"Megistus"
May. 25th, 2022 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Megistus"
10/5-10/7/1998
I.
The huge three-peaked tent was crammed with people, with not only every metal folding seat filled but with late arrivals standing in the back and starting to take up the aisles as well. There was no cotton candy or warm flat soda, no crying babies or mooning couples. This was no carnival or circus, this was a personal appearance by the great Megistus.
Toward the center of the audience, squirming from having arrived early and sitting for hours, were two young college students. The taller one had honey-blonde hair, a pointed chin and the lush curves reminiscent of an old-time movie star. Phoebe Janssen dressed modestly enough, with a white cotton blouse under a thin blue cardigan, but she did not have try to get attention. At the moment, she was shifting back and forth on the uncomfortable chair with a severely disgruntled expression.
To her left was her roommate and current best friend, Lauren Sable Reilly. Like Phoebe, Lauren had recently turned twenty. She was shorter than Phoebe, cute rather than gorgeous. She had jet black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, huge dark eyes over a pug nose and a wide mouth that smiled easily. Despite her roommate's flashier looks, it was Lauren that boys felt comfortable with and crowded around.
"Tell me again why we are here on a perfectly good Friday night," Phoebe whispered. "There's a tequila bottle wondering what happened to me."
"We ARE journalism majors," answered Lauren in the same low tones. "I've gotten good marks with my papers for Professor Finch. You know he enjoys topics out of the ordinary. Something new to hold his attention. And here on cue is Megistus. I did some preliminary research on him. Megistus toured Europe beginning six years ago..."
"Lauren please! I swear, you love homework for its own sake," said Phoebe. "You need more mornings waking up on someone's bathroom floor with your clothes on inside-out."
The brunette scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Maybe next semester, if I get a light schedule. Anyway, there seems to have been some scandal regarding Megistus in Italy, where he skipped to avoid a court date--" The rest of her sentence was a mumble because Phoebe had pressed a hand over her mouth.
"Shh, shush shush. The party is getting underway."
In fact, the floodlights at the corners of the tent dimmed and the crowd settled down immediately. At the far end, a wooden stand held a podium with a microphone. Stepping up to it was the dramatic figure of Megistus, living up to expectations.
Well over six feet tall, athletic, wearing a simple white dress shirt and black slacks, Megistus seemed almost too handsome to be natural. His deep bronzed tan contrasted with the bright golden curls and shining blue eyes. Perfect teeth flashed in a confident smile and he held up both hands. "How happy I am to see all my new friends tonight," he began in a mellow bass. "Yes, I am Megistus. It has been my good fortune to have discovered a great Secret, the Path To Inner Balance. This is what I am honored to share with you tonight. My personal story is one as old as Man. I was born into a family with wealth, status, prestige. I lacked for nothing. Yet I was not satisfied. Something indefinable was missing, a melody one cannot quite remember. I indulged in the dark side. Drinking, promiscuity, drug use and gambling... all failed to make me happy. One morning I woke up cold and determined to try another path and this fortunately led me to the Secret."
Megistus paused, holding out his upturned palms. 'How can I tell you all the methods I tried? Nutrition, exercise. Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Zen meditation. Years went by and still I had not found the real peace I sought. I was walking in circles. Then, when I was ready, the light dawned.
"If you believe in chance, then a happy chance it was that revealed to me that which I needed to learn. I believe each of you has come here tonight because you also are ready for revelation. I would never say that your current lives are without worth. You raise your children, love your wives or husbands, work at your jobs and try to be good people. All honorable ways to live. Yet still, you feel the emptiness where there should be comfort. Let me help."
The tall blonde man raised his hands in benediction. Overhead, the flood lights shifted to a deep, restful blue. From beneath the canvas on the ground came a deep, humming vibration that the crowd felt through their feet.
Lauren glanced over at her roommate to make a comment, but Phoebe seemed lost in dewy-eyed adoration.
"Breathe is the source of life and wisdom," intoned Megistus. "Slow breath in, slower breath out. Slow breath in, slower breath out...."
Lauren Reilly became aware of a hand shaking her by one shoulder. "Hey! Roomie!" echoed Phoebe's voice from a great distance. "Snap out of it. Man, you're out of it."
"Eh? Pheebs? What happened?"
"The show's over, hon. We're trekkin' back to the dorm. Wasn't that amazing?"
As she hesitantly rose to her feet, Lauren checked her notebook. The page was still blank. "That's funny. Did I fall asleep?"
"Better than that," Phoebe laughed. "We ventured into the Cosmic All and became One with Creation. I'm still flushed with joy."
"I do feel pretty good," admitted Lauren, sounding uncertain. "Relaxed, anyway. "Yet, something bugs me. I didn't take any notes at all. The last I remember is Megistus making a speech."
"Oh, I guess you just got into it deeper than you expected. Let's go back to the dorm. Tomorrow morning, everything will seem clearer."
As they made their way down the aisles between rows of chairs, Lauren could not help but noticed how dazed the crowd was. Despite the vacant smiles, everyone looked a bit groggy to her. On an impulse, she paused and glanced back toward the podium. Megistus was still there, chatting easily with a few followers. Close beside him, barely up to his shoulder, was a frail shape wrapped in a coarse brown robe with a hood pulled up.
As the small figure raised its cowled head, something strange happened to Lauren. Her vision seemed to zoom in on the old man like a telephoto lens. She was seeing a close-up in painfully sharp detail of someone who was one hundred feet away. The face beneath the brown hood was ancient, too old to seem completely natural. Skin thin as a chicken's was wrinkled deeply and marred with liver spots. The hooked nose and hooked chin almost touched over the sunken toothless mouth. Beneath shaggy white brows, a pair of fierce dark eyes stabbed out at her. The mummified face split in a leer.
Panic rushed over Lauren like a bucket of ice water. She shoved her way out of the crowd, pushing people aside without realizing it and ignoring their protests. When Phoebe found her by their car, Lauren was shaking as if she was freezing. Phoebe herself was unusually saubdued and introverted, she hardly asked what was wrong. They got in and drove home in near silence, traumatized into numbness.
;;'II.
In the morning after a black night without dreams, Lauren did not feel any better. Details of everything that had happened the night before were vague and distant. She showered and got dressed in blue slacks and a thin white sweater as if sleepwalking. Phoebe was wrestling with two weeks of laundry, her haire tied up in topknot.
"Hey, girl girl," Phoebe said. "You slept like a rolled up blanket."
Lauren sat on a chair and laced her sneakers with agonizing slowness. "I need to think things over," she said finally. "I'm going for a long walk. I'll call you later.'
Phoebe brushed a vagrant strand of hair back from her forehead. "Sure you're okay, roomie?"
"I don't know. I guess. Maybe I'm coming down with the flu or something." She grabbed a denim jacket and her bookbag, heading for the door. "Some fresh air might help."
"In Manhattan?" scoffed her roommate. "If you find any fresh air, bring a jar of it back with you."
For the next two hours, Lauren Sable Reilly trudged south from the campus toward midtown. Increasingly, she began to sort out the hazy memories of the previous night. After Megistus had begun his spiel, everything had blotted out. The next moment she remembered at all was Phoebe nudging her back to awareness.
The perception surges began again, growing stronger and coming more closely together. Sometimes, it was a telescopic effect. A TV news copter circled overhead and she could read the gauges inside the cockpit. Then her vision shifted to microscopic. Staring at her hand, she watched with horror as a tiny dust mite crawled up a single hair like a crab. These flashes of enhanced sight only last for a few seconds but she could not concentrate on anything else while they lasted. Lauren learned to get out of everyone's way when the spells started, stepping into doorways or pretending to study the items in a store window.
Her other senses were also affected. Smell and taste flared upo with passing bursts of intensity. When her hearing was affected, the traffic and voices and boomboxes did not become louder but she could hear the heartbeat of a baby in a passing stroller. That strange flapping noise was only explained when she spotted a pigeon two blocks away.
Lauren became increasingly convinced she was having some sort of mental illness. No one in her family had ever shown schizphrenia or epilepsy she knew about. Maybe she was developing a brain tumor? X-Rays should reveal that. This was crushing her with despair.
By noon, she was sitting on a bench against the east wall of Central Park. Lauren saw her hands visibly trembling. She couldn't take much more of this. When she lifted her head to look across Fifth Avenue, on the fifth floor of a a hotel, a window was open. She saw a man in janitor coveralls leaning out. Abruptly, she could read the oval name tag on his chest, RAY. She could even clearly make out the stitching that held the tag on to his coveralls.
