Issue # 17

"Two Invitations - Part I"
By Dale Glaser

The flight was long, but surprisingly pleasant. His life heretofore had not been one of any luxuries, and the simple amenities provided onboard the jetliner made him feel as if he had been elevated to some princely station. He enjoyed his complimentary beverage - not recognizing the names, he had merely nodded at the last choice the flight attendant had given, 'ginger ale' he believed it was called - as a wine connoisseur might savor a fine vintage. Being served rather than serving was a stark contrast to his former life. The life that had ended several months before.

He still recalled the pain, so agonizing in the first moments to be beyond comprehension, but giving way to a lesser sensation which was worse in its own way for its ability to fit within the scope of his senses. He had not prayed for death, for he was totally devoid of spiritual sentiment, but he had desired death's release in his own way. When the voice began to speak to him in the black abyss of pain, he had believed it to be the final delusions before the nothingness of death, which he would welcome. Yet as the voice promised him new life, he found himself answering its call, not as ready for oblivion as he had supposed.

The voice offered him life, and power, and most importantly of all, revenge. That thought alone had been a handhold for sanity as the excruciating days and weeks had passed while his body slowly, unnaturally mended under the voice's direction. For a long time he had been unable to move, his consciousness trapped in what felt no more like a body than a sack of rotten fruit. Bones knitted, muscle fibers fused, skin reappeared and bruises faded. Everything the voice had spoken of came to pass, and his trust in the voice grew. So much so that when the voice asked to be let inside of him, he agreed without hesitation.

When the voice told him that the time had come to make good on their plans of revenge, he followed its orders unquestioningly. He was no stranger to following orders. The voice directed him to the research facility, where he retrieved the necessary equipment. A small struggle had ensued with the security forces, but the voice demonstrated the power it had offered by quickly dispatching the guards. Atheist or not, he could sense something mystical in the voice's power, but he was unafraid. He departed with the goods he had come for.

The same mystic power allowed him to gain passage without a ticket and carry the contraband onto the commercial airliner unnoticed, but he had had little need of it since. He was content to sit back and enjoy the experience of being transported in comfort. The voice had fallen silent, but he was well aware of its presence.

The captain broadcast through the passenger cabin, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing in Dallas-Fort Worth in about fifteen minutes. Local time is 4:22 p.m. and the weather is about 88 degrees with clear skies. Once again, thank you for flying with us and we hope to see you again soon."

He did not understand some of what the captain said, but the voice informed him, in a manner which transcended language, that the plane would reach its destination shortly and they would be ready to begin the final ground-based leg of their journey. He smiled at that, a smile not of pleasure but of vengeance nearly realized, and finished the last of his ginger ale.

The glow faded from the doorway in the Riverboat that connected the comm-con room to the corridor, and the members of Bad Blood found themselves, not entirely involuntarily, forming a circle around the young girl in the green and blue plaid pleated skirt and dark blue cardigan. All except for Pierce, who waited until the portal from Barter's Interdimensional Pawn Shop* had completely disappeared before stalking off down the corridor.
(* Where the team was until the very end of last issue - DWG)

"Pierce?" Valence called after the former Checkmate Knight. "Don't you want to hang around while we get some answers from the little tagalong here?"

"Not especially. Couldn't care less," Pierce snapped back without breaking stride.

More started to follow after Pierce, but Karnival held up a bony hand to stop him. "Don't," Karnival said quietly, the ridges of his cracked skull face knitting together in a demonic scowl. "Let's just deal with one issue at a time here."

"All right, well, for starters," Valence began brusquely, staring hard at Delaina, "why don't you tell us why you followed us and who sent you?"

"I'd like to know how she followed us," Ember added.

"Did Karnival not just say one thing at a time?" Valence asked, annoyed.

"Yeah, but he didn't say, 'Hey, Valence, you're in charge of interrogations from here on out,' now did he?" Ember retorted.

"He didn't put anyone in charge," Valence growled back, "least of all you."

