Issue # 6

"Hard Bargains"

Sylvia Bourque drummed her fingers listlessly against the steering wheel of her teal Dodge Neon as it idled in traffic. The entrance ramp to Interstate 10 was under construction, along with a good section of the Interstate itself beyond; closed and shifted lanes, along with the inevitable gawking at roadworking equipment, brought the flow of cars to a near stop. Even on this Sunday morning, with no road crew in sight, the unfinished business of rebuilding the section of highway created major delays. Sylvia couldn't even muster up any anger toward the absent workers who should be working double-time to complete the overdue project. The delta weather was not conducive to physical labor lately anyway: a sweltering heat and palpable humidity had settled over the mouth of the Mississippi and lay across New Orleans as if the air had turned to wet wool. Sylvia sighed, resigning herself to the uphill battle out of town at a snail's pace.

She glanced into her rearview mirror and looked at the big, black cargo van directly behind her. It looked too old to have decent air conditioning, and from the expressions on the faces of the two men seated inside, it probably had no AC at all. Sylvia felt slightly ashamed to be gawking at the two men, but she hoped that by staring into the mirror she was somewhat anonymous in her observations. She stared merely out of boredom; she suddenly worried that if either man saw her they might think she was scoping them, when nothing could be further from the truth. The dark, bearded driver looked to be well into his fifties, and his companion was younger but had a stuck-up, bookish look about him. Sylvia looked away before either man caught her and made eye contact. In the current standstill of traffic they might actually step out of the black van and come up to her car to talk to her, and Sylvia was decidedly not in the mood to be hit on.

The air above the hood of Sylvia's Neon shimmered with heat, and Sylvia watched the rising waves dance in their random back-and-forth patterns. The ripples in the air began to swirl, surging up and falling in on a central point a few feet over the engine hood, and Sylvia could not recall ever having seen anything quite like it, no matter how hot it was. When the point at which the heat waves gathered turned black and began to lengthen with a high-pitched ripping noise, Sylvia rubbed her eyes, certain now that the heat was playing tricks on her perceptions. She was still working her fists into her eye sockets when she felt her car rock forward and back, as if something extremely heavy had been dropped on the hood of her car, and just as quickly lifted off again.

Sylvia opened her eyes and saw two things. First, she made out the footprint-like indentations on the engine hood of her Neon. Then, in the rear-view mirror, she saw the thing that had doubtless left the marks on her car, now violently smashing its way through the windshield of the van behind her. The two sights were all the persuasion Sylvia needed to abandon her car where it sat. She bolted out the driver's side door and ran, unsure exactly where she was headed, knowing only that she needed to get as far away from the sudden madness as possible.

Pierce had been working on the range of the sub-audible transceivers and they now could reach one another from one side of New Orleans to the other. Additionally, Pierce had instituted a series of codewords for emergency use, single words to stand for broad concepts in situations which did not afford the luxury of time for lengthy explanations. "Sourpuss" would mean that an attempted undercover effort was going badly and assistance that could preserve the secrecy would be appreciated. "Red Cross" indicated some kind of non-criminal disaster such as a building fire or a flash flood. And the word "Code" followed by any number simply meant conflict, requesting backup with all guns blazing. The number indicated on a scale of one to ten the threat represented by the opposition.

On a hot Sunday morning, while driving with Enigma to a nearby research facility, Hangfire called "I-10 on-ramp eastbound ... Code Fifteen" twice before his radio connection went dead.

Ed Baird was driving to his office at the University to pick up some papers he wanted to work on at home. He pulled a hard U-turn and accelerated toward the Interstate, wishing he had a cell phone to call Katarina and let her know he'd be delayed. He wondered if Pierce could be convinced to give him one more sub-audible unit for Katarina; that would be extremely convenient for letting his better half know where he disappeared to when situations arose. Then he imagined Katarina listening to her husband's voice, screaming for backup or simply screaming in pain, and quickly rejected the idea. Sometimes, he reasoned, it was better for her to wonder where he was rather than know for sure.

