"The Shade of Achilles"
"The Shade of Achilles"
3/1-3/3/1996
I.
Crouching on the roof of the two-story building across the street, Jeremy Bane watched the robbery with great interest. It was a bitter windy night at the beginning of March, but this street near Washington Square would be deserted anyway at three o'clock in the morning. None of the shops and boutiques stayed open past nine and there were no bars or nightclubs for a few blocks. Only a single car had rolled past in the past ten minutes.
Despite the chilly wind, Bane wore only his usual outfit of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. He did not seem to even notice the cold. Fifteen years of both Kumundu training and the tagra diet exclusive to Tel Shai students had made his body able to adapt to all but the most extreme conditions. Accelerated healing was the main benefit of tagra, but there were other side-effects of the tea that were invaluable in themselves.
Getting down on one knee, the Dire Wolf studied the scene at the rear of Fenneman's Museum of Oriental Antiquities before him. He had looked it up that afternoon and found it was a private collection of Bronze Age relics open to view only for a donation or to approved scholars. It had been founded in 1879 by someone named Alan Fenneman but had long since passed into ownership outside the family. Bane had read the catalogue and noticed all the golden goblets, cauldrons, belt buckles and brooches, vases and urns, as well as dozens of bronze swords and shields. Good enough loot to make it worthwhile, he supposed.
Bane's informant had not been able to provide many details. One of the lower-level thugs had downed a few beers and bragged a little about a new crime boss who was going to have the cops terrified. He had dropped a hint or two about this particular street and how everyone would be talking about it the next morning, then had belatedly gotten some prudence and changed the subject. The tidbit got passed furtively to Bane, who had thanked his informer. Years earlier, Bane had rescued the man's parents from a house that a maniac named Mr Gallows had torched. Ever since, the man had been glad to pass along any underworld tips he thought the Dire Wolf would be interested in.
The solid-looking wooden door at the back of the museum had letters that read simply NO ADMITTANCE and a light burning under a curved steel shield. Next to the door was a green metal dumpster filled with crushed cardboard boxes and wrappers, beyond that was the rear of a natural food store. The alley was wide enough to admit delivery trucks full of presumably natural food, and now a black unmarked panel truck pulled into that alley.
Across the alley, Bane immediately raced to the far edge of the roof, swung around to hang by his fingers on the cornice and then simply dropped down to the paving. He landed lightly on fingertips and toes. Tiny bone fractures or sprains or jolts to the spinal column healed so quickly he was barely aware of them. The Dire Wolf was not indestructible, of course. Damage severe enough would kill him as it had most Tel Shai knights before him through the ages. For relatively minor injuries, though, instant recovery enabled him to pull off many of his seemingly reckless stunts. He leaped up and headed for the robbery.
Of the four men who had emerged from the panel truck, he immediately recognized three. The short man in the white suit with the white fedora was Fancy Jim, the alarms expert. He had put down a leather tool box and was pulling on latex gloves. Fancy Jim specialized in disarming alarm systems for robbery, using a techhnique he had invented that somehow used a freon spray that froze wires so they would not trigger an alarm when broken. Looming up over Fancy Jim, watching the smaller man protectively was his long time partner, Tiny Jim. Named with the ironic slang that calls fat men 'Slim', Tiny Jim was six inches over six feet tall and wide enough to fill most doorways. His flat, brutal face under a crewcut that left him almost shaven, showed both low intelligence and the belligerence of someone who does not understand most conversations going on around him. Fancy Jim and Tiny Jim had been working together for years.
The third man was hitting middle-age, bundled up in a down-filled parka with a black wool hat. Bane knew that prominent beaky profile. This was Menlo Park, nicknamed for some reason after Edison's workplace. Park was a minor criminal who had been arrested a few times but never done prison time. He was known as someone who worked with most of the fences and pawnshop owners in the metropolitan area getting good deals on stolen merchandise. He also knew several private collectors of art who were not above paying to gloat over stolen paintings they could not display publicly.
In the second it took him to run across the alley toward the panel truck, Bane had recognized the three known crooks and almost dismissed them as threats. Normally, he was not concerned with lower level operators like these three. His prey was serial killers and maniacs like Samhain, Golgora or Ethan Petrov. It was the fourth man, standing apart from the known crooks, who triggered all of the Dire Wolf's sense of menace. Park and Fancy Jim were known to carry small caliber sidearms and Bane knew the flexible Trom armor under his clothes would protect him from those.
