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Mantra is a character created by Michael W. Barr. She and other characters first presented in Malibu Comics are the property of Marvel Comics, Inc. THE WOUNDED WORLD, Part 2 A Story of Mantra By Aladdin Chapter Seven IF AN ULTRA ANSWERS.... "Every house a den, every man bound; the shadows are filled With specters, and the windows wove over with curses of iron..." William Blake As soon as we got back to Penny's digs, I sat down by the phone. Pinnacle went off and soon came back with a couple of coffee cups on a tray and offered me one. "From all you've told me," she said, "you've got a lot on your plate. What do you want to fix first?" I tasted the beverage before answering. Nice. "If I'm ever going to get back to my real home, I'll need to recover my Mantra powers." She took the chair across from me. "Okay. Do you happen to know how were they lost?" I shrugged. "It's hard to say. I wasn't the one who lost them. At first I thought that maybe the other Mantra's powers got transferred to Gus during that celestial power surge. Later on I learned that they both had powers even after the energy effect struck. Maybe Evie is right, that Mantra got hurt fighting with her brother." "What exactly did Gus do to you -- I mean, to the ~other~ Mantra?" "He probably would have used some sort of magical blast. That was the first power I managed to tap into. I incinerated a street creep right after I became Eden Blake. It was a pure panic reaction. It happened even without having the extra boost that my magical mask and armor gives me. ~Gave~ me, I mean." Pinnacle rested back. "I can't say I know a lot about sorcery, but I've read a secret Aladdin report. It explores the idea that ultra powers may come from the so-called 'junk DNA' that everyone possesses. It makes up about ninety-seven percent of the whole. Aladdin scientists claim that microscopic machines, nanotechnical devices, exist in every cell of the ultras they've tested. These are not naturally occurring. They would have to have been introduced by outside intervention. Anyway, the idea is that these nanoid elements, wherever they come from, enable their possessor to tap into his recessive genetic abilities." I cocked my eye skeptically. "How does the Entity on the moon figure in? It'd been sitting up there for thousands of years, turning people on Earth into ultras whenever it felt like it. Remember that blast that hit that San Francisco trolley? All fifty-nine people inside got ultra powers." "Yes, Aladdin seems to have studied that case thoroughly. Their hypothesis is that all humans may have dormant nanotechnology in their cells and an outside force is able to jumpstart it. If that's the case, the Entity's bolt didn't do anything but stimulate the nanoid it targeted to do what they were created to do." "If all or most of us are really potential ultras, what, exactly, is an ultra?" "It would be someone who realizes more of his inborn potential than the average person. Nanotechnology could account for most of our historical and legendary heroes, but it also makes me wonder whether the ancient gods were actually...." "Ultras?" "More than that, Lu. Hercules might have been a sort of B.C. Hardcase, but the actual gods would have been 'ultimate ultras.' That would make them humans or humanoids with most or all of their inborn genetics active. That would explain the Olympian type of god." "I've met some gods in my day, but they didn't seem all that human to me." She shook her head. "Maybe our idea of humanity is stunted." "Wait a minute. You know about Electro-Cute of the Strangers, don't you? She was empowered by that trolley blast, but she wasn't human. She was J.D. Hunt's android Barbie doll." "I don't know how she fits in," Penney admitted, "but until we know exactly how Electro-Cute was put together, whether UltraTech used human DNA in her makeup or not, we can't discard the theory out of hand." "Okay, but what's all this got to do with magical powers?" Penny rested her coffee cup on her knee. "I've got an idea that the potential for magic isn't any different from the potential for super strength, or a hundred other powers. Different ultras can tap into different abilities. Maybe ultras like you are actually channeling some as-yet-unknown form of energy, something that falls outside the electromagnetic spectrum." "What energy is that?" "Possibly it's the energy that makes people walk, talk, and think. And there are other examples, such as ectoplasm. Magic may actually be the same primeval force that was responsible for the creation of life. Probably, it's always been around, but we simply know a lot less about it than we do about electromagnetic waves." She trailed off, but then asked, asked, "Lauren is a witch similar to Mantra, isn't she?" "She seems to be." "Good. Studying her on the micro-molecular level might give us insight into how a healthy witch's body should work and compare the data to you in your present state. I hope she hero-worships you enough to put up with a long regimen of tests." "I think she might." "That's good. Now, what about 'Strike -- ah, ~Warstrike~? Earlier, you said you thought that his power-loss problem back he suffered in your world might have been psychosomatic." "That was only a guess. I know he blames himself for his daughter's death and his father's brain injury. For years, every time he accessed his precognitive power, they became harder to turn on. Finally he couldn't access them voluntarily at all, and he started getting flashes of more distant events. When I transferred a little aural energy into him, his psychic ability seemed to reset itself. But if Mantra's power loss is all in her head, shouldn't this body's magic have come back -- now that ~I'm~ inside her head?" Pinnacle frowned thoughtfully. "Possibly, but thoughts act like things. A bad mental attitude can make a person sick. You've heard of hysterical blindness? Along those same lines, a good many ultras can actually use their minds to change their physical shapes. There's that good-looking guy they call 'Anything,' for example. Maybe some part of Mantra didn't want to be a witch anymore, and the trauma of what happened on Friday threw some mental switch that ordered her nanoids to turn her powers off." "So where does that leave us?" "Well, as you say, you have a new mind in your body. Your powers might come back on their own if we're rid of the original Mantra's conflicts. I think the recovery will be gradual though. On the other hand, maybe you're just as conflicted as your twin was. The two of you must have been nearly identical, both physically and mentally." "Why would I want to be powerless?" "I didn't say you did. The hysterically blind don't really want to be sightless. But the mind interprets our deep-seated needs in strange ways. Like, for instance, if Warstrike was unconsciously blaming his psychic ability for the destruction of his family...." "What's the cure?" Her brows drew together and she sighed. "There's interesting work being carried out these days. Aladdin is trying to transplant active nanoids from ultra donors into ordinary human beings, just to see what happens. But there may be a simpler way for you. If giving a little energy to Warstrike helped him, we ought to ask someone like Lauren to give you some of hers." "It won't work," I said pessimistically. "Why do you suppose that?" "It's too simple. Too painless. Everything I get comes with hard knocks." "I can see you have a lot of negativity to overcome. The idea probably won't work if your root problem is psychological. We'll know more once we've run your profile." "If you're just going to tell me I'm crazy at the end of the day, I get plenty of that from Mother already." Penny smiled and her next question seemed to come from left field. "Tell me, what are the drawbacks to being a super-witch?" I shook my head. "I have the same problems that a lot of