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"Bid Yesterday Return"
"Bid Yesterday Return"
4/11-4/12/1982
I.
The woman known as Rook had never been lacking in self-assurance. At thirty, standing five feet seven and slender in build, she was a remarkably gorgeous woman whose mixed Japanese and French parentage had gifted her with delicate expressive features including huge dark eyes and a glossy mane of thick black hair. In fact, she had even more confidence than one might expect. A career outside the law had that effect.
Yet, seated at the far end of that oak table, facing eight stern faces, Rook experienced an uncertainty that was new to her. The only other woman in that room was a petite blonde whose dark blue eyes studied Rook as a judge might. When their eyes met, Rook felt an uneasy crawling sensation in her mind as if thinking of spiders. She had no way of knowing that Cindy Brunner was a gifted telepath and that the unsettling sensation came from having her mind being probed.
Sitting up straight in her plain black dress with minimal make-up or jewelry, Europe's premier cat burglar and retrieval expert got hold of herself. Certainly, she had heard of these KDF members. What dweller in the borders between crime and the supernatural did not know of Khang by now? Or Michael Hawk, the veteran manhunter? But the only person there she had met before sat at the head of the table and regarded her without any of the welcome she had expected.
Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, fixed his pale grey eyes on her coldly and thoughtfully. "Well, team, we have heard Rook's story. Let's have some reactions."
"As I read her, she's telling the truth as she knows it," Michael Hawk began. At sixty, with more grey than brown in his hair, he had a wide weathered face that gave nothing away of his feelings. "I can hear it in her voice. She's trying to hide it but she's terrified and she came here to us hoping to find help."
Next to Hawk, Dr Thaddeus Wright nodded. A Blue Guide, one of the healers of the Midnight War, he was a black man with a neatly trimmed beard and short hair. His dark brown suit with its pale yellow shirt and tan necktie were properly tailored. "I should not reveal my gift to an outsider, but her lifeforce is steady. I believe her."
"As do I," Leonard Slade added next. "Listening her voice and watching her pupis, I must conclude there is only the slightest possibility she is misleading us. I vote we act on her story."
"I agree," rumbled a strange voice that seemed to come from all directions at once. Khang was so bundled up in his flannel pants, oversized trenchcoat, gloves and slouch hat and scarf that nothing of his appearance could be seen. Even seated at the table, the silver giant loomed up over his teammates as if he were standing. "This is the sort of threat our gathering was intended to thwart."
Opposite Khang, Stephen Weaver chuckled. He was lighter-skinned than Ted Wright, younger and lankier and without the heavy sense of duty that the Blue Guide carried like a burden. Weaver had a thick mustache to counteract an admittedly broad nose. "Dang. Well, far be it from Black Angel to question the judgement of all you psychically endowed and deductive genius folks. I'm only a pilot and mechanic with a knack for levitation. I'll go with the consensus. Larry?"
Seated next to Rook, Dr Lawrence Taper kept his face as impassive as he could. "Susceptible as I admittedly am to a winsome countenance and a supple frame, my opinion is not to be taken seriously. No, there is one of us whose judgement will and should carry the day. Cynthia Lee?"
Up at the head of the table, sitting on Bane's right, Cindy gazed out at her friends. Physically tiny, only an inch over five feet tall and not more than a hundred pounds, she possessed to most potent and deft telepathic mind in the Midnight War. "For once, this woman is telling the truth. She may be a professional thief and con artist, but Rook is warning us of the most dangerous threat we have faced so far."
The Dire Wolf rose, leaning forward on stiff arms braced upon the table. "Rook, I've briefed everyone here on how you helped me defeat Karl Eldritch when he got hold of the Dwindle Horn."
"I'm not ALL bad," she said.
"Your career as a high-class jewel thief and grifter is not our concern," Bane continued. "We have our hands full with the Midnight War. Thanks for coming to us. When you heard gossip that Cogitus was about to locate five Zhune relics, you put yourself at some risk to come here."
"She's still at risk," Hawk said. "We've tangled with Cogitus, he's a vindictive old codger. If he learns that the lady here interfered with his plans, her life might end... and not painlessly."
"I've thought of that," admitted Rook. "Maybe an anonymous phone call might have been safer." She raised one elegant eyebrow in an expression that would have not been out of place on a magazine cover. "But in the badlands where I move, there are so many rumors and legends of the knights of Tel Shai, of your Kenneth Dred Foundation. How could I miss a chance to meet you all?"
"And swipe the silverware," Cindy muttered, still fixed a dubious eye on their guest.
Bane raised a dismissing hand at that comment. "Rook, for your safety I want you to remain here until the situation is resolved. This building is as secure as any place in the world. You can stay in one of our guest rooms and fix anything you like in our kitchen. Naturally most of headquarters will be off limits to you, but our Rec Room has a satellite hookup with eight hundred international channels. You won't be bored."
"And I am a prisoner, Jeremy?"
"Not at all. You can stand up and walk out right now if you want to." The grey eyes narrowed. "But remember what you know about Cogitus. Dr Sinclair has been a world-class mastermind for more than forty years. He has a list of victims that goes on for pages."
Again, that beguiling smile she could turn on like a floodlamp. "Point taken. Very well. I will be happy with a salad and some coffee."
Bane turned to face Leonard Slade further down the table. "We are going to divide into pairs and go after the Zhune relics immediately. One of our members will remain here on duty. He'll be here to protect you from attack and to keep you from wandering into rooms you're better off not knowing about, but also to co-ordinate the missions. Len?"
"Understood." The Trom seemed to be a normal Human male in his early thirties, handsome in an olive-skinned Mediterranean way. He was wearing a pair of drab overalls with a few oil stains on the fabric. "My maintenance on the CORBY is complete, the vehicle can be in the air within minutes."
Seeing the quizzical look on Rook's face, Hawk explained, "Our friend here is a Trom. He may look Human but he isn't. He's from a Race of scientific geniuses who've been breeding emotion out of themselves for thousands of years."
"In other words," Cindy couldn't help adding, "Batting your eyelashes and moistening your lips isn't going to get you anywhere with him."
II.
The CORBY had disengaged its rotors and cut in the Trom impulse engines. Close to MACH-1 but staying where vibrations from air resistance would not be damaging, Stephen Weaver handled the combined cyclic/collective stick with easy skill. He had changing into his Black Angel uniform but had left the artificial wings in the compartment behind them.
Sitting in the co-pilot seat to the left, Jeremy Bane frowned out at the darkness beyond the windscreen. "You haven't faced Cogitus, have you?"
"Nope. I read his file though. Quite the character. Herbert Lewis Sinclair, born in 1867 and still alive today because of his medical experiments on himself. One of the worst Mad Scientists in the Midnight War. I saw his photo. His head is twice as big above the eyebrows as a normal person's."