All he could see of the fourth man from the rear was a tall figure just over six feet, wrapped in a bright red silk cloak that reached the ground. The back of the head showed tight golden curls. Just the way the blond man stood off to one side, watching the three thugs work, showed he was in charge. Bane earmarked him as probably the really dangerous foe here. In an instant, the Dire Wolf hopped up on the sidewalk and approached the men just as Fancy Jim unclicked the lock on the rear door with a satisfied grunt.
"We need to talk," Bane said, getting within arm's reach of the robbers without having been seen. Three of them gave a start and swung around in surprise and fear. "Bane!" yelped Menlo Park as he backstepped quickly. "Oh, no. I'm not tangling with this guy."
Tiny Jim snorted. "He don't scare me none." The hulking form drew back his fist back behind one mashed ear and lunged forward. His sheer size and bestial face were usually enough to panic storekeepers or witnesses into flight but Bane stood where he was. Tiny Jim swung his huge fist in a simple roundhouse right. Bane used his own right hand to swing that blow further inward across Tiny Jim's body, while whipping his own left fist up along that thick arm to smash into the center of the brute's face with a sharp smacking noise. Tiny Jim swayed, his defenses dropping. Bane snapped his left leg up in a high side kick that slammed the side of his boot up under the big man's jaw. Tiny Jim fell over backwards with a moaning sound. In less than a full second, the Dire Wolf had felled one of the intimidating goons in the New York badlands.
"Hey, boss!" Menlo Park cried out, "Give us a hand."
The blond man unfastened the clasp of the red cloak and tossed it onto the roof of the panel truck next to him. He was a muscular man with sharp definition in his wiry build rather than bulk, with most of his upper body showing because he was wearing an open leather vest. The man had on heavy loose trousers and high leather boots. He was handsome almost to be point of being pretty in a still masculine way. Under the curly golden hair was a tanned face with a square jaw, straight nose and bright blue eyes. Under the dim light, he flashed a confident smile.
"Fear not," the leader said. "Any mortal is a fool who dares stand up to Achilles."
II.
That startled Bane a bit. His Kumundu training enabled him to make instant appraisals of any potential opponent. This man who called himself Achilles was very dangerous. His balance, his muscle tone, how he placed his feet as he moved, the way he watched Bane's arms and legs rather than his face... all these marked him as a skilled fighter. The Dire Wolf stepped over toward a more open area beyond the space between the truck and the rear wall of the building and waited watchfully. This could be an interesting fight, he thought.
Achilles came at him, shifting his weight from one foot to another, making a quick feint with one open hand before lunging in with his other. Bane was in a loose relaxed stance, hands lowered, ready to react in any direction. As the blond man plunged forward with one fist raised, Bane was already moving forward to block that blow... but it was another misdirection. Achilles jumped up and forward off the ground to drive his knee into Bane's chest. That impact did not do more than make the Dire Wolf stop his own attack, although it would have driven the air from an ordinary man. While still in the air after the knee strike, Achilles then brought his hard fist down against Bane's ear.
It was one of the rare instances where the Dire Wolf was surprised by an enemy's technique and he took that blow squarely. Even as Achilles touched down, he was driving an elbow right at Bane's throat that was blocked at the last split-second by an upper palm slapping it aside. Achilles was open for an instant and Bane blurred out a front snap kick to the face that cracked the steel-capped toe of his boot to Achilles' chin.
Both fighters drew back for a second, both having to digest that they were fighting someone on their own level. Achilles came in fast, hopping from side to side, swinging his right leg over behind Bane's left ankle and pulling it away, moving in behind his foe. Keeping his balance but unable to counterattack, the Dire Wolf caught a vicious rabbit punch to the back of the neck that would have killed a normal man. Bane fell to his hands and knees but was already moving back up when Achilles kicked him hard on the side of the head with a leather booted heel. That knocked him out.
Menlo Park cackled and drew a small flat Beretta .25 from inside his coat. "Good work, boss! Let me finish him."
"Oh, NOW you find courage?" yelled Achilles. "No. I forbid it. I think this man and I will clash again and I look forward to it. Go about your tasks. Plunder those rooms as we agreed. I want gold ornaments and the weapons I pointed out in the drawings Dandy Jim made of the interior."
As the three men hustled to run in and out of Fenneman's Museum carrying invaluable relics from the past, their blond leader went over to crouch over his downed opponent. Bane had rolled over onto his back and was already stirring. Achilles seized him by the hair and slammed the back of Bane's head down to the alley floor, again hard enough to mean death for most people. The Dire Wolf moaned and took a deep shuddering breath.
