2005-04-09 - 1:58 a.m.

Title: "It's a Cold and It's a Broken Hallelujah"

Heph’s body convulsed as the bullets tore through it. Oddly he didn’t feel the pain of the bullets, his brain still in shock at the sight of the woman he loved, the love of his life, killing him. Instead, he noticed the tears that rimmed her eyes, even the sense of anguish in them, but coupled with a kind of cold hardness, like splinters of obsidian rested there. The gun was a Luger, hand engraved vintage custom made .45, the one he and Actionhero had taken from one of Jacosta Krupp’s Praetorian SS and that he had given to her without a thought when it caught her eye that time they had dinner in the museum at the Forge.

Well I heard there was a secret chord,
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?

“Jean…why…?”

She didn’t answer, only reloaded the gun and walked up to his fallen form on the floor of The Layla’s salon. He tried to crawl away, but his breath was ragged. Broken ribs, blood in his lungs.

Another bullet tore into his shoulder, rending meat and crushing bone. Everything from his neck to his fingertips exploded in fire and then died cold.

Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

One final gasp and he keyed the neural trigger and teleported out of the salon. It was a short rage Bamf, only good enough to get him out of the salon and into the infirmary. He staggered like drunk on his last legs, spilling supplies from shelves and counters as he pulled himself up in front of a mirror and tore open his shirt. Blood everywhere, his torso like so much ground beef. But he managed to inject enough Exoteric Medicines to slow the bleeding.

“It’s a trick,” he said to his reflection. “She’s not Jean. It’s a doppelganger. It’s a shapeshifter. It’s mind control. It’s a prank and we’ll be laughing about this over brandy in bed.”

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya

“No,” he said. “It has to be a trick. This is Jean.” He remembered the first time he saw her, sitting at that bar in the L.A., bored by the bland rock wannabe flavor-of-the-month band she was writing a cover story on for Rolling Stone. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, something about the simplicity of her t-shirt and jeans topped off by a vintage M1-A WWII combat jacket with the 101st Airborne and re-stitched bullet holes grabbing his attention, showing off the original purity of her beauty, rare, singular against the plastic Barbie dolls surrounding her. She had smiled at him and then, a few moments later, had waked over and without so much a word leaned over and lit her black clove cigarette on his Cuban Cigar and took a sip of his scotch.

Love at first sight.

And she tied you to her kitchen chair,
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair,
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

He saw the door to the infirmary open and Jean was framed in the doorway, gun aimed. She shot him in the back three more times and Heph saw the bullets emerge from his chest like missiles from underground silos, fresh canyons of blood and raw meat left in their wake as they shattered the mirror.

He fell to the floor again, more blood vomiting from his lips.

Still though, enough strength to key that neural trigger and he bamfed out of the infirmary.

Baby I've been here before,
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor.
You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya.

Port into the Armory, falling hard on the floor. Scramble to his feet and failing that, his knees. Heph looked at the racks of weapons. The pair of Triceratops horn inlaid Colt Peacemakers that Actionhero had given him when he made Paladin Marshal of the Heroditus Club winked at him from it’s broad leather and silver rig.

Actionhero. He had loved Jeannie too, almost as much as Heph. He had saved her life when they fought the Weeping at the Valley, had spilled blood—his own and others—for her. But he’d always said she was trouble. And when Heph had told him he was in love, that one pure love that you only got once in a life time no matter how many timelines you lived in, Actionhero had shook his head and smiled that sad, bitter smile of his and said

“That woman is going to be the death of you.”

Heph looked at the guns and laughed, sputtering up more blood. “Looks like you were right, you yellow bastard.”

And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

Heph staggered to the racks. Nonleathals, he thought. Yes, that’s it. Hit her with a stun weapon, put her out, heal up, and fix this mess.

He grabbed a set of Woo-Djinn, the twin pair of the ones he’d given Actionhero. A concussive blast of Elemental Wind? A bolt of Elemental Earth or Wood to knock her out?

