All characters and situations belong to DC Comics. The Story is mine. Copyright such as it is 30th September 1998

BOOK TWO: THE HUNT

CHAPTER SEVEN - STONE RIDGE

"I love how you do that." Ted commented as they materialised in the centre of downtown Stone Ridge.

"Slight of the hand." Zatanna said with a smile before casting her gaze on this sleepy little town of Stone Ridge. Despite the peaceful serenity of the morning, her senses immediately flared. Something here was out of balance but she could not tell what that was exactly.

Meanwhile her companion, the Blue Beetle was oblivious to any psychic anomalies that she might have detected. He continued speaking, unaware that the there were visible disturbance in the energies flowing through this supernatural focal point. All he could see was the facade of the small town USA exemplified for his benefit. Yet even though she could sense the aberration, she could not identify it.

"It must be quite an advantage having your own instant teleportation device." Ted declared, unaware that Zatanna was slowly becoming uneasy at their situation.

"It a saviour during the holidays." She remarked, not really interested in what he was saying because at the moment it was hardly important. Besides, he had been offering her little compliments ever since they had met that morning at Warriors. Zatanna was hardly surprised that he was attracted to her because she had sensed his feelings the evening before. His attempts to curb his boyish manner to something more mature and sedate was flattering, if somewhat misplaced at the moment.

He noticed none of this. At the moment, Ted was more concerned about not looking like an idiot around one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He had not fallen down so hard with pure adoration for any female since he had first laid his eyes on Wonder Woman. Yet Zatanna did not have the unattainable veneer that the Amazon Princess possessed. He had watched all night at Warrior and found that she was not quick to judge them as most of the pre Maxwell Lord Leaguers tended to do. Instead, he had the impression that she liked them all because they were more relaxed than the previous League had been. With members like Hawkman and Aquaman in the team, Ted had every reason to believe that humour was very lacking in those past incarnations.

For once however, he wished Booster was here with him. Despite his attempts to be charming, he felt uncomfortable around Zatanna because the need to impress her was overwhelming. However, Guy was adamant that Booster keep an eye on Catherine and to that effect, he felt for his best friend. He had also reluctantly turned the Bug over to Guy for his trip to Europe. With Zatanna's unique was of travelling and his new found flight ability, it was a necessary sacrifice. Still, it felt odd turning over the Bug to someone else but he supposed he would become used to flying from one place to another eventually.

"It is." Zatanna replied. "But it took me a long time to learn it however."

There was a slight stir in the local population at their appearance, Ted noticed. People had stopped to look, point and then after the initial novelty had faded, made a beeline for the nearest camera shop to get pictorial mementoes of the occasion. Like every other small town in every forgotten corner of the world, anything different was an event. Ted saw little had changed since their last visit here and it was very likely that nothing would, after they left again.

"Well it looks normal." Ted stated but knew looks could be deceiving. The Gray Man's specialty was manipulating dream essence to feed his illusions. For all they knew, this quiet little town could be the seventh level of hell or even worse, Delaware. Their eyes staring at him, made him feel a little self conscious. Not that he that he could blame them, considering that he was dressed like a blue bug and Zatanna looked like a magician's assistant, probably named Sharon.

Zatanna said nothing for the moment, ignoring the curious stares of Stone Ridge's occupants and Blue Beetle's attempt at conversation as she absorbed the energies of this place. She had been correct about Stone Ridge. It was a focal point for psychic activity. Such places attracted supernatural forces instinctively, like salmon to the rivers of their birth. Despite his delusions of grandeur, the Gray Man was subject to these forces whether he liked it or not. While he may believe that he was acting of his own free will, cosmic design had compelled him here then as it did now. He was drawn here as moth was drawn to a flame.

However, she was disturbed greatly because although she could not sense the Gray Man's presence in the immediate vicinity but could him. Somewhere in this place, something of himself lurked, possibly awaiting their arrival as catalyst to awaken.

"Do you sense something?" Ted asked when she had not spoken for a few minutes.

"I do." Zatanna replied. Her voice was taut and wary while her blue eyes still moving across the area in search of something that was unseen to all but herself. "I can sense his presence but he is not here."

