by Todd Downing
Wally loaded his gun, cocked it and released the safety. He nodded ready. They moved fast down the hall, slowing as they went up the stairs. The door to the great room was open wide. They slowed to a stop and David tried to stay hidden in the shadows. There were voices raised in argument.
“And if your drug had worked properly,” Sheng loudly proclaimed, “we wouldn’t have had to keep her so long. We can go round and round all you like but assigning blame must wait until the situation is resolved.”
Two groups were facing off among the pillars. Sheng and three more Dragons, two with pistols, one with a shotgun, were to David’s left. Four white men were grouped to the right. All were in conservative business suits, three were holding MP 18 machine guns—probably Silver Star agents. Swaying unsteadily between them was Betsy wearing a rumpled, torn, dirty dress that had probably been fancy before she was taken. She seemed unaware of anything around her. The Dragon with the shotgun held it partially at her back, but David could see even from here the man was more concerned with the armed men across from him than the drugged up girl in front of him.
“We will resolve the situation,” the unarmed white man said. “And then we will determine who is at fault and how much damage has been done. You and your men just need to stay out of our way until then.”
So outnumbered, outgunned and the one person they needed to protect smack dab in the middle of it. David looked a question at Wally. Wally shrugged back. David nodded towards the closest pillars. Wally gave him a thumbs up. They both moved quickly and settled in behind two columns. The movement must have caught Sheng’s eye.
“David, have you finally decided to join us? Is the fat one still alive?” David saw Wally seethe at that and try draw a bead on Sheng. The angle was bad though. Wally turned his gun towards one of the men with a submachine gun. The two groups were still covering each other but each had turned partially towards David and Wally.
“Wally’s fine, thanks. Why don’t he and I take Betsy out of here and the rest of you can argue without interruption?”
“Generous, but I am afraid our friends would never agree. You can still accept a quick death however.”
“Generous, but…” David never finished his quip. Betsy moved like lighting. The tong member’s split focus had no room for her. He paid a price. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and yanked it out of his hands. He stumbled forward. She drove the butt into his stomach. He dropped to his knees. She raised the gun and fired. An armed Silver Star man went down. Chaos erupted.
Wally fired and his Silver Star agent dropped. David sent a marble flying. Instead of the head shot he was going for, he hit his agent on the hand. Still it hurt enough that the man dropped his gun. Sheng was screaming orders in Cantonese. The head agent was chanting odd words and raising his hands. Betsy was cocking the shotgun and turning to face Sheng.
One of Sheng’s men pointed his pistol in Betsy’s face. Sheng screamed and grabbed the man’s hand. The shot went wide. Betsy aimed at Sheng. Sheng pulled his man in front of him. Betsy fired point blank at the man’s chest with devastating results. Sheng shoved the dead man forward, knocking over Betsy who hit the floor and dropped the gun. Sheng’s other man fired at Wally but hit only the shielding column. Wally took that moment to run to the next pillar up.
David hurled ectoplasm to cover the gun his target had dropped. The Silver Star agent bent down to pick it up and hit only a hardening silver shell. The bodies of his fellow agents were starting to smoke and dissolve. He turned to grab one of their guns instead. David shot a marble at him but it hit… something a few feet away and dropped.
David looked around in confusion. The lead agent stopped his chant and dropped his hands. Now David could see a faint shimmer between him and them. Damn it. Whatever that shimmer was stopped David’s attack. Probably would stop bullets, too. Anyway, Wally had his hands full with the tong.
In fact, Wally was using the lull to advance pillars again. Sheng directed the one Dragon on his feet to drag a struggling Betsy to the back of the room. The one she struck with the shotgun was just standing. The lead agent chanted again and spread his hands in front of him. A wide wave of energy burst forth from his hands. It plowed into the struggling tong member who collapsed. It struck David’s pillar and tore pieces off, but David was safe. Wally wasn’t. The blast caught him full force between pillars. He dropped hard with a sickening crack, his neck turned the wrong way.
