Boston Brawl II-
This Time It’s Personal!
By Bek D Corbin
November 18, 2006
The counter staff of the Covington Hotel greeted Miss
Carfax with professional smiles and studied niceties. The sylph-like
debutante’s bills were being paid for by no less than three discreetly
anonymous benefactors, and the staff knew that clients like this were best
handled with kid gloves. Miss Carfax smiled back winningly and took her
shopping bags up to her suite. As Miss Carfax took the box with the Delacroix
label from one of the bags, a voice from the side asked dryly. “So, whose
credit card were you wearing out today, Alex?”
‘Miss
Carfax’ turned to see Sandra Darden, a.k.a. ‘Lady Darke’ sitting in one of her
‘gentleman callers’ favorite armchairs, tactfully placed where no one could see
who was sitting in it from the doorway. “Oh, hey, Sandra! Oh, as I recall it,
it was Judge Whitcroft’s.”
“Whitcroft?
You’re keeping a State Supreme Court Judge on a string?” Sandra asked with a
smirk.
“And
why not?” Alex ‘Vamp’ O’Brien asked matter-of-factly. “His money spends as
easily as anyone else’s. And it can’t exactly hurt, if I ever get
busted, now will it?”
“No,”
Sandra sighed. Then she smiled wickedly, “Though, even if the worst happens,
the fuss that will get kicked up when the news of exactly what the Judge has
been keeping as a mistress gets out, will be absolutely delicious!”
“Which
aspect are you talking about? The mutant aspect, the hermaphrodite aspect, the
supervillain aspect, or the minor aspect?”
“Actually,
I was thinking of the murderer aspect,” Sandra drawled.
Alex
glared at ‘Lady Darke’. “I’m not a murderer. You pulled that off, to get me
under your thumb.”
“Actually, it was Nightgaunt,” Sandra replied equitably.
“I just put the frame around your neck. And that was on direct orders from His
Unholiness.”
“Well,
thank you so very much,” Alex said pettishly.
“And
speaking of Graveyard Breath and direct orders, let’s go. He’s expecting us at
the Batcave.”
“Oh?
We’re finally going to break the Arch-Fiend out of durance vile?”
“Sorry,
Kiddo, need to know information and all that crap.”
Vamp
let out an exasperated grunt. “Okay! Fine! BE that way! At least tell me how to
dress, so I don’t pick the wrong outfit and give Count Dorkula an excuse to
knock me around again.”
“What
are the options?” Sandra asked, glad to have as neutral a topic as fashion-
even supervillain fashion- to discuss.
“Okay! Obviously, the
sleek red off-the shoulder number is out of the question-” Vamp pulled out that
outfit by way of demonstration, “- not only have they seen me in it, but I got
my butt whupped in it. BAD associations. SO! Do I go for-” She pulled out a
black strapless bodysuit with a cobwebby cape, “-Goth Ethereal-?” A black
halter top/miniskirt combo with a short red ‘batwing’ capelet, thigh-high boots
and opera gloves, “-Retro-Funky>” A black leather catsuit that laced up the
sides of the legs and arms with a narrow red corset was next, “-or S/M Kinky?”
“GAWD!” Sandra exclaimed,
“I HATE you! You’re what? Fifteen? You’ve got the figure of a freaking
FIREPOLE! HOW do you manage to pull off those outfits? How can someone who was
a Junior High boy a year ago, come off so fucking Hawt?”
“I can sum it up for you in three words,” Vamp said
smugly. “At. Ti. Tood.”
Lady
Darke let out an exasperated grunt of her own. "Go for the Retro-Funky
outfit. C’mon, get dressed, you know how Darrow loves to be kept
waiting.”
‘Miss
Carfax’ pulled off her chestnut brown wig, revealing the long fine white hair
underneath, and cleansed her face of the light foundation that covered her pale
albino complexion. She carefully removed the gray contacts, showing off a pair
of red- not ‘pink’, but ruby red- eyes. She put on some purple and red eye
shadow deliberately chosen to match the color of bruises, and dabbed her thin
lips with a dramatic shade of dark red lipstick. When Vamp was dressed, she
covered up her dramatic new look with sunglasses and a thick overcoat, and she
and Lady Darke left ‘Abby Carfax’s’ suite via the ‘discreet entrance’.
The
Covington Hotel had been housing attractive and complaisant young women whose
bills were paid by affluent older gentlemen since the 1880s. One of the
amenities that they provided was a ‘discreet entrance’ that was very pointedly
NOT watched, which had a state of the art security lock, the key of which was
entrusted to the gentlemen who paid the bills. No one had seen Lady Darke
enter, and no one saw her leave with Vamp.
Vamp got into Sandra’s car and grumped, “I still say that
you can do better than this econo-box. I mean, what’s the point of being a sexy
supervillainess, if you gotta shlump around in a POS like this?”
“Vamp,
seductive adventuresses only drive sexy cars like Ferraris and Porches in the
movies. In real life, it’s a lot safer to drive something nice and
inconspicuous.”
“Which
is why a Ferrari would be perfect!” Vamp shot back, “Everyone knows that only
pretentious dorks like computer geeks and accountants drive Ferraris, so no one
would suspect anything!”
Vamp
and Lady Darke debated the issue until Sandra used her telepathic ‘blinding’
technique to keep her passenger from knowing where they were. “Oh Gee…” Vamp
said dryly, “I can just feel the love…”
“Bosses’
orders. He doesn’t trust you yet.”
“Gee, what was your first clue? The way that his hand
seems to be magnetically drawn to the back of my head, or that stake that he
keeps playing with?”
When
Vamp’s sight returned, they were in a parking garage, and Lady Darke was using
a magnetic card to get past a security door. Inside the security door, they
both went through the thumbprint, punch-code and voice recognition stages to
enter the Necromancer’s latest lair.
As they entered, Nightgaunt was just coming out of the
lair’s firing range. “Hey, Nighty-Knight!” Vamp called pleasantly, “How’s it
shooting?” Getting no reaction, Vamp couldn’t even tell if Nightgaunt had heard
her. The featureless blank helmet that he wore wasn’t just creepy in ways that
more expressive masks only wished they were, it left others totally clueless as
to Nightgaunt’s state of mind. It occurred to Vamp that she’d never seen
Nightgaunt’s face, and she’d only heard him speak once or twice. She’d never be
able to pick him out of a lineup.
Nightgaunt ignored her, heading into the gymnasium. As he
went in, Lycanthros was coming out, reeking of sweat from his exertions.
“Whew!” Vamp gasped, waving a hand in front of her face, “Yo! Dude! Let me clue
you in to science’s latest breakthrough- the shower!”
Lycanthros
bared his teeth in a not-smile, his one good eye burning red to match the large
red stone set into the eye patch over the other eye. “What’s the matter, Little
Red Riding Hood?” the hairy near-Neanderthal growled, “Can’t take the smell of
a real MAN?”
“And
what does a real man have to do with YOU, Alpo-breath?”
Lady
Darke shoved Vamp off in the direction they’d been heading before the two could
get any nastier. “I swear, I can’t take you two anywhere!”
