Act Four, Part Two

Artie dismounted and left his horse tied to a bush, then slipped cautiously closer to the final site on Phillips' map. He could hear soft voices in the moonlight. Miss Jones and associates, perhaps? He crept still closer to take a look.

"Selene gazes down upon us, my acolytes," said a woman's voice. "See how she sails closer and closer to the zenith! It will not be much longer before we shall begin. And when we are done…" The voice paused dramatically. "When we are done, ah, just imagine it, my dears! To be young and beautiful forevermore!"

Artie, listening, groaned inwardly. He had found Miss Jones, yes, of that he had no doubt. But she was making ready to do precisely as Prof Koltien had feared she would! Artie peered out cautiously, making mental notes of the positions of all the robed figures in view: thirteen standing and one supine. For a moment he had a clear sight of Jim's face; his partner's eyes were shut as Jim lay there, as immobile as a statue. Then the standing figures began to move, slowly circling around James West as Miss Jones' voice rose and fell, chanting:

O Hecate, Queen of the Night,
High Priestess of Artemis,
Goddess of the Moon,
We call upon thee!
We beseech thee come,
Attend to us, hear us,
Grant us our request
To be ever young,
Ever beautiful,
Ever desirable,
Ever immutable.
Hear us, O Hecate, and come!

Us? thought Artie. Our request? What sort of acolytes had Miss Jones surrounded herself with, anyway? Well, there had to be some way of breaking up this party. A smoke bomb, perhaps…

"Aquarius!" Miss Jones cried abruptly. "Go and fetch the water!"

"At once, my Lady," said a voice. Curious voice, thought Artie as he watched the tallest acolyte, head held high, part from the circling mass. The voice was too high, he thought, to be baritone, yet there was something not exactly tenor to its timbre either. At any rate, as he watched that lone figure pace regally over to the nearby stream and kneel at the water's edge to fill the chalice, Artie had a new idea. He put away the smoke bomb and instead pulled out a handkerchief onto which he dribbled a bit of liquid from a vial.

The robed figure, still kneeling, was unaware of anything wrong until a cloth abruptly intruding itself within the depths of the black hood, introducing a sickly sweet odor. There was no time for the acolyte to struggle or even to think. Aquarius sagged to the ground as the chalice fell from a suddenly limp hand and plopped into the stream.

"I'll just take that, thank you," said Artie, plucking the golden cup out of the water. He hauled the inert figure away from the stream and out of sight beyond a coppice of trees. "I'll take this as well," he added, stripping the black robe off the…

Oh. Well, that, ah, that explained what sort of acolytes Miss Jones had, as well as why the voice of Aquarius had defied classification as either baritone or tenor! Fortunately the unconscious girl from whom he'd just yanked the robe was fully clothed underneath, albeit in an odd outfit that strongly resembled a suit of long johns. Artie slipped on the robe and pulled the hood up over his head, then carried the chalice back to the stream and filled it up.

Miss Jones frowned. "Aquarius!" she called out sharply. "Why are you taking so long? Selene approaches her height! We must hurry or we shall miss our chance this month and shall have to wait for the next full moon. Make haste!"

"At once, my Lady!" came an exact echo of the words the acolyte had last spoken to her mistress. The tall robed figure came up from the stream and returned to the spot at Miss Jones' left, bearing the golden chalice now brimming full of water.

"Excellent," said Miss Jones. She held out one hand for the chalice as she turned to the figure on the other side of her to say, "And now it is time for the knife. Unsheathe it and give it to m… What?" She whirled again to Aquarius, nearly spilling the water. "But this is full! Did you not pay attention when we rehearsed the ritual? The chalice is to be half full, that we may mingle the water with the precious wine. Take it back at once and pour out half the water!"

Again came the words, "At once, my Lady!" as the tallest robed figure accepted the chalice back. And the next moment, that acolyte poured out not half the water but every drop of it.

Directly onto Jim West's face.

For a moment Miss Jones gaped down in shock. Then, "You idiot!" she fumed. "You fool! Water negates the obedience dust! Virgo, quickly, use some more!"

But as the other acolyte stepped forward to obey, Aquarius blocked her with the hand holding the chalice, then decked her with the other fist. "So sorry, Miss Jones," a male voice rang out. "You called for Hecate, but I'm afraid she couldn't come. However," and now the tallest acolyte threw off the black hood to reveal, "Artemus is here!"

"What?" Miss Jones stared in horror for far less than half a second. Then she grabbed the knife from Gemini's hand and slashed it at the intruder in their midst.

She missed, badly. This was because a hand had chopped at the back of her knee, sending her toppling to the ground.

"Hello, James!" said a cheerful voice as Artie beamed down at his partner, then gave him a hand up.

"Good to see you, buddy," Jim replied as he eyed the remaining black-robed figures closing in on them in the moonlight. "You'll fill me in on how we got here?"

"Soon as I get a chance, yeah," said Artie. He was reaching under his robe to grab his revolver with one hand, the smoke bomb with another when the grounded Miss Jones shrieked out, "Fight, my acolytes! Fight like the Amazons you are!"

"Yah!" One of the acolytes sprang at Artie, knocking him flat on his back. Both gun and smoke bomb flew from his hands. The bomb cracked open the moment it hit the ground, spewing out its colorful gas in an empty area, affecting no one, while the gun disappeared entirely. Hissing like a snake, the robed acolyte landed on Artie and began pummeling him for all she was worth.

