The coup de grace was a hammer blow to the back of Donner’s head, delivered with all the strength John could muster. The lightning spear vanished in a harmless shower of sparks as the German’s headless body collapsed, not far from the fallen statue of Victoria.
The fall of the last Aesir had been followed less than an hour later by the death of Himmler at the hands of his own men as he tried to flee his bunker. The next day, the highest-ranking German military officer left, a Navy man of all things, had offered the Reich’s unconditional surrender. That was the story featured in the New York Times and the special unnumbered V-Day Issue of Action Tales, the story found in textbooks, the story John remembered.
Something else had happened that day, however. Something he had forgotten for seven decades.
For several seconds, he had stood over Donner’s corpse. The fight had left him exhausted, although he knew from experience he would recover in a few minutes. He could just rest there for a bit, and then…
John Clarke.
The whispered name had sent chills down his back. He turned towards the speaker, certain of his location even though he hadn’t heard the words with his ears.
A thin emaciated form stood amidst the ruins of the Victory Monument, even though the shockwaves generated by the fight should have been lethal to any human caught in the open. The near-skeletal apparition was clad in a striped concentration camp uniform, and his head was shaved. John had seen pictures of similarly clad prisoners. This man was an inmate of one such camp. What was he doing in Berlin?
John Clarke.
The man’s lips didn’t move, but the words were coming from him. Except for his dark staring eyes, he could have been dead. His motionless posture was corpselike, unnatural. He didn’t breathe or blink.
John had fought hordes of reanimated corpses in the battlefields of France and Germany, the creations of the dread Teutonic Knight known as Totenkopf. At first, he thought that was what he was facing. The walking dead the Nazi Aesir had thrown at the Allies had been mindless creatures, however. The eyes staring at him were bright with intelligence and hatred.
It is time, John Clarke.
He started to react but he wasn’t fast enough. Something like a shadow darted from the figure in the death camp uniform. John had barely enough time to notice the skeletal body had started to collapse before the shadow reached him. He felt something push liquidly through his protective aura, a cold grasping force that gripped his insides, his mind, his soul. Icy talons ripped at him from within.
You will be ours, John Clarke.
The fight was brutal, the more so because it wasn’t physical. The entity trying to destroy his will had picked its time well, striking when John was at his lowest ebb. Incredulity gave way to fear. Fear became terror. He was helpless in the face of the entity, helpless like a child. John felt himself letting go, surrendering to the black pressure besetting him. Giving up would be so easy. It would mean an end to the terror. He could let it be over, and go gently into oblivion. It would be easy, so easy…
In the end, her eyes had dragged him back from the abyss. Her blue eyes, looking at him as they said their goodbyes in Paris before he went off on the last campaign of the war, the answer to his hesitant question ringing in his ears like sweet music. To surrender to the darkness was to renounce that mutual promise.
Linda Lamar saved John’s life that day.
Resistance became rage, became a searing light that thrust back the force trying to overcome him, shredding its essence. An inhuman shriek of rage and agony hammered at the insides of his skull for one unbearable moment before fading away.
Ours, it said again as it vanished without a trace, taking even the memories of the battle with it.
John shook his head, his eyes blinking furiously. How long had he been standing there? He noticed a group of children in uniform, their helmets looking comically oversized on their heads. The child soldiers had emerged from a nearby trench and were deploying an anti-tank launcher across the remains of the plaza. Hitler Youths, too young to understand there was nothing left to do, nothing worth dying for. He let them fire their Panzerfaust at him, let them run away in terror when the smoke dissipated and they saw him stand unscathed after the explosion.
He utterly forgot the shadow entity’s attack. For seven decades, he forgot.
Lake of the Woods, Ontario, March 15, 2013
John woke up with a start. Habits as deeply ingrained as his childhood’s toilet training kept his strength down to human levels, so his sudden trashing did not smash the couch he was lying on – or the house he was in. The sudden movement made everyone in the spacious living room start in surprise. John gasped for breath, his eyes wild, looking for all the world like a terrified child.