When her vision snapped back down to normal levels, Lauren fought back tears. How could she live like this? How could she possible drive a car with any safety? Or hold down a job? Her sense of smell shifted. The man hurrying past her was a blur of conflicting odors. From mildew on his shoes to talcum powder under his shirt to tomato sauce on his upper lips.. the aromas slapped her painfully. Lauren squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms over her ears, struggling to blot the world out.
It was hopeless. Her sense of hearing stepped up. At the end of the block, sitting in a car with the window open a crack, a woman had her checkbook in her lab. Sable could clearly hear the click of the pen, the scratching of its nib across the paper, the whistle of breath going in the woman's nostrils. All that despite the steady din of traffic and car horns and people yelling.
Lauren Sable Reilly drew on her last bit of resolve. She rose to her feet, hands clenched by her sides. Depending on your problem, you solve it by going to the proper authority. If you're sick, you go to the doctor or the ER. You go to the garage mechanic or the Dean of Women or the credit union financial department, whoever is qualified to help.
Even exhausted from emotional strain, Lauren had a mind that was fundamentally cool and rational. She obviously needed help. But where would she go with an emergency like this? Wait. Suddenly, she thought of something. She tore into her shoulder bag and found her notebook with its list of books she had used as cites for that paper on the paranormal. As she scanned it, welcome hope flickered. Yes. Many of the authors had been discounted but she had found five or six who seemed authentic.
There was that phrase, 'the Midnight War.' She had come across it in BLIND ILLUSIONS by Garrison Nebel and two books by Kenneth Dred. She remembered from her childhood being fascinated by the occult, keeping scrapbooks and making notes about any weird rumors she found hinted at in newspapers.
One name bobbed to the surface of her awareness. Jeremy Bane. Yes, oh God, she thought, how intrigued she had been as a nine year old about whatever mysterious person lurked behind that name. She knew that Kenneth Dred had died back in the late 1970s, maybe 1980, and she had spotted a few references in articles to the Kenneth Dred Foundation established in his memory. Lauren slammed the notebook into her bag and started walking briskly south. It was worth a try.
First, she had to duck into the doorway of a shoe store and wait for one of the spells to pass. This time it was her vision. She saw the pores in the leather of her own boots, she spotted a blonde eyelash on the sidewalk and she even saw the shimmer of heat moving the air over a lightbulb in the doorway. She couldn't help staring. Maybe passeersby thought she was drunk or high, but no one approached her.
Lauren's heart sank again. This was hopeless. If she could turn these senses on and off, they might be useful, even fun. But she couldn't be driving on the Thruway and be seeing what was two miles ahead of her. She couldn't have a conversation with a friend when all she could hear was the whish of their eyelashes as they blinked. She had to get help.
Once she sank back down to normal levels again, Sable hurried to flag down a blue-topped taxi and hop in the back seat. "East 38th Street," she gasped and sat back in silence.
As they turned left off Park, Lauren leaned forward and said, "Please stop there. 28 E. 38th Street."
The driver grunted through his cigar stub. "Oh, THAT address. You going to see the old Dire Wolf, huh?"
"Do you know him?"
"Hell, yeah, well I know about him. What New Yorker doesn't? He caught Samhain. He caught Seneca and Golgora. And that winged animal, whatever it was up in Harlem, and those things down by the docks that were pulling guys into the river to drown. That's our Dire Wolf, all right."
Lauren checked the fare and paid the driver, adding a reasonable tip. "Thank you. I feel better hearing that."
Turning to leer at her with just a bit of appreciation for her young face, the driver added, "Technically, he's supposed to be a PI. A detective for hire. But honestly, when the creatures of the night are out and about, we're all damn glad he's here."
She had some difficulty getting out as her sense of touched shifted. The door handle felt rough as sharkhide. "Thanks."
"Good luck, miss," he said as he pulled away.
Standing on the busy sidewalk as people hustled past her, Lauren gazed up at a ten-story stone building that had the high narrow windows and wrough-iron light fixtures of the previous century. Five steps led up to a stoop with a massive oak door that had a small bronze plaque '28' and 'DIRE WOLF AGENCY' on it. Trying to get some composure, Lauren straightened her clothes and brushed back her hair with her fingers, then stepped up to press the bell. A second later, a man's voice came from some concealed speaker, "Come in. I'll be right with you." A lock clicked and she pulled the door open.
She found herself in a tiny vestibule large enough to only hold three people without crowding. There was a bench with a few old magazines on it, a ceramic lamp on a shelf and a gilt-framed oil portrait of a gnomish white-haired man. Its name plate read, KENNETH DRED 1900-1979.
As she stood there, faint buzzing and humming sounded all around her. Her skin tingled. Was she being X-rayed? That was unexpected. Then the inner door opened and she met Jeremy Bane for the first time.
III.
She instinctively trusted him at once. Bane was a tall gaunt man in his early forties, dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks. He had a narrow, feral face with cold grey eyes under heavy black brows. Bane did not seem warm or friendly but still, something in his manner was solid and reassuring.
"I don't think I had any appointments," he said.
"You don't. But this is an emergency. My name is Lauren Reilly and I pray you can help me. I'm about ready for a breakdown!"
"Come in," was all he said. The front hall behind him was wide and had a staircase in its center leading up. Solid wooden doors ere all closed, with bookshelves filling the walls between them. Here and there on the shelves were odd little statues or fossils or framed portraits. Bane took her jacket and hung it on a massive oak coat rack, then ushered her into his office.
For some reason, Lauren felt more at ease. The office had a leather couch with a magazine table and a bubbling fish tank on a waist-high bookcase. Against the near wall as they entered was a desk under a gorgeous hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937. The Dire Wolf pulled a plain straight-backed chair in front of the desk for his visitor and then went around to seat himself facing her.
"So the first thing I want to ask is how do you even know about me?" he said.
"Oh, the supernatural has always fascinated me. I kept finding references to something called 'the Midnight War' and eventually I learned about you and your KDF team." She settled herself sitting up straight, crossed her legs and smiled slightly. "And you've been in the papers a few times. You cxaptured that horrible serial killer Samhain."
"True enough," he said. "You look like you've got a lot to tell me. What's going on, Miss Reilly?"
Taking a deep breath, Lauren launched into everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. She started with her arrival at the Megistus seminar with her roommate and covered everything in detail. Bane did not interrupt except for an occasional encouraging sound. By nature, Lauren Reilly was organized and she told her story with clarity. When she finished with her taxi ride here, she fixed a pleading eye on Bane. "Tell me the truth. Am I hallucinating? Am I losing my mind?"
"I don't think so at all," Bane answered firmly. "Try to relax a little. This Megistus character... I've been following him and his racket for a while now. Here's what I think, Lauren. Something at his performance triggered your latent powers. They were ready to manifest in any case. Many people have gralic abilities waiting for some trauma to bring them to the surface. I think this is what is going on with you."
"But honestly," she cried, "How is any of this even possible? Human eyes can't possibly function the way mine have been doing today. That goes for my other senses as well. Mr Bane, flesh and blood has inherent limits. I must be imagining these things."
"We can test it easy enough. When you start to feel telescopic vision, look out in the hall there and read off book titles. I can check that. If you sense of smell starts to enhance, I'll go in the kitchen down the hall and open a spice jar for an instant. We can prove all this for your peace of mind."
Despite her natural reserve, Lauren grinned at him. "My God. Mr Bane, you are not at all how I thought you would be. I expected you to be... scary. Intimidating."
The Dire Wolf shrugged. "I'm surprised you know anything about me in the first place. I've tried to keep a low profile."
"Over a decade ago, you headed an organization called the Kenneth Dred Foundation. It wasn't completely secret but you didn't seek publicity. I was just a little girl at the time but I was desperately curious about you. I figured you were real monster hunters. Now you're helping me when I desperately need help!"
Bane raised one eyebrow. "I myself would not be training you. I'm useful when the fighting starts but I'm nobody's psychic guru." He thumbed a button on the intercom. "Cin?"
"Up in the conference room," came a pleasant, slightly husky female voice. "I can tell we have an interesting visitor."
"Very true. Can you come down and meet her?"
"Glad to," said the voice. Only a few seconds later, light footsteps could be heard trotting down the stairs and a small blonde woman in her late thirties popped into the open doorway. At the moment, she was wearing red sneakers, faded jeans and a maroon sweatshirt much too large for her. "Hi there! Sorry to seem nosy but your mind waves were so agitated when you came in that I was worried about you."
"Lauren Reilly, this is my partner, Cindy Brunner," Bane said. "Cin is a genuine telepath, she's been reading minds all her life. Cin, Lauren here has brought us two big problems to tackle. We can worry about how to handle Megistus later. First, we need to help Lauren. She's developing sensory enhancement by gralic extension and has no idea what's going on."
"Really? Hmmm." She pulled up a chair next to their visitor. "Listen, honey, what you have is rare but I've known a case or two. You can learn to control it."
