ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS FAN FICTION — EVEN THOSE BASED ON FICTIONAL PEOPLE — ARE ENTIRELY MADE-UP. ALL DANTE REFERENCES ARE RESEARCHED… POORLY. THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS LEWD SEXUAL HUMOR AND DUE TO ITS LONG INTROSPECTIVE MONOLOGUES IT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE. _|_|_|
Kenny
Even though it's on my mind twenty-four/seven, I can never state enough just how fucking proud I am to be Mysterion and to be a part of the Shadow League.
We've been active for years, now, and I for one know that Mysterion is not a part of me that's ever going to die. I thrive on helping people. I love to do good for the sake of those who can't help themselves or who can't even begin to understand the dangers around them.
Name it, and I'll take it on. It's what I've sworn myself to do.
So this was gonna be a summer to be proud of—I told myself that right from the get-go. None of us were seeing this as a burden. It was a job; we were signed on to it, and we were going to see it through, no matter what had to happen.
With little information about this new Ginger uprising, the best use of our week, we determined, was gathering data from any and all outside sources. Part-time jobs. Friends. Parents. Co-workers. We all advised each other to keep a wary eye on people we knew or at very least commonly associated with who could be possible other letter recipients.
Ike pre-empted his own assignment and offered to keep a sharp ear at his father's law office… particularly when filtering calls from the police station. Ike had long ago invested in a police scanner, and he had more recently figured out a way to route some Park County Police reports into a protected email that only he, Karen, and Timmy knew how to access. The guy was fucking brilliant, and while it was going to be hard losing him to the East Coast if he did go for an Ivy League school once he graduated—as I kept hearing Kyle talk about at school—I was pretty certain that our youngest member would still manage to have a hand in Shadow League affairs over the internet.
As for the rest of us, we started our investigation in more or less the same way: at our summer jobs. I, fortunately, worked everywhere. I'd gotten in good with various painting and contracting crews around town, and was generally one of the first ones called in for work. It was because I was paid cash, no questions asked, and probably also because I was younger than most of the crew, and could keep up with some of the more rigorous work. I'd gotten to a point at which I could ask for a little more money on each job, and I knew that one of these days I'd have to start looking for something that would allow me to build credit, as Karen was doing, but for now, this kind of work served and suited me just fine.
Stan, too, was in a pretty good position, at least at his father's office. There, he had access to anything and everything the geologists were working on or tracking. Then there was Token, who interned at Hell's Pass, Wendy, who may have been in the best position as an assistant at the South Park Gazette, and, as weird as it was to admit, Craig. Because Craig hauled his ass out of bed at four a.m. to go typeset the teleprompter for the morning news, he sometimes knew things even before Wendy or Ike. It pissed Cartman off that Craig had gotten the job, which was once amusing but now annoying, since Cartman wanted to suck up to the news station more than anything, but Craig had the job and Craig therefore had the news. I had no clue how he did it… functioning on only a few hours of sleep, keeping up that job, and still holding steady in the League. Never would have guessed it, but the guy had pulled through.
And then, there were the Goths.
Which was precisely where Stan, Kyle and I wanted to start during one of their afternoons off. Kyle bitched and moaned a little about losing his off time and still being tired from the last couple of semesters at school, but I knew he was just coming up with excuses rather than admitting to be scared shitless about being a target of Tenorman's 'invitations'-slash-threat-letters. Plus, he was just as excited as the rest of us to be back on a job.
The Shadow League, even just the mere mention of it, was enough to get any of us out of a funk, or halt friendly feuds. Sure, there was some strain going on at the moment, but I was confident that would smooth out. And I had a feeling that whatever the three of us picked up from the Goths that early afternoon would set us on our way to being right back out on the field and getting to the bottom of this summer threat.
The past few years had been almost alarmingly kind to the Goths, to the point that the three were thriving. In the June preceding my sophomore year at CSU, Henrietta—our still oft-reliable resource for all things even vaguely otherworldly—and her two eternal dark companions had opened up an establishment that both suited their needs (coffee and sparse light) and brought in enough revenue to keep them functioning. Henrietta herself had, in high school, come into a considerable amount of money following the death of her adopted alien brother, Bradley, and was the one to get the place started, though it was her 'friend' with a splash of red in his mottled black hair who had somehow earned himself an associate's degree in business in order to keep the place thriving.
And I had to admit, despite the dreary atmosphere and the hellish art that constantly oozed on the industrial walls, I liked it. They called the place The Tenth Circle, and it was, by listing, an Anti-Collective: of art, music, and—of course—coffee. Bands of the batcave variety played the small stage set up in an isolated room off to the left of the entrance, and art shows were held for the morbidly-inclined. The Goths' two sacrifices for the place were the Colorado smoking ban and the need to hire staff on an as-needed basis. Luckily, one of the selected few who could work whenever she needed to was my sister, who'd give up her normally colorful wardrobe for blacks and greys a couple times a week so that the Goths wouldn't have to rise with the sun in order to please people.
There was a fittingly circular coffee bar on the far back wall of the main room, and arranged around under low-lit (and low-hanging) black iron chandeliers were a motley assortment of either Victorian or modern (and twisted) chairs, sofas, and chaise lounges. For disliking people so much, the Goths sure took care of them well. Which was good; it kept the place going.
The three lived together in the doubly dark loft above the establishment, as well, which was beyond convenient for us in the League. I'd been working with the Goths for the past few years still, tracking down and destroying anything and everything from or reminiscent of R'lyeh, which made the Cthulhu nightmare just that much more buried, to me.
I was, though, disturbed that the artist Wilcox—now two years out of prison for having had a hand in Cthulhu Cult affairs—was sometimes showcased at The Tenth Circle, but the art no longer resembled the Old Ones.
Nowadays, he painted sins.
Sins; pestilence; decay—all sorts of fantastic representations of the kind of Hell only Dante Alighieri once had known.
Which, Goddammit, just happened to, once again, be art relevant to our interests.
When I met up with Stan and Kyle the Thursday afternoon that truly changed the course of our final college summer break, the former had his guitar case beside him, and the instrument itself in his lap. The two sat facing each other in large, sickly gold chairs on either side of a small, circular chess table, and Kyle was giving passing positive feedback to Stan's quiet progression of chords.
Damn, I thought: Stan was getting really serious about that guitar. To the point that, yeah, to be honest, I was getting a little nervous about how long those guys were going to hold an interest in continuing with the League.
But I told myself not to worry. I had them for the summer, and that was all we needed to focus on for now. I waved upon walking in, and Kyle, angled toward the door, waved back, prompting Stan to turn and do so as well. Stan started in on the opening riff for Bela Lugosi's Dead as Henrietta crossed to bring two bowls of some coffee concoction or another to the two, and I strode up to the counter, repeating my order in my head since I knew that Henrietta's companions had absolutely no tolerance for the oh, I need to take my time and look at the menu crowd. According to Karen, an indecisive customer once got hosed out of the store. I have no option but to believe her, and only wish I could have seen it happen.
The Goth who had been in my grade in school, the nefarious owner with no known name, was working the register, and had his scowl ready as I approached. His jaw was busy biting down on a mint or six as his indoor replacement for his preferred clove or cigarette, so I wasn't surprised that he didn't greet me. "Black eye," I ordered, already digging cash out of my jeans pocket. "The drink, dude, don't hit my face."
"I was gonna waive your charge," said the Goth, dressed, that day, in decidedly Edwardian pinstripes and a women's cloche that still did nothing to hide some of the red accent to his jagged hair, "but I'm tempted to charge you for the stupid joke."
"Waive my charge?" I wondered, nonetheless slipping two bucks in the tip jar (a modified bat sculpture whose head had been severed; the body had been theatrically painted to show that it was 'bleeding,' complete with entrails that nobody wanted to see and therefore had to put money in the damn jar if they didn't want the taste of their coffee spoiled by painted bat guts—the head appeared in a different part of the shop on any given day, and it wasn't much of a secret that they kept a security camera in there).
The Goth rolled his eyes. "I don't always do favors, but your girlfriend gave me a deal on this—" he flicked at the collar of the grey pinstripe vest he was wearing over a long-sleeved black collared shirt— "so I said I'd give you guys your next couple drinks."
"Well, thanks," I said, trying not to grin too broadly, lest he change his mind.
"Whatever."
I turned away from him, knowing that he was done with the conversation, and gave Henrietta the wave I knew she never wanted but that I always gave her anyway, just as a gesture of good faith. She didn't scowl, which was enough of an acknowledgement that we were as close to 'friends' as anyone could really get to the Goths (other than Stan, who had run in their circle once back in elementary school and whom they still more or less respected, and Craig, who had dated Henrietta for a little while and who still rolled with the Goths on occasion).
When I moved to head back over to the guys, though, an enormous oil painting on the exposed brick wall facing the barista station not only caught my eye but stalled my breath and made me trip a little. The Goths had hung some interesting shit in their shop before (the 'Inner Beauty' theme of their inaugural year came to mind, with displays of x-rayed bone diseases and pictures nobody wants to see of what your intestinal tract looks like), but this was… actually, it was kind of breathtaking.
In a very unsettling way.
The painting must have been four feet by six feet or so; I mean, it was huge… and just from a glance, I could tell that I was looking at the beginning of a journey. It felt familiar to me, and that sent a chill down my spine. When I saw the title of the piece, on a plaque to its left, I understood why.
It was called Limbo. It tamed in comparison to the expected horrors of the paintings of sins that hung throughout the rest of the shop, but I just plain did not like this piece. It disturbed me, because I had seen Purgatory, Hell, and Heaven before. It had been four full, wonderful years since the last time I died, and I knew that the next time death came for me it would be the very end. So I didn't like chances, and I hated reminders.
But I was able to brush it off, and join my friends at the chess table, selecting the seat on Stan's left, putting my back to the service counter. "Hey, dudes," I said.
"Hey, Kenny," Kyle greeted me. "Sorry, dude, I've actually gotta run to the bathroom. Can you guys hold off on the conversation till I get back?"
"Can't think without coffee anyway, man, go for it," I told him.
"Be right back." Kyle abandoned his chair and drummed the fingers of his right hand on Stan's left shoulder as he walked past to head into the other room toward the hidden facilities (a feature that drove some customers crazy—I think it was the Goths' way of filtering clientele).
Stan peered around the back of his chair to make sure Kyle had gone, then turned to me and said, "Hey, man, real quick, how's this sound?" He then proceeded to play a few gliding, plucked chords, his full focus on the guitar, to make sure his fingers were doing what he wanted them to do.
"Catchy," I gave him once he looked at me for approval. "You writing your husband a song?"
