"Wasting Away On WinsomeBerries
May. 21st, 2022 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Wasting Away On WinsomeBerries"
9/30/2012
I.
He was running a few minutes late that morning after being delayed by some phone calls. At twelve minutes past nine, Jeremy Bane crossed Third Avenue at 44th Street and rushed through the double glass doors which opened automatically as he neared them. Before he could pause to get his mail from the bank of tenant boxes on the wall to his left, the Dire Wolf spotted a glimpse of movement ahead that instantly put him on the alert.
Directly ahead of him was the wide staircase leading up to the second floor. The side of that staircase to his left made a narrow hallway with the north wall, and at the end of this short corridor was a metal exit sign. Just to the left of that sign was a bench and wooden door with a bronze plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Stretching long legs out before him on that bench, arms folded, was a tall thin man in a brown business suit.
The Dire Wolf had never seen his visitor before. In an instant, decades of Kumundu training took over and he evaluated the man's possible threat status to find it low. The man was tall enough, two inches over six feet, but thin at no more than one hundred and fifty-five pounds. Judging by posture, readiness to respond to an attack, the lack of any weapon as shown by the way the suit slackly hung, the lack of tension in shoulders and neck, a dozen other factors... in a few seconds, everything the Dire Wolf had learned at Tel Shai reassured him that this visitor was not any immediate danger.
Bane himself was six feet tall and only one hundred and seventy pounds, but he was a stripped-down mass of hard muscle and bone with zero body fat. Wearing his usual all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, he moved with an intimidating quickness and precision like a predatory beast. Many had found his war name was appropriate. Beneath feral black brows, a pair of clear grey eyes moved over the unaware visitor one final time before he moved closer to make himself known.
"Something I can help you with you, buddy?" he asked, getting within arm's reach of the distracted man. To his surprise, his visitor gave a violent start and fell off the bench completely to end up sitting on the tile floor.
"Didn't mean to make you jump like that," Bane said as he helped the man up. "You okay?"
"Sure, sure," the visitor hurried to reassure Bane as he got up nimbly enough. He was in his early thirties with an open, likeable face that was extremely worried at the moment. Under short sandy hair, he had blue eyes and good features. Under most circumstances, he would have been quite presentable. "I hope.. you're Mr Bane?"
"I am. Jeremy Bane, Private Investigator," the Dire Wolf said. He unlocked the outer door and escorted his guest through the tiny waiting room into the office itself. "Have a seat and relax for a minute."
As the man lowered himself to a straightback wooden chair, Bane crossed around behind his desk into his own seat. "Might as well get to the facts. You would be...?"
"Me? Oh, Pete. Pete Robie. I wasn't sure if I should come to you but to be honest no one else has been of any help at all. I'm about ready to give up."
Bane leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "Start with the problem, that seems to work best."
"Yes, yes of course." Robie gave a nervous little chuckle and took an eight ounce glass bottle from his jacket pocket. It had a textured surface and red swirly letters with blue outlines that read WINSOMEBERRY JUICE GUARANTEED PURE AND WHOLESOME. He unscrewed the metal cap, took a sniff and handed it over to Bane.
If Robie had not exposed himself to whatever was in that bottle, the Dire Wolf would have been more cautious. As it was, he held the open bottle near his nostrils and waved a finger to waft just a hint to him. "Hm. Much like pomegranate but more sour. What does it signify?"
"Mr Bane, I don't think I'm crazy. No more than anyone else in today's world anyway," Pete Robie said. "But this WinsomeBerry drink has been catching on fast in the Tri-State area. It's being marketed as a wholesome beverage and now they're selling cookies and cakes flavored with it. I've found out nationwide distribution is being planned and soon!" He slammed a hand down on the arm of his chair. "I only hope there's time to stop it."
Bane tightened the cap on the glass bottle and put it to one side, deliberately not returning it. "I don't seem to be following you, Mr Robie. Is there something dangerous about this juice?"
"Not according to the FDA, which passed it with full approval. Not according to Municipal Analysis where I work for the city. But something awful is going on anyway. Listen. WinsomeBerry is supposedly made from berries transplanted here from Samoa, grown in volcanic soil and distilled with artesian spring water. Pure as an angel's song, the slogan goes."
"You should realize I handle crimes involving violence," the Dire Wolf interrupted. "My game is serial killers, secret cults, creatures of the night. Consumer safety is not my area."
"I've been researching the substance at the lab after hours. I can't find any foreign contaminants, anything suspicious. And yet, while some people just don't care for WinsomeBerry Juice, about one third who try it really form a habit of drinking it every day. They feel great, cleansed and clear-headed, or so they say. But their appetite decreases." Peter Robie gave his uneasy laugh again. "You think that'd be a good thing, right? Lots of people want to lose weight, right?"
The Dire Wolf let some edge into his voice. "Come out with it."
"All right. I just bought this suit yesterday so I'd have something that fit. Seven months ago, I weighed two hundred and sixty-eight pounds. I've had all kinds of bloodwork and MRIs and everything, they can't find anything wrong. In fact, my doctor thinks it's great. And then there's my wife Moira."
"She's been losing weight the same way?"
"You have to see her now," Robie said. He handed over his wallet to display a good-looking Italian woman about thirty, with thick black hair down past her shoulders, classic Roman features and an impressive bust ledge under a red sweater. "Mr Bane, I'm a native New Yorker. I've heard wild stories about you all my life. The Dire Wolf. Anything weird or unexplainable, it's said the authorities call you in to straighten things out. That leads to what made me decided to come see you."
"Enough with the build-up," Bane said impatiently, "Let's just get to it. What did you see?"
"This weird stranger, following me the past week. Watching me from across the street. Driving away after I arrive at work. It's a woman with a face like a living skull."
That made the Dire Wolf sit up straight, grey eyes suddenly bright. "A Nekrosan!"
II.
More than forty-five minutes of close questioning followed. Bane got names, descriptions, addresses and phone numbers of anyone even remotely involved. He got the layout of the Municipal Analysis labs clear in his mind. He retraced every step Robie took when the man had first formed suspicions about the WinsomeBerries and the comments officials used to dismiss his concerns. None of this was taken down in writing. Decades of practice had given the Dire Wolf a sharp retentive memory.
Finally, he opened the center drawer of his desk and took out a wide red leather ledger. "Would a fee of one thousand dollars be a problem, Mr Robie?"
"What? Oh, no, not at all. I checked two other agencies first and your fee is reasonable." He dug into his inner jacket pocket for a checkbook. "Should I make it out to you personally?"
"Dire Wolf Agency would be better," Bane said as he filled out a receipt and handed it to Robie, keeping the carbon himself and folding the check into a pocket of the ledger. "You are now officially my client while I investigate. This gives me some status when it comes to refusing to answer police questions. I can claim confidentiality." He returned the ledger to the desk drawer. "There were times I only charged a dollar just to make it official, but some courts challenged the legality of that."
Uncertain, Peter Robie began to get to his feet. "I hope to hear results soon, Mr Bane, this has me quite anxious..."
Rising at the same time, the Dire Wolf fixed those cold gray eyes on his visitor. "I am taking this entirely seriously, sir. I would bet there have already been a few deaths from WinsomeBerry drinkers getting their weights down too far. If it starts to get nationwide distribution, there could be a literal epidemic in store."
They walked from the office out into the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE clinic and out onto the sidewalk. It was a pleasant morning in late May and the crowds were thick. Robie shooks hands with Bane and expressed relief at being taken seriously. "My car is parked a few blocks that way," he indicated with a thumb pointing toward 45th Street. "Finding a parking spot was no joke."