"I'm glad to hear that," Lauren sighed. "The way things were going, I would be completely insane before too long."
Cindy dismissed that thought with a backward wave of her hand. "There is always a way to control a gralic ability. Trust me. They are as natural a talent as singing or drawing. If you have sensory enhancement, it's because it's right for you. I know a few basic techniques you can start practicing right away."
"Oh, I'm so glad. Your telepathy? Is that how you would teach me?"
"No," said the blonde. As she shook her head, her ponytail swung back and forth. "I have found that forcing knowledge into a mind can cause some damage and the knowledge doesn't stick too long. Instead, I can show you how you can frame your thoughts to control your powers."
Bane interrupted, "Wait. Before you two start training, we need to discuss this Megistus problem. Lauren, you want to fill Cindy in?"
Lauren patiently repeated everything that had happened the night before, this time in greater detail. Both Cindy and Bane listened without interrupting. After the student finished, she waited hopefully for explanation.
The telepath was frowning. She slid the desk phone over toward Lauren, saying, "Do me a favor. Call your roommate right now and see how she's doing, okay?"
Lauren complied, punching in a number and getting an answer immediately. She talked for a few minutes, then hung up and gave her hosts a concerned look. "That was Phoebe. She's fine herself but she was actually worried about the way I was acting. And she told me two strange things. One, this morning she's missing forty dollars and her new watch, can't find them anywhere. The other thing was last night when she was getting ready for bed. When she started getting undressed, somehow her blouse had gotten unbuttoned halfway..."
Cindy slapped her open hand down on the desk so sharply that everyone gave a start. "I knew it! I could feel it in your mind. Last night, the entire audience was stupefied. It wasn't just you, Lauren. Everyone there was in an induced daze."
"We were drugged?" the young student asked, wrinkling her forehead at the thought. "Well, yeah, that makes sense."
"That's the answer," Cindy said with conviction. "Jeremy, you remember that jerk I captured out in California? The one who called himself the Green Mist?"
"Sure. He was using a Grendavil derivative. You think that this Megistus is running the same scam?"
"Absolutely," said the blonde telepath. She turned to their guest and lowered her voice. "Lauren, this may feel a little disorienting but I want to dig into your memories of last night. Will you let me do that?"
"I trust you, Cindy. Go right ahead."
The two women exchanged glances and, as their eyes met, they both froze into position. Lauren shivered and looked away. It was over as quickly as that. Earlier in her career, Cindy had not hesitated to blithely probe peoples' minds without their knowledge. As she had matured and come to see how intrusive it was, she had begun asking consent.
"Whew," she said, leaning back. "Well, Lauren, your memories from last night weren't destroyed. They're a little vague and you could regain them in time. There was at least an hour when you were doped and not consciously aware. The good news is that you weren't messed with. There's no memory of anyone touching your body, just someone going through your belongings. So that might be a relief."
"You should see my friend Phoebe," Lauren admitted. "Who wouldn't rather paw at her?"
"I think they're pushing their luck with this routine," said Bane. "Sooner or later, someone is going to have an allergic reaction to the gas and die during the robbery. Or just as bad for them, someone in the audience will have enough resistance that they will remember everything as they're getting up. Either way, Megistus is going to hit a snag at some point and be exposed."
"But we are going to end his operation sooner than that." Cindy stuck out her wrist and checked the time. "Right now, Lauren and I need to work on her control of these new powers. Jeremy, maybe you could be doing some research and planning while we go in the rec room?"
Bane agreed. "Let's aim at six o'clock. If I hadn't said so before, Lauren, I'm glad you came to us. Welcome to the Midnight War."
IV.
Just before six, Bane thanked the last of his reporters and observers he had been phoning. Over a twenty year career, he had deliberately built a network of people who owed him their lives or the lives of their loved ones. Rather than accepting rewards, he had asked instead that they keep alert for any weird or inexplicable events and to inform him. Many of his most crucial cases had started with a call from one of his observers.
Recently, his most useful informant was a man named Wilbur Schlegel, whose retirement from the FDNY had left him free to search message boards and read numerous local newspapers online. A few years ago, Bane had rescued Schlegel's daughter at the last possible minute from death at the hands of the infamous Samhain and Schlegel had sworn to repay this with every bit of possible Midnight War phenomena he could track down.
Bane was stretching and yawning when Cindy and Lauren entered the office. His accelerated reflexes and speed made him restless at the best of times. Sitting still for hours on the phone was torture for Bane but sometimes he had to endure it. As he saw the grins on their faces, he allowed himself the faintest of smiles. Bane normally seemed so sober and intense that it took friends a long time to recognize his happy or amused expressions.
"You both seemed pleased," he ventured.
"She's going to be fine," said Cindy, rubbing a hand across Lauren's back. "Another day or so, and I guarantee she will have her ability under full control. This girl has an amazing gift!"
"I'm still dazed by the whole experience," laughed Lauren. Her slight overbite made her smile very appealing. "I can't believe I'm so lucky. The things I can do... I can't see through walls or shoot lasers from my eyes but that's about it."
The Dire Wolf seemed to have an unfamiliar wistful tone to his voice. "Lauren, when I look at you, I can't help but be reminded of old friends. When I founded the KDF, my friends and I were all close to your age. It seems so long ago...."
Cindy said, "We've been setting up a new team for the past year or so. So far, we have four candidates. One of them, the second Unicorn, has already met with the Teachers of Tel Shai and they approve of her."
Lauren's eyes bugged out as she heard this. "Wait, what? A new KDF? A new team of Tel Shai knights? Let's face it, the world needs them today like never before. If you're taking applications, I want to sign up right now."
"Lauren, you do have a special gift," Bane said. "You can keep it hidden from everyone or you can do the obvious and use it to get rich. Legally or otherwise. I have a hunch you would be a good Tel Shai knight. You seem like you want to make a difference in the world."
The young woman's voice grew more serious although she could not keep her excitement entirely subdued. "To be honestr, I always felt like there was something special in store for me. That I wasn't born to get married and pop out a few kids, or spend my life in a cubicle getting an ulcer. I love the idea of a new KDF. I want to be like you two."
"We'll get started on it," the Dire Wolf put in with a cautionary finger in the air. "But there will be a lot of hurdles. You will be cross-examined by the Teachers. There'll be a baptism of fire in the field. Anyway, tonight we have an agenda to take care of first. I have spent the past few hours doing research. I've learned that officially Megistus is a naturalized citizen of Greek birth, thirty-seven years old. His original name was Mikel Christofilas, formerly an intern at a radiology lab. For the past four years, he has been running his racket, which he calls seminars, all over the US. He's raked in hundred of thousands but probably a lot more in private donations he doesn't claim. That's one reason why the IRS is interested in him. His official residence is a 'learning center' outside San Diego. Megistus usually travels on a tour bus with his personal staff and maybe a dozen roadies following in vans."
"He's definitely a celebrity," Cindy observed. "Somehow, he has managed to avoid any scandals like paternity suits or outright charges of fraud. Personally, I think he pays off anybody who gives him static."
Bane was frowning more than usual. "All this is what the authorities have gathered but I don't buy it. I smell something bad behind a cover story. And that little old man in the robes interests me. I think he could explain everything."
"Your instincts are usually pretty good," said Cindy. "Even if we didn't have Lauren's experience to alert us, I suspect we'd be investigating Megistus sooner or later anyway."
Hearing this, Lauren Reilly had to break in, "So you guys are going to check him out? See what's really going on at his appearances?"
"We are. You're in on this with us," Cindy told her. "The schedule here says Megistus has two more appearances in this area before going on a Midwest tour. At eight o'clock tonight, he'll be up to his tricks just outside Bridgewater, New Jersey."
"There will be three people in that crowd he'll regret letting in," Bane said.
Lauren made a fist and drew her elbow in toward her ribcage in an exultant gesture. "Yes!"
V.
The sky was a black overcast blanket hanging low overhead, with a threat of rain or snow coming. Behind the wheel of the dark blue Ford Mustang, Bane found an empty parking space in the middle of a long row of cars alongside the road. Evidently someone had been dropped off and their ride had then pulled away. The road itself was cluttered with people heading for the tent. Ignoring the angry faces made by another driver, Bane made a three-point U-turn and backed into the spot so that they would be pointing in the direction they would leave in.
"One more rule to remember," he told Lauren. "Always park so you can just jump in and take off. You never know when you'll be chasing someone or being chased."
"Got it," replied the young student with a grin. She was almost visibly shaking with excitement and enthusiasm. Seeing her reaction, Bane felt a melancholy twinge. Has he ever been that young and eager? It seemed he had always been stern and hard, living like a guerilla fighter in a country not his own.