Bane snorted. "Steve, Mad Scientist is not a technical term but I know what you mean. Yeah, he calls himself Cogitus, 'he who thinks.' He's certainly caused more than his share of grief in the past hundred years. What worries me is that somehow he knows about the Zhune relics. And according to Rook, he's supposed to be able to charge them up."
"Really? How's that happen? I thought only Karl Eldritch could do that."
"According to the gossip Rook has been hearing, somehow Cogitus has used immense amounts of electricity to get the Zhune gadgets working. Only for a short time, I gather. And not to the full extent that Eldritch had them at. But enough to be incredibly dangerous."
Weaver's eyes still moved steadily from the view ahead of them to make a circuit around the pastel green and blue light panels which filled the interior of the CORBY's cabin. He didn't turn to look at Bane directly. "Captain, level with me. What do you think of Rook?"
"You can't believe her and you can't trust her," the Dire Wolf answered. "She's been tricking the wealthy out of their fortunes all over Europe. She's an acrobat, a cat burglar, a pickpocket and an accomplice to some big time crooks. But this time, everyone on our team agrees she's telling the truth because it's in her best interests."
"Heh. Cindy sure doesn't like her."
Bane shrugged. "We're all human, Steve. Rook IS attractive, as a teenager she posed for glamour magazines. You can see Cindy resenting her. That's probably all there is to it."
"I suppose." In the faint backglow of the instruments, Weaver's grin was wicked. "I wouldn't mind if she teamed up with us a few times. We could use a shady lady with no moral compass."
"How's our ETA?"
"Yeah, back to business," Weaver sighed. "Three minutes, fifteen seconds. I'm slowing down to two hundred knot calibrated airspeed, and there go the rotors now. We're flying like a helicopter again."
Peering down, they could see every detail of the terrain below them in great clarity but with an eerie green tint. The windscreen used both light amplifiers and a Trom illumination beam. Miles of treetops rushed by below them.
"Len would let us know if the others experienced any difficulties," Bane said. He wore his helmet with the visor up, but its communications system would relay a message from headquarters back in New York. "If the address that Rook got for us doesn't work out, I think we'll hurry to where Ted and Cindy are going. They're closest."
"There's the house of that Midnight War historian, what's his name? Norville Porter? Anyway, quite a lush crib for the hills of Pennsylvania. He must be thirty miles from the nearest village... Where's that car going?"
Bane had leaned forward, also spotting the twin cones of headlights whip away to their right on Highway 44. "Steve, follow it. I have a hunch."
"I've come to trust your hunches," the Black Angel replied as he spun the CORBY on its axis and shot after the speeding car.
"It looked to me like they had just turned off the access road to Porter's house. Stay behind them if you can, Steve."
"We have no external lights and we're silent as a moth," Weaver said. "Even if someone in that car is staring right up, they won't be able to see us."
"Let me try to take some readings." Using the Trom sensors built into the CORBY's nose, Bane studied the image of the car which appeared on the Link he held. The engine and three shapes within the car were yellow blurs, showing they were heat sources. But something was off about the readings. The image flickered. "I think there's a Zhune relic in there," he said. "It's interfering."
"Whoa. Did you see that flash of white light in the back of the car?"
"Yep. We're dealing with Zhune, all right. The road ahead looks clear for a mile at least. Steve, think you can force them into the ditch without causing fatalities?"
"We don't know if maybe they forced Porter to go with them, huh?"
"Yeah, that's why I don't want to wreck the car, just get it off the road."
"Watch," laughed Black Angel. He descended to twenty feet, tilted the CORBY and sped up the rotors dramatically. Between the cloud of dust stirred up and the unexpected hurricane-level winds hitting them, the driver lost control. The car swerved to one side and skidded to a halt in a rut with its nose down and one wheel off the ground.
"You may applaud if you are so inclined," Weaver said.
"Put us down in that open spot over there. We'll be close enough to rush them."
"We could scare them with a burst from the chain guns, captain."
"Not until we're sure that no civilians are with them." Bane waited until the CORBY was fifteen feet above then ground, then unfastened his restraint straps, slid the hatch open beside him and leaped out in the night. He rolled when he hit the road surface, counting on his enhanced healing to prevent injury and hurtled toward the car where the confused gunmen were only then beginning to climb out.
One of the gangsters raised his hand and a blinding flare of white energy lit up the area, too bright for eyes to witness without being dazzled.
As he brought the stealthcopter down, letting its rotors slow by themselves, Stephen Weaver didn't take the minute necessary to fasten his artificial batlike wings to his back. They helped with steering and manuevers, but the levitation power was his own. He dove out through his opened hatch and glided quickly through the air for all the world like a high diver moving parallel to the ground.
That white flash worried him. He thought that Bane would have directly caught whatever effect the Zhune artifact produced. That was the infuriating aspect of dealing with Zhune relics. You never knew what bizarre effects they would cause, often strange transformations that no one had ever thought possible.
But he slowed, lowered his legs and dropped down to land. Bane was standing near the car with the dart gun in his hand and two of Cogitus' men were sprawled unconscious on the ground. The third was still in the driver's seat but with his head and arm drooping out the window, the red-metal Zhune weapon dangling from a limp hand.
"Man, that was quick, Jeremy..." Weaver began but his voice trailed off. Bane looked strangely different. Smaller. Was he imagining it or was his captain suddenly five or six inches shorter than his normal six foot height?
The Dire Wolf turned around and his voice was definitely higher, the voice of a teen who has not entirely passed puberty. "Steve. I guess the Zhune ray affected me."
"Hold still." Taking a pencil flashlight from its clip on his belt, the Black Angel played it on the youthful unlined face which stared back at him from inside the field helmet. "Ah, I don't know how to say this. But, captain, you seem to be about twelve years old."
"I feel weird enough. Is that my voice?!" The preteen Dire Wolf holstered his dart gun. "This won't do. Let's see if we can reverse the effect while there's still a charge in that device."
Despite himself, Weaver snorted then broke out into full laughter. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Jeremy. But you have to admit this isn't the worst. I thought the Zhune gadget would vaporize you or turn you inside out or something. This isn't too bad."
"Easy for you to say," came the squeaky tone. Then Bane caught himself and sighed. "Maybe when I'm hitting middle age, I'll wish that gadget was around to use."
III.
IV.
Moving silently as the shadows around them, Cindy Brunner and Ted Wright appeared inside a nearly empty room thirty feet to each side. Enough twilight came in from the high narrow windows to show nothing but bare walls and floor. Not a scrap of paper or a memo left tacked to a wall remained to show this had once been an office.
