The Fellowship of the Midnight Sons: 
D.K. Latta's

Act One: 

A Dark and Stormy Night

Dahlia Messensinger rubbed her tired eyes, then pulled her unfinished paper from the typewriter and laid it neatly on her desk, ready to be resumed on Monday. Then she rose from her chair in the secretary's pool. She grabbed her coat, aware that the darkness glowering outside the windows was from more than just the hour. It was only six o'clock, after all. She merged gratefully with the stream of secretaries and fellow temps -- like her -- as they headed for the hall and the elevator beyond. 

The girls babbled happily with each other, but Dahlia was largely ignored. She supposed she didn't mind...not too much. Admittedly, she wasn't sure what she would chat about with the other women even if they did try to include her in their discussions. She had no idea of the latest hat fashions, she hadn't a boyfriend to brag or complain about, and she hadn't seen a movie since that Bogart picture a few months back, the one where he ran the cafe. Morocco, it was called. Something like that. 

Dahlia's extracurricular activities were somewhat different from her co-workers, and a part of her rather regretted that. Another part, though, loved it, and loved the strange life she led. It was that latter part of her psyche that worried her. 

You see, Dahlia Messensinger wasn't like a lot of people. 

She stopped two paces from the elevator, the freckle-faced operator staring at her wide-eyed, expectant. She'd forgotten her purse. She waved him on, then turned back toward the office, but not before she'd caught the slightly disappointed look in his eyes. He was no more than sixteen and she was pretty sure he had a crush on her. 

To be that young again, she mused. Then a frowned creased her brow. She was only in her twenties, but she felt old. Sometimes. Ever since her father died penniless a couple of years before, it had been tough looking after herself and her mother. Maybe that's why she liked being more than just a girl in the secretary pool. It was her escape. 

She re-entered the big dark room, the rows of dusks filing away from her like troops waiting to be called to the war in Europe. Without turning on the light, she made her way to her desk. 

She stopped, a rustling sound teasing her ears. 

Instantly every muscle on her shapely, but well-honed, figure tensed. Her knees bent slightly, subconsciously adopting a ready stance. She looked around the dark room. Nothing moved. All was still. Something rustled again. Her eyes shot toward the door to the office of Mr. Bartholomew Mortimer, her immediate superior here at the Silver and Gold Insurance Company. But his office was still swathed in darkness. 

Someone was there, and didn't want to be discovered. Who? she wondered. A thief? What was there to steal in an office? A thief must know there would be little money on the premises. Instantly her mind wondered if it might be an Axis spy, but again, she couldn't imagine what would be of interest to enemy agents in an insurance office. 

Shrugging effortlessly out of her coat, she kicked off her shoes. Then she hesitated. Her cerulean working dress was hardly appropriate for a struggle, but she had left her costume at home. She hadn't really expected to need it at work, after all. 

After a moment of hesitation, she stripped out of her dress until she was clothed only in her underwear. Then she grabbed up a hankerchief and tied it over the lower half of her face, her mane of black hair spilling wild about her beautiful features. Moving soundlessly on the balls of her bare feet, she slipped over to the door leading to the manager's office. 

Suddenly the door knob rattled and she leapt back, but in the darkness misjudged and collided with a desk. The desk scraped noisily on the hardwood and her feet rose momentarily up in the air. 

The door flung open and instantly Dahlia concentrated, her form shivered for a moment, then she vanished into the shadow beneath her, once more becoming her namesake...The Silhouette. 

A barrel-chested, middle-aged man stood in the doorway, dressed incongruously, for a burglar, in a tweed suit. He stared into the darkness, as if looking to discern the source of the noise he had heard. Seeing nothing, his attention was easily diverted and he started toward the hall. 

Behind him, unobserved, the Silhouette rose up from her own shadow and once more took shape. She frowned as she watched him leave. The man she had recognized as Bartholomew Mortimer -- the man whose office it was. She almost felt foolish, standing barely clad, ready for danger, when it was just her boss. 

Except. 

Why had he been rifling through his own office without a light on? As if not wanting to be observed? And why, when he must have heard her collide with the desk, had he dismissed the noise so easily? 

Coming to a decision, the Silhouette started after him. 

* * *

Billy Walker, the elevator operator, held the door open for the stony-faced man. "Looks like a storm's brewing, eh, Mr. Mortimer?" he said casually. 

Mortimer grunted non-committally. 

Billy looked the older man over, noting his tweed suit and a file folder tucked under one arm. "Uh, don't you have a coat or something, Mr. Mortimer? I mean, it really looks like rain, sir." 

Mortimer regarded him coldly. "Ground floor, please." 

"Uh, yes, sir." He tapped his pillbox cap and started to close the door. For a moment, Billy could've sworn he saw a shadow slip in between the doors, a shadow cast by nothing. Then the shadow merged with the shadow beneath Mortimer's feet and he was no longer sure he had seen anything. Deciding his eyes had played tricks on him, Billy started the elevator down, idly wishing it was that gorgeous black-haired secretary he was escorting in his mechanical chariot, rather than frumpy old Mr. Mortimer. 

* * *

Outside, the streets were the colour of black tar, glistening as torrents of rain cascaded down, sending leaves and old newspapers swirling along the gutters like miniature Noah's arks. Bartholomew Mortimer strode unheeding through the downpour, even as it plastered his thinning hair about his head and added extra pounds to his jacket. 

The Silhouette, once more a 3-dimensional shape, splashed bare foot after him, glad that the rain meant no one was about to see her prowling the streets in her unmentionables. She made a mental note that she would figure out a way to bring her costume with her, wherever she was. She was wet and miserable, and more than a little embarrassed by her apparel. 

She stopped, hugging the brick wall of a building on the corner. Mortimer had stopped before a long black Roll's Royce parked along the curb and he was leaning into the open rear door. A big man stood by the driver's door. He looked one part chauffeur, two parts enforcer, she figured. She squinted her eyes against the tumbling rain as Mortimer stiffly handed the file to someone unseen in the blackhole of the car. Unconsciously she leaned out from the wall, trying to glimpse the occupant. 

"Hey!" shouted the driver. "There's a girl out here -- watching." 

"Mortimer," purred a voice from inside the car, "take care of the problem." 

"Yes, sir," said Mortimer, and he turned heavily toward the Silhouette even as the driver slipped back into the car and the engine coughed to life. 

The Silhouette stepped away from her unfeeling brick shelter, staring helplessly as the car slipped away, tires splashing through the wet. Even if she reverted to her silhouette and slipped effortlessly beneath Mortimer's feet, the car was already turning onto the next block. Regarding her boss, she could easily have escaped him, again, using her unusual talents. But then what? she wondered. Go to the police? After all, this was an instance -- a rare one -- when she could go to the authorities without any danger of exposing her secret identity. After all, Dahlia Messensinger had had a perfect right to be where she was, when she was. 

But there was more going on than met the eye. Mortimer was acting very odd for a man caught stealing from the company. And odd was the Silhouette's specialty. 

Adopting a fighting stance, she said, "Give it up, Mr. Mortimer -- uh, Mortimer," she corrected herself. Mister Mortimer sounded too formal, and was likely to betray her identity. 

Mortimer did not respond, but lunged at her, clumsily. She easily ducked beneath his arms, and jabbed him with her knuckles twice in the side, sending him careening into the wall. Mortimer was out of shape and clumsy. That begged the question, why had the man in the car sent Mortimer instead of his driver, who appeared the more dangerous fighter? 

She was not sure she liked the answer that was forming in her mind. 

Wheezing like an angry moose, Mortimer came at her again. This time she caught his out-stretched hand and threw her hip into his groin, pulling on his arm as she did. He sailed over her to land heavily with a splash in a big puddle. Instantly she was straddling his chest and balling her fists about his collar. 

"Who was in the car? What did you give him?" 

Mortimer's eyes were wide, but despite the dark night, his pupils were like pinpricks. He started burbling incoherently between wet lips. 

The Silhouette stared, her fears confirmed far beyond her imaginings. Mortimer hadn't been sent to stop her, he had been sent merely to delay her. The mysterious man in the car had not been concerned about whether Mortimer would triumph, because it was clear Mortimer would not be telling anyone anything for a long time. 

* * *

It was five minutes to ten, Friday evening. The storm had been raging for almost four hours, as if the heavens themselves were trying to wash clean this weary, war torn world. But the sin was too deep, the injustice too ingrained. Nature raged in vain. 

The man in the soaked trench coat settled soundlessly onto the gantry, then hastily pulled the window closed that he had jimmied open, sealing it before too much rain leaked in to announce his unheralded intrusion. That done, he moved more like a phantom than flesh and blood, gliding to the railing to peer down at the warehouse floor below. His features were completely covered by an eerily convincing mask that mimicked the head of a common house fly, giving the Man-Fly a suitably unsettling, even grotesque, impression. 

For the moment, though, he was more interested in generating no impression at all. 

Below milled a handful of local racketeers, summoned to this out of the way meeting on this Godforsaken night for reasons the enigmatic scourge of the underworld hoped to uncover momentarily. 

A snitch had informed him of rumblings through the underworld grapevine, hinting at a get-together, but whether a council of war, whether the streets were about to erupt into mob turf wars, the snitch did not know. A few hours of undercover work, shifting disguises as easily as shoes, had the Man-Fly as a bartender in a sleazy, downtown bar, a cabby cruising the lakeshore, and a few other choice identities, but at the end of it, all he was able to procure was this address. 

The who and why were still a mystery. 

Apparently even to the men waiting impatiently below, each armed to the teeth, and none with fewer than two bodyguards each. 

"Hey, Lou, what's the hold up? What's going on here?" asked one mobster. 

Lou Piper, who the Man-Fly recognized from his files, shrugged. "Why ask me? I figgered it was youse that got us here, eh?" 

"Me? Why would I want ta be looking at youse pug-ugly mugs for?" His laugh was strained. "On the level: you didn't call this meeting?" 

"Nope. Anyone?" 

The rest of the assorted racketeers and strong arm men looked around at each other, bewildered. 

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not tax your mental faculties unduely. I'm sure they're already strained by the effort it takes to chew tobacco and maintain your equlibrium simultaneously. It was I who solicited this meeting." 

The figure concealed in the rafters peered at the far end of the warehouse where shapes could just be distinguished in the unlit darkness. But only just. Three, maybe four people were there, but he could not see them clearly. 

"And who the Hell are you?" demanded one of the mobsters. 

"In a very short time, I will be the king of this city's underworld. That's no idle boast, I assure you. You will all call me master before too long." 

Quietly, the unseen evesdropper moved down the catwalk, hoping to get closer and catch a glimpse of this, obviously his true quarry. 

"Hah!" snorted Lou Piper. "He's making like he thinks he's funny. Like Abbott and Costello -- only without, uh, y'know, the skinny guy, the straight man. You want we should bust your head for getting us out on a night like this for such a lame duck gag? Or maybe just crack a few knee caps?" 

"I sympathize with your skepticism, gentlemen, but I'm in earnest. Deadly earnest. Tell them my friend -- convey to them the veracity of my sincerity." 

One of the figures in the darkness stepped forward into the light, dressed in jodhpurs, a loose white shirt, a mask, and a hand-crafted scarf about his neck. The Man-Fly above inhaled sharply. 

The figure standing at the right hand of the mysterious would-be kingpin of crime was none other than the "Spirit of Decency" himself, the Man-Fly's one-time ally...Mr. Amazing. 


Act Two: 

Trust No One

In the shadows coiled among the rafters, the Man-Fly stared at the scene playing out on the warehouse floor below. The sight of the valorous Mr. Amazing standing before assorted racketeers, apparently allied with some as-yet-unseen mobster with delusions of becoming king of the underworld, seemed beyond belief. 

Nor was he alone in his bemusement. 

"Hey, that's Mr. Amazing!" one of the gunsels muttered. "It's a trap!" Pistols rustled free of pinstripe jackets, flaps of sopping wet overcoats were flung aside and Tommy guns glinted grotesquely in the bald light of the overhead bulbs. 

"Gentlemen, please," intoned the man who had summoned them here, still hidden in shadow. "Mr. Amazing comes not as an apprehender, but as an ally. Is that not correct?" 

"Right," said Mr. Amazing, standing brazenly before the heavily armed audience, dressed in his silk swashbuckler's shirt and jodhpurs, a mask covering the upper half of his face, a handcrafted scarf around his neck. He struck the kind of pose you would expect, hands on hips, looking proud, indomitable. The only incongruity being, he was striking it for the wrong side. 

The Man-Fly pulled silently back from the edge of the catwalk. Obviously Mr. Amazing was pulling a con. Either the man in the shadows was working with him, or he was pulling a number on them all. Either way, the Man-Fly realized it would be unwise to interfere. Not knowing the shot could get them both killed. Beneath his grotesque fly-headed mask, he pursed his lips. There had been a time when a man could operate in the dark corners of society with reasonable alacrity -- now there were so many costumed adventurers, they were stumbling into each other's operations. 

Below, Mr. Amazing continued to address the assembled racketeers. "In a few days, the whole city will be ours -- no one can stop us. Not the police, not the government --" 

"What about your costumed buddies?" called someone. 

"No, not even the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons will be able to resist us. That's why I'm here -- I know when I'm licked. You should, too. You can either join us of your own free will...or be ground under." 

"Say, wait a minute," mumbled one of the hoods. "This isn't some kind o' Nazi rat scheme, is it? Y'ain't working for them Jerries, are you?" 

"No," purred the voice from the shadows. "This is an entirely Canadian takeover. Well, maybe not entirely," he chuckled, as though enjoying a private joke, "but the Axis powers have no involvement whatsoever. First I will assume control of the underworld...then the city itself." 

This sounded intriguing to the masked man up on the catwalk. Whatever was transpiring sounded big, and frankly very ominous. He wondered if there would be some way to get Mr. Amazing alone, to learn what, exactly was going on. 

Such considerations became secondary as a far door burst inward and hoods obviously stationed as look-outs came tumbling inside like dirty ten pins. 

The Man-Fly cursed under his breath. This was getting ridiculous, he thought. 

He recognized the young woman silhouetted by the rain and moonlight, gleaming from head to toe in silver, as the robot lady, Roberta. At her side, a man sheathed entirely in black cloth, save for the white fabric of his arms, was the speedster known as Blacklight. A quick glance at Mr. Amazing's shocked expression informed him this intrusion was not part of the man's plan. 

"Well, well," said Blacklight. "I was just coming for 'Red' Duffy, wanted by the police from here to Saskatoon. But it seems we've stumbled onto a regular convention of nogoodniks. I don't suppose you'd be willing to put down your weapons and surrender?" 

The answer was a deafening thunder of pistol and machine gun fire that was enough to momentarily quell the fury of the storm raging outside by comparison. Blacklight lived up to his namesake and was instantly a streak of black blurring across the room. Roberta, largely impervious to small arms fire, strode forward determinedly. The Man-Fly leapt over the railing on to a pile of stacked crates, then slid from that to the floor. 

Blacklight was too impetuous by far, he thought grimly, while Roberta was too guileless, obviously just following Blacklight's lead. Neither of them had noticed Mr. Amazing, nor realized they were blundering into his operation. Or that their actions were liable to get Mr. Amazing killed, turning the so-called "Spirit of Decency" into a literal spirit. Mr. Amazing was positioned in the centre of the room, making him an easy target for any trigger-happy goon who would easily assume this was all part of a joint attack by the costumed adventurers. 

