Why do so many people believe that the Groom Lake Air Force Base (aka Area 51) is hiding some dark secret about an alien landing that the U.S. government won't tell Americans about?
Well, many reasons, but for one thing, the U.S. military does indeed have a strategy on file for combating an alien invasion. Several, in fact. These plans are not kept in Area 51 – they're at the Pentagon – and none of the generals who drew them up had ever seen an alien. They just figured it was best for the army to be prepared in case it ever happened.
Sound farfetched? The Pentagon also has plans in case a virus causes a zombie apocalypse (they never asked the Shadowchasers for advice, seeing as they don't believe zombies exist) and plans for a counter-attack if the Girl Scouts were to form a united resistance against the government. Among other things.
Not that they ever believed those sort of things would happen, they just want to be prepared for unusual enemies, and it isn't just America. If a general were to be confronted about the Army's plans in case circus performers and clowns (for instance) became violently militant and formed a rebellion, and asked what the chances are of it actually happening, he'd probably answer, "Unlikely, but then, what are the chances of a person actually winning the state Powerball jackpot?" If you had actually bought a ticket for that lottery (or did so regularly), you'd probably shut up right there.
But who pays for them to be so prepared? Your tax dollars at work. Citizens are not fond of "earmarks" in bills (or "pork spending" as they are often called), which are subsidies given to special interest groups added as riders to bills in exchange for campaign support. These put aside tax money for questionable – and at times, worthless – activities. As more and more taxpayers were made aware of them over the years, more have checked the bills that are approved by the government closer, and all-too often, things like this are leaked.
And some people take them too seriously. A rumor grows widespread, grows out of control, and then people start believing that the military actually has legitimate reasons to prepare for these threats.
The truth is, sometimes it pays to be prepared. As Stormbringer can tell you, one never knows what might happen…
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CHAPTER FOUR
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Both Sides Now
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Two hours earlier, back in Green Bay.
In a vacant lot, a familiar-looking portal opened, and a tall, unsmiling, muscular, bearded man stepped out. He was wearing a wool jacket, leather boots, and a kilt, of all things.
Still, the cold didn't bother Douglas Bowmaker as much as the sudden change of the sun's position did. He was tough, but a seven-hour shift on the clock was distorting to anyone.
He grumbled, and then walked towards the main street. Then he heard a ringing noise accompanied by a slight vibrating on his arm.
"What in…" he said, not immediately recognizing it. "Oh, right…"
He lifted his Duel Disk on his arm, then tapped the area on the top of the Extra Deck chamber.
This will take some gettin' used to… he thought.
"You there, Douglas?" asked Jalal's voice.
"Yeah, as best as 'here' can be," replied the bulky Scotsman. "This town doesn't look all too inviting…"
"No-one ever said this job would be a walk in the park, Douglas," replied the leader of the Shadowchasers, "but this may be a big deal. Clement McMahan was a tulgar berserker, and whoever this guy was who killed him did it with his bare hands."
"In other words, this guy's very strong," replied Douglas.
"Yes, and the witnesses say he bent a shotgun into a horseshoe," replied Jalal. "And speaking of the witnesses, they were able to give a pretty vivid description, and the police even got some fingerprints, but no-one has been able to identify this guy yet. We can only assume he's new blood."
"So ya need me to check around?" replied Douglas. "Well, ahm a fast learner… Let's see here…"
He looked at the description on the strip of paper he had copied the notes down on: About six-foot-four, very muscular, long, shaggy, red hair, a strong chin, wearing an overcoat, no shirt, jeans, a belt with a large buckle, and steel-toed work boots.
"Kinda the guy who'd stand out in a crowd," he said. "So just who would want to kill this McMahan fellah?"
"Word is you had to get in line if you wanted to do that," replied Jalal. "He was a mobster, and not the type to adhere to tradition."
"Lovely…" muttered Douglas. "That sort of job. I'll check back in a couple'a hours."
He turned it off.
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In a quaint manor house in Boston, steam, the sound of boiling water, and tasty smells came from the kitchen.