"What's the plan, captain?" she asked, leaning over from the back seat.
"First, we all take a little precaution." He opened a flat metal case to reveal four pairs of flesh-colored noseplugs. "These are Trom-designed filters. They wouldn't be any use against nerve gas or anything that enters through your skin, but we don't expect to face that tonight. Once Megistus begins his song and dance, don't talk and only breathe through these."
Cindy slung a brown leather handbag over one shoulder, carrying her anesthetic dart gun and a few other useful gadgets and weapons. She was already wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under her clothes. With Lauren beside her, the telepath paid the twenty dollar 'donation' for both of them, explaining it would go on her expense account with the KDF. They could only find adjoining seats toward the rear of the tent. Between the body heat of one hundred people and the overhead flood lights, the air was warm and stuffy. Cindy shrugged out of her cardigan and draped it over the back of the metal folding chair.
The next half hour was an excrutiating wait for them, surrounded by enthusiasts of Megistus chatting happily. Cindy watched and listened without joining, taking every detail in, while Lauren quietly experimented with her new powers. It was all so fascinating. The uncertainty and fear that had weighed so heavily on her just that morning had been replaced by pure enthusiasm she had never felt before.
Finally, Megistus made his dramatic appearance. He was wearing the flamboyant outfit often seen in piblicity photos. A bronze-colored breast plate with extended shoulder epaulets that supported a white silk cape. A short skirt of vertical leather strips revealed muscular legs. He seemed perfectly at ease and confident in the rig.
"Good evening, my friends!" he boomed in a deep resonant voice. "Welcome! Welcome to the night your lives change for the better..."
Staying at arm's length behind him were two bruisers in long-sleeved dress shirts and black slacks. In their shadow lurked a small bent figure in heavy coarse robes, its face concealed within a cowl.
Cindy seemed to focus her attention on the small old man behind Megistus. The telepath was obviously lost in deep concentration, so Lauren left her alone for the moment. Instead, she followed the familiar introductory speech Megistus was giving. Word for word, it was identical to his spiel from the night before. His tone was more imperative and intense, as if the costume influenced his demeanour.
"I want you all to breathe as one. Together. Slow breath in, slower breath out..." he intoned.
Cindy and Lauren pretended to go along with it. As they saw the other audience members drop their heads forward, they did the same. The congregation closed their eyes, while Cindy and Lauren watched through the narrowest slits. Soon, Megistus was repeating in a soothing tone, "Sleep, sleep..."
For long breathless moments, the big blond man studied the crowd suspiciously. Finally, using a voice very different from his mellow tone, he barked, "All right, boys. Clean 'em out."
Immediately, a dozen men with canvas bags or satchels began to move through the unaware crowd. They were careful to restrict their robbery, taking ten or twenty collars or a single credit card from each individual but leaving the wallets and purses otherwise unplundered. A bit of jewelry, a quality watch or bracelet might be taken but nothing else from any one victim. Megistus had not been troubled by accusations of robbery because the thefts were limited. The way the victims went home in a blissful cloudy daze and only noticed their loss much later also helped.
As the thieves made their way up and down rows of seated people, one of them came to where Lauren and Cindy were feigned unconsciousness. One of thugs tucked two fingers under the blonde telepath's chin and tilted her chin up. "Hey, some of these pigeons ain't half bad," he muttered. He dropped his hand to slide his palm down the front of her body.
VI.
Instantly, Cindy's arm whipped up to crack her elbow squarely into the center of his face. The man squawked and tumbled backward. The satchel fell from his hand as he stood clutching at a broken nose. The telepath jumped to her feet and whipped a perfect right backfist to the side of the head that spun the thug around and dropped him. Despite her size, Cindy had been training in Kumundu under Teacher Chael for two decades and she connected as hard as a heavyweight boxer could have.
"What the HELL?" shouted Megistus from the front of the tent. "Carl, Joe! Grab her now!"
The thieves rushed toward the disturbance, panicking that the crowd might awaken. Lauren Sable Reilly hesitated as she rose, uncertain what to do, but Cindy had already drawn the anesthetic dart gun and met the attackers calmly. Even as she swerved in evasion from clutching hands, Cindy extended her arm and fired the dart gun. The CO2-powered weapon had no muzzle flash and made only a low single cough with each shot. Most of the time, enemies did not even realize they were being taken out until they started dropping senseless to the ground. Three down. Four. But then one of the thugs lunged at her from behind in a crushing bear hug that pinned her arms to her sides.
Although she had dropped her gun, Cindy was never defenseless. The man who was holding her screamed, released her and clutched at his head with bothh hands. As he stumbled backward and fell heavily over a folding chair, Cindy gave him a satisfied smirk. "Grab a telepath, eh? Live and learn."
The remaining thugs had no idea what she had done. They spread out in a circle around her, one holding a common butcher knife point up and another swinging a carpenter's hammer. She was not intimidated in the least. The little blonde took a breath and drew her full power together, readying to unleash a mental blast that would send them all staggering away with blurred vision and unbearable headaches.
But before she could blast them, the crooks twitched and slapped at themselves before dropping straight down in senseless heaps. Cindy blinked in surprise, then understood. She twisted her head to see Bane striding quickly down the aisle toward her. He ejected the clip from his dart gun, pocketed it and clicked a fresh one into place.
'I thought you would appreciate wrapping this up quickly," he said. "I'm never really satisfied without some punching but you like to just get things over with."
'You guys are just so cool I can't stand it," squeaked Lauren Sable Reilly. "This is great. Now all that's left is tagging Megistus himself."
Bane unfastened his helmet, lifted it off his head and placed it on an empty chair. He had already holstered his dart gun. "Glad we entertain you, Lauren. This case is as good as done now." He started moving toward the wizened little figure in its robe. "Look, grandpa, don't get in the way. Megistus! You had a sweet racket but we closing it down."
The imposing golden-haired man came to meet them, getting protectively in front of the old man. "You are known in the Midnight War. Dire Wolf! Dog of Tel Shai is more like it. Do you realize what you have done?"
"Yes." Bane gestured with a thumb back at the tent entrance. "I stuck a camcorder up there. Your entire operation is on tape. I also confiscated a tank of Grendavil gas you were pumping in here. The Alchemical elements will decay quickly but the narcotic base will be enough for the police lab. Not to mention confessions from some of these goons. There's so much evidence against you, it's not even funny."
Unexpectedly, the tiny old man interrupted. "How rashly you speak. Megistus has survived four hundred years. He is a Master of the Great Art."
"Yeah? Tell us more," Bane said.
"Velkandu is one of the Forbidden Arts revealed at the Corruption ages ago. It is the source of Alchemy and of Fang-shih. I caution you, Megistus is a foe you cannot defeat," piped the withered figure.
"I've heard that before," said the Dire Wolf, moving grimly toward them.
As the old man shrank back, Megistus himself dipped his hand into an inner pocket of his tunic and flung a handful of coarse white dust into Bane's face. Paralyzing subzero cold formed a crust of frost over the Dire Wolf's head. Unable to breathe or see for a moment, Bane clawed at his face as Megistus lunged toward him. The Alchemist grabbed Bane's jacket with one hand and smashed a brutal roundhouse right. That was as far as he got. Even gasping for breath and dazed, Bane was a dangerous opponent. He planted his feet, slapped his opponent's hand away and snapped a sharp left jap that did not clip Megistus across the jaw quite solidly enough. The Alchemist staggered back a few steps, managing to tug something else from his hidden arsenal. Even as Megistus drew back his hand to throw the item, he was an instant too late. Bane's vision had cleared. The Dire Wolf closed the gap so fast he blurred, driving a straight forward punch deep into his enemy's solar plexus. Megistus folded up, dropping to a seated position on the ground and coughing, hugging himself with both arms across his aching chest.
"Not a move out of you, don't even try to get up," the Dire Wolf snapped. "I'm trying not to hurt you too much. For a man four hundred years old, you sure haven't wised up much."
Cindy and Lauren approached, Cindy cradling Bane's helmet in the crook of her arm. "Seems like the old geezer got away," she announced. "You know, the coot in the robe? He must have headed pretty spry for the exit while we were preoccupied."
"No real harm done," Bane said. "We've got more than enough evidence to prosecute on a dozen charges. Unlawful release of a narcotic substance over a public assembly, first of all. We'll see you at the trial, Megistus."
Still seated on the ground, rubbing his sore chest, the man managed to chuckle. "Megistus? I? I am but a humble servant of my great master. My name is Mikel Christofilas."
"What?!"
"Oh, yes. You fools! The old man in the brown robe is long gone by now. He had a car waiting. He is the true master. That was Megistus himself who slipped through your fingers..."
4/28/2000-Rev. 9/1/2017
10/5-10/7/1998
I.
