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"OPERATION THETA" By Aladdin All featured characters originally appearing in Malibu Comics are the property of Marvel Comics, Inc. The poetic quotes beginning each chapter are by Rudyard Kipling. "I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine." Chapter 1 THE FACE IN THE FRAME "This corn popper is designed to pop popcorn without the use of oil. If oil is used, it could damage the corn popper." Or so the instruction pamphlet said. I'd decided to buy a hot air corn popper to get some of the excess fat out of the kids' diet. Also, to be perfectly honest, when wearing my Mantra costume in public I can't afford to be in less than perfect physical shape. That magic armor is too useful to abandon, but Archimage had originally made it for his harem girls and it looks like it. Every time some curbside cretin ogles Mantra, I find myself wishing that Arch hadn't been such a dirty old man. "Never add more than one half cup of corn to the popping chamber." Finally ready to rock -- or, rather, to pop -- I poured the carefully measured Orville Rickenbacker kernels into the drum, replaced the transparent plastic top, and then plugged in the cord. Because the machine had no automatic turn-off, I had to stand around and wait for the job to be finished. These little inconveniences don't faze me much; I'm just grateful to have survived into in the Machine Age. When I was the kids' age, the most advanced technology around was the water wheel. Everything took a long time back then. Unfortunately, the lull gave me a couple minutes to brood, a pastime at which I excel. For some reason, I just didn't feel at ease. The mood was a hard one to describe -- not exactly irritation, frustration, fear, nor loneliness, but a pea soup of simmering emotions. It was all very low-intensity -- like when one is carrying a load on his back and gradually gets worn down as the day progresses. It's not that I haven't experienced similar moods previously, but up to now a little Mantra-type action had always put me back in the pink. I shouldn't be feeling this way, I thought, since less than two weeks earlier I had cut loose and saved about forty people in the Sierra Nevadas, including my own son Gus. I was able to justify maximum violence and had to kill a lot of bad guys, which has always been a big boost for me. I really ought to tone down the mayhem, though, especially since so many young people have started looking up to Mantra as a role model. "Oops!" The popping had already stopped, leaving just the whirring motor sound. I pulled the plug quickly. It was no use burning out the appliance on the first use; the Blakes aren't made of money. I then sprayed the hot, fragrant corn puffs with no-fat "Mazola No Stick Butter Flavor Cooking Spray," before adding a sprinkle of salt for seasoning. Who says cooking is hard? "Mom," Gus Jr. called from the living room. "Is the popcorn done?" "Almost!" Sensing a food riot in the making, I took the pan out to the living room and offered a bowl of popcorn to Evie, who was lying on the carpet putting a puzzle together. After that I placed the pan on the coffee table in front of Gus, the bottomless pit of Canoga Park. The youngster was bunched up on the sofa surrounded by comic books, but he bestirred himself enough to fill both hands with popcorn and devour it all greedily before taking another breath. "No caramel?" he mumbled. "Gotta watch out for old Mr. Tooth Decay," I said, sitting down beside him. "And that reminds me, don't try to sneak off to bed tonight without brushing." "Oh, Mom, brushing takes too long when I'm tired." "Gotcha this time, Junior!" "Why, Gus, if you're so tired at night, why are you always asking to stay up late to watch horror movies? Anyway, you'd better take time to brush now, or else you'll be stuck with a lot of dentist appointments later on." "Uhhgg," he moaned theatrically and hid his face under a comic. "Don't be such a wimp! Back in pioneer days, dentists didn't use Novocain and their tooth drills were the size of eggbeaters. And most people weren't even lucky enough to 'have' a dentist. Out here in California, a kid like you would have had to make due with some fishing line and a doorknob." Instead of doing more pantomime, he asked, "Mom, are we done reading?" "Not quite. Another fifteen minutes. And don't talk with your mouth full." Gus sighed and slumped back into the pillows, leaving me to wonder what he found so onerous about sitting around the living room, eating popcorn, drinking sugar-free cola, and reading comic books. By the way, the comic books were my idea. Admittedly, most parents don't push comics on their kids, but in our house they were educational material. Canoga Park Elementary had left Gus quasi-illiterate, so I was giving him some remedial reading myself before school opened again in the fall. In choosing suitable "illustrated adventure literature," I hadn't just plucked the first 'zines I'd spotted on the rack, or even let Gus choose for himself. He would have based his choice on the most ghoulish covers, I suspect. Instead, I'd done a little research and found that parents' groups had rated some of the most popular hero magazines very low as literature. Malibu Comics, on the other hand, received the highest recommendation. Especially good was the new line they called "the Ultraverse," which featured the fictionalized adventures of real-life ultras. I actually knew some of the heroes in these magazines, such as Gus' favorites, Hardcase and Prime, and while the magazines were well-written and well-characterized, some of the details that comic writers got wrong were hilarious -- like saddling Warstrike with the secret identity of "Sam Lomax, Private Eye." Then there was the boast of the "Hardcase" writer that he was putting so hands-on experience of the movie industry into his books. I just didn't see he was doing much of that. Wanting to recommence our reading lesson, I peered over his bony little shoulder at the page of "Mantra Magazine" that he was holding open. Whenever we read comics together, I take the girl parts and leave the males for Gus. He gets embarrassed reading for females, I'd found out. I might have, too, at his age. I had grown up illiterate and had to die a few times before I ever got around to learning to read. In my day, reading was something for priests and poets. And when the poets gave up on it, that left only the priests. Before we knew it, we were in the Dark Ages. Of course, back then we didn't know we wer living in any sort of Dark Age.... "You don't have a chance, Mantra," Gus said. "Hmmm?" I muttered, my thoughts having strayed. "Mantra's talking now, Mom. That's you." Off to the side, Evie giggled. "What's wrong with the shrimp?" Gus asked, suspecting that his sister was laughing at him, though he couldn't think why. "If only he knew", I thought wistfully. "She's just having fun with her puzzle," I assured him, a little disingenuously. It was better that Gus didn't know that his mother was Mantra. It was even better that he didn't know that his mother was an imposter -- sort of. Eden's death had broken poor little Evie's heart and I didn't want Gus to suffer the same. Boys felt things as sharply as girls; I knew that from personal experience. Besides, I couldn't trust him to keep my secret. We went on reading alternately for a while, until Gus asked, "Mom, you said Mantra's identity was a secret, so how do the comic book people know it?" "They don't," I explained. "It's all make-believe. We know that there's a Mantra; we've all met her, but she's certainly not any person called `Madame Minerva.' Nobody knows who most of the ultras are, including Mantra." Actually, the life of the Gypsy princess Madame Minerva in "Mantra Magazine" sometimes seemed more believable than the one I'm experiencing as Eden Blake. At least she wasn't living a sitcom life in the suburbs, trying to earn a living at an evil