A young woman with long, dark hair was cutting potatoes on a cutting board as a large saucepan simmered on the stove at a low boil. She wiped her brow, then slowly stirred the potatoes into the mixture along with diced onions and green peppers. She continued to stir for a minute.
Ophelia stopped, then looked at the stuff, then tasted it. She grunted a little and held her hand over her eyes. Small black motes of magical energy danced around her ears as they grew into diabolic points.
The opened her eyes, which had turned blood red, with fiendish pupils. Then she shrugged and started stirring again. Dante walked in and sniffed the air.
"I take it you're making your shadar-kai-style ciambotta?" asked the other Shadowchaser.
"Uh huh," she replied. "Can you hand me the salt?"
Dante shook his head, and reached for the shaker.
"You really didn't have to go all out," he said. "Karen would have been happy if we had ordered Chinese take-out."
"Yeah, well, she's worked so hard these last few months," replied Ophelia, "and she doesn't come home every day… And it's not too often she brings Wells with her."
"Trust me on this," he said, with a slight smile, "Wells is completely human, and I'm sure almost everything you've heard about him is exaggerated.
"Well, I'm mostly sure."
"Hand me the oregano and that jar of things that look like garlic cloves," she said, pointing to the spice rack.
I'm not even gonna ask what they are, he thought, as he reached for them.
In the other room, Jeb was at work on something else, not something Shadowchasers related, but an article he was writing for The Boston Globe, one which was due in thirty-six hours. (His editor there was much harder to deal with than Jalal was.)
"A kid I was working with came to me the other day," he wrote, "and told me that the book his teacher had assigned, Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, was long and boring, and wondered why such stuff is still relevant.
"Now, I'm not going to argue here about the relevance of Hemmingway's work. (I'll admit his books are a little dull.) I've seen a lot of kids complain about the books they've been assigned, like The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick, and at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon (especially since I'm only 38 years old) I think kids don't realize it could have been worse.
"I mean, take War and Peace, for example. I've never met anyone who admits he's actually read this book that is notorious for being long and boring, and I'll admit I haven't either. A lot of folks make jokes about it, and wonder what Tolstoy was thinking.
"Well, actually, he had a very good reason. In 19th Century Russia, authors like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were paid by the page, so you can't blame them. War and Peace was only the most well-known one. Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov were both well over 500 pages in most editions (and in a few, over a thousand). In Tolstoy's defense, books like this were published in serial installments at the time, so he never really expected anyone to read the entire book at once.
"A lot of students claim that Hemmingway isn't very descriptive, and he doesn't use much detail. They're missing the point, of course, but they should have seen Victor Hugo's original text of Les Misérables (a book that is often called "the Brick" by some scholars). To put this simply, Hugo had the opposite problem. In one scene, a page and a half is devoted to describing a crack in the wall that a character looks through. (And that's the abridged version.) In the original version, Hugo spends about fifty pages in the beginning describing a picnic with Fantine and her friends, which has no bearing on the plot at all. There's also a fifty page essay in the book about the Battle of Waterloo. This does have some small relation to the plot, which he tells you about on the fiftieth page.
"If you've ever read The Count of Monte Cristo, I'm willing to bet any amount of money you read an abridged version. The most complete movie adaptation of that book was eight hours long, and it still cut a lot of stuff out. There was also an anime version, which consisted of 26 half-hour episodes; if you remove commercials, opening credits, and end credits, it lasted about eleven hours. Still, incomplete. The original manuscript by Alexandre Dumas was one where he was paid by the word, and was published as a serial one chapter at a time in a newspaper. How long was it, total? Don't ask.
"I'm almost afraid to mention the 12th Century Tibetan epic cycle, The Epic of King Gesar. To call this long was an understatement. There's no definitive text, and it's never been translated into English (if any scholars of Chinese literature are reading this, that was NOT a suggestion), but the closest that a Chinese compilation of it has come to its entirety has resulted in a work of over a million verses in 120 complete volumes. Simply reading this would likely take years.
