"A Sense of Death"

The subaudible transceivers were among the most indispensable pieces of equipment utilized by the members of Bad Blood. Their collective power to leverage their strength of numbers depended heavily upon their ability to communicate instantly with one another whenever necessary, whether to reach their allies across great distances, or formulate strategies in the heat of battle. The subaudible network had been one of the first technological contributions Enigma had made to the team. In the many months since, the system had been continuously upgraded. What had once been nothing more than miniaturized walkie-talkies had evolved into cutting-edge microcircuits on a scrambled satellite relay, discreet and comfortable enough to be worn around the clock, calibrated to each member of Bad Blood’s unique voiceprint for background noise filtration, and even capable of recording and storing messages.

So when each of the heroes wearing a subaudible transceiver retrieved a message from Pierce on the morning of October 31^st, none had reason to doubt that it was genuine, or to suspect that the words had been captured with anything other than digital clarity. The message consisted of only five words:

“Meet me at Touchdown Jesus.”

In response, the team assembled in the French Quarter, at the rear side of the Saint Louis Cathedral. There a black wrought-iron fence behind the old church enclosed a small garden shaded by large trees. In the center of the garden stood a six-foot stone pillar, and atop that, a statue of the adult Christ, his pale gray arms sculpted in an eternal gesture of universal blessing, raised over his head. No one knew when the statue had earned the “Touchdown Jesus” moniker, but it was a well-known landmark along Royal Street. Bad Blood gathered in a corner of the garden close to the whitewashed walls of the cathedral itself. It was approaching 11 o’clock, on a bright autumn morning, but illusory shadows produced by Karnival in the alcove blocked the heroes from passers-by’s sights. All of the members of Bad Blood had arrived in costume, including Sojourn, who was dressed in teal and green sequined hip huggers, complete with flared fins at the ankles, a scallop-shell bikini top, and a sequined eyemask shaped like two angelfish facing one another.

“Hey, nice threads there, Aquagirl,” Valence commented as he caught sight of his young teammate.

“Girl gotta cut loose when they tell her she don’t have to wear the old plaid skirt to school,” Sojourn answered, cocking her hands on her hips.

“I would have thought that you’d know enough to stay in school,” Pierce pointed out, “since my message was not emergency-level.”

“Nobody’s gonna notice I’m not there,” Sojourn insisted defiantly. “Half the kids get-ups are so wild, the nuns don’t even bother taking attendance in class. So what’s the situation?”

“Yeah, Pierce, lay it out, and maybe we’ll have the little mermaid here back in school in time for trig,” Karnival urged.

“The situation is murder,” Pierce answered matter-of-factly. “The body was discovered out here in the garden by a deacon when the cathedral was opened this morning, and the police already carted it away. Murder probably took place around 3 a.m. No witnesses. Victim was a local, middle-of-the-roader, no trouble with the law previously, no mover-shaker connections to make him seem like a political or financial target.”

“And no ties to us, right?’ Ember asked. “What’s the demand for our attention?”

“Other than the fact that we know the police aren’t going to be in a big hurry to solve it themselves,” Hangfire added.

“They can’t solve it themselves,” Pierce responded. “But they don’t have access to the same tools I do. My scanners can pick up life signals, based on some unique energy signatures of human bioelectricity. I’ll show you what those scanners picked up when I cased the area right after the police left.” With that, Pierce reached for the controls on the side of his helmet, keyed a command sequence, and brought his visor’s holographic projector online. Laserlines of white light shone outward from the helmet’s optics, and a pattern of holograms appeared around the garden. Pierce allowed the images to remain for a few seconds as his teammates observed them, then shut down the projection before it drew unwanted attention.

“What were all those white splotches, bloodstains?” More asked.

“Not quite,” Pierce shook his head. “Residual energy signatures. Bioelectricity burnmarks.”

“And what would cause this bio-energy to splatter like that?” Karnival inquired.

“I have no idea, and that’s why we’re getting involved,” Pierce replied. “If the victim had been drained of every pint of blood in his body – and he wasn’t – the residual energy would be minimal. This amount of bioelectricity is normal human to the tenth power. Working theory, that’s what killed the vic – the build-up of energy beyond what the human body can handle.”