David closed his eyes. Exhaustion struck harder than that energy wave. His friend was dead. He couldn’t reach the others through the shield. They could work around his pillar from both sides and trap him. He wanted to lie down and weep. Wally deserves more than surrender.
Nobody was moving. The Silver Star agents weren’t advancing. Maybe they would lose the shimmering shield if they did. Maybe they were waiting to see what he would do. Whatever it was, it gave David a moment. And he had one last trick. He couldn’t send something through the shield but what about something already behind the shield?
David closed his eyes and focused his power. His last ability let him manipulate small amounts of certain elements, including lead. He just needed a couple moments. Sheng was saying something. David focused and felt the lead bullets in the agent’s gun, their shape, their weight. He drew small amounts forth, shaped them into small pellets and excited them. He exhaled and released.
The lead pellets erupted from the magazine. Some went into the agent, some went into his boss and some went into the remaining ammunition which ignited like fireworks at New Year. Sheng and the others were behind the Silver Star agents and largely protected. The Silver Star agents and the pillars nearest them were shredded.
David stepped out. Sheng had a knife at Betsy’s throat. The last tong member held his .45 in unsteady hands. David lashed out with his power and the gun fell. Sheng barked a command and the henchman ran at David. David shot a marble. It punched a small bloody hole in the man’s chest and penetrated his heart. He stumbled two more steps then dropped.
Sheng tried to maintain his usual composure. “We seem to be at an impasse, David.” He pressed the knife a little into Betsy’s neck.
David shook his head. “No. We aren’t.”
“No, I suppose we aren’t,” he sighed. “You were wise to keep your skills hidden. I greatly underestimated you.”
“Let her go. No cops. I know some people who would like to talk to you about the Silver Star.”
Sheng laughed desperately. “You’re with AEGIS? Goodness, the gods were against me on this one. No, David, I don’t think I would like that. When we started, a most frightening woman told me if I betrayed them she would kill me, resurrect me, and kill me again, repeatedly, for all time. I believe her.” He started to slump in resignation, the knife dropping a little. “No, better an—”
Betsy lashed out again. She pushed Sheng’s knife hand out from her body. Then she grabbed his arm in both her hands. She angled her hip into his pelvis, knocking him off balance. She used his arm as a lever and flipped him over her hip. He fell on his face. She had his arm twisted behind his back and stepped hard on his shoulder.
“Who is this woman? I’d like to call dibs on one of those deaths.” She lifted her foot and struck Sheng in the head. He sagged unconscious. She turned to David. “Thanks for the help. You said you know some people? Can you call them now?”
He called his AEGIS contact. Then he grabbed the rope from downstairs and firmly tied Sheng, Ear Scar and the hallway goon before they came to. He sat down next to Wally. Betsy came over.
“He was your friend?” she asked. He nodded. “I’m sorry. And I’m grateful.”
David looked at her sharply.
“No, I mean... You two could have walked away when you saw what you were up against. You didn’t and I am deeply grateful.”
David smiled wistfully. “If you had known Wally you would know he never would have made any other decision.” After a moment he asked, “What was going on here?”
“I’m not ce
rtain,” she replied. “Angela brought me here and then this guy,” she gestures towards Sheng, “shows up and starts ordering her around. She does what he says without hesitation. It was weird. Then he dosed me with a red powder and started ordering me around like Angela. I was groggy with the first dose but otherwise I was myself. They started in on what I should do, how I should behave when I got home. I was confused. They realized it hadn’t worked. They kept trying. Apparently these new guys...” she pointed at the dissolving bodies of the Silver Star agents and shuddered. “They were here to examine me and find out what happened. I’m not sure I would have survived that.”