Sandra
and Alex walked through the abbreviated lair’s corridor to the Situation Room.
Charles Darrow, a.k.a. ‘The Necromancer’ was going over an illuminated map of
Boston with four men. One of the men was a massive mountain of a man with a
square face and a general bullish air about him. The smallest of the men had a
weasly cast to his face and the sort of eyes that take in everything as if
weighing it to figure out if it was threat or prey. The third looked like a
stock goon. But for all their predatory mien, it was the fourth man who was the
most menacing of the lot. He was athletic, with a beard and a shaven head, and
he had the sense of hard discipline that most people associate with career
soldiers. And yet, under that, there was a sense of dangerous power about him,
kept in check by that hard discipline.
Vamp
sauntered over to one of the Security Panels and lounged against it. The
Necromancer broke off his discussion with the four men and snarled, “Vamp! What
are you doing in here?”
Alex
weighed the advantages of maintaining her ‘brat’ rep by dissing the Necromancer
against the risks that Darrow wouldn’t embarrass himself by whaling on her in
front of company. The odds came down heavily on the side that Darrow would rip
into her even more brutally than usual because the strangers were there.
“I’m here for the mission briefing. That’s why you called me here, isn’t it,
Boss?”
“This briefing is
classified,” Darrow rasped through his skull mask. “You’ll do as your told,
WHEN you’re told! Get out of here, before I lose all patience with you!”
“Fine,
fine,” Vamp sighed as she sashayed out of the room. “On the off chance that
anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Lounge.” The men were busy watching her
backside leave, so no one noticed the wireless link stub patched into the
Security Panel.
Alone
in the lounge, Vamp fired up the Playstation3 and started playing a game,
except she wasn’t really playing a game. Some time ago, she’d managed to swap
the wireless game controller that came with the Playstation for one that she’d
kludged a text pager into. As she seemed to be playing Final Fantasy XIII,
she was really sending a text message to the wireless link stub back in the
Situation Room. The stub exploited the one thing that Darrow’s security sweep
system wouldn’t detect- namely the security system itself. And how had she
figured out how to do this? Simple- she was sure she was the only one of the
Children of the Night that had actually read the security system’s
manual.
Still,
she kept her message short and sweet- the Children of the Night were gearing up
for something, and they had friends along. Once she’d composed her message and
sent it, and she was certain that it had gone out undetected, she shut off the
pager, and actually concentrated on playing the game. You never knew when
Nightgaunt might come ghosting through a shadow unannounced.
*****
November
19, 7: 25 AM
Miss Grimes looked peevishly at her wristwatch.
“What
are we waiting for?” Ayla Goodkind asked. “The van is already here, let’s get
ON with it already!”
“There are some girls from Whitman coming,” Grimes
explained with strained patience. “They have business in Boston as well, and
there’s no need for the van to go out twice.” Miss Grimes was an instructor in
one of the more advanced courses in the Mystic Arts program. And, unlike
several of the other instructors, she actually LOOKED like a teacher in
witchcraft. She was tall, dark, elegantly slender, and quite attractive- if you
were into Morticia Addams or the Groovie Ghoulies. Her large eerie heavily
lidded gray eyes were set into a pale narrow angular face with a long sharp
nose. Her lips were thin, but her mouth was wide, mobile and expressive. Toni
figured that she must be the pinup girl for the Goth clique.
“Excuse me, Miss Grimes?” Nikki asked as politely as she
could. “Why aren’t Bunny and Rip coming with us? I mean, they were with us the
whole time.”
Miss Grimes’ mobile expressive mouth knotted into a moue
of impatience. “Well, the District Attorney has decided that Miss Cormack and
Miss Obregon won’t be necessary as they never left the van, and so they can’t
contribute anything of significance. Also, unlike the rest of you, they managed
to avoid being photographed, so there’s no reason for them to risk further
exposure.”
“Okay, I can see that,”
Tennyo allowed, “but what about Sara? I mean, she was in the thick of it!”
A look of distaste crossed
Miss Grimes’ face. “Miss Wilson, do think about that for a
moment. I’m sure that the attorney for the Defense would love it if the
Prosecution called to the stand someone who is not only a minor, a mutant, and
half-DEMON, but the object of worship for a rather notorious CULT. No, I gather
that Ms. Collier will discreetly avoid the topic of Miss Waite altogether.”
The
door to the lobby of Shuster Hall opened and a tall dark-haired girl in a long
coat with an overstuffed backpack came bustling out. “Oh, I’m so sorry we’re
late, Miss Grimes,” she blithered. “But some of us were way too late getting
ready!”
A
shorter, bespectacled, but still dark-haired girl came through the door behind
her. “Oh, ‘some of us’? Well *I* wasn’t the one who kept going back because she
kept thinking of ‘one more thing’!”
Behind
the girl with glasses came two figures so bundled up in parkas and mufflers, as
to be unrecognizable. “Oh, give it a rest, Bekky,” one of the Eskimo-like
figures said.
Toni
recognized the voice. “Sakti? Is that you?”
‘Silver’
peered out from the depths of her parka. “Chaka? What are you doing here?”
“Us?
Oh, we’re going to Boston.”
“What?
After what happened last time?”
“Precisely
because of that. We gotta make depositions and give testimony in court.”
Silver
sighed, “I envy you.”
“You
envy us?” Toni asked, genuinely puzzled, “Why? All it is, is paperwork and
sitting around in Court, sitting around while lawyers pile up billable hours!”
Silver
let out a martyred sigh. “It still would beat what awaits me in Boston. Hours
arguing with the tax man.”
Toni
winced. “Owch, the IRS caught up with you?”
“Worse,
the Indian version of the IRS. It seems that word that my ‘maiden silver’ is
more than mundane silver has reached certain ears, and officials in New Delhi
are trying to discover precisely how deeply they can burrow into my wallet.
When they realized that I was creating materials that are conservatively worth
about 30 million American dollars a year, they brought out the heavy mining
equipment.”
“And them?” Toni indicated the girl with the backpack, who
was talking to Miss Grimes, the bespectacled girl who was looking at Team Kimba
with barely concealed interest, and the last girl who was so wrapped up in a
parka as to be unrecognizable.
Sakti sighed, “As the
School gets 7% of what I get for my moonsilver, I am suddenly a valuable asset.
I was rather hoping that my days as a valuable asset were over. So, Miss
Hartford doesn’t want me going off to Boston unguarded.” Sakti leaned in and
whispered, “They’re trying to make out like they’re not a security detail, that
they’re just a bunch of girls from the cottage who want an excuse to skip class
and go to Boston.” She made a quiet disgusted noise. “I barely even know
these girls!”
The bespectacled girl
bustled up. “So, this is the famous Team Kimba!”
Nikki looked at Jade. “Are
we famous?”
“From the noises I’ve been
hearing, I thought ‘notorious’ was more on the money,” Jade replied.
“Nah, too big,” Tennyo
disagreed. “More like, ‘talked about a lot behind our backs’.”
“Unless you count Peeper
and Greasy, who talk about us behind our backs when they’re right in front of
us,” Nikki pointed out. “But then, they’re exceptions to so many rules.”