"Still alive," the gang leader said with great interest. "What manner of man are you? What protects you?" He rose to stand over the dazed man. "The gods will bring us face to face again."
Fancy Jim called over from the panel truck, "Almost done, boss! We found a locked drawer with five thousand in cash as well."
"Divide the paper money among yourselves," said Achilles. "A prince concerns himself with real treasure."
As the gang finished and started to seat themselves in the truck, a police cruiser pulled over with its lightbar flashing to block one end of the alley. A single uniformed officer got out from behind the wheel, reporting a robbery in progress into a car's microphone. He stepped around the car, one hand on his sidearm. "Freeze! This is the police."
"Hurry up and get in, boss," pleaded Fancy Jim from behind the wheel.
"Shall a hero flee mere city guards?" scoffed Achilles. He began walking slowly but steadily toward the officer.
"Hold it right there, not another step," the cop said. Getting a good look at the muscular man stalking toward him, he drew his revolver. "This is your last warning. Stay where you are and put your hands over your head. You are under arrest-"
Achilles charged. The cop fired three times and clearly saw the man's chest indent with the impacts for a second but the skin was not broken by the shells. Then the big blond man cuffed the officer on the side of the head and sent him crashing to the ground.
"Boss, please!" begged Fancy Jim. "We gotta get out of here."
Reluctantly, their leader joined his gang in the panel truck and they backed out of the open end of the alley to speed away into the dark streets. Even as the truck vanished, Jeremy Bane was getting back up and rubbing his aching head as he regained his senses.
III.
Two hours later, Bane was being questioned in the waiting room of Metropolitan General by three officers while the injured cop was under observation. The man had taken a hard hit to the head but had regained consciousness and was speaking coherently. He was being held under observation while a second set of X-Rays were studied by a radiologist for signs of bleeding inside the skull.
The cops in the waiting room were making Bane repeat his story for the eighth time, obviously searching for uncertainties or contradictions. The injured officer had already related what had happened. Bane's long established reputation as a PI, as well as the fact he had been seen lying unconscious as the blond man's feet, helped him to not be taken as a suspect for the moment.
The arrival of Inspector Harold Klein in his inevitable white raincoat and chewed up unlit cigar was a great relief for everyone. He listened to what the three cops had to report, said he would check with them in a few minutes and then escorted Bane to stand outside the hospital front doors where they were still within sight.
"You never let me down, buddy," rasped the short Inspector with a lifelong New York accent. "Anything weird, strange or supernatural in the Five Boroughs and I know I'll find the Dire Wolf right in the middle of it."
"It's what I do," Bane said. "You yourself seem to be assigned any crime with even a touch of the inexplicable in it. As if you're the automatic choice by the big brass."
Klein snorted his way of laughing. "Yeah, they go to me because they know I'll drag you in to clean it up. All unofficial and off the record and everything will be denied, blah blah blah."
Glancing back at the lobby to see the three cops watching them, Bane said, "I wouldn't have it any other way. So. I suppose a net has been thrown for Menlo Park, Tiny Jim and Fancy Jim?"
"You bet. Every blue on duty is looking for them. But about this guy who called himself 'Achilles.' You're telling me he beat you in a straight fight. I didn't think that was possible."
"Hate to admit it. But next time will be different."
"Hah. I'd pay money to see the rematch. Officer Mooney in there swears he saw his slugs hit the man's bare chest and not penetrate. What do you think?"
Bane considered for a second. "The logical explanation is that he was wearing a Kevlar vest with some flesh-colored material over it. Maybe to build up an image as Achilles. Personally, I don't know. I've seen so much in the Midnight War that not much seems completely impossible."
"Wait, wait," Klein said. "You don't think he's the real Achilles? From Homer and the Trojan War and all that?"
"Assuming there ever was a 'real' Achilles, even then I doubt it. He'd be three thousand years old. No, my bet is that he's someone with a wild talent that makes him resistant to harm and he's playing Achilles as a role. Maybe to cover his real name so he can retire after making enough profit."
"Yeah," Klein replied. "I can see that. Lots of these loner crooks and masterminds are known by some goofy name so they can maintain deniability in court. Sepulcher, Mr Gallows, Samhain, even good old Dos Manos. It doesn't work, of course. Lawyers always show that Joe Schmoe was identified so closely as the Big Galoot that there is no confusion. I think they just like the funny nicknames."
