Pale Fire

The wraparound sofa was upholstered in soft, chocolate brown leather, and as a central focal point of the impressively large living room it was an exemplar of the virtues of the entire space: pleasant, almost luxurious, without being excessive. The other furnishings - chairs, end tables, carpeting, lamps, bookshelves, framed paintings - had been meticulously assembled in the same spirit. It was a room deliberately designed to evoke an upscale lifestyle owned by no one in particular.

The open kitchen was separated from the living room by a free-standing breakfast bar. On the other side of the bar, leaning into a refrigerator with its stainless steel door, as big as a bank vault's, ajar, was Rob McDowell, wearing a light silk shirt covered in indigo paisleys, charcoal-colored slacks, and black loafers. "You guys sure I can't get you anything to eat or drink?" the member of Bad Blood codenamed Ember asked over his shoulder. "They keep these corporate condos for WayneTech execs pretty ridiculously well-stocked."

"No doubt," Ed Baird answered from the sofa. The hero otherwise known as Karnival was, like McDowell, dressed in civilian garb, although his was a more modest ensemble of a green Pat O'Brien's t-shirt, khaki cargo pants, and sneakers. "But I'm good."

"Pierce?" McDowell tried next. "I think the one thing this pad might not have is whatever purified nutritional goo you survive on, but if you tell me what the closest human food might be ..."

"Very funny," Pierce replied, utterly unamused. The erstwhile Checkmate knight was dressed in his full uniform, red and white armored bodysuit dominated by a stylized horsehead logo emblazoned across the torso, and a red-visored helmet enclosing his entire head. "I do eat ..."

"Says the guy who scaled the outside of this building and came into the condo via the roof access, rather than use the front door," McDowell finished for his teammate.

"This isn't a secure location," Pierce shot back. "Better safe than sorry."

"Really?" McDowell countered. "Seems to me we've had team meetings in less secure locations before, like bars. Meetings you've attended out of costume, too."

"Still disguised," Pierce pointed out.

"Guys ..." Baird atempted in a conciliatory tone.

"You know what I think?" McDowell went on. "I think you're feeling like things are out of control. We lost the Riverboat, we had mixed results at Belle Reve, and you've put yourself into hyper-protocol mode. I think you've got some issues, man."

"Whoa, hey," Baird tried again.

"I would also like to say for the record that I don't care," McDowell forged ahead heedlessly. He shut the fridge and returned to the sofa, a can of seltzer in one hand and a small plate of cold chicken wings in the other. "We've all got issues. Even Clotty, apparently."

The last figure seated on the sofa was the robotic chassis housing Bad Blood's artificial intelligence program. The automaton resembled a middle-aged man, currently dressed in an outfit appropriate for the golf course: white tassled shoes, plaid pants in a rainbow spectrum of pastels, a melon-pink polo shirt, and a straw Panama hat. A pipestem was clenched in the corner of the robot's mouth, and a laptop was balanced on one crossed leg. "Whaddaya mean, issues?" Clotty growled, without looking away from the laptop screen.

"Well, you're using that computer the same way one of us would," McDowell pointed out. "Instead of, you know, plugging into the ethernet connection directly."

"Someone tried to download me," Clotty reminded the room. "And those punks are still out there, somewhere. But I can hack through networks faster than any human being, even with keystrokes and clicks."

"And you don't even need a bag of Cheetos," McDowell observed. "Or any other food, I assume. That's why I didn't ask. Sorry?"

"Uh-huh," Clotty grunted neutrally.

"Maybe you should just leave Clotty to the research," Baird suggested.

"He's one of the most advanced AIs on the planet," McDowell said around a mouthful of chicken meat, waggling the denuded bone at the robot. "He can multitask like nobody's business."

"True," Clotty acknowledged without looking up from the laptop screen, "But I still want you to shut up and leave me to it."

"Fine," McDowell shrugged. "I just want someone to express some gratitude for the temporary headquarters I've secured for us here. You might even say this place is an upgrade. No offense, Ed."

"None taken," Baird insisted.

"Too early for gratitude," Pierce cut in decisively. "No telling how many weak spots would need to be addressed."

"Well, I got us in here on short notice," McDowell objected. "And, now that we're here ..."

"And 'here' is Baton Rouge," Pierce parried. "Miles from New Orleans."

"Exactly!" McDowell shouted. "This may not be an impregnable fortress, but it's also not where anyone would be looking for us! As temporary measures go, it's pretty good, right? I mean, we've got nothing but threats coming at us from all sides ..."

