Seven
Drops of Jupiter
I looked up to see a monster of a man, seven feet tall at least, and seemingly twice as wide. He was decked out in all black – jeans, t-shirt, jacket, charcoal hair and fiery black eyes. His knife had a black hilt, but the blade was polished to a brilliant silver, and the silver skull at the knob of the hilt glared at me through sparkling ruby eyes. The monster man looked at me then, sneering. “What’s he been telling you, boy? Forgive and forget? Go back to the slut? Word of advice – stay out of this. Listening to this jackass is a good way to get yourself killed, or worse.”
By now the rest of the bar had taken notice of our little predicament. Grumpy the Bartender dove a hand beneath the bar, quickly pulling out a pistol, which he aimed at the giant. “You wanna walk out of here now, Conan,” he said.
The guy with the knife laughed. “Wanna try me?”
The man in black just smiled.
“LAST WARNING!”
A nod. “I can live with that.”
Grumpy pulled the trigger. The gun jammed.
“Son of a bi–”
As he dropped the gun in shock, the guy with the knife let go of Erin, reached over the counter and grabbed Grumpy by the throat. He lifted him that way, one-handed, and threw him against the far wall, shattering through shelves of booze and beer. The shelves broke and fell to the ground in a heap around Grumpy, cracked wood and bottles showering him with liquor. The distraction was just enough for Eric to snatch his darts from the bar and jab them into the arm that was holding a knife to his neck. The larger man howled and Eric slipped out, pulling the darts violently from his enemy’s arm in the process. He broke for the door, and Perry and I followed him. We’d be damned if that door was only going to be used to let one guy out when it was open long enough for three.
We ran for Perry’s car, but we were blown off our feet when the front door to Rooster’s exploded open, splintering into millions of pieces and spraying the street with tiny slivers of wood. The man in black lunged out and bore down on Eric. The knife in his hand was now glowing red-hot, and it somehow seemed to be getting longer. As he reached out and grabbed Eric by the collar of his shirt, he raised the knife in the air, but it wasn’t a knife anymore. It had grown into a short sword, and it was still growing.
He brought the sword down, but Eric twisted away with amazing swiftness. The larger man maintained his grip, and Eric’s shirt tore open down the back. From beneath the shirt, behind his neck, I could see a burst of what appeared to be a small brace of feathers. Eric rolled free, and through the shreds I saw a leather strap connected to a quiver strapped to his back, one that couldn’t possibly have fit under the polo shirt he was wearing. From nowhere, he produced a bow, then drew an arrow from the quiver, all at lightning speed. His opponent’s sword was now easily two feet long and still getting longer. Eric loosed the arrow and it clanged into the other man’s chest, resonating like it hit a wall of solid metal. Through the hold the arrow made in his shirt, I could see a gleaming plate of armor.
“Your little toys won’t hurt me, boy!” he boomed. “I’m taking her back!”
“Keep away from her!” Eric shouted.
“Her?” Perry muttered. “Who are they talking about.”
My blood froze as the answer came to me. “Stephanie.”
I got up and pulled open the car door. “Get in, Perry! We’ve got to get to her!”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know!”
Perry pulled himself to his feet just as the big man raised his boot and smashed it down into Eric’s face. Using Eric to brace himself, he pushed up and spun in midair, his body beginning to contort. The growing sword suddenly shrank, the red glow spreading out to the man’s feet. His body grew smaller, but not much, and his skin sprouted thick black feathers – not on arrows, like Eric’s, but coating his skin like a bird. In fact, his nose and mouth elongated and sharpened, and his clothing vanished inside the bed of feathers. The sword fused with his feet and legs, becoming talons so sharp they sliced right through the awning outside of Rooter’s. The big man was a man no more, but a giant, black hawk. Its eyes were the same blood-red as his glowing talons, and when it opened its beak and cawed, my hands began to tremble.
The bird beat its massive wings against the air and lifted upwards, arcing into the sky. Eric, struggling to his feet, fired another arrow at it, but the bird caught it in midair with its talon and snapped it in half.
Eric looked right at me. “What are you waiting for? GO!”
Then, without another word, a pair of massive wings burst from his back – white, instead of black. His metamorphosis ended there, though, and it was as a winged man that he took to the sky and began to chase the hawk. Perry gaped at the sky, but I was too scared to be awestruck. “Come on, man, you heard him!”
“Oh – uh… yeah.”
Perry gunned the engine and tore out into the street, following my frantically shouted directions to Stephanie’s long-term hotel. I don’t know if the directions were strictly necessary – as we raced down the street, we could see the hawk fighting the winged man in the sky, arrows flying, never hitting their mark, and falling down among the crowd. I never saw if one actually struck somebody, and at that point, I couldn’t possibly have cared. We tore through the streets, swerving from lane to lane, running stop signs, and if anyone would have called us lunatic drivers, they were too busy watching the far more spectacular image of the fight in the sky. If it weren’t for Eric fighting the hawk, holding him back, there was no way we could possibly have made it to the hotel in time, but Perry soon managed to leave them behind. Within minutes, we were at Stephanie’s hotel. I didn’t know how long we had. It would have to be enough.