Jim too was under attack. Three of the acolytes seized him and were rushing him toward a tree, intending to ram him headfirst into it. Jim leapt up at the last second and ran right up the tree trunk a few steps, then kicked off into a somersault, breaking his foes' hold upon him. He slugged them, one, two, three, knocking them all out, then quickly divested himself of that flowing white robe.

Hmm. Beneath he was dressed in nothing more than his usual snug-fitting pants and his boots. Where the rest of his clothing had gone, he had no clue. Something else for Artie to fill him in on later, he supposed.

"Jim!"

West spun to see Artie still on the ground, clutching at his assailant's wrists as the figure in black writhed and twisted. Abruptly the hood fell back, exposing the figure's young and feminine features. "They're girls, Jim! They're all girls! Watch out!"

Amazons indeed! Two more robed figures plowed into Jim, driving him hard into a cypress trunk. "Hold him, my acolytes!" cried out a voice and suddenly the red-robed Miss Jones was standing before the agent, the golden knife in her hand. A light of lunacy shone from the woman's eyes as she smiled at him. "Perhaps this is not precisely the way the ritual ought to be performed," said the many-named Miss Jones, "but it will have to do!" And she lifted the knife on high to plunge it into his heart.

Using the very acolytes who were holding him fast as supports, Jim kicked out at Miss Jones, sending her spinning in one direction, the knife in another. Before either could hit the ground, he planted his feet again, then yanked the two shocked acolytes off their feet and into each other, cracking their heads together. He whirled to go to Artie's aid, but yet another acolyte charged into him and down they both went.

Meanwhile, Artie was trying to deal with his opponent without actually having to hurt her. She fought like a wildcat, and he now had several sets of claw marks across his cheeks to prove it.

Wildcat. There was a thought! Taking a firmer grip on the girl's wrists, Artie rolled, sending both himself and his adversary bowling along the slight slope down toward the stream. At the last second, he released her hands even as he flung out his elbows to stop his own momentum.

Splash! The loud liquidy noise was followed almost immediately by an even louder wail. "I'm wet!" squealed the acolyte. She struggled upright in the heavy robe, then wrestled her way out of the cloth and slung it from her before squelching back out of the water to stand over Artie.

He jumped to his feet, watching her. Was she going to attack again? Miss Jones had called her acolytes Amazons and…

Oh. Apparently not. Instead of going after Artie again, the young woman sank down on the bank of the stream and burst into tears. "I don't like this any longer," she whimpered. "It's not fun anymore!"

A body slammed into Artie, knocking him off his feet. "What did you do to Sagittarius, you beast!" the fresh adversary snarled.

"And don't call me Sagittarius anymore either!" the weeping girl sniveled as Artie found himself on the ground once again. "You know my name is Jessica!"

In the meantime, while Miss Jones and her remaining two acolytes combed the underbrush for the missing golden knife, Jim was finding his latest opponent to be quite a handful. The girl had flung aside her bulky robe and was resolutely giving him more of a fight than any of the others who had come before her. "No pulling punches this time, Mr West," she growled, then drove at him, delivering a one-two combination that sent him to the ground.

She dove after him, but he rolled and came to his feet. Instantly she did the same, dropping into a wrestler's crouch, her glinting eyes fixed on him as they circled each other.

Jim really wasn't fond of hurting girls. He continued to circle, watching her, waiting for her to make the next move, so that he could…

She rushed him, throwing her shoulder into the pit of his stomach to bowl him over. She didn't even notice how, at the last second, he slipped back a bit, blunted the force of the impact. He did fall, though.

And took her with him. As he hit the ground on his back, his hands seized her even as his foot came up and caught her right in the belly. A moment later, the girl was flying through the air.

Splash! Right into the stream. She came up spluttering and drenched, just like Sagittarius before her. And like Sagittarius, she squelched ashore and flung herself down on the bank. She didn't burst out crying, no, but the set of her shoulders said plainly that she had no more interest in fighting.

"Leo?" the erstwhile Sagittarius inquired. "Are you all right?"

She shrugged. "I guess so, Jessica. But it's not Leo, you know; it's Lois."

Those girls sure didn't relish a dunking! Jim thought as he took a second to catch his breath, then started for his partner again. Artie was on his back, attempting to fend off his latest adversary with one hand while with the other he was struggling to pull something from a pocket.

Before Jim could come to his aid, though, a voice cried out, "My Lady! I've found it!" Jim whirled as one of the acolytes seized something up from the ground, something that glittered in the silvery light.

"Excellent!" called Miss Jones as she strode over and reclaimed the knife. "Now, Pisces, I'm sure Capricorn can handle our imitation Aquarius over there," and she gave a nod toward Artemus, "so you come assist Gemini and me, dear, as we finish dealing with our impressive young Adonis."

For a split second Artie thought Miss Jones had said, "Jim and I and me," but all the other zodiacal names disabused him of that idea. As Miss Jones and her final acolytes turned toward Jim, Artie managed at last to get hold of the item for which he'd been fishing. But before he could produce the same vial he'd used earlier to knock out Aquarius, little Miss Capricorn flung her robe over Artie's head, wound its length around his neck, and started to pull it down tight.