While popular culture and mythology depicts demons as malevolent spirits or corporeal hell-creatures, the original Greco-Roman daemon was a disembodied spiritual force with no evil—or necessarily good—intent. Freud theorized that demons represented the grief experienced by loved ones who had recently died. In fact, even Aleister Crowley stated that demons were a useful metaphor for certain inner psychological processes. Superstition or not, demons represent the dark urges inside of us: to take, to hurt, to kill. For some, the resistance to sin is a great stone wall, for others a meager thread. Some can be saved. Some cannot.
: : :
Port Reyes Prison
San Diego, California
2011
Audrey ducked behind the car, avoiding the burst of flame that struck the vehicle’s windshield. It was a small flame, much less potent than Meredith’s. In fact, Meredith struck back with a much stronger, yellow flame that caused the prisoner to retreat backwards. Audrey quickly put herself in his path and tasered him to the ground.
Telekinetically-suspended sections of the destroyed wall struck prisoners right and left. Gabriel had trouble with a group of them: one with durable skin, who was immune to the blunt attacks; another with super strength, who could punch them away with equal force; and one with cryokinesis, who extreme cold shattered the concrete on contact. Ryan was able to wing the cryo with his pistol and Elle took out the strongman with a well-placed lightning bolt, but the durable was still a problem. Gabriel tried a concussive scream, but the convict slammed into the outside wall and kept approaching him. Halfway there, Bess head-locked him and stabbed him in the ear with a fountain pen. He fell to the ground screaming. Bess grimaced indifferently, pointing to her ear. “Soft spot,” she regarded plainly.
A prisoner leapt with superhuman ability on top of her. “Hey, pretty lady,” he flirted, his arms around her.
Ryan shot him in the foot and Elle electrocuted him with a precise spark between his eyes.
“Men, bábnik,” she groaned. Ryan frowned; Elle and Gabriel grinned. Bess reloaded her gun. “Are we just going to stand here?”
The foursome peered into the open prison yard through the portion of wall that was allowing the prisoners to escape. Several bodies littered the ground and the fighting had begun to die down as the convicts deserted their grudges against one another and began to look at the outside world with malice.
The quartet backed away from the wall. Bess called Audrey on her cell phone for backup, only to find out that she and Meredith were preoccupied with their own group of inmates.
Ryan extended his hand. “One for all, all for one?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel replied, “except with the clichés.” He raced through the hole in the wall, and was quickly followed by the team.
Once inside, the quartet discovered that five more agents were battling the inmates, each of them wearing a Pinehearst pin. Claire Bennet tackled a pyrokinetic to the ground, who was quite unnerved at the unrelentless blonde who continued to wrestle him even as he charred her flesh away. Nearby, a lean blonde girl, made leaner by her elasticity abilities, strangle-held an inmate, allowing Echo DeMille to hum in his face, rendering him unconscious. The elastic girl’s body rippled, absorbing the sound.
“Thanks for the assist, Johanssen,” Echo noted to his teammate.
One of the agents raced around with superspeed, each time using the wall to launch him into the next victim. He made the mistake of trying to take down one inmate with inertial amplification, causing him to stop short, collapsing with his nose and ears bleeding. Not wanting to be useless, Gabriel moved his body away.
Claire scowled at Gabriel, with a degree of uncertainty as she looked between him and the prisoners. Gabriel finally asked, “Enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
Claire nodded. “Let’s do it.” At this, the Company agents began to fight along with the Pinehearst team.
Elle zapped the prisoner who had injured the Pinehearst speedster. “This is our mess to clean up, you know,” Claire noted.
Elle, electrocuting the inmate into unconsciousness, replied, “Well, Pom-Pom, it’s obvious you needed our help. Family first, right?”
“Don’t remind me,” Claire noted dryly. Claire kicked the unconscious inmate in the ribs. “That’s for Pall.” She requested, “Cover me. Got to save my man.” She raced over to Agent Pall and used a knife to slice open an artery in his arm, mixing it with her own blood, which was enough to take away the purple stain on his torso. He awoke coughing up blood. “You stay here. I’ll finish the job later,” Claire instructed.