"Do I have to ... separate you two?" Hangfire asked, dropping one hand to a gun in its holster, his attitude poised on the line between joking and deadly serious.

"Seriously, guys," More nodded. "Poor girl can't answer any questions at all if you don't give her a chance to talk."

"Whose side are you on?" Ember demanded, turning on More. "Oh, wait, that's right, any time there's an underage chick around you have to cozy right up to her. That Eurotrash Maya girl, this one here ... you got a real taste for the dark meat, huh, More?"

More cast a disbelieving look at Ember, but before he could respond Delaina spoke up. "You know, I am standing right here, I can hear everything you're saying, and I'm pretty sure I'm offended by that last remark," she said, crossing her arms. She seemed to have regained her composure since her presence had been unexpectedly revealed in Barter's Shop, and was now once again determined, almost defiant.

Her outburst caught the members of Bad Blood off-guard, and for a moment no one made a sound. Karnival finally broke the awkward silence. "Sorry. It's been a rough day, and Ember can be a jackass even on a good day."

Ember opened his mouth to protest, received a trio of withering glares from Hangfire, More and Valence, and thought better of it, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. Delaina regarded Karnival, silent but unafraid.

"All right," Karnival forged ahead. "Why did you follow us into Barter's?"

"Because I needed to talk to you all," Delaina answered, with a forcefulness that indicated she had rehearsed the answer mentally many times.

"That's a pretty vague answer," Valence pointed out.

"And we really don't have time for those," Karnival interjected, trying to remain in control to avoid another verbal brawl among the other members of the team. "If getting answers from you starts to feel like pulling teeth, miss, somebody's bound to lose their temper. That's not a threat, it's just to let you know the general state of mind of the audience you're trying to deliver a message to."

Delaina nodded respectfully at that. She took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. "How I was able to follow you ... is like what that weird guy in the shop said. I was walking on the spirit plane, that's one way of putting it, I guess. I had followed you all into Harrah's by doing that and just stayed behind you when you went to the shop. Nobody sent me. And the reason why, why I needed to talk to you all, is because ... I want to hook up with you all. I want to be a part of Bad Blood. I need to be a part of Bad Blood."

"Need?" Hangfire repeated with skepticism.

"These things I can do ... there's gotta be a reason why I can do them," Delaina continued. "It's been driving me crazy trying to figure out what that reason is. And you all do your own things, but you do it together and make a difference here. That's what I need. A reason. A way for it to make a difference."

"And what exactly are these things you can do, other than being a creepy little stalker?" Ember scoffed.

"A lot of different little things," Delaina answered. "It's not just moving around on the spirit plane, I can affect things there. There's a lot of bad wooj in there, a lot of corners I wouldn't want to go poking around in for no good reason, a lot of things that could affect me back ... but I can do it."

"'Wooj'?" More repeated under his breath. Hangfire gave him a silencing poke in the ribs.

"I know some magic that works in this world, too," Delaina continued. "Not a lot, I'm still learning."

"Yeah, you look pretty young to know all the ancient secrets," Ember observed sarcastically. "Any secrets, for that matter."

"It's a family thing," Delaina explained, unapologetically. "I got started on it young. So that's my story. That's what I'm offering. And I didn't come all this way to take 'no' for an answer."

Karnival looked around at the expressions of doubt and concern on his teammates' faces. "I think it's time for a separate discussion on that, miss. You stay here. Everybody else, with me." Karnival turned and walked out of the comm-con room, passed a few doors in the corridor and entered a bare chamber furnished with a few cargo crate chairs. More, Ember, Hangfire and Valence followed.

"All right, first of all, Karnival began, turning the black depths of his eyesockets on Ember, "what the hell was all that about?"

"Yeah, man, what are you, on the rag?" Valence scoffed.

"Are you both?" Karnival demanded, twisting his fierce visage to face Valence. Valence dropped his eyes to the aged gray wood of the floor, and Karnival resumed staring holes into Ember, who glared back without flinching. "I'm waiting, Rob."

