[This story follows my prior cycle of stories in this order: The Red House, The Place Where the Black Stars Hang, and The Returned]
Chapter One – Strega
The young magician Zatanna Zatara strolled down the streets of her beloved San Francisco, enjoying the brisk yet sunny day. Many others passed by her - tourists and locals - but she wasn't recognized. Out of her stage costume, she didn't look too unordinary, at least for San Francisco: her long black hair was pulled up in a bun, she was dressed in dark blue yoga pants, suede boots, and a black leather jacket over a loose black blouse.
Zatanna hadn't been out in her city incognito like this for some time, so it was a nice feeling for her. She wished she could just walk and continue walking, maybe all the way to the Embarcadero and watch the seals sunning on the pier. But she had a destination, as reluctant as she was to go to it. It just seemed too nice a day to spend indoors, to have to deal with what she knew was coming.
As she strolled, she couldn't help but notice that the numbers of homeless had increased since the last time she was home; they were huddled in doorways or passed out on the sidewalk, more than a few. Well-dressed-and-fed men and women pretended not to see or hear them. There were reports that tourists had been robbed or assaulted; the authorities promised more outreach services, more police patrols, but nothing ever seemed to change.
Zatanna thought of how San Francisco was beginning to be labeled the 'Gotham City of the West.' She thought that was unfair, but even she had been accosted once. Although she had disarmed the man and offered to get him help, it was evident he didn't have the mental capacity to help himself. There was nothing the police or the hospital would do. So now he was probably somewhere out on the streets right now. It was a shame, she thought.
That would be something that would likely come up in the board meeting, Zatanna knew. She thought of how Batman might have handled her situation, probably rather different than she had dealt with it. He would probably be discussed too. In fact, she was certain of it. Zatanna didn't particularly feel like discussing him at all, for various reasons, a reason she wasn't looking forward to today's meeting at the Alighieri.
The Alighieri Club was a San Francisco landmark, founded in 1936 as a place where magicians and showmen could meet (and compete) and put on their magic shows. It also served as a museum and store. It had outfits worn by Houdini, props used by Penn & Teller and David Copperfield. It stocked every item an aspiring or expert magician could want, from a child wanting to learn a beginner's trick, or an established performer building up his or her stage show. It was world-famous, maybe not as famous as the Golden Gate Bridge or the Alhambra Theater, but every magician in the world knew about the Alighieri and aspired to play there someday.
Zatanna saw it ahead of her, its sign brightly painted in old-style font, incongruous amongst the liquor stores and fast-food joints it was sandwiched between. She paused, before it, getting control of the memories that threatened to overwhelm her every time she laid eyes on it. Then, she stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the dimmer interior, the first thing she saw were the huge posters of famous magicians that lined the walls, some of them very old and virtually priceless. One was of Zatara, from the early 1980s. She saw a few tourists browsing the displays with books on magic and DVDs. In addition to the magic supplies for sale the store sold the usual tourist tchotkes: postcards, shot glasses, keychains, refrigerator magnets, maps of the city and other junk. The actual club itself was adjacent, past a ticket booth.
She saw a salesclerk she didn't know assisting one of the shoppers, but she immediately recognized the other person behind the counter. She waved.
"Hi Joe! Long time no see!"
"Zatanna!"
Joe the Manager (that was what everyone called him, his actual surname was long and Dutch) was a big man with a bushy greying beard to match and ponytail: if the Alighieri had been a comic book store, he would have looked like he just stepped out of The Simpsons. "How are you, lady? We've missed you!"
He came out from behind the register and gave her a bear hug. She laughed, feeling a little better. "Just been busy, I guess."
"Excuse me? Aren't you...the daughter of Giovanni Zatara?" A middle-aged woman, clad in the standard tourist uniform of flowery blouse, white cargo shorts, and sandals, hesitantly asked her.
"Yes, that's me."
"Oh my…I just wanted to say, I loved your father's shows! I saw him once, oh, when was that, it must have been years ago, when we lived in Dallas. Ed, what year was that?" She shouted behind her.
The woman's husband, an equally portly and middle-aged individual, studiously keeping his back to them as he examined the selection of shot glasses, mumbled in reply: "Dunno."