"I don't understand." Ted replied coming to her. She seemed so genuine worried and he knew even in this short time of their acquaintance that she was not prone to hysterics. She had more experience in these matters than he and most of the Crusaders put together. "Is he projecting himself?"

"I can't tell yet." Zatanna answered happily, wishing she had more of an answer to him. She could sense his fear growing and realised then that the Gray Man scared him. He did not fear for his life but he feared the power one being could amass at the expense of so many. She wished she could allay those fears but it was beyond Zatanna's power to do so.

"We should look around." Zatanna suggested. "I can't sense him being here personally here but there is something that's not right."

Ted took another look at Stone Ridge. This time he did not simply run his eyes over the place like a visiting tourist but utilised his skills as a detective to observe as oppose to merely looking. After taking their photographs and expending a few minutes of curious chatter regarding the superheroes' purpose in town, the citizens of Stone Ridge went about their business again. However, Ted noticed that some had remained and were staring at them hard.

"Zan," he motioned her over to him. "Look at those people."

Zatanna had been concentrating on locating the Gray Man through the ethereal plane and had not really expended much time in close observation. At his beckoning, she strode next to him and followed his gaze. At first, she could not see to what he was referring. The collection of people who were staring a them numbered a little under twenty. Yet there was something in the way they stood and the manner in which their eyes fixed on herself and Beetle that made her nervous. Their eyes looked sinister, almost predatory.

Uncomfortable as it was superheroes, it was not unusual to be so carefully scrutinised when they were out in public like this. After all, they were an enigma of sorts to the normal people of the world. However, what she sensed from them was frightening. Their souls sang out like a black well of hate, so deep and desolate that its ferocity made her retreat from her probing like a scalded child.

"Its them." She responded with eyes wide. "They're his."

Ted could well believe it. He may not have had her psychic insight but he knew trouble when he saw it. Indeed, their faces seemed trapped in that one blank expression of nothingness that chilled him to the bone because they looked at him with dead eyes. They merely stood there, staring at him and Zatanna, like vile things that lurked in the darkness of his worse nightmares.

"That's what I am sensing." Zatanna said quietly. "He may not be here in body but he certainly is present."

Ted guessed immediately what she was talking about He had enough experience with the Gray Man to know that he was capable of projecting himself from a completely different location. There was no reason why he could not do the same using other hosts. The Gray Man had turned Captain Marvel into one of his puppets during their first encounter. If he could do that, then the people of this town were all subject to his control.

"What do we do?" He turned to Zatanna for guidance. This was her area of expertise supposedly.

"We can't do anything until we find the Gray Man." She explained quickly. "He is the source of this infection. We cannot free these people until he relinquishes his control."

As the words escaped her lips, Ted saw the group suddenly withdraw. Instead of coming after them, they started moving back to town. At first, neither Zatanna nor Ted could understand why they had suddenly retreated. They seemed to have no interest in either of them and yet Zatanna could not forget the hatred she felt inside them.

"I don't think we should be here." Zatanna said to Ted.

"We can't just leave these people like this!" He declared. "We've got to help them."

"If we are to help them, we must reach the Gray Man." Zatanna retorted to his outburst. "Don't you see, he will use them against us because he knows we will be afraid to hurt them. Unfortunately, no such rules bind them about our welfare."

"Well they don't seem to be too interested in us right now." He protested and started walking up the way the group had departed. By now, Gray Man's puppets had penetrated the heart of town and their purpose became terrifyingly clear. A succession of screams followed as the Gray Man's servants started absorbing the rest of Stone Ridge's population into his dark world.

Ted saw the group spread out across the street, entering shops and homes, moving across the parks like an ever expanding web. Within minutes, everyone on the main street of town had become recruited in the Gray Man's army of zombies.

"We've got to get these people out of here!" He shouted and leapt into the air, heading toward a stretch of road, where a woman and her child were running from the growing hordes. The streets of Stone Ridge had now descended into chaos. People were fleeing in terror but were not able to outrun the Gray Man's other selves who were expanding at a geometric rate. Most had simply stood there and allowed themselves to be overcome because they could not believe that the person coming towards them, who might be a husband, a friend or neighbour would harm them. At least until it was too late.

