Character Narratives
Black jack
“The Harlem Hellfighters earned a reputation for their ferocity on the front lines of the Great War and Samson was still a fierce fighter. The alien lifeforce residing in him formed a small shield at Samson’s shoulder absorbing the thug’s blow. Then quick as thought it moved down to Samson’s elbow sharpening into a twelve-inch blade that he rammed into the thug’s midsection.
“Who tha hell are you?” yelled Vanderbilt pointing a semi-automatic pistol at Samson’s chest. Samson paused, thinking about the respect he deserved. About going to war. About being mistreated in the South before leaving for New York. About how his people always ended up on the wrong side of countless run-ins with “the law”.
“Name’s Blackjack,” poking his chest out feeling that’s what heroes did. “And I’m gonna count to three.”
“Yeah? And then?” Vanderbilt snorted.
“You put the gun down.”
“Or what?”
“I put you down.”
Vanderbilt laughed as his grip tightened around the chrome handle of the gun.
“I’ll take my chances, boy.” drawing out the last word fully intended as insult. He punctuated the sentence with a nod towards his gun hand.
“I was really hoping you’d say that.”
Samson grinned widely…”
Silk Widow
“Laylah leapt into action using the low lights and shadows in the smoke-filled club to her advantage. She struck down any cop that got near Ms. Sage and retreated into the haze. It felt good to release some of the anger Sergeant Jessup’s malevolent nature conjured.
Laylah broke the ankle of one young officer with a deft low kick that left him writhing in agony on the floor. Her powerful left leg peeked through the high split in her dress framed by the cloth-like webs that embodied her stage name – Silk Widow. Howling in pain he reached for that smooth long leg in vain, ogling her as he dropped. She smirked as his eyes grew wide with terror watching the shadows crawling down that same beautiful leg. The searing pain he felt from the spider bites left him barely holding onto consciousness.
Laylah was flush with vengeance and justice when Ms. Sage’s hand firmly gripped her shoulder and she heard the single word “Enough.”
“You’re one tough dame,” Sergeant Jessup said to Laylah. He eyed her up and down the way a lion studies an antelope, and the cheekiness in his voice reminded Laylah of other horrors from her past…”
The Socialist
“There is smoke everywhere now. Dermot staggers through the crowd. People are shoving. Screaming. An old Italian man, streamers of smog billowing from his mouth, flings a cop twice his size into an alley like a doll. A black woman catches a cudgel meant for her cheek. Snaps it. Stares at her own hand, amazed. Too distracted to notice the cop behind her raising a fist –
The Socialist smashes him down without even breaking stride. The weakness Dermot saw in that kitchen is gone, replaced with the feral majesty of an old Kodiak bear. He raises a steel-capped boot to kick a shield in half, like a child folding a page. Róisín’s rivet gun coughs a spinning length of chain to bear another two men down.
Metal as old and dented as the Socialist’s wrench should not catch the light so, but somehow, when he raises it, it shimmers like a star. When he bellows, his voice is the crowd’s voice. His strength is their strength.”