Ed pulled the car over to the side of the road just before the on-ramp, now cluttered with abandoned cars, and cloaked himself in the illusory guise of Karnival as he stepped out onto the shoulder. He ran up the side of the ramp as fast as he could; above him, he could hear the steady bleating from the horn of a totalled car.

Karnival reached the top of the ramp and took in the chaotic scene. Temporary median walls were toppled all around, many of them cracked or fragmented. A flashing arrow electronic highway sign had been smashed to pieces. Several empty cars were turned onto their sides or roofs; one of them appeared to have been folded in half lengthwise before being unceremoniously re-deposited in the middle of the road. A multi-car pile-up blocked traffic approaching the on-ramp, and Karnival was thankful that it appeared most of the drivers had left their cars and backed away from the melee, forming a defensive cluster fifty yards or so up the highway.

Hangfire's black cargo van was at the approximate center of the maelstrom. Its windshield was gone, save for a few jagged pieces of safety glass jutting from the frame. Most of the van's roof was missing as well, apparently torn off and thrown aside. The creature responsible for the carnage all around stood before the van, straddling a prone Johnny Chancellor, holding a semi-conscious Dirk Walejcka by the throat in a black-gloved hand. It was an incredibly muscular, man-shaped figure, dressed in a light purple bodysuit with black trim around the waist and shoulders. Stiff black ribbons rose from its shoulders, three on each side, to a point above its head and then fell down to the creature's knees so that they resembled skeletal wings. Two more black ribbons draped down from the top of the creature's light purple cowl, which was trimmed in black around the eyes. The eyes glowered malevolently at Dirk, and the creature's fangs were bared in a homicidal grin. It laughed chillingly and hurled Dirk down the road at an overturned car. Dirk collided with the vehicle and fell to the highway surface.

Karnival had never seen the purple and black creature before, but he had spent so many hours researching the subject of 'super-villains' that he felt confident he could identify it. It matched the description of a being called Kestrel. What Karnival could not understand was why the murderous creature, which had always appeared in connection with the heroic duo Hawk and Dove previously, would attack Hangfire and Enigma, especially when the two teammates had been out of costume in their civilian identities. Unfortunately, Karnival did not have the luxury of time to unravel the mystery, but he did have an inspiration for dealing with Kestrel.

Karnival jumped onto the hood of a nearby car, and created the illusion that Hawk mounted the car as well. Kestrel turned toward Karnival as the image of Hawk leapt off the car hood, fists cocked to bash the creature's skull. The only reaction given by Kestrel was a cold, derisive chuckle as the illusion of his arch-enemy passed harmlessly around him. Karnival allowed Hawk to dissolve, cursing himself for not having a B plan and wondering, was it only that illusion which Kestrel was able disbelieve, or would any aspect of his power be useless?

"Blood on the highway!" Kestrel shrieked happily, flexing his muscles. "Bad Blood on the highway, stains on the highway! Bad Blood, dead blood!!!" Kestrel crouched down low and sprang at Karnival, who rolled to the side as fast as he could. Kestrel landed heavily on the spot where Karnival had been and began to turn once again toward Karnival. Kestrel's fingers ended in talons that scratched menacingly along the car's hood as its body slowly pivoted.

"Incoming!" Valence called out triumphantly as he flew into view with More literally in tow. Valence had taken to wearing loops of steel cable around his shoulders; one of the steel cables was now wound around More's waist, enabling Valence to airlift his teammate from the Riverboat. The cable unwound from More's midsection and the strongman fell from the sky and landed on the ground between Kestrel and Karnival. Kestrel hissed angrily at More, who responded with a powerful haymaker across Kestrel's jaw that sent the creature sprawling onto the asphalt a few yards away.

"Valence!" Karnival hailed his teammate, relieved beyond words at the cavalry's arrival.

"What's up, K?" Valence asked. "You know this scumbag?" Suddenly Valence realized Hangfire and Enigma were lying on the ground and obviously badly beaten. "Whoa! Are they okay?"

"We'll worry about that in a minute," Karnival answered. "Right now we need to contain Kestrel," - Karnival pointed at their foe - "think you can handle that?"