"I could list more examples, but I'd risk being accused of the same thing. The point I'm getting to is, I find the complaints of teenagers these days ironic is because plenty of popular modern books are rather long too. The books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series were each at least 500 pages long, and the fifth one more than 700. (Rowling had a little fun with this in one book, where Harry and Ron were shocked when Hermione considered books this size to be, in her words, "light reading".)
Still, Rowling had nothing on Steven King. His books were known to exceed a thousand pages. To give one example, the uncut version of The Stand was 1,153 pages long. (A rather grim story told of how a woman in Holland sued a mail company after they delivered her copy of his book IT and it actually killed her Chihuahua after it fell on the poor dog when it was dropped through her mail slot. IT is 1,135 pages long.)
He stopped for a minute and rubbed his chin.
"Maybe I'll leave that part out…" he said, hitting the backspace. "Don't want dog lovers to get the idea it was Mr. King's fault…"
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In Liverpool, Jabels was handling that errand he had to do, which he was doing about once every two weeks, it seemed. Of course, he had an additional reason to be here this time.
Copek wasn't exactly a new company, but rather an expansion of a larger technology firm. New advances in robotics had made companies that experimented and sold the systems to military, defense, and law-enforcement firms a budding field. The manager of the place – Sylvester Addams, or "Sly" to his friends – claimed that mass-production of competent and efficient androids such as the Diablo army (just not as dangerous) could be a possibility in a few years.
The building was part factory and part engineering design shop, and there weren't all-too many employees in the first part – industrial robots worked on most of the models that were currently in the show room. As of right now, Jabels was waiting as the guy at the front desk he usually spoke to – Dunstan, if he had a first name, he didn't know it – typed his information into the computer.
"So, any trouble with it?" asked Jabels.
"Actually, it was a challenge…" replied Dunstan. "The government red tape has become more annoying than ever with imports like this… Do you realize they give you less grief when you want to ship grenades than they do some microchips? We should be glad this isn't Japan…
"Save… Print… Oh, crud… This isn't happening…"
"Printer giving you trouble?" asked Jabels.
"We installed a new system, and it's driving us crazy…" sighed Dunstan. "Uhm… If you could just wait outside… There's some coffee and donuts out there…"
Normally, Jabels wouldn't object, but… There was something in the main showroom outside the office that was making him nervous.
"Uhm, okay…" he said. "I'll…"
"Oh, don't mind 'him', he's harmless," replied Dunstan. "I'll tell you in a minute… Man, Mr. Addams can be obsessed sometimes…"
Speaking of which, the man in question was in his office down the hall, typing on his own PC. He seemed about fifty or so, his hair raven-black, with a neatly trimmed goatee. His suit was formal and clean, but rather old; he wasn't the type to splurge.
As he typed, the door flew open. "Mail call, sugar!" came a cheery voice.
"Emily, uh…" he said.
He turned around. His secretary's tanned skin, long, flaxen hair, and pointed ears that were unusually long even by elf standards marked her as a moon elf, but the outfit… Really not what most employers found appropriate for the workplace. The low-cut corset with rather unique accessories – a bow tie with matching collar and cuffs, fish-net leggings, and velvet bunny ears with a matching tail made it obvious what inspired it.
"Mind if I ask why you're dressed like that?" he muttered, leaning his head on his hand.
"Like it?" she asked.
She turned around, as if to show him the whole thing.
"I thought it gave me the 'standing out look'."
"More like the 'copyright infringement look'," he muttered.
"You're no fun," she said with a pout. "The mail's here…"
She plopped down on the couch in the front of the office, then she started shifting thought it
"Phone bill, power bill, catalog… Ooh, letter with a Stamp of Delivery… From… the Green Bay City Morgue?"
"What the?" asked Addams. "Give me that…"
He stood up, took the letter and looked at it. Emily sat up.
"Certificate of death?" he said.
"Someone died now?" she asked. "Who died?"