"You'll hear from me soon, I promise," the Dire Wolf said. He headed back toward the front of the four story yellow-brick building which held his office but paused before going back in. He watched Peter Robie cross a few blocks and climb into a white Honda Accord and pull out into traffic safely. No sign of any skull-faced people lurking, as far as Bane could tell.
The Nekrosim, he thought sourly. Nothing but trouble from that bunch whenever they entered the real world. If Nekrosim were involved with this WinsomeBerry foolishness, there would be massive numbers of deaths before it was all over. Seeing his client drive away, the Dire Wolf got started on the job. He stopped at a health foods store on the next block and bought a bottle of the product, since the one Robie had left presumably was contaminated by his saliva. As he headed toward midtown, he snapped the Link from his belt and called the KDF headquarters buildings on East 38th Street.
Instantly, a male voice with a light but puzzling accent answered. "Captain! Good to hear from you."
"Sheng, how are you?"
"Mostly good. I have my EMT class in an hour, this KDF membership involves so much studying! What's going on with you, Jeremy?"
"I'm on my way to base now. Is Megan available?" He paused in the middle of a cluster of tourists waiting for the light to change so they could cross Lexington. "I want her to analyze something."
Sheng Mo-Yuan made a snorting laugh over the connection. "Our Trom Girl just installed new HEPA filters on the air ducts on the roof. She said the old ones were so clogged they could be used as bricks. Do you want me to call her down?"
"Yeah, Argent, thanks. I think I have a case but it may be nothing. I'll be there in a minute." Bane swung left and went down to 38th Street, getting within sight of the old ten-story stone building that had held so much of his life. The outer door swung open and he entered a vestibule barely large enough for two people to occupy comfortably. The oil painting of Kenneth Dred still hung in its gilt frame and he gazed up at reflectively as the buzzes and clicks indicated he was being scanned by advanced Trom sensors. In another second, the inner door unlocked and Sheng motioned him inside.
"I feel silly scanning even you, Jeremy," the young Chujiran apologized. "But you yourself set the protocol."
"And there are good reasons for it," said the Dire Wolf as he stepped into the front hall. "Any cases under way, Sheng?"
"Not right now," the Chujiran answered, escorting Bane back toward the office with its open door across the hall. He was no more than five feet five tall, fit and muscular in a red polo shirt and jeans. Known as Argent, Sheng Mo-Yuan was usually taken to be Northern Chinese but his origins were far more remote than that. "We spent a few days in Nevada after a Skinwalker sighting but turned up nothing."
"Just as well, maybe. I tangled with a Skinwalker when I first started working for Mr Dred and had my hands full." As they paused at the foot of the double wide staircase, Megan Salenger came rushing down it breathlessly.
"Captain!" she cried out. The Trom Girl was a few inches over five feet tall, slim and energetic at justtwenty-three. Megan was wearing a tattered oil-stained jumpsuit over her street clothes and she had managed to smear a streak of soot across one cheek. "As much as I would like to think this is a social visit because you miss us, that's doubtful. I assume you have an interesting case on hand that brings you here?"
Bane smiled up at the inquisitive face beneath that shock of thick black hair. For someone brought up from infancy by the emotionless Trom, Megan Salenger let her composure slip frequently. "I don't have much to go on," he said as he handed her the bottle of WinsomeBerry Juice. "The whole thing might turn out to be a waste of time."
The Trom Girl stepped down to stand next to Bane and Sheng, studying the bottle. "I have seen television commercials for this product. Do you want it analyzed?"
"Yes, please. The Food and Drug Administration has found nothing suspicious but I want a Trom-level examination."
"I see. I will be back quickly." Placing the bottle on a bookshelf, she hustled into the bathroom adjoining their emergency room and emerged a few minutes later without the jumpsuit and with her hands and face scrubbed. Her white jeans and dark green pullover were snug but not unreasonably so. "Let's bring this up to the sixth floor labs, don't you think?"
"Coming, Sheng?" asked Bane.
"Hah! That science is wasted on me," Argent scoffed. "And I have to be getting to my class soon. You two have fun with test tubes and microscopes." He turned and went back into the office where three textbooks sat on a chair where he had left them with pens between pages to mark his place.
III.
Going into the elevator, the Dire Wolf followed Megan into the labs which took up the entire sixth floor of the building. Bane could not remember the last time he had been in here. When the KDF had first been established, Leonard Slade had claimed this story for his research and had constantly been bringing equipment in and out during his tenure. With Megan taking his place as the KDF's Trom liaison, she had continued doing the same.
Under brilliant fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the white tile floors and walls glared at him. Aside from a wall full of cabinets and drawers, he had no idea what the equipment was that he was looking at. It seemed to be just miles of stainless steel tubing and clear plastic pipes and air vents, with gauges and digital readouts every few inches. There were two long black tables with stools pulled up under them, and he pulled one stool out to settle down and watch Megan get to work.
Taking a pair of blue latex gloves from a box mounted just inside the door, the Trom Girl assumed an expression that Bane recognized as meaning she would not be answering attempts at conversation. She took two Petri dishes from a drawer with a pair of glass rods in sterile paper wrappers. Dropping miniscule amounts of the juice into each dish and sealing them, she inserted the containers into a slot in some hideously complex machine and punched in a code. Turning away, she prepared a few drops of the juice between two glass slides, which she clamped up at face level and absently tugged a stool over to sit on. Using her Link, she began scanning.
Knowing to just stay out of the way for the moment, Jeremy Bane stared around him. He slowly began to recognize equipment. That device with the microphone on a cord and the flanking round speakers had to be for communication. The waist-high white appliance in one corner was a refrigeration unit for keeping specimens cold. That much he figured out. But the bifurcated metal stand with six differently-colored electrical wires tied around it like a Maypole just made no sense no matter how he looked at it. It wasn't even hooked up to anything. He was mulling this over when he heard a series of dings and glanced over to see Megan frowning at the two Petri dishes and the glass slide.
"I regret I have inconclusive results, captain," the Trom Girl told him as she tugged off the latex gloves with snapping noises. "Results indicate nothing other than the organic compounds and trace impurities expected in a derivative from a tropical berry. The potassium content is high enough that I would not recommend drinking it frequently. I find no psychoactive substances or alkaloids, not even caffeine."
"Huh." Bane got up and stretched and went over to stand beside her. "But, speaking from a non-objective and less than rigorous viewpoint, what else do you think?"
She turned her huge dark eyes up at him and sighed. "Alchemy is beyond Trom science. We have discussed this, captain. Masters of Velkandu can infuse gralic force into substances to produce effects that Trom technology cannot detect. I do not like to say this, but it is true and we must face it."
"I was afraid of that," Bane said. "With a Nekrosan reported to be in on this, we can't rule out Alchemy. Thanks anyway, Megan."
Slipping the samples into a clear evidence bag to be stored, the Trom Girl allowed regret into her voice. "Is there any way I can help, captain?"
Bane clapped her lightly on one narrow shoulder. "Not right now, Megan. So far I don't even know if there is a real threat to fight. All I have is the client's story about this juice making people lose weight and get addicted. There's some basic investigation to be done first."
Riding down to the first floor, they found Sheng had already left. "I suppose I should get back to my chores," Megan grumbled. "I am the only member certified to do maintenance on the CORBY or the alarms. But I want to help with your case. I should go with you."
The crestfallen tone in her normally subdued voice was so clear than Bane felt a twinge at leaving her this way. As he headed for the door, he turned his head back toward her. "I'd like you to stay on duty, Megan. As soon as I turn up anything significant, I'll call you for back-up. Promise."
"Thanks, Jeremy. I appreciate it." She gave him a little salute and swung around to trot up the stairs as he left the building.
IV.
