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Entry tags:
"Seventeen Twins"
"Seventeen Twins"
7/5-7/6/2004
I.
A muggy evening in early July, with tempers short everywhere and drivers taking crazy risks. Jeremy Bane crossed 20th Street in lower Manhattan and trotted up wide stone steps to the front door of the police station he knew best. The glass door was unlocked, but he had to be buzzed in from the tiny lobby into the waiting room by a uniformed cop sitting behind a counter. The officer knew Bane as soon as he came into view, and nodded in a not unfriendly manner. Six feet tall and gaunt, dressed all in black as always, the Dire Wolf was easy to recognize. The pale grey eyes under the feral black brows never changed, nor did the wary suspicion in them.
The waiting room had two benches with the usual despondent winos and sullen petty thieves waiting to be processed, as well as two well-dressed middle-aged women likely there to bail someone out. Beyond a flanking pair of plain wooden doors stood a desk elevated on a platform so that people had to look up, a rather obvious psychological trick that nevertheless worked. On one side of the desk was the flag of the State of New York, on the other was the flag of the United States, and on the wall behind was a large portrait of the current Mayor of New York City... all this to impress the gravity of the situation on first offenders.
The Dire Wolf had been here many times under different circumstances. As he approached, the sergeant behind the desk put down a clipboard and grumbled, "You again. I suppose we can expect five or six bodies this time?"
"I do my best," Bane answered. As he spoke, a man in a lightweight tan suit stood up from a straightback wooden chair beside the desk and tucked a large manila folder under one arm. He would have been quite good-looking if he had been able to keep his weight down but it had been a losing battle for some time. He grinned as he saw the Dire Wolf again.
"Hiya, Bane," said Lt Joseph Montez with a Lower East Side accent, stepping forward. "Got a beauty for you this time."
"Evening, lieutenant," Bane replied. "I came as soon as I got your call. What's the situation?"
"Follow me. Through this door. Let me ask, did you ever hear of Milo Nicosia?"
"Nicosia? Sure," said the Dire Wolf. "Career criminal, lots of heists all over Europe. He never quite made the ranks of the very best, but he's done all right over the years."
Montez led the way down a dim corridor lined with rows of doors with frosted glass panels, behind which frequent arguments could be heard. At the end of the hall was a nook with a coffee machine, some Danish on a tray and two chairs, and next to this was a solid wooden door with the number 11 on it. The lieutenant rapped on that door sharply, an officer peered out and then let the two of them in.
It was a good-sized room with white plaster walls, lights in the ceiling that were brighter than they needed to be, and a chipped old wooden table surrounded by some folding chairs. Sitting motionless in two of those chairs were two men who looked alike. Both were tall, skinny, with thinning black hair and a prominent ratlike nose under which a trimmed pencil mustache sat. Both men wore polished black loafers, blue slacks and a bright orange crewneck shirt. They were gazing down at the floor and did not seem to be aware of Montez and Bane entering the room.
"I don't suppose they confessed?" Montez asked the officer.
"Nah. Not a peep. They just sit there."
He snorted angrily. "I wasn't hoping for much. Well, Mr Dire Wolf, whaddaya think?"
Bane had stepped toward the prisoners and started to speak, then stopped. He was staring, bending closer and studying the two men. For a long moment, he was as unmoving as they were. "Good job," he said at last. "I can't tell if it's plastic surgery or Hollywood make-up artists or what, but I can't tell one from the other."
"They look alike, huh?" asked Montez with a grin.
"Exactly alike. Every detail I can spot. Fingerprints?"
"Fingerprints match each other, which is to say they match Nicosia." Montez pulled out a chair and plopped down opposite the two motionless prisoners. "Funny."
"It has to be surgery then," Bane said. "Unless.."
Montez glanced over at him. "Unless it's something from your weird area of the twilight zone, the Midnight War. That's what I was thinking. That's why I called you tonight."
"I see. Yeah. What are the circumstances of their arrest?"
"Okay. See, this guy here? He's Nicosia One. He was nabbed swiping some goodies from Schneider's Jewelry in Time Square. Didn't resist arrest, just came quietly. Wouldn't answer questions, just sat there like he's deaf. And an hour later, THIS joker, Nicosia Two, was busted down on 32nd Street and Lexington, after breaking into a pharmaceutical storeroom. Same story, silent as a clam. When Two was brought here, the officers in charge nearly had cardiac arrest and they brought me in because I am well known as the investigator to go to where weirdness happens." The lieutenant leaned back again. "And that's because I usually drag you into it."
"I'm glad you did," Bane muttered absently. He was scrutinizing the two identical men in fascination. "Not sure what we're dealing with here. Has a doctor examined them?"
"Can't do that without consent," said Montez. "Or if they appear to be in distress, which they're not."
The Dire Wolf reached out to take the wrist of the nearer man, then stared up at the clock on the wall for thirty seconds. "Pulse is fifty-eight per minute. Way slow. Skin is clammy, I'd guess temperature at ninety-one or two. I can see them breathing, deep but slow. Surprising they're not in a coma, but they are sitting upright without trouble."
Getting up again, Montez straightened with a little effort. He had been in good shape not so long ago. "Little disappointed, Bane. I expected you to know immediately just what these boys are."
Bane did not reply right away. After a minute, he started to turn toward the door. "I want to check a few ideas, lieutenant. Keep me informed if anything happens with these two."
"And where are you going to be? If I might ask."
"I'll be looking for the real Milo Nicosia."
II.
Out into the oppressive night, Bane hurried over a block to where he had parked his dark green Subaru. As he eased out into traffic, he was digging through his memory for any similar cases in the past. Nothing came to mind. He couldn't remember ever encountering any enemy who could split in two or create living duplicates or anything like that, and he was a bit miffed. Bane would have sworn that, in over twenty years, he had come up against everything the Midnight War could offer but it seemed like there was always something new.
It was only eight when he left his car at IMPERIAL GARAGE at 40th Street and strode quickly up Third Avenue. Four blocks later, he came to the four-story orange brick building which held the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic, some doctors' offices, a posh spa, a photography studio... and his office. Bane went through the lobby and down a dead-end corridor made between a wall and the side of the staircase going up. Here, just before the metal exit door, was a plain wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY.
He unlocked the door, passed through the tiny waiting room barely big enough to hold its magazine table and two chairs, and entered the office itself. As he flicked on the lights, Bane was still wracking his brains and getting nowhere. He decided to change course and concentrate on Nicosia. They had never clashed, so all he had was second-hand information. Milo Nicosia would be about fifty now, Greek although he could not go back to his home country, and who operated around Europe. The man was a thief who preferred jewels and small valuables when acting on his own, but who accepted commissions to steal items such paintings or documents. He was basically non-violent although he would slug a guard to escape if necessary, and he was not connected with any murders or kidnappings. As far as international criminals went, Nicosia was relatively benign.
He had also never been associated with anything occult or supernatural at all, which meant he was not really a target for the Dire Wolf. And yet... there were those two men sitting in the police station, identical to Nicosia down to the fingerprints. That was Midnight War. Bane could not say why he had decided that the two were just some sort of copies of Nicosia rather than the man himself split in two, it was just his hunch.
Bane started pacing the office, arms behind his back. More than once, he missed the convenience of the old KDF days, when so much information was instantly available. It was tempting to simply call Sable or Josef and ask them to dig into the files and come up with a detailed life story of Milo Nicosia, including when he had decided to come to America. But no. He had to let the new team work on their own. The Dire Wolf crossed over and dropped down into the swivel chair behind his obsessively neat desk, drummed his fingers and scowled. As he reached for the cordless phone on the desk, it rang.