"Well, anyway, we just loved it, and I saw him twice at least. He was so exciting, and I have to say I just loved his Italian accent!" The woman giggled, sounding very young at that moment. "It was very sexy!"
Zatanna smiled, she always enjoyed hearing her father remembered and praised. She knew that Zatara turned up his native accent only when he had an audience of mostly women. It clearly worked. Ordinarily, her father sounded as Italian as Leonardo DiCaprio.
The woman gushed on for a few moments, until her husband got bored. She ended up purchasing a couple of magnets, postcards, a $2.79 bottle of water, and a small booklet describing famous American magicians. She asked if Zatanna could autograph the page that had the one-paragraph bio and photo of Zatara and she obliged.
Joe the Manager chuckled as they walked out the door, the guy clearly in a hurry to get away, the wife protesting. "She didn't even ask about your magic show!"
Zatanna shrugged. "That's all right. Did you see that guy she was with? You just know she had to drag him in here in the first place!"
Joe laughed with her, but his laughter had an edge of sadness to it. "Well, they might have made our biggest sale for the day: twenty-five dollars worth of junk and none of it magic related."
Zatanna's face fell. "Is business really that bad?"
"Zee, I've been working here, what, nearly twenty years now, and it's the worst I've seen. That's a lot. They say it's the economy I guess, and now that they've passed the minimum wage requirement, well…"
He nodded his head towards the young salesclerk restocking the postcard rack. Zatanna correctly guessed she was part-time, and a community-college student just trying to earn her share of the rent money. "I don't know how we're going to get by. We can barely keep help behind the counter as it is."
"I guess that's what the Board Meeting is about," Zatanna replied glumly.
"Yeah. They're already in the back."
She sighed. "I guess there's no avoiding it, then."
Joe smiled reassuringly. "Let's go in together. I'm braver when you're with me!"
"I was about to say the same about you!"
There was a section of the store next to the counter marked "Employees Only Beyond This Point." Beyond was the manager's small office, the employee restrooms, and the maintenance closet. Beyond that was another cordoned-off area, where the employees weren't allowed to go, only Joe the Manager, and then only when he was invited. A crudely-carved, old-fashioned-looking door marked the entry. Zatanna pushed it open without hesitation.
It opened onto a room that would not have looked out of place in a 19th-century mansion or palace. The walls were of reddish, rich colors, giving it a warm and antique atmosphere, as did the furnishings, which included full bookshelves all along the walls and oil paintings of European landscapes. Light came from ornate, art-deco lamps. The most imposing feature of the room was its central hexagonal table of polished black marble. There were mystic designs on its surface, incised with pure gold, and high-backed leather chairs around it.
As Joe the Manager said, there were already three other individuals present. They looked up as the two entered.
The most imposing figure in the room was the only one standing. The Baron Winters was a tall and imposing man, over six feet in height, with a thin, dark beard and narrow eyes, his hair slicked back from his forehead and stretching down to his collar. Dressed in a neat, dark-colored suit, he could have easily looked the part of a European spy, or maybe a gangster. But he was much more cunning and powerful - and dangerous - than a common human spy or gangster could ever be. He seemed always to have an air of haughty disapproval about him, which he often turned on Zatanna, sometimes for good reason, sometimes not.
Next to him, seated, was Madame Xanadu. She could easily have passed for a tarot card reader, which she was, and did, on special occasion for long-time Alighieri customers by appointment-only, or she could have been a hippie vendor at the Burning Man Festival. She was dressed in colorful layers of skirt and scarves, and adorned with hoop earings, bangles, and rings, a purple headwrap concealing her raven-black hair. She could have passed for twenty, or maybe forty: Zatanna had known her all her life, but even she could not say exactly how old she was...only that she was very, very old. She smiled warmly as she saw Zatanna enter, something Winters did not do.
The third person present was not actually a person, and it didn't exactly please Zatanna to see him here. Fuselli was a nightmare imp, a creature who existed in two worlds, the human and the supernatural. Such beings were not unknown to the magician; they had engaged in magickal battle in the past, with the result that Zatanna had wrested a vow from him never to interfere with her dreams again, but their compact had apparently been open to interpretation. Now, he had become a persistent irritant in her waking world, up to it seemed involving himself in her personal and business life. At least he had chosen not to manifest in his true form, which was about as appealing as Gollum. But his appearance as a human dwarf was only slightly better, since he seemed to get his dress-style from watching rap videos.
