“Fly home, we’ll be okay.”
“No, I don’t watch to ditch you. Hold on.” I call Mom’s cell directly, figuring she’s holding it in her hand at this very moment, glowering at it, like it’s the phone’s fault I’m not home yet. After a half-dozen rings, it goes to her voicemail. “Hi, Mom, movie got out late, walking home now with Sara and Missy, see you soon love you bye.”
“She asleep?”
“Maybe. Wish I were asleep,” I say, keenly aware of my waning energy levels.
“Same here. Today was rough.”
“What’d you two do?” Missy asks.
“Natalie made me destroy stuff,” I say.
“Mindforce tried to teach me to use my telekinesis without destroying stuff,” Sara says, “which is way harder than it sounds, but he told me if I — what did he call it? — physicalize? I can’t remember what he called it, but he said if I —”
Sara stagger-steps to a halt. She wavers, like she’s about to fall over, and her eyes go out of focus.
“Sara? You okay?”
“I. Um. Oh.”
Missy and I skitter away, dodging the splash as Sara doubles over and bazooka-barfs all over the sidewalk. She drops to her hands and knees, retching uncontrollably, but her first volley completely emptied her stomach; it’s nothing but painful dry heaving for the next couple of minutes.
“Oh, God...” she moans. Missy and I rock her back into a kneeling position. Her skin is so white it practically glows under the streetlights.
“Are you okay?” I ask. At moments like this, all possible questions are equally stupid.
“I don’t know,” she rasps. “What the hell was that?”
“Aside from disgusting?” Missy says.
“One minute I was fine, and all of a sudden it was like someone was, I don’t know...it was like someone was squeezing my entire body. I felt hot and dizzy and I hurt all over...”
“How are you now?” I ask. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” Sara says, and she does, but Missy and I keep our hands under her nevertheless. We act as human crutches all the way home, where we pass her off to her parents, who dutifully hustle her into bed.
Bed. Sounds like a plan.
It’s eight when I wake up. I consider calling Sara to see how she’s doing, but decide against it. I shoot Matt a quick text — Sara got sick last pm, got her home ok, letting her sleep in — and roll out of bed in search of coffee. With luck, Mom will be sleeping in and I’ll get to make my own, so I don’t have to suffer her industrial-strength paint stripper sludge.
Looks like that’s not going to be a problem; her bedroom door is open, and she’s not in bed — and hasn’t been. Mom’s morning routine is always coffee first, bed-making last, and unless she got up crazy early...
Mom never came home last night.
I head downstairs, pushing away the tiny surge of panic. Granddad is up and in the kitchen, prepping a pot of coffee fit for human consumption.
“Mornin’, hon,” he says. “How was the movie?”
“Weird and confusing. Granddad, did Mom ever come home last night?”
Granddad frowns at me. “She didn’t come home?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hm. That’s odd,” he says, “but I’m sure she’s fine. She’s an adult, she can take care of herself. She would have called if there was a problem.”
Sure, because when you roll your car into ditch, first thing you do is call your daughter to let her know everything’s cool. I check my phone. There are no messages from her, so I try calling again. Right to voicemail.
“She’s not picking up.”
“Carrie, don’t get yourself all worked up. Hey, I bet that’s her right now,” he says as my phone goes off, but it’s not Mom: Mom’s ringtone is Bruce Springsteen’s version of Pink Cadillac; the song playing now is Speed of Sound by Coldplay, which means it’s Concorde.
(For the record, my choice of ringtone for Concorde is not as cool as it might sound; I hate that song with the seething fury of an erupting volcano.)
“What now?” I snap.
“We have an emergency. Get the Squad, get to HQ as soon as you can.”
“Look, I have something going on, I can’t just drop everything on your say-so,” I say, completely missing the fact Concorde didn’t lay into me for my rude greeting, the urgency in his summons — hell, I totally miss that he’s calling in the Hero Squad for an actual mission.