"Like Dire Wolf?" asked Bane.
"Hah, exactly." Klein spit the soggy cigar butt into the gutter by the walkway. "The difference is that with you, the name fits. You're a real Dire Wolf all right."
IV.
As he drove up East 38th Street and turned onto Lexington Avenue, Bane began to feel the light contact with Cindy's mind. Their telepathic liaison had been established for so long that it was as familiar and comfortable as a fireplace on a cold night. Most of the time, they were so used to it that neither was fully aware of the bond unless distance broke it. He swung into the one way alley next to the KDF building, went down the concrete ramp with its sharp turn at the top that had scraped a few fenders and pulled into their underground garage that was just big enough for the Mustang and their Subaru Outback. The Dire Wolf hung the keys on a hook by the door, trudged down the corridor past the vault and the armory and went up steep steps to emerge from a walk-in closet in the front hall.
Cindy Brunner was waiting at the base of the staircase. A year younger than Bane, only an inch over five feet tall and just over a hundred pounds, the small blonde was the most skilled telepath in the Midnight War at that time. Others might have had more forcefully dominating minds or greater range over distance, but for precise control and varied uses of her abilities, Cindy had no serious rivals.
As Bane came up to her, she said, "Uh-uh. Not a word, hon. I'm in charge for the next few minutes. Here." She held out a plate which had a sourdough bread grilled Swiss cheese and boiled ham, thicker than usual, slathered with mustard. Realizing he was ravenous and hadn't eaten since a snack at nine the night before, he gratefully took it and ripped into a mouthful a real wolf would envy.
Cindy handed him a sixteen ounce glass of iced tea and he accepted it with the other hand. "Now, up the stairs we go," she said. "Third floor." Without waiting, she started up the staircase and he followed while making short work of the hot sandwich. She marched him into his quarters. "Your fuzzy white bathrobe is hanging in the bathroom. Now is when you take a scalding hot shower and a little nap."
"Wait, Cin, let me tell you about this Achilles business-" he began as he dropped the empty place on his dresser.
"I know you're exhausted, even if you don't realize it. It's eleven-thirty in the morning. You've been up and running around since yesterday morning at five. When I read your mind, I get drowsy myself."
The Dire Wolf let her tug off his jacket, which she draped over a chair. "Yeah. You're usually right, Cin."
"What do you mean, USUALLY? Come on, hon, I don't wanna lose you because you burn out trying to save the world. Shower and bed, I mean it. I'll be downstairs. I'm almost finished with EMMA, that Jane Austen is the best." With that, the blonde swung around and left, closing the door behind her. Bane smiled and started stripping as he headed for the bathroom.
On the first floor, sitting behind the desk of the DIRE WOLF AGENCY office, Cindy finally reached the end of a book she had been trying to read for a year. She wished people still talked the way they did in those old novels, so precise and articulate. Our discourse has certainly gone downhill, she thought. The telepath put the book up on a shelf behind her that held a clock and a police band radio, then got up and stretched. She was wearing a beloved pair of beat-up white jeans that would not stay together much longer and a maroon sweatshirt that read SCARABS WORLD TOUR with a list of cities and dates on the back. Cindy was very attractive without make-up or fussing with her hair, but she was cute rather than gorgeous. Right now in March, her freckles had faded to nothing and her skin was pale while her golden hair was a darker shade than it would be once summer sun hit it. Exactly as she glanced at the clock behind her, her mind automatically picked up on Bane descending the stairs and getting nearer.
Four and a half hours sleep. She knew that,with his enhanced metabolism, that much was really all he needed but she worried he was not getting even that much lately. Born to run. In the open doorway, the Dire Wolf appeared in a fresh uniform and with a clarity in his eyes that had not been there when he had first come home. "Thanks, Cin. You take good care of me even when I resist it."
"There's nothing more important in my life," she said and came over to hug him. "Oooh, your stomach is rumbling. That's the problem with being so fast and active, you go through calories like a blast furnace."
"It's the price," he admitted. "Tell you what, how about we run over to Three Brothers on 40th Street."
"I'll grab my coat on the way out." She hustled him out the front door, striding left on Lexington and up two blocks in the stinging wind. "What happened to Spring?" she grumbled. "The first robin is going to be frozen to the ground!"
