Chapter 4

James stood in the living room of his apartment, strummed on his guitar, and sang, "She Talks To Angels." He stopped for a moment and turned on the news. The reflection from the television lit up the entire room, and when he looked around the apartment for a short moment, he thought he saw something.

"Why did you stop?" JJ asked as he stared directly at James.

"Oh shit!" He exclaimed. "Can you announce yourself, JJ?"

He hopped on James' couch with an attitude like he owned James' entire apartment. He then said, "Did you read my email?" James put his guitar back in its case and clamped down the latches. He looked up at JJ for a moment with a calm visage.

"You're dealing with a time manipulator named Perilous Pearl, right?" He asked with a grimace.

"Yeah, but you're acting like it's solely my problem," he said. "She's trained and trained well and has some of the best fighting skills in the verse. She's also a level five telepath with the ability to cripple the Kryptonian mind." He walked over to the balcony, and said, "She nearly killed GK."

"But Kara's Kryptonian," he said. "She won't be any match for her raw strength."

"You keep saying that like it means something to me," he said. "Kryptonians are new to Earth, James, but not the rest of the universe. They know all about Kryptonians in the expanse, and they've developed tools to take them down." He turned back, looked at James, and said, "Think of their skin as armor, and advanced races have armor piercing weapons. There are too many aliens on this planet to not take proper precautions at all times. Kara can't merely walk around like she's indestructible."

"Ganthet took out both Clark and Kara," James said calmly. "But he's godlike with one of the strongest Lantern rings in the verse."

"Just keep a watchful eye for Perilous?" JJ asked. "I know she is around. I feel her. It's like she's trying to break my mental defenses."

James shook his head in disbelief for a moment. "It's two thirty in the afternoon, JJ," he said, "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"I'm out of school at two o'clock," he said, "Peppermint went home to rest because of the pregnancy and Vera is studying for her Calculus test tomorrow."

"What are y'all going to name the child?" He asked.

"Honestly, I don't know yet," he said. "I've been given it a lot of thought. He'll probably just be a junior."

"Did you know Maggie and Alex broke it off?" He asked as he poured JJ some orange juice. He handed the young man the glass, and then said, "She's pretty broken up about it too."

"Yeah. I know all about it," he said. "Alex told me it wasn't my fault, so I feel good about that. Alex will just have to find somebody with similar desires."

"It didn't have anything to do with me either," James said. "Alex wants children and Maggie don't want children. It's that simple. So, you're right. She's going to have to find a lady with her desires."

JJ quickly left James' apartment, and the CEO of CATCO walked onto the balcony and sat in his peaceful hot tub. It became his place of solace, a place where he could be unwound from a hectic day of dealing with Lena Luthor. Some soft music played in the background, and he smoked on an old-fashioned cigar. It had a manly smell to it, the kind of smell grandfathers and men in power had. He thought back, way back to his father, and how he told him great men often relaxed with a cigar. He liked his cigars Cuban, sweet smelling, and with a hearty flavor because his lofty bank account allowed that. He sat back in his cozy hot tub, looked over the city, and enjoyed the ambiance of it all.

He already had the black suit ready for work in the morning because Lena wanted to show him some ancient artifacts, and according to her, she had a necklace older than two hundred thousand years that a great witch used to entice and seduce a god. Once the witch slept with the god, a darkness engulfed the world for nearly two thousand years until another god named Luciferous broke the enchantment. It sent the witch into a tailspin, and when the god awoke from his delusional state, he killed himself because everything he loved and his one true love was all gone. He had nothing left.

He didn't trust Lena Luthor, especially since her momma worked her subterfuge on Supergirl and the DEO. Often, he wondered if JJ knew anything about Lillian Luthor because he worked for Cadmus and she was a high-level official in the organization. Parts of Cadmus had gone rogue, but not the Gotham branch; they worked mutually with the DEO.

Alien Club:

When James walked quietly into the Alien Bar, he didn't realize a small concert was happening to the front of the club. The dank atmosphere brought chills to him, but after he drank a few Apple Martinis, he expected the smell to go away. There were nearly two hundred people in the place of all calibers and hues. Kara and Alex set off to the side, on the floor, and listened to the singer with long black hair, very Gothic, and singing a song called, "Creep." When Winn walked over to him, he said, "Your boy is tearing it up."

"My boy?" James asked. He was trying his best to figure out what he meant because he didn't have any close friends in National City except for Winn and Kara.

"Yeah," he said, "JJ and Peppermint are rocking it. He shook his head back and forth, and listened to the soft sounds, and said, They sound professional." He couldn't believe he didn't immediately think of JJ when Winn said, "Your boy." It made sense since JJ lived in Little Africa.

"If that's JJ, then it's professional. I know who trained him," he said with a smile. "Mark Hammond of the group, 'This Band Sucks' trained him."

"I've heard them play," Winn said. He shook his head in agreement and then smiled. "It makes sense."

Suddenly JJ spoke from the stage and said, "There's a lot of sadness tonight, a lot of broken hearts." He strummed the strings of his guitar one time. It was like he was trying to get everybody's attention for what he had to say. He then said, "It's not easy on Earth." He smiled and then placed his right hand on his chest. He then said, "I know. I have some of the best friends in the world, and it's not easy." He pointed directly to James and Kara. "I have the best fiancee on the planet, and it's not easy." Peppermint stood right by his side. "I love her so much." He kissed her on the cheek, and the crowd cheered. He then said, "But when you have so many good people in your life, it's not hard either. This song is to my friend Alex." He pointed to Alex, and she raised her drink in the air. "It's called 'Fix You' by Coldplay." James listened to JJ as he sang out his heart, and the way he threw his voice almost seemed impossible. He sounded just like the actual band, and Peppermint played the keyboard in the background. Alex began to sob, and so did Kara. They put their drinks in the air and gently swayed back and forth. When he started on his guitar solo, he said, "Peppermint and I love you, Alex."

