Peter snored really loudly.
Stephen had on more than one occasion teased Peter about his snoring when they'd been forced by circumstance or mission details to bunk together, which had led on those same occasions usually to a quick exchange of web shots and mental slaps. Right now, though, lying on this rock-hard floor in this cold and drafty hotel room, the snoring was getting on his nerves and keeping him awake, as well as giving him a headache. Stephen rubbed his temples and sighed.
"Wake up."
Stephen felt his entire body go stiff as his grandfather's voice swirled into his head. He turned on projective sight and started looking around the room.
"You're wasting your time. I don't have to be in there to be inside your head."
Stephen frowned. "I'm aware of that. I'm also aware there are limits to projective telepathy, so you're likely not far away. Is Shrevnitz enjoying a good book below my window while we converse?"
"Not a bad guess, though a rather obvious observation."
Stephen smirked at the backhanded compliment. "Sometimes you can get so caught up looking for the hidden that you miss the obvious."
"I'm really not in the mood to trade bon mots, Stephen."
"So cut to the chase."
"Oh, believe me, I intend to." Stephen felt the psychic signal ramp up noticeably. "You're going to tell me where Khan is and what he's done with Dr. Lane, and you will do it now."
Like most Cranston men, Stephen had a particular dislike of being on the receiving end of orders. "Or you'll do what?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
The pressure inside his head stepped up again. Stephen turned up the reflection pressure from his own psyche to hold the forceful signal at bay. "If that's the best you can do at a distance, color me unimpressed."
"Oh, I can do much better. But you really don't want to know how much. Now...where is Khan?"
Stephen shored up the barriers around his memories and stood his mental ground. "We have an arrangement."
"Arrangements are for musical numbers, flower vases, and place settings. I want answers, and I know for a fact that you have them. Start talking."
"No."
The strength of the mental signal stepped up to a level Stephen had never imagined it could. "No one tells me 'no'."
Stephen kept up the fight. "Just wait until you have children."
"I'll take a vow of celibacy before that happens." Again the pressure increased. "I'm through being polite, Stephen. Tell me what I want to know!"
"Absolutely not."
The already unimaginably high level of thought energy pressing against Stephen's mental barriers practically doubled. "Where is Khan?"
Stephen gritted his teeth but kept steady pressure pushing back against the intruding stream. "You don't get it, do you? I can't tell you. If I do, everything changes. Everything."
"I'm willing to take that chance." The mental voice had a menacing growl in its tone.
"Well, I'm not!" Stephen snapped. "I don't have a death wish, I'm not your enemy, and I'm sure as Hell not afraid of you! There are things in your lifetime that have to happen, and they have to happen in the right order, or everything as we know it will come to an end! That's what Khan wants--he wants you to destroy your own future! He tried to get you to kill Margo Lane, and now he's gotten you so worked up that you're trying to burn out the psyche of your own flesh and blood! You cannot fall for this trap! If you do, Khan wins! Now do you understand, or do I have to go down there and actually physically and psychically take you on over this?"
The pressure turned up even higher. Stephen took a breath to steady himself and turned up his own mental shields to match. He had never been pressed this hard by anyone, and he was getting the distinct feeling that if it truly came down to a psyche-vs.-psyche struggle, even at this distance, he was going to wind up on the short end of the stick, but he could not afford to allow himself to even consider that possibility if he hoped to survive this onslaught...
...and then as suddenly as it began, the incoming surge stopped.
Stephen felt his own pressing energies surge outward momentarily, but he soon drew them back to a sentinel position around his mind, not completely sure this wasn't a defensive feint. "Why did you stop?"
A long moment of silence stretched before the answer came. "Because I'm not interested in handing Khan a backdoor victory. But don't celebrate your own victory just yet. This time tomorrow, we will have this discussion again."
Stephen actually felt himself smirking slightly, feeling almost giddy at the notion that he'd achieved a sort of standoff with an unparalleled projective master. "I'll be ready."
One last surge gave his psyche a warning slap, then faded away.
Stephen waited until he could detect no more incoming thoughts, then collapsed with exhaustion, no longer caring about the temperature of the room, the hardness of the floor, or the volume of Peter's snoring.
Lamont could smell the aroma of logs on a fire mingling with the heady scent of Margo's perfume as he arrived inside the mansion. He sighed inwardly, reminding himself that he couldn't really have expected her to leave after their encounter in his bedroom earlier. He headed into the parlor, doffed his coat and hat, and tossed them aside onto a settee.
Margo was asleep on the sofa in front of the fireplace. In the dancing light from the flames, she looked so delicate, so vulnerable...so beautiful. Lamont massaged his aching shoulder and mentally debated whether to wake her or leave her there and deal with her in the morning.
Margo stirred, then opened her eyes.
For a moment, they both looked at each other, uncertain of what to say.
From the look in his eyes, Margo could tell he hadn't found her father and was clearly angry with himself for failing. But Margo trusted him to keep looking. Now she needed to get him to understand that. "I can't help that I know what I know about you," she finally said. "And I can't forget it, either."
Lamont looked away. He could make her forget. And yet, he couldn't. How could he destroy something so beautiful? How could he send away the one person in the six years he'd been away from The Temple who could even come close to understanding him? Once more, Stephen's warnings about things in his life that had to happen and had to happen in the right order or the future would be lost came bubbling back to the surface, and once more he found himself scoffing at them. This was insane; he had no time for friends or lovers like this, and even if he did, there was no way it could work...no way she would ever stay with him if she knew the truth...no way he could stop his darkness from hurting her...
Margo got up off the sofa and walked the two steps it took her to stand right in front of him, so close that if they leaned their heads forward, their lips would meet. This was a man of incredible power, incredible strength, and incredible reputation both as ultra-rich Lamont Cranston and ultra-vigilante The Shadow. Why was he scared? Hadn't she shown him by staying behind that she wasn't going to hurt him, wasn't going to expose him? Was there something more--that darkness that she'd seen in his eyes? Was that what he was afraid of--losing his temper with her again? If she hadn't been scared away before, why did he think she'd be scared away now?
Lamont resigned himself to the fact that she wasn't leaving. But he needed to put some distance between them right now, before either of them gave in to some inappropriate impulse. The irony of such a notorious playboy wanting to distance himself from a beautiful woman who was practically surrendering herself didn't escape him. "It's late," he said quietly, looking at her once more, then gestured up the stairs with his head. "Sleep anywhere you like--there are guest rooms. But in the morning, you should go."
Margo looked at him compassionately. "I'm not afraid of you."
He caressed her cheek with his left hand.
Margo thought she was going to melt. His strong hands were incredibly gentle, and she could feel the need in his touch. She nuzzled her cheek against his palm, showing her trust.
Lamont wanted nothing more right now than to sweep her off her feet and carry her upstairs, spending the rest of the night caressing that beautiful body, kissing those rich red lips, making mad, passionate love to her, finally letting himself go physically and emotionally. But he couldn't. He couldn't allow himself to feel those emotions, and he couldn't let the strength of those emotions hurt her. He looked at her, sorrow in his expression. "But I am."
And with that, he walked away, leaving Margo alone with her aching desires.
"Wake up..."
Stephen jolted awake and instinctively lashed out with his mind at the sound of those words in the direction of the closest brainwaves.
Peter sprang to the ceiling over Stephen's head. "Whoa! Back off, Carnak! It's me!"
Stephen came back to reality. "Sorry. Got a little overdefensive there."
"I'll say. You having nightmares or something?"
"Or something." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to banish the rebound headache he'd gotten from the outburst. "What time is it?"
Peter looked at his watch. "Almost nine. What's on today's agenda?"
Stephen thought for a moment, trying to remember. "Margo Lane gets to spend the day researching the corner of Second and Houston, and Farley Claymore gets his shot at trying to kill The Shadow."
"So shouldn't we be on the trail to make sure things go according to plan?"
"I don't know." Stephen rubbed his temples, still trying to get over the mental fatigue from last night.
"Must have been some nightmare," Peter observed.
Stephen chuckled slightly. "Not really."
"Then that really was him you were tussling with last night?"
Stephen looked askance at Peter.
Peter shrugged. "Thought I was the one who was dreaming. I could hear something going on, but I couldn't quite get myself awake enough to pay attention."