“Hi there!” the new girl
said briskly. “The handle’s Foxfire. You’re Chaka, right? Babs has nothing but
good to say about you.”
“Babs?” Toni tripped over
the apparent non-sequitor. “Oh, Compiler! That Babs?”
“Yeppers! By the way, how
are you recovering from that beating that Little Bee gave you?”
Toni winced. “Physically,
I’m all right. But I’m getting ‘O.J. got off’ vibes from people right and
left.”
“Not to worry!” Foxfire
breezed, “I mean, you got jumped by a runaway power frame, how can anyone sane
hold that against you?”
“The key word there being
‘sane’, as in ‘reasonable’,” Chaka pointed out. “The problem is that reasonable
people think before they do things. Unreasonable people just DO things, ‘cause
it’s the first thing that pops into their pointy little heads.”
Almost as if on cue, the
girl who was all swaddled up in her parka stalked over. She was wearing a flat
featureless full mask that hid all of her face, except for three slots for the
eyes and mouth. “What are they doing here?” she all but snarled.
“Oh, be quiet, Pucelle,”
Silver grunted. “They have business with the Massachusetts courts in Boston.”
“Besides, it’s not like
they’re sending anyone with GSD on this,” Foxfire pointed out.
“Oh, of course not!” the
girl’s eyes glared at Nikki through the slots in the mask. “We can’t go
offending the delicate sensibilities of the pretty little princess,
now can we?”
Nikki started to respond,
but Foxfire deftly stepped in. “So, Fey, I understand that you got a special
mystic arts instructor, some Brit named Sir Wallace Westmoreland?”
“No, just Wallace
Westmont,” Nikki corrected her.
“Did he get knighted, or
is he just a baronet? And how’d you rate your own tutor so soon?”
“Nothing but the best for
the little princess,” Pucelle sniped.
“Excuse me?” Foxfire cut
her off, “Are you in the Mystic Arts program? Is this any of your business?”
Pucelle retreated, her scowl apparent even through her mask.
“Jeez, rude much?” Ayla
snarked.
“Hey, if you want, I can
call her back,” Foxfire retorted. “But I can almost guarantee that you’ll be
looking for a 2x4 by the time we get to the train depot. So, how DID you get
this Westmont guy as a special tutor?”
Nikki blushed. “I’m afraid
that my father pulled a few strings and arranged that. I’m afraid that he’s not
adapting to my new condition as well as he likes to make out he is. But Sir
Wallace-”
Foxfire silently shushed
her as Miss Grimes walked up. “Finally, all set! Well, girls- Mr. Declan, into
the van!”
Team Kimba and the Whitman
girls piled into the van. Foxfire made a production of waiting, and a small
nearly black fox came scampering up through the snow, to jump up into her arms.
“Hey, Boots! So, find anything interesting?” The foxling gave a dismissive
sniff, as if to indicate that if she’d just allowed her a few more minutes, she
would have brought in a mastodon.
Nikki’s eyebrows shot up.
“Is that your familiar?”
“Yeppers!” Foxfire held up
the not-quite cub. “This is Slyboots. Ready to go traveling, Boots?” Boots gave
another sniff, and dissolved into a gray mist, which wafted into the large soft
carryall that Foxfire had slung over one shoulder.
“Excuse me? Can we get
going?” Miss Grimes called from the front seat.
Foxfire, Nikki and Toni
climbed into the rear seat. Slyboots stuck her head out of her ally’s tote and
graciously allowed Nikki to scratch her between the ears. Foxfire herself
leaned over. “A, ah, word in a pointed ear. Watch out. Word in the MA program
has it that a certain long nose,” Foxfire cast a meaningful glance at Miss Grimes
in the front seat, “is none-too-slightly out of joint about them bringing in a
special tutor for you from outside the school. It seems that Grimsy had her
pointed hat set on tutoring you herself. You know any reason why she’d be so
het up to be Blaise to your Merlin?”
“Just another example of
the blatant preference that this school gives to those who embody an arbitrary
and pointless physical ideal of-” Pucelle stopped as Foxfire held a cupped hand
in front of her and a bar of pale blue fire formed in the cup of her hand. It
solidified into a crude 2x4 board, with which Foxfire tapped Pucelle
none-too-gently on the forehead.
“Believe me, this is the
only way to get her to shut up, once she gets wound up,” Foxfire said dryly.
Slyboots rose up partially out of Foxfire’s tote and stuck a pink tongue out at
Pucelle. <nyeh!> Pucelle bridled and started to say something, but
the 2x4 grew into a gnarled club with a long spike driven through the end, ala’
‘Li’l Abner’.
As Pucelle turned back
around and sulked, Foxfire waved the club back into non-existence. Toni asked,
“What kind of name is ‘Pucelle’?”
“She has a Joan of Arc
fixation,” Foxfire explained with a jerk of the thumb at the hooded back of
Pucelle’s head. “Joan of Arc never called herself that- she only referred to
herself as ‘Jehenne la Pucelle’- or ‘the Maiden Joan’. Hence the code-name,
which I kinda doubt does a lot for her social life.”
Pucelle started to turn to
retort, until Foxfire whipped that club back out of nothing.
*****
At the Dunwich depot,
Slyboots flowed out of Foxfire’s tote and allowed Jade to show proper adoration
by petting her. “Oh, she is simply adorable!” Jade gushed, and
Boots silent agreed with her. “I know that witches and sorcerers are supposed
to have familiars and stuff, but howcum?”
“Do you want to field
this, Miss Grimes?”
“I have been explaining
these basics for years, Miss Corbin,” Grimes responded with a chilly smile.
“Let’s see how you handle it.”
Foxfire took a deep breath
and began. “Well, there isn’t really ONE big reason, but a lot of good reasons.
First, your familiar isn’t just a pet; she’s your ally. She’s the best friend
that I’ve ever had, and that I’m ever likely TO have. She listens to me, and
tells me when my head is up my- er- when I’m playing silly head games with
myself. She can see invisible beings and forces, even when I’m not looking for
them, so she watches my back. And heterodyning your magical power with an ally
never hurts. And Boots gets… Hey, what DO you get out of it, Boots?” Boots
answered by sprawling on her back to allow her tummy to get rubbed. “Oh. Right.
That.”
Jade rubbed the little
fox’s tummy and asked, “Are you gonna get a familiar, Nikki?”
Nikki shrugged. “I don’t
really know. I haven’t really thought about it a lot. When the right familiar
shows up, I suppose.”
“But she’s so Kyyeewwte!”
Boots agreed with her wholeheartedly, and indicated with a shiv paw for Jade to
continue the tummy rub.
As Jade fussed over the
spoiled little fox, Sakti asked Toni, “Aren’t you taking a big risk by
testifying against that Arch-Fiend fellow? Not so much from him, but from the
Media? They’d love to get close-up pictures of the girls who took him down.
Especially Fey.”