He held the golden pistols up. Hong Kong. He’d taken her there in The Layla for the Golden Horse awards. They’d met John Woo and Chow Yun Fat and then partied with the Stones in that hotel suite overlooking Kowloon Bay. Topped it all off with dim sum breakfast on the observation deck. She smiled at him, true love showing bright like a second sunrise through the exhaustion and the excitement from the previous night.

Well there was a time when you let me know,
What's really going on below.
But now you never show that to me do ya?

Heph grabbed a pocket computer from a table and keyed it. Jean was walking through The Lalyla towards him.

“Of course she is you dumb ass,” he breathed, coughing up more blood and chunks of what he hoped weren’t his lungs. “You named this ship after her.”

He remembered the christening of the ship. He taken her to the hanger where Technologists from the Conclave were putting the finishing touches on it. He handed her the bottle of Champaign, the last one from Napoleon’s cellar in St. Helena, and she had broken it on the bow. As she did, the ship’s name appeared on the Smart Metal skin of the hull. She knew instantly what it meant. Only Heph had ever called her his Layla. She had cried then, burying her face in his chest, the smell of her like the orange blossoms she’d liked so much that he’d had them placed in her rooms.

“Why are you always to good to me?” she whispered as she held him close.

“Because you’re my muse,” he said kissing her tears away.

But remember when I moved in you,
And the holy dove was moving too,
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah,

The door to the armory opened and he saw her standing there. With spped that even Actionhero would have envied he raised the Woo-Djinn and fired a blast of wind but it dissipated before it got to her.

Of course. The defensive tech. he’d given her to wear, and had always improved, ever since that One Bad Night back at the College. The only thing that could beat it would be a killing attack. He could do it, the Woo-Djinn had the power to break his own defenses, but that would mean killing her. Tears in his eyes as he let the pistols drop, his shoulders slumping as he fell back against the racks on the walls.

Well, maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

“Jeanne, don’t so this. Fight it. Whatever is making you do this, please, baby, fight it.”

She raised the gun and fired. Torso shorts, leg shots. Precise aim. Perfect. She was perfect and, here Heph wanted to laugh, he had made her even better. Hunting Dinosaurs, cross time adventures, and of course, lessons from Actionhero, Achlis, and Quentin. Lessons he’d insisted on and set up.

His legs went dead, blackness at the edges of his vision. One last thought. Key the teleport.

And it's not a cry that you hear at night,
It's not somebody who's seen the light.
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah .

Outside. Cold night air, sound of the sea. The observation deck. One last plan in Heph’s brain, now so weak, it was only working on instinct.

Jetpacks. Rocket cycle. Escape ships. Long range teleport pad. Whatever. Something he could use to get off The Layla and out into the City, maybe to Man of Mystery, Inc. and get some help.

Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

But he saw the figure. Wearing black robes tatters and torn, dried blood on them. Holes where bullets had gone through. But the frame, ragged and broken and crippled as it was, was stading and in the darkness of the hood, Heph knew he was smiling.

“You…you’re dead you fuck….”

That voice in his head, the one he thought he’d never hear again. “Please Heph. You don’t take things from me. I take things from you.” Jean at his side now, as if from nowhere. She leaned into him and kissed him. That sight killed Heph more than all the bullets in his body. There was no point in trying to get away now. No point in much of anything.

Jean then walked up to him and pulled him up, pushing him to the railing of the observation deck. She kissed him softly and even through the film of blood, he could feel the soft rose petals of her lips.

“Why, Jeannie?” Heph said, his voice finally cracking. “I love you.” The words still came so easily, even though the pain and the blood and bullets and the cold weight of the velvet box in his pocket, so small it could have only held a ring, and now so heavy it might as well have held the world. Which in a way, it did.

“I love you too, Heph. But there’s more than one way to become Crippled.”

Hallelujah.

A final bullet.

Hallelujah.

A final buckling.

Hallelujah.

A final fall.

Hallelujah

A final cold wet blackness.

Hallelujah ….

The Countdown to Visibility Continues.

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