"Hello?"
"Bane, it's me again," came the sour voice of the man who called himself Bleak. "Got a sighting for you. Eighth Avenue and 46th Street, I just spotted a bad boy you might be interested in."
"Yeah? And who would that be, Bleak?"
"One of those upper-class Eurocrooks. Guy named Milo Nicosia."
The Dire Wolf jolted upright. "That's exactly who I'd like to meet. Can you see him now?"
"Sure. He just walked into a camera store. I gotta go, I'm in a taxi. Good hunting."
"Thanks, Bleak." Bane hung up and rushed from the office, hitting the lights and closing the door behind him. Bleak had been a major fighter in the Midnight War himself many years ago, but now he contented himself with reporting. Bane kept him on a monthly retainer with a bonus for extra investigative work, well worth it as Bleak's tips were always accurate.
The Dire Wolf was out of the lobby and running up Third Avenue in a blur. With the target that close, going to fetch his car and then finding a parking spot would lose more time than it was worth. He seldom got a chance to really cut loose but now he hit his top speed. People gaped as he hurtled by, faster than any Olympic sprinter, only slowing when he reached 46th and swung left to head west. Bane cut his pace to something a normal person could match, cutting around clusters of people and diving through openings in crowds. As an orphan on the streets, stealing to eat, he had escaped many angry vendors and storekeepers this way and had never been caught.
He reached Eighth Avenue and 46th Street faster than he would have in a car, dropping down to a brisk walk as he spotted a store window crammed with cameras, binoculars, cell phones and other electronic gadgets. Stepping out of the store, and pausing to look back in the window again so as to seem innocent, was Nicosia. The same face and body, the same orange crewneck shirt and blue slacks. Bane would have sworn this was one of the prisoners down as police headquarters if he didn't know better.
The question now was, was this the real Milo Nocosia or another twin? Triplet, whatever. The Dire Wolf stayed at the end of the block, looking the other way and relying on peripheral vision. Nicosia was heading west, crossing over to Ninth Avenue, and Bane followed at a block's distance. That orange shirt sure made the guy easy to keep in sight. As the suspect moved through the crowds, Bane spotted him lifting a man's wallet from the hip pocket without breaking stride. Neatly done, Nicosia was good at his trade. The sucker probably wouldn't know his wallet was gone for a while.
At the corner of Ninth and 46th, two big men were waiting. One was about six feet two, beefy and solid, wearing a plaid shirt and khakis. The other thug was not as tall but just as wide, and he had on an open tan shirt over a plain white T-shirt, jeans and work boots. Both had sullen faces which had taken some damage over the years. Milo Nicosia went up to them and the two goons asked him something, to which he seemed unhearing.
The three of them turned right, and Bane closed the gap. He had a feeling the two thugs would have a car nearby, and he didn't want to lose them. The Dire Wolf swung fast around the corner and ran directly into a straight right that caught him on the chin. It had been ages since he had just taken a punch like that. It not only stopped him, it threw him on his back and left him dazed for a second or two. Furious rather than injured, he rolled and was up again so fast it looked as if he had bounced off the sidewalk like a trampoline, only to then get shot twice in the chest. The boom of the big 45 in Nicosia's slim hand sounded like a bomb going off. The heavy slugs punched right into the center of Bane's chest, knocking him down again. In those few seconds, the other thug had gotten behind the wheel of a red Ford Taurus and started it up, and the other goon yanked open the passenger side door for himself.
That left Milo Nicosia himself, still pointing the 45 automatic at the prostrate Dire Wolf while his other hand fumbled for the rear doorhandle. He was a split-second to late to survive. Even as Bane fell the second time, his left hand flashed behind his hip and swung up with the long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 and he snapped off one shot that caught Nicosia right over the heart. The master thief dropped straight down without a sound. After a second, the car peeled out and left him behind. Bane was up again, arm extended but he couldn't risk firing at a speeding car with all the civilians in the area. Growling, he holstered his gun and straightened up, rubbing his chest gingerly.
The flexible Trom-metal armor Bane wore under his clothes was good but nothing is perfect and some impact always got through. The two bullets and the punch to the chin had him in a foul mood as a crowd gathered. Someone yelled, "Call the police!" and Bane shouted back, "You do that! And hurry up." He went over to kneel over Nicosia's body just as it began to dissolve. In a gruesome rapid collapse, the corpse fell apart into whitish goo within which something the size of a puppy wriggled lethargically. Bane stared in understandable fascination. A small brown sluglike creature moved weakly for a second and then, it too dissolved into sticky viscous matter.
The Dire Wolf slowly got to his feet. As he saw a patrol car approaching, he held up his wallet with his PI license showing and his other hand empty, and waited for what would inevitably be hours of answering questions which he dreaded more than any gunfight.
III.
At four minutes after four in the morning, a police car stopped in front of an unimpressive apartment building on 47th Street and let Jeremy Bane out. The officers wished him a cheerful farewell and pulled away. Weary for once, the Dire Wolf unlocked the front door and trudged up well-worn wooden steps and then down the hall to his apartment. He paused to flip open a concealed wooden panel he had secretly installed himself and checked that the security lights still blinked blue and green. Fine. He closed the panel, unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped into the cool dim living room. His head ached. Hours of answering the same questions over and over, signing statements after closely examining them and requesting corrections, debating with Lt Montez just what had happened... all this had drained him of life.
Bane closed the door behind him, all the security functions going armed automatically. He kicked off his boots, and dropped his jacket over a chair, then stretched out on the couch and tugged the pillows under his head. After a second, he unsnapped the holster where it had been digging into his back and tucked the revolver where he could reach it instantly. He took a few deep breaths using Tel Shai technique, cleared his mind and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
The phone ringing seemed to come from miles away. Bane snapped back to full awareness, though. Even a few hours sleep was enough to recharge his hyperactive metabolism. He sat up, not yawning or stretching or foggy in the least, and snatched up the phone as if he had been sitting there waiting for it. "Hello?"
"Me again," came the bitter voice of Bleak. "Looks like you had an interesting time last night, you're all over the news."
"Not that I want to be," grumbled Bane. He glanced at his wristwatch. 8:27 AM. "Thanks for the tip, though. Nicosia is tied up in Midnight War stuff for a change."
"You're telling me! After you plugged him and he turned into mucus, he was spotted going into an uptown subway station not an hour later. What's up with that guy?"
"I've got a theory," replied the Dire Wolf, getting up off the couch and taking the phone with him over to the kitchenette. As he talked, he heated a mug of water and stirred in some dried purple leaves from a ceramic jar. "Listen. I'd appreciate it if you notify me anytime Nicosia is seen, okay? He might be spotted in more than one place at the same time, too... this is a weird case."
"Ya think? Sure. Glad to help." Bleak's voice became amused. "So, is someone breeding Nicosias now?"
"More truth than poetry in that," Bane answered. He took a long sip of the tagra tea and felt fully awake and alert again. Tagra was only available at the Order of Tel Shai, it was the secret of the healing powers and longevity Tel Shai knights enjoyed. "I'm beginning to think an Alchemist is involved."
"Yeah, well good luck tackling one of those guys. They're slippery. Catch you later."
"So long, Bleak." He finished the tagra tea, rinsed out the mug and put it in the rack to dry. There was not even a twinge where he had been shot twice a few hours earlier, nor a bruise where he had taken a solid punch to the chin. He was used to this by now, decades on the tagra tea had boosted his recuperative powers beyond what medical science could explain. He was not indestructible, his healing had limits and he had could be killed, but so far he had bounced back from trauma that would alarm ICU doctors.
