Issue # 16

"Truths and Consequences"
By Dale Glaser

As if determined to prove the cliché a valid truth, the silence was, for a time, deafening. After an interminable span of seconds or minutes, Pierce's voice reached his teammates' ears through their subaudible radio circuit: "Everybody give me a clear/not clear."

The air in the dining hall of the Harrah's Casino New Orleans was choked with a dense cloud of particulate, the fallout of an explosion which had brought an abrupt end to a confrontation with Major Force.* The settling swirl of powdered plaster and other atomized debris, combined with the residual energy of the explosion, made visual contact impossible for the moment, even for Pierce's helmet sensors. He waited for his teammates to check in verbally.
(* last issue - DWG)

"Nnngghh ... clear," More responded on the connection.

"Clear," Hangfire agreed, the gruff tone of his voice highly counter-indicative.

"Clear," Karnival checked in.

"Crystal ... clear," Ember added. "But what the hell was that?"

"I'll defer that to Valence," Pierce's voice signal responded. "Valence, clear or not clear?" Seconds passed, and no answer came. "Valence?"

"Come on, Jack," Karnival tried. "Give us the word."

"Not to seem like too much of a downer," Ember interjected, "but wasn't there also some psychotic powerhouse we were supposed to be making sure we took down?"

"Good point," More agreed.

"Everyone spread out," Pierce ordered. "Force and Valence may both still be in the room, and we want to find both of them as soon as possible. Keep the channel open."

The members of Bad Blood began to search the large room, haltingly at first, but with gradually increasing speed as the visual interference dissipated. Hangfire reported success first. "Cross Major Force off the list of worries for the moment," the veteran informed his companions. By then the air had cleared enough that the heroes were able to perceive the outlines of one another through the smoke and grit suspended in the air, and Bad Blood gathered around Hangfire as he waved them in. Hangfire dropped to one knee, pointing down. "Looks like he took the worst of it," he observed.

Major Force was sprawled awkwardly, obviously unconscious, in a three-foot deep depression in the dining hall floor. Stress fractures surrounded the hollowed area of the floor, indicating the crushing impact that had driven Major Force down.

"There you guys are," Valence said, descending in their midst. "How come nobody answered on the subaudible a couple minutes ago?"

"Actually, everybody answered except ... hey, you're ..." More wiped the back of his hand against his eyes, then finished, "Jack, you're green."

"What?" Valence asked, raising a hand before his own eyes. A sheath of green light, several inches thick, enveloped his hand, his arm, his entire body. "Whoa. That's not good." As he spoke, the light began to fade, completely disappearing after a few moments. "Weird. I guess maybe that was blocking the radio waves, huh?"

"A possibility," Pierce said, with impatient aggravation.

"Pierce?" Karnival questioned the Knight. "The bad guy is down for the count, all of us are all right ... I'd say life is good other than the unfortunate collateral damage ..."

"Which I can probably do something about, cash-wise," Ember offered. "At least we didn't let the roof cave in on our heads."

"So what's eating you?" Karnival concluded.

"The bad guy is down, and we are all right," Pierce responded, his voice taut. "Extremely convenient considering we were all on the same event horizon a few minutes ago."

"We're just lucky that way," More suggested. "Somebody up there likes us."

"Not that much," Pierce snapped back. "Anything that was capable of incapacitating Major Force should have damn near killed us, as well. Yet all we've got are some cuts and bruises. We've all got our own defenses, but not to the same extent as him," Pierce insisted, kicking the alloyed coating of Major Force's orange and magenta body with the toe of his boot. "Which brings us back to the question of what exactly happened, Valence."

"I ... have no idea," Valence answered.

"I don't believe you," Pierce retorted. He stepped back several paces from the group, and raised one hand to the side of his helmet to access certain control buttons. A quick sequence of keystrokes later, Pierce's visor began to glow red, and hairline lasers emitted from it, converging in the same general area overhead. In the approximate center of the loose knot of bodies, a holographic image resolved in midair, a three-dimensional recording of the battle between Valence and Major Force from Pierce's vantage point. Bad Blood watched wordlessly as the back and forth played out again, as Major Force's black quantum blasts severed the ceiling beam, as Valence dodged, then was caught in the path of another quantum energy attack. Once again, the dark energy was funneled away, and then the emerald supernova washed out all the images Pierce's visorcam had recorded.

"No idea?" Pierce pressed.

