Disclaimer: This is a cross between JLA (Season 5) and Rorscharch’s Blot’s Make A Wish Story.
Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling and various publishers. Henchgirl, The Professor, and other such objects are Rorscharch’s creation. DC Comics own the Justice League and associated characters/plot devices. The lack of plot, however, can be attributed to me.
Trick or Treat
After ensuring that Flash was all right, the group made their
goodbyes and separated for the evening. With a sudden lull in
his schedule, the mage transported himself to his quarters and began
going through the gifts he had received from the kind Avalonians.
Separating out the more theoretical texts, Harry duplicated the
books for his friends before calling Henchgirl on his Zippo.
“Long live King Harry the First!” the questionably
insane woman greeted enthusiastically.
Harry rubbed at his temples to relieve the sudden tension while
simultaneously wishing that he could conjure coffee on demand.
“I am certain that I requested that you not do that,”
Harry responded steadily.
A throat cleared itself over the magical device. “Uhm…
you might’ve mentioned it,” Henchgirl admitted in a more
subdued tone.
Harry just shook his head in silent resignation. “Anyway,”
he spoke up, “I wanted to let you know that I made a trip by
Avalon earlier and picked up a few books that you and the Doctor
might enjoy reading.”
“Avalon?” the female inventor demanded excitedly.
“Really? You have to tell me all about it! Please?”
she finished in a pleading whine.
“Alright,” Harry interrupted her begging. “It
all started out with another one of those bloody shopkeepers…”
After many demands for repeats or clarifications, Harry finally
finished with, “and after we got Flash straightened out, I came
back to my room and called you.”
“That’s incredible!” his friend exclaimed.
“See? I knew that you getting that sword was a
good thing!”
“Yes, yes,” Harry grumbled, “it did lead me
right to Avalon’s doorstep.”
“That’s right!” she said smugly. “Now,
about those books…”
Harry blinked. “Oh, right. Here they come,”
he warned before stuffing the reference materials into the green
flame.
“Oof!” the witch replied breathlessly. “That
last one weighs a ton! What is it?” The connection
went silent for a few moments before she spoke up quietly. “Is
this what I think it is?”
“If you are referring to the private memoirs of one of the
greatest wizards of all time – who was also apparently the
greatest exiled Atlantean cook of all time -, then yes,” Harry
agreed calmly as he carefully kept his amusement out of his reply.
An odd shrieking noise echoed from the connection and cut off any
additional comments he might make. “This is incredible!”
she exclaimed distractedly to the tune of pages turning. “There
are all sorts of theories in here! Remarkable!”
Harry nodded before realizing that his friend could not see the
gesture. “Yes, it is,” he agreed verbally.
“If you would give a copy of those to the Doctor and the
Professor, I’d appreciate it. I think that they’ll
both get a kick out of it.”
“I’ll say,” she confirmed. “Some of
these titles disappeared from the Wizarding World centuries
ago! And to think, all this has been hidden away on Avalon for
nearly two millennia.”
The wizard smiled at his friend’s enthusiasm. “I’m
glad that I could be of service, then,” Harry commented in a
pleased manner. “Unfortunately, none of those books can
help me with my current dilemma.”
“What’s wrong?” Henchgirl demanded worriedly.
Harry rushed to reassure the woman. “Nothing life
threatening,” he supplied. “It’s just that
Halloween is tomorrow night and Kara wants to have this…
costume party.”
“Yes…” the woman interjected with far too much
interest for Harry’s comfort.
“Yeah,” he repeated, “and there’s going to
be dancing and, if she can arrange it, singing.”
“Oh, that sounds marvelous!” the inventor squealed
happily.
Feeling dejected at the realization that his friend was in the
enemy camp on this issue, Harry grumbled, “Except for the fact
that I don’t have a costume, I can’t sing to save
my life, and I’ve danced all of once – and it was
horrible.”
“No biggie!” Henchgirl replied immediately. “I
had whipped up a costume for you months ago. I thought that we
might have a little celebration here, but since you’re not
going to be here with us…”
Harry smiled as one third of his problem disappeared.
“You’re the best!” he praised.
“I know,” the witch replied modestly, “I know,
and I’ll think you’ll like it. I patterned it after
a real character, too. It involves taking a potion, though,”
she added easily.
“You’re not referring to that potion that hid
everything except my skeleton, are you?” he asked worriedly.
“That concoction still occasionally acts up when I get really
angry.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” she said reassuringly.
“I made this costume into a bracelet like your disguise
bangle. I patterned this outfit after a legendary guardian
figure that you remind me of from time to time. The potion just
helps you sing… it’s sort of part of the character.”
“Oh?” Harry asked curiously. “Do I know
this celebrity?”
“I don’t think so, but I know that you won’t be
disappointed,” she said enthusiastically. “Anyway,
once you replace your existing arm band with this one, you can just
think of which disguise you want to have. Right now, you can
choose from ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Mr. Black’, and
‘Halloween Costume’.”
Hoping for the best, Harry decided to trust the woman.
“Alright, Henchgirl, I’ll try it, and I appreciate your
help. Now if there was just some way to magically learn how to
dance by tomorrow night, I’d be all set.”
“Hmm…” the inventor mused to herself. “I
think that the dancing problem will be easily solved. Just use
your universal remote control with my D.D.R. game – that will
solve your problem for sure!”
“’D.D.R.’?” the wizard parroted
awkwardly. “What’s that?”
“Why, Dance Dance Revolution!” she answered in a
chipper tone. “I’ve customized it, of course.”
“Of course,” Harry murmured in reply as he tried to
explain the sudden feeling of dread. “And this…
game will teach me to dance?” he asked confusedly.
Amidst the odd sound of two hands rubbing together in glee, the
Potions Mistress replied, “Yep! Guaranteed!”
“Alright,” he answered resignedly, “I’ll
give it a shot.”
“Great!” she shouted. “Incoming, one
costume and one dancing tutor!”
A moment later found Harry holding another bracelet in addition to
a potion vial and an odd-looking device made out of plastic.
The platform object seemed to have numerous indentions set into the
top face without any set pattern. Forcing down another wave of
uneasiness, Harry confirmed that he received the package.
After some truly disconcerting chuckles, the witch replied,
“Capital! Now that that’s out of the way, we
can discuss the real issue at hand.”
Going back over their conversation, Harry was unable to identify
any topics that had not already been resolved. Oddly enough,
his finely tuned ‘danger sense’ seemed to be peaking
suddenly.
“What issue are you talking about, Henchgirl?” he
asked confusedly.
He could practically hear the wolfish grin that the woman
was sporting as she intently asked, “Who’s Kara?”
Harry blinked as the reason for his discomfort was announced.
‘Bugger!’
“It’s no good,” Lex Luthor grumbled as yet
another experiment to revive Brainiac failed. “It isn’t
enough! This is the last remnant of Brainiac, but there isn’t
enough to work with!”
As had happened many times before, the remaining echo of Brainiac
spoke directly to his conscious mind. “Perhaps if you
constructed a positronic event chamber,” the intangible
artificial intelligence offered.
“Yes… yes, that could work… but where would I
get the money?” Luthor replied aloud, oblivious to Tala’s
resigned gaze. “Between the government’s seizing my
assets and the cost of running this Secret Society…”
Tala leaned over to the approaching Sonar and whispered, “He’s
talking to his imaginary friend again.”
“You’re a resourceful human, Luthor,” Brainiac
assured the criminal genius. “I’m sure you’ll
find a way.”
A clearing throat interrupted the bald man’s introspection a
few moments later. Looking over his shoulder, Lex grumbled,
“What is it, Sonar?”
“Are you busy?” the nonobservant villain asked.
“Roulette wants to-”
A woman clad in a revealing red dress interrupted him. “I’m
more than capable of speaking for myself,” the villainess
chastised. Moving up to lean against a nearby console, she
continued, “Lex, darling, I’m having some serious
financial issues and I’m afraid that you’re to blame.”
“Well, don’t look at me to bail you out, Roulette,”
he replied. “I skim you, remember.”
“You know that I don’t like to complain, Lex, but…
you are taking a much bigger cut of the gross than Grodd ever
did, and Metabrawl receipts are down.”
Luthor turned back to his terminal and began starting the next
trial. “I’ve seen the books,” he responded
gruffly.
“Now, don’t think me ungrateful,” the female
fight manager soothed, “but you’ve been poaching all the
best fighters for your so-called Secret Society.”
“Pity,” he sneered while still outwardly ignoring the
brown-haired woman. “Cut to the chase, Roulette.
What do you want?”
The woman smiled and drew up to Luthor’s side. “If
I could only have a few star attractions in the ring,” she
began while rubbing the mastermind’s arm, “Bizarro…
Sinestro… maybe Bizarro versus Sinestro!”
A flash of purple light shot between the two and forced the
scantily clad woman several paces away from Luthor’s position.
“Back off, Hot Pants!” Tala ordered. “Give
the man some space!”
“You’re playing with fire, Witch!” Roulette
challenged as she crouched in a ready position.
“Who’s playing?” the sorceress fired back as she
prepared to curse the other woman again.
“Tala!” Lex exclaimed as he stepped between the two
feuding females.
“Aw, let them go at it for a minute,” Sonar pleaded.
“There’s not going to be any fighting!” Luthor
ordered. At seeing the man’s downcast expression, the
genius smiled and added, “At least, not here. Sonar, I
think you’ve given me the answer to Roulette’s problem…
and mine as well.”
Roulette’s eyes widened. “Of course!” she
agreed as she caught onto Luthor’s train of thought. “The
new Metabrawl – all girl fights, all the time! We’ll
call it ‘The Glammer Slam’, or ‘The Belles of the
Brawl’.”
“Chick-a-palooza!” Sonar threw in pathetically before
being cowed by three glares.
“With the right backing, it’s a million dollar idea, a
cash cow!” Roulette exclaimed. “But even this
won’t work if the girls are all second-string villains.”
Luthor raised one eyebrow sinisterly. “Who said
anything about villains?”
“John, I’m starving,” Timothy Hunter informed
his escort when the man grew silent.
John Constantine rolled his eyes before mentioning, “You can
have breakfast at our next port of call – and sanctuary, too,
with any luck.”
“Where are we going now?” the young potential wizard
demanded crossly. “Another one of your ‘old
friends’?”
The paranormal investigator smirked. “As it happens,
yes.”
The younger man sighed before asking, “What’s his
name?”
“Her name,” Constantine stressed, “is
Zatanna.”
Timothy’s eyes widened. “Zatanna? The Lady
Magician? I’ve seen her on TV and everything! You
know her? Wow!”
John’s smirk widened. “As it happens, I used to
know her quite well.”
“Oh,” Hunter said dejectedly, “oh, dear.”
“What’s that meant to mean?” John
demanded crossly.
Timothy huffed slightly. “Just that judging by the way
things have gone so far, she’ll be a weirdo who hates you.”
John laughed at the boy’s accurate summary of their journey
to date. “Nah,” he reassured his traveling partner,
“me and Zatanna, like that we are.”
Not to be denied, Timothy continued, “I expect you probably
pinched her best trick, or killed her brother or something.”
“Father,” John answered flatly, “I killed her
father – or at least, I was responsible for his death.
We were trying to save the world.”
“And did you?” Timothy predictably inquired.
“God alone knows, Tim,” the older man responded, “and
even He’s probably still a little uncertain about the
final outcome.”
John suddenly stopped in front of a modest, two-story dwelling.
“This is her house,” he supplied when Tim looked at him
inquiringly.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” the young
wizard-to-be demanded again.
John let out a bark of laughter. “No, but the trench
coat brigade would never talk to me again if we gave up now.”
He rang the doorbell and waited as the sound of footsteps drew
nearer. The door opened moments later to reveal the casually
dressed form of Zatanna the Enchantress.
“John? John Constantine?” the Lady Magician
exclaimed loudly before embracing the man. “John, it’s
wonderful to see you! What brings you to San Francisco?”
“Um… hullo, Zatanna,” John greeted hesitantly
in the face of the woman’s far more energetic welcome.
Releasing the man, the magician continued, “Come on in.
It must be what, two years? Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Tim. Timothy. Timothy Hunter,”
the boy stammered nervously in the face of the world-famous
entertainer and superheroine. “I saw you on Jonathan
Ross.”
Zatanna frowned in thought for a moment. “That guy who
does Letterman in England? Yeah, that was fun! So, what
are you doing here with my off-white knight, then?”
“Tim has the potential to be the greatest magician that the
modern world has ever seen. So me, and Doc Occult, and the
Stranger, and the nut from Boston-”
“Who?” Zatanna interrupted.
“He calls himself Mister E,” Constantine explained.
“Oh, yeah,” the witch exclaimed in sudden
recollection.
John continued. “Well, we’ve got together and
we’re showing him stuff. The idea is that he learns
enough about the world of magic to decide whether that’s what
he wants from life or not.”
Zatanna smiled. “Sounds like fun.”
“Only trouble is, people are trying to kill him,” he
explained, “so we’re trying to find somewhere safe to
hole up until the whole thing blows over. We tried Baron
Winter, but he threw us out.”
“Why, of course you can stay here,” she
inferred. “I’d be delighted to have you. Tim
can sleep in the spare bedroom…” Zatanna train of
thought wavered for a moment before she announced, “Oh, and
John, there’s a letter for you on the table over there.”
“A letter?” Constantine repeated confusedly.
Zatanna nodded in confirmation. “Yeah. The envelope
was there when I came down this morning. Weird, huh?”
As the man went off to read his mail, the witch turned her attention
to her other houseguest. “Great looking owl, Tim.
Did you make him yourself?”
“No,” Tim shook his head, “Dr. Occult did.”
The fan boy’s attention soon drifted back to the celebrity in
question. “I couldn’t believe it when you made the
flowers grow out of Jonathon Ross’s ears.”
“Bugger. Blast. Damn. Fleching heck…”
Constantine cursed. Walking back into the room, he addressed
Zatanna. “Look, take care of Tim until I get back, can
you, Love? Bloody hell! Honestly! You can’t
leave them alone for five minutes…”
“John?” Zatanna called out in confusion.
“Wh-where are you going?”
Not pausing from his swift march towards the exit, he called back,
“India. Calcutta, probably. Seeya, Darlin’.
Bye, Tim.”
“India?” the witch screeched. “John
Constantine, you limey dork…” Settling down, she
sighed. “Oh, what’s the use?”
Timothy looked uncomfortable. “Look,” he said,
“I’m sorry about this. I can go.”
“No,” she discarded his suggestion immediately,
“you’re twelve and they’re trying to kill you.”
Changing topics, she asked, “When did you last eat?”
The boy looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not
sure,” he finally admitted. “Traveling with him,
time goes really funny, if you know what I mean.”
“Mm,” Zatanna deliberated, “and I doubt you’ve
had a shower since you left England. So, if you head upstairs,
you’ll find the bathroom on your left, and I’ll have
breakfast ready for you when you come down.”
Black Canary sighed in relief as the perpetrator she was perusing
ducked into a dead alley. It had been a long night, and she was
tired of chasing the purse-snatcher all over Gotham’s seamier
side.