Before he went any further, the Dire Wolf took his revolver into his bedroom, got tools and supplies from a metal case, and cleaned the weapon thoroughly. He replaced the extended barrel with a spare from a rack of five, reloaded the chambers and spun the cylinder. There. This was something he could never afford to skip.
Digging through the refrigerator, he found half a mixed sub and a huge bowl of macaroni salad, which he brought over to the couch. Through some miracle, the remote was sitting on the coffee table and he turned on the local NYC stations to check out the news. Sure enough, the strange events of the night before were being discussed. There was only one brief snatch of video someone had recorded on a cell phone, showing Bane being shot and returning fire, then a glimpse of Nicosia starting to dissolve. No one could explain why the face of the man in black showed as a useless blur.
The Dire Wolf smiled to himself as he chewed giant chunks of the sub. The protective Eldar talisman he wore around his neck, and even more, the matched silver daggers ensorcelled by the Eldarin, had an unintended effect of fogging film and disrupting digital media. Most gralic energy sources did this. It was why reporters had never been able to get a usuable photo of him.
At nine, the local stations cut to network morning news shows. Bane clicked the TV off, satisfied that his name had not been mentioned and his face had not appeared on the screen yet. Of course, reporters would be pestering the police for information about the bizarre incident and they would be demanding to know who the man in black was. He doubted the reporters would get that information, though. The NYPD regarded the Dire Wolf as a useful loose cannon who could handle supernatural threats and whose existence could be denied. This suited him fine.
Heading into his bedroom, Bane stripped and took a hot shower, shaving as he did so. As he showered, he turned the suit of flexible Trom armor inside out, rinsed it off with soapy water and hung it up to dry. There was a second suit of the armor in his supplies at the KDF building and he kept meaning to get it so he would have a spare handy, but something always came up. He also removed the silver daggers, placed them on his dresser, and wiped the leather sheaths with a damp cloth. Toweling himself dry, he put on plain cotton briefs and a white T-shirt before going back out to the living room.
Dropping back onto the couch, the Dire Wolf sat resting one elbow on a knee and propped up his chin with that fist. He was sure now he knew how Nicosia was turning up as triplets. They were Other-men, golems of false-flesh animated by a crude sluglike being in their torsos. Bane remembered when he had first encountered Other-men, working on an early KDF case with Cindy and Michael Hawk. That had been in 1981. He jolted upright. 1981? God, that was a long time ago. 1981.. and yet here he was, still fighting the Midnight War, still rushing out to tackle monsters and maniacs all these years later. How had he survived so long?
Getting up and starting to pace the length of the room, the Dire Wolf got his thoughts back on track. Those Other-men in the early case had been created by an Alchemist named Lee Hutchins, under the tutelage of the Ulgor wizard Li Tung. The slugs inside the artificial had rudimentary consciousness as he remembered. Less intelligent than a dog, able to follow simple commands but usually acting on instructions from the mind of their maker. They were flesh puppets, and once they were killed, the unstable false-flesh dissolved almost instantly... as he had just seen the night before.
There were only a few Alchemists with enough skill and learning to create those golems or the slugs within them. Dr Vitarius, of course. Melchius. Inez Vargas. The Sphinx, possibly. Megistus had died a few years earlier. Who else? The Manchurian, maybe? He dismissed Dr Vitarius and Inez Vargas for the moment, he knew them as trusted allies. The Sphinx was still in prison back in Cairo, as far as he knew, but it would be good to check on that. No one had heard from the Manchurian for years. But Melchius... Melchius had been a Manhattan resident at one time and he was malicious enough for activities like this.
Well, it was something to start on. Bane checked that the Trom armor had dried, put it back on and then strapped the sheathed silver daggers to his forearms again. He got a fresh suit of what amounted to his uniform, black slacks and long-sleeved turtleneck, then shrugged on the same sport jacket from the day before, which still had all its tiny gadgets in concealed pockets. These gimmicks varied according to the expected situation but right now he had his standard assortment. He holstered the .38 behind his left hip where the sport jacket concealed it and decided he was ready to get started. He left his apartment, hurried down the stairs and out the front door into a muggy hazing morning.
IV.
That day was almost a total loss. Sitting in his office on 44th Street, Bane made a dozen phone calls to his army of observers. From the beginning, he had turned down rewards from the people he saved, asking that instead they inform him when they saw anything weird or inexplicable. A dozen of these observers were on modest monthly retainers because they did a little investigating, but most were grateful enough for having their lives or their loved ones saved that they gladly called Bane with information. By noon, he had touched base with his most reliable observers and gotten a few tips which didn't pan out. Two had indeed spotted a man who answered the description of Milo Nicosia but they had seen the duplicates who had been arrested, so this didn't get him anywhere.
At twelve, he was ready to explode from sitting still too long. Being hyper had its drawbacks. He left his office, walked a few blocks to a Five Guys and got a bacon cheeseburger nearly the size of his head, with a bag of fries cooked in peanut oil. Now he felt better. Bane strolled around the block, chatted for a minute with a newsstand vendor and picked up two newspapers before going back to his office. Dropping behind his desk, he searched the papers for the story about the strange shooting the night before and found only a bare mention of the incident, with hints that there had been some doubts it had even happened. He smiled grimly. So much went on in the night that the average citizen never heard about. Midnight War, indeed.
As he was about to start calling more of his observers, the office phone rang. Lt Montez wanted to let him know that the twin Milo Nicosias had fallen apart into stinking masses of goo that morning, leaving nothing solid behind. He sounded ready to blow up into hysterics, and Bane calmed him down a little by saying he had a few leads and was on the trail of whoever was responsible. That seemed to help. They promised to keep each other informed.
At a quarter to three, an observer named Steve Resnick told Bane he had just seen someone who looked like Nicosia down in Tribeca, windowshopping. The guy even had the same orange crewneck shirt and blue slacks. Bane thanked him, slammed the phone down and dove out of the office in a long bound. He was through the lobby and racing down to 40th Street and IMPERIAL GARAGE to claim his car in a little over a minute. As he headed south, the Dire Wolf started to call Montez, then hesitated. The police would just take this Other-man into custody and get nowhere. No. He wanted to handle this himself.
Pulling into a municipal parking lot, he paid for the day and started walking quickly up and down the streets. This was a ritzy neighborhood, full of upscale boutiques and art galleries and gift shops. Bane kept moving, and sure enough he spotted that bright orange shirt on the next block. It was Nicosia or at least a duplicate. The Dire Wolf followed at a distance, saw the international thief go into a jewelry store and come out ten minutes later with a tiny package. Bane's Kumundu training allowed him to spot that the man's balance was slightly off from a few minutes earlier... something heavy was pulling his pants down on the right side. There you go, he thought, that was an old old trick. Buying something worth forty dollars while swiping items worth ten times as much.
Nicosia walked slowly, checking out each shop window. Bane found it more than a little creepy to be shadowing someone who exactly resembled the "man" he had shot dead the night before, not to mention the two twins he had seen in police headquarters, but then he was used to bizarre situations. On the next block, Nicosia repeated his actions in a gift shop and came out with a visible bulge in his left pants pocket. Now he's really pushing his luck, thought Bane. A good thief knows when to stop. But the man emerged without no one calling after him or trying to stop him. Nicosia started walking quicker, no longer browsing. He headed south and turned at a corner to go west. Bane followed at a prudent distance, keeping passers-by between them and ready to duck into a doorway, but Nicosia never glanced back.
As they neared the river, the quality of the neighborhood went sharply downhill. At Tenth Avenue, Nicosia walked up onto the stoop of an old three-story brownstone building and pressed the buzzer. A second later, he was admitted and the door closed behind him.