organization while keeping two growing kids from feeling neglected. But one thing about Minerva that wasn't quite so realistic was the way that she seemed to get off on flying around as Mantra and patrolling the city looking for robberies, muggings, and hijackings. She probably clocked more time as Mantra each month, comic-book time, than I've done over my entire career. Foiling villain plots and fighting for her life were apparently the spice of life for the Malibu version of Mantra. As for me, I was ready to try a new hobby after fifteen centuries. "I bet Mantra's really a lifeguard, like on 'Baywatch,'" suggested Gus, with a lurch of excitement that made the springs squeak. I really don't know why kids put so much energy into every move they make. "She could be," I agreed with a nod, wondering if my little pipsqueak was getting interested in the "Baywatch," babes. Eleven seemed a little early for that, though with all the hormones they put in poultry these days one can never be sure. He did seem to be more interested in Mantra than he'd been earlier. Maybe it wasn't her "Baywatch," looks. Maybe getting his life saved by the so-called "Golden Sorceress," had something to do with it. I couldn't help but smile. When I had met Gus as Mantra, I had mischievously kissed him, just to see how he would take it. He seemed to be keeping it a deep, dark secret. He hadn't said a word about it to his family, at least, though I knew he would have bragged for a week if he had so much as caught sight of Prime flying by. Just then, the phone rang. "I'll get it, Mommy!" Evie shouted, springing to her feet. She was going through a phase when answering the phone made her feel grown up. I doubted that anyone was actually calling Evie, so I waited for the tot's inevitable yell of, "Mommy, it's for you!" "Mommy, it's for you!" I brushed the sprinkle of popcorn and hulls off my lap and accepted the phone from Evie, who then rushed back to her puzzle. I noticed Gus slowly edging from the sofa, apparently trying to take advantage of the distraction to duck out a few minutes early. As I lifted the receiver, I made eye contact with him and tapped my watch, causing him to slink back to his seat. "Hello?" I said. "Eden! Were you listening to the news?" I recognized the voice of Erica Shelton, one of the people I'd hit if off with up in the Sierra Nevadas. I'd already invited her family over for the Independence Day bash I was planning. "No, I haven't heard anything today. What happened?" I asked. "Russell Lingaard was shot!" Russell Lingaard was the conservative radio show host that Erica liked so well. She'd been encouraging me to listen to his program, but the mid-day broadcast conflicted with my work schedule and listening to the radio on the job was frowned upon. "Who did it?" I asked, interested but not agitated. "Warstrike!" Now I got agitated. # After Erica said goodbye, I just stood there with the receiver in my hand, until the line started making obnoxious warning sounds. Had Warstrike actually done the hit? It seemed possible. After all, he had assassinated me the first time I'd met him -- the jerk! How well did I really know the guy? We'd fought side by side several times and he'd taken some big risks to get me out of Boneyard's clutches once. Even though the man's sense of humor made me want to strangle him, we did share some sort of rapport that was hard to understand. Maybe it was just that he reminded me of myself back when I was a knight of Archimage. I never knew what to make of Warstrike, but I had never thought of him as a criminal. He had killed me, like I've said, but that was because my enemy, Notch, had tricked him into believing that my fellow knights and I were terrorists. The Lingaard shooting didn't make any sense at all. What would make him go after a non-violent news analyst? The frame just didn't fit the face. I knew that Warstrike was secretly multi-millionaire Brandon Tark. Tark had gone from ROTC training in college directly into the service, and then resigned after a few years to make his fortune. Once financially secure, he had spent millions on the wetware-implant surgery that had turned him into an ultra-class being. He probably thought of himself as a hero, though he was really more of a mercenary. In action his style was so wild and reckless that he was sometimes indistinguishable from a wrecking ball. Like I said, he reminded me of me in the good old days. Even though I wouldn't give myself any prizes for mental health, I'd long sensed that Tark had some kind of monkey on his back. Sometimes his antics seemed almost suicidal. He'd also had a strange episode on the Godwheel following his donning of an ancient artifact, the Crystal Crown. It had caused him to have a seizure and suffer some sort of prescient vision that had made him delirious. He wouldn't describe what he'd seen afterwards, but when we were leaving the Godwheel he was still jittery and despondent. Then, out of the blue, Warstrike had told me that he was giving up his ultra career and, apparently, really meant it. When I'd called his home last winter to find out how he was, I learned that he had gone on a long ocean cruise that his doctor had prescribed "for health reasons." I hadn't known if he'd ever come back, and certainly there had been no subsequent reports of Warstrike in the news -- until now. Why the murder attempt? Had he gone mad? Worse, had he gone bad? Or was it all some kind of mistake or frame-up? I remembered how Aladdin had once tried to smear him with a phony assault charge. I wondered what -- if anything -- I should do about it. If indeed Warstrike was being sought for attempted murder, it was arguably my responsibility to help bring him in -- or at least tell the authorities where he could be found. But no, I couldn't stomach that. One ultra never outs another ultra's secret identity, unless he knows beyond a doubt that the man is a lawbreaker. What would I have felt if Warstrike had exposed me as Eden Blake, or had come after me himself just because I'd been wrongly accused of robbing a museum? Well, half-wrongly. I didn't actually get away with the loot. I considered phoning Brandon at once and having it out with him, but decided to wait instead. I wanted to see if the breaking story would provide a few more details, either confirming Warstrike's involvement or exonerating him. On the other hand, if Tark wanted to ask me for help or advice, he knew where to reach me. In the meantime, I thought I should find out what Aladdin knew about this affair. # Aladdin is one of those secret government agencies that seem as common as pizza-restaurant franchises. It's secretly funded through the CIA; its employees are listed as CIA personnel, but the CIA connection is an accounting blind only. Aladdin has its own mission statement and its command structure is kept under close wraps. To a lowly employee like me, the agency has always seemed like an onion; the more layers one peels away, the stronger the smell gets, but all one finds is another layer hiding something worse. I've used my powers to break the into Aladdin's data bank on a number of occasions and found where a few bodies were buried -- figuratively speaking -- but I've always had to be deucedly careful. You don't get a jury trial if you cross Aladdin; you get an unmarked grave. I vaguely knew that Aladdin didn't actually take its orders from the CIA, but from the National Security Council; that is, out of the White House. Ostensibly, its purpose was to gather information about ultras and investigate ultra criminal and subversive activity. That was just another cover. When there actually is an ultra villain on the prowl, you won't see hide or hair of Aladdin. They're just not interested in combating crime; their goal is to make everybody with super powers into good little Aladdin agents. They've also created a few ultras of their own using wetware enhancements. Their methods are unabashedly police state