“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!” the blonde woman
called as the man skidded to a halt at the imposing block wall.
Jumping off her perch on the fire escape, Dinah Lance approached the
other individual with plans of quickly dispatching the thug and then
catching some sleep.
Unfortunately, she had to postpone her relaxation plans when the
person got a lucky shot in to her jaw that floored her smaller
figure. Grimacing, she climbed back to her feet and tackled the
man to the floor of the dingy alley.
As Dinah was struggling to overpower the larger figure, the sonic
siren heard a catty, “Need a hand, Canary?”
Looking up, the blonde woman caught sight of a casually lounging
Huntress, who appeared to be enjoying the spectacle before her.
“Not from you, Huntress,” she growled. Her
momentary distraction proved unwise, however, as the male criminal
took the opportunity to punch the woman again and attempt an escape.
“Suit yourself,” the brunette crime fighter acquiesced
as she crossed her arms and leant against the concrete block wall of
the alley.
Seeing an apparent opening, the man took off and rounded the first
corner out of sight.
“I’ve never seen you so sloppy,” Huntress
chastised the other woman. “What’s the deal?”
“Get out of my way!” Canary shouted as she tried to
catch the fleeing criminal.
Huntress ignored the blonde, however, choosing instead to send a
nearby trashcan lid colliding into the back of the man’s head
Frisbee style. With that particular problem unconscious, the
black and purple clad woman turned her attention back to the
obviously impaired Black Canary.
“I don’t need your help, Huntress!” Dinah
insisted heatedly.
“Riiiiight,” the other woman drew out sarcastically.
“You were doing an excellent job of getting your butt handed to
you. What’d he do, anyway?”
“Stole a wallet,” Dinah admitted groggily.
That comment brought a smile to the other woman’s face.
“Shut up!” Huntress exclaimed cheerfully. “You
got creamed by a pickpocket?” When the normally
waspish reply was replaced by a small moan, she asked, “Are you
sure you’re okay?”
“Worried?” the other woman bit out as she forced
herself erect.
“Curious,” the masked Helena replied.
“Right,” Dinah muttered as she swung a leg over her
motorcycle. As she pulled her helmet on, the blonde-haired
woman added spitefully, “I didn’t think you cared about
anyone!”
Convinced now more than ever that something was definitely wrong
with the blonde crime fighter, Helena tagged the other woman’s
motorcycle with a tracking beacon. Making sure to stay out of
sight, the former League member trailed Canary across the city before
arriving at the blonde-haired woman’s apartment. With the
blonde-haired woman showing every sign of turning in for the evening,
Huntress began settling in for a long night.
Between experimenting with his costume and the strange dancing
instructor from Henchgirl, Harry had nearly forgotten to meet Kara
for his first run of monitor duty.
While the two were walking towards the monitor womb, the blonde
girl took the opportunity to remind him of the basic procedures in
the observatory. As the pair passed another group of League
members – where all but one of their party were staring at both
Harry and Kara incredulously -, Harry tipped his hat in their
direction before catching back up to the distracted Kara.
“What were you doing, Joe?” the blonde girl asked as
he returned to her side.
“Oh, just giving the ‘tip of the hat’,”
Harry answered.
She looked back down the way they had walked but saw no one.
“To whom, yourself?”
Harry just smiled at her puzzled expression and asked whether
monitor duty included a coffee supply.
After quickly scaling a building across the street from Dinah
Lance’s apartment to continue her surveillance, Huntress
contacted her current love interest to see if he had any explanation
for Dinah’s weird behavior.
“I’m telling you, Q, Canary’s totally off her
game,” the brown-haired woman concluded. “Think
she’s moonlighting? Maybe she’s stepping out on
Green Arrow.”
“The deeper mystery here is why you even care,” the
Question responded to the telephoned query. “Isn’t
this the woman who beat the snot out of you a few months back?”
“She got a lucky shot in!” Helena exploded. At
the detective’s heavy silence, she admitted, “Okay, five
or six lucky shots. Anyway, that’s not the point!”
“Ah ha!” the man suddenly exclaimed. Before she
could inquire, he added, “Thirty two flavors!”
Rolling her eyes at her boyfriend’s suspicious nature, she
ignored what was most likely a convoluted scheme on the Question’s
part, instead commenting, “There’s something wrong here,
Q. I can feel it.”
“I’m the conspiracy theorist, and even I don’t
see anything,” the faceless man disagreed.
The Huntress huffed at the man’s dismissal before a
mischievous smirk crossed her face. “So… what are
you wearing?” she asked breathily
“Blue overcoat, fedora,” came the immediate and
characteristically dry response.
“You really stink at this,” she said bluntly.
“Orange socks?” the Question offered hesitantly.
Huntress shook her head before hanging up the phone. Not a
moment too soon, it turned out, as the sound of a motorcycle starting
suddenly drew her attention to the ground. Canary apparently
decided against resting after all, as she was currently merging back
into traffic. The other woman again shadowed the blonde, this
time ending up outside of a well-lit arena in Bludhaven. Helena
stealthily followed Black Canary through an underground car park and
watched as Dinah met up with the costumed Brazilian woman Fire at a
secured elevator.
After the two women had ascended to a higher floor, Huntress set
to work picking the electronic lock in an attempt to follow the two
League women. Unfortunately, she was quickly interrupted by an
elevator full of armed security guards.
Smiling saucily, she sauntered into the small available space and
asked, “Going down?”
It was the work of only a few seconds for the skilled martial
artist to dispense with the squad of thugs. When the elevator
opened once more, the Huntress stepped out into a lush lobby, leaving
the now comatose security team inside the stall. Seeing the
high-class atmosphere, Helena ducked out of sight and rapidly changed
out of her uniform and into a backup dress that she kept upon her
person.
Stepping into view, she casually strolled through the milling
throng until she came upon what appeared to be some sort of
high-class betting arena. Her speculation as to the object of
the gambling was soon answered by the appearance of a well-known
criminal. Roulette, who was currently wanted in seven states on
a wide range of charges, appeared on the giant television screens
above the arena and began introducing ‘Metabrawl Glammerslam’.
Helena felt the uneasy feeling in her stomach growing as the female
super villain announced that the next fight was between Fire and
Black Canary.
What followed was one of the most savage fights that Huntress had
ever witnessed between two supposed allies, with Dinah finally
defeating the flamboyant Beatriz. After it was finally over,
Helena snuck out of her seat and went below to catch up with the
female metahumans and get some answers.
Finally finding Dinah as she attempted to leave the latest
incarnation of the Metabrawl, Huntress rushed up and grabbed a hold
of the other woman’s shoulder. “Geez! What’s
wrong with you?” Helena demanded once Dinah turned around to
face her. “You almost killed Fire back there! Are
you under cover? Is Roulette blackmailing you? Talk to
me!”
Canary’s reply consisted of a flying roundhouse kick that
sent Huntress flying into a concrete support pillar. “You’ve
got worse than that coming!” she threatened before spinning
around again.
Helena dodged the second attack, however, and rolled a safe
distance away from the out-of-control woman. After several
brutal exchanges, Huntress finally got the upper hand. As
Canary was staggering from a jab to her throat, the other woman
removed her comm. link.
“Better call the League in on-” Huntress started to
say before Dinah kicked the electronic device out of her hand.
Another couple of blows sent her backing away from the blonde woman
and inadvertently breaking the communicator beneath her heel.
“Terrific!” Huntress complained, not noticing that
Canary suddenly seemed disoriented with the device’s
destruction. As the blonde woman approached her unsteadily,
Helena unleashed a right cross at Dinah’s unprotected chin,
sending the other woman to the ground.
“Thanks for saving us the trouble,” a male voice
called out from behind her. Huntress spun around to find Sonar
flanked by another half-dozen security men – all pointing
weapons at her.
“We really appreciate it,” Sonar added sarcastically.
“You know,” Kara spoke up in an offhanded tone, “I
don’t consider this very stimulating either, but at least I
pretend to pay attention to the monitors.”
Harry grinned from behind one of his recent literary acquisitions
from Avalon. “I’m paying attention,” the
wizard protested lightly. “Really.”
“Sure you are,” the girl agreed sarcastically.
“Prove it. What’s on Monitor 37 right now?”
Without noticeably looking up, Harry replied, “Nothing.
Steel hasn’t finished repairing that feed yet. With the
exception of that small jewel heist in Cairo – which looks like
it just got resolved, by the way – there’s nothing on the
scopes that requires the League’s attention.”
Kara glanced over at the corresponding video output before staring
at her partner in shock. “How did you do that?”
“Magic,” Harry fired back through a grin.
“I’ll bet,” she muttered good-naturedly.
“Look on the bright side; it looks like you’ll have a
peaceful Halloween for once!”
Harry groaned. “Not after you just jinxed it, we
won’t,” he disagreed.
“Oh, you’re just being silly,” Kara protested.
“You can’t jinx something just like that… can
you?”
Harry glanced at the girl in silence for a moment before flashing
screen behind her head caught his attention. “Oh, no?”
he demanded. “Then explain that.”
Supergirl studied the personnel locator map for a moment before
she saw what Harry had found. Apparently, there were five
League women all at the same location in Bludhaven. However,
what had caught her eye was the strange distortion that their comm.
signals were registering.
Before jumping to conclusions – a few of the things
John had attempted to teach her had stuck – Kara attempted to contact
the women directly in order to discover the source of the problem.
As she soon found out, however, none of the women could be reached.
She turned back to Harry to meet an intent gaze. As he
raised one eyebrow, she spoke, “I’m sure that it’s
nothing major. Probably just a glitch-” Black Canary’s
signal suddenly died “-or not.”
Harry stowed his book back in his coat and stood abruptly.
“I believe that this warrants further investigation. I’ll
contact you soon with what I find.”
“Hold on just a second, Cowboy,” Kara said quickly.
“I’m not sitting here if this is part of your typical
Halloween freakiness. Just give me a second.”
Before he could reply, Kara had already activated her communicator
and contacted the costumed Wally West. She had no sooner
mentioned that she needed him to cover them for a few minutes then a
red blur skidded to a halt in front of them.”
“So… what’s up?” the Flash asked.
Kara shook her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe
nothing, but Joe thinks that there’s a problem down in
Bludhaven. We’re gonna go check it out real quick.”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” the Scarlet Speedster
replied easily. “I can finish off your shift and still be
ready to party tonight with time to spare.”
“Thanks again, Wally,” Kara mentioned. Harry
added his gratitude as well before extending one hand towards the
girl. Drawing her closer, he Apparated them both to the
approximate location where the signal anomaly originated.
“How was I supposed to know that you’d snapped out of
it?” Helena asked her unwilling cellmate. “I mean,
I couldn’t be sure.”
Dinah just looked at her and glared before focusing her attention
back on the grimy corner of their prison.
“They’ve had you up every night working the arena,”
the Huntress continued unabated. “No wonder you’ve
been fighting like a girl.” At the appearance of a second
Canary glare, she added, “You know what I mean.”
The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside drew the two
heroines’ attention. Racing to the cell door, the women
could easily see both Roulette and a physician enter the cell across
the hall from theirs. A closer inspection revealed the patient
to be none other than a very battered Fire.
“Don’t remember, do you?” Helena asked the
blonde woman rhetorically. “You did that to her.”
Dinah’s eyes widened. “No way!” she denied
hoarsely.
“Where do you think you got that burn?” the brunette
inquired while gesturing to Canary’s singed wrists. As
the other woman rubbed the sore appendages, she added consolingly,
“It isn’t your fault. They must be using some sort
of mind control technology.”
“Grodd’s,” Dinah gasped out a hypothesis.
“Well, wherever it comes from, that stuff’s a little
too effective for my tastes,” Helena stated intently.
Black Canary’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension.
Gaining the other woman’s, the blonde woman pointed to her ear.
Misunderstanding the nonverbal cue, Helena replied, “Your
earpiece was wrecked in the fight. We can’t phone for
help.”
Dinah shook her head before pointing to her ear more insistently.
“Yeah,” Huntress suddenly caught up with the woman’s
train of thought, “I think you’re right. The League
comm. links. That must be how Roulette was controlling you.”
The sound of a cell door shutting drew their attention back to the
medical efforts across the hall. Apparently, the paramedic was
finished with Fire as he was accompanying Roulette back towards the
exit.
“If she dies, Roulette, I’m taking you down hard.
I promise you that!” the Huntress vowed.
Roulette turned around and approached their cell door.
Crossing her arms and smirking in a satisfied manner, the villainess
asked, “Now, why would I let a valuable commodity die? On
the other hand, you two aren’t under my control –
which means I’m going to have to eliminate you. In the
ring, of course – why just snuff you when I can sell tickets
and lay odds?”
“You’re scum!” Helena rejoined lowly.
“No, no, my dear,” Roulette responded jovially, “I’m
an entrepreneur. Let’s face it; with some A-list heroes
to do the jobs, your deaths will net me millions.”
With her ultimatum announced, Roulette spun around and slinked her
way back to the announcer’s booth.
“So… this is Bludhaven?” Harry half-asked,
half-stated as the pair reappeared on the outskirts of the city.
Looking around at the low-lit and generally unpleasant surroundings,
he added, “I take it that tourism isn’t very big here?”
“Not really,” Kara answered as she scanned the area.
“Barb still calls it the ‘Little Cesspool’.
Of course, it doesn’t hold a candle to the ‘Big Cesspool’
that is Gotham.”
“I suppose that you have a point,” Harry admitted
after reviewing his trip to the crime-ridden city.
“Found ‘em!” Kara suddenly exclaimed as her
x-ray vision caught sight of the crowded arena. “I can
see them in that building over there. I think that it’s
another incarnation of the Metabrawl – and it looks like
they’re in trouble!”
“Well, then,” Harry uttered grimly, “shall we go
crash the party?”
Kara smiled viciously. “Let’s!”
Zatanna and Timothy Hunter whiled away the hours waiting for a
word on the developments in Calcutta. When night began to fall
without any word from Constantine, the twosome was beginning to climb
the walls. That was when Zatanna got one of her brilliant ideas
and communicated it to her youthful houseguest.
“Where are we going?” the youth in question demanded
once more after the woman paid the taxicab driver and stepped back
onto the sidewalk.
“Like I said, to a Halloween party,” the magician
supplied. “I thought that since John was trying to
introduce you to some of the most prominent users of magic in the
country, I’d take you out and show you a few more of them.”
“Right,” Tim muttered, “and where are we
going again?”
Zatanna smiled. “We’re going to a bar called
Bewitched. That scuzzball Constantine may not be here,
but we’ll have a good time, won’t we? It’s
All Hallow’s Eve, after all.”
“We don’t have Halloween in England,” the
potential wizard mentioned, “not like you do here. That’s
what I call magic. Ghosts, ghouls, witches and
werewolves walking the streets… It’s like
Constantine said; if you can imagine it, it’s here somewhere.”
Zatanna smiled in anticipation as she escorted the boy past the
door attendant. “C’mon in. I’ve got a
few friends for you to meet.”