Man-Fly sent one goon to the floor with a karate chop, then leapt into the light, brandishing his dart gun. The sight of him, and his grotesque mask, had the desired effect. One hood, whirling about, ready to fire at anything that moved, froze, his eyes growing wide with horror at the nightmare visage of the Man-Fly exploding unexpectedly from the shadows. A sleeping dart put him out of harm's way. 

Blacklight and Roberta seemed to be doing all right, so he turned his attention to the real star of the show -- the mysterious voice in the shadows. Mr. Amazing seemed frozen in mid-stance, uncharacteristically at a loss as to what to do. 

The Man-Fly experienced no such confusion. He started past the masked man, flickers of movement in the darkness betraying his quarry trying to escape. Suddenly powerful arms closed about him and he was tackled into some wooden crates. 

"Whouff!" he gasped. "What the Hell?" He kneed his assailant, then slipped free of the embrace, ready to deliver a counter blow. He froze, fist pulled back, ready to be released. 

His attacker was Mr. Amazing. 

The Man-Fly nodded and muttered, "If that's the plan, O.K. Give the word and I'll go down, but frankly, I think your cover's blow -- uh!" His head snapped back and the tendons in his neck screamed in silent agony. He careened off the crates and whirled dizzily as Mr. Amazing made to slug him again. Instinctively, he blocked the blow with his forearm. "Christ! I said I'll take a dive. You don't have to --" He ducked as Mr. Amazing swung again, not pulling his punch in the slightest. Dumbly, the truth began to dawn on him. "You are serious, aren't you?" 

"My master must be protected," said Mr. Amazing, coming at him again. 

The Man-Fly ducked, and delivered a weak blow to Mr. Amazing's stomach. This was ridiculous, he realized as he spun away, trying to get some breathing room between them. He had a sneaking suspicion they were pretty evenly matched at the best of times, but he was subconsciously reluctant to hurt a man who had saved his life and who, it seemed, was not himself. 

Whereas Mr. Amazing seemed out for blood... 

* * *

The brick building was very old, perhaps dating back to the days when Toronto was simply known as York. It had once been a factory, but subsequent owners had torn out the insides and reconverted it into a three-story office building -- a rather low rent one at that. The first two floors were occupied by various small firms, offering legal advice, insurance, and even printing services. The third floor seemed singularly unpopular, only one of the offices -- albeit, the largest -- appearing to have been rented, and that only in the last few months. 

This lack of occupancy was a lie, of course. The entire third floor was leased out, all to the very company whose name was stencilled upon the door to the one office obviously in use: The Trans-Dominion Shipping Company. 

To its first and second floor neighbours, the Trans-Dominion Shipping Company was something of a mystery, and a source of idle gossip during slow breaks. What exactly it shipped was not clear, nor how it made its money, since its employees kept curiously odd hours. Whole days would crawl sluggishly past without hide nor hair of anyone going up to or down from the third floor. Then when people did show up, they were as likely to be heard rattling up the fire escape as using the elevator or the inside stairs, as if not wanting to be seen. Some gossips reported that the company seemed to be most active at night. When all the other offices were dark, its lights would be peeking out from the edges of the blackout curtains. 

Some speculated that the Trans-Dominion Shipping Company was really a cover for a spy organization, but whether ours or theirs, no one knew. 

Were any of its neighbours to have seen inside the company offices, they would have been even more amazed. Once you made it past the small, non-descript receptionist's office placed there in the unlikely event of visitors, the main body of the offices bore little resemblance to environs suited to workaday drudgery. Instead, the large main room had more the appearance of a gentlemen's club. There were couches and plush chairs and a well-stocked bar; a billards table in one corner. Against one wall was a beautiful mohogany bookcase stocked, not just with obligatory classics such as Great Expectations and The Last Man, but more curious tomes such as The Criminologist's Handbook and Exotic Poisons of the Far-East. The latest copies of Maclean's and Saturday Night were laid out on side tables. 

The Trans-Dominion Shipping Company was, as its neighbours surmised, a front, but not for anything as prosaic as foreign spies. It served as the meeting place for an eclectic group of adventurers who had come to call themselves the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons. 

Dennis Welbeck, dressed elegantly in a smoking jacket and black silk slacks, handed a shot of brandy to Dahlia Messensinger -- the Silhouette -- who was drenched almost literally to the bone and shivering slightly, a Hudson's Bay blanket wrapped around her for warmth. Curled in a big arm chair, she accepted the drink gratefully. Welbeck smoothed his pencil thin mustache with a slight flourish, a gesture he fell back on when thinking, and regarded his lovely companion. He had received her call earlier that evening and had arrived to find her waiting for him on the curb of a downtown street decked out surprisingly -- and he had to acknowledge, rather fetchingly -- in her underwear, soaking wet in the fury of the evening's storm. 

Slowly, he turned his attention to their charge. Sprawled across the coffee table was a middle-aged man named, according to Dahlia, Bartholomew Mortimer. He was a middle manager at the Silver and Gold Insurance Company, where Dahlia was currently employed. She had apprehended the man secreting something -- she didn't know what -- from his own office and passing it on to someone else -- she didn't know who. Things took a bizarre turn, though, when Mr. Mortimer attempted to assault her. He was easily defeated by the more skilled Silhouette, and it was then that he promptly fell into a kind of waking coma. 

Dennis leaned over the man again and snapped his fingers before his wide-open eyes. Mortimer blinked, but did nothing else. His breathing seemed normal and Dahlia assured him the man had suffered no head trauma, at least not as a result of her doing. It bewildered him. 

He straightened and looked at the young woman. "Well, I think we've waited as long as we can. I suppose none of the others received my messages. We could just hand him over to the police, but I think you were right to call me instead. Granted, I had to miss a late meeting of the museum's Board of Directors -- a fascinating exhibit of antiquities was being shipped in-" His eyes started to twinkle at the thought, then he caught the Silhouette's stern gaze, and smiled apologetically. "But this is more vital, of course. And it definitely smacks a little of the extra-ordinary...which is rather more our idiom than that of the local constabulary. At this point, I think our best course is for me to employ my abilities to enter others' dreams and see if I can contact your friend's subconscious." 

"Will it work? I mean, it's not clear he's asleep -- it's not clear what he is." 

"Well," he admitted, once more brushing his mustache, "that's why I had rather hoped for a consultation with some of the others before endeavoring such an enterprise. But the longer Mr. Mortimer stays this way, I'm sure the worse it is for him, and we're getting no closer to knowing what's going on-" 

"Join the club." 

Dennis Welbeck and Dahlia turned as the door opened and Blacklight and Roberta entered. In Roberta's arms was the limp form of Mr. Amazing. 

"What's happened?" Dennis asked, striding forward. 

Roberta's silver, but flawlessly human features, were contorted with worry. "We don't know. We're not sure what's wrong with him. You've got to help us." 

Dennis knew that Roberta felt especially close to Mr. Amazing -- he was, essentially, the first person to have befriended her outside of her father/creator. What he didn't understand was the failure to diagnose his affliction. He seemed to recall that Blacklight was a medical student, and therefore more likely to be able to deduce the man's problem than he. "What happened? Did he collapse?" 

Blacklight shrugged. "Only after the Man-Fly knocked a pile of crates on him." 

"What?" The Silhouette rose. 

"The problem with Mr. Amazing," intoned a deep voice from the doorway, "is not with what knocked him out, it's with what will happen when he awakens." 

Dennis peered past them to see a man in a trenchcoat and an ugly fly-head mask standing apart from the others, lurking in the twilight between the unlit receptionist's office and the main room. "I didn't see you there, Artie. What happened?" 

"Mr. Amazing's changed sides." 

"No," interrupted Roberta, sharply. "I do not believe it." 

The robot woman started to lay him out on the billards table, but Dennis leaped forward. "For God's sake...put something under him!" 

The Silhouette gave him a dirty look, but whipped off her blanket and laid it out over the delicate green felt of the table. Gingerly, Roberta laid her unconscious charge upon the blanket. The Silhouette stood there a moment, hands on the swells of her hips, then looked over at the three men, starting as she realized they were staring at her. She looked down at herself, suddenly remembering she was still in her underwear, then she looked back up. 

"Put your eyes back in your heads, for crying out loud. I think I've got a spare costume in the next room." She sauntered off and Dennis Welbeck looked around blankly. 

"Uh, someone was saying?" 

"I do not believe Mr. Amazing would willingly work for a bad man," opined Roberta, as if daring the others to argue. 

"I do not like it anymore than you," said the Man-Fly, "but you were not fighting him." 

"Did he seem...odd, by any chance? As if he wasn't entirely there?" 

The weird, multi-faceted eyes of the Man-Fly regarded Dennis Welbeck for a moment. "I suppose. A little." 

"I'm afraid the problem may be more widespread than you realize, then." Welbeck gestured to the prone figure of Bartholomew Mortimer who, up until this point, had remained unnoticed by the newcomers. "The Silhouette and I were just puzzling over another fellow caught in the act while behaving somewhat out of character. But I'm damned if I know the reason." 

"I think we can help you there. Unfortunately, you won't like the answer." 

All four whirled toward the voice coming from the far end of the room, by the large windows. 

"And who the blazes are you?" demanded Blacklight. 


Act Three: 

Ladeez and gentlemen...the Puppet!

The loose conglomerate of costumed adventurers called the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons stood about their secret headquarters, which was disguised under the auspices of the Trans-Dominion Shipping Company. Dennis Welbeck, the Dreamstalker, was in civilian dress, while Blacklight and Roberta, the robot, were garbed for action, as was the enigmatic Man-Fly who stood slightly apart from them. The Silhouette, only just donning her one-piece bathing suit costume, entered from a side door. Mr. Amazing was sprawled unconscious across the billards table, and on the coffee table was one Bartholomew Mortimer, who was not, to anyone's knowledge at least, a costumed adventurer. 

Those who were conscious were staring at the phalanx of tall windows along one side of the room. One window had been jimmied open and rain pelted down around two figures standing just inside. 

The one in front was a young man, scarcely sixteen or seventeen. He was dressed in a scarlet tunic with blue pants and brown safari boots. His red cowl concealed the upper half of his face, a stylized star symbol in the centre of his forehead. His gloves were odd-looking, reflecting a golden sheen, as if metallic. 

The man behind him was taller and more powerfully built. He wore a black vest, out from which bloomed billowing scarlet sleeves. His tousers were red, but also ended in brown boots. He had a black beard, streaked with hints of silver, and the part of his face that was exposed revealed dark brown skin. His cowl was looser than his companion's, almost more a hood than a mask. 

Dennis Welbeck instantly surmised the reason for that -- the man wore a turban beneath his costume. He was a Sikh. 

"I repeat," said Blacklight, "who the blazes are you?" 

The youth grinned and said, "I'm called Kid Gloves, and this is the Rajah." 

"Kid Gloves and the Rajah?" remarked the Silhouette. "Sounds like a Sunday Funnies strip." 

Kid Gloves frowned. "You, uh, haven't heard of us?" Blank stares answered him. "Geez Louise," he muttered, disappointed. 

"That's not important right now, Kid," said the man identified as the Rajah, the trace of a Far Eastern accent in his words. 

"And are you here as friends or foes?" inquired Dennis Welbeck, smoothing his immaculate mustache, already confident of the answer. 

"Friends, of course. Sorry to barge in on you, what with this being your 'secret' headquarters and all. Perry and I worked out some deductive paradigms based on the necessary factors for a covert headquarters, cross-referencing it with sightings of various costumed types..." 

"And Perry would be?" prodded Dennis. 

"I guess you'd call him an electronic brain -- my design. I'm something of a genius." 

While this discourse continued, the Man-Fly had quietly drifted over to the prone figure of Mr. Amazing. He had already assessed the newcomers, and evaluated their potential hostility. The Kid was obviously the leader of the two, by virtue of his enthusiasm and, according to what he said, a genius-level I.Q. The Rajah presumably was along to keep him from getting in over his head. Based on the beard, the skin colour, and the ceremonial knife the older man carried in his sash, the Man-Fly concluded, as Dennis Welbeck had, that he was a Sikh. The Man-Fly went one step further, by noting his ramroad bearing, and the careful way his eyes surveyed the room, that he had been a professional soldier, to boot. 

All things considered, they had more pressing concerns than making new friends. 

"You said something about knowing what we're faced with?" Dennis reminded him. 

Suddenly the boyish grin was gone, and Kid Gloves looked every inch the serious man-of-action he obviously wanted to be. "Right." He strode toward the prostrate form of Bartholomew Mortimer. 

Blacklight leaned toward Dennis Welbeck. "How do we know we can trust them?" 

"We don't," was the good-natured response. "Keep an eye on them, of course, but I prefer to assume friendship, and wait for enmity to be proven." 

"That can be a dangerous way to live," remarked the Rajah, over-hearing. 

Dennis looked at him. "But more civilized." 

"Yeah. We were right, Rajah," muttered Kid Gloves, oblivious to the other conversation as he leaned over Mortimer. He angled the man's head away from the group, so that they could glimpse the back of his neck. He pulled down the man's collar, exposing a disk the size of a silver dollar at the base of the man's skull. "Look familiar?" 

"The Puppet," said the Rajah, ruefully. 

"The Puppet," agreed the Kid. 

"Who, or what, is the Puppet?" asked the Silhouette. 

"You haven't had any run-ins with him yet, eh? Lucky you. He's a genius." 

The Silhouette smirked. "Like you?" 

Ignoring the hint a sarcasm in her tone, Kid Gloves said, "Maybe moreso." 

* * *

In a penthouse apartment overlooking the lightning-lashed scape that was downtown Toronto, a man poured himself a liberal shot of cognac. He was a diminutive figure, standing less than four feet in height. He was swathed elegantly in a black tux with tails, a white rose in his lapel. On the table beside him was a high hat, the felt shimmering softly beneath the chandelier light. Lending the man a rather eerie appearance was a bizarre make-up job that rosified his cheeks, emphasized his eyelashes, and gave him two black lines descending to his chin from the corners of his mouth. 

At first glance, he looked like a wooden ventriloquist's dummy come very much to life. 

A big, burly man in a striped seaman's shirt came through the door, tossing his soaked overcoat at the coat rack. "It's raining bad, boss. Like cats and dogs only...only bigger." 

"Canis lupus, perhaps?" remarked the dwarf drily. 

"Nyah. Like wolves or something. Anyway, ain't no sign of Mr. Amazing. I figure those costumed freaks must've got him. No wonder. I think I saw the Man-Fly at the warehouse -- brr, but he gives me the willies." 

"That's the reaction he wants you to infer from his rather outrageous visage, cretin. He's only a man." 

"I don't know -- a face like that? The stories I've heard..." His voice drifted off, then, "Boss, what's a cretin?" 

"It's what you are, Jerry, and no doubt your father and your father's father. I'm sure you come from a long line of cretins." 

"Gee," Willy grinned, puffing his chest out proudly, "that's pretty gees for you." 