The rest of the day was spent in basic research. Walking back to his office on 44th Street, Bane stopped in at a natural foods store called EARTH'S BOUNTY and chatted with the clerk. The girl behind the register admitted she just did not care for WinsomeBerry products herself, but there were customers who came in daily for them and some who bought two bottles or two cakes at a time, which made the store's carrying the stuff worthwhile. Her manager had started drinking a bottle every morning and did seem to be losing weight but then he had also gone vegan, so she thought the loss could be due to that. Bane purchased a bottle because he thought it might be useful at some point but he had no intention of trying any of the juice himself.
Back behind his desk, the Dire Wolf started going through his list of contacts on the phone. Since the beginning of his career, he had turned down rewards but instead had asked that the people he helped act as observers. If they witnessed or heard of anything odd or seemingly occult, they could repay him with information about it. He had a network of well over a hundred observers scattered around the world by now and they had often gotten him launched on important cases.
All he received were anecdotal results. Similar to what the clerk in the health foods store had said, a minority of people knew someone who was really hooked on WinsomeBerry juice and had started to rapidly lose weight but they had not thought anything about it. Bane thanked his network, hung up and started to pace his office impatiently. All his instincts were telling him that something unnatural was going on and he needed to take action. Logically, though, he had to decide there wasn't much to go on. No lawsuits against the company, no TV reports about a new health hazard. He was working the problem over in his mind when his Link beeped.
As he had half expected, the call came from Megan Salenger. The screen on his Link flashed a dozen different graphs and charts for storage. He paused the last one and saw it showed WinsomeBerry's steadily increasing sales for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut over the last year. Then Megan's voice cut in, "Captain?"
"Hey, Trom Girl. Looks like you've been busy," he said.
"I have been taking a rest break from upgrading the CORBY's avionics pod," came her serious tones. "I have unearthed one interesting datum from an internal memo at the LIFE RENEWED manufacturing plant in Sewell, NJ. Location is 535 Glassboro Road and County Drive. I have found two references to a certain 'Lucivero' being at the plant to meet with the executives and the meetings seem crucial. The name matches traditional Nekrosan nomenclature."
"It certainly does sound Nekrosan," Bane admitted. "Thanks for doing some digging, Megan. Be careful when you start hacking into private corporation records, though. You're flirting with industrial spying."
"Oh, I intend to do more than flirt," she answered with an uncharacteristic giggle. "Sorry. Working with Unicorn has seemingly eroded my professionalism. I will forward you any further information that seems potentially useful."
"Thanks again, Megan. If this seems like a serious case, I'll be sure to call you in." Bane heard the connection break off and went back to sit down behind his desk. Lucivero, Lucivero... no, he could not remember hearing the name before. Somehow, finding two unexplained references to a mysterious single name without a title or explanation triggered his sense he was on to something. The Dire Wolf glanced up at the clock on the wall behind his desk and saw it was four-forty in the afternoon. That night, well past midnight, he intended to break into the NEW LIVING plant and do some serious burglarly. First, he had another line to follow.
Using his Link to patch into conventional phone systems, the Dire Wolf called Peter Robie still at work. "Hello? Yeah, this is Bane. I've found some suggestive hints, Mr Robie. My feeling is that you're on to something. I'm calling because I want to see your wife and see for myself her behavior and weight loss. What time will you be home? Okay. I'll arrive a half hour later. Use my real name and we'll say that I dropped by to repay you the two hundred dollars I lost in a sports bet with you."
"Sounds like a good idea. You remember my address?"
"Yes. I'll only stay for a few minutes and not say much but it will give me a sense of what's going on." Bane reassured the man that progress seemed already being made and broke the connection.
For the next hour, the Dire Wolf went back to the lobby to get his mail and went through it. He hated sorting through bills and writing out checks but it had to be done. Finally, he gummed a stamp on the final envelope and put it on the stack to his left. His wastepaper basket was stuffed with discarded scraps of paper, advertising and political fliers and the like. Bane got up, stretched thoroughly and walked around his office for a moment. He did not think he would be needed the full field suit at the moment. Beneath his black outfit was the silk-thin Trom armor, and his clothing already contained its usual hidden assortment of miniature gadgets and tools. Sheathed under his sleeves were the matched silver-bladed daggers he had been given by Kenneth Dred so many years ago.
Before leaving the office, Bane examined the CO2 powered dart gun he wore behind his left hip, with its extended needle-thin barrel and its clip of twelve anesthetic darts. This was as close to a safe, humane weapon as he had been able to find. But, getting away from the KDF and operating more and more against mundane thugs and gunmen, Bane had been increasingly inclined to substitute the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver that he knew he could rely on for stopping power and for intimidation. For current circumstances, the silent dart gun would be enough.
Heading down to 40th Street, he retrieved his dark green Mustang from its slot at the IMPERIAL GARAGE, getting the usual nod from Mickey in the ticket booth that everything had been quiet. The small green and blue lights on the driver's sunvisor were blinking steadily, but Bane nevertheless examined the car suspiciously before getting in and starting it up. Being cautious had enabled him to survive a lifetime spent in the Midnight War.
Pulling out into rush hour traffic, never an enjoyable situation, Bane headed north slowly enough that he seriously felt he could have run there faster. Out of curiosity, he turned the car radio on, something he seldom did and tuned to a light music station that was as good as any for his purposes. Within a few minutes, he heard a commercial for Winsomeberry Juice. Ethereal choirs sang in the background of a chipper tune as a woman's voice explained how her clothes fit better and she woke up full of energy after starting each day with a tall glass of Winsomeberry Ade. A rushed voice at the tail end warned quickly that these claims had not been substantiated by any agency. Bane's normally grim expression lowered even further. What would be the point of all this? Who would benefit from pushing Winsomeberry? Well, aside from the obvious money-making angle.
He remembered Robie telling him about the skull-faced woman and he thought this was exactly like something the Nekrosim would pull. They were a Cousin Race of Human living in their own adjacent realm of Perjena. Not only did Nekrosim literally have faces like skulls barely covered by taut flesh, their culture was morbid and irrational.
Every time a Nekrosan came to the real world, Humans suffered. He had fought their greatest assassin and terrorist, Golgora, five times before finally managing to kill the fiend. Then there had been Malacoda, the albino Prophet of Death. And the Nekrosan warlock Valesco, who had a practice of drowning his victims and reviving them so they could be killed repeatedly. That was the crime he had called 'worse than mere murder,' because the victim was so terrified each time. Just remembering that case made the Dire Wolf shudder with disgust and rage. If a Nekrosan was behind all this....
Getting more coldly determined as he drove, Bane went through the Bronx and was up by Pelham Bay Park with Long Island Sound visible to his right when his Link buzzed. He thumbed the speaker function and said, "Hello?"`
"Mr Bane?" came almost a whisper. "I can't talk. Someone's in my house. I can hear voices downstairs, hurry!" The connection broke off with a click.
The Dire Wolf sped up well over the limit. New Rochelle was only two miles past the city limits in Westchester County and he was entering the Green Shores area within a minute. It was quite a posh suburb. He found Peter Robie lived in an impressive two-story redwood home with a well-kept backyard and an attached garage. Parked off to one side was not the car Robie had been driving that morning, but a black Kia with tinted windows. Feeling there was no time for a stealthy approach, Bane came to an abrupt halt facing the Kia and was out racing for the house faster than any real wolf. Behind the screen door, the front door was wide open. The Dire Wolf rushed in, swinging around in a crouch to be ready for an attack from any angle.
Peter Robie's suitjack was draped over an Early American-style couch, and the man's loafers sat on the carpet where they had been kicked off when entering. There was no sign of the man. To the left were stairs that led down into the basement and Bane heard a faint splashing. Drawing his dart gun, he took a few deep breaths and headed down the wooden steps to find a nightmarish scene.
V.