“An extra added attraction tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen,”
Roulette announced over the public address system. “Black
Canary’s had so much fun that she’s come back for more –
and she’s brought the Huntress with her!”
While the crowd cheered, the criminal woman pressed a button on
her remote, which unlocked the shackles binding the two women in the
center of the arena.
“But they won’t be fighting each other,”
Roulette announced, earning some negative comments from the crowd.
“They’ll be fighting together – Huntress and Black Canary
against two new contenders! Vixen, the beauty with the beast
powers, and the Thanagar Thrasher, Hawkgirl!”
Smiling at the renewed cheering, Roulette spoke again.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets!”
A cloud of concrete and plaster suddenly exploded from the
ceiling. “I bet that we can stop your little game in ten
seconds flat!” Supergirl announced loudly as she literally
‘dropped in’ on the illegal fight.
Harry flew down through the opening that Kara’s entrance had
left before getting his bearings and Apparating onto the central
stage. “And I’ll wager that the little tart’ll be
regretting this stunt shortly thereafter,” the wizard added.
Turning to look at the women present, he found Ollie’s
girlfriend Dinah and who he believed to be the Huntress back-to-back
as they prepared to fight Mari and Shayera. Given his many
experiences with the Death Eaters’ tactics, Harry quickly
realized that the latter two women were not acting on their own
volition and promptly body-bound both of them.
“Good evening, Canary, Huntress. Would one of you mind
telling us what’s happened thus far?” Harry asked as Kara
battered the arena’s force field down and landed at Harry’s
side.
“You’re that Mr. Black guy that Green Arrow was going
on about?” Dinah asked once she had recovered from the man’s
sudden appearance and quick restraint of the two mind-controlled
Leaguers.
Harry dipped his head. “Guilty as charged,” he
admitted. “Now, do either of you know who is responsible
for their current condition?” he asked while nodding his head
in the other two women’s directions.
“Roulette,” Huntress growled in an eerie imitation of
Batman. “She’s somehow using the League comm. links
to take control of people’s minds. Canary here snapped
out of it once I broke her communicator.”
Harry nodded his head in gratitude. “Righto,” he
replied before Summoning the electronic articles from both Vixen’s
and Hawkgirl’s possession. With the nefarious devices in
hand, the wizard took great satisfaction in using his enhanced
strength to grind the gadgets into powder with one clenched fist.
The effect was instantaneous; as soon as he destroyed the
communication devices, both of the affected women’s eyes
blinked in confusion. Seeing this, Harry dispelled his two
petrifications.
Eyes wide, Shayera muttered, “I don’t think I want to
know.”
“We’re all in a cage match, fighting to the death,”
Dinah informed the redhead.
“See?” the Thanagarian immediately replied.
The Huntress walked to the edge of the platform and looked up at
Roulette and Sonar in the control booth. “That all you
got?” she demanded of the villainess.
“Oh, no,” Roulette replied smarmily as the arena’s
central elevator was activated. “I’ve saved the
very best for last!” Exactly what the ‘very best’
consisted of became evident a few moments later as the muscled form
of the Amazon princess rose to the platform.
“Yes, that’s really Wonder Woman, ladies and
gentlemen,” Roulette confirmed for the crowd. “It
is on!”
Harry just sighed as he saw the same oddness in Diana’s eyes
as with Shayera and Mari only moments earlier. As Diana came
charging towards the group, Harry stepped to the side and grabbed the
Amazon’s leading arm by its silver bracelet. Before the
woman could recover, the wizard gave the appendage a twist to pivot
the slightly shorter Leaguer’s back to his front. Between
the lessons with Thena and Artie, the unexpected side effect of
Doctor Schlock’s memory implant machine, and a few brief
sessions with Wildcat on the Watchtower, Harry did not even think
before grabbing the metahuman’s other arm in a similar grip and
forcing the brunette facedown on the floor with her arms held tightly
behind her back.
“Let me go, you insignificant little man!” the
not-Diana demanded arrogantly.
“Since I know that you’re not quite yourself at the
moment, I’m going to let that slide,” Harry offered from
his kneeling position on the woman’s back. Switching both
her forearms to a one-handed grip, Harry reached up to her ear with
his other hand and retrieved her comm. link. A miniscule
exertion of effort later found a very confused Diana in a very
uncomfortable position.
“I hope you have a good explanation for this,” a
not-much-more-cordial Amazon grunted from underneath him.
“Oh, right. Sorry about that,” Harry responded
as he quickly hopped off her back and offered the woman a hand.
“To make a long story short, most of you ladies were under an
electronic possession and were fighting each other in a
no-holds-barred cage fight. Don’t worry, though; I think
that we have disrupted those plans nicely.”
Another intercom address from the top box interrupted his
explanation. “Who – or what – the devil are
you?” the brunette criminal demanded.
Harry glared up at the so-called ‘Roulette’ and
another figure in the control booth. His first impulse was to
immediately Apparate up there and dispatch the ones responsible in as
expedient a manner as possible. Fortunately, for the two people
in question, Harry decided that ascertaining Fire’s fate was
more important.
“I’m something of a guardian angel,” the wizard
supplied via a Sonorous Charm, “and I am known these days as
Mr. Black. Now, be a dear and stay put!” Harry ordered
the pair of villains. “I’ll be right with you.”
Turning back to the League women, he asked, “Now, where is
Fire?”
“About sixty feet beneath us,” Dinah Lance supplied as
she studied the mysterious figure that had so timely resolved a
rather sticky situation. Apparently, this relatively
ordinary-seeming figure was countless millennia old – if the
rumors she heard were correct – and Ollie stressed that he was to be
treated with the utmost courtesy. Even if the wild tales about
the man’s… occupation were in error, it did not pay to
be deliberately rude to someone who could maneuver Wonder Woman as if
she was a small child. “I believe that she’s hurt,
though I’m not sure how seriously,” the blonde woman
concluded.
Harry nodded sharply and prepared to phase through the floor in
pursuit of the Brazilian woman. Before he went intangible,
however, he heard a loud crack and felt something lightly collide
with the back of his head before bouncing to a landing. Turning
around slowly, the wizard caught sight of a team of suited men –
apparently some sort of security detail – armed with heavy
caliber weaponry. The man in the lead was staring at Harry in
shock, the still-smoking barrel of some sort of assault rifle still
leveled at his position.
Harry blinked as he realized what must have happened, though at a
loss as to how he survived a direct hit to his supposedly
‘unprotected’ head. ‘Something to ask
Henchgirl about later,’ he vowed resignedly before fixing
the group with a glare.
Stretching out one hand, Harry Summoned his would-be murderer and
held the man aloft via a one-handed chokehold. Very purposely,
the wizard reached out with the other hand and removed the man’s
sunglasses so that they were eye-to-eye. “Don’t.
Do. That. Again,” he growled. As the man stuttered out
some sort of apology, Harry heaved the figure back through the broken
force field pane, bowling over several of the shooter’s friends
in the process.
The few who were missed by Harry’s first foray into ten-pin
bowling chambered their weapons and took aim at the Leaguers.
Glaring at the nuisances who seemed content to murder his friends,
the mage coldly announced, “When all your bullets are gone,
you’d better pray that I’m not standing – because
you’ll all be dead before you reload.”
The atrium suddenly grew still before the sound of many automatic
weapons striking the floor echoed over everyone present.
Harry smiled grimly. “Excellent choice,” he
intoned before sending a few quick charms to render the whole
assortment of hired thugs both unconscious and bound in unbreakable
ropes. Turning his attention to the gawking spectators, Harry
cast another Sonorous Charm and calmly stated, “I’ll
forget any faces I’ve seen tonight if you all disappear in the
next ten seconds.”
The crowd seemed frozen in their seats, still mute.
Harry made a show of looking around before drawing himself up and
announcing, “One.”
Oddly enough, the high-class and otherwise respectable customers
suddenly remembered all sorts of engagements requiring their
immediate presences elsewhere.
Nodding to himself at a job well done, Harry gave the sunglasses
an appraising once-over before donning the article and turned to the
other League members. “I’ll go check on Fire.
If you lot are up to it, see if we missed anyone.” Before
anyone else could comment, the wizard phased through the floor.
“Just exactly who is that guy?” Huntress
demanded. “Some sort of magical Special Forces?”
Kara smiled impishly as she recalled the man’s earlier reply
to a similar question. “He’s just a guy on
vacation!” the Argosian chirped brightly.
“Riiiiight,” the masked ebony-haired woman threw back
sarcastically, “and when he’s not on vacation?”
“Put it this way,” Shayera proposed. “You
know how most perfectly ordinary guys get a taste of power and
suddenly think they’re gods?”
There was a round of somewhat jaded agreements among the more
experienced females there.
The winged woman continued, “Apparently, the grass really is
always greener on the other side, because he happens to actually be
a god who wants everyone to think that he’s just an ordinary
guy.”
Kara looked over at the Thanagarian askance. “You do
know that he hates comments like that, right?” she asked
the older woman while x-raying the area. “He doesn’t
consider himself all that different from the norm, save a few small…
discrepancies, and he really dislikes being put on a
pedestal.”
Shayera smiled derisively. “Look, sweetheart, I’ve
seen beings with a tenth of his power pass themselves off as
gods – successfully. Now, don’t get me wrong,”
she interjected as the Argosian looked as if to interrupt, “Mr.
Black’s a great guy – and I’m really, really glad
that he’s on our side – but he’s about as abnormal
as you can get.”
Supergirl rolled her eyes. “Oh, he’s not that
bad!” she protested. “Sure, he’s got a quirk
or two-”
The Thanagarian snorted. “Like the ‘inability to
die’ quirk?” she inquired humorously.
“Or the reality warping powers,” Diana added as she
checked on the bound security thugs. “Of course, the
control over space and time is rather impressive as well.”
“Yeah, like those,” Kara confirmed before a shrill
whine interrupted their conversation. An instant later, even
those individuals without advanced hearing could detect a loud crash
coming from beneath them.
“What was that?” Canary demanded.
Kara looked around for a moment before replying anxiously, “The
elevator leading to the top box just came loose and fell!”
“Where are Roulette and Sonar?” Huntress demanded of
the only person with X-ray vision, since neither of the two criminals
were visible from her vantage point.
Kara followed the shaft down until she found the devastation at
the bottom. Wordlessly, Kara winced.
“Did they make it?” Mari asked carefully.
The blonde Argosian blinked at the grisly sight before slowly
shaking her head.
Diana and Shayera exchanged a glance over the extremely convenient
‘accident’ that occurred almost immediately after a
certain male mystic slipped out of sight.
“Umm… I just realized something,” Timothy
Hunter admitted to his female escort as he looked over the crowd of
vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other assorted creatures.
“The people here… none of them are wearing masks, are
they?”
“No,” Zatanna answered simply.
Timothy looked amazed. “It’s like there’s
a whole other world – that I never knew existed – side by side
with the old one.”
“Yes,” the Enchantress agreed, “and once you
enter it, you can never leave.”
“Never?” the young wizard-potential echoed worryingly.
Noticing his stress, Zatanna consoled, “You haven’t
entered it yet, Tim. You’re a guest.”
A loud pop gathered the milling throng’s attention to the
stage along one wall where Tannarak, the black magician Tim had met
earlier with hopes for immortality, waited to speak. Once the
gathered people and creatures settled down, the club’s owner
immediately began addressing the crowd.
“Ladies, gentlemen, other entities, I have an announcement,”
the necromancy-obsessed sorcerer professed. “It seems
there’s a very special young lad in our audience tonight.
Some of you may have heard about him on the grapevine. Others
of you might have heard about the current fun and games in Calcutta.”
Zatanna’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, shoot! I’m
sorry, Tim,” the witch pleaded. “I should never
have brought you here.”
As if the League women’s suspicions summoned him, Harry rose
through the floor with a slowly rousing Fire in his arms.
“She’ll be alright,” Harry informed the women.
“She’s just a little out of it right now.”
The wizard’s summary was proven valid when the pyrotechnic
metahuman from Brazil shortly came alight, washing Harry in harmless
green flames.
‘Odd,’ Harry thought to himself. ‘I
don’t even feel warm, and her report said that she could melt
steel! What in the world is going on?’
Dinah Lance raised one blonde eyebrow and asked, “So, you’re
fireproof, too?” She blinked before adding, “No pun
intended.”
“It would seem so,” Harry answered honestly.
“Did you all capture the rest of our friends?”
Shayera huffed irritably. “You already knocked out the
hired help; all we had left to do was destroy the mind control
stuff. Not to mention that the two morons responsible for this
mess just took a six-story plunge in an express elevator. No
survivors.”
“Ah, yes, that would probably do it, wouldn’t it?”
Harry responded, nodding at the explanation for the clamor that he
had heard while rescuing Fire from her prison cell. He felt
distinctly unsympathetic at the ill fates befalling the two criminals
who had brainwashed his friends in order to have them kill themselves
for money.
The wizard shrugged. “Well, I did tell them to
stay put. A very tragic end to two very disappointing examples
of humanity,” the mage summarized in a detached tone. A
heartbeat later, he added brightly, “Well… best not
wallow in our grief.”
The Huntress looked at Harry askance. “So,” the
Catholic woman hesitated, “Guardian Angel, huh?”
Harry looked at the masked woman for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah, that’s part of my job – so to speak.”
As Beatriz began finally coming around, Harry helped her back to her
feet.
Helena looked thoughtful. “I was expecting… I
don’t know…”
The wizard grinned at the woman’s literal interpretation of
his comment. “Halo?” he offered amusedly.
“Yes,” she agreed immediately.
Definitely entertained now, he again queried, “Inner light?”
The Huntress nodded again.
Harry leaned towards her with an even wider grin and
stage-whispered, “I’m not that kind of Angel.”
The masked woman matched his smile. “That was a nice
takedown on the princess, by the way,” the Huntress
congratulated. “I didn’t quite recognize the
style. Kung fu?”
“Thank you,” Harry accepted easily, “and yes,
that was one of the disciplines that fell out of use a few centuries
ago.”
“So you know different variants of the martial arts, then?”
she asked. At his nod, Helena continued, “Do you mind if
I ask how many?”
Harry shook his head slightly. “No, not at all,”
he confirmed before staring at her smilingly.
The Huntress rolled her eyes at the exact same verbal trap that
the Question was always springing on her. “How many
different martial arts styles do you know?” she finally
rephrased.
The wizard thought back to the memory dump he received from Doctor
Schlock. “All of them, I believe,” Harry finally
answered after some thought.
Before he could comment further, his scar – which had been
mercifully inactive since his rather direct disposal of Voldemort –
gave a twinge, and he felt a slight pulling sensation to some far-off
location to the west. Having an unpleasant recollection of a
certain speech from a certain watery tart involving a certain rather
innocuous phrase ‘Champion of the Light’, Harry had a
sudden desire to recite every swear word that he had ever heard.
Focusing on the location he sensed with some urgency, Harry
addressed his female colleagues again. “Sorry to cut this
short, Ladies, but there’s a problem that requires my
attention. Kara, use your comm. link to request transport for
everyone back to the Watchtower and I’ll look you up once
things are settled.”
