Death Blows Read online

  Cassius takes a step into the storage unit and stares down at the empty trunk. “The split happened shortly after World War Two. The splinter faction was headed by a man named John Dark.”

  “The man I’m hunting.”

  “Yes. And even though Dark himself couldn’t be responsible for this—not directly—I now believe he’s the one behind the recent murders and thefts.”

  “What was taken?”

  “The armor of the Solar Centurion.” I move closer to stand beside him, and peer into the trunk. There’s something round and silver gleaming in the far corner. “How do you know? All I see is some empty luggage—up till now there’s always been a body at these crime scenes.”

  “I know,” Cassius says, “because I am the Solar Centurion.”

  TEN

  “Nuh-uh,” I say. “I’m telling you the truth, Jace.”

  “But the Solar Centurion’s armor generates sunlight! And you’re a pire!”

  “It emits solar radiation in one direction only, and every inch of my body is covered—even the parts that appear to be bare skin. It’s a most effective weapon, especially against members of my own kind.”

  “And you kept it in a low-rent storage unit?” He shakes his head. “It was protected by secrecy. The spells surrounding this trunk make it essentially invisible to anyone trying to find it.”

  “But someone did.”

  “Yes. The fact that they chose to steal it rather than kill me leads me to believe that the murders are being committed primarily to amass power.”

  “Or maybe,” Charlie says, “the head of the National Security Agency is just too hard a target.”

  “Could be,” Cassius admits. “In which case,” Charlie continues, “the natural time to stage an attack would be right about now.”

  I glance around. The fluorescents buzz like cheap hair clippers. Nobody pounces on us from the shadows—which, granted, there aren’t that many of. “I think you’d better get out of here,” I tell Cassius. “I’ll call Eisfanger, get him down here to process the scene. And don’t worry—I’ll keep your name out of it.”

  Cassius nods. “I appreciate this. Come by the office when you’re done and we’ll talk further.”

  “Oh, you better believe it,” I say. “This is… unusual,” Eisfanger says. He’s walking the perimeter of the storage unit, holding what seems to be a dowsing rod, a Y-shaped stick with a small LED screen wired between the forks.

  “According to these readings, there’s no magic here. None. And never has been, either.”

  “I was afraid of that.” I shake my head. “This place has been—I don’t know, stealthed against magic. Whoever stole the armor didn’t locate it by mystical means, and the shielding is now effectively masking any magic traces the thief might have left behind.”

  “He might have left something more mundane, though,” Eisfanger says. “The door looks like it was ripped off by brute strength. Good chance of some sort of transfer, maybe a grip impression.” He puts the dowsing rod away and rummages in his kit.

  I peer into the trunk again. “Come over and take a look at this. Over here, in the corner.” He does. “Yeah, I see it. Looks like mercury.” He collects the silvery blob carefully into a small vial. “Otherwise known as quicksilver,” I murmur. “Keep an eye out for traces of regular silver, too, will you?” I stand in the corridor with Charlie, letting Eisfanger work. “What do you think?” I say. “Silverado?”

  “Seems a little too obvious. If there’d been a fight he might have bled off a little, but this was a straight theft. Looks planted to me.”

  “Me, too. Somebody’s trying to throw us off the trail.”

  “Which means we’re getting close to something.”

  “No moss on you. Well, maybe a little on your north side.”

  “That’s trees. If you’re going to insult me, at least try for accuracy.”

  “Was I at least within a stone’s throw?”

  “Getting better.”

  So we were getting a little too near the truth for the killer’s liking. There’s only one thing I can think of that might have triggered that—my dream conversation with Neil. That suggests that the connection the killer is most afraid I’ll make has something to do with comic books, and leads me to my next move.

  “Charlie and I have to go,” I tell Eisfanger. “Get the trunk to the lab and see if you can, I don’t know, de-stealth it. Call me if you find anything interesting.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Where we headed?” Charlie asks as we get in the car.

  “To talk to a man about a comic book.” I punch in Cassius’s number and don’t waste time with small talk. “I need to know something,” I say when he answers.

  “What?”

  “Who created the Bravo Brigade?”

  “I thought that was obvious. The Hexagon assembled the Brigade to deal with the Kamic cult—”

  “Yeah, I got that. Not what I meant. I mean, who were the people who created the comic? The writer, the artists?” He pauses. “We used one creator, who wrote and drew it. Easier to maintain security that way.”

  “I need a name.” Another pause, longer this time. “All right. His name is Sheldon Vincent. He’s a member of the Four Color Club.”

  “I’m going to have to talk to him.”

  “I’ll call you back with an address.” He hangs up. Charlie glances over from the driver’s seat. We’re driving the I-5, and it’s going on noon. The sky looks like it’s made from stained granite. “He wasn’t too crazy about the idea, was he?”

  “No, but he’ll go along with it. We’re his best option to get that suit back, and I get the feeling that losing it has rattled him.” Traffic slows, stops. A truck loaded with landscaping gear belches blue smoke as it idles in front of us.

  “Funny,” I say. “Never thought of Cassius as the superhero type.”

  “You haven’t known him that long.”