"Pedigree-" He corrected. "Nevermind." The dwarf sighed. "I should not have been so over-eager as to confront the underworld bosses this prematurely. Power will be mine in but a few hours, and then I will have all the time in the world to promulgate my demands. But now I have inadvertently drawn the attention of various costumed types, the price I pay simply for the fun of showing off my acquistion -- the do-gooder, Mr. Amazing." He swirled his cognac around thoughtfully. "Bring me the documents supplied by Bartholomew Mortimer, I wish to be sure of the details." 

"Right away, boss." Willy turned and moved briskly into a side room. 

No sooner had he gone than there was a tremulous flutter outside, like the sails of a boat whipped by a gail. The little man turned as a man in a black and yellow costume alighted outside the French doors leading onto the roof. Under each arm were long, wing-like apparatus. The man wore a beaked mask, and cruel talons on his fingers. He stepped inside and stared at the little man with a dark, sardonic gleam in his eyes. 

"The Raven, at your service." He bowed with mock reverence. 

Ignoring his behaviour, the little man said, "It's about time. I want you to retrieve something for me that I lost earlier this evening. Fortunately, I can track it by a transponder signal emitted by a certain object on it, so you'll have no trouble locating it. Bringing it back, however -- well, you may encounter opposition. Use this if necessary," he held out a small metal disk. "It will make the opposition more...amenable." 

"What's the package?" growled the Raven. 

"It's a who, actually. Mr. Amazing. Bring him to me, him and a man named Mortimer -- if you can. If not, kill them both. I don't want Mr. Amazing talking about what he might know..." 

* * *

"..an expert in neurology and psychology," explained the Rajah. "Who's turned his expertise to criminal enterprises involving mind control. We've run into him before." 

"He's a little guy, a dwarf. From some of the things he's said, I get the impression he hasn't always been treated well," added Kid Gloves. "I guess I can sympathize with being bitter, but he's taken it wa-ay too far. I knew him before he started calling himself The Puppet -- he was one of my professors when I was minoring in neurology." 

"When was this?" asked the Silhouette ironically. "When you were twelve?" 

"Eleven actually. Anyway, you can't miss him, he dresses like Charlie McCarthy's psychotic twin. I guess it's his idea of a joke. People are like puppets to him, so he dresses like a puppet himself." He looked down at Mortimer again. "We got wind of his handiwork in Montreal -- a heist at the National Film Board of heavy wattage movie lights. We went to that city to investigate, and got lucky -- almost. We found him, but he got the drop on us and I suppose was all set to put those little nasties on us, but I broke out of where he was holding me, found the Rajah, and we were on the move again. Therefore, it was a draw: he didn't get us, but we didn't get him. And unfortunately, we couldn't quite figure out what he was up to. Now he's back in Toronto, and I still don't know what's going on." 

"If he stole movie lights, maybe he wants to make a documentary," muttered the Silhouette. 

"Given his ego, that's not too preposterous," responded the Rajah. 

"The man in the shadows," offered Roberta quietly. They all turned toward her. She hesitated, then went on. "At the warehouse. The man in the shadows -- your Puppet, I assume -- he was talking about wresting control of the entire criminal class, and then the city itself." 

Kid Gloves and the Rajah exchanged uncomfortable glances. "I've never known him to try anything that big before. His neuro-hijackers -- those disks -- are chillingly effective, but problematic for mass quantities. This all smacks of something...well, something bigger than I can imagine." 

"The question is," interjected Dennis, "can you remove them?" 

The Kid looked at him, his face pale. "Not without risking psychological and bio-chemical damage. They form an almost addictive bond with the brain, pumping it overriding signals. I suppose a man with an almost unbelievable strength of will could free himself, but don't bet on it. Only the Puppet can remove it safely -- we have to find him to deactivate them." 

Dennis dragged his fingers through his hair. He had found himself accepted as a kind of de facto leader of this loose coalition which he bankrolled, but he was not at all sure he was suited to the task. He projected confidence, which the others seemed to respond to, but deep down inside, he knew he lacked the kind of penetrating insight and ability to critically assess a situation the way, for instance- 

"Don't you dare!" 

The Man-Fly was almost entirely invisible in the shadows in the darkened reception room. Like an elusive phantasm, he was on the verge of vanishing back into the stormy night, when Dennis' command forestalled him. 

"Artie," Dennis begged, "if you've got something, let us in on it." 

The Man-Fly had never formally agreed to be part of the Fellowship. He was a loner, prefering to work in the shadows. He had once said that big groups were too unwieldy. 

He hesitated there in the darkness, enigmatic behind his inhuman mask as Kid Gloves' words returned to him, like faint echoes: "it's...bigger than I can imagine." Slowly, his arm stretched out into the light toward the others, a soiled piece of paper between two fingers. "On the sole of Mr. Amazing's boot -- a train ticket. It's wet, naturally, but the mud is only on the side facing away from his sole. Clearly he stepped on it prior to the rain, then almost instantly stepped into some mud which would've been produced by the rain, affixing it to his sole. That would make it about six o'clock this evening, when the rain started. Since the Puppet -- we'll assume it was he -- was meeting Bartholomew Mortimer outside the Silver and Gold insurance company at that time, this was clearly prior to his encounter with, and brainwashing by, the Puppet. Logically, Mr. Amazing was investigating something at the train station that led him to the Puppet." 

"Consider it investigated." A rush of wind, a blur of black, and both Blacklight and the ticket vanished out the door. 

"Come on Rajah," said Kid Gloves, leaping for the window, "to the sonic car!" 

In moments, the group was effectively halved. In silence, the Man-Fly turned his eerie mask toward Dennis Welbeck, his glittering, multi-faceted eyes dead and impassive. 

Dennis didn't need to see the face beneath to know the expression on the Man-Fly's features. He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, old boy. Still, there's a lot we can do here. I've been bothered by something even as we talked it over -- why haven't I dreamed anything? As you all know, when dreaming, I can touch the thoughts of others, sensing evil acts being planned. That doesn't mean I pick up on every little petty crime, but it's odd that I haven't sensed the Puppet's scheme, assuming it's truly as big as we fear." Pulling a pocket watch from his smoking jacket, he said, "It's late enough that we can surmise the Puppet might be asleep, resting up for whatever he's got planned. So I suggest I attempt a little tete-a-tete -- Dreamstalker style." 

"And where does that leave the rest of us?" asked the Silhouette. 

"Tying up Mr. Amazing and your friend Mortimer," said the Man-Fly darkly. "Then we pick your brains and attempt to determine what the Puppet stole from an insurance company." He started toward the still unconscious Mr. Amazing, but a silver arm stopped him. The grotesque mask looked at the stern features of the robot girl and, in a surprisingly gentle voice, he said, "If we don't tie him up, and he wakes up still in the Puppet's control, he'll be a danger to us...and himself." 

Slowly, ever so slowly, she looked down, and nodded. "I'll do it," she said. 

Outside, thunder exploded like German bombs, lashing fire-yellow fingers across the charcoal sky. Rain pelted against the windows like bullets, as if nature herself was in turmoil. 

Overhead, a dark, winged shape swooped down toward the secret headquarters of the Midnight Sons... 


Act Four: 

Many Dooms for the Fellowship

Dennis Welbeck stretched out on the couch, his jacket neatly folded and laid under his head like a pillow. Sitting beside him, the Man-Fly pulled off his grotesque mask, revealing the craggy-but-handsome features of Artie Trent. He stuffed the flexible mask into the pocket of his dark trench coat and said, "Is there anything we should know? Any instructions?" 

Dennis cracked open one eye and regarded him. "Artie, old man, I'm just entering the dream plane. I assure you, it is quite all right -- we all do it when we sleep. I just maintain greater cognitive ability, that's all. Still, if you're looking for something to do, if I start thrashing about like a wild man, you could wake me up. After all, this Puppet fellow is supposed to be an expert on the mind, so he might be a more formidable subject than I'm used to. And you know what they say about dreams...if you die in your dreams, you die for real." He closed his eyes, his lips turned in a slight grin. "But really, the best thing you can do for me is not play any loud music. After all, I'm trying to get some shut eye." 

Artie Trent moved away from the man known as the Dreamstalker and glanced out the tall, dark windows, the glass shuddering as it was thrashed violently by the storm that was hours old and evincing no sign of abating. He frowned, then turned back to the two women. The Silhouette stood by the bar, fingering a glass of whiskey she had poured, but left untasted. Roberta, the robot, sat in a big chair, a rather forlorn expression on her eerily human face. Artie put his hands to the small of his back and stretched his spine. Then he squinted at their two 'guests' -- an insurance man named Mortimer, and the costumed adventurer Mr. Amazing. Both men were unconscious...and bound. 

A cautionary pre-emptive move in case they awoke still in thrall to the villainous Puppet. 

Artie took the stool beside the Silhouette. "How are you holding up?" 

She shot him a glance. "Do you care?" 

He looked at her, taken aback. 

"Half the time you seem as though you think we're all idiots and you'd rather have nothing to do with us. What makes you like that? What makes a man so insular, so alone? So bitter?" 

His face grew cold, his eyes dark like the storm raging outside. "In this line of work, it's better not to care too much. You'll learn that for yourself one day." 

"Why? Because we might die? I'd rather live and risk hurt, than be dead inside...like you." 

"Suit yourself." He rose and moved away, stiffly. 

She opened her mouth, to call him back, then realized it wouldn't do any good. She put a hand to her brow, wincing. Not too long ago, on a Nazi airship, the Man-Fly had risked his life to save hers, and now here she was, acting like she could judge his innermost psyche. Face it, Dahlia, she thought, sometimes you can be a real bi- 

"All right, Silhouette," he said, turning, his voice cold and flat, erecting a barrier of formality between them -- speaking in the voice of the Man-Fly, "let's go over events. Mortimer stole something from his office for the Puppet. What?" 

"I don't know." 

"Maybe. But you know more than you think you do." 

"I can't even imagine what he would want at an insurance company. Maybe he had a policy he wanted revised or something," she muttered facetiously. 

"The file was from Mortimer's office?" 

"Yes." 

"Are all the files kept there?" 

"No, of course-" She stopped, eyes widening with dawning comprehension. "Only stuff he'd be working on -- a new policy. Um," she snapped her fingers, trying to think, "there was a new life insurance-" 

"No." 

"A big policy covering an apple orchard-" 

"No." 

She frowned at him. "Look, Mr. Know-it-all, how can you be so posi-" She stopped. "The Royal Ontario Museum was getting in a new exhibit-" 

He pointed at her, and softly said, "Yes. That would explain the need for the actual file. The insurance company would have all the information on security, alarms, everything needed for a heist." 

"Untie me." 

He turned, they all did, to regard Mr. Amazing trussed up on the billards table and regarding them impatiently. The Silhouette half rose from her stool, a smile forming on her lips. 

"Untie me, or face the wrath of my master, the Puppet!" 

And she sank down again, frowning. 

"Not today, Mr. Amazing," muttered Artie dispiritedly. He, too, had allowed himself to hope the man known as "the Spirit of Decency" would have broken their unseen enemy's power. 

"Roberta," said Mr. Amazing, turning toward the robot. "You know me. Untie me, please." 

"I will," she said softly. "When you are better." 

"Better? Better? Why you bucket of bolts, I'll-!" 

Just what Mr. Amazing might or might not have done will never be known, for at that moment, the glass window exploded inwards and a black and yellow shape erupted into the room in a hail of glass and rain, the thundering storm growling angrily at his back. 

He alighted on the floor, grinning cruelly, and said, "Go ahead -- resist. Amuse me." 

* * *

A sleek blue automobile knifed through the black, rain drenched streets, water arcing up like peacock plumes around the oversized rear tires. It blasted around a corner in eerie silence and, had any pedestrians been about in this hellish weather, they would have been utterly shocked by the cacophonous boom lagging in the car's wake, as if the very sound it made struggled, and failed, to keep up with the curious car. 

Inside, at the wheel, the man known as the Rajah glanced in the rearview mirror at his companion in the back seat. "I hope you know what you're doing, Chris," he said, his voice given a slight elegance by his East Indian accent. 

The teen-ager glanced over the front seat at the readout display on the dashboard, checking power gauges on this prototype car of his design. Normally the Rajah would not even approximate such speeds in the city, but the late hour and the weather had seen to it that there were no pedestrians to be put at risk. Not even a stray cat seemed to be at large. 

He made sure his golden gloves were on securely, then nodded. 

"If you mean hooking up with the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons, I think so. Whatever the Puppet's up to is bigger than anything he's tried before, and after we were already captured in Montreal and escaped...I think we'll need all the help we can get. If you mean following the Man-Fly's suggestion, and back-tracking Mr. Amazing's movements to the train station instead of trying to figure out a way to remove the mind control devices themselves, I hope so. The best way to free Mr. Amazing and that Mortimer fellow is to find the Puppet himself. And the Man-Fly may've been on to something when he said Mr. Amazing might've been working on a case when he got captured." 

The automobile skidded to a stop before the train station in the centre of downtown Toronto and Kid Gloves and the Rajah leaped out into the driving rain. Blacklight was already waiting for them by the main doors. 

"What took you so long?" he asked drily. 

Without answering, Kid Gloves led the way inside. At this hour, and in this weather, the station was only sparsely populated, their footsteps echoing wetly on the tiles. The site of three colourfully garbed figures striding purposefully from out of the night and across the lobby elicited a few startled gasps, but nothing more. The sight of such strange adventurers was not as unusual as it would have been but a few years before. 

"Pardon me, sister," muttered the Rajah, sidestepping a nun. Though it was not his religion, he had been raised a gentleman. He squinted at the young woman, quite beautiful, despite her habit. He tipped his head. 

"Monsieur," acknowledged the young woman, her eyes darting over his tall, broad-shouldered figure, and then to his two companions. Then she turned and hurried on toward the ladies' washroom. 

Kid Gloves stopped before the teller's booth, a gaunt, middle-aged man standing quietly behind the counter, his handlebar mustache wiggling as his lips worked over his teeth. He regarded the masked youth without expression. "Destination?" 

"Uh, we're not going anywhere. We want information. Was there a train that got in around six pm today?" 

"Six?" he muttered under his hairy lip. He glanced down, as though checking a schedule. "That would be the Montreal Express." 

"That fits," said the Kid. "Was there anyone special on it? A politician? A business man? A General?" 

"Mary Pickford?" offered Blacklight. 

"No, sirs," said the clerk. "There was no one of import on the train." 

"Darn," said the Kid, turning to his two companions. "Well, I'm stumped. I mean, someone could've been travelling incognito or something -- maybe even someone vital to the war effort. But I'm not sure how we'd find out. Geez Louise, imagine if the Puppet got one of his neuro-hijackers on Mackenzie King or Andy MacNaughton?" 

"Was there any cargo?" asked the Rajah. 

The clerk stared at him. "Car-go?" he repeated, as though an alien word. 

The Rajah frowned, squinting at the clerk. 

"Carrr-gggo?" Something glinted at the nape of the clerk's neck, something metal. A disk. 

"Look out!" shouted the Rajah as the clerk pulled a gun and started firing... 

* * *

Dennis Welbeck, The Dreamstalker, walked across a vista of shifting sand, while overhead, weird animal caricatures wrestled and rolled in the blood-red sky, as though seeking dominance over one another. Occasionally, fissures would appear in the sandy ground, and blood would bubble up as if from an open wound. 

This was not what he had expected. 

