The City Cried

by Matt Nute

The city was crying.

With every square meter of pavement, with every pane of glass, it grieved. Each streetlight, each oil stain, each offal-clogged drainage grate was silently screaming in pain.

Crime and injustice were feeding on the city like parasites, sucking the life right out of it.

Jack Hawksmoor intended to give that life back. And silence the screaming.

Barefoot, he leaped from the thirtieth story ledge of the sandstone skyscraper. The city reached out her arms, and he tumbled into their embrace, twisting and turning until his feet alighted soft as a bird on a metal flagpole. On the forty-third story of a skyscraper three blocks away.

Jack closed his eyes, communing with the beloved city. The traction pads on the soles of his feet gripped the smooth metal pole as he spread his arms, feeling the air through his fingers as he swung lazily by his toes. He inhaled deeply, tasting the hydrocarbons and the fumes in the air. Most people coughed and called it pollution.

Jack Hawksmoor called it lunch.

The window below him spoke to him of the day's incidents, of a harried secretary worrying about her job, then receiving flowers from her husband, making her day worthwhile. The sun's reflection portrayed to Jack the light in her eyes, and the hope in her heart. He cracked a smile, his red-irised eyes squinting in vicarious joy.

But elsewhere, the screaming continued.

He leaped again, touching down on window ledges, cornices, the heads of gargoyles as he danced through his city. Below him, the taxicabs and pedestrians looked so small. So very small. Jack stretched out an arm, feeling the foreign organs beneath the skin of his forearm pulse in response. The city moved for him, placing an overhanging wire in his hand as he slid to the street.

Feeling the warm pavement beneath the soles of his feet, Jack crouched into the shadows. He listened to the rhythm of the city, and heard the messages within. Like a mother responding to the cough of her child, Jack acted. The shadows spoke to him, inviting him in. Like a cool pond, the brick and mortar opened up, accepting him into their embrace.

Fifth and Broadway. Sixth and Broadway. Tenth and Broadway. Tenth and Main. Jack traveled through the city like blood through a living heart. Because to him, the city WAS alive. Ever since that day when...

When they had taken him. Into that cold gray place, the place he still saw when he closed his eyes. The eyes that he had not been born with, but were forced upon him. Their alien intrusions and operations had taken away a young child and left behind.. something else.

By the age of thirteen, Jack Hawksmoor was no longer merely human. He heard the voice of the city calling to him, and he answered. He felt her pain, and he did his part to cease it. And she gave him shelter, a home, and love.

Then the day came when Henry Bendix came to Jack, and gave him the chance to help cleanse ALL the cities. And Jack answered the call again. Despite the pain and agony of his times recalled to the Skywatch space station, away from the cities. Despite the burden of living the secret life of Stormwatch Black, a force that officially did not exist. And despite the anguish of not being there when his friends had died, all for naught.

Jack served a higher authority now, but his life's purpose remained the same. The city would be clean.

Connecticut and Del Mar. Jack stepped out of an abandoned tenement. The city moaned at the wound he stood in the middle of. Jack winced, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, and quelling the nausea he felt in his gut. The two men hunched by the parked car shone like beacons to Jack's neohuman senses. The sickly sweet scent of heroin and the tang of formaldehyde made his nostrils flare. His brow furrowed in rage. These creatures (for he could not think of them as human) were a tumor, choking the life from his city.

And he was the scalpel.

Like a black-suited freight train, Jack sped from the alleyway. One clenched fist connected with the first dealer's chin. Bone shattered like glass, turning a once-recognizable face into a passable imitation of raw hamburger. As he fell, Jack's bare foot connected with the other's ribcage, staving it in like a brine-soaked barrel. Using the body of the first as a pivot, Jack spun his body around, smashing his feet through the rear window of the car. Glass sprayed the inside of the vehicle, peppering the occupants with razor-sharp fragments.

The driver floored the accelerator, scattering the drugs off the trunk and sending Jack hurtling the opposite way. He flipped in midair, his feet contacting the nearest wall. As the car sped out of the alley, Jack was already moving.