"And the circle is complete," Fuselli pronounced with amusement as the two entered. "The Board of Directors is all here."
"Zatanna," Xanadu said, accepting a deferential embrace and kiss from the younger magician. "It's so good to see you again." Her voice held the slight British accent retained by long-term expats.
"Let's get started then," Winters said impatiently, taking his seat. He gestured impatiently for Joe to start up the laptop he had brung.
A bit nervously, Joe did so. He had been employed here a long time and well-understood the pecking order; he was somewhere near the bottom. His voice and demeanor gradually become more confident and assured as he went through the books, citing records and invoices and expenditures.
"So what you're saying," Fuselli finally interrupted after about a half-hour of financial babble. "Is that we're running in the red and will very likely continue to do so."
Joe coughed nervously. "Yes. I am sorry but we can't continue to operate without another substantial investment of capital..."
"Isn't there some, I mean, is there anything we can do to cut costs?" Zatanna asked.
"Well, unless we go to compost toilets and candles, we might be able to save on the water and electricity."
"Your comedy is not appreciated," Winters said. Joe just shrugged - he was used to the boss's mercurial mood.
"Beggin' your pardon, Mr. Winters, but there is a bigger picture here. The economy right now simply can't support a business like this. Tourists aren't coming to San Francisco for this kind of magic anyway and taxes have gone up. Business incentives are for high-tech industries, not for our kind of business."
Zatanna winced. It wasn't that she minded financially supporting the Alighieri, but Joe was right. Places like the Alighieri were becoming outdated, and this city was not exactly a business-friendly environment. Joe had done the best he could - they all had - but the writing was on the wall.
"...and also, I've been thinking about retiring," Joe added. "I've had some health problems and my sister has been asking me to move up to Portland to live with her."
"You can't leave now, we need you!" Zatanna was stunned.
"Thank you Zee, but I think it's about time. You've all been very generous, so I won't go until we've gotten some resolution with our bills."
"You've been of inestimable service, Joe," Xanadu said sincerely. "We hope you won't leave us for awhile yet."
"We can't let the Alighieri Club go under," Zatanna insisted. "This is a historical landmark!"
"Looks like historical doesn't pay the bills," Fuselli remarked.
"The Alighieri is more than just a business," Xanadu said in quiet reproach. "The lore of many magicians is stored here."
"Can that lore pay some bills?"
"Xanadu's right, the Alighieri can't go under," Zatanna insisted. "Maybe there's something the city can do."
"I've tried," Joe shook his head. "We're not an 'official' historical landmark. We would have to apply, and even if we got the designation, the city would effectively be in charge of everything that went on here. Can you imagine?"
"No," Winters said. "That's not going to happen."
"No," Joe agreed. "They don't want the trouble, and off the record, they would really prefer if we closed, or relocate at the least. They would like to renovate this entire block, re-zone it and make it into high-end housing, as if we didn't have enough of that."
"No way," Zatanna felt her fists clenching. "They can't tear down the Alighieri. This was where my father played his last show." She didn't add, this was where he died.
Winters waved a hand in dismissal. "The Alighieri is not going to be 'torn' down. We will provide anything you may require. Thank you Joe, you've been very helpful as usual. You may go now."
Joe was used to the curt dismissals, and quickly gathered up his binder and laptop. He mouthed a silent "good luck" to Zatanna as he hurriedly exited and shut the door.
Now only the magicians were left in the room. As soon as Joe left, they were no longer the Board for the Alighieri. They were something else - the nucleus of a group that her father had formed many years ago, for one reason only.
"What are we going to do?" Zatanna was still distressed, thinking that the club might be seriously decline, and that her friend might move away.
"Never mind that right now," Winters said, looking meaningfully at Zatanna. "We have more important matters to discuss."
"What? What else do we have to talk about?"
"You know very well what it is."
Zatanna heard that critical tone in his voice, and became defensive. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Xanadu interrupted her colleague, said in a more gentle tone. "It's about your work with the Justice League, Zatanna."
I knew it, Zatanna thought. "Yeah? What about it?"
"Don't play coy, Zatanna," Winters rumbled. "We want to know how deep your involvement is."