When JJ finished with the Coldplay song, Peppermint set a stool in front of him. Another young girl walked up on the stage with an acoustic guitar, handed it to him, and then she hugged him. She had another acoustic guitar, and she sat behind him in the ready position. "This is the last song I'm going to play tonight," he said into the microphone. "I have my best friend Vera backing me up. She's awesome, guys." He paused for a moment and smiled. "I just want y'all to know it's been fantastic to have you here, on this planet, and hanging with me. I just want you to know that you're all highways, you're all the sky, and you can all accomplish anything if you put your mind to it." He had his guitar at the ready, and said, "This song is by Audioslave. It's called 'I Am The Highway.'"

The beautiful song started off with Peppermint on the keyboard. It flowed melodiously, and then she kicked in with the drums, and JJ and Vera started in with the acoustic guitars. As JJ sang the song, the entire crowd swayed back and forth, hands in the air, and seemed to be lost in his voice. Some of the people in the crowd cried, including James. He couldn't believe how well JJ and his fiancee played, and the way the room responded to them. The entire Alien Bar swayed with them. He played with so much passion that James could hardly believe the Gothic dressed kid on the stage was the same guy who constantly showed up at his house unexpected.

Next morning…

James drove his fancy, Acura NSX Base sports car to the opening of the new Luthor Depository; it was a nice sized building with ancient artifacts that went back over one million years. The building looked like it belonged in Gotham instead of National City with its triangled windows and steeples. It was so Gothic looking that Kara asked James as soon as she saw him, "Was JJ the designer?"

"Honestly, I'm thinking the same thing," he said softly. "It looks like something he'd design."

When he walked into the building, the room's size overwhelmed him for a moment. They looked at some of the artifacts, but Lena appeared to focus on one particular piece more than anything else: the necklace.

"Look, James," she said with a smile on her face. "This necklace was made in the region of Africa where Cameroon lies," she said, "It dates back to two hundred thousand years ago when the region worshiped the god, Ptah." It was a beautiful necklace of pure crystals and gold, and from what James could tell, it enamored Lena. "Ptah married Sekhmet in the ancient tale, but the witch who made the necklace was jealous of the union and used it to destroy him. Her name was Apate."

"It sounds like a beautiful story," James said.

"It's one of tragedy," she said softly. She looked like she had gazed into space for a moment. "It's all myth."

"But beautiful nonetheless," James said. "You tell it so eloquently that if I didn't know any better, I would say you're pining for the curator's job."

She smiled. "That's too much work," she said as they walked side by side. "Keeping up with all this would be a nightmare."

When James looked over his left shoulder, he saw Kara bending down, and she had a slight nosebleed. Quickly, he ran over to her, and looked directly into the case at the green rock, and knew it was kryptonite.

"What's that doing here?"

When Lena realized James wasn't with her, she looked over at the case of kryptonite, and said, "Come to find out that kryptonite was on Earth over four hundred thousand years ago." She paused. "The scientist are baffled by this."

James and Kara played off her allergic reactions to the radioactive rock, and he placed his left arm around her to help keep her upright until she recouped from the effects of the radioactive material. He looked back at the rock, and the fact that it was dated from four hundred thousand years ago, baffled him. It was possible that a time traveler took it back in time, but he had a feeling that wasn't the cause. During his testing and training with Cadmus, he overheard Rachel Ballard discussing a war between the gods, Kryptonians and other super beings. The war had taken place over a million years earlier, but the Kryptonians lost it. Since Clark never mentioned a great war nearly a million years earlier, he didn't know what he believed.

Lena estimated the Depository could bring in over twenty-two million dollars a year if done right, but James wasn't sure what that meant. There were tons of ancient artifacts, but the age of most of them didn't seem realistic to the average person. All the items she had on display were much older than recorded history, and that in itself was controversial.

Ms. Luthor walked around the auditorium and discussed every item, and then she rolled back a large painting from the twelfth century BCE, and it made both Kara and him nervous. He walked up to the masterpiece, looked back at Kara, and both of them looked like they saw a ghost. The picture looked like JJ and Peppermint, but they were of a darker complexion, a deep blackness like he had never seen in his life.

"These two were great gods," she said with a smile. "Lovers throughout time. It's said that Ptah took the mind of his wife, put it into another being, and turned her into his wife Sektmah. This was the first painting of them that's in existence." She paused for a moment. "It was rumored that alien races of great powers tried to destroy mankind, and they fought them off effortlessly." She laughed. "It's rumored they loved each other for thousands of years until the witch with her magical charm stole him away from her. She committed suicide about a year after he left her, and then when the spell broke, he killed himself." She laughed. "Due to the fact they consummated their relationship while she wore the charm, she went mad when he died, and killed herself. It's a tragic story."

"Are you seeing this?" James said to Kara.

"Just a coincident," she said with a dithering smile. "I'm freaked out, James. This explains a lot."

"You're right. It's just a coincidence," he said with a scowl. "Look at the look in his eyes?"

"It's uncanny," she whispered. "I'm just going to back away from it, and pretend like I didn't see it."

"What's going on back there?" Lena asked.

"This picture is so lifelike," James said. "I mean this isn't what the real gods looked like."

"The artist, according to the notes my scientists deciphered, drew the picture from messages from the god himself."

"Which god?" Kara asked.

"Ptah," she said, "In Egypt, he had the face of an animal, but in Central Africa, he had the face of a man. They said in some regions of the universe he was called Vulcan."