Valence stared at Hangfire and Enigma a moment longer, then nodded grimly. He landed on the ground beside Karnival and aimed his hands at the construction equipment beyond the highway shoulder. Sweeping his arms over his head, Valence magnetically lifted a cement-mixer truck and directed it in flight overhead. The strain of moving such weight showed on Valence's face, but the truck obeyed his electromagnetic command. As Kestrel was climbing to its feet, the truck slammed down to the ground, open-end of the cement-mixing chamber first, trapping Kestrel like a bug under a jar.

"Work ... for you?" Valence inquired, catching his breath.

"Beautiful," Karnival nodded. He waved to More and, pointing to Dirk's unconscious form, yelled, "More! Grab Enigma and bring him over here!" He crossed the road to Johnny, who was just beginning to shakily climb to his hands and knees. Karnival and Valence crouched down on either side of the grizzled veteran and helped him up. Johnny looked back and forth between the two of them as his vision cleared, the gave them a wry half-smile.

"Gotta get my mask outta the glove compartment," Johnny laughed. "Folks're gonna see us all together and figure out who I am." With that he disentangled himself from his teammates and walked to his van, opening the passenger door and leaning in to the glove compartment. He emerged a moment later, tying the mask around his head, as More arrived with Dirk cradled in his arms.

"Put him in here, More," Hangfire said, opening the passenger door wide. More laid Dirk on the seat, and was about to speak when the noise began, attracting everyone's attention.

It came from the upended cement mixer, a high-pitched keening like two gigantic buzzsaw blades slicing into each other. More, Hangfire, Karnival and Valence watched as a jagged seam appeared down the middle of the cement-mixing chamber, with black talons jutting from the leading end. Once the seam reached the broken asphalt where the chamber had indented into the surface of the road, it began to widen from the bottom up. The wall of the cement-mixing chamber crumpled as it was pushed to either side as easily as a gauze curtain parting. Kestrel emerged from his now-destroyed prison and howled blood-curdlingly. "Time to feed the worms, Bad Blood! Time to die!"

"What now?" Valence asked doubtfully.

Karnival turned to his teammate while his skull's features morphed. The eye sockets swelled and swam outward to the sides of his head. The mouth became distended and reformed as insectile mandibles. Karnival's hands became elongated as well, the fingers combining into a single curved blade hanging down from each wrist. He resembled some kind of demonic mantis and he answered Valence's question: "Pray." Then he set off toward Kestrel, brandishing his claws like swords, followed by More and Valence.

Suddenly a racing motor could be heard ascending the on-ramp, and a moment later Pierce appeared, riding a red and white Kawasaki motorcycle. He wove in and out of the debris on the highway and zoomed toward Kestrel.

"Pierce - wait!!!" Karnival screamed, but his warning went unheeded. Pierce popped the motorcycle up on its rear wheel, and brought his legs up under him so that he crouched on the back of the inclined seat. Kestrel sinuously widened its stance and flashed a fang-filled smile as Pierce's motorcycle approached.

Half a second before the motorcycle was to reach Kestrel, Pierce jumped straight up off the seat and brought forth his expanding bo staff. The speeding motorcycle was knocked aside almost effortlessly by a swing of Kestrel's left arm, and Kestrel brought its right arm up in a swipe at Pierce. The black talons ripped at the Checkmate armor - and shredded the chest plate, as Pierce's bo staff bounced ineffectually off Kestrel's skull. While the motorcycle skidded into an overturned pickup truck to one side of Kestrel, Pierce hit the ground hard on the other side.

Kestrel laughed, a black and maniacal sound. "Chaos claims the lives of Bad Blood!" it screamed at the team, who remained frozen in place at the sight of Pierce beaten so easily. "Claims and maims and bashes your brains on the rocks! Blood will flow! Bad Blood will flow into a river of DEATH!" Kestrel lunged forward, loping toward the heroes.

An explosion across Kestrel's chest stopped it in its tracks, rocking it back on its heels. The expression of psychotic amusement on its face dropped instantly to unadulterated hatred, directed at Hangfire. Hangfire had emerged from the back of his van with a loaded grenade launcher aimed at Kestrel and scored a direct hit. Unfortunately, Kestrel was only delayed, not stopped. The creature seemed unstoppable.