Flint Gordon was thrown through the hole in the wall into a car. Winded and bruised, but not seriously injured, he rolled off the car, hiding behind it. “Knox punched harder in his sleep. God rest his soul.” After a moment, he made the sign of the cross.
A familiar voice chastised him. “Flint, we ain’t Catholic.”
He turned his head to find his sister sheltered behind the car with him. “Mere?”
She put on a fake smile. “So, how’s business?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Slow,” Meredith replied honestly, “We’re in a bit of a hiring crisis.”
Flint scoffed. “It’s firin’ that’s our problem. Lotta traitors and corpses.”
“You know, when this whole… everything… blows over, we should really get together for dinner or something. Nothing fried, though.”
“Usually, I’d disagree, but lately I’ve been makin’ myself sick with too much fried chicken.”
Meredith tilts her head and maternally notes, “Flint, you know better.”
“How’s the hubby?”
“He’s good…” Meredith began, but was cut off by a flame emerges over their head.
“You see how red that was? Guy’s an amateur. Let’s show ‘im what a couple of experts can do.” She grinned and they leapt out together, yellow and blue flames ready.
Inside the prison yard, the agents were having a difficult time. The inmate with super-strength had piled enough rocks on Claire to immobilize her. Echo had been rendered unconscious. Bess and Ryan had themselves cornered with guns raised, able to hold off the inmates, but not to escape when their guns became useless. In addition, two dozen more inmates had set their sights on the agents. The two companies badly needed reinforcements.
: : :
Mohinder, Peter, Molly, and Micah
Suresh’s Lab
Lower Manhattan, New York
2011
Molly’s eyes were closed in concentration, a large world map before her. She held a pushpin in her hand. Without pushing it down, she awoke. “I can’t find him. He’s gone.”
“Gone?” Mohinder prompted.
“Usually that means someone’s dead.”
“Or time traveling,” Peter noted.
Molly nodded hopefully.
Peter continued, holding up the formula, “Hiro went after the other half of the formula in Tokyo. Maybe I should check Japan again.”
“Tokyo?” Micah asked.
Peter answered the new recruit. “Yes. Yamagato Industries.”
Micah’s skin paled. “Don’t you guy read the news? There was a huge earthquake in Tokyo yesterday at Yamagato Square. It was caused by a Synthetic. He died but they suspect he may have had some sort of major emotional breakdown.”
“Then it’s already begun,” Peter noted cryptically.
“Don’t you have radio or TV or Internet? This was big news,” Micah chided.
“No electricity,” Mohinder commented, “I stopped paying the bills. I like it better in the dark.”
Micah rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone. He held it and, after being lost in thought for nearly a minute, the lights came on. Mohinder blanched and raced to the wall to shut them off.
“He’s spent too much time around cockroaches,” Molly explained.
Micah laughed appreciatively. He smiled warmly at Molly, who scowled in response and went to stand on the other side of Peter, who was now scribbling in a notebook.
“Anyway,” Micah commented, “you’ve got free electricity for the rest of your life.”
Peter teleported out of the room, leaving the notepad to fall to the floor with his pencil. On the pad was Hiro’s body lying on a pile of rocks. Peter teleported back in, this time with Hiro’s body.
“Mohinder!” Peter exclaimed, “Are you aware of any Specials with healing abilities?”
“Besides Claire?”
“No, like, they can heal others. Fix wounds. Something.”
“Uh, Daniel Linderman. According to the Company’s files. Have you met him?”
“A thousand times. He was my dad’s best friend.” Peter calmed himself, put on a haughty expression, and with a slight British accent, demanded “Heal” as he laid his hands on Hiro’s body. Grimacing, he pressed his hands into Hiro. The Japanese man’s wounds did not heal; he did not take breath; his heart didn’t restart. With a sadistic smile, Peter sent a quick jolt of electricity into Hiro’s chest, and again, and again. He stopped channeling Elle and asked ominously, “Micah, how long ago was the earthquake? More than six hours?”
“At least twelve.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do.”
“You can time travel!” Molly noted.
Peter shook his head. “I’ve tried it. I’ve lost count of how many times. It’s a direct causation paradox. If I go back, then I return to a timeline where he didn’t die and you’ll be stranded in this timeline, and eventually something else with slingshot back in my face. The more you do this, the less effect you see. The only way to get back here is to undo what I did. To save the world, you gotta save it in the present. I’m sorry.” He took one last glance at the fallen hero.
