Who Ya Gonna Call?

(or, A Doctor's Housecall In Reverse)


The doorbell rang at precisely 5:27 AM. Despite being two floors up and half-buried in a meditative trance, Dr. Stephen Strange knew this because he'd been expecting visitors, and was therefore keeping an eye on the clock.

He broke the trance and stood, retrieving his cloak from where he'd set it aside, and fastened it around his shoulders in a swirl of red and gold cloth as he descended from his sanctum into the house proper. The golden Eye of Agamotto rested on his chest in its customary place.

"Good morning," he said, inclining his head politely at the young woman standing defiantly in the middle of his foyer; she had evidently let herself in. Wearing a disreputable trenchcoat and an even more disreputable eypatch, she was distinctly out of place in the elegent, if eclectic, environs. However, she was known to Strange and he had, after all, been expecting her.

"There's a demon in the subway," Callisto said without preamble.

The Morlocks had previously come to his attention some time before, when one of his mystical battles had taken him into the underground of New York. Then, Callisto and her people had been silent, wary observers, staying well clear of the fight, but Strange had made a point of seeking her out later and explaining his mission. The so-called dregs of society made convenient targets for the darker forces at work in the multiverse, and it would thus be useful, he'd thought, to know someone there.

"I suspected as much," he said, that being the only reason she would appear at his door, or that negative magical energy would ripple across the city's spectra. "Have you seen it?"

Callisto shook her head and pushed her younger companion forward with a not ungentle shove. "No, but he did."

The boy was a teenager, dressed in an oversize jacket with the hood pulled respectfully back. Bones studded his face and spiked off his neck and shoulders. Hands in his pockets, he glanced around, radiating nervousness, and gave Strange a tentative nod. "Uh... hey. I'm Evan."

"Good morning, Evan. I'm Dr. Strange," he said. He'd never cultivated a bedside manner and it showed. "I'd like to hear about your experience with the demon."

"It wasn't much. I mean, I just saw him." He scratched his dyed-blond hair. "I think it was a him."

"All right. What did he look like, if it was a him?"

Evan's brow furrowed in concentration. "I... He was kinda hanging back in the shadows, but it wasn't really how he looked, y'know. I could feel him, it, whatever." Strange closed his eyes briefly, searching out the truth. He saw what the boy had seen: a thin, skeletal figure, crouching in the shadows, sunk in black, throwing off the foul, desperate decay of human souls in pain. Then a flash of bright light, momentarily blinding, and the creature vanished. "And you felt... what? Anger? Sadness?"

"Sadness, yeah," Evan said immediately, bobbing his head up and down. "But more than that. Like - like the whole world was crushing me. Only for a second, though. A train came by and he split."

Strange nodded, grimly. The boy's account confimed all of his suspicions regarding the demon's identity; it wasn't a major demon, but it was by no means a minor one, either. "D'Spayre. Blast."

"What should we do?" Callisto asked, drawing Evan back with one protective hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Get out of the tunnels for a few days. Try to clear out the non-mutants, too - D'Spayre will feed on anyone." Strange turned with a billow of his cloak, climbing the stairs to his sanctum again. "I'll deal with him."

True to her nature, Callisto rebelled against this order. "We won't leave the tunnels!"

"Callisto," Strange said, looking over his shoulder. "Thank you for informing me of the situation."

She snarled and pulled her trenchcoat's collar higher, hiding her face, and muttered something that began, "Last time I ever..."

Strange paused on the landing and waited. He had no intention of leaving his guests alone in a room filled with priceless ancient artifacts, most of which packed a considerable magical wallop.

Evan looked up at him, but flicked his gaze away quickly to Callisto. "So that's it?"

Callisto looked as though she might kill someone. She also looked as though she had accepted Strange's pronouncement, grudgingly, and that was proved when she said, "That's it. Come on. I know a place we can hide 'for a few days', but we'll have to get there before dawn."

"Wait - we're just going to ditch because he said so?" Evan said, full of the indignance of the young. "That's whacked!"

"If you prefer to stay behind, descend into insanity as a demon feeds off your negative psychic energy, and be destroyed in a sorceror's battle," Strange said calmly, not without a touch of amusement, "please, feel free to do so."

"Come on," Callisto said again, taking the boy by the arm. She was less gentle this time.

Evan wavered, throwing a scowl at Strange and a protest at Callisto. "But -"

She dragged him towards the door. "No second opinions here, kid. The good doctor doesn't..."

The voices trailed off as the door swung shut behind them.

Dr. Strange, Sorceror Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, former surgeon of world reknown, resealed the door with a warding spell, and then resumed his climb to his sanctum sanctorum. The diagnosis was made; only the operation remained. No second opinions indeed.