Most of the floor area of the finished basement was taken up by a round redwood hot tub. The walkway to it had a well-equipped bar and sound system, with subdued overhead lighting which would have normally made it a perfect place for a young couple to relax after a rough day. But now the bubbling surface within the hot tub was a deep purple with white froth. That pungent sour aroma of Winsomeberry was thick in the air. As Bane reached the bottom of the steps, he saw a naked woman as thin as a concentration camp victim tugging a limp man out of the hot tub onto the wet tiled floor. Peter Robie was soaked in the Winsomeberry Juice, his clothes stained almost dark with it, and he was gasping desperately for breath.
Moira Robie may have been a beautiful woman a year earlier, judging from the photo her husband had shown Bane. The long wavy black hair still hinted at that. But now she was so horribly thin that it seemed hard to believe she was still alive and able to move around on her own. Every rib showed clearly. Her arms and legs were straight as sticks. When she raised her head to glare at Bane, her face looked just like a bony structure barely concealed beneath thin dry skin and her eyes bugged out from deep in their sockets.
She looked like a Nekrosan, Bane realized with a cold jolt in the pit of his stomach. Now he understood. He lowered the dart gun uncertainly. In her condition, the anesthetic might be fatal. "Mrs Robie?" he ventured as he stepped toward her. "Can you hear me? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
A wave of the acrid odor from the hot tub washed over him, making him gag, and in that instant something cracked against the back of his head with savage impact. Even caught off guard, with the dart gun dropping from his hand, the Dire Wolf rolled with the blow as he fell forward. He caught himself on toes and fingertips, swung around and was back up on his feet in a flash to face his attacker. A thin metal rod hissed past his face, grazing his nose as he barely ducked back in time. Bane backstepped, his open hands coming up in defensive claws as he assumed an easy cat stance.
Looming up in the dim light was a thin woman his own general height and build. She was wearing a loose jumpsuit of dark green material with an esoteric Alchemical symbol in white on the chest. Holstered by a leather belt at her right side was a Mauser in a flap holster, with a long thin dagger on her left. The Nekrosan woman held a three-foot steel rod in each hand, twirling them impatiently as she watched her foe.
Like the men of their Race, female Nekrosim had no hair, not even eyebrows or lashes. It was only the faint bulges of small breasts and narrow shoulders compared to wider hips that even told Bane this was a female. The heavy brow ledge over deepset staring eyes, the nose that was barely a stump with two nostrils, the wide toothy grin... there was no mistaking one of the Skull-Faces.
"Leave it to the Nekrosim," he growled. His head ached from the blow but he had already recovered. "You're providing these Winsomeberries. They don't even grow in the world, do they? You're bringing them from Perjena."
"Do you not know me, Dire Wolf?" came a sly whisper as the woman took a single step closer.
"What? No, of course not." Bane was ready for a tough fight. The Nekrosim had developed a martial style all their own over the ages, they were hardened warriors who trained relentlessly and this one was wielding two thin clubs that she would know well how to use. "Should I?"
"I am Lucivero of the House of Enathrol. You knew my father. Golgora!"
Unexpectedly, Bane gave a short snorting laugh. "Oh my God, has it been that long? Yeah, it's been more than twenty years since I first met Golgora. Time enough for his infant to grow up to be just like him... a murderous assassin with no sense of right and wrong!"
"Humans!" she literally spat on the wet tiles in front of her. "It is not given for you to understand our holy ways. We need servants. We need laborers. But the barons think it best if they are not so hideous as Humans."
"So you're experimenting with this Winsomeberry poison to try to get people as ugly as you?" Bane shook his head, curling his hands into tight fists and leaning forward slightly as he readied to meet her impending attack. "Well, Lucivero, this is as far as your sick little scheme goes. I'm putting a stop to it."
It was not like the Dire Wolf to miss a detail in his surroundings. He blamed it on the stifling fumes of the bubbling Winsomeberry juice steaming in the hot tub next to him. For whatever reason, Moira Robie had rolled over behind him and clutched his ankles with her skeletal hands. He kicked free in an instant, but that was all the opening that Lucivero needed. One of the steel weapons smashed against his face, almost breaking his nose, whacking back hard against the side of his cheek on the return stroke. Bane staggered, crouched without losing balance entirely and blasted out a front snap kick that caught the Nekrosan in the pit of her stomach. She doubled up and he moved in with upraised fist but she recovered as quickly as he had and drove him back with a whirling figure eight pattern of the two steel rods.
The daughter of Golgora raised one weapon up behind her grisly head and held the other out before her, perpendicular to the floor, adjusting her booted feet for a more secure stance. Bane did not draw his own daggers from their sheaths beneath his sleeves as he might have, but took her on barehanded. Leaping in on the skull-faced woman's left side, he kicked down beneath her knee and got her off balance, seizing one of the rods and wrestling it out of her grip. Bane tossed the weapon aside into the hot tub and swerved as she rose again and whipped the remaining steel rod at his face. The Dire Wolf caught the weapon in one hand, stopping it short but that left him open for a spinning back kick that drove him over the ledge of the hot tub into the steaming juice.
Even though he had time to gulp in air before the nearly-boiling liquid closed over him, Bane had trouble struggling up to the surface and found himself choking. He managed to grasp the raised rim of the hot tub and haul himself up onto the tiled floor. Breathing in that venomous atmosphere took an effort. Even with his tagra-enhanced healing, the Dire Wolf could not do more than lie there gasping for almost a full minute. He was exposed and vulnerable in that time and braced himself for crushing blows that never came.
After what seemed like forever, Bane caught his breath and got up on his feet. Set in one wall was an air-conditioning unit and he cranked it up full blast to clear the fumes. Lucivero was gone. Taking deep cleansing breaths, his head still spinning, Bane went up the steps to find the door at the top locked. He set himself, brought up the torque of his entire body from his legs to his torso and smacked an open palm that broke the lock. As soon as he emerged into the living room with its fresh air, he felt better.
Stepping out into the early evening air, he found his head clearing entirely. The KIA was long gone, of course. Bane was full of self-reproach. Even against a Nekrosan with life-long martial training, he felt he should have been able to handle her easily. Going back inside and down into the basement, he found that the AC had improved conditions. Bane snapped off the heat and agitation controls on the hot tub, then knelt to examine Peter and Moira Robie. Both were still alive but their pulses were weak and he could hear rasping with each breath they took. As he checked them out, he realized he himself was covered with the sticky purple tar of the Winsome berries.
Taking out his Link, he called for an ambulance and for the sheriff's department. He did not want to bring the Mandate in, that agency would just cover everything up and he wanted the public to know about this. Finding a stainless steel sink in one corner, he started scrubbing himself with hot water and liquid soap. In a minute, he heard loud engines outside and dragged himself upstairs again. Local volunteer firemen were getting out of their own cars, carrying oxygen equipment. He had always respected these volunteers and now he felt a happy pang realizing what good people they were.
VI.
This would not be one of Bane's cases that was settled within an hour with a single fight or arrest. Both the Robies survived after weeks in ICU, and made almost total recoveries. Moira suffered some kidney damage that would never completely heal. The strange overdose which almost killed a young couple made national news for a week, only to be left behind when a passenger plane went missing and took over the headlines.
Bane testified for lengthy periods in closed sessions with the authorities, and he financially supported class action lawsuits brought by more than a thousand consumers whose health was at risk from the beverage. He revealed nothing to anyone about the Nekrosim, of course. He did urge that the source of the Winsomeberry Juice be revealed, and when the distilling company could not bring investigators to the alleged farms near Samoa, the company was quickly closed down. WinsomeBerry Juice soon vanished from shelves and was forgotten quickly as a fad that had turned out to be dangerous.
Jeremy Bane soon moved on to new cases, of course. The Midnight War never ended. One of his obsessions now was finding a chance to meet the daughter of Golgora again.
