Of Wasps and Wizards, Part 9
Being both a wizard and a cape at the same time, I lead an exciting life. Not a week goes by without some sort of trouble finding its way to me. Sometimes, it was just a bunch of drug-dealing capes getting high on their own supply of third-eye inducing superdrugs, and sometimes it was trolls under bridges complaining that automated toll booths were stealing their income.
Through all that, I'd started to figure out the pattern behind it. On average, the more attractive the woman involved, the bigger the trouble. On the lower end of the scale, you have Revel, who usually accompanies a long-winded tirade about how I should call demons Case 53's, even though they were obviously different things. Now don't take this the wrong way, she's a nice lady, but she's got this whole stern commander thing going on that just doesn't do it for me.
On the other end of the scale, you have my fairy godmother, Leanansidhe. Unlike what the Disney movies tell you, not all fairy godmothers are fat shapeless blobs. Mine was a killer lady with long scarlet-copper hair, who was exactly as terrifying as she was mind-blowingly gorgeous.
Now, this theory of mine isn't really scientific or anything like that. In fact, it's probably just confirmation bias. Then again, Ziz is a naked lady, and definitely the most dangerous of the endbringers.
I wasn't entirely sure where on that spectrum the woman standing in the lobby fell, but the fact that she was naked probably meant shit was going to go down, worse than it already was.
She was looking around the lobby, her deep amber eyes flitting between the PRT squad, the on looking tourists, and the heroes. Eventually, her eyes noticed me, and she walked towards me.
Some of the troopers reacted; they were agitated, on edge, and probably slightly aroused and or jealous.
I held up my hand, signalling that they shouldn't attack. Then, I took stock of our visitor.
First, I used one of the small side-effects of my parahuman abilities. My powers allowed me to create interdimensional portals to pocket dimension, in a way that was at least slightly similar to the way the 'Para,' as Lisa called them, connected to their hosts. This allowed me to, when I took a good look at someone, figure out something about their power. It wasn't all that useful. Looking at Revel that way allowed me to see that her power had something to do with redirection, while Campanile had size and weight, and Skitter had control.
Where it was really useful, however, was in figuring out whether or not someone had powers. The strange naked woman did not. At least not of the parahuman kind.
Next, I used my sight, a magical ability that allowed people like me to look at the world with the metaphorical third eye.
Looking at the woman, I still saw her standing there. Her shaggy, dark brown hair had gotten longer, and wilder, and she walked even more gracefully than before. Her eyes were wild, animalistic, but not in the way the Hexenwolves had been. She was both dangerous , graceful, and lethal. Like a predator. In addition to that, she was most definitely not human which could explain her nudity.
I shut off my sight before I could see more. It was an incredibly useful ability, but much like a soulgaze, the stuff you saw through the sight stayed with you. Given a crowded place like this, with a lot of parahumans around, that meant seeing a lot of interdimensional creatures hanging around.
"I heard you were looking for me?" I said.
"I used the telephone, but they did not help when I asked to speak to you wizard," she replied.
"Yeah, they get about fifty calls a day from women asking to speak to me. Turns out I'm a lot more attractive when you've never met me in person."
"You misunderstand, I did not ask out of lust, I require assistance. I was talking to lady Sabah when she was been taken by two pretenders," The woman replied.
My mind started working on the sentence, trying to figure out exactly what she was saying. There was someone called Sabah that she had been talking to, when two things she calls pretenders took her. Now, given that she probably wasn't human, it seemed like the pretenders were people pretending to be what she actually was. Now all I had to do was add the timing of the whole thing, sprinkle it with a little 'there were two of them', finish it off with a little pot-boiled Tattletale telling me the Hexenwolves were going after Parian, and what you had was a nice healthy figuring out a Rogue's secret identity by accident.
The real question was, why had this woman been talking to Parian, and what was her relationship with the Alphas.
"We're working on it," I told her. It was sort of true. I'd been preparing a tracking spell that would allow us to find the Hexenwolf that had attacked Taylor, which would hopefully lead us to the rest of them.