“Not really,” Toni said in
a way that suggested that there was more going on than she was letting on. “You
see, it’s what the Cops call a ‘Banner Hearing’. Like in Bruce Banner, the
Incredible Hulk’s alter ego? Y’see, one of the big problems with guys who
change shape like the Arch-Fiend does, is that the DA’s gotta prove that
the guy in the handcuffs really IS the guy in all the photographs. Otherwise,
he can say, ‘What? I’m just wimpy little Bruce Banner! I can’t throw tanks
around! The Hulk did all of that! And he’s huge and green!’ So, they got these
preliminary hearings to prove: A- whether or not the guy in the dock can
shapeshift. B- whether or not the guy in the dock shapeshifts into something
that resembles whatever it was that did the crime. And C- whether or not the
guy in the dock has powers like the suspect. In other words, whether it’s worth
the time and money to go any further. The big problem here is that this Bunsen
guy has been playing it cagey. He hasn’t shifted once since he got busted,
probably because he knows that his cell is being taped.”
“But, as I understand it,
Tennyo caught him in the wreckage of that building, wearing only his pants.”
“Hey, his lawyer claims
that he was in that building when Billie and the Arch-Fiend brought it down. I
dunno what he was supposed to be doing, but they can’t prove that he wasn’t
there. All security records for that day were destroyed in the collapse.”
“But the pants? He can’t
say that he was in that building in only his pants.”
“He says that his clothes
were destroyed in the rubble. I dunno how his pants managed to stay intact when
his jacket and shirt- not to mention his socks and SHOES- were either destroyed
or knocked off, but that's his story, and he’s sticking to it.”
“You seem to know a lot
about this,” Foxfire said.
“I’m writing a paper on it
for my Intro Criminology class.”
*****
A while later, as the
Grand Miskatonic Shuttle pulled up, Miss Grimes produced two animal carrying
cases. “Miss Corbin?” As Foxfire got in some last-minute petting of her own
familiar, Miss Grimes reached into her own commodious purse and pulled out a
less than thrilled glossy black cat who scowled at her. “Don’t give me that
sour look, Merlin” Grimes said primly. “We’ve been through this a thousand
times. I’ll miss you as much as you’ll miss me, and I’ll come for you as soon
as I can.” She gave the broody cat a kiss on the head, and made to store him in
the carrier.
“_MERLIN_?” Ayla said,
slightly aghast.
Miss Grimes and Merlin
glared at Ayla with matching eerie gray eyes in one of those spooky
mistress-and-pet moments. “I look like this, I teach magic, and I have a black
cat for a familiar. There are times, Miss Goodkind, when you either laugh
with the joke, or set yourself up to be laughed at.”
After Miss Grimes and
Foxfire put their familiars in the carriers, the older Whitman girl, Jetstream
by handle, stopped Pucelle. “Okay, enough is enough. Take off the mask.”
Pucelle started to whine, but Jetstream just said, “No more weirdness! We
aren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves, and that stupid mask isn’t helping
things!”
Pucelle looked at Miss
Grimes, who merely arched an imperious eyebrow. Grumbling, Pucelle reached up
and took the mask from her face. Team Kimba was slightly taken aback when the
mask came down, revealing a lovely girl with classically nordic features that
weren’t improved by her scowl of dissatisfaction. “What are YOU looking at?”
she snapped.
“Damn good question,”
Tennyo muttered under her breath.
The Whitman girls took
another passenger car from Team Kimba. Pucelle grumbled about it for a bit, but
Jetstream pointed out that it was safer if the two potential target groups sat
apart from each other, and it wasn’t like there were first and second-class
cars on the Grand Mistakonic shuttle.
Toni watched the Whitman
girls go through the connecting passage between cars, and then an expression of
enlightenment came over her features.
“What’s that?” Hank asked
as Toni settled in.
“What’s what?”
“That smug ‘I got a
secret’ look on your face.”
“Oh, ah, I just made Puccy
Galore back there.” Toni said with a satisfied grin.
“Made her? You mean you
know what’s got her panties in a knot?”
“Yup. The mask threw me at
first, but once I saw the look on her face, I managed to peg her.”
“So?” Nikki snapped,
“Don’t keep it to yourself! What’s her damage?”
“Well, basically, she’s a
version of those really annoying White Liberals who go out of their way to show
off how ‘enlightened’ they are, and how much they are on the Blacks’ side.”
“Oh,” Hank said,
apparently getting Toni’s point, “You mean those left-wing nitwits who are
always yapping about how much they care about this oppressed group or that?”
“Bingo.”
“Limousine Liberals,” Ayla
said with a disgusted mutter.
“What’s that got to do
with all the ‘pampered princess’ crap that she was giving me?” Nikki snapped.
“Well, y’see the whole
‘Black Brutha’s Best Bud’ bit isn’t really about politics or social issues,”
Toni explained. “It’s really about Liberal Guilt. Y’see, these yo-yos are still
pretty damned racist under it all, but they won’t really do
anything to upset the balance of power between the races, and they can’t stand
the thought that THEY look like bigots, so, they make this big noise about how
‘enlightened’ they are, and make these big productions of ‘standing up for the
poor oppressed colored people’ so they won’t feel guilty about the fact that
their families own slums or whatever. Actually treating Blacks, or Hispanics,
or whoever’s pushing their guilt button at the moment, like human beings isn’t
big enough, isn’t dramatic enough for them. They gotta SHOW the entire WORLD
how unprejudiced they are!”
“What… does that… have to
do… with ANYTHING going on here?” Nikki asked plaintively.
“Simple. Pucelle’s like
that, only she feels guilty about GSD mutants. Same Bee-Ess, different
subject.”
“You mean she feels guilty
about the fact that she’s good-looking?”
“Hey, people can get hung
up about damn near anything.”
“So, she’s busting my
chops with that ‘princess’ stuff…”
“Because you’re one of the
best looking girls in the school, and everyone makes a big deal about how
gorgeous you are,” Toni finished. “I kinda suspect that she’s a little jealous
of you, on top of everything else.”
“I’ll bet that she’s real
popular with Thuban and the Factor Three crowd,” Ayla grumped.
“Nope,” Jade said with the
calm assurance of an expert.
“Why not?” Chou asked,
“Aside from the fact that you two are dating?”
“Why? Because if Toni-sempai
is right, that Pucelle bozo is all about pity. She pities the GSD kids.
And most of the F3 kids, Thuban especially, would hate being pitied,
even more than being feared or hated. What they really want is a little respect,
a sense of their own due, not some privileged bitch patting them on the head
and telling them that they’re freaks, but it’s all right, she loves them
anyway.”
“Score one for the short
stack!” Toni cracked.
Tennyo shuddered. “I
wouldn’t want to be that headcase’s roommate.”
“Are you quite
through dissecting the personality of someone you barely know?” Miss Grimes
asked dryly.
“Yep!” Toni said
chipperly, “NOW, we start dissecting what that Foxfire nutjob was all about!”
*****
November 19, 10:45 AM
“Pardon, but why are my
students giving their statements in the SWAT ready room, instead of in the
District Attorney’s office?” Miss Grimes asked ADA Pamela Collier.
The Assistant DA barely
looked up from her dossier. “This is SOP for witnesses in Supervillain cases.
The idea is that supervillains will be less likely to attack a witness giving a
deposition, if said witness is in a reinforced bunker while giving it.
Supervillains don’t often directly attack the DA’s office, but it HAS happened.