ultras have," I said, "like trying to juggle a private life with a secret one. I don't have any spare time and the tension is bone crushing. I have to duck out of important responsibilities and sometimes hate myself for having to lie to people I care about. Also, it's damned lonely keeping secrets so earthshaking that they completely define you. The person closest to me who knows the truth is Evie, but she's too little to be the kind of confidant I need." "Anything else?" I sighed. "I don't know why, but being an ultra seems to draw danger and enemies. A lot of ultras have lost loved ones from enemy attacks. I lost Eden that way. Maybe Gus got into trouble because he was too closely involved with an ultra. "Any other anxieties?" I nodded. "As bad as the idea of any harm coming to the kids, is to think how it would hurt them if they suddenly lost me. It was terrible to see Evie suffering from the death of her mother last January. She's too young to go through that again." "You live three lives, not just two like most ultras. Which one could you most easily give up?" I thought about the question before answering. "I couldn't let go of Lukasz," I said. "He's my core. I'd be a basket case if I lost my basic identity." "And Eden?" "I'd have no real life without Eden, nothing that could pass for normality. On top of that, the kids are with me only because I've taken over her life." "And Mantra?" I frowned. "Mantra's important. Ordinary people are being pushed around all the time. Whenever the world pushes too hard on Eden, she becomes Mantra and starts kicking ass." I looked up suddenly. "Are you getting anything?" Penny tossed her shoulders and looked very doctor-like. "We have to explore all the possibilities, and that's going to take time. If the cause of your disempowerment is physical and not just psychological, we'll have to know exactly ~how~ you were hurt and what, specifically, was the nature of the injury." "Evie was the only one there, and trying remember what happened terrifies her. In fact, she's had a problem with shaking hands ever since. I was going to ask if you could treat her for that sort of thing." Then, suddenly, I got another idea. "Say, Penny, if you were able to turn off Evie's grief before, could you do the same with her fear, long enough for me to question her about Friday?" She rubbed her chin. "I think I could. There's always a risk when playing with children's minds, though. They're so fragile..." Just then the phone rang. # "Hi, Eden, what's up?" Lauren asked. "Laurie, this is going to sound strange, but I've somehow lost my memory -- especially the recent stuff. I'm not even a hundred percent certain that you haven't found out something -- important -- about me." "Do you mean that you don't remember that you told me you were Mantra? Or are you wondering if I've figured out any of that mysterious stuff that Necromantra was hinting about?" I chilled. "Did you say ~Necromantra~? You ~met~ her?" "Yeah, and she was one mean bitch of a witch, too." This was almost too much. Necromantra was back! She was the one living enemy who knew who I was and where to find me. The death-sorceress could be lurking in the shadows even now, ready to come after either Evie or me when the odds were in her favor. Without my powers, both of us would be sitting ducks 24/7! "Eden? Eden? Are you still there?" "I'm sorry. I'd forgotten all about Necromantra." "What else do you need to know?" "A thousand things. I've spent the whole day trying to find out what happened Friday night and how Gus ended up in a maximum-security ultra prison." "That's a long story, lady, but how did you lose your memory? You seemed perfectly all right -- mentally, I mean -- when we got together after school Monday night." "It happened suddenly this morning. I don't know what brought it on. Say, I heard that something happened at the mall, the one on Sherman Way. You fought some sort of robot." "Yeah. The thing was called NM-E." ~NM-E~? I'd never suspected! The "enemy robot" that Evie had mentioned had been the notorious NM-E. The newspapers hadn't made the connection; talk about sloppy reporting! Most ultras had at least heard about the automated killer. It had been alluded to in the oldest legends of mankind and seems, from prehistory, to have been on a search-and-destroy mission against ultras. A couple years back, shortly before I'd become Mantra, NM-E had make mincemeat out of the Squad, the first ultra team to be formed since World War II. That attack had turned Hardcase, the band's leader, into a Lone Ranger. Worse, his teammate, the heroine Starburst, still lay in a coma day from the injuries that NM-E had inflicted that day. All the other Squad members were dead. "Fighting that thing it isn't for kids," I said. "Who won?" "Me, naturally, or else I wouldn't be talking to you, right?" "Oh, yeah, right. Sorry. This isn't easy to assimilate." She'd beaten NM-E! How? Even with all my powers I wouldn't have wanted to tangle with that self-propelled engine of destruction single- handedly. On second thought, why shouldn't Lauren have gotten the better of the thing? The one time we'd clashed using magic, she had me beaten in two shakes. "Eden, can I ask you a question?" "What?" "Is what's going on normal -- for an ultra, I mean? Ever since these powers switched on, it's like I've become a marked woman. Things have been coming at me from every direction. Gus, Coven, Necromantra, and then NM-E. And last night I ran into an ultra-powered thief. I'm afraid to think what's hiding around the next corner." "I know the feeling," I commiserated. "Maybe someone ~Up There~ has a job for us and fighting chaos might be a part of it. Maybe he wants us to accept whatever comes at us, do our duty -- and then die." "Aren't you a bundle of laughs tonight!" "I'm sorry, Lauren. I'll be glad to become Mantra again and let you go back to a real life. Anything you can tell me about what happened since last Thursday might help bring that about." "Nothing much happened on Thursday," the teen replied. "It was on Friday night that all hell broke loose. It wasn't even Friday the 13th or anything spooky like that. It was the 15th. Come to think of it, Jason would have been a pushover compared to what we were up against." "I have to do a report for Aladdin concerning what happened at Sherman Way Mall Sunday afternoon. But the whole day's a blank. Can you tell me why I was there?" "Does this sound familiar? You were wearing a gun on your hip and calling yourself 'Agent Eden Blake.' The next night, at your house, you told me that you've been some sort of secret federal cop from the day I met you. It's hard to believe that I not only used to be Mantra's personal babysitter, but La Femme Nikita's, too." "I wouldn't call myself a La Femme Nikita, exactly. But I need to understand what's been happening. If Aladdin discovers that I'm having mental lapses, they might force me to take some involuntary leave. I don't dare lose track of what's going on with them, not as long as they have Gus." "I get you," Lauren replied sympathetically. "Here's the skinny...." # According to Lauren, Sunday had been a busy night. In the late afternoon, she had gotten together with her mom in the Book Barn at the Mall, on Sherman Way. While they were chatting about mother-daughter things, NM-E had showed up and started a commotion out in the parking lot. "I didn't find out until a little later that that nuts-and-bolts-case had been neutered and this Aladdin guy called Wrath was controlling him." "Wrath? I know that name. I thought he'd quit Aladdin. Was he a big guy with muscles the size of Swartzeneger's, and blond hair?" "No way! This was a black guy with a shaved head. He looked a lot like Avery Brooks on ~Deep Space Nine~, only not so old. You're right about him being big and built, though." A new Wrath? What next? The "Wrath" name had been assigned to an Aladdin agent named Thomas Hunter -- until he