"Wrong!" Baird interjected. He was seated in the middle of the huge sofa, with Clotty tapping on the laptop beside him, while Pierce and McDowell had taken up positions on opposite ends. The two turned slightly to regard their teammate, and Baird went on, "I don't want to be paralyzed by paranoia, even though I'm sure a little bit is helping to keep us alive. Still, we can't lose site of the differences between the trouble we've gone looking for and the trouble that comes looking for us. Agreed?"

The room was quiet for a few moments, but Pierce nodded curtly. "Agreed."

"Yeah, sure, I guess," McDowell assented. "But so what? By now we've got hostiles coming at us every time we turn around, does it matter if they have their own crazy vendettas against us or if they're retalliating for something we started?"

"Maybe not when it comes to defending ourselves in the moment," Baird conceded. "But I don't want to play permanent defense. If we can figure out who's behind the threats, in either case or ideally in both, then we can get back to the source and cut off the head of the operation and end things. That's the plan, right? We all buy into what Delaina's told us about some mystical evil force gunning for us because it views Bad Blood as a threat to its turf. And we're trusting her to investigate it. More and Valence and Hangfire are back in New Orleans keeping an eye on things. And the four of us need to figure out how much connection there is between everything else."

"Shadowspire," Clotty said.

"Come again?" McDowell asked, lowering his beverage.

"I found a connection," Clotty elaborated. "They didn't make it easy, probably be impossible for any human analysis to spot, or non-AI-computer analysis."

"Lucky for us you're the best of the best," McDowell rolled his eyes.

"Shadowspire is a criminal cartel," Pierce refocused the discussion. "And you think they're behind what, exactly?"

"The lab in Houston, for one thing," Clotty said. "Buried under layers and layers of dummy corporations and all, but pumping in the funds. I think the Manticores were a failed experiment to start an army. And when that got shut down, the creatures went feral ..."

"... and we all know how that ended," Baird supplied.

" ... and that's also about the time that Shadowspire made an initial payment to Walter Reinhart," Clotty concluded.

"Headhunter," Pierce said. "Payment for the job to stage the Belle Reve breakout."

"Yeah, that one was almost too easy to pick out," Clotty observed. "Like Reinhart doesn't care who knows where his money's coming from."

"I'm not surprised, considering Reinhart's massive ego," Baird commented.

"There was also a funds transfer just before the one to Reinhart," Clotty went on, "which looks like it was to a hacker who was a little better at covering his tracks."

"But not perfect?" McDowell asked.

"Well, good enough to get into Belle Reve's systems without them noticing, but not so good I couldn't follow the trail."

"Right, we figured the jailbreak was mostly a smokescreen to distract from a single target, someone Shadowspire gave LocoForce the intel on," Baird said. "But Waller and Economos wouldn't tell us who."

"The name Simon Ecks mean anything to you?" Clotty asked. Silence from all sides of the sofa was the only response. "I'll try to track it down. But all these transactions, not only do they all come through Shadowspire, but they all come from a very specific route through Shadowspire, and further up the line they go back to an old, European banking network, an account that's been open since the 1930's."

"Oh, tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means," Baird begged.

"What?" McDowell demanded, then with dawning realization added, "Nazis? I hate those guys!"

Clyde Pettitte lay on the wooden floor of the offices of The Picayune, trying to catch his breath through a sore windpipe that felt as if it might have been irreparably mangled. The upstart New Orleans newspaper, founded a mere sixteen years earlier in 1837, already felt like home to the newly-hired Pettitte, and he was determined to make a meaningful impression as a reporter, which explained his presence in the office well past midnight. The man standing over him, on the other hand, seemed equally determined to cut Pettitte's career short.

"I don't want any misunderstanding here, so I will restate my request," the standing man said. The name he had given was Andrew Gormer, and he was as different from Clyde Pettitte as if the two had been a deliberate study in contrasts. Pettitte was young, with an underfed physique and a mop of light curly hair, wearing an ill-fitting hand-me-down suit. Gormer was well into middle age but a stocky, muscular bull of a man, bald except for a jet black fringe around the base of his skull and wide mutton chops along his jawline, and was dressed in finely made and exquisitely tailored fashion. Gormer flexed his thick fingers, to relieve the painful stiffness resulting from having clampe dthem ina stranglehold around Pettitte's neck moments before, and said, "You will not write one more word about Bronze John in this city. And you will see to it that The Picayune does not publish one more word about it written by anyone."

Pettitte looked up at Gormer in a tremulous attempt at defiance. "The yellow fever in New Oreleans is an epidemic emergency," Pettitte insisted. "The citizens here need to be warned, and others everywhere need to know that we need help ..."

