Sheldon Learns to Fly

Content Note From the Author

Like all installments of this series, ep4 is sexually explicit, but this one is notable for a couple additional things:

- It depicts an attempted rape, as well as fragmentary glimpses of a memory of a rape

- It depicts a brief but gory killing spree

And with that, back to the show…

I know this is a story about me, but no one is an island. No one spreads their wings all on their own. I’m no exception. I’ve already introduced the inscrutable Ana as best I could, and I’ve introduced Josefina, in the context in which I’ve known her. Now before I go any further, there’s another player in this story you need to know about. And in this case, I think it’s best if I go back to the very beginning, exactly as it was told to me.

At a time when awkward young ****** Steinmetz was preparing to graduate high school and escape small-town Ohio, a troubled child prowled the streets of Los Angeles—and discovered something in the heart of the city that would change both of our lives.

May 2012

Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California

Scarlett Jackson led their little gang of miscreants stealthily up South Curson Avenue in the moonless dark between the streetlamps. They reached the corner of West Olympic, and furtively looked for traffic in both directions. Seeing that the street was utterly empty, they waved conspiratorially to their companions, and they all speed-walked across the intersection, just as instructed. No noisy footfalls from this bunch.

The Gardens lay half a mile behind them, adventure just a couple blocks ahead.

“Remind me, why we sneakin’ around when we aren’t even there yet?” said Carina, the second oldest of the bunch after Scarlett.

“Shhh!” Little Andrew shot her a serious and disapproving look. “Because we on a mission,” he whispered.

LA was, in very real ways, a hostile jungle full of human foes, and treating it as one certainly had helped to stave off boredom. So up the avenue their little raiding party went, enemies everywhere and nowhere.

“Say, Carina,” Scarlett said as they approached Wilshire. “What’s y’all’s cover story tonight?”

A flicker of a smile crossed the younger girl’s face, but she kept her eyes forward. “Momma thinks we havin’ a sleepover with Cecilia and her kid brother Jimmy. Scar, look!”

Scarlett nodded. “E’erybody, pause game. Protocol five-O. Remember your lines.”

They formed up, Scarlett in front, Carina and Andrew holding hands, and approached the intersection. Andrew whispered to Carina, “Sis, I don’t have no line. Do I?”

She shook her head warmly, and whispered back, “No, baby.”

There, just before the main road, a squad car had pulled over a red Honda Civic. One officer was frisking the owner, up against the passenger’s side door, while the other rifled through the trunk. They spotted the children but made no immediate moves to impede them. Then, just as they had passed the scene, the pig doing the trunk search called out: “Hey kids, where you going at this hour?”

Scarlett took a breath, turned their head slowly and said, “Evening, officer. We’re just going over to the Wilshire Bodega to get some bread.”

The man looked conflicted.

Carina added, “We’re from Carthay Gardens. We know the way.”

The two officers exchanged glances, then trunk pig nodded. “Hurry along, kids, and stay out of trouble.”

The group started back up slowly and rebuilt momentum. When they all got to the curb, Scarlett said, “Nice job guys! Highway protocol.” They waited for the light to turn. “Now!”

Everyone linked hands, with Carina in the middle and Andrew on the left, and they walked, quickly but cautiously, across Wilshire. Once they reached the opposite curb they broke formation. To the right, just across South Curson, was the Wilshire Bodega. To the left and immediately before them, was the gated entrance to La Brea and Hancock Park. The party easily hopped the gate, then strode confidently up the left fork toward La Brea pond.

“Why we going this way?”

Scarlett snorted. “Because, Carina, a frontal assault on the fortress is suicide. Target’s around back, where they weak.” They followed the winding path through the gardens, past the pond where plaster statues of mammoths were either dying or socializing, it was hard to be sure in this light. From there, the path turned and led up and away from the water, then skirted the base of the hill on which the Tar Pits Museum stood.

“I never asked, what’s your cover story, Scar?”

“Don’t have one,” said Scarlett. “My mom be drinking, she don’t care what I do.” They paused and looked around, then turned and whispered, “Radio silence, guys. Follow me.”

