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Post By The Hooded Hood presents this double-length jumping-on point for a new story arc, and anticipates a brisk discussion on some of the events herein Sat Nov 20, 2004 at 07:38:52 am EST |
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#190: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Heart’s Blood, or Weird Romance | |
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#190: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Heart’s Blood, or Weird Romance “Okay, give me one last chance, Hat-guy,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! pleaded. “C’mon! I know some of the other dates I set up for you weren’t so brilliant…” “Not so brilliant!” snorted the capped crusader. “Vicious attack reporters, pre-committed roleplayers, ex-Rock Stars, and your mom!” “And that offer she made you still stands by the way,” Dream assured his friend. “But really, this last date is perfect. Ideal. I can’t think why I didn’t think of her before.” “No,” Hatman said firmly. “No more. Nada. Nope. No way. Am I getting this point across?” “Pleeeease,” wheedled the wired wonder. “Look, I’m so confident this date will turn out fine… if you don’t have a great time I’ll eat my Spider-Man collection! Really. All except the Ditko issues, naturally. That’s how confident I am that this will be the right date for you.” “Who is this person?” “It’s a surprise. I don’t want you overthinking this in advance. But she’s cute.” “Is this someone you’ve slept with?” “Nope. But, y’know, if I wasn’t deeply in love with my own personal uber-MJ April Alice Apple…” “Is this someone in the superhero biz? Or worse, a super-villain?” “No. She’s just a regular girl, but I think you’ll be great together.” “Is this something I’m going to want to kill you for after? I mean, something else I’ll want to kill you for?” “No way. Look, I’m telling you, she’s perfect. Trust me.” CSFB! smiled winningly. “Will you trust me?” Hatman sighed. “I’ll think about it.” “Great! I’ve already asked Dancer to set things up at the other end with your mystery lady!” “I said I’d think about it.” Hatman turned back and pointed to the exasperated Professor Manyarms. “Now can we please fight the villain?” “I’m not sure, Sarah. I mean, it’s a while since I dated.” “I know,” Sarah Shepherdson agreed. “That’s why I thought it’d be good for you to get out and have a nice evening with a nice guy.” “A nice guy? Because you’re so good at picking the nice guys, right?” “Okay,” admitted Shep, “I do have a certain tendency to attract slimes that barely register on the conscience-meter and vanish faster afterwards than a Scotsman on payday, but this is one guy I’ll vouch for. He’s a nice fellah, he’s getting over a bad breakup, and he just needs a fun night out. And frankly so do you.” “I think I’ve given up on guys. It never works out.” “Well, there’s a couple of cute girls that come into the shop if you’re really determined,” grinned Sarah. “More thinking of a life of celibacy,” her friend assured her. “Nuns seem like very peaceful people.” “I can’t see you as a nun. Not enough action. So why not try one last guy before taking your vows? One good guy. One date.” “But you won’t tell me who this guy is, or what he does?” “He’s a customer at the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar” Dancer explained. “Generous tipper. You can tell a lot by how a guy tips. And also he eats his cookies in a kind, forthright sort of way.” “Well, with those recommendations how can I say no? But it’ll have to be on my night off. Wednesday.” “Not a problem, unless he gets called in by work,” Dancer assured her friend. “I’ll tell him it’s a date.” “A blind date. I can’t believe you talked me into a blind date.” “It’ll be fine,” Shep promised. “Take a chance. Sometimes chances work out.” “Wednesday then,” sighed Grace O’ Mercy, the Night Nurse. “Say 10pm.” “Okay, a toast,” suggested Ham-Boy, raising his refillable Fanta. “to the newest Junior Legionnaire, Zachary Zelnitz, Hacker Nine!” “And to him surviving my big brother!” added Lindy Wilson with a grin. “Hold it,” Fashion Accessory interrupted. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to use the J word in regards to our study group? It’s so… juvenile.” “Yeah, well I thought the big guy here was bringing along his mystery date for us to review,” Kerry Shepherdson challenged, poking Harlagaz with a bread stick. “When the time art right I’ll introduce her,” Harlagaz promised. “But I dost not want this to go amiss by complicating things too early.” “Whoa! So it’s getting serious, is it?” FA noted. “I’m devastated. I thought your heart belonged only to me. And Kerry.” “It’s not his heart you were wanting to possess, Samantha,” Kerry suggested wickedly. Glory sat under the table and worked her way through the pepperoni topping of a double meat feast pizza. “I still don’t understand why I had to pretend to be Ham-Boy’s guide dog,” she growled. The young people toasted Hacker Nine. “Thanks guys,” the Technopolitan Science Anarchist told them. “I’m truly touched.” “Yeah, that’s what the psychological evaluations in Vizh’s filing cabinet said too,” agreed Kerry. “A pathological performance artist with antisocial and anti-authority obsessions and an uncanny gift for bypassing computer security systems.” “Just as long as it’s not Lindy who’s truly touched,” Ham-Boy pointed out. “You heard what Falcon said he’d rip off if you didn’t behave around his little sis, right?” “He described it all in plenty detail,” Zach shuddered. “Right before he got alerted to a SPUD emergency in North Korea that turned out to be a false alarm glitch.” “Nice one,” Samantha Bonnington approved. “Smooth.” “Mayhap we should go assist yon Falcon in smitething said felons?” asked Harlagaz with his usual sensitivity to nuance. “I think Mr Epitome has decided not to have you assassinated yet,” Glory offered the newest Junior helpfully. “Well, I guess we just need to be glad that dating mystery-lass isn’t changing our Harlagaz in any way,” smiled FA. “It’d be a shame for that towering…” And then she fell silent as a mocking voice called, “Well, well. Samantha Bonnington. How low the mighty have fallen.” Fashion Accessory turned round in horror to see Wyrmbait, and with her the whole team of New Battlers. “Hello, juniors,” Thunderstroke mocked the pizza-eaters round the table. “Fancy meeting you