Gormer's leg shot out with surprising quickness, the heel of his boot catching Pettitte's temple and sending the young reporting sprawling. "Outbreaks come every year," Gormer insisted calmly. "This year is no different. But if you publish hysterical ravings, do you think it will really save the city? Or cause a panic within and shunning from outside?"

"It doesn't matter. It's the truth," Pettitte stubbornly maintained. "The truth must ..."

Gormer crossed the floor and planted the sole of his boot on Pettitte's neck, leaning his considerable weight into it. Pettitte flailed ineffectually at his assailant's leg as Gormer said, "I will tell you what doesn't matter. Anything you say, and anything you think, does not matter. New Orleans has her protectors, and they know that the seasonal sickness is not the horrible plague you make it out to be. Just the same old Bronze John as always. Some will catch ill, a few will die, but the city will go on. And you will write of it no more, because I was asked to guarantee that you will write of it no more. Promise me that, or I will send you to meet our maker." Gormer smiled wickedly. "And I've followed you around town, seen what you get up to. We both know where our maker would send you if you met him today, don't we?"

"Bhhuhhh ... ppuhhh ..." Pettitte choked.

"That's right," Gormer nodded. "You'd find yourself with all the other fornicators, in the ba-a-a-d ... pl-a-a-a-ce ..."

The vision dissipated and Delaina Teague inhaled as deeply and urgently as if she had just surfaced from a prolonged stint underwater. She sat on the floor of her darkening bedroom; the sun had just begun to set when she had gone into the trance, and now had almost completely disappeared behind the horizon.

"Any insight?" Deadman asked. The chalk-faced ghost man in the red acrobat costume floated near the ceiling of Delaina's room, and regarded her with eyes which were blankly white, yet preternaturally perceptive.

"I've had a nightmare about the yellow fever outbreak before," Delaina shrugged, not bothering to hide her disappointment. "Maybe I got a few more details this way, going into a trance rather than leaving it to my dreaming mind, but ... OK, so I can consciously tap into whatever force is trying to make me aware of the capital-E Evil in New Orleans, but what difference does it make if I still can't see why? If I just get the same nasty history lessons over and over?"

"Maybe they're not all the same," Deadman suggested. "Maybe there's a reason your trance took you to the one it did."

"It's not the most disturbing thing I've seen," Delaina shook her head. "Other nightmares were more violent, more heartbreaking ... I don't know. My gut actually tells me you're right, if I can figure out ... I just don't know."

"Could be something that'd help," Deadman offered. He glided toward the window. "Come with me."

"Where we going?" Delaina asked, already shifting to her spirit form and walking up through the air and out of the house.

"Lafayette Cemetery," Deadman answered. "Where else?"

A black van slowly prowled down Poydras Street, its progress one of the only visible movements between the travertine faces of buildings in the darkened business district of New Orleans. Johnny Chancellor drove the vehicle, while Jack Fenris rode shotgun beside him. Both men were wearing the uniforms of their Bad Blood alter egos, with the exception of their masks, but the dark colors of Hangfire’s urban fatigues and Valence’s leather jacket rendered them reasonably inconspicuous. Their companion, Les Ample, was attired as usual in the bright blue boots, singlet and domino mask of his More identity, but the strongman rode in the windowless back of the van, well-hidden from prying eyes. Hangfire and Valence peered through the windshield alertly, as the after-hours solitude spun by.

“It just seems to me like this is about the least effective way to keep an eye on the city,” More opined from the back of the van. “Rolling along at five miles an hour? What are the odds we’re just going to bump into something happening?”

“I don’t know,” Hangfire admitted. “But with the Riverboat gone, we don’t have the resources we used to.”

“Besides, maybe the luck of the angels will be on our side,” Valence added.

“Luck of the angels?” Hangfire repeated skeptically. “Is that even a thing?”

“Sure it is,” Valence insisted. “Should be, anyway.”

A flaming object plummeted out of the sky and landed in the middle of Poydras a few yards ahead of Hangfire’s van, exploding in a shower of debris and burning sparks on impact. Hangfire hit the brakes hard. Valence was out the passenger-side door almost immediately, followed quickly by More and Hangfire. The three heroes looked up and could just make out a broken window in one of the skyscrapers, dozens of stories above the street, jagged spikes of fragmented glass glinting as if backlit by fire.

“Does that count as luck?” More asked.

“I doubt it,” Hangfire shook his head, tying on his highwayman-style mask. “This screams set-up. A normal person discovers a fire in an office building, they head for the exits. Someone throws a fiery desk out of a burning office, they’re looking for attention.”

“Well, we were looking for trouble,” Valence pointed out. “Should we oblige whoever’s looking for attention?”