“I don’t think so, Mister,” the blonde girl
vetoed immediately. “If I let you disappear now, you’ll
just get distracted and then blow off our party later – and you
are taking me dancing.” The Argosian had the
audacity to smile at him! “Besides, you might need
my help.”
At hearing similar comments from several other heroines present,
Harry dug in his pocket for a Black Hole, all the while muttering
something sounding suspiciously like a rant about ‘bloody
stubborn women’ under his breath. “Fine,” he
replied to the blonde powerhouse sharply, “but if you get your
pretty little bum cursed off by some dark wizard, don’t come
crying to me!”
Kara smiled at him mischievously. “You think I have a
cute butt?”
The wizard slowly raked one hand down his face before stalking
through the now-opened portal. He noticeably withheld comment.
“Another point to me!” the young superheroine
exclaimed happily before following the mage through the inky portal.
“As you know,” Tannarak said intently, “there is
a price on his head – which need not be attached to his body.”
“This boy is under my protection,” Zatanna announced
as she shielded Tim from Tannarak with her own body. “Anyone
who wishes to hurt him must first reckon with me.”
The black magician smiled wickedly. “My dear Zatanna,
face facts. There’s one of you, and over a hundred
of us. The child is history.”
“Is that so?” Harry asked coldly as he exited the
Black hole in the wall behind the other man. The wizard caught
the gist of the last exchange and thus had a good idea of what was
about to befall his friend Zatanna.
Once the fate of an innocent child became involved, no one who
knew either Harry or Mr. Black should have been surprised that the
goateed magician immediately met the scarlet glare of a Reductor
curse directed to center mass.
Harry looked down at white-clad form in derision. Even with
the giant bleeding hole in the man’s torso, the recumbent
figure was somehow still alive – if the pain-filled moans and
twitching were anything to go by, anyway. “Let me guess,”
Harry addressed the magically-supported almost-corpse, “you did
something very naughty and created a Horcrux with part of your soul,
didn’t you?”
Harry shook his head sadly, as the League women exited the Black
Hole behind him. “Why you people trade away your souls
for a little thing like a longer lifespan, I will never understand.
Now, I wonder if you were foolish enough to leave the trinket lying
around here somewhere.”
The wizard engaged his mage sight and followed an inky black line
leading away from the fallen dark sorcerer. The magical cord
terminated behind what appeared to be a warded safe hidden behind the
man’s portrait over the bar.
“How clichéd,” Harry grumbled as he fired a
Blasting Hex at the portrait, eliminated the safe’s
concealment. Summoning the receptacle to the stage, Harry
phased his arm through the warded container and retrieved a small
Egyptian figurine. Confirming that it was indeed a Horcrux,
Harry finished, “Not to mention pointless and ironic. All
of the pain and suffering you inflicted on others to escape Death’s
grasp, and now you want to die to escape the pain and suffering.
Ah well, give the Devil my regards when you see him in Hell.”
The wizard flung the porcelain statue down on the stage, where it
shattered and released the spell anchoring Tannarak to the world of
life. As the unlamented sorcerer and alchemist finally –
and perhaps, mercifully – died, Harry looked up at the mob who
threatened Zatanna and her charge only a few moments prior to his…
altercation.
Casting another Sonorous Charm, Harry addressed his dumbstruck
audience. “Now that I have your attention,” the
mage calmly stated, “allow me to introduce myself. I am
known these days as Mr. Black.” He smiled tightly at the
nervous whisperings that flew through the crowd at his announcement.
“Yes, that Mr. Black, and I’m rather annoyed that
you lot are threatening my friend Zatanna and her young companion.”
Harry smiled more openly when the throngs of dark creatures
immediately gave the addressed duo a wide berth. “Now,”
he continued, “we can settle this one of two ways. You
lot either clear out of here this instant and tell all your little
friends that the young man is now under my protection, or…
you can all stick around and I will answer any challenges you
might have offered to Lady Zatanna.”
Bedlam ensued as the gathered dark creatures and magicians fought
each other to flee the imposing figure the fastest. Once the
cacophony had left, Harry casually strolled past Tannarak’s
remains and approached the magic duo.
“Hey, Zee,” Harry greeted, “how’s it
going?”
Zatanna the Enchantress smiled. “Hello, Joe. Not
to be ungrateful or anything, but I could have taken them.”
Harry waved off her comment. “Hey, what are friends
for? Besides, I was in the neighborhood – relatively
speaking.” Turning to the young boy at her side, Harry
extended one hand. “Hello, I don’t think we’ve
been properly introduced. You may call me Joe Black.”
“Tim Hunter,” the potential wizard responded while
shaking the proffered hand. “How did you know to show up
right then?”
Harry smiled while rubbing his temple, whose painful throbs were
now thankfully receding. “Magic?” the elder wizard
presented with a shrug. Looking around, he mentioned, “I’m
just going to go make sure that your playmates aren’t planning
any more mischief this evening. I’ll be back in a
moment.” He mentally changed his coat to the more
concealing black cloak and, before anyone – especially Kara –
could intervene, he Apparated onto the roof of the club and checked
the surrounding areas for signs of trouble.
Back downstairs, Tim turned to Zatanna and said, “I’ve
seen him before, back when one of the trench coat guys showed me the
beginning of time. After we watched as Lucifer and the other
Fallen Angels were kicked out of Heaven, there were these Archangels
as big as worlds. I think I met Raguel, the Angel of Vengeance,
at Corrigan’s Detective Agency with Constantine earlier today.
That Mr. Black guy though… with that cloak, he looks a whole
lot like Gabriel, the Lord of the Cherubim and the Seraphim.”
“Really?” Huntress voiced interestedly.
Timothy nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed excitedly.
“Before today, I used to think that all of that were just
stories. Now, I wonder just how many other mythological figures
are out there.”
Zatanna felt compelled to add, “Well, Joe mentioned that his
brother Xander was stationed on the Hellmouth, a chaotic portal to
the different Hell dimensions.”
“Xander?” Black Canary questioned. “You
mean, as in ‘Alexander’, the Defender of Mankind?”
“Well,” the masked Helena huffed, “I guess that
explains where Michael, the Archangel who is set over Chaos, has been
hiding the last few centuries.”
While the women were discussing matters downstairs, Harry
patrolled the area surrounding Bewitched. The wizard
finally decided that the club’s denizens had taken his warning
seriously, for there was not a single dark creature in sight.
In fact, the only trouble he spotted was where the departing beings
had knocked over an old-fashioned lamppost, starting a small fire
amongst the litter. Fortunately, however, the smoke made the
fire appear much larger than it truly was, and the wizard was able to
quickly put it out and repair the damage.
Nodding to himself at a job well done, the wizard strolled back
inside the club. “All clear,” Harry announced.
“I had to clean up a little mess that a couple of our ‘friends’
started, but everything’s fine now.”
“You ran off again,” Kara greeted his return before
noticeably sniffing the air, “and you smell like smoke.
What did you get into now?”
Harry looked over himself and shrugged before charming his cloak
clean again. “Oh, just a little fire,” he informed
the others, “nothing that should concern any of you. I
caught the problem before it became really serious.” He
inspected the empty club again. “You know, this is a very
nice bar. I wonder what’s going to happen to it.”
“Well, since the last proprietor was just… removed, I
guess the bank will auction it off to clear Tannarak’s debt,”
Zatanna supplied with an uneasy glance at the stage’s grisly
spectacle.
“Hmm,” the wizard acknowledged absently, “how
interesting.” Noticeably changing the subject, Harry turned to
Timothy and asked, “So, Tim, how did you end up in Zee’s
company?”
The younger wizard looked at Harry suspiciously for a moment
before replying. “Well, Constantine – that’s
John Constantine – was showing me the magical world. You
see, I’m not sure if I really want to become involved in this…
lifestyle.”
“A sensible attitude,” Harry nodded as he waved the
group to a surviving table. Remembering one of Dumbledore’s
cryptic little comments, Harry noted, “Magic is a lot like the
truth; it is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be
treated with great caution.”
Timothy looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s
what I’ve been hearing; in fact, several people I’ve met
have tried to warn me off learning magic altogether.” The
boy paused again before asking, “Can I ask you a question?”
Harry grinned slightly. “You just did, but you can ask
another,” he responded humorously.
The wizard-to-be rolled his eyes at the oft-heard joke before
voicing his inquiry. “If you could go back in time and
stop yourself from learning magic, would you?”
The older wizard smiled ruefully. “It wasn’t
exactly my choice, Tim. I was… elected… to
counter a great evil. You see, he was one of us at one point –
one of the best and brightest – before his greed and massive ego
twisted him into a vile creature driven solely by hatred.”
Harry blinked as he recalled all the senseless violence that
Voldemort had unleashed. “The others tried to stop the
monster, but it had grown too powerful and seduced too many others
into fighting against their former friends. As you can no doubt
guess, war broke out and a whole lot of damage was accrued.”
Harry shrugged self-consciously. “Anyway, our people
were getting desperate to find some way of defeating the
insurrectionists, as everything they had tried up to that point had
ended in nothing but more loss of life. So, God, or the
Creator, or the Powers That Be – insert your favorite euphemism
here – created a weapon with even more power than this fallen
one’s abilities, gave it a rather annoying lack of
self-preservation instincts, then dumped me in the middle of the
war. Long story short – my friends and I eliminated his
support, the two of us fought, and I dispatched his excuse for a soul
straight to Hell.”
He mentally shook off the old memories. “But I suppose
that that doesn’t really answer your question. If I was
born like you, an ordinary human wizard with no more responsibility
or destiny than what I set for myself, would I still become involved
with the affairs of the magical world?” Harry asked himself.
Pausing for a few moments to collect his thoughts, the wizard
continued, “Yes, I suppose that I would.”
“But why?” Tim Hunter demanded. “If this
magical world is so full of evil sorcerers who want to be immortal,
and zombies, and werewolves, and such… why would any sane
person want such a life?”
Harry smiled slightly. “Because, Tim, even though
everything you said is true, those evil beings you mentioned can only
truly win if the good people of the world do nothing.
Personally, I’ve tried to withdraw from the fight, to let the
chips fall where they may and just live my own life…”
He snorted. “It never works. There’s always a
threatening apocalypse, or an upcoming demon invasion, or any one of
a million different catastrophes just waiting to befall this happily
oblivious world that always draws me right back into the fight.”
“Well,” the boy said after a few seconds, “I can
still walk away from this mess. I haven’t agreed to
anything yet.”
The dimension-hopping mage looked at the younger magician with an
upraised eyebrow. “Can you now?” he asked
amusedly. “Any human can work magic to an extent –
all it takes is some herbs or incantations to attract the attention
of a being of power and make a request of it. Those people can
walk away from magic, albeit with a great degree of will. You,
however, were born a wizard. You, just like Zee or me, can
manipulate the world with your power alone. It is a part of
you, and it always will be.”
Tim looked nervous. “But I don’t have to get
involved. I can ignore this hidden world, right?”
Harry looked at him understandingly. “I suppose that
it’s possible,” Harry allowed. “You could run
off somewhere, ward your hiding place, and pretend that all is right
in the world… but would you be happy there, knowing that there
are people suffering needlessly due to your inaction?”
“But I’m not a hero!” Tim blurted. “Maybe
you can just stroll casually into the lions’ den and
chase off a roomful of monsters without lifting a finger, but I sure
can’t!”
Harry snorted. “I have been called many things but, I
assure you, ‘hero’ is rarely among them. If being a
hero is your goal, then you should talk with my lovely associates
here. They can tell you all about being a bright, shining
beacon to the masses, or how to walk the dark paths and still come
back into the light.”
The elder wizard shook his head resignedly. “No, Tim,
your prototypical hero is ultimately little more than a biological
shield. He or she will put their prey away and then plan for
their inevitable escape and inevitable return to the fight. I,
on the other hand, simply do what must be done – what most are
incapable of doing. Think of me as a sword to their shield.”
He shrugged slightly. “Death is my gift and my curse, but
if my actions allow just one other to retain their innocence, then I
consider my efforts worthwhile.”
Tim looked at the other wizard warily. “So… you
just… you know-” he dragged one finger across his throat
“-anybody who breaks the law?”
Harry smiled at the teenager’s misunderstanding. “Not
exactly,” Harry clarified, “I’m all for giving a
measured response, which is why I confine my… predations to
those whose continued existence would endanger humanity as a whole.
It is those individuals, Tim, who I have declared war on, and they
have come to know me well. For example, a werewolf
intentionally attacks a village looking for a buffet? I wipe
out its entire den. A vampire or demon feeds from an innocent?
I burn down the entire coven. Some wizard or witch sacrifices
guiltless children in some dark ritual? I remove their organs
in alphabetical order while they remain conscious. My job is to
make the consequences of their depravations so horrific that it
becomes unthinkable to even commit them.”
“Err… you mean, like with Tannarak?” Tim asked
while gesturing at the fallen sorcerer.
Harry nodded. “Precisely. That little statue
that I smashed was what is called a Horcrux. Simply put, when a
dark wizard or witch murders an innocent, they can perform a spell to
cut off a piece of their soul and embed it in an object. Then,
as long as the Horcrux remains intact, the spell caster cannot die.”
Tim nodded in comprehension. “But if it gets smashed…”
“Then they’re as mortal as any human, except now they
have a fragmented soul,” Harry concluded.
“Anyway,” the older wizard continued as he leaned back
in his chair, “getting back to my point, your new mates weren’t
running from a hero; they were fleeing a bigger, nastier monster.
The only real difference between me and them is that their prey of
choice is the innocent, and I hunt everything that isn’t.”
He snapped his fingers suddenly as he remembered his earlier
declaration. “Which reminds me…” he
muttered.
The wizard dug through his coat pocket until his questing hand
found its objective. Withdrawing another Zippo and a bag of owl
treats, Harry handed the items to the young wizard. “The
world’s a very large and confusing place. If you should
need me or just have a question – be it magic-related or not –
just spin the wheel and call my name.”
“Thanks,” Tim responded unsurely after a few seconds,
“but what’s in the bag?”
“Owl treats,” Harry supplied. Taking another
sniff to confirm that the particular avian smell was coming most
strongly from the young wizard, he continued, “The owl is
yours, isn’t it?”
The boy blinked repeatedly. “Yeah, Yo-yo’s
mine,” Tim replied, “but I’m not sure that I’ll
live long enough to get these to him, what with all the people who
want to kill me.”
Harry’s smile turned several shades darker as he recalled
how panic-stricken the fleeing crowd had been. “Oh, I
wouldn’t worry about that lot too much,” the immortal
mage commented.
Before the boy could question Harry further, they were interrupted
by the arrival of a blonde-haired man in a brown trench coat.
In one hand, he held a lit cigarette while the other was stroking the
feathers of a white owl roosting on his shoulder.
“Whoa,” the new arrival announced, “this place
looks dead.”
“John!” Zatanna greeted, seconded by Timothy’s,
“Yo-yo!”