Even though they wore the dark field suits, neither Cindy nor Wright had the helmets on but kept them clipped to a hook on the back of their collars. The telepath and the Blue Guide felt that wearing the circuitry-laden helmets with all the communication gear and sensors interfered with their specific abilities. In the gloom, Cindy's dark blonde hair was the brightest object to be seen. Wright, dark as he was and with his black beard concealing a third of his face, was almost impossible to spot.
After a second in which they got their bearings, the two KDF members put their heads close together and whispered. Cindy's telepathy was not as clear or unambiguous as actual speech, and her teammates found that speaking out loud still worked best. "Four Human minds down that way," she said in Wright's ear. "Hard, mean, criminal minds. Men in their forties, following orders they resent."
"Yes," the Blue Guide replied. "I can sense their life force. What's more alarming, this building is shimmering with a power I haven't felt before. Not gralic force. I think it must be the primal atomic power of Zhune relics."
"We're in the right place, then." She placed a hand on his forearm. "We better hurry."
They stepped through the door with its frosted glass panel into a hallway flanked by two other offices. Cindy had drawn her anesthetic dart gun and held it up beside her right cheek as they moved cautiously along. Tapping her shoulder, Wright paused before an unmarked door and tried the handle to find it was locked. He reached into a jacket pocket and drew out the Trom device which extended thin wiry filaments which shaped themselves to fit the inside of the lock and then rotated to open it. He returned the gadget so promptly that it would have seemed to an observer that he had used the proper key.
Sensing no living beings inside the room before him, Ted Wright stepped boldly through the doorway. His healing powers as a Blue Guide were derived from his ability to perceive the flow of gralic lifeforce through people, to find blockages or troubled areas, to speed up or slow down a person's metabolism as needed. Now, it was enough to assure them that the room was empty of living beings.
But both of them were startled by the pulsing aura of raw atomic force about the red metal construct in that room. Erected before them was a waist-high open-sided box on which sat a globe which rotated slowly as if by itself. Even an untrained civilian would have felt the uncanny energy which swirled in that room. To Tel Shai knights with the enhanced awareness that Cindy and Wright shared, it was hypnotic and fascinating. For a few fatal seconds, the forces tapped by ancient Zhune held them spellbound.
Neither of them heard the four gunmen moving through the door they had left open behind them. Too bright for Human vision to endure, white energy flashed silently and both the KDF members staggered from the unexpected jolt. They were dazed but recovered quickly and because they had not been facing the Zhune effect, their eyesight returned to near normal within seconds.
Standing just inside the doorway were the four hirelings of Cogitus. Two of them wore plain dark shirts and trousers, the third was in rough work clothes of flannel shirt and jeans. But it was the leader, clad in a well-fitting business suit complete with tie, who laughed out loud and lowered the Zhune artifact he held in one hand.
"Cogitus told us you troublemakers might show up." The gangster flourished the copper-colored device which fit easily in his grip. It was a ram's horn shape with a lever on the top which slid back and forth for use. Even in the dim light, it shimmered as if taken out of a furnace.
Snapping up her hand which held the dart gun, Cindy Brunner froze in alarm. Her arm was becoming translucent, nearly clear as if made of discolored glass. She felt strange. Drawing a breath took effort. Her eyes met Wright's, and she saw in them no fear but only determination to fight back.
"Fading away, huh?" laughed the thug. He pressed the lever on the device forward half and inch with his thumb and the dart gun clattered to the floor as it fell from a hand not solid enough to retain a grip on it. "The boss explained this gizmo and I think I understand its basic principles. It decreases the attraction between the molecules which make up your bodies. Right now, you two are like ghosts. In a second, you'll disperse all over the place into unrelated subatomic particles. What a kick in the head, heh? Cogitus calls it the Phantomizer."
V.
VI.
VII.
As they strapped themselves to the bench in the compartment behind the cabin, Cindy could not keep the excitement out of her voice. "So there we were, turning into phantoms! Fading away. Getting transparent. We were about to become random molecules drifting through the air."
"Did you die?" asked Weaver with a completely deadpan tone.
"Ha ha, extremely hilarious," replied the little blonde. "No. Ted and I worked together. Whether it was luck or Fate or whatever, we're the two members whose powers work by concentration, on a non-physical level. As long as our minds remained coherent, we had a chance."
"Even so, it was a terrifying moment," Wright put in. There was a tremor in his bass voice that had seldom been heard before. "I have never felt so close to oblivion. Without consciously planning it, I latched onto the lifeforce of the man with the Zhune artifact and slowed the flow down. He weakened and dropped to his knees. But I did not intend to kill him. I only wanted to make him vulnerable."
"For my attack, you understand," said Cindy. "I wasn't as potent as I normally am but Ted brought that goon down to a level where I could grab control of his motor functions. All I wanted was to make his right thumb slide the lever on the Zhune gadget back an inch.. and I did it!"
In the cabin, Bane turned his head back toward his friends. "Nice teamwork. When we curse all our training sessions and rehearsal of contingencies, we have to remember it's for moments like that."
"Things were a snap after that," the telepath boasted. "In a flash, I was solid again. I dove to the floor, rolled over and dropped the three gunmen with anesthetic darts before their thick heads could process what had happened."
"And I rushed to get the Zhune relic away from the leader." Ted Wright grinned, the dramatic flash of perfect teeth in a dark face encircled by a short beard. "With that in our possession and the henchmen unconscious, all we had to do was dismantle the Zhune machinery and load it into the van, then return to headquarters."
"It wasn't THAT easy," grumbled Cindy. "Some of that crap weighed a ton. My shoulders are gonna be sore. But anyway, we got back to our building just as the rest of you were getting ready to take off in this bird."
"Estimated arrival at destination, six minutes," Weaver announced from the pilot seat.
"Thanks, Steve," Bane replied. "Everyone is on point for immediate combat."
"Wait, wait, my compardres, you have yet to be enlightened by what means Mike and I liberated our persons from the nefarious Loom Spray," Larry Taper began. "Mr Hawk, care to elucidate?"
"Hell no," replied the manhunter. "As if I could ever talk as flowery as you. Let 'em have it, Larry."
"False modesty does not become me," Taper continued blithely. "Mike and I were tightly encircled from nostrils to toes by bands of whatever vile material the Loom Spray had woven around us. Our arms were pinned to our sides, our legs stuck together so that we both lost our dignity by falling directly on our countenances. All these setbacks transpired while that unappealing thief who goes by the cognomen Cadmus laughed in a decidely unsavory manner."
"Jeez, Larry, now is no time to play master storyteller. Just tell us what happened," said Cindy.