And my boss really hates energy blasts before lunch.”
When the Whateley kids
finished making their statements, Ms. Collier addressed them as a group. “Very
well, you won’t have to sit through most of the proceedings. You’ll be called
one at a time to give your testimony. Now, this is very important- you will be
going up in front of Judge Winchester. Winchester does NOT like freaks. And don’t
give me that look! This is important! We are accusing a flabby, nebbishy
looking little non-entity like Wilbur Bunsen of being a super-freak like the
Arch-Fiend. We need credibility here! Bunsen has been playing it very
cagey. Or, at least whiny. So, that means that we have to be very convincing.
Unfortunately, the only person here who actually SAW the Arch-Fiend change into
Bunsen,” she glared at Tennyo, “is YOU.”
Billie scrunched up
defensively. “What am I supposed to do? Wear a wig and contact lenses or
something?”
“No, Bunsen’s attorney
would just play on that. What I need you to do is this. Stick to three basic
points: That *ahem!* ‘Tennyo’ was there, that she faced the Arch-Fiend,
and that she saw the Arch-Fiend change into Wilbur Bunsen. Get that and ONLY
that across! ‘Chaka’, you will go first. You will establish that ‘Tennyo’ was
there when the Arch-Fiend first ripped open the roof of the SWAT van, and that
she and Lancer exited the van to pursue the Arch-Fiend. ‘Lancer’, you were in a
position to confirm that you saw ‘Tennyo’ battling with the Arch-Fiend.”
“Didn’t they take pictures
of Billie fighting him?”
“Yes, but that will be
corroborating evidence. You see, you can’t cross-examine a photograph. An
eyewitness is always preferred over a photograph. Then, when we have
established all that, you will take the stand, Tennyo. Now, all three of you-
the defense attorney will do everything that he can to drag you off the point.
He will bring up that school of yours, the fact that you’re mutants, the fight
with the bank robbers, the fight with the Children of the Night, whatever he
can think of to play the ‘freak card’. He wants to portray you all as a bunch
of wild, out-of-control mutant freaks who are trying to shove the blame for
their rampage off on his client.”
She paused, as if to
suggest that she envied him that ploy. “Whenever he pulls any of this, I will
object that it’s irrelevant or immaterial. All that you have to do is wait for
the judge to decide. Fortunately, while Winchester doesn’t like freaks, he’s
also a stickler for procedure. Especially in preliminary hearings like this.
So, he won’t let the defense go very far afield.”
Collier put down the
dossier that she was perusing, and glared at Team Kimba en masse. “Now, this is
absolutely vital! This is BOSTON, not New York! We have a very low
tolerance for super-powered weirdness! Especially in our courts! That means- NO
TRICKS! No magic, no telepathy, sonic tricks, no NOTHING! Even if Bunsen
turns into the Arch-Fiend right in the middle of the courtroom and starts
ripping up the place, it won’t mean a thing if the defense claims that one of
you did something to him. And YES, they have ways of detecting that, and you
WILL get caught if you try anything!”
“Excuse me?” Chou raised
her hand.
“Yes?” Collier responded
dryly.
“Are you expecting the
Children of the Night to attack?”
“Not really.”
“Then why are they here?”
Chou pointed at the three superheroes standing at ease by the wall. They
recognized Skyhawk in his royal blue outfit with the ‘wing’ cape and hood. The
other two were an athletic young woman in a blue-and-white bodysuit with padded
forearm guards and boots, and a speed-trimmed helmet with goggles. The third
one was entirely encased in a power frame with black ceramet armor plates and
gold trim. “Are they testifying as well?”
“Oh God, no. Like I said,
Judge Winchester hates freaks, and he includes guys in high-tech jammies along
with mutants.”
“We’re here in case the
Necromancer does try to attack,” Skyhawk said. “Of course, he might use this as
a distraction for something else. He has a habit of creating big noisy
distractions for his real moves-”
“Like that bank robbery,”
Hank said.
“Precisely,” Skyhawk said
with a nod. “The problem is, we have to assume that he’s carefully weighing
Bunsen’s value to him against whatever it is that he’ll be going for.”
“Assuming that he’s still
in Boston,” Captain Tilly said.
“Oh, the Necromancer’s
still in Boston,” Collier said. “And we have information that he’s going to try
to pull something today. No details, just that he’s getting ready to try
something, and he’s hired new help.”
“Does that mean that he
might just let this Bunsen guy go down?” Tennyo asked.
“Not a chance,” Ayla
snarked. “He’s your classic bullying micro-manager. If his underlings got the
idea that they can get out from under his thumb by going to jail, he’d be
losing enforcers right and left. But if he breaks them out, he sends two
messages- one, that he can protect his own, and two, that you can’t get away
from him, even in jail.”
“Nice call, kid,” Collier
said. “But my reading is that Darrow will try to use the system on this one.
Their boy, Metzlinger, is pulling out all the stops to spring Bunsen.”
“Is there any chance that
Bunsen might actually walk?” Jade asked.
Collier gave a cold smile.
“Not to worry. I got it covered, Win, Lose or Draw.”
“Okay, now that we’ve
covered the paperwork, what say we get our signals straight for a change?”
Captain Tilly said. “First, we at SWAT are duty-bound to respond to any calls.
It’s our job. You long-john jockeys can go after whatever looks suspicious, but
will you at least give us here at SWAT a head’s up somehow if you really run
into anything? And as for you kids- well, I got my kiester chewed off for
endanger’n minors on that last rumble, so I can’t suggest that you put yerselfs
at risk again. BUT, just in case anythin’ should go down around here while we
was out…” He pulled out a folder, and tacked a picture of a pale, white-haired
girl with a smirk on her face. “The Children of the Night. Been around for a
few years, every one of ‘em has at least one murder warrant out for ‘em. This
is Vamp, the rookie of the bunch. She busted outta the Boston lockup about a
year an’ a half ago. She bopped around town jumpin’ pimps an’ pushers an’ like
that for a while, and then she killed some Beacon Hill nob name’a Phelps
Carruthers. Dunno why. Ennyway, then she hooked up with the Nite-Kids. She’s a
drainer, she can suck the strength right outta yer body. She’s pretty damn
strong and quick, all on ‘er own. She can also create a cloud of darkness
around herself. She don’t seem to be part’clarly slowed down by it herself.”
“She can also create a
sense of sexual arousal,” Chou said. “Very distracting.”
“Tell me about it,”
Skyhawk muttered.
“Aaahhh… Yeah.” Tilly
dismissed that touchy subject. “Ennyway, she’s small fry, not much more’n a kid
with a gimmick. Of the lot of ‘em, she’s the most likely to roll over on the
others. Dunno how much she knows, but there you are.”
He tacked a mug shot of an
attractive woman in maybe her late twenties or early thirties with strong
regular features, and the sullen scowl of someone being booked. “Next on the
hit parade, we got Sandra K. Darden, a.k.a. ‘Lady Darke’. Apparently, she’s a
graduate from that school a’ yours.” Tilly gave the assembled students a sour
look.
“Hey, some of us make the
wrong choice,” the woman in the blue-and-white speedsuit said, “and some of us
make the right choice.” She finished with a challenging grin.