"Well, start hoping it's someone we hate," he muttered. He ripped the envelope open with his index finger and started to read the document.
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Chicago.
In a large penthouse apartment in uptown, a young African-American woman with a muscular build wearing jeans and a halter was leaning back on the couch, thumbing through a book. (It was a Robert Frost anthology, but she wasn't really reading it.)
Her face winced as she heard a large "OW!" in the other room.
"Where in the world…?" shouted the same voice.
The man is going to give himself an ulcer one of these days, she thought.
"Nichole, have you seen that receipt?" came the voice.
"Did you check your other pants?" she asked.
"Oh come on," he replied. "What makes you think it's in my…"
There was a long pause. She licked her thumb and turned the page.
A much older, bald man with a mustache walked out of the back room, holding a small slip of paper.
"My brother always says," said Nichole, "if you can't find something, nine out of ten times it's in your other pants. Now calm down!"
Dugan shook his head a little. He'd like to calm down, but he'd been very tense the last couple of days.
He slowed down a little, and walked into the next room. A small creature – about three feet tall – who with elf-like ears and a long nose in a brown suit was polishing the furniture and humming an old tune to himself:
"In Ivy Town, where I was born, there was a fair maid dwellin'… She made every lad cry Well-a-Day… Her name was Barbara Ellen…"
"Uh, Bartholomew…" said Dugan.
"That's my name," replied the brownie.
"Uh, this bakery your brother owns…" said Dugan.
He looked at the receipt. The address they had given him was, "ride facing the setting sun wearing a copper bracelet".
"It's in the Feywild, I assume?" he asked.
"Calm down…" replied the brownie. "I gave Francis very explicit instructions…"
"Bartholomew, you must admit, there are stories about… bad things happening to mortals who eat food from there," said Dugan.
"Well, sure, if you trespass on their property and steal it!" exclaimed Bartholomew. "I mean really, how would humans like it if they came here and stole their stuff?
"I guess, but…" replied Dugan.
"Well, trust me, they don't do that when you order from them and pay in advance," said Bartholomew. "Bad for business, you know?"
"Yeah, well, this had better be pretty good considering how much it cost…" muttered Dugan, looking at the slip again.
"Hey, for one week and three c-notes more, he could have made it ten times bigger and gotten a hamadryad maiden to jump out of it," replied Bartholomew. "Trust me, this is no treehouse full of Keebler Elves here, he's one of the best. His place once made a devil's food cake so rich they had to call in a priest to exorcise it."
Dugan looked at the diminutive fey closely. With these creatures, it was often hard to tell whether they were kidding or not.
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"So what in the world is this?" asked Jabels.
The thing he was looking at, in the back of the show room, was a robot, about ten feet tall. A very nasty-looking one, with armor, spiked knuckles, and a face that really didn't look friendly. It was in a large display case the size of a large cabinet made of steel with a glass front.
"It's a dreadnaught," replied Dunstan. "You know how comic book super-villains create armies of robot soldiers that the good guys always reduce to piles of scrap? Well, the boss made a bet with some other bigwig that he could build one and, well, there it is."
"Does it work?" asked Jabels.
"Oh yeah," replied Dunstan. "Problem is, not even His Majesty's Army could afford to mass-produce them the way people like the guys in cartoons can. I have no idea how they do it."
Jabels was a little uncomfortable with the thing, and he knew that was easier than it seemed. After all, the warforged army might have been completely ineffective against the Hellfire Sentinel, but in the long run was probably not all too much more expensive to use that a unit of human soldiers.
"Not exactly something that would attract customers,"he said.
"Well, we aren't a place that depends on walk-ins," said Dunstan, with a shrug. "Anyway, your order is all set, just put your John Hancock here, and here…"
"Oh… right…" said Jabels.
As he took the clipboard and gave it one final check, Addams was making a phone call in his office down the hall, searching his desk drawer for Tylenol at the same time.
"Come on, come on, pick up, stupid…" he said.
Emily was still on the couch, filing her nails. She stopped to watch him, then opened a small refrigerator next to the couch.