"Thank Granddaddy and his magical sleeping spell for that bit of mercy." Stephen rolled his eyes. "Remember when we first met and I told you that I would kill to be half the psychic my grandfather was?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not there, my friend. I'm not anywhere close." He lay back down again and shook his head. "He had me. He had me beat. He was pissed off about the battle with Khan, steamed about getting shot at by Margo Lane, and if I remember right, he'd just found out Khan had killed the 20th Marpa Tulku. He wanted answers, and I was the one who had them, so he parked Shrevnitz's cab outside our window, then mentally barged in here and went straight for the jugular. He got inside my head as if I was some novice with no defensive training whatsoever. It took everything I had to hold him off as much as I did, and I was pretty sure he wasn't even breaking a mental sweat. He had me dead to rights and was going in for the kill."
"But?"
"But then he stopped." Stephen blew out a hard breath. "Why, I don't know, but he had the killing shot and didn't take it. I'd like to think it was because I presented a persuasive argument about not letting Khan trick him into destroying his future, but I'm not above thinking that just decided to take pity on the poor underskilled psychic."
"There is another possibility."
"And that is?"
"That you gave him more of a workout than you give yourself credit for. Either that or you were actually able to talk some sense into him. Maybe a little of both." Peter mirrored Stephen's reclining position on the ceiling. "Now I know you Cranstons are more stubborn than rented mules, but one thing you're not normally is this modest. From where I sit, you're no psychic slouch yourself, and after meeting your grandfather, I can now see where that perfectionist streak comes from, as well as that strong competitive streak. The two of you have that competitiveness in spades, and neither of you likes looking weak. But right now, you need to not lose focus. We've only got two days. We know what we have to do about Maxwell, but we don't necessarily know if that's all we have to do. So right now, it would seem to me that we need to be shadowing your grandfather just in case."
Stephen nodded. "You're right." He sat up. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. Now, don't let it go to your head."
Stephen couldn't resist laughing at the wry pun.
Margo Lane awakened from a rather restless sleep and for a moment was disoriented by her surroundings. Then, she remembered where she was--Cranston Manor, one of the upstairs bedrooms, at the opposite end of the house from Lamont. She'd wanted to put some distance between them, allow him a cooling-off period, but couldn't shake the feeling that he was everywhere in this house, as close by as a shadow on a wall...
Movement caught her eye. She turned over in bed.
Lamont, in a sharply-tailored blue pin-striped Brooks Brothers suit, was leaning against one of the bedposts. "Good morning," he greeted with a smile.
Margo marveled at his stealth. How long had he been there? "Good morning," she returned, then stretched. "Oh, God, I dreamed."
Lamont watched her arch her back and extend her limbs like a cat, completely comfortable in her body--and with her sexuality. It was a rare thing in a respectable woman nowadays, and he was intrigued. And damned if she didn't look truly fine in that silk slip that served as the only clothing she was wearing. "Really?" He sat down on the corner of the bed. "So did I. What did you dream?"
Margo smiled. He wasn't turning her away. This was a good thing. "I dreamed I was lying naked on a beach in the South Seas." She closed her eyes, remembering the sensations of the dream. "The waves were washing up on my toes...the sun was beating down, hot and cold at the same time...oh, it was wonderful." She opened her eyes to see the interested expression on his face. Maybe there was a man underneath that shadow. "So, what did you dream?"
His expression turned wry as he recalled the nightmare that led him mentally down the hall to her bedroom, making him even briefly consider joining her in the bed, then being horrified at his own reactions, and even more horrified at what his dream-self saw when he looked in the mirror...the face of Shiwan Khan. "I dreamed I tore all the skin off my face and was somebody else underneath."
So much for seduction. Margo gave him ten points for honesty, but deducted a hundred more for destroying the mood. "You have problems."
He shrugged. "I'm aware of that." He suddenly got up and turned away, as if embarrassed for being so close to a barely-dressed woman. "I'll wait outside while you get dressed."
"Oh, that's all right," Margo said, desperate to keep him here and seize those hints of humanity that kept surfacing. "You can stay." She climbed out of bed.
He averted his eyes.
She found it fascinating. Lamont Cranston, notorious playboy, had a modest streak? How much of the womanizing behavior had merely been an act, a role he'd played to distract from any attention that might be paid to behavior more suited to his alter ego? Was the real Lamont Cranston somewhere in between the extreme ne'er-do-well of his public persona and the dark and angry Shadow? She needed to find out. She picked up her clothes from the night before and frowned at them. "Oh," she said in an exaggerated tone, "these are all rumpled."
"Oh," Lamont said, almost shyly, "there might be some things you can wear in here." He crossed the room, still averting his eyes, and opened an elegant cherry-finished wardrobe with burgundy-and-lace front panels. "Ah, yes." He pulled out a contemporary black satin and chiffon day dress. "These belonged to...um...my aunt Rose."
Margo looked at the dress. It had a modern haute couture label. The wardrobe was full of other dresses, similarly styled, from similar contemporary designers. No doubt they were meant to be given away as tokens of Lamont Cranston the womanizer's appreciation for a night of pleasure. Somehow, that didn't bother her as much as she'd thought it might.
"Fashionable gal, that Rose," Lamont said, aware that he'd been nailed.
Margo smiled wryly. "Kept her figure, too," she said, noticing the slender waist and curve-hugging cut of the dress. Nonetheless, she accepted the offering and ducked behind an Oriental dressing screen to change clothes.
Lamont now knew that he really shouldn't be in there. "Well," he said, heading for the door, "I hate to run, but I've got a..."
"...taxi waiting downstairs?"
He stopped in his tracks and turned toward her. "Excuse me?"
She peered out from behind the screen. "That was what you were about to say, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he said, annoyed with himself for once again thinking way too loudly for the amount of psychic power that now surrounded him. Marpa Tulku had told him many times that he thought very loudly, even for a telepath, but once he left The Temple, Lamont had never had to worry about anyone hearing his thoughts unless he wanted them to...until three days ago, when the psychic population of Manhattan suddenly shot up exponentially and all of them were tuned right to his overamplified mental radio station.
"Huh!" she laughed. It would have been a logical guess, but she had literally heard the words in her head before he spoke them aloud. Either he was a really loud thinker, or she was a lot more sensitive to thoughts than she'd ever been before. "This is getting easier the more I'm around you. You're like reading a book."
She was the second person who'd said that to him in twelve hours. Lamont wasn't interested in his thought patterns being as easy to read as a dime novel. He groaned inwardly, wondering how he was going to get through this without going mad.
"Well, thank you very much, Lamont, but I'm not going to need that taxi," she continued, ducking back behind the screen.
"Well, yes, but I've got an appointment..."
She doffed her slip and tossed it over the screen. "Oh, good. I'll go with you."
Now this was getting ridiculous. "No...see, last night we agreed..."
"No, we didn't."
He frowned. "Do you mind if I get one tiny little sentence out here? Thank you very much." He took a deep breath and focused his resolve. "Last night, we agreed that you would leave in the morning."
"No, you agreed I would leave. I agreed to no such thing." She peered out from behind the screen again. "We need each other..."
"No, we don't," he interrupted.
"We have a connection..."
"No, we don't."
"Then how do you explain that I can hear your thoughts?"
"My thoughts are hard to miss."
"And why is that?"
"Psychically, I'm very well-endowed."
He'd said that without a trace of modesty. Margo was impressed. She gave him her best seductive smile. "I'll bet you are." Then, she ducked back behind the screen. "O.K., Lamont," she said, pulling on the dress, "you don't need me, but I need you to help me find my father. And my father needs you, too. He can't even tell the difference between green and red, much less escape from an Asian warlord." She zipped the dress, then came out from hiding and struck a vampish pose. "And I am coming with you."
Lamont's eyes drank her in. Damn, she looked good in that dress. How could he refuse a woman who looked like that? At least now he was pretty sure he knew what he saw in her. If nothing else, she'd provide better scenery in the cab than Moe. "O.K."
Spiderman alighted on the rooftop of Cranston Manor just in time to see Moe Shrevnitz's cab pull away. "Just missed him," he muttered, then started to fire a web to go after him...
"Wait," The Shadow, riding on his back, whispered into his mind.