opted out. It now seemed that Aladdin had passed the codename on to some flunky who was probably less conscience-driven. Even so, it seemed strange that another Wrath could be trained and even deployed into the L.A. area without my having learned about it beforehand. True, I'm not highly ranked, but I'm darned good at snooping. Maybe this is one of those developments hadn't happened back in my own world. But it was plain from Lauren's story that Aladdin had somehow salvaged NM-E for refitting. Again, that detail didn't fit. The last word on NM-E had come in at the end of last year. The robot had attacked Hardcase at his Malibu home. He and Prime, working together, had beaten it to junk, but then some ultra female had shown up -- impersonating ~me~, of all people. She'd stolen the robot's wrecked body right in front of Prime, who naively ate up the cover story she'd fed him. Could the mystery woman have been an Aladdin agent? "Please go on, Lauren." From this world's version of Lauren, I learned that the whole mall scam had been a plot by Aladdin to catch the "new Mantra." In plain fact, no federal officer has the right to "catch" anybody who doesn't break the law, but sinister things happening in Washington these days. The Company had already guessed that the new sorceress might try to protect people in trouble, so NM-E's job was to start a public panic and draw the ultra. But the teen, who had always impressed me as being pretty sharp, guessed correctly that if her antagonist was a robot, it might be operating under someone's control. When she spotted the same van whose paramilitary occupants had captured Gus on Friday night, she ghosted inside and trashed the equipment hidden there. Unfortunately, this destruction aborted NM-E's new programming, causing its old psychotic routine to reinitialize. NM-E immediately went after Lauren with a vengeance. One of the first people it placed in danger was Lauren's mother. Unable to intervene fast enough, the "new Mantra" used her magic to phantomized the entity -- a gambit that impressed me, considering that I'd never thought of anything like that myself. Once rendered no better than a ghost, NM-E could do nothing to stop Lauren from darting in and spiriting her mother to safety. That's when the new Wrath stormed up and confronted the girl, blaming her for making the automaton run wild. They didn't get to say much more to one another, because a crowd of television reporters had stampeded in on them at that point. Curiously enough, the newshounds seemed more interested in the man in red than in either NM-E or the mysterious new heroine. Unfortunately, NM-E had found a way to restore itself to normal density. When it came back slashing, Lauren's second attempt at "ghosting" it failed. She decided to lead the robot away from the populated area, only to discover that it could fly even faster than she could. Forced to turn at bay, the newbie heroine flailed away on NM-E with the Sword of Fangs, but some sort of automated self-repair system negated any damage she managed to inflict. To gain some respite, Lauren resorted to phantoming herself, but the anti-ultra assassin had already learned to alter its molecular vibrations and, entering the ghost plane itself, carried on the attack. I shook my head. Lauren had inadvertently helped NM-E discover a new power! Now the creature would be able to move through walls, avoid blows, and be even harder to defeat in the future. But back to the story. The power of the attack stunned Lauren and sent her plummeting through the roof of a store called Toy World. Bruised and shaken, she came within a hairsbreadth of dying when the ultra-slayer seized her in its grip. Only Wrath's timely intervention, apparently by means of a wild, berserk rage that increased his strength many fold, distracted NM-E long enough to let her slip away. Then Lauren used her power to command the elements of the earth to rise up and contain the out-of-control Wrath and also the assassination machine. She resorted to pummeling the latter with boulders, but both of her prisoners showed themselves strong enough to break loose. Wrath was badly injured, however, and the damage NM-E sustained was enough to cause its self- preservation programming to kick in. When it fled, using a kind of jet power, Lauren found herself too worn out to pursue. "That's when you showed up," she said. "Yeah? Where had I been up to then?" "I'm not sure. You pretended not to know me. You tried to make it look like you were trying to arrest me, so I ghosted myself and took off. Once out of sight, I switched back into my street clothes and joined Mom on the other side of the mall. I felt so dead that I fell asleep at the supper table. Dad actually had to carry me to bed." "Been there, done that. But there's usually nobody around to carry me, so I either slump to the floor under the table, or else crawl to the bedroom." "When does the glamorous stuff in an ultra's life begin?" "If it ever does, I'll tell you." "Hmmm. Anyway, right after school the next day I went over to your house. I had a lot of questions to ask, but you'd already started packing for San Francisco. You said you were going to transfer there to be closer to Gus. You also said you didn't know if your powers would ever be coming back and I could have your ultra franchise if I wanted it. We talked some about what had happened in New York and you thought that maybe the people you worked for would know more about it than TV news guys did. Have you found out anything? Was Amber Hunt and 'Strike really involved?" "Amnesia, remember? All I know is what they've put in the papers today. Listen, Lauren, we'd better talk fast about Friday night, so I won't have to keep you up too late." "Yeah, you're right. There's school tomorrow." # The rest of the story turned out to be just as incredible as the fight at the mall, only more so. Since Pinnacle had followed the entire conversation telepathically, after Lauren and I had said our goodbyes, I looked back and asked, "Do you have any idea yet how Mantra lost her powers, Pin?" The blonde shook her head. "She went through hell, both physically and psychologically, that's for sure. But there's no point in speculating. There were a lot of things that Lauren didn't know. We need to find out what Evie can contribute." "That's about it for tonight, then." "You'll stay here tonight, won't you?" "It might be the simplest thing. I only wish I could do something more useful than just going to bed." "Getting your rest is useful. And if it will cheer up, I think I can restore you powers." "You ~think~?" "Unless it's the worst-case scenario." "Then what?" "Then the treatment will kill you." "Oh." "Let's be optimistic. Maybe you've suffered some sort of burnout that destroyed your nanoids' ability to stimulate your magic-channeling genes -- providing that the whole nanotech theory isn't just a crock. Unfortunately, if you've really lost your nanoids, or sustained some sort of genetic damage that's affected every cell of your body, even cloning might not produce a Mantra body that's magical as the old one." "So you're talking clones again?" I never expected an all-around genius like Pinnacle to be a Dr. One-Cure! "There's simpler things to try first, but, if all else fails, I can do for you what I've already suggested we do for Gus. If we have to go the clone route, it will be relatively easy to grow a new Mantra body from your tissues and mature it artificially. The latter process will eliminate any need for you to go through babyhood again. Once we have a good adult body to work with, I can effect a total life-entity energy transfer, of the sort you've already experienced." "But if this body ~is~ a total burnout, what then?" "Then we still have options. We can clone another witch, say Necromantra or Lauren. Or would you prefer to be a male sorcerer the next time around?" I looked away. Her question struck right at the