More capitalized on Kestrel's distraction by tackling it around the knees. Kestrel fell to the road but a moment later kicked out with both legs and sent More flying into a concrete barrier section. Kestrel began to rise again.

"Nobody move," Pierce's low voice came across the subaudible circuit. He had propped himself up weakly on his elbows. "We've got to hit this thing all at once with everything we've got. On my word More goes in and when he has a clear shot we all take a shot. Understood?"

"I hope you're right," Karnival breathed into his own transceiver.

"More, you ready?" Pierce asked, his voice catching slightly as he braced himself and winced in pain.

More was regaining his feet as well, staring Kestrel down across the highway. Pierce lay to Kestrel's left and Hangfire, Valence and Karnival stood in a group a few paces to Kestrel's right. Apparently, More had Kestrel's undivided attention.

More hefted one of the concrete highway barriers up over his head. "Ready, Pierce," he declared.

"Go."

Bellowing madly, More charged at Kestrel, raising the slab of concrete high with obvious intentions of bringing it down on Kestrel's head. Kestrel's homicidal grin returned as the creature tensed and waited. More came within one stride of straddling and Kestrel and swung the mini-wall down. Kestrel barked hateful laughter as both hands slashed into the concrete, which crumbled around Kestrel's talons. More's forward momentum continued, however, and his forehead rammed into the middle of Kestrel's face with devastating force.

Simultaneously, the assault from both sides began. Pierce fired a volley of sonic blasts from his gauntlet into Kestrel's left ribs. Hangfire fired another grenade from his reloaded launcher into Kestrel's right hip. A hail of oversized lug nuts ripped from the wheels of an abandoned tractor-trailer peppered the back of Kestrel's head like machine gun fire, courtesy of Valence. A leathery green tongue covered in sharp spikes and barbs emerged from Karnival's demonic maw and raked across Kestrel's eyes.

During the onslaught, More crouched down in front of Kestrel, trying to make himself as small a target as possible for any stray shots from his teammates. As soon as the barrage of attacks paused, More thrust himself upright and laid one fist solidly into the underside of Kestrel's jaw. The blow knocked Kestrel off its feet, actually lifting the creature up into the air. Kestrel landed on the hood of a car, and was still.

Before the heroes' eyes, Kestrel's muscles seemed to deflate and its entire body appeared to lose mass. Then the light purple and black costume itself became indistinct and rapidly bubbled away into nothingness. Left behind was an average-sized man with a military-style haircut, wearing black fatigue pants and a skintight green t-shirt.

Pierce had gotten himself upright and, with minimal difficulty, approached the man on the car hood. Pierce grabbed the man's shirtfront and backhanded the man's face. The blow drew a trickle of blood from the corner of the man's mouth. "Wake up," Pierce commanded.

The man's eyes fluttered open, and he took in the sight of Pierce looming over him as well as the rest of Bad Blood standing a short distance away. Then the man seemed to become aware of the pain in his mouth and slowly drew his arm across his lips, while fixing Pierce with a glare of unmitigated hate.

"Who sent you here?" Pierce demanded. The man said nothing, actually closing his eyes as if he intended to completely ignore Pierce. Pierce shook him, but the man was unresponsive. Suddenly Pierce twisted the arm the man had used to wipe his mouth, cursed, and began to pry the man's mouth open. The man's body was once again slack against the hood of the car.

"Dammit!" Pierce exploded, letting the man go.

"What is it?" Valence asked.

"The bad news is that someone's gunning for us who has enough power to send that monster whatever-it-was after us. And the other bad news is that whomever it is, their followers are fanatical enough to swallow suicide capsules if captured," Pierce said with restrained fury.

"He's dead?" More asked.

Pierce nodded. He turned back to the corpse and hoisted it up by the shirtfront with one hand, while he rifled through the pockets of the fatigues with the other. In one pocket Pierce found a business card, and shoved that into a small compartment on his own belt.

