Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women (27 page)

“Acknowledged,” Dr. Quentin says.

“Enigma, try to figure out what the endgame here is. I want to know every possible scenario, and every possible response to each of them, and I don’t care if you’re only making educated guesses. We need something. Protectorate, Quantums, Hero Squad, as of right now, every one of you on high alert until further notice. That means you five are ready to scramble at a moment’s notice,” he says to me and the Squad.

We’re appropriately floored. A few months ago, Concorde wouldn’t allow us within ten miles of a meeting like this. Now, we’re here, we’re contributing, and we’re on-call for a mission.

And yet, I don’t think that’s a statement on how valuable we’ve become; it’s a statement on how bad this mess could get.

“Black Betty.”

The voice jolts Black Betty out of her light doze. She flinches, slopping foam-frosted bathwater over the edge of the tub, and prepares to unleash an especially vicious death spell. No one ever expects to die from a sudden case of advanced scurvy.

“Oh,” she says, relaxing. “Didn’t hear you knock.”

“Didn’t need to; you didn’t lock the door. You do know I set you up in a safe house to keep you — well, safe. The least you could do is throw the deadbolt.”

“What, you telling me your wards aren’t reliable?”

“My wards are infallible — against magic. The fact that Astrid hasn’t found you stands as testament to that.” He hunkers down next to the tub. “That doesn’t mean any old body couldn’t waltz in and disrupt this lovely little spa day you have going on.”

“A hot bath and a bottle of cheap wine do not a spa day make. Speaking of wine,” Black Betty says, gesturing at the empty bottle sitting on the toilet, “be a love and fetch me a fresh one.”

He picks up the bottle, but only to move it to the floor so he can sit. “This is an official visit, Black Betty, so you’ll have to get wasted on your own time.”

“This is my own time. This
was
my own time. Whatever. Speak.”

“Easy, friend, no need for attitude, I bear glad tidings. I’m pleased with how things have gone so far.”

Black Betty slides a skeptical glance in her patron’s direction. “Really.”

“Really.”

“Even with Astrid’s friends getting involved?”

“Their involvement wasn’t entirely unexpected. You’ll notice they haven’t derailed the plan.”

“Yet. The Protectorate aren’t amateurs, and they aren’t idiots.”

“That is true — and that, in fact, is the point of my visit. The Protectorate by themselves? Not much of a concern, but as long as Astrid is working with them, our operation is in jeopardy.” He rises to pace idly about the bathroom, hands folded behind his back in thought. He pauses, briefly, before the medicine cabinet. A layer of steam renders his reflection a featureless, ethereal blur. “Given time, Astrid will figure things out. Once she detects the pattern — if she hasn’t already — she’ll know what we’re attempting to do.”

“Any ideas for throwing her off her game?”

“Let me remind you: I hired you to run interference.”

“Correction: you hired me to be your public face. You hired me to recruit other sorcerers to your cause.”

“I hired you to deceive,” he counters, “and now, I need you to deceive. I don’t need Astrid stopped, simply detoured.”

She sees it in his face: this is not a negotiable point.

“How fortunate for you,” Black Betty says, “I know her better than anyone.”

“So you’ve told me. Impress me, then. How do you intend on blinding her to our motives?”

Black Betty tells him. Her patron smiles.

“Hiding a lie behind an irresistible truth?” he says, nodding in approval. “Oh, very good. Not without risk, but good. How do you plan to feed this tidbit to our dear Astrid?”

“Mad Hector Jones.”

“Mad Hector? The one who lives with his mother?”

“That’s him. We’re meeting later. I’ll put the bug in his ear. He can be our sacrificial goat.”

“Cunning, efficient, effective, and willing to throw a friend under the bus.” He grins wolfishly. “No wonder I like you so much.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

The days that follow are an exercise in hurrying up and waiting.

After we left the Quantum Compound, Concorde blew our minds once again by putting the rest of the Squad on speed-dial, thus ending my stint as the sole liaison between our team and his (and I am not mourning the loss of that responsibility). Of course, that meant we
all
got to obsess over our cell phones and their taunting silence. I know mine has barely left my hand.