here.” It was a quiet bistro on the edge of Medium-Sized Italy, nestled on the edge of a quaint old-fashioned cobbled square Hatman hadn’t ever known existed. Trust Dancer to know all the best restaurants, he noted. “Table for Boaz?” he asked the waiter. “This way,” the server invited him. “The lady’s already here.” She was sat in the corner, painted by candlelight, pale skin and dark hair and eyes that shone with the flame before her. “Um,” said Jay. “Hi. I’m…” “Hatman,” said the Night Nurse. “You are Hatman.” Jay realised he’d seen this woman before. “So much for the secret identity,” he shrugged. “I’ve got to stop assuming taking the cap off is a great disguise.” “Nah. I just recognised that scar on your forearm is all,” Grace O’ Mercy told him. “That’s my stitching.” Jay looked down at the pale line where he’d been cut up during the Armageddon fight. “Of course. You’re a nurse down at Phantomhawk Memorial, aren’t you? Nurse… O’Mercy?” “You noticed me? I’m flattered.” Jay smiled for the first time. “Ms O’Mercy, I’d have to be blind not to have noticed you.” “Because I was sticking pointy objects into you,” Grace observed. “I never even realised,” Hatman told her gallantly. The server brought over the menus, introduced herself, and took drinks orders. “Root beer,” Jay decided. “Sorry, but I don’t drink alcohol.” “And I’m on call too,” Grace added. “Diet Coke please. Not Pepsi.” It seemed absurd to her that she still retained an old preference even though she wasn’t going to drink what she ordered. The blind daters looked over their menus and wondered what to say next. “You weren’t expecting a superhero,” Hatman surmised. “Not really,” the Night Nurse agreed. “Still, thanks for saving the planet and stuff, okay?” “You’re welcome,” Jay assured her. “Also, thanks for stitching up my arm and for, you know, nursing people.” “No problem. It’s nice to have a vocation.” “It is, isn’t it?” Hatman admitted. “And that’s what we do, isn’t it? They’re vocations. Things we’re called to do.” “I certainly think we get given choices,” Grace considered. “Gifts, curses, challenges. Then we have to decide how to respond. Either we get out there and help people or we waste what we’ve got being selfish and helping ourselves.” The drinks arrived and the server took the dinner orders. Jay had his steak medium, but Grace wanted hers very rare. “I’ve never been here before,” Hatman admitted while they waited for their food. “Me either,” Grace confessed. “I thought I knew the city, but Shep can always find little out-of-the-way places nobody else had heard of, and get them to find a quiet table somewhere as a personal favour to her.” “Yeah. Dancer’s a bit like that too,” Jay contributed. “On the world tour, every city we went to she knew somewhere great to eat out.” “Nice and private here too,” observed the Night Nurse. “Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really want to be on the front page of the Daily Trombone tomorrow with a lurid headline about being Hatman’s latest conquest.” “I’m in disguise, honest,” Jay assured her. “Nobody else has spotted the giveaway forearm scar. And to be honest, whatever the papers say, there haven’t been any Hatman conquests. Not since I came back from, well, when everybody thought I was dead.” “Were you?” Grace asked interestedly. “Dead, I mean?” “No, not that time,” Hatman answered. “Just frozen in Faerie while this shapeshifter took my… I can’t believe I’m having this conversation!” “Hey, it’s better than listening to another doctor droning on about how big his practice is,” the Night Nurse assured him. The food arrived, and it was as good as it smelled. “How long have you been in Paradopolis?” he asked as Grace delicately sliced strips of bloody meat from her steak. “Coming up to three years,” the Night Nurse replied. “I got a job in the ER at PMH – sorry, that’s Emergency Room at Phantomhawk…” “I know the jargon,” Jay assured her. “I’m the LL’s liaison with the emergency services like police and fire and medics, er. That’s the Lair Legion’s liaison…” “Yes, I read the papers. I know what LL stands for,” Grace assured him. “We’re both remarkably informed people.” Jay grinned sheepishly. “So you got a job at PMH…?” “Well, I had some trouble when I first came to town,” Grace admitted, skating over the actual nature of the trouble as she always did, “but I soon settled in and found I was very happy helping people in ER. Nowadays I run the graveyard shift, 11 till 5.” “That’s pretty responsible for someone so young,” Jay noted. “You were deputy leader of the LL at what, twenty?” “Nineteen,” Hatman admitted, “but I aged rapidly.” Grace feigned a sip of her coke. “You’re not what I expected,” she admitted. “As a date or as Hatman?” Jay wondered. “Both really. Blind dates are usually kind of… I dunno, desperate? And superheroes, well I see a lot of superheroes going through ER.” “I only came along tonight because CrazySugarFreakBoy! wouldn’t stop pestering me and flatten the villain unless I agreed,” Hatman explained. “I’m glad I did, though.” “A lot of the superheroes, they put on this larger-than-life persona, like a kind of protective screen. Trickshot, Nats, even Messenger. You don’t.” Jay shrugged. “I hadn’t noticed,” he admitted. “But I’m kind of glad you think that’s cool.” “I do,” agreed Grace. “I think that’s cool.” She glanced down at her plate. “I can’t finish this steak. Not if we’re going to take a stroll down to the oceanfront.” “A walk?” Jay perked up. He’d not been relishing the idea of a hot sweaty nightclub. “You want us to go for a stroll?” “It’s a beautiful night,” Grace noted. “And if I’m not safe walking through the streets with a superhero I’m never going to be safe at all. Let’s wander down to the seafront and listen to the waves.” “Deal.” Jay called over the server and explained they were skipping desert. Grace smiled to herself as she watched him leave a tip behind. Shep was right. “Thunderstoke. Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Ham-Boy demanded of the arrogant pseudo-Ausgardian towering over the diner table. “I art more than happy to rectify the anomaly,” Harlagaz growled, putting down his five cheeses with extra beef. Li’l Buttie sneered. “What can I say? We New Battlers don’t let ourselves get shackled by the old mores of continuity or common sense.” “Or personal hygiene,” growled Glory. “I take it you know these rude people?” Lindy guessed. “From a circus, maybe?” Wyrmlad preened. “We’re the New Battlers, babe, the cutting edge heroes of the next generation.” “Right,” agreed Hat Kid. “Um, is anybody going to finish that last bit of garlic bread.” Fashion Accessory sighed. “Wyrmbait, her brother Wormlad, the ever-hungry Hat Kid, Thunderstroke, L’il Buttie, and Boy Wonder,” she introduced. “That ol’ gang of mine.” “Back when she had class,” Wyrmbait explained. “Back when I didn’t know any better,” FA retorted. “When I thought an evening of strip twister with sweaty self-absorbed jocks was the height of sophistication. Before I grew up.” “To join the juniors” mocked Boy Wonder. “You go around in short red pants and call yourself Boy Wonder and you’re laughing at our name?” Kerry asked him. “C’mon, Sammy, you can’t really tell me you prefer hanging at geek central with these losers than cruising with the Battlers,” Wyrmlad smirked. Fashion Accessory blushed in mortification. “Well what if I do?” she answered uncertainly. “They’re my friends.” “Friends who art more than happy to smite those that disseth the fair lady.” Harlagaz noted. “Ooh, give it a try, Donar-lite,” Thunderstroke beckoned. “If you can stand up with that paunch.” “Lady?” Wyrmlad snorted. “I guess you haven’t seen little FA doing her party tricks yet then. Right, Samantha.” Fashion Accessory blushed furiously, close to tears. “Enough,” snarled Kerry, and the little table-candle flared dangerously in its jar. “You back off now, or even if it is Be-Kind-To-The-Mentally-Deficient-Losers week we show you just why we bother sitting through Visionary’s dumb classes and hand you your rear ends in sling.” “Oh, great,” pretend-quailed L’il Buttie. “Threats from Visionaryette. Ow! How the heck did my bow tie catch fire?” “That’s Kerry’s little trick,” Wyrmbait explained. “Her only one. No wonder the one-note wonder couldn’t hold on to her man. I hear spiffy had to leave the country to get you from following him, kiddo. Nice going.” “spiffy went off to save Badripoor,” Ham-Boy objected. “It was hero stuff. You wouldn’t understand.” “I think you’d better go now, guys,” Zack Zelnitz warned the New Battlers quietly. “Before the manager of this place works out that all your credit cards are maxxed and you can’t pay for your dinners.” L’il Buttie prided himself on keeping good financial records. “Our credit is quite good, thank you very much,” he retorted. “You think?” challenged Hacker Nine. Vizh looked up from his undignified posture searching behind the sofa cushions for the remote control. “Oh, hi Miiri. I was just… conducting a standard security check. Routine.” “We are all packed and ready to go,” the green-skinned Cephan slave-girl reported. “Nats has taken the others on with the big luggage, and Al B. Harper has prepared a conduit to transport us all to the Manga Shoggoth’s Lemurian sanctuary.” Vizh straightened up. “Splendid. I mean, I’ll be sorry to see you all go, of course. It was nice having you about the house. Not that I was looking at your skimpy outfits. I mean, I was looking at your outfits, not you, or maybe…” “Thank you for your hospitality, Visionary,” Miiri told him. “And for the Earth clothes you supplied us with.” “Cheryl would have wanted them to go to good homes,” Vizh said tightly. “Anyway, I’m happy that you’ve all found somewhere good to settle, even if its not what you expected.” “We would have made good slaves for you,” considered Miiri. “We would have made you happy.” Visionary swallowed again. “Well, I’ll always have my imagination,” he admitted. “I think this is best. No real relationship will work unless there’s equality, and respect, and freedom of choice. And the upper parts of my body know that.” Miiri smiled. “Well, I’m no longer indentured to you. You’re not my master any more, are you?” “No,” Vizh sighed. “Another victory for truth and justice.” “Well then,” Miiri said determinedly, grabbing him by the hand and hauling him out of the living room. “I must be doing this of my own free will, learning from the culture and customs of my new home world.” “Doing what?” Visionary asked as she dragged him up the stairs. “Saying goodbye and thank you to a very nice man indeed,” Miiri told him, pushing him into his bedroom and shutting the door. “My way.” “The way I see it,” suggested Mr Epitome, “socialism is unconstitutional because Article 1, Section 8 only authorizes Congress to borrow, tax, and spend for less than twenty different purposes, which are clearly defined and restricted primarily to external matters such as war and international concerns. The few remaining powers are related only to those things that state governments cannot feasibly do, like coining money, establishing federal courts, and so on.” He paused to finish the last of his steak and went back to his lecture. “As James Madison explained, it is the States that were to be responsible for…” “‘For all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people’,” quoted Hallie, who had the American Constitution and every government document published since then in her databank. “The argument made by hard line Republicans pursuing this line usually goes on then to cite the Tenth Amendment which states, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution... are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ They then assert that since there is no authorization in the Constitution for socialist programs, all of them are unconstitutional.” Mr Epitome had the grace to look rueful. “I’m being a boor, aren’t I? Sorry. I didn’t mean to get on my soap box.” Hallie shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m not being such good company myself,” she considered. “Dinner looked very nice though.” “Yes. On the whole me inviting you out on a dinner date wasn’t that tactful either, was it?” the paragon of power admitted. “I seem to be getting dumber.” “You were smart enough to ask me out,” Hallie countered. “That’s smarter than some people.” Mr Epitome finished off his Highland Spring Water (he was on call too) and tried to work that one out. In the end he gave up and said, “You start a topic. With all the access to all the databases in the world there must be something you’d like to talk about.” Hallie realised that there really wasn’t. “Who do you usually have these conversations with?” she wondered. “That social agenda argument sounded very rehearsed.” “Oh nobody special,” Dominic Clancy