Suddenly the air was split by the wail of police sirens. Tires screeched up the shoulder of the highway on ramp and three police cruisers soon appeared on the scene of the battle, braking abruptly. An instant later six police officers were out of their cruisers, guns drawn, pointed at Bad Blood. Officer Koelemay was in the lead.

"Freeze!" Koelemay ordered. "Hands in the air, boys!"

Pierce disdainfully allowed the corpse to fall to the ground as he raised his hands, and the others followed suit. "Enigma's not well enough to provide us with a quick and graceful exit, is he?" Pierce asked over the radio channel.

"Fraid not," Hangfire confirmed.

"Then we better go along quietly," Pierce conceded. "Karnival, cover Enigma up, huh?"

Karnival created an illusion of Enigma's red hood and cape around Dirk's unconscious body, as the police officers began moving out from behind their cruiser doors. Each police officer approached a different member of Bad Blood, keeping their gun trained at all times. One officer approached Hangfire's van and roused Enigma, who slowly came around.

"Now I don' know what all went down here," Koelemay shook his head at Pierce. "But what we all is gonna do is go on back to the station so we can all talk about it long as it takes. All right?"

Pierce said nothing, but nodded. One by one, the members of Bad Blood were led to the police cruisers and locked into the back seats.

The support staff of the New Orleans Police Department central station had obviously been briefed that officers would be returning with Bad Blood in custody. Everyone in the building tried to get a good look at the city's mysterious superteam without making it obvious that they were trying to get a look. The police escorted Bad Blood into the station and began to lead them to an interrogation room. Pierce stopped in the middle of the floor.

"I'm not speaking to you without a lawyer," Pierce stated.

Koelemay looked at Pierce with irritation. "Now, is that really necessary?"

"You tell me," Pierce replied evenly, with an unmistakable threat underlying his words.

Koelemay stroked his salt and pepper mustache thoughtfully. "All right. Phone," the officer said as he pointed toward an open desk to the right.

Pierce crossed the room to the desk, picked up the phone, and slipped the business card from the dead man's pocket out of his belt compartment. The card read:

BARTER'S
PAWN AND TRADE
SPECIALIZING IN OBJECTS
OF GREATEST RARITY
666-8888

Pierce studied the card for a moment, slipped the card back into his belt and dialed the number. The phone rang - a ring that was longer and more musical than any telephone signal Pierce had ever heard. It rose up the scale, fell down, and then stopped. There was no answer, and no further rings. Pierce hung up the phone disappointedly. He had hoped to glean more from the lead, and had wanted to do so as soon as possible. Now he would have to wait until the police obtained their satisfactory answers before further investigation could proceed.

Pierce strode past Koelemay and the rest of the police, saying, "My lawyer assures me there's no reason we can't start this right away, to get it over with as soon as possible." Pierce headed straight for the interrogation room, and the rest of Bad Blood followed him, while the police exchanged puzzled glances.

Pierce crossed the threshold without entering the interrogation room. He simply disappeared as he passed through the doorway. Seeing this, Karnival, Valence, More, Hangfire and Enigma rushed through the door frame, and similarly vanished from sight.

The police reacted a moment too late, as an unseen force caused the interrogation room door to slam shut. When the police reached the door and opened it again, the doorway was once again a simple doorway. The police entered the interrogation room and looked into every corner dumbfoundedly. Bad Blood was gone.

Bad Blood found themselves in a medium-sized room, with dark wood paneling on the windowless walls. The walls were hard to see, as they were blocked by a vast collection of myriad items. Glass-fronted cases stood in front of every wall, and shelves rose up their lengths above the cases. Bins and trunks were placed at intervals in the middle of the floor as well. The chamber felt like a homemade showroom that had grown over countless years to accommodate a constantly widening range of items.