“This is an all-hands situation, Carrie,” Concorde says. “Astrid has something for us, and she’s says it’s big, possible yellow-level threat, so whatever you have ‘going on,’ it’ll have to wait.”
I’m about to tell El Jerko Grande exactly what I have “going on,” and that is the moment my mother, looking decidedly ragged, walks in. She spots me, and an odd look passes over her face. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was a flash of guilt.
“Never mind. Problem solved itself,” I tell Concorde. “Be there soon.”
“Good morning,” Granddad says to Mom, with a hint of disapproval. Mom may be an adult, but she’s obviously not above parental reproach.
“Morning,” Mom says. “You two just get up?”
“Where have you been? I tried calling you last night, and you never picked up,” I say.
“I’m sorry about that, sweetheart, I went out with some co-workers, we hit this wine bar in the city and, um.” She momentarily breaks eye contact with me. She’s definitely feeling guilty about something. “I overindulged. I wasn’t in any shape to drive home, so I spent the night at a co-worker’s place.”
“I was worried about you, Mom.”
“I said I was sorry, Carrie,” Mom says, a little irritably. “I had my phone off. I forgot to turn it back on.”
Why do I suddenly feel like she did this intentionally, to teach me a lesson?
“Well, now that I know you’re not lying dead somewhere, I’m heading out,” I say, darting past Mom. I pause in the front door. “And, for the record? I will have my phone on.”
I swing by Sara’s place. She’s awake, has been for a while.
“Feeling okay?” I say.
“Meh,” she says, making a so-so gesture. “Not terrible, but...I think I feel hung-over. Not that I’m speaking from experience...”
“Pft. Call my mom, she could tell you.”
Her eyebrows jump. “Your mom’s hung-over?”
“Yeah. Get this: she was out all night with her friends getting hammered. She got home, like, ten minutes ago.”
“Whah. Doesn’t sound like her.”
“I know. Hope this was a one-time thing. If she’s experiencing some kind of regression to her wild and crazy college years...”
“Awkward.”
“Totally. Anyway, we have to roll. Concorde’s calling us in.” Sara groans. “I know, but this sounds bad. Possible yellow-level threat, he said.”
“A what?”
“Well, a red-level threat is a ‘major incident involving superhumans with a high body count potential,’ ” I say, recalling Mindforce’s explanation, “so this would be two steps below that...assuming the Protectorate uses the same rainbow we do.”
“Oh. So, bad.”
“Yeah.”
“We should go.”
“Yeah.”
FOURTEEN
“You know what it sounds like?” Matt says. “Sounds like your mom got lucky.”
I am not a punchy person by nature. When someone says something upsetting to me, I endeavor to take the high road. If it’s something particularly offensive, something that presses a hot button, I might respond with an insult or two, maybe a well-placed F-bomb. I prefer to use words that hurt rather than fists. Because I’m civilized.
Matt’s comment prompts me to leap the width of the Wonkavator and drive my knuckles into the meat of his upper chest.
“OW! What the hell?!”
“Don’t you ever say anything like that about my mother again!” I scream in Matt�
��s face. “My mom did not get lucky, and if you say that again I swear to God I’ll put my foot so far up your butt you’ll need Stuart to get it out!”
“Sorry, dude,” Stuart says to Matt, “but I ain’t touching your butt.”
“God, Matt, do you have to blurt out every stupid thought that comes into your head?”
“Come on,” Matt says, “don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind.”
“It didn’t, because that’s not what happened,” I say. “She had too much wine, she couldn’t drive, she stayed with a friend. That’s all.”
Matt holds his hands up as if in surrender. “Fine. Sure. Whatever you say. By the way? Ow.”
“Deserved it. Ass.”
“Would have hurt less if you zapped me.”
I laugh. “Not anymore. Natalie showed me how to turn up the volume. If I blasted you now, you’d be all like, splatto, nothing but smoldering meat chunks.”
“Which reminds me: how come you get private training sessions?”
Because I got maimed by a super-villain and still have nightmares about it, that’s why. Because it’s part of my therapy.