and I suspected that, out of the glare of the headlines, ultras were being arrested without cause and imprisoned without trial. Aladdin's dossier on Warstrike was, by the way, one that I'd already consulted several times before. There wasn't much to it, but I'm always interested in seeing the occasional updates that the division chiefs add to the existing files, especially Mantra's. Warstrike's file had been stagnant for months and so I'd stopped consulting it. But now I was again calling up the document on my screen to read the familiar passages: "Reports indicate that the subject possesses above-average strength and agility. His combat skills are excellent, indicating a high possibility of combat training -- possibly Navy Seals or other specialized force." Close. Tark had mentioned being in the 321st Special Tactics Squadron. It was there that he'd first started "going on the wire" -- as he called his violent precognitive episodes. I sat back in my swivel chair, contemplating the strange power that Brandon Tark was apparently born with. It was an incongruously intuitive ability for a man who came off as so hard and unimaginative. When Warstrike's power kicked in, he could instantaneously predict the immediate outcome of every possible action that he could conceivably undertake in an emergency. He generally used his psychic talents to outwit and outmaneuver his foes on the fly, thus saving lives -- most usually his own. Much of Aladdin's data amounted to mere rumor and trashy speculation. Skimming ahead over some of the stuff that I had read many times before, I came to the part where the agency correctly cited Warstrike's healing power and speculated on his possession of some type of precognitive ability. Interestingly, when the man started his ultra career -- and that was about a couple years before I'd met him -- he had called himself "The Strike." "At the time of the name-change, the subject's mode of operations also changed. Related jobs became increasing dangerous in nature. Parallel to this span, the subject's behavior became noticeably more erratic and unpredictable. The last and only known affiliation was with the ultra Mantra. It is still unclear what link exists between the two. "Romantic" involvement has been suggested." Romance? Me and Warstrike? Talk about trashy speculations! * * * * * Chapter 2 SCRAMBLED EGGS "We took no tearful leaving, We bade no long good-byes. Men talked of crime and thieving, Men wrote of fraud and lies." I saw a cross-reference labeled "Mantra" and couldn't resist clicking it. As it happened, something new had been added to the stale file since my last visit. "Recent analysis of the ultra Mantra's body-language derives a 70% chance of Lesbian orientation. Investigations should concentrate on never-married women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five and also on relative newcomers to the north Los Angeles suburbs. In her civilian identity, Mantra probably shows strong traits for independence and assertiveness. We may also assume that she is affluent, in so far as her powers facilitate wealth-acquisition. The subject's interest in witchcraft will probably be manifested by active participation in some aspect of the occult subculture." Lesbian? Just because I've always liked girls, it doesn't make me a Lesbian. Some people are just too quick with their labels. Thankfully, Aladdin had almost everything wrong. Though they were correctly targeting the northern suburbs, the aggressive-Lesbian theory was a red herring that would only serve to keep the bloodhounds off the right track. Eden Blake was in fact a respectable formerly-married mother of two and a long-term Canoga Park resident. Rather than being wealthy and involved in the occult, she was a cash-strapped data analyst hiding under their very nose, and one more likely to be caught reading "Working Mother" than "The Key of Solomon." I smiled at the screen ironically; their in-depth analysis sounded suspiciously like the comic character Madame Minerva. After hitting the "back" button and returning to Warstrike's file, my glance fell on the line, "Whether the subject's increasingly erratic behavior is somehow linked to the ultra Mantra has yet to be determined -- otherwise the cause is unknown." So, I'm supposed to be responsible for Tark's nuttiness? The way I see it, it's Warstrike who drives me crazy, not the other way around. I read on. "As the likelihood of this trend persists, subject must be assumed hostile. To avoid any potential further conflict, his eradication should be a definite avenue of consideration . . . . " That's Aladdin for you. If it's green, spend it; if talks, spy on it; if it breathes, liquidate it. The file noted the abrupt termination of all Warstrike-sightings following an incident in St. Joseph's Church, just before last Christmas. I remembered Warstrike describing that ghastly incident. It involved the bizarre creature called "Lord Pumpkin" and the death of a teenaged boy. I continued reading. "We recognize a high probability that Warstrike was killed in one of his reckless exploits in some unknown place and under unknown circumstances. Alternately, he may have acquired a long-term disability in the course of his activities and has gone to ground. There also remains the possibility that he continues operation with a new codename and costume, though no new ultra described to date approximates Warstrike in either observed abilities or modus operandi." So far, reviewing this dated material had been a waste of time, but then I came to a paragraph interpolated just that morning: "Warstrike has been identified as the chief suspect for the criminal assault upon radio talk show host Russell Lingaard at his "Quality in Broadcasting" studio at 12:00 p.m., June 11. Several witnesses ID'ed the suspect by his build and costume, which have been made familiar through the popular media. The attack appeared to be an effort to terrorize and intimidate, but not to kill; though the assailant had both time and opportunity to inflict fatal injury, he failed to do so. A positive ID in the near future seems likely and the incident strongly suggests that the ultra is still alive, active, and increasingly dangerous. Whether the subject acted in the behalf of an employer or out of personal motives is yet to be determined. Capture recommended." Capture? What the hey? When Warstrike was only having a little good clean fun wrecking cars and knocking down brick walls, Aladdin was all gung-ho to assassinate him. Now suddenly, when he actually starts shooting innocent civilians, they get reasonable. I'm most worried about what Aladdin's up to when it pretends to be reasonable. I sat back in my swivel chair, wondering why the earlier paragraph speculating on Warstrike's death had not deleted in the light of late-breaking events. Was it just bureaucratic sloppiness, or did Aladdin actually harbor some doubts that Warstrike was the real culprit? Why claim otherwise if that were the case? I needed to dig deeper, but probing the organization's confidential files in broad daylight would be too dangerous. Aladdin's computer security was awesome, and represents Artificial Intelligence taken to the maximum. If I tried any of my old, outdated tricks, the system could trigger a very embarrassing alarm and get Eden Blake into the worst kind of trouble. I decided that a hacking attempt in the still of the night might be more in order. Just then, I noticed a new link labeled "A Report On The Increasing Trend of Ultra-Instigated Terrorism." With a title that inflammatory, I figured I could risk extending my extracurricular reading for a few more minutes. # The file made interesting reading, though it struck me as funny that the writer ignored the usual suspects, the whole rogues' gallery of bad ultras, and concentrated its venom on crime fighting. The Wisconsin hero Hodag was cited as chief suspect in the beating death of federal prosecutor Harold Spencer. Then