"Pfui. Fortuitously Mike had counselled me to remain in my civilian mufti so as to lure our enemy into concluding he was facing two relatively normal Mortal Men. So he did. As he mocked us, I summoned the armor and weapons of the Silver Skull. That is an edict of Jordyn Himself, as you all recall, and few forces can resist the will of the Regent. Instantly, I was wearing the leather uniform and breastplate, helmet and other accoutrements of my role. Their appearance snapped the material off me, I was free and I immediately skewered Cadmus with my sword."
"Sad to say, I was no help," Hawk put in. "I lay on the ground like a caterpillar in its cocoon until Larry cut me loose."
"Say not so," Taper said. "Why did you advise me not to don the armor before confronting that riff-raff with his Zhune antiquarie? What thought led you to that counsel?"
"Jest basic strategy," Michael Hawk replied, frowning so the weatherbeaten face sagged. "It's usually a good idea to keep an ace up your sleeve for the right moment."
"If I had been garbed in my usual dashing if flamboyant wardrobe, the Loom Spray would have held me helpless as well." Taper grinned. "Methinks you offered the most auspicious advice possible."
"So you seem to say," Michael Hawk admitted. "Jeremy, do we have any idea what this final weapons might be?"
"Only the name," said their captain from the cabin. "According to Rook, its name translates into 'Bid Yesterday Return.'"
"Well, that's evocative as any phrase to which a Romantic poet might aspire," Taper laughed, "But too vague to assist us in preparations to encounter it."
"Cogitus has saved it for himself," Bane told his team. "So it has to be the most dangerous of the five relics."
VIII.
They had forgotten the blinding flash of primal atomic energy which had flooded over them. To Khang, he was Mark Drum again, fully flesh and blood, sitting next to the fireplace in his home with his pregnant wife Sonia, listening to her humming a melancholy Russian folk song.
Cindy Brunner was ten, before her powers manifested, when summer lasted forever and playing in the back yard with her older sister Lizbeth was all she could ask for. Soon, she knew, their Mom would call from the back door that Dad was home and lamp chops were waiting for everyone.
For Jeremy Bane, Kenneth Dred was once again sitting behind the familiar desk in the reception room beneath that hand-drawn world map. Not overdoing it, not stressing his concern, Dred simply asked if Bane had taken time to eat that day. The first person he could remember who ever showed genuine interest in his well-being without trying to use him... Bane had not recognized what being happy was when he first felt it.
Michael Hawk was seated at a cafe in San Diego on a cool Autumn evening, waiting until the waiter cleared away their plates and he was alone with Donna Worth. Five years of working together, first with her as his legal counsel, then as his secretary, then fully equal partner.. and then something more. Before he could find the words, Donna smiled and said she was all prepared to move into his penthouse that weekend. For the first time since childhood, warm tears of joy ran down that leathery face.
Larry Taper raced through the ruins of collapsed castles and past battlefields where the dead and dying were scattered thickly. He was leading a group of prisoners he had freed from the dungeons of Wu Lung, and safety was within sight with the sailing ships that were tied up at the Harbor of Dreadful Night. It had been his first adventure as the Silver Skull, the first time he had lived out his childhood dreams of swashbuckling heroism, and he laughed out loud within the gleaming helmet.
For Stephen Weaver, it was the summer he had turned thirteen, when his power of flight had manifested. Unbelieving at first, he soon reveled in it. Now, late at night, when his family slept, the young boy dove out his open window and rose straight up into the crisp air, faster than an eagle. He swooped and spun and raced low over the rooftops. With great reluctance, seeing the dawn starting to increase the odds of being spotted by someone, Stephen had plunged back into his room and tumbled into bed to grab a few hours of sleep. He had found a secret greater than he could tell anyone, a freedom and exhilaration nothing else in life would compare with.
Only Ted Wright was trapped in a nightmare.
He had opened his practice after completing his internship at Metro General and immediately lost a patient. A young boy. No one thought it was his fault except he himself but he knew it was his misjudgement. Everything collapsed like a house of cards when a door slams. He closed his practice, he lost his home and woman. Stricken, he wandered out in the darkness. The bottle and the pipe tried to claim him. A whole year became nothing but a vague blur of self-hatred and self-pity.
Even against the 'Bid Yesterday Return' spell of the Zhune artifact, deep strength stirred in Wright's mind. He had turned around. He had studied at Tel Shai, had mastered Kerwandu the healing art under Teacher Kerlaw, and he had become the first Blue Guide in decades. Wright had returned to the world more dedicated and more committed than ever before. He had become a founding member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation as he still was.
The vision seething in his head of blind drunkeness and despair was NOT who he was. He had lifted himself above that. With a roar he could not hear, the Blue Guide shook his head violently and shivered. The world of sharp edges and hard angles returned from the haze of illusion.
There they were in the brightly-lit complex where the stupefied Cogitus gaped at seeing Wright snap out of it. More angry than he had been in years, the Blue Guide fastened onto the elderly mastermind's lifeforce and turned it down as one might turn down a gas flame. Rigid within his hard mechanized armor, Cogitus clattered to the floor, still alive. Even in his rage, Wright did not snuff the old scientist's life out completely. He would not kill except in the most extreme circumstances.
Chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath, Ted Wright sagged down onto a bench. The bittersweet memories were overwhelming. Teacher Kerlaw had advised him many times that Wright was a man of the West who might never find true peace of mind, but that his spirit would rise as best it could. After a few more seconds, he got his bearings and watched his teammates.
They were standing where they had been when the Zhune relic had wrapped them in its illusions. Jeremy Bane was first to recover. He abruptly twitched and spun around to ward off any attack. Those grey eyes came into focus and he scowled as understanding sank in.
"It's... like one of those dreams where you wake up and you're not sure for a moment if it happened or not," he said to Wright. The others were blinking, rubbing their eyes, coming back to reality.
"You understand the spell we were under?" asked Wright. He forced himself up onto his feet and crossed over to place a hand on the Dire Wolf's shoulder.
"I was reliving a good time in my life," Bane said quietly.
"Yeah, me too," Stephen Weaver said as he wiped his damp eyes. "When I was a kid. My family home. I went back there."
Cindy Brunner sniffled openly, but she was not the only one to be so upset. "So real. Me and Lizbeth playing tag as the fireflies came out. The most perfect afternoon ever."
"I could understand if you guys wanted to stay in those delusions," Wright said. "To never return to all the responsibilities and hard decisions of today."
It was the pragmatic Michael Hawk who broke the emotional moment by clearing his throat. "Sorry. Appears to me that we have work to do. Getting all these damn Zhune gizmos stored safely away, taking this geezer into custody. Plenty on our plate. We can aways reminisce."