: : :
Port Reyes Prison
San Diego, California
2011
Elle was exhausted, throwing balls of lightning left and right, if only to keep the prisoners at bay. She was able to clear a path to her comrades, but found getting back out with them difficult. She noted Piper, Claire’s elastic teammate trying in vain to clear enough rubble to rescue the regenerator. She called out to Gabriel, but couldn’t find him in the chaos. She sent a blast of electricity, but the rebar in the cement directed the current and the block didn’t explode. One of the inmates, wearing glasses, squinted, and Elle suddenly found her vision fading. Sounds overwhelmed her, including the noisy sound of a helicopter.
A helicopter passed overhead, and six figures leapt from the helicopter, dressed in red-and-khaki fatigues, each with a circular patch on the shoulders emblazoned with “Powered Legion” and an image of the Pinehearst DNA logo. Private George Palladino floated gracefully with Belle Ramos in his grasp. She held out her arms, allowing the other four soldiers to float softly to the ground. The blocks of cement on top of Claire were lifted off her. The tall, redheaded Sergeant Anthony O’Malley called for the Company and Pinehearst agents to retreat. They did so lethargically, clearly worried about the soldiers, but found their fears unfounded. They were an efficient group. They ducked all elemental attacks. Superspeed-endowed Private Henry quickly knocked several inmates unconscious. Private Johnson used his pryokinesis to carrel the inmates into a tight group. Those that tried to escape found themselves flown or thrown into the pile. The entire procedure took only a few minutes.
It was only then that Elle noticed her husband’s complete absence. He had been valiantly fighting only moments earlier. She alerter her partner to the fact, but Bess simply replied that her husband was invincible. “There are a dozen more escapees. Flight, super-speed, and the like. We have our work cut out for us.”
“He’ll call in,” Ryan said comfortingly.
: : :
Matt and Gabriel
Port Reyes, California
2011
Gabriel attacked imaginary inmates as he walked away from the prison yard. His hands danced at his launch imaginary projectiles through the air. Unaware of his surroundings, he tended to rustle the grass or strip portions of bark off of a tree. He even smiled occasionally as he watched what he though were his wife’s clever attacks. Gabriel was oblivious to the military helicopter flying above him. Matt was not, but he continued to lead the man astray.
Then, in Gabriel’s mind, the prison yard disappeared. He saw his childhood apartment in Queens fade into view. The wallpaper, however, was not fading or peeling; the carpet was not stained or frayed; and he could plainly see the entrance to his room, still fully decorated. His mother had sold most of his things when he moved out. But there was a surreal aspect to the vision. There was a strange permanence to everything; nothing outside the window moved: the featureless trees stood still. A cloudless, paper-textured sky featured a setting sun that was not too bright to look at. The lights in the apartment glowed brightly, but lit only a small sphere around them, leaving much of the apartment dim and filled with dramatic shadows.
Gabriel could not activate any of his abilities, but his intuition was still superhuman. He could see the dream-like flaws in the reality. He was being mentally attacked by a telepath. But the assault on his mind was strong. This was not the work of an inmate. This person was experienced, who was not only searching his mind but deceiving his perceptions simultaneously.
He heard his father’s voice. Seemingly gliding into the room, Gabriel noted his father towering above him. “Boy, don’t you get those stupid dreams in your head. My grandfather fixed watches. My father fixed watches. I fix watches. And you’re gonna fix watches, too. You wanna do something else, you wait till I’m dead.”
A deep-rooted anger rose up in Gabriel, but he squashed it. “Gabriel,” came the soft, creaky voice of his mother, “don’t you listen to your father. You can be anything you want. You should be a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or a musician. You did so love that cello player. You could even be President. You’re my son and you’re special. You’re special. Special. Special. Special.” The infuriating word echoed through Gabriel’s mind.
Gabriel spun away from the voices and he noted another inhabitant in the room: Matt Parkman. He then stood face to face with him. Stuck in a shared mind, Gabriel was able to sense his anger and hatred: the hatred of a man avenging his true love. Then, it’s about the little speedster, isn’t it? The wall clock began to loudly tick, echoing through the room. Gabriel was finally able to make eye contact with Matt, who acknowledged his presence. “C’mon, Parkman,” Gabriel taunted, “I’m a serial killer. You want to mess up me? Go darker.”