"Dude, shut the fuck up," Stan sneered at me, picking a rook up off of the chess table and chucking it at me. The ex-quarterback still had good aim: hit me right on the collarbone, and I saw him let out a silent guilty laugh, since he knew it might've bruised. Then again, ever since I'd rid myself of my Immortality, I've been kind of quick to bruise. If that was the worst of the after-effects, though… whatever. I'd take it. No big deal at all. I'd rather bruise dark for a week than get reborn every other fucking day. "You can't tell Kyle you heard that, by the way," Stan added.
I smirked almost involuntarily. "Oh, no?"
"Dude, please."
I grinned and chucked the rook back at him. "Whatever, man, I won't."
"But it sounded good?" Stan double-checked with me while he set the rook back on the table.
"Like I said, dude, it's catchy," I assured him.
"Well… thanks." Stan flashed a nervous smile and tucked his guitar away into its case so that he could switch gears. He was getting pretty serious about his music, yeah, but I knew damn well that he didn't let it take priority over certain other things. Luckily, the League was still one of them. And I couldn't imagine taking on a new mission without any single member of my current team.
Or our liaisons. Henrietta walked over at that point with my black eye, and rolled her eyes at Stan. "You still doing your minstrel thing?" he asked.
"Yup," Stan affirmed, picking up his own coffee for another sip. "Don't worry," he added, "my lyrics are all nice and conformist."
"Whatever. I'm sure you guys'll let me know when you need advice or something."
"Yeah, give it a few," I said. "Thanks for the coffee."
"Well, that's why you're here."
"World-class service, man," I joked to Stan after Henrietta had gone.
"It's the only reason I keep coming back," he laughed in return.
"Hey, it got five outta five in the Gazette."
"Okay, dude, number one, it's the Gazette, and look at the other options," Stan chided. "Number two, who wrote the article?"
"Uh, Wendy?"
"There we go."
"Whatev," I shrugged. "Some people hate it, but all the better for us."
"Which is probably why she sprung for the fifth star," Stan laughed.
Further irony had to do with the fact that Wendy and Marjorine still favored Tweak Bros.' over Tenth Circle, but Wendy's review—as part of her summer job last year—had at one point drawn in plenty of business… only to see trickled repeat customers. Which was hilarious. I loved watching Karen's female classmates (and I could end the sentence there but I won't) walk in and get all weirded out by so much as the dark lighting. Funnier still was the fact that even the hipsters rarely gave the place the time of day. Tenth Circle really was a place of its own. Though I did have to wonder just how much of what the Goths were able to do came from Bradley's weird alien life insurance. Which did add a weird vibe to the place, but once again: whatever. The place served its purposes, and well.
Henrietta had no sooner left than Kyle returned, and after issuing my obligatory, 'what the fuck took you so long?' I admitted to needing a few minutes before we got started.
Despite sharing an apartment with those guys, between classes, studying, part-time jobs and respective dates, I really only got to hang out with them in the summer now, so I'd take these shoot the shit moments while I could. I had a feeling that whatever the fuck this emerging threat was all about might give us a run, but at least we'd all be together. That was something.
Once I was a few sips into my drink, the time for small talk was over, and we drilled ourselves to get down to business. Kyle and I started up a mindless game of fake chess on the table to give ourselves something to do, while Stan played note-taker, jotting down anything important we might touch upon in a memo pad he used for League purposes. We all had notebooks like that, with certain words coded using a system Wendy and Bebe had developed together our senior year of high school, so that only the few of us would be able to make sense of each other's notes.
"So, hey," said Kyle, moving his white bishop three diagonal squares toward my black queen, "you get a chance to really check out Wilcox's art yet?"
"Ugh, yeah," I said. I moved a pawn in front of my queen to avoid capture. "Sins and stuff, right? I kinda glanced. They're nasty."
"And possibly revealing." Kyle frowned down at the chess board, blew air out through his lips, then leapt his knight over three of my pawns to the other side of the board, to a black space beside my rook, and said, "King me."
"Dude," I said, "fuck you, that's checkers."
"Same board, same rules."
"Penalty," said Stan, after mimicking the sound of a score-board buzzer. "Kenny wins by default."
"Woohoo!" I exclaimed. "What do I win?"
"A trip to Disneyland."
"Ssh!" Kyle hushed him, smacking his knee with a hard backhand. "If the Goths hear you utter the D-word in here, they'll come pour hot coffee in your lap."
"Ick. Good call. I said nothing."
Kyle gave his boyfriend a smirk and patted his knee, then shifted focus to address us both as he said, "But can we get back to serious time? I feel like these paintings might be able to help us. I fucking hate looking at them, but even just the titles seem relevant or revealing, dude. Plus, I mean, look at who made them."
"Well, okay," I said, leaning forward onto my knees. "What do we know so far? We get that it's Tenorman sending this propaganda shit out and that he's really going overboard on this 'red' this-and-that theme. I mean, guys, it just started, but my girlfriend's already at this point where she's kinda wanting me to call her 'Rebecca.' I'm her fucking boyfriend, and this shit is making her not want to be 'Red' even to me."
"Ouch," said Stan. "Sorry, dude."
"Yeah, well," I said, "she's scared."
"No kidding. It's disturbing seeing this crap everywhere," Kyle admitted.
"Everywhere?" I wondered.
Stan nodded. "Did you get Craig's text, man? He and Clyde've been seeing posters."
"Posters?" I coughed into my drink.
"Down on Eighth Street," Stan said. "They took 'em down, but I guess it was something about 'Paint The Town Red,' or some shit like that. I'm sure Clyde's filed one of 'em already."
"Ugh."
"Yeah," said Kyle. "Oh, and get this." He dug into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a folded slip of contact paper, red in color—go figure—and thin in shape. "Ike got this in the mail today. Ike. Because he's my brother."
He offered it over to me, and as I unfolded it, Kyle said, "It's a ticket."
Indeed it was. Depression-era poster script proclaimed that it was an Admit One waiver, though little other information was given. Other than a name. We got ourselves a name.
"Holder is granted full access during open hours," I read off. "Intended for holder—Broflovski—only. Courtesy of Infernal Majestic Management, and your ringleaders, Red Devil/Red Hair."
"It's a carnival," said Stan, tapping his thick black artist's pen onto the open page of his notebook.
"Ugh," I remarked again, scanning the ticket for more clues, "of course it is. Tenorman's been hooked on that fucking theme since Cartman…"
"Yeeeeah," Stan and Kyle groaned out simultaneously.
It was true: he'd been obsessed with the carnival idea since Cartman had Scott Tenorman's parents (never mind that they shared a father, not that the former knew that at the time) ground up into chili at a carnival he had devised at only eight years old. Almost thirteen years later, Tenorman was still on it, trying to get back at Cartman in whatever way he could. It had taken him a long time, but he was finally, very specifically, targeting the whole League, of which the Coon was a cornerstone. And he just had to target us now… now that we were only around for the summer, and therefore had very limited time in our hometown to do a damn thing about it.
"We should've called this," I said, disappointed in how we kind of had let the Tenorman subject go in recent years. "I mean, at least Tenorman's predictable… we can take care of this in…"
"Yeah, wouldn't really count on that," Stan said dourly.
"Why, what's up?"
"Ready to hear something disturbing?" Stan flipped through his notebook to another page, and turned it to show me a list. Didn't even matter to me at first glance what the list was, since everything was crossed out. Over in the corner, Stan's best chickenscratch read in enormous letters, FUCK. So that wasn't good. "None of the fairgrounds around here are getting set up for anything. I already cross-checked with the Mayor and the parks crews. Nobody's heard anything."
"He's already gone underground once," Kyle pointed out. "I don't know if he'd do it again… I mean, it's been about ten years since the last time, but I'm thinking recon missions are a good ideas. At least in pairs, if not groups."
"Mmhmm," I agreed. I glanced at Ike's ticket again, and said, "So… this Red Devil/Red Hair thing. He's got a partner. This looks like some Barnum and Bailey shit."
"That's what Ike and I thought, too," Kyle nodded, "when he first opened that up. But, I mean, okay, the art in here. I'm just gonna go ahead and come back around to that. Because, honestly, dude. Limbo? Sins? Wilcox had the Cthulhu thing before. We should probably talk to him again. Or through the Goths, at least."
"Yeah, I'll get the Goths talking once we start recon," I assured him. "I've tried to fuckin' talk to Wilcox before, but man, he's unreachable. And when he isn't, he's vague."
"He's insane," Stan pointed out.
"I mean, that, too."
"Which we can't rule out as something helpful, in this case," Kyle sighed.
"All right," said Stan, jotting down a quick note. "So, so far, we've got GSM propaganda, an obsession with the color red, a Carnival with invites but no location, and weird sin paintings. Done by the crazy Wilcox guy whose whole family had to deal with Cthulhu spasms and shit."
"And Tenor—" Kyle started, then groaned and buried his head in his hands. "Hold up. Guys, are we stupid? Have we even checked with the asylum to make sure he's still there?"
"Karen's on it today," I assured him.
"Okay, good," Kyle sighed.
At that point, we had to shift back to basic conversation, as a small crew walked in with what could only be a large frame. The three men carrying it looked exhausted under the brims of their white baseball caps; the stitching on their denim over-shirts made them out to be gallery and archive movers. There was a woman, similarly exhausted but wearing a colorful dress and enormous jewelry (clearly setting her apart as not a part of our humble South Park mountain society), heading the team and holding a clipboard. I wondered if she might be Wilcox's wife for a second before realizing that the last time that man had physical contact with anyone it was probably his parole officer who removed his handcuffs two years ago. I went with benefactor or possible relative, since this whole gallery thing must have been something of curatorial interest.
I exchanged a quick glance and nod with Kyle, just to let him know that I agreed with his theory that the paintings were important. I mean, as it had been pointed out, this was Wilcox we were dealing with, here. I wasn't going to discount art or artifacts for a second; it had been a museum visit that had—in a rare illegal move for me—granted me and Henrietta access to a Necronomicon back in eighth grade.
They would probably hate me for saying this, but thank God for the Goths. Sometimes their help came with a hefty price, but at least the strange information they seemed to always have access to would in some way find its way to the League when we needed it. The paintings were no exception. Talk about hiding in plain sight. The guys and I frequented this place like a second or third home, and as far as anyone else in town could tell, it was just because the coffee was better than Tweak Bros.' or Harbucks.
The woman with the clipboard spoke for a moment with the red-haired Goth at the circular counter, and all three of us tried to listen in. All I caught was, "latest work" something or other, and, "by June sixth," blah, blah, "invoice" something.
Important as it was to our current mission, and as much as I appreciate what I've discovered through certain gallery settings in the past, art talk does kinda bore me. Stan and Kyle were no bigger patrons than I was, either (Stan's actually probably worse), so hopefully between all three of us we might have been able to make out a full sentence. Not that I wouldn't be speaking to the Goths soon enough anyway, but the more the League could lap up info first hand, the better.