Revel appeared beside me, having arrived from whatever she had been doing. Like telling Taylor not to rob any banks or something like that.
"You said this woman was taken. Are you sure she is still alive? That doesn't match what we know of their Modus Operandi."
The woman looked puzzled, trying to figure out the sentence. It was something you saw every now and then with inhuman creatures. She was obviously intelligent, but her mental processes didn't necessarily work in the same way as a human's. Given her relatively straightforward statements, and her primal nature, my guess was that Revel's question had somehow tripped her up.
"Yes, Lady Sabah was taken. That is what I said."
"Do you know why they were after her?" Revel asked.
I looked around, my eyes lingering on the civilian visitors, and spotted Tattletale flying towards us.
"Maybe get all the onlookers out of here?" she said.
Revel nodded, and gave a signal to the troopers, who started herding people away from the naked woman.
"I do not know. I was talking to her, as I required her help, but we were interrupted."
"In other words, they decided to kidnap her instead of killing her after overhearing the conversation," Lisa said.
"Which means that kidnapping her brought them closer to their goal than killing her," Revel observed.
"So, besides the Alphas, who else did you teach the whole werewolf thing?" Lisa asked.
I was only slightly surprised, but Revel was actually shocked. It only made sense. She hadn't seen Lisa do her thing yet, and she didn't believe in the details surrounding the whole magic thing. In her mind, the woman in front of us was, at most, a powerful Trump that could turn people into werewolves.
"I did not teach him anything. If only it was so easy," the woman replied with sorrow in her voice.
"But you are the one that taught the Alphas?" I asked. She nodded in confirmation.
"So, what aren't you saying?" Revel asked.
"My fiancé, his circle was broken. I was asking lady Sabah for assistance in repairing it."
"Circle?" Revel asked, aiming a sideways glance at me. Sceptical as she might be, she knew I worked with circles every now and then. In fact, I'd used part of the Protectorate budget for a fancy summoning circle in my little workshop, under the guise of a mental tool to help me focus my powers.
"Let me guess. Loup-Garou," I said, thinking of the worst likely option. Loup-Garous, unlike Werewolves, Lycanthropes or Hexenwolves, have almost no control over their actions. If this woman's fiancé was one of those, and didn't have a working containment circle, we were in for what the doctor would call a spontaneous case of diarhea in close proximity to an automated themantidote.
"Loup-Garou?" Revel asked me.
"More traditional werewolf. Transforms during the full moon. It's big, it's dangerous, it regenerates faster than Crawler, it's out of control, and the only weakness is inherited silver," I answered.
"Right…" she said, before turning to the naked woman. "When you say your fiancé, I presume you mean mister MacFinn?"
The woman looked confused for a second, before Revel clarified. "Massive amounts of collateral damage the night you say his circle was broken? Not much of a mystery I'm afraid."
"So, Hexenwolves coming in for the kill overhear your conversation, learn of MacFinn's werewolf-hood, kidnap Parian so she can't fix the circle, and hope MacFinn solves their problem for them," Lisa said.
"Their problem?" the woman asked.
"The fact that we're all still alive," Lisa answered.
"Doesn't make sense, if their operations were synchronized, they didn't know the Skitter thing was a set-up," I said.
"Yeah, but the Alpha plan was wishful thinking from the beginning. All it would take is one of them surrendering and a powerful Thinker for the whole plan to fall through. Given a Berserk opponent though, one that is way more likely to be able to kill a couple of you, it becomes drastically more likely that the he's either killed in battle or send straight to the birdcage, after which office politics, assisted by their subtle manoeuvring in civilian identities, makes it more convenient not to investigate everything overly much. Also, you see what I did there with the plan A Alpha thing?"
"If we rescue, will she be able to keep your fiancé contained?" Revel asked.
"I think so, yes. Her or the wizard," she replied.
"Right. Of course he can. Well, the new plan is the old plan. Campanile and Dovetail will be arriving in about ten minutes. Myrddin, make sure you have your tracking device ready by then. We'll move out as soon as they get here. Tecton, your team holds down the fort. Miss…?" she said, looking at the woman at the end of the sentence.