“Ah, right.” Tilly
harrumphed. “Ennyway, she’s what’s called a ‘Package Deal Psychic’?” He looked
up for clarification.
“It means that she has a
single mutant trait,” Miss Grimes explained, “which can, in turn, produce
either a telepathic, a clairvoyant or a psychokinetic effect.”
“Yeah, I ran into her the
last time,” Lancer said. “She did things with darkness, and she did something
to my mind, too, that made me not able to see or hear anything.”
“Normally, psychokinesis
is invisible,” Miss Grimes responded, “but sometimes the psychokinesis affects
light in ways that create colored affects. Miss Darden’s apparently blocks all
visible light bands. The ‘mental darkness’ sounds like a very elementary
psionic intrusion that blocks the brain’s processing of incoming sensory data.”
“Whatever,” Tilly said
flatly. “Like the rest of ‘em, she’s got a First Degree Murder warrant out for
‘er, but it’s one of those ‘repercussions of a felony’ raps, so there’s a
chance of her rollin’ over too. Try t’ take her alive if y’can.”
“Take her alive if you
can’?” The man in the power armor said, “So you’re saying that the Mayor has
already okayed the use of Lethal Force?”
“No, Dynaman,” Tilly
seemed to regard the man with the high-tech gear slightly more highly than the
paranormals in the room. “It means that all’a these freakos are to be regarded
as Armed and Dangerous at all times, and that you all, and all my men, are
expected to treat them as such.”
“And speakin’ of Armed and
Dangerous.” He pinned up a large picture of a ghoulish looking black figure
with a helmet that was featureless except for two devilish looking horns, a
Batman-style cape and some obvious body armor. “Nightgaunt. Real name unknown.
There was another guy who called himself Nightgaunt, and used the same outfit,
but he was on the side a’ the angels. We think that this ratsass killed ‘im and
took ‘is outfit and gimmick. We didn’t get along that well with the REAL
Nightgaunt, but he was one’a the Good Guys.
We’re looking at this
bastard like he was a cop-killer. Somehow, he can travel from one shadow to
another, instant-like. Almost invisible in darkness. Very sneaky, very hard to
pin down. Other’n that, not much in the way of weird powers. Wears body armor,
and carries a pretty nasty arsenal of weapons.”
“And he’s a stone-cold
killer,” Lancer said, remembering the way that Nightgaunt had put the barrel of
a gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger without hesitation. That move had
backfired- literally- but it said a lot about the man who pulled the trigger.
“Amen to that, brother,”
Dynaman said with authority. “He’s a cheap shot artist. Pop out of shadow, do
something nasty, and pop right back into shadow before you can react, and then
he’s setting up another back stab. His only weakness that I’ve been able to
figure, is that he seems to require a shadow to dive into.”
“Can he use his own
shadow?” Miss Grimes asked.
Even through the
all-concealing power armor, you could see Dynaman startle slightly. “I… dunno…”
“Interesting…” Grimes mused.
“What about that darkness that you said this ‘Vamp’ creates? Can he use those?”
The startle became obvious
embarrassment on Dynaman’s part. “I dunno. I was always kinda too busy trying
to nail the creep to take notice."
“Other’n that one shadow
gimmick,” Tilly covered for the veteran superhero, “Nitey-boy here doesn’t
appear to have much in the way of super powers. Still pretty deadly, but I’d
say that if you can get him in a good grapple, that might be it for him.”
He pinned up two pictures,
one of a rather Neanderthal like man, the other of a wolf-faced humanoid. “Next
on our countdown is ‘Lycanthros’, real name: unknown. Now, you might not guess
it to look at ‘im, but he’s NOT a choirboy! Yeah, real shocker, hunh?
Obviously, he’s some kind’a werewolf, and he’s got seventeen differ’nt 1st
Degree Murder wants out for ‘im. If you seen any old Lon Chaney Jr. movies,
then you pretty much know what he’s about. There’s a shoot-to-kill order out on
‘im. Bringin’ him in would be nice and all kinds’a brownie pernts, but if he’s
dead when you bring ‘im in, nobody’s gonna raise a ruckus.”
He pinned two more large
glossy photos to the board. One was of an armored figure with a heavy ‘Death’s
Head’ motif, swathed in robes of purple and black. The other was a portrait of
a glowering elderly balding Caucasian man with a ledge-like brow over cavernous
eyes, a beak of a nose and a tight, thin-lipped mouth. “And savin’ the best- or
whatever- for last, Dr. Charles Darrow, known an’ feared far an’ wide as the
Necromancer. B’lieved to have op’rated under at least five differ’nt names from
1935 to the present. He’s wanted for Mass Murder, Kidnappin’, Child Molestin’,
Treason, Espionage fer the Nazis, abettin’ Terrorism, Arson, Mass Destruction
a’ Private an’ Public Property, Mass Reckless Endangerment, more differ’nt
kinds of fraud than I really wanna think about, and a whole raft of other stuff
that would get him locked away ferever if we ever actually managed to get him
in a cell.
“Some say he’s some kind’a
magician. Some say he’s just some weirdo kind’a mad scientist usin’ magic as a
cover. Some say that he’s actin’ as some sort’a advance agent for a hostile
extraterrestrial power. Been known t’use both robots tricked out t’look like
skeletons and real zombies.” Tilly paused and contemplated the two photographs
for a moment. “This one is the Big Cheese, boys an’ girls. Our intelligence
tells us that Darrow’s got it set up so that his entire operation is all about
HIM. He goes, the rest just falls apart. He controls the money, the contacts,
the properties, the whole schmeer. If he gets away, then he’ll just keep coming
back with as many new hires as he’ll need to get the job done. But if we bag
HIM, the rest of ‘em will just go their own ways. Darrow’s the only thing really
keepin’ ‘em t’gether. That’s the best we can do; it would help if we had a
better idea’a what was keepin’ Skull-face in the Boston area.”
“You mean, you’re not sure
precisely what he’s up to?” Grimes asked.
“No,” Ms. Collier
answered, “and that is very troubling. On the museum raid that you children
interrupted, according to the Museum security people, he first sent in a
stealth team to steal an item from the Celtic Artifacts exhibit, which was
called ‘Nimyoo’s Key’. Now, here’s the interesting thing- he sent in a stealth
team, but after they delivered that key to him, -then he sent in the rest of
his goons to loot the place.”
Almost as one, Miss Grimes
and Nikki asked, “Did you say, ‘Nimue’s Key’?”
“Aahhh… I think so,”
Collier admitted. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Grimes and Nikki share a
significant look, as though silently discussing something. “Nimue is probably
better known to you as the Arthurian figure, ‘the Lady of the Lake’.” Grimes
explained. “While Arthurian lore is a hopeless mishmash of Pre-Christian and
Conversion Celtic and Germanic lore, with hefty helpings of propaganda and pure
fiction thrown in, there are several figures and themes that hold true. One of
the key figures to the whole Arthur cycle is the Lady of the Lake, who is a
keeper of incredible power: she is means by which Merlin gains access to
Excalibur for Arthur. She is the means by which Morgana le Fay places Merlin
into a deep sleep. And she is one of the three queens who takes Arthur to
Avalon. This begs the potent question: this key- is it the key OF Nimue, or the
key TO Nimue? Is it her tool, or the means by which she can be controlled?”