The Goth sent the woman and crew over toward where we were sitting, prompting a brusque, "Pardon us, boys," from the woman. Upon closer glance, I noticed that there was no way she could have any kind of relation to Wilcox, and was far too old to be a wife or anything. A couple wisps of silver hair fell out from a black scarf around her head, and her face closely resembled that of a bulldog—I mean, this lady had jowls. Kind of frightening, actually.
But we smiled at her and let the crew pass to hang up a painting, along with a new plaque. They moved quickly, pretty clearly just wanting to get their job done and be on their way. The woman hurried them out once the painting was up on the wall, then crossed to have the Goth sign something on a clipboard. She took her overdramatic leave a moment later, and we were left with no choice but to take in Wilcox's latest abomination on canvas.
Kyle took one look at the painting and blanched. It was a dismal, Escher-like work done in oil: a hall of mirrors in dank greys and inky black, save for one off-centered red mirror that lay shattered in pieces. Red shards, I noticed, could be spotted here and there elsewhere in the painting, drawing the eye in a mad sequence across the canvas.
It was titled, Wrath.
When Kyle shuddered at the artwork, Stan noticed, and held a hand out to him. Kyle took hold right away, and Stan held Kyle's hand against his own knee, allowing Kyle to cling on with, I noticed, the desperation—or at least intensity—of a child gripping onto a precious item. Kyle let out a sigh as he tried to dispel nerves, and finally looked away from the painting.
My breath caught a bit when the two exchanged a little smile; I wanted, more than anything right then and there, to run over to Red's shop and not let her out of my sight until this situation was over. But, at the same time, I knew that we had to play things just as normally as possible. This, whatever 'this' was, was nothing like the difficulty with Cthulhu and the Cult. That had been years in the making, and I had been doing my research in the meantime.
This thing had snuck up on us in the middle of a nice, normal, peaceful time. Which may or may not have been intentional. It seemed rather glaringly incoincidental that the Carnival that Scott Tenorman was clearly setting up happened to be coming to town just as Wilcox was hanging these paintings. At least the Goths were on our side.
I'd be doling out a lot of cigarettes in exchange for information, here, pretty soon. Either that or playing errand boy and talking up their coffee back at the shops in Fort Collins. I didn't mind running them errands, so long as they were the ones providing us with the right kinds of nightmares for our interpretation.
Ugh. Like I'd ever thought I'd want to say that.
"Dude, I'm sorry," said Kyle, "I think I'm kinda done. I wanna get out of here."
"It's all good," I told him. "I kinda wanted to go see Red anyway."
"Good call," Kyle told me with a slight smile. "Sorry, guys, I just… doesn't this seem like it's all happening really fast?"
"Hey, at least we've got safety in numbers," Stan pointed out. "Everyone's on the lookout for things."
I nodded. "I'm pretty confident we can figure out just what the hell's going on before it can get too out of hand."
We finished our respective drinks in silence and bussed our cups and saucers away, knowing that the Goths would have our heads before they had to clean up anything themselves. There were once even stand-up signs on the tables in the red-haired one's writing, demanding, BUS YOUR OWN DAMN DISHES, but I think the mayor got on their asses about that or something, and now it was simply understood.
"Let us know when you hear from Karen," Kyle requested, as Stan slipped back to the table to grab his guitar. "It'll be helpful once we know how and if Tenorman is actually on the move."
"You got it," I agreed. "If you don't hear from her yourself, I'll make sure you get her memos."
"Thanks, man." Kyle sighed and set his dishes down onto the tray at the end of the service counter. He gnawed at his lower lip a little, and looked the Limbo painting over once before giving into a shiver. "Sorry I'm being kinda weird about this. It's, um…"
"Nah, dude, I understand," I said. "Trust me," I added with a slight laugh. "I know what it's like to not understand why people are after you."
"Well," Kyle conceded, "we'll keep digging and find something soon, right?"
"That's the plan."
Stan had returned by this point, asking, "All set?"
"Yeah, you guys head out," I said, waving them off. "I'm gonna grab somethin' for me and Red and leave kinda soon, too, but go enjoy your day. Seriously." The look that the three of us exchanged at that point was one we'd shared before:
While you can.
There was a trick to balancing our everyday lives with our League activities. Obviously, being out of town and away at college had helped us budget our time a little more easily, but there was one fact that never faded. Even when we went about life as usual, we were more or less on the job. I could take Red out to the movies or we could just be wandering around on any of our dates, and some of my thoughts would still be turned toward whatever the current mission was. Red understood that; it actually helped a great deal that those of us who did have significant others all dated people who were in the know… I mean, just look at Bebe. She got so interested in what Clyde did that she wanted her own alter ego for the aid she provided in intelligence and file control.
So we understood. Stan and Kyle could go on their way, but it was pretty clear that they'd both be waiting to hear more… waiting to hear what Karen learned at the asylum, waiting to hear the events of everyone's days, waiting for a clue to come right up in front of them. I'd be doing more or less the same.
Kyle shot a disdainful glance back at the Wrath painting before turning fully to leave, then slid his right hand into Stan's left; the two of them exited the building talking away about their day plans, both trying to leave the subject of the paintings and the Carnival alone until our next meeting.
"Your psychic friend's not a big fan of the art, huh?" Henrietta asked me from her spot at the barista station.
"Not particularly, no." I slid my mug over the counter for her, and the Goth glared at it for a second, as if to make it wash itself so that she wouldn't fuck up her expertly-polished fingernails. Chicks. Doesn't matter if they bite 'em or paint 'em, chicks are always fucking preoccupied with their nails. I don't get it.
"And he's not psychic, I don't think," I added, getting my mind back on how Kyle really got squeamish over those paintings. Kyle does get sick and squeamish over things (particularly bodily fluids and exposed organs), but I would have thought that, given how accepting he'd been of the R'lyeh-related things, these paintings would have just been useful—though dark—pieces of art. "Not anymore, anyway."
Henrietta snorted. "You of all people shouldn't make assumptions, panty boy."
"Yeah, definitely thought that nickname died with Cthulhu," I muttered.
"Nope."
"Clearly. Anyway, can you, like… tell?" I wondered. "About Kyle?"
"You can't?" Henrietta smirked (which was fucking creepy, since her lips hardly ever lifted over a flat line), clearly glad to have a chance to mock me. "I have to straighten the fucking paintings every time he leaves." She pointed one ring-armored index finger to a spot on the wall behind me.
The Limbo painting I had noticed earlier was indeed askew on its hook. It hadn't been like that earlier, and I hadn't heard anyone or anything knock back into it. Wilcox certainly would not have put his own art at an angle, eccentric as the guy was. "Huh," I commented. A second glance told me that the painting had been hung up with very heavy-duty wire; the hook hadn't just been screwed into the wall, it had been screwed and triple-bolted, the frame then doubly secured by the wire. Two of the bolts had fallen to the floor.
Yeah, nobody just knocked into that.
"We had two lights burst last time, too," Henrietta said. "If he's repressing it or just not noticing or whatever, tell him to cut it out, accept it's not gone, and that he owes us two fucking light bulbs. Sixty-watt."
"I'll come fix your lights," I offered.
"No way. He broke, he buys."
"Look, I'll talk to Kyle and make him pay eventually," I said more strongly, "but for right now, if he learns he's been doing things like that, it'll drive him crazy. I'll fix your lights and let him know."
"Fine." Henrietta didn't look impressed. Then again, she rarely did. "But it's not a good idea to coddle psychics."
"Okay, Henrietta, I get it. And I'm not coddling, that's Stan's job."
"Whatever."
Henrietta poured out my pre-emptive coffee to go, and then (nice and grudgingly) another for Red after I flashed a signal of a grin. (I can only 'coddle' one redhead at a time, and it ain't Kyle.) Once the Goth had set me up with my coffees and assured me that Red's was vanilla-infused, she leaned over the counter and took a glance around at the shop. There were a few patrons around, still, so we had to resort to our usual coded messages through well-intentioned and wildly fake flirting.
"By the way," Henrietta said on a low tone. "Sixth of June, we're doing an art opening. Gallery thing."
"For Wilcox?" I guessed.
"Yup."
"Good luck with that."
"You guys should come," she pressed.
I laughed, paid, and took a sip of my coffee. "Artsy stuff's not really our thing, doll," I told her in my no-shit-Sherlock tone.
Henrietta just narrowed her eyes at me. "You guys," she said firmly, "should come."
Oh. Oh. "Eh," I said, "we'll think about it. Especially," I added with a half-grin, "if you come play poker with us this week."
"Poker," she repeated doubtfully. Her raven elegance was disrupted by a seasick expression.
"Yep," I said, picking up my two drinks before her insides could capsize. "Poker."
Henrietta caught my bluff, but was still very judgmental of my horrible lies. "I guess," was her eventual, mostly hoarse, answer.
"Take it easy," I winked at her. She didn't care about my fake flirting, but she was keyed onto the two bucks I slid into that stupid bat container on the counter.
"Oh, by the way," Henrietta added once the bills were in the bat. "If you stop by later, I might have a book for you to borrow."
"I'll use the back entrance so I don't attract customers," I laughed. Henrietta waved me off and turned back to grab a bottle of black nail polish on the counter behind her, to give herself a touch-up.
She knew I meant the window. Time-tested entrance; to the point that the Goths knew well enough to take off the screens when their upstairs flat turned into their somber little clove and poetry circle. Those guys liked helping out, but they'd never admit it. I didn't try to make them, either… as long as we kept up this working partnership, things would run smoothly for all of us.
With an information trade-off pretty much set in stone between me and Henrietta, I made my way out of Tenth Circle, maneuvering around a small group of high schoolers who were sure to be surprised when they got a taste of the Goths' signature 'service,' and continued down the street on my way to stop in to see my girlfriend.
She hadn't changed jobs since junior year of high school, and for good reason: she loved her job. The only thing that would make her leave was an internship she had her eye on, through the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City… I'd miss her if she took it (it'd be a full year, right after we graduated), but I was so fucking proud of her, I'd support anything she decided to do. She had a good eye for design, and had brought that into the League, helping us streamline uniforms, and working with Token and Wendy on keeping us lightly and comfortably armored under our regular gear.
Such a fucking inspiration. I'll go ahead and sound lame for a few seconds to say that I really am pretty damn lucky and incredibly happy that I fell in love with her. And that she loves me, cursed history and all.