there was the burning of a Black church in Alabama, which the report laid at the feet of the Gray Ghost, a Dixieland ultra. The file alleged similar charges against other ultras, but little of it was news to me; such speculation routinely crosses my desk as soon as it's concocted. But in hindsight, I thought it strange that such sensational stories had not been played up in the press. The media had gone into overdrive with the Omaha Federal Building bombing. At that time, the administration had tried to make political points by blaming the ultra Haymaker, denouncing him as a right-wing fanatic. The hysteria only quelled when ex-weatherman Timothy Greenstone was nailed dead to rights. Something smelled very bad, considering that the present administration was the most anti-ultra that the country had ever known. A couple Presidents back, crime-fighting ultras were routinely treated as American heroes. Sometimes they were even invited to the White House for medal presentations and picture ops, just like movie stars and big contributors are these days. The current First Lady, in particular, has been rabid on the subject of ultras, weaving them into elaborate fantasies involving a vast conspiracy of ideological enemies out to get her and her husband. So why had these more recent accusations against ultras been so underplayed thus far? A little way down the page, the report seemed to answer my question: "We recommend that instances of ultra terrorism be investigated quietly and pressure placed upon journalists not to issue sensationalized reports. News stories deleterious to the respective ultras' reputations should be collected and released all at one time in a crisis tone and endorsed by reliable celebrity spokesmen, especially popular actors, to the end of achieving the maximum public-opinion reaction." So, Aladdin wanted to orchestrate an anti-ultra frenzy, but only when the politics were just right. What would this lead to? Summary arrests? Draconian laws restricting the citizen-arrest powers that ultras need to apprehend criminals? Outlawing the exercise of ultra abilities? This sure sounded like another of Aladdin's dirty tricks. My instincts were telling me that Warstrike was being framed as part of a larger plot. The one thing I still couldn't understand was why the feds were so anxious to trash good ultras when there were so many super-beings out there who were indisputably bad. Governments, of course, never like vigilantism, but ultras were popular in the U.S. I supposed, therefore, that the administration didn't want to offend the public by beating up on its heroes. Prior to moving against the ultras, the feds would first want to spread disinformation, fear, and distrust. Maybe they thought that ultras in prison could more easily be recruited as Aladdin agents. Or was there something even more sinister to it than that? I clenched my teeth. What they did to Hodag, Gray Ghost, Warstrike, and several others, they could do to Mantra. What would my fans, most of them impressionable young girls, think if Mantra were suddenly framed for murder, robbery, or some gory act of terrorism? And that was nothing compared to the danger to Gus and Evie should a SWAT team show up at my house in suburbia determined to take me out. More than ever, I needed to find out what was going on with Warstrike. # I had Brandon's unlisted number and I called it on my lunch break, taking care to use a public phone at the Green Parakeet Caf?. A young-sounding woman with a strong, steady voice answered: "This is the Tark residence." "Hello," I said. "My name is Jennifer Pearson. I'm in town and I'd very much like to get together with Brandon over the next couple days." Tark would certainly recognize the alias I was using; he was the one who'd dumped it on me back when were posing as a married couple to help out the ultra called Wrath. "I'll check on Mr. Tark's availability. Where can you be reached, Ms Pearson?" "He knows where I stay when I'm in town," I replied coyly. "It's best to call after 6 p.m." I expected get a little grief for my coyness, but didn't. Maybe the aide on the other end was used to getting mysterious calls involving her wacky employer -- especially from strange women, if his behavior towards me was any indication of how he treated others. # At home that night I fixed a quick supper for Gus and Evie, somewhat distractedly because I was waiting for the phone to ring. I overheard the kids talking while off in the pantry: "Evie, " said Gus, "didn't Mom used to cook a lot better?" Evie's answer came slowly and deliberately. "Uh, no, I don't think so. She was always pretty bad." Bad? Did Gus think I was a bad cook? Even though Evie was covering for me like a good little trooper, I realized that she must have agreed. "Why do her scrambled eggs always smell so awful? They didn't used to," the boy went on. "Maybe the eggs went rotten." "Nah. They're stinky whenever she makes them." Up to now, I'd thought that Gus and Evie just didn't care for scrambled eggs. If I couldn't scramble eggs right, what else was I doing wrong? Pretending not to have heard, I came back to the table. When no one was looking, I took a whiff of the main course and had to admit that Gus was right. The kids soon finished picking through their plates and Gus rushed off to tune in the Sci-Fi Channel, while Evie went to the couch to color a picture. I watched them from the dinner table for a moment, noticing that Evie seemed nonchalant and composed, after being downcast for so long. Was she forgetting her mother's tragic death, or was her grief simply healing? If so, did it mean that she was she accepting me as an adequate substitute for Eden? I put the dishes into the sink, dumped the offending eggs into the garbage disposal, and went to sit down next to the little girl whom I'd come to think of as my own daughter. She glanced up with twinkling blue eyes. "What a nice job you're doing," I complimented. "You hardly ever go outside of the lines." "Did you like my Draco Malfoy?" she asked proudly. "Which one is he?" She displayed a blond boy with an unpleasant expression. "That's him. I thought everybody knew who Draco was. Didn't they have Harry Potter when you were a little gir--" Evie had broken off in mid-word. I knew she knew that there was a man somehow mixed up in Mantra's mystery, and I'd been dreading the day that she'd ask me about it. How could I tell her the whole truth? If Evie knew how strange a being Mantra was, wouldn't she reject me? I'd actually begun to hope that she had forgotten all the things she had heard me say the day her mother died, but now it was clear that Evie had understood enough to be left wondering whether I had ever actually been a "little girl." "I was...young...a long time before Harry Potter came along, Evie," I explained. "Yeah, I guess back in the old days they only had Donald and Mickey." I laughed and replied, "Donald and Mickey were lots of fun, that's for sure." "Let her think me of me as a 'Seventies kid; in fact, I predate Punch and Judy." "Man--" Evie began, and then glanced at the back of Gus's head in front of the TV. "I mean, Mommy, do you think that Mantra learned to do magic at a place like Hogwarts?" I shook my head. "I doubt it. I bet Mantra learned to do magic on her own." "That's too bad, because I'd like to go to Hogwarts and become a witch just like Mantra!" "Who knows? Maybe you'll get your chance," I replied, giving her a squeeze. Then, standing up, I said, "Don't let me disturb you. I just enjoy watching my little girl have a good time." She grinned and went back to her coloring. Returning to the kitchen, I realized that keeping the huge secret of my identity must have been hard on the tike. All the others who knew it were super-beings, and I could have counted them on one hand -- a couple of hopefully dead villains and my comrades Pinnacle and Warstrike. Prime only knew half the truth -- that Eden Blake was Mantra, not that