The car had barely stopped before I leapt to the sidewalk and ran inside the hotel. I ignored the elevator and took the stairs up to Stephanie’s third-floor room as fast as I could. Even before I got out of the stairwell, I was screaming to her.
“STEPH! STEPHANIE! GET OUT!”
I rushed to her door and banged on it so hard I thought my hands would bleed. People were coming out of their rooms and looking at me, several of them shouting at me to shut the hell up. I ignored them. “STEPH! GET OUT OF THERE! STEPHANIE!”
When she opened the door, I fell inside, tripping over myself as I pounded. She looked surprised, but not astonished, to see me. “Adam? What’s going on? Why are you screaming!”
“We’ve got to get you out of here, Stephanie, there’s some… some thing coming here for you!”
“Thing? What do you–” Halfway through the sentence her eyes bugged open, realization spreading across her face. “No. Oh, no.”
I rushed past her, grabbed the curtains that covered the sliding glass door to her little balcony, and pulled them open. The hawk and Eric were still wrestling in the sky, less than a block away. “There! That bird-thing is coming here for you! It was a guy, and it started a fight, and it changed into THAT and–”
“They found me. No, dammit, no, they found me.”
“What? Stephanie, who–”
“Adam, get out of here.” Her voice was hurried now, but not in a panic. She was angry, frustrated, but not terrified. That was reserved for me. “Go. Run. Forget you ever knew me.”
“What are you talking about? No, Steph, come with me!”
Perry burst into the door just then. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
“She won’t come with me!”
“She WHAT? Steph, have you looked out the window?”
“I’m sorry, Adam,” she said. “I never should have gotten you involved in this. It’s all my fault.”
“Involved in WHAT? WHAT’S GOING ON?”
She didn’t answer me, though. It isn’t really her fault, though. It’s hard to answer such a frantic question when a glass door is exploding behind you. Eric and the hawk crashed through the door, glass flying everywhere. My shirt and pants were cut and I got a nasty gash on my forearm, but Stephanie was between me and the door, and blocked most of the glass. Somehow, she didn’t seem hurt at all.
“COME ON!” I grabbed at her arm, but she pulled it away and looked at me, fury in her eyes.
“Don’t do that, Adam. Don’t pull me that way.”
“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?”
The hawk then slashed at Eric’s face, driving him back through the hole in the glass, and the bloodied, winged man tumbled backwards into the air. As he did so, the hawk’s body began to twist, the feathers fell away, and the huge man who had accosted us at Rooster’s was back again. He looked at Stephanie, a horrific grin spreading across his face.
“You knew this was coming,” he said.
“Just get it over with,” she spat.
“Stephanie? STEPHANIE, NO!” I screamed, reaching out to her, and just for a second she looked back at me. She said something. I’m not sure what, because just at that moment the big man opened his black jacket and we were all covered with a horrible, empty light, accompanied by the sounds of screams, more screams than I’d ever heard in my entire life. Screams of pain, screams of torment, screams of utter despair. If I didn’t have Stephanie to hold on to, to focus on, the screams themselves may have been enough to drive me mad.
I think what she said was, “I’m sorry.” I think.
The jacket then closed around her, folding like an enormous pair of wings, and the light and screams got more intense. I fell backwards onto the glass, cutting my elbows where I tried to stop myself. Soon, I had to shut my eyes against the terrible, painful glare. The screams got even louder, so I screamed her name to try to fight them off.
And then they were gone.
The screams and lights died at the same time, and the only sound remaining in the room was Perry and me helplessly trying to catch our breath. I managed to pry my eyes open just as another sound split our ears – a crash of thunder so loud it shook the building around us. When I looked around, there was no sign of Stephanie or the man in black. Perry and I were alone in the room, except for the people coming through the door, having summoned up the courage to try to find out what the hell was going on. Outside, while the thunder still echoed, I heard police sirens beginning to blare. I rolled over and pushed myself up, barely making it to my feet.
“Stephanie?” I said, whispering.
Behind me, Perry moaned. “Dude. What just happened?”
“I… I…”
I staggered to the broken glass door, looking out over the balcony. There was no sign of Eric there, just a sidewalk full of confused people looking up at the window. The rain began then, puddling on the sidewalk below, spattering me in the eyes, soaking my clothes. It didn’t begin with a light sprinkle. Less than a minute after the first thunderbolt, the stars were blotted out by heavy black clouds, and we stood in a torrential downpour. The rain rushed in through the hole, soaking the carpet and curtains as easily as it soaked through my clothes. I looked out into the night for something, anything, that could explain what we just saw, but there was nothing at all.
The rain continued all night, as we sat in a police station, giving statements that made us sound insane. It continued for the next month, as reports trickled out to the press that all included the phrase “mass hallucination.” It continued the month after that, and the month after that too. In fact, the next ten months were the most consistently rainy the city had ever seen, and almost nobody had a chance to dry out until the next May, right about the time that I had decided myself that the entire thing was a hallucination and that whatever had really happened to Stephanie, I would never see her again. As usual, I was wrong on both counts.
Next: Chapter Eight-For the Longest Time
Summer Love by Blake M. Petit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.evertimerealms.com.
You’ve got to give Archie Comics credit. They’ve had a pretty stable formula for 65 years now, but they’re still willing to try some new things. Last year, for instance, they launched the now-infamous “New Look” with the 
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