4/11-4/12/1982
I.
The woman known as Rook had never been lacking in self-assurance. At thirty, standing five feet seven and slender in build, she was a remarkably gorgeous woman whose mixed Japanese and French parentage had gifted her with delicate expressive features including huge dark eyes and a glossy mane of thick black hair. In fact, she had even more confidence than one might expect. A career outside the law had that effect.
Yet, seated at the far end of that oak table, facing eight stern faces, Rook experienced an uncertainty that was new to her. The only other woman in that room was a petite blonde whose dark blue eyes studied Rook as a judge might. When their eyes met, Rook felt an uneasy crawling sensation in her mind as if thinking of spiders. She had no way of knowing that Cindy Brunner was a gifted telepath and that the unsettling sensation came from having her mind being probed.
Sitting up straight in her plain black dress with minimal make-up or jewelry, Europe's premier cat burglar and retrieval expert got hold of herself. Certainly, she had heard of these KDF members. What dweller in the borders between crime and the supernatural did not know of Khang by now? Or Michael Hawk, the veteran manhunter? But the only person there she had met before sat at the head of the table and regarded her without any of the welcome she had expected.
Jeremy Bane, the Dire Wolf, fixed his pale grey eyes on her coldly and thoughtfully. "Well, team, we have heard Rook's story. Let's have some reactions."
"As I read her, she's telling the truth as she knows it," Michael Hawk began. At sixty, with more grey than brown in his hair, he had a wide weathered face that gave nothing away of his feelings. "I can hear it in her voice. She's trying to hide it but she's terrified and she came here to us hoping to find help."
Next to Hawk, Dr Thaddeus Wright nodded. A Blue Guide, one of the healers of the Midnight War, he was a black man with a neatly trimmed beard and short hair. His dark brown suit with its pale yellow shirt and tan necktie were properly tailored. "I should not reveal my gift to an outsider, but her lifeforce is steady. I believe her."
"As do I," Leonard Slade added next. "Listening her voice and watching her pupis, I must conclude there is only the slightest possibility she is misleading us. I vote we act on her story."
"I agree," rumbled a strange voice that seemed to come from all directions at once. Khang was so bundled up in his flannel pants, oversized trenchcoat, gloves and slouch hat and scarf that nothing of his appearance could be seen. Even seated at the table, the silver giant loomed up over his teammates as if he were standing. "This is the sort of threat our gathering was intended to thwart."
Opposite Khang, Stephen Weaver chuckled. He was lighter-skinned than Ted Wright, younger and lankier and without the heavy sense of duty that the Blue Guide carried like a burden. Weaver had a thick mustache to counteract an admittedly broad nose. "Dang. Well, far be it from Black Angel to question the judgement of all you psychically endowed and deductive genius folks. I'm only a pilot and mechanic with a knack for levitation. I'll go with the consensus. Larry?"
Seated next to Rook, Dr Lawrence Taper kept his face as impassive as he could. "Susceptible as I admittedly am to a winsome countenance and a supple frame, my opinion is not to be taken seriously. No, there is one of us whose judgement will and should carry the day. Cynthia Lee?"
Up at the head of the table, sitting on Bane's right, Cindy gazed out at her friends. Physically tiny, only an inch over five feet tall and not more than a hundred pounds, she possessed to most potent and deft telepathic mind in the Midnight War. "For once, this woman is telling the truth. She may be a professional thief and con artist, but Rook is warning us of the most dangerous threat we have faced so far."
The Dire Wolf rose, leaning forward on stiff arms braced upon the table. "Rook, I've briefed everyone here on how you helped me defeat Karl Eldritch when he got hold of the Dwindle Horn."
"I'm not ALL bad," she said.
"Your career as a high-class jewel thief and grifter is not our concern," Bane continued. "We have our hands full with the Midnight War. Thanks for coming to us. When you heard gossip that Cogitus was about to locate five Zhune relics, you put yourself at some risk to come here."
"She's still at risk," Hawk said. "We've tangled with Cogitus, he's a vindictive old codger. If he learns that the lady here interfered with his plans, her life might end... and not painlessly."
"I've thought of that," admitted Rook. "Maybe an anonymous phone call might have been safer." She raised one elegant eyebrow in an expression that would have not been out of place on a magazine cover. "But in the badlands where I move, there are so many rumors and legends of the knights of Tel Shai, of your Kenneth Dred Foundation. How could I miss a chance to meet you all?"
"And swipe the silverware," Cindy muttered, still fixed a dubious eye on their guest.
Bane raised a dismissing hand at that comment. "Rook, for your safety I want you to remain here until the situation is resolved. This building is as secure as any place in the world. You can stay in one of our guest rooms and fix anything you like in our kitchen. Naturally most of headquarters will be off limits to you, but our Rec Room has a satellite hookup with eight hundred international channels. You won't be bored."
"And I am a prisoner, Jeremy?"
"Not at all. You can stand up and walk out right now if you want to." The grey eyes narrowed. "But remember what you know about Cogitus. Dr Sinclair has been a world-class mastermind for more than forty years. He has a list of victims that goes on for pages."
Again, that beguiling smile she could turn on like a floodlamp. "Point taken. Very well. I will be happy with a salad and some coffee."
Bane turned to face Leonard Slade further down the table. "We are going to divide into pairs and go after the Zhune relics immediately. One of our members will remain here on duty. He'll be here to protect you from attack and to keep you from wandering into rooms you're better off not knowing about, but also to co-ordinate the missions. Len?"
"Understood." The Trom seemed to be a normal Human male in his early thirties, handsome in an olive-skinned Mediterranean way. He was wearing a pair of drab overalls with a few oil stains on the fabric. "My maintenance on the CORBY is complete, the vehicle can be in the air within minutes."
Seeing the quizzical look on Rook's face, Hawk explained, "Our friend here is a Trom. He may look Human but he isn't. He's from a Race of scientific geniuses who've been breeding emotion out of themselves for thousands of years."
"In other words," Cindy couldn't help adding, "Batting your eyelashes and moistening your lips isn't going to get you anywhere with him."
II.
The CORBY had disengaged its rotors and cut in the Trom impulse engines. Close to MACH-1 but staying where vibrations from air resistance would not be damaging, Stephen Weaver handled the combined cyclic/collective stick with easy skill. He had changing into his Black Angel uniform but had left the artificial wings in the compartment behind them.
Sitting in the co-pilot seat to the left, Jeremy Bane frowned out at the darkness beyond the windscreen. "You haven't faced Cogitus, have you?"
"Nope. I read his file though. Quite the character. Herbert Lewis Sinclair, born in 1867 and still alive today because of his medical experiments on himself. One of the worst Mad Scientists in the Midnight War. I saw his photo. His head is twice as big above the eyebrows as a normal person's."