“And assuming this wasn’t some freak of nature, we gotta find the cause,” Sojourn suggested.

“Bingo. Hangfire, is your van somewhere nearby?” Pierce asked.

“Check,” Hangfire nodded.

“Let’s get to it. I’ll do some quick research, and we’ll start hunting.”

With that, Bad Blood emerged from the alcove in the corner of the churchyard. Even though it was still before noon, many people walked the streets of the French Quarter in costume, already prepared for the Halloween festivities planned for that night. Bad Blood was able to slip to Hangfire’s van relatively unobtrusively, and piled into the black cargo vehicle.

A few hours later, Hangfire’s van was parked on a narrow, private road north of Lake Pontchartrain. The paved lane ended a few hundred yards ahead, where an imposing gothic gate marked the beginning of a driveway leading to a palatial mansion. “So this is the place?” Ember asked.

“Potentially,” Pierce replied. “Only lead we’ve got at the moment.”

“What exactly did Clotty tell you?” Valence asked.

“I had Clotty hack into the police department’s non-public files,” Pierce explained. “Lot of crime goes down in and around New Orleans that isn’t handled through the usual channels. Men of influence who don’t want certain aspects of their lives held up to too much scrutiny know not to call 9-1-1 when they themselves are victims of crime. Case in point, one Claude Mizner. As close to a textbook case as a rich, eccentric recluse can be.”

“Think he’s the killer?” More asked.

“Doubtful,” Pierce said. “Mizner’s a collector of exotic technologies. He might have come into possession of a device that could accomplish what was done at the cathedral last night, but as far as actually using said device, not likely. And the reason he’s currently logged in the special casebook at the NOPD is that a piece from his collection was stolen earlier in the week.”

“The piece we’re looking for, I assume,” Karnival observed.

“Not sure. That’s what we’re here to find out,” Pierce explained.

“Well why not have Clotty hack into this guy’s computers, too, and see what’s what?” Sojourn asked.

“Another one of Mizner’s eccentricities,” Pierce said. “He collects technology and keeps it under glass. Doesn’t use it himself. Doesn’t trust it. Stockpiling it in his own little collection is a way of exerting control over it.”

“Yet another reason to believe he’s not the killer,” Ember pointed out.

Pierce nodded. “There’s no details in the police file about exactly what was stolen. If Mizner has any info on it himself, it’ll be some kind of paper record. I’m betting he does, fanatical as he is about his collection. I’ll infiltrate the house, see what I can find. It’s a one-man job, so the rest of you can just wait here.”

“Unless you’re dead wrong about Mizner, and need to call us in for back-up,” Hangfire put in.

“Wait and see,” Pierce said, as he stepped out the back doors of the cargo van.

A minute or two after Pierce’s departure, Sojourn turned to Valence. “So, you saying you don’t like my costume?”

“I never said that,” Valence protested. “It just … took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Been a while since you saw that much skin, Valence?” Ember asked. Sojourn and Valence turned reproving glances on their teammate simultaneously. Sojourn then resumed, “It’s Halloween, how could it take you by surprise? Didn’t you get dressed up when you were a kid?”

Valence shrugged. “I grew up in an orphanage. Holidays were pretty much the same as any other day.”

“Oh. I didn’t know,” Sojourn said, abashed. “This day is really turning out wack. People dying in impossible ways, childhood traumas …”

“Hey, I didn’t say I was traumatized,” Valence countered.

“No, of course not,” Hangfire sighed. “You’re not compensating for anything now, wearing a costume every day of the year.”

“Right,” More agreed. “All of us are very, very normal.”

The van echoed with laughter after that, and the members of Bad Blood continued to talk as they waited to hear from Pierce. Some time later, Pierce returned to the van. “Let’s go. Back to the city,” he ordered.

“Dead end?” Karnival asked.

“Got some info, not sure how helpful it is, but we’re probably on the right track,” Pierce corrected as Hangfire gunned the van’s engine to life and began to turn the vehicle around.

“Minzer’s files indicated that what was stolen was some sort of weapon, as far as he could tell.”

“As far as he could tell? What does that mean?” More asked.

“The technology was well beyond anything he had ever seen before,” Pierce explained. “The word he used was ‘other-worldly’. There were markings on it, but again, not from any Earth language.”