Further up the block, Bane paused. It was broad daylight on a muggy summer afternoon. He much preferred sneaking around in the middle of the night, but he couldn't risk losing the trail, since he was convinced this had been a duplicate returning to its original with loot.
Taking a deep breath, the Dire Wolf decided to just go for the obvious. He stepped up to the front door of the brownstone and planted his feet well apart. Drawing his elbow back five inches, he slammed the heel of his hand just above the doorknob, bringing all the torque of his entire body into the blow. There was a snapping noise and he swung the door open and stepped inside, whipping his right arm up in an outer block to deflect the gun barrel that was suddenly aimed at his head. In the same motion, that arm blurred back to crash a backfist right to the gunman's nose with a crunching sound.
The goon staggerd back, not letting go of his weapon and getting his bearings. With that 9mm semi-automatic aimed squarely at him, Bane surprisingly raised his open hands in surrender. "Okay, pal, you got me. Let's go see your boss."
From behind the thug came the thin voice of an elderly man. "Oh, put down your weapon, Carl. This is the Dire Wolf. If he wanted to, he could kill you now so fast you wouldn't know it." A short slight figure stepped carefully around the gunman. "First, he wants to find out what's going on here. Isn't that right, Mr Bane?"
Smiling at the ancient Alchemist, the Dire Wolf answered, "Exactly, Melchius."
V.
No one knew for sure how old Melchius was or where he came from. He was first mentioned in a book published in London in 1898, and he was described as "venerable" back then. Among Alchemists, he was respected but kept to himself and never shared any discoveries he made. Looking at the man now, Bane would have said he was in his late sixties, no more than five feet six and thin, with only a circle of white hair around his ears and the back of his head. The blue eyes were sharp and alert over a long pointed nose, and the Alchemist was well dressed in a black slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt with a dark blue vest fitted with seven slit pockets.
Seeing those pockets and remembering his encounters with other Alchemists, Bane was sure that Melchius was carrying vials of useful potions in them. Even at his age, those Velkandu potions would make him a dangerous enemy if he could throw their contents.
"I suppose you would like to see my workshop, Mr Bane? Oh, don't worry about the door. I will send you the bill," he cackled. Melchius turned and gestured with a withered hand toward the narrow bannistered staircase. "Please, you go first."
"Thank you," the Dire Wolf replied in his deadpan manner. He started up, wth Carl a few paces behind him, still holding the gun ready. Melchius followed last, one hand on the bannister and placing each foot carefully.
"I knew Kenneth Dred, you know," said the Alchemist. "Back in, oh 1967 or so. He had someone called the Deacon working for him. Dred interviewed me for a book he was writing about Velkandu and we spent a few evenings chatting as he ran his tape recorder. He sent me three free copies. I still have them."
"Glad to hear that," Bane replied. He paused at the second floor landing, staring at one huge room. Some of the interior walls had been knocked out to leave open space. Black formica tables held countless glass beakers and jugs, with piping connecting some of them. Two stools sat next to the door, and a white lab smock hung on a hook. But Bane hardly noticed this. His attention was on a row of clear vats the size of bathtubs, filled with milky liquid in which slugs floated just beneath the suface. They were brown, wrinkled, with four rudimentary limbs and blunt heads with slits for mouths and eyes that were closed.
The Dire Wolf stood where he was, turning only to face Melchius and the gunman as they reached the floor. "Homunculi," he said. "These are what make your Other-men work."
"Really. Very good, young man. Not many in the Midnight War know this." Melchius chuckled happily. "Few indeed have succeeded in breeding these rather unattractive creatures. I believe Li Tung was the last to be able to create them."
"I remember Li Tung," Bane said. "I have a question. An Alchemist of your skill should be able to create gold or silver from common metals. So money should not be a problem for you. Why are you working with someone like Milo Nicosia?"
Melchius shrugged. "Large amounts of gold and silver arouse curiosity. It was becoming awkward to find someone willing to buy such metal in quantity. I had heard of Milo, and approached him to act as my thief. His duplicates bring in over a thousand dollars worth of loot a day."
"Makes sense. Why have them all look alike? Why not at least dress each one differently, give them slightly different features?"
"Ha, that is Milo's idea. He sees himself as an artist in crime, and he rather likes the theatrical touch. I don't mind. Several of them have been captured so far, but they degrade into raw protoplasm in a day or so, so no harm is done." Melchius pointed to the stairs again. "If you would?"
Bane started going up the stairs again, planning his next move. He was not particularly worried about Carl as the man was pointing the gun at his midsection where the Trom armor would protect him. Melchius was more of a threat. The potions in that vest could range from bone-eating acid to poison gas to freezing vapors. The Dire Wolf stood at the landing, where three doors waited. Carl came up behind him, standing a bit too close. The ancient Alchemist followed, went to a door and swung it inward.
"This will be quite a sight," Melchius promised.
On plain wooden chairs in an otherwise empty room, thirteen identical figures sat with lowered heads. Skinny men with thinning black hair, prominent potato-shaped noses over pencil mustaches, all wearing blue pants and orange crew neck shirts. Most had a kitchen knife resting on their laps, several had revolvers but all had their hands resting near the weapons.
"Now this should be interesting. One of these of course is the real Milo Nicosia, and as you may know, he is an expert with knife or handgun. I am going to allow you to try to spot the real Milo before he kills you. Please. Go ahead." Melchius waved a hand at the thirteen motionless figures. "See if you can spot the original from my masterpieces of imitation."
Bane came as close to smiling as he ever did. "Piece of cake," he answered and with the last word, he drove his elbow back viciously into Carl's throat. The man realy slhould have been standing further back for his own safety. As the thug gagged and dropped his gun to clutch at his crushed windpipe, the Dire Wolf took a hopping sideways step and smacked the sole of his boot right into Melchius' chest. The glass vials in those pockets all shattered at once and the Alchemist shrieked as he was engulfed in a cloud of vile black vapor. Before Carl or Melchius hit the floor, Bane had dropped to one knee as a shot detonated deafeningly in that enclosed space and a bullet hissed through the air where his head had been a split-second earlier. One of the Nicosias had gotten up and was ready to take a second shot when a bullet slapped into his forehead and dropped him instantly lifeless where he stood.
Three seconds. Jeremy Bane stood up over three dead bodies. Melchius was a blackened husk from which noxious fumes still rose. The gunman had died, unable to breathe with his windpipe flattened. And Milo Nicosia was lying there with a tunnel through his head. The Dire Wolf holstered his weapon and exhaled sharply. None of the Other-men had stirred during the brief storm of violence. They still sat passively in their chairs, twelve twins who would never receive any orders.
He knew that legally he should immediately call NYPD and wait for Montez, but he had no intention of doing so. First, he was going to phone 38th Street and see which KDF members were available. Hopefully, most of them would be. They would come here and remove all the books of forbidden knowledge, the arcane talismans and artifacts which would be best stored safely at headquarters. The dangerous potions would be disposed of, and any useful Alchemical serums would also be confiscated. Within twenty-four hours, these Other-men and the slugs in their vats would degenerate into masses of gunk of no use to anyone. Only then would Bane inform the police that they would find something interesting in this old house, and that no more imitation Milo Nicosias would be showing up to puzzle them.
Bane felt only slight remorse as he stared at the three bodies. As far as he knew, no civilians had been killed or kidnapped during this bizarre rash of robberies. But the gang had certainly intended to murder him today, and he could justify this as self-defense. He took out his Link and called KDF headquarters. "Sable? Hi, glad you're on duty. Listen, have you been following these robberies by identical thieves...?"