The apartment grew darker, until it was pitch black. But meager sunlight began to shine around the room as through a dusty skylight. It was not the Grays’ apartment anymore, but the back room of the clock workshop. Gabriel and Matt now stood side-by-side, witnessing the scene. A younger Gabriel was standing beside Brian Davis. Gabriel’s condition appeared sickly: he seemed withered; his overlarge glasses covered his sunken eyes and pale face. He wore a medium gray sweater vest over a cream-colored shirt and brown pants. Brian Davis stood over a table, his dress shirt snow white and his tie blood red. Behind Brian’s back, Gabriel turned monstrous: his eyes yellow and his teeth fanged. He grabbed a crystal from the table; it was dagger-shaped with a snaking curved blade.
Matt was then splattered with blood. He could taste it and no amount of spitting or gagging could get rid of the metallic taste. It covered his face, but his attempts to wipe it off, only spread it to his hands; it was still warm. Even trying to wipe it off on his pants was to no avail. He was drowning it in.
Matt opened his eyes to see that the scene had changed again. He was now in a small apartment. He recognized Elle Bishop holding a clear dish of pasta, covering in canary-yellow cheese. She was wearing a white apron and apparently nothing else. Her glamorously-styled golden blonde hair covered her shoulder. But she too became demonic, her sky-blue eyes turned an unnatural electric blue, her forehead growing horns. In the other room, the demonic Gabriel was there, holding a young man dressed in black against the wall. Matt felt himself pressed against the wall beside him; he couldn’t look away as the man’s head was torn open and more blood assaulted Matt’s senses.
Gabriel was no longer dressed in his sweater vests. He was in black jeans and a black jacket. “Enjoy the show, Parkman,” he stated, staring right into Matt’s eyes. He donned a baseball cap and walked out the door.
Matt soon found himself in the streets of Chicago, right on the heels of a shadowy man chasing a 15-year-old boy on a bicycle. The boy fell off and released a blood-curdling scream.
Back in the real world, Sylar left a nightmare-ridden Matt on the ground and headed toward the prison yard. Company cars were driving away, but a battle raged on inside the prison walls. Before Sylar entered, he bashed his watch face against the cement wall.
: : :
Monica and Lyle
New Orleans, Louisiana
2011
He glowed like a light bulb. Radioactive energy poured from his body, preventing Monica and Lyle from getting closer. From behind a shipping crate fifty yards away, Lyle turned to his partner. “I had an IR nearly burn down my house. I was lucky I didn’t develop cancer. Now, I’m just tempting fate.”
Monica had to laugh. “Luckily, we came with long range weapons.” She pulled out her gun and fired toward the Special. He blanched but didn’t fall over. Monica pulled herself back behind the boxes, the left side of her face red and her hair frazzled. “He’s like a furnace.”
Lyle put on a pair of sunglasses and sidled backwards against the wall of the aluminum building behind them, raised his gun and fired toward the man again. Squinting through the glasses, he watched the bullet hit its intended target. For a brief second, a portion of the man’s shoulder darkened. Lyle pulled himself back behind the boxes and replaced the glasses in his pocket. “He’s too hot. He’s melting the bullets on contact. We got to hit him with something bigger; wear him out.”
Monica nodded, “Okay, Bennet, what’s the plan?”
“Give me a second to think of one.”
It was a second they didn’t have as the boxes above them burst into flames.
“He’s coming over!” Monica screamed and dragged Lyle up. They raced forward. Lyle tried to open the doors to the building, but burned his hands before he could even touch the metal flame. Wasting no time, he kicked the doors in with a booted foot. The partners raced to the other side of the building but found the back door chained shut.
“What the hell?” Lyle commented.
Monica groaned. “We’re in the bad part of town. Owners do this.”
“That would have been good information earlier,” Lyle remarked sarcastically.
Monica tried to double back, but suddenly the air in the room got a lot hotter. The glowing target lumbered in, activating the sprinklers. Steam billowed off of the Special. Lyle and Monica smiled in unison. “Here’s the plan,” Lyle noted.