“So how could he tell anything about it at all?” Valence pressed.

“Just from the physical shape, apparently. Overall, it resembled a long knife, good-sized handle and curved blade. Minzer said it reminded him of a medieval torture device, augmented by millennia of science.”

“Quite a little poet, our Claude is,” Hangfire said.

“Minzer was terrified to even touch it, had someone else put it in a display case in his techno-crypt,” Pierce went on. “I imagine that someone got word out on the street, and someone came looking for the device. Couldn’t have been hard to come get, considering how easily I entered the mansion.”

“Doesn’t this guy have a security sys – oh, right, the distrust of technology thing,” Sojourn answered herself.

“Checked for fingerprints around the display, scanned them, and had Clotty run them for matches,” Pierce informed his teammates.

“God bless that cranky little A.I. program,” More said.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Ember smiled.

“Solid match came back for Mortimer Klein, aka …”

“Kadaver? Isn’t he dead?” Karnival interjected.

“Hardly be the first time someone presumed dead turned out reasonably alive,” Pierce responded.

“Very, very normal,” Sojourn commented, drawing a smile from Valence in return.

“Well, this is all starting to fit together,” Karnival stated. “Kadaver’s definitely a murderer, with a penchant for torture. He’s a bit far afield from Gotham City, but if Minzer was right about the device being an instrument of torture, it’d be too tempting for Kadaver to resist.”

“So we know who did it, and what he did it with,” Valence said, “but we don’t know where they are. Kadaver’s probably laying low now.”

“No,” Karnival contradicted his teammate, “if Kadaver has decided he likes this techno-torture knife, he’ll almost definitely use it again. And again.”

Hangfire leaned more heavily on the accelerator as the van crossed the Causeway bridge.

By the time Hangfire’s van crossed into the city limits of New Orleans, the sun was beginning to set. “OK, bossman,” Ember said, “what’s the plan? We comb the city looking for our maniac, or just hang around and listen for the screams?”

“With Kadaver picking victims at random, there’s not much choice,” Pierce answered. “But I made a minor modification to my helmet feeds. Life sensors are on but filtering out normal bioelectricity levels, patched into a weather satellite image that’s centered on New Orleans.”

“Which means we have to wait for Kadaver to strike,” Valence groaned.

“In the mean time, we will comb the city,” Pierce said.

The task proved easier said than done. With various events taking place for Halloween, from high society masquerade balls to local clubs’ costume contests, the traffic was completely snarled throughout the city. Hangfire soon pulled over so that Bad Blood could proceed on foot.

“Should we split up to cover more ground?” More asked.

“Not a bad idea … wait,” Pierce said, raising a hand to his helmet controls.

“Something flare up?” Ember asked.

“Yes, and it’s still burning,” Pierce confirmed. “And getting hotter.”

“You think this big bad weapon takes some time to build up enough energy in the victim to kill them?” Valence asked.

“If so, maybe we’ve got time to get to Kadaver before he’s done,” Sojourn said. “Which way, Pierce?”

“Not far, just over on Canal Street,” Pierce announced. Sojourn started running in the direction Pierce pointed, and the rest of the team followed on her heels.

“You go, gung ho girl,” Karnival said approvingly, shifting into an illusory marines uniform.

The members of Bad Blood crossed Canal Street, weaving between the crawling automotive traffic. On a corner a few blocks away, the front window of a liquor store exploded, and the team made a beeline down the sidewalk, jostling through clusters of people who turned with some curiosity to watch them pass.

Bad Blood rushed into the liquor store, their feet crunching shards of glass into sticky pools spilled from broken bottles. Against the back rack of the store, a white-haired man was writhing in paroxysms of agony. Standing in front of the man, with his back to the door, was a tall figure wearing a flowing purple cape, a shock of black hair just visible above the high, stiff collar.

“Kadaver!” Sojourn shouted, and the caped figure turned around. He wore a blue formal suit, and held the golden, circuit-covered knife in his right hand. His hair was white at the temples, his eyebrows bushy and black over crazed blue eyes. His nose was long and sharp and his mouth twisted in a vicious sneer, but the most striking aspect of his visage was the crimson scar, shaped like a handprint, that covered his forehead and the front of his scalp.