More and Hangfire nodded at the largely rhetorical question. Valence rose into the air on a magnetic current, lifting his teammates alongside him. They quickly ascended to the broken window on the thirty-seventh floor, floated through the teeth of the broken pane, and touched down cautiously inside the office. The space was lit only by the scant illumination filtered from outside and a few incidental electric sources; the overhead flourescents had been turned off for the night, and the rows of cubicles extending before Valence, Hangfire and More were thick with black shadows. One cubicle near the broken window was missing, the edges it had shared with its neighbors glowing with orange-yellow residual heat.

"So somebody ... or some thing ... cut apart a cubicle with a torch and then chucked it through a reinforced window?" Valence asked.

"It would appear so," Hangfire confirmed, moving along the row of cubicles and peering into each one in turn.

"You think they're still here?" More wondered, heading over to the next row of cubicles.

"Like I said, whoever did it was looking for attention," Hangfire called back. "We either find them, or we find something they wanted us to see."

"You heroes talk too much," a hoarse, ravaged voice announced as a supply closet door slammed open. Hangfire spun around, guns drawn, but the speaker was already less than an arm's length away, and caught Hangfire's ribcage in a bodylock. Hangfire found himself staring into the glowing red eyes of a naked skull, the bone visage black against a halo of white-hot fire. Then, as both the pressure and heat from his chest to his spine increased, Hangfire's eyes closed tight while his body tensed in anguish.

Hangfire's directional forcefield, his personal expression of metahuman power, was able to repel and deflect any projectile object, from a thrown rock to high-caliber bullets. Even certain kinds of energy could be reflected off the forcefield's surface, including lasers and lightning. And with sufficient concentration, Hangfire could channel the moment of contact with the foreign body or outside force into temporary psychokinetic control, allowing Hangfire to bounce the incoming in any direction he chose with remarkable accuracy. But the searing assault he faced from his skeletal adversary had no momentum to redirect. The dark arm bones encased in translucent calcine flesh pinned him at the heart of a slow-motion fireball, and all Hangfire could do was scream as his own body burned.

Delaina Teague followed Deadman down from the heights at which they had traversed New Orleans, descending on the heart of Lafayette Cemetery and a large, dark gray mausoleum which stood silent vigil there. The apparition guiding her passed through the slate roof of the mausoleum, unimpeded by physical barriers, and Delaina's spirit form followed in the same way.

The mausoleum was neither physically large nor overly showy in its embellishments. Like most private tombs it was barely big enough to accomodate the coffin in the center with room for a couple of mourners on either side. Deadman returned to his customary lotus position, floating a few inches above the coffin's lid, while Delaina stood at the foot of the coffin. A small stained glass window was set in the wall above the head of the coffin, its colored surface dulled by decades of accumulated dirt. A few gossamer cobwebs hung from the ceiling. The walls on either side of the coffin featured small recessed alcoves with old candles melted down to stubs and other, unrecognizable remains of gifts and offerings. "Who's buried here?" Delaina asked.

"His name was Peter Mears," Deadman answered readily. "But some people knew him as Legba."

Delaina cocked an eyebrow. "Legba is a ... a myth. He's like the voice of god for voodoo."

"Yeah, and I'm sure that's the association he was going for. I didn't say he was Legba, I said people called him that. It was his codename," Deadman explained.

"Was he a superhero?" Delaina asked.

"Sort of," Deadman shrugged. "Back in the 30's, people called them 'mystery men', and even that was a new term right about when Legba was close to the end. He'd been doing his thing since the 20's, when they didn't even have a word for him."

"But you brought me here because you think we're kindred spirits," Delaina surmised.

"Something like that," Deadman conceded. "He was a fellow protector of the city, in his own way. And if I may be so bold as to speak for the dead ... and if I can't I don't know who can ... I think he had something that he'd want you to have."

"What's that?" Delaina inquired.

"Look under the coffin," Deadman suggested, gesturing downward with one pale hand. "In the pedestal. There's a hatch door on this side."

Delaina crouched down where Deadman had indicated. In order to open the panel on the side of the pedestal, she had to shift back to physical solidity. As soon as she did, the mausoleum felt more claustrophobic, a temple to death on a personal scale. The air was cool and shroudlike, draping itself unwelcomely on her skin. A black spider, its exoskeleton as shiny as polished onyx, took a few tentative steps toward Delaina before suddenly changing direction and scuttling into deeper shadows. Delaina put her fingers on the edges of the panel door, tried to move it and felt it resist with the immobility of aged disuse. She tried again, and the small door creaked open.