Zatanna could see that Xanadu was also looking for an answer, while Fuselli - not really a part of the group but who had imposed himself on it - watched attentively, like a gossip-hound.
She shrugged, pretended an indifference. "I'm not really a member. I've offered to become like a consultant, in case they have situations involving anything magickal."
"And...have they?" Xanadu asked.
"A few incidents. Nothing serious."
"You're lying, Zatanna," Winters said bluntly. "Do you think we're fools? You were involved during the night of the black stars. Was that not 'serious?'"
"So? I helped them with my abilities," Zatanna glared at Winters. "What's wrong with that?"
"There is nothing 'wrong' with it," Xanadu said. "But you must know you're putting yourself in terrible danger."
"So do they, all the time," Zatanna replied, a bit more sharply than she intended. "I still don't see what the problem is, or why you're making a big deal of it."
"Don't be stupid," Winters said sharply. "You don't know what you're getting into!"
Zatanna glared at him. "Again, why is it any of your business?"
"You know very well!"
Winters stood up, paced away irritably from his chair, a sure sign he was getting aggravated. "We swore a vow, Madame Xanadu and I. To your late father. I am beginning to think we may have failed in this vow, as hard as that is to admit."
"Now, Baron, perhaps that is too strong," Xanadu said.
"Well, don't feel like you've disappointed yourself on my account," Zatanna huffed. "I'm doing just fine."
Winters turned his ice-cold blue eyes on her. "If you mean by disgracing yourself and the name of Zatara, dragging it through the mud even more than it was before, if you think that is fine, then perhaps you are correct. Those 'magic shows' and the way you dress..."
That got her hackles up. "Just how am I 'disgracing' myself? I make an honest living as a performer. What is wrong with that? You are always going on about how the homo magii are supposed to be doing good, leaving its mark on the world, all that bullshit...well, I am, but I guess that's not good enough for you!"
Xanadu sighed, listening to the two of them argue back and forth. This was nothing new, the two of them arguing, over the same thing. It was a lot like father-daughter, and she and Baron Winters had taken responsibility for Zatanna after her father's death, but that relationship had always been rocky, because of Zatanna's age. She had only been a teenager when her father died.
"Yes, I've said it before," Winters was saying. "The homo magii, once we were great upon the earth, but look at us now: we've declined because of foolish and stupid vendettas, rivalries among magicians for the trappings of power, ownerships of useless grimoires. We, who should have been guiding and leading humanity, reduced to cheap showmanship and parlor tricks."
"Is that supposed to be my fault?" Zatanna was getting annoyed now. "You know what I think? I think you're jealous of the Justice League. Superman, Batman and the others, they're doing the things you think we 'homo magii' are supposed to do. It makes you crazy, doesn't it? That I'm part of them now."
"So you are part of the Justice League!" Fuselli sounded delighted. "Splendid! I'd love to meet them someday. I've seen their dreams, some of them..."
"What?" Zatanna turned her anger on the imp. "You're not supposed to do that anymore!"
"Oh, stop clutching your pearls, I've only taken a peek," Fuselli replied. "I'm just so curious. What does an alien's dream look like? Take Superman. You'd think, as the most powerful man on the planet, he would have some interesting dreams. But no, what a disappointment. Just a bunch of cows, mostly." Fuselli shook his head in mock sadness.
"But now this Batman, that's a really sad story. I first looked in on him, awhile back. Very tragic of course. He's the most interesting of them, in my humble opinion."
"What?" Zatanna stared at the imp incredulously. "You interfered in Batman's dreams? Damn it, I warned you about all this!"
Fuselli went on as if he hadn't heard her. "That's what they really want to talk about, you know. I wondered when they would get around to it."
"This Batman," Baron Winter interrupted brusquely. "I know who he is and what he does."
Zatanna stared at all of them; was this what this all was about? "What about Batman?"
"Bruce Wayne, isn't that right?" Madame Xanadu said. "We know that as well as you do."
"He is its leader, he allowed you to be part of this so-called Justice League," Winters said. "Do you know him well?"
Zatanna made a deliberate shrug. "I fucked him once. I don't know if that means I know him well."
Winters looked too infuriated to speak, Madame Xanadu shook her head in exasperation while Fuselli hooted. "My my young lady, and you use the backwards speech with that mouth?"