“They offered,” I say, “I accepted.”
“But why you? Why hasn’t the Protectorate offered to train the rest of us?”
“Uh, actually...” Sara says.
“What, seriously?”
“You can control your powers, Matt, I can’t, not entirely.”
We sway in our seats as the Wonkavator slows. End of the line. “To be continued,” Matt says.
Natalie is waiting for us on the platform. There’s no greeting for us, only a stony expression.
“Come on,” she says.
We’re taken to a conference room — not the small room we’ve become familiar with through our many interroga— sorry, interviews, but something more like a corporate board room, complete with a long, wide wooden table surrounded by high-backed chairs. No one is sitting.
“They’re here,” Natalie says, and all conversation stops. Concorde is here, as is Mindforce, Dr. Enigma, and —
“Jeez!” Matt yelps, flinching away from a dark shape standing in the corner near the door, as silent as the grave and three times as creepy. He’s tall, easily topping six feet, and dressed entirely in black: black fatigues, black military-style boots, a black leather coat that falls to his ankles, and a featureless black leather mask — no eyeholes or anything. How does he see out of the thing?
“Knock it off, Entity,” Natalie says.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” the shape says in a perfect monotone.
“My point. Squad, the Entity,” Natalie says. “Entity, Hero Squad.”
The Entity looks at us (I think), but says nothing.
“Sit down, everyone,” Concorde says. Astrid and the Entity remain standing.
“Sara, I need to know,” Astrid says, “did you experience anything last night?”
“What do you mean, experience anything?” Sara says.
“Answer the question.”
“A ‘please’ would be nice.” When she fails to receive the requested nicety, Sara says, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Yes,” I say, “when you got sick.”
“Yeah, but that was food poisoning or something.”
“When?” Astrid says.
“Midnight-ish?”
“Bad?”
“I puked. Hard. For, like, five minutes.”
Astrid and Mindforce trade meaningful looks. Astrid curses.
“Is someone going to tell us what’s going on?” I say.
“The Libris Infernalis is missing,” Astrid says.
A moment of confused silence follows, much of that confusion from those in the room who don’t know what the heck she’s talking about. Those of us who do know about the Libris, we’re wondering —
“Missing from where?” Matt says. “You said nothing was taken from any of the libraries that got hit.”
Astrid winces. “The book wasn’t in any of the libraries,” she says. “I had it.”
“Am I missing something?” the Entity says.
Concorde brings the Entity up to speed, walking him through the first incident at Bradford College, up to Stacy Hellfire’s visit to Kingsport, and on to the last (known) incident at Brown University. She lays out the theory that Black Betty was looking for the Libris for purposes unknown — although the Black Betty part is no longer theoretical.
“I found this in my sanctum a few hours ago,” Astrid says, presenting a small, hand-written note reading, THANX FOR THE LOAN — BAM A LAM. It’s “signed” with a kiss in dark red lipstick.
“I see,” the Entity says. “So, you’re telling us you had in your possession a book of extremely dangerous black magic, which is now missing, and is in the hands of someone both capable of and willing to use it. Do I have that right?”
Not once does the Entity’s voice deviate from a flat, lifeless drone. This guy elevates creepiness to an art form.
“You do realize the hits on the libraries were a distraction.”
“Yes, Entity, I know that now,” Astrid growls.
“What happened to Sara,” I say to Astrid, “that’s connected to the book, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t respond. “Enigma,” Concorde prods.
“What Sara experienced,” Astrid says, “what I experienced, what Mindforce experienced, what every psionic within a hundred miles experienced at midnight last night, was in response to the successful execution of a major summoning ritual.”
“Could you explain that for the muggles in the room?” Stuart says.
“The barrier between our world and the known alternate dimensions isn’t solid, it’s permeable — more like a net than a wall, and minor demonic entities like imps, the small fish, they slip through the net and into our dimension on a semi-regular basis.