7/8/2014
7/5-7/6/2004
I.
A muggy evening in early July, with tempers short everywhere and drivers taking crazy risks. Jeremy Bane crossed 20th Street in lower Manhattan and trotted up wide stone steps to the front door of the police station he knew best. The glass door was unlocked, but he had to be buzzed in from the tiny lobby into the waiting room by a uniformed cop sitting behind a counter. The officer knew Bane as soon as he came into view, and nodded in a not unfriendly manner. Six feet tall and gaunt, dressed all in black as always, the Dire Wolf was easy to recognize. The pale grey eyes under the feral black brows never changed, nor did the wary suspicion in them.
The waiting room had two benches with the usual despondent winos and sullen petty thieves waiting to be processed, as well as two well-dressed middle-aged women likely there to bail someone out. Beyond a flanking pair of plain wooden doors stood a desk elevated on a platform so that people had to look up, a rather obvious psychological trick that nevertheless worked. On one side of the desk was the flag of the State of New York, on the other was the flag of the United States, and on the wall behind was a large portrait of the current Mayor of New York City... all this to impress the gravity of the situation on first offenders.
The Dire Wolf had been here many times under different circumstances. As he approached, the sergeant behind the desk put down a clipboard and grumbled, "You again. I suppose we can expect five or six bodies this time?"
"I do my best," Bane answered. As he spoke, a man in a lightweight tan suit stood up from a straightback wooden chair beside the desk and tucked a large manila folder under one arm. He would have been quite good-looking if he had been able to keep his weight down but it had been a losing battle for some time. He grinned as he saw the Dire Wolf again.
"Hiya, Bane," said Lt Joseph Montez with a Lower East Side accent, stepping forward. "Got a beauty for you this time."
"Evening, lieutenant," Bane replied. "I came as soon as I got your call. What's the situation?"
"Follow me. Through this door. Let me ask, did you ever hear of Milo Nicosia?"
"Nicosia? Sure," said the Dire Wolf. "Career criminal, lots of heists all over Europe. He never quite made the ranks of the very best, but he's done all right over the years."
Montez led the way down a dim corridor lined with rows of doors with frosted glass panels, behind which frequent arguments could be heard. At the end of the hall was a nook with a coffee machine, some Danish on a tray and two chairs, and next to this was a solid wooden door with the number 11 on it. The lieutenant rapped on that door sharply, an officer peered out and then let the two of them in.
It was a good-sized room with white plaster walls, lights in the ceiling that were brighter than they needed to be, and a chipped old wooden table surrounded by some folding chairs. Sitting motionless in two of those chairs were two men who looked alike. Both were tall, skinny, with thinning black hair and a prominent ratlike nose under which a trimmed pencil mustache sat. Both men wore polished black loafers, blue slacks and a bright orange crewneck shirt. They were gazing down at the floor and did not seem to be aware of Montez and Bane entering the room.
"I don't suppose they confessed?" Montez asked the officer.
"Nah. Not a peep. They just sit there."
He snorted angrily. "I wasn't hoping for much. Well, Mr Dire Wolf, whaddaya think?"
Bane had stepped toward the prisoners and started to speak, then stopped. He was staring, bending closer and studying the two men. For a long moment, he was as unmoving as they were. "Good job," he said at last. "I can't tell if it's plastic surgery or Hollywood make-up artists or what, but I can't tell one from the other."
"They look alike, huh?" asked Montez with a grin.
"Exactly alike. Every detail I can spot. Fingerprints?"
"Fingerprints match each other, which is to say they match Nicosia." Montez pulled out a chair and plopped down opposite the two motionless prisoners. "Funny."
"It has to be surgery then," Bane said. "Unless.."
Montez glanced over at him. "Unless it's something from your weird area of the twilight zone, the Midnight War. That's what I was thinking. That's why I called you tonight."
"I see. Yeah. What are the circumstances of their arrest?"
"Okay. See, this guy here? He's Nicosia One. He was nabbed swiping some goodies from Schneider's Jewelry in Time Square. Didn't resist arrest, just came quietly. Wouldn't answer questions, just sat there like he's deaf. And an hour later, THIS joker, Nicosia Two, was busted down on 32nd Street and Lexington, after breaking into a pharmaceutical storeroom. Same story, silent as a clam. When Two was brought here, the officers in charge nearly had cardiac arrest and they brought me in because I am well known as the investigator to go to where weirdness happens." The lieutenant leaned back again. "And that's because I usually drag you into it."
"I'm glad you did," Bane muttered absently. He was scrutinizing the two identical men in fascination. "Not sure what we're dealing with here. Has a doctor examined them?"
"Can't do that without consent," said Montez. "Or if they appear to be in distress, which they're not."
The Dire Wolf reached out to take the wrist of the nearer man, then stared up at the clock on the wall for thirty seconds. "Pulse is fifty-eight per minute. Way slow. Skin is clammy, I'd guess temperature at ninety-one or two. I can see them breathing, deep but slow. Surprising they're not in a coma, but they are sitting upright without trouble."
Getting up again, Montez straightened with a little effort. He had been in good shape not so long ago. "Little disappointed, Bane. I expected you to know immediately just what these boys are."
Bane did not reply right away. After a minute, he started to turn toward the door. "I want to check a few ideas, lieutenant. Keep me informed if anything happens with these two."
"And where are you going to be? If I might ask."
"I'll be looking for the real Milo Nicosia."
II.
Out into the oppressive night, Bane hurried over a block to where he had parked his dark green Subaru. As he eased out into traffic, he was digging through his memory for any similar cases in the past. Nothing came to mind. He couldn't remember ever encountering any enemy who could split in two or create living duplicates or anything like that, and he was a bit miffed. Bane would have sworn that, in over twenty years, he had come up against everything the Midnight War could offer but it seemed like there was always something new.
It was only eight when he left his car at IMPERIAL GARAGE at 40th Street and strode quickly up Third Avenue. Four blocks later, he came to the four-story orange brick building which held the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic, some doctors' offices, a posh spa, a photography studio... and his office. Bane went through the lobby and down a dead-end corridor made between a wall and the side of the staircase going up. Here, just before the metal exit door, was a plain wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY.
He unlocked the door, passed through the tiny waiting room barely big enough to hold its magazine table and two chairs, and entered the office itself. As he flicked on the lights, Bane was still wracking his brains and getting nowhere. He decided to change course and concentrate on Nicosia. They had never clashed, so all he had was second-hand information. Milo Nicosia would be about fifty now, Greek although he could not go back to his home country, and who operated around Europe. The man was a thief who preferred jewels and small valuables when acting on his own, but who accepted commissions to steal items such paintings or documents. He was basically non-violent although he would slug a guard to escape if necessary, and he was not connected with any murders or kidnappings. As far as international criminals went, Nicosia was relatively benign.
He had also never been associated with anything occult or supernatural at all, which meant he was not really a target for the Dire Wolf. And yet... there were those two men sitting in the police station, identical to Nicosia down to the fingerprints. That was Midnight War. Bane could not say why he had decided that the two were just some sort of copies of Nicosia rather than the man himself split in two, it was just his hunch.
Bane started pacing the office, arms behind his back. More than once, he missed the convenience of the old KDF days, when so much information was instantly available. It was tempting to simply call Sable or Josef and ask them to dig into the files and come up with a detailed life story of Milo Nicosia, including when he had decided to come to America. But no. He had to let the new team work on their own. The Dire Wolf crossed over and dropped down into the swivel chair behind his obsessively neat desk, drummed his fingers and scowled. As he reached for the cordless phone on the desk, it rang.
"Hello?"