The huge three-peaked tent was crammed with people, with not only every metal folding seat filled but with late arrivals standing in the back and starting to take up the aisles as well. There was no cotton candy or warm flat soda, no crying babies or mooning couples. This was no carnival or circus, this was a personal appearance by the great Megistus.
Toward the center of the audience, squirming from having arrived early and sitting for hours, were two young college students. The taller one had honey-blonde hair, a pointed chin and the lush curves reminiscent of an old-time movie star. Phoebe Janssen dressed modestly enough, with a white cotton blouse under a thin blue cardigan, but she did not have try to get attention. At the moment, she was shifting back and forth on the uncomfortable chair with a severely disgruntled expression.
To her left was her roommate and current best friend, Lauren Sable Reilly. Like Phoebe, Lauren had recently turned twenty. She was shorter than Phoebe, cute rather than gorgeous. She had jet black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, huge dark eyes over a pug nose and a wide mouth that smiled easily. Despite her roommate's flashier looks, it was Lauren that boys felt comfortable with and crowded around.
"Tell me again why we are here on a perfectly good Friday night," Phoebe whispered. "There's a tequila bottle wondering what happened to me."
"We ARE journalism majors," answered Lauren in the same low tones. "I've gotten good marks with my papers for Professor Finch. You know he enjoys topics out of the ordinary. Something new to hold his attention. And here on cue is Megistus. I did some preliminary research on him. Megistus toured Europe beginning six years ago..."
"Lauren please! I swear, you love homework for its own sake," said Phoebe. "You need more mornings waking up on someone's bathroom floor with your clothes on inside-out."
The brunette scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Maybe next semester, if I get a light schedule. Anyway, there seems to have been some scandal regarding Megistus in Italy, where he skipped to avoid a court date--" The rest of her sentence was a mumble because Phoebe had pressed a hand over her mouth.
"Shh, shush shush. The party is getting underway."
In fact, the floodlights at the corners of the tent dimmed and the crowd settled down immediately. At the far end, a wooden stand held a podium with a microphone. Stepping up to it was the dramatic figure of Megistus, living up to expectations.
Well over six feet tall, athletic, wearing a simple white dress shirt and black slacks, Megistus seemed almost too handsome to be natural. His deep bronzed tan contrasted with the bright golden curls and shining blue eyes. Perfect teeth flashed in a confident smile and he held up both hands. "How happy I am to see all my new friends tonight," he began in a mellow bass. "Yes, I am Megistus. It has been my good fortune to have discovered a great Secret, the Path To Inner Balance. This is what I am honored to share with you tonight. My personal story is one as old as Man. I was born into a family with wealth, status, prestige. I lacked for nothing. Yet I was not satisfied. Something indefinable was missing, a melody one cannot quite remember. I indulged in the dark side. Drinking, promiscuity, drug use and gambling... all failed to make me happy. One morning I woke up cold and determined to try another path and this fortunately led me to the Secret."
Megistus paused, holding out his upturned palms. 'How can I tell you all the methods I tried? Nutrition, exercise. Hatha Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Zen meditation. Years went by and still I had not found the real peace I sought. I was walking in circles. Then, when I was ready, the light dawned.
"If you believe in chance, then a happy chance it was that revealed to me that which I needed to learn. I believe each of you has come here tonight because you also are ready for revelation. I would never say that your current lives are without worth. You raise your children, love your wives or husbands, work at your jobs and try to be good people. All honorable ways to live. Yet still, you feel the emptiness where there should be comfort. Let me help."
The tall blonde man raised his hands in benediction. Overhead, the flood lights shifted to a deep, restful blue. From beneath the canvas on the ground came a deep, humming vibration that the crowd felt through their feet.
Lauren glanced over at her roommate to make a comment, but Phoebe seemed lost in dewy-eyed adoration.
"Breathe is the source of life and wisdom," intoned Megistus. "Slow breath in, slower breath out. Slow breath in, slower breath out...."
Lauren Reilly became aware of a hand shaking her by one shoulder. "Hey! Roomie!" echoed Phoebe's voice from a great distance. "Snap out of it. Man, you're out of it."
"Eh? Pheebs? What happened?"
"The show's over, hon. We're trekkin' back to the dorm. Wasn't that amazing?"
As she hesitantly rose to her feet, Lauren checked her notebook. The page was still blank. "That's funny. Did I fall asleep?"
"Better than that," Phoebe laughed. "We ventured into the Cosmic All and became One with Creation. I'm still flushed with joy."
"I do feel pretty good," admitted Lauren, sounding uncertain. "Relaxed, anyway. "Yet, something bugs me. I didn't take any notes at all. The last I remember is Megistus making a speech."
"Oh, I guess you just got into it deeper than you expected. Let's go back to the dorm. Tomorrow morning, everything will seem clearer."
As they made their way down the aisles between rows of chairs, Lauren could not help but noticed how dazed the crowd was. Despite the vacant smiles, everyone looked a bit groggy to her. On an impulse, she paused and glanced back toward the podium. Megistus was still there, chatting easily with a few followers. Close beside him, barely up to his shoulder, was a frail shape wrapped in a coarse brown robe with a hood pulled up.
As the small figure raised its cowled head, something strange happened to Lauren. Her vision seemed to zoom in on the old man like a telephoto lens. She was seeing a close-up in painfully sharp detail of someone who was one hundred feet away. The face beneath the brown hood was ancient, too old to seem completely natural. Skin thin as a chicken's was wrinkled deeply and marred with liver spots. The hooked nose and hooked chin almost touched over the sunken toothless mouth. Beneath shaggy white brows, a pair of fierce dark eyes stabbed out at her. The mummified face split in a leer.
Panic rushed over Lauren like a bucket of ice water. She shoved her way out of the crowd, pushing people aside without realizing it and ignoring their protests. When Phoebe found her by their car, Lauren was shaking as if she was freezing. Phoebe herself was unusually saubdued and introverted, she hardly asked what was wrong. They got in and drove home in near silence, traumatized into numbness.
;;'II.
In the morning after a black night without dreams, Lauren did not feel any better. Details of everything that had happened the night before were vague and distant. She showered and got dressed in blue slacks and a thin white sweater as if sleepwalking. Phoebe was wrestling with two weeks of laundry, her haire tied up in topknot.
"Hey, girl girl," Phoebe said. "You slept like a rolled up blanket."
Lauren sat on a chair and laced her sneakers with agonizing slowness. "I need to think things over," she said finally. "I'm going for a long walk. I'll call you later.'
Phoebe brushed a vagrant strand of hair back from her forehead. "Sure you're okay, roomie?"
"I don't know. I guess. Maybe I'm coming down with the flu or something." She grabbed a denim jacket and her bookbag, heading for the door. "Some fresh air might help."
"In Manhattan?" scoffed her roommate. "If you find any fresh air, bring a jar of it back with you."
For the next two hours, Lauren Sable Reilly trudged south from the campus toward midtown. Increasingly, she began to sort out the hazy memories of the previous night. After Megistus had begun his spiel, everything had blotted out. The next moment she remembered at all was Phoebe nudging her back to awareness.
The perception surges began again, growing stronger and coming more closely together. Sometimes, it was a telescopic effect. A TV news copter circled overhead and she could read the gauges inside the cockpit. Then her vision shifted to microscopic. Staring at her hand, she watched with horror as a tiny dust mite crawled up a single hair like a crab. These flashes of enhanced sight only last for a few seconds but she could not concentrate on anything else while they lasted. Lauren learned to get out of everyone's way when the spells started, stepping into doorways or pretending to study the items in a store window.
Her other senses were also affected. Smell and taste flared upo with passing bursts of intensity. When her hearing was affected, the traffic and voices and boomboxes did not become louder but she could hear the heartbeat of a baby in a passing stroller. That strange flapping noise was only explained when she spotted a pigeon two blocks away.
Lauren became increasingly convinced she was having some sort of mental illness. No one in her family had ever shown schizphrenia or epilepsy she knew about. Maybe she was developing a brain tumor? X-Rays should reveal that. This was crushing her with despair.
By noon, she was sitting on a bench against the east wall of Central Park. Lauren saw her hands visibly trembling. She couldn't take much more of this. When she lifted her head to look across Fifth Avenue, on the fifth floor of a a hotel, a window was open. She saw a man in janitor coveralls leaning out. Abruptly, she could read the oval name tag on his chest, RAY. She could even clearly make out the stitching that held the tag on to his coveralls.
When her vision snapped back down to normal levels, Lauren fought back tears. How could she live like this? How could she possible drive a car with any safety? Or hold down a job? Her sense of smell shifted. The man hurrying past her was a blur of conflicting odors. From mildew on his shoes to talcum powder under his shirt to tomato sauce on his upper lips.. the aromas slapped her painfully. Lauren squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms over her ears, struggling to blot the world out.