10/21/2016
9/30/2012
I.
He was running a few minutes late that morning after being delayed by some phone calls. At twelve minutes past nine, Jeremy Bane crossed Third Avenue at 44th Street and rushed through the double glass doors which opened automatically as he neared them. Before he could pause to get his mail from the bank of tenant boxes on the wall to his left, the Dire Wolf spotted a glimpse of movement ahead that instantly put him on the alert.
Directly ahead of him was the wide staircase leading up to the second floor. The side of that staircase to his left made a narrow hallway with the north wall, and at the end of this short corridor was a metal exit sign. Just to the left of that sign was a bench and wooden door with a bronze plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Stretching long legs out before him on that bench, arms folded, was a tall thin man in a brown business suit.
The Dire Wolf had never seen his visitor before. In an instant, decades of Kumundu training took over and he evaluated the man's possible threat status to find it low. The man was tall enough, two inches over six feet, but thin at no more than one hundred and fifty-five pounds. Judging by posture, readiness to respond to an attack, the lack of any weapon as shown by the way the suit slackly hung, the lack of tension in shoulders and neck, a dozen other factors... in a few seconds, everything the Dire Wolf had learned at Tel Shai reassured him that this visitor was not any immediate danger.
Bane himself was six feet tall and only one hundred and seventy pounds, but he was a stripped-down mass of hard muscle and bone with zero body fat. Wearing his usual all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, he moved with an intimidating quickness and precision like a predatory beast. Many had found his war name was appropriate. Beneath feral black brows, a pair of clear grey eyes moved over the unaware visitor one final time before he moved closer to make himself known.
"Something I can help you with you, buddy?" he asked, getting within arm's reach of the distracted man. To his surprise, his visitor gave a violent start and fell off the bench completely to end up sitting on the tile floor.
"Didn't mean to make you jump like that," Bane said as he helped the man up. "You okay?"
"Sure, sure," the visitor hurried to reassure Bane as he got up nimbly enough. He was in his early thirties with an open, likeable face that was extremely worried at the moment. Under short sandy hair, he had blue eyes and good features. Under most circumstances, he would have been quite presentable. "I hope.. you're Mr Bane?"
"I am. Jeremy Bane, Private Investigator," the Dire Wolf said. He unlocked the outer door and escorted his guest through the tiny waiting room into the office itself. "Have a seat and relax for a minute."
As the man lowered himself to a straightback wooden chair, Bane crossed around behind his desk into his own seat. "Might as well get to the facts. You would be...?"
"Me? Oh, Pete. Pete Robie. I wasn't sure if I should come to you but to be honest no one else has been of any help at all. I'm about ready to give up."
Bane leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "Start with the problem, that seems to work best."
"Yes, yes of course." Robie gave a nervous little chuckle and took an eight ounce glass bottle from his jacket pocket. It had a textured surface and red swirly letters with blue outlines that read WINSOMEBERRY JUICE GUARANTEED PURE AND WHOLESOME. He unscrewed the metal cap, took a sniff and handed it over to Bane.
If Robie had not exposed himself to whatever was in that bottle, the Dire Wolf would have been more cautious. As it was, he held the open bottle near his nostrils and waved a finger to waft just a hint to him. "Hm. Much like pomegranate but more sour. What does it signify?"
"Mr Bane, I don't think I'm crazy. No more than anyone else in today's world anyway," Pete Robie said. "But this WinsomeBerry drink has been catching on fast in the Tri-State area. It's being marketed as a wholesome beverage and now they're selling cookies and cakes flavored with it. I've found out nationwide distribution is being planned and soon!" He slammed a hand down on the arm of his chair. "I only hope there's time to stop it."
Bane tightened the cap on the glass bottle and put it to one side, deliberately not returning it. "I don't seem to be following you, Mr Robie. Is there something dangerous about this juice?"
"Not according to the FDA, which passed it with full approval. Not according to Municipal Analysis where I work for the city. But something awful is going on anyway. Listen. WinsomeBerry is supposedly made from berries transplanted here from Samoa, grown in volcanic soil and distilled with artesian spring water. Pure as an angel's song, the slogan goes."
"You should realize I handle crimes involving violence," the Dire Wolf interrupted. "My game is serial killers, secret cults, creatures of the night. Consumer safety is not my area."
"I've been researching the substance at the lab after hours. I can't find any foreign contaminants, anything suspicious. And yet, while some people just don't care for WinsomeBerry Juice, about one third who try it really form a habit of drinking it every day. They feel great, cleansed and clear-headed, or so they say. But their appetite decreases." Peter Robie gave his uneasy laugh again. "You think that'd be a good thing, right? Lots of people want to lose weight, right?"
The Dire Wolf let some edge into his voice. "Come out with it."
"All right. I just bought this suit yesterday so I'd have something that fit. Seven months ago, I weighed two hundred and sixty-eight pounds. I've had all kinds of bloodwork and MRIs and everything, they can't find anything wrong. In fact, my doctor thinks it's great. And then there's my wife Moira."
"She's been losing weight the same way?"
"You have to see her now," Robie said. He handed over his wallet to display a good-looking Italian woman about thirty, with thick black hair down past her shoulders, classic Roman features and an impressive bust ledge under a red sweater. "Mr Bane, I'm a native New Yorker. I've heard wild stories about you all my life. The Dire Wolf. Anything weird or unexplainable, it's said the authorities call you in to straighten things out. That leads to what made me decided to come see you."
"Enough with the build-up," Bane said impatiently, "Let's just get to it. What did you see?"
"This weird stranger, following me the past week. Watching me from across the street. Driving away after I arrive at work. It's a woman with a face like a living skull."
That made the Dire Wolf sit up straight, grey eyes suddenly bright. "A Nekrosan!"
II.
More than forty-five minutes of close questioning followed. Bane got names, descriptions, addresses and phone numbers of anyone even remotely involved. He got the layout of the Municipal Analysis labs clear in his mind. He retraced every step Robie took when the man had first formed suspicions about the WinsomeBerries and the comments officials used to dismiss his concerns. None of this was taken down in writing. Decades of practice had given the Dire Wolf a sharp retentive memory.
Finally, he opened the center drawer of his desk and took out a wide red leather ledger. "Would a fee of one thousand dollars be a problem, Mr Robie?"
"What? Oh, no, not at all. I checked two other agencies first and your fee is reasonable." He dug into his inner jacket pocket for a checkbook. "Should I make it out to you personally?"
"Dire Wolf Agency would be better," Bane said as he filled out a receipt and handed it to Robie, keeping the carbon himself and folding the check into a pocket of the ledger. "You are now officially my client while I investigate. This gives me some status when it comes to refusing to answer police questions. I can claim confidentiality." He returned the ledger to the desk drawer. "There were times I only charged a dollar just to make it official, but some courts challenged the legality of that."
Uncertain, Peter Robie began to get to his feet. "I hope to hear results soon, Mr Bane, this has me quite anxious..."
Rising at the same time, the Dire Wolf fixed those cold gray eyes on his visitor. "I am taking this entirely seriously, sir. I would bet there have already been a few deaths from WinsomeBerry drinkers getting their weights down too far. If it starts to get nationwide distribution, there could be a literal epidemic in store."
They walked from the office out into the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE clinic and out onto the sidewalk. It was a pleasant morning in late May and the crowds were thick. Robie shooks hands with Bane and expressed relief at being taken seriously. "My car is parked a few blocks that way," he indicated with a thumb pointing toward 45th Street. "Finding a parking spot was no joke."
"You'll hear from me soon, I promise," the Dire Wolf said. He headed back toward the front of the four story yellow-brick building which held his office but paused before going back in. He watched Peter Robie cross a few blocks and climb into a white Honda Accord and pull out into traffic safely. No sign of any skull-faced people lurking, as far as Bane could tell.