"Bane, it's me again," came the sour voice of the man who called himself Bleak. "Got a sighting for you. Eighth Avenue and 46th Street, I just spotted a bad boy you might be interested in."
"Yeah? And who would that be, Bleak?"
"One of those upper-class Eurocrooks. Guy named Milo Nicosia."
The Dire Wolf jolted upright. "That's exactly who I'd like to meet. Can you see him now?"
"Sure. He just walked into a camera store. I gotta go, I'm in a taxi. Good hunting."
"Thanks, Bleak." Bane hung up and rushed from the office, hitting the lights and closing the door behind him. Bleak had been a major fighter in the Midnight War himself many years ago, but now he contented himself with reporting. Bane kept him on a monthly retainer with a bonus for extra investigative work, well worth it as Bleak's tips were always accurate.
The Dire Wolf was out of the lobby and running up Third Avenue in a blur. With the target that close, going to fetch his car and then finding a parking spot would lose more time than it was worth. He seldom got a chance to really cut loose but now he hit his top speed. People gaped as he hurtled by, faster than any Olympic sprinter, only slowing when he reached 46th and swung left to head west. Bane cut his pace to something a normal person could match, cutting around clusters of people and diving through openings in crowds. As an orphan on the streets, stealing to eat, he had escaped many angry vendors and storekeepers this way and had never been caught.
He reached Eighth Avenue and 46th Street faster than he would have in a car, dropping down to a brisk walk as he spotted a store window crammed with cameras, binoculars, cell phones and other electronic gadgets. Stepping out of the store, and pausing to look back in the window again so as to seem innocent, was Nicosia. The same face and body, the same orange crewneck shirt and blue slacks. Bane would have sworn this was one of the prisoners down as police headquarters if he didn't know better.
The question now was, was this the real Milo Nocosia or another twin? Triplet, whatever. The Dire Wolf stayed at the end of the block, looking the other way and relying on peripheral vision. Nicosia was heading west, crossing over to Ninth Avenue, and Bane followed at a block's distance. That orange shirt sure made the guy easy to keep in sight. As the suspect moved through the crowds, Bane spotted him lifting a man's wallet from the hip pocket without breaking stride. Neatly done, Nicosia was good at his trade. The sucker probably wouldn't know his wallet was gone for a while.
At the corner of Ninth and 46th, two big men were waiting. One was about six feet two, beefy and solid, wearing a plaid shirt and khakis. The other thug was not as tall but just as wide, and he had on an open tan shirt over a plain white T-shirt, jeans and work boots. Both had sullen faces which had taken some damage over the years. Milo Nicosia went up to them and the two goons asked him something, to which he seemed unhearing.
The three of them turned right, and Bane closed the gap. He had a feeling the two thugs would have a car nearby, and he didn't want to lose them. The Dire Wolf swung fast around the corner and ran directly into a straight right that caught him on the chin. It had been ages since he had just taken a punch like that. It not only stopped him, it threw him on his back and left him dazed for a second or two. Furious rather than injured, he rolled and was up again so fast it looked as if he had bounced off the sidewalk like a trampoline, only to then get shot twice in the chest. The boom of the big 45 in Nicosia's slim hand sounded like a bomb going off. The heavy slugs punched right into the center of Bane's chest, knocking him down again. In those few seconds, the other thug had gotten behind the wheel of a red Ford Taurus and started it up, and the other goon yanked open the passenger side door for himself.
That left Milo Nicosia himself, still pointing the 45 automatic at the prostrate Dire Wolf while his other hand fumbled for the rear doorhandle. He was a split-second to late to survive. Even as Bane fell the second time, his left hand flashed behind his hip and swung up with the long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 and he snapped off one shot that caught Nicosia right over the heart. The master thief dropped straight down without a sound. After a second, the car peeled out and left him behind. Bane was up again, arm extended but he couldn't risk firing at a speeding car with all the civilians in the area. Growling, he holstered his gun and straightened up, rubbing his chest gingerly.
The flexible Trom-metal armor Bane wore under his clothes was good but nothing is perfect and some impact always got through. The two bullets and the punch to the chin had him in a foul mood as a crowd gathered. Someone yelled, "Call the police!" and Bane shouted back, "You do that! And hurry up." He went over to kneel over Nicosia's body just as it began to dissolve. In a gruesome rapid collapse, the corpse fell apart into whitish goo within which something the size of a puppy wriggled lethargically. Bane stared in understandable fascination. A small brown sluglike creature moved weakly for a second and then, it too dissolved into sticky viscous matter.
The Dire Wolf slowly got to his feet. As he saw a patrol car approaching, he held up his wallet with his PI license showing and his other hand empty, and waited for what would inevitably be hours of answering questions which he dreaded more than any gunfight.
III.
At four minutes after four in the morning, a police car stopped in front of an unimpressive apartment building on 47th Street and let Jeremy Bane out. The officers wished him a cheerful farewell and pulled away. Weary for once, the Dire Wolf unlocked the front door and trudged up well-worn wooden steps and then down the hall to his apartment. He paused to flip open a concealed wooden panel he had secretly installed himself and checked that the security lights still blinked blue and green. Fine. He closed the panel, unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped into the cool dim living room. His head ached. Hours of answering the same questions over and over, signing statements after closely examining them and requesting corrections, debating with Lt Montez just what had happened... all this had drained him of life.
Bane closed the door behind him, all the security functions going armed automatically. He kicked off his boots, and dropped his jacket over a chair, then stretched out on the couch and tugged the pillows under his head. After a second, he unsnapped the holster where it had been digging into his back and tucked the revolver where he could reach it instantly. He took a few deep breaths using Tel Shai technique, cleared his mind and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
The phone ringing seemed to come from miles away. Bane snapped back to full awareness, though. Even a few hours sleep was enough to recharge his hyperactive metabolism. He sat up, not yawning or stretching or foggy in the least, and snatched up the phone as if he had been sitting there waiting for it. "Hello?"
"Me again," came the bitter voice of Bleak. "Looks like you had an interesting time last night, you're all over the news."
"Not that I want to be," grumbled Bane. He glanced at his wristwatch. 8:27 AM. "Thanks for the tip, though. Nicosia is tied up in Midnight War stuff for a change."
"You're telling me! After you plugged him and he turned into mucus, he was spotted going into an uptown subway station not an hour later. What's up with that guy?"
"I've got a theory," replied the Dire Wolf, getting up off the couch and taking the phone with him over to the kitchenette. As he talked, he heated a mug of water and stirred in some dried purple leaves from a ceramic jar. "Listen. I'd appreciate it if you notify me anytime Nicosia is seen, okay? He might be spotted in more than one place at the same time, too... this is a weird case."
"Ya think? Sure. Glad to help." Bleak's voice became amused. "So, is someone breeding Nicosias now?"
"More truth than poetry in that," Bane answered. He took a long sip of the tagra tea and felt fully awake and alert again. Tagra was only available at the Order of Tel Shai, it was the secret of the healing powers and longevity Tel Shai knights enjoyed. "I'm beginning to think an Alchemist is involved."
"Yeah, well good luck tackling one of those guys. They're slippery. Catch you later."
"So long, Bleak." He finished the tagra tea, rinsed out the mug and put it in the rack to dry. There was not even a twinge where he had been shot twice a few hours earlier, nor a bruise where he had taken a solid punch to the chin. He was used to this by now, decades on the tagra tea had boosted his recuperative powers beyond what medical science could explain. He was not indestructible, his healing had limits and he had could be killed, but so far he had bounced back from trauma that would alarm ICU doctors.