From the look on Ms.
Collier’s face, the African-American lawyer wasn’t particularly interested in
the intricacies of Pre-Christian European theology. “Yeah. Whatever. The point
here, is that the Necromancer seems to have set up shop in the Greater Boston
area. He’s pulling something off, and that Key thing was only a part of it. And
I really doubt that we’d like finding out what it is the hard way. So, we need
to get Darrow behind bars, and his underlings in a position where they’re more
afraid of US than they are of HIM.”
“Tough sell,” Alya
muttered. “You’re sort of obligated to be sane, and he’s not.”
Collier gave Ayla a dirty
look.
Captain Tilly took control
again. “The Necromancer likes diversions; big, nasty, dangerous diversions that
you can’t afford to ignore, ‘cause they’re real. Those bozos with the fancy
frost-gun were small p’taters compared to some of the stuff that he’s pulled to
cover his tracks.”
“Okay, that explains why
SWAT was so quick to call for Superheroic assistance last time,” Toni conceded.
“But howcum you were so slow to show, Birdguy?”
Skyhawk gave a nervous
twitch. “I had an inside source that the Children of the Night were going to
move that day. My source was on the money.”
“And his source says that
the Nite-kids have sum’thin’ cookin’ on the stove right now, and they got extra
cooks in the kitchen,” Tilly said.
“What I want to know,” Collier
said with a chilly air, “is who this source of yours IS, and why he won’t come
from out of the cold.”
“Ms. Collier, no one
crosses the Necromancer lightly. My source wants Darrow on ice beforehand AND
assurances of leniency due to coercion.”
Collier muttered something
about crooks being crooks, Halloween costumes or not.
*****
November 19, 11: 25 AM
In court, Collier called
Toni to the stand first, having her called by her code name. Chaka testified
that the rest of Team Kimba had been with her when the Arch-Fiend attacked the
SWAT van, and that Lancer and Tennyo had flown out to deal with him. This laid
the foundation for Lancer’s testimony that he had seen Tennyo mixing it up with
the Arch-Fiend, and that they’d been going at it when the building collapsed.
That in turn laid the foundation for Tennyo testifying that she had beaten the
Arch-Fiend and seen him change into the Defendant, Wilbur Bunsen.
Mr. Metzlinger, Bunsen’s
lawyer, hammered away at Chaka, Lancer and then Tennyo in turn. He ridiculed
their use of code names, tried to drag the school into the matter, and
generally did everything that he could muddy the waters. And he did an
excellent job of it. While he couldn’t get Billie to lose her temper, he did
effectively discredit her testimony about seeing the Arch-Fiend change into
Wilbur Bunsen. And, as Billie was the only one who actually HAD seen Bunsen
change, it was her word against the word of a man who had spent over a month in
jail without resorting to changing into a form that could have broken out of
that jail.
When Court recessed for
lunch, Toni muttered, “I’m never gonna watch Perry Mason again.”
When court was called back
into session, Judge Winchester announced that while Tennyo’s testimony was
compelling, her refusal to give her true name damaged her credibility. And
there wasn't enough proof supporting the claim that a single accusation by
non-credible witness was sufficient to establish that the Defendant, Wilbur
Bunsen, was indeed the individual known as the ‘Arch-Fiend’.
Bunsen almost glowed with
smugness as his lawyer stood to petition for Bunsen’s release. Collier
objected. “Your honor, while the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hasn’t proven
that the Defendant is the individual charged, there IS the fact that Mr. Bunsen
is in flagrant violation of his parole in New York State. And even if leaving
New York State wasn’t sufficient grounds for revoking Mister Bunsen’s parole,
there’s the fact that he hasn’t checked in with his parole officer for three
years. The New York Parole Board revoked Mr. Bunsen’s parole two and a half
years ago, and he is wanted in New York for several felonies. Your honor, I
move that Mr. Bunsen’s extradition be expedited, and he be transported to New
York immediately for incarceration there.”
Metzlinger stood and
argued that even if Mr. Bunsen was extradited to New York, that there was no
reason for him to continuing wearing the heavy and cumbersome ‘choke collar’
that he’d been wearing for a month. The ‘choke collar’ was a nasty bit of
business that jail guards had come up with to control guys who grew and got
stronger. Usually, one of the things that got larger quickly when someone grew
was the neck. The ‘choke collar’ was designed to drape over the shoulders so
that it didn’t interfere with the person wearing it as long as they stayed the
same size. But if the neck expanded, the shape of the collar forced the neck to
move so that two bulges on other side would pinch the carotid artery and the
jugular vein, rendering the prisoner unconscious. Civil Rights activists hated
it, calling it brutal and inhumane, but jail guards argued that it only worked
if the prisoner was actively trying to escape. Judge Winchester ruled that
since the Commonwealth hadn’t proven that Mr. Bunsen was the Arch-Fiend, that
the presumption of innocence demanded that the choke collar be removed.
*****
As they filed out of the
courtroom, Chaka snarked, “Well, that was a day that would have been
better spent in English class!”
Ms. Collier gave
Metzlinger, who was hurriedly calling someone on her cell phone, a knowing look
and smiled cruelly. “Not necessarily. Miss Grimes, do you think that your
students might benefit from seeing a little more of the Justice System in
action?”
Grimes picked up on
Collier’s cue. “Well, as long as we’re here…”
*****
November 19, 1: 20 PM
Sakti grumped as she
stomped out of the elevator onto the eleventh floor, “I do not BELIEVE this
man! First he drags me down here, then he has me wait for hours, then he tells
me to take a long lunch break, and NOW he says that we have to be in his office
NOW, or he’ll penalize me!”
“What can I say?”
Jetstream, Sakti’s Junior-year chaperone said, “All the world over, tax men
like to have the upper hand.” While the Republic of India does a lot of
business in the Greater Boston area, it only maintains four Consulates, in New
York City, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. Jetstream was actually rather
grateful for this, as a consulate would have had a security scanner at the
door, which would have been embarrassing. The Indian Legation in Boston was
actually only a law firm that had a history of doing business with India, and
kept offices for a few Indian officials.
Foxfire and Pucelle
followed Sakti and Jetstream into the law firm’s offices, where the receptionist
told them that Mr. Ambekhar would be with them in a few minutes. Sakti let out
a low growl.
*****
November 19, 1: 25 PM
Chief Tilly looked at the
Whateley students as they filed into the Prison Transport loading dock. “Plan
B?” he asked Collier.
“Plan B. And hoping that
we don’t need Plan C.”
“We have a Plan C?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, it
involves a lot of people getting hurt.”
Metzlinger was with Bunsen
as the jailhouse guards brought him to the loading dock. “WHAT is THAT?”
Metzlinger snarled as he pointed an indignant finger at the transport van in
the dock.
