Supergirl (15 page)

"You're not getting my point," Supergirl said. "When I say 'know' I mean her, er, soul. Do you people use that word?"

"Sometimes," Ethan said, looking a bit putoff. Soul! Come
on
. He tried to get by Supergirl. She gave him a tiny shove with her pinkie and he staggered back as if he'd been hit by a Mack truck. "Good trick," he said, laughing uneasily. "Look, Kara—" He decided to appeal to her emotions. "I know you like Linda Lee, too, so why are we standing here arguing? Let's go find her together."

"Ethan, I'll tell you again. Linda Lee is not in trouble," she said slowly and distinctly. "She is not—repeat,
NOT
—in trouble."

So much for emotions. Down to the nitty-gritty. Giving a fair imitation of a gorilla displaying for the enemy, he raised his shoulders and lowered his voice. "I don't want to get rough with you, Kara" She laughed. God, that hurt. Girls could be so insensitive.

"Awww, Ethan," she said. "If you'd only believe me Linda is all right."

"Can you prove it?"

"Can I—Sure." A little smile played around her mouth. "Ethan, are you ready?"

"For anything."

She leaned toward him and kissed him. Oh, wow. Ethan's eyes closed ecstatically, then suddenly flew open. "Linda?" he said. That is, he tried to say it, but all he got out was the first
L
sound, and then the rest of it was gobbled up in a gurgle. "Lurrrreeghhhhh . . ." There was an explosion of light and he vanished.

The explosion of light that Bianca, Nigel, and Selena felt, each in their various ways (aching teeth, burning hands, ringing ears) was, of course, the same explosion of light that cut off Ethan's revelation about Linda Lee and Supergirl. The Burundiwand had done its work, and in a single moment, Ethan was changed from a free man, happily kissing Supergirl, to a prisoner, complete with chains and shackles, in Selena's bedroom in the Ghost Train. It was a bit of a shock.

Still holding the Omegahedron, Selena peeked in at her perfect prisoner. Chained to the foot of the bed and quiet as a little mouse. He was adorable, just as delicious as she remembered him. "Hi, there," she said. The prisoner just looked at her. Well, well, he needed time to get adjusted. "I understand," she said understandingly.

Things had worked out perfectly. Between the whatchamacallit and the Burundiwand, there was nothing she couldn't achieve now, no worlds she couldn't conquer. And if it hadn't been for Nigel, she might never have known of their combined power. Good old Nigel! The dear old sweet. He deserved some special little treat, he did. "Ta-ta, gardener boy, see you soon." Smiling, she closed the door. She had a great deal to smile about. She had Ethan. She had the whatchamacallit. And soon . . . she'd have . . . something else, even better.

"Nigel, dear Nigel," she cried, flying to him. "That was
won
derful!"

"I still don't get it," Bianca said a bit pensively. "Want to run it past me once more, Nigel?"

"Darling Nigel," Selena said, brushing Bianca away, "I take back anything awful I ever said to you. You are a genius."

Nigel smiled modestly at the Burundiwand he was holding. "With a little help from my friend. Although, I've often had the same thought that I'm a—"

"
GENIUS
," Selena said. "Darling, one deserves another. You deserve me."

She kissed him powerfully. Oh, yesssss, Nigel thought. He had gotten back his Selena, the Selena he'd first known, a warm, loving, radiant woman. He lost himself in the kiss, didn't care if he never found himself again. Just let Selena go on kissing him like this forever.

Poor Nigel. He let down his guard, he forgot who he was dealing with. All that was on his mind was this blissful kiss.

Selena rather enjoyed it, too, as it happened, but in the best tradition of hardheaded entrepreneurs, she never let pleasure interfere with business. Nigel's eyes were closed. Selena's eyes were open. Nigel's mind was blissed out. Selena's mind was clicking like a computer.

She had the Omegahedron. Nigel had the Burundiwand. Like taking candy from a baby, she took the Burundiwand from Nigel.

"Oh, I say," he said, not knowing what he was going to say, and hardly even alarmed at seeing his Loved One with Omegahedron in one hand and Burundiwand in the other. Poor Nigel.

Selena touched the Burundiwand to the Omegahedron.