Here their route diverged from the paved path. They crept along the side of the hill until they’d come around to the back of the facility, where, just as folks had said, a nondescript 30′ by 30′ fenced-in enclosure stood a scant 50 feet or so from the museum.

Security was in fact pretty lax for such a high-value target. A 10-foot fence, interwoven most of the way up with opaque plastic, and topped by a nice straight line of barbed wire.

“Backpack,” Scarlett mouthed to Carina, who handed it over. They carefully unzipped the bag and pulled out a 3′ by 5′ rug, appropriated from a basement rubbish pile. It was terribly musty and dusty. Tucking it awkwardly into the front of their shorts, they quickly scaled the chain-link fence and stopped just shy of the wiring.

The fools that built this clearly hadn’t heard of Scarlett Jackson, spy girl extraordinaire.

The carpet unfurled neatly over the wire, and they secured it in place with duct tape. They gave it a few tentative tugs to verify its integrity, then vaulted themself up and over the doorway-sized section of the fence that was now safely covered. For a moment they dangled precariously, then their feet found purchase.

“C’mon, guys!” they whispered, gesturing for the others to follow. They climbed down and dropped to the gravel.

Good god damn.

Inside the enclosure was another little tar pit, surrounded by broken ground. It must have erupted fairly recently.

“Holy shit,” Scarlett said, “it’s for real.”

“You shouldn’t swear,” replied Andrew. His sister had just helped him over the fence and he was struggling to find footing.

“You okay, Andy? I can help you down.”

“Nah, I got it.” Sure enough, despite being a foot shorter and several years younger than his sister, Andrew managed to find his way. When he was 4 feet from the ground, he let go and dropped. “Oof,” he said.

“That is a-mazing,” said Carina, as she followed him down. “But, uh, what now?”

“Now,” they said, fishing in the backpack, “we get our souvenir. Maybe we get a fossil, maybe not.” They pulled out a slatted kitchen spoon and a plastic takeout container.

Carina frowned. “I wouldn’t. First of all, you’re gonna destroy that spoon.”

“So? It ain’t ours, it’s lifted.”

“And second... don’t you recall the other half of the stories about this place?”

Scarlett looked up at her briefly. “You believe that BS? Carina, they called her ‘Shelob the spider-woman.’ That don’t mean nothin’, it’s lifted right outta Lord of the Rings. I’m finna get that fossil.”

Carina’s hands fidgeted nervously. “So the name’s made up. But what if the story ain’t?”

Scarlett, who’d already knelt down close to the pit, sighed and shook their head.

“A giant spider that lives in a tar pit? Same pit that’s been trapping life for millions of years, never to escape, that pit?” They turned back to the surface of the tar, and began skimming with the spoon. “Nah, that would be unscientific. Hold up. What’s this.”

They’d pulled out a small, very flat stone, its circular shape so perfect and familiar that Scarlett had to suspect it was not from the pit, but a mundane artifact of the modern world that’d fallen in only days or months ago. A gleam of reflected light hinted at swirling lines etched into the material, which only seemed to confirm that it was manmade. Still... carefully they set it in the clear plastic container, still dripping black tar.

On an impulse, they rubbed a finger across one of the little swirls, then wiped it off in the grass and on the back of one sneaker. Most of the asphalt had sloughed right off into the bottom of the container.

“Not a fossil, but it’ll do...”

“Scarlett! Look!”

Scarlett glared sharply at Carina. “Seriously, what.”

The girl was statue-still, wide eyed, pointing at the pit. Slowly, anxiously, Scarlett turned her head to follow Carina’s pointing...

A vortex of star-studded blackness was whirling just above the surface of the pit. An unreal grumbling sound echoed up from its depths. Dumbstruck, they began to pull away, fell back on their ass, and found themself unable to retreat further. A giant arm, covered in exoskeleton like an insect’s, rose from the vortex. Seemingly paralyzed from the waist down, they turned to their comrades.