"Confound it…" he said under his breath, then hung up. Emily tossed him a bottle of Poland Spring underhand and he grabbed it out of the air.
"Thanks…" he said.
He opened it, and then swallowed the pills with about half the bottle.
"Emily, I need a favor…"
"Sure, sweetie," she said. "Want me to change?"
"Actually, the outfit is fine…" he said. "Uh, except for the heels…"
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Milwaukee.
A few blocks from the brewery district, a black car stopped in front of an old warehouse. The logo for the Miller Brewing Company was on the front, which made sense, as they owned the place, technically. Of course, this building was condemned, and the reason it had not been demolished for about ten years was due to some rather peculiar squatters.
Three men exited the car, each wearing long, dark coats and sunglasses. They quickly walked up to the front door, and one of the men knocked once.
It opened a crack, and an eye peered out. Then it opened fully, and a huge, hulking man – actually a bugbear to those who could see – dressed in a rather formal suit looked at them.
"I'm here to see Miss Center of Attention," said the man in the front.
The doorman chuckled a little, then he opened the door a little wider. Another similarly-attired bugbear was with him.
"If you mean Rena, you know the drill, wise guy," said the first one. .
He rolled his eyes. He really hated this, but it wasn't like he had a choice. He lifted his arms up, and the doorman frisked him, not too gently.
Then he stepped inside, and the bugbear and his partner did the same with his two bodyguards. Then the first one said, "You're clear," and they went inside, the first man still grumbling with his hands in his pockets.
A light from above lit up the place. Five male dark elves in leather jackets and sunglasses, two of them holding assault rifles, were there.
Then they stepped aside, and a female in more traditional clothing for her species (which he often compared to that of some slave girl from a fantasy movie) came forward. She had a more traditional weapon too, a scimitar made of silvery metal.
"Glad you could make it Ray," she said, "and only half an hour late this time. What's the word on the assassin?"
"He's a member of a species we couldn't identify," replied Ray, "and he's still in Green Bay, probably."
"That's all?" she asked, turning her back to him.
"You told me to keep you informed, 'your holiness'," said Ray, sarcastically. "And look at me when I'm talking to you, okay?"
"I suggest you start finding out positive details and not negative ones, Ray," she said. "That's what we're being paid for, you know."
"Look, who put you in charge anyway?" asked Ray.
"Shroud did," she replied, turning to him with an angry look, "and don't you forget it."
Ray clenched his fist.
"Yeah, I know, Rena," he said, "and I wouldn't go along with it if she didn't make me… And I don't think you'd have the guts to boss me around either if she wasn't.
"One of these days, they're going to mention the name Ray S. Carr, and say, here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who…"
He stopped, as he realized that one of Rena's bodyguards was mouthing what he was saying, word for word. Both Rena and the rest of them giggled a little.
"I beg to differ, Ray," she replied. "You were born about a hundred years too late to be the type of mobster you wanted to be. The cops and the press call you eccentric… Everyone in the underworld, myself included,thinks you're a bat-shit crazy loon who's going to be hauled away in a rubber truck one of these days. If you don't wind up like Clem first. Oh, and speaking as someone who has been hearing Travis Bickle impressions since you were lying about your age to sneak into R-rated movies? That one was pretty bad."
Then even Ray's one of Ray's bodyguards started to chuckle a little, but he quickly clammed up when he turned to him with a frown.
"I ain't scared of you at all, pointy-ears," said Ray. "You think you're such hot stuff with that sword and your exhibitionist costume…"
Rena turned around, a look of fury in her eyes. The male dark elves started to tense, but she lifted her hand.
"Let him talk…" she said, slowly.
"Oh look, I'm the big, bad dark elf matron, high priestess of the Demon Queen of Spiders," he said in a mocking tone, "the one who buys her outfits at Fredericks of Hollywood!"
"You have some nerve, Ray," she said, putting her hand on her hip.