A moment later, Lamont Cranston walked out the front door of the mansion. On his right arm was Margo Lane.
"Wait...how did they go from her trying to kill him to strolling arm-in-arm?" Spiderman whispered.
"Destiny," The Shadow taunted.
"Thought you didn't believe in destiny."
"I may have to re-evaluate that belief when we get back." He gestured with his head toward Margo's maroon LaSalle, parked across the street. "There they go. Stay on them."
"Does she drive like Shrevnitz?"
"I don't recall anything from Granddaddy's notes indicating such."
"Good. Then she'll be a lot easier to follow." He sprang off the roof, touched down briefly on a fence post, then shot a web at a nearby light pole and resumed the pursuit.
"It's all falling into place for me now, Margo," Lamont said as he and Margo walked the short blocks from her house, where they'd dropped her car off, toward Times Square. Lamont wasn't ready to take her into The Sanctum, but he had a lot of things she could do while he worked in his office. "Shiwan Khan has your father's generator and enough bronzium to make it work, but he needs a beryllium sphere to complete the bomb. I wonder where he intends to get one?"
Margo looked thoughtful. "Beryllium sphere?" she said aloud. She was sure she'd heard that term before. Suddenly, she remembered where. "Beryllium sphere! Farley Claymore!"
Lamont stopped in the middle of the cross-street. "What?"
"Farley Claymore. My father's assistant. He was working on a beryllium sphere--I'm sure of it."
"At your father's lab?"
"No, no, he had his own facility." She scoured her memory, trying to force herself to see that creep's face inside her head. "Maritech Labs, down on the waterfront."
A car screeched to a halt, barely missing them. "Get out of the road, you idiot!" the driver shouted. "What'd'ya think this is, Central Park?"
Lamont took Margo's arm and stepped across the street. "Good," he smiled, already formulating a plan. "Very good. Say--I want you to do something else for me."
Margo looked eager. He was accepting her as part of his world...trusting her. This was probably a first for him. She didn't want to press her luck, but couldn't wait for her next assignment. "What is it?"
"I was trailing Khan last night when I lost him at the corner of Second and Houston. There's something really strange about that corner. There's an empty lot there now, but I want you to find out what used to be there."
"Second and Houston. Got it." She looked at him. "But what about Farley Claymore?" Lamont smiled coldly. "Farley Claymore's about to receive a visit..." His voice turned deep, and his eyes turned dark. "...from The Shadow."
Farley Claymore was, quite simply, an idiot.
Farley was a munitions "expert", if one could call him that, who'd bungled his way along through the years, working for various scientists with Department of War contracts, generally making a nuisance of himself. But Farley did make outstanding enhancement shells. And he was on the verge of something big with Reinhardt Lane's implosive generator. But first, he had to tie up a loose end down at Maritech Labs, so he entered the large spherical pressure-testing chamber and sealed the door, anxious to get everything taken care of...
"Farley Claymore."
Farley leaped almost ten feet in the air as he heard the voice ringing through the chamber. "Who's there?" he shouted back nervously.
A sinister chuckle answered him. "Where is the beryllium sphere, Claymore?"
Farley looked very nervous as he backed toward a set of levers near the far wall of the chamber. "Sphere?"
The Shadow groaned. Khan had clearly gotten to Farley, too. "Claymore, you idiot! You're being manipulated. Your mind is being controlled by hypnosis."
Farley looked confused as he backed into the levers, unable to move any further. "My mind? Controlled?"
The Shadow had no time for simpering idiots. The fate of New York--and possibly the world--was at stake. "Where is the beryllium sphere, Claymore?"
"It's too late...I already put it on a truck!" He stuck something resembling a pipe handle into one of the levers behind him and pushed down on it with all his weight.
Water began pouring from pipes in the ceiling.
Farley's reaction caught The Shadow off-guard. Was this Khan's manipulation? "Take me to it--now!"
Farley shoved the pipe into another slot and pushed the other lever downward.
More water poured into the chamber.
Farley yanked the pipe out of the levers and drew his gun.
The Shadow laughed mockingly. "Who are you going to shoot with that, Claymore?"
Farley scanned the room, noting the rising water...and a pair of deep hollows resembling holes left by legs. He smiled wickedly and leveled his gun to about chest height of a man standing in those hollows.
Dammit! The Shadow swore mentally. It was Hell fighting someone who knew your every trick almost better than you did. He took off running for higher ground.
Farley saw the hollows moving and emptied his gun toward them.
Six shots rang out. Five bullets slammed the wall of the chamber, leaving a gap between shots two and four.
Blood dripped onto the surface of the water.
Farley laughed gleefully. Khan had told him The Shadow was way too overconfident about his mind clouding abilities, and that simple physics would always defeat him. "Nobody controls my mind, Shadow!" he shouted to the room. "There's a new world order coming--and I'm going to be a king!" He made his way to the pressure door. "Do you hear me? A king!" He opened the pressure door and hurried outside, sealing the door shut behind him.
Inside, The Shadow heard the door crank turn and the locking bolts slide into place, then the clank of an extra lock being applied. As soon as he knew Farley was gone, he dropped the clouding suggestion...and Lamont Cranston slumped to the floor of an ever-filling watery trap, bleeding, cold, and sick to his stomach from the pain.
The water reached his wounded left shoulder. Its brine caused the pain to shoot through his body.
Lamont staggered to his feet and was stunned to find the water level was already to his knees and rising fast. His clothes were saturated, heavy, dragging him down, causing even more pain in his injured shoulder. Having already lost his fedora in the water, he now had to shed the other stuff before it drowned him. He managed to get his gloves off, nearly dropped his ring before slipping it back on his left hand, then unfastened the cloak and let it fall away. The wet scarf was next, then the shoulder holster, then the riding coat. He tried to kick his boots off, but they were too tight, so he resigned himself to making do.
Once he was able to move again, he made his way through thigh-high water to the door. His left arm was nearly useless, and his right shoulder still ached from the arrow wound last night, but he had to push past the pain and try to get the door open. He turned the crank with all his might.
He heard a faint clank, and realized that the wheel was striking the extra lock Farley had put on the outside. He groaned, then tried to turn it again.
Another clank. Nothing. It wasn't budging. Lamont scanned the room, then spotted the water control levers. Taking a deep breath, he dove into the water and swam across to them, then grabbed them and pulled upward with all his might.
Nothing. They weren't budging, either. Lamont realized that the piece of pipe Farley had used was probably the only way to get enough torque to rotate them because of the pressure behind them. He leaned against the wall, exhausted, and struggled to think.
The water was now up to his chin. He had to get out of here. At this rate, he'd drown in minutes...if he didn't bleed to death first. And there was no one who knew where he was, no one who would hear a cry for help and understand what it meant...
Wait a minute. There was someone. But could she possibly hear him? Did he have enough strength left to call her? Only one way to find out.
Lamont concentrated, focusing as much urgency as he could into the words. "Margo...Margo, I need you..."
Margo Lane couldn't understand how the Hall of Records could possibly be so disorganized. She'd gone to the corner of Second and Houston, seen the empty lot for herself, and had come here to research the building that used to be there. But there were no recent records for that property. None at all. And no one could remember what they'd done with them.
So now she was down in the archives, digging through old boxes, looking at blueprints of a building that had been proposed for that corner, reading the building permits, tracing the records as best she could from the pieces, leaning forward for yet another book that might have some of the missing information...
Suddenly, something slammed into her brain like a freight train and knocked her backwards. She collapsed into her chair and screamed.
The clerk helping her came over to her. "Miss? Miss? Are you all right?"
Margo wasn't sure. She put a hand to her temple and looked amazed. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before--it felt almost like a rush of strong wind, except it wasn't nearly as gentle and was a lot louder, and strangely sounded just like Lamont's voice...
Suddenly, her brain processed his words. Margo, I need you...
"Oh, my God," she whispered, then leapt to her feet, grabbed her purse, and raced out of the room.
Lamont was rapidly running out of room in the chamber as he floated far above the floor on the continually rising water. The air pocket was less than three feet tall now, and becoming deoxygenated fast. He kept trying to take deep breaths, but the air was tasting stale, and his lungs were screaming for oxygen.
Two feet. Lamont pounded on the hatch above his head, but it wasn't giving way, either.
One foot. Barely enough room to keep his nose above water.