heart of the matter. "We've talked about that before, remember? If I can't stay Eden Blake, becoming a twin of either Necromantra or Lauren won't help me hold onto my family. And if I have to lose what's most important about the life I'm leading, I might as well start over again as a male. I'm sure I'd be more comfortable that way." "A pity, but it's your choice." "But you say there are simpler ways than cloning?" "There are and we'll try them, but with cloning we're at least on familiar ground. Hopefully your problem will heal itself without medical intervention. We'll first try to get you to cultivate a better attitude about being Mantra and see if that helps. And if ~does~ happen to be a nanotech problem, they might be self-repairing and we need only be patient. Nanoids would almost have act like living things, otherwise how could they have been passed down through thousands of generations like natural genes?" "They might not have much time to make a comeback," I replied, "not with Necromantra on the loose and gunning for me." ***** Chapter 8 ALL ABOUT EVE "Thy fear has made me tremble, Thy terrors have surrounded me. All love is lost. Terror succeeds, And [there is] hatred instead of love." William Blake Over breakfast, I began filling Penny in on the adventure that I'd share with Warstrike back in June, but she wasn't listening. "You seem preoccupied, Pin." The blonde sighed. "Cloning facilities are expensive. I built this lab with Las Vegas winnings, but if I tried that again I'd set off every alarm in Nevada. And these days, with the national economy performing like Arkansas's, there's no honest way to make a fortune overnight. What about you, Lu? Do you have any resources?" "Well, I've got $42.00 in my Christmas club account, but since that's in another universe we can't touch it. I don't know what this world's Mantra has stashed away, but I doubt she was doing much better." ~Where was Brandon Tark now that I needed to call in that promise he made, to help me out financially if the kids and I got into a jam?~ Pinnacle was staring into her bacon and eggs, as if studying a logarithmic problem. "Well, I can think of a ways to make money that I haven't tried yet. Chasing after dollars has always seemed like such a distraction. I'd rather spend my time solving the world's greatest mysteries." "Speaking of world's greatest mysteries, we haven't talked much about those celestial energy surges. I can't get it out of my mind that they must be behind whatever happened to Gus, and maybe to me and Lauren." "I was pretty much out of it Friday night. Do you suppose these energy waves had some sort of Trans-dimensional effect, one that swept you out of your universe to this one?" "If only it were so easy, but the timing seems wrong. Whatever hit me, hit me on Thursday. Can different universes have different timelines?" "I can't say. The problem deserves study, though." "I only know enough science to get along," I admitted. "I just hope our two worlds are just as different as they seem. I'd hated to think of my Gus ever suffering what your Mantra's Gus has gone through." "Do you think you can take Evie's story literally? Do you know anything about the existence of fairy worlds?" "A bit. Some alternate worlds use magic, and their denizens certainly could have inspired primitive man to create what we call fairy mythology. Except for some vampires and werewolves, though, I haven't seen much evidence of active fairy for the last few hundred years. Archimage once explained that the different dimensions are like orbiting planets, with apogees and perigees. Sometimes our plane gets uncomfortably close to one or more of its magical neighbors and crossovers then become possible. At other times they're very remote. This line of talk seemed to interest Penny, so I pressed it. "Before Homer, early civilizations were acquainted with nymphs, satyrs, and hydras, things that didn't exist naturally on our planet. By Classical times, though, such contact had ceased and the Romans stopped believing in the old legends. Maybe because the old folklore was so closely tied in with the Olympian religion, the Romans eventually lost their faith in tradition and became Christian. It wasn't until the Dark Ages that the 'fairy' planes were once more reachable, though the new worlds we had intercourse with then seemed to be different from the earlier ones. I think that's why ancient and medieval legends vary so much." "So you're saying that the stories of elves, ogres, and unicorns originate in memories of medieval crossings between Earth and alien dimensions?" I nodded. "I've seen creatures from some of these other planes on the earth, and I've also visited a few alternate worlds myself while doing Archimage's bidding. There was a sort of 'kingdom of the Sidh' that the Irish must have known about, and another dimension could have inspired the Hammer movie vision of Transylvania. By the time of the Enlightenment, the different spheres had once again grown distant from one another and only peasants persisted in the old beliefs. It's all cyclical. That's why I won't rule out the possibility that what happened to Gus might be pretty much as Evie tells it." "Like I said before, we need to get the full story about Friday from Evie. You ought to bring her over." "She's awfully scared, Pin. Forcing her to remember won't make things harder for her, will it?" I noted a pensive shimmer in my hostess' eyes. "It may actually be better if she talks things out. If Evie keeps trying to hold down memories that are too big and strong for her to face openly, they could twist her psyche into knots as the years go by." I agreed that Penny should question Evie, but was I being selfish? Might I possibly be regarding this world's version of my daughter as less precious or worthy of protection than the tyke I'd left behind? Would I dare to expose my own little girl to the same risks? "I think you'd always try to do the right thing, no matter which world you were in," my companion volunteered. I looked hard at Pinnacle. "Am I always so easy to read?" "Not always, but the more deeply a person feels about a subject, the more strongly he broadcasts decipherable thoughts about it. Don't hold back. If I'm going to act as your psychologist I'll have to get beneath the surface of your consciousness. I wouldn't blame you, though, if you were reluctant to put your sanity into the hands of a nutty professor." "Aren't you feeling better?" I asked. She shrugged. "For now. Solving other people's problems helps to get one's mind off his own misery. The worst thing about my funk was that I felt so alone. I've been too busy with my work to have much of a social life. I've had employees, patients, and academic contacts, but when this genome business hit the fan I realized that I might as well have been living on a desert isle." "As a matter of fact..." "Yes, you must have felt the same way when the other knights were wiped out." "I wish you'd stop doing that!" "Sorry, Lu, but if I'm not proactive it may take a lot longer to help you." I let it go at that. "It could be just anxiety," I said, "but I want to move on this quickly. I woke up this morning feeling like time was running out." "Time for what?" "I'm not sure. But I've got this clawing suspicion that something unpleasant is coming. I think we should talk to Evie before -" "Before it's too late?" "That's about the size of it," I confirmed. # Back at the motel, Mother decided to give me some argument. "Are you sure that your friend isn't just angling to collect two fees instead of one?" she asked pointedly. "Mom," I said, "how can you be so cynical? Do you want to leave Evie on her own? She isn't herself. Her hands tremble and she can't think about Friday night without bursting into tears. Anyway, taking her to a psychologist isn't going to wipe me out. My federal health insurance at the C.I.A covers psychiatric care for dependent minors." Her