I only had to glance around the shop a couple of times before I saw Red, who smiled and sent a satisfied-looking customer on her way to the back register before turning to speak with a woman I recognized as my girlfriend's boss. Red worked for some high-end people, and had made an impression over the past few years. While I was paid pretty much on an honor system that, in all fairness, did get better with time, Red had been doing the hourly wage thing since her early high school days at Harbucks. Her fashion and business double major impressed her boss and manager enough for them to have been jacking her wage up every time she came home, which was promising for a number of reasons.
But as proud as I was of that girl for her hard work, as pleased as I was to see her boss complimenting her on jobs well done… yeah, okay, there was still a part of me that walked in and could only think of how fucking sexy the skirt she was wearing that day looked on her. One of those greyish-greenish crinkly-ruffly things, tiered down to her knees but hugging at her thin hips—something from the store; a Christmas present from the boss, actually, if I was thinking of the right skirt. I dunno; Red has a lot of hot skirts. I loved the thick belt cinched around her waist, I loved the strappy black heels that let Red almost pass for slightly tall, I loved the way her deep red hair streamed like a waterfall down to the small of her back.
And I loved the pretty smile she flashed over her shoulder at me, and the wave that followed, once her boss pointed out that I was standing in the doorway. I tried pretty damn hard to look as respectable as I could when I walked into that store. Red had helped, and Karen was developing a pretty keen eye for fashion from her, but I mean, sometimes I did stop in between jobs. Fuck, I stopped in whenever I could. Just to see Red working on something that made her happy.
Boss-lady took her leave, and when that lone customer passed by me through the doors, Red and I were pretty much the only ones on the floor, aside from the other couple of girls at work hanging clothes or bank-facing the money in the registers. So Red turned on her skinny heel and walked briskly up to me, exclaiming, "Hey, sweetie!"
"Hey, babe," I greeted her in return.
We shared a quick kiss before she tugged at my shirt, saying, "Don't just stand in the doorway, Kenny, c'm'ere."
"Yeah, sure." I followed her over to a service counter off to the left of the door, which conveniently had a shelf at around my elbow height for me to place the two hot drinks. "Coffee?"
"Always! Thanks, Kenny," my girlfriend grinned up at me, "you always have the best timing with this stuff."
"It's my damsel in distress radar," I quipped, picking my own coffee back up. "I'm here for all your caffeine emergencies."
"Don't be stupid," she scolded, lovingly smacking my arm. "When do you get off work tonight?"
"Like, eight," I lamented.
Red pouted and picked up her coffee. "Can you come over for dinner tomorrow, though?" she wondered. "My mom's dying to do a big family thing. Karen, too. And Ike can come if he wants."
"Your parents are way too nice to us, baby," I said, grinning nonetheless. "Tell me if your dad wants me to, like… I dunno, mow the lawn or re-shingle your garage or something."
"Five years, sweetie," Red reminded me with a gorgeous, proud smile. Her lips, polished a shimmering magenta, curved into the perfect little upward arch. "You're family. Lawn mowing is for neighbor kids and people who owe favors. Ah—" she stopped me before I could start insisting that I did owe favors. Red pressed one index finger over my lips, then tapped it there twice. "Family."
I kissed her fingertip, and then we both went back to our coffee. "Love you," I got in for good measure. "And yeah, I should be able to do dinner tomorrow, and I'll check with my sister."
"If something else comes up, though," Red said, stressing her words just enough, "let me know. We can always re-schedule."
"I'd hate to have to," I said honestly. "But thanks."
Red simply smiled, and sidled up to me; as she pressed into my side, I wrapped my arm around her, keeping her planted right there. When she tilted her head to rest lightly on my chest, I grinned and kissed the top of her head. Thankfully, she had the down time, so the two of us were able to enjoy just a little quiet time to ourselves.
With the League getting up and active again, my home was going to become a working base for the summer, with everyone in and out at any given time… which of course was fine by me, I loved being so involved as Mysterion that I was able to live and work in the same place, but at the same time I'd look forward just as much to the times I'd hopefully get to spend at Red's. Her parents were incredible people, and insisted that Karen and I, as Red had just been stressing, were as good as family.
Someday, I'd started thinking, I was going to make that official. I told myself to wait till after Clyde and Bebe got hitched; Red would be all the more surprised if I waited till then. But I really was looking toward the future now… for me, for Karen, for Red, for wherever we'd be two, five, ten years from now. I wanted to take it all on; anything that came our way.
So it all had to start with me keeping her safe from these strange extremists. Honestly, I couldn't help thinking, the sooner the GSM actually attacked, the better. I'd talk with Red about that later.
For now, while we were on our own, I leaned in close to say, "Hey, I'm gonna be working, but if anything comes up, babe, anything at all, you call me and let me know, okay?"
"Sure thing, Kenny," Red smiled. She looked so calm and relaxed… but her eyes showed fear. "Really, sweetie, thank you."
We spoke a little more, primarily about what her mother's 'big family plans' could possibly mean, and then I relinquished her back to the world of fashion retail. After thanking me for the coffee, Red tugged me down for a sugary kiss. I melted against her, and promised again to be only a call away for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.
I could not stress enough that I'd always be there. Whenever she needed me. Kenny or Mysterion. I'm both… and she deserves both.
– – –
I had time to kill between checking in on Red and my evening job, so I figured I'd check around town to see if any of that postering Stan had mentioned was going on again, but fell short. It was looking like a boring couple of hours for me, unless or until I heard anything from Karen.
No texts yet.
What Henrietta had said before I'd left the coffee shop bothered me, though, and in what I suppose I could call a moment of last-minute panic, not long before my shift was set to start, I dug out my phone and texted Kyle. If he was experiencing that psychic quirk again, and not telling the rest of us in the League, that could be a problem. Because fuck if that hadn't been one of the most useful abilities on the team when he'd first figured out exactly what he could do.
You still in town? I asked, quick and simple.
I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath until I got a response almost half a minute later: Yeah, something come up?
Sorta. Where you at?
I don't answer slang.
Asshole. WHERE ARE YOU then, I pounded out.
Home Depot. Of course they were at Home Depot. Of course they were.
Gotta ask you something. Autocorrect saved my ass on that one, I usually just typed out sth.
Can't you text it?
No.
A few more seconds. Oh.
I ran through my mental map of the town in my head, placing my job in relation to where those guys were, and thank God: My gig's near there, I'll meet you.
Kyle sent back no objection, and I knew he and Stan could kill time like crazy in Home Depot the way my girlfriend could waste time at Banana Republic. Almost to the point that Stan's trying out tools in their most practical ways. Almost. Let's just say that if we were a fucking major league sports team, we'd have one guaranteed sponsor.
I picked up my pace, double-checking my time, and made it to the enormous home improvement store without any interruption. I didn't even have to text or search aisles, since I was pretty sure I knew where those guys would be. Oddly enough, they weren't, meaning they must have been there for a while.
The place in question was the hardware service desk, behind which was standing a camera-ready model of a blonde guy whose overly-optimistic attitude and bright white smile made it hard for me to believe that he was an actual human being sometimes. Gary Harrison, middle son of South Park's only Mormon family, had just returned from his two-year mission in fuck-all-if-I-knew, and I had a feeling that if he were less serious about his job he'd be slacking like the rest of us and texting his girlfriend behind that counter.
But, no, the guy was so annoyingly responsible, he was alphabetizing paint strips when I walked up. "Well, look who's here!" he greeted me with that blinding stretch of teeth. "Kenny McCormick, how are ya? Gosh, I haven't seen you since high school graduation!"
"Hey, I'm fine, dude, you?"
"Oh, I'm fine, thanks, but darn if it isn't a little weird being back in town," Gary admitted with a minor shrug. "Hey, ran into Stan and Kyle earlier, and—"
"Yeah, I was about to ask you about them," I said, "like, where they booked it off to."
"I think just down by the grills," Gary told me, pointing me off to my right. "Stan said something about his dad needing a gas tank."
"Thanks, man." And that about did it for any conversation I'd ever really had with Gary. I knew he and Stan were friends, and fuck if I didn't owe his family a lot for really taking to Karen thanks to her schooling in Salt Lake City with Gary's sisters, Jenny and Amanda, but even when Karen had been dating the younger brother, David, I hadn't had all that much of a friendship with the guy.
But, as I would come to find out, it was a good thing were on good terms. Gary and the League, I mean.
A very, very good thing.
I made it to the grills and discovered nothing, only to feel my cell phone buzz with a new text message: We're checking out. Did you need something or…?
Rather than answer Kyle, I just did a 180 and made my way back toward the front of the store to the self check-out line, where Stan was swearing at the machine and Kyle was patting his shoulder, telling him something… probably along the lines of needing more patience with the self check-out. "Just fucking take humans right out of the equation all over the place, why don't we," Stan was muttering when I walked up. "Dude, did you know they outsource drive-thru windows? Fucking drive-thrus."
"They've been doing that for years," Kyle noted.
"Which is one of the reasons I don't eat fast food anymore."
"I know, Stan, I proof-read that essay. Seven years ago."
"Well, it's still true."
Kyle sighed and rested his head on Stan's shoulder. "So let's get this stuff back so we can help your dad grill real food, huh?"
The only slightly taller of the two smiled, and replied, "Yeah," as he swiped his card through the reader on top of the finnicky machine. I was about to make myself known at that point, had Stan not changed the subject to: "How's your head?"
"Hmm?" Kyle wondered, sounding almost distant. "Oh. Um. Better."
"I promise this is my last stop, and then maybe we can go to Stark's or something so you can get some fresh air."
"I'll be fine, Stan."
"I believe you, I just… want you to be okay. And, like, not have it all sneak back up on you at once."
"Mmhmm."
Oh.
Okay. Cool. No reason to tell me if something was going on, or anything. It slightly perturbed me, but at the same time, a part of me understood that just because I had fought for years to convince my friends that there was something unnatural about me didn't mean that others with quirks would want that information widely shared. I'd never completely caught Kyle's full thoughts on his impressive telekinesis once the Cthulhu crisis had ended, but before and during, it had been a touchy subject.
However he felt about it, though, he'd really come a long way once he trained that ability. If there was even a chance that he could (well, would) bring that back…
Stan completed his purchase and the two started out; I followed numbly like a sheep and began wondering how or if I was going to bring up the fact that I'd overheard them. That I knew something was up again with Kyle's quirk. We're spies, all of us, in our own way, when it comes to missions… it just does kinda suck when it turns out being on each other. And I didn't want to get in any kind of dumb feud with Kyle, we were too good friends for that.
"Jeez," Kyle started complaining as he drew his cell phone out of his back pocket, "I just remembered—hold on a sec, Stan, Kenny was—"
"Hey," I said, walking up to them at an angle, "I caught up with ya!" Close call, Kenny; good save.