"What, you gonna threaten me with some voodoo curse?" he asked. "You're lucky you have those two shag rugs watching the door out there. I mean, I'd bet a hundred Samolians if I were to go to Hyrule or whatever place you came from with just one gun, I'd be ruling it within an hour."
"Morrowmind…" grumbled Rena.
"Beg pardon?" he asked.
"Dark elves were never used in Legend of Zelda games, genius," she said, "a better location to compare to would be Morrowind in the Elder Scroll games, but that's assuming you've ever played video games in your life."
"Heh, I always did love those games," one of the male dark elves said with a chuckle.
"Yeah we know Valys," she said, not turning around, "I've lost count of how many times I've seen you hunched over a console instead of doing the job you're, you know, being paid to do?"
Now it was the other of Ray's bodyguards who chuckled, though it turned into a cough pretty quickly when Valys shot him a look.
Rena looked Ray a moment before she smirked. "Okay hot-shot, you really think it would be that easy? Let's give it a try,"
She turned to Valys and said, "Gun…"
Valys quickly took the weapon from the holster at his hip and handed it to her. She checked the chamber, then closed it, then looked at Ray again.
"This is a Mateba Model 6 Unica semi-automatic revolver," she said. "I believe it's a pretty powerful handgun… After you shoot, the recoil itself rotates the cylinder and cocks the hammer, eliminating the need to for the shooter to do so himself, allowing for rapid-fire shooting, and it also uses high-caliber Smith & Weston .357 Magnum ammunition, regarded by many to be excellent.
"I take you knew that already. And by the way, it's loaded. So let's do some role playing, shall we? Let's put your theory to test…"
Then, to his shock, she grabbed his hand, and shoved the gun into it.
"Boss…" said one of Ray's henchmen.
"Here's the situation, Ray," she said. "You're the human who's just come through this hypothetical portal into a dark elf enclave onto, uh, 'Hyrule', you have that one gun you spoke of, and I'm the cruel, tyrannical matron with a reputation for enslaving and killing humans. The ones I'm merciful to, that is."
She drew her sword from her hip.
"So kill me if you can."
Ray was shocked to say the least. He fidgeted.
"Oh for the love of," she said, "look I don't have all day just pull the damn trigger. What do I have to do? Insult your mother, your clothing, the fact that your big mouth is probably an attempt to compensate for a dick the size of a toothpi…"
He fired.
She only smiled. A hideous smile. Then as she looked at him, something about her eyes changed…
Now they were cold, inhuman…
She was a monster…
"Well?" she asked, in a voice very, very different than it was a minute ago. "Hesitating? Defend yourself you pathetic human!"
Ray wasn't so confident now, and for a minute he thought the gun was loaded with blanks. There was no way he could have missed at that close a range. That assumption was debunked quickly when he fired again. The recoil proved had live ammo, but Rena didn't seem to even care.
"Didn't hurt…" she said.
Ray aimed higher, hoping a head shot would work, but again, she just grinned. Then she let out a horrid, evil cackle.
"Not even close!" she laughed.
Now he was really scared. He fired three more times in quick succession, but she laughed cruelly…
Then the gun clicked. That had been the last bullet. Then the gun flew from his hand as she swung her sword.
Then he screamed as she pressed it against his neck.
"On your knees, worm…" she ordered, in a voice that sounded even colder. He looked in her eyes. They were empty… Dark…Completely without any trace of humanity.
He fell to his knees. She hissed, and licked her lips slightly with her tongue. Then she looked him directly in the eye – with her eyes – and slowly started to press with the point. He was about to scream. Her smile turned hideous…
Then, all of a sudden, she withdrew the sword. She blinked, and her eyes were the same as they were before.
But, while the cruel, sadistic look was gone, she still looked pretty annoyed. She casually rested the sword on her shoulder.
"Game over…" she growled. "The reason your gun didn't hurt me Ray is because, like every smart spellcaster – which means all of them who are still alive – the first thing I do when I wake up is cast a Stone Skin on myself. It protects me from twelve physical blows, no matter how powerful they are.