The bird took flight and headed directly to the young man’s
shoulder, where it began nudging the bag of owl treats with its
beak. As Tim fed his avian acquaintance, the female magician
attempted to interrogate Constantine – to no avail.
“So, who ventilated the stiff?” the man asked as he
pulled up another chair to the League’s table. “Huh,”
John added as he looked around, “nice place.”
Harry raised a hand briefly. “That would be me.
The ‘stiff’ was Tannarak, who owned this place, as it so
happens. Anyway, he was threatening to shorten Tim by a head
and rough up Zatanna. I took offense.”
Constantine quirked a slight smile. “I like your
style. The name’s John Constantine,” the blonde man
mentioned as he extended a hand.
“Joe Black,” Harry replied as they briefly shook
hands.
“Ah, so you’re the indestructible Mr. Black
that has the underworld in an uproar,” the older occult
specialist noted. “You’ve made a real nice
impression in certain circles. I’m almost jealous.”
Harry grinned slightly but withheld comment.
“So, what was the big emergency?” Zatanna demanded,
interrupting the two men’s exchange. “Was it as bad
as you thought?”
“It was shaping up to be worse,” the British mystic
expert admitted. “The cult of Kali was up to their old
tricks again. This time they were planning some sort of
ritual involving young Tim here and had three ninja death squads
guarding their headquarters. Not only that, but the Brotherhood
of the Cold Flame was partnered up with them and brought a thousand
elephants in as some sort of big smelly cavalry.”
Zatanna looked incredulous. “What happened?” she
demanded.
“Well, my acquaintances-in-big-coats and I were just fixing
to get our arses handed to us when, out of the blue, an untended
petrol lorry’s brakes gave out, and it started rolling down
this big hill right next to us,” John confided.
“What’s your point?” she demanded at the
apparent non sequitur. “Mechanical failure isn’t
all that remarkable.”
“Yeah, well, having the truck steer itself mysteriously
around a dozen obstacles – any of which should have stopped it
– and driving itself into the heart of the bad guys was a little new
to me,” John answered sarcastically.
“What?” Tim asked disbelievingly as several of the
women at the table began looking askance at an oblivious Harry.
“Yeah,” Constantine chuckled, “the Flame boys
went up like dry grass before the rig smashed into the Cult’s
headquarters, blowing the whole thing straight to Hell. Then,
those little star disks they have on those sprinkler heads all come
flying out of the giant fireball and catch every single one of those
pajama-wearing poofs right in the throat. And if that wasn’t
enough,” he continued, “the ruckus spooks the elephants
into a stampede, which flattens anyone who had managed to survive up
to that point. Since there wasn’t anyone left to fight,
we picked through the Cult’s headquarters until the flying
feather duster over there brought me a note saying that I needed to
come here. That’s pretty much it,” he concluded.
“Yo-yo brought you a letter?” Tim demanded
incredulously. “Why? How?”
Harry looked over askance at the young man. “He’s
an owl, you’re a wizard. What’s so difficult to
understand?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s a bloody owl!”
Tim protested.
The older wizard just smiled in remembrance of his first visit to
Diagon Alley. “Oh, right. I forgot that you’re
new to the hidden world. It’s a long story, but the short
version is that wizards were sending post via owls when the rest of
humanity was still living in mud huts and caves.”
By now, Harry was under observation by a half-dozen females.
Still unaware of their scrutiny, he turned to the blond man and
offered, “Well, it sounds like someone up there likes you,”
while pointing up towards the heavens.
Constantine snorted. “Angels have always given me the
creeps. Besides, most of ‘em seem content to stay up in
their little paradise and let us clean up their messes for them – and
when the choir invisible does deign to get off their feathered
arses and come down here, they start screwing around with
humanity just as badly as the demons. Actually, I think I might
prefer the demons. At least you know where you stand with
them. They just want your soul. With the
Powers-that-screw-you, there’s no telling what they
after at the moment.”
Harry nodded sadly. “I’ve heard the rumors.
It’s… disheartening to hear that such a well-intentioned
group could go so far astray.”
“Yeah, well, if a few demons can play nice, why not have a
few interfering arses amongst the angels, eh?” Constantine
mused sarcastically.
Harry nodded in reluctant agreement. “I suppose that
you have a point,” he admitted, “but you have to admit
that they can’t all be bad.”
“Well, if they’re so great, then why don’t they
try something new and stop their little messes before it all
hits the fan?” the other man demanded as he took another draw
off his cigarette.
“You do know that those things will kill you, right?”
Harry asked as he gestured to the lit tobacco.
Constantine smirked knowingly. “I’ll take my
chances,” he finally uttered.
The wizard shrugged. “As you wish. Anyway, to
answer your question, maybe they occasionally missed a spot of
trouble – they aren’t exactly omniscient, after all.
Not to mention the Balance.”
The older man huffed indignantly as Tim repeated questionably,
“The Balance? What’s that?”
“See, kid, Angels and Demons can’t cross over into our
plane,” Constantine explained, “or, at least, they can’t
except under certain special circumstances. Sometimes they
cheat, and sometimes people somehow invite them to Earth, but for the
most part, we get what I call half-breeds. That is, someone
with either the demon’s touch or a part-angel. They’re
the influence peddlers, whispering encouragement or madness in our
ears. They call it the balance. I call it hypocritical
bullshit.”
Harry smiled again at the cynical man’s colorful summary.
“Well, I suppose that that’s one way of looking at
it,” he admitted. “And you could be right about the
whole Calcutta thing. Maybe just some strange coincidence
worked things out in your favor.”
“That’s what I’ve been sayin’,” John
broke in bluntly.
The other man nodded in acknowledgement. “Or maybe,”
he continued, “someone who didn’t get caught up in the
political mess upstairs slipped in a little help ‘under the
radar’, as it were.”
“While that’s all very warm and fuzzy, I’m not
sold on the whole ‘Heavenly intervention story’ –
though the other coats seemed to go with it,” John contested.
“After all, what kind of Angel blows up a building, sets a
bunch of people on fire, slits the throat of several more, and
tramples the rest into the ground?”
Harry shrugged at the series of strange events. At least
there was no way that anyone could blame the weird high jinks on him
this time – he was nowhere near India.
“Maybe he had a bad day and was venting?” the wizard
offered. “None of us are perfect, you know.”
“Right,” the other man said in a disbelieving tone.
“At the least, I don’t think that anyone’s got the
guts to come after Tim again. Literally, in several cases.”
“Glad to hear it,” Harry responded as his attention
wandered around the club’s interior again. “You
know,” he mused, “I may contact the bank in the morning.
I own several businesses, including a string of casinos, but I’ve
never had my own club before.”
“Are you serious?” Kara blurted, thankful that the
conversation had turned to a topic in which she could contribute.
Harry turned to the slim blonde-haired woman and smiled brightly.
“Actually, I’m Joe, but I think that he’d approve,”
the wizard quipped. “I even have the perfect name.
How does ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ strike you? Too
nostalgic?”
The Argosian blinked. “No, the name’s fine.
Why do you want to own a nightclub again?”
“It’ll be fun,” he replied with a shrug.
“Besides, you and Tea both mentioned the possibility of getting
part-time jobs for the experience, but couldn’t because of how
difficult it would be to get away in the event of a League
emergency. That wouldn’t be an issue here,” Harry
finished. “Besides, the less places for that rabble that
was here earlier to haunt, the better.”
“I suppose that you have a point,” Kara offered after
a moment of thought. “Getting paid to sing, dance, and
serve drinks definitely beats pitching hay and milking cows at any
rate.”
“That’s the spirit!” Harry finalized as he
looked at his watch. “Well, we have a prior engagement
soon and really must be going. It was a pleasure meeting you
both, Tim, John. Zee, do you want a lift back to your place?”
The top hat-wearing woman shook her head. “No thanks.
I can Apparate back to my house. Which reminds me… would
you mind coming over sometime and checking the wards on the place?
I liked some of those you mentioned when we were on Avalon, but I’m
not quite sure if I got them all anchored correctly.”
“Certainly,” Harry agreed. “If you’re
coming to the party later tonight, we can work out a suitable time
then.”
“I’ll be there,” the Enchantress confirmed.
The others made their own farewells before the group returned
through the portal.
As Mr. Black and the other League women left, Zatanna took the
opportunity to hit John on the back of the head.
Hard.
“OW! What the frack was that for?!” came the
incensed response from Constantine.
“Do you even know who you were talking to?” asked
Zatanna.
“Yeah. Some show off, powered up, poof with a lot of
money,” John sarcastically replied. “Talks big, but
I doubt that he could deliver in a pinch.”
Zatanna and Tim looked at him with disbelieving expressions,
albeit extremely different reasons.
Personally, Tim was still coping with having just met a being of
power that Constantine had neither met nor – even more
surprisingly – upset in some way, and everybody else in the world
seemed to know. Unfortunately, his mentor on this section of
his journey had yet to come across as someone who could actually
advise him in any truly important matters… Perhaps Mr.
Black would be willing to take him on as an apprentice. At the
very least, security would not be a problem.
Zatanna, on the other hand, could not believe how out-of-date her
old friend had become. Sure, he still seemed able to irritate
the most powerful beings in existence – that was a given. That
he did not seem to know the most pertinent details regarding Mr.
Black – now that was strange.
“Let me ask you a question,” the Enchantress voiced.
“You saw how he left here, right?”
“Yeah, a portal. Anybody with a bit of hokery pokery
could do that. Ain’t exactly impressive,” John
replied with a grin.
Zatanna raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me that
someone’s told you about the war in Heaven?”
Constantine dipped his head as ground out the cigarette on the
table. “Yeah. The Angels lazed around until they let
their troubles spill out onto the mortal world before trying to solve
the problem. Bloody gits.”
Tim’s jaw dropped open slightly. That was nowhere near
the actual truth that he himself witnessed. ‘Yes,’
he finally decided, ‘having that magical Zippo from Mr.
Black seemed like a very good thing at the moment.’
“Um… John,” the young wizard hesitated, before
proceeding, “in the future, could you do us all a huge favor
and not upset the Archangel who can send entire armies
running in fear?”
The middle-aged occult specialist cocked his head sideways.
“What are you on about, Tim?” asked a confused John
Constantine.
After extending a tentative invitation for the Huntress to join
them in the celebration later, the two Gotham-based femme fatales
headed towards the parking garage for their bikes.
After finding out that the teleporters were out of order again,
Harry opened another Black Hole to the Watchtower. The
remainder of the group stepped through again and exited into an empty
hallway leading towards the monitor womb.
“Well, that was fun,” Shayera grumbled as she rubbed
her still-sore neck, “but now we don’t have enough time
to get ready and make it to the party on time.”
“You have almost an hour,” Harry protest after he
checked his watch.
The winged woman looked over at the blonde Argosian, who was
currently shaking her head. “You haven’t covered
this one in basic training yet, I take it?”
The girl shrugged. “I’m still breaking him in,”
Kara explained before focusing her attention on the closest male
present. “Joe,” she stated patiently, “most
of us can’t change our entire appearance with a mere thought.
We actually have to change clothes the old-fashioned way, do our hair
– that sort of thing.”
“I still don’t see your point,” Harry replied
honestly.
“My point is that those things take time,” the young
woman explained, “which you could give us very easily.”
Catching where she was going, Harry stuffed his hands in his
pockets. “Oh, no,” he refused, “I am not
chancing a temporal paradox just so that you can play dress-up for a
little while longer. Forget it!”
“Please?” Kara begged as her eyes widened and her lip
trembled.
Harry fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “I’m not
falling for that one again!” he said decisively.
“I know that it’s not genuine this time.”
Kara began sniffing. “Please?” she begged
pathetically.
“I said, no,” the wizard replied resolutely.
“You’re not leaving me any choice here,” Kara
said resignedly. When he remained silent, she threatened in a
singsong tone, “I’ll give a detailed account of those
girly subjects that I know you can’t stand in extremely graphic
detail. What will it be this time, the ‘it’s that
time of the month’ story, or the ‘mechanics of
childbirth’ explanation?”
Harry looked back down at the blonde-haired woman and asked, “How
much time did you say you needed again?”
“Six hours should do it,” the girl responded brightly,
all traces of her feigned melancholy gone in an instant. In an
aside to the other females present, she added, “It’s easy
when you know how.”
Grumbling, Harry extended his SEP field to include the others
before Summoning the remote and pressed the appropriate button six
times. The women made several surprised noises as the world
around them began rewinding in a blur. An instant later, the
group found themselves standing in the exact same spot.
“Did it work?” Vixen voiced their collective question.
Their answer came in the form of a pair of footsteps. Their
owners rounded the corner into view, and the women stared
incredulously as another Harry and Kara walked past them. While
the other Kara did not seem to see them and continued rattling off
different policies regarding the monitor womb, the other Harry tipped
his hat at the time travelers.
The Harry next to the five women mirrored his actions as the other
Kara suddenly asked, “What were you doing, Joe?”
“Oh, just giving the ‘tip of the hat’,”
the other Harry answered.
The other Kara looked right through them before asking, “To
whom, yourself?”
Both Harrys smiled at the blonde-haired woman’s comment
before the duplicates continued on their way, leaving the sextet
alone once more.
“You knew!” Kara accused him as she punched his
shoulder. “You knew that we traveled through time,
because you saw our future selves!”
Harry just shrugged mischievously and reduced the SEP field.
Kara shook in impotent fury.
A sudden rush of oncoming air signaled the impending arrival of
the Flash. “Hey, ladies!” the Scarlet Speedster
greeted suggestively. “Mr. Black, how’s it going?”
“Pretty well, Flash,” Harry answered with a smile.
A sudden thought occurred to him, making him ask, “Would you
mind staying close for a little while? Kara and I have a shift
coming up in the monitor womb in a few minutes, and I was hoping that
you’d be here if we should need you.”
“Sure thing, dude,” the redhead responded.
“Catch ya later!” An instant later, he was gone.
“Well, that’s that,” Harry replied, satisfied.
“As long as none of you attempt to replace your comm. links in
the next six hours, we shouldn’t have any problems with people
knowing that two of you are in the same time frame. Until the
party, Ladies.” Harry bowed to them and paused just
before Apparating. “Oh, and Kara? There’s one
more thing,” he mentioned offhandedly.
“What?” she asked with poorly concealed frustration.
Harry smiled widely. “That’s a point for me,”
he stressed before Apparating back to his room, the sound of his
departing laughter still echoing amidst several shrieked expletives
from the blonde powerhouse.
“So let me get this straight,” Henchgirl stated after
Harry had described the strange incidents that occurred earlier that
evening. “First, you got shot in the back of the head –
where your coat shouldn’t have protected you – and only
barely felt it, then this ‘Fire’ woman ignites while you
are holding her and you are still unharmed. Did I get
everything correct?”
“Pretty much,” Harry agreed. “Do you have
any ideas?”
“A couple,” the witch replied, “but I need to
run them by the Doctor. Let me conference-Floo her.”
Henchgirl contacted the mediwitch and brought the other woman up
to speed.