“The big fish, they get caught in the net,” she continues, becoming more animated with each word, “unless they force their way through, or someone on the other side pulls them through. What Sara and Mindforce and I felt last night was the psychic backlash of that net ripping. Something came through. Something big.”
“Something someone pulled through the net using the book,” Mindforce says.
“...Yes.”
No one speaks, maybe because it sounds so completely ridiculous. Or, maybe because we’re indulging in some group denial. and no one wants to say aloud what we’re all thinking:
There’s a demon running around on Earth.
I’ll spare you the raging argument that followed, but here’s the SparksNotes version: Concorde, predictably, flipped out, yelled at Astrid for being dumb enough to have something so dangerous in her possession; Astrid countered that no one should have been able to break into her sanctum (whatever that is) to steal it; Mindforce tried to calm tempers, and get us back on-track so we could respond to the crisis; the Entity stood in the corner, said nothing, made me deeply uncomfortable.
It took a while for the Protectorate to come up with a plan of action, although I use the term “action” loosely, because the plan is little more than “hurry up and wait.” Until the demon or whoever summoned it act, there’s not a lot we can do. When they do reveal themselves, we have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice — all of us; for once, Concorde did not protest the Hero Squad’s potential involvement. Maybe he likes having other people around who feel as out of their depth as he does.
Astrid and Natalie walk us back to the Wonkavator, although they act as if we’re not there.
“I hate to defend the guy,” Natalie says, “but you know magic freaks Concorde out. Anything he can’t understand...”
“I don’t understand open heart surgery,” Astrid says, “but it doesn’t scare me.”
“You don’t understand nuclear fission either, but a nuke would scare you. That’s what magic is to him: a weapon he doesn’t know how to counteract.”
“As long as Astrid knows how,” Matt says. An awkward, telling silence follows. Way to
inspire confidence, people.
“Tell me something,” I say. “If the Libris is so crazy dangerous, why did you hold onto it? Why not burn the thing?”
“I have my reasons,” Astrid says, as though that is enough to end the conversation.
“Such as? Come on, we’re going to be risking our lives over this thing. I think we have a right to know why.”
Astrid, reluctantly, nods. “Fair enough. Yes, the knowledge in that book is dangerous, but that’s not to say it’s unique. The spells and rituals might exist elsewhere, waiting to be discovered. They might be the basis for more commonly known, less potent magic. I may be powerful, but it’s a lot easier to counter dark magic if I know what I’m facing.”
I guess I can’t argue with that reasoning. Knowledge is power and all that.
“I also thought the book was safe. It’s not like I left the thing sitting on my coffee table. Black Betty bypassed half a dozen nasty wards without triggering any of them. That’s slick. I could count the sorcerers who could pull that off on one hand.” Astrid stops, turns to face us. “This demon isn’t going to stay quiet for long. Best we can do is move fast when it reveals itself, contain the damage, minimize the casualties.”
Casualties?
“Keep your phone on at all times,” Astrid says.
FIFTEEN
Who knew a silent cell phone could be so nerve-wracking?
The weekend passes without our phones ringing once, which may be a no-news-is-good-news situation, but I can’t help but feel that the longer nothing happens, the worse the something, when it goes down, will be.
Our one attempt at contributing to the mission falls flat. Matt, in a moment of legitimate brilliance, decides to try retrieving the book via his gloves. It’s a sound theory; we know from his session with Doc Quantum he can produce specific, unique items, but for some reason, the Libris escapes his grasp, rather literally. Maybe because he has no idea what the book looks like, he can’t visualize it properly. Or maybe whatever Black Betty is doing to stay under Astrid’s radar is also keeping the book hidden.
Ugh. I can understand why Concorde and Doc Quantum hate magic so much.
Monday comes, and school provides a decent enough distraction, at least aesthetically; the hallways are absolutely wallpapered with decorations heralding the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance. Hearts in white, pink, and red plaster the walls, everything is trimmed in lace, and Cupids stand watch on every classroom door. I’m all for holiday festivities, but this is overkill.
Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women Page 10