He leaped, the rough brick wall acting like a springboard beneath his feet. Twisting in midair, he caromed off a lamppost and a mailbox, alighting on the hood of the speeding automobile.

The startled scream of the driver reached Jack's ears as his fist punched through the windshield, grasping the edges of a loose-fitting parka. Jack heaved, dragging the screaming hood partly through the broken windshield. Like an itch behind him, Jack sensed the building growing closer. Flexing his calves, he shot upwards, reaching out his arms for the handhold he instinctively knew was there.

From his perch seven stories up, Jack watched the car impact with the stone wall at close to seventy miles per hour. The fireball belched up from the angry wreckage, giving Jack's solemn face a hellish cast. He smiled to himself.

For now, the city breathed a small sigh of relief.

**********

"Carol! Hi!" Denise called from across the cafeteria. She pushed her way out from behind her table and skipped over to embrace her friend. "Girlfriend, how long has it been? You look good, vacation been treating you fi-yine!" She folded her arms around the smaller woman.

"Hey Denise." came the muffled reply. Denise arched an eyebrow. The slightly built brunette didn't seem like herself. Denise took her friend by the arm and led her out into the hall, thankfully not crowded due to the lunch rush at Maryland University. She noticed Carol's hunched stature, and the fact that she was wearing large sunglasses, indoors, and on a cloudy day.

"Carol, what's wrong?" "Nothing. I.. I gotta go, Denise." Carol turned to leave. Denise reached after her, intending to grab her shoulder, but missed, slapping her hand against the smaller woman's ribs. Carol winced, reflexively holding her hand to her side. She turned slowly, meeting Denise's concerned gaze. The taller woman nodded.

"Tim again?" she intoned quietly. Carol ducked her head, then removed her glasses. The fading purplish bruise by her left eye gave credence to Denise's fears. "Oh, Carol..." Denise sighed.

Carol flinched away. "I'm okay, really."

"Really? Girl, this ain't the first time, you can't fool me? That man of yours..."

"He's getting help. It's just.. these new medicines I'm on, they make me act different, and he's just adjusting, that's all..." Carol couldn't meet her friend's gaze. Denise looked around.

"Carol, don't bullshit me. This has been going on long before you got on your ADHD meds. Even before that time you 'fell' down the stairs, right?"

"It's nothing." Carol replied curtly, turning to go. Denise looped around her, cutting her off in the narrow hall.

"Bull-SHIT it's 'nothing', girl!" she spat. "Maybe you think he's gonna change, but what about your baby? You got a kid to think about here!"

Carol recoiled as if slapped. "Tim wouldn't..! He'd never!" Denise nodded, then pointed to Carol's eye.

"He'd never." Carol sniffed, then replaced her sunglasses.

"I gotta go. I have about ten thousands of lines of code to debug for my Comp 401 final. I'll... I'll call you." With that, she pushed her way past Denise and left the building, the door slamming behind her. Denise sighed.

"I hope you do, girlfriend. I hope you do."

**********

Carol stopped as she exited the computer lab. After three hours of poring over bug reports and staring at a monitor, she felt dizzy and fatigued. The interns at the clinic had told her to be careful, that even though her ribs were only bruised, not to aggravate them. She squinted in the bright October sun, then reached into her pack for her sunglasses.

"Damn." she cursed to herself. She'd left them on top of the monitor. Glancing back in the window, she saw that they were already gone. Cursing the lack of ethics among grad students, she skulked across the quad.

Pausing again at a small grove, Carol heard the jazzy tunes of a group of music students jamming informally in an enclosure of trees. Deciding that she could wait until the 5:10 train, she took a seat on a concrete bench, closing her eyes and feeling the sun on her face and the music in her ears.

"Does it hurt?" The slightly rasped tenor broke her out of her reverie. She cracked her eye to see a man sitting next to her. She hadn't heard him sit down, and she jumped a little in response.

