Action Figures - Issue Two: Black Magic Women (25 page)

“Commitment to the cover story is crucial,” Miss Hannaford says.

“Yeah? What happens if my mother decides to look up your nonexistent organization online?”

“She’ll find a very convincing website.”

“You guys made a website? For me?”

“Oh, no, it’s been in place for a few years. Super-teams all across the country use it. There’s an entire network of fake businesses and organizations set up for the express purpose of providing heroes with cover stories.”

“Really? Wow.”

“We did have to paint the van, however. That was for your benefit.”

“Thanks.”

“We take care of our own.”

Our own
? Double wow.

“Miss Hannaford? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. And it’s Catherine.”

“Catherine. How come you’re not part of the team?”

“I
am
part of the team.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —”

“I know what you mean,” Catherine says, giving me a reassuring
no harm, no foul
smile. “I’m not cut out to be part of the costumed hero crowd. I thought about it, once, a long time ago. I decided I was too terrified of dying to be a good super-hero, but I wanted to contribute somehow, and Mindforce wanted someone trustworthy to be the team’s face to the general public, so...”

“You became their receptionist.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Worst. Origin story. Ever.”

Catherine laughs. “I won’t disagree. You don’t seem to share my concerns. About dying, that is.”

“Oh, no, I share them plenty.”

“And yet...”

“And yet.” A dark — dark? Try pitch-black — thought crosses my mind. I almost keep my question to myself, but my perverse curiosity is too great. “Catherine? What would happen if I were to...get killed?”

“Sorry?”

“You said super-heroes take care of their own. What happens when a super-hero is killed in action?”

“Ah.” She gets where I’m going. “Some heroes, they want the truth revealed, should something happen. They want their families to have proper closure. Others prefer to take their secret lives to the grave. For them, we have several prefabricated scenarios we can roll out as necessary. On paper,” she says with an implied wink, “a lot of super-heroes die in terrible car crashes.”

“Lovely.”

“Do you have a preference, Carrie?”

That isn’t a casual question; that’s an official inquiry. She’s asking me how the Protectorate wants to handle my untimely death.

“I prefer to not die,” I say, forcing a cavalier attitude. Catherine isn’t fooled, but she nods agreeably nevertheless.

“Sound plan,” she says.

TWENTY-FIVE

To recap: Concorde has called an all-hands-on-deck meeting of the state’s three super-teams, to discuss a series of devastating attacks by major demons, orchestrated by an insane necromancer who has thus far evaded capture, who may be building up to unleash something catastrophic, perhaps on a global level. Serious business, right?

Now picture the Protectorate’s conference room, filled with members of the Protectorate and the Hero Squad, all in costume. Now add a giant coffee urn, and platters of assorted donuts, pastries, and bagels sitting on the table. Someone actually brought a muffin basket.
A muffin basket
. It somewhat undercuts the severity of the crisis. It’s like I’m at a corporate board meeting to discuss stock options.

“You made it,” Sara says, pleasantly surprised.

“I’m not actually here,” I say. “If anyone, by which I mean my mom, asks, I am officially at a retreat for Team Teen Reachout peer mediators.”

“You’re where for a what?” Matt says. I give him the rundown, and instead of being pleased I’m here for the team, he says, “Miss Hannaford gave you a ride to HQ? We didn’t get a ride.”

“We didn’t need a ride,” Stuart says.

“Says you. It’s cold as hell outside.”

“I didn’t
need
a ride either. I got one as part of the cover story that got me out of the house,” I clarify.

“Jeez. You get rides, cover stories, training, a uniform,” Matt gripes. “How come you’re the golden child? We’re all in this together, you know.”

“Could you prioritize, please?”

The crazy-huge monitor at the far end of the room comes on. It’s the Quantum Quintet joining in via Skype — another random bit of out-of-place mundanity; two of the greatest scientific minds in the world, and they’re using a free download to communicate on a big-screen TV hooked up to a webcam. Dr. Quentin is front and center, little Farley in her lap, looking more interested in the proceedings than Megan or Kilroy. Joe sits in the background. More accurately, Joe
is
the background.

“All right, folks, time to get down to business,” Concorde says. “Is everyone here?”

“Hero Squad is here, Carrie just arrived,” Mindforce says, “the Entity is skulking in the corner...”

Jeez! God, give me a heart attack, why don’t you, you creepy leather freak.

“Wouldn’t kill you to announce yourself,” Concorde says. “Or respond when we call you in for a mission.”

“I responded,” the Entity says.

“We didn’t see you in Newburyport. Or Gloucester. Or Lexington.”

“That’s right: you didn’t.”

(Someone please tell me he brought the muffin basket.)

“If the Entity is done trying to impress everyone with how terribly mysterious he is?” Dr. Quentin says.

Concorde calls for everyone to take a seat, and the mood shifts; it’s time to get down to business.

“To summarize, we’ve had three incidents in the past two weeks involving — bear with me, Gwendolyn — someone setting demons loose in Newburyport, Gloucester, and Lexington,” Concorde says. “According to Enigma, the only connection is that they were summoned using spells contained in a book called the
Libris Infernalis
, which is in the possession of a necromancer named Black Betty.”

Yes, people, this is my life now.

“What we don’t know is exactly what’s going on.” Concorde turns to Astrid. “You’ve been working on this, so tell us: are we looking at random acts of terrorism, or is this part of something bigger?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Astrid says. “My study of the
Libris
was, unfortunately, limited.”

“How useful,” Dr. Quentin drawls. Kilroy smirks. Farley giggles.