"And even if I had given you the chance to reload that gun twice, I had other spells cast like Day of Protection, Hour of Power, and Mage Armor… And those are just the ones that all wizards know about. If all the spells that my apprentices are still learning failed, the advanced magic protection would come into play.
"You'd have had to get past all of them before you could have hurt me with that thing, and I doubt you have anything to deal with my offensive magic. Stand up, stupid!"
"Gah!" shouted Ray, as he stood up.
"Even if you entered the Homeworld of Shadow armed to the teeth, Ray," she continued, "and were in a place populated by folks that were short on magic, like say, goblins, you forget one important thing… In a world like that, a gun becomes a worthless piece of junk when you're out of ammunition. Where are you gonna buy bullets in a place where guns haven't been invented yet? You may be able to cut a path of destruction for a day or two, but once you ran out, your fate would depend mostly on just what sort of species was in charge of the local area. I tend to think if I really was the ruler of some dark elf enclave there, your end would be long, cruel, and very painful..."
"You… you were acting?" he stammered.
"No…" she said. "I was just letting you enjoy a display of my bad side, something I quickly learned to keep submerged after I ended up here. One thing I learned later… Humans have bad sides too, but most humans are very hard at hiding them, and they often act like complete jackasses because of it.
"Consider yourself lucky you saw it and lived. Now we can either stop these stupid insults and start discussing things like civilized adults or I'm gonna slug you, is that clear?"
"C-clear!" stammered Ray. "Crystal clear!"
"Good," she replied. "Here…"
She held out her hand, and a bodyguard handed her a scroll. Then she threw it to him and he fumbled to catch it.
He slowly unrolled the scroll and read it.
"While you were doing nothing," she continued, "Oscar, one of the 'shag rugs' as you say, managed to get a lead on our mystery assassin. We'd check it out ourselves, but you know how we feel about the guys who hang out in that sort of place."
"I'm not too crazy about them either…" grumbled Ray.
"You can either do it or you can tell Red Shroud yourself," replied Rena. "I'm pretty sure her bad side is much worse than mine…"
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Back in Green Bay.
Several blocks from where Douglas' appeared, an eerie green smoke started to rise from the sewer grates. It quickly turned into a thick, vicious fog, coalescing into a man-sized shape.
Then it receded and disappeared, but something else had appeared. Emily was standing there, still dressed in her very risqué costume, plus sunglasses.
Oddly enough, the cold weather didn't seem to bother her either. She took a lipstick and compact from her purse, applied it, pursed her lips, and looked around.
Two muscular guys were up ahead, one with a blonde crew cut, jeans, and a t-shirt that likely hadn't been washed in weeks. The other was African-American, wore a tank top and jeans, and a Packers baseball cape.
She strode down in that direction, casually glancing towards them as she did. As she expected, they were both looking at her, or more accurately, specific parts of her. She smiled at them sweetly while slowly turning around. They walked up to her, and her grim widened.
"Hey," said one of them.
His arms slowly encircled around her waist. She kept the smile.
"Any truth to that old story about rabbits being good luck?" he asked.
"Mmm, you mean you want to get lucky, big guy?" she purred.
She lifted her hand and tickled his chin.
"Maybe… How'd you boys like to go for a sandwich?"
They were stunned to say the least. They hadn't expected that response. They knew what it meant, but they had never lucked out this much…
"Uh, really?" asked the first, starting to look around. He was looking to see if there was anyone around, wondering if she was a cop or something.
"Uh…"
"Yeah…" she said.
Then she suddenly wrenched free.
"Enjoy!" she laughed.
The next minute, her fist slammed into his mouth. Hard.
All of a sudden, he realized that when the word "sandwich" was used as a slang term, it could mean several things. He had assumed the wrong one.
"HEY!" shouted his friend.
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Two minutes later, Emily looked at the first one, who was lying flat on the ground, and then the other, who she had stuffed in the trash can nearby.
She seductively bent over and then waved playfully, still smiling sweetly.
"Bye-bye!" she purred.