A flash of light. Bianca's teeth ached. Selena's ears rang. And Nigel was no longer the sturdy, vital, young man he'd been an instant before.

"Awww, geeze," Bianca said. "Get that old creep out of here."

Nigel looked down at the rags covering his skinny limbs. He held up his hands, veiny and peppered with age spots. "What have you done?" he cried in an old man's weak voice. His false teeth clicked. He hobbled to a mirror. An ancient man, his eyes sunk deep in a face netted with wrinkles, stared back.

"Selena . . .you'll regret this . . . I'm the only one who can save you . . . you need me . . ."

"I need nothing. Looks like you need the undertaker, though, old man." She turned away from him. "Let's get out of this dump, Bianca." Slowly, she brought the Burundiwand toward the Omegahedron.

Midvale was in the grip of confusion. Horns honked. Sirens screamed. Traffic had backed up for miles. Every little side street was clogged with cars. The stores emptied. People poured out of their houses and clustered on the street, gawking and pointing. Neighbors who had hated each other for years began talking. "What is it? . . . Where'd it come from? . . . Did you see it go up? . . . Technology, these days! I tell you, it's something amazing."

Lucy came out of a grocery store, carrying frozen pizza for dinner and almost fell over her own feet.

Jimmy Olsen, who'd been waiting for Lucy, whipped out his camera and started clicking away. Golly, what luck to be right on the scene of a story like this!

The cause of all this upheaval was a mountain that had appeared (overnight, some said; in just a moment, others insisted) right where Main Street and Oak Street used to intersect in Midvale. Now the Main Street and Oak Street intersection was gone, swallowed up by the base of the mountain. The mountain itself was enormous, craggy, and forbidding.

It wasn't one of those nice, soft, rounded old mountains covered with green trees. Some people of Midvale, although they would still have been shocked to have a mountain suddenly grow under their noses (so to speak), wouldn't have minded at all having one of those round old mountains spring up on top of their modest little town. An old soft kind of mountain, a hilly sort of mountain, was good for things like skiing in the winter and gathering wildflowers in the summer. You could have picnics on a good old mountain like that and collect pine cones to dry, so the kids could spray-paint them silver and red for the Christmas trees.

Even a younger, sharper-peaked mountain wouldn't have been so bad, especially if, from the peak, it had a real nice view over the countryside. The older people could drive up (there'd surely be a road to the view), and the younger, more active ones could take up hiking and rock climbing and orienteering. Having a mountain could be a great asset for a community, improve the health of the whole population, and give them some community pride.

But the mountain that the people of Midvale were looking at and wondering about was quite different. Except for the enormous, rambling house on its summit (and who could live there? There wasn't even a road up there)—except for that, it was bare and ugly. It was sharp and nasty. It didn't have a name. It was just
there
. "Sinister,'' someone said, and a poll taken later showed that 95 percent of the people of Midvale agreed, 3 percent were uncertain, and 2 percent had no opinion at all. Sinister, the majority agreed, definitely sinister. Or, as Heather McHugh's little sister put it, "Creee-py!"

Bad enough the shock the mountain gave people appearing like that, out of nowhere. No warning, no signals, nothing. You go all your life living in a town, you think you know every corner, every piece of broken sidewalk—and all of a sudden, there's this mountain looming over you. A mountain which, like most mountains, somehow didn't seem satisfied just to
tower
, but (no other way to put it) towered threateningly.

Creee-py.

Selena flung open a casement window and breathed in the high fresh mountain air. Her air. Her personal air. Breathable only by those on whom she conferred the honor of breathing it.

From far, far, far below her came the sounds of Midvale. She looked bemusedly down upon the little ant-people scurrying about their business.
Her
business was going very well, thank you. Nigel taken care of. Ethan coming around nicely. As for this—what
should
she call it? "Mansion" seemed so pretentious, but then, twenty-seven rooms made it a bit large to be called a cottage. Oh, well . . . as for this domicile, she quite liked it. There was everything possible in it for her comfort and her work. And she
DID
have a lot of work. Taking control of the world was not so simple as some people (Bianca, who refused to do anything but loaf around and eat chocolates)—as some people seemed to think.