"Does what hurt?" She asked in response. Quickly, she looked him over. Short, brush cut black hair, starting to recede. A slightly hooked nose, over a clean-shaven chin. A white short-sleeved button-up shirt showed off muscled arms, while his black slacks looked as if he'd been walking in them for days. A light sport coat, also black, lay folded on his lap. She glanced down to his legs, and saw a glimpse of bare feet tucked under the bench.

"Your eye." he asked gently, smiling. It was an innocent smile, Carol decided. She found herself grinning in response.

"A little." she admitted. The stranger cocked his head. Carol frowned. There was *something* about his eyes...

"How did you hurt yourself?"he inquired. Carol was taken momentarily aback at the stranger's curiosity, but answered automatically,

"I fell." The man's brow furrowed, and his eyes flickered across her face.

"No you didn't." he responded quietly. Carol stood up indignantly.

"Well, not that it's any of your business, but I slipped in the shower." She turned to go.

"Does he hit you often?"

Carol paused. She thought about retorting viciously, of telling the stranger to mind his own business. Instead, she merely hiked her bag up over her shoulder, wincing again at the stress it put on her ribs. She strode purposefully out of the grassy area, glancing at her watch.

She could make the 4:30 if she hurried.

On the rattling metro subway, Carol perused the bug reports from the lab. She tried to concentrate, but the voices of Denise and the stranger kept echoing in her mind.

"Girl, this ain't the first time..."

"Does he hit you often?"

"You got a kid to think about!"

Carol looked up as the train slowed, wondering why her papers were soaking wet, then realizing she'd been crying for the past three stops. She looked up just in time to catch the doors closing, and leapt from the car before it left her stop. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her hand. Turning around, she looked into the subway car as it rolled on.

And saw her papers still sitting on her seat. She cursed. Another day of work in the lab to reprint those reports. She headed out of the subway, trudging towards her apartment complex. As she walked, the voices still followed her.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little."

She'd lied. It hurt a lot. Not as much physically as emotionally, but then again, she almost preferred the occasional shove or slap to the yelling and guilt. It wasn't as if he MEANT to hurt her. He just...

She stopped again at her front door.

He just...

*"Where in the hell do you think you're going, huh?"*

*"You think you don't need me? That you can be just fine without me?"*

*"I'll teach you to think you can treat ME like that!"*

No, she thought, It's NOT all right...

Carol unlocked the door, then shut it behind her, locking all three deadbolts before she turned on the light. Tim should be in...

Carol ran to their bedroom, shocked and afraid. She turned on the light, fearing what she'd find, her daughter gone, or worse...

The cooing of her baby daughter was like a rope to a drowning man. She reached into the crib, cradling her child in her arms. She rocked her baby back and forth lovingly until she fell asleep in her mother's arms. Replacing the baby in the crib, Carol began to look around for the sitter, then stopped.

"Tim..." she growled. She went to the cupboard and opened it. The jar they kept their spare change in was empty. She cursed to herself. "Bastard probably went out drinking... left the baby home alone..."

Carefully and deliberately, Carol dropped the glass jar onto the floor. The explosive sound of glass breaking was like a match to a cannon in her soul. It was time for it to stop. She rushed into her room, drawing a suitcase out of her closet. Haphazardly she began stuffing clothes in, for herself and for her daughter. She started running through a plan in her head.

"I'll call my mother... call Child Protective Services, get his ass thrown in jail... get a restraining order, I'll... I'll get a divorce..."

Just then, she heard the first deadbolt turn.

**********

Jack Hawksmoor was sprinting over rooftops, leaping from block to block like a madman. The train tracks held the familiar weight of her presence, the same as the park bench. They spoke to the streets, and the streets spoke to the sidewalks, and the sidewalks whispered to the buildings.

And the buildings talked to Jack, guided him towards where he was needed. In an apartment complex on the south side of Boston, the city was screaming. Jack ran.