"Sleeper?" he called, hoping to be reunited once more with the enigmatic entity that guided him through the dream plane. "Where are you?" 

Something growled behind him, an echoing, hollow howl like that of a hungry beast. He shuddered. He had a sneaking suspicion that something knew he was here, that something was as conscious in the dream plane as he. And that it didn't like the company. Or was he just being paranoid? 

The howl came again. 

"Sleeper?!?" 

Was this truly the Puppet's dream? he wondered. And if so, what did it mean, what did it portend? But in his heart, he knew the truth. This was not the dream of the villain called the Puppet. He was not at all sure if this was even the dream of someone who was entirely human. 

The howling was closer, more eager. More confident. 

He began to run, stumbling awkwardly over the shifting, blistering sand. There was another player in this deadly game, he realized with fright, someone, or something, none of them had factored in. But who? he wondered. Or what? 

He stopped, feeling the earth begin to tremble beneath him. Instantly he began racing backwards, realizing the threat was now in front of him. The sand heaved and he was thrown from his feet and he went tumbling head over heels down the side of the dune. 

Dune? he thought dizzily as he sprawled at the bottom. There had not been a dune a moment before. 

He looked up and his eyes grew wide. "Oh my God," he muttered. 

* * *

In an instant, Artie Trent took in the black and yellow figure dressed in a bird motif from his beaked mask to the wings attached beneath his arms -- a predatorial bird, judging by the glinting talons bristling from the tips of his fingers. 

The storm snarled like a demonic beast as rain flung itself in at them, wind buffeting their clothes. In an instant, the intruder had launched himself at the Silhouette, the latter frozen in momentary paralysis by his sudden appearance. 

Knowing his dart gun would be too late, Artie flung himself to intercede before those razor claws scarred beautiful flesh. The intruder lashed out, and Artie screamed as he was flung aside, red rivers breaking out upon his left arm. 

The beaked intruder turned back to his original target, only to find the Silhouette had shaken free of her momentary shock. He had just enough time to glimpse the young woman, before a flying kick sent him tumbling over the sofa. 

The Silhouette raced to the man she knew as the Man-Fly, sprawled on the ground, face contorted with pain as the sleeve of his trench coat darkened ominously. 

"Omigod," she said. "Are you-?" 

"Keep...your mind...on business," he hissed, eyes flashing like lightning bolts. 

He shoved his right arm between her thighs and she heard the distinctive phutt! of his dart gun firing. She turned to see that the beaked man had almost been upon her, but was now reeling away, a tranquilizer dart in his broad chest. He wrenched it free, stumbling a little. His constitution must be incredible, she realized with horror. A normal man would have been unconscious in seconds. He was clearly affected, but nowhere near being out of it. 

The Silhouette went for him again. He swung a mighty arm at her -- an arm clearly capable of taking her head off, judging by how easily he brushed aside the Man-Fly -- but she ducked and delivered two quick knuckle jabs into his flank before leaping away. 

Whoever he was, he was a powerhouse, she realized. Fortuitously, they had their own powerhouse. 

Silver arms closed about the intruder's broad chest from behind, and Roberta hefted the beaked man from the ground. 

"You must stop this," she said, half order, half guileless request. 

"Not me, sister. I got orders. Bring back the merchandise...or not at all." A pistol shot out of a spring mechanism concealed under his wing. Before anyone had time to speak, he fired two shots into the helpless Bartholomew Mortimer. 

"Bastard!" shrieked the Silhouette in horror. 

Roberta's grip slackened in shock, and the winged man wheeled on her. 

"Didn't expect so...so many of you. Boss only gave me one surprise." A disk the size of a silver dollar sprang to his fingers. "Either this works, or I'll have to trash both items." Before he finished speaking, he had reached around and affixed the disk to the back of Roberta's neck. 

Artie Trent staggered to his feet, grimly thinking the intruder had at least out-smarted himself, failing to realize that Roberta was a machine, and therefore immune to the neuro-hijacker's influence. At least, so he assumed. 

"Untie Mr. Amazing." 

Without a word, Roberta went to obey the intruder's command. 

"Damn you," screamed the Silhouette, launching herself at him again. 

She did not stand a chance against his strength and claws, Artie knew, but teamwork might accomplish something. Even as she leaped at the beaked man, Artie grabbed up an overturned bar stool with his good arm and flung it at the man's legs. The beaked man made to slash at the Silhouette, shifted his attention to the on-coming stool, then tried to turn back to the Silhouette in his indecision -- to no avail. The stool tangled up his legs and the Silhouette drove both fists into his chest, sending him careening backward. 

Artie staggered forward, trying to level his dart gun again for a second shot, when suddenly a figure interceded. He looked up and Mr. Amazing grinned. 

"Sorry, chum. No can do." One punch sent the man known as the Man-Fly off his feet. 

"Let's go," growled the intruder. "Grab my belt." 

Artie looked up in time to see the winged man fling himself out the window and into the raging storm, Mr. Amazing clinging precariously to his belt. Clutching his ravaged arm, he looked about, cursing his own incompetence. Then his eyes grew wide. "Silhouette?" 

The Silhouette was nowhere to be seen. 


Act Five: 

The Train Terminal Tussle

The Rajah launched himself over the train terminal counter, kicking out with his booted feet, knocking the mind-controlled clerk. Finger squeezing his trigger, the glassy-eyed clerk continued firing into the ceiling, sending plaster dust tumbling down upon the rain-slicked floor. People screamed and raced for cover. 

The Rajah wrenched the gun from the clerk's hand and tossed it over the counter, then shoved the man aside so that he tumbled, landing on his backside. The Rajah hesitated to do any more, since the man was not responsible for his actions, and he did not seem to pose a formidable threat without his pistol. 

"Look out!" shouted Blacklight, standing beside Kid Gloves on the customer side of the partition. Kid Gloves whirled about. 

"Jumping Catfish!" the Kid exclaimed. 

A baggage handler was pulling a Tommy gun off his cart; a woman, apparently waiting for the train, drew a pistol. A couple of others brandished knives. 

"Has everyone gone crazy?" demanded Blacklight. 

"It's the Puppet!" shouted the Rajah. "None of these people are in control of themselves -- they're under his control." 

"We've got to go easy on them," said Kid Gloves. "They're victims-" 

His plea for compassion was drowned beneath the cackling chatter of the Tommy gun as lead death spat like a hornet swarm at them. He raised his golden-gloved hands, the metallic gauntlets glinting in the light, and instantly the bullets veered off course and thudded like hailstones against his fists. 

Blacklight gawked. 

"Magnetized," explained Kid Gloves. "I'll keep the bullets from hitting us, or any bystanders." 

"And..." Blacklight whipped away, smearing into a streak of black light, "...I'll... " he slammed a fist into the machine gunnist and sent the weapon clattering across the train station lobby, "...take..." he slapped the pistol from the woman's hand, but could only bring himself to shove her back into her chair, "...care..." in a blur of motion, he collected the knives and sent both men staggering back, clutching bruised stomachs, "...of the rest." 

He felt a little sick having to attack what were, according to Kid Gloves, innocents. He particularly felt ill at ease striking the baggage handler, for the baggage handler was a black man. And beneath his all-covering costume, so was Blacklight. Then he chided himself: why should he feel worse about an innocent black man than an innocent white man? The key word was innocent. Off in Europe there were madmen waging a war in the name of racial distinctions. Grudgingly, he realized the war might also have to be fought in men's hearts as well. 

Such ruminations took only seconds. He rocked to a halt scarcely millimetres from where he had started out. 

Kid Gloves stared. "Uh, impressive." 

"Thanks, I-" 

"Sacre coeur!" 

The two turned and the Rajah stiffened in the midst of heaving himself back over the counter. A figure stood at the far end of the lobby, dressed in what appeared to be a stylized version of a monk's habit. A brown hood shadowed the face, and the billowy robe covered the upper body, sashed at the waist, and forming a brief skirt. The long legs were sheathed in form hugging navy blue. 

"Uh, who are --?" started Kid Gloves. 

"For what you 'ave done, you must face...the Canticle!" 

"The Canticle?" repeated Blacklight, belatedly realizing there was a woman beneath the costume. "What sort of --?" 

He never finished his sentence. A deafening boom thundered in the lobby as though the storm raging outside had just materialized in the building. Blacklight and Kid Gloves were literally blown off their feet; the Rajah held his ground, barely, by gripping the counter top. 

"What the --?" screamed Kid Gloves, clutching his ears. 

"It's her, the Canticle," shouted the Rajah. "I think she made the sound." 

"A sonic blast?" exclaimed Kid Gloves, incredulous, the scientist in him momentarily overriding the adventurer. "Fascinating." 

"Not so fascinating as what I'm going to do to her," snarled Blacklight, leaping to his feet. "I was raised never to hit a woman, but I think even my mother would forgive an exception, just this once --" 

At his phenomenal speed, he was almost touching her before the Canticle let forth another blast -- clearly a vocal emanation, Kid Gloves realized -- and Blacklight was once more thrown from his feet, tumbling across the dirty train station floor. 

Kid Gloves grimaced. "Lady, I don't know if you're in the Puppet's employ, or another poor sap with a disk on your neck, but either way..." 

He raised one golden fist, and brought it down upon the tiled floor with enough force to send a minor tremble rocking the ground beneath the Canticle's feet. She staggered, momentarily off balance, giving the Rajah enough time to leap the room and tackle her. 

"Forgive me, Madam," he said, "I'm sure you're not responsible for your act --" He grunted as a knee came up into his stomach, and a fist collided with his bearded chin. The Canticle crawled to her feet, looked about wildly, then gestured dramatically with her arms. Grey smoke spilled out into the room, swirling about her like a fog bank. 

Still dazed, Blacklight started forward, tripped over the Rajah, and took precious seconds to right himself. By the time he reached the cloud it was already dissipating...and the Canticle was gone. 

Kid Gloves sniffed the air. "Is that incense I smell?" 

"Must be part of her motif -- Censure-smoke. Costumed kooks all seem to have motifs these days. How'd you hit the floor so hard?" 

"Told you -- magnetics. Using a magnetic field, I can increase the strength of my blows. You alright, Rajah?" he asked, kneeling by the older man. 

"Fine," he grumbled. 

"Thanks," said Blacklight after a moment, grudgingly. "If you hadn't spotted the danger first, we might all be dead." 

"That's the Rajah for you," grinned Kid Gloves, helping his companion to his feet. "He looks out for me. According to him, my dad saved his life in India. But according to my dad, it was the other way around. When he took sick, dad that is, the Rajah kind of took over looking after me." 

"All right, Kid," interrupted the older man. "Perhaps it's time we got back to the others -- we've learned all we can here." He glanced at Blacklight. "No offense." 

Blacklight nodded. "Hey, I was suspicious of you guys myself...at first. Maybe when this is over, we'll all feel comfortable enough to trade alter egos." 

As they started to leave, Kid Gloves said, "Uh, so what did we learn?" 

"Whatever the Puppet was after, it was a what, not a who," explained the Rajah. "The clerk and the others were pre-programmed to attack only over queries about cargo. Also, clearly, the Puppet did not get whatever it was. Why leave a lobby full of people programmed to kill anyone investigating if it was already too late to stop him? But I'm afraid there's another problem. Clearly the disks can turn on and off. I don't think the clerk was possessed until I asked about cargo." 

"You mean someone could be like a mental time bomb -- possessed and not even aware of it? Gosh." Kid Gloves scowled, then shook his head. "Well, we can't worry about that now." Recapitulating, he said, "What we know, then, is that something came in on the 6 pm from Montreal that the Puppet either tried to get or, more likely, never intended to steal until it reached its final destination." 

"Whatever it is, is it worth all this?" Blacklight asked darkly, glancing behind them. 

The programmed people were still lying about, or slowly getting to their feet, reverting once more to innocuous sentries until the little disks on the back of their necks kicked into action again. Disks that could not be removed safely without the technology only the Puppet possessed. "Scratch that. Nothing's worth all this suffering and misery. I've never met the Puppet, but I'm really looking forward to it in the worst way." 

* * *

Artie Trent, the Man-Fly, staggered toward the open window, rain splashing in with every savage gust of wind. He clutched his bloody left arm. "Silhouette!" he called. In a crack of lightning, he saw that she was not sprawled on the street below. But then, where? 

"You're arm must be tended to." 

He whirled toward the robot woman, Roberta. She was made entirely of steel and could flip a car over without effort...and she was in thrall to the Puppet. 

He had not expected the neuro-hijacker disk to work on her, but clearly he did not fully understand how she, or it, worked. Because at a word from their recent intruder, the Raven, she had freed the possessed Mr. Amazing, and both men had escaped into the night. And now he was left to face her, alone and with a bad arm. His legs shifted into a ready stance as his sharp eyes darted about for a weapon, any weapon. 

"I will not harm you, Man-Fly. You don't think --?" She stopped, realization dawning on her silver features. She reached behind her head and easily plucked off the neuro-hijacker disk. "This has no sway over me." 

He stared, unsure what to believe, then he slumped back into a chair, grimacing. "Then why the hell did you release Mr. Amazing?" 

She glanced over at the dead body of Bartholomew Mortimer, two bullet holes scarring his business suit. 

"It was clear our assailant had orders to kill Mr. Amazing if he could not secure his release. The more protracted the fight became, the greater the likelihood it would end with Mr. Amazing meeting the same tragic fate as Mr. Mortimer. The only solution was to play along." 

Artie opened his mouth, then shut it. He did not like it, but he had to admit that she may have done the only thing possible that would preserve Mr. Amazing's life. He winced as she knotted a cloth above his wound. "Wait a minute -- where's the Silhouette?" 

"That I do not know." 

Dropping to his knees, he starting ferreting around the dampened carpet and broken glass, searching for a sign of the dark shadow that was the girl's silhouette form. He discerned no incongruous shadows. Besides, he was pretty sure she had to concentrate to maintain her unusual state. If she were unconscious, she should have reverted to a fully-dimensioned human being. So if she was not here, nor -- he allowed himself a little exhalation of relief -- was she lying dead on the street below, what did that leave? 

He was afraid he knew. 

* * *

The villainous Raven alighted outside the penthouse apartment of the criminal mastermind known as the Puppet. Mr. Amazing disengaged from the Raven's belt and stood beside him, fists on his hips. In his jodhpurs, silk shirt, and mask, he looked every inch the proud champion he was, despite the rain and wind raging about him, whipping his scarf back and forth. The image was tarnished somewhat by the knowledge that Mr. Amazing was no longer a champion of justice, a "Spirit of Decency", so long as he bore a disk the size of a silver dollar at the nape of his neck. 

He was as much an agent of the Puppet as the Raven, save the Raven's loyalty was secured by cold, hard cash. 

Neither man noticed the black shadow that rolled off the Raven's back and slithered off across the puddle-strewn terrace. As the two men entered the penthouse, the mysterious shadow began to tremble, then swell, and moments later, a woman in what looked like a pink bathing suit and boots stood huddled in the rain. Her raven-black hair was plastered about her lovely features, and her mask dragged slightly from the rain soaking it. The Silhouette slinked closer to the glass doors, left slightly ajar by the two men. 

Inside, the Raven and Mr. Amazing stood before a diminutive fellow in top hat and tails, his face garishly made up to resemble a ventriloquist's dummy. A big, barrel-chested fellow handed towels to the two rain-soaked costumed figures. 