lips puckered with annoyance. "I wasn't thinking about the money, Eden, but I'm glad that you're looking ahead, too. By the way, how did your talk go last night? Are you remembering anything?" "No, not really. The doctor says that my memories might come back only slowly. Or they could return all at once." "Hmm. She's got herself covered both way." "Mother, do you know some other psychologist whom you have more faith in than Penny?" "Thankfully, no. I've never needed one. I do watch Dr. Brothers' show now and then...." "Mom" had a contrary streak -- that was for sure. What was it about her relationship with Eden that was always bringing out her pithy side? Sometimes I've wondered how Barbara Freeman manages to make herself so lovable with both Gus and Evie. Evie was dressed now and so the two of us took off in the car. Penny greeted the little girl cheerily and her friendliness helped to put the youngster more at ease about seeing a doctor. Penny showed us to a tiny couch, a sort of 20th century version of the loveseat, I think. It would comfortably seat a child next to a parent -- me in this case. Our hostess drew herself up a chair. "Evie," Penelope Lammars began, "let's hold hands, and then I want you to look right into my eyes." "Are you gonna hippytize me?" the tyke asked warily. "Something like that," Penny replied, holding back a smile. "You're not nervous, are you, not with your mommy beside you?" "I guess not." "That's my good girl. Okay Evie, just take it easy and let me get a good look at those pretty blue eyes of yours." I thought I felt the backwash of the powerful brainwaves that Pinnacle was projecting into Evie's mind. They felt calming. Likewise, I could sense the tension going out of the youngster. At last Penny started speaking, softly and slowly: "Evie, you're drifting off to sleep, but you'll be able to hear your mommy and me asking you questions. You'll be able to answer them just as if you were still awake. This kind of sleep is going to be the best you ever had because it'll make you feel so very fine. You won't be afraid of anything at all. You'll be able to think of the most ugly Halloween mask or the creepiest monster movie without being scared. You're completely asleep now, Evie. Tell me how you feel." "I feel good." "Excellent. First tell me, do you know that your mom has lost some of her memories?" "Yeah. She told me," answered Evie, her voice a murmur. "If you could help her remember some of what she's forgotten, that would be nice, wouldn't it?" "Uh-huh." Pinnacle looked at me just then. "Okay, Eden. I think she's ready. It's best if you do most of the talking." I kissed the youngster on the cheek and then began my interview. "Evie, I want you to tell me all about what happened last Friday night. Begin the story just before any of those bad things started to happen. It won't frighten you too much to talk about it, will it?" She regarded my face with soft, dreamy eyes. "No, Mommy. I don't feel scared." "That's my brave little pumpkin. Okay, what happened? You don't have to hurry. Just do the best you can." "When you got home after work I was playing Mantra with Mr. Paws," she said. Mr. Paws, I knew, was Evie's favorite toy, her teddy bear. How odd it was that small details could be duplicated in this reality, while more important elements were oftentimes very different. "I was being Mantra, an' Mr. Paws was pretending to be me," the little girl explained. "I was telling him about how I'd turned into Mantra right after breakfast and spent the whole day saving people. Mr. Paws got really excited and wanted to hear all about it. That's when you came in. I told you that Grandma had to leave a little earlier 'cuz she was having dinner with some nice old man." I bit my lip. Back on my own world, Mom had told me that she'd be able to baby-sit only until six-thirty Friday night because some retired gent named Mr. Finch had asked her out. Maybe the two worlds weren't all that different -- and that worried me. "That's when we heard Gus yelling and throwing things at the wall," said Evie. "You an' me went in to his room see what was wrong. Gus's face was red, he was so mad. He said that Daddy'd called and said he couldn't take him to the game, even though he'd promised. Gus started using naughty language about Daddy and you said he shouldn't say such naughty things. That made him even madder and he did something ~awful~!" I squeezed her hand. "What did he do, Button? Can you talk about it?" "Yeah, I can talk, Mommy. He grabbed Mr. Paws from me and tore his head off." Evie glanced down at her knees, her lip bitten. "He shouldn'tna done that. I didn't say anything bad, and Mr. Paws didn't say anything either. We both felt sorry that Daddy wasn't going to keep his promise. When Gus did that to Mr. Paws I started crying and you slapped him. You said he had to stay in his room until he 'pologized to me and Mr. Paws. Then got Gus super angry. He told us to go away and that he hated everybody. "We went to the TV room. I was feeling just awful 'cuz Mr. Paws looked like he was dead. I couldn't stop crying. I asked if you could fix him and you said maybe you could. As soon as I knew that Mr. Paws could come alive again I felt better. That's when Lauren called." "What did Lauren say, Honey?" I already knew, but I wanted to compare the two girls' accounts. "I don't know, but you said that if she could come over right away, you could pay her for babysitting the last time. Then you and me talked some more about Gus. You said that you felt really bad about slapping him and you were gonna tell him how sorry you were. I said that he didn't have to 'pologize to me, but he should 'pologize to Mr. Paws. "After that you heated some soup for Gus. I asked if I could take it in to him so he could see that I wasn't mad. I took Mr. Paws along, too, 'cuz I figgered that if Gus saw how badly he'd hurt my best friend he might say he was sorry and I could start liking him again. But when me and Mr. Paws went into Gus's room we just couldn't believe it! There was fire and smoke and Gus was glowing green. He was floating up in the air and looked like one of those bad guys in the cartoons. I was scared and asked him how he could do that. He said he could do ~anything~. And then he saw how sick Mr. Paws was and used his magic to fix him, just like -- magic." Between the time Mantra and Evie had left Gus's room, and the time she returned to it, the energy must have struck. It apparently wasn't like a thunderclap. Neither Evie nor Lauren seemed to be aware that anything had happened. From all I could tell by the testimony, even Mantra appeared to have been unconscious of it. Evie continued her story. "I was so scared that I yelled for you to come in, but before you got there, Gus made a big octopus monster to grab you. Then he tied you up and put a gag on your mouth. A minute later you turned into Mantra and got loose, but Gus made a couple big giants appear and they started fighting with you. You cut off their hands with your sword and then shot some magic at Gus, but his magic stopped yours. He hit you so hard you fell down into a big pit full of monsters." The things she was describing were now were so utterly inconceivable that I could only believed what I was hearing because Lauren had told me about Gus's "monster pit" first. "It was horrible," Evie continued. "Gus'd never acted so mean before. He wanted the monsters to eat you up. He said he had to kill you, udderwise you wouldn't ever leave him alone. I told him he didn't have to. I said that if he took away Mantra's mask and her other stuff she'd be weak and couldn't hurt him. He said okay, but only because I'd asked him. That's when he made you disappear and all your armor fell down on the floor. "Then he went to the cracker box, the one I'd brought in with the soup, and looked inside. You were in there, even smaller than Mr. Paws!" I couldn't suppress a shudder. Lauren had