"Not really," Valence answered defiantly. "Like More said, we just got lucky."

Pierce tapped the small buttons on the side of his helmet again, and the recording rewound. At the point that most of Major Force's final barrage had disappeared, Pierce paused the holographic playback, then began to zoom in on Valence's figure. The magnification increased until only Valence's midsection was visible. A ghostly green shape was outlined against Valence's hip, a sphere flared at top and bottom. "What is it, Valence?" Pierce demanded.

Valence dropped his eyes to the dust-covered floor. "A lantern," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"A what?"

Valence's head snapped up. "A lantern. A green lantern. A power battery for a Green Lantern Corps power ring," he explained vehemently.

"And where did you get it?" Pierce continued the interrogation mercilessly. The rest of Bad Blood stood by in stunned silence.

Valence expelled his breath in a violent growl. "What difference does it make?"

"That does nothing to reassure me," Pierce replied evenly.

Valence stared angrily at Pierce, ignoring the flickering hologram overhead. Finally, he admitted, "From Barter."

Pierce snapped off the holographic playback. "Unbelievable."

"It's the truth," Valence insisted.

"I don't doubt that," Pierce acknowledged. "What I can't believe is that you would do something so asinine. Barter can't be trusted. Or had you forgotten the role he's played in attempts to have us all killed?*" Pierce crossed his arms. "What did you trade him for it?"
(* such as was revealed in Bad Blood #6, way back when - DWG)

"A ... favor," Valence admitted with chagrin. "But I offered that on the condition that it wouldn't hurt anybody ..."

Pierce cut him off. "Not acceptable. We're paying Barter a visit and putting an end to this now." Pierce stalked off in search of a telephone.

"Uhh, Pierce?" Karnival asked, no longer mesmerized by the struggle between two teammates. "Shouldn't we do something about the big bruiser here first?"

"Major Force will keep," Pierce responded. "The police are outside and probably coming in soon." Pierce reached the wall near the main doors of the dining room and yanked open a service panel, revealing a casino house phone in a small recessed area. He knocked the receiver from the cradle and angrily stabbed the 666-8888 number. "Let's go."

Delaina Teague had just managed to move away from the doorway of the dining area a split second before Valence's power battery had exploded, shielding herself behind the wall, and she had still felt the power of the energies unleashed in that critical moment. Since then she had resumed her place near the entranceway and watched Bad Blood regroup, and now she saw them heading for the adjacent set of dining room doors. Delaina fully expected to see the heroes emerge in the gaming area on her side of the sets of double doors, but instead Pierce, Valence, Ember, Hangfire, More and Karnival each seemed to disappear as they crossed the threshold.

Delaina's intangible form moved through the door and into the dining room, where she looked around expectantly for the vanished members of Bad Blood. They were nowhere to be seen, but from this side she was able to perceive an unnatural glow around the door she had expected them to pass through earlier. The glow was fading quickly, and Delaina remained true to her resolve to follow the heroes, hurrying to push through the doorway into whatever lay beyond.

The police did make their way into the casino, as Pierce had predicted, eventually. A substantial amount of time passed between the final ground-shaking sounds of battle and the deployment of N.O.P.D. officers. Under the general pretense of 'securing the area,' the police allowed a full hour and a half to elapse, thereby ensuring both their own personal safety and allowing time for commands to be verified - commands both from sanctioned sources such as police headquarters, and from less official but no less important influences to which the Big Easy's cops readily answered.

In the time between Bad Blood's departure for Barter's Interdimensional Pawn Shop and the entrance of the local constabulary, three men worked their way through the Harrah's Casino New Orleans, taking great interest in the site of Bad Blood's most recent confrontation. No one saw the men enter the casino, and no one would see them leave. They were DEO agents in dark, inconspicuous attire, able to move just outside of public notice.

In the dining room of the casino, one agent approached the prone and still unmoving form of Major Force, squatted beside him, and peeled a microcamera from the MF logo on Force's right breast. The other two agents combed methodically across the room, occasionally scraping samples onto slides and securing the slides in belt pouches. No words were spoken by the agents. When their appointed tasks were complete, the three agents departed, leaving Major Force to be found by the police twenty minutes later.