replied a little guiltily. “But if I’m sounding a little assertive on the matter its just that I’m used to vigorous resistance to my stated viewpoint.” “I could quote you every rebuttal of the argument that’s ever been written,” Hallie told him. “But really it doesn’t matter what logic says, does it? It’s more about what we believe. About what we want.” “Yes,” admitted Mr Epitome. “I suppose it is.” “Yes,” said Hallie. The sat in silence as the waiter brought the desert menus. “We could skip the last course and see a movie or something if you’d prefer,” Epitome offered. “I’ve got them all on file too,” Hallie answered. “Although I’ll sit through one with you if you want.” Clancy shook his head ruefully. “Don’t feel you have to. This date isn’t really working out, is it Hallie?” “I don’t have much experience to compare it to,” the Lair Legion’s artificial intelligence admitted. “But on the whole I’d guess it’s not.” Epitome sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m having dinner with you but my mind is somewhere else. That’s very rude of me.” “No, it’s okay,” Hallie told him. “You’re thinking about Leticia Gahagan, aren’t you – the Idiom? That’s who you used to argue with over supper.” “Well, we did have a few political disagreements,” Clancy confessed. “But that doesn’t excuse me…” “I don’t think I’m giving of my best either,” Hallie interrupted. “I’m sorry too.” She looked at Mr Epitome over the table. “We’re both on dates with other people really, aren’t we?” “…so after all that had happened between us, we decided we could stay friends but we’d reached the end of our romantic relationship,” Jay Boaz concluded. He was still surprised at himself. He hadn’t talked to anybody like this about his break up with Whitney. Not to Mac, not to Dream, certainly not to any of the strange dates he’d been set up with. Grace was very easy to talk to. “That’s so sad,” she told him. “I mean, it sounds like you two were so right together in some ways. I think you could have made it, if that Hooded Hood hadn’t interfered like he did.” “Maybe so,” agreed Jay. “It’s still too recent for me to have any perspective.” He stood and looked out over the choppy dark waters of the Atlantic. “Anyway, I shouldn’t be pouring out my long sad story to my date, should I?” Grace wormed herself under his arm and leaned beside him on the pier rail. “I don’t mind,” she told him. “Not if it makes you feel better.” “Am I being nursed?” Jay wondered. “What, you can just switch off being a superhero?” she challenged. “I suppose not,” Jay chuckled ruefully. “Show me some wrong and I’ll feel horribly compelled to right it.” “And then I’ll feel compelled to bandage you up afterwards,” Grace replied. “Best we stick with what we know.” It felt good to Jay to have Grace’s soft shoulder under his hand. She felt cold, so maybe that was why he held her closer. “What about you, then?” he asked her. “No long sad story of your own?” “Maybe,” she answered. “But that’s for another day.” “You’re not letting what those morons said get at you, are you?” Kerry asked Samantha Bonnington as they got off the bus at Dullard’s Corner. “Wyrmboy and the others?” “Of course not,” FA denied unhappily. “Except… well yes I am.” “Dweeb loser wannabees, the whole pack of them,” Kerry assured her. “Not worth the breath to call ‘em names.” “And I was one of them,” Samantha said softly. “So? You got smart, like Lisette. You got out and made good.” “Like Lisette did?” FA asked sharply. “What good am I anyway?” “Samantha, you’re…” “A dumb California blonde bimbo relying on my looks and some minor superpowers to fool people into thinking I’m worth something. But Kerry, the Battlers knew me when. They’ve seen what I’m really like. What I’m really worth. And that’s not very much.” Kerry looked at her friend in surprise. “You? FA, I’m the charity case here. You’re cool and confident and everybody wants you. I’m the walking disaster they had to send to another continent to limit the damage. And even if I did like spiffy, he went away just like Wyrmbait said.” FA heard the catch in Kerry’s voice. “Kes? Are you… missing spiffy?” “No,” lied Kerry Shepherdson. “You are! Oh boy, this is serious. I thought I had problems!” “I don’t miss him. I don’t need anybody.” “Hey, no problem,” Fashion Accessory assured her. “Really. Hacker Nine can totally override the security on a Lairjet and arrange the logs so nobody even knows you took one. You can be in Badripoor and back before Vizh even realises his remote control’s missing from on top of the cable box.” Kerry swallowed and considered this. “You think?” “Pay the spiff a little visit,” FA encouraged her. “Maybe even a little conjugal visit, if you really don’t want him to forget you.” “You think…?” “Your choice, Kerry S. Just let me arrange stuff with H9 and get you to the spiffster and see what develops.” Reverend Mac Fleetwood heard the clatter of the Slumtown Bloods leaving the battered basketball court at the back of the Zero Street Mission and knew their latest coaching practise had come to an end. He poked his head out of his vestry window and asked, “Any casualties?” “Not today,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called back. “Hatty’s gotta be pretty happy about that. He looks pretty happy, wouldn’t you say?” He pointed to the capped crusader. “After all, what else would he be happy about?” “Alright, alright!” surrendered Jay Boaz. “Yes, it was a good date. You don’t have to eat your Spider-Men.” “Hey Mac, you heard that, right?” Dream called to the pastor of the Zero Street Mission. “You’re my witness. Hatman actually enjoyed a date!” “I heard it,” the reverend agreed. “I suppose the odds were in his favour of one evening working out given that you’d set him up with a fair percentage of the population of Paradopolis.” “All I said was I had a pleasant evening,” Jay argued. “But you’re seeing her again, right?” CSFB! persisted. “Right? Aren’t you?” “Okay,” conceded Hatman. “Maybe I am. Tomorrow night, if you insist on knowing.” “Yipeeeee!!” cried the wired wonder, bouncing away over the rooftops to call April Apple and tell her the good news. “I knew you’d hit it off with Grace O’ Mercy!” Mac Fleetwood’s face changed. “With who?” he asked Jay. “Grace O’Mercy,” Hatman repeated. “You know, the Night Nurse down at the Phantomhawk ER?” “Yes, yes I know Grace,” agreed the pastor. “I know her well.” For example, I know