Chapter 7
"You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams"
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
Iris moaned, trapped in a painful, cottony world somewhere
between unconsciousness and awareness. "Wasn't that -- like, a really
old song?"
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
Kid Castle was stripped naked. His disfigurement was an
added embarrassment to his nudity -- which was an added embarrassment to having
been simply tossed like a bundle to the floor. "No," he
said. "There's no such thing as magic."
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
The sound was muffled, almost inaudible. There was no way
that every system could have failed, that every energy source could have been
drained. But not even the emergency lights were working. It was very
dark. And the suit was far too heavy for him to even move, though he could
shift his position, slightly. The Copper armor had become a very effective
prison and, though Adrian was not claustrophobic, if he'd had to choose a
circumstance when he might be, the present would certainly qualify.
If he had any reply to the question, nobody could hear it.
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
It had been a long time since Drake had been hurt that
badly. His dark eyes, limned in a glint of color that might be green, or
might be blue, but now seemed merely silver, did not dignify the question with
an answer.
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
Proteus was in his neutral form. He looked unharmed, and
unrestrained, but he merely replied with a question. "I don't
know. Can you define your terms?"
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
Zebra was bound a dozen different ways. The odd way her
joints moved had made her captors use extra rope, and draw it even tighter than
with the others. She almost couldn't breathe. But she could spit.
* * *
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?"
Pain, radiating up from his hands, bound behind his back, even
as his his ankles were bound. Control it. Control the pain.
It is only a message. Message received and acknowledged. Now shut
up. "There have to be more things to the world than your hatred and your
science, Schreck."
"YOU DISAPPOINT ME, MY OLDEST ENEMY. I DO BELIEVE IN
MAGIC. MAGIC BROUGHT US HERE. MAGIC WILL BRING US HOME. AND
MAGIC WILL LEAD ME TO MY GREATEST TRIUMPH.
* * *
St. Thomas Roman Catholic Church had been build in 1967, a
period in church architecture in which the classic forms of centuries past had
fallen out of favor, and some of the iconoclastic experiments of the previous
half-century had not filtered down to institutional architecture.
As a result, it had neither tradition nor inspiration behind its
construction. It was just ... ugly.
The main building was a great rectangle of reinforced brickwork
with a vaulted ceiling. There were some high stain glass windows of an
uninspired abstract nature along both sides. On the eastern end, at the
street, was the main entrance. Few people ever used it, since the parking
lot encircled it to the north and west. That entrance led to an
antechamber filled with various brochures, tracts, and newsletters, along with
stairs leading up to the choir loft.
The consisted of two long aisles of pews, crossed in the center
with a side entrance on the north, two confessional booths on the south with a
large statue of St. Thomas over them. Then came two more long aisles --
the place could easily seat several hundred parishioners, though it rarely drew
that many except at Easter and Christmas -- and then the sanctuary.
Here, at least, an effort had been made a decade ago to update
the place. Originally there had been, where the building narrowed
slightly, a marble kneeling rail, behind which was a raised dais, etc., altar,
etc., tabernacle on the altar, etc., and a door to the sacristy, where the
priests donned their garb.
In the place of all that, a large, curved partition and arches
separated the main body of the church from the narrower back area, now fashioned
as a small chapel. In front of the partition -- inexplicably covered in a
metallic gold-leave wallpaper -- was a new dais, three steps high, open on
three sides. Two lecterns were on either forward corner, inward-facing
chairs behind them, facing the altar. Behind it was another step up, with
the three chairs for the priest and any deacons or other attendants.
Also during the redecoration, the pale green paint had been
replaced by a pale beige paint. This represented a trade-off between
reducing the ugliness and increasing the blandness.
The congregation of St. Thomas, despite the unfortunate
aesthetic, was still an active and devout one. They would have been
extremely dismayed to see what their church was now being put to.
Not as dismayed as the captives, however.
They were sitting -- or lying, or standing -- along the first
row of pews. At the far right-hand (audience) side, Iris half-lay at the
end of the pew, bound in weighted chains. Proteus sat by her, upright and
respectful, apparently unrestrained. Rounding out that pew, at the center
aisle, was Drake. A slender gold chain was wrapped loosely around him.
In the center aisle, Copper lay on the floor, arms stretched to
either side, like some mockery of a crucifix. In point of fact, it was
intended as such a mockery.
Taking up most of the left-hand pew was a securely bound -- with
rope -- Victor. His hands were at his side, bound flat to his body, so
that summoning the Staff of Victory would be impossible. Just in case it
wasn't, Carnage had broken all his fingers, at Doktor Schreck's direction.
Lying on the rest of the pew, her hooves to his feet, was the choking Zebra.