Barter's Shop was much as the members of Bad Blood remembered it, still an eclectic mixture of understated dark wood décor overrun by a riot of material goods. The effect was even more pronounced on this occasion, due to a towering, jumbled pile of items in the middle of the shop floor. Dinosaur skulls - bleached white, not fossilized, as if freshly separated from the bodies of the terrible lizards - lolled atop a layer of semi-transparent cubes a foot on each side that glowed with a bluish inner light. Several clockwork dioramas depicting bloody battle scenes and sprouting brass wind-up keys straddled the saurian skulls, along with two shapeless masses of what appeared to be black leather embroidered in complex circuitry. More and more baubles and devices of various sizes and shapes perched upon one another to an apex that nearly touched the high ceiling.

In a corner of the shop, Barter himself stood on an upper rung of a wooden A-frame ladder. He, too, was unchanged, the same dark hair graying at the temples, the same noticeable paunch above his belt. Barter wore a pair of brown worsted wool slacks the same color as the wood paneling of the walls, and a canary yellow Oxford shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He slid what appeared to be a huge but primitive musical instrument onto the top shelf of a display case and said, "The primary problem with Horns of Mourning is that they lose quality completely after one year. Plaintive songs awaiting musical release one month, ghastly rattling noises the next. I may have to trade this for considerably less than it is worth before it becomes completely worthless."

Once Barter had finished setting the Horn at the exact angle on its shelf he had intended, his ladder began to move. With insectile motions, the legs of the ladder clicked across the floor toward the disorganized pile of new stock in the middle of the room. The ladder stopped in front of the pile and Barter looked down at Bad Blood. "I apologize for the condition of the Shop, gentlemen. I scheduled a rather large delivery shipment for today, since I was not expecting any visitors."

"You have got to be dry-humping me," Ember insisted in a low voice, gawking around the shop with wide eyes. "This is where Valence got that thing?"

"Easy, tough guy," Hangfire whispered.

Barter selected another item from the pile, consisting of two green glass bottles twisted together at the necks. "I presume it would be foolishly optimistic of me to assume that you've come to offer me the Magna*?" he asked.
(* - which Barter asked for the first time the team visited the shop in issue #6 - DWG)

"Foolishly," Karnival agreed.

"A pity," Barter nodded, as his ladder began to make its spidery way toward another set of shelves. Over his shoulder, Barter asked, "Then to what do I owe this visit?"

"We're here to tell you the deal you made with Valence is off," Pierce proclaimed.

The ladder paused, and Barter twisted around at his thick waist to peer incredulously at Bad Blood. "Was the merchandise somehow defective?" he asked.

"It is now," Valence replied sullenly.

"Ah, well, that is an entirely separate matter," Barter said as his ladder resumed its crawl toward the shelves. "Surely I cannot be held accountable for anything that happened to the artifact while it was in Valence's possession."

"No, but since he no longer has the battery, he doesn't have very much reason to hold up his end of the bargain," Pierce countered.

Barter sighed heavily as he placed the intertwined bottles on a high shelf, then climbed down the ladder to the floor. The interdimensional pawn shop proprietor closed the distance between himself and Pierce. "A most ignoble sentiment for a knight," Barter said, leaning on the word while poking the crimson horsehead on the chest of the Checkmate armor. "Almost unworthy of a response, but allow me to give you a most compelling one. The physical battery itself may be destroyed, but I assure you that Valence still possesses the power it contained. In the time since he acquired it from me, an energy bond developed between possessor and possession. The loss of the casing is aesthetically unfortunate, nothing more. In all senses, the power battery still belongs to Valence."

"Energy bond ... is that why the explosion creamed the bad guy but not us? Because Valence didn't want it to hurt us?" More asked Karnival under his breath.

"Makes as much sense as any of this," Karnival agreed.

"Furthermore," Barter continued, a harsh edge creeping into his voice, "let me assure you that inasmuch as the battery remains in Valence's possession, I am more than capable of repossessing it. Since it is now a part of him, such an endeavor would be quite painful to him." Barter seemed to consider elaborating, but simply repeated himself, "Quite painful."

"And let me assure you," Pierce responded, his own ire mounting, "that Valence is not doing you any favors. And the best favor you can do for yourself is to let it go at that, because if you try to inflict any consequences on him, the consequences for you will be beyond painful."

At that moment a small ocelot leapt onto the nearest countertop and growled menacingly, its green eyes shining with predatory intent. Barter raised a hand toward the wild feline, saying, "Now, now, Jadoo. No fighting in the Shop." The ocelot fell silent, but did not take its eyes off the members of Bad Blood. "I believe you would try very hard to make good on such a threat," Barter said to Pierce, then added in a slightly louder voice, "and the rest of you are in agreement as well?"