  “Oh? You’re telling me you don’t find the idea of him dressed in glowing Roman armor, blasting bolts of light at a bunch of bank robbers, ludicrous?”

  “Bank robbers, yeah. But on a battlefield, sure. It’s not so different from what I did in the Persian War.”

  Charlie never talks about his life as a soldier. “How so?”

  The traffic starts up again, slowly. “That suit of armor turns the wearer into a weapon. That’s what I am. Put either of us in combat, we’ll do what we were made to do.”

  “Destroy the enemy.”

  He gives me a pained glance. “Destruction is counterproductive. You just want to hurt the other guy badly enough to convince him to quit—or hurt enough people around him that he spends all his energy trying to save them instead of advancing.”

  “Ah. How enlightened.” I stare out the window at a minivan full of sleepy-looking kids, their mother driving while their father talks on a cell phone. “I don’t know, Charlie. I guess I think of superheroes and soldiers as different things. I can see Cassius as a soldier—it’s the whole symbol thing that doesn’t seem to fit.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. We only have his word that he’s the Centurion.”

  I sigh. “Yeah, the thought occurred to me. But I don’t think so—if he really wanted to misdirect us he could send us right out of the country. This seems genuine.”

  The phone rings and I answer. It’s Cassius, who gives me an address. “He’ll be expecting you.”

  “Thanks.” My turn to hang up abruptly, which is petty but sort of satisfying.

  Sheldon Vincent lives in Queen Anne, a ritzy neighborhood on a hill right next to downtown. The view alone is expensive, let alone the sprawling house; it must have a dozen bedrooms, easy. We pull into the turnaround driveway and park under a Douglas fir that looks like it’s been around since man discovered fire. Four marble pillars hold up the porch, and the front door is a massive affair you could easily turn into a raft, or maybe a yacht. We ring the doorbell and are greeted by an honest-to-God butler—a lem in formal wear. Hi
s skin is the same thick plastic as Charlie’s, but the material inside isn’t black sand—it’s blindingly white, with swirls of pearly opalescence through it.

  “Good day,” the butler says. His accent is cultured and very British. “Mr. Vincent is expecting you. Please come this way.”

  We follow him through the requisite grand foyer with its crystal chandelier, and into a room with wide floor-to-ceiling windows and a white baby grand piano in front of them. Another gleaming lem works in the garden outside.

  Vincent himself is sitting on the couch, drinking coffee. He looks like he just got up and hasn’t even shaved; he’s dressed in a blue flannel robe over red silk pajamas. He’s balding—unusual for a thrope, but not unheard of—and has long muttonchop whiskers, streaked with gray, down either side of his long, lean face. “Good afternoon,” I say. “I’m Special Agent Jace Valchek. This is Charlie Aleph. David Cassius sent us over to talk with you.”

  Vincent nods, takes a long drink of his coffee while studying us over the rim of the mug. He swallows, then says, “Sit, please.” I do, but Charlie stays on his feet. That’s fine—I trust my partner’s instincts. “Mr. Vincent, I understand you’re an artist.”

  “I paint, yes.”

  “That’s not the kind of art I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you are. You want to know about The Bravo Brigade.” He pauses, and I wonder if he finds talking about the subject difficult, or even distasteful; it’s hard to imagine a painter living in this sort of house doing comic books. When he speaks, though, he surprises me. “The Bravo Brigade. My greatest accomplishment, and greatest shame. Probably the best-known comic book in the world, and the one that helped end the comic book as an art form. It’s not even that good, you know. I’ve produced far superior work since then—not that any of it’s been seen by more than a handful of people.”

  “The other members of the Four Color Club, you mean.”

  “Yes. They’re my only audience, now—though hardly their only source.”

  “Oh? There are more people like you? Underground comics artists?” He chuckles. “No, not really. My competition has more esoteric origins—though that source suffers from certain disadvantages, as well. Shipping costs are astronomical.”

  It takes me a second to understand what he’s referring to. “You’re talking about comics from other realities.”

  “Yes, Agent Valchek. Like yours.” Somehow, I’m not surprised that he knows. He’s wealthy, well connected, and belongs to at least one high-powered secret society, if not two. “About that,” I say. “Of all the reasons I can think of to spy on other realities, reading somebody else’s comic books seems kind of trivial. Is that really all you do?” He takes another sip of his coffee. “It’s less trivial than you might imagine, Agent Valchek. But yes, that’s what we do—and our reasons are practical as well as artistic. Comics, you see, occupy a particular niche in animist magic. They are both a visual and literary depiction of events, drawing on a generations-long shared history and a collaboration among artists, writers, editors, and the readers themselves. As such, they have an affinity for cross-universe travel; they almost beg to slip from one reality to another. The energy cost to bring a single issue across is admittedly large—but the bandwidth, if you’ll forgive the analogy, is still minuscule compared with any other medium. Far less than trying to eavesdrop on another reality’s television or even a phone call.”

  “So it’s a rich man’s hobby. Expensive but basically harmless.”