Bane snorted. "Steve, Mad Scientist is not a technical term but I know what you mean. Yeah, he calls himself Cogitus, 'he who thinks.' He's certainly caused more than his share of grief in the past hundred years. What worries me is that somehow he knows about the Zhune relics. And according to Rook, he's supposed to be able to charge them up."
"Really? How's that happen? I thought only Karl Eldritch could do that."
"According to the gossip Rook has been hearing, somehow Cogitus has used immense amounts of electricity to get the Zhune gadgets working. Only for a short time, I gather. And not to the full extent that Eldritch had them at. But enough to be incredibly dangerous."
Weaver's eyes still moved steadily from the view ahead of them to make a circuit around the pastel green and blue light panels which filled the interior of the CORBY's cabin. He didn't turn to look at Bane directly. "Captain, level with me. What do you think of Rook?"
"You can't believe her and you can't trust her," the Dire Wolf answered. "She's been tricking the wealthy out of their fortunes all over Europe. She's an acrobat, a cat burglar, a pickpocket and an accomplice to some big time crooks. But this time, everyone on our team agrees she's telling the truth because it's in her best interests."
"Heh. Cindy sure doesn't like her."
Bane shrugged. "We're all human, Steve. Rook IS attractive, as a teenager she posed for glamour magazines. You can see Cindy resenting her. That's probably all there is to it."
"I suppose." In the faint backglow of the instruments, Weaver's grin was wicked. "I wouldn't mind if she teamed up with us a few times. We could use a shady lady with no moral compass."
"How's our ETA?"
"Yeah, back to business," Weaver sighed. "Three minutes, fifteen seconds. I'm slowing down to two hundred knot calibrated airspeed, and there go the rotors now. We're flying like a helicopter again."
Peering down, they could see every detail of the terrain below them in great clarity but with an eerie green tint. The windscreen used both light amplifiers and a Trom illumination beam. Miles of treetops rushed by below them.
"Len would let us know if the others experienced any difficulties," Bane said. He wore his helmet with the visor up, but its communications system would relay a message from headquarters back in New York. "If the address that Rook got for us doesn't work out, I think we'll hurry to where Ted and Cindy are going. They're closest."
"There's the house of that Midnight War historian, what's his name? Norville Porter? Anyway, quite a lush crib for the hills of Pennsylvania. He must be thirty miles from the nearest village... Where's that car going?"
Bane had leaned forward, also spotting the twin cones of headlights whip away to their right on Highway 44. "Steve, follow it. I have a hunch."
"I've come to trust your hunches," the Black Angel replied as he spun the CORBY on its axis and shot after the speeding car.
"It looked to me like they had just turned off the access road to Porter's house. Stay behind them if you can, Steve."
"We have no external lights and we're silent as a moth," Weaver said. "Even if someone in that car is staring right up, they won't be able to see us."
"Let me try to take some readings." Using the Trom sensors built into the CORBY's nose, Bane studied the image of the car which appeared on the Link he held. The engine and three shapes within the car were yellow blurs, showing they were heat sources. But something was off about the readings. The image flickered. "I think there's a Zhune relic in there," he said. "It's interfering."
"Whoa. Did you see that flash of white light in the back of the car?"
"Yep. We're dealing with Zhune, all right. The road ahead looks clear for a mile at least. Steve, think you can force them into the ditch without causing fatalities?"
"We don't know if maybe they forced Porter to go with them, huh?"
"Yeah, that's why I don't want to wreck the car, just get it off the road."
"Watch," laughed Black Angel. He descended to twenty feet, tilted the CORBY and sped up the rotors dramatically. Between the cloud of dust stirred up and the unexpected hurricane-level winds hitting them, the driver lost control. The car swerved to one side and skidded to a halt in a rut with its nose down and one wheel off the ground.
"You may applaud if you are so inclined," Weaver said.
"Put us down in that open spot over there. We'll be close enough to rush them."
"We could scare them with a burst from the chain guns, captain."
"Not until we're sure that no civilians are with them." Bane waited until the CORBY was fifteen feet above then ground, then unfastened his restraint straps, slid the hatch open beside him and leaped out in the night. He rolled when he hit the road surface, counting on his enhanced healing to prevent injury and hurtled toward the car where the confused gunmen were only then beginning to climb out.
One of the gangsters raised his hand and a blinding flare of white energy lit up the area, too bright for eyes to witness without being dazzled.
As he brought the stealthcopter down, letting its rotors slow by themselves, Stephen Weaver didn't take the minute necessary to fasten his artificial batlike wings to his back. They helped with steering and manuevers, but the levitation power was his own. He dove out through his opened hatch and glided quickly through the air for all the world like a high diver moving parallel to the ground.
That white flash worried him. He thought that Bane would have directly caught whatever effect the Zhune artifact produced. That was the infuriating aspect of dealing with Zhune relics. You never knew what bizarre effects they would cause, often strange transformations that no one had ever thought possible.
But he slowed, lowered his legs and dropped down to land. Bane was standing near the car with the dart gun in his hand and two of Cogitus' men were sprawled unconscious on the ground. The third was still in the driver's seat but with his head and arm drooping out the window, the red-metal Zhune weapon dangling from a limp hand.
"Man, that was quick, Jeremy..." Weaver began but his voice trailed off. Bane looked strangely different. Smaller. Was he imagining it or was his captain suddenly five or six inches shorter than his normal six foot height?
The Dire Wolf turned around and his voice was definitely higher, the voice of a teen who has not entirely passed puberty. "Steve. I guess the Zhune ray affected me."
"Hold still." Taking a pencil flashlight from its clip on his belt, the Black Angel played it on the youthful unlined face which stared back at him from inside the field helmet. "Ah, I don't know how to say this. But, captain, you seem to be about twelve years old."
"I feel weird enough. Is that my voice?!" The preteen Dire Wolf holstered his dart gun. "This won't do. Let's see if we can reverse the effect while there's still a charge in that device."
Despite himself, Weaver snorted then broke out into full laughter. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Jeremy. But you have to admit this isn't the worst. I thought the Zhune gadget would vaporize you or turn you inside out or something. This isn't too bad."
"Easy for you to say," came the squeaky tone. Then Bane caught himself and sighed. "Maybe when I'm hitting middle age, I'll wish that gadget was around to use."
III.
IV.
Moving silently as the shadows around them, Cindy Brunner and Ted Wright appeared inside a nearly empty room thirty feet to each side. Enough twilight came in from the high narrow windows to show nothing but bare walls and floor. Not a scrap of paper or a memo left tacked to a wall remained to show this had once been an office.