"All the time," Zatanna pressed her hands against the table, doing her best to conceal the alarm she felt. "Why are you asking about him?"
Baron Winters somehow managed his temper to explain. "I maintain a network of connections among antiquarian and independent sellers of rare books. They drop me notes if they notice something out of the ordinary, someone making purchases of certain books. I received such a note several months ago. A certain English gentleman traveling to various sellers in America, very discreet, making purchases on behalf of another party, whom he would not disclose, who was willing to pay vast sums of money."
Winters produced a photograph from within his coat, tossed it across the table to Zatanna. "Do you recognize him?"
She slowly picked it up and looked at it. It was clearly taken without the subject's awareness, perhaps from a surveillance camera. "Yes," she replied slowly. "His name is Alfred Pennyworth. He's Bruce Wayne's butler. He's harmless."
Winters gritted his teeth. "No one is harmless who would traffic with the works of the Outer Darkness!"
"He's harmless I said! Leave him alone!"
"Did you know the man had procured a copy of De Vermis Mysteriis? Do you call that harmless?"
"He hasn't read it," Zatanna muttered. "He's not using it. He's just keeping it secure."
"What is this? You knew that Wayne was collecting books on the occult?" Xanadu sounded astonished.
Zatanna shifted uneasily in her chair. "He collects a lot of things. He has a right to know what he's fighting against."
"You know very well this is different, Zatanna!" Winter snapped. "The Outer Darkness is not something that one should look to confront."
"Bruce isn't trying to confront it. He didn't ask for this, none of us did! But someone, something is bringing it to us, and we have to fight."
"You know very well this is not something you can defeat by fisticuffs," the old man objected. "You talk as if you were one of them."
"I...I am one of them," Zatanna said. "I work with them, they're my friends."
"You are most certainly not one of them," Winters snarled. "You are homo magii! You have no business telling these people about magick."
"Do you think I just give away all my secrets? Do you think I'm that big a fool?"
"No, just fool enough to whore around with that madman who calls himself a Bat." Winters glared at her. "You are a disgrace to the homo magii and to the memory of your father! I truly hope you think about that and what you are doing."
With that Baron Winters made an elaborate gesture and vanished in a flare of purplish-blue light, leaving the three of them alone. Zatanna turned angrily away from the others, crossing her arms and scowling furiously. Fuselli laughed silently to himself while Xanadu sighed.
"You mustn't take what he says to heart, my child. He is upset, because he sees what is happening and is powerless to do anything."
"Then maybe he should join the Justice League!" Zatanna heard the petulance in her voice but couldn't help it. Baron Winters always made her feel like a misbehaving child. "It's not like he's helpless, he could do something. He's just...just..."
"He's a very proud man, but do not doubt, he hasn't forgotten his vow to your father. Neither have I."
"So you both think I need protection?"
"We could all use some protection, I think," Fuselli piped up before Xanadu could reply. "I didn't get to finish my Batman story. As I said, I looked in on his dreams - yes, yes, it's all wrong and bad - but believe me I wish I hadn't. Such a tragic scene, night after night! You'd think he'd eventually get over it...and maybe he did."
Zatanna stared at the imp's troubled face. "What are you talking about?"
"I don't see that scene anymore, the one in which he dreams of his parents' murder. I don't see it because I can't see his dreams."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"It is, since that is my business. A month ago, I tried to re-enter his dreams - just to see if anything changed - and it had. I can't enter."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I cannot enter. There is some kind of veil, a fog that occurs. I cannot pass through it, and I...I am not sure I want to. He is not creating it himself, of that I am sure. His dreams, if dreams he has, lie beyond that. It is acting as a barrier, and I don't think it is something I want to risk to cross. I do not know what is causing it."
Fuselli looked at Zatanna and shrugged. "I am not as brave as you, of course, Justice Leaguer and all."
"But that is certainly disturbing news," Madame Xanadu said carefully. "First, that Bruce is collecting these forbidden books, and now his very mind is blocked to such a creature as Fuselli."
"I told you, he's not trying to do anything."
Fuselli eyed her sharply. "Are you certain of that?"
Zatanna just glared at him. She didn't want to think he might have something there.
"Never mind him. I must tell you of something else."