**********

"Carol?" Tim staggered in the door. Carol froze, looking around. She couldn't hide a full suitcase, not in their small room. She flicked her eyes back and forth. Instinctively, she moved between the door and the crib. Tim would not get near her child.

"Carol?" The tone of his voice was harsher now. "Where the HELL are you?" His face came into view as he slowly walked into the room, eyes narrowed. He looked her up and down.

"I've been out looking for you!" he hissed. "Do you know how I feel when I come home, and some other woman is taking care of my daughter? I told you how I feel about that sitter!"

"I can't take Jenni to school, Tim!" Carol spat back. "And who the hell are YOU to leave her here alone, while YOU go running around! I was responsible! I hired a sitter!" Carol stepped forward. Never in her life could she recall standing up to her husband, but now...

Things were going to change. She stood her ground. Tim's face showed surprise, then his eyes narrowed.

"You little bitch..." he hissed. "Talk to ME like that?" Carol gritted her teeth, standing her ground.

The slap came out of nowhere, knocking her onto the bed. Her hands flew to her face, covering herself. She tasted blood in her mouth, and cried out.

"Hurts?" Tim yelled. "Maybe you'll THINK next time! I ought to-"

His hand went to his belt buckle, sliding the heavy leather strap into his hand. Glaring at his wife, he drew the belt back...

**********

Jack Hawksmoor heard the city howl. His feet slapped against concrete ledges as he leapfrogged entire city blocks. The pain, the outrage, and the injustice were a siren in his ears. He breathed in, letting the smell of the fear enter his lungs. The window shone brightly, flashing in his eyes. The city was screaming.

Jack jumped.

**********

Tim cocked his hand back. "Uppity bitch..." he mumbled, bringing his arm down viciously. Carol cringed, as her baby began to cry.

At that moment, the city howled in rage as Jack Hawksmoor burst through the window, red eyes glaring like a demon from hell.

Or an avenging angel.

A fist, moving faster than the human eye could see, struck Tim's shoulder, numbing his arm and sending the leather belt clattering to the floor. Jack struck again, driving the flat of his palm against Tim's sternum. Ribs cracked, as the abuser became the victim in the span of an instant. A snap kick from Jack's powerful leg sent Tim flying through the door, ripping it from its hinges.

Carol could barely see the black-garbed blur through her tears. All she heard was Jenni's crying. Automatically, she lifted her child from the crib, huddling her protectively to her breast.

Tim pulled himself off the floor, feeling ribs shift. He came at Jack, wielding a scrap of wood like a club. Jack intercepted the swing with his elbow, shattering the weapon while his other hand struck like lightning thrice, to Tim's solar plexus, throat, and forehead. Tim's face contorted in agony as he struggled for breath. Eyes burning, Jack stood over him.

"Don't." The quiet voice came from behind him. Jack turned to see Carol standing outlined in the broken doorframe, her child cradles in her arms. He saw the suitcase behind her, and the determined look in her eyes. With a nod, he turned away from the ruin that was Carol's husband.

"Never again." he said, looking into her eyes. She nodded, meeting his gaze for once. "Where will you go from here?" Jack asked quietly. Carol glanced over at where Tim lay groaning.

"I have a friend who can take care of Jenni for a while." she replied after some thought. "Then the police. This can't.. it won't..."

"Never again." Jack repeated, turning her face to his. Carol closed her eyes and nodded. "Never again." she repeated. When she opened her eyes, she stood alone in the apartment. Glancing down, she saw that her daughter had fallen fast asleep.

Carol took her child in one arm and a suitcase in the other, and left her apartment, not looking back.

**********

As dawn broke, Jack Hawksmoor stood atop the highest building in Baltimore, hands tucked into his pockets. The sun cast its rays over the city, showing every ugly facet of it, harshly silhouetted against the sunrise. But amidst, the corruption and decay, Jack Hawksmoor sensed something else.

Hope.

He spread his arms wide and leaped from the heights, feeling the song of the city enfold him. Today, the city still cried, but it was not all he heard.

For beneath it all, Jack heard the city laugh. And he smiled.

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