He remembered everything, and it scared him like nothing ever had.
“It’s okay,” Christine said, standing over him. The blue eyes, so much like Linda’s, looked at him with concern. “Just a dream, John. It was just a dream.”
“More than that,” he muttered, embarrassed and mortified beyond words. He’d unmanned himself in front of everyone. Showing weakness in front of Christine alone wouldn’t have been so bad, but debasing himself for his current audience of vigilantes left him seething with self-loathing and rage.
Christine’s expression changed in synch with his emotions. “Take it easy, okay?” she said. She might be afraid, but her voice remained calm and steady. “We’re all on the same side here.”
John forced himself to calm down. He sat up, trying to clear his head. Echoes of the agony he’d felt when the hairy giant had torn him apart were fading away, but he now realized he’d been poisoned with the same energy that had been used against him in Berlin. The same energy had infected the tainted cochlear implants the Lurker had removed from his head that very night. It had taken the near-lethal attack to bring back those suppressed memories, and John now knew he was facing a force that had been at work at least as far back as World War Two – and that it was a force that could overcome him more easily than anything else he’d ever faced. He saw Christine’s eyes widen at his sudden spike of fear, and forced himself to clamp down on his emotions, for both their sakes.
In the comic books, the writers, trying desperately to create dramatic tension while telling stories about a man who couldn’t be hurt, had come up with a fictitious Achilles’ Heel, a radioactive alloy of silver known as Sylverite. For decades, half of the plots in Action Tales had involved Ultimate using his wits to overcome Sylverite-wielding foes. Unfortunately for his real foes, Sylverite was a myth. Until now. The dark power he’d faced was as deadly as the fabulous metal. That realization scared him like nothing before.
One could learn to control fear. John hadn’t had to do so for a long time. Too few things could frighten him nowadays. The old techniques came back to him, thankfully, and he regained his composure, even if it was too late to save him from embarrassment.
“Hot chocolate?” Christine said, offering him a steaming cup. He took it gratefully and sipped the sweet liquid, mostly to give himself time to assimilate the situation. Among other things, he marveled at the ease with which the girl could read his emotions. He was nearly impervious to both empathy and telepathy.
“Glad to see you back, Ultimate,” Condor said, acting as if he hadn’t seen John act like a frightened schoolgirl a moment ago. Kestrel said nothing, but the smirk on her face spoke volumes. Face-Off also remained silent, but John could guess what was going on behind the blank façade.
Who gives a good goddamn what they think about you? John told himself, and set the unworthy thoughts aside. There were plenty of things at stake that actually mattered. “How long was I out?”
“A bit over an hour,” Condor said. “By the way, I’m pretty sure the big guy that attacked you was none other than Medved, former Hero of the Revolution. I got a good look at him while he was trying to take my head off, and the resemblance to the old newsreels and newspaper pictures was pretty conclusive.” Medved.
Another name from the Second World War. The man had spent the last several decades allegedly working as a mercenary of sorts; there had been precious few confirmed sightings of him, until now.
“What happened?” John asked. The last thing he remembered was being attacked in the bizarre cave the Lurker had led them to. There had been at least three or four attackers, including the giant who had torn John apart. The fact that everyone was alive and well – except for the Lurker, who wasn’t there – meant his allies had prevailed in the end. He suppressed another surge of shame at the fact that three vigilantes and an inexperienced girl had survived the forces that had laid him low – This isn’t about you, he reminded himself – and heard their story.
The fight at the Lurker’s cave had ended up in a stalemate of sorts. One of the attackers had been killed, and Medved had escaped with one other. John figured he would have to do better the next time he crossed paths with the giant. A lot better. The Lurker and the fourth intruder had been left behind on the island, which had exploded as a result of their conflict. The Lurker – Christine’s father, he reminded himself – was missing and presumed dead.