“What I can tell you is this: there is no way Black Betty’s pulling this off by herself,” Astrid says, ignoring Dr. Quentin’s dig. “The simple act of reading from the book is, shall we say, debilitating, and casting a ritual summoning of such magnitude would put any spell-caster out of commission for a few days.”

“If Black Betty has help, does that mean we need to be ready for another incident?” Mindforce says.

“We have to assume so, maybe several more,” Concorde says, “which means we should be trying to figure out how to get ahead of this, instead of running around putting out fires as they pop up.”

“I have an idea about that,” Matt says, and all the sound gets sucked out of the room. All eyes turn his way, most of them questioning, a few affronted that Matt has dared to leave the kids’ table.

“Oh, I have to hear this,” Concorde says.

“Magic is ritualized whenever the caster needs to achieve a major effect, such as tearing a rift in the barrier between worlds. A ritualized approach is necessary in order to first build sufficient power, and then focus that accumulated power to create the desired effect,” Matt says, rattling off his explanation like he was — well, Astrid. “Depending on factors such as the purpose of the spell, the complexity of the ritual, and the inherent power of the sorcerer or sorcerers involved, that buildup can take hours, even days.”

“Wait, how do you know all that?” Astrid says. I can’t tell if she’s stunned or impressed. Stunpressed.

“I read your doctoral dissertation on magical energy behaviors within ritualized contexts,” Matt says. “It’s online.”

“They give people doctorates for
that
?” Dr. Quentin mutters to her husband. Meow to you too, Doc.

“So, if we could detect that buildup as it’s occurring, we could interrupt the ritual before it’s finished, prevent another demonic incursion, and maybe catch the spell-caster,” Matt continues. “We might not snag Black Betty herself, but it would be a lead, which is better than we have now.”

Silence reigns. Nina and Mindforce, they are among the precious few duly awed — surprised, but awed. I have to admit, I’m with them. It’s easy to forget there’s a pretty sharp brain in Matt’s head, what with him so often forgetting to use it. Dr. Quentin, however, remains skeptical, and I bet there’s a matching expression hiding behind Concorde’s visor.

And yet, he’s game to give it a shot. “Enigma? Is he right? Could you locate a buildup of magical energy?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Astrid says, “but locating a ritual in process is no easy feat. There are a lot of unknowns and variables I’d have to nail down...”

“Could we perhaps attempt to find a more reliable option than magic?” Dr. Quentin says.

“Magic
is
reliable.”

“Oh? You honestly believe that a discipline fraught with arbitrary rules and illogical limitations is reliable?”

“Honey,” Joe says, a well-intentioned attempt to pull his wife back.

“You absolutely hate that there’s something in this world you can’t figure out, don’t you?” Astrid retorts.

“If your so-called power made one iota of sense —”

“Ladies, please,” Mindforce says. “We need to focus on the immediate issue, which is finding a way to locate one of these power surges.”

“I have an idea for that, too,” Matt says, bringing the discussion to a second screeching halt. “Concorde, do you still own that satellite?”

Concorde owns a satellite?

“
I
don’t
own
a satellite,” Concorde says. “My employer, Mr. Bose, designed and built instrumentation for a NASA satellite, and he retains access to the satellite’s data stream, which is irrelevant, considering that satellite was intended to map the density of microwave radiation from —”

“Emitting from cell phone towers to see if there’s a correlation between cell tower placement and unusually high incidence rates among certain types of cancer,” Matt says. “Yeah, I read that report.”

“You did?”

“Point I’m getting at is: you can recalibrate the satellite’s instruments to detect other types of radiation and energy, can’t you?”

“Can you?” Mindforce says.

“Well, yes. It’s a wide-spectrum instrument suite. All we’d need to do is upload a new search profile.”

“Then upload a new profile to search for magic.”

“While I hate to crush a beautiful theory with an ugly fact,” Dr. Quentin says, “no such profile exists.”

“So build one,” Matt says.

Insert dumbfounded pause number three here.

“It’s a viable option, Gwendolyn,” Concorde says.

Dr. Quentin makes a soft growling noise, grumbles, sighs in resignation. “I’ll prep the lab,” she grumps.

“Saddle up, ladies and gentlemen,” Concorde says. “Time for a road trip.”

More like a sky trip: Concorde and I take point for the Pelican, and its very full passenger bay. While en route, Concorde calls NASA to make the necessary arrangements for uploading the new search profile. He’s on an open channel, so I get to listen in on the exchange (not that I follow half of it). The NASA folks are all over Concorde’s every request, never questioning him, never challenging him, and every response ends with
yessir
or
right away sir
. Stunpressed.

“I never knew you were so connected,” I say. “Satellites, pals at NASA...don’t suppose you could score me some front-row Springsteen tickets?”

“With or without backstage passes?” he says.

Mental note: kiss up to Concorde more.

“Lightstorm, channel zero, please.”

Using my super-hero name? Directing me to the private channel? Saying “please”? Must be important.

“Clear on zero.”

“How’s Missy doing?”

Huh what huh? “She’s okay,” I say. “Why?”

“She had a close scrape during the Gloucester mission. I wanted to make sure she’d recovered,” Concorde says, way overselling the casual
oh, just asking
demeanor.

This isn’t about Missy, not really. Before he...you know, hurt me...Manticore told me (and this is a verbatim quote),
I’ve killed children before. You can ask your buddy Concorde about that
. Missy got attacked on Concorde’s watch, and the guilt is eating him up.

Maybe it’s more than simple guilt. The Gloucester summoning unleashed a fear demon, something that took the form of whatever its victim feared the most. So, what would a fear demon do when the intended target wasn’t scared of something physical like snakes or spiders? What if he feared something more conceptual, like public speaking? Or like a child dying — being murdered while he watched, helpless to stop it?