“I see,” the Doctor mentioned, “and you haven’t
consumed any strange potions, foods, or liquids?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no,” Harry supplied
immediately.
The women remained silent for a moment before Henchgirl asked,
“What about strange animals? Have you encountered any new
magical creatures?”
Harry shook his head before voicing the negation. “Not
that I can recall,” he admitted.
“Hmm…” the Doctor hesitated, “well, it
couldn’t have been radiation…”
The witch’s off-hand comment sparked a dim recollection of
his mission to Shambola. “Err…” Harry
muttered, “That may not be entirely accurate.”
“And how, pray tell, is that?” Henchgirl demanded
anxiously.
“Well,” the wizard replied, “a few of us were on
a mission when we got sucked down to Shambala. While we were
helping the locals to win a small war, Kara came across a large
irradiated fragment of her home world. The villagers were using
the meteorite, also known as Kryptonite, as a magical focus for the
village. Later, I fought a Kryptonite-powered cyborg. He
had knocked Kara and Courtney unconscious, and I was sorta upset, so
I kinda… ripped the rock out of his chest and ground it to
powder.” Harry hurried through the last bit in hopes of
sneaking it by the two witches. As it turned out, his effort
was in vain.
“You did what?!” the Doctor screeched. “You
know better than to just pick up strange magical objects!”
“But it was a cool glowing rock,” Henchgirl attempted
to defend him, “and the robot did sort of attack his
girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?!” both Harry and the Doctor echoed,
though for different reasons.
“Kara’s not my girlfriend!” the wizard
protested. “She’s just my friend… who
happens to be a girl.”
Unwilling to let the topic go, Henchgirl added, “And is
dragging you on your second date, is nearly as strong as you are, is
learning magic from you, has your same ‘saving people thing’,
and could very well live as long as you without the Sorceror’s
Stone.”
“Reeeally?” the other woman vocalized, the previous
topic of discussion abandoned. “Tell me more.”
“Can we get back to finding out why I’m suddenly
invulnerable, please?” Harry demanded crossly.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” the female
inventor responded amusedly. “Doctor, I got the whole
story from him earlier, so we can talk all about it later.”
“Deal!” the mediwitch agreed immediately. “Now,
as to this radiation, my first guess is that it must have mutated
your genetic code slightly.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Henchgirl seconded.
“After all, these ‘Kryptonians’ are all
invulnerable, correct?”
“Well, except for magical attacks, yes…” Harry
admitted.
The Doctor clapped decisively. “Well, that settles
it. The meteorite must have affected your own unique biology
and given you at least some of these extraterrestrials’
powers.”
“Like Oyuki’s gift,” Henchgirl added helpfully.
Having been briefed on the origins of Harry’s snowflake
tattoo during his last physical, the Doctor spoke, “Yes,
something like that might have happened if you absorbed a part of the
meteorite when you came in contact. Of course, the radiation
alone could have triggered these mutations, given your unique
physiology. Do these people have any other powers or
abilities?”
Harry mentally reviewed the relevant League files. “Well,
unassisted flight, super speed, super strength, several optical
powers, super breath, super hearing – stuff like that.”
“That’s…” the Doctor struggled to find a
proper term, “an impressive list. Of course, you already
had most of those abilities, but it is still amazing that a
non-magical being can possess those gifts. Have you noticed any
changes other than the physical invulnerability?”
“Uh… no,” the mage answered after thinking for
a few moments, “and it’s been several days since I
actually came in contact with the stuff.”
“I see,” the Doctor acknowledged. “Well,
since the effects apparently take time to become evident, I cannot
really determine if you’ll be affected further. Too bad
that you can’t penetrate your skin and get me a blood sample…”
Henchgirl, who had been silently in thought, suddenly blurted out,
“Use magic! You said that they are as vulnerable to
spells as everyone else, so use a small Cutting Hex or something.”
Harry considered the suggestion. “That might work,”
he allowed before testing the hypothesis. He was rewarded with
a thin rivulet of crimson liquid. Conjuring a test tube, the
wizard gathered a large enough sample before his accelerated healing
closed the wound.
“That did the trick,” Harry informed the two women.
“Heads up, Doctor,” he warned before stuffing the
container into the flame.
“Got it!” the mediwitch responded. “I’ll
get started immediately and inform you as soon as I have an answer.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” Harry replied gratefully. “I
appreciate it.”
“Think nothing of it,” she said generously.
“And, Henchgirl, I expect you to report to my laboratory as
soon as you two finish talking. I want to hear all about this
girl who thinks she’s good enough for our boss-slash-brother.”
Harry’s delayed sense of self-preservation doubled its
efforts. “Now, that’s not really necessary-”
he started to say.
“Oke dokee!” the Potions Mistress interrupted
cheerfully whilst simultaneously ignoring Harry’s groan.
After the other witch closed the connection, Henchgirl changed the
subject by asking, “So, what do you think of your costume?”
Harry sighed. “You did a great job, Henchgirl, and
these controllable wings are positively wicked, but-”
“They are, aren’t they?” the witch interrupted
again. “It was a little difficult getting everything
working together, but I think you’ll find them as good as the
genuine article.”
Harry blinked. “The what?” he asked hesitantly.
“I made the wings fully functional,” the inventor
elaborated. “They’re as indestructible as your coat
and respond to mental commands just like another pair of appendages.
You can even use them to fly if you want. The internal
musculature is powered off your own magic, so there’s nothing
to be recharged. I also included enough protections on them so
that they can be used as shields against magical and physical
attacks, if needed.”
“Right… Thank you, Henchgirl,” the wizard
accepted dubiously before changing the topic yet again. “Do
you really think that I should leave my face exposed?”
“Why not?” she countered. “It’s not
like anyone in that world knows who Harry Potter is, after all.
Tonight, you are Gabriel the Archangel, Lord of the Seraphim and
Cherubim. Besides,” she added mischievously, “I’m
sure that your girlfriend will appreciate it!”
Harry groaned. “For the last time, she is not
my girlfriend.”
“Whatever,” the woman replied airily. “Now,
how did the dancing instruction go?”
Harry rolled his eyes at the woman’s obvious dodge but
complied all the same. “I think it went well enough.
It required a little temporal manipulation, but I finally managed to
get an acceptable score for several songs in a row. At least, I
think that ‘AAA’ stands for ‘Acceptable’.
Do you think that’s good enough or should I try again?”
“Umm…” the woman hesitated before deciding to
let him keep his disillusion, “No, I think that’s
probably good enough for now.”
“Really?” Harry asked hopefully.
“Oh, yeah!” the inventor confirmed hastily.
“Well, thanks for everything, Henchgirl,” Harry
replied. “It’s about time to go meet Kara, so I’ll
talk to you later.”
“Knock ‘em dead, tiger!” the witch ordered.
“I mean, Your Majesty.”
Harry sighed again at the raucous feminine laughter and flipped
the Zippo shut. It was show time.
It was worse than alien invasions.
It was worse than immortal super villains threatening the world.
It was even worse than shopping trips with Kara or Lois –
though only barely.
It was karaoke.
For some insane reason, a few female Leaguers – namely,
Diana, Shayera, Zatanna, and Kara – had teamed up against the male
population of the space station some time back and decided that the
League needed to have a more formal Halloween party than usual.
As such, they argued, all formal parties required dancing.
It was the commonly accepted opinion of the League men that the
karaoke idea was added just to spite them.
“It would be fun,” the various females argued, “a
good way to loosen up a bit.” Considering that they were
playing host to the incarnation of Death, who was practically the
mascot for All Hallow’s Eve, it was only proper to celebrate
the holiday in style… right?
Completely bulldozing through any objections raised, the femme
fatales successfully persuaded the majority of the League members to
support their plan. As a result, the entire space station was
buzzing with activity and generally doing whatever the women wanted.
And they wanted karaoke.
‘It was,’ Superman decided, ‘certainly
one of the stranger quirks of feminine nature.’
Bruce managed to wrangle one concession from the mob; due to
potential crises, the party would be held on Earth. Diana was
quick to settle on this point, since she was then able to convince
the Dark Knight to rent an appropriate, secured venue for their
gathering. After all, since all the participants would be
masked or otherwise disguised, security was of the utmost concern in
order to keep some villain from infiltrating the party. As
such, the World’s Greatest Detective somehow became responsible
for generating what amounted to the world’s most sophisticated
engraved invitation.
Once the karaoke idea was mentioned, Clark was adamant against
being present. Unfortunately for his plans, however, Kara did
plan to attend. Even more troublesome, at least for super
strong newspaper reporters, his traitorous cousin contacted his
fiancée and informed her of the upcoming proceedings. It
was at that point that Clark succumbed to the inevitable. For
when Lois Lane decided that you were taking her to a Halloween party,
you were taking her to a Halloween party.
As it turned out, Harry arrived far ahead of schedule.
Everywhere he looked, female perfectionists – and their chain
ganged significant others – were arranging pumpkins or hanging
banners. In fact, they had covered the entire space with bats,
spiders, and papery ghosts.
Harry smiled a bit sadly at the decorations. It reminded him
of Hogwarts, and the very first Halloween that he had celebrated.
For a moment, he truly missed Ron and Hermione, but he knew they were
better off without him.
Past Halloweens… It brought back the memory of
Voldemort, who had killed his parents on Halloween. Even with
all his powers, Harry could not go back and save them. He had
once brought up the notion in passing, but Henchgirl had carefully
told him that messing with life and death in that way would be an
extremely bad idea. The specific details had flown over his
head, but he did remember the terms ‘paradox’, ‘colossal
failure’, and ‘reload universe’. In order to
drive her point home, the petite inventor had simplified her
explanation to ‘very, very big explosion. Don’t,
Mr. Black.’
“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted his recollections.
Harry blinked and found himself facing a white-clad Superman.
The Man of Steel’s garment had wool attached in several places,
and he was currently wearing some sort of floppy-eared bonnet.
“Mr. Black?” the Kryptonian asked disbelievingly.
“Is that you?”
“Well, it’s just ‘Gabriel’ for tonight,
Supersheep,” Harry responded with a smile.
“Lois wanted to dress as Little Bo Peep,” Clark
admitted, as if that answered everything.
When one considered that the wizard had heard all of the gossip
regarding the couple straight from the Argosian hearsay distributor
herself, Harry understood perfectly. “Ah,” the mage
answered delicately, “I see. So, what can I do for you?”
“Would you mind holding up the other end of this banner?”
the fleeced superhero requested.
Harry shook his head. “Not at all,” he replied.
After they hung the streamer over the entrance hall, the wizard used
his undead speed to assist the other Leaguers in finishing the rest
of the decorations. Faster than any of them could follow,
candles and Jack-o-Lanterns were floating in the air, conjured bats
were infesting the upper areas of the large hall, and cobwebs adorned
every available surface.
Nodding to the others, Harry ambled off to see if he could
convince a ghoul or two to stop by for the evening.
The party was going wonderfully. Mr. Black had indeed gotten
a couple of ghosts to haunt the hall, and the
nearly-completely-transparent duo was happily scaring everyone they
could. Combined with the floating candles, the pumpkins, the
bats, and all the other decorations – not to mention the gross excess
of both food and music – everyone present agreed that it was the
perfect Halloween party.
‘The keyword being present’, a costumed Kara
complained to herself. While everyone else had already arrived
– even Batman, though he may have had some assistance
judging from Diana’s satisfied smile – the resident Grim
Reaper had yet to show. Clark had informed her earlier that the
individual in question had left to fulfill some errand but was
unclear on the details or his estimated time of arrival.
Granted, the party had started less than an hour ago… but
still, Kara felt justified in being annoyed.
One should never let his date wait, especially if that date is
Supergirl.
She was grumpily sipping her soda – her cousin had already
made very sure that none of the bartenders would serve her
anything remotely alcoholic – and watching the last red glow of
the setting sun in the low windows, when her enhanced hearing
detected two sets of footsteps approaching the main entrance doors.
While Kara was at a loss as to his companion, she had no difficulty
after their months together recognizing the familiar tread of booted
feet as they drew close.
The door opened with an ominous creaking noise, and Kara’s
mood instantly improved.
“Sorry I’m late,” Harry greeted as he approached
her stool. “The band’s lead singer came down with
laryngitis, and I had to fetch a replacement.”
Turning to his companion, the wizard instructed, “The band
is already backstage, Mr. P. Just head through the stage door
and take a left – you can’t miss them.”
“Thank ya, thank ya very much,” the masked dark-haired
man muttered before hoisting his guitar case higher and moving in the
indicated direction.
Taking a seat next to the girl, Harry commented, “You look
very lovely this evening, Milady.”
Kara suddenly wished that she had dressed up as something other
than a fairytale princess. It had seemed like such a perfect
idea at the time, and the dress had looked beautiful in the store’s
mirror, but now it seemed like such a silly idea.
Her not quite boyfriend – though not for lack of trying on
her part – wore a modern tunic and pants ensemble with hints of gold,
brass and pale-blue, which – Kara was happy to note – suited him.
The truly impressive parts of his costume, however, were two fold.
First, he bore a pair of magnificent black wings from his shoulder
blades. Unlike some of the ‘angels’ present in the
room, his ebony appendages moved as if they were as much a part of
him as Shayera’s wings were to her.
The second was that she could see his face clearly. She
decided that she definitely approved of this move, as she
could now observe his glowing green eyes and handsome face without
impediment. Curiously, he seemed to have a thin scar in the
shape of a lightening bolt upon his forehead.
With his first, disastrous date with Cho in mind, Harry had vowed
to make this one less traumatic. Keeping in mind the various
courtesies that the Doctor, Henchgirl, and the Count forced upon him,
Harry took Kara’s unresisting hand and raised it to his lips.
“Happy Samhain, Your Highness,” he greeted more formally.
Kara had little stars in her eyes when he let go of her hand,
smiling dreamily.
Frankly, it worried Harry more than a bit. “Um…
are you alright?” he asked hesitantly.
She nodded, still grinning happily. “Sure, even though
you did leave me waiting for an hour. I’ll yell at you
later, though. Come on!” She started to drag him to
the dancing floor, before pausing halfway to ask, “Er…
you do dance, right?”
Harry grinned, remembering the disastrous Yule Ball so long ago,
as well as all the ribbing he had received from his friends during
his practice sessions these past few days. “As a matter
of fact, I’m famed for it.”
Pat Dugan, who was hovering near the punch bowl in his Christmas
tree outfit, noticed the other man’s entrance and softly
murmured, “So that’s what Daniel was trying to
convey!”
Shayera, who was currently balancing about a dozen cookies on her
plate, overheard the man and questioned, “What are you talking
about?”
“The Book of Daniel,” the mecha pilot explained.
“He was distraught over a vision he had received regarding the
fate of Israel and their oppressor, the Persians. He eventually
collapsed near a river when the angel assigned to watch over Israel
came to console him and explain the vision.”
“Okay…” Shayera commented slowly. “So
what?”
Pat looked at her humorously before tilting his head in Harry’s
direction. “He was described as appearing just like
that.”
“Really?” Hawkgirl inquired speculatively as she
watched the black-winged angel dancing with the princess. “Did
it ever give his name?”