The hollow space within the coffin pedestal contained a cloth which unfurled as Delaina drew it out. It was a tiered cloak of dark purple velvet, nearly threadbare with age yet somehow still majestic, with a large tarnished clasp in the form of a serpent. Each tier of the cloak had various objects sewn into its hem: delicate bones, animal teeth, twists of hair, small copper coins, dried roots. Despite the many years it had spent in the mausoleum, the cloak still carried the exotic scent of rare oils and burnt herbs. "It's ... wow," Delaina said. "This Legba was good. At least, if he wore this bag of tricks around, he was."

"So I gather," Deadman confirmed.

"Is this supposed to help me figure out what's going on around here?" Delaina asked. "Or help me fight it when it finally goes down?"

"I'm not really sure," Deadman indicated. "Either way, it couldn't hurt."

"HANGFIRE!" Valence cried out. Hangfire made no response, having lapsed into unconsciousness, but his attacker turned toward Valence and let Hangfire's savagely burned body tumble to the floor.

The man-monster gave off an eerie whitewashed glow which seemed to originate in its bones, silhouetting a jet black skeleton within a ghost-pale body. Tongues of white-hot flame occasionally raced across the creature's chest, and the air around its body juddered with violent heat. The man wore nothing except half-destroyed blue pants. It narrowed its coal-red eyes and said, "This is going to be the easiest money I've ever made. I thought I was going to have to waste a lot more time burning holes in this place, maybe take a few firefighters hostage, but you managed to show up right as I got started."

"Lucky us. Unlucky you," Valence rejoined, waving his arm towards the creature. In response to his magnetic summons, four staplers leapt off the desks in nearby cubicles and whizzed through the air at machinegun velocities.

The burning figure raised a hand in response, as if to slap away the incoming staplers. Each object vaporized in the inferno-like aura before it even had a chance to strike the black fingerbones warding its approach. “Pathetic. I think the Baron may have overestimated you fools.”

“Hey, wait, I know who you are,” More announced, emerging from an inner row of cubicles and striding cagily toward the man-monster. “It’s … Dr. Psoriasis, right? With that itching, burning feeling?” A mischievous grin stole across More’s face.

“Dr. Phosphorus,” the char-black skull corrected calmly. “Now … burn.” Dr. Phosphorus stepped forward and backhanded More’s jaw. The force of the blow was superhuman, but still not enough to move a figure of More’s size and strength. Nevertheless, More recoiled instantly, dazed by the almost immeasurable heat conducted into his head on contact with Dr. Phosphorus’s burning flesh. Shiny blisters popped out along the side of More’s face instantly, as he staggered back and Dr. Phosphorus followed grimly.

“No! No more!” Valence roared. Throwing both arms wide, he exerted his mental control over every metallic material in the office, magnetizing all of it. He clapped his hands together, and a swarm of steel and iron converged on Dr. Phosphorus, computers and monitors, telephones, light fixtures, chair wheels, screws and nuts and bolts, even wiring and pipes from the walls of the building itself. The metal bits collided with Dr. Phosphorus and one another, forming a metallic cocoon around the fiery villain.

Within seconds, the patchwork sheath began to glow with the red-orange heat of a forge. “Simpleton!” Dr. Phosphorus howled from within the metal enclosure. “I will melt this crude barrier to slag, and then do the same to your organs!”

“No thanks,” Valence countered. “More, ring him up.”

More, squinting on one side of his burned face, cocked one massive fist and let it fly at the top of the iron cocoon. The metal there was hot and growing hotter by the moment, but nowhere near the excruciating temperature of Dr. Phosphorus’s body. With both hands More battered the metal in which Valence had trapped the villain, denting the surface with dozens of knuckle-shaped pockmarks, while Valence held the construct in place magnetically. Dr. Phosphorus’s screams within the cocoon grew frenzied and furious, but finally fell silent. More dropped his fists to his side, and Valence suspended the mangled, semi-molten mass near the ceiling.

Soon Valence and More were kneeling on either side of Hangfire’s unmoving form. More sought Hangfire’s pulse with two fingertips, and found it, weak and thready but reassuringly still present. “I’ll get him to the hospital,” Valence offered.

“But what do we do with Phosphorous?” More aksed. “Belle Reve isn’t in any shape to take in someone that destructive, and if we just leave him here he’s liable to burn down half the financial district when he wakes up.”

Valence was rising to his feet, with Hangfire cradled in his arms. “What about Hangfire’s buddy, Sam? At AXIOMech. Maybe they can hold him, temporarily, as a favor.”

More scratched his chinbeard. “I’ll give them a call. Hell of a favor to ask, though.”

“I know it,” Valence agreed, floating towards the broken window behind them. “I have a feeling it won’t be the last one we need, either. Not by a long shot.” With that, he took flight into the night.

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

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