It’s a dubious benefit that we’re on vacation this week: sure, it means we don’t have to worry about getting scrambled during school, but we also have nothing to keep us distracted. We’ve been gaming relentlessly at Coffee E, so we’re right in the center of town if and when we get the call to action, but we’ve been unable to whip up the righteous fury that has marked many a
Munchkin
tournament.

I’ve considered calling Astrid, to ask if she’s come up with any theories, but harassing her won’t hurry things up any. The only line of communication with any life to it has been with, unexpectedly, Meg Quentin; she’s texted Sara a few times a day to let us know of any developments on the monitoring end of the operation — not that there’s been any developments...

The waiting, as the saying goes, is the hardest part.

My patience finally runs out a little after lunchtime Tuesday. Yes, three whole days after the big powwow, and I’m already starting to lose it. Stupid inconsiderate evil sorceress.

“We need to get out of here,” I say, pushing away from the table.

“And go where?” Matt says. “We need to stick close to the office in case —”

“Yeah, I know, I know, but I’m going stir crazy. I’m totally wired up from all the waiting.” The four mocha lattés I’ve pounded today aren’t helping. “I need a break.”

“Why don’t you, you know, take a spin,” Sara says, pointing skyward. “Clear your head.”

“Yeah. Good idea. Back in a few.”

It’s a ten-minute walk from Coffee E to Milne’s Woods, the closest spot for a covert takeoff. I slip on my goggles, check the sky above for passing aircraft and, once I know I’m clear, I go. The second my feet leave the ground, I feel better — clearer-headed, relaxed, alert, focused. In the air, I am at home. I am unburdened of the weight of my responsibilities. I am at peace. I am free.

I am getting a call.

Uh-oh. I’m getting a call. It’s Concorde. There goes my Zen.

“Lightstorm, where are you?”

“Approximately ten thousand feet above sea level.”

“Good. Gwendolyn picked up a possible spike in North Reading. I’m linking your headset to the satellite now.” A map of the state appears on my heads-up display. One town — North Reading, I presume — is covered by an orange blob.

“Got it.”

“You’re running advance recon on this op. The satellite is running a tight sweep; it should pinpoint the source of the spike by the time the rest of us get there. In the meantime, you maintain visual contact with our target, but do not act unless it becomes absolutely necessary. I don’t want you taking this on alone.”

“That’s cool, because I don’t want me taking this on alone either.”

“Good girl.”

I’m going to have to talk to him about his use of “good girl.” It’s not as complimentary as he thinks it is.

Worry about it later, Carrie. Bigger fish and all that.

A few minutes later, I’m flying high over North Reading in a long, lazy orbit around the hot zone. The blob is still very blobby, but the orange now has some subtle gradation. Yeah, that’s really helpful. At this rate, we’ll find the source of the surge in, oh, two weeks, tops.

“Lightstorm, we’re airborne,” Concorde says. “ETA, seven minutes.”

“Don’t rush on my account. There’s a whole lot of nothing going on.”

As I say that, the satellite data refreshes. The subtle shades of orange become more distinct, the far edges of the blob gaining definition and fading to a pale yellow, while a spot in the approximate center darkens to an angry red.

“Lightstorm —”

“On it,” I say, and I tighten my holding pattern to skirt the edge of the red area. “Concorde, this isn’t looking good. There are a lot of residences in the hot zone, a lot of businesses.”

“A lot of potential targets, you mean.”

“Exactly.” I call up a detailed overlay for my map. The target area contains, among other things, two schools, two churches, a housing complex, a library, and (oh, you have
got
to be kidding me) a fireworks company. Hey, bad guys, there’s a nice open park here, too. Don’t suppose we could convince you to fight us there? Maybe in a nice, non-flammable pond?