also seen -- and had even carried -- Mantra's shrunken body. But hearing the story from Evie brought the horror of it starkly home. How ghastly it must have been for a small child to witness that kind of domestic violence. How could Evie ever again think of any place at all, even her own home, as a safe haven? How could she ever trust her family to be a dependable circle of love and protection? Also, how did she feel about having her favorite hero defeated and at the mercy of an implacable enemy -- an enemy who was her own brother? "T-This isn't too frightening for you to go on, it is, Precious?" "No, Mommy. I'm just sorry that Gus hurt you so bad. I don't know why he did it. You were always nice to him, except when you caught him doing things he shouldn't." "So, what happened next," I coaxed. "That's when Lauren knocked on the door. I ran over to warn her, to tell her to get away, but Gus flew by magic and Lauren just stood there looking at him. Gus said he was glad to see her, that he'd always liked her. He said he wanted to be her boy friend, but Lauren told him he was just a kid. That made Gus mad at her, too, and he raised her up in the air, like he was trying to scare her. "That's when you started yelling at Gus, saying that you forbidded him to hurt Lauren, that he 'specially shouldn't put her into Mantra's cloak." She smiled up into my face. "I think you were just trying to fool Gus. You wanted him to put Lauren in the cloak, 'cuz it would help her get away." Evie knew the strange secret of the cloak because the two of us had had a frightening adventure inside it last winter. I had already heard this part of the story from Lauren. The teen found herself inside the pocket universe that Archimage had created centuries ago. Within it was a castle full of artifacts, including magical armor and weapons, part of the master mage's arcane collection. The Sword of Fangs had apparently been swept into the cloak, too, along with Lauren, and now she showed her smarts by claiming it for her own self-defense. One thing that I still didn't understand, and which Lauren didn't understand either, was nature of the triggering event that had caused her magic powers to jumpstart. Was it the effect of adrenaline? Or, had the magical auras of the objects displayed in Archimage's storerooms affected her? Or, were the strange forces acting upon the Blake house that night acting on Lauren as well? Regardless, as soon as the teenager had donned a suit of armor she felt somehow charged. Gus, having gotten suspicious, now brought her back, using his magic like a sort of tractor beam. Evie begged Gus not to hurt her, but her brother had lost all trace of self-control. It was like he bore a special hatred against everyone whom he once had loved, except, for some reason, Evie herself. Gus moved aggressively and Lauren, raising her hand to defend herself, let fly with a bolt of magic from her fingers. This spontaneous discharge by Lauren apparently hurt the boy much more than Mantra's earlier attack had. Maybe Lauren was more powerful than Mantra, or maybe the boy had no defense ready, and so took her shot squarely on the chin. Alternatively, Gus had been lavishly expending his power for the last hour -- even to the point of endowing magical constructs with the semblance of life. This frenetic activity might have left him temporarily depleted. "'Cuz Lauren hit him so hard," Evie hurried on, "Gus got even madder. When you told him that nobody wanted to hurt him, he hollered back that everybody hated him and then he zapped you super-hard. You fell down and I thought he'd killed you. I started yelling at Gus, telling him I hated him. When he was looking at me, Lauren tried to sneak up on him, but Gus was too quick and he knocked her down into the monster pit." "I thought they were going to bite her really hard, but Lauren beat up all the monsters just like a real ultra would. Gus got sore when he saw that and started talking like he was playing a video game. He said that Lauren had made it past Level One and he was gonna make sure that Level Two was harder. I begged him to stop, but he said everybody'd been mean to him and he was gonna get even. He promised he wouldn't hurt me, but I figgered he'd zap me, too, just as soon as I did something he didn't like. "Then Gus disappeared all of a sudden and I couldn't see the monster pit anymore. I knew it was my chance to save you and Mr. Paws, so I put you back in the cracker box and all three of us ran outside. You'd always pr'tected me, so I had to pr'tect you, too -- and find a grownup who could make you better." My arms closed around Evie. Her hair was fragrant from her last shampooing. How bravely this child had fought for her mother's life. And she had kept on fighting when most adults would have given up the battle as already lost. Only a youngster could have possessed the unbending faith that a dead parent might be brought back like a damaged teddy bear. "Where did you go, darling?" I asked with a gulp. "I had to find a good witch, so I went to Mrs. Walker's magic shop. She's smart about charms and spells, just like you are, Mommy. I thought she could do some powerful magic and make you well and big again." I knew that while Evie was going to the magic shop, Lauren was in desperate straits. Gus had taken her into some sort of Otherwhen, a place resembling a dungeon. Mantra now proved that she was still alive in spirit form by contacting Lauren telepathically. My disembodied counterpart told her to find some outside source of magic to add to her own. According to Mantra, it was the only way that the novice heroine could save everybody. Where was Mantra's spirit at that time? I supposed that she was on the Soulwalk, that ethereal niche that I've gone to every time a mortal body I occupied was killed. Before this last incarnation, it had always taken Archimage's sorcery to draw my soul back into corporeal form. Mantra's advice to Lauren suggested that she was making a prodigious leap of faith, hoping against hope that someone other than Archimage -- maybe herself, maybe Lauren -- would be able to call her back. If driven to the wall, it was a gambit that I probably would have tried myself. Magic is a funny thing. People killed by spells oftentimes are not as dead as persons killed by more mundane means. It's as if the soul stays close to a body that's charged with magic, even hostile magic, desperately seeking a way to return. Magical healing, I have observed, works best upon persons injured by sorcery. In fact, some types of magic do not induce death, but instead create "un-death" -- that strange and dark vitality that possesses ghouls and vampires. Mantra's contact with Lauren had faded away and Gus reappeared, determined to waste his baby sitter. Despite her ultra magic, he still seemed much the stronger, but, like Evie, Lauren had realized that Gus was carrying on as if their fight was only a video game. He was even wielding his Nintendo controller like a magical wand, using it as the focus of his spells. Thinking quickly, Lauren struck -- not directly at Gus, but at his joystick. Its sudden destruction so startled the boy that he vanished in a burst of light. Almost as suddenly, the dungeon blinked out of existence and Lauren found herself back inside the Blake house, alone this time. The teen decided to go seeking Evie and me, hoping to lend us whatever aid she could, but when Lauren stepped out into the night the police she ran into a couple patrolmen, probably called in on account of the noise. Something that they'd seen earlier during the Night of Terror must have spooked them, because they started shooting the instant they saw the sword in the teenager's hand. More by instinct than by thought, Lauren went phantom and thus saved her own life. In a desperate bid to escape, she knocked the officers off their feet with a blast of wind and made a successful attempt to fly. The new ultra soon