And then, mere inches.
"Why are we not doing something?" demanded Spiderman.
"We are. Now shush!" The Shadow told him as he closed his eyes. Concentrating, he felt the volume of thoughts amplify as he struggled to open his receptive side. His grandfather's mental cries for help were strong and focused, but that wasn't who he was listening for.
Spiderman hurried to the door and looked in the porthole. "He's running out of air..."
"I know that! But we have to leave things as they are to keep things in position to happen like they're supposed to! Margo will be here soon to get him out." But even as he said that, he realized he hadn't yet located his grandmother's receptive pull...
...and then, suddenly, he felt her. It had to be her that he was sensing, a virtual black hole of receptive energy that was also trying to listen for something no one else could hear without truly realizing she was even doing it...and she was receiving so powerfully...and she was going the wrong way!
The Shadow squeezed his eyes shut and focused every ounce of projective energy in his brain to send a direct message back along that thought path across the city and into her psyche. "Maritime Labs! East River! Hurry!"
Margo's maroon LaSalle tore around a corner as she suddenly realized she was going the wrong way, and raced back through town toward the waterfront. She could barely hear him still calling to her, but at least this time the suggestion that pounded into her brain gave her enough information to guide her toward him.
The Shadow, completely drained, dropped his clouding suggestions to allow his mind to rest and regenerate. But he'd done his job in getting history back on track. She was coming. "She'll be here soon!" Stephen called to Spidey from their vantage point. "Don't let her see you!"
"He'll be dead by then!" Spiderman shouted. "He can't hold his breath that long!"
"He doesn't have to. He can breathe through the bullet holes."
Spiderman looked over to the left. "There are no bullet holes!"
Stephen jerked. No holes through the sphere? That can't be right...unless... "Claymore's gun must not have been powerful enough!"
"Genius!" Spiderman yelled back sarcastically. "Now can I let him out?"
Stephen searched his memory for anything he might have forgotten. Lamont had gotten air through the bullet holes in the side of the pressure tank...but Farley was firing a snub-nosed revolver, probably only .22 caliber, nothing strong enough to puncture the thick steel of a pressure chamber...
Without hesitation, Stephen drew one of his automatics from his shoulder holster. "Move!"
Spiderman flipped up over the hatch and landed on the upper half of the sphere.
Stephen fired five times left to right.
Margo was getting more and more frustrated that now that she'd finally figured out where she was going, all the traffic in the area seemed to be conspiring to slow her down. Didn't these people understand that this was a life-or-death situation? What kind of trouble could The Shadow have gotten into where he couldn't get himself out of it? The very thought chilled Margo to the bone. But his tone suggested he was desperate, and he was growing weaker by the minute.
She honked her horn at midday traffic, weaving through stalled cars, frantically hoping she wasn't too late.
Lamont was no longer even aware of the pain in his shoulder, no longer even aware of the weight of his clothes. All he wanted was oxygen, and he wanted it now. When a loud hammering ringing echoed through the water, his eyes scanned the walls quickly.
Five streams of bubbles were coming up from the wall across the chamber from him.
Bubbles, Lamont realized. Bubbles mean air. He swam toward them.
The bubble streams were coming through bullet holes in the wall. These weren't here a minute ago, Lamont mentally frowned. Maybe Claymore's gun was a little stronger than I thought it was and they got popped open by the increasing water pressure...
But at that moment, it hardly mattered. Holes meant water was leaking out, and water leaking out meant air was coming in. He stuck a finger through one of the holes.
Cold December air tickled his finger on the other side. A mere inch away, air was freely available.
Lamont drew his finger out again, quickly put his lips against the hole, blew outward hard to expel the stale air from his lungs, then sucked in a fresh breath.
Spiderman saw the water stop flowing out of one of those holes. "One of the holes is plugged..."
"I know," Stephen's relieved voice answered. "He can breathe again."
The hole only allowed Lamont to draw a small amount of air per breath, but nothing had ever tasted so good. He drew several grateful breaths, letting the oxygen clear his mind and refocus his thoughts. He knew he could not keep this up forever--he'd eventually tire and collapse--so he had to think of something else, some way of getting that door open. If he could just see that extra lock, he might be able to manipulate it with his mind, but it was just out of visual range through the window.
He drew one more breath, then swam back to the door, looking out the porthole. He didn't see anything, but maybe there was enough pressure in the room now to allow him to dislodge the lock. He turned the crank handle again.
Nothing. The door didn't move.
Lamont groaned inwardly again. He was dead unless help arrived soon. He could only hope Margo had heard...and understood.
Margo screeched to a stop outside Maritech Labs and, for a brief moment, wondered if she'd gotten her psychic signals crossed. There was no one there--no cars, no delivery trucks, nothing. But she could see water through the window in the pressure chamber door, and wondered if an experiment was in progress.
Then she saw the streams of water coming out of the side of the pressure chamber, and realized that there was something more going on than met the eye. She got out of her car and approached the pressure chamber cautiously.
There was a pipe wedged into the wheel-shaped door latch, as if someone had locked someone else inside. She looked through the window.
Lamont suddenly floated into her view.
She gasped. He looked pained, distorted, as if he were on the verge of drowning.
"Open the door," she heard his mind whisper as he pantomimed the action. "It's locked from the outside..."
Margo tugged at the pipe, finally dislodging it. She tossed it aside and tried to turn the wheel.
From the inside, Lamont saw the wheel rotate a half turn and stick. He grabbed it, braced his feet against the stairs, and threw every last bit of strength he had into turning it the rest of the way.
A thousand gallons of water did the rest, and the door flew open.
Margo tried desperately to hang onto the pipe railing on the metal stairs, but the force of the water coming at her was just too much. She was flung across the parking lot on a tidal wave.
Lamont was right behind her, washed out by the contents of the watery would-be grave.
Margo recovered her senses and looked around frantically for Lamont, finally spotting him lying face down on the concrete in a half-inch-deep puddle of water. She hurried over to him, rolling him onto his back and patting his cheeks to startle him into taking a breath.
He gave a cough, then gasped for air.
Margo let out a sigh of relief. She elevated his head so that he could breathe better.
His eyes seemed to clear, and he looked at her for a moment, not entirely sure he could believe what he was seeing.
She brushed the wet hair out of his face. "You called?" she deadpanned.
He smiled. "You heard," he managed to croak out between gasps.
Margo felt his trust of her rise tenfold.
"Ah, yes, I'm definitely hearing those violins," Spiderman wisecracked. "Do they ever spend a normal day together?"
The Shadow shrugged. "Normal is a relative term."
"Yeah, but none of your relatives are normal."
The Shadow let out a droll laugh. "They are to me."
Margo's relief at finding Lamont alive was quickly doused by the realization that her dress was covered in blood. "Oh, my God..." She looked him over and finally found the source of the bleeding. "You've been shot!"
"It's not the first time," Lamont whispered weakly. "Take me home."
Margo thought fast. "No way. We're going straight to the hospital..."
"No!" snapped two strikingly similar voices in unison. One of the voices belonged to Lamont. Margo looked behind her to find the other one...
...and realized that it had come from the young man she'd last seen at the police station. The one who had told her where to find Commissioner Barth. The one who was not only dressed almost exactly like Lamont himself--all in black, silver ring with bright red stone on his left ring finger--but looked enough like Lamont to be his younger brother. What the...
"Hospitals are required by law to report all gunshot wounds to the police," Stephen continued firmly. "We can't have that."
"Who are you?" Margo demanded.
Stephen looked past her to Lamont. "Should I tell her?"
"No, Lamont's exhausted mental voice said raggedly just before he passed out.
"Lamont!" Margo called as he went limp in her arms.
Stephen bent down and gingerly picked Lamont up. "My name is Stephen," he told her. "I'm what they call an 'agent'. I can help him, but time is of the essence. We need to get back to Cranston Manor immediately. Where's your car?"
Margo shook off any hesitancy and led the way to the car as Spiderman discreetly scooped up two sets of Shadow costumes, tied them up into bundles and secured them with webbing straps, then slung the makeshift pack onto his back and took off after the vehicle.