Most prison transports are
either simple vans or busses that have been modestly reinforced, some with
special ‘Protective custody’ cells. This van, however, looked more like an
armored personnel carrier or an armored car. It was much taller than an average
van by almost two feet. It had sixteen oversized puncture-resistant tires on
eight wheels, four on each side, with armored hubcaps. The only windows were
for the drivers, and the entire van was covered with thick angled armored
plating. The door at the back looked like it belonged on a small vault.
“THAT,” Chief Tilly said
with some pride, “is the ‘Iron Coffin’. Or, to be precise, the New York State
Metahuman Prisoner Transport Vehicle. They’ve transported Gog AND Magog t’gether
in that thing. That thing’s rated to contain a pris’ner with a Threat Ratin’ of
SEVEN. Once they’re locked in there, they ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘till they
get to Ryker’s Island.”
“Why are you singling my
client out this way?” Metzlinger demanded. “We’ve proven that he’s not
this ‘Arch-Fiend’! So why is he being subjected to such special attention?”
“Special?” Tilly responded
equitably. “What special? The Iron Coffin’s NY Department a’ Corrections
property. They sent it up here for the Arch- I mean, Mr. Bunsen, t’
answer for wants an’ warrants down in the Big Apple. It’s gotta go back to
En-Why-Cee, and it’s just as cheap to send it back with a few pris’ners as it
is empty. And, thanks to yer diligent efforts Couns’ler, Massachusetts has no
further interest in Mr. Bunsen; so why keep him here, eatin’ on the
Commonwealth’s tab, when we could send him down to Noo Yawk, where they
axshully WANT him? And as for ‘singling out’?” Jail guards brought out three
very large, very nasty looking prisoners, any one of whom looked both strong
enough and vicious enough to rip poor flabby Wilbur Bunsen to shreds. “These
bad boys gotta go down t’ New York too. Normally, the ol’ Iron Coffin only
transports one or two at a time, but there’s more’n room for all four of ‘em.”
*****
November 19, 1: 25 PM
The receptionist chipperly
showed Sakti, Foxfire, Jetstream and Pucelle into the office. Mr. Ambekhar, the
legation head introduced Mr. Mhalgiri, the tax official, and invited Sakti and
Jetstream to sit down.
As she settled in, Sakti
said, “I still don’t understand why the financial representative from Whateley
isn’t here.”
“Oh, he is,” Ambekhar
said, something happening to his voice, “and his continued wellbeing is a
matter of your cooperation.” Suddenly, thick straps whipped out of the
well-stuffed chairs snaring both Silver and Jetstream hand and foot to the
chairs. ‘Mr. Mhalgiri’ darted forward, grabbing Foxfire, pulling her in front
of him and putting a large-caliber gun to her temple. The figures of ‘Mr.
Ambekhar’ and ‘Mr. Mhalgiri’ faded, revealing the darking forms of the
Necromancer and Nightgaunt. “Resist, and he’ll blow her brains all over you!”
the Necromancer barked at Pucelle, the only girl left free.
Pucelle paused, not sure
what to do
‘Oh Shit’, Vamp thought to
herself from outside the office, ‘Bonehead might actually pull this one off!’
That was not the plan at all. Lacking anything better to think of, she launched
a paperclip at the back of Nightgaunt’s helmet with a rubber band. Nightgaunt
was so tense and focused that he reacted enough to give Foxfire her opening.
Slyboots scrambled up out of her mistress’ tote and blocked Nightgaunt’s
vision. Nightgaunt reactively fired his gun. Foxfire reacted by erupting in a
sheath of pale blue fire, and sending a bolt of fire across the desk at the
Necromancer.
The Necromancer ignored
Foxfire’s attack and stood menacingly. Pucelle reacted by shooting forward and
ripping apart the chair that Jetstream was trapped in with a single wrench.
Jetstream, who had been struggling with the bonds, let out an eager “HAH!” and
quick-drew a pair of blaster pistols. All in one spasm of action, Nightgaunt
lunged for Foxfire, Foxfire dropped to the floor, the Necromancer fired a blast
of necrotic energy at Foxfire, Jetstream fired both blasters at the
Necromancer, and Pucelle threw one of the halves of the chair-trap at
Nightgaunt. Silver, for her part, just sat there and let out a mild oath in
Bengali.
The chair and the
death-bolt hit Nightgaunt at the same time, knocking him through the
plate-glass window. Foxfire hit the floor and tried to get an idea as to what
the lay of the land was. The Necromancer who had been caught flat-footed by the
ray-blasts, took them both square in the chest without any of his usual
protections, and was knocked through the wall into the next office.
‘Well, that turned out
nicely,’ Vamp thought to herself. ‘Still, Bonehead will skin me alive if I
don’t make a token effort to the cause. Just give them a minute…’
Then Foxfire spotted Vamp
at the door. “Charlie has backup! Get us OUT of here, Jet!” She sent a sheet
of witchfire to block the door.
Jetstream ceased pelting
the hole in the wall with rapid-fire blasts, and shucked off her long coat
revealing her gear-rack. She touched a button, and a pair of wings unfolded,
swinging out into a flying rig. With her off hand, she blasted the chair, which
Silver had already managed to get halfway out of. “I can only carry two!
Foxfire, can you fly?”
“Don’t bother!” Pucelle
shouted, assuming a ‘heroic martyr’ pose, “I’ll hold him back, no matter WHAT
the cost!”
Vamp figured that Jetpack
Girl would have a much easier time getting away with Bluefire Girl than the
mouthy brick. Besides, she’d really rather grapple with a brick than an
energy-slinger. Well, it was time to look good for the Boss-man, and maybe give
these gits the incentive to get their asses in gear before Darrow got his act
together. She jumped through the wall of fire and threw herself at the bundled
up one.
*****
The armored man known as
‘the Anti-Paladin’ glowered at his three companions in the van, who were
playing an idiotic wi-fi game on their cell phones in the middle of a mission.
Both Lady Darke and Lycanthros had set off their diversions, and the
Necromancer had signaled that the main mission was underway. And those three
were playing a fucking video game. Admittedly, Darrow had hired them only to
act as backup in case one of the local superheroes showed up in one of those
strokes of incredible luck that superheroes seem to have. But still, is a
little professional decorum so much to ask?
Then an alarm sounded.
Checking the panel, the Anti-Paladin determined that Darrow had hit his
‘Immediate Problem’ button. The Anti-Paladin popped his head up out of the roof
hatch to catch a dark figure falling from the floor where the Indian legation
was. Then the dark figure’s cape snapped open, and it angled over to a
convenient shadow, where it disappeared. A moment later, three girls appeared
at the jagged opening in the window-glass of the building. One of them jumped
out with a loud whoop. As she executed a wide arcing loop to return for the
other two, the Anti-Paladin gestured, and a high powered sniper rifle, complete
with targeting sights, appeared in a cocoon of flame.
The Anti-paladin examined
the flight pack on the girl’s back through the sighting telescope as she took
the two other girls by the hand and airlifted them. He tracked her, got a sense
of her airspeed and general trajectory, and let off a single round that
destroyed one of the rocket engines without actually hurting the girl. He
didn’t know whether Darrow would want her for something or not. And if not,
well, he could always kill her later. “Go get them!” he snapped.