“Run! Abort! Get the fuck up outta here!”

The arm extended a monstrous pincer, scooped them up, and retreated hastily back into the portal.

***

Eight years before I would find myself paralyzed by the sight of an extradimensional entity, young Scarlett had already met one. But whereas Ana claimed they wanted only to offer me sex, and the gift of a gender-affirming gizmo, this demon was offeringn something entirely different, and he was direct about it: a job.

He explained to them that in the shadows of this and every city on Earth, the forces of good and evil lurked, fighting each other when they met, but primarily seeking to peddle their influence with us. That cold war was going badly. As Scarlett was well aware, the planet was getting worse all the time.

What it needed was a champion: a human leader, bestowed with the powers of her or his benefactors, who would defend the people and rally them to fight for a better world.

That was a hell of a carrot to a poor kid who sensed life was going nowhere. Glory, egoboo, lifelong gainful employment... and with superhuman abilities as a bonus. Hearing all this, and aware also in the back of their head that they weren’t really being given much choice, Scarlett agreed. They would accept the gift. They would train hard, do whatever it took to save the world, and make everyone proud of them.

Looking back, of course, it was obviously too good to be true. But the absurdity of the situation had disrupted all the skepticism a preteen could muster. How could it not be true, when the evidence was staring them in the face?

***

Present day

East Ithaca, NY

I wiped salty water from my cheek. Ares still hung limply in my arms, speechless, eyes wide as dinner plates.

<Listen, Spider. They taught you to survive by stealing life, because that is what they know. But you can feed simply by connecting. Any demon can.>

As my body healed, I let all the combat hardware vanish, and I sprouted new octopus arms twice the length of those I’d lost, glistening not with poison stingers but with a dense tapestry of chromatophores. It left me Hungry but it underscored my point.

<See? Healed by a kiss. And that’s just the beginning of what we can do.>

Ares stirred; feebly, almost imperceptibly, they shook their head.

<All my work... was for nothing... just kill me.>

I could tell the demonheart was working overtime to stabilize them. They would live. But it was running on empty, resulting in a Hunger so extreme I could only compare it to the moment of my ascension.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Physical affection should be healing you.” I added: <Open yourself to the connection, let it flow into you.>

I leaned in and kissed them again... yeah, this definitely didn’t feel right. They’d clamped down on the connection and all I got was faint echoes of the awful pain they were in.

And still nothing.

“I… can’t,” they whispered.

It made no sense. Healing from touch had never required me to consciously allow it, it should have simply worked. Now they were a zombie, alive but in agonizing withdrawal, with little strength or will to feed.

“Shit. This is bad. I have to get us to the farm somehow... I’m gonna regret saying this. Hurt me, Ares. Bite me.”

They frowned sullenly. <No,> they sent, firmly this time.

“You have to! You can’t go on like this.”

<I’ve had worse! Tear out my heart or leave me here, coward!>

I sighed deeply.

“Ares, I cannot sing for shit. But so help me, I will belt Sam Smith until—”

Faster than human eyes could have seen, the fangs rematerialized, reached out and stabbed me in the thigh. My knees buckled.

“Jesus! Oww!”

I gritted my teeth, and waited for the healing factor to kick in. The pain was a nine out of ten... then after a moment it dropped down to an eight, a five... a two. I stood up and shook it off. Agonizingly Hungry, but fine.

More to the point, Ares looked a little bit more like themself.

“It’s alright,” I said, offering a hand. “I used to get ovarian cysts that hurt that bad.”

They sighed, took the hand and stood. “Dude,” they said, “I could’ve ripped you in half just now. But what’s the point. An hour ago, I was sure your ass had to die. Now, I’m not sure of anything, except I’m pretty sure I got played.”

I winced sympathetically. The situation was enough of a headfuck without that part of it.

“Do you want the truth? I don’t know everything, but I can prove I’m not lying.”

They chewed on this a moment. “I don’t know,” they said at length. “I guess so. What do you want, nerd?”

“Two things. First, take my hands.”