The Nekrosim, he thought sourly. Nothing but trouble from that bunch whenever they entered the real world. If Nekrosim were involved with this WinsomeBerry foolishness, there would be massive numbers of deaths before it was all over. Seeing his client drive away, the Dire Wolf got started on the job. He stopped at a health foods store on the next block and bought a bottle of the product, since the one Robie had left presumably was contaminated by his saliva. As he headed toward midtown, he snapped the Link from his belt and called the KDF headquarters buildings on East 38th Street.
Instantly, a male voice with a light but puzzling accent answered. "Captain! Good to hear from you."
"Sheng, how are you?"
"Mostly good. I have my EMT class in an hour, this KDF membership involves so much studying! What's going on with you, Jeremy?"
"I'm on my way to base now. Is Megan available?" He paused in the middle of a cluster of tourists waiting for the light to change so they could cross Lexington. "I want her to analyze something."
Sheng Mo-Yuan made a snorting laugh over the connection. "Our Trom Girl just installed new HEPA filters on the air ducts on the roof. She said the old ones were so clogged they could be used as bricks. Do you want me to call her down?"
"Yeah, Argent, thanks. I think I have a case but it may be nothing. I'll be there in a minute." Bane swung left and went down to 38th Street, getting within sight of the old ten-story stone building that had held so much of his life. The outer door swung open and he entered a vestibule barely large enough for two people to occupy comfortably. The oil painting of Kenneth Dred still hung in its gilt frame and he gazed up at reflectively as the buzzes and clicks indicated he was being scanned by advanced Trom sensors. In another second, the inner door unlocked and Sheng motioned him inside.
"I feel silly scanning even you, Jeremy," the young Chujiran apologized. "But you yourself set the protocol."
"And there are good reasons for it," said the Dire Wolf as he stepped into the front hall. "Any cases under way, Sheng?"
"Not right now," the Chujiran answered, escorting Bane back toward the office with its open door across the hall. He was no more than five feet five tall, fit and muscular in a red polo shirt and jeans. Known as Argent, Sheng Mo-Yuan was usually taken to be Northern Chinese but his origins were far more remote than that. "We spent a few days in Nevada after a Skinwalker sighting but turned up nothing."
"Just as well, maybe. I tangled with a Skinwalker when I first started working for Mr Dred and had my hands full." As they paused at the foot of the double wide staircase, Megan Salenger came rushing down it breathlessly.
"Captain!" she cried out. The Trom Girl was a few inches over five feet tall, slim and energetic at justtwenty-three. Megan was wearing a tattered oil-stained jumpsuit over her street clothes and she had managed to smear a streak of soot across one cheek. "As much as I would like to think this is a social visit because you miss us, that's doubtful. I assume you have an interesting case on hand that brings you here?"
Bane smiled up at the inquisitive face beneath that shock of thick black hair. For someone brought up from infancy by the emotionless Trom, Megan Salenger let her composure slip frequently. "I don't have much to go on," he said as he handed her the bottle of WinsomeBerry Juice. "The whole thing might turn out to be a waste of time."
The Trom Girl stepped down to stand next to Bane and Sheng, studying the bottle. "I have seen television commercials for this product. Do you want it analyzed?"
"Yes, please. The Food and Drug Administration has found nothing suspicious but I want a Trom-level examination."
"I see. I will be back quickly." Placing the bottle on a bookshelf, she hustled into the bathroom adjoining their emergency room and emerged a few minutes later without the jumpsuit and with her hands and face scrubbed. Her white jeans and dark green pullover were snug but not unreasonably so. "Let's bring this up to the sixth floor labs, don't you think?"
"Coming, Sheng?" asked Bane.
"Hah! That science is wasted on me," Argent scoffed. "And I have to be getting to my class soon. You two have fun with test tubes and microscopes." He turned and went back into the office where three textbooks sat on a chair where he had left them with pens between pages to mark his place.
III.
Going into the elevator, the Dire Wolf followed Megan into the labs which took up the entire sixth floor of the building. Bane could not remember the last time he had been in here. When the KDF had first been established, Leonard Slade had claimed this story for his research and had constantly been bringing equipment in and out during his tenure. With Megan taking his place as the KDF's Trom liaison, she had continued doing the same.
Under brilliant fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the white tile floors and walls glared at him. Aside from a wall full of cabinets and drawers, he had no idea what the equipment was that he was looking at. It seemed to be just miles of stainless steel tubing and clear plastic pipes and air vents, with gauges and digital readouts every few inches. There were two long black tables with stools pulled up under them, and he pulled one stool out to settle down and watch Megan get to work.
Taking a pair of blue latex gloves from a box mounted just inside the door, the Trom Girl assumed an expression that Bane recognized as meaning she would not be answering attempts at conversation. She took two Petri dishes from a drawer with a pair of glass rods in sterile paper wrappers. Dropping miniscule amounts of the juice into each dish and sealing them, she inserted the containers into a slot in some hideously complex machine and punched in a code. Turning away, she prepared a few drops of the juice between two glass slides, which she clamped up at face level and absently tugged a stool over to sit on. Using her Link, she began scanning.
Knowing to just stay out of the way for the moment, Jeremy Bane stared around him. He slowly began to recognize equipment. That device with the microphone on a cord and the flanking round speakers had to be for communication. The waist-high white appliance in one corner was a refrigeration unit for keeping specimens cold. That much he figured out. But the bifurcated metal stand with six differently-colored electrical wires tied around it like a Maypole just made no sense no matter how he looked at it. It wasn't even hooked up to anything. He was mulling this over when he heard a series of dings and glanced over to see Megan frowning at the two Petri dishes and the glass slide.
"I regret I have inconclusive results, captain," the Trom Girl told him as she tugged off the latex gloves with snapping noises. "Results indicate nothing other than the organic compounds and trace impurities expected in a derivative from a tropical berry. The potassium content is high enough that I would not recommend drinking it frequently. I find no psychoactive substances or alkaloids, not even caffeine."
"Huh." Bane got up and stretched and went over to stand beside her. "But, speaking from a non-objective and less than rigorous viewpoint, what else do you think?"
She turned her huge dark eyes up at him and sighed. "Alchemy is beyond Trom science. We have discussed this, captain. Masters of Velkandu can infuse gralic force into substances to produce effects that Trom technology cannot detect. I do not like to say this, but it is true and we must face it."
"I was afraid of that," Bane said. "With a Nekrosan reported to be in on this, we can't rule out Alchemy. Thanks anyway, Megan."
Slipping the samples into a clear evidence bag to be stored, the Trom Girl allowed regret into her voice. "Is there any way I can help, captain?"
Bane clapped her lightly on one narrow shoulder. "Not right now, Megan. So far I don't even know if there is a real threat to fight. All I have is the client's story about this juice making people lose weight and get addicted. There's some basic investigation to be done first."
Riding down to the first floor, they found Sheng had already left. "I suppose I should get back to my chores," Megan grumbled. "I am the only member certified to do maintenance on the CORBY or the alarms. But I want to help with your case. I should go with you."
The crestfallen tone in her normally subdued voice was so clear than Bane felt a twinge at leaving her this way. As he headed for the door, he turned his head back toward her. "I'd like you to stay on duty, Megan. As soon as I turn up anything significant, I'll call you for back-up. Promise."
"Thanks, Jeremy. I appreciate it." She gave him a little salute and swung around to trot up the stairs as he left the building.
IV.