Kadaver moved without hesitation, rushing at Bad Blood and swinging the knife in front of him. He cackled insanely as an arc of greenish-white energy erupted from the golden blade and swept through the heroes’ ranks. Each one fell backwards, overcome by excruciating pain, and Kadaver sprinted out of the store.

The pain began to fade immediately, and Bad Blood regrouped. “We have got to take that guy down,” Valence insisted.

“What about the clerk?” Karnival asked.

“Still breathing,” Pierce answered. “I’ll buzz 9-1-1. Kadaver is our priority.”

The team ran outside and More yelled, “There!” He pointed down the street, where Kadaver’s cloak billowed in his trail. Kadaver turned a corner and disappeared, with the heroes in pursuit. When they turned the corner themselves, they stopped abruptly.

“Ah, hell,” Hangfire said.

Bourbon Street was flooded with revelers sweeping down its length with slow but powerful force, like a river flowing over its banks after excessive rains. Halloween was in all likelihood the second most popular holiday in the Big Easy, after Mardi Gras. And while many thrill-seekers at Mardi Gras costumed themselves, many others did not; yet at Halloween everyone was in some form of masquerade, ranging from simple to elaborate to bizarre. It was now impossible to spot Kadaver in the throngs of people.

“Keep moving,” Pierce commanded, leading the team down the street.

“You want me and Ember to fly ahead and spot him from above?” Valence asked.

“No, now that we know what that weapon is capable of, stay together,” Pierce insisted. Karnival created an illusion that he and each of his teammates were holding a drink in their hands, and the members of Bad Blood blended in discretely among the raging tide of howling, catcalling, whistling, singing, shouting masses out to celebrate the night.

After the fourth girl dressed as Wonder Woman floated past in the chaotic pageant of dress-up fantasies, Ember said, “I have a dream like this sometimes. Me and all the Wonder Women I can handle …”

“You have a thing for her?” Sojourn asked skeptically.

“Uh, yeah!” Ember rejoined , his voice emphasizing that he considered the idea to be inherently obvious. “I’m male, aren’t I?”

“You certainly are,” Sojourn agreed. “And she’s an Amazon. And you know what they say about Amazons …”

“What?” Ember asked.

“You know … that their tastes tend to run to the more … Sapphic …”

Ember’s brow furrowed as he pondered the meaning of Sojourn’s words. Then the confusion in his expression broke into an indignant fury. “You take that back!” he shouted.

Sojourn just giggled. “Sorry to kill the mood there … hey, mood, that’s the word.” She broke away from her teammates, moving to the edge of the street.

The rest of Bad Blood caught up with her, finding Sojourn bent over the curb and concentrating intently. “What are you doing?” Valence asked.

“Collecting some mood,” Sojourn answered. “There’s magic running in the streets tonight. Collecting in the gutters. Every spilled drink and puked up po-boy and used condom, all the sweat and make-up and everything else, it’s all got the spirit of the party in it.” As she spoke, Sojourn dipped her fingers into the unidentifiable muddy grime against the curb. “Everybody’s here for the party, too, except us, and except Kadaver. He thinks we won’t be able to find him in the middle of the party, but all we need to do is filter it out. Right, Pierce?”

Sojourn stood up, whispered something into her dirt-crusted fingertips, and waited as the brown goo became iridescent. She closed her eyes, smeared some of the now-shimmering dirt on her eyelids, and the opened them. “Oh, yeah. Here, everyone, put some of this on.”

With some questioning looks among themselves, More, Hangfire, Ember, Valence and Karnival all allowed Sojourn to apply the mud to their eyelids. Pierce held up one hand and simply said, “Pass – if this actually helps locate Kadaver, I’ll just follow along.”

For the rest of the team, the mass of bodies in the street became blurry and indistinct, then nearly invisible. Only faint outlines remained. Two blocks down the street, however, one figure stood out clearly, visible through the phantasmal crowd. Kadaver was hunched over slightly at the shoulders, and kept his purple cape drawn tightly around his body, yet was impossible to miss.

“That is one hell of a trick,” Ember said, impressed.

“Happy Halloween, boys,” Sojourn said. “One trick, my treat. Think we can get the drop on Kadaver now?”