"All for one," More confirmed, while Hangfire and Karnival looked to Valence expectantly. Valence's countenance was darkened by shame and anger, but he nodded fiercely.

"Including the young lady walking the spirit plane?" Barter inquired.

"Come again?" Valence asked.

Barter slipped a hand into one of his trouser pockets and pulled out a small remote control. He aimed the device at a set of black tracklights along the ceiling and pressed a button. The tracklights hummed, without producing any visible light, but a moment later Delaina Teague became very much solid and visible. Her shoes smacked the hardwood floor as she dropped from her hovering position behind the members of Bad Blood, who all turned in surprise to look at the now sheepish girl.

"I had assumed she was with you," Barter said nonchalantly. He covered his mouth with one hand, massaging his dark mustache with thumb and forefinger. The members of Bad Blood turned again to face Barter, but occasionally cast a backwards glance at the cocoa-skinned girl in the private school uniform who had materialized in their midst. Finally Barter lowered his hand and said, "You overestimate yourselves to believe that I am as defenseless as I appear in this form. I, however, refuse to underestimate the damage to my place of business which would surely occur were I to educate you to the truth of the matter." Without another word, Barter turned to the pile of objects in the middle of the Shop, picked up a small, exquisitely carved idol, and walked toward a small display case.

"Meaning ... Valence is off the hook?" Karnival asked skeptically.

Barter chuckled, slowly turning around. "Meaning your unexpected visit never had any real relevance, sir."

"Why do you say that?" Pierce demanded. Between the battle at the casino, staring down the mysterious antiquities dealer, and the spectral spy Barter had revealed, the day's events were pushing the Checkmate knight to a breaking point.

Barter's voice became condescending, as if he were speaking to small children. "You arrived today to inform me that Valence will not perform any favor for me in the future. And I quite agree. Because the favor has already been performed."

"When? I don't remember even talking about what the favor would be!" Valence protested.

"Because you did not need to know what it was," Barter explained with excruciating calmness in the face of Valence's rage. "You freely offered a favor that would hurt no one, to be redeemed at a time of my choosing. I chose that moment to bestow something upon you which you would carry, unaware, until it reached its destination. That happened very shortly after you departed with the power battery, and our dealing was at an end. Everything since then has had very little to do with me."

"Dammit, Barter, what was the favor?" Valence shouted.

"Telling you was never part of the deal. I could tell you now," Barter suggested with a leering smile, "but it would cost you."

"Are we back to this again?" More asked, rolling his eyes.

"No," Pierce said, "we're not." The defeat in his voice, something his teammates had never heard before, stunned them all into silence.

"Believe me," Barter smirked, "you will find out about the favor ... in time. Until then, if there are no further transactions...?" Barter gestured to the Shop's door. It swung outward, revealing the gray wood of the Riverboat's interior and the black metal and glass of the communications console.

"Let's go," Pierce said quietly. He turned toward Delaina, paused for a moment, then said, "You, too," before passing through the door. The rest of Bad Blood, along with Delaina, followed him, except for Ember, who was rifling through a bin in the opposite corner with rapt attention.

"Ember?" Hangfire asked, hesitating at the Shop's threshold.

"There's ... three Beatles albums here I've never seen before ... one from 1987 ... one from 1991 ... a live one from 1993 ..." Ember struggled to make sense of the records in his hands.

"Yeah, well, they're staying here and we're not," Hangfire informed his teammate, pulling him away by the arm. As the pair of heroes left the Shop, the door closed behind them, and Barter resumed stocking the shelves.

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

I haven't gotten any e-mails about Bad Blood in a while, so there's nothing for the letters column this month, folks. I would, however, like to give a shout out to Derrick "Big Bad Blood Fan" Ferguson, who has been showering the praise on Bad Blood on a few message boards of late. If you'd like a shout-out of your own, feel free to drop a line to the e-mail address above!

NEXT ISSUE: The team tries to settle everything down a bit. But things never really settle down in the Big Easy, especially since anyone gunning for Bad Blood sets their sights on New Orleans. Watch things go from "unsettled" to "extremely ugly rather quickly" as the rosters of multiple teams undergo changes in ... "Two Invitations"!