It was hopeless. Her sense of hearing stepped up. At the end of the block, sitting in a car with the window open a crack, a woman had her checkbook in her lab. Sable could clearly hear the click of the pen, the scratching of its nib across the paper, the whistle of breath going in the woman's nostrils. All that despite the steady din of traffic and car horns and people yelling.
Lauren Sable Reilly drew on her last bit of resolve. She rose to her feet, hands clenched by her sides. Depending on your problem, you solve it by going to the proper authority. If you're sick, you go to the doctor or the ER. You go to the garage mechanic or the Dean of Women or the credit union financial department, whoever is qualified to help.
Even exhausted from emotional strain, Lauren had a mind that was fundamentally cool and rational. She obviously needed help. But where would she go with an emergency like this? Wait. Suddenly, she thought of something. She tore into her shoulder bag and found her notebook with its list of books she had used as cites for that paper on the paranormal. As she scanned it, welcome hope flickered. Yes. Many of the authors had been discounted but she had found five or six who seemed authentic.
There was that phrase, 'the Midnight War.' She had come across it in BLIND ILLUSIONS by Garrison Nebel and two books by Kenneth Dred. She remembered from her childhood being fascinated by the occult, keeping scrapbooks and making notes about any weird rumors she found hinted at in newspapers.
One name bobbed to the surface of her awareness. Jeremy Bane. Yes, oh God, she thought, how intrigued she had been as a nine year old about whatever mysterious person lurked behind that name. She knew that Kenneth Dred had died back in the late 1970s, maybe 1980, and she had spotted a few references in articles to the Kenneth Dred Foundation established in his memory. Lauren slammed the notebook into her bag and started walking briskly south. It was worth a try.
First, she had to duck into the doorway of a shoe store and wait for one of the spells to pass. This time it was her vision. She saw the pores in the leather of her own boots, she spotted a blonde eyelash on the sidewalk and she even saw the shimmer of heat moving the air over a lightbulb in the doorway. She couldn't help staring. Maybe passeersby thought she was drunk or high, but no one approached her.
Lauren's heart sank again. This was hopeless. If she could turn these senses on and off, they might be useful, even fun. But she couldn't be driving on the Thruway and be seeing what was two miles ahead of her. She couldn't have a conversation with a friend when all she could hear was the whish of their eyelashes as they blinked. She had to get help.
Once she sank back down to normal levels again, Sable hurried to flag down a blue-topped taxi and hop in the back seat. "East 38th Street," she gasped and sat back in silence.
As they turned left off Park, Lauren leaned forward and said, "Please stop there. 28 E. 38th Street."
The driver grunted through his cigar stub. "Oh, THAT address. You going to see the old Dire Wolf, huh?"
"Do you know him?"
"Hell, yeah, well I know about him. What New Yorker doesn't? He caught Samhain. He caught Seneca and Golgora. And that winged animal, whatever it was up in Harlem, and those things down by the docks that were pulling guys into the river to drown. That's our Dire Wolf, all right."
Lauren checked the fare and paid the driver, adding a reasonable tip. "Thank you. I feel better hearing that."
Turning to leer at her with just a bit of appreciation for her young face, the driver added, "Technically, he's supposed to be a PI. A detective for hire. But honestly, when the creatures of the night are out and about, we're all damn glad he's here."
She had some difficulty getting out as her sense of touched shifted. The door handle felt rough as sharkhide. "Thanks."
"Good luck, miss," he said as he pulled away.
Standing on the busy sidewalk as people hustled past her, Lauren gazed up at a ten-story stone building that had the high narrow windows and wrough-iron light fixtures of the previous century. Five steps led up to a stoop with a massive oak door that had a small bronze plaque '28' and 'DIRE WOLF AGENCY' on it. Trying to get some composure, Lauren straightened her clothes and brushed back her hair with her fingers, then stepped up to press the bell. A second later, a man's voice came from some concealed speaker, "Come in. I'll be right with you." A lock clicked and she pulled the door open.
She found herself in a tiny vestibule large enough to only hold three people without crowding. There was a bench with a few old magazines on it, a ceramic lamp on a shelf and a gilt-framed oil portrait of a gnomish white-haired man. Its name plate read, KENNETH DRED 1900-1979.
As she stood there, faint buzzing and humming sounded all around her. Her skin tingled. Was she being X-rayed? That was unexpected. Then the inner door opened and she met Jeremy Bane for the first time.
III.
She instinctively trusted him at once. Bane was a tall gaunt man in his early forties, dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks. He had a narrow, feral face with cold grey eyes under heavy black brows. Bane did not seem warm or friendly but still, something in his manner was solid and reassuring.
"I don't think I had any appointments," he said.
"You don't. But this is an emergency. My name is Lauren Reilly and I pray you can help me. I'm about ready for a breakdown!"
"Come in," was all he said. The front hall behind him was wide and had a staircase in its center leading up. Solid wooden doors ere all closed, with bookshelves filling the walls between them. Here and there on the shelves were odd little statues or fossils or framed portraits. Bane took her jacket and hung it on a massive oak coat rack, then ushered her into his office.
For some reason, Lauren felt more at ease. The office had a leather couch with a magazine table and a bubbling fish tank on a waist-high bookcase. Against the near wall as they entered was a desk under a gorgeous hand-painted map of the world as it had been in 1937. The Dire Wolf pulled a plain straight-backed chair in front of the desk for his visitor and then went around to seat himself facing her.
"So the first thing I want to ask is how do you even know about me?" he said.
"Oh, the supernatural has always fascinated me. I kept finding references to something called 'the Midnight War' and eventually I learned about you and your KDF team." She settled herself sitting up straight, crossed her legs and smiled slightly. "And you've been in the papers a few times. You cxaptured that horrible serial killer Samhain."
"True enough," he said. "You look like you've got a lot to tell me. What's going on, Miss Reilly?"
Taking a deep breath, Lauren launched into everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. She started with her arrival at the Megistus seminar with her roommate and covered everything in detail. Bane did not interrupt except for an occasional encouraging sound. By nature, Lauren Reilly was organized and she told her story with clarity. When she finished with her taxi ride here, she fixed a pleading eye on Bane. "Tell me the truth. Am I hallucinating? Am I losing my mind?"
"I don't think so at all," Bane answered firmly. "Try to relax a little. This Megistus character... I've been following him and his racket for a while now. Here's what I think, Lauren. Something at his performance triggered your latent powers. They were ready to manifest in any case. Many people have gralic abilities waiting for some trauma to bring them to the surface. I think this is what is going on with you."
"But honestly," she cried, "How is any of this even possible? Human eyes can't possibly function the way mine have been doing today. That goes for my other senses as well. Mr Bane, flesh and blood has inherent limits. I must be imagining these things."
"We can test it easy enough. When you start to feel telescopic vision, look out in the hall there and read off book titles. I can check that. If you sense of smell starts to enhance, I'll go in the kitchen down the hall and open a spice jar for an instant. We can prove all this for your peace of mind."
Despite her natural reserve, Lauren grinned at him. "My God. Mr Bane, you are not at all how I thought you would be. I expected you to be... scary. Intimidating."
The Dire Wolf shrugged. "I'm surprised you know anything about me in the first place. I've tried to keep a low profile."
"Over a decade ago, you headed an organization called the Kenneth Dred Foundation. It wasn't completely secret but you didn't seek publicity. I was just a little girl at the time but I was desperately curious about you. I figured you were real monster hunters. Now you're helping me when I desperately need help!"
Bane raised one eyebrow. "I myself would not be training you. I'm useful when the fighting starts but I'm nobody's psychic guru." He thumbed a button on the intercom. "Cin?"
"Up in the conference room," came a pleasant, slightly husky female voice. "I can tell we have an interesting visitor."
"Very true. Can you come down and meet her?"
"Glad to," said the voice. Only a few seconds later, light footsteps could be heard trotting down the stairs and a small blonde woman in her late thirties popped into the open doorway. At the moment, she was wearing red sneakers, faded jeans and a maroon sweatshirt much too large for her. "Hi there! Sorry to seem nosy but your mind waves were so agitated when you came in that I was worried about you."
"Lauren Reilly, this is my partner, Cindy Brunner," Bane said. "Cin is a genuine telepath, she's been reading minds all her life. Cin, Lauren here has brought us two big problems to tackle. We can worry about how to handle Megistus later. First, we need to help Lauren. She's developing sensory enhancement by gralic extension and has no idea what's going on."
"Really? Hmmm." She pulled up a chair next to their visitor. "Listen, honey, what you have is rare but I've known a case or two. You can learn to control it."