By the time a cab discharged Lachlan and Maxwell at Maritime Labs, everything of importance at the mysterious lab--the heroes, the would-be lovers, Farley Claymore, and the truck carrying the beryllium sphere--was long gone. "So much for your idea about intercepting the sphere before it could be taken away," Maxwell sniped.
"You didn't exactly have other plans," Lachlan snapped back, equally frustrated.
"I thought you and your three Ph.Ds were able to think these things through."
"That's enough." Lachlan paced. "We could go straight back to Second and Houston and try to get into the building again..."
"You're kidding, right? We're lucky those goons with the swords didn't see us when we tried to escape the first time. Not to mention that now we can't even see the thing. I've heard of invisibility technology, but this is pretty damned impressive for the 1930s, and whoever's in there, they do not want anybody else in there. I'm reasonably sure they're not about to let us just waltz in there and make off with the parts of the nuclear bomb."
"That is what our mysterious benefactor expects us to tomorrow night at 11:32 PM."
"Yeah, tomorrow. Not today. I'm beginning to get the impression that even a time machine won't allow you to actually change the past."
Lachlan rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're one of those fools who believes in destiny."
"Unlike you, Professor, I tend not to believe something until it's been demonstrated to me. And right now, history is demonstrating that it can kick both of our hindquarters and not even break a sweat."
"Enough. Let's get back to the hotel and regroup."
"Regroup from what?"
"You do realize we still haven't figured out how we're supposed to get to the bomb in the first place, right?"
"Yeah, but I'm wondering if it'll just suddenly be clear to us at 11-something tomorrow night."
"Well, in case it doesn't, I want a backup plan. Come on." Lachlan headed back for the street to hail a cab while Maxwell kept pondering whether he really needed a second set of hands this badly.
Back in Turtle Bay, Russell, Lamont's majordomo, was balking at letting these two strangers into Cranston Manor, even with his master's current state of indispose, but after a brief but pointed conversation with Stephen--and some bizarre exchange about the weather--he had stepped aside to let them through and made himself scarce. Now it was Margo's turn to want answers as Stephen strode up the stairs with Lamont in his arms, carrying himself as if he owned the place, barging right into the master bedroom and laying the practically motionless body on the bed. "Who are you anyway?" Margo demanded hotly of Stephen. "A second-rate guardian angel?"
Stephen laughed bitterly. "Let's see how I do as a surgeon before you go promoting me."
"Surgeon?"
Stephen pointed to the gunshot wound. "That's got to come out. Under ideal circumstances, we could get by with leaving it in, giving him large doses of antibacterial medication, and hoping for the best as it works its way out of the skin on its own, but this situation is decidedly less than ideal. He's already got a fever, and he's lost a lot of blood. We need to get that source of infection out and stop the bleeding if he's even going to have a chance to make it through the night. Ever had any medical training?"
Margo felt herself turning pale. "I...I took nurse's aid training in college."
"Good, then you get to be my assistant. Get him undressed and find some towels in the bathroom to dry him off." He turned to Lamont and shook him gently to wake him up. "Where's your medical cabinet?"
"Right side of the armoire," Lamont whispered, so weak that he couldn't even muster up the energy for thought projection. "There's a hidden switch..."
"...that opens a false panel," Stephen finished, remembering finding it for himself as a teen. So that was where Victor got the idea to keep his own first aid supplies in there. He crossed the room and flicked the hidden switch. "Got it."
Margo gaped when Stephen revealed what amounted to a hospital supply closet hidden in the side panel of a massive piece of art deco furniture. But it was easy to see why Lamont needed it when she finished getting his shirt off. The man had more scars on his torso than undamaged skin...the scars of a lifetime of war, she realized.
The operation itself took about twenty minutes. Fortunately, Farley was a bad shot, and Lamont's heavy clothes had done their job of slowing the bullet down to lessen the damage; the bullet had passed almost completely through his left shoulder without breaking a single bone or severing a single major vessel or nerve. But it was just under the skin on the other side, and Stephen had to dig around for a moment or two, causing both Lamont to groan with pain and Margo to cringe in empathy. After removing the bullet, Stephen cleaned the area thoroughly, dressed the wound tightly, and gave him a dose of sulfa drugs to fight off the infection that was beginning to take hold from the dirty water that had gotten into the wound before their arrival. Margo assisted wherever she could, and had changed the saturated dressing on his right shoulder--an arrow wound from his rescue attempt at the Federal Building the night before, Stephen had explained. But Lamont's fever was still going up, and his periods of consciousness were becoming shorter and shorter in duration.
"The infection will probably last for most of the night, but his fever should break by morning," Stephen said. "But until then, someone needs to watch over him."
"I will," Margo answered without hesitation.
Stephen smiled knowingly. "I know. I have to tend to some unfinished business, so I'll leave him in your very capable hands." He smoothed Lamont's covers, then got up to leave.
"Will he be all right?" Margo asked.
"By morning, he'll be ready to fight villains again," Stephen promised.
Margo managed somehow to find relief in her otherwise emotionally drained soul. Between having her mind manipulated, Lamont's anger the night before, and her father being the kidnapped pawn in a warlord's attempt to conquer the world, she had never felt so exhausted in her life. She gave the mysterious young man a hug. "Thank you."
Stephen froze solid at her touch, but forced himself to relax and reciprocate the hug. "Y-you're welcome, Miss Lane." He once more turned to go, then stopped.
"What is it?" Margo asked.
Stephen seemed to argue with himself for a moment, then turned back. "He's going to need you. I mean, really need you. He'll pretend otherwise and try to push you away, but it's because he's trying to fool himself into thinking he doesn't need you."
Margo looked slightly confused. She'd almost forgotten their banter about the connection that she felt, the connection that he kept denying, as she was getting dressed this morning--had that really been 12 hours ago? "Really?"
"Yeah."
Margo smiled. "Maybe we really do have a connection. I mean, everyone needs somebody. Even those who rely on themselves most. Maybe especially those folks. I've always believed that anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves."
Stephen found himself strangely drawn to his grandmother's words of wisdom. He would definitely have to study those old histories closer when he got back. "I guess so." He turned to go once more.
"Wait."
He turned back.
"I still don't really know who you are," Margo said, almost demurely.
"I'm an agent," Stephen answered in as casual a tone as he could muster up.
"I know that...but I don't understand what that means. For that matter, I don't really understand much of anything right now."
"You will."
"You sound awfully sure."
It took everything Stephen had not to let out The Shadow's trademark laugh. "I know." He turned to go, then stopped in his tracks again.
Margo was hoping he would. She could somehow sense he was on the verge of telling her something important, so she pressed him for the unspoken details. "What is it?"
He hesitated, then realized he had to say it. To leave without warning her of what was to come would have been wrong. "Sometimes when you get to know more about people, you find out things about them that you're almost sorry you know. Things you can't believe that they could possibly be. But what you need to know is that what he was...he isn't any more. And you'll not only have to believe that yourself, but you'll have to convince him of that."
Margo looked blankly at him, then turned back to the unconscious Lamont. "I don't understand."
"I know."
Margo looked back to Stephen, but he wasn't there anymore.
Spiderman was waiting on the roof. "Smart woman, your grandmother."
"Yeah," Stephen admitted, leaning out the window of the guest bedroom and looking up at his partner. "She...I didn't, I think she...maybe I could...but then it would..." He threw up his hands. "You know what? I don't want to talk about it."
Spiderman laughed. "Wow--you just did a whole dialogue of denial by yourself."
"Yeah." A thought occurred to him about how many dialogues of denial he'd done in his lifetime...including one just hours before this journey through the decades. Maybe it was time he took some of his own advice. Or maybe he was just really, really tired. "Let's get back to the hotel," he finally said.
"You don't want to stick around and make sure everything goes all right?"
"No." He sighed. "Sometimes you just have to trust people to do the right thing."
Spiderman shrugged, then dropped a web line to Stephen. "Express elevator--no stops between here and the roof."
"We are victorious!" Khan shouted triumphantly, practically beaming as Farley Claymore's beryllium sphere was wheeled across the floor of his throne room. Guards pushed the cart toward their master, and Farley kept rubbing it with a cloth to polish it like a big silver apple. "The destruction of Ying Ko is complete, and the whole world will soon hear our thunder...thanks to the only American with genius enough to join me of his own free will!"