The rest of the day was spent in basic research. Walking back to his office on 44th Street, Bane stopped in at a natural foods store called EARTH'S BOUNTY and chatted with the clerk. The girl behind the register admitted she just did not care for WinsomeBerry products herself, but there were customers who came in daily for them and some who bought two bottles or two cakes at a time, which made the store's carrying the stuff worthwhile. Her manager had started drinking a bottle every morning and did seem to be losing weight but then he had also gone vegan, so she thought the loss could be due to that. Bane purchased a bottle because he thought it might be useful at some point but he had no intention of trying any of the juice himself.
Back behind his desk, the Dire Wolf started going through his list of contacts on the phone. Since the beginning of his career, he had turned down rewards but instead had asked that the people he helped act as observers. If they witnessed or heard of anything odd or seemingly occult, they could repay him with information about it. He had a network of well over a hundred observers scattered around the world by now and they had often gotten him launched on important cases.
All he received were anecdotal results. Similar to what the clerk in the health foods store had said, a minority of people knew someone who was really hooked on WinsomeBerry juice and had started to rapidly lose weight but they had not thought anything about it. Bane thanked his network, hung up and started to pace his office impatiently. All his instincts were telling him that something unnatural was going on and he needed to take action. Logically, though, he had to decide there wasn't much to go on. No lawsuits against the company, no TV reports about a new health hazard. He was working the problem over in his mind when his Link beeped.
As he had half expected, the call came from Megan Salenger. The screen on his Link flashed a dozen different graphs and charts for storage. He paused the last one and saw it showed WinsomeBerry's steadily increasing sales for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut over the last year. Then Megan's voice cut in, "Captain?"
"Hey, Trom Girl. Looks like you've been busy," he said.
"I have been taking a rest break from upgrading the CORBY's avionics pod," came her serious tones. "I have unearthed one interesting datum from an internal memo at the LIFE RENEWED manufacturing plant in Sewell, NJ. Location is 535 Glassboro Road and County Drive. I have found two references to a certain 'Lucivero' being at the plant to meet with the executives and the meetings seem crucial. The name matches traditional Nekrosan nomenclature."
"It certainly does sound Nekrosan," Bane admitted. "Thanks for doing some digging, Megan. Be careful when you start hacking into private corporation records, though. You're flirting with industrial spying."
"Oh, I intend to do more than flirt," she answered with an uncharacteristic giggle. "Sorry. Working with Unicorn has seemingly eroded my professionalism. I will forward you any further information that seems potentially useful."
"Thanks again, Megan. If this seems like a serious case, I'll be sure to call you in." Bane heard the connection break off and went back to sit down behind his desk. Lucivero, Lucivero... no, he could not remember hearing the name before. Somehow, finding two unexplained references to a mysterious single name without a title or explanation triggered his sense he was on to something. The Dire Wolf glanced up at the clock on the wall behind his desk and saw it was four-forty in the afternoon. That night, well past midnight, he intended to break into the NEW LIVING plant and do some serious burglarly. First, he had another line to follow.
Using his Link to patch into conventional phone systems, the Dire Wolf called Peter Robie still at work. "Hello? Yeah, this is Bane. I've found some suggestive hints, Mr Robie. My feeling is that you're on to something. I'm calling because I want to see your wife and see for myself her behavior and weight loss. What time will you be home? Okay. I'll arrive a half hour later. Use my real name and we'll say that I dropped by to repay you the two hundred dollars I lost in a sports bet with you."
"Sounds like a good idea. You remember my address?"
"Yes. I'll only stay for a few minutes and not say much but it will give me a sense of what's going on." Bane reassured the man that progress seemed already being made and broke the connection.
For the next hour, the Dire Wolf went back to the lobby to get his mail and went through it. He hated sorting through bills and writing out checks but it had to be done. Finally, he gummed a stamp on the final envelope and put it on the stack to his left. His wastepaper basket was stuffed with discarded scraps of paper, advertising and political fliers and the like. Bane got up, stretched thoroughly and walked around his office for a moment. He did not think he would be needed the full field suit at the moment. Beneath his black outfit was the silk-thin Trom armor, and his clothing already contained its usual hidden assortment of miniature gadgets and tools. Sheathed under his sleeves were the matched silver-bladed daggers he had been given by Kenneth Dred so many years ago.
Before leaving the office, Bane examined the CO2 powered dart gun he wore behind his left hip, with its extended needle-thin barrel and its clip of twelve anesthetic darts. This was as close to a safe, humane weapon as he had been able to find. But, getting away from the KDF and operating more and more against mundane thugs and gunmen, Bane had been increasingly inclined to substitute the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver that he knew he could rely on for stopping power and for intimidation. For current circumstances, the silent dart gun would be enough.
Heading down to 40th Street, he retrieved his dark green Mustang from its slot at the IMPERIAL GARAGE, getting the usual nod from Mickey in the ticket booth that everything had been quiet. The small green and blue lights on the driver's sunvisor were blinking steadily, but Bane nevertheless examined the car suspiciously before getting in and starting it up. Being cautious had enabled him to survive a lifetime spent in the Midnight War.
Pulling out into rush hour traffic, never an enjoyable situation, Bane headed north slowly enough that he seriously felt he could have run there faster. Out of curiosity, he turned the car radio on, something he seldom did and tuned to a light music station that was as good as any for his purposes. Within a few minutes, he heard a commercial for Winsomeberry Juice. Ethereal choirs sang in the background of a chipper tune as a woman's voice explained how her clothes fit better and she woke up full of energy after starting each day with a tall glass of Winsomeberry Ade. A rushed voice at the tail end warned quickly that these claims had not been substantiated by any agency. Bane's normally grim expression lowered even further. What would be the point of all this? Who would benefit from pushing Winsomeberry? Well, aside from the obvious money-making angle.
He remembered Robie telling him about the skull-faced woman and he thought this was exactly like something the Nekrosim would pull. They were a Cousin Race of Human living in their own adjacent realm of Perjena. Not only did Nekrosim literally have faces like skulls barely covered by taut flesh, their culture was morbid and irrational.
Every time a Nekrosan came to the real world, Humans suffered. He had fought their greatest assassin and terrorist, Golgora, five times before finally managing to kill the fiend. Then there had been Malacoda, the albino Prophet of Death. And the Nekrosan warlock Valesco, who had a practice of drowning his victims and reviving them so they could be killed repeatedly. That was the crime he had called 'worse than mere murder,' because the victim was so terrified each time. Just remembering that case made the Dire Wolf shudder with disgust and rage. If a Nekrosan was behind all this....
Getting more coldly determined as he drove, Bane went through the Bronx and was up by Pelham Bay Park with Long Island Sound visible to his right when his Link buzzed. He thumbed the speaker function and said, "Hello?"`
"Mr Bane?" came almost a whisper. "I can't talk. Someone's in my house. I can hear voices downstairs, hurry!" The connection broke off with a click.
The Dire Wolf sped up well over the limit. New Rochelle was only two miles past the city limits in Westchester County and he was entering the Green Shores area within a minute. It was quite a posh suburb. He found Peter Robie lived in an impressive two-story redwood home with a well-kept backyard and an attached garage. Parked off to one side was not the car Robie had been driving that morning, but a black Kia with tinted windows. Feeling there was no time for a stealthy approach, Bane came to an abrupt halt facing the Kia and was out racing for the house faster than any real wolf. Behind the screen door, the front door was wide open. The Dire Wolf rushed in, swinging around in a crouch to be ready for an attack from any angle.
Peter Robie's suitjack was draped over an Early American-style couch, and the man's loafers sat on the carpet where they had been kicked off when entering. There was no sign of the man. To the left were stairs that led down into the basement and Bane heard a faint splashing. Drawing his dart gun, he took a few deep breaths and headed down the wooden steps to find a nightmarish scene.
V.