"West, Tera West," she replied.
"I see. I presume, from your appearance, that you have something to offer in a fight. Will you be joining us?" Revel asked.
"To rescue my beloved? Yes," Tera replied as she started shifting, slowly turning into lithe and agile timber wolf.
Just what we needed, more werewolves. I was suddenly really happy that it was Skitter that survived and came to Chicago, not Hellhound.
***
Eventually, I'd tracked the Hexenwolves down to a luxurious estate just outside of Chicago itself. And no, it wasn't MacFinn's estate. If only it were.
No, instead, the little golden nameplate had a very similar, very familiar name embossed onto it.
'Marcone'
Gentleman Johnny Marcone, as he liked to call himself, was one of those criminal masterminds that would, in the end, probably go down for tax evasion. He had fingers in every criminal enterprise you could think of, as well as some non-criminal activities, and he was a feared individual in the Chicago underworld.
The real kicker, however, was that our best intelligence told us that he had absolutely no powers at all. In a political landscape filled with Thinkers, Brutes, actual vampires and other such things, that was an accomplishment.
More worrying was the fact that the gate that had been barring the road had been removed, violently. In addition to that, there were grooves in the concrete that reminded me of the ones around the ruined corpse of the Blue Beetle.
"Anything else we need to know about?" Revel asked the wolf stalking besides her. Which probably wasn't the right word, but with the way Tera moved, I couldn't think of anything else to describe it. Tera transformed back to naked lady in order to answer the question.
"The girl… she was with Harley, they must have taken him too," she replied before shifting back to wolf form.
"Right. Of course, that sound like it makes sense…" Revel replied, having given up. "Myrddin, how much longer until moonrise?"
I looked at my watch, an old-fashioned hourpiece that was so ancient that it actually worked around me.
"Roughly half an hour," I replied. The tracking process had taken longer than I'd expected, the Hexenwolves' blood having been polluted somehow by the magic used in the transformation, not entirely the same as the blood of the human involved. Intermittently, the spell had been working optimally, probably at the exact moment my target had changed back into a wolf.
I suddenly heard a voice in my head. Director Heathrow.
"We just got ID on our imprisoned perp. He's FBI. Be careful, they'll be armed and dangerous, and that's not counting their new powers," the director said.
"You get him to talk yet?" Revel asked.
"No, but Myrddin's newest toy is working on him. He's angry and wild, seemingly unnaturally so. We're guessing it's a side-effect of their artefacts."
"I see. We'll make sure not to touch them then. Don't want anyone to get corrupted by them."
"Good luck, team," Heathrow replied. "Over and out."
Revel looked around at the assembled troops, and started formulating a plan.
"Allright. I'm not sure what we'll find, but it's highly likely that Marcone is not actually guilty here. Our first priority is finding both Parian and MacFinn, and figuring out a way to stop his Changer power from activating. Dovetail, you're our eye in the sky. Campanile, Myrddin, West, the three of you are joining me in a direct assault, at least presuming they're at the mansion. Squad A, you're with us. B and C, scout out the terrain in your vans. You see anything move, you foam it down, we'll sort everything out later. Shuffle, stick with Team B, use your abilities to clear any areas where the enemy could be hiding. And remember, Marcone might not be guilty, but the entire situation is suspicious, and we have a proper justification to be here."
Meaning, we're not supposed to fight Marcone, but don't feel too bad about devastating his pretty little estate. Maybe mess up his private golf course a bit. Revel was pissed, she had a target, and she had a location where she didn't have to worry overly much about collateral damage. This was going to be interesting.
"Snaptrap, you're guarding the entrance, try not to fuck it up. Everyone else, time to move out."
Together, the three of us, accompanied by four highly trained PRT officers, one with a foam sprayer and one with a grenade launcher, made our way down the long driveway.