“Excuse me,” he said after the story was done. “I’m going to step outside for a moment.” Condor and Christine nodded. Face-Off shrugged. Kestrel leered at him. “If you feel like company, hero, just let me know,” she said. John ignored the comment and walked off into the night.
He needed time to think.
What was he going to do?
Hunters and Hunted
Chicago, Illinois, March 15, 2013
Dietrich Muller looked nervously out the window of the cheap apartment. It wasn’t much of a dwelling, but there was no paper trail linking the rental property to Doctor Martin Cohen or any of the other aliases Dietrich normally used. It would probably make no difference if Ultimate came back looking for him, but he could only hope the Invincible Man would be occupied elsewhere. Dietrich had done his best to cast the onus of suspicion over the verdammt superhero, and the police and the Chicago Sentinels were watching Doctor Cohen’s residence in case Ultimate showed up there. For all that, being elsewhere seemed like the prudent thing to do.
Failure was not something he was used to. As a young man, an immigrant from defeated and humiliated Germany in the wake of the Great War, Dietrich had done what he needed to in order to get ahead, and his failures had been minor and few. When he had discovered his talents, the ability to sense people’s emotions and manipulate them, and later the power to control and alter their dreams, his fortunes had soared. As the Dreamer, he had stolen mostly from criminals, since they were less likely to go to the authorities, and had found himself being toasted as a hero, even immortalized in cheap adventure magazines. Life had been good then. He had wanted more, however, and found himself working for another so-called mystery man, one whose enormous wealth and influence were matched only by his grandiose plans. Dietrich and the Dreamer had disappeared and gone underground. For decades, he had served his master willingly and well, until now.
The operation had been ruined by the girl. If only Dietrich’s handler hadn’t insisted on using Ultimate to capture her… Years of patient effort to slip past the Invincible Man’s formidable psychic defenses had been wasted in a few hours; he still couldn’t understand how the little bitch had managed to enter Ultimate’s mind-scape, let alone help the cursed Ami break free from Dietrich’s controls. She was young and inexperienced, but her raw power was more than enough to compensate for her shortcomings. He should have killed her, and damn the consequences.
Mr. Night knocked on the door.
Dietrich knew who it was the second he heard the knock. His empathic senses should have detected any living being approaching the dwelling, but Mr. Night had always been undetectable unless he wished otherwise. The man, Dietrich suspected, was neither human nor Neolympian, but something else altogether. When the strange little man knocked on the door, his presence became apparent and unmistakable. The door had been locked but Mr. Night let himself in before Dietrich could answer the knock.
His extrasensory perceptions told Dietrich Mr. Night had entered his apartment, but the little man in the dark suit had been replaced by a hairy giant in a trench coat. Dietrich recognized him: it was Medved, the renegade Hero of the Revolution, who had ended up in the service of Daedalus Smith, Dietrich’s master. They had worked together on several occasions over the decades. Dietrich considered Medved to be a dullard, an unthinking brute with no manners or subtlety. His empathic senses told a different story, however. So did his eyes after a second look. The lopsided smile on Medved’s face did not belong there; it had been placed there by the entity now inhabiting the Russian’s body.
“Ah, there you are, my dear Dietrich,” the giant spoke. The gruff, almost-growling voice of the man Dietrich had known had been replaced by a thin, reedy one, unmistakably belonging to Mr. Night. “The man of the hour,” Mr. Night, continued. “Look at you, trying to hide your light under a bushel. How modest and unbecoming of you.”
“I needed to get away,” Dietrich protested weakly. “Ultimate…”
“Yes, the Invincible Man slipped from your grasp. You managed to lose him, the girl, your composure and your dignity, all in one fell swoop. Failure that complete is something of an achievement.”
“I… the girl! It was the girl’s fault! How could I know she was a telepath? More than that, she entered Ultimate’s mind as if she had been mind-walking all her life!”
“She is a talented young lady,” Mr. Night admitted. “I must admit it was a tad imprudent of me, asking you to capture her while you were busy riding the Invincible Man like a prize horse. I saw an opportunity and acted in haste. For that, you have my most abject apologies.”