Most of the floor area of the finished basement was taken up by a round redwood hot tub. The walkway to it had a well-equipped bar and sound system, with subdued overhead lighting which would have normally made it a perfect place for a young couple to relax after a rough day. But now the bubbling surface within the hot tub was a deep purple with white froth. That pungent sour aroma of Winsomeberry was thick in the air. As Bane reached the bottom of the steps, he saw a naked woman as thin as a concentration camp victim tugging a limp man out of the hot tub onto the wet tiled floor. Peter Robie was soaked in the Winsomeberry Juice, his clothes stained almost dark with it, and he was gasping desperately for breath.
Moira Robie may have been a beautiful woman a year earlier, judging from the photo her husband had shown Bane. The long wavy black hair still hinted at that. But now she was so horribly thin that it seemed hard to believe she was still alive and able to move around on her own. Every rib showed clearly. Her arms and legs were straight as sticks. When she raised her head to glare at Bane, her face looked just like a bony structure barely concealed beneath thin dry skin and her eyes bugged out from deep in their sockets.
She looked like a Nekrosan, Bane realized with a cold jolt in the pit of his stomach. Now he understood. He lowered the dart gun uncertainly. In her condition, the anesthetic might be fatal. "Mrs Robie?" he ventured as he stepped toward her. "Can you hear me? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
A wave of the acrid odor from the hot tub washed over him, making him gag, and in that instant something cracked against the back of his head with savage impact. Even caught off guard, with the dart gun dropping from his hand, the Dire Wolf rolled with the blow as he fell forward. He caught himself on toes and fingertips, swung around and was back up on his feet in a flash to face his attacker. A thin metal rod hissed past his face, grazing his nose as he barely ducked back in time. Bane backstepped, his open hands coming up in defensive claws as he assumed an easy cat stance.
Looming up in the dim light was a thin woman his own general height and build. She was wearing a loose jumpsuit of dark green material with an esoteric Alchemical symbol in white on the chest. Holstered by a leather belt at her right side was a Mauser in a flap holster, with a long thin dagger on her left. The Nekrosan woman held a three-foot steel rod in each hand, twirling them impatiently as she watched her foe.
Like the men of their Race, female Nekrosim had no hair, not even eyebrows or lashes. It was only the faint bulges of small breasts and narrow shoulders compared to wider hips that even told Bane this was a female. The heavy brow ledge over deepset staring eyes, the nose that was barely a stump with two nostrils, the wide toothy grin... there was no mistaking one of the Skull-Faces.
"Leave it to the Nekrosim," he growled. His head ached from the blow but he had already recovered. "You're providing these Winsomeberries. They don't even grow in the world, do they? You're bringing them from Perjena."
"Do you not know me, Dire Wolf?" came a sly whisper as the woman took a single step closer.
"What? No, of course not." Bane was ready for a tough fight. The Nekrosim had developed a martial style all their own over the ages, they were hardened warriors who trained relentlessly and this one was wielding two thin clubs that she would know well how to use. "Should I?"
"I am Lucivero of the House of Enathrol. You knew my father. Golgora!"
Unexpectedly, Bane gave a short snorting laugh. "Oh my God, has it been that long? Yeah, it's been more than twenty years since I first met Golgora. Time enough for his infant to grow up to be just like him... a murderous assassin with no sense of right and wrong!"
"Humans!" she literally spat on the wet tiles in front of her. "It is not given for you to understand our holy ways. We need servants. We need laborers. But the barons think it best if they are not so hideous as Humans."
"So you're experimenting with this Winsomeberry poison to try to get people as ugly as you?" Bane shook his head, curling his hands into tight fists and leaning forward slightly as he readied to meet her impending attack. "Well, Lucivero, this is as far as your sick little scheme goes. I'm putting a stop to it."
It was not like the Dire Wolf to miss a detail in his surroundings. He blamed it on the stifling fumes of the bubbling Winsomeberry juice steaming in the hot tub next to him. For whatever reason, Moira Robie had rolled over behind him and clutched his ankles with her skeletal hands. He kicked free in an instant, but that was all the opening that Lucivero needed. One of the steel weapons smashed against his face, almost breaking his nose, whacking back hard against the side of his cheek on the return stroke. Bane staggered, crouched without losing balance entirely and blasted out a front snap kick that caught the Nekrosan in the pit of her stomach. She doubled up and he moved in with upraised fist but she recovered as quickly as he had and drove him back with a whirling figure eight pattern of the two steel rods.
The daughter of Golgora raised one weapon up behind her grisly head and held the other out before her, perpendicular to the floor, adjusting her booted feet for a more secure stance. Bane did not draw his own daggers from their sheaths beneath his sleeves as he might have, but took her on barehanded. Leaping in on the skull-faced woman's left side, he kicked down beneath her knee and got her off balance, seizing one of the rods and wrestling it out of her grip. Bane tossed the weapon aside into the hot tub and swerved as she rose again and whipped the remaining steel rod at his face. The Dire Wolf caught the weapon in one hand, stopping it short but that left him open for a spinning back kick that drove him over the ledge of the hot tub into the steaming juice.
Even though he had time to gulp in air before the nearly-boiling liquid closed over him, Bane had trouble struggling up to the surface and found himself choking. He managed to grasp the raised rim of the hot tub and haul himself up onto the tiled floor. Breathing in that venomous atmosphere took an effort. Even with his tagra-enhanced healing, the Dire Wolf could not do more than lie there gasping for almost a full minute. He was exposed and vulnerable in that time and braced himself for crushing blows that never came.
After what seemed like forever, Bane caught his breath and got up on his feet. Set in one wall was an air-conditioning unit and he cranked it up full blast to clear the fumes. Lucivero was gone. Taking deep cleansing breaths, his head still spinning, Bane went up the steps to find the door at the top locked. He set himself, brought up the torque of his entire body from his legs to his torso and smacked an open palm that broke the lock. As soon as he emerged into the living room with its fresh air, he felt better.
Stepping out into the early evening air, he found his head clearing entirely. The KIA was long gone, of course. Bane was full of self-reproach. Even against a Nekrosan with life-long martial training, he felt he should have been able to handle her easily. Going back inside and down into the basement, he found that the AC had improved conditions. Bane snapped off the heat and agitation controls on the hot tub, then knelt to examine Peter and Moira Robie. Both were still alive but their pulses were weak and he could hear rasping with each breath they took. As he checked them out, he realized he himself was covered with the sticky purple tar of the Winsome berries.
Taking out his Link, he called for an ambulance and for the sheriff's department. He did not want to bring the Mandate in, that agency would just cover everything up and he wanted the public to know about this. Finding a stainless steel sink in one corner, he started scrubbing himself with hot water and liquid soap. In a minute, he heard loud engines outside and dragged himself upstairs again. Local volunteer firemen were getting out of their own cars, carrying oxygen equipment. He had always respected these volunteers and now he felt a happy pang realizing what good people they were.
VI.
This would not be one of Bane's cases that was settled within an hour with a single fight or arrest. Both the Robies survived after weeks in ICU, and made almost total recoveries. Moira suffered some kidney damage that would never completely heal. The strange overdose which almost killed a young couple made national news for a week, only to be left behind when a passenger plane went missing and took over the headlines.
Bane testified for lengthy periods in closed sessions with the authorities, and he financially supported class action lawsuits brought by more than a thousand consumers whose health was at risk from the beverage. He revealed nothing to anyone about the Nekrosim, of course. He did urge that the source of the Winsomeberry Juice be revealed, and when the distilling company could not bring investigators to the alleged farms near Samoa, the company was quickly closed down. WinsomeBerry Juice soon vanished from shelves and was forgotten quickly as a fad that had turned out to be dangerous.
Jeremy Bane soon moved on to new cases, of course. The Midnight War never ended. One of his obsessions now was finding a chance to meet the daughter of Golgora again.
10/21/2016