Le Parkour was second nature to Monica, even more so than when she first learned it. She efficiently scaled the large cargo boxes and swung across the pipes snaking across the ceiling, kicking the main pipe hard enough to cause a torrent of water on top of the Special. Thick steam quickly filled the room.
Darnell James finally felt the heat around him dissipate as the cool water relaxed him. He was blinded, though by the impenetrable wall of water vapor surrounding him. He slowly walked his way through the room, blind, holding up his hands trying to find the way out now that his abilities were under control. Finding the wall was easy. He began to trace the edge of the building with his hand.
Suddenly, he felt something hard and metallic against his head. Through the clearing steam, he saw the metal crane hook before him, swinging gaily. He cursed his clumsiness and dread filled him as adrenaline coursed through his veins, an automatic response to a perceived threat. His left hand, outstretched toward the nearby wall burst with radioactivity again, melting the wall before him. As the painful lump on his head continued to pound, he tried to relax himself, but his body’s natural defenses wouldn’t quit. His radioactivity refuses to fade.
Monica caught up to the man, who looked at her pleadingly. She nodded, “You’re gonna have to trust me. Can you swim?”
His nodding was immediately returned with Monica grabbing his unirradiated arm and launching him into the bay.
Lyle came up the dock and called, “Swim out. Tread water until your power has faded. Come back and we’ll take you and help you.
Darnell quickly followed their orders. He swam until he was exhausted and treaded water in place. He watched as his glowing hand returned to normal. One last puff of steam filled his nostrils and he turned away, glad to have his ability finally subside. He could feel the relief fill him.
He passed out, as the lack of oxygen in his blood had made him feel lightheaded. As water filled his lungs, his high gave way to a slicing pain in his lungs. He scrambled, trying to break the surface of the water.
Back on land, Lyle noticed him go under. “Dammit.”
“I’ll go get him. I’m the better swimmer.”
Lyle grabbed her arm before she could jump. An intense yellow light lit up the bay as the water began to groan and bubble.
: : :
Carlos and Angela
New York Public Library
Manhattan, New York
1977
Cradling her three-month-old son in her arms, Angela Petrelli approached the Riverside library and met a genial-looking Hispanic man her age standing on the step waiting on her.
“Carlos, how are you, dear?”
“Quite well, Angie. Is this little Gabe?”
“Gabriel,” Angela pointedly correctly.
“Gabriel,” Carlos stated to the infant, in his native accent, “Your mami is concerned about your future. It’s about time I introduced you to the wide world of books.” He turned to Angela, who looked very unnerved. “Dreams, I take it?”
“Terrifying ones. I just need some validation,” she pleaded.
Carlos just nodded and held the door open for her. On their way past the information desk, a librarian gave Angela and her bundle a weary look. Carlos stopped right before the shelves and inhales, closing his eyes, letting the scent of the books fill his lungs. When he reopened his eyes, they were white.
Walking blindly around bookshelves and reading tables, Carlos strolled through the aisles at a brisk pace that Angela struggled to keep up with. He would stop abruptly, carefully pull a book from the shelf, lay it on the growing stack in his arm and continue walking. After taking a tour of almost the entire first floor, Carlos stopped at an empty reading table and carefully laid his stack of books down. He took a deep breath and his eyes returned to normal. He started to massage his sore bicep.
The first book in the pile was a science reference book entitled How Things Work. Carlos idly flipped through it, passing the sections on clocks and car engines and light bulbs. “Maybe he’ll become an engineer?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call that a nightmare,” Angela noted. Gabriel looked up at her with his ever-curious eyes. Maybe he would become an engineer.
Carlos shrugged and put the book aside, picking up a book on Mohican Indians. “Got any Indian blood in you?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Arthur would like to think he’s birthing full-blood Italians.”
Carlos opened the book to the first page on a chapter about scalping.
Angela gasped. “There was a lot of blood in my dream. People with cuts on their foreheads.”
“Maybe it’s a metaphor for something?” Carlos attempted. The next book was a medical textbook. Carlos opened the book in the middle of a neurology section. “Brain surgeon? That’s not too bad.”
“Scalping…” Angela muttered to herself.
