Crowley's Ward
"You may have been a fool to follow me"
Previously: Alexei kept Astra & her old companion, Crowley, trapped in an endless nightmare ruled over by a daemon. Narrowly, they escaped and prepared themselves to face Alexei’s men just outside the door.
○ Opening Era: Spring, 2026, Brooklyn
Crowley watched her walk to the final goon, like a clinician approaching a patient for treatment. The man had no choice but to accept it. He stood there, petrified in place by their mental exploit, his nervous system cycling the command to clench. If only this man knew their art – he could easily disable it. But, in this world he and Astra had birthed together, people like him were beetles and they were the birds.
Astra reached down to peel the man’s fingers from his pistol. She held it to his head, without malice. His eyes darted in fear, landing on Crowley’s, pleading.
“Love…” said Crowley, too softly. “Love, can’t we just––” His cheeks jumped at the crack.
The man crumpled, released from the ailment of a functioning brainstem––that’s what the neurologist part of Crowley guessed, distantly, based on the angle.
Immediately, she turned to him, “Follow me.”
But Crowley was now the frozen one.
She made an intricate gesture, one of the mudras her father had taught her. Crowley thawed. “Follow me,” she repeated.
His legs shambled after her. He wondered for how many months his legs had been atrophying while they’d been trapped in a nightmare.
She turned a corner. He followed. Then, before he could grab her, she leapt into the street.
“The blazes are you doing, dear?”
A truck screeched to a stop inches from her outstretched palm. The driver honked, then stiffened. Astra opened the door to pull his benumbed body to the pavement. She got into the driver’s seat and beckoned Crowley to the other side.
The carriage smelled like cigarettes. “So we’re not only murderers but carjackers now?”
“I held my hand at an angle that hid my face.”
“Good god, that’s what’s on your mind?” Crowley clicked his seatbelt.
“Crowley. Listen carefully: You didn’t kill those men. I did.” She drove.
“I froze them. With that little psycho-virus of ours. And then you killed them. I drew the bow and you were the arrow. Just as with all the rest of it,” said Crowley, gesturing widely to the world beyond the window.
“We took a vow. You knew even better than I did what it would mean.” He felt her scan him. “You need to shake. Fastest way to release trauma before it becomes structural.”
“No, what I need is––”
“No time.” She cast her hand to the top of his spine. He began to shake despite himself.
The tremors dissipated as they turned left onto Smith Street. Astra accelerated.
“That was highly inappropriate,” he said.
“Pull yourself together,” she instructed. “Alexei is after us. And possibly...” she tuned into some hidden frequency, “…others.”
Astra surveyed their surroundings, which had grown less industrial.
More pedestrians, Crowley noted. The presence of pedestrians was a good sign. It meant the world hadn’t fallen apart completely in their absence.
But something was a bit strange about pedestrian life. First of all, the sidewalks now appeared to have lanes – complete with arrows telling you which side of the street to walk on. He squinted at a group of middle-aged men who all seemed to be wearing the same lightweight down vest with the same haircut. These men walked past another group of young women all dressed alike in flannel snow leopard print pants. The New York City he remembered tended to be quite lonely. But now the majority of people appeared to be traveling in packs. It disturbed him to watch the way they moved. The women all tucked their hair behind their right ears at the same time. That’s when he noticed that they were all wearing…some type of headset. It looked like consumer-grade EEG – brain-computer interfaces. Hmm.
And there was something else. Whereas Brooklyn had previously been home to an eclectic array of homegrown storefronts, it seemed most of these had been replaced by corporate chains. Crowley hypothesized that months of chaos may have increased the collective appetite for order. However, he was tickled by the feeling that something more sinister was happening. He’d speak to Astra about it.
He looked at her. Astra made a right on State Street. She glanced into the rear view mirror. Crowley followed her gaze. There was an SUV behind them with tinted windows. He sensed that Astra had been tracking it already for several blocks. He watched her steer – thin fingers with filthy, overgrown nails wrapped around the wheel. Had her wrists always been so frail?
“And you, love?” he asked.
“And me what?” she replied, as if they couldn’t read each other minds.
“Are you quite all right?”
The diesel engine rumbled.
“You know it’s not my first time,” she said. “Killing.”
“That wasn’t your fault––”
“You think I’m talking about my mother. I’m not.”
Her pale eyes glanced at him like two diamond-tipped drills. Crowley had ceased trying to guess what happened behind them. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he’d been a fool to make this girl his ward.
No – he reminded himself again – Astra was not a girl. She was no longer just his best friend’s daughter. Astra was perhaps the greatest living master of body and mind, the architect of their new era, and, amongst other things, 28 years of age. Or 29, he supposed, seeing as it was now spring.
“It’s true.” She stopped the truck and put it in park, trapping the SUV behind them on the narrow street. “You may have been a fool to follow me,” she said, slightly misreading him while fishing for cigarettes from the glove box. He didn’t stop her. Sunlight streamed through the windows to illuminate the faded blue of her hair. It had grown long in captivity. He knew it must be hard for her to not have it at full saturation. That hair and her tattoos were her safety blanket. She never told him or anyone else why. In some ways, she was still a girl.
Astra opened the door and hopped down. “Let’s go. The driver will be unfrozen by now. Police will be looking for this license plate. Also…” She nodded mentally to the SUV idling behind them. Without a motion, he nodded back.
He followed her down the street, as he always followed. He followed this strange being who was his responsibility, in more ways than one. He watched her stumble uncharacteristically on a deep crack in the sidewalk.
“What now?” he asked.
Astra turned her head back, pretending to glance at him but actually glancing over his shoulder at the two men who’d gotten out of the SUV. “Threat assessment,” she said.
She continued walking. He followed. He would continue to follow.
Next release: Astra and Crowley confront the world they created.