?" I ask.

"Some barrier. I wasn't able to see it until we were practically on top of it. How did we get that surge of power?"

"Our rings touched and that activated something. I wonder if Marie was able to share some power with us to make us heal ourselves," I shrug as I begin approaching the barrier.

"That would make sense," he agrees.

I try to walk through the barrier, but I bump up against it. I try to transmutate past it, but I reflect off of it and reappear by Michael. "Well, that would explain our long-distance transmutation issues," I sigh, regaining my balance.

He silently walks up to the barrier and runs his hand along it. After a few seconds, he steps back and holds his arm out. The barrier begins shaking, and soon it begins losing its power. "Some help?" he requests as he looks back at me.

I nod and walk forward to join him. We begin destroying the barrier together, and it disappears after a minute. The energy blows past us in waves, and I sigh as I walk forward toward Kineros Robotics. "It's time to find out what that fuckface did to this place."