Then she strolled away, as the first one sat up with a groan. The other moaned too as the trash can fell over.
"Should we turn her in?" asked the first.
"You want to admit to the cops that a Playboy Bunny beat us up?" groaned the other.
"Good point," he replied.
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Falagar: It seemed this has taken an odd turn… On many levels…
A strange woman appearing just as an investigation into an equally strange assassin, just as odd things were starting to happen.
Next chapter, the short lull is over, and it heats up again. Especially since Emily will be here to heat it up. So will Douglas, of course. What is this "favor" that Emily is supposed to do?
"Material Girl" is coming soon.
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Shadowchaser Files: Artifacts
The Mask and Gloves of the Shadow Thief
About five-hundred years ago in Japan, in the city that was then called Edo (now Tokyo), there lived a criminal called the Shadow Thief.
The Shadow Thief possessed a garment that covered his entire body, with strange magical properties. No-one knows how it was created, but by wearing it, the Shadow Thief could enter any shadow and emerge from another in any place he knew about or heard or read a description of. He could use this Shadow Suit, as he called it, to transport himself anywhere in Edo, or anywhere in Japan. (For all anyone knew, anywhere in the world, but he never had the chance to view such places.)
And he used this suit to steal. First he'd bribe merchants who had dealt with wealthy folks to gain descriptions of private homes, after which it would be easy to use the suit to sneak into the places and rob them. Even if he was discovered, he only had to dive through the nearest shadow to escape back to his lair, which nobody could find.
Eventually, he grew bold. He robbed landowners, nobles, and even the Emperor himself, going so far as to leave notes daring them to stop him.
The Emperor, of course, was furious, and he wasn't a fool. He quickly consulted his most trusted advisors, and devised a way to set a trap for the Shadow Thief.
First, out of a claim of generosity, he held a holiday where some of the most priceless jewels in the kingdom were put on display. He told his magistrates to purposely let it slip in every place where the criminal element could be located where the vault was in the Imperial Palace that these jewels would be stored.
Then, he secretly had the vault fixed. Engineers arranged the lighting carefully, so that the inside of the vault was brightly lit and there was only one shadow in the room, one place where the Shadow Thief could emerge. Then when the vault was locked for the night, three of his best soldiers armed with scimitars were inside standing guard, hidden behind pillars in the vault, watching that one spot.
The plan worked like a charm, and the Shadow Thief emerged, suspecting nothing. The three soldiers leapt in an ambush, beheading him and lopping off his arms.
What was left of him fell back through the shadow he had come from, leaving only three grisly trophies.
The Emperor's wise men studied the three parts of the Shadow Suit they had gained, the mask and the two sleeves with the gloves. It seemed that they still worked. To this day, by wearing one of the gloves, the wearer can reach his hand into a shadow and reach out another one, anywhere he has seen before or had described to him. The mask lets him do the same with his head, letting him spy on anywhere there's a shadow.
It was only a fraction of the power the whole suit possessed, but at seemed the career of the notorious Shadow Thief was over.
At least this one.
Story Ideas:
It's unclear where the three recovered parts of the Shadow Suit are currently. Most assume they're in a vault somewhere in Japan. But many who study the story notice one important aspect: The Shadow Thief's hidden lair was never found, nor was he identified.
For all anyone knows, the rest of the Suit may still be there, still clinging to his moldering bones. Should anyone ever find it, he might become rich from the vast wealth he stole, and could recover the rest of the suit, leaving open a possibility that a new Shadow Thief might be born.
A storyline involving the suit would likely involve the recovery, leading to an unsavory character obtaining the complete suit. Should this happen, he'd likely learn from the mistake of the original owner and not be so reckless. Such a device would be ideal for the villain who was determined to prove himself the greatest thief who ever lived (possibly on the same level of the protagonists of Lupin II) although, it's possible that someone not be satisfied with simply stealing, and use the suit as a hired gun.
The episode of Teen Titans "X" displays what might happen when a criminal who fancies himself a master thief comes into possession of this kind of power.