Carlos quickly disposed of the book and picked up The Art of Southern Cooking. Praying he wasn’t somehow going to open the page with the recipe for broiled pig’s brain, he instead found himself reading a recipe for Belgian waffles, then Ziti Marinara with Romano and Parmesan, and finally authentic Georgia Cinnamon Peach Pie. He didn’t even bother suggesting Gabriel was going to be a chef. All that was left was a young adult novel entitled Mystery at Big Ben and The Brothers Karamazov.
“My ability is very interpretive…” Carlos began to explain.
“No, I understand. It’s given me clarity into my visions.” Lulling Gabriel to sleep, Angela took note of Carlos’s paternal stare at the child. “I get the feeling that you and Christina might be ready for one.”
“We want one,” Carlos agreed, “But I’m not sure it’s the time. The… Company takes me away a lot. The world’s not ready to know about us yet. And if our child were to be… special… I don’t know, I’d be scared for him or her.”
“Carlos, do you know where Arthur was when Nathan was this little? Halfway around the world. And now Nathan adores his father. Don’t make excuses.”
“That’s good advice. Thanks.” Carlos began to restack the books. “Question, any reason why we haven’t come up with a name for our little Company?”
“It’s a secret organization. It’s not like we’re filling out 2643 forms for it.”
“It’s just… just calling it ‘The Company’ … it sounds so… villainous.”
: : :
Director’s Commentary: This was a truly exhausting episode. Firstly, I had most of my main players on set again. Then, I had a bunch of bit parts to cast. And all this was at an external location at the abandoned Los Angeles County Jail. Correction: three external locations, since we filmed at the Long Beach Dockyards and the L.A. Public Library, too. But, really, NBC has gotten behind us and it’s completely worth it to see my work come to life. And I want to give a big thanks to Masi Oka for coming down just to play a dead body. That’s not true; this was a SFX-intense chapter, so he was here anyway.
Also, thanks to Matt Dallas for extending his visit to LA. We’ve agreed if he shows up again, I’ll give his character a first name.
I was very happy to cast Rachel Skarsten, who put her ballet skills to use as the flexible Piper Johanssen, another graphic novel character I've “borrowed”.
Kiko Ellsworth, a Heroes webisode star, agreed to reprise his role as Echo for 3-5 chapters.
And, it was a delight to have Ellen Greene return to portray Virginia Gray once again.
Written and Directed by Christopher VanDrey
Zachary Quinto ... Gabriel Grey/Sylar
Greg Grunberg ... Matt Parkman
Hayden Penetierre ... Claire Bennet
Kristen Bell ... Elle Bishop
Milo Ventimiglia ... Peter Petrelli
Sendhil Ramamurthy ... Mohinder Suresh
Jessalyn Gilsig ... Meredith Gordon
Cristine Rose ... Angela Petrelli
Adair Tishler ... Molly Walker
Clea DuVall ... Audrey Hanson
Dana Davis ... Monica Dawson
Randall Bentley ... Lyle Bennet
Noah Gray-Cabey ... Micah Sanders
Blake Shields ... Flint Gordon
Chris Carmack ... Ryan Covington
Olga Sosnovska ... Bess Detskij
Kiko Ellworth ... Echo DeMille
Matt Dallas ... Agent Pall
Rachel Skarsten ... Piper Johanssen
Ellen Greene ... Virginia Gray
David Berman ... Brian Davis
Jeff Staron ... Trevor Zeitlan
Richard Jenkins ... Martin Gray
Miguel Sandoval ... Carlos Mendez
Mahershalahashbaz Ali ... Darnell James Sarah Jane-Redmond ... Librarian
Jess Rowland ... Sgt. Anthony O'Malley
Sam Jones III ... P1C Dalton Henry
Marc Blucas ... P1C Brock Johnson
Michael Landes ... P1C George Palladino
Alisa Reyes ... Spc. Belle Ramos
Johnny Yong Bosch ... P1C Harrison Jeong
Philip Shahbaz ... Cryo Inmate
Texas Battle ... Durable Inmate
Charlie Hartsock ... Inertia Damp Inmate
Alec Newman ... Leaping Inmate
Dax Griffen ... Strong Inmate
José Zúñiga ... Blindness Inmate