  “You make it sound like collecting stamps. It’s far, far more than that.” He leans forward intently. “The art form has progressed so much since my fumblings with The Bravo Brigade. Jack Kirby’s work alone would be worth all our effort, and there’s been dozens, hundreds of artists and writers since him. I’m not sure whether I envy you or pity you, Agent Valchek; you come from a world of unparalleled riches, and you’re oblivious to all of them.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “I used to get a laugh out of Doonesbury now and then.” He nods. “You’re being facetious, but it’s a fair comparison. There are comics being produced in your world today that are just as politically aware and literate, and considerably more subversive. Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, which ran in the late 1990s, is a good example. It deals with alternate universes, contemporary magic, secret societies, and revolutionary cabals.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “That’s not all. Morrison claimed the entire series was, in fact, one long and intricate spell.”

  “Really? What was he trying to accomplish?”

  “What all magicians are trying to accomplish, Agent Valchek. He wanted to change the world.” It’s the second time Morrison’s name has come up. “This Morrison—does he have a counterpart in this reality? Or a writer named Alan Moore?”

  Vincent gives me a crooked little smile. “If only they did—but sadly, no. Why did you ask to speak to me, Agent Valchek?”

  “You know about the murders?”

  “I’ve been kept informed.”

  “Who do you think is committing them?” He hesitates. “It could be any number of people. Old enemies of the Brigade, perhaps—”

  “I was under the impression that the Brigade was formed to deal with one specific threat. The Kamic cult.”

  “True, but all the members had their own individual histories long before that. Their own enemies.”

  “Such as?” He shrugs, settling back in his seat, and crosses his legs. “I’m really not familiar with that aspect. I was brought in to create the comic—to take legends and turn them into myths, essentially. You’d need a historian to track down their exploits—though, from what I understand, they tended to avoid publicity.” I try another tack. “How about John Dark?” He raises his eyebrows. “Dark? I thought he was dead. If he isn’t, he’d be a powerful enemy… and, yes, fully capable of hunting down and killing every member of the Brigade.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He was the power behind the cult. Wertham was the one who came up with the principle of using comic books as magical foci, but Dark was the leader.”

  “So I’ve heard. Why wasn’t he in the comic?”

  “I was instructed not to mention him.”

  “Because of his involvement with the Hexagon?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about you? Are you a member, too?” He frowns. “Let me be perfectly blunt about one thing, Agent Valchek: It was made very, very clear to me when I was brought in on this project, all those years ago, that I was not to talk about—that group. Not then, not ever. So I’m afraid I can’t discuss such a question, even to deny it.” Hmmm. That’s probably a yes—but a very, very, paranoid one. Maybe even enough to qualify as a no. “Then let me ask you something else. Are you more than just an artist? Did you help craft the counterspell the Brigade comic was created to generate?”

  “Of course I did. And just as Wertham used blood from his victims in the ink, I used blood—or in one case, mercury—from the Bravos in the crafting of our spell.”

  “How is that different from everyday animism?” He finishes his coffee and puts the mug down on an end table beside him. “It’s a matter of concentration. You can talk to the spirit of a boulder, even manipulate it to do things a boulder might not normally do, but in the end you’re still dealing with the essence of a large rock. This is about taking that essence and both distilling and amplifying it. The object you concentrate such power in becomes more itself than it’s ever been, and does so in realms other than just the physical.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “You’ve heard of Excalibur?”

  “Sure. Mystic sword, yanked out of a stone by King Arthur.”

  “Well, Excalibur is more than just a sword—it’s the ultimate representation of one. It’s the idea of a sword, brought to life. As such, it exists as more than just a sharp piece of metal—it exists as a concept, as a piece of history. When we created the Bravo Brigade
comic, we were crafting something with the power of myth—but it was also a physical object you could hold, like Excalibur. A focus both physical and metaphysical, one that formed a mystic connection between the people who read it and the Brigade.”

  I nod. “Cutting-edge stuff, no doubt… One final question. What would happen if you used that kind of magic on objects that were already mystically enhanced?”

  He frowns. “You could make them more powerful, I suppose. Though there would be an upper limit—no object can absorb infinite power.”

  “I see. Thank you for your time, Mr. Vincent.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” He gets up and shakes my hand. “Perhaps I can be later.”

  “I’ll call you if I have further questions.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He meets my eyes and holds on to my hand for a second longer than necessary. “I meant you should contact me in case you require alternate travel possibilities.”

  He drops my hand and motions to the butler, who’s mysteriously arrived without being summoned. “Phibes will show you out. Good day, Agent Valchek. And good luck.”

  Charlie follows me out the door. He hasn’t said a word since we arrived, and he holds his silence until we’re back in the car.

  “Well?” I say.

  “Nobody ends an interrogation with a bribe,” Charlie says as he starts the car. “Unless they’re guilty of something.”

  We check in on Galahad and discover he’s actually been pretty well behaved. I take him for a quick walk, and he does exactly what a dog is supposed to on a walk—which includes barking madly at pigeons, trying to eat an old candy bar wrapper, and demonstrating a bladder capacity equivalent to a watercooler, emptied a thimbleful at a time. For someone new to the neighborhood, he sure left a lot of messages.

  Then it’s in to work, where I square my shoulders and march in to talk to Gretch.