"I'm glad to hear that," Lauren sighed. "The way things were going, I would be completely insane before too long."
Cindy dismissed that thought with a backward wave of her hand. "There is always a way to control a gralic ability. Trust me. They are as natural a talent as singing or drawing. If you have sensory enhancement, it's because it's right for you. I know a few basic techniques you can start practicing right away."
"Oh, I'm so glad. Your telepathy? Is that how you would teach me?"
"No," said the blonde. As she shook her head, her ponytail swung back and forth. "I have found that forcing knowledge into a mind can cause some damage and the knowledge doesn't stick too long. Instead, I can show you how you can frame your thoughts to control your powers."
Bane interrupted, "Wait. Before you two start training, we need to discuss this Megistus problem. Lauren, you want to fill Cindy in?"
Lauren patiently repeated everything that had happened the night before, this time in greater detail. Both Cindy and Bane listened without interrupting. After the student finished, she waited hopefully for explanation.
The telepath was frowning. She slid the desk phone over toward Lauren, saying, "Do me a favor. Call your roommate right now and see how she's doing, okay?"
Lauren complied, punching in a number and getting an answer immediately. She talked for a few minutes, then hung up and gave her hosts a concerned look. "That was Phoebe. She's fine herself but she was actually worried about the way I was acting. And she told me two strange things. One, this morning she's missing forty dollars and her new watch, can't find them anywhere. The other thing was last night when she was getting ready for bed. When she started getting undressed, somehow her blouse had gotten unbuttoned halfway..."
Cindy slapped her open hand down on the desk so sharply that everyone gave a start. "I knew it! I could feel it in your mind. Last night, the entire audience was stupefied. It wasn't just you, Lauren. Everyone there was in an induced daze."
"We were drugged?" the young student asked, wrinkling her forehead at the thought. "Well, yeah, that makes sense."
"That's the answer," Cindy said with conviction. "Jeremy, you remember that jerk I captured out in California? The one who called himself the Green Mist?"
"Sure. He was using a Grendavil derivative. You think that this Megistus is running the same scam?"
"Absolutely," said the blonde telepath. She turned to their guest and lowered her voice. "Lauren, this may feel a little disorienting but I want to dig into your memories of last night. Will you let me do that?"
"I trust you, Cindy. Go right ahead."
The two women exchanged glances and, as their eyes met, they both froze into position. Lauren shivered and looked away. It was over as quickly as that. Earlier in her career, Cindy had not hesitated to blithely probe peoples' minds without their knowledge. As she had matured and come to see how intrusive it was, she had begun asking consent.
"Whew," she said, leaning back. "Well, Lauren, your memories from last night weren't destroyed. They're a little vague and you could regain them in time. There was at least an hour when you were doped and not consciously aware. The good news is that you weren't messed with. There's no memory of anyone touching your body, just someone going through your belongings. So that might be a relief."
"You should see my friend Phoebe," Lauren admitted. "Who wouldn't rather paw at her?"
"I think they're pushing their luck with this routine," said Bane. "Sooner or later, someone is going to have an allergic reaction to the gas and die during the robbery. Or just as bad for them, someone in the audience will have enough resistance that they will remember everything as they're getting up. Either way, Megistus is going to hit a snag at some point and be exposed."
"But we are going to end his operation sooner than that." Cindy stuck out her wrist and checked the time. "Right now, Lauren and I need to work on her control of these new powers. Jeremy, maybe you could be doing some research and planning while we go in the rec room?"
Bane agreed. "Let's aim at six o'clock. If I hadn't said so before, Lauren, I'm glad you came to us. Welcome to the Midnight War."
IV.
Just before six, Bane thanked the last of his reporters and observers he had been phoning. Over a twenty year career, he had deliberately built a network of people who owed him their lives or the lives of their loved ones. Rather than accepting rewards, he had asked instead that they keep alert for any weird or inexplicable events and to inform him. Many of his most crucial cases had started with a call from one of his observers.
Recently, his most useful informant was a man named Wilbur Schlegel, whose retirement from the FDNY had left him free to search message boards and read numerous local newspapers online. A few years ago, Bane had rescued Schlegel's daughter at the last possible minute from death at the hands of the infamous Samhain and Schlegel had sworn to repay this with every bit of possible Midnight War phenomena he could track down.
Bane was stretching and yawning when Cindy and Lauren entered the office. His accelerated reflexes and speed made him restless at the best of times. Sitting still for hours on the phone was torture for Bane but sometimes he had to endure it. As he saw the grins on their faces, he allowed himself the faintest of smiles. Bane normally seemed so sober and intense that it took friends a long time to recognize his happy or amused expressions.
"You both seemed pleased," he ventured.
"She's going to be fine," said Cindy, rubbing a hand across Lauren's back. "Another day or so, and I guarantee she will have her ability under full control. This girl has an amazing gift!"
"I'm still dazed by the whole experience," laughed Lauren. Her slight overbite made her smile very appealing. "I can't believe I'm so lucky. The things I can do... I can't see through walls or shoot lasers from my eyes but that's about it."
The Dire Wolf seemed to have an unfamiliar wistful tone to his voice. "Lauren, when I look at you, I can't help but be reminded of old friends. When I founded the KDF, my friends and I were all close to your age. It seems so long ago...."
Cindy said, "We've been setting up a new team for the past year or so. So far, we have four candidates. One of them, the second Unicorn, has already met with the Teachers of Tel Shai and they approve of her."
Lauren's eyes bugged out as she heard this. "Wait, what? A new KDF? A new team of Tel Shai knights? Let's face it, the world needs them today like never before. If you're taking applications, I want to sign up right now."
"Lauren, you do have a special gift," Bane said. "You can keep it hidden from everyone or you can do the obvious and use it to get rich. Legally or otherwise. I have a hunch you would be a good Tel Shai knight. You seem like you want to make a difference in the world."
The young woman's voice grew more serious although she could not keep her excitement entirely subdued. "To be honestr, I always felt like there was something special in store for me. That I wasn't born to get married and pop out a few kids, or spend my life in a cubicle getting an ulcer. I love the idea of a new KDF. I want to be like you two."
"We'll get started on it," the Dire Wolf put in with a cautionary finger in the air. "But there will be a lot of hurdles. You will be cross-examined by the Teachers. There'll be a baptism of fire in the field. Anyway, tonight we have an agenda to take care of first. I have spent the past few hours doing research. I've learned that officially Megistus is a naturalized citizen of Greek birth, thirty-seven years old. His original name was Mikel Christofilas, formerly an intern at a radiology lab. For the past four years, he has been running his racket, which he calls seminars, all over the US. He's raked in hundred of thousands but probably a lot more in private donations he doesn't claim. That's one reason why the IRS is interested in him. His official residence is a 'learning center' outside San Diego. Megistus usually travels on a tour bus with his personal staff and maybe a dozen roadies following in vans."
"He's definitely a celebrity," Cindy observed. "Somehow, he has managed to avoid any scandals like paternity suits or outright charges of fraud. Personally, I think he pays off anybody who gives him static."
Bane was frowning more than usual. "All this is what the authorities have gathered but I don't buy it. I smell something bad behind a cover story. And that little old man in the robes interests me. I think he could explain everything."
"Your instincts are usually pretty good," said Cindy. "Even if we didn't have Lauren's experience to alert us, I suspect we'd be investigating Megistus sooner or later anyway."
Hearing this, Lauren Reilly had to break in, "So you guys are going to check him out? See what's really going on at his appearances?"
"We are. You're in on this with us," Cindy told her. "The schedule here says Megistus has two more appearances in this area before going on a Midwest tour. At eight o'clock tonight, he'll be up to his tricks just outside Bridgewater, New Jersey."
"There will be three people in that crowd he'll regret letting in," Bane said.
Lauren made a fist and drew her elbow in toward her ribcage in an exultant gesture. "Yes!"
V.
The sky was a black overcast blanket hanging low overhead, with a threat of rain or snow coming. Behind the wheel of the dark blue Ford Mustang, Bane found an empty parking space in the middle of a long row of cars alongside the road. Evidently someone had been dropped off and their ride had then pulled away. The road itself was cluttered with people heading for the tent. Ignoring the angry faces made by another driver, Bane made a three-point U-turn and backed into the spot so that they would be pointing in the direction they would leave in.
"One more rule to remember," he told Lauren. "Always park so you can just jump in and take off. You never know when you'll be chasing someone or being chased."
"Got it," replied the young student with a grin. She was almost visibly shaking with excitement and enthusiasm. Seeing her reaction, Bane felt a melancholy twinge. Has he ever been that young and eager? It seemed he had always been stern and hard, living like a guerilla fighter in a country not his own.