landed -- and not very gracefully, to hear her tell it. Once on solid ground, Lauren noticed a halo around the full moon and observed that the sky had an eerie violet cast. As she sky-gazed, tired and dazzled, she realized that a jagged green line seemed to be hanging unnaturally overhead. It looked like a weird bolt of lightning, but also reminded her of smoke or the tail of a comet. One end of it seemed to extend toward the Blake house, and this made her suspicious. She wondered if the other end would lead to someplace interesting. If there was some other type of magic around, she had to seize possession of it, as Mantra had urged. Meanwhile, Evie had reached Mrs. Walker's magic shop at the strip mall. The old lady was accustomed to keeping long hours on Fridays because it was the best good business night. Her customers tended to put off purchasing their weekend spell-casting herbs and paraphernalia until the last minute. Teen witches were especially accomplished procrastinators. "I got to Mrs. Walker's just before she locked up," said Evie, "but when she saw how scared I was she let me in. I showed her what Gus'd done to you and asked if she could knew some magic to fix it. She looked really surprised and said she didn't know any spell big enough. Just then Gus showed up, like he was a ghost or something. He said that if I kept on trying to help you he'd hurt me, even though he'd promised he wouldn't. He wanted me to give you to him so he could smash you. Mrs. Walker was afraid and said I should do whatever he wanted, but I wouldn't. I knew that if I let Gus hurt you any more, you could never, ever get better." She gave me a wide-eyed look and a big smile, so happy that she hadn't lost her mother, after all. It was too much to bear. I turned away. I didn't like to have either my daughter or my doctor see me weep. ***** CHAPTER 9 The Rock Now entreating flaming fire, Now entreating iron wire, Now entreating tears and sighs. When O when will the Morning rise? William Blake I felt the press of Evie's softness. She was giving me an arm-hug. ~I shouldn't accept a hug. I shouldn't be the recipient of tenderness. I was hurting a child.~ And I've hurt too many children. I especially shouldn't hurt ~this~ child. The little girl holding was not my Evie, but no Evie in the universe could be better than her. She had stood up to terrible dangers. She had shown love and loyalty. She had done what the impossible and saved her mother's life. And I had killed that same mother a few days later. I felt Pinnacle's hand on mine. She knew what I was thinking and was feeling sorry for me. I didn't want that. ~Sympathy might soothe the pain.~ Penny took her hand away. The virulence of my thoughts had warned her off. "Don't cry, Mommy," urged Evie. "Mrs. Walker once said that no kid really hates his mother, so Gus can't hate you either. He just went crazy, like people do in the movies. He'll get better, won't he?" I gazed into her hopeful eyes. "Of course he will, Evie. Everything'll be like it was last spring, when all of us were happy. But -- but you haven't finished your story yet, darling. What happened next?" Evie plunged back into her tale enthusiastically. "I told Gus I wouldn't stop trying to save you, no matter what. I told him he ~couldn't~ really want you to die, but said he did. He was afraid that if Mantra didn't die, she'd do something to take his magic away. "Just when it looked like he was gonna zap me, you made some kinda ultra stuff come out of my eyes and it hit him first! Gus got knocked out and Mrs. Walker said we had to run away before he woke up. I was listening with an aching heart and a lump in my throat. "Do you want to hear what happened then, Mommy," Evie whispered, her eager fingers entwining with mine. "Yes, Precious. What happened then?" "Then Mrs. Walker and me ran into the street," Evie explained excitedly. "There was this big green car parked there and we saw a man in a red suit. He looked like an ultra and Mrs. Walker asked if he was a policeman. He said he was there to help and Mrs. Walker started telling him about Gus. Just then I heard a noise and Gus came back looking really mean. The policeman wasn't afraid, but walked to him like he was going to scold him. Gus told the policeman that he looked like an action figure, and he always bit the heads off action figures. The policeman didn't let Gus to bite him, but zapped him with a lightning bolt instead. Then the other policemen started squirting Gus with a lot of smelly gas. They had funny guns that shot wires with a crackly noise. The wires got all over Gus but a policeman said that Gus was too strong. That's when Lauren flew back with a mean-looking wizard-lady chasing her." Evie leaned close to my ear and whispered, "It was really Heather and her friends, after they got turned into a monster." I'd heard this part of the story from Lauren. The teen had followed the sky bolt to Heather Parks' home and saw that something was very wrong there. The police were out front and a large hole had been torn into the wall, right where Heather's room would be. As Lauren hovered there, trying to make sense of it all, Heather's dad started shooting at her with a handgun, blaming "Mantra" for whatever it was that happened. The startled girl darted away, but a moment later, while gliding over Sherman Way Avenue, she heard shouts coming from the Mall. Lauren flew in to investigate and discovered that fleeing from the commons area, frightened by a monstrous, six-foot warrior-woman. Lauren sensed the creature's powerful magic and intuitively guessed that the abomination was her rivals from school, Samantha, Jessica, Heather, and Trisha, all merged into a single body. Lauren thought she could use the abomination's magic to help Mrs. Blake, so she tried the non-violent approach first. She introduced herself as 'Mantra,' hoping that Mantra's fan club would react positively. But the being (whom Lauren had mentally dubbed "Coven") reacted instead with fury, as if it hated Mantra as much as Gus hated his own mother. Lauren warned Coven off with her weapon, but the latter seized the Sword of Fangs, twisted, and broke it. Lauren fell back in dismay. The blade was a borrowed treasure and she was afraid that Eden would think she was an idiot for getting it wrecked after only an hour. This detail made me realize the Lauren's danger magnitude. No previous foe of mine ever had enough power to do harm to the Sword of Fangs, not even the demon-like Rune. The mystic cutlass had always been the most powerful part of my armory. Boneyard, from whom I'd stolen it, had once considered it his favorite weapon. Having disarmed its accoster, Coven attacked with a blast of fire. Lauren reacted intuitively and somehow drove the deadly flames away though her command of the element of fire. The fireball, surging backwards, engulfed Coven herself and the amalgamation, despite her power, fell into panic. Not wanting to be responsible for the death of four of her high-school enemies, Lauren snuffed out the flames with her own magic. This act became a twofer when the same spell knocked Coven to her knees. In her weakened state, Coven lost her mental unity and the different minds composing her started speaking all at once, mostly to each other. Lauren talked to them and the voices explained that they were trying to work magic, like Mantra does, when something happened. But the pronouncement of the name 'Mantra' threw the creature into another rage and the quartette was instantly subsumed into the brutish singularity of Coven. Knocked into the mall fountain, brutal hands held Lauren beneath the surface until she started to drown. When all hope seemed lost, the creature suddenly drew her out. The four voices were back and, from the sound of it, they couldn't understand why they were trying to drown somebody. Just then a buttinski in the mall crowd brought up the name of 'Mantra' again and the volatile