"What?" Ember asked. "I'm just speaking my mind. Am I not allowed to do that anymore?"

"Sure you are," More said, stepping forward to come to Ember's defense. "We all are, right?"

"Right," Ember agreed.

"Right," Karnival assented, more slowly. "And with everything going down in the past day or so, we're all stressed out, I guess. We're bound to snap at each other at times like that. But you," Karnival jabbed a slender finger at Ember, "are one moody sucker. And you'd do well to remember that you're the most prone to letting the stress get to your head."

Ember glowered, but said nothing. After a few seconds he let out the breath he had been holding in and sighed, "Fine. Now what about the "Hit Me Baby One More Time" extra?"

"Well, you just volunteered to go first," Karnival informed him. "What do you think of her offer?"

Ember shrugged. "I'm not so sure how useful she is, if she's even on the level about all that supernatural power stuff. Not really enough evidence to judge her on now. Maybe she could leave her number, and the next time we're up against demon zombies or something we could call her in for consultation, see how much she really knows."

"She's not completely putting us on. Barter told us what she could do, and he wouldn't have lied because he thought we already knew her," More pointed out. "I believe her about the rest."

"So you'd take her up on it, make her part of the team?" Karnival asked.

"More the merrier," the big man nodded.

"I'm sure you would be," Hangfire sighed.

"Johnny, what's your take?" Karnival asked.

Hangfire shook his head. "She's way too young. Period. We know what we're doing, we're okay with the thought of not coming back if the odds are too high against us. I can't in good conscious drag a kid into that, even if she's as powerful as she says and then some."

"But what if we say no to her and she does it on her own?" Valence objected. "It sounds like she's dead set on this. At least with us she could learn the ropes while we watch her back. And what if we shut her out and instead of being on her own someone else finds her and uses her, someone whose intentions are less ... altruistic?"

"That sounds like a longshot, but anything's possible," Karnival conceded. "But I'm inclined to agree with Johnny. Endangering children, even children who want to put themselves in danger, doesn't feel right to me."

"Come on, Ed," Valence cajoled. "Batman does it."

"I'll be sure to ask him how he sleeps at night next time I see him," Karnival promised. "As it stands, though, we've got two votes for, two against, and a provisional maybe. Unless the debating here has changed your mind, Rob."

Ember shook his head, and Hangfire added, "There is one more voting member of the team, though."

"All right, time to find Pierce," Karnival admitted.

After deplaning in the bustling Texas airport, he walked to a car rental counter and approached the service person standing behind it with only a vague notion of the business to be transacted there. But the voice echoed reassuringly in his mind's ear, instructing him first to wear the mien of a man on serious business not to be trifled with upon his face. He responded by narrowing his vibrant green eyes and setting his lips like a fissure in black stone at the center of his full, dark goatee. When the service person, a young waifish girl, looked up from her computer terminal at him, he could tell from her body language that she was impressed, but how much of that was owed to his own expression and how much to the mystic influence of the voice within him, he could not guess.

The voice helped him shape the necessary American words, and added its own supernatural influence to smooth over the inconsistencies, and minutes later he was behind the wheel of a silver Passat and driving southeast toward Louisiana. Every fiber of his being, every ounce of flesh that carried remembered scars from the pain he had suffered, urged him to push the rented automobile to its limits. Something in the insistent mantra of the voice within him told him that its powers could in fact propel the car beyond its limits. Yet his years of discipline and training remained in effect, and he exercised complete restraint, refusing to call attention to himself or his vehicle. He resolved to obey every law and convention of the highway until he reached his destination, and the drive took several hours. He spent the time envisioning his vengeance.

The sun was setting behind him as the Passat reached the outskirts of New Orleans. He had remained true to his resolution, and no special attention was given him by fellow motorists or state troopers on the interstate. However, far from the stone and steel of roads and bridges crisscrossing the Mississippi delta, the passage of the man carrying the voice was noted by several beings.