"!ereh morf yawa sluos eerf eht lla ekaT" Zatanna cried out. "hcaer sessenkrad fo tuo meht tuP"

A whirlwind appeared out of nowhere and moved across the street, sweeping up papers, leave and dirt into a vortex that drew in anything that was not held down. The vortex travelled up the main stretch of town, drawing all those who still remained free of the Gray Man into its powerful suction. Trees were struggling to remain rooted to the ground as windows slammed shut and glass shattered in the wake of the mystic maelstrom.

Ted never reached the woman and her child in time. Zatanna's spell had removed them from danger before he could even touch the ground. However, her powerful incantation had another effect. The Gray Man's zombies had been content to absorb the inhabitants of Stone Ridge. However, now that they were gone, it appeared that Zatanna and himself had become viable targets again.

He was in mid air and was able to get a bird's eye view of them closing in on her. Zatanna was concentrating on removing the rest of Stone Ridge's population and did not see them coming for her. Even from the air, Ted could see the concentration on her face from invoking such a powerful incantation. God, she was beautiful when she under pressure, he found himself thinking. The sky had become grey with dark clouds adding cosmic energy to the force of the swirling vortex at her command. He wondered how it was possible to manipulate energy on such a scale and decided this was a question for another time. He had to reach her before they did.

"Its time to go Zan!" He shouted as he flew towards her. It never even occurred to him whether he would be able to fly carrying another person

Zatanna had little time to protest before Ted swept her off her feet and they were both flying in the air. She felt a rush of wind beneath and his arms encircling her body as they left Stone Ridge below them. Zatanna ignored the sensation and concentrated doubly hard to maintain the spell so that it could remove the rest of the town's citizen to safety.

"Just a little longer," she told herself. Her eyes were shut tight in concentration because it took a great deal of focus to maintain such a spell. "We're almost there."

Ted said nothing because he had problems of his own. While he had practiced his flight ability quite a bit since acquiring the Blue Beetle scarab, unfortunately he had neglected to practise with carrying anyone. While Zatanna struggled to save everyone in the town below them, he was struggling to stay airborne. Booster and Guy had told him there was a trick to this. He knew it could be done because he had seen Superman carrying Lois Lane on the front page of the Daily Planet about a thousand times.

"There!" She exclaimed as she sensed the last person in Stone Ridge being spirited away to safety for the moment. The maelstrom died in the middle of a playground, disappearing with a final crack of lighting. All the debris and litter made air borne in the waves of wind now floated to the ground harmlessly. Stone Ridge no longer looked harmless. The servants of the Gray Man were now wandering about aimlessly, looking for prey that were no longer there. She wondered how long it would be until they would go in search of others.

Ted could see beads of sweat running down her brow and he realised how difficult a feat she had performed. Zatanna was breathing hard, her exhaustion was obvious. However, she did not seem at all pleased and Ted could understand why. There were still a large number of people left in the town they had not managed to save.

"I tried to save all of them." She said softly.

"You did enough." Ted replied, although his own concentration was focussed on another problem. Although he was putting as much distance between Stone Ridge and themselves, he was having difficulty maintaining stable flight control.

"Beetle," Zatanna suddenly looked down at the ground and realised that he was not flying as well as she should. "Is there a problem?"

"Not so much of a problem," he said through gritted teeth as he suddenly felt his control slip when they approached a canopy of trees. "I haven't been flying long you see and this is the first time I've had to do it carrying someone else."

As he said that, Ted started losing altitude and they both plunged downwards towards the trees below them. "Zatanna! If you can teleport! Now would be a good time!" He shouted.

"!ytefas ot su ekat" She cried out before letting out a short scream as a large tree branch rushed up to meet them.

*********

It was a short scream that ended when they both plunged into the cold water of a near by lake.


With little time to think of a destination, Zatanna was not specific when she had cast the spell. The forces of magic although mysterious tended to be utilitarian at time and would often use the tools at hand. In this case, the nearby lake that could break their fall. Fortunately, they did not fall into the deeper depth and landed relatively close to the shore.