Before he went any further, the Dire Wolf took his revolver into his bedroom, got tools and supplies from a metal case, and cleaned the weapon thoroughly. He replaced the extended barrel with a spare from a rack of five, reloaded the chambers and spun the cylinder. There. This was something he could never afford to skip.
Digging through the refrigerator, he found half a mixed sub and a huge bowl of macaroni salad, which he brought over to the couch. Through some miracle, the remote was sitting on the coffee table and he turned on the local NYC stations to check out the news. Sure enough, the strange events of the night before were being discussed. There was only one brief snatch of video someone had recorded on a cell phone, showing Bane being shot and returning fire, then a glimpse of Nicosia starting to dissolve. No one could explain why the face of the man in black showed as a useless blur.
The Dire Wolf smiled to himself as he chewed giant chunks of the sub. The protective Eldar talisman he wore around his neck, and even more, the matched silver daggers ensorcelled by the Eldarin, had an unintended effect of fogging film and disrupting digital media. Most gralic energy sources did this. It was why reporters had never been able to get a usuable photo of him.
At nine, the local stations cut to network morning news shows. Bane clicked the TV off, satisfied that his name had not been mentioned and his face had not appeared on the screen yet. Of course, reporters would be pestering the police for information about the bizarre incident and they would be demanding to know who the man in black was. He doubted the reporters would get that information, though. The NYPD regarded the Dire Wolf as a useful loose cannon who could handle supernatural threats and whose existence could be denied. This suited him fine.
Heading into his bedroom, Bane stripped and took a hot shower, shaving as he did so. As he showered, he turned the suit of flexible Trom armor inside out, rinsed it off with soapy water and hung it up to dry. There was a second suit of the armor in his supplies at the KDF building and he kept meaning to get it so he would have a spare handy, but something always came up. He also removed the silver daggers, placed them on his dresser, and wiped the leather sheaths with a damp cloth. Toweling himself dry, he put on plain cotton briefs and a white T-shirt before going back out to the living room.
Dropping back onto the couch, the Dire Wolf sat resting one elbow on a knee and propped up his chin with that fist. He was sure now he knew how Nicosia was turning up as triplets. They were Other-men, golems of false-flesh animated by a crude sluglike being in their torsos. Bane remembered when he had first encountered Other-men, working on an early KDF case with Cindy and Michael Hawk. That had been in 1981. He jolted upright. 1981? God, that was a long time ago. 1981.. and yet here he was, still fighting the Midnight War, still rushing out to tackle monsters and maniacs all these years later. How had he survived so long?
Getting up and starting to pace the length of the room, the Dire Wolf got his thoughts back on track. Those Other-men in the early case had been created by an Alchemist named Lee Hutchins, under the tutelage of the Ulgor wizard Li Tung. The slugs inside the artificial had rudimentary consciousness as he remembered. Less intelligent than a dog, able to follow simple commands but usually acting on instructions from the mind of their maker. They were flesh puppets, and once they were killed, the unstable false-flesh dissolved almost instantly... as he had just seen the night before.
There were only a few Alchemists with enough skill and learning to create those golems or the slugs within them. Dr Vitarius, of course. Melchius. Inez Vargas. The Sphinx, possibly. Megistus had died a few years earlier. Who else? The Manchurian, maybe? He dismissed Dr Vitarius and Inez Vargas for the moment, he knew them as trusted allies. The Sphinx was still in prison back in Cairo, as far as he knew, but it would be good to check on that. No one had heard from the Manchurian for years. But Melchius... Melchius had been a Manhattan resident at one time and he was malicious enough for activities like this.
Well, it was something to start on. Bane checked that the Trom armor had dried, put it back on and then strapped the sheathed silver daggers to his forearms again. He got a fresh suit of what amounted to his uniform, black slacks and long-sleeved turtleneck, then shrugged on the same sport jacket from the day before, which still had all its tiny gadgets in concealed pockets. These gimmicks varied according to the expected situation but right now he had his standard assortment. He holstered the .38 behind his left hip where the sport jacket concealed it and decided he was ready to get started. He left his apartment, hurried down the stairs and out the front door into a muggy hazing morning.
IV.
That day was almost a total loss. Sitting in his office on 44th Street, Bane made a dozen phone calls to his army of observers. From the beginning, he had turned down rewards from the people he saved, asking that instead they inform him when they saw anything weird or inexplicable. A dozen of these observers were on modest monthly retainers because they did a little investigating, but most were grateful enough for having their lives or their loved ones saved that they gladly called Bane with information. By noon, he had touched base with his most reliable observers and gotten a few tips which didn't pan out. Two had indeed spotted a man who answered the description of Milo Nicosia but they had seen the duplicates who had been arrested, so this didn't get him anywhere.
At twelve, he was ready to explode from sitting still too long. Being hyper had its drawbacks. He left his office, walked a few blocks to a Five Guys and got a bacon cheeseburger nearly the size of his head, with a bag of fries cooked in peanut oil. Now he felt better. Bane strolled around the block, chatted for a minute with a newsstand vendor and picked up two newspapers before going back to his office. Dropping behind his desk, he searched the papers for the story about the strange shooting the night before and found only a bare mention of the incident, with hints that there had been some doubts it had even happened. He smiled grimly. So much went on in the night that the average citizen never heard about. Midnight War, indeed.
As he was about to start calling more of his observers, the office phone rang. Lt Montez wanted to let him know that the twin Milo Nicosias had fallen apart into stinking masses of goo that morning, leaving nothing solid behind. He sounded ready to blow up into hysterics, and Bane calmed him down a little by saying he had a few leads and was on the trail of whoever was responsible. That seemed to help. They promised to keep each other informed.
At a quarter to three, an observer named Steve Resnick told Bane he had just seen someone who looked like Nicosia down in Tribeca, windowshopping. The guy even had the same orange crewneck shirt and blue slacks. Bane thanked him, slammed the phone down and dove out of the office in a long bound. He was through the lobby and racing down to 40th Street and IMPERIAL GARAGE to claim his car in a little over a minute. As he headed south, the Dire Wolf started to call Montez, then hesitated. The police would just take this Other-man into custody and get nowhere. No. He wanted to handle this himself.
Pulling into a municipal parking lot, he paid for the day and started walking quickly up and down the streets. This was a ritzy neighborhood, full of upscale boutiques and art galleries and gift shops. Bane kept moving, and sure enough he spotted that bright orange shirt on the next block. It was Nicosia or at least a duplicate. The Dire Wolf followed at a distance, saw the international thief go into a jewelry store and come out ten minutes later with a tiny package. Bane's Kumundu training allowed him to spot that the man's balance was slightly off from a few minutes earlier... something heavy was pulling his pants down on the right side. There you go, he thought, that was an old old trick. Buying something worth forty dollars while swiping items worth ten times as much.
Nicosia walked slowly, checking out each shop window. Bane found it more than a little creepy to be shadowing someone who exactly resembled the "man" he had shot dead the night before, not to mention the two twins he had seen in police headquarters, but then he was used to bizarre situations. On the next block, Nicosia repeated his actions in a gift shop and came out with a visible bulge in his left pants pocket. Now he's really pushing his luck, thought Bane. A good thief knows when to stop. But the man emerged without no one calling after him or trying to stop him. Nicosia started walking quicker, no longer browsing. He headed south and turned at a corner to go west. Bane followed at a prudent distance, keeping passers-by between them and ready to duck into a doorway, but Nicosia never glanced back.
As they neared the river, the quality of the neighborhood went sharply downhill. At Tenth Avenue, Nicosia walked up onto the stoop of an old three-story brownstone building and pressed the buzzer. A second later, he was admitted and the door closed behind him.