The Raven said, "I got Mr. Amazing, but that other fellow won't be talking." He smiled cruelly. 

"Very well," said the little man, the Puppet. His tone evinced no emotion, neither glee at the news of Bartholomew Mortimer's murder, nor regret. "You two are just in time -- we were preparing to depart for the Royal Ontario Museum...and the ultimate culmination of my plan." 

Outside, the Silhouette lost her footing in the slippery wetness. She fell forward, almost crashing through the glass doors, but managed to twist herself at the last minute, hitting the hard concrete with a startled, "Ofph." 

"What was that?" demanded the Puppet, glaring at the glass doors. The interior light reflected from the panes, making the glass effectively opaque. "Mr. Amazing..." 

The erstwhile "Spirit of Decency" nodded and went to the doors. 

The Silhouette struggled to her feet, but a tremendous gust of rain and wind, combined with the wetness under foot, sent her down again on her bottom. She gasped, eyes wide like a startled animal, as Mr. Amazing cracked open the doors wider and stared out into the darkness. She sprawled there, staring at him, and his eyes instantly locked on hers. He studied her for a moment, his mouth opening and closing like a fish's, as though attempting to speak. His brow furrowed. 

The Silhouette rolled from the pool of light cast from the penthouse, leaving Mr. Amazing to stare at the place where she had been. 

"Well?" called the Puppet. 

"I-I-" Mr. Amazing shook his head. "Nothing. There is no one here." Slowly, he pulled his head back in and closed the doors. 

The Silhouette, nestled miserably in a puddle, stared dumbly at the closed doors. Mr. Amazing was clearly fighting the control, barely. His insistence that no one was there, but speaking in the present tense, demonstrated how little he could resist. He obviously was incapable of lying to the Puppet, but for just a moment, he could respond selectively. Whether she could count on that again, or whether Mr. Amazing -- the real Mr. Amazing buried inside that caricature that answered to the Puppet -- had offered his last resistance, she didn't know. 

Getting to her feet, she threw herself at the doors and a black silhouette slipped under the sill. 

The Man-Fly had been right -- the Puppet was after something at the museum. Something that could give him control, not just over a few electronically manipulated subjects here and there, but over the entire city. She'd have to call the others once the Puppet and his team arrived at the museum -- and hope they were still in time to save everyone... 

* * *

Artie Trent looked at the soaked carpet and the shattered glass of the window. Dennis Welbeck was not going to be pleased when he woke up, he thought wryly. Out loud he said, "Dennis, 'old son', you could sleep through the twister that picked up Dorothy." 

"The Dreamstalker appears to be having a nightmare," offered Roberta. 

"What?" He turned, realizing that beneath the roaring of the wind and the rain, like a melody underscoring a tune, were the sounds of someone groaning. 

Dennis Welbeck was still upon the couch, forgotten in all the chaos and violence of a moment before, writhing, his face twisted in horror. 

"Damn!" Artie hissed, lurching to his feet. Dennis had left instructions that he was to be awoken if he evinced signs of agitation. And this most certainly qualified. "Dennis." He grabbed the prone man by the shoulders, ignoring the agony flaring up in his left arm. He shook him violently. "Dennis! Wake Up!!!" 

The Dreamstalker continued to moan and twist, but did not wake. Again and again in Artie's mind echoed the admonition that, if Dennis died in his dreams, he would die for real... 


Act Six: 

The Dream of Death

On the dreamplane, the adventurer known as the Dreamstalker staggered to his feet at the base of what he had taken to be a dune, erupting out of the blistering, sand-strewn scape. 

He saw now that it was no dune. Displaced sand hissed as it tumbled off the hard, flat planes that angled upward, ever upward, till they met in a brutal point that seemed nearly to pierce the sky, jabbing the heart of the sun and sending blinding light stabbing away like the fingers of God. He stood at the base of a pyramid. 

The wild, inhuman howling raked the air again. 

Suddenly, the face of the pyramid directly before him melted away and a great, yawning aperture stood there, disgorging blackness into the blinding daylight. Something moved in the shadows of the pyramid's tunnel. 

The Dreamstalker stumbled back. Never had he been in a dream of such violence, such force. Never had he been in a dream that so clearly threatened him. The dreamer was aware of him, which had rarely happened before. It was aware of his intrusion into the dreamplane, and it meant to punish his invasion. And it meant to enjoy itself. 

The howling came again, and it came from inside the black tunnel. 

The sand shifted and lurched evilly beneath his feet as he turned and ran, the ground itself trying to hold him back, to prevent his flight. Strange shapes burst from the ground, forming into crude hands of sandstone that grabbed at his feet. He cast a frantic glance over his shoulder. 

The shape/creature/thing in the tunnel was just emerging into the shimmering light. He stopped, gasping for breath, and shielded his eyes against the glare of the imagined sun. The sun was so bright, so overwhelming. Did that mean something? he wondered. Should he ascribe a significance? 

Lurching comically into the light was a grotesque marionette, fully twelve feet high, dancing a bizarre jig that seemed somehow obscene, even blasphemous. 

This was not a manifestation of the master of the dream, the Dreamstalker realized. The howling projecting from inside the tunnel was a ruse, used merely to distract him. Then where --? 

He whirled and leaped back as a great, ragged hand clawed at the air where he had been. 

A figure towered fully twenty feet above him, a gaunt, unholy vision wrapped in a crisscross of dirty bandages, black and mouldering on the edges. The wrappings had fallen away from the face in spots, and he could see the dessicated, dead skin, all dark and grey, the yellow teeth that sprouted in spots like tombstones in a graveyard mouth. And the eyes. The Eyes! Unholy caves, empty, but glowing like Hellfire. 

For a moment he took it to be another manifestation, like the marionette -- a toy of the dream master. Then, as the monstrous thing threw back its decayed head and let out a bone-chilling laugh, he knew the truth. 

This was the dream master. 

"Dennis!" 

He clawed at the sands, shifting beneath his fingers, like trying to grasp water itself. He tried to crawl away before it was too late. 

"Dennis!!" 

The ground shook as the giant strode forward, to claim him utterly. 

"Dennis!!! WAKE UP!!!" 

Dennis Welbeck lurched up on the couch in the refurbished meeting quarters of the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons. Sweat cascaded down his cheeks, mirroring the rain storming outside. Artie Trent, who when he wore a mask was the Man-Fly, was shaking him by the shoulders. Dennis clutched Artie's arms, unutterably relieved by the feel of a human touch. "Water," he croaked, eyes rolling wildly in his head. 

"What happened?" Artie demanded. 

Dennis hesitated, feeling an unpleasant warmth beneath one hand. He looked and realized one of Artie Trent's arms was soaked with blood. Artie's blood. "What happened here?" 

"It's bad," admitted Artie as Roberta, the robot, handed Dennis Welbeck, the Dreamstalker, a glass of water. 

"Thank you," he mumbled, sipping carefully. Then he said, "It's not bad, Artie...it's unbelievably worse." 

* * *

A black limousine raced through empty streets as water flooded over sidewalks and bubbled through grates up from over-taxed sewers. Overhead, the jet black sky would momentarily exploded with blinding light, as fissures of golden blood would snake across the heavens chased by thunderous claps of deafening fury. 

Inside the car was the driver -- a big man named Jerry -- while at his side was the diminutive Puppet, dressed garishly in a tux and a make-up job that approximated his namesake. In the back seat was the super-powered mercenary, the Raven, and beside him was the brainwashed former-hero, Mr. Amazing, now dedicated to the Puppet's villainy. 

"Gee, boss," muttered Jerry, squinting up at the celestial war raging overhead, "it's one heck of a night. I don't know if we should be drivin' on a night like this or nuthin'. Y'know, it's almost like...like nature herself don't want us to do what we're doin'." 

"As if we are about to violate some primal commandment, Jerry?" asked the Puppet, a smirk to his painted lips. "Indeed, perhaps we are. Perhaps we are about to throw away commandments altogether, in favour of new tablets -- mine!" 

"And what happens if some of those costumed adventurers figure out where we're going and try to stop us?" demanded the Raven. 

"Unlikely," said the Puppet. "They have hardly enough clues to piece it together. But if they do, what of it? That's why I have you, and our good friend Mr. Amazing. As well, I've got a trick or two up my sleeves that will keep the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons off my back for the duration of tonight's enterprise." 

And with that, he laughed, and his laughter echoed in the rain-thick night even as the limo raced away toward its meeting with destiny. 

While in the trunk of the automobile, the Silhouette shivered from the wet and shifted uncomfortably on a bed of metal poles. She waited for her moment to strike...knowing that she stood very little chance against the combined might of those in the car. 

* * *

"This is a heck of a night, sister," remarked the cabby, chewing on his smouldering cigarette as he peered in the rearview mirror at his passenger. "I'm only out in it 'cause I got a hungry bookie to feed. You sure you don't want me to take you to a local convent, or even a motel?" 

The young nun in the back seat, Sister Maria Bonnier, looked up, as though roused from her brooding by his words. She glanced out the window just in time to glimpse a tongue of lightning lash the belly of the black heavens. She flinched. 

"God 'imself is in turmoil dis dreadful night, monsieur. An' I fear dat I alone know de reason." 

A scowl marred her pretty face as she once more lapsed into silence. God had put such a heavy burden on her shoulders these past few months, and she feared that she was not up to the task, that she was not worthy. 

But then, who was worthy in these troubled times, when the pure could be revealed as tainted and, perhaps, the tainted have a streak of purity? 

She had known a young prostitute who had taken her -- Sister Maria shuddered -- her earnings, to invest in war bonds, while Father Michel, a man she greatly admired, a man of the people, a man of God, continually raged against the "Englishmen's war", saying that it was no business of the Quebecois what Hitler and the others did in Europe and the Pacific. Why should French Catholics die for English Protestants and for...dirty Jews? he demanded rhetorically. Even now, Sister Maria trembled, remembering with shame how she had said nothing, even nodded faintly, thinking that Father Michel must know of what he spoke. 

And then God touched her, blessed her or cursed her, she knew not which, and she realized the penance of her silence, of acquiescing to the evil of bigotry, was to take up the struggle against evil herself. 

"Cripes!" snarled the cabby as a garbage can was flung by the wind into the street. The cab swerved, water blooming up from the left tires, and narrowly avoided a collision. He slammed on his brakes and the vehicle skidded to a halt. He twisted around to glare at her. 

"Look, sister, I don't know if you realize it, but I sure hope someone somewhere is building himself an ark, 'cause pretty soon that's what we're gonna need out there. Now I can take you to a motel, but that's it -- no way am I going on in a night like this." 

The nun looked at him, then looked at the rain pelting the window like the tears of God. She nodded. "Merci," she said quietly. Then she flung open the door and ran out into the night. Behind her, the cabbie hollered for her to come back, that she was crazy. But Sister Maria knew that the museum was not far. 

Not very far at all. 

* * *

They had returned to the headquarters of the loose organization of adventurers known as the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons; Blacklight and the terrific twosome, Kid Gloves and the Rajah. Now was a time of pooling information...and making some terrible sense of it all. 

"Something definitely came in on the train from Montreal," said Blacklight, "there's a station full of controlled people there that won't be free until we introduce this Puppet character to a few thousand knuckle sandwiches delivered Blacklight-style. Otherwise, they could be like that forever..." His voice drifted off as he glanced over at the body of Bartholomew Mortimer, wrapped in an old blanket. He could no longer see the man beneath the fabric, but that made him no less dead. 

They all felt the same thing. One death was already one too many. 

"The Man-Fly concluded that the Puppet's ultimate goal is the Royal Ontario Museum," offered Roberta, the robot. "The documents he obtained from the insurance office most likely pertained to security measures for a new exhibit." 

"Slap me sideways and call me twisty!" exclaimed Kid Gloves, smacking himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. "Of course! Some Egyptian antiquities were touring the country before the war, and kind of got marooned here what with worries about U-boat attacks and all if they were shipped back across the ocean. They had been in Montreal, but it was decided to move them here to Toronto for safe keeping...I didn't know when, it wasn't well publicized. I should've remembered, 'cause I was given a special dispensation to examine them a few months back as part of my studies." 

Blacklight stared at him, suspiciously, "I thought you studied neurology under this Puppet fellow -- or was it psychology? No, wait, those gloves would make you an engineer or physicist. Now you're telling us you're an expert in archeology?" 

"Oh no, not an expert, per se," the Kid corrected innocently. 

"Yes, well," drawled Dennis Welbeck. "I should have made the connection myself ages ago." He grinned modestly and smoothed his mustache. "Being on the museum's Board and a major private financial contributor, I had been invited to a meeting early this evening about the arrival of just that very exhibit. It is dedicated to the reign of the Pharaoh Rath-Det, I believe." 

"Right. So that gets us about...nowhere," remarked Blacklight drily. "I mean, we know where the Puppet intends to strike, sure, but I for one still don't know the what. It can't be a simple monetary heist, not if the Puppet somehow figures to take over the city. So what's in a bunch of thousand year old relics --" 

"Three thousand," corrected Kid Gloves. 

"Whatever. What's this King Rath-Det got that the Puppet figures will give him so much power?" 

"There's a legend attached to that Pharaoh, correct?" prodded the Rajah, looking at the Kid. 

Kid Gloves nodded. "Yeah. He was said to control his subjects -- not rule, but literally control. He was such a monster that after his death his people rose up -- his name was erased from everything they could get their hands on. His temple was sacked; those still loyal to him were put to death. For centuries historians never realized he had even existed, that's how thoroughly he had been erased. That was until a few years ago, when a fragment of a rumour of an allusion was unearthed by Lord Carnarvan and Howard Carter when they were searching for Tutankhamen. Then, more recently, Rath-Det's actual tomb was unearthed. The sarcophagus itself hasn't even been opened -- there's no telling what's inside. It probably won't be opened until after the war, when it can be shipped back overseas to its rightful owner. There's too much danger of destroying what's inside by exposing it prematurely." 

"If Rath-Det did have some strange power of mass control, that would certainly be a temptation for the Puppet," muttered the Rajah. 

"I don't know," waffled Blacklight. "I mean, some three thousand year old doohickey? Sounds pretty preposterous, like something out of a pulp magazine." 

The Rajah smirked. "You can run fast as a thought, you have a girl who can turn into her own two-dimensional silhouette, and you speak of implausibility?" 

"I'm just saying, that's all." 

"I'm afraid my young friend is quite correct," interjected Dennis. "The Puppet is not after any object." 

"See, I told you." 

"He's after Rath-Det himself." 

They stared. The Kid said, "The Mummy?" 

Dennis nodded. "The Mummy." 

"As in Boris Karloff?" asked Blacklight. 

"As in, Rath-Det is not dead, not as we understand the term. I realize now it was he I encountered on the dream plane...and he is more evil and more powerful than any of you can possibly imagine. I don't believe the Puppet is aware of this. I think he might even be being psychically manipulated by Rath-Det, prodded subconsciously by the will of the undead Pharaoh -- you said yourself earlier that this was bigger than anything the Puppet would normally try. That would explain the image of a marionette dancing on a string I saw in my dream. 

"If the Puppet succeeds, we will not be dealing with a simple petty gangster empowered by an ancient magick, but rather the unleashing of an evil that has endured for three thousand years and once held sway over the entire Egyptian empire!" 