"Neroxis comes," snuffled one of the observers, rodent-like.

"He not be enough," rejoined another in tones deep and rich, like the crumbling of soil disturbed at the edge of a grave.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," a third gurgled languidly.

"He not be enough," the low, dark tones repeated, and there was no further argument.

A fourth being sang, like a chirping choir of cicadas in the high summer, "The time may be well upon us to contact ... the little ones."

An expectant silence followed, broken eventually by the sinister sound of a fifth being's words, edged with some forsaken quality but, at the center, very human: "I will speak to the Ohyn."

The Prelates of the Unperceived had rendered their decision, in the tacit acceptance of the pronouncement.

More was the last one to return to the room, where Karnival, Valence and Hangfire stood expectantly and Ember leaned against the side of a cargo crate chair. "Pierce isn't down in the sub-basement," he reported.

"Then he's nowhere in the Riverboat," Hangfire put words to the conclusion everyone had reached after searching the base and finding no sign of Pierce.

"Wherever he bugged off to, he'll be back," Ember said.

"Nobody said he wouldn't," Valence responded, with some doubt creeping into his voice.

"It just means we don't have an easy solution as to what to do with our young guest," Karnival pointed out.

"What, so, we just tell her 'don't call us, we'll call you when our chief decision maker gets back'?" Valence asked.

"I don't know," Karnival answered tiredly. "Let's just go talk to her."

The heroes filed back out of the room and headed for the comm-con area. Delaina was seated in front of the array of monitors, studying their displays closely. "Hey," she said over her shoulder as the members of Bad Blood entered the room, "I was just chillin' here talking to Clotty while you all were discussing me."

"Is that right?" Hangfire asked, slightly bemused.

"Uh-huh. So, what does it mean when Clotty finds a crisis scan result of two point seven?" Delaina inquired. "Is that bad?"

"Man, she catches on quick," Valence observed, in a tone which patted himself on the back for supporting the idea of her membership.

"I really hope she doesn't, actually," Ember said, approaching the console and keying in commands to switch views on the monitors. "Because two point seven is pretty bad. Come on, Clotty, fill us in."

Utilizing the advanced-generation hacking software which allowed it free access to any type of information system worldwide, the CLOTI began to assemble data feeds and relay them to the console monitors. Low resolution black and white images filled one screen, while a text report from the CLOTI database program on the adjacent screen identified the pictures as security footage from the Old U.S. Mint Museum in the French Quarter. In the low gray light of one camera shot, it appeared as though the ceiling had collapsed forcefully into the main lobby. Another monitor on the comm-con mirrored a terminal display from the security company responsible for the Museum, specifically a phone log showing a recent, interrupted call from the guard on duty.

"Weird place to pick a fight," More commented.

"What else is new," Hangfire observed wryly.

"We'll find out when we get there," Karnival announced. To Delaina, he added, "And that 'we' does not include you. That jury's still out."

Delaina's eyes widened in mock disbelief. "You know you can't really stop me from following you, right?"

Karnival made no response as he and the others departed for the upper deck of the Riverboat.

Valence cut through the night sky over New Orleans, his new energy signature glowing like a green comet, while Karnival, More and Hangfire glided in his magnetic wake, held aloft by their ferrous belt buckles. Ember, shimmering in the darkness with intense heat, brought up the rear of the soaring formation. Somewhere very close to the flying heroes, yet separated by a fundamental level of existence, Delaina Teague kept pace with Bad Blood, running through the air in her ghostly state.

The building that had once been a United States Mint, and now served as a museum, was situated in the southeast corner of the French Quarter, near the downward bend of the Mississippi. Bad Blood flew over the river's shining scales of silvery reflected moonlight and approached the low, stone building. A pair of flagpoles stood at attention on either side of the museum's roof, an American flag flying from one, the Louisiana state flag from the other. Between them, a solitary figure was visible, framed in the smoke rising from the collapsed portion of the Old U.S. Mint.