Madame Xanadu brought out her tarot cards, unwrapped them from a silken cloth and shuffled them carefully and precisely. Her deck was unique only to her, of a design that suggested ancient Celtic elements.
"Even though I don't prefer to do this, I have tried to read the future in this situation. Often the same four cards turn up."
She dealt three cards from her deck face-down. Slowly, she turned them over, one by one.
The Tower. The Lovers. The Magician.
Zatanna was not a skilled tarot reader as Madame Xanadu; she could hear Bruce's voice in her head, scoffing at the whole notion.
"Well, that's not a bad draw," Fuselli remarked. "Providing that they're the proper side up, that is."
Xanadu shook her head impatiently. "No, it is not about their relationship, Wayne and Zatanna's, that I am concerned about. I said there was a fourth card."
She seemed to hold her breath before drawing the top card, hesitantly. Even more hesitantly, she turned it over.
This card was solid black, except for the white lettering like all the other cards had. This one read:
THE VOID.
Zatanna and Fuselli stared at it. It truly did look like a void. Zatanna had recently read something in the news about a new shade of black that scientists had developed called Vantablack, the most absolute shade of black that light seemed to vanish when striking it, that no contour lines or shapes could ever be formed within it. This particular tarot card seemed to look like it was made of Vantablack. It even seemed to suck the light out of the room, it even looked dimmer here...
"Strange," Fuselli mused. "I've never heard of a tarot card labeled 'The Void' before."
"I don't understand. Why are you doing tarot readings on me? I don't even understand how they can work like that when I'm not here."
Hurriedly, Xanadu swept up the card back into her deck, and the strange light-dimming sensation they had felt was gone.
"No," she said. "Neither have I. But it appears now, in my deck. Ever since the night of the black stars, it has when I lay out all my cards, it is not there. But when I try to do a reading, such as...the one I just did now, then it appears. I am certain the two events are connected."
The elder wise woman stared imploringly at Zatanna. "My child, I beg you to be careful in your work with the Justice League. First that terrible night, and now, what you and Batman did in Australia, yes I know about it...and I fear it is not the end. I know you do not want me to be involved in your personal life, but for your own sake, do not get involved any more than you are with this Batman. The cards' reading are for him. He is on a path that will only lead to great pain and suffering."
Zatanna shook her head stubbornly. Madame Xanadu recognized it as a trait of her father's.
"No. I vowed to work with the Justice League. I made a vow of my own to my father: he spent his entire life atoning for the crimes someone else committed, and he suffered for it. I'm not going to do that. I know he didn't want that for me. If 'pain and suffering' are foretold, as you say they are, I'm going to do my damnedest to stop it before it happens!"
"Zatanna..."
"I love you, but respect my decision, Madame Xanadu," Zatanna rose from her chair. "I'm not abandoning Batman or any of the others, and don't try to prevent me. Yawa."
With a flash of purple light, she vanished from the Alighieri's private room.
"Well, I would say that went wonderfully well," Fuselli proclaimed. "What now?"
"If this is the path she has decided in, there is nothing we can do. It may be her fate."
"I know you don't believe that, and Baron Winters won't either."
The ancient sorceress thought for a moment. Finally said said.
"Stay close to her as you can without getting in her way. Keep an eye on this Batman too. I suspect there are things she has not revealed to us."
"Oh, of course there isn't. But I wonder what you are thinking. She's said repeatedly she doesn't want my help in anything."
"I am thinking, imp, that it is protection she will need."
"Surely not from this Batman? He may be big and tough, but he's just an ordinary human, when all's said or done."
Fuselli stared at Xanadu when she didn't reply.
"Could it really be possible?"
"Anything is possible," Xanadu replied slowly. "Where the Outer Darkness is concerned...and I feel it is drawing close."
[A/N: Thank you for reading the first chapter of my new story! It will be BM/ZZ primarily, but we will see SM/WW also a lot, and an upcoming chapter will be very much WW and baby Jon-centric. This is a setup introducing some of the DC characters involved w/Zatanna, although altered to fit this AU storyline. I hope you will enjoy the suspense as it builds. If you want to know the backstory, please read my prior JL stories, and I'll try to do a little synopsis of each story on my profile page. Please review and let me know what you would like to see happen!]