Dietrich exhaled in relief; he had been holding his breath and been quite unaware of it. “I will do anything you ask,” he assured Mr. Night. “I can overpower Ultimate again.”
“Such a propitious event is sadly not in the cards at the moment,” Mr. Night said. “The device that allowed you to breach dear Ultimate’s rather impressive mental defenses has been destroyed by my adversary. There may be an opportunity to remedy the situation later, but for now we have other matters to attend.”
“You have new instructions from our superiors, then?”
“Yes. We have new directives. The first one, I’m sorry to say, concerns the demise of dear Doctor Cohen.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m going to create a compelling crime scene for the benefit of the authorities, my dear Dreamer. It will be rather unpleasant, but necessary.”
Dietrich started to speak but sudden agony wracked his body. He fell to the floor, convulsing. He screamed as he felt things tear inside of him.
“Hush, little Dreamer. Mr. Night is working.” Dietrich’s vocal cords died and took his voice with them. He flopped silently on the apartment’s floor as he felt blood being drawn out of every opening and pore in his body. “Let me paint you a heartbreaking tableau, Dietrich. A horrible crime has been committed. Ultimate, the patient you so selflessly tried to help, tracked you to this place and murdered you in a most brutal fashion. Struck you with such violence that he liquefied your body, leaving behind only blood and a few solid bits here and there, mostly teeth and bone and brain fragments, which I’m afraid I’m going to have to excise from you. The authorities will also find a few hairs and some tiny flecks of skin belonging to your alleged killer. They will easily identify your murderer; after all, Ultimate’s DNA is in several government databases, thanks to the Parahuman Registration Act.”
Dietrich watched his tormentor in mute agony as he was mutilated alive. The tooth pulling was the worst of it. “Do not fret, there’s a good boy,” Mr. Night said as he worked. Blood and still living tissue flew through the air in a complex pattern, splattering the walls and floor of the apartment like a gruesome abstract painting. “The procedure is quite painful, but you will –barely – survive the experience. Unfortunately, your self-healing a
bilities are not quite up to the task of keeping you alive, so you will be spending the next few nights under medical care. We all must make sacrifices, don’t you agree?”
A full gallon of Dietrich’s blood splashed on the walls in an explosive pattern. “There we go. Beautiful work, if I say so myself.”
Mr. Night picked up Dietrich’s limp body and slung it over his shoulder. With his free hand, he ripped the front door off its hinges. “That would be the point of entry for our murderer,” Mr. Night explained. He rushed an outside wall and smashed through it as if it was made of tissue paper; with one bound the giant leapt over a city block and landed on a building roof. “And that was the exit point. Poor dear Ultimate is now the chief suspect in a brutal homicide.”
Mr. Night patted the barely-conscious Dietrich on the back. “Don’t you worry. Soon you will be up and about, doing great things.
“Just keep in mind that another failure will have drastic consequences. We are too close to the end game.”
Face-Off
Lake of the Woods, Ontario, March 15, 2013
I watched Christine as she watched the news. She didn’t look like the harbinger of the apocalypse. In fact, she looked like what she had been a couple of days ago, an ordinary college student, a pretty redhead who talked a little too much and too fast when she got nervous. She was a nice person who didn’t deserve to be involved with killers and monsters, two categories to which I belonged. But thanks to her father, she was Armageddon Girl. I had it on good authority that she could end up saving or destroying the world. I was supposed to watch her back, and I would, even though I still wasn’t sure if I was up to the job.
A ‘Breaking News’ sign appeared on one of the big news channels. The remains of a well-known Chicago psychiatrist had been found, and unconfirmed reports claimed the dead man had been treating Ultimate for some sort of mental disorder. Christine’s eyes widened in recognition when the dead shrink’s picture showed up on the screen. “That’s the Dreamer!” she said. “And John didn’t kill him. Okay, we beat the crap out of him, but that was in Dreamland. He was alive and well when he ran like a little b-word!”
New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet Page 3