Inside the Italian restaurant, the cozy warmth and tempting aromas restored her usual good spirits. They decided to stay simple when ordering and stuck to basic spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and a little side bowl of toasted raviolis. Wine would be wasted on them, since the tagra diet meant that alcohol just passed through their systems without effect. Cindy had coffee and Bane plain ice water. They dug in and did little talking until their plates were half empty.
Eventually she asked him about the case he was working on and Bane related the whole story to her. He glossed over descriptions, knowing she was picking up visuals from his mind's imagery and stopped with Lt Klein sending him on the hunt.
"Good old Klein," she commented. "When you two first met, he was determined to run you in. Now you're crimebusting bros. You know, Jeremy, this whole Achilles business just sounds wrong to me. What do you know about the story of Achilles?"
"Not much. I didn't go to school, you realize. He was a Greek warrior back in ancient times. He couldn't be injured except for his heel and sure enough that's where he got hit with a poison arrow."
"Hmm. Well, I read a lot of mythology back in high school. It was my obsession in my senior year. The funny thing is, originally Achilles wasn't invulnerable. That was a later addition to the legend. In the ILLIAD, he is wounded in the elbow." She nibbled on the last of garlic bread thoughtfully. "So I kind of doubt that this dude is somehow the real Achilles from the Trojan War brought to the present somehow."
"I think he's just some modern guy with a form of gralic resilience. He may be bulletproof, and that's what gave him the idea of assuming the Achilles name," Bane said.
"You know what?" Cindy asked, putting down her fork and pushing her chair back. "It's been a while since we had to tangle with the Preincarnators. How about if this is one of their deals?"
Bane considered the idea. "Could be. Old Leopold Vidimar has been in hiding for years. His son Warren hasn't been seen either. But there was another son, Jonas, who never seemed to get involved in Midnight War stuff. Still, he might have ended up with the notes and papers explaining the Preincarnation spell."
"Ugh, that stuff gives me creeps big time," she said. "Turning people into their ancestors. And they never turn into Abraham Lincoln or Buster Keaton, it's always Jack the Ripper and Sawney Beane. Hey, look at our empty plates. Italian food is the one meal I can keep up you with bite for bite."
"It was good," Bane admitted. "This place never lets us down. So. Maybe we should try to track down Jonas Vidimar or his friends in the Preincarnation cult?"
Cindy gestured for the check. "Seems like a good place to start."
"I was also thinking of trying to figure where this Achilles gang will strike next. He's got definite patterns. He doesn't seem interested in cash or prescription drugs or electronics like most robbers. Instead, all he cares about is items actually made of gold or silver. I figure he must be pawning some of the loot to pay his gang."
As she calculated the tip and spent too much time deciding what was generous and what was going too far, the little blonde said, "Give me a minute. Yeah, that's a good line to follow but don't you think the NYPD is already working along those lines?"
"Very likely. Another trick is to set up a trap. Place something in the paper about a new collection of Bronze Age artifacts arriving from Europe and dangle it as bait."
"That's worked quite a few times. Well, my dear, we have ideas but we need information. I'm afraid tomorrow is going to be phone calls and research and visits to offices."
"That's what I hate most," said the Dire Wolf. "Fighting is okay, but detective work is just work."
V.
In the three-story wooden house painted red, Achilles looked out over a hundred acres of fallow farmland. The silo and the stables had been empty for years. With the death of the last member of the family who had founded the farm, the property had been seized by the banks. Working through Fancy Dan's crooked lawyer pal, Achilles had purchased this property in Dutchess County. It was fifteen miles from the nearest town and neighbors were scattered along the highway. He had the provacy he requested.
At home here, the warrior was wearing the constant heavy leather boots and what looked exactly like a linen sundress of royal purple, belted at the waist with a gold cinch and with white trim on the hem and short sleeve cuffs. No one dared say anything. If Achilles had decided to walk around town like that, someone in the gang would have felt compelled to warn him, but so far their leader always changed into more acceptable clothing before going out.
"This is a good start for my kingdom," he announced. "But it needs horses and oxen. Goats also. I want some slaves to start working the land to grow wheat and olive trees."
"Ah, boss, slavery is against the law in this country," Menlo Park ventured to interrupt. "We can get cheap labor that hardly speaks English."
The blond head turned and the face had turned red. For one terrible second, the gang was frightened that he was going to fly into one of his rages where no one was safe. But, taking deep breaths and visibly calming himself, Achilles came down to his normal level of anger. "Oh, if it must be so. I suppose I cannot whip them if they slacken?"