Act Seven: 

To Waken the Pharaoh

The Dreamstalker emerged from the side room outfitted in his voluminous magician's cape and psychic-enhancing, Roman-style helmet. They were as ready as they would ever be -- he, Roberta, Blacklight, and the duo known as Kid Gloves and the Rajah. Mr. Amazing was gone, still under the influence of the villainous Puppet, and they feared the Silhouette was with him, though they hoped incognito. 

The Dreamstalker had foolishly allowed himself to believe that the Puppet's plan was only gradually unfolding, perhaps to see fruition in a few days. But the speed of events so far, and the intensity of his recent dream, spurred him to action. He was convinced the Puppet intended to strike...tonight. 

He looked at his companions, and stopped. "Uh...where is the Man-Fly?" 

They looked around mutely, slowly perceiving the Man-Fly's absence. At last, Roberta said, "I have not seen him since he woke you from your nightmare." 

The Dreamstalker closed his eyes. "Damn," he muttered. "He went to save the Silhouette." 

"Don't you mean he went to stop the Puppet?" asked the Blacklight. "I can't see him going out of his way for any of us." 

"Then you don't know him at all," snapped the Dreamstalker. "Beneath that enigmatic, hard-boiled persona, Artie Trent is one of the best. He wouldn't go after the Puppet alone, with his bad arm, knowing the Puppet had all the advantages, just for the sake of judicial celerity. Come on, we've got to hurry before they all get killed." 

As they started to leave, Blacklight asked, rhetorically, "Are we going to save them...or join them in death?" 

"Only the morning will give us that answer," remarked the Rajah. 

Suddenly, the lights went out. 

* * *

The Puppet stood beside his limo, ignoring the rain pelting him, striking the sidewalk with the sound of bullets. His garish make-up was running grotesquely. Overhead, the sky split open with the blazing glory of the sun, then vanished again, followed momentarily by a teeth rattling boom. 

"That was close, boss," remarked Jerry, shoulders hunched miserably. 

The Puppet ignored him and started to laugh, at first a chuckle, then hysterically. The super-powered mercenary, the Raven, joined him after a moment. The entranced Mr. Amazing looked from one to the other, but said nothing. 

Jerry scratched his head. "What's so funny?" 

The Raven pointed to the dark museum. "The storm's knocked out the power -- disrupting any alarms. Those damn plans you stole from the insurance company are pointless now." 

And Jerry, after a moment, chuckled too, seeing the irony. Then lightning flared once more across the sky, and he jumped back fearfully against the car. 

"Come on," said the Puppet. "Gather the equipment. Destiny awaits." He strode toward the museum. 

* * *

Blocks away, a nun, Sister Maria Bonnier, stumbled through the rain flooded streets, then ducked into an alley. She fumbled at her nun's habit, pulling off her clothes, then began to pull from her carrying bag other, decidedly less appropriate, garments. She slipped on form-hugging navy blue pants, then donned a hooded tunic that, when sashed at the waist, affected the appearance of a monk's robe. Her features concealed beneath the hood, the Canticle was once more ready to do battle in the name of God. 

She raced back onto the street. 

It had been while escorting a troupe of school children to a museum in Montreal that she had first perceived -- first sensed -- the evil emanating from the exhibit dedicated to the disgraced pharaoh, Rath-Det. 

God had touched her and bequeathed upon her certain abilities, including the talent for sensing evil. She saw herself, in a way, as a kind of modern Joan d'Arc -- an emissary of God. 

She had returned to the museum, only to recognize a dwarf among the patrons whom she was sure she had read about as being wanted in Toronto under the alias, the Puppet. It was not hard to foresee the end result of the intersection of two such malignancies. 

She had followed the exhibit to Toronto, where she fought a trio of costumed characters (see Act 5.~the ed.). She had taken them for agents of the evil seeking to resurrect the Satanic emissary, Rath-Det. After all, had they not arrived at the station, same as she? No doubt tracking the Egyptian antiquities that included the Pharaoh's sarcophagus, the same as she? Had she not emerged from changing in the washroom to see them attacking a room full of innocents? 

Some of what they said did not make sense, however, and she was forced to realize she had misjudged the situation. 

Which troubled her, that she should misperceive the situation so. After all, if she likened herself to Joan d'Arc...well, there were those that said Joan was no prophet, but simply mad, were there not? She shuddered. Such thoughts were for another day. 

Now she was intent on pursuing her crusade to its ultimate end...the Royal Ontario Museum. 

* * *

Mr. Amazing glided through the dark pools flooding the lobby of the museum, sliding up behind one of the big marble pillars. He heard the swish of fabric, the clop of a footstep. He leaped from concealment and his feet went out from under him, the rain dripping from his clothes having puddled at his boots. He hit the marble floor hard, and skidded another few feet, almost cracking his skull on the staircase. He shook himself groggily. 

He did not understand. Usually his luck was almost eerily good -- he was not prone to such clumsy gaffs. The scarf he wore about his neck was supposed to imbue him with good luck, so long as he dedicated himself to decency. 

He frowned. Was that the key? Was there something indecent about his current work? Was he somehow wrong to throw in his lot with the Puppet? He winced, a pain clamping about his brow, and a burning flaring up at the nape of his neck. He clasped his hands to his head. There was something, an answer, lurking at the fringes of his mind, if only, only... 

"Are you okay, my son?" asked a plump, middle-aged cleaning woman, leaning over him. "Y'give me quite a fright, t'at's fer sure." 

He squinted at her. That was the sound he had heard -- not a guard, but a harmless old woman. He struggled to his feet, staring at her wide-eyed. If only she could tell him what he needed to know. 

"You really shouldn't be here, b'y," she said conspiratorially in her heavy Newfoundland accent. "Comin' in here, so late at night. I might 'ave t'ought you were a t'ief or somethin'. A bad man." 

"A...thief?" he repeated. "A...bad man?" He touched his scarf, confused. Suddenly he saw a black and yellow shape flash across the lobby, coming towards them soundlessly, like a ghost. Instinctively, he delivered a karate chop to the side of the old woman's neck. She seemed to flinch a fraction of a second before the blow, so that he thought his hand only glanced off her. But she crumpled at his feet nonetheless. 

"Nuts," quoth the Raven. "I was going to gut her." 

"She's harmless," said Mr. Amazing. "No need for lethal force." 

"No need...?" The Raven stared at him, darkly. He made as though to speak, but then the Puppet brushed by him, Jerry clumsily lugging heavy lights right on his heels. 

"Let's not dawdle, gentlemen. I'm sure there are more formidable adversaries awaiting us upon whom you can expend your vaunted prowess." 

Casting one last suspicious look at Mr. Amazing, the Raven followed his diminutive employer. After a moment, still shaking his head, Mr. Amazing took up the rear. 

For a moment, there was only silence in the lobby. Then a shadow upon the floor swelled into the shapely form of a young woman in a pink bathing suit, mask and boots. She hurried to the old woman and shook her. "Are you O.K.? Ma'am?" 

The cleaning woman's eyes snapped open. "Now you're a right pretty sight fer sore eyes, girl." 

"What?" The Silhouette sat back on her heels. 

The cleaning woman rose, but suddenly the accent was gone, as was the feminine tone. Instead her voice took on a deep, decidedly masculine air. 

"Mr. Amazing must be slipping, or else he is fighting the disk. I was sure he would realize I pulled back enough to take the sting out of his blow." The cleaning woman clawed at her face, and the skin came away in ragged strips. 

The Silhouette was momentarily startled, then instantly realized what was happening as the mask was pulled away. 

"Man-Fly!" she gasped. 

From the vestiges of the "cleaning woman" face, Artie Trent stared at her. "That was a damn foolish stunt you pulled, going after them alo --" He winced, teeth clamping together as he grabbed at his left arm. 

"Let me see," she said, brow crinkled in concern. She tore at the padded costume, exposing a badly lacerated arm, still enflammed from his earlier encounter with the Raven. "Now who's foolish? You never should have come. You're in agony." 

"Pain's an old friend. Now come on, let's get out of here. I'm sure the others are on their way -- even they must have pieced it together by now." 

"The Man-Fly waiting for reinforcements? I don't believe it." 

"As you noted, I'm in no condition to take on the Puppet." 

"But I am. And I think you're right, I think Mr. Amazing's fighting it. He did earlier, when he saw me. That might make it two against three." 

"Might, sister, only might! And a pretty iffy might at that. Don't be ridiculous, I didn't come all the way here..." 

"Why did you come, if not to tackle the Puppet?" She grinned at him when he didn't answer. "You chivalrous scoundrel, you." She leaned forward and kissed his lips, startling him. Then, after a moment, she kissed him again, a bit longer. Then she jumped up. "Wish me luck." And she raced off into the darkness. 

"Silhouette!" he hissed. But there was no answer. 

* * *

Hurrying steathily through the corridors, the Silhouette came upon a museum guard stretched on the floor, but a quick check revealed he was only unconscious. Presumably Mr. Amazing again, she realized. On a certain level, if only subconsciously, he was fighting the mind-control, and preventing the Raven from dealing with the guards in a more lethal manner. 

She moved carefully through the darkness, split only occasionally by a flash of lightning snapping through a window. Suddenly, light washed out from somewhere ahead of her. At first she thought it was lightning, but it lingered too long. Then she thought the power had come back on. Looking behind her, though, she saw the rest of the place was still awash in impenetrable darkness. 

Then she remembered the cramped quarters of the limo's trunk, and the metal ridges she was forced to share her hiding place with. The Puppet had brought his own lighting. 

Staying close to the wall, she headed for the light. At last she stopped, and peered into the room beyond. 

It was a large chamber, lit by a spotlight-like apparatus on a high pole. A movie light, she figured -- the kind used in motion pictures. The light was hooked up to a portable generator Jerry, the Puppet's henchman, must have brought with them. There were other lights being set up around the room, six all told, but only the one was so far activated. The Puppet, Mr. Amazing and the Raven were standing about a golden sarcophagus as Jerry struggled to set up the lights. 

"At last," muttered the Puppet. "At last, the secret of the ancients will be mine." 

The Raven looked at the millennia old coffin. "Be hard to fence," he remarked dubiously. "I suppose you could melt it down..." 

"Fool! We are after something far more precious than gold, we are after the secret of global domination. We are after my master, Rath-Det...!" The Puppet stopped, appearing momentarily confused, his rain smeared make-up making him look positively grotesque. He took off his top hat and fumbled with the brim. "I mean...I mean...we're after the secrets of Rath-Det. Yes. We will, will free the secrets, and Rath-Det will rule...I mean," he stopped again, shaking his head, "I will rule. Me." 

The Silhouette frowned. This was getting kind of...weird. And even though they were in the middle of downtown Toronto, a sprawling modern metropolis, she felt a shiver run up her spine, as though she were watching a Universal horror picture. 

"Y'all right, boss?" asked Jerry, tightening a bolt on a light stand. 

"Yes, yes I'm fine." The Puppet, however, did not look fine. He looked slightly disoriented. 

"How did you find out about this secret?" asked Mr. Amazing, looking rather worse for wear himself, a hand to his head. 

"I, uh, I read about Rath-Det and the legend of his mind control...in National Geographic. I went to Montreal to see him, I mean to see it -- professional curiosity. And then I realized it was more than just a legend. It was all true, and I could unlock the secrets..." 

"How?" Mr. Amazing grimaced. "How did you...realize?" 

The Puppet looked around, like a drunk slowly waking up in a strange bar. He licked his lips. "Um, I, I just, I suppose I just did. I'm a genius, after all. Hurry, Jerry. The lights." He said this last as though desperate to change the topic. 

"Right-ee-oh, boss," chirped Jerry. 

The Raven scowled. "We did all this for some screwy Egyptian...whatever? And what's with all the lights? What're they for?" 

"Silence, cretin! The moment of release is at hand!" roared the Puppet, no longer quite sounding like the Puppet. 

"Hey, are youse a cretin?" asked Jerry, plugging in the last of the lights. "Maybe we're related. Boss says I'm a cretin, too." 

The Silhouette started to move forward. She was scared to death of the Raven and his deadly talons, but it was clear things were coming to a head. And there was no sign of reinforcements. 

* * *

Outside the Royal Ontario Museum, Kid Gloves' sonic car screeched to a halt, momentarily followed by the boom of its engines. Blacklight was already waiting as Kid Gloves, the Dreamstalker, Roberta, and the Rajah spilled out into the black, storm ravaged night. 

"There are lights inside -- but the power's out everywhere else," said Blacklight. 

"Must be the lights he stole from the National Film Board in Montreal," said the Kid. "Why he couldn't use flashlights like every other B and E man, I'll never know." 

"Perhaps we need to know," remarked the Dreamstalker, his cape flapping angrily about him. "If we're to survive this, we need to decipher every aspect of this bizarre episode." 

"Perhaps we should figure out who they are," said Roberta. 

"Huh?" 

They all turned to see figures, inexplicably, emerging from the night. Where moments ago there had been no one, where no one should have been on such a Godforsaken night, there were now dozens striding toward them. 

"I recognize one or two," said the Rajah, his voice grim. "From the train station." 

"The Puppet's final defence," said Kid Gloves. "An army of possessed people -- he knows we'll be reluctant to use our full powers against innocents." 

"But they'll have no such compunction, I fear," remarked the Dreamstalker. 

Roberta looked around desperately. "They're already blocking us from the museum..." 

* * *

"Jerry, the lights!" shouted the Puppet, his eyes blazing with a mad glee. 

Jerry threw a switch, and the room was flooded with brilliant illumination. 

Suddenly, the Raven glanced over his shoulder and snarled, "That skirt from before -- the Silhouette!" 

He made to launch himself at her, but Mr. Amazing suddenly threw himself at the man, screaming in unbelievable torment. His unexpected attack threw the Raven off balance, sending him crashing into one wall. 

Tears of agony streaming down his cheeks, face a mask of pain, Mr. Amazing truly lived up to his name. Hands trembling, he reached haltingly back and wrenched off the mind-controlling disk at the back of his neck. Then, with a gasp, he collapsed. 

The Silhouette started to race to him, when she was stopped by the mad laughter of the Puppet. His confusion of a moment ago was gone, but the light in his eyes seemed not entirely his own anymore. "You're too late, heroes! My master returns!" 

And the Silhouette let out a choked cry. 

The lid of the sarcophagus had begun to move... 


Act Eight: 

War in the Street

The chamber in the museum was a collection of bizarre contradictions. 

There was the to-be-expected contrast of the ancient Egyptian antiquities -- some still in packing crates -- in a room architecturally clearly of the modern world, a No Food or Beverages sign at the entrance. But there were other anachronistic elements. Towering on spindly metal poles, blazing, heavy wattage lamps flooded the room with enough light to twist the storm-darkened night into broiling midday. The lights were the kind used in the filming of motion pictures, yet nowhere was there a movie camera, or a director's chair. Another paradox. 