Even though they wore the dark field suits, neither Cindy nor Wright had the helmets on but kept them clipped to a hook on the back of their collars. The telepath and the Blue Guide felt that wearing the circuitry-laden helmets with all the communication gear and sensors interfered with their specific abilities. In the gloom, Cindy's dark blonde hair was the brightest object to be seen. Wright, dark as he was and with his black beard concealing a third of his face, was almost impossible to spot.
After a second in which they got their bearings, the two KDF members put their heads close together and whispered. Cindy's telepathy was not as clear or unambiguous as actual speech, and her teammates found that speaking out loud still worked best. "Four Human minds down that way," she said in Wright's ear. "Hard, mean, criminal minds. Men in their forties, following orders they resent."
"Yes," the Blue Guide replied. "I can sense their life force. What's more alarming, this building is shimmering with a power I haven't felt before. Not gralic force. I think it must be the primal atomic power of Zhune relics."
"We're in the right place, then." She placed a hand on his forearm. "We better hurry."
They stepped through the door with its frosted glass panel into a hallway flanked by two other offices. Cindy had drawn her anesthetic dart gun and held it up beside her right cheek as they moved cautiously along. Tapping her shoulder, Wright paused before an unmarked door and tried the handle to find it was locked. He reached into a jacket pocket and drew out the Trom device which extended thin wiry filaments which shaped themselves to fit the inside of the lock and then rotated to open it. He returned the gadget so promptly that it would have seemed to an observer that he had used the proper key.
Sensing no living beings inside the room before him, Ted Wright stepped boldly through the doorway. His healing powers as a Blue Guide were derived from his ability to perceive the flow of gralic lifeforce through people, to find blockages or troubled areas, to speed up or slow down a person's metabolism as needed. Now, it was enough to assure them that the room was empty of living beings.
But both of them were startled by the pulsing aura of raw atomic force about the red metal construct in that room. Erected before them was a waist-high open-sided box on which sat a globe which rotated slowly as if by itself. Even an untrained civilian would have felt the uncanny energy which swirled in that room. To Tel Shai knights with the enhanced awareness that Cindy and Wright shared, it was hypnotic and fascinating. For a few fatal seconds, the forces tapped by ancient Zhune held them spellbound.
Neither of them heard the four gunmen moving through the door they had left open behind them. Too bright for Human vision to endure, white energy flashed silently and both the KDF members staggered from the unexpected jolt. They were dazed but recovered quickly and because they had not been facing the Zhune effect, their eyesight returned to near normal within seconds.
Standing just inside the doorway were the four hirelings of Cogitus. Two of them wore plain dark shirts and trousers, the third was in rough work clothes of flannel shirt and jeans. But it was the leader, clad in a well-fitting business suit complete with tie, who laughed out loud and lowered the Zhune artifact he held in one hand.
"Cogitus told us you troublemakers might show up." The gangster flourished the copper-colored device which fit easily in his grip. It was a ram's horn shape with a lever on the top which slid back and forth for use. Even in the dim light, it shimmered as if taken out of a furnace.
Snapping up her hand which held the dart gun, Cindy Brunner froze in alarm. Her arm was becoming translucent, nearly clear as if made of discolored glass. She felt strange. Drawing a breath took effort. Her eyes met Wright's, and she saw in them no fear but only determination to fight back.
"Fading away, huh?" laughed the thug. He pressed the lever on the device forward half and inch with his thumb and the dart gun clattered to the floor as it fell from a hand not solid enough to retain a grip on it. "The boss explained this gizmo and I think I understand its basic principles. It decreases the attraction between the molecules which make up your bodies. Right now, you two are like ghosts. In a second, you'll disperse all over the place into unrelated subatomic particles. What a kick in the head, heh? Cogitus calls it the Phantomizer."
V.
VI.
VII.
As they strapped themselves to the bench in the compartment behind the cabin, Cindy could not keep the excitement out of her voice. "So there we were, turning into phantoms! Fading away. Getting transparent. We were about to become random molecules drifting through the air."
"Did you die?" asked Weaver with a completely deadpan tone.
"Ha ha, extremely hilarious," replied the little blonde. "No. Ted and I worked together. Whether it was luck or Fate or whatever, we're the two members whose powers work by concentration, on a non-physical level. As long as our minds remained coherent, we had a chance."
"Even so, it was a terrifying moment," Wright put in. There was a tremor in his bass voice that had seldom been heard before. "I have never felt so close to oblivion. Without consciously planning it, I latched onto the lifeforce of the man with the Zhune artifact and slowed the flow down. He weakened and dropped to his knees. But I did not intend to kill him. I only wanted to make him vulnerable."
"For my attack, you understand," said Cindy. "I wasn't as potent as I normally am but Ted brought that goon down to a level where I could grab control of his motor functions. All I wanted was to make his right thumb slide the lever on the Zhune gadget back an inch.. and I did it!"
In the cabin, Bane turned his head back toward his friends. "Nice teamwork. When we curse all our training sessions and rehearsal of contingencies, we have to remember it's for moments like that."
"Things were a snap after that," the telepath boasted. "In a flash, I was solid again. I dove to the floor, rolled over and dropped the three gunmen with anesthetic darts before their thick heads could process what had happened."
"And I rushed to get the Zhune relic away from the leader." Ted Wright grinned, the dramatic flash of perfect teeth in a dark face encircled by a short beard. "With that in our possession and the henchmen unconscious, all we had to do was dismantle the Zhune machinery and load it into the van, then return to headquarters."
"It wasn't THAT easy," grumbled Cindy. "Some of that crap weighed a ton. My shoulders are gonna be sore. But anyway, we got back to our building just as the rest of you were getting ready to take off in this bird."
"Estimated arrival at destination, six minutes," Weaver announced from the pilot seat.
"Thanks, Steve," Bane replied. "Everyone is on point for immediate combat."
"Wait, wait, my compardres, you have yet to be enlightened by what means Mike and I liberated our persons from the nefarious Loom Spray," Larry Taper began. "Mr Hawk, care to elucidate?"
"Hell no," replied the manhunter. "As if I could ever talk as flowery as you. Let 'em have it, Larry."
"False modesty does not become me," Taper continued blithely. "Mike and I were tightly encircled from nostrils to toes by bands of whatever vile material the Loom Spray had woven around us. Our arms were pinned to our sides, our legs stuck together so that we both lost our dignity by falling directly on our countenances. All these setbacks transpired while that unappealing thief who goes by the cognomen Cadmus laughed in a decidely unsavory manner."
"Jeez, Larry, now is no time to play master storyteller. Just tell us what happened," said Cindy.