A
whoooosh
high in the air above her mountain mansion caught Selena's attention. She looked up, shielding her eyes, and what she saw brought a gratified smile to her face. She kissed her fingertips to the flying figure approaching her little mountaintop retreat. Right on schedule. And now to prepare a suitable welcome. Selena closed the casement window and disappeared into the recesses of Casa Blacka.

So. There it was. The place where Ethan was imprisoned. The house—or was it a castle?—where Selena and she, Supergirl, would once again meet. She was eager for this meeting but took her time, flying over the house, examining it from every angle. Only after she was satisfied that she knew the layout did she land on a balcony supported by crouching gargoyles.

She opened a pair of French doors and entered a huge, dim room. The heads of slaughtered, stuffed animals gazed at her from the walls. "Ethan?" she whispered. "Are you here?"

She took another step into the eerily quiet room, then drifted from room to room, listening and looking. Grotesque statues brooded in dark-shadowed corners. Massive pieces of furniture crowded the rooms.

Supergirl went deeper into the house, as into a cave, brushing aside cobwebs. And still no Selena. No Ethan.

"Ethan . . . Ethan . . ." she whispered. And finally, she heard his voice.

"Here . . . I'm here . . ." he cried pitifully.

Then she saw him, that splendid man, chained like a dog across the stone wall of an enormous fireplace. His head hung down, his eyes pleaded with her to save him.

"Oh, Ethan" She bounded toward him. "Ethan, I'm here to save you"

"Perfect!" Pacing in front of her mirror screen, Selena watched Supergirl on her mirror screen with keen enjoyment. Her hated rival and the only possible obstacle to her dreams of World Power had fallen into her trap, like a minnow swimming into the net.
Swisssh . . . swisssh . . .
a silvery flash and it's in.

At the optimum moment, Selena left her mirror and entered, stage right, to take her part in the little play she had prepared. She, also, heard Supergirl say those comforting words to Ethan. And how Selena loved it!
I'm here to save you, Ethan
. Oh, perfect! Oh, delicious! Too bad Bianca was missing this! But never mind, she was enjoying it enough for ten Biancas.

Now, then, she told herself, her eyes never leaving Supergirl, the timing must be perfect. She held the whatchamacallit in one hand, the Burundiwand in the other. Touch the Burundiwand with the whatchamacallit and—presto, what Selena wants, Selena gets.

She touched the Burundiwand to the Omegahedron. Presto. What Selena wanted, Selena got.

"Oh, Ethan" Supergirl ran toward him. "Ethan, I'm here to save you." That was the last thing she said. And then she was surrounded. Not by a mere wall of Selenas this time. A glassy, shimmering polygon materialized around her, mathematically flawless, over her, under her, enclosing her completely in a complex envelope of glass. She gathered herself together to escape, but from every angle it bounced her back on herself. She was sealed inside, trapped, helpless.

"Ethan, Ethan," she called, but even her voice died inside the polygon. Selena had created an impenetrable force field that neutralized Supergirl's powers.

"Do you like your new home?" Selena appeared. "I made that especially for you, Supergirl. Into the Phantom Zone you'll go . . . and where you'll stop, we don't know" She raised the Burundiwand and Ethan's chains melted away.

He stood up, flexing his arms and shoulders. Selena stroked his cheek and made a little kiss-kiss mouth at him. Then she looked at Supergirl, who was dashing from surface to surface in her glass prison. Selena laughed, threw back her head and laughed and laughed and laughed.

The polygon spun through time and space.

In the tiny capsule Supergirl fought against despair. She was trapped. Helpless, hopeless . . . yet she dared not despair, dared not give up. To give up hope, to admit defeat would mean Selena had been victorious. That she would never admit! No. She would never stop hoping . . . struggling . . . believing . . .

She thought of that other terrifying journey, from Argo to Earth. She had had a mission, a reason for enduring. And didn't she still have that reason? That mission? The Omegahedron . . . the precious power source . . . She had vowed to return it to Argo.

She remembered the terror of those lonely hours in Zaltar's spaceship . . . then the swift joy of her first flight as Supergirl . . . the horses that galloped away, their tails flying as she swooped low over them . . . She remembered how strange everything on Planet Earth had seemed to her, and strangest and most beautiful of all had been the sky. She remembered her first day at Midvale School and meeting Lucy. Oh, Lucy! She held back a cry.