“Yeah, let’s do this,” More agreed. Once again, the team began to work their way down Bourbon Street, keeping Kadaver in their newly-enchanted sights, with Pierce bringing up the rear. Slowly but surely they gained on him, drawing closer while keeping several layers of partying bodies between themselves and their quarry.

Kadaver stole a glance over his shoulder, looking for signs of pursuit, and spotted More standing head and shoulders above anyone else on the street. More looked away immediately, as if scrutinizing a balcony where two young women, one dressed as a nurse, the other as a Raggedy Ann with devil horns, were flashing for beads. Kadaver cut at a 90 degree angle across the street, and ducked into a small, dark alleyway between a dance club and a drag queen revue.

“He probably thinks he can hide there, double back once we’ve passed by,” Karnival noted, speaking directly into the subaudible circuit; Sojourn’s spell had cut out visual interference, but Bourbon Street remained a raucous riot of noise around Bad Blood.

“Hide where?” Pierce asked.

“Follow us,” Sojourn said. The team of heroes worked their way toward the mouth of the alley and entered it two-by-two.

Kadaver’s purple-cloaked back was to them, and he stood perfectly still. Hangfire reached Kadaver first, and gripped the madman’s shoulder. Kadaver made no reaction, and Hangfire spun him around. Kadaver’s eyes were wide open, but blank, and his mouth hung slack.

“Oh, now what?” Ember demanded.

“Does he still have the weapon?” Pierce asked.

Hangfire checked Kadaver’s hands, which were both empty. Kadaver showed no signs of awareness as Hangfire began to frisk him. Suddenly a female voice from the shadowy far end of the alley spoke: “Boys like him should not play with such toys, as my Granny might say.”

The members of Bad Blood watched as a woman emerged from the shadows. She was dressed in a deep brown leather bodice, trimmed in hellfire red, as well as matching full-length gloves and a cape. A steel bat-shaped amulet hung around her neck. Her skin was alabaster white, and her hair a scarlet that matched the shade of her lips. She raised one hand, which held the knife-like device. “Lord Orion will be most pleased to have this returned. DeSaad’s devices are foul enough without worrying about where in the cosmos some of them may have been misplaced.”

“How … did you get that away from him …?” Valence asked.

The woman tossed her hair off one shoulder and smiled slightly, showing off her long, sharp teeth. Her eyes flashed with energy, and she said, “Bloody Mary has her ways.” With that, the woman turned and walked up the alley. A few seconds later, a loud boom emanated from the area she had retreated to.

“OK, that was officially freaky,” More said.

“At least it’s over,” Karnival pointed out. “At least, I guess it is.”

“It is as soon as we drop Kadaver off with the authorities,” Pierce said. “And be thankful he was already supposed to be serving a double-life sentence, since we have no way of proving what he did here.”

“So, we drop off the vegetable,” Sojourn said, “and then, what say we get into the party? I hear the Witch’s Brew at O’Brien’s is the bomb.”

“Aren’t you a little young to drink?” Valence asked.

“Man, Halloween only comes once a year!” Sojourn retorted.

“Thank God,” the rest of the team agreed.

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

First off, HAPPY (belated) HALLOWEEN! I love Halloween, and I'm happy to finally do a holiday-specific piece of fanfic like this. Hope everyone enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. This would have gone up on October 31st, 2002, but we here at FDC had a teeny tiny problem with our server for a bit there. Everything's all good now, except that this story is a little out of season (though it does, of course, fall in October on the Continuity Chart). You're all welcome to come back and read it again when next Halloween rolls around.

Second, on to the letters. Well, since we've been offline, most mail has amounted to some variation or another on "Hey? Where'd everything go?" Well, as should be abundantly clear, we're back. So bring on the feedback - all kinds welcome! It's never a bad time to share your reactions. I'd be delighted to hear someone's thoughts on this issue, recent issues, even the first few issues of the series! Do make sure you catch up on all your Bad Blood back-reading, because big events are coming soon …

NEXT ISSUE: The countdown to milestone issue #25 begins! For starters, a large and mysterious piece of cargo arrives in New Orleans. Its contents - deadly! Was it sent to target Bad Blood specifically, and if so, by whom? The answers take shape in our next incredible issue!