Marcone's mansion looked like it was a warzone. Several smoke grenades were covering the front, obscuring our sight, but where we could see, it looked like the front of the building had been absolutely demolished, and the rest of the building was lit by powerful search lights. On the roof, I saw something that was best described as a candry red metal rhinoceros tearing things apart, and several armed men were shooting roughly in our direction. Or rather, somewhere in between us and the building. The smoke grenades however, meant that while their enemy couldn't see them, they couldn't see their enemy either.
"Myrddin, we need to obscure our angle of approach," Revel said.
"On it," I replied, preparing a sign with my staff, an opening towards a pocket dimension prepared for just this moment.
The sigil I'd drawn in the air exploded forwards in an absolutely blinding light, temporarily destroying the night vision of anyone in front of us. Then, I switched to my magic, and hoped I wouldn't overly mess up the gear the squad was using. Tecton had worked on it, so it would probably be okay, but I wasn't entirely sure.
"Hexus" I muttered, aiming my will and my magic at the large lamps lighting up our target, leaving only a nearly gone evening sun to light things up.
As our group started jogging, I looked around, and saw that we were missing someone.
"Where's Tera?" I asked in between breaths.
"I think she ran ahead," one of the troopers answered.
Half a minute later, I spotted her. Or rather, she allowed me to spot her. I signalled her position to Revel, and we made our way over to where she was standing. A large rock in between her and the mansion, with bullets flying around it wildly.
A young teenage girl, about fourteen years old or so, was sitting next to her, wearing an overly large Cuirass and a mask with a lopsided smiley face on it. On top of the mask were two tiny antenna made out of bolts. I would've thought it neat for something made by a teenager, except for the part where this girl had obviously demolished the Blue Beetle in a fit of, well, I don't know why.
The girl looked shocked to see us, and hid behind Tera's furry body. Tera, in the meantime, was mostly just confused about the girl's reaction, and transformed back to naked lady again. Not that I'm complaining, but it gets old after a while, I'd probably seen her naked more than I'd seen Susan without clothes on, and I'd only known her for a single day.
"What happened?" Tera asked her.
"I was in the bathroom, changing my, you know… anyway, these two cops came by, citing noise complaints and something with building codes, and they arrested Harley. I thought it was weird, so I followed them, and saw them go into this place, so I decided to rescue him,"
"By attacking a completely unrelated criminal masterind," I said.
"Alleged criminal mastermind," Revel corrected me.
"What? No, I saw them jump the fence to this place, and there's like fifty guys with guns here. It's obviously him!" the girl said.
"Or, it's a set-up, they're creating the biggest clusterfuck they can, muddy the waters by getting Marcone involved."
Revel's hand went to her earpiece. "Dovetail, Squads B and C, you find anything yet?"
"Outside of the fighting at the mansion? Not much. I presume that flash was you guys?"
"Myrddin's work. Tell me when you've got more."
"Will do, good luck in there."
"You too."
"So, what now?" I asked.
"Now, we're going to do something utterly unprecedented. We're going to try and have a civil talk with Marcone," Revel replied.
***
Revel and I entered Marcone's half-destroyed mansion under a white flag made out of a piece of my robe, leaving the rest behind us. Waiting in the lobby, I spotted Marcone. All around him stood thugs with guns, high-quality guns that were probably legal according to the letter of the law, but very much not the spirit. The real stand-out was a rather big and tall man standing next to him, taller than me even, with red hair in a military buzz cut.
"Miss Revel, how nice to meet you again, how have you been?" the man asked.
"Busy, you know, with all the crime-fighting and saving innocent people," Revel replied.
"Ah, like our little problem outside? I promise, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I know what people say about me, but you can trust me, I'm a perfect gentleman."
"Trust me Marcone, better men than you have tried, she's not interested," I said.
"Of course Myrddin. That said, we both know you don't quite match up to a man like me," he replied.
That stung. Not because he'd insulted me, but because I had to admit that, when I'd started out in the Protectorate, I'd had a small crush on Revel, and I still wasn't entirely sure whether seeing her crush a ghoul's skull to smithereens had destroyed or enhanced that crush.