that she’s a vampire, he didn’t say to Jay. “Hello?” Beth Shellett called as she picked away over the trash in the hall. “Is anybody home?” “Somebody has to live here,” Bry Katz suggested. “This amount of take-away packaging doesn’t just happen by itself. Beth and Bry picked their way through the debris towards the sound of the TV. Agrah in the Afternoon was just starting, with today’s topic: Cheating Men – Scum or Slime – and the Women Who Love Them. Three hundred pounds of passed out woman was snoring in the chair surrounded by a pile of empty bottles. “Well, now we know why Laurie ran away from home,” Beth said faintly. “Yeah. But maybe we could wake her mom up and see if she knows where Laurie might have run to?” Bry suggested unhopefully. “Or if she needs a derek to help her up.” “Lisette never said much about her life before the New Battlers,” Bethany recalled. “And now I know… now I…” She paused to sway woozily. “Sorry Bry, I…” Goldeneyed caught her as she fainted. “Beth?” Bethany Shellett’s eyes flickered. She coughed, and a trickle of blood ran from her lips. Bry grabbed her in his arms and teleported straight to the Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital.” “Well?” demanded Francine duBois? “How did the big date go, Gracie?” “Date?” the Night Nurse asked, trying to sound innocent. Nurse DuBois stuffed the last of her things in her locker and dragged on her outdoor coat. The long shift was over and it was home time. “Last night. You can’t fool me, honey. When you dropped in to leave us the rosters for next week you were all dolled up. You don’t usually wear the good perfume unless you’re seeing a guy. You don’t usually wear the blue blouse unless you want to make a good impression. Did you make a good impression?” “Damn you, Agatha Christie! I’m exposed again!” snorted Grace. “It was that kind of date?” Francine asked mischievously. “C’mon. Spill.” “It was just a blind date that Shep set me up on, that’s all. I swear I don’t know how she talks people into stuff like that.” “And yet you’ve been humming Shania Twain stuff all night and smiling as you’ve mopped up gunge. You going to be seeing this boy again, girl?” “Maybe.” “Maybe? Maybe as in he’s called you for a second date and you’ve said okay, maybe?” “Well, okay, yes, I’m seeing him. But I don’t know if I should.” Francine DuBois sighed. “Because of your… condition?” “Yes. It doesn’t exactly leave me the possibility of settling down to be a loving little wife and mother, does it?” “And that’s so what guys are worried about on their second date with a hot brunette nurse,” Francine scoffed. “Just enjoy yourself for once, will you Grace? If he’s a nice guy, just live in the moment. Let yourself relax. Except around his neck area.” “Good advice as always, Francine. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.” “Just happy to see you reaching out to someone who’s not had major trauma injuries first, girlfriend. Now go home before it gets light and you get really bad sunburn, willya?” “So… do you love him?” “Why do you ask?” Keiko smiled a little. “Interesting. You didn’t even have to think about who ‘him’ was.” Cleone pursed her lips. “Of course I don’t. He’s become the other part of myself. He’s there all the time, at the back of my mind. I’ve shared my life with him.” “Like husband and wife.” “I don’t know,” Cleone admitted. “Since he saved me and I saved him we’ve both been caught up in this turbulent preparation for whatever those Hellraisers intend to do. We’ve hardly had time to talk about this intimacy we’ve been thrust into. Even this world is so very strange and new to me.” “Tell me about it,” snorted Keiko. “I suppose in a way we’re both women dragged far from home and abandoned by irritating mystery men.” “I chose this,” confessed Cleone. “I could have left Xander dead and merely escaped. But he is a good man and I couldn’t leave him to such an unjust end.” “And now he’s using you as his footsoldier in his war with the Hellraisers?” Keiko snorted. “Or his servant, or his decoy, or his property.” “Not really,” answered the silver-haired maiden. “I am his familiar, though, and we share a common enemy and an eternal bond. I’m honoured that he allows me to risk myself in such a vital enterprise. If he thought less of me he would not trust me so.” Keiko hadn’t known Cleone long, but there was something of the reserve and calm of some Oriental women in the swanmay, an inner peace that she radiated. If Sorceress was the tempest clashing on the cliffs, Cleone was the forest pool reflecting the stars. “So do you love him?” Keiko asked again. “Why do you ask?” Cleonie answered. “Mark, that was the best thing that’s ever happened in the history of the planet.” “Really? You enjoyed that?” “Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t. I could just do that again and again, without stopping, for the rest of my life!” “Wow. Well I guess it was kind of fun.” “Kind of? I never knew it could be like this.” spiffy grinned helplessly. “We just did what we had to. Count Fokker and his hordes of HERPES have been trying to smuggle stuff out of Badripoor since we took over from Armageddon. He’s been trying to subvert everything we’re trying to achieve here, to organise the criminal underworld into a force that can topple our administration. We had to kick his ass.” “And we did. You did. It was the best thing I’ve ever seen!” “Just standard superheroing stuff,” Mark Hopkins demurred. “Okay, it went a bit better than some of my encounters, but the fern was on form and those battle-tanks pull apart pretty easily if you twist the turrets the right way. And Fokker’s known for screaming like a girl when his plans fall apart.” Beverly Campbell laughed. “Well I was impressed, President-For-Life. And so were the people at the fish market. You might do this kind of thing ten times before breakfast, but it was my first time doing the super-duper stuff, okay? So cut me some slack if I’m excited by it!” “Bev, you were absolutely great. Fokker never knew what hit him. I’ve gotta admit I’m pretty jazzed about it as well. We beat them like a red-headed stepkid and for the first time I’m starting to believe that we have a chance, just a chance, or turning this damn country around!” “I always believed we had a chance, Mark. I believe in you!” And suddenly the moment turned serious, and they realised they were hugging each other. “Oh,” said