Eden wasn't actually Eden. "Of course!" All at once, I understood why I'd been so much wanting to get together with Warstrike lately. He was on the short list of friends who knew I was Lukasz! I had been impersonating Eden Blake non-stop since New Year's and the strain of it had been eating on me. I needed some Lukasz time; going without it had me climbing the wall. Then the phone rang. Crossing swiftly into my bedroom, I closed the door and picked up the receiver. "Hello." "I've been told that L wants to see me," said Brandon's voice. L? Why was he talking like a British spymaster? I decided to play along. "Yes, 'L' wants to see you very much." "Tonight?" If I were going to get away from the house while the kids were at home, I'd have to arrange for a sitter. "No. Better tomorrow." "Okay. When?" He sounded stressed -- like a man wanted by the law. "Eight should be all right. At your home?" "Yeah, that's fine. I'll be waiting. Just one more thing." "What?" "Tell L not to believe everything he hears." The line clicked off and I couldn't help but think that it had been an odd conversation. Was Brandon worried that his conversations were being monitored for some reason? Or had he simply gone funny? If the latter were the case, he had a lot of artillery to get funny with. That wasn't good, considering that he might consider me a danger to be eliminated, in as much as I knew his secret identity. No matter what our past relationship had been -- and it was hard to define what exactly it had been -- I didn't dare let him get the drop on me, not until I knew what was what. # Brandon Tark lived on in the hills beyond the worst of L.A.'s urban sprawl. I envied his money, but didn't resent it since I could easily have been rolling in bucks, too. The difference between us was that Tark had used his precognitive powers to get rich, while I'd avoided using my own command of natural energies to do the same. Maybe my reluctance to cash in is foolish, but like I said before, it's too late to keep Eden Blake from becoming a killer, but I'll be damned if I'll make her a thief. My family had been told I was going on a date. This rather surprised "Mother," i.e., Mrs. Barbara Freeman, in so far as I'd been living like a nun for more than a year. It was not that she disapproved of me having a social life; in fact, she'd been encouraging me to go out and meet new people -- and by that she meant men, naturally. Barbara must have had a damned good marriage herself if she wanted her daughter to try again, despite the earlier bad experience. Or maybe she was just interested in seeing that he grandkids had a "normal" two-parent home. Too bad; any hope of "normal" went out the window the day I showed up. I wanted to approach the Tark mansion unseen by phasing and flying in underground, worried that Brandon might be under Aladdin's surveillance; it's not that he's ever worn much of a disguise. But flying blind isn't easy. Just before I went phantasmal and dove beneath the turf, I tried to attuned myself to an energy signature emanating from the mansion. Wow! I had been expecting some commonplace electro-magnetic field, such as a refrigerator motor, but instead had zoomed in on a power dam -- or its equivalent! Whenever Tark had hidden under that house of his, I couldn't get off course if I tried. Plunging into darkness, I propelled myself along with magic, which I usually avoid doing, since riding the air currents is much less straining. Eden, though, when she had these powers on the Godwheel, had flown very far and very fast into outer space. I didn't know how she'd done it and it made me wonder how many other powers this body possessed that I still hadn't discovered how to use efficiently. Even as an amateur, I'd been a match for Boneyard himself. How formidable could I become if I ever mastered my potential? It's no wonder that Archimage wanted to steal this body and send me to my heavenly reward. Of course, after the life I've lived, I can't be too sure how heavenly my award would be. I truly hope that longevity is part of the magic I now possess, as Archimage had once intimated. Suddenly I was no longer immersed in an inky-black underground, but was flying free in a great vaulting chamber. Pausing in mid-flight, I drew up short and looked around. I'd blundered into a cavern. Apparently, it was a natural one that had been artificially widened and stocked with tons of sophisticated equipment. I had known that Brandon Tark liked gadgets, but this was like the Night Cave that the comic books credited Night Man with. It seemed wrong somehow, since Warstrike had always struck me as uninvolved in technology, outside of those sophisticated small arms he always sported. Though the man was fairly smart, he generally came off as not much more than a cunning, muscle-bound lug who liked to play with high-caliber weapons and rocket-launchers. The place was impressive. How had it been constructed in secret? Then I recalled Brandon telling me that a bootleg kingpin had built the mansion in the 1920's. Whatever organized crime had used the cave for back then, these days it made a good box for holding Warstrike's toys. The discovery increased my respect for the super-mercenary, if not my trust. If I could be so wrong about Warstrike in one way, I could be dead wrong about him in other ways, too -- and that worried me. Be on guard, Lukasz. **** Chapter 3 THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE "Though we called your friend from his bed this night, He could not speak to you, For the race is run by one and one And never by two and two." From my bat's-eye view, I saw that a tunnel opened off to one side, and so I solidified and followed it to a metal security door whose mechanism required both a palm print and a retinal scan. Instead of magically picking the lock, I stepped through the steel bulkhead, ghost-like. Once through, I discovered a changing room for washing up. The sink and the paper towels in the wastebasket betrayed the distinctive red face-paint that Warstrike always applied Mohawk-style. It made me feel a little better to think that a macho dude like Brandon Tark would go into action wearing even heavier makeup than Mantra. Such untidiness bespoke use, but there had been no word of any Warstrike appearance in months -- unless one counted the hit on Russ Lingaard. Had this room really been unvisited for so long, or had Tark cleaned up here only a couple of days past? I preferred to think the former, but intended to guard myself regardless. The closet contained several spare Warstrike uniforms as well as a selection of street clothes. The uniforms made me wonder where my fellow ultras, to say nothing of all those super-villains, get their fancy costumes, many of which display great skill of tailoring. I shrugged off the minor mystery and I flashed into my civvies. Once I got into the mansion it wouldn't do for some servant to spot Mantra prowling around and call the 6:00 news. I was wearing a disguise that I hoped wouldn't look out of place. At one time I had assumed that men had the easier time with disguises since there are many things they can do with facial hair, to say nothing of wigs. Now I know that it's women who disguise better and more naturally. Their hairstyles and cosmetics can change a face utterly, and wearing heavy makeup doesn't even arouse suspicion in public. Furthermore, women have a wider choice of fashions than males. For example, I could have played it sporty, frumpy, trashy, businesslike, or demure. But, as it happens, Eden's wardrobe tends toward the "trashy," and so I decided to go with it. I don't mean to insult Eden; God knows I revere her memory. No one knows better than I that she wasn't just another party girl. After her divorce she had spent about a year in a closed loop between the office and home, trying to get used to the idea of being a single mom with all the added responsibility. From hints dropped by her mother and best