Farley smiled broadly. He'd go down in history as the man who conquered The Shadow...and one of the world's great rulers.
Khan came over to Farley and hugged him. His smile was cold. "Someone who saw himself a 'king' in my kingdom."
Farley chuckled nervously. "'King'? Did I say 'king'?"
Khan grabbed the back of his neck. "Yes, you did."
Farley tried to think of a way out of this. "Probably not the best choice of words," he mumbled nervously.
Khan grabbed his face in a jawbreaker grip and turned it to face him. "No, it wasn't."
"Because I was thinking prince, tops..."
Khan squeezed Farley's neck harder.
"Not even...duke? Earl?"
Khan glared at Farley.
"Your choice, of course. Your choice."
Khan wanted so badly to kill the simpering idiot. But until the bomb was assembled, he needed both scientists. Once they were able to successfully assemble the pieces, then he'd get rid of them. But for right now, patience was needed. He flung Farley aside like a rag doll. "Get Dr. Lane and assemble the bomb!" he ordered.
Farley got to his feet and ran to go find Reinhardt. The faster he got away from this lunatic when he was in this kind of mood, the better. He welcomed the chance to work on something else...and order Reinhardt around for a change.
Khan looked eager. Soon, the most fearsome weapon ever conceived would be reality. And with it, no one would be able to stop him. "In the name of the new Kha Khan--the power of God on Earth!" he shouted.
The guards raised their swords and shouted in triumph.
As Khan celebrated his victory over The Shadow, Margo heard Lamont's moans halfway down the hall and quickened her pace toward his bedroom. His fever was still going up, and she'd gone off to get out of her own wet clothes and fetch a bowl of water to cool his brow. Now she was dressed in his silk robe and on her way back with a large glass basin of cold water and a washcloth when she heard his delirious whimpers. "Lamont?" she called out, coming into the room.
Lamont was shivering under the blankets, mumbling incoherently. He looked as if he were having a nightmare, but his eyes were wide open.
Margo came closer. Those eyes...my God, those eyes...
Suddenly, raw power radiated out of them and shot through the room. Margo felt something driving into her brain, wrapping around her, sweeping her away...
She was standing in a dark chamber with an angry maw of a fireplace belching black smoke and flames into the room. The chamber looked Oriental in its decor, but even with the fire, there was no warmth in this room. Everything was harsh, stark, black, evil. She saw something moving off in the shadows and looked toward it.
Lamont's face looked back at her. But this wasn't the Lamont Cranston she knew. This was a wild man, with stringy black hair, debauched features, long purple nails, an Oriental ruler's robe...and demonic eyes.
He rose up off his throne. "You're not supposed to be here," he said, then pointed to the fireplace.
A tongue of flame shot out of the fireplace and drew a circle on the floor around her.
Margo felt the flames rising up, engulfing her...and strangely protecting her. She looked through the fire.
Wars raged all around her. Wars in a distant land...China, maybe? Villages being pillaged and burned. People being slaughtered. Blood everywhere.
And leading the rampage, roaring with triumph, was Lamont, dressed in full battle armor.
Margo watched in horror as he sliced one man's head off, stabbed another, wiped the blood from his face greedily...
Margo felt herself suddenly shoved backwards, and fell into a chair. She recovered her senses and looked around again.
She was back in Lamont's bedroom, sitting in the chair by his bedside. He was blinking, gasping for breath, as if he too had just emerged from that horrible nightmare.
Margo had somehow managed to hang onto the bowl of water and not spill it all over herself. She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, then dipped the washcloth into the water and wiped his brow. "Sh-h," she urged, trying to calm herself and him.
He looked her way, still disoriented.
"You were dreaming," she said in answer to his unspoken question.
It took Lamont a second to remember what he'd been dreaming...and then another second to realize how she'd known that. He put a hand on her arm to stop her from turning away from him. "You saw," he whispered weakly.
She nodded, ashamed that she'd eavesdropped on this. No wonder he'd been so scared. He hadn't wanted her to see that part of his life. But she had. And now they both had to deal with that knowledge.
Lamont was completely sickened by what he knew she'd seen. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have done things you can never forgive yourself for?" he asked rhetorically.
Margo struggled to find the right thing to say...and then suddenly Stephen's departing instructions made a strange kind of sense. What he was...he isn't any more. And you'll not only have to believe that yourself, but you'll have to convince him of that.
She looked directly at him and saw for the first time the complete vulnerability in his eyes. She had seen him without the lies, without the shadows, unmasked and unhidden, and seen the nightmare he hid inside himself. But even in that dark nightmare, he'd moved to protect her, casting that circle of fire around her. She took his hand. "Lamont...whoever you were, whatever you did...it's all in the past."
He looked sad. "Not for me, Margo. Never for me."
Margo kept holding his hand. She refused to believe him. He was not going to drive her away. Everyone had things in their past they weren't proud of. God knows she had used and abused enough men in her lifetime to deserve to spend the rest of her life alone. But no amount of any man's dark past was going to separate her from the one good thing that had happened to her in a very long time. She gently caressed his right shoulder.
His index finger stroked her wrist lovingly. He was almost too tired to wonder if this was one of those things that was supposed to happen and happen in the right order, because right now this felt...well, it felt more right than anything had felt in a very long time.
She smiled gently at him. He was finally starting to understand that he was stuck with her. And somehow, she was pretty certain he didn't mind this situation.
The newspaper boys the next morning cried the blaring headline out to passing patrons on the streets: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Madman threatens to blow the city sky-high!"
Other disbelieving citizens listened to the voice of the newsman on the radio: "Authorities are still wondering what to make of the ransom demand received last night by a mysterious man who claims to have a bomb powerful enough to destroy the entire city of New York. Is he serious? Is he bluffing? Either way, surely the work of a madman."
And Lamont Cranston, partially recovered from the near-fatal shooting thanks to Stephen's surgical work, Margo's nursing care, and a long night of tumo summoning, finished catching up on all the news fit to print as he paced across the parlor. Nothing like panic and mayhem in the morning headlines to start the day off right. He folded the newspaper up with a sharp cracking sound.
Russell came into the parlor. "Bad news, sir?"
"Well, it's certainly not good." He handed the paper to Russell. "Miss Lane is upstairs in my room, but she'll want to know about this. Take this up to her and leave it on the nightstand."
"Yes, sir. Shall I bring coffee?"
"That would be nice, thank you."
Russell gave an obedient bow, then turned and left the room.
Lamont waited until he was certain Russell was gone, then turned his attention to the seating area. "Comfy?"
Stephen swirled into visibility and turned slightly on the sofa to look over at his grandfather. "Very good. I was wondering when you'd notice."
"I'm not that easy to fool, despite recent evidence to the contrary." He looked at the young man for a long moment, musing on the notion that he was in the uncomfortable position of owing his life to, essentially, his alter ego.
"Weird, isn't it?" Stephen finally offered.
Lamont shrugged. "It's certainly different." Then he stopped his wandering thoughts in their tracks and dragged them back to the present. "You're now out of time, Stephen. We're both out of time."
"Actually, technically, you will run out of time at 11:32 PM tonight."
Lamont's temper flared at Stephen's continuing impertinence. "But you've run out of time now. Start talking."
Stephen smiled, suddenly realizing something that hadn't occurred to him until now. "I don't need to tell you anything. You already know everything you need to know."
Lamont looked angry. "Stop playing games with me. I want answers..."
"You already have them. And before you turn on me and start trying to blow out my brain again, think about it. Really think about it. You know all the answers already. You have all the facts you need. All the pieces of this bizarre and twisted puzzle are right before you. Now you just need to put them together. And I promise you, it will make far more sense if you assemble it for yourself." Stephen stood up. "But I'll make you another promise. If you still don't think you can solve this puzzle for yourself within the next hour, I'll give you as many hints as you need to finish solving it. But for your own benefit, you need to be the one reaching the final conclusion, because you have to know where all of this is going. You're the one who's going to have to take Khan on head-to-head, because Peter and I are going to be sufficiently engaged in our own battle, and that's one battle I have no answer for."
Lamont glared at Stephen.
Stephen glared back every bit as hard.
Finally, the elder Shadow reached a decision. "All right. You have one hour."
Stephen smiled knowingly. "No, you do." He cast a glance toward the hallway. "I think your guest is awake, so I'd best be going. See you later."