"And you, of course, are a real Casanova. I mean, I presume that's how you got the big guy to work for you?"
"Shut it Myrddin, we're not here to fight., or flirt for that matter," Revel commanded.
"Which brings us to an important question, why are you here?" Marcone asked.
"We have actionable intelligence telling us that someone is trying to frame you for murder," Revel said.
"The question being of course, why they needed to frame you when everybody already knows you're as guilty as a fox in a henhouse."
"Myrddin, remind me again why I brought you along?"
"My charming personality? The fact that, unlike Campanile, I can move beyond punnage into superior forms of humour?"
"That, and no-one takes you seriously anyways. Disregarding that, mister Marcone, there are three members of a group that we have dubbed the Hexenwolves on your premises, carrying at least one, but probably two hostages. The assault on your home was caused by someone mistakenly thinking you responsible."
"Gee, I wonder why anyone would think that?"
Revel gave me a quick kick in the shins, more for show than out of anger. After all, she'd known how I'd behave the moment she asked me to come along.
"Regretteable, that they would attempt to shift blame unto an upstanding citizen such as myself," Marcone replied. "Now, I presume you're here to ask me for help?"
"From someone like you? Never. I'm simply here to inform you that I will view any attack from you on anyone that is not the hexenwolves as an attack on me, and that you will allow us unobstructed access to your grounds in order to find these villains."
"But of course, I am, after all, an upstanding citizen. In fact, you have my utmost compliance. Taking down these criminals is, after all, in favour of both of us."
"Of course," Revel said.
"Well, you know the way out, and I can promise you that they are not inside right now. Oh, and Myrddin?" Marcone said. "I'm sorry to hear about your car, I know you love the classics."
I had been about to turn around, but that last sentence made me look at him again.
Marcone and I had met before, once. It had been last year, when a practicioner was using dark magic to build up a drug empire, in opposition to Marcone.
Marcone had been nice, gentlemanly even, providing me with whatever information he could on the case. Not because he was such a nice person, bu because he knew that it would mean that I eliminated one of his main competitors. What I hated about it, was that he knew that I would stop the guy anyways. He had been using me, plain and simple, and there was nothing I could do about it.
"I hope you have a lot of fun redecorating," I said. "And maybe this time you can get an actual shark tank. Trust me, all the big boys have one."
"Ah yes, and next time, I'll be sure to find a Tinker to requisition a very slowly moving laserbeam," he replied.
"Don't forget the big red self-destruct button!" I yelled at him while following Revel, who was leaving the building.
"Don't worry, I've read the list too. I'm still working on acquiring the services of a five-year-old."
"As long as your doomsday device is up to code. Trust me, you do NOT want to mess with the OSHA, they're even worse than the IRS!" I yelled back before using my powers to create white noise. I just really wanted to make sure that I had the last word.
"How long Myrddin?" Revel asked me.
"Fifteen minutes left before the dogshit hits the fan."
Again, she spoke in her earpiece. "Dovetail, we're done here. Any further observations?"
Then, she waited for the answer, which didn't come.
"B-squad, C-squad, report in, what's happened to Dovetail?" she then said. I really had to ask Tecton for a custom earpiece.
After a few tense seconds, it seemed like one of the squads was replying. Revel, always courteous, put her earpiece on speaker mode.
"-got two of them around some sort of pit-like structure. They're carrying Dovetail, and I think she's sedated or something. There's also a girl, college-aged, and an older man, both of them bound and unconscious," The crackling voice came over the radio.
"Sounds like Parian and Macfinn. You get a location from him?" I asked.
"I did, but something doesn't sit right with me. It's almost too easy."
"Fourteen minutes left. Doesn't sound all that easy to me."
"It's something else… something we're missing," Revel said as we reached the rest of the group again.
"Wait… didn't they say there were two of them?" I asked, before thinking about what that meant. Then, we both looked at each other.
"Taylor!" I said, luckily hidden behind Revel's simultaneous exclamation of "Skitter!"