"Pfui. Fortuitously Mike had counselled me to remain in my civilian mufti so as to lure our enemy into concluding he was facing two relatively normal Mortal Men. So he did. As he mocked us, I summoned the armor and weapons of the Silver Skull. That is an edict of Jordyn Himself, as you all recall, and few forces can resist the will of the Regent. Instantly, I was wearing the leather uniform and breastplate, helmet and other accoutrements of my role. Their appearance snapped the material off me, I was free and I immediately skewered Cadmus with my sword."
"Sad to say, I was no help," Hawk put in. "I lay on the ground like a caterpillar in its cocoon until Larry cut me loose."
"Say not so," Taper said. "Why did you advise me not to don the armor before confronting that riff-raff with his Zhune antiquarie? What thought led you to that counsel?"
"Jest basic strategy," Michael Hawk replied, frowning so the weatherbeaten face sagged. "It's usually a good idea to keep an ace up your sleeve for the right moment."
"If I had been garbed in my usual dashing if flamboyant wardrobe, the Loom Spray would have held me helpless as well." Taper grinned. "Methinks you offered the most auspicious advice possible."
"So you seem to say," Michael Hawk admitted. "Jeremy, do we have any idea what this final weapons might be?"
"Only the name," said their captain from the cabin. "According to Rook, its name translates into 'Bid Yesterday Return.'"
"Well, that's evocative as any phrase to which a Romantic poet might aspire," Taper laughed, "But too vague to assist us in preparations to encounter it."
"Cogitus has saved it for himself," Bane told his team. "So it has to be the most dangerous of the five relics."
VIII.
They had forgotten the blinding flash of primal atomic energy which had flooded over them. To Khang, he was Mark Drum again, fully flesh and blood, sitting next to the fireplace in his home with his pregnant wife Sonia, listening to her humming a melancholy Russian folk song.
Cindy Brunner was ten, before her powers manifested, when summer lasted forever and playing in the back yard with her older sister Lizbeth was all she could ask for. Soon, she knew, their Mom would call from the back door that Dad was home and lamp chops were waiting for everyone.
For Jeremy Bane, Kenneth Dred was once again sitting behind the familiar desk in the reception room beneath that hand-drawn world map. Not overdoing it, not stressing his concern, Dred simply asked if Bane had taken time to eat that day. The first person he could remember who ever showed genuine interest in his well-being without trying to use him... Bane had not recognized what being happy was when he first felt it.
Michael Hawk was seated at a cafe in San Diego on a cool Autumn evening, waiting until the waiter cleared away their plates and he was alone with Donna Worth. Five years of working together, first with her as his legal counsel, then as his secretary, then fully equal partner.. and then something more. Before he could find the words, Donna smiled and said she was all prepared to move into his penthouse that weekend. For the first time since childhood, warm tears of joy ran down that leathery face.
Larry Taper raced through the ruins of collapsed castles and past battlefields where the dead and dying were scattered thickly. He was leading a group of prisoners he had freed from the dungeons of Wu Lung, and safety was within sight with the sailing ships that were tied up at the Harbor of Dreadful Night. It had been his first adventure as the Silver Skull, the first time he had lived out his childhood dreams of swashbuckling heroism, and he laughed out loud within the gleaming helmet.
For Stephen Weaver, it was the summer he had turned thirteen, when his power of flight had manifested. Unbelieving at first, he soon reveled in it. Now, late at night, when his family slept, the young boy dove out his open window and rose straight up into the crisp air, faster than an eagle. He swooped and spun and raced low over the rooftops. With great reluctance, seeing the dawn starting to increase the odds of being spotted by someone, Stephen had plunged back into his room and tumbled into bed to grab a few hours of sleep. He had found a secret greater than he could tell anyone, a freedom and exhilaration nothing else in life would compare with.
Only Ted Wright was trapped in a nightmare.
He had opened his practice after completing his internship at Metro General and immediately lost a patient. A young boy. No one thought it was his fault except he himself but he knew it was his misjudgement. Everything collapsed like a house of cards when a door slams. He closed his practice, he lost his home and woman. Stricken, he wandered out in the darkness. The bottle and the pipe tried to claim him. A whole year became nothing but a vague blur of self-hatred and self-pity.
Even against the 'Bid Yesterday Return' spell of the Zhune artifact, deep strength stirred in Wright's mind. He had turned around. He had studied at Tel Shai, had mastered Kerwandu the healing art under Teacher Kerlaw, and he had become the first Blue Guide in decades. Wright had returned to the world more dedicated and more committed than ever before. He had become a founding member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation as he still was.
The vision seething in his head of blind drunkeness and despair was NOT who he was. He had lifted himself above that. With a roar he could not hear, the Blue Guide shook his head violently and shivered. The world of sharp edges and hard angles returned from the haze of illusion.
There they were in the brightly-lit complex where the stupefied Cogitus gaped at seeing Wright snap out of it. More angry than he had been in years, the Blue Guide fastened onto the elderly mastermind's lifeforce and turned it down as one might turn down a gas flame. Rigid within his hard mechanized armor, Cogitus clattered to the floor, still alive. Even in his rage, Wright did not snuff the old scientist's life out completely. He would not kill except in the most extreme circumstances.
Chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath, Ted Wright sagged down onto a bench. The bittersweet memories were overwhelming. Teacher Kerlaw had advised him many times that Wright was a man of the West who might never find true peace of mind, but that his spirit would rise as best it could. After a few more seconds, he got his bearings and watched his teammates.
They were standing where they had been when the Zhune relic had wrapped them in its illusions. Jeremy Bane was first to recover. He abruptly twitched and spun around to ward off any attack. Those grey eyes came into focus and he scowled as understanding sank in.
"It's... like one of those dreams where you wake up and you're not sure for a moment if it happened or not," he said to Wright. The others were blinking, rubbing their eyes, coming back to reality.
"You understand the spell we were under?" asked Wright. He forced himself up onto his feet and crossed over to place a hand on the Dire Wolf's shoulder.
"I was reliving a good time in my life," Bane said quietly.
"Yeah, me too," Stephen Weaver said as he wiped his damp eyes. "When I was a kid. My family home. I went back there."
Cindy Brunner sniffled openly, but she was not the only one to be so upset. "So real. Me and Lizbeth playing tag as the fireflies came out. The most perfect afternoon ever."
"I could understand if you guys wanted to stay in those delusions," Wright said. "To never return to all the responsibilities and hard decisions of today."
It was the pragmatic Michael Hawk who broke the emotional moment by clearing his throat. "Sorry. Appears to me that we have work to do. Getting all these damn Zhune gizmos stored safely away, taking this geezer into custody. Plenty on our plate. We can aways reminisce."