"That would bring the cops here," Menlo Park advised him. "A lot has changed since the days of Hellas."
"So I see. Very well. You men go about your usual tasks. Take some of the lesser items to your pawn shops to be exchanged for paper money and then divide it between yourself. Just take the gems and some of the jewelry. Touch not the weapons, nor the helmet and shield."
"What about you, boss.. that is, if I can ask?"
"I am going to take one of our cars to Poughkeepsie City, we need two more members of this household. I will go alone, I have learned to drive well enough." He headed from the room and as Dandy Jim cleared his throat, Achilles paused in the doorway. "Do not worry," the blond marauder said dryly. "I will change into garments this age finds suitable. Bah."
When he left the farmhouse, Achilles was wearing baggy tweed pants and an equally loose-fitting tan shirt under a winter coat that reached his thighs. The leather boots were still on his legs, with their inner steel caps on the heels. By now, he realized everyone knew about the vulnerable heel. Whether he was the true Achilles or not, whether his one heel was in fact vulnerable, he always acted as if it were true. He climbed into the black panel truck and took off while his worried gang watched from the windows of the farmhouse. Whenever Achilles went anywhere without one of them, it invariably led to big trouble.
It was a forty minute drive before the warrior entered the outskirts of Poughkeepsie. Here at an interesection was a gas station, a laundromat and a diner that read MITSOPOLOS FAMILY in blue neon cursive. He and his gang had stopped here a few times. Achilles got out, feeling vaguely uncomfortable without a weapon of some sort on him. He entered to find only two patrons sitting in a corner booth and a very Greek-looking woman of middle age wiping the counter.
"Ah, good to see you again, sir. Would you like a menu?"
"No. Thank you. I have a business offer, perhaps your husband and his brother would like to hear it as well."
"Oh. Really?" She went through swinging doors into the kitchen and in a moment two men came out behind her. They were wearing aprons and hairnets and disposable plastic gloves which they were peeling off. Neither seemed happy at being disturbed from their work.
"The other day," Achilles began, "Your son was sitting at the counter doing his schoolwork. Fine-looking young boy, quite intelligent. Perhaps ten or eleven."
"What? Where are you going with this?" asked the mother.
Achilles reached into his pants pocket and came out with a roll of hundred dollar bills bound with a steel clip. He had counted it out as ten thousand dollars. "I am the great Achilles. I wish to buy him as my personal servant."
As the two sputtered and began telling Achilles where he could put his moneyroll, no one noticed the mother step around the corner of the counter and take out her cell phone.
"Forgive me if I have offended," Achilles said, fighting down his constant anger. Being denied anything triggered him. "I am from the hills, from the old country where things are maybe done differently."
"We do not sell our children here! This is America!" The older of the Mitsopolos brothers jabbed a finger at the intruder's face.
"I will break that finger off and make you eat it," Achilles said in an absolutely serious tone that left no doubt he intended to do just that. Mitsopolos gulped and backed up a step. Before anything else could happened, the diner door swung open and a New York State Trooper trooper stepped in.
"We got a 911 call from this address," he began but broke off as he saw Achilles. "You! We've been hearing about you and your gang." His right hand dropped to unbutton the flap holster on his belt as he saw the marauder snatch up a steak knife from the counter. Resisting arrest and moving quickly toward an officer with a raised knife were all the justification needed. The Trooper drew and fired once. Achilles' head snapped back and then straightened again with only a red mark in the center of his forehead. In the next instant, he had lunged forward, back leg straight and front leg bearing his weight as he drove the steak knife into the Trooper's heart.
Against the backdrop of screaming and yelling behind him, Achilles picked the Trooper up off the floor and threw him down the stairs outside right into the second officer who had been waiting by the car. Both men, living and dying, tumbled to the ground. As he raced past them, Achilles whipped off his long coat and tossed it over them to further entangle the live officer before hurtling around the corner of the diner.
In a few seconds, the Trooper had gotten free of his dead partner. Putting aside his feelings for the moment, carrying out duty, he drew his own sidearm and ran around to the back of the diner. He found a short, dumpy man well into middle age with a double chin and not much hair left. The man was hitching up his baggy pants and tightening the belt a few notches.
"Hey! Mister, did you see a big blond guy run past here?"
"Did I ever," answered the old man. "He took off into the woods over there like a marathon racer. Scared the crap out of me."