They sat in the awkward silence of two people who didn’t know each other but had fought a life or death fight together. Soon a horde of AEGIS agents descended on the Mind Mists and started a whirlwind of interviews, investigations and explanations that lasted several days. The agents immediately hustled Betsy away from the scene and David assumed they wouldn’t cross paths again. He was wrong.
A few days later, she attended Wally’s sparse funeral. David was pleasantly surprised. After the graveside service he approached her.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” she replied. They stood next to each in another awkward silence. “Will you walk with me a ways?” she asked. He nodded and they slowly walked down a grassy hill toward the cemetery gate.
“I found out a little more about what happened,” he informed her. “The Silver Star was using the Mind Mists to take control of heirs to industrial fortunes. Apparently, a year ago, they had tried assassinating the men who finance AEGIS. This time around they tried taking control of the men and women who will be financing it in a few years. They used Sheng as a front man, promising control of all New York’s underworld. AEGIS created an antidote and freed the others, including Angela.” Earlier he had wondered if he could ever leave this secret war. Now he wondered if he wanted to.
“How did you resist the mind drugs?” David asked.
“The AEGIS people tell me it was created partly with… with mysticism.” A new idea for her that these things were real. “And apparently I have a particularly strong resistance to mystic effects.”
David nodded. “I guess you were supposed to be released back to your family the next day. But they couldn’t do that until you were under control. Your parents got scared and brought in Wally.”
“Yes. I thought my parents would start some kind of search. I figured the best thing was fake a stupor and wait for a chance to escape.”
“Very smart, Miss Schneider. So, what’s next for you?”
“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you about that.”
“Oh?”
“My life…” she took a breath and plunged in. “My life has been ill spent. Dad’s business is a bad fit for me. So I turned away and focused almost exclusively on myself. This Silver Star… what they could have done, what they are trying to do, they scare me. I want to do something about it. I want to work with you. I want you to train me.”
“I’m sure AEGIS would bring you into the fold.”
She shook her head. “My dad is one of their financiers. One day, I will be too. They don’t want to risk me, or more accurately, my funding.”
“Recent history aside, most of my work isn’t for AEGIS or against the Silver Star.”
“That’s fine. I’m game to help all sorts of people, not just kidnapped for nefarious mystical purposes people.”
David smiled at this. He had never thought about a partner before but it had appeal. He knew she could keep her head in a hot situation and more than hold her own in a fight. Plus, he could use a hand. He had picked up several of Wally’s open cases, and AEGIS said there was something odd in Atlantic City they wanted him to look into.
“Li and Associate Investigations has a nice ring. All right, Betsy. Let’s get to work.”
A Valkyrie in Repose
by Colin Fisk
I’m not sure what annoyed me more, the garish display of wealth during a depression, or the fact that I was at a party in a Paris apartment that encompassed half a block and was being thrown by a pair of suspected German spies that I had to be cordial with to keep up appearances.
I could not help but compare the guests to the attendees at the parties my parents hosted. When you grow up in Boston and are a direct descendant of the Doty’s who came over on the Mayflower, you’re forced into a lot of lavish social engagements with phony people. Even though I rejected cotillion and a coming out party in favor of rock climbing in the Berkshires, or airplane racing at Belmont Park in New York, it wasn’t until I was recruited into AEGIS that my parents understood that their little girl would not be participating in maintaining their genetic heritage anytime soon.
Still, every time I was in the area, they insisted on parading me around to men of equal or higher social strata in the hope I would settle down and give up my “trifling pastime” of helping save the world.
I grabbed a flute of champagne as a server passed me by. I grasped it in my right hand as my left was still slightly incapacitated from an injury sustained in a night drop over Romania two years prior. Though I missed the companionship of the Valkyries as a whole, I’m not sure I would go back if offered, as my friendship with my current partner, Heidi Mueller, was something I valued more than a return to action. Besides, working undercover had its own merits and occasional adrenaline rush, and was usually much safer than dropping in on a group of cultists trying to raise the Vlad Tepes from the dead.