Tossed naked to the floor in the left-hand aisle, hands bound
and considered, thus, harmless, was Kid Castle.
The bad guys, to use the parlance, were mostly at the front of
the church. Doktor Schreck was at the pulpit, as though prepared to give a
sermon. His armored form towered over the podium, and the swastika upon
his black armor was an affront to whatever spirit usually lay upon that place.
Torque stood next to the altar. His internal mechanisms
had built a more permanent brace for his head, which still tended to loll a bit
from its broken neck. His chain guns slowly panned the nave, and his
various grasping appendages made small grasping motions, apparently at random.
Near him, Cuidado lounged in one of the chairs usually reserved
for an altar boy. Since he had, once, served in such a role, he considered
it appropriate. The cigarette was not.
Over by Iris, the woman known as Tarot stood, watching the
proceedings. She looked slightly nervous. Further along, in front of
Drake, the Assassin stood, casual in pose but utterly motionless save for his
eyes. His hands rested at his side.
On the other side of the aisle, Rapidfire was sitting in the pew
behind Victor, whom he occasionally gave a rap to the head. Carnage paced
back in forth before Victor and Zebra, licking his lips.
Penny Dreadful sat up in the choir loft, in the back of the
church. If anyone could see her face, they would have seen that she was
not a happy camper.
That was the tableaux. The curtain rises. The action
begins.
* * *
Rapidfire thwapped Victor on the back of the head.
"Hey, if Doctor Shrek says it's all about magic, man, then it's all about
magic."
Carnage chuckled.
"IT HAS BEEN SOME YEARS, OLDEST ENEMY. THOUGH YOU
HAVE SOUGHT ME, MANY TIMES, MANY PLACES."
Victor glared at him. "Sarajevo. Buenos
Aires. Kinshasa."
"BUENOS AIRES. YES. ARGENTINA WAS A GOOD PLACE,
FOR MANY YEARS. AND IN BEIRUT, AND KATMANDU, WE DID MEET. AND IN
BERLIN, IN OF COURSE. 1945. AND EACH TIME, YOU INTERFERED WITH MY
ACTIVITIES. I COULD NOT KILL YOU. YOU COULD NOT CAPTURE ME.
STALEMATE."
"The game isn't over, Schreck."
"ENDGAME, HERR VICTOR. AND YOUR END WILL BE MY
SUCCESS."
A dramatic triplet of notes sounded on the organ, and all eyes
swiveled to the choir loft. Penny Dreadful sat at the console, and her
giggle sounded across the length of the church. "I used to
play. My mom always told me that I should keep taking lessons --"
"ENOUGH!" Schreck's amplified voice easily
overrode hers. "THIS TIME, VICTOR, THE TRIUMPH WILL BE MINE.
WHERE OTHERS FAILED, EVEN THAT VAIN, FOPPISH LITTLE AUSTRIAN, I WILL
SUCCEED. THE WORLD WILL BE UNDER MY CONTROL, AND WE WILL DO THINGS RIGHT."
"Jeez," Iris said, groggily, "whaddarya,
some kinda Nazi?"
Tarot rattled off something in French, and placed one of her
placards against Iris' forehead. There was a crackle, and a bright flash,
and the young woman slumped back against the pew.
Proteus stirred.
The Assassin turned to him. "Any action you take will
mean the death of at least one of your comrades. Be still."
Proteus went back to politely sitting there.
"MY -- ASSOCIATE REMINDS ME THAT WE OUGHT NOT WASTE ANY
TIME. I BELIEVE SHE IS NERVOUS WITHIN THIS PLACE. AS IS YOUR
SERVANT, ASSASSIN."
The Assassin shrugged slightly. He was watching Drake once
more. "The Djinn will not enter a holy place. It has its limitations. As do we all."
"NOT FOR LONG, ASSASSIN. WATCH THEM, WHILST I
PREPARE."
Drake, watching the Assassin in return, said something in French
as well.
"Silence!" the Assassin said, striking Drake across
the face.
Tarot replied, angrily. Drake answered her.
"Silence!" said the Assassin, striking harder. He drew a short,
black blade from somewhere. "The injunction to your shapeshifting
friend applies to you as well. It is not only your own life that is at
stake."
"I don't speak that shit," Rapidfire asksed.
"What did he say?"
The assassin gave him a glance, enough to quiet him down.
Tarot looked at the two of them, and then up at Doktor
Schreck. The tall, armored man had moved to the center of the dais.
From a cardboard box sitting off to one side, he pulled out two cut-crystal
vials. Murmuring in German, he unstoppered one of them and began to pour
its brown, powdery contents in a circle around the altar.