The Trooper considered giving chase, but decided to go back and check on his partner. It seemed the wounded man was breathing in shallow gasps but was still holding on to life. The Trooper used his car radio to call for an ambulance and then reached the barracks to report the incident. He was too preoccupied to see the pudgy older man climb into the nearby panel truck and unobtrusively drive away.
VI.
Back at the headquarters building, Bane got started working the phones. Since the beginning of his career, he had turned down rewards and had requested instead that the people he helped instead report to him whenever they were aware of anything eerie or unexplainable. Over the years, this had led to some of his most important cases and his army of observers numbered over a hundred. Since he had mostly rescued them or their loved ones from monsters and maniacs and cults, his observers were eager to help out. Several had become obsessed with paranormal phenomena for its own sake and frequently mailed him hefty typed reports. He went down his list as the afternoon wore on.
Cindy tackled their new desktop. At this time, the Internet was just really getting underway. The websites available were limited and took forever to load. Scowling and sighing and drumming her fingers, the telepath doggedly kept at it. After an hour, she sat up. "Hey, Jeremy? I think I got something on Altavista."
Bane put down the phone and rubbed his ear, which was getting sore from all the calls. "Like what?"
"Well. Under his real name Daniel Mallinson, Fancy Jim recently bought an unused farm property up in Dutchess County. Where did he get enough money to swing that? He's always been scraping by on two-bit heists."
"Yeah, that could be the break we need. You've got the address?"
"You bet. I'd calculate a little over an hour drive north. We've been in Poughkeepsie, it's sorta near there."
Bane came over and squeezed her shoulders from behind. "Good work, Cynthia Lee. Maybe this computer gimmick will be useful."
"You'll seeeee," she sang. "Wave of the future. We taking off now?"
"Sure. I think you need the Trom armor and weapons, though. I'll make sure the Mustang is stocked."
"Okay, back in a minute." As the little blonde jumped to her feet, the Link on Bane's belt beeped and they both paused as he took the call. He did little talking, just a few requests for more information and then a thank you. Returning the Link to his clip on his belt, he told her what had happened at the diner upstate.
"The wounded Trooper didn't make it," he said somberly. "Heart damage was so bad it gave out before the ambulance arrived. So now our Achilles has a murder rap."
"That whole business with buying a pretty young boy as a companion is SO ancient Greek," Cindy muttered. "They were into that stuff. I could never keep those images out of my head when reading about Heracles and Hylas. Ick." Cindy left the room to suit up.
Bane went down the underground garage and checked the tires and oil on the Mustang, took a roll of paper towels and wiped the windows on the inside, then went through the travel bags and equipment boxes in the trunk. Rummaging through a case in one corner, he came up with a five foot length of tow chain and stored it in the trunk as well. He himself was already carrying everything on him from the matched silver daggers to the lockpit set to a pair of the dazzle grenades to gauze adhesive pad. His sport jacket and slacks had over a dozen hidden pockets and slits. Even each of his boots had a single edge razor blade concealed in their top seams.
When Cindy came rushing into the garage, she had changed into her field suit, black boots and heavy pants and a waist-length jacket that contained nearly all of the gimmicks Bane carried with him. One of the anesthetic dart guns was belted in a holster across the small of her back where the jacket concealed it. Cindy carried her helmet under one arm but in a public case like this, she was unlikely to wear it unless shooting got heavy. "Good to go," she announced and climbed into the passenger seat.
They headed up the ramp, with the steel panel rising to let them out and then closing automatically behind them. They headed for the Major Deegan and started going north. As they negotiated city traffic at its worst hour, just after five in the afternoon, Cindy brought up the idea of forming a new KDF team.
"You have to admit the two of us in that ten story building feels silly. I have a few ideas for new members. Steve tells me the Trom have been raising a Human orphan to serve as a liaison between our Races but she's still a minor. In a few years, she'll be eighteen."
"I'm coming around to the idea," Bane admitted as they left the city limits. "There's that Blind Archer I met in Woodstock last year. Galvan might be interested, he was the Champion of Androval before Sulak. And I'm still holding out hope that Dandelion might clean up her act and be a hero again."
Cindy scoffed. "I don't know about her. I think she's gone bad permanently. But there are a few more possible candidates." She placed a hand on her lover and partner's sleeve as he drove. "We'll always miss the guys in our original team. But it's been six years and honestly I think we have a duty to carry on the fight."
Bane changed the subject. "What else can you remember about the Achilles from legend?"