"Jesus, there you are," Kyle sighed, tucking his phone away. The three of us walked in a line out of the sliding glass doors and into the parking lot, where I didn't watch where I was going… I was mostly looking for clues from either of them to see if they had any idea of what I wanted to talk about. Which was when I realized I was kind of being a dick for bringing it up like this, but I couldn't really take back what I was investigating now. "What's with these texts?"
"I had a question," I said, attempting to shrug.
"Dude, we saw you like an hour ago," said Kyle. "What's going on?"
"Who drove?"
"Uh, I did. What is going on?" Kyle repeated.
"Your car around?"
Kyle didn't answer, and I wasn't watching my step. Which meant that of course the thing I fucking walked into was the hood of his second-hand station wagon. I swore at the circumstance and let the guys have a laugh at me, then scooted myself into the back seat, where I leaned up between the driver and passenger seats in order to speak privately with the guys as Kyle eased his car out of the parking lot.
"So, Kyle, man, I've got a question," I said.
"Apparently." Kyle held one hand out for Stan to fill with a pair of sunglasses from the glove box. He slid the glasses on to avoid any sun glare-induced collisions, and added, "What's so important we couldn't talk about it earlier?"
"It's, uh… actually, wow, I mean, maybe I am kinda making a big deal of this," I realized, "but, dude, I just wanted to check in with you."
"On?"
"The, um…"
"What, Kenny?"
"That quirk thing."
"Quirk thing," Kyle repeated flatly. Stan let out a sigh and stopped himself from doing an idiosyncratic nose pinch. Instead, he kind of glared at me, then glanced out his window.
"Yeah, your—"
"I know what you mean, Kenny." Kyle tensed; I saw his hands clench around that car's enormous wheel. Stan looked almost like he wanted to swat me back like a bug. I probably was over-stepping something, but this was kind of really fucking important. "And no."
"You sure?"
"Yes," he growled through clenched teeth. The light at the four-way cross in front of us turned yellow, and Kyle slammed on the gas to push through before it could turn red.
"Jeez, sorry," I said tersely. "I just kinda… okay, look, dude, I'm sorry, but yes you are."
"Kenny, for fuck's sake," Stan muttered.
"You couldn't wait for a fucking meeting to talk about this?" Kyle snapped. "You had to wait until I was driving?"
"Well, the driving part I hadn't planned on, I just had to ask—"
"At a really fucking awkward time, Kenny!"
"I know, but, dude, I've gotta start planning shit out and if there's something going on, I need to know!"
The next light had just turned green. Kyle took in a deep breath, and I swear I saw that light flicker a couple of times before it flashed yellow and then shoot right up to red. We were the only car on the road, though, but still, I knew he'd done that. I fucking knew, somehow, he had done that.
Kyle slammed the car into park, handed Stan his sunglasses, and said firmly, "Chinese fire drill."
"What?" Stan yelped.
"Please drive, Stan."
"Kyle—"
"Stanley, drive the car!"
"Okay!"
Kyle and Stan opened their doors at the same time, and as the light flickered back to green, they'd just barely made it into each other's seats. Stan clicked on his seatbelt and eased the car back into drive and up to speed, but Kyle whirled around, climbed into the back seat beside me, and grabbed me in by the collar, narrowing his eyes at me. "Look," he said, very straightforwardly, "yes. Okay? If you must know, Kenny. Yes. But it's… weird, and I've been out of practice for a very, very long time. I don't know exactly what's going on, but if you pressure me, dude, if you pressure me, it's just gonna add to the headache. Okay?"
"Okay," I said, attempting not to sound as guilty as I actually kinda felt. "Look, man, sorry, I just… look, I understand, all right?" I said, trying to ease Kyle into a calmer version of the conversation. "I know what it's like to have something going on about you that you can't explain."
"Hmm," was all Kyle offered. He let go of me and sat back; I saw Stan cast a quick glance in the rear-view mirror as Kyle leaned against his window. Kyle let out a huff of breath and watched the scenery go by for a few seconds, then turned to me again, waiting for me to say more.
"I also understand," I continued, "that your quirk's a touchy subject."
"It's a touchy phenomenon," Kyle half-complained. "Dude, it just comes and goes like the fucking weather. Sorry if I'm snapping about it, but I thought I could really call it done for a while. Then those damn paintings started going up, and those letters started coming, and my headaches haven't stopped since."
He did look pretty tired. He had at the coffee shop, too, I realized. But he was trying… keeping himself in conversations, managing to hide his apparent ailments and exhaustion. I have to say it: Kyle's self-control on things like that not only make him a good person, but a damn good League hero. But maybe it was his business-first attitude that was causing some of that tiredness, and my sudden questions about his returning ability weren't helping.
Then again, this whole fucking thing was sudden. The Ginger uprising had been a thing of the past. Tenorman was in the asylum. Things were fine.
Why now?
What was so fucking special about this one particular incident? Why now?
"Sorry," I said again, more sincerely.
"It's fine," said Kyle, managing to shrug. "I just wish you'd waited for a better time, dude, but whatever. I'm working on it, anyway, so don't worry."
Stan laughed. "Watch your pronouns, babe," he jeered, glancing back through the mirror again briefly.
Kyle rolled his eyes and lightly kicked Stan's seat. "Watch your nicknames, sweetheart," he joked right back. The couple laughed again at their own expense, but I chose not to comment or even react too much. Kyle and Stan never bought into the pet name thing. Certainly never in public, though I'd heard Stan slip things here and there when he got drunk… which wasn't often, but still. I just let them go ahead and mess around with it. Red and I just kinda said whatever happened; I loved pet-naming her, because I knew she loved to hear it. Whatever other people did was their own thing.
"Anyway," said Kyle, once Stan had slapped his leg away from the back of the driver's seat, "yeah, Kenny, we're working on it. I'll bring it up when I need to. Okay? That fair?"
"Yeah, dude, that's fair," I told him. "Just, you know, I wanna be in the loop, okay? If it's bugging you, or if there's something we've gotta watch out for. I mean, I've got a feeling we're gonna be back on the field pretty soon. I want us to be ready in case you do have a, uh… something go on. Y'know?"
Kyle nodded. "I didn't mean to be keeping it from you, or the guys, or anything, I just wanted to get a hold of it again first. Trust myself before anything," he admitted.
Which was completely understandable.
Stan drove back through town to drop me off at my work site, and as I left to switch gears and just think about this damn all-evening painting and detailing job, I couldn't help but wonder when exactly we were going to start seeing some action. And just what kind of opponents we really had.
– – –
I didn't have to wonder for long.
It happened that night.
Toward the end of my shift, as my crew and I were working with spotlighting in order to finish before it got too dark, we hit on something huge. In many ways, I realized, I shouldn't have been surprised. Clyde and Craig had seen posters. Ike had gotten a carnival ticket. Kyle and Red had gotten letters.
Only a matter of time until it spread further.
Whatever the GSM was doing, they wanted to get the word out about their movement, and fast. And what better way, it seemed, to spread information than over the airwaves? South Park is still very much a radio town. We have a local station, and we pick up various FM stations from the surrounding area, and it's not uncommon for our parents' generation to keep the radio on for background noise.
The paint crew was no exception. The guys I was working with enjoyed their classic rock, so someone or other would always end up bringing his portable stereo.
We were just off of Main Street that night, in the downtown district, peeling off chipping old paint from the '90s and giving a fresh coat to a standard, three-storey rectangular, block-end office building. A scaffold had been set up on the left-hand side of the building, but I was doing the finer work in the front… the door and window frames, the patchwork, evening everything out.
The guys didn't put me on the scaffold still, after about six years of being on and off with this one crew. It was from me making up a fear of extreme heights back in high school. The real fear was falling off the scaffolding, dying, and therefore not getting paid. That was no longer a worry… not to the extreme that it had once been, but better safe than sorry, I guess.
I was just finishing up my own work and sealing up a can of red paint when it started. The stereo skipped. A couple guys grumbled, but for the most part, nobody noticed. I, however, stared over at the device, which was plugged into a long orange extension cord that slithered around the front of the building and into a hidden outlet on the side.
The music was unaffected long enough for me to creep over to our pile of supplies at the front steps. Another skip. I glared back, then quickly began cleaning off my hands and arms, more interested in washing the smell of paint off of me than the paint itself.
Didn't matter how trivial it seemed. Every single night held the potential for needing Mysterion. So I needed to be ready.
The radio crackled with a loud, persistent static that not only drowned out Led Zeppelin but threatened to burst all our eardrums. Everyone on the paint team cringed, myself included, and the lead guy shouted at the man who'd set up the radio, "Fuck's sake, Stevenson, turn that damn thing off!"
"Hey, McCormick, hit the volume, would ya?" Stevenson called over to me, since I was the closest to the radio. Glad to silence the static as soon as possible, I obliged.
But as soon as I turned the dial to switch the station, music returned to the airwaves. A far cry from classic rock, though, this faint tune seemed like it was hurdy gurdy music being scratched out from a victrola, sounding vaguely reminiscent of Radiohead's "Karma Police."
"The fuck is that?" one of the men on the crew asked.
"Change that shit, McCormick, what happened to 'Black Dog?'"
"Dude, I dunno, it's on every station," I complained. It sure as hell was. Not the most inventive takeover, but I knew that this had to do with the GSM somehow. Tenorman never had been laudable for his originality. No matter where I turned the dial, that same fucking incessant music kept screaming over the air.
"Throw your stupid iPod in, then, kid," another guy instructed me, "just none-a that there Kanye shit y'all like."
Kanye shit my ass, that was old news and stupid anyway, in my opinion. (I don't care too much about music, I just listen to whatever Red feels like putting on to make out to, whether its Taylor fuckin' Swift—all I know about her is she's got really sexy hair—or the Beatles.) I just shook my head at the comment and fiddled with the radio a little more, only to keep on finding the music on every single station. "Fuckin' stupid, Tenorman," I muttered.
"Citizens of South Park," a voice came over the radio. My eyes went wide. "Thank you for tuning into Red Radio. I assure you, this PSA will take but a moment of your time."
"The hell?" someone commented.
"McCormick, why're you stallin'?"
"I-it won't turn off!" That was such a lie. I hadn't even tried to shut the radio off, but fuck it, I had to hear this. I wasn't gonna wait for a second-hand report. Tenorman and his dumb Gingers could take over the airwaves, sure, but to address the town? That was a direct call out on me and my team.
"These… weekly transmissions," the voice—male, but not Tenorman's—continued, "are very important, not only to us, but to you. You are advised to tune in at this time every week, as there will be a grand new world at your feet when we reach the final broadcast. Remember, this is Red Radio. You can find us if you know where to look. You will not regret it."