spiffy. “Yes,” said Bev, and drew him to her for a kiss. Ten minutes later tomorrow’s business spilled off President Hopkins’ desk as it was cleared for more urgent matters, and five minutes after that the floor was littered with abandoned clothes. And what came next was classified for the benefit of the state. “Bastion, what the hell is this? This is a classified emergency line.” “Yeah? Well then you should answer your regular e-mail sometime, Drury.” “What do you want, bowman? Spit it out before the feds arrive to arrest you.” “I’m lookin’ for Talia, Colonel. Contessa Natalia Romanza. Personal reasons.” “My heard bleeds for ya. She’s not around, cupid. Got back from that big shindig welcome home bash in Paradopolis and asked for a long-term deep-cover assignment, right away and no questions asked.” “She’s… she’s gone?” “Like this morning’s donut basket.” Trickshot cut the link. Grace walked up to her duplex hunting for her keys in her purse and mentally listing the chores she’d have to do in case… well, in case Jay happened to come into her flat for any reason. She’d need to get in some food and drink so that the fridge had more in it than whole plasma from the PMH blood bank. She’d need to replace the light bulbs that didn’t work for a guest who couldn’t see in the dark. And she’d have to change the sheets for some not scattered with graveyard soil, in case… well, who knew where the date might end up? She slipped the latch, went inside, and security-bolted the door behind her. Then she felt the presence. She knew she was not alone. And for the first time since she’d become undead, Grace O’ Mercy felt cold. “Who’s there?” she demanded, and cursed herself for sounding so timid and scared. She was a creature of the night. She was the terror of the dark, not its victim. Not anymore. “Your master,” came back the answer, and a true night-terror coalesced from the shadows. He was rake-thin and clad in dusty black. His face was a corpse-mask dragged too tight over the prominent skull of his gleaming bald head. His ears were pointed and his fingers ended in long taloned nails. He moulded the darkness round him like a mantle. “I… don’t think so, buster,” Grace swallowed (although her throat was completely dry). “I’m really not into that whole scene.” “You are a barely-dead wisp, a faint smudge of undeath, a disgrace to your calling,” answered the intruder. He glided forward but his legs never moved. His eyes seemed to reflect hellfire flames. “I have drained dry whole worlds, and feasted on the souls of nations. I have sired millions, and nearly half the blood-thirsters of your planet owe their lineage back to me. I am more ancient than the human race, and Death himself is my ally.” He brushed his fingers across his chest and introduced himself. “I am Nosferos. But you can call me master.” Grace found her lips moving against her will. “Master,” she agreed, to her mounting horror. Nosferos gestured that she should kneel before him, and she did. “Command over the lesser undead is the least of my powers, Grace O’Mercy,” the vampire lord assured her. “I feel you struggling to resist my will, but I have authority by power and bloodline so great that even your greatest defiance does not come close to thwarting my control.” Grace realised it was true. She was a puppet while Nosferos the Undying pressed his mind on her. A horror she hadn’t felt since her first meeting with a vampire came upon her; worse even, for now she knew the dark things of the night. “You have been very stupid, child,” Nosferos told her, tracing a crooked fingernail over the curve of her upturned face. “You have denied your bloodright, suppressed your gifts, out of a misguided sense of a morality that you shed when you were reborn as a stalker of the night. You have laboured to resist your new calling. That ends now.” Grace had struggled. She had resisted the addict’s urge to feast on living blood, to take life because she could and grow strong from her victims’ destruction. But the willpower that had held her on the edge of damnation for so long could never resist the pressure of this ancient, sinister mind that gripped her now. “Please,” she begged Nosferos. “Don’t. I’ve tried so hard…” “You will obey your master,” the vampire lord instructed her with a cruel satisfaction. “You may even please me, given sufficient time and effort. You wish to please me, do you not, Grace O’Mercy?” “Y-yes Master.” “Yesss. Well then, you may. Tomorrow you will be seeing your human suitor once again, Jay Boaz, the Serious Matter wielder known as Hatman, the great tactician of the Lair Legion.” He leered down at the Night Nurse and his twin yellowed fangs were crusted with old blood. “It’s going to be a very intimate date.” Dr Whitwell himself came to see Bry Katz in the waiting lounge of the infectious diseases ward. “Young man,” he said to the incognito superhero. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come into a sterile area and undertake some rests.” G-Eyed realised the doctor was in full green environmental gear, his whole body covered. “What is it?” he asked with mounting panic. “What’s wrong with Beth?” “She’s suffering from a serious systemic infection,” Whitwell warned. “And you may have been exposed too. You have to come with us and…” “No. I’m fine. See to her. I have to find somebody!” Whitwell laid a hand on Bry’s arm. “No you don’t. Listen to me. We don’t know what your friend’s got, but it’s manifesting… well, the symptoms are the same as those recorded for the Black Death in the middle ages, the plague that depopulated Europe by killing one in three humans. We haven’t learned what Ms Shellett’s got, but it seems highly virulent, and you may be a carrier also.” Bry made to protest but the frightened look on the doctor’s face restrained him. “Beth and I, we were looking for someone. Beth’s roommate. If Beth’s infected…” “Then we’ll find her. I’m declaring a medical emergency, young man. I’m activating the national biohazard protocols.” “The Lair Legion,” G-Eyed said. “You have to tell the Legion.” “We’ll get everything under control,” Dr Whitwell assured his agitated second patient. “We’ll find your missing friend. Trust us.” And somewhere Phleglethor the Pestilent farted with laughter. Killer Shrike looked around in panic. His entire life had just flashed before his eyes, and he hadn’t really enjoyed most of the action replays. And since that was an