“No,” Pat shook his head, “only that it wasn’t
Michael. Most people believe that it was Gabriel, the Left Hand
of God. Many also refer to him as the Angel of Fire and Snow
who rides the sword, as his earlier demonstration in Shambala proved
quite firmly. A few vague references even suggestion a role as
an Angel of Vengeance and/or Death.”
Shayera just shook her head disbelievingly. “Well,
that dovetails pretty well with some intel we gathered earlier
today. He was ID’ed as Gabriel by someone who had
traveled through time and saw the after-effects of the war in Heaven,
and he later as much as admitted it himself.”
“It makes a girl wonder,” the Thanagarian suddenly
announced, “does this count as dressing as himself?”
As Zatanna passed by her position, Diana caught her attention and
praised, “That’s a great singer on the stage right now.
Where did you find him?”
The masked performer was enthusiastically belting ‘Hound
Dog’ into the microphone. His face was unrecognizable
courtesy of the mask he wore, but it still failed to hide a
pompadour-style black hair.
“I didn’t,” the sorceress admitted. “Mr.
Black made the arrangements when the original singer came down sick.
He said something about this guy owing him a favor.”
All too soon according to some people – and not soon enough
according to others – the vocalist left the stage and a karaoke
machine was activated. Oddly enough, this event coincided with
numerous ‘emergencies’ requiring the immediate presence
of various male superheroes present.
Diana took the stage and scooped up the microphone. “It’s
time for the part you’ve all been waiting for!” she
yelled unnecessarily. “Who wants to go first?”
Harry grinned at the distant lack of male voices in the crowd’s
response. If it had not been for a rather helpful potion, he
would have been terrified of the upcoming festivities.
Fortunately – for his self-image, at the least – the funny-tasting
concoction allowed him to sing as well as his costume implied.
He still wondered if that constituted as cheating; he was
dressed as an angel, after all. He finally decided to let the
matter rest. It was not as if they were actually competing or
anything.
As it happened, Superman was the first victim of the karaoke
machine. Of course, a rather serious shove from a certain
journalistically inclined Little Bo Peep may have influenced his
decision slightly. In any event, the other males present were
simply happy that it was not them. Once the Kryptonian had
reached the stage, he did a fair rendition of It’s Not Easy
to Be Me.
When his song finished, it fell to Clark to choose the next
victim. His eyes fell on Mr. Black, who had been one of the
loudest voices urging him to take the stage. Superman smiled at
a chance to collect his revenge as he singled the dimension-hopping
wizard out of the crowd.
Harry walked up to the stage, a bit nervous. He sincerely
hoped that the potions worked. The karaoke machine shuffled its
database of songs a few times before ultimately settling on a tune by
the Blue Oyster Cult. The text began scrolling across
the screen and Harry smiled brightly.
Don’t Fear the Reaper was one of his favorite songs,
after all.
After several other performances – including Kara’s
ironic rendition of Krystal Harris’s Supergirl –
the dancing resumed. While Harry would never admit it to anyone
else, he had enjoyed the evening’s festivities far more than he
originally anticipated. In fact, if things continued as they
were, he could very well be experiencing his best Halloween to date.
That realization alone should have sparked some warning. If
not that, then the old adage ‘bad things come in threes’
certainly should have roused his suspicion.
Unfortunately, that particular universal truth bred true yet again
while Harry and Kara were enjoying a slow dance amidst Earth’s
greatest heroes. Just as the wizard prepared to dip his dancing
partner, a section of the roof exploded and a golden-masked brunette
woman floated down through the newest entrance. Based on his
Mage Sight, the League’s reports, and Merlin’s accounts
on the fall of Camelot, Harry surmised that the old-fashion gowned
woman was none other than Morgan le Fay.
Stepping between Kara and Morgan, Harry frowned at the hovering
sorceress as an enraged Jason Blood bellowed, “Harpy! I’m
going to kill you for this!”
“Not now, my immortal beloved,” the female mage stated
dismissively, before casting some sort of petrification ward around
the hall’s occupants. “I require the use of
Caledfwich and have sensed its presence once more.”
Relieved that his coat blocked the wide-area Body Bind, Harry
tilted his head to one side. “And what do you want with
my sword?” the wizard demanded loudly.
The woman’s eyes flashed yellow behind her mask. “How
did you break my enchantment?” she demanded crossly.
Harry snorted. “Please! I’ve taught that
trick to prepubescent children! It’s not that
difficult to counter.” Smiling nastily, he added, “Or
to master.”
The woman fired a hex at him from her airborne position – which
Harry promptly shielded and reflected back at her. “Who
are you?” she demanded crossly.
Smiling wryly, Harry flexed his wings before stating, “Gabriel,
or, if you prefer…” He mentally ordered his wings
and tunic to shift into his typical traveling cloak and hat.
“Gabriel Van Helsing?” the woman breathed
disbelievingly.
Her voice carried greatly in the otherwise silent room, and Harry
easily caught the same name other long-lived vampires had called him
in the past. Smiling darkly as she unknowingly confirmed
Merlin’s theory that she was indeed a demonic vampire, Harry
raised his voiced and countered, “The name’s actually Mr.
Black these days, but nice try. Now,” Harry’s voice
cooled several degrees, “why do you seek my sword?”
“Your sword?” the vampires demanded. “It
was Arthur’s sword once upon a time.”
Harry shook his head. “Actually, it was loaned to
Arthur. He happened to break his sword and needed a
replacement. Since he was such a nice guy, a few good
Samaritans loaned him a better weapon for the remainder of his life.
When he was finally defeated – due to your efforts – he ordered it
returned to Lady Viviane of the Lake, who passed it on to me.
Now, kindly answer my question. I’m not asking again.”
“I require its power to complete a ritual to restore my
son,” she finally supplied, “and I’m not leaving
here until I have it.”
Recalling the fate of her son Mordred – the root cause of
Arthur’s and Camelot’s fall – Harry shook his head again
as a smile played about his lips. “Well, you’re
welcome to my sword when I’m no longer breathing.”
Morgan’s eyes flashed again. “I will not
be denied!” she roared, and several scores of armored
Inferi-like trolls shimmered into being in the auditorium.
“Destroy him!” she ordered while pointing to Harry.
Grinning wolfishly, the wizard drew the sword that held her
interest from his gauntlet. His smile grew larger as it burst
alight, causing the trolls to lumber to a stop. He had
experimented with the weapon while on Avalon and had discovered that
Henchgirl was indeed correct about it being a powerful magical
focus. Much like his scythe, the sword seemed to draw latent
energy from his surroundings to boost his efforts. Unlike the
scythe, however, the sword’s side effects did not seem to cause
either a chill or unease amongst spectators. In fact, Harry
discovered that most individuals felt comforted, if anything.
He ultimately determined that only dark mages and creatures shied
away from the drawn weapon – which was quite acceptable to him,
Harry decided.
Combining the sword and his gauntlets, Harry targeted the trolls
and cast a particular curse to get the armored figures ‘in the
proper frame of mind’. After the resultant scarlet haze
faded, he found several members of the petrified League covered in
pulverized troll.
“Oops,” Harry mumbled to himself, “I always
forget about the splatter at the end.” Shaking his head,
the immortal Mage turned back to a fuming sorceress. “If
you’re quite finished wasting my time…?” he
demanded sarcastically.
Le Fay responded with a hail of spells, all of which Harry evaded,
shielded, or batted back at her with a still-glowing Caledfwich.
“You’re pretty good,” Harry congratulated, “for
a demonic vampire hag, that is.”
The woman responded to Harry’s goad just as Merlin had
transcribed in his own encounters with her. “I’m
unlike any vampire you’ve ever fought before,” she
protested, “because I’m the one who’s going to put
you in your grave!”
Harry grinned wickedly, and a certain female mage of over fifteen
centuries of unlife began to regret not leaving well enough alone
with Mordred’s defeat. Her regret grew tremendously as
the wizard directed his own magical salvo upon her. Deciding
that discretion was the better part of valor, Morgan turned to flee –
only to receive several bone-shattering blasts to her lower
extremities before getting pulled hard to ground.
Calmly approaching the limp and battered heap, Harry raised his
sword into a ready position as he stalked his prey. “You
would destroy countless lives and unleash untold obscenities against
nature – just so that you could displace a rightful government
and appease your spoiled brat,” the wizard accused darkly.
“You have cheated Death and consorted with the worst of dark
creatures, all in a bid for a throne that you yourself destroyed ages
ago.”
Harry’s voice grew, if possible, even colder. “Your
depravations end now.”
From her collapsed position on the floor, Morgan le Fay
desperately tried to use her amulet to amplify her spells, to no
avail. Harry easily batted aside her half-baked attacks as he
continued to advance. With a slight gesture, Morgan’s
amulet and apparently magical mask flew from her person and landed in
the man’s grip, revealing the yellow eyes and ridged forehead
characteristic of the demonic species of vampire.
“Please, make it stop!” the vampiress begged.
“What the hell are you?”
“Vengeance. Retribution.” Harry smiled
forebodingly. “Death. Now, stop your whining!
Surely, two mere broken legs cannot stop a demon of your
renown. Mend your legs and stand up – this is a duel to
the death, after all.”
The woman just whimpered pitifully. “Please, God, have
mercy!”
Harry just looked at her disbelievingly. “You
willingly sold your soul to the demon who turned you, all out of a
misguided lust for power. You’ve spent over fifteen
centuries mercilessly killing the blameless and the righteous.
I doubt that God’s feeling all that merciful at the moment –
I know I’m not.”
He shook his head and commented, “You had to know that you
would have to answer for your crimes one day. Time’s
up.” Harry raised his sword over the woman’s torso.
The pathetic creature’s eyes bulged. “No!
Wait!”
“Goodbye, Demon,” the wizard stated coldly before he
plunged the glowing blade into the vampire’s heart. As he
expected, the ancient sword served just fine as a stake, and the
ashes of the widely feared Morgan le Fay coated the floor at his
feet.
Harry turned at the commotion as the witch’s bindings began
failing and the League members broke free.
“Joe, what was that?” Kara demanded as she stared at
the pile of dust. “Was Le Fay really a vampire?”
Harry nodded. “One of the soulless variety. When
one of that particular breed drains its victim to the point of death,
the soul leaves and the body is inhabited by a demon. It may
have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person
it took over, but it’s still a demon at the core. There is no
halfway.”
“But we have seen her out in daylight several times,”
Superman commented. “Aren’t… vampires
allergic to sunlight or something?”
“Usually,” Harry agreed, “however, this mask is
heavily enchanted.” He looked at the item again with Mage
Sight before adding, “If I am not mistaken, this bears a type
of shadowy shield, which would be enough to prevent a vampire from
spontaneously combusting due to ultraviolet light.”
Batman, who was unsurprisingly dressed as himself, opened his
mouth to speak but was interrupted by Jason Blood’s sudden
collapse. The man shook as if in a seizure before his form
blurred. Suddenly, there were two incumbent figures on the
ground, only one of which was human.
“The terms of Merlin’s spell have been met,”
Jason realized aloud as he took in the appearance of the hell spawn
who had shared a body with him for well over a millennia.
“At long last, I’m free,” Etrigan growled.
Noticeably keeping his sword in hand, Harry spoke, “Which
begs the question of exactly what you’ll do with that
freedom.” The underlying threat was quite apparent to all
those present.
The stocky demon prince laughed.
Harry wanted to cringe.
“I have had my fill of this mortal realm,” the demon
admitted, “and do not wish to remain here any longer than I
must. So you can put that sword away now.”
Harry looked at the unfettered demon closely before finally
complying.
“Well, Blood, I guess this is it,” Etrigan continued
as he turned to face the disbelieving Jason. “Try not to
get your self killed,” he finally said. “I won’t
be around to save you the next time.”
With that heart-warming communiqué completed, the demon
lord turned his attention to Batman. “You’re one of
the few humans that I’ve actually liked, so I’ll give you
this piece of advice for free,” Etrigan informed the
detective. “Just tell the wench and have done with it!
You’re being foolish and its starting to get annoying.”
Harry was next on the demon’s personal address list.
“You’re an interesting being, Black,” Etrigan
admitted after studying the dimension-hopping wizard. “I
owe you my freedom, and even demons pay their debts.” The
short figure took one of Harry’s hands and trapped it between
both of his. The wizard felt a brief burning sensation on his
palm before Etrigan released him. Harry looked down at the
offended appendage and blinked. Upon his palm was a faint scar
in the shape of an open flame.
“A gift of the House of Belial,” the demon prince
explained. “The harpy’s enchantments alerting her
to my presence would have dragged out our game of cat and mouse until
the end of days. In payment for your services, I pledge the
loyalty of my line; neither I nor any under my command will harm you
and yours, or those under your protection.”
Unable to form any greater response, Harry settled for a
dignified, “Thank you.”
Nodding to himself, Etrigan stepped back and opened a fiery portal
floating in midair. Through the vortex, Harry could make out
what appeared to be a Hell dimension.
“Well, this is the end,” the demon addressed the
gathered superheroes and their guests. Giving the crowd a final
look over, Etrigan smirked and added, “Try not to cry.”
The short figure then marched without hesitation through the portal,
which drew shut after his passing.
“Hmm,” Harry commented as he took in the demolished
concert hall and disbelieving expressions, “this has been far
more interesting than I originally expected.” Smiling, he
sent out several charms, removing the remnants of the undead trolls’
innards and Morgan’s ashes, as well as repairing the roof.
When the wizard was finally assured that everything had been
restored to its proper condition, he transfigured his clothes back
into his Halloween costume. Harry extended his hand to Kara as
he glanced over at the musicians.
“What do you say, mates? Shall we try that last number
again?” he inquired.
An instant later, a stately melody filled the auditorium as Harry
led the blonde Argosian in a waltz.
As the party finally wound down, Diana called Kara away on some
matter, leaving Harry leaning against a wall as the other Leaguers
began departing. Dispelling the animated decorations, the
wizard fetched one of the remaining drinks and turned to leave –
only to come face-to-face with Gotham’s chief vigilante.
“Good evening, Batman,” Harry greeted. “Enjoy
the party?”
“I’ve been through worse,” the Caped Crusader
admitted.
The wizard nodded in agreement. “I can imagine.
I don’t care much for hobnobbing with snobs myself; that’s
one of the hazards of your particular secret identity that I would
find most annoying.”
Ignoring Harry’s attempt at conversation, the Dark Knight
instead commented, “I have something to pass on to you from a
mutual feminine acquaintance.”
“Oh?” the mage asked curiously. “Does this
have anything to do with your lady friend that Etrigan mentioned?”
The costumed Bruce Wayne glared at him. If Harry was honest
with himself, he would have to admit that Severus Snape, while not as
impressively outfitted, did possess a superior glare.
Not that either man’s attempt at intimidation ever succeeded
where he was concerned anyway.
“No,” the Batman intoned from between clenched teeth,
“I refer to Pamela Isley, not…”
The other man stopped speaking, but Harry recalled enough of
Kara’s previous commentary to fill in the blanks for himself.