While the rest of the paint crew talked about how this must have been a promo for some kind of huge lottery everyone was automatically entered into, I just stared at the radio as the hurdy gurdy version of "Karma Police" returned to grate at my ears.
Red Radio. Red Devil/Red Hair. Shit was getting redundant, but maybe they were being obvious on purpose. To distract our attention from something else?
"Oh," said the voice, causing the music to hush a bit, "and one more thing." My heart skipped, and I glanced around me. Nobody else seemed to be hearing this. "I know what you're thinking, Mysterion."
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck.
Who the fuck was that?
Who was giving the PSA?
And why? Why be so Goddamn obvious? They were trying to make it look easy; that's all I could think of. Trying to give us the sense that they lacked good ideas and could therefore play us into any trap they could devise. Sure, they were predictable, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized… well, no: we had no idea what their goal was this time.
"I know what you're thinking. How can I be addressing only you?"
I gasped, but tried not to make myself obvious.
"This is much, much more than you wanted, town hero. And I assure you… not all curses can die. Enjoy the ride."
Before I could even react, a sledgehammer came down onto the radio, shattering it to bits. I shielded my face from the shrapnel with both arms and let myself defensively fall back, while the other men on the paint team all let out shouts and hollers of surprise and wonder.
"What the fuck wuzzat?"
"Shut up, Davis, do you have any idea who that is?"
"Aw, shit, we gotta—"
"Yeah," Toolshed agreed from over me in his usual rough tone, reserved for League activity, "you should get out of here."
"Hey!" That was Stevenson. "Town hero or not, that guy broke my stereo."
"So I owe you," said Toolshed plainly, turning to glare at my co-worker. "Get out of here. NOW."
"Yer really gonna—"
"Yeah, but gimme a week," Toolshed growled, frustrated. "I'm a busy guy."
"Hear that, guys? Toolshed owes Stevenson a radio!"
"Look, get out of here!"
"Toolshed!" Marpesia was here, too? What the hell did I miss? "Nine o'clock!"
Lightning fast, Toolshed turned to his right and hit a figure dressed in tight black clothing right in the gut. The figure of undiscernable gender flew far off, to the other side of the street, where Marpesia picked up the struggling person and rammed him—or her—into the side of the building nearest her.
"What'd I say?" Toolshed barked back at my idiot paint crew, the lot of whom were still standing and staring in awe. "Get outta here! Shadow League's got this covered."
…Which made me realize that I hadn't moved, either. Fuck. Fuck. What was going on? Had we known about this?
Toolshed glared down at me, and made a subtle tick of his head in the direction behind me. "Move," he instructed.
That got me up and booking it. My feet hit the pavement so fast I hardly felt myself moving.
"McCormick!" the head guy from my crew hollered after me. "Where you goin'? I got a truck'll hold all of—"
"Gotta find my sister!" I yelled back. Which was not entirely a lie. The Guardian Angel was sure to be around here somewhere. As I ran, I went through all that we so far knew in my head, and wondered if any of that could at all help us.
Obviously, the League was being directly attacked. Red and Kyle were targets, and I had been called out on the radio. Tenorman was sending out GSM propaganda left and right, so that was basically a call out on his half-brother, too. This involved all of us.
And I was pretty fucking sure Tenorman had done his research. If he was turning to radio—to music—to contact us… been there, done that, buddy. The more predictable his movements, the more I was convinced he was just trying to distract us. Even if he wasn't, his moves were very stupidly brilliant.
What bothered me most, right now, was that voice on the radio. Whose was it, and what was it talking about, saying curses can't die…?
I wasn't about to die again to find out for myself, though, that was for damn sure.
A disc whirred past my right ear and I ducked out of the way just in time for TupperWear's signature weapon to hit its mark on the chin of a guy I hadn't even noticed behind me. When the black-clad man recovered and reached for me, instinct kicked in, and I grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him, and held him in a headlock until he'd lost consciousness. I dropped the man just as TupperWear then darted in front of me and knocked a—very tightly-clad—woman down with a crushing overhead blow.
"Look alive," TupperWear said to me, his affected voice somewhat laced with scrutiny for my taking clear Mysterion action while still in my street clothes. At least nobody else was around… but he was right, I'd taken a pretty dumb risk.
TupperWear shoved me off to my left, so I continued in that direction until I found myself outside of an empty three-floored storefront claiming it had just gone out of business and was available for lease. I grinned and darted around to the back alley of the building.
Before I could even think to jump up to the fire escape, a thin, barely-visible rope swung down at me. Still at a run, I grabbed on, and the rope lifted. To make the elevation easier, I kept up my run as long as I could, then swung myself toward the building beside the one for lease, and kicked off the wall; the rope tugged me swiftly back over to the top of the fire escape, where, as soon as I landed, the Human Kite reached out an open window and grabbed me in by the front of my shirt.
I stumbled into a room lit only with utility flashlights. The poorly-carpeted floor creaked a little as I corrected my stance, and I looked around to find myself in the company of a few sheet-covered tables and chairs, a stack of moving boxes, and, of course, the Guardian Angel and the Human Kite, the latter of whom was now gathering his line back up into its spool as he kept an eye out the window.
Angel put a gloved finger to her white-painted lips and pointed down at a duffel bag I hadn't noticed upon my first survey of the room. I nodded and dove for the bag, finding all of my gear and weapons inside. Quick as I could, I stripped down to my boxers, kicked off my sneakers, and pulled on my thin under-armor vest and familiar Mysterion uniform.
Kite shut the window when I'd gotten to lacing my boots, then said, "We're clear."
"Talk to me," I asked, looking up at my teammates. I finished with my boots and secured my fully-stocked utility belt into place. "What's going on?"
"Don't suppose you've been listening to the radio?" Kite wondered.
"Actually, yeah," I told him, diving back into the bag for my black cloth mask. What the hell's that all about?"
"Red Serge and Iron Maiden are trying to trace the radio waves to the right station," Kite told me, "but as soon as that voice came on, these guys started showing up."
"Luckily, a bunch of us were already on patrol," Angel added.
"So we've got you guys, TupperWear and Marpesia, and Toolshed?" I guessed.
"Yeah," said Angel. "Toolshed's making the calls on this end, and I just got Mosquito on board to lead the full B-team on the other side of town."
"Good thinking," I complimented her. "Thanks."
I tied my mask into place, secured my wire, and stood, tossing my hood up over my head. "So," I continued, fully committed, now, to my lower Mysterion tone, "any idea what they want?"
"Safe bet they're part of the GSM," said Kite, as Angel switched off all but one of the flashlights and tossed them into the duffel bag after my clothes.
"Also a safe bet that this whole radio thing is just one big diversion," said Angel. She tossed the bag over her back, took up the remaining flashlight, and said, "Let's move."
She led the way across the ghost of a room and toward the stairs. We went down only one flight, to a window that was only really a sheet of plexiglass shoved lazily into a frame. Kite dislodged the plexiglass to let me and Angel out without a word. He didn't follow.
"Guessing he's got another plan?" I said to Angel once we were making our way down the fire escape. "Nice of him to say so."
"Discretion's his middle name," Angel grinned. "But yeah, we'll be seeing him again once we're on the field."
Angel leapt down to the ground first, and I followed after taking a listen out onto the street. TupperWear, Toolshed and Marpesia were still very much active, from the sound of things. I still got the sense, though, that we were throwing blind punches. The look on Angel's face, plus her earlier comment, told me that she was thinking the same. And judging from Kite's almost dismissive behavior, he was taking this with caution, too… and possibly personally.
This was going to make for an interesting wrap-up meeting.
Once I was on the ground in the alley again, Angel asked into her wire, "Red Serge, do you mind?"
"Unlocked for fifteen seconds," Red Serge granted her over the wire. Headlights flashed from behind us, and Angel rushed over to toss the duffel bag and flashlight into the back of TupperWear's hidden black SUV, its plates, as usual, removed. "Hey, Mysterion, can I get a signal test, buddy?"
"Can I replace 'test, one, two' with 'don't call me buddy?'" I mocked him.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
The SUV locked back up after the set limit, and Angel signaled for me to follow her.
We'd barely made it back to where I'd run into TupperWear before the first strike hit. Six black-clad fighters, their eyes obscured by glowing red goggles, darted out at us. Each one, I noticed at last, wore a black tank top and tight black pants; on their lower arms were what appeared to be gauntlets, each one adorned with three rows of three red circles. I took out one man with a quick shuriken to the knees, then crouched down so that I had my back flat. Angel rolled over my back, hooking elbows with me, and grabbed another man into a headlock between her ankles, then flipped off of me, twirling the man down into yet another—two guaranteed concussions.
She threw a punch as I went for a low kick on the next two, and the sixth was taken out by another of TupperWear's heavy hurling discs. "That about clears this sector, guys," our well-armored companion informed us, joining us from where he'd been on the adjacent sidewalk. "Good to have you on the field, Mysterion."
"Glad I could make it," I admitted. "What've we got?"
"Just a whole mess of these guys. Delphi's nicknamed 'em Infra-Reds, for the goggles," said TupperWear, waving for us to follow him back toward Toolshed's sector.
"Too catchy for these bastards," I said, "but that's easy to remember."
"Anything yet on what they're after?" Angel wondered.
"Kite's the eye in the sky as usual; he's tracking movements, and from the looks of things, they just want us."
"Joy," I muttered.
"Fun just keeps on comin'," TupperWear agreed on a similarly blank tone.
We were immediately back in the action. It was sudden and unexpected, this strange attack, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a thrill.
The Infra-Reds (okay, okay, Bebe, it does work) were coming from all sides, and for the life of me I could not figure out how. How I hadn't noticed, for one thing, and how limitless their numbers seemed. It was like a plague, watching them almost literally crawl out of the woodwork and onto the streets. Honestly—and I thought I knew every nook, cranny, and shadow in town.
The Human Kite had beaten the three of us to the scene, and judging from the angles at which some of the black-clad men were lying, wounded and defeated, he'd managed to make an unnoticed aerial entrance. He, Toolshed and Marpesia now stood back to back, their favored weapons ready in hand: Kite with his rope, Toolshed with his two automatic drill guns, and Marpesia with her extendable quarter staff, which she spun as she spoke.
"All right, boys, on three," the decidedly Amazonian heroine ordered. "One…" Toolshed crouched into a running position. "Two… THREE!"
Toolshed began to run, then feinted, spun, and fired bits from his guns straight ahead of him and to his left. One of the men he shot, in the shoulder, stumbled back, directly into where Kite was waiting with a length of his emulsified rope to grab the man around the neck and, with a deep intake of breath, hurl him over his shoulder with enough force to bowl over several others. Kite was left in a near backbend, so he quickly kicked himself back in time for his hands to hit the ground and for him to spiral back onto his feet, kicking down another man in the process.