friend Lila, I gathered that the breakup had left her depressed and demoralized and she had gone around for months not caring what she looked like. Then, as often happens, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and she had started spending all she could afford on party dresses and Fredericks of Hollywood lingerie. She plunged into a frenzy of dating and one-night stands, pretty much living up to the stereotype of the gay divorcee. I suspect, though, that she wasn't having all that much fun, that she was just trying to convince herself that she was still beautiful woman capable of winning admiration and love. She was still in that mode when Archimage put me into her body and sent her spirit off to the Soul Walk -- that mystical dumping ground that used to imprison all the souls that we knights displaced from Earth. I didn't want to think more about that. It was too painful. The outfit I'd blinked into was emerald-colored, satiny, and slit to the hip -- a style that I didn't think would look out of place upstairs, especially when accented with an auburn wig and some dramatic cosmetic touches. I sometimes think that I should be more self-conscious about appearing in these flamboyant women's fashions and, in fact, during the first few days in Eden's body I could hardly stand wearing anything of hers except jeans and pantsuits. I'd gotten over that attitude by the time I reported to my first day of duty at Aladdin in a miniskirt. I suspect -- hope, really -- that one's taste in fashion goes with the body and it has nothing at all to do with the man -- the person -- inside. Well, regardless, it was time to meet Warstrike. The door exiting the changing room was locked conventionally, but a shot of kinetic energy opened it easily. I came out in a library furnished with matched leather-upholstered furnishings. There were plenty of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, too, and a flashy guitar resting on a footstool. Taken together, the ambience seemed somehow wrong. Then I realized that it simply didn't fit my mental image of Brandon Tark. # I read a few titles: The Complete Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier; Ossian by MacPherson; works by Yeats, Lindsey, Aldrich, and many others. Where were the bound volumes of Soldier of Fortune? I couldn't imagine Tark sitting down to read any of these versifiers on a slow evening. Probably the room had been set up to impress visitors -- investors, business associates, and women. I've lived long enough to spot a Philistine from a mile away and B. T. was certainly a member of that tribe! Or so I'd always believed. I have to admit that the incongruity of the decorum with what I'd expected added to my misgivings. Tark was an unpredictable and violent guy and now here were all these elements that ran counter not only to the public image he projected, but also to the impression that he had made on me. His nervous breakdown and that funny phone conversation began to seem even more ominous; I decided to put up a low-wattage force field, one that wouldn't glow in normal light but would fend off anything smaller than a medium-sized artillery shell. It's hell not being able to trust a friend, but I had known and trusted Thanasi a lot better than I knew and trusted Brandon Tark, and what had that gotten me? My tension grew apace as I passed through a pair of oaken doors into a hall leading into an entertaining room as posh as the library, but decorated with more adventurous elements, such as the African masks arrayed above the mantel. "Anyone home?!" I yelled, and was nonplussed by the dry, cracked tenor of my voice. To tell the truth, I've felt more at ease in a bear cage. There never was a bear more dangerous than Warstrike when he decided to play rough. I heard a stir in an adjoining chamber and then a heavy tread. I waited, safe behind my invisible shield, until a giant of a man paused in the arch-shaped ingress wearing a formal suit, but with a shag-style haircut that didn't exactly go with it. "Eden?" he frowned. "Come on, Brandon, you know it's me. A red wig and a little war paint isn't that much of a disguise," I replied with a forced grin. He rubbed his bull neck. "It's just that I wasn't expecting you." "You weren't?" I asked, slightly perplexed. "Who were you expecting?" "Your boyfriend." Eh? I suppressed a scowl. Was he going to start ribbing me already? It always burned me up the way he kept needling me about being a woman when he had had a large share in bringing that about. "Oh, and who would that be?" I inquired stiffly. He gave a faint smile. "Are you saying you're married now? I'm hurt you guys didn't invite me to the wedding. I don't know if I could have come, but I'd still like to have been invited." "Who in the hell would I marry?" I asked, guardedly wondering what the punch line was. "Lukasz!" he said emphatically, with a quizzical twitch of his blond brow. I expected him to continue, but he just stood there, as if the next line were mine to deliver. "Yeah, what?" I finally asked. He seemed at a loss. I broke the awkward silence myself. "Before we get down to business, I have to ask whether you've recently had this house swept for listening devices." "Sure," he shrugged. "I have it done twice a week. I found out a long time ago that a person's never as safe as he thinks he is." An innocent statement, perhaps, but in the circumstances it carried a slight hint of threat. Pretending not to notice, I said with a nod, "Good." "Are you here because Lukasz is in some sort of trouble?" he asked with something like a tone of concern. I thought that that was an odd way of putting the question, but answered anyway. "No more than usual. You're the one in trouble. I just thought we could talk, get to the bottom of it all, and then maybe I could help" "I'm flattered, but I didn't expect such interest. I think you're delightful, but I didn't suppose we knew one another that well." Delightful? His odd word choices and the emotional distance he was maintaining in his tone, glance, and body language didn't seem right, but I decided not to jump to any hasty conclusions. "Well, that's one way of looking at it, but we're not exactly strangers, are we?" "If you don't think so, I won't think so either." I tried another subject. "Somebody left his guitar in your den. The Mexican houseboy?" He grinned. "My houseboy is Japanese; the guitar is mine." "Do you play, then?" "A little; it helps me relax. Do you play any musical instrument yourself?" I tossed my shoulders, once up, once down. "Several. I wasn't bad with the lute. The last instrument I really got into, though, was the banjo." His brows knit in surprise. "I can't really imagine you playing a banjo, much less a lute." Then, with a slightly patronizing smile, he remarked, "By the way, I see you've been making the news lately. You saved a crowd from some escaped cats at a zoo last March, and drove off a pack of rabid wolves from a campground up in the Sierra Nevadas a couple weeks ago. You're really turning into a first-rate super heroine. I should have guessed that you would, after the way you saved our bacon on the Godwheel." Super heroine? I didn't relish the term any more than I liked "delightful." "I didn't do that much," I told him evenly. And I actually hadn't; it had been Eden who'd saved the day. He smiled mildly. "You're too modest." "You just give me more credit than I deserve." "You haven't said a thing about Lukasz yet. Does he miss those terrific Mantra powers, or is being the man of the house enough for him?" Then the truth hit me like a sock in the jaw. The piece fell into place and his strange manner began to make perfect sense. "Brandon," I said slowly and carefully, "I'm not Eden Blake. I'm Lukasz." Astonishment wiped the bland expression off his face. "Eden's dead," I explained. "I'd forgotten that you couldn't possibly have known." It's not like there had been an obituary in the newspapers. "You're -- you're Lukasz? Dead? How did -?" "It's a long story," I said, not eager to relive it. He was shaking his head. "That poor, sweet woman! I'm so sorry. Please -- Lukasz -- sit down. Do you want a drink?" "Some light wine, thanks. That's about all this body will tolerate." He stepped to the bar and returned with a couple of filled glasses. When I reached out to take mine, the stem broke, spilling sherry over my host's cuff and lower arm. He recoiled. "W-What was that? A magic stunt?" "I'm sorry. I had my shield up. I'd forgotten." He set down his glass and what was left of mine and while brushing the liquor out of his sleeve growled: "Why the shield? What are you afraid of? You invited yourself!" "I said I'm sorry. I'm a suspicious guy and it doesn't help that people are saying that you've gone bad." He flung an expletive at me as he shucked off his coat and stripped down to a short-sleeved undershirt. "I'll pay for the cleaning," I offered. "Forget it," he rumbled. "I could buy Arrow Shirts if I wanted to -- and I mean the company, not the product. Eden's kids need your income more than I do." All at once, his tone softened. "You're still with the kids, aren't you?" I gave back an uneasy grin. "They're the only thing that's keeping me sane these days -- which is a good trick, since they drive me crazy! I don't expect you to understand that. It's a parent thing." "I understand better than you think," he replied with odd inflection. I thought it best to sidle past the embarrassing moments I'd brought about by getting to the point. "Tell me that you weren't involved in the Lingaard shooting and I'll believe you." "Do I have to tell you?" he asked, his eyes locked on mine. "I don't know. You've always been a pretty wild guy. You did kill me for hire once." "Don't remind me!" "I'm sorry if I hit a sore point, but I was the one cut down in my prime and you've never actually apologized. Really, Tark, how could you have believed everything a low life like Notch told you about us knights over your beers?" "I suppose I was pretty dumb. But while we're on the subject, I consider that apologizing is something to do after stepping on a person's foot. I didn't want to insult you by apologizing for what I did to you." I sensed sincerity in his pained grimace. It was funny, but I always supposed that whenever Warstrike acted like a jerk it was because he felt things too little, not because he felt them too much. He returned to the bar for something stronger than wine. I could have used the same, but because that wasn't an option I picked up the untouched glass he had set aside and took a sip. I liked the sherry's flavor, but missed the gin and tonics I used to belt down like they were going out of style. At that point I moved to a chair and adjusted the painful strap that was cutting into my arch. There are things I don't like about being a woman, and the footgear is one of them. When my host came back, he took the seat across from me and rested his whisky swizzle on his knee. "Can you talk about it?" he said before I could turn the conversation back to his problem. I sighed. "You mean what happened to...to Eden? Now that I think about it, I guess I've needed to talk about it a long time." I gave him the whole story then, about how Necromantra had survived her apparent death on the Godwheel, how she kidnapped Eden and Evie, and how Eden had died to save our lives. I told him, too, how with her dying breath she had urged me to take over her life and treat the children as my own. I was so deep into my regret that too late I realized how vulnerable I'd left myself. I remembered the way he'd laughed at me that night I described to him the horror of being incarnated as a woman. This time, though, the man didn't laugh. Instead, melancholy seemed to lie heavily upon him. "I take it you weren't at the radio station?" I said, finally getting back to the point of my visit. Tark shook his head and put down the empty glass. "I wasn't and I can prove it. There were two art brokers with me in San Francisco at the time of the shooting. Unfortunately, an alibi for Brandon Tark won't help Warstrike much, since the world can't know that he and I are the same person. You know how that is." I looked about uneasily. "Can we speak freely?" "It's all right. The servants don't room here and I saw to it that Shelby would be out, too. Dad has a round-the-clock nurse, but I locked off that side of the house just before eight. As for Giz, he's been away for months." Glad to know we were alone, I pulled off my wig, which was about as hot as a fur cap. "Giz? Shelby? Friends of yours?" "Shelby Calleros is the one who took your call. She's my -- well, I consider her my secretary, but she gives herself one of those fancy businesswoman titles. Sometimes she carries on like we're married, except that she won't jump into the sack." He broke off abruptly, uncertain whether or not his remark was off-color in my company. Since I've known the language of man-talk for more than a thousand years, it wouldn't have occurred to me to get riled. "But she's a great gal all the same," he resumed. "There aren't many people whom I could trust with my secret identity. As for Gizmo, he is, or was, my Mr. Wizard, Nathaniel Wells. He invented most of the gadgets that Warstrike uses. When I told him that I was shutting down my ultra operation and going on a six-month cruise, he took a job in Silicon Valley. I let him know that he didn't have to, that I would keep his salary coming, but he likes to be exercising his brain. He seemed glad to have an excuse to bow out, and I'm not sure he'd come back even if I asked him." The corners of Tark's mouth turned down and his brow clouded. "Things had started to get chilly between us even before that. I guess he'd figured out that he'd been a better friend to me than I've ever been to him. Anyway, why should I bring him back? The world's probably seen the last of Warstrike anyway." I realized that if that were true I'd be sorry, but all I said was, "Sometimes I wish I could haul it in, too." "You?" "What do you think? I've only got one life left, and if I keep on in the reckless way I've been going, a couple of innocent kids are going to lose me -- assuming that's a bad thing. The trouble is, I don't know if I can give up the action. The way I see it, I have to be Eden Blake, but I need to be Mantra." "So, where does Lukasz fit in?" Tark asked. At the question, I stared into my wine, which looked like a field of stars under the pinpoint lights of the chandelier. "That's something I haven't figured out yet," I told him ruefully. * * * * * Chapter 4 IF I RULED THE WORLD "You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, Or torture your Picardy spears; But don't try that game on the Saxon; You'll have the whole brood round your ears." Brandon Tark stretched out his long legs and one corner of his mouth twisted upward as he spoke. "It's too bad if Lukasz gets lost in the mix. When we were up on the Godwheel I intended to ask him out bowling if we got home alive." "Stop talking about me in third person," I told him bluntly. "And by the way, I can still lift a bowling ball, in case you don't know." He shrugged offhandedly. "I've got a couple hours to kill, but you're not dressed for the alley just now." I waited for some boorish follow-up to come, such as, "Not the 'bowling' alley, at least," but he chose not to regale me with his wit. This probably meant that he was depressed and not himself. "I think we're getting off-track," I observed, somewhat mollified by his unexpected tact, whatever the reason for it. "The whole point of this visit was to pass on the word that Aladdin has you in its sights again." I expected clenched fists and gnashing teeth, but the man just sank deeper into the fern-green cushions under his shoulders. "Them, again? What do those people have against me?" "The way I see it, they're working out a formula for getting all the ultras under their thumb