Cal’s Revenge

Sue gagged, coughed. She couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, he’d gotten through her mask’s filters! She was smothering.

And then the pressure on her lungs was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Her legs buckled, and she tore off her mask, gasping in great lungfuls of air. 

“Are you alright?” It was Inari, her eyes worried in the gap afforded by the head wrap of her costume.

“Nearly got me,” was all Sue could manage before another coughing fit stole her wind.

“Stay with her. He’s mine.”

Cal, she realized. It was Cal who’d saved her. After all of their problems, he’d still saved her.

Her Second Sight focused on the Aussie as he closed on Viktor, who clutched a broken arm, and she saw saving her hadn’t been Cal’s priority. He’d seen an opening, and had taken it.

“Stop-” She broke off in another fit of hacking coughs. Her lungs were smoke-damaged. She wouldn’t be able to tell Inari to stop what was coming, and couldn’t do it herself this time.

Cal waded in, and with her sight she could tell he was no longer restricting himself to martial arts and teleporting. He was using his power.

A low kick turned hamstrings into hamburger. A sweeping back fist pulped an orbital bone. A palm strike fractured the ribcage and collapsed a lung.

On and on it went, a whirlwind of pain and agony and furious vengeance. Until at last Cal stepped back, letting his foe fall in a heap.

Sue started to relax, thinking that Cal wasn’t going to cross that line here, wouldn’t take that step and dishonor his girlfriend’s memory. But then he kneeled down, slid an arm around Victor’s neck and pulled him up.

“Her name,” Cal hissed, teeth clenched in burning rage. “Was Denise. Take it with you to hell.”

The sound of Viktor’s neck snapping was a small thing in the maelstrom of the Hellmouth. But the effect was giant.