He ducked just as soon as he'd righted himself, and Marpesia was there with her quarter staff to strike a blow at another man who'd come up from behind. "Pardon me," she said to her comrade, as she struck the man down to the side, spun out her quarter staff to a longer length, and high-jumped it over Kite, delivering a roundhouse kick to still two others.
TupperWear had, by this point, I noticed, joined Toolshed, who'd taken out a few more of the Infra-Reds with non-lethal but still very well-aimed shots from his drill guns. TupperWear, in his usual defensive style, stood close by, sharpened shield out, and was driving others back away from the current trio and toward us.
"Mysterion!" Marpesia hollered over to me. A man lunged for her, but she spun and punched him down.
"The hell's going on out here?" I asked.
As if that had been some kind of signal, every active member of that strange Infra-Red team looked up, their glowing goggles all glaring unwaveringly in my direction. That gave me something of an answer, but I didn't like it. I wanted to know who the hell these fucks were actually targeting, and why.
And whether or not this had anything to do with the curse I'd rid myself of, four years prior.
It certainly seemed unconnected at first, but it very well could have been that the Gingers felt they'd missed an opportunity to do something huge, in around all of the Cult activity, and had just now come into a way to strike on their own. Why they'd be after me was a puzzler, in that case. Unless, of course, they were under some stupid assumption that I still had some kind of secret to Immortality.
Nice try, in that case. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long. I had other things to do.
"I don't think we've got much time for questions," said Angel. She reached into her utility belt and withdrew a weapon she'd been working with for quite some time: a damn dead accurate slingshot. The pull had three distinct baskets, so she could choose to load only the center for one sharp attack, or all three for a volley. On her left hip, she had a large but lightweight pocket full of various marbles that she and Red Serge had been working on while the rest of us were absent from town. Some were loaded with pressurized explosives, some were smoke bombs, and some were just dense lead.
No matter what she shot, though, my sister rarely missed.
She had a very keen eye on the field, and now was quietly selecting three weapons to load into her slingshot. "As soon as I shoot," she instructed me, "go."
"Doing this with a bang?" I asked.
"Nope, just gonna level the field the old fashioned way."
So she was striking with lead. Toolshed glanced over, noticing that Angel was about to attack. Being the other marksman among us, he slowly worked his way over, while our opponents were still distracted with so much as my presence.
"Let's get this over with!" Angel called out to the rest.
With that, she pulled back on her slingshot, shooting out the three lead marbles into the foreheads of three Infra-Reds. Toolshed ducked beneath her attack and got down to his knees, shooting out behind the Guardian Angel at a line heading for us from the back. As instructed, I darted forward, and instantly had men on both sides.
I jumped up above them and dealt a roundhouse kick to both, then ran down the back of the man on my right, set my hands on the shoulders of yet another who'd approached, and swung myself around him; I got a solid grip of his shoulders and tossed him to the side, where Marpesia was waiting to swing her quarter staff like a bat into the man's ribs.
She let him fall, then ran over him and toward TupperWear, who'd just struck down another three with his shield. Maybe Wendy and Token were iffy on the relationship front nowadays, but nothing had gotten in the way of the incredible chemistry Marpesia and TupperWear had on the field. Those two had professional stamped on everything they did, I swear.
The two nodded at each other, and, after they'd both punched out a couple of opponents who'd just risen out of their dazes, TupperWear hurled his shield out onto the street stretching back behind where I now stood. I didn't have much time to notice why, due to a handful of others approaching me.
One of the Guardian Angel's lead weights smacked one down with a hit to the back of the skull, but I was still on my own against a few. Knowing the right places to strike, I grabbed out two of my shuriken and went low. Rather than go for throwing my sharp, time-honored weapons, I held them between my index and middle fingers and scratched the hooked blades into my opponents' shins.
"What the hell is wrong with these guys?" I heard Kite ask out to no one in particular. "They feel pain, or what?"
Now that he mentioned it—not a one of these guys had really expressed any discomfort while we'd been striking them down. Either they had great resilience, or something really was off about them.
"Comin' through, boys!" Marpesia hollered out.
I glanced up in time to bolt to the side. So that was why TupperWear had thrown the shield: Marpesia rode it like a board as it skidded, sparks flying, down the tarred road, and she took out men and women left and right with her quarter staff as she angled the shield's path as easily as if she were navigating through snow on a slope.
Once Marpesia had knocked out a good number of them, she skidded the shield to a halt and hefted it up over her shoulder as she walked back over toward us. "Hey, Mysterion," she said to me, ticking her chin up. "Why don't we finish this up?"
"Sounds like a great plan," I said, surveying the rest of the field, "but where the hell does this wave end?"
"Just how fucking big is this group?" Kite asked, making his way over to me.
"Didn't you get a look from overhead?" I wondered.
Kite opened his mouth to answer, then rolled his eyes behind his goggles as a man charged up behind him, and instead said, "Hold that thought."
He jabbed back with his right elbow, clocking the man in the nose, then turned to kick him down. As Toolshed and Angel continued shooting down the men and women coming at us from a distance, Kite and I ended up back to back, faced with a few more still trickling in. Where Marpesia had gone off to, I couldn't tell, nor did I catch another glimpse of TupperWear, but I couldn't say I was worried about them.
"Before I was so—" Kite began, grabbing two men and smacking their heads together while I chucked a shuriken out at a woman and then immediately punched down a guy who'd gotten a little too close for comfort, "rudely interrupted—" Kite spun out a butterfly knife from his utility belt and cut into a woman's shoulder, then spun her around to where I could hurl her into two of her comrades, "I was going to say that if I'd stayed on the fucking rooftops, I'd still be up there getting a count. I just planted a bug so Red Serge can try to track things later."
"Good thinking," I nodded, kicking down yet another.
"Hey, guys," Red Serge's voice came through the wire.
"Perfect timing," Kite laughed.
"Looks like we're reaching the end of this wave. If you can corral 'em all together, I've got Yates alerted after some talking," said Red Serge. "Murphy's on his way to Mosquito's group, and Yates is heading your way in a few. Get those guys all together and we'll hopefully get an arrest and some names."
"Thanks, man," I said. "You guys all hear that?" I called out to the group.
"Sure did," said Angel. "And me and Toolshed have a plan."
"TupperWear's getting the car," Marpesia added. "I'm game to hear this."
"Same here," said the Human Kite.
The other three approached where Kite and I stood. While Angel grabbed Marpesia and managed to whisper something to her (with Marpesia's helmet, that was a little awkward, but she managed), all Toolshed had to say was, "Yo, get to the scaffold."
"Oh," Kite grinned, "I like where this is going."
"Just give me some of your rope and wait for it to come back to you," said Toolshed.
"Sounds good." The Human Kite tucked his knife away, tossed a spool to Toolshed, and rushed for the scaffolding at my work site. I'd already forgotten that I'd even been on a different job just minutes ago.
"Care to share with the class?" I asked the two with the plan.
"Marpesia and I," said Angel, "are gonna do what we can to do just what Red Serge asked.
"Corral these guys?" I guessed.
"Exactly. Mysterion, you and I are gonna field everyone in toward Marpesia and Angel," said Toolshed. "Then, stay outta sight for a minute if you can. We're gonna need you to help us finish this up with a bang."
Well, as vague as the two were being, I trusted them. Sometimes, we had little choice on the field but to be vague with each other, and hope that the rest would catch on. A dozen years of fighting side by side had done wonders for how well we could communicate without words to each other. Red Serge had been quick to catch on when he'd first joined the core group, as had Marpesia and Craig four years prior. And as for the Guardian Angel, well… she had my full trust already, and the guys now knew her just as well as they knew me.
"Yo, guys, just a heads-up," Mosquito's affected, pinched nasal tone buzzed through the wire, "Murphy's team just showed up. Mysterion, you guys need backup, or…?"
"No, we're good," I said. I nodded to Toolshed, who rushed off in one direction while I took the other. "Head back to the base. TupperWear, what's your location?"
"Close," came his answer. "I'm standing by to get you guys back to the base, too."
"Great. Let's get this over with."
They still came in droves. I estimated that we had already knocked out around fifty Infra-Reds by the time two dozen more came at us out of every shadow of the street. I knocked out those that I could, and directed the rest back toward the two charged with the task of 'corralling,' however Angel was choosing to interpret that word, but all the while, I tried to wrap my head around the attack.
How much of this was just distraction?
What had been the reason that every one of these guys had given me their full attention? Furthermore, why not the Human Kite? Did they not know that he was one of the very people they'd been bombarding with propaganda letters? If not, that could be fortunate… at least for him. It might mean that they weren't after him for his quirk, just his red hair.
I wasn't going to rule out anything, though. Not until we got more facts. Hopefully, after this fight, more were coming. Facts, I mean, not those fucks we were fighting off.
Once it seemed like Toolshed and I were pretty clear on both sides, I did as he'd earlier instructed and got out of sight, fast. I bolted around into the shadows myself, pressing my back to the cool concrete of an industrial building directly across the street from the scaffolded office building which was serving as Kite's takeoff point.
"On your call," I said. "I'm good when you are, guys."
"Hold for five," Kite instructed.
I slid a Roman candle out of my utility belt and pressed my thumb against the trigger of my lighter. For accuracy's sake, I peered around the side of the building to where Angel and Marpesia had shepherded the Infra-Reds. Right into a perfect little clump. Goddamn, those girls had good instincts. Not a single one of our opponents would be able to dodge the flash.
"Light it up, Mysterion!" Toolshed called.
"Bomb drop!" I hollered out to the field.
While our opponents stared around in what appeared to be terror—ha, they'd probably studied my usual bag of tricks… but they'd fallen for one all the same—Marpesia and the Guardian Angel bolted out of the way, leaving me room to light up the Roman candle and hurl it in overhead by about ten feet. The firework went off on time, sending out blinding sparks around the helpless group in black.
Toolshed, used to working through the sparks, darted past me, finishing up a double-knot of Kite's string on the end of his sledgehammer; he sprinted out toward the group and looped himself once around the Infra-Reds, then tossed his sledgehammer skyward. Angel followed up my flash with a smoke bomb of her own to further distract our opponents, and two seconds later, Kite sailed through the smoke, glider extended, sledgehammer in hand. Toolshed and Angel bolted to the side, and with a deep breath, Kite hurled the sledgehammer back down.
Toolshed was back on it, caught the duo's favorite and most effective weapon, and tugged. My eyes widened when I realized that what they'd done was create one huge double lasso around the entire group. Kite landed, skidding about five feet with his boots on the gravel until he stopped, but as soon as he had, he yanked on the spool end of the rope, and the full dozen were knotted up tighter than my own fucking laces.