Looks like we’ll have to split the difference: the data refreshes again, and the red spot shrinks to encompass the high school. Pro: it’s vacation week; the building will be empty. Con: by the time we’re done, there might not be a school to return to on Monday.

(All right,
some
students might consider that a pro.)

Concorde and the Pelican arrive as the data refreshes one more time and confirms that our target is indeed the school. We settle into a hover, the school beneath us, and strategize.

“Mindforce, Psyche, what are you getting for a headcount?” Concorde says.

I see Mindforce in the Pelican’s cockpit, shrugging expansively. “There’s some serious psychic interference,” he says. “I’m picking up multiple targets, but I couldn’t give you a number.”

“Same here,” Sara says. “Could be three or four, could be eight or nine.”

“Does that mean shutting their brains down is not an option?” Concorde asks. Mindforce can do that to people? Yow.

“I’d have to say no,” Mindforce says, “not a reliable option, at any rate.”

“Okay. Shock and awe it is.”

The first shock comes when Concorde punches a hole through the roof of the field house, allowing Stuart to do his best impression of a bomb; he leaps from the Pelican, and drops through the hole.

Thanks to our telepathic link to Sara, the Squad gets to see the field house through Stuart’s eyes. It’s like we’re playing him like a first-person shooter video game (which is darn cool, once you get past the initial disorientation). A symbol has been carved into the hardwood floor, a four-pointed star kind of thing. Four people stand at the edge of the symbol, one at each point, a fifth stands in the center. None of them are armed — not with anything in the way of conventional weapons, that is; the man in the center carries a gnarled wooden staff, which he levels at Stuart. The tip flares with greenish-yellow energy.

What happens next takes mere seconds: Astrid teleports in behind the Gandalf wannabe and zaps him good; Concorde and I dive through the hole in the roof to take out two more; Stuart charges the remaining two, grabs them by their shirts, and plants them on the floor, putting just enough pepper in the takedown to knock the wind out of them — five down in as many seconds. They’re not getting up anytime soon, but none of us drop our guard; no way could it be this easy.

“That was damned impressive.” We whip around, instinctively targeting the voice — which is all we have to go by. I’m really starting to despise magic. “Five of my best lackeys and you put them down in a hot second. You make quite the super-hero, Astrid. Who’d’ve thunk it?”

“Black Betty,” Astrid spits.

“Bam-a-lam. Figured you’d have caught on to the game by now,” Black Betty says, “but, as usual, you still don’t know how to play the angles. Never fails to amaze me, how a woman with your power can be so bli—AAH!”

Astrid fires off a jolt of magical energy, seemingly at random. The blast caves in a stack of bleachers with a deafening ring of crumpling steel. It also forces our invisible foe to reveal herself: a woman dressed in skintight black leather fades into sight, hovering high above the debris.

“Ho ho! You almost had me there, honey-pie,” Black Betty says. “Heh. Story of our relationship in a nutshell, isn’t it? I play coy, you take your best shot, you miss, and I slip through your fingers. Like so.”

Whenever Astrid teleports, light goes funky. Black Betty teleports out, and she creates a vacuum so powerful it momentarily sucks the air out of my lungs.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Astrid says, and she vanishes.

“Enigma, don’t!” Concorde says to the blank spot where Astrid stood a heartbeat earlier. “Dammit!”

“You’ll find her again,” the staff-wielding goon says with a pained laugh. “Or what’s left of her, after my mistress gets done with her.”

“The leather chick is your mistress?” Stuart says. “Dude, this is getting all kinds of kinky.”

“Not that kind of mistress,” I chide.

“No? You saw the outfit she was wearing.”

“Mindforce, I need you in here ASAP,” Concorde says. “I get the feeling we’re not going to get much cooperation from Saruman here.”

Huh, a
Lord of the Rings
reference from Concorde — and a better one than my Gandalf crack. I am ashamed.

“Do your worst, mortal fool!” the sorcerer laughs, his eyes wild. Mortal fool? Seriously? “I serve a power far greater than any you or your doomed friends can muster! The endtimes will rain down upon your heads!”