experience he’d had before very recently he knew exactly what it signified. “Crap. I’m dead, aren’t I?” “Yep.” He hadn’t expected to be answered. He scrabbled round in the darkness and found a teenaged girl in goth denims watching him. “Death?” he ventured. “I wish,” she admitted. “Nah. Just dead. Or, arguably undead. Or maybe a weird phenomenon from my ex-boyfriend’s right-brain/left-brain cranial gap. You pick. I’m Izzy.” “Izzy. Right. What the &8%$ happened to me, Izzy?” “You got your chest blown out, Simon,” the young ghost explained to him. “In a bar, when the Scourge of the Parodyverse caught up with you. Your really should have taken the Fatal part of the bar’s name seriously.” “I got shot in the Fatal Toilet?” “Yeah, that’s the line you want to be dragging round with you for eternity. Not that you’ll be doing much but screaming, given where I’m guessing you’ll end up.” Killer Shrike swallowed hard. “There really is a… a Hell?” “Oh yeah. I got sent there once by the Hooded Hood, but my boyfriend came and rescued me.” She looked the spandex-suited ex-killer with the prominent golden topknot up and down. “Do you think your boyfriend might rescue you?” “The Hood sent you to…? Hey, I worked for the Hood! He retconned me back to life when I got stabbed by a midget with a grudge. He’s a class act.” “He didn’t want you in the realm of the dead, doofus,” Izzy told Shrike. “He didn’t want you being questioned.” “Questioned?” Simon Maddicks realised how cold it was wherever he’d got to. As cold as the grave. “Yeah. Listen, because I’m really going to have to book now before the bad guy gets here. You’re not going directly to hell, because Death wants a word with you. Wants stuff you know about the Hood. Wants to get into Herringcarp Asylum. And when he’s finished hurting you worse than you ever imagined it was possible to be hurt, then he’ll let you to where you deserve. And then you’ll be nostalgic for the time when only he was torturing you, and I am not kidding about how eternally, infinitely, horrendously awful that will actually be.” “I’m a tough guy. I can serve my time.” “Your time there is forever, no remission, and the things they will do to you are so terrible that there’s no language to describe them because there’s no points of reference in human understanding. But they’ll teach you anyway, again and again beyond the end of time itself. Unless you do something now.” “Are you like… my guardian angel?” “No, I’m the girl who gets to tell you you’ve got one very final chance to decide what you’re going to be, and if you blow it then its game over, okay Simon? And by the way, nice self-image with the pony tail.” “Topknot, pimples, it’s a freaking…” But then the sound of chains scraping over bloody stone got all of Simon Maddick’s attention. Death had come for the Killer Shrike. What were the chances of the entire Badripoor Palace alarm system shorting out? Kerry didn’t even stop to calculate them as she padded down the midnight corridor towards President spiffy’s office. She’d made up her mind, and she intended to act on it before she had second thoughts. “spiff, you sad useless loser” she announced, pushing open the door. “It’s your lucky night!” Mark Hopkins and Beverly Campbell looked up from the desk, aghast at the interruption. Then the entire wing of the President’s Quarters erupted as the gas mains detonated. “So then Dream looks Jerkson in the face, turns round, bends over and says…” “Thanks for walking me home,” said Grace O’Mercy. “No,” Jay Boaz laughed. “Although that would have been pretty funny too, and with less swear words.” The Night Nurse shook her head. “I mean, this is my house. Well, that bit up there is. Thanks for seeing me to the door.” “No problem, Grace. It’s not exactly a hardship to walk a pretty woman home.” Grace considered for a moment. “You have a moment for a coffee before you have to go off and save the world?” Jay looked up into the sky and cocked his head on one side. “My Hat-Sense isn’t warning me of any disasters yet,” he answered with a little grin. Grace looked nervous for a moment, and then her smile was back. “Good. Come on then. Enter freely and of your own will.” Hatman padded after her into the one-bedroomed duplex. “This is pretty spartan,” he noted, “I’m guessing you don’t spend that much time here.” “Not really,” the Night Nurse admitted. “It’s just a place to crash in the daytime. I’ve been concentrating on my job lately. Not much time for anything else.” Jay hung his Hatman cap on one of the pegs by the door. “You should see my place. It still looks like a guest room. I guess I haven’t really had time to settle in what with all the stuff that’s been going on since I got back. I don’t know what I…” Then Jay Boaz fell silent, because Grace had returned from the bathroom, and now she wasn’t wearing the pretty blue top and little black skirt any more. “Oh…” Hatman breathed. “Grace, I…” “Ssssh,” she whispered to him. “Look at me. Look at my eyes.” Jay looked. They were much deeper than he remembered them. A man could fall into those eyes forever. “You want me,” she told him, and suddenly his doubts and qualms were very far away. “Kiss me,” she commanded. Hatman knew it was wrong, too soon, too fast, but her skin was like smooth alabaster and she fitted so well in his arms when she pressed her length against him. It was like kissing a cool stream. “Grace…” he began, put she willed him to silence. She carefully pulled the two caps folded in his back pockets and tossed them aside. She undid his shirt, kissing his chest as it became exposed. She pulled the garment away and pushed him back onto the bed. Nothing about her seductive face and passionate poise showed that she was screaming inside. “Jay,” she murmured, nipping his ear with her teeth, the moving downwards to his neck. His heart beat fast, the rhythm of life. “Grace,” he muttered, mind clouded and slowed by desire and enchantment. She stretched his neck back, leaving his jugular prominently exposed as he writhed in ecstasy. Nosferos was there, in the room, watching, staring down at the Night Nurse and her prey. “Take him,” the vampire-lord hissed. “Take his blood. Take his life.” The last resistance to her master’s will crumbled. She wanted Jay, wanted to be intimate with him, to consummate her passion for him. She wanted his blood. This was what it meant to be a vampire. The blood was the life. She bit