A big, beefy man stood by one lamp, dressed in a striped shirt and black trousers, out of place for ancient Egypt, but perfectly in keeping with 1940's Toronto fashions. Yet he was the only one. The other figures about were dressed in increasingly bizarre regalia, from the dwarf in the rather overly formal tuxedo, make-up that had been intended to give him the visage of a ventriloquist's dummy, now smeared across his face into a ghastly sight. The little man's eyes blazed with insane triumph, a touch of froth at his lips. There was the beautiful Silhouette in the pink bathing suit and mask. There was the big, muscular man known as the Raven, shaking himself as he rose from where he had crashed into a wall, garbed in black and yellow with a beaked mask and wings attached beneath his arms and vicious talons on his fingers. There was Mr. Amazing in his jodhpurs, loose shirt and mask. 

Mr. Amazing was on the ground, writhing, which just compounded the oddity of the scene. 

And last, but most definitely not least, was the centre display of the room, the ancient sarcophagus of the demonic Egyptian Pharaoh, Rath-Det. The lid of the sarcophagus was issuing grinding sounds as stone scraped against stone, as the heavy lid, which had not been disturbed in thousands of years, was slowly being pushed aside...from the inside. 

Yes, the room was a collection of paradoxes. 

The Silhouette let out a choked sob, while the brutal super-powered mercenary, the Raven, snarling from the unexpected attack of Mr. Amazing, reared up, ready to slash at anything with his deadly claws. He saw the sarcophagus. He saw the moving lid. 

The Raven, then, let out a shrill, blood curdling scream of horror. 

* * *

The Man-Fly, now dressed in his familiar trenchcoat and grotesque fly-head mask, heard the scream. He was still staggering down one of the museum's dark halls, clutching his left arm from where the Raven had slashed him earlier. 

Jumping to the logical, if erroneous assumption, he muttered, "Silhouette." Instantly, he started racing through the dark halls, seeking the source of the scream. 

* * *

The scream carried out into the night, where, despite the lashing rain and the occasional peels of raging thunder, it was heard. 

"Heads up, gang," shouted Blacklight. "It sounds like the show's already started." 

"Damn!" hissed the Dreamstalker. He, walker of the dream plane, master of the subconscious, was rapidly finding reality itself had taken on the aspect of a nightmare. He, Blacklight, Roberta the robot, and the duo of Kid Gloves and the Rajah, had arrived at the museum, where the attempt to resurrect the pharaoh, Rath-Det, was most certainly taking place. However, they had yet to make it through the front doors. Or even up the front steps. 

The villainous Puppet had arranged a "welcoming committee" for them. 

The Puppet's forte was mind-control, the Dreamstalker knew, and outside the museum was a mob of controlled subjects, each one an innocent victim, each one deserving of their help as much as any man or woman alive. And each one was an obstacle, keeping them from the museum where events were transpiring that could affect the whole city if the stories of Rath-Det's power were true. Perhaps even the world, in time. 

And there were more than enough world-conquering megalomaniacs in the world today as it was, he thought bitterly. 

The Puppet's controlled mob flooded around them, tearing at them, clawing them, trying to halt them, hurt them, even kill them. How did you fight that? he wondered. How did you fight with all your might against people who are not truly your enemies? 

"You are in the Puppet's sway no longer!" he roared, his intense gaze burning into the eyes of the woman in front of him, attempting to use his mentalism to override the Puppet's neuro-hijackers. "You -- uh!" He grunted as someone hit him in the side, and another got behind him, clawing at his cape, pulling it tight across his windpipe. "You...are...in..." he choked, "..his sway...no --" 

The woman hauled back and slugged him, sending him tumbling back into the man behind him, momentarily relieving the pressure on his throat. If only he could concentrate, he thought wildly as he swung out, relying on his fists now, not his mind. If he could focus on one subject at a time, perhaps he could help each and every one free themselves from their mental constraints. 

Someone slugged him in the stomach. 

Or perhaps his age was ending, he thought blurrily. Perhaps his Old World mentalism was no match for the Puppet's modern technology. 

Suddenly his chest started spasming, hoarse coughs raking fire across his lungs and sparks flashing before his eyes. Lungs scarred by mustard gas from the last "Great" war made the Dreamstalker a poor physical combatant. His black cloak and gleaming helmet disappeared beneath a hail of flailing limbs. 

Blacklight tried to slip through the mob, utilizing his super-speed, but there were too many, blocking his every move. Being gifted with tremendous speed was of little use if you couldn't start running to begin with. He punched out at the possessed mob, but even then refrained from using his ability to deliver a hundred blows in a millisecond. These people weren't the enemy! he told himself. The whole scene was like some twisted idea of Hell. Some of the attackers were fully possessed, and came on with bloodlust in their eyes, but others -- dear God, others -- were still in charge of their minds, if not their bodies. Their eyes pleaded, theirs voices chorused like damned souls: "Help me! Save Me!" Even as their limbs tried to tear Blacklight to pieces. 

Then he saw the Dreamstalker disappear beneath a torrent of limbs. 

"Dreamstalker!!!" he shouted. 

"The Puppet must be taxing his resources to the limits, Rajah," muttered the youthful hero, Kid Gloves. "His mind-control devices affect the conscious mind. But some of these people are still aware of themselves, just not in control of their bodies. He hasn't used that technology since he made the improvements. Not since the case of the Kapuskasing Werewolf." He grunted as a big man got him in a bear hug, powerful arms closing about his chest, straining his ribs till he thought he heard them creak. "Rajah!" he gasped. 

But the tall, dark-skinned man in crimson was surrounded and made no move to assist. 

On his own, Kid Gloves brought his knee up into his attacker's diaphragm, breaking the bear hug. "What do we do, Rajah?" asked the Kid, stumbling away. He looked around at the swirling mob, his veneer of analytical detachment unravelling as he contemplated the horror, the tragedy, around them. "Golly -- what do we do?" It was as much a plea as a question. 

For the silver woman, Roberta, the situation was almost the worst. Her metal skin was more resilient than her flesh and blood companions, though even it would buckle eventually, if subjected to continuous punishment. For the moment, though, she was in no great danger, but, like the others -- perhaps moreso -- she feared her greater strength would harm these controlled victims. Even so, she started to wade toward the museum steps, people wrapped about her legs, clutching at her arms, leaping onto her back. Dragging the flailing human anchors, she staggered toward the museum. 

But she had no idea what to do if she got in there. Nor what she would find. 

* * *

What she would find was almost literally beyond belief. 

The sarcophagus lid groaned like a living thing, the sound echoed and re-echoed in the chamber, then crunched as it hit the floor, breaking in two and sending pre-industrial motes of carved stone blooming into the air. 

The Silhouette crouched defensively over Mr. Amazing, still curled upon the floor. 

The Raven gawked, his eyes bulging from the eyeholes in his mask. 

The Puppet, grinning insanely, clearly no longer a master of his own mind, gestured wildly. "Behold my master...behold the master of the world! Behold Rath-Det!" 

Emerging from the hollow of the open sarcophagus, momentarily lost in a swirl of ancient dust like a ship breaching a bank of fog, a figure arose. 

The Silhouette felt her heart slam wildly against her ribs as a shape fully seven feet tall loomed. The dust dissipated, its curling tendrils fading, revealing a giant of a man swathed in dirty wrappings, arms outstretched as if to hug all of reality to his bandaged breast. 

She sucked in a frightened gasp as she viewed his face. 

The wrappings had fallen away, revealing hollow, dessicated skin, and ragged teeth jutting crookedly from a lipless mouth. His eyes were black pinpicks in white caking, nestled in hollow caverns. His laugh was something she would take to her grave. Perhaps literally, she realized. 

"I...live...again," he roared, his voice like tin cans being dragged over macadam. "I...Rath-Det!" 

She shuddered, but thought that 'live' might be an overstatement. Nonetheless, he was animated, and that was all that really mattered. 

"When...is the...dawn?" 

"Soon, my Lord," said the Puppet. "Soon the light of Ra will shine once more upon your noble brow." 

Out of the corner of her eye, the Silhouette saw Mr. Amazing slowly rise to his knees, only just recovering from the tremendous effort of will it had required to throw off the Puppet's control. She heard his sharp in-take of breath as he regarded the creature that called itself Rath-Det. Then Mr. Amazing, not quite sure of the circumstances after his recent ordeal, perhaps even unsure where he was, uttered the only words a man dubbed 'the Spirit of Decency' could -- words of compassion. 

He said to Rath-Det, "Are you O.K., fella? You don't look well." 

* * *

Kid Gloves choked on blood from a smashed lip as more of the Puppet's puppets tackled him, slamming him back against his own sonic car. His fists gleamed with gold, and he spared a glance at his gloves. He could start swinging, but it had gone beyond just laying out a few unrulies; they were tackling a mob. Yet if he used the full, electro-magnetically enhanced power of his gloves, he would hurt someone. Badly. But it was rapidly appearing that he had no choice. 

In the war that was raging in Europe, these decisions were made all the time, he knew. Deciding who lived and who died, sacrificing a village here so that a town might be saved there. To stop the Puppet, must some of his victims be sacrificed? That was the logical thing to do, the calculated thing to do, maybe even the proper thing to do. 

But he had donned this costume to be a hero, he knew. And heroes only had one benchmark by which to judge their actions: was it the right thing to do? 

And the answer, as he looked into these wild, straining faces, some mouthing words, pleas for him to save them, was most definitely no. Either they all lived through this night, or none of them did. 

Unfortunately, it was looking like the latter option. 

"Rajah!" he wailed, fists pummeling him, crushing him to his knees. He glimpsed his bearded aide and mentor through the press of bodies, oddly stoic, as if resigned. They needed something akin to divine intervention, the Kid thought weakly. 

And then the boom of thunder exploded on the street, the concussive force sending one and all tumbling. It was a sound the Kid recognized. He looked up from where he sprawled on the rain flooded sidewalk at a woman in a modified monk's robe, her face hooded. 

Blacklight was on his feet first, facing the woman. He didn't quite know where she stood in all this. She had attacked them at the train station, but with an air of wrathful indignation that seemed incompatible with their assumption that she worked for the Puppet. Now she had unleashed her sonic boom, bowling over everyone, friend and foe alike, at a time when they were clearly at the disadvantage. She must have known it could do nothing but good for them. 

"I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot earlier," he said tentatively, his words almost drowned beneath the wind and the rain. If he was wrong... 

But then she nodded, curtly. "Oui," she said. "Dat is what I dink, as well." 

Satisfied, he looked around at the people scattered like debris upon the road. Seeing the Dreamstalker in a crumpled heap, he went to him, while Kid Gloves dragged himself to his feet. Roberta had been halfway to the entrance, but now she was hurrying back to them. 

The Kid, too weak to speak, tried to wave her back, encouraging her to press her advantage while she could and get inside. But she either did not understand him, or chose to ignore him. He cursed inwardly at her impetuousness. Already the Puppet's controlled army was rising -- she had had a momentary window, nothing more. 

But then he realized that even if she made it inside, even if they all did, the mob would be right behind them. 

"You are a scientist," Roberta said, coming to his side. "I know something about science." Whether she meant it as a joke, he could not say. After all, the robot girl was science. "Can we not disrupt the electronic signals that control these people?" 

Battered and groggy, Kid Gloves looked at her. Through puffy lips he said, "No. The signal's too close to the brain, at too low a frequency." Though he was intrigued by the fact that she, of all of the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons, would think of it. After all, who would be more conscious of electronic signals than she? 

But she shook her head. "Not the ones like Bartholomew Mortimer and Mr. Amazing -- the others. The ones still in control of their own thoughts, but not their bodies. Clearly they are being fed impulses from an outside source, or else how could they attack us?" 

He stared at her, mouth agape. "Holy Mahoney! Of course! The Puppet's original control disks required someone to constantly feed them instructions. Someone within line of sight." He turned and threw open the door of his sonic car. "I think I've got something here to jam transmissions, but someone needs to find that controller." 

Instantly, Roberta turned and leaped in one bound the distance to the Dreamstalker's side. She looked at Blacklight. "I will tend to the Dreamstalker," she said. "Find that controller -- fast." 

Blacklight looked at her, then at the mob slowly closing in again. "You want fast?" And then he was gone, a blur of black light. 

Blacklight did not know what exactly he was looking for, but clearly one of the figures in this controlled mob was not as controlled as he, or she, appeared. They'd have a device, something.  He whirled in and out of the advancing army, desperately scanning hands for devices, faces for signs of self-control. 

"Wh-what's happening?" stuttered the Dreamstalker, one eye swollen shut. 

"It is not good, I'm afraid," said Roberta. "The woman the others mentioned, the Canticle, has bought us a momentary respite, but they're closing in again. And that light from inside the museum just taunts us, like a beacon, perpetually out of reach." 

"Light?" repeated the Dreamstalker sluggishly. "Yes," he said, as if answering an unasked question, "yes, the light. Protect me," he said suddenly, command re-entering his voice. "Don't let anything break my concentration." He put one hand to his head, closing even his good eye. 

Roberta looked around helplessly at the people shuffling closer, ever closer. 

Preserving the Dreamstalker's concentration seemed like a very tall order indeed. 

* * *

Swallowing her fear, the Silhouette made to launch herself at the revived Rath-Det. She was not quite sure what she could accomplish against a seven foot tall living mummy, but she knew she had to try. 

But try was as far as it got. Her muscles locked, her brain felt cold. She wanted to scream as something crawled up her spine, as her arms, her fingers, felt like limbs no longer attached to her body -- or like experiences felt second hand. 

With mounting horror, she realized that her body was no longer her own. 

She trembled, but nothing more. She was frozen, like a doll, awaiting her owner's pleasure. Nor did she even wondered from whence came this power, this personality overriding hers. She knew she was staring directly at him. She was in Rath-Det's power -- the legends were true. 

She could just barely control her eyes and, straining, she managed to look around the room. The Raven was standing, rigid, as though at attention. Likewise, Jerry, the Puppet's flunky, stared blankly at the three thousand year old pharaoh. 

The Puppet continued to laugh wildly, the heavy duty lights gleaming off his sweaty cheeks. He turned to Rath-Det, and bowed, waving his top hat before him with a flourish. 

"My Lord, Rath-Det, welcome to Toronto -- welcome to the first stepping stone on the road to global conquest!" 


Act Nine: 

To Crush the Pharaoh

Mr. Amazing stared up at the repulsive, dessicated figure that he gleaned was some sort of Egyptian mummy come to life. It seemed absurd, but his foggy memories began to coalesce into vaguely coherent patterns. He remembered hearing a rumour of a heist planned for the train station, and arriving just in time to thwart it. Things hadn't gone entirely well for him, because he remembered being knocked out. When he awoke, it was on a makeshift operating table, with the little man preening over him... Then, nothing much, save vague, shameful memories of allying himself with the nefarious Puppet. 

Still, he recognized that things were pretty bad at the moment. 

Lucky for him, the mummy seemed not to have noticed him, even though he had spoken out moments earlier. Apparently, being on the floor, he was either beneath the mummy's notice...or, more plausible, considering the flat, sunken state of the mummy's eyes, literally beneath his line of peripheral vision. Either way, he was not yet afflicted by the same paralysis that had struck the others. 

He smiled to himself and touched his luck scarf, the scarf that was supposed to bring him luck so long as he fought for what was good and decent. It seemed he was truly on the side of the angels once more. 

Now, if he could only figure out what to do with his luck. 

* * *

Artie 

The Man-Fly hugged the wall, craning his head to peer into the brightly lit room beyond, where the Silhouette and the others seemed to be at the mercy of, of... He was not quite sure he could trust his senses. He clenched his fingers around the barrel of his dart gun, and prepared to launch himself into the room. 