Ted surfaced first and found the water was shallow enough to stand in. As he broke the surface of the water, he had to pull pieces of rotting foliage from his uniform and goggles. Zatanna who was wearing less than he was, looked even worse. He saw one of her heeled shoes floating away as she struggled to stand up. Her long hair had fallen over her face and she looked like something out of the Addam's family with her mascara running. Her fish net stockings were being held together by a few strained strands of lace and the white tuxedo shirt was now grey and mottled.

Even without hearing her say a word, Ted knew he was in deep trouble.

"Just how long have you been flying?" She said sharply as she removed the stray leaf of a water lily from her ear.

"A couple of weeks." He said timidly.

Zatanna ran her fingers through her soaking hair and tried to remove the thick strands from her face. Her blue eyes were almost the colour of emerald fire and only the red blush of her cheeks indicated how cold she was. "Do you think you might have told me this before you crashed us in here?" She barked.

"Excuse me?" He declared. "I crashed us? You're the one who teleported us here!" Ted retorted in his defence. Although, in all truth he did not think he was going to win this particular argument.

"Only because you did know what you were doing and didn't give me time to conjure up a suitable destination!" Zatanna snapped at him before she turned her attention to her shoe that was floating out of reach. She made a lunge for it but ended up losing her footing on the silt of lake bed. Ted could not look as she fell back into the water again with a loud splash. He knew he really liked this woman because he was fighting the biggest urge to laugh when normally he would already be rolling in the aisles at this point. Ted was realistic that had he succumbed to his laughter, she would have turned him into a newt of some description. He had seen enough episodes of 'Bewitched' and 'I dream of Jeannie' to know that it was never wise to annoy a sorceress.

"I suppose you think this is funny." She replied trying to maintain some aura of dignity.

"No ma'am." Ted replied. Deciding not to irritate her any further, Ted bent down and picked her up out of the water before she had a chance to protest. As he carried her, he noticed she was freezing and hastened his pace as he waded out of the lake towards the shore.

"I can walk you know." Zatanna said indignantly.

"Are all you old League women this difficult?" Ted asked, ignoring her sarcasm since she was not struggling to be put down.

"Old?"

Ted closed his eyes. Damn, he had been out of the dating game too long. Old was not a word to use when talking to a woman. "Sorry, I meant pre-JLI Leaguers." He recounted quickly. "I'm sorry Zan, I did know what else to do okay? They had you surrounded."

At that, Zatanna felt her anger ebb away a little. Perhaps she was being a little hard on him, not mention a little unfair. It was not his fault that he was inexperienced with his powers and he had carried her away to save her life. Besides, she could remember a time when her inexperience had caused her fellow Leaguers some interesting problems. They had been more understanding that she was being now.

"Apology accepted." She smiled at him. "Thank you for saving my life."

"All apart of the service." He grinned. "By the way, where did you send those people from Stone Ridge?"

"They're in the next town." Zatanna answered as he put her down on the grass.

"They won't be safe for long, you know." Ted pointed out. "Those zombies in Stone Ridge are going to leave town now that there's no one else to absorb. He needs people to expand his powers."

"I know," Zatanna agreed. "We've got to find him."

"Don't disagree with you there." Ted replied. "The question is where? He was waiting for us here. It was almost as if he guessed we would come here first."

"The Gray Man is no fool." Zatanna answered. "The Lords of Order select them very carefully. Unfortunately, the very nature of what they do is what makes them insane. The cosmic forces have been out of balance since the Lords of Order withdrew from this plane, unfortunately, until they choose to return, we're stuck with their problems."

"Well, they just got kicked off my Christmas Card list." Ted replied with straight face.

Zatanna rolled her eyes and let out a short laugh. "We'd better meet up with your friends in Europe."


"Yeah," Ted nodded, suddenly becoming very serious. "Guy wouldn't have reached that town yet and if the Gray Man is playing repeats for us then Guy and the others are in a lot of trouble." He remembered the Teasdale serum and what it had done to the people there. If the Gray Man was taking revenge in all his own haunts, he might be tempted to recreate that situation.

"How so?" She looked at him concerned.

"Teasdale's serum." Ted explained. "Guy and the others could be walking into a town full of vampires."