down deep into Hatman’s neck, rupturing the artery, clamping her mouth down tight on the wound to control the flow. Ancient instincts took over now, possessing her, showing her what to do. Jay struggled for a moment, then fell back as the bliss of the exchange overcame him. He knew that he was dying. He didn’t care. Grace O’Mercy feasted deep on the life’s essence of her date. “Now,” Nosferos instructed her. “Before the last beat of his dying heart. Slice open your breast, above your heart. Let the ichor in your veins well out for him to sup.” Grace pushed her nails into the smooth curve of her breast, slitting a gash that bled, and pressed Jay Boaz’ pale lips onto it. For a moment he shuddered, then dark passions prompted him to drink. “Take her,” Nosferos crowed. “She could have stolen your life, but instead she offers you herself in exchange. Your mortal soul is damned, but the rest of you shall have everlasting life. This is the sacrament of the vampire. Drink, Jay Boaz, and be transformed.” That was the last thing Hatman heard before his heartbeat stopped and he slumped lifeless onto Grace’s bloody bed. Grace huddled miserably in the corner, half nude and washed with blood. Nosferos looked down on her with satisfaction. “He will need three days for his dark resurrection,” he instructed his minion. “You know how to tend him. You will see to his needs. You will keep him secret and safe until the time of his awakening, and then you will protect him while he makes his first kill. You will bring him something easy, a child maybe, for the time when he is reborn.” The Night Nurse wanted to resist, but every command of the vampire lord was seared into her mind like a brand. “Yes, Master.” Nosferos smiled in triumph at what he had done to her. “You have taken the first step to becoming what you are meant to be,” he declared. “You have it within you to be one of the great ones, the survivors over millennia. I have given you a terrible and awesome gift tonight, Grace O’Mercy.” He cupped her chin and his eyes glowed as they stated at her. “Now you are one of us.” And he departed, leaving broken Grace to weep over Jay Boaz’ body and to watch for his return. Next Issue: Things get serious. More on heartbroken Kerry. More on dying Beth. More on dead Hat. Lisa and Dancer ask the Hood about Thugos. The Sorceress’ revenge. Keiko and Cleone’s secret mission. And the Hellraisers make their move. The beginning of the end in UT#191: The Siege of Herringcarp Asylum.  I Would Do Anything For Footnotes (But I Won’t Do That): Grace O’Mercy, the Night Nurse is the greatest asset of the Phantomhawk memorial Hospital’s Emergency Room, and she works the graveyard shift. She’s also the Parodyverse’s nicest vampire, refusing to drink the blood of the living (even animals) and subsisting on plasma from the hospital’s blood bank. Well, until now. Grace’s status quo ante is illustrated in Night Nurse #2: Blood Will Tell Hacker Nine, a.k.a. Zach Zelnitz, a.k.a. “That Little Punk” (© Visionary 2004) is an urban anarchist from Technopolis, a futuristic city in another dimension. Able to hack into any kind of computer system with ease, H9 amused himself and spawned a whole subculture with his acts of artistic outrage. Until recently he was assumed dead, and before that he featured in the ten most wanted lists of international law enforcement agencies. Now he’s under the protection of the Lair Legion and this issue marked the celebration of his joining the team’s junior hero training programme. He’s currently almost dating Lindy Wilson, Falcon’s little sister. The New Battlers are a cutting-edge super-team that has eschewed the cliché old expectations of the establishment about saving people or doing good and simply goes out and has a wild time. All of them originally received their powers due to the manipulations of the Hooded Hood. Can you believe they first appeared in UT#5, Sidekick Day? The current membership consists of: Wyrmlad (Donny Drummond), who possesses dragon-breath and an untamed super-shlong. Wyrmlad is the current leader of the gang. Wyrmbait (Tina Drummond), Wyrmlad’s twin sister, who can grow dragon-wings, claws, and a tail. Hat Kid (Ben Grover), overweight food fanatic, has the ability to temporarily transform anything and anyone into a hat of the appropriate kind. L’il Buttie (real name unrevealed), the well-spoken formalwear-sporting introvert of the group is the inheritor of the Jarvis Cosmic, and can thus fire powerful energy blasts, teleport, and perform a number of other superheroic deeds as the plot requires. Boy Wonder (Tim Grimson) wears short red pants and a green t-shirt but spends a lot of his time lurking in shadows in girls locker rooms. He has no known super-powers but is a formidable detective and carries many gadgets in his multi-pocketed wonderbelt. Thunderstroke (Ludo Donger) possesses all the powers and bluster of an Ausgardian hemigod with few of the redeeming qualities like a funny speech pattern or compassion for the weak. Previous members of the team include Lisette (Laurie Leyton), G-Eyed’s ex-girlfiriend for whom he is hunting this very issue, Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington), and E-Male (apparently deceased). Killer Shrike (Simon Maddicks) was a supervillain mercenary who was recently in the Hooded Hood’s employ, and he was murdered in Paradopolis’ Fatal Toilet pub in Alcheman #13. Izzy Shapiro was Dreamcatcher Foxglove’s first love, who died of a congenital heart defect long before her boyfriend ever became CrazySugarFreakBoy! – his own personal Gwen Stacy. CSFB! rescued Izzy from hell in UT#26: Brimstone and Rice Pudding – a Treatise on the Various Definitions of Hell. I suspect Izzy’s been staying out of Dream’s way of late so he can get on with his life with April Apple. The Hellraisers are a band of very evil interdimensional marauders. They are led by Sir Lucian, the Chain Knight with the gift of binding and breaking. Other members are Nosferos the Undying, an ancient elder-vampire, Phleglethor the Pestilent who has the gift of all diseases, and Maladomini, mistress of pain (and the secret girlfriend Harlagaz is keeping from his friends). The final Hellraiser, the Bloodreaper, is imprisoned in Herringcarp Asylum. What was the name of our next episode again…? The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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