The items in the cases and on the shelves and in the bins were even more noteworthy than the cluttered layout of the room. Under one glass front were displayed assorted weapons. Many were recognizable, from highly polished rapiers to time-worn flintlock rifles to an everyday stun gun. But several of the weapons were more exotic, such as a ceremonial sword covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs, or a massive two-headed battle-axe that looked as though it dated back to the Stone Age. Other objects contained in the weapons case were completely alien, their true functions practically indiscernible. On the shelves above that particular case rested several helmets, again in the same eclectic mix of styles and time periods. Two shields were mounted beside the shelves, one clearly African in origin, the other an unearthly yellow metal with a black eagle's head in the center.

All around the room, the display of objects was similar. Some shelves were lined with books, others with toys; one open bin contained stones and gems, another an assortment of fruits and vegetables; here a glass case displayed small appliances, while the one beside it held what appeared to be excruciatingly life-like models of internal organs. The only constant was a lack of constancy. Well-preserved or in a state of disrepair, familiar or strange, simple or staggeringly complex, the broadest imaginable spectrum of items were co-mingled in the room. The heroes of Bad Blood took some time staring around at the dazzling display. More broke the silence first, saying, "Pierce ... what did you do ...? Where ...?"

"Well, you've made it here faster than I expected," a voice emanated from the back of the room. "More resourceful than even I gave you credit for."

The heroes looked in the direction of the voice, a black curtain across a doorway behind a counter. The counter was bare, and apparently the only area of the room not devoted to the display of artifacts. A man stepped out through the black curtain, an average middle-aged man wearing blue slacks and white Oxford shirt. He smiled with what might have been admiration at Bad Blood.

"To answer your question, More," the man continued, "you are in Barter's Pawn Shop. And I, of course, am Barter. An awkward introduction, I know, but it does cover the relevant information."

"You know ... us?" Hangfire asked, with skepticism.

"Indeed I do, Hangfire. I know many things."

"Well we don't know you," Pierce interjected, gathering his wits again, "and I'm not usually comfortable with people who know more about me than I do about them. But obviously we came here because we're looking for information, though I'm not sure how we got here, and if you can provide that information it might set me more at ease."

"Relax, Pierce," Barter tried to placate the Checkmate Knight. "You came here via a dimensional transport which is invoked whenever someone dials my number. Dial it on any phone, anywhere, and the next door you walk through becomes the front door to my humble shop. The fact that you're here leads me to believe you ran across one of my cards."

"Yes," Pierce answered tersely. "In a dead man's pocket."

"Of course," Barter nodded. "Now, what was it you were looking for when you tried to call me?"

Pierce seemed reluctant to answer, as if his every instinct urged him to end the conversation now, but he spoke nonetheless. "I want to know who had us ambushed by that ..." he looked to Karnival to supply the name.

"Kestrel," Karnival offered.

"Well, you certainly made short work of Kestrel, didn't you?" Barter asked, pulling down a large jar from a nearby shelf and holding it up for view. Within the jar a hazy purple light swirled, the same shade as Kestrel's costume. Suddenly eyes and a mouth formed near the surface of the jar and snapped in the direction of Bad Blood. The jar held, however, and Barter returned it to the shelf. "I got Kestrel back early. I knew I made a good deal trading for the use of that one, and not outright ownership. I might even be able to trade it again today."

"What is it?" Enigma asked weakly, as the effects of his treatment at Kestrel's hands were still very much with him.

Barter considered the question, then spoke, "A spell. A powerful spell created by the Lords of Chaos, a magickal embodiment of violence and killing. I imagine the dead man you spoke of, Pierce, was the host on which the spell was cast? Strange, I didn't think it would kill him."

"It didn't," Pierce informed him. "Suicide capsule did."

"Ahhh ..." Barter nodded.

"Now who is it that you traded the Kestrel spell to?" Pierce demanded. "And for what?"

Barter smiled, and a previously unseen wickedness came along with it. "Well, now, I've been giving out free samples here, but that question really has some value to you, doesn't it?" Barter uttered a self-satisfied laugh. "And the answer has value to me. But perhaps we can ... make a deal.