Further up the block, Bane paused. It was broad daylight on a muggy summer afternoon. He much preferred sneaking around in the middle of the night, but he couldn't risk losing the trail, since he was convinced this had been a duplicate returning to its original with loot.
Taking a deep breath, the Dire Wolf decided to just go for the obvious. He stepped up to the front door of the brownstone and planted his feet well apart. Drawing his elbow back five inches, he slammed the heel of his hand just above the doorknob, bringing all the torque of his entire body into the blow. There was a snapping noise and he swung the door open and stepped inside, whipping his right arm up in an outer block to deflect the gun barrel that was suddenly aimed at his head. In the same motion, that arm blurred back to crash a backfist right to the gunman's nose with a crunching sound.
The goon staggerd back, not letting go of his weapon and getting his bearings. With that 9mm semi-automatic aimed squarely at him, Bane surprisingly raised his open hands in surrender. "Okay, pal, you got me. Let's go see your boss."
From behind the thug came the thin voice of an elderly man. "Oh, put down your weapon, Carl. This is the Dire Wolf. If he wanted to, he could kill you now so fast you wouldn't know it." A short slight figure stepped carefully around the gunman. "First, he wants to find out what's going on here. Isn't that right, Mr Bane?"
Smiling at the ancient Alchemist, the Dire Wolf answered, "Exactly, Melchius."
V.
No one knew for sure how old Melchius was or where he came from. He was first mentioned in a book published in London in 1898, and he was described as "venerable" back then. Among Alchemists, he was respected but kept to himself and never shared any discoveries he made. Looking at the man now, Bane would have said he was in his late sixties, no more than five feet six and thin, with only a circle of white hair around his ears and the back of his head. The blue eyes were sharp and alert over a long pointed nose, and the Alchemist was well dressed in a black slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt with a dark blue vest fitted with seven slit pockets.
Seeing those pockets and remembering his encounters with other Alchemists, Bane was sure that Melchius was carrying vials of useful potions in them. Even at his age, those Velkandu potions would make him a dangerous enemy if he could throw their contents.
"I suppose you would like to see my workshop, Mr Bane? Oh, don't worry about the door. I will send you the bill," he cackled. Melchius turned and gestured with a withered hand toward the narrow bannistered staircase. "Please, you go first."
"Thank you," the Dire Wolf replied in his deadpan manner. He started up, wth Carl a few paces behind him, still holding the gun ready. Melchius followed last, one hand on the bannister and placing each foot carefully.
"I knew Kenneth Dred, you know," said the Alchemist. "Back in, oh 1967 or so. He had someone called the Deacon working for him. Dred interviewed me for a book he was writing about Velkandu and we spent a few evenings chatting as he ran his tape recorder. He sent me three free copies. I still have them."
"Glad to hear that," Bane replied. He paused at the second floor landing, staring at one huge room. Some of the interior walls had been knocked out to leave open space. Black formica tables held countless glass beakers and jugs, with piping connecting some of them. Two stools sat next to the door, and a white lab smock hung on a hook. But Bane hardly noticed this. His attention was on a row of clear vats the size of bathtubs, filled with milky liquid in which slugs floated just beneath the suface. They were brown, wrinkled, with four rudimentary limbs and blunt heads with slits for mouths and eyes that were closed.
The Dire Wolf stood where he was, turning only to face Melchius and the gunman as they reached the floor. "Homunculi," he said. "These are what make your Other-men work."
"Really. Very good, young man. Not many in the Midnight War know this." Melchius chuckled happily. "Few indeed have succeeded in breeding these rather unattractive creatures. I believe Li Tung was the last to be able to create them."
"I remember Li Tung," Bane said. "I have a question. An Alchemist of your skill should be able to create gold or silver from common metals. So money should not be a problem for you. Why are you working with someone like Milo Nicosia?"
Melchius shrugged. "Large amounts of gold and silver arouse curiosity. It was becoming awkward to find someone willing to buy such metal in quantity. I had heard of Milo, and approached him to act as my thief. His duplicates bring in over a thousand dollars worth of loot a day."
"Makes sense. Why have them all look alike? Why not at least dress each one differently, give them slightly different features?"
"Ha, that is Milo's idea. He sees himself as an artist in crime, and he rather likes the theatrical touch. I don't mind. Several of them have been captured so far, but they degrade into raw protoplasm in a day or so, so no harm is done." Melchius pointed to the stairs again. "If you would?"
Bane started going up the stairs again, planning his next move. He was not particularly worried about Carl as the man was pointing the gun at his midsection where the Trom armor would protect him. Melchius was more of a threat. The potions in that vest could range from bone-eating acid to poison gas to freezing vapors. The Dire Wolf stood at the landing, where three doors waited. Carl came up behind him, standing a bit too close. The ancient Alchemist followed, went to a door and swung it inward.
"This will be quite a sight," Melchius promised.
On plain wooden chairs in an otherwise empty room, thirteen identical figures sat with lowered heads. Skinny men with thinning black hair, prominent potato-shaped noses over pencil mustaches, all wearing blue pants and orange crew neck shirts. Most had a kitchen knife resting on their laps, several had revolvers but all had their hands resting near the weapons.
"Now this should be interesting. One of these of course is the real Milo Nicosia, and as you may know, he is an expert with knife or handgun. I am going to allow you to try to spot the real Milo before he kills you. Please. Go ahead." Melchius waved a hand at the thirteen motionless figures. "See if you can spot the original from my masterpieces of imitation."
Bane came as close to smiling as he ever did. "Piece of cake," he answered and with the last word, he drove his elbow back viciously into Carl's throat. The man realy slhould have been standing further back for his own safety. As the thug gagged and dropped his gun to clutch at his crushed windpipe, the Dire Wolf took a hopping sideways step and smacked the sole of his boot right into Melchius' chest. The glass vials in those pockets all shattered at once and the Alchemist shrieked as he was engulfed in a cloud of vile black vapor. Before Carl or Melchius hit the floor, Bane had dropped to one knee as a shot detonated deafeningly in that enclosed space and a bullet hissed through the air where his head had been a split-second earlier. One of the Nicosias had gotten up and was ready to take a second shot when a bullet slapped into his forehead and dropped him instantly lifeless where he stood.
Three seconds. Jeremy Bane stood up over three dead bodies. Melchius was a blackened husk from which noxious fumes still rose. The gunman had died, unable to breathe with his windpipe flattened. And Milo Nicosia was lying there with a tunnel through his head. The Dire Wolf holstered his weapon and exhaled sharply. None of the Other-men had stirred during the brief storm of violence. They still sat passively in their chairs, twelve twins who would never receive any orders.
He knew that legally he should immediately call NYPD and wait for Montez, but he had no intention of doing so. First, he was going to phone 38th Street and see which KDF members were available. Hopefully, most of them would be. They would come here and remove all the books of forbidden knowledge, the arcane talismans and artifacts which would be best stored safely at headquarters. The dangerous potions would be disposed of, and any useful Alchemical serums would also be confiscated. Within twenty-four hours, these Other-men and the slugs in their vats would degenerate into masses of gunk of no use to anyone. Only then would Bane inform the police that they would find something interesting in this old house, and that no more imitation Milo Nicosias would be showing up to puzzle them.
Bane felt only slight remorse as he stared at the three bodies. As far as he knew, no civilians had been killed or kidnapped during this bizarre rash of robberies. But the gang had certainly intended to murder him today, and he could justify this as self-defense. He took out his Link and called KDF headquarters. "Sable? Hi, glad you're on duty. Listen, have you been following these robberies by identical thieves...?"
7/8/2014