Bad Blood alighted in front of the museum. In the pale light of the moon, they could make out little of the mysterious figure on the edge of the partially ruined roof. From what they could see, he was clad in some kind of streamlined body armor equipped with compact weaponry, covering his body from the neck down. His head was uncovered, except for the natural occurrences of thick dark hair and goatee.

"Anybody recognize this guy?" More asked.

"Something ... familiar about him," Hangfire responded hesitantly. "Can't say for sure what, though."

"Well, if we don't know who he is, we don't know what he wants, either," Karnival surmised. "And that should be on the top of our need-to-know list." Raising his voice, Karnival called out, "The property damage got our attention! Now you can come down and talk, or we can take you down!"

The man on the rooftop cocked his head slightly, as if considering Karnival's words, then sneered down at Bad Blood and shouted a violent harangue in a language that was not English. "Ya uryegulirovayu spor zdese ot agyent v'shah e matye!"

"Come again?" Valence said.

"Whoa, wait a second, that was Russian," Ember said. "He said he came here to settle the score with the agent ..."

A bright crimson light erupted on the rooftop, above the armored man. Spectral flames formed the familiar shape of a horsehead chess piece, burned angrily for a few seconds, and then vanished.

"... of Checkmate," Ember finished.

"Groznyy," Hangfire grumbled. "That's what was stuck in my memory. It's the guy who had the experimental Checkmate armor that we had to go deal with in Groznyy.*"
(* - Way, way back in Bad Blood #7 - DWG)

"But Pierce totally trashed that armor ... and the guy who was inside it, for that matter," More argued.

"The group that stole the armor must have studied it long enough to build a reasonable facsimile," Hangfire reasoned. "And the guy up there seems pissed off enough at Pierce to have been inside a suit of armor that Pierce blew up."

"Well, he's about to have some pissed off déjà vu," Valence said, flying quickly toward the roof of the museum. He reached out with his magnetism to grasp as much of the internal circuitry of the power armor as he could, intent on tearing the battlesuit apart.

The man on the rooftop reached out as well, and Valence found himself drawn swiftly and inexorably toward the man's upraised gauntlet. Gloved fingers closed around Valence's throat and a white flame erupted all along the man's arm, enveloping Valence completely. Valence felt a profound coldness sweeping through his being before losing consciousness.

More, Karnival, Hangfire and Ember watched, stunned, as in a matter of seconds Valence flew upwards, was jerked through the air to the Russian's outstretched hand and, in a flash of white fire, turned to stone. The man in the power armor cast the petrified Valence aside disdainfully, then bellowed the same statement of his intentions that Ember had previously translated.

"Wha ... Valence ... no ... " More stammered.

"Jesus, Ember, tell him Pierce isn't with us, he's gone!" Karnival urged.

"Pyerse ne zdese ot nas!" Ember yelled back to the man on the rooftop.

A furious howl escaped from the man's lips, and he leveled both arms at the heroes on the street below. With twin mechanical screams, two rockets no larger than .22 bullets were launched from the armor's gauntlets. The members of Bad Blood began to scatter immediately, but the miniaturized projectiles' velocity brought them to the points of impact in a fraction of a second. The explosion was immense, pulverizing the concrete and releasing a concussion blast that sent all of the heroes sprawling.

"Don't screw with Protocol," the armored man warned loudly in heavily accented English.

TO BE CONTINUED ...!

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

Alas, the e-mails have been few and far between lately. If you've been reading and have any reactions - love, hate or indifference - feel free to send them my way! (Although I doubt many people will take the time to compose an e-mail of indifference, but hey, I never know.)

NEXT ISSUE: Protocol has come hunting for Pierce ... with Pierce nowhere to be found! Will Pierce return in time to meet his nemesis? Can the rest of Bad Blood hold off the resurrected warrior, or will his quest for vengeance destroy New Orleans? Be here for the answers in "Two Invitations - Part II"!