Lamont shook his head. If Stephen was an example of what an awakened Cranston child was like, maybe he should seriously consider that vow of celibacy. "Count on it." With that, he turned to the window as a gesture of dismissal.
Stephen gave a shadowy chuckle, then cast out a mind clouding suggestion and breezed right past Margo Lane as she came into the parlor, brandishing the paper like a club.
Margo gave a glance behind her, unsure why she would have the impression that someone had passed her by. Whatever that strange sensation was, it certainly wasn't coming from Lamont, because he was standing by the windows in the parlor, apparently feeling much better because he was now showered and dressed and looking out the window, deep in thought. "Have you read this?" she called.
He nodded. "That's why I left it for you."
She looked at the article again. "It says that he's demanded millions of dollars in ransom--cash, gold, jewels, even works of art--or he'll blow up the city at midnight tonight. Is he serious? Can he really do this?"
"Of course. He's got your father's generator, Claymore's sphere, and enough bronzium to make it all work. Find Khan and we'll find that bomb." He massaged his sore shoulder and turned toward her. "What did you find out about that lot?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. Up until a few years ago, it was the site of the old Hotel Monolith."
"The Monolith?" Lamont crossed the parlor to the recently-arrived Russell and accepted the cup of coffee the butler was pouring for him. "I vaguely remember that."
"Seems that's about the only way anybody remembers it. The records at City Hall are a real mess when it comes to that place." Margo picked up the coffee cup off Lamont's saucer and began pacing, sipping it as she talked. "It was built ten years ago but never finished. The developer went bankrupt putting the finishing touches on the place and committed suicide. It sat empty for a long time because no one knew what to do with it. The last official record is of its sale six years ago to a Far Eastern buyer."
Lamont didn't even raise an eyebrow at Margo's appropriation of his coffee cup. After what they went through last night, sharing the same cup was nothing. "When was it torn down?"
"The records don't say."
Now that made Lamont raise an eyebrow. "What?"
"That's what I meant when I said the records were a mess. I made some calls while I was there, but got nowhere." She came back over to him. "Everyone seems to know that it was torn down...but no one can remember when, or by whom."
Lamont took back the coffee cup. His eyes widened as a part of this disjointed puzzle finally began to take shape. "Or if."
Minutes later, Moe dropped both of them off at the corner of Second and Houston. Lamont got out of the cab, offered a hand to Margo, then stood in the middle of the street and just stared across at the vacant lot. "I can't believe he did it," he said, his voice filled with marvel.
"Did what?" Margo asked.
Lamont wasn't listening...at least, not to her. He was instead opening his mind, trying to find mental impressions that didn't seem to belong. Marpa Tulku had taught him that mind clouding was a projective skill, but breaking through it required both receptive skill to hear the suggestion and projective power to override it. There was something here; now, he had to force his receptive side to find it.
A strange whispering hiss filled his head. He focused on it, filtered out the remaining impressions, and amplified that thought wave in his head.
The hiss got louder.
"Lamont?" Margo insisted, putting a gentle hand on his arm.
Focus, he told himself, trying to reduce the content in his mind to that one particular psychic wavelength that was now hissing and swirling through his head. Filter. Amplify.
The hissing became a whispering voice, still indistinct.
Focus. Filter. Amplify.
The whispering became more distinct. The phrase this is nothing but an overgrown, empty lot with trash blowing over it became clear.
Lamont wrapped projective telepathic energy around that whispering voice and shoved it out of his head.
The air around him began to shimmer and swirl, and suddenly, everything came into focus. "My God!" he practically shouted.
Where there had been nothing but an overgrown, empty lot with trash blowing over it, there now stood a magnificent twelve-story hotel. Art deco metal lettering on the front blared its name, "Hotel Monolith". Long, sleek lines of marble and granite towered skyward, brass and steel gleamed in the sunlight, and a round crows-nest-style penthouse topped it like a crown. The whole thing was a magnificent example of 1920s architectural styling looming over the street unseen.
Unseen, that is, except by one powerful, clever adept. "It's beautiful," Lamont whispered.
Margo looked confused. He had to be seeing something she couldn't--probably with his mind--but what in the world was he talking about? "What is? Lamont?"
Lamont grabbed a passer-by and pointed him right at the corner. "Hey, buddy," he said, "that building right there--what's the name of that building?"
"The Hotel Monolith."
Lamont was startled for a second...and then recognized the man's distinctive blue-green eyes.
"Still need a hint?" a disguised Stephen Cranston asked silently.
Lamont gave him a pat on the shoulder and a wink.
That was Stephen's cue to look totally confused and pretend there wasn't a building there. He shook off Lamont's hands from his shoulders. "Lunatic!" he said as he hurried away.
Lamont laughed heartily. "Shiwan Khan has hypnotized the whole city!" He looked around at oblivious pedestrians, drivers, and bicyclists. "They don't see it! Nobody sees it!" Then, he looked back at the lot, his eyes darkening with anger. "But I see it."
Margo was concerned. Lamont had that look in his eyes again...that dark, raging anger that she'd seen days earlier. But there was something else there now...absolute power, and absolute confidence in that power. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He turned toward her. "You and Shrevnitz will receive your instructions. I want you to follow them exactly." Then, he hurried away.
"Wait--Lamont!" She started after him, then got the distinct impression that she shouldn't follow. There were places only a shadow could go...and this was one of them.
Moe Shrevnitz perused The Racing Form on one of his rare nights off as a blazing fire in the fireplace warded off the damp winter chill. He'd spent a good part of the afternoon with Margo, getting to know the newest agent and the woman who'd so enchanted the boss that he was willing to share his deepest secrets with her. But he'd been warned that he'd receive instructions later, and the last thing he needed was for those instructions to arrive at the house when he wasn't there to intercept them, so he'd come home early and told his curious wife Shirley that he'd had a really good tipper for a fare today and was taking a well-deserved night off. The hardest part about being an agent through the years had been keeping all this from Shirley, a determined snoop who never seemed to be completely satisfied with the answers Moe gave her for his odd working hours. More than once, he'd had to ask Lamont to use his persuasive powers to refocus her attention away from some particularly troublesome assignment when she hadn't believed he wasn't sneaking around with another woman or worse.
The doorbell rang, and a message practically flew through the mail slot.
Moe put down the paper. This had to be it. He got up and headed for the front door, then picked the envelope up off the floor and opened it hurriedly.
Shirley, reading a book in the living room, looked up. "What is it, Moe? One of those things from the bowling league again?"
The page shimmered, and then writing became visible:
Shrevnitz--rendezvous with agent Lane at corner of Second Avenue and Houston Street. Enter when possible.
The note was "signed" with a miniature insignia of a man in a slouch hat and cloak. Seconds later, the page became blank again. "Yep," he replied.
Barely a minute after the delivery of her message, Margo pulled on her coat, grabbed her umbrella, and ran out the back door. Her note said almost exactly the same thing Moe's did, except the names were reversed. Her note, too, faded into oblivion just seconds after reading it, and now she too had to spring into immediate action. She said a silent prayer as she started her car that when they found Khan, they would not just find the bomb...they would also find her father.
Her father was indeed with Shiwan Khan...and quite occupied with the final steps to turn his peaceful invention into a horribly destructive bomb. Reinhardt robotically threaded thin wires through the tips of the platinum plugs on his implosive generator, connecting them with a power source inside Farley's beryllium sphere. The power source was connected to a timing mechanism which Farley had fashioned from a design he once stole from a scientist who'd been stupid enough to hire him. Together with the bronzium coins which now stuffed the inside of the implosive ball, they made the ideal mass-destruction weapon...which Farley was all-too-glad to gloat about. "Betcha wish you'd been nicer to me, huh?" he said, like a victorious bully lording his status over a smaller child. "Betcha didn't know I was friends with a conqueror, huh? Betcha never thought I'd be the one telling you what to do..."
"Be quiet," Khan ordered, exasperated. He just wanted to throttle Farley, but the more he watched the two scientists work, the more he realized he'd never have the patience to do all of this more than once. So, he needed to keep one of them. And, whether he liked it or not, at least he didn't have to hypnotize Farley to keep his loyalty. He turned to Reinhardt. "Set the timer for two hours."