she-demon defaulted back into the drowning mode. As Lauren fought for her life, another telepathic communication reached her from Mantra, assuring her that she had what she needed to save herself. Inspired, Lauren used her command of the water element to make the water strike Coven like a mighty fist. The she-demon was routed and Lauren pulled herself out of the fountain. Though bruised and wearied, the teen retrieved the ruined Sword of Fangs, still unsure whether the precious artifact could be mended. The "new Mantra" then retired to the mall roof to collect her thoughts. She yet needed to find magic to save Gus, Mantra, and even Coven. Both Gus and Coven were too strong for her in any one-on-one, but Lauren remembered what her science teacher had said about irresistible forces and immovable objects. She immediately sprang into the air and took after Coven. She found the abomination robbing a convenience store. Lauren then attacked the demoness again, but did so to goad her into giving chase. Lauren could sense Gus's location by the magical miasma he gave off, much like a human can follow a speck of light from a distance. She maneuvered skillfully and brought Coven down into the street next to the juvenile sorcerer. The supernatural pair hated one another at first sight. Gus burst free of his bonds with a furious exertion and the two tore into each other at once, hurling magical bolts with abandon. This confrontation was what Lauren had counted on from the start, and now she threw a force field around the battling twosome. She hoped it would trap the floor of magical energy the combatants were giving off, so she could channel it later on. Alas, the buildup was like a rush of air into a child's balloon.. Her energy container shattered and the accumulated power escaped with explosive force. Both Gus and Coven were knocked unconscious by the blast. In a tremendous stroke of luck, the shock divided Coven into her four separate components, leaving the girls uninjured, but unable to remember what had happened. Aladdin, meanwhile, had taken a containment capsule out of their van and locked Gus inside it. I felt a tug on my sleeve and realized that Evie was speaking again. "I was scared that Gus'd be in bad trouble because all the policemen had seen him misbehaving, so I asked the one man if he was gonna to hurt my brother. He said he wouldn't. He was just gonna make sure that Gus couldn't hurt anyone else. I figgered he meant that he was gonna lock Gus up in jail. "Oh, Mommy, he looked so beat-up! He was sleeping and couldn't hear me, but I said goodbye anyway and told him to please get better soon. And then I put Mr. Paws on top of the box Gus was in, so that when he woke up Mr. Paws could keep him company. It was all right, wasn't it?" "I'm sure that was all right. Besides, Mr. Paws wanted to go with Gus, didn't he? "I think so. That's when I saw Lauren talking to the big policeman. I ran over to give her your little body and ask her to save you somehow. I didn't know how to do it myself, and Mrs. Walker didn't know either. I started to cry. I told Lauren that I was afraid that maybe I was going to lose both you and Gus because I'd been bad somehow. But Lauren hugged me and said I was good and brave." I drew the tyke in. "Honey, Lauren is so right. You're a wonderful little girl. You shouldn't think that God makes awful things happen to young children just because He sees them being naughty once in a while. Whenever He wants kids to behave, He's nice about it. To make young people good, He gives them grownups to love them, teach them right from wrong, and take care of them. Bad things happen, even to kids, but it's not because they've misbehaved. You understand that, don't you?" She sniffed. "I guess so." I dabbed her tears away with my handkerchief. "What happened then?" Evie took a deep breath. "Lauren flew away with you. The policeman in the red clothes asked me who Lauren was and I fibbed and said she was Mantra. After that I went home with Mrs. Walker. I was gonna wait with her until Grandma got back, or until Lauren came to see me. All night long I prayed that she'd find a way to make you well. And she did!" Yes, she had. Unknown to Evie, Lauren had flown off, still in search magic. She had picked up a new trace of it, one that led her to Necromantra. My old enemy was holed up in an abandoned warehouse, working spells and carelessly sending out mystical threads that Lauren could sense. Tracing magic is something that wizards are able to do. That's why I've always avoided using sorcery around the Blake house. Lauren's encounter with the homicidal sorceress could have ended in disaster, but thanks to a complex interplay between Lauren on earth and Mantra in spirit form, Necromantra was frightened off. Mantra had telepathically taught Lauren her mantra, and the surge of power it released simultaneously revitalized the exhausted girl and repaired the Sword of Fangs. As soon as the sword was whole, Mantra somehow drew the blade into the Soulwalk with her. The disembodied hero used the magical weapon to cut through the dimensional barriers and thus escape into the earthly plane. Her spirit re-entered and revitalized her tiny, dormant body, a body that was instantly healed and returned to normal size. But when Mantra tried to use magic to fend off Necromantra, she couldn't. The more I learned about my counterpart's sudden power loss, the more it perplexed me. She had possessed magic on the Soulwalk and had channeled a charge of it to earth through Evie's eyes to stun Gus. She had had sorcery enough to pluck the sword away into the Soulwalk, where she'd used its power to achieve her ends. So what had happened to her command of sorcery after that? I was going to have to sift carefully through this puzzle. After routing Necromantra, Mantra and Lauren had gone to Mrs. Walker's house to pick up Evie. Mantra, in her troubled state of mind, hadn't remembered to change her clothes and so arrived wearing her "blackbird" costume. This was the outfit that I've variously used for a disguise or as a substitute when deprived of my regular costume. Rescuing it from her mystical closet seems to be the last magical act that Mantra was able to perform. Seeing her neighbor dressed like an ultra must have struck Mrs. Walker as very strange. The shop lady might have taken Eden for a harmless kook, except that Evie had earlier told her that her mother knew magic. Mantra, while explaining nothing, asked their hostess to be discreet. Mrs. Walker promised that she wouldn't say a word and, after grateful goodbyes, all three visitors returned to the Blake home. The place looked a mess, but Eden sized up the damage as superficial. After such a frightening and exhausting night, Lauren was willing to go back to being a simple high school student. But Eden told her there was no way for her to carry on as Mantra herself until her powers returned, if they ever did. She said that the job was Lauren's if she wanted it, and promised to help her learn the ropes. Her decision a couple days later to leave Canoga Park made that promise inoperative. "What happened then?" I asked Evie. "It was already morning. A messenger boy knocked on the door. When you came back with his letter, Lauren was gone. She'd put a note on the bedroom mirror saying that she'd visit us again soon. Then you told me that you were gonna call Grandma to look after me, 'cuz somebody sent you a ticket to Sanfrisco and you had to leave right away. I asked if you knew where the police took Gus and you said you didn't know, but maybe the people you were gonna go talk to would tell us." "What did I find out?" I asked, a catch in my throat. Evie's little mouth pursed. "You came the next night and said that somebody called 'Laddin' put Gus in jail. You said they'd probably make him stay in his room all the time, till they found out how to make that awful magic he has go away. I started to cry becaus