and you seem like a safe place to start." "Okay, what's their scheme this time around?" "You've probably heard about some of those recent terrorist acts being attributed to good ultra's gone bad." "I read something about burning churches, but I was too ripped to follow the daily news on the ocean liner." "Then did you hear that some goon called Warstrike charged into Russell Lingaard's studio and started blasting?" "Yeah, I did, come to think of it," he replied with a scowl. "If you've noticed, the reportage has been low-key. The idea is to gather up enough inflammatory stuff and then use it to whip up a crisis. That will probably mean anti-ultra attacks in the media, protest rallies using rent-a-mobs, and demands in Congress for restricting every ultra's freedom of action." Tark was now sitting with his chin resting on his folded fingers. "Maybe I'm the wrong one to be talking to." This passive man just wasn't the Warstrike I knew. "What's that supposed to mean? It's not like you're in any position to be an indifferent observer." "I mean I've done my bit saving truth, justice, and the American way. I've just about had it." Giving him a chilly look, I said, "You're telling me that you're a burn-out who just doesn't care anymore?" "I'm saying I've got good reason to get out of the ultra business." "Do you feel like cuing me in?" He heaved his great, muscular bulk out of his easy chair and made for the bar. "I saw myself ruling the world." I sat quietly a few seconds, then advised him: "If that's a joke, it still needs work." He kept talking while busying himself mixing another toe-curling concoction. "Things have changed. You knew that it was getting harder and harder for me to get on the wire, right? Toward the end, I'd have go berserk to make a connection. Since that Crystal Crown fried my brain, I haven't been able to evoke my battle prescience at all -- not even to save my life." Now I could better understand why his old spirit seemed to have evaporated. To an ultra, the loss of power was like impotence; it's humiliating to the nth degree. While I could sympathize, I didn't think that friends should let friends wallow in self-pity, so I challenged him: "I'm sorry, Brandon. As bad as that is, what has it got to do with ruling the world? How could you ever pull it off? I don't think that the whole UltraForce working together would be up to the task." He glanced at me glum-faced, a bottle in each hand. "The thing you don't understand is that I've started to experience longer-ranged visions. Remember last Christmas when you helped me polish off those terrorists? I mentioned that I'd dreamed about you. I thought I had, but later on I realized later that it hadn't been you after all. It was Necromantra. Only she had red hair, not black." A shiver ran down my spine. I had told him what Necromantra had done to Eden, but hadn't mentioned her new hair color. Was this an example of prescience, or just a coincidence? "What does any of this have to do with the Crystal Crown?" I asked. A dark cloud settled on his features. "The next day at St. John's Church, I saw a vision of Argus and the Godwheel, and you know how that turned out. Other visions have been happening unpredictably since then. Some of them have already come true; a lot of them haven't -- not yet. Just a couple of days ago I saw myself taking out a terrorist squad -- Arab-looking guys wearing sombreros and driving a Mexican-plated truck. Their truck was loaded with high explosives and radioactive waste and barreling into the UCLA campus in Berkley." "Were you Warstrike?" "Yes." "Well, then, this business about your giving your ultra career is all 'bushwah.'" Tark's expression tightened with strain: "When I wore the Crystal Crown, I saw the clearest, most powerful vision I ever had. I was sitting on a throne. The world looked blasted and blighted, but all I was concerned about was passing out death sentences on rebels. It couldn't have been too far in the future because the people I saw didn't look much older than they do now. I remember that I wasn't ruling as Brandon Tark, but as Warstrike. I was exactly the kind of man I'd want to take out myself, if in my right mind." Now he returned to his chair and finished his second whisky sour in a minute flat. I began to worry that my friend was developing a morose drinking habit. That could be a bigger danger to him than terrorist bullets; liquor had beaten bigger men than him before. "So how are you going to get to be ruler of the world a couple years from now?" I asked. "I don't know! I just want to stop thinking about it!" He was gripping his glass so tightly that I thought it might burst in his fist. I tried to sound reassuring. "Brandon, I really don't think there's anything to worry about. You can't trust what you saw while wearing the Crystal Crown. We don't know what power that thing actually had. Maybe it induced illusions. Maybe it shows the wearer his worst nightmares." "Maybe, but I can't take that risk. It make sense to give up the Warstrike identity once and for all, if that will prevent me from becoming what I hate most!" That reminded me of an aphorism I had heard centuries before: "We become what we most hate." There were times when I 'd thought I'd have to guard myself against that possibility, too. I pushed myself to a standing position and squared my shoulders. "Do you understand how crazy you're sounding? If you're destined to become the world's worst tyrant since Adolf Hitler, it won't make any difference what you're wearing or what you call yourself. Frankly, it's no big deal if you want to be Warstrike or not. But rule the world? How? Is there going to be an election, or will you bring it about with that portable rocket-launcher of yours? He glanced away and muttered through twisted lips, "I haven't told you the strangest part yet." I stood there in my stocking feet, waiting with strained patience. "It gets stranger? Go on, surprise me." A momentary look of discomfort crossed his face. "Necromantra was back. She was my queen. # "Necromantra is 'dead!'" I declared with finality. Did Tark's vision mean that Thanasi would be coming back to help Warstrike seize supreme power? Why? He was far less powerful than she and, besides, they were enemies. Most telling of all, if that nut case were able to conquer the world, I'm dead certain she'd choose to rule it herself. I simply couldn't credit any part of Brandon's nightmare. I refused to credit it. "So what are you going to do," I asked, "bury your head in the sand because of a bad dream? A real man wouldn't do that, not even as much of a man as 'I' still am!" His mouth took on an unpleasant twist when he looked up at me. "Now, 'that's' insulting." "Ohhhh!" I grunted, feeling my self-restraint go. Instead of punching him out, I stomped to the bar. I sloshed a spot of Scotch into a shot glass and downed it at a gulp. Not wise. I coughed the vile stuff all over Brandon's liquor cabinet, doubling up with choking. Suddenly, Brandon's arm was firm around my shoulders, steadying me while his free hand shoved a glass of soda water between my lips. "Here. Take this, Blue Eyes." I drank breathlessly and the burning subsided. "You weren't kidding about not being able to hold your liquor," he clucked. "When do I ever kid?" I wheezed while trying to shake him off. In spite of my imperfect cooperation, he helped me to the couch and then sat down just far enough away that I wouldn't feel crowded. I sank my cheek the pillows and shut my eyes. "What were we talking about?" he asked. "Necromantra?" "Not my favorite subject," I grumbled. "We were talking about what turned you into such a wimp." "A wimp? I'll match you drink for drink and we'll see cries 'wimp' first." I shook my head. "Not a fair contest. Look Brandon, someone is dragging your name -- your 'code name' -- into the mud. Do you care, or don't you?" "Sure I care!" he insisted, but with an uncertain timbre. "Maybe I'm just having a har