"What's the plan, captain?" she asked, leaning over from the back seat.
"First, we all take a little precaution." He opened a flat metal case to reveal four pairs of flesh-colored noseplugs. "These are Trom-designed filters. They wouldn't be any use against nerve gas or anything that enters through your skin, but we don't expect to face that tonight. Once Megistus begins his song and dance, don't talk and only breathe through these."
Cindy slung a brown leather handbag over one shoulder, carrying her anesthetic dart gun and a few other useful gadgets and weapons. She was already wearing the silk-thin Trom armor under her clothes. With Lauren beside her, the telepath paid the twenty dollar 'donation' for both of them, explaining it would go on her expense account with the KDF. They could only find adjoining seats toward the rear of the tent. Between the body heat of one hundred people and the overhead flood lights, the air was warm and stuffy. Cindy shrugged out of her cardigan and draped it over the back of the metal folding chair.
The next half hour was an excrutiating wait for them, surrounded by enthusiasts of Megistus chatting happily. Cindy watched and listened without joining, taking every detail in, while Lauren quietly experimented with her new powers. It was all so fascinating. The uncertainty and fear that had weighed so heavily on her just that morning had been replaced by pure enthusiasm she had never felt before.
Finally, Megistus made his dramatic appearance. He was wearing the flamboyant outfit often seen in piblicity photos. A bronze-colored breast plate with extended shoulder epaulets that supported a white silk cape. A short skirt of vertical leather strips revealed muscular legs. He seemed perfectly at ease and confident in the rig.
"Good evening, my friends!" he boomed in a deep resonant voice. "Welcome! Welcome to the night your lives change for the better..."
Staying at arm's length behind him were two bruisers in long-sleeved dress shirts and black slacks. In their shadow lurked a small bent figure in heavy coarse robes, its face concealed within a cowl.
Cindy seemed to focus her attention on the small old man behind Megistus. The telepath was obviously lost in deep concentration, so Lauren left her alone for the moment. Instead, she followed the familiar introductory speech Megistus was giving. Word for word, it was identical to his spiel from the night before. His tone was more imperative and intense, as if the costume influenced his demeanour.
"I want you all to breathe as one. Together. Slow breath in, slower breath out..." he intoned.
Cindy and Lauren pretended to go along with it. As they saw the other audience members drop their heads forward, they did the same. The congregation closed their eyes, while Cindy and Lauren watched through the narrowest slits. Soon, Megistus was repeating in a soothing tone, "Sleep, sleep..."
For long breathless moments, the big blond man studied the crowd suspiciously. Finally, using a voice very different from his mellow tone, he barked, "All right, boys. Clean 'em out."
Immediately, a dozen men with canvas bags or satchels began to move through the unaware crowd. They were careful to restrict their robbery, taking ten or twenty collars or a single credit card from each individual but leaving the wallets and purses otherwise unplundered. A bit of jewelry, a quality watch or bracelet might be taken but nothing else from any one victim. Megistus had not been troubled by accusations of robbery because the thefts were limited. The way the victims went home in a blissful cloudy daze and only noticed their loss much later also helped.
As the thieves made their way up and down rows of seated people, one of them came to where Lauren and Cindy were feigned unconsciousness. One of thugs tucked two fingers under the blonde telepath's chin and tilted her chin up. "Hey, some of these pigeons ain't half bad," he muttered. He dropped his hand to slide his palm down the front of her body.
VI.
Instantly, Cindy's arm whipped up to crack her elbow squarely into the center of his face. The man squawked and tumbled backward. The satchel fell from his hand as he stood clutching at a broken nose. The telepath jumped to her feet and whipped a perfect right backfist to the side of the head that spun the thug around and dropped him. Despite her size, Cindy had been training in Kumundu under Teacher Chael for two decades and she connected as hard as a heavyweight boxer could have.
"What the HELL?" shouted Megistus from the front of the tent. "Carl, Joe! Grab her now!"
The thieves rushed toward the disturbance, panicking that the crowd might awaken. Lauren Sable Reilly hesitated as she rose, uncertain what to do, but Cindy had already drawn the anesthetic dart gun and met the attackers calmly. Even as she swerved in evasion from clutching hands, Cindy extended her arm and fired the dart gun. The CO2-powered weapon had no muzzle flash and made only a low single cough with each shot. Most of the time, enemies did not even realize they were being taken out until they started dropping senseless to the ground. Three down. Four. But then one of the thugs lunged at her from behind in a crushing bear hug that pinned her arms to her sides.
Although she had dropped her gun, Cindy was never defenseless. The man who was holding her screamed, released her and clutched at his head with bothh hands. As he stumbled backward and fell heavily over a folding chair, Cindy gave him a satisfied smirk. "Grab a telepath, eh? Live and learn."
The remaining thugs had no idea what she had done. They spread out in a circle around her, one holding a common butcher knife point up and another swinging a carpenter's hammer. She was not intimidated in the least. The little blonde took a breath and drew her full power together, readying to unleash a mental blast that would send them all staggering away with blurred vision and unbearable headaches.
But before she could blast them, the crooks twitched and slapped at themselves before dropping straight down in senseless heaps. Cindy blinked in surprise, then understood. She twisted her head to see Bane striding quickly down the aisle toward her. He ejected the clip from his dart gun, pocketed it and clicked a fresh one into place.
'I thought you would appreciate wrapping this up quickly," he said. "I'm never really satisfied without some punching but you like to just get things over with."
'You guys are just so cool I can't stand it," squeaked Lauren Sable Reilly. "This is great. Now all that's left is tagging Megistus himself."
Bane unfastened his helmet, lifted it off his head and placed it on an empty chair. He had already holstered his dart gun. "Glad we entertain you, Lauren. This case is as good as done now." He started moving toward the wizened little figure in its robe. "Look, grandpa, don't get in the way. Megistus! You had a sweet racket but we closing it down."
The imposing golden-haired man came to meet them, getting protectively in front of the old man. "You are known in the Midnight War. Dire Wolf! Dog of Tel Shai is more like it. Do you realize what you have done?"
"Yes." Bane gestured with a thumb back at the tent entrance. "I stuck a camcorder up there. Your entire operation is on tape. I also confiscated a tank of Grendavil gas you were pumping in here. The Alchemical elements will decay quickly but the narcotic base will be enough for the police lab. Not to mention confessions from some of these goons. There's so much evidence against you, it's not even funny."
Unexpectedly, the tiny old man interrupted. "How rashly you speak. Megistus has survived four hundred years. He is a Master of the Great Art."
"Yeah? Tell us more," Bane said.
"Velkandu is one of the Forbidden Arts revealed at the Corruption ages ago. It is the source of Alchemy and of Fang-shih. I caution you, Megistus is a foe you cannot defeat," piped the withered figure.
"I've heard that before," said the Dire Wolf, moving grimly toward them.
As the old man shrank back, Megistus himself dipped his hand into an inner pocket of his tunic and flung a handful of coarse white dust into Bane's face. Paralyzing subzero cold formed a crust of frost over the Dire Wolf's head. Unable to breathe or see for a moment, Bane clawed at his face as Megistus lunged toward him. The Alchemist grabbed Bane's jacket with one hand and smashed a brutal roundhouse right. That was as far as he got. Even gasping for breath and dazed, Bane was a dangerous opponent. He planted his feet, slapped his opponent's hand away and snapped a sharp left jap that did not clip Megistus across the jaw quite solidly enough. The Alchemist staggered back a few steps, managing to tug something else from his hidden arsenal. Even as Megistus drew back his hand to throw the item, he was an instant too late. Bane's vision had cleared. The Dire Wolf closed the gap so fast he blurred, driving a straight forward punch deep into his enemy's solar plexus. Megistus folded up, dropping to a seated position on the ground and coughing, hugging himself with both arms across his aching chest.
"Not a move out of you, don't even try to get up," the Dire Wolf snapped. "I'm trying not to hurt you too much. For a man four hundred years old, you sure haven't wised up much."
Cindy and Lauren approached, Cindy cradling Bane's helmet in the crook of her arm. "Seems like the old geezer got away," she announced. "You know, the coot in the robe? He must have headed pretty spry for the exit while we were preoccupied."
"No real harm done," Bane said. "We've got more than enough evidence to prosecute on a dozen charges. Unlawful release of a narcotic substance over a public assembly, first of all. We'll see you at the trial, Megistus."
Still seated on the ground, rubbing his sore chest, the man managed to chuckle. "Megistus? I? I am but a humble servant of my great master. My name is Mikel Christofilas."
"What?!"
"Oh, yes. You fools! The old man in the brown robe is long gone by now. He had a car waiting. He is the true master. That was Megistus himself who slipped through your fingers..."
4/28/2000-Rev. 9/1/2017