"You see," he swept his hand non-chalantly, encompassing the entire team in the gesture, "you have something in your possession in which I am deeply interested. So much so that I was willing to trade the use of the Kestrel spell to my ... customer ... for a pittance, really. A few hundred thousand in gold. Not the kind of rarity I usually deal in, but it does come in handy from time to time in the acquisition side of my business. Still, I felt I had the better end of the deal, because I knew that by allowing my services to be used against you, you would eventually come to me, demanding to know who was behind it. And I will tell you ... in exchange for one thing."

"What?" Pierce asked guardedly.

Barter's reptilian smile widened. "The Magna of Illusion."

"Are you kidding?" Karnival feigned indignation. "Give up our coffee table? Where would I put my floral arrangements?"

Pierce silenced Karnival with a quick wave of his hand. To Barter, he said, "If you know we have the Magna, then you know the harm it did to New Orleans before we took it into our possession.* And you know we won't let it go."

(* And you know, too - if you read Issues 3 and 4 - DG)

Barter walked out from behind his counter, stroked his hand along the length of an antique telescope standing nearby and sighed. "Such a pity. I had truly believed there was something different about you ... something which could work around the obligatory heroic grandstanding and see the bigger picture." He looked directly at Bad Blood. "I can offer you virtually anything ... ANYthing ... in exchange for the Magna."

"Sounds like ... all the more reason not to let you have it," Enigma commented with labored breath.

Barter smiled lasciviously, with such quickness that it obviously hid much darker sentiments. As he relaxed, he said, "Very well. Then you will have to find another way to solve the mystery of who hates you so much as to seek your deaths by way of Chaos magicks."

"We will," Pierce answered stolidly. "We're leaving. Don't try to stop us," Pierce warned Barter menacingly.

The shop's proprietor smiled innocently. "I would not dream of it," he assured Pierce.

Pierce turned back toward the door, and gave the order, "Come on, let's go." The team fell in line behind him, except for Valence, who had been unusually silent the entire time. His attention was fixed on one object in particular, on a shelf in the corner of the shop. Along with a small apparatus that looked like a hamster wheel twisted into a moebius strip, and a golden statuette of a woman/cow centaur, stood the object of his attention. It was approximately a foot high, with a flat, circular base, a spherical body, and a flat, circular top with a curving handle, all a deep green. A circular opening on the front of the body revealed an impenetrable depth within the object, with an unidentifiable source of green light illuminating the center. Valence laid his fingertips reverently against the Oamite face of a Green Lantern Power Battery.

Valence stood before the battery, utterly transfixed, until his teammates had all exited the store, save for More, who simply said, "You coming, Valence?" and then passed through the doorway as well.

Valence tore his eyes from the power battery and turned away from the shelf. He looked thoughtfully at Barter, his eyes speaking volumes about his internal struggle, and then passed through the doorway, closing it behind him. Barter walked behind the counter and passed through the black curtained doorway once again.

EPILOGUE

The doorway to Barter's shop opened, and Barter emerged from his private back room. He saw his customer and smiled welcomingly. "How may I help you?" Barter asked, as graciously as any expert salesman.

"I'm not here to offer you the Magna of Illusion - it's not mine to give. But what can I offer you for the power battery?" Valence asked.

Barter pulled out an enormous ledger book from beneath his countertop, and laid it open. "Come. I'm sure we can make a deal ..."

 

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

OK, quick note from the author before we dive into the mailbag. Did the very end of this story seem to come from out of nowhere? If so, click on over to Tales of the Green Lantern Corps and read issue #3. Things might seem a little clearer then. Moving on ...

This month's 100% unsolicited mail comes from fellow FDC writer and all-around swell guy, TJ Burns:

I FINALLY got around to reading all of Bad
Blood... I am really impressed! I rarely see so many
creator owned characters in one place that fascinate
me on an individual basis as well as the team concept!
:-) Keep up the great work! :-) - TJB

Thanks for reading, and for the kind words as well, TJ. Now, when are we going to do that Bad Blood/Green Lantern crossover?

NEXT ISSUE: It's international intrigue as Bad Blood finds themselves on a black ops mission they would never have volunteered for. Unfortunately, they won't be given much choice. Will taking outside orders tear the team apart? Or can they emerge stronger than ever - assuming they survive? All this and more ... see you then!