Reinhardt connected five wires under the hood of the bomb--one for each of the hour, minute, and second digits needed--then flipped a switch inside the sphere, lowered the hood, and screwed the front panel into place.
Five vacuum tubes lit up and briefly displayed five digits that read "2:00:00" across their lighted filaments. Then, the digits began to tick away...1:59:59...1:59:58...1:59:57...
Khan's men hoisted the bomb into the air on a pulley system. Reinhardt had estimated that an open-air detonation would produce the maximum destruction force, so it was important to get it off the ground. They anchored the pulley ropes to the walls of the chamber, then bowed to their master.
Khan turned to Farley. "You are certain you can duplicate this bomb's design anytime I wish?"
Farley scoffed. "Piece of cake."
Khan wasn't sure he believed the idiot, but Farley had shown he was a very good mimic. And he did have all of Reinhardt's blueprints. "Then that makes Dr. Lane obsolete." He turned to his men. "Take him to a room...where he will die at the hands of his own invention."
Two guards grabbed Reinhardt on either side by the arms and dragged him from the room. Farley could have sworn the doddering old fool had actually said "Yes, my Khan" as he was being led away like a lamb to slaughter.
Khan smiled. Soon, all the world would hear his thunder. The return of the lost kingdom of Sianking was less than two hours away.
Farley looked nervous. "Listen," he said, trying not to anger the temperamental monarch again, "I know you probably have this all figured out, but...shouldn't we be getting out of here?"
Khan looked annoyed with the question. "There is an airplane arriving shortly to take us all to safety. We leave in one hour." And with that, he headed away to make last minute preparations, confident no one was left to stop him.
As afternoon turned to evening and the rain continued to pour down, The Shadow stealthily moved through the alleys and sidestreets toward Khan's tower. He'd spent the entire afternoon in The Sanctum, engaged in deep meditation, healing as much of his body as he could and focusing his psyche. He'd finally realized that Khan was naturally sensitive to the thought patterns surrounding arrogance, and had used that sensitivity to disrupt Lamont's normally deep confidence in his telepathic abilities, so much of the meditation session had been focused on simply reminding himself to stay calm, to know and understand his limitations, to be realistically confident in both what he could do and who he was inside. He would need every ounce of telepathic energy in his mental reservoir and every psychic trick in his arsenal, because Khan was waging full-scale war...and this was the final battle.
He reached an alley on Second Avenue just off Houston Street. He cast a blanket mind clouding suggestion to blend himself with the night, then stepped out of the alley and looked toward the supposedly empty corner.
To passers-by, the corner still looked empty. But to The Shadow, it was a fenced-in fortress, guarded by two Mongol warriors inside the fence line protecting the front doors. He surreptitiously slipped across the street and scaled the fence.
By the time the guards saw splashing from feet running across the waterlogged pavement on their side of the fence, it was too late. Two punches decked them both, and now The Shadow was past the first line of defense.
As lightning flashed through the night and illuminated the lobby of the Hotel Monolith in an eerie aura, glimpses of a shadow on the walls appeared and disappeared as The Shadow combed the lobby, using his projective sight ability to probe the darkness, searching everywhere for Khan's Mongol guards. Surprisingly--or maybe not so--there weren't any. Khan had put guards at the door to protect the perimeter, but left the lower floors completely empty. He'd been so confident in his own mind clouding powers that he never dreamed someone would penetrate his own defenses.
At the top of the stairs to the second floor, The Shadow swirled into visibility and looked over the lobby once more. He couldn't believe it. Not a soul in sight. And Khan was completely unaware his perimeter had been penetrated, because not a single hostile thought pattern was coming his way. He might just be able to get off the opening salvo in this last battle.
The Shadow laughed heartily, then swirled into the darkness again.
Meditating on his throne, Khan heard the mocking laughter and went rigid. "Ying Ko?" he said in disbelief.
Farley, checking the sphere for any possible defects, jumped like a frog and looked around like his head was on a swivel. "The Shadow?" he said, horrified that he'd failed in his mission to kill Khan's great rival...a mistake for which Khan would surely make him pay. "Where?"
Khan looked disgusted. "Not here, you idiot. In the building."
Farley looked sheepish. "Can you tell if he's...uh...mad at me? We had a...bit of a misunderstanding yesterday morning..."
Khan was livid. This weakling had failed him for the last time. He was going to get rid of Ying Ko if it was the last thing he did. And if that meant he sacrificed a pain in his rear in the process, so much the better. He picked up a Tommy gun and tossed it to Farley. "Find him and kill him!"
Horrified, Farley realized that Khan was literally sending him on a suicide mission. "Kill him? Me?"
Khan waved angrily at Huong Shu and the remaining soldiers. "All of you!"
Huong Shu nodded, gathered his men and a flashlight, and left the room.
Farley looked hopeful. Maybe Khan would come to his senses if he groveled appropriately. "Couldn't I just stay here with you?" he laughed nervously.
Khan pointed to the exit. "Go!"
Reluctantly, Farley followed Huong Shu out of the throne room.
Back at the Moonlight Hotel, Stephen checked his watch. "He should be in by now," he reported, pulling on his hat and cloak. "You ready?"
Peter pulled on his gloves and checked his webshooters. "Ready? Was Sitting Bull ready to scalp Custer? Was Washington ready to kick Cornwallis' redcoat? Was Danny Ocean ready to rob Terry Benedict?"
Stephen looked at his partner for a moment. "You really do watch too many movies."
Peter nodded, then pulled Spiderman's mask over his face. "Let's do it."
The younger Shadow took a deep breath to steady his nerves, trying to go over the game plan he'd dreamed of participating in his whole life. "Don't let any Mongols that we come across get a good look at you. Khan's told his people to watch for Shadows and they've already fought one, so don't tip your hand if you don't have to."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"I've been hearing the details of this night all my life, but I've obviously had quite a few things left out. So...I'd appreciate it if you took care of Margo..."
Spiderman grinned beneath his mask."Developing a soft spot for Granny, eh?"
The Shadow shrugged, trying to look more nonchalant than he felt. "Little bit."
Spiderman gave his partner a pat on the back, then opened the window and hopped onto the sill. "Let's go."
Minutes later, Farley, Huong Shu, and two Mongol warriors were striding down the hallway of the third floor. A magnificent ballroom was on this floor, and a huge floor-to-ceiling frosted glass mural adorned the balcony overlooking the lobby. The flashing lightning coming in through the hotel's front windows cast eerie shadows everywhere, even as Huong Shu's flashlight scanned the area looking for shadows that didn't belong...
A taunting laugh ran in perfect harmony with the rolling thunder, and everyone stood rigid, looking around.
Farley grabbed the flashlight from Huong Shu. "You go that way," he ordered, pointing off toward a corridor.
Huong Shu didn't like the fact that Farley now had their only light source, but the man had a gun, and Huong Shu wasn't about to argue. He clicked his tongue, and the warriors followed him into the darkness.
A swirl of darkness condensed into The Shadow behind them. It looked around briefly, and noticed another swirl on the wall. "Which one do you want?"
A slightly taller Shadow swirled into view. "Claymore. I owe him this one."
An attuned laugh rang out. "I've got the Mongols. Khan knows you're here, so you can't waste time."
A heating duct banged open and Spiderman stuck his head into view between them. "Wow. Talk about Doublemint commercials..."
The first Shadow looked at the third. "That's the chewing gun in the green wrapper, right?
"Right," the third answered. "Wrigley. Remember the name."
"Exchange stock tips later," Spiderman interrupted. "Khan's on the top floor. The bomb is with him. Reinhardt Lane is in one of the hotel rooms a floor below that."
The older Shadow looked at his younger heir. "We'll need Lane to disarm the bomb, so we need to break Khan's hold on him."
"Something tells me you've got a plan for that."
The elder Shadow chuckled. "Do I ever..."
"So let's start executing," Spiderman urged.
"Is he always this pushy?" The elder Shadow asked.
"You get used to it. See you later." The younger Shadow turned to follow the Mongols.
"Stephen."
The heir turned back.
The Shadow had an even angrier and colder look than normal in his eyes. "Nobody kills Khan but me."
"Deal." The younger Shadow nodded, Spiderman ducked back into the ductwork, and the three men went their separate ways.