Artie Trent 

The Man-Fly stiffened and looked around, the eerie, multi-faceted eyes of his mask concealing his shock. "Dennis? Where are you?" 

I am not with you, Artie, save in mind. You were the only one I was sure would be in the museum, Artie. To make contact, I needed confidence, and I knew the Man-Fly would be in the heart of things. There is danger, Artie. Terrible danger-- 

"If your 'danger' is seven feet tall and wrapped in bandages, then I would say you're too late." 

There was a momentary silence, and the Man-Fly sensed that the shock of his revelation had momentarily caused the Dreamstalker's concentration to falter. Then: 

What's happening? Has he spoken? Said what he wants? His plans? 

"He only asked when the dawn would come." 

Ah, of course. Things are happening here. I can't be sure how long I can maintain our connection -- so heed me. The light, Artie. Douse the liiighht... 

This time, the voice in his head did not return. 

Slowly, the Man-Fly turned once more to the room, to the scene out of some tawdry horror flick, complete with stage lights. His injured left arm was completely numb thanks to a nerve pinch he gave it; it no longer hurt, but it was also useless. Hefting his dart gun, steadying his nerves, he leaped into the room, the words from a poem by Kipling echoing in his head. 

Cannon to the right of them 
Cannon to the left of them 
Into the mouth of Hell 
Rode the six hundred 

* * *

The mob of controlled people closed in, making it harder and harder for Blacklight to weave between them. In moments, he would be right back where they had started, too hemmed-in to run. And there was no sign of a controller -- the man who was manipulating many of these innocent people to act in this murderous way. He had looked everywhere, throughout the crowd. Not one of their attackers seemed to possess the necessary will, or equipment, to be controlling the others. 

Beneath his featureless black mask, the blood drained from his features. A very scary thought had just occurred to him. No one in the crowd seemed to be the controller. That only left... 

Kid Gloves sprawled across the front seat of his sonic car, wrenching wires free from beneath the souped-up dashboard, beneath the multitude of dials and gauges and levers. He glanced out into the rain-ravaged night, at the figures coming for him, like drowned corpses. He turned back to his wires, twisting the blue about the red, the green about the yellow. His fingers felt numb from fear, and the press of time. Could he accomplish it in time? he wondered. He glanced once more at the street, the figures almost upon him. 

Suddenly the bearded, crimson-garbed figure of the Rajah blocked the view. 

"Thank heaven, Rajah," he gasped, grinning. "Keep 'em off me for about three seconds and I'm done." 

"No, Kid, I'm afraid not." 

"Huh?" The Kid looked over, for the first time noticing the black box the Rajah carried attached to his sash. The Kid seemed to recall noticing it in the car on the way here, but not paying it much mind. The Rajah seemed to be keying something into it with one hand, while drawing the curved dagger from his sash with the other. 

The dagger was purely ceremonial -- a Sikh thing. The Kid's eyes flared wide as he realized the Rajah seemed about to put it to a decidedly non-ceremonial use. Instantly, Kid Gloves understood. 

"Aw, Rajah," he said, anguished and also utterly helpless, pinned between the seat and the dashboard. "Not you." 

The knife rose...then a smear of black light collided with the bigger man, sending him sprawling. 

"I knew it!" shouted Blacklight, standing over the fallen Rajah. "I knew it had to be one of us -- uh!" 

His feet went out from under him as the Rajah scissored his legs, catching Blacklight's between his own. Instantly the Rajah was up, the knife flashing again. Blacklight blurred to the side, the knife clinking against cement where his head had been. Then a deafening sonic boom sent the Rajah tumbling end over end, to sprawl unconscious some yards away. 

"Je ne comprends pas," said the Canticle, her sonic scream having done its work. "I dought 'e was one of you?" 

"He was," muttered Blacklight bitterly, rising to his knees. "He still is, if we can get the Puppet's disk off him. I... Hey, Kid! They're still coming!" He had thought taking out the controller would free a good hunk of the mob, but apparently the final commands were still being relayed. He looked around, but the black box had come free from the Rajah's belt in the confusion, and in the darkness, on the rain blackened macadam, he could not see it anywhere. "The damn thing would be waterproof," he muttered. 

He looked up, a pretty young woman standing over him with a golf club, ready to tee him off to the afterlife. 

"There!" 

Kid Gloves slammed a bright red button. A tiny directional speaker sprouting from the hood of the car started spinning madly, and instantly the girl stiffened, stepped back, and dropped her club. 

Others began to shake, shivering as if waking from a terrible dream. 

"You did it!" screamed Blacklight, laughing hysterically. "Hot dog! You did it, Kid." 

There were still possessed people, controlled by the more up-to-date self-motivating neuro-hijackers, people coming on with murder blazing like bloody fire in their eyes. But the odds were now lessened. The odds were, in fact, almost negligible. 

Kid Gloves ignored his outburst, already crouching by the unconscious form of the Rajah, the man who was like a second father to him. It must have been in Montreal, he realized bitterly, when they were captured by the Puppet -- it was then that one of the neuro-hijackers must have been attached. It must have had some sort of delayed action programming, he thought. He was positive the Rajah had been his normal self earlier. It must have kicked in as they started for the museum, as it looked like they might threaten the Puppet's plan. 

Looking up, his face a twisted grimace of fury, Kid Gloves said, "Let's wrap this up out here...then let's get that mind-controlling son-of-a-bitch!" 

Blacklight stared. It was the first time he had heard the Kid use language that didn't seem lifted from an Andy Hardy movie. 

* * *

The Man-Fly hurled himself into the room, dart gun drawn. 

Douse the light, Dennis had said. Easier said than done, he thought grimly. There were six heavy lamps around the room. Six. A big room. Not very good odds. 

Particularly as he had no idea why the lights were relevant. The Creature Feature messiah did not strike him as the kind to get scared of the dark. But he trusted Dennis Welbeck. More to the point, he knew Dennis' expertise ran far more to the arcane than did his. 

"What?" roared the mummy, startled by the intrusion. "What god are you?" 

The Man-Fly, weak from the wound in his left arm, flung up his right arm, aiming his pistol at one of the lights. 

"The lights!" he shouted, though he doubted the Silhouette could help. "Smash the lights!" 

Then he stiffened. Something closed about his mind like an oily rag -- closing, then drawing tight. He screamed instinctively, but it came out a snort between gritted teeth. 

"No," sneered the mummy. "Though you...wear the head of a beast...I can sense you are...but...a mortal man. And mortals are but toys to Rath-Det!" 

Outside, thunder and lightning raged overhead, echoing nature's distress. Blacklight tripped in mid-run as his muscles no longer responded to his command, and he went tumbling over the rainy street. The Canticle tried to cross herself, to ward away the foul presence she felt reaching out for her, for all of them, but to no avail. She wailed as she felt her body become but a minor appendage to the swelling aura of Rath-Det's consciousness... 

Inside the museum, Rath-Det cackled as his awesome mental power snaked out to the beings even beyond his sight. The Man-Fly glimpsed Mr. Amazing still on the ground, his face ashen from some recent ordeal, his eyes bloodshot, but seeming still in control of himself. The Silhouette had had faith that Mr. Amazing could free himself from the Puppet's domination. He hoped she was right. With the last vestiges of his self-control slipping away, the Man-Fly twitched and sent his dart gun flying, to hit the ground and skitter across the floor to halt at Mr. Amazing's knee. 

The Spirit of Decency did not hesitate, did not think. He swept up the dart gun, turned in a single, fluid motion, and fired into the mummy's thigh. The creature roared with shock more than pain and reared about to find the source of this minor irritation. Mr. Amazing was already rolling across the floor, firing wildly at one of the lights. 

One light exploded into darkness even as Mr. Amazing stiffened, his arms snapping back so that his shoulder blades almost touched. 

"You!" roared Rath-Det. "Petty insect, I shall --" Suddenly darkness slithered up Rath-Det, occluding his head in a sheaf of black. "No! The light! Where is the light?" 

The Man-Fly spasmed, finding his body was his again. He looked around, suddenly realizing the Silhouette was nowhere to be seen. Then he looked at the weird shadow draped like a cloth over Rath-Det's face. 

Obviously Mr. Amazing's unexpected attack had momentarily caused the mummy to relinquish his hold on the Silhouette, who acted on the Man-Fly's frantic yell in her own inimitable way. 

But this only bought them a second or two. And the generator powering all five remaining lights was on the far side of the sarcophagus. Mr. Amazing, still on his knees, obviously reached the same conclusion. Without a word, only a glance at the Man-Fly, he netted his hands into a stirrup. 

Rath-Det was already losing his air of panic, realizing the darkness was not a true indication of the light level in the room. In moments, his mental control would reassert itself, perhaps forever. 

Sucking in a deep breath, the Man-Fly ran, launched himself off Mr. Amazing's hands, and went sailing over the sarcophagus, almost brushing the mummy's knee. He hit the floor hard and awkward on the other side, dislocating a shoulder, but he fought back the pain, whirled on his back, and kicked out savagely at the generator. 

The lights flickered, then went dark. 

And Rath-Det screamed. 

* * *

Outside, the heroes suddenly found themselves their own again. Roberta raced toward the front steps of the Royal Ontario Museum, ignoring the remaining people still in the sway of the Puppet's neuro-hijackers. 

The doors burst open and a black and yellow figure stumbled out into the storm. 

"Out of my way, you dumb broad!" shrieked the Raven, his eyes wild with hysteria. "I ain't staying here a minute longer!" He barreled into her. 

For a moment, Roberta's photographic memory replayed the horrific scene of the Raven firing two bullets into the unconscious body of Bartholomew Mortimer. Though she had the body of a grown woman, she was still guileless in the ways of humanity, and its countless cruelties. The image of the cold blooded murder still appalled her. She clung to his arm, swinging him around. 

"Let go!" he screamed, his talons sparking harmlessly off her metal skin. "It's a nightmare in there, it's -- uh!" 

She slugged him harder than she would a normal man, but the Raven was no ordinary man. The blow lifted him off his feet, the reverse wind velocity wrenching a tear through one of his wings. He hit the pavement and skidded a few yards before coming to a semi-conscious halt with a clang! as he collided with a fire hydrant. 

"Well, welcome to dreamland," quiped Blacklight. 

* * *

The Silhouette crouched by the Man-Fly, peering at him in the almost complete darkness brought on by the extinguishing of the lights. "I need a bed," he muttered through gritted teeth. 

"You need a bloody hospital," she said, her brows knitted in concern. 

"The mummy?" 

"Dust," she said, glancing at the empty sarcophagus. "Literally. He just crumbled, though I couldn't tell you why." She glanced at Jerry, the Puppet's henchman, curled in a fetal position in one corner, shivering. She doubted he'd be bothering anyone, at least for the moment. Then she looked around, sharply. It was difficult to make out much in the darkness, but a flash of lightning bathed the room in momentary brilliance, and she cursed. "The Puppet's gone!" 

"Mr. Amazing?" 

"He's gone, too." 

"You don't suppose he's still...?" 

For the first time, she allowed herself a smile. "No. I don't think he's still." 

* * *

The Puppet cursed himself. He had foolishly run upstairs when he should have made for the front doors. But more of those do-gooders were probably outside, so perhaps it was best to find an alternative egress, he reasoned. 

He whirled around, slamming his shoulder blades against the hard railing. Something moved in the darkness. Lightning flashed suddenly through a window, momentarily etching out the figure of a tall man in jodhpurs and a white shirt. The Puppet inhaled sharply, staring about wildly. 

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that it was a long way down. 

"L-look," he stammered. "We can make a-a deal, friend. I mean, I'm sorry about controlling you, and everything. But, see, I wasn't exactly myself, was I? That demon was manipulating me, as well." 

Mr. Amazing said nothing, a grim set to his jaw. He had been violated, possessed, manipulated. He had turned on his friends and allies, and almost precipitated the end of civilization as he knew it. All thanks to the designs of this evil man. The Puppet could protest all he wanted about being controlled, about being not responsible, but obviously Rath-Det's powers were severely limited while still encased in his tomb, or else he would have been freed long ago. Obviously, he needed a peculiarly sympathetic consciousness. 

Mr. Amazing stepped forward. 

The Puppet squirmed against the railing, squeezing shut his eyes. "Please don't hurt me!" 

Mr. Amazing stared at this man squirming before him, and he felt no pleasure, no satisfaction. Even after all that the Puppet had done, he had no desire to hurt the man in kind. And, slowly, Mr. Amazing smiled, relieved by that final realization, the release of the fear that had worried at him most. Whatever the Puppet had done, he had not taken the one thing Chet Morgan, the man known as Mr. Amazing, prized above all others: his own sense of decency. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said with finality. "Just come along quietly." 

Epilogue:

They sat around the secret headquarters of the Fellowship of the Midnight Sons under the guise of being the offices of the Trans-Dominion Shipping Company. It was a jovial gathering, even considering the physical state of many. The Man-Fly, out of costume, bore a sling about one arm and heavy bandaging about the other. Dennis Welbeck, the Dreamstalker, had the brow of his head neatly wrapped in bindings, and his face was still discoloured from bruises. Kid Gloves' lip was puffy, and a couple of band-aids covered over minor abrasions. 

Mr. Amazing rifled through the cupboards behind the bar. "Where's the Aspirin?" he asked. 

"Here." The Rajah, clutching his head with one hand as he sat on the couch, held up the little bottle, rattling it. 

"The headaches should diminish over a day or two, as your brains get used to functioning on their own again, and are relieved of the strain of waging a continuous subconscious battle against the neuro-hijackers," said Blacklight, speaking more as a medical student than as a speedster. 

"All in all," remarked Dennis conversationally. "I think we did rather well. The world is safe, at least on the homefront; the Puppet and the Raven are in jail; and Rath-Det is, well, dust." 

"Yeah," said Blacklight, "does someone want to explain that to me? Just what the Devil did we fight? What was he?" 

"Perhaps a man like us," said Dennis, after a moment of contemplation. "Literally. I mean, why should our generation be the first to produce people with strange abilities? Or perhaps he was something more, some other life form entirely. Either way, he clearly derived his abilities from photosynthesis. His need to be resurrected with those big lights, combined with the prominence of the sun in my dream (back in Act 6, remember? ~the ed.), suggested that much. The Puppet could only resurrect him at night, when he would be free of interference from the authorities, but night was clearly the one time Rath-Det would be powerless." 

He took a sip of brandy. "At the peak of his power, three thousand years ago, he may have been literally unkillable. So his enemies sealed him in a sarcophagus where he would be cut off from the sun. It didn't kill him, but it weakened him sufficiently that the only mind he could ever influence was one of similar devilishness. Unfortunately for us, he found such a mind when the Puppet visited his exhibit in Montreal. But three thousand years of isolation wreaked a terrible toll even on his unusual constitution. He was so weak when he was revived, and using so much power so fast to control us, that the energy derived from the light was all that was keeping him alive. Take that away and, well, poof." 

"And the Canticle?" asked Kid Gloves. 

Blacklight shrugged. "I don't suppose we've seen the last of her. She was gone when the commotion had settled down, though, leaving only a whiff of incense. Like the man said: poof." 


THE END...for now...