"Got 'em!" Toolshed called over to his partner as he un-tied his end of the rope.
"Fuckin' right!" Kite called back. He spun a butterfly knife out from his belt, slit his part of the rope, then re-secured the knife and spool both before walking back over to the rest of us. "Mysterion, ladies, nice aim, there."
"Jesus, these guys gave us a run, though," Marpesia commented. "Did I hear Yates is on the way?" I nodded.
"We sticking around for that?" Toolshed wondered.
"Angel and I will," I volunteered. "You guys all head back with TupperWear and we'll sort all this shit out back at the base, 'kay?"
"You got it," Toolshed said, giving me a salute as the sound of sirens approached.
"If we're going, guys, let's pick up the pace," Kite suggested. With that, those three ran in the opposite direction to catch their ride.
No sooner had they rushed out of sight than the cops arrived with wagons, ready to cart the Infra-Reds away to the station. Something didn't feel right, though. The night didn't quite seem over. After all, I thought as I cast a glance back over at the stereo Toolshed had crushed earlier, nobody would up and call me out on the radio without also firing a warning shot.
"Didn't happen to question any of these guys, did you?" I asked Angel, as the two of us stood guard over the huddled clump of black-clad bodies, now illuminated in the reds and blues of approaching patrol cars.
"Kite and I tried," was her answer. The Guardian Angel shook her head, her own white wing barrette catching the flashing light as well. "He and I are both pretty good negotiators, as you know." (Angel had more patience, though. If the Human Kite didn't get an immediate answer, he'd often retaliate by knocking the other guy unconscious. Not that that wasn't also effective, mind you, but he could stand to be a little more patient. Just a little.) "These guys just weren't saying a thing."
"They weren't reacting much, either," I remembered. Glancing down the street, I guessed I had about twenty seconds. To use them as best I could, I strode up to a man on the outside of the bundled circle and grabbed him by the front of his cat burglar-esque uniform. "Who are you?" I growled at the guy. "Answer me before the cops get here and I might let you go."
The man just grinned, and made no sound. Which pissed me off. I punched him across the face (okay, so a lot of us don't have as much patience as the Guardian Angel…) and hollered, "Who are you, who are you working for, and what do you want?"
I had to stop myself from asking, "What do you want with my girlfriend?" Luckily, I dodged that bullet by biting my tongue at the end of the actual question.
"Uh… Mysterion?" Angel said from behind me.
"What?"
I couldn't hear her answer, but the thing that drowned her out was probably the answer itself. As soon as the patrol cars and wagons whined their way toward us to surround the gathered GSM activists, the easily recognizable whirling of helicopter blades could be heard from overhead.
Startled, I glanced up and took several steps back. Instinct told me to grab onto one of my pistols, and it seemed that Angel had done the same thing. She wasn't much one for guns, but she carried one for extreme circumstances. On the barrel of hers was written in white, Romans 3:23, to remind her that, even doing her work as the Guardian Angel, all of us were human, and all of us did wrong as well as good. She was such a balancing force and voice for the team. It was wonderful having her on board… and almost grieving to think about what might become of the League once she left town for school, and both of us would be gone.
But for now, we were here, we were partners, and there was a fucking helicopter overhead. And it did not belong to the Park County force.
"All right," the usual no-nonsense, aggravated tone of Sargeant Yates drawled out from a position off to my left, "just what the hell is going on out here?"
"Get these guys down to your station," I instructed the cop. "Now."
"Woah, now, just hold on, there, Mysterion." Yates strode forward, while a team of about ten got out of their cars and pointed their own pistols skyward. Angel and I tucked our own firearms away, but I still did not like the look of that aerial vehicle, just hovering only a couple hundred feet above us.
Yates was a man whose motivation came and went. Tonight, he appeared rather tired, but he and his partner, Murphy, always made time for us. Mayor McDaniels, still in office after all this time, had insisted that we always have a say, even without the police already relying on us. I couldn't help but feel that Yates often felt slightly threatened by the Shadow League, though. After all, the cops were pretty much our cleanup crew when it came to big things like this.
"Where'd these guys come from?" the red-haired sargeant asked me.
Wait.
Yates was a red-head. How the fuck had I not thought of that before?
"And what—" he started.
"Sir," I said, "with all due respect, you might want to get back in your car."
"Not until I know why you've tied up a bunch of people and what this Goddamn helicopter is doing out of regulation!"
"Helicopter's news to us, too," I said, "but you really sho—"
"Good evening!" a voice came from above.
My hand was immediately back on my .45. That was the same voice I'd heard on the radio. It wasn't Scott Tenorman's voice, I knew that much. I couldn't say I recognized it, but I had the awful feeling that not pinpointing it could be a danger to me. Why would I know that voice, though? Now wasn't the time to rack my brain about it; hopefully Red Serge or Iron Maiden had gotten a recording of the radio broadcast from earlier.
"My dear Park County police force, there will be no need of such brash action tonight," the voice continued. "You may take these men and women if you must, but let this be a signal to you that they are much, much greater in number."
"What the devil is going on?" Yates growled out. "You take that helicopter out of here, you hear me? This is civilian terri—"
The voice let out a laugh. "Oh, we will take our leave," it said.
"Round 'em up, boys," Yates instructed his team. "Get these people out of here and downtown, pronto. And as for you, Mysterion, and you, Guardian Angel—"
Another laugh from the voice overhead. "Pray to that Angel while you can, Sargeant. I wanted to personally drop off a gift for you. Consider it, if you will."
"NO FUCKING WAY!" I hollered, sending three bullets skyward.
The helicopter made off at that point, though… but not before another female Infra-Red came parachuting out of it. She landed directly between me and the sargeant, and held out an envelope for him.
It was identical to the ones Red had been getting. Identical to the one Kyle had opened, alongside my girlfriend, during our last meeting. Stark white, sealed on the back with red wax and a Gothic script T.
Puzzled, the officer took it. Goddamn fucking stupid police. "Don't open it!" I instructed.
"Just take it into consideration," said the young woman.
"Oh, so you guys can talk," I scoffed, grabbing at the girl's goggles from behind. "Hope you don't mind."
I grabbed off her goggles, and the girl whirled around, her hand going for my hood, but Angel was there in a flash, tackling the activist down before I could be unmasked as well. Angel pinned the girl's arms down, then hauled her up so that Yates could slap her into handcuffs.
"All right," said Yates, shoving the girl into the back of his own patrol car while his men rounded up the rest into the wagons, "you're all coming down to the station. You have the right to remain silent—"
"Silence, Sargeant," the girl got out before the senior officer could close the door of his car, "is the last thing on our minds."
Angel and I glanced at one another. Both of us wanted to take the girl in ourselves, but once the cops had their hands on our opponents, no matter how personal the fight, the best we could hope for was a visit to the Park County jail every now and then. Sure, we could get in whenever we wanted, but we had our own holding cells at the base, which were infinitely easier to access whenever we did manage to take someone in ourselves.
But Yates slammed the door, so we'd have to wait for our answers.
Before the police could leave the scene, I grabbed Yates aside and reiterated, "I'm completely serious. Do not, under any circumstances, open that letter."
"What's so great about it?" the officer wondered, looking me up and down with scrutiny before casting his tired glance on the envelope he still held in one hand.
"It's a terrorist threat," I told him. "We've already tracked some of these, and in order to follow their trail, we need to alert any recipients of that envelope to not tear them open. All right? You have to assure me, Sargeant, that you aren't going to go against me on this."
Yates rubbed his chin, scruffy with an awful five o'clock shadow, in contemplation, and held the envelope up to the flashing light of his own patrol car, as if to take a peek inside. "If this is evidence, though—"
"You just need to trust me," I said firmly. "Do you understand?"
Yates was a man who did not like to be outdone. And I'd been outshining him for years. He still came to me for help, he came to everyone in the League, but I knew the guy. He'd have that thing opened in a heartbeat. But at least I'd have warned him. He was an odd man, but he did his job fairly well. Those envelopes contained recruitment letters.
I had to wonder which was worse: joining that movement, or falling into the type of insanity Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep had spread four years prior. If men and women were signing up willingly, though… and if the numbers were already so high…
We'd just have to wait and see.
"One more thing," I added before the officer could return to his car. Yates gave me his attention, but made it clear he'd rather be calling his own shots. "You hear anything about a Carnival, you let us know."
"Carnival?" he asked, sounding unimpressed.
"Just—"
"Trust you, I know, I know."
"Look, if you're going to fight me on this—" I began.
Yates shook his head. "Long day, kid," he told me. "This is just one more thing I didn't need on my to-do list."
"So we're on the same page?" I asked.
"We'll call you, you call us, same deal, Mysterion, same deal." Yates sighed, and hauled open the driver's door to his patrol car. "You know we trust you and your whole League," he added, giving me and Angel a nod. "So keep doing your thing. The town still needs you."
"We'll be here," I said. Then, to Angel, I beckoned, "Come on." And as the patrol cars and wagons sped away back to the station with their lights flashing and the convicted activists in tow, the Guardian Angel and I returned to the shadows, taking every shortcut we knew back to the base to get a full handle on everything that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours.
"Oh, by the way?" said Angel as we walked, her eyes narrowed on the cloudy night sky. "Did you happen to get my message from earlier?"
"No," I told her. "About what?"
"Tenorman."
"What's the verdict?"
"I'm pretty sure he's on board that fucking helicopter."
Shit.
Well, so much for contained insanity. Hello, summer full of tracking that fucker down.
Now my focus had to be on getting information out of that group. Luckily, my team was pretty damn good at doling out the right questions. The sooner we got someone from that group to talk, the better.
But I had an idea of where I'd rather start, and it wasn't with anyone in the GSM.
It was with someone in the League. After all, if a team is as weak as its weakest link, I didn't want anything dangerous sliding toward us under the nose of one Eric Theodore Cartman.
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Romans 3:23
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
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Authors' Notes:
South Park is -c- Matt Stone and Trey Parker!
Into the thick of it now! ^^ I loved getting back into writing fights with these guys…! The fight's starting kinda fast, but the conflict is still pretty far away yet~ Honestly, coming up with what the Goths ended up doing, with that coffee shop, was one of my favorite reasons for setting this a few years after Cthulhu Fhtagn; I just really love the Goths, haha…
Next week, Butters narrates, and we'll get into a little more of what the rest of the League has been up to, and delve into the trials to come.
Thank you so much for reading! It was great to hear from returning readers, too~ We'll see you again next Wednesday, July 4th! (But… wow now that I realize what date that is… haha, it might go up Tuesday or Thursday, I totally did not realize that was the holiday… we'll see! I'll keep my profile up to date on when chapter 3 will go up…) :3
~Jizena, and Rosie Denn
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