As I approached my hosts, Heinrich and Inga Schmitt, I could not help but notice the man talking to them and how, in profile, he seemed oddly familiar. Well dressed in a tasteful and new black suit, his handlebar mustache twitched in reaction to something Herr Schmitt said.
I drew closer. As he turned to me, I stopped momentarily, surprised to see a friend I’d known since childhood.
“Alyssa Swanson, is that you?”
I moved forward and offered him my cheek, which he gently kissed, his facial hair lightly tickling my skin.
“James Harrington, what are you doing in Paris?”
“I’m here on business, actually.” He turned and gestured effusively to the Schmitts, “Have you met our hosts, Heinrich and Inga Schmitt?”
I smiled demurely and shook my head. “I was just on my way over to thank them for their hospitality. Herr and Frau Schmitt, thank you for the invitation to this gathering.”
My thanks drew little reaction from my hosts as they quickly turned to speak to another guest who had approached them. I shrugged and turned to James who offered me the crook of his arm. I accepted, sliding my damaged left arm carefully through, and he guided me toward the open doors, which led to the penthouse balcony.
With just the two of us looking over the gardens of the Paris Observatory, I turned to my friend. “What kind of business has brought you to Paris?”
“Would you believe that I work for an insurance company now? The Schmitts are negotiating with my company to finance several property purchases and are offering some of their art as collateral. I’ve been sent to authenticate the pieces and confirm their value. I only arrived yesterday afternoon and was quickly whisked off to a tailor to buy a suit for this party. I’ve barely had the tour of the place and have not yet had a chance to view the artwork.”
“Art, insurance company, mortgages. What happened to the teenager who dreamed of playing for the Red Sox?”
James laughed heartily. “There was a lack of talent in that area standing between me and my dreams. I got my actuarial training at Harvard and my father made the introduction to Metropolitan Life. With the passage last year of the Housing Act of 1934, we are funding a lot of loans. However, the requirement of tangible assets for securing them has meant that they need more appraisers than adjusters. I minored in Art History and, after the firm discovered that little fact, I’ve found myself spending a most of my time looking at art instead of financial tables. But, enough about me. What have you been doing with your
life? I heard through the grapevine that you were racing airplanes at one point?”
“That was short lived and mostly done as a lark. I was at Wesleyan studying art and literature and needed an escape from the marital pursuits of various suitors my parents would try and introduce me to. So I picked up a hobby that would scare off the stuffed shirts. You know, the ones that wanted a dutiful wife to stand at their side at social gatherings and not say anything.”
James laughed, “That’s the young woman I well remember.”
“When I graduated, I got a job as an au pair for a lovely couple. A few years ago, they moved here to Paris and brought me along. I left their employ about nine months ago and got a job as a clerk at Shakespeare and Company. These days I live with a roommate and spend my off hours listening to the authors who congregate at the store.”
That was my cover story. I actually did take shifts at the store, but spent most of my time in a hidden lab beneath the stockroom helping Heidi test the gadgets that would accompany me into the field when needed.
“So, what you are really saying is, like me, we both are drawn to pretension.”
I laughed. “I suppose it would seem that way.”
“Would it be inappropriate if I used you as an excuse to tour the apartment to view the artwork? We are probably going to be limited as to what is currently on display. In reality, what they are offering as collateral is being stored in the basement.”
Here was my perfect excuse to be seen wandering in areas I should not be. “I would love it. And, in truth, this gown was a hand me down from the mother of the child who was my ward. Since I have no real investment in it, I would not object to taking the full tour, including the pieces not on display.”
“Ah, but I’m afraid I would. I did mention this is a new suit. But, if you are truly interested, would you be willing to join me tomorrow? I can even wrangle wages out of my firm if you so desire.”
That was something I loved about James. No matter how indelicate your situation, he could bring up a solution in such a way that the person being offered his favor would not see it as a debt.