“Diana?” Harry half-asked, half-stated.
“That is irrelevant,” the Caped Crusader barked.
“She’s many things, but I’d hardly refer to her
as irrelevant,” Harry noted.
“I’m not discussing this here,” the masked man
stated before turning around and striding out of the room.
“Fair enough,” Harry agreed amiably as he fell in step
beside the other man. “We can discuss Pamela – and
Diana – on the way.”
“On the way?” Batman asked in a dead tone.
“Back to Gotham,” Harry answered. “I
assume that you have your plane stashed somewhere nearby – we
can speak in private on the return trip to get whatever it is that
Isley gave you. You know, get to know one another and all that
male-bonding rot.”
The other man drew to a halt and looked at Harry with an
expression that he would describe as disbelief on anyone else.
“Don’t you have something more important to do?”
“Not at all,” Harry rejected the polite attempt at
dismissal easily. “The rest of my evening’s
completely free.”
The Batman started moving again. “Dare I ask why you
are so intent on discussing this matter?”
Harry thought, yet again, how eerily similar the Bruce-Diana
relationship paralleled that of his two oldest friends Ron and
Hermione. Even their arguments seemed similar in nature, if not
content.
“Oh, I have several reasons,” Harry admitted, “not
the least of which is that this constant circling thing that the two
of you are doing is growing tiresome – both for me and the
others. The main reason, though, is that I like you. You
remind me a great deal of myself, actually, back before a couple of
my friends convinced me that I could maintain both a personal and
professional life. As one professional loner to another, I’d
like to help you avoid the same mistake that I made.”
Gotham’s chief hero cocked his head to the side as he fired
a grapple onto the roof of an adjacent building. “I don’t
consider sparing others from the rigors of my line of work a
mistake,” he intoned gruffly before rapidly flying up through
the air.
“Your family cares for you as much as you care for them,
Bruce,” Harry readily replied once the pair alighted onto the
roof. “From everything that I can gather, Dick, Barbara,
and Tim have the same drive to improve the world as you. They
would have eventually started out on their own, anyway; their
relationship with you only allows them to do it better and safer.”
Batman remotely unlocked the stealth aircraft and opened the
cockpit’s hatch before shaking his head. “I should
have never encouraged it. What sort of father allows his
children to get into this business, anyway?”
“From what Alfred has told me the last few times that I’ve
dropped by to check on him, a fine one,” the wizard advised the
other man as they both slid into the aircraft.
“Yes, he mentioned that you seemed fond of that tea of his,”
the scion of the Wayne family noted as the Batwing took to the sky.
“The American blends not satisfactory?”
Harry made a disgruntled noise. “Bloody awful,”
he complained, “and don’t change the subject.
You’ve done the best you could to raise your sons properly, and
the only complaint that either of them have made is your desire to
discard them. I’m sure that the whole Nightwing scenario
can speak for itself.”
The wizard took a moment to reflect on the odd family dynamic.
“This may come as a shock to you, but both of your charges are
proud to have you as a father figure. And while Diana certainly
isn’t in the market for a father, she’d be proud to claim
you as well.”
After enduring several seconds of intense silence, Harry added,
“Yeah, it confused me to no end as well.”
“I… can’t,” the cowled figure muttered
painfully as he keyed in a navigational course with more force than
was strictly necessary. “For one thing, Diana is a
coworker. Those sorts of relationships never work.”
His passenger snorted. “Green Arrow and Canary,
Question and Huntress, -”
“Lantern and Hawkgirl,” the other man interrupted
succinctly.
Harry could not help but break out in laughter. “One
relationship has a rocky patch and you’re ready to throw in the
towel?” he asked disbelievingly. “There’s no
possible way that a man like you would give in that easily –
for anything. You’ll have to do better than that!”
The wizard could have sworn that the plane’s pilot was
growling. “You know about the Kronos incident?”
“Hijacked you, Lantern, and Diana, and the three of you
chased him all over the time stream?” Harry summarized.
“Correct,” the detective succinctly confirmed.
“We traveled five decades into the future, and I met my future
self. There was no Diana or anyone else with him… me.
It obviously isn’t meant to be.”
Harry was torn between humor and pity. Pity finally winning
out, the wizard spoke, “Bruce, what you saw was one possible
future out of an infinite number of futures, which was further
dependant on both your decisions at the time and Kronos’
manipulations.” He thought back to the words of the
shopkeeper that he confronted in Diagon Alley. “There is
no destiny, my friend,” he continued, “We are not locked
onto a path. Your future is whatever you make of it. If
you are content with being a lonely and bitter old man, then you will
be. On the other hand, if you actively embrace your family,
then you won’t be. It’s a simple concept, really.”
Surprisingly enough, the Bat conjured yet another excuse as
the Batwing began approaching the outer limits of Gotham City.
“It would never work, anyway. She’s an immortal
warrior from an island of women, and I’m… well…”
“Technically, she’s only ageless,” Harry
clarified. “Amazon’s aren’t really immortal;
they can die just as you can. True, Diana is physically
stronger than you and can fly, but that’s pretty much the
extent of it.”
“Which is all the more reason to keep her away from my
work,” Bruce contended. “She is unfamiliar with the
kinds of criminals that I routinely face, any of which would not
hesitate to kill her just to get to me.”
The wizard shrugged. “So train her,” he replied
easily. “Personally, I think that she would make an
excellent partner for you. You’re both stubborn,
motivated people who often reach the same conclusion through
direction methods. I’ve seen how good a team the two of
you make, and I know that your parents would be delighted to have
Diana for a daughter-in-law. For what it’s worth, I’ve
got a good feeling about the two of you.”
The World’s Greatest Detective remained silent as he brought
the stealth airplane on approach to the Batcave’s vehicular
entrance. As the Batwing began descending to the runway, he
quietly uttered, “Thank you. I’ll… think
about it.”
“That’s all anyone can ask, mate,” Harry
accepted as the plane came to a stop.
Changing the topic, Batman produced an interesting species of rose
and explained its origins, as well as the missive from the plant’s
creator. A short Batmobile ride later found Harry standing
inside Gotham University’s small hospital, still wondering
exactly how he kept getting involved in this sort of thing.
Now, Harry faced the incumbent green form of the woman who had
propositioned him on his last visit to Gotham City.
Pamela Isley or, as she was known in certain circles, Poison Ivy.
When Batman showed no signs of proceeding beyond the wall-height
window partitioning the recovery area, Harry shrugged to himself and
casually strolled through the glass. Greeting the woman calmly
while inwardly pleading for her to restrain her more outgoing
tendencies, the wizard conjured up a chair and sat himself at her
bedside.
“Hello, Ms. Isley,” Harry began once the woman seemed
content to remain silent. Wondering yet again if the
Gothamites’ taciturn tendencies could be due to a corrupt water
supply, he continued, “My name is Joe Black. I wanted to
thank you for your gift the other day; Batman delivered it a few
moments ago and said that you wish to speak with me.”
Harry was happy to find the woman much more composed than she was
at their last meeting as she explained her near-death experience and
subsequent new outlook on life. Once she was finished, she
leaned back in the hospital bed and waited for her visitor to
acknowledge her tale.
“Well,” Harry said finally, “I’m glad to
hear that you’ve decided to ‘turn over a new leaf’
– no pun intended. What do you plan to do now?”
“For the moment, stay here and recover,” Pamela
replied. “The doctors are still confirming that I won’t
have a relapse. As for when I’m cleared to leave,
however… that’s where you hopefully will come
in.”
“Oh?” the wizard questioned. “How so?”
“I want to make a difference, Mr. Black,” the redhead
answered honestly. “I’ve tried to use my influence
over nature in the past to improve things, but I can see now that
I’ve only made things worse. When I decided to return and
do the right thing instead of taking the easy path, the Green told me
that you would know where I could do the most good.”
“I see,” Harry uttered in an uncommitted tone.
Her last statement struck an uncomfortably familiar chord with
Dumbledore’s speech after Cedric Diggory’s death.
‘Was it only two years ago?’ Harry asked of
himself. ‘It seems like it happened in another
lifetime.’
He considered her plea for a few moments before one of Henchgirl’s
offhand comments resonated in his mind. “I may have one
idea,” Harry informed the woman, “but it would require
you to eventually relocate dimensions. Do you have any family
or close friends that would prevent you from leaving?”
“Not really,” Pamela finally answered in a confused
tone, “except maybe Harley. Why would I need to move to
another dimension?”
Her first comment sent Harry’s mind searching through his
recollections of the League’s rogues gallery and came up with
one distinct possibility. “Do you refer to Harley Quinn,
the Joker’s accomplice, by any chance?” the wizard
demanded.
“Yes,” she answered hesitantly, “and I know that
her record – and mine, for that matter – is far from
outstanding, but she really only acted out because of the Joker’s
influence.”
Harry could tell by the way that she said the insane criminal’s
name that, while Harley may have the redhead’s sympathy, the
Joker most certainly did not.
“To answer your question,” the wizard replied, “I
was entertaining the notion of inviting you to my realm. My
Potions Mistress and resident physician were both telling me that
they wanted to hire a herbologist for several rare plant breeds, but
they have not yet found a suitable candidate. Something about
the working conditions being too stressful or some such. I
thought that your abilities with all things green might fit the
bill. Interested? I pay well, and your efforts will be
greatly appreciated.”
Pamela blinked. “You want to give me a job?”
she asked confusedly. “Why?”
“Correct,” Harry offered with a smile. “You
would work with my other Research and Development staff, helping them
to discover new and important things. One of their existing
tasks is the development of equipment for my various field agents,
who are scattered around the world keeping a watch on trouble spots.
You know, dark wizard risings, oncoming apocalypses, unexpected
Hellmouth openings… things like that. I can let you
speak to Henchgirl, our Potions Mistress, for the details if you’re
interested.”
The former eco-terrorist smiled. “Oh, I’m
definitely interested. I just worry about what would become of
Harley if I left. You wouldn’t happen to have need of a
creative young woman with a fascination for pranks, would you?
She’s very inventive, if perhaps a little misdirected.”
Harry looked thoughtful. “As it happens, I own
controlling interest in two separate companies along those lines.
She would be welcomed in either – provided that she is serious
about reforming as well,” he finished seriously. “I
would need to meet her first, though, and if I think that she would
be a liability, then she stays here. Agreed?”
“Deal,” the woman accepted instantly.
“Great,” Harry confirmed. “Now, in the
meanwhile, I presume that you will need a legitimate source of
revenue?”
Pamela’s eyes darted to the lurking Dark Knight before
returning to the wizard. “Certain parties would no doubt
prefer that option. Why?”
The wizard grinned. “Well, I’m thinking about
purchasing this nice little nightclub I visited earlier tonight over
in San Francisco. I think a few friends of mine from the League
might want a job there, but I’ll still have a few openings for
both entertainers and staff. Do you think that you or your
friend might like a change of scenery until my business in this
reality is concluded?”
The green woman blinked. “Are you serious?”
“No, I’m Joe,” Harry answered amusedly, “but
the offer is genuine.”
“You know, when I was little, I wanted more than anything to
be a famous singer,” Isley mused nostalgically.
The wizard shrugged. “Tell you what,” he
decided, “I’ll drop by tomorrow and let you know how
everything went at the bank. We can make the rest of the
temporary housing arrangements and what-not then. Is that okay
with you?”
“Perfectly,” the woman readily agreed. “When
would you like me to speak with Ms… Henchgirl, was it?”
“Is now good for you?” Harry asked humorously.
At her nod, Harry retrieved his Zippo and contacted the female
inventor. After explaining the situation, the wizard turned the
lighter over to the redhead and left the two women to haggle over the
details.
Walking back through the transparent barrier, Harry nodded to
Batman. “Well, that went well,” he mentioned.
“Are you aware of those two women’s previous criminal
histories?” the detective asked gruffly. “I would
not consider either one to be worth the hassle.”
“Perhaps,” Harry offered. “Blame it on my
spending too much time with the old man, but I felt that she deserved
a second chance. And if she and her friend both work out, I win
all the way around.”
“I hope that you know what you’re doing,” the
Caped Crusader intoned, carefully choosing to ignore the first part
of the other man’s response.
‘So do I,’ Harry silently agreed. ‘So
do I.’
A/N: Thus concludes Chapter Nine of Terminal Justice.
I hope that you found this latest entry entertaining. For those
of you who didn’t catch it, I included a scene from Neil
Gaiman’s The Books of Magic, as well as one brief
exchange from Michael and the anime series Hellsing.
Also, kudos to callide_mori for the “Happy Halloween”
omake.
A special thanks goes out to James, Chris, Mitchell, D.J., and
Manga_loki for their assistance in fine-tuning this chapter.
I’m at a loss as to how to handle the exposure to
Kryptonite/Etrigan’s gift, since I don’t want to venture
further into the realms of super!Harry. That is, a protagonist without any limits, possessing abilities beyond any rational explanation. I recognize that a certain amount of ‘super’ness is inevitable, what with the Vampire-Werewolf-Re’em bloodtype and the active membership with the JLU. That said, I figured that physical invulnerability from non-magical sources was a “safe” pick for Harry to possess from the Kryptonite exposure, seeing as how his coat essentially gave him that power anyway.
As for Etrigan’s addition, I was thinking giving Harry the
ability to control Hellfire (sort of the opposite of the Japanese Ice
Demon’s gift). Etrigan has historically possessed several
other powers, as the excerpt from Wikipedia mentions. “Even
among demons, Etrigan is considered to be extremely powerful. He has
above superhuman strength (mystically enhanced) to the degree of
literally punching people to the moon and, being an immortal
creature, cannot die. He has a high degree of resistance to injury
and can project hellfire from his body; usually from his mouth. He
has a very high command of magic: other powers include mystically
enhanced fangs and claws, enhanced senses, super speed, agility,
telepathy and precognition as well. His healing factor can handle an
incredible amount of damage, up to recovering from wounds that have
removed large sections of his body. His powers can be extended by
other magical devices, such as the Crown of Horns.”
Harry arguably already has the advanced healing powers from the
phoenix tears still in his system and Henchgirl’s various
experiments. Additionally, his werewolf/vampire biology
supplies the mystically enhanced fangs, claws, senses, speed, and
agility. I figured that the only remaining powers that Harry
could not already command would be the precognition and telepathy,
and my “adjusting” of the latent curse scar borders on
dark arts precognition.
At the moment, my vision of the Hellfire abilities is somewhat
akin to Ghostrider. Mainly, the ability to shield himself with
fire, throw balls of flame… that sort of thing.
Please feel free to share your opinions on the above, or
suggestions on where to take Terminal Justice next. As
it is, I plan to include a “Meet the Kents” scene(s) and
possibly a trip to Paradise Island/Grecian Underworld in addition to
a few of the submitted omakes. Aside from that, all that
remains are the episodes “Far from Home, “Ancient
History”, and the season finale. As such, I expect to be
finished in the next 3-5 chapters. So, if you have any story
arcs that you would like to see implemented, please share them soon.
Thank you for your interest, and please remember to review.