"Oh. Well, he was the greatest warrior of his age. With or without his invulnerability, he was an unstoppable killing machine. He killed Hector, the Trojan champion and he was himself only killed by treachery when sneaky Paris nailed him with a poisoned arrow through the heel."
"So that's where we get the saying, 'Everyone has an Achilles' heel' comes from? I wondered about that," Bane said.
"Yeah. Later on in the ODYSSEY, we meet Achilles' ghost wandering miserable in the underworld. The Greek afterlife was mostly all gloomy and foggy and unhappy except for a few who were sent by gods to a better area. Achilles was really unhappy."
The Dire Wolf made a non-commital sound. "Anyway, the guy I fought was wearing thick leather boots that laced up to the knee. I don't know if I can pin him down long enough to get those boots off and stab him in the ankle. That would be a good way to get killed myself. We have to come up with a trick."
"We have another half hour of driving before we even get near the guy. Let's rack our brains..."
VII.
It was just getting dark when they found the red farmhouse. Every window in the building seemed to be lit. Bane had taken the chain and handcuffs from the trunk as they parked down the dirt road and studied the red farmhouse from the distance.
"So let me get this straight," Cindy said, speaking through the wound down window. "I sneak around the building, using my telepathy to creep up on the three gang members and knock them out with darts. Then, instead of fighting Achilles, I send him down to the pond where you've be waiting."
"Yes, exactly."
"This is a plan?!"
Bane shrugged as she got out of the car to join him. "I'm sure I could beat him in a second fight, now that I've learned his strong points. But honestly, what's the point of still another ten minute slugfest? I'm reaching a stage where I just want to get things over with."
"Achilles said men fight for glory, so that their names will be remembered. Maybe he was right. It's been thousands of years and we still know who he was."
"I don't care about glory," Bane said. "I'm here to get the job done." With that, he raced across the dirt road and cut sharply to the right as he entered the farm property.
Left behind, Cindy Brunner shook her head and clicked a fresh clip of anesthetic darts into the CO2 powered pistol with its long needle-thin barrel. Holding the weapon in one hand, she was almost invisible in the dark wearing her black field suit with only her hair giving her away. The telepath reached out with her mind, searching, hunting until she made light contact with the fence specialist, Menlo Park. The man was smoking a thin black cigar on the back porch. She crept up on him, certain he was not aware of her presence. She introduced the thought to the back of his mind that he wanted to sit down. In a few seconds, Park pulled over a plastic and aluminum lawn chair and settled down into it. That was when she fired a dart into his neck.
The darts stung quite a bit as they jabbed into skin, and usually the victims slapped that insertion point with the thought they had been bit a mosquito or stung by a wasp. The instant of pain was enough to distract them until the drug took hold and made them groggy and incoherent. Three seconds after injection, most victims were sinking into unconsciousness. Cindy stepped up onto the porch, retrieved the spent dart to stow in one of her jacket pockets and made sure Menlo Park was breathing normally.
So far they had not had anyone die from the anesthetic darts but an allergic reaction was always possible. There was no such thing as a completely safe non-lethal weapon. The darts were the closest they had found. Cindy satisfied herself that Park was in for an hour's deep slumber and then opened the rear door to the farmhouse. She found the hulking Tiny Jim in the kitchen, distracted him the same way and dropped him with a dart. Despite her attempt to break his fall, the big brute slipped from her grasp and hit the kitchen floor with a thud.
Now she had to move fast. Cindy found the final two minds in the next room, and curiosity was stirring in them about the thump they heard in the kitchen. She fixed onto the mind she recognized as Dandy Jim, slammed the door open and strode into the living room to fire a dart at the alarms expert. He was wearing a thin white silk shirt that the anesthetic sting penetrated easily. Giving him no futher thought, she swung around with her arm extended and was surprised at the other man in the room.
Leaning back in a recliner was a short, out of shape man in his late fifties but he was wearing a leather breastplate, knee-length skirt and heavy boots, all studded with bronze reinforcements. In that martial uniform, his flabby arms and soft legs looked ridiculous. On the table next to him sat a bronze helmet with a vertical crest of stiff horsehair. He regarded her entrance without alarm, which also surprised her.
"You CAN'T be Achilles," she said, stepping closer. The dart gun remained aimed at his exposed skin.
"Not at the moment," he said. "My name is Norman Bloom, although that wouldn't mean anything to you. Have you ever hea? And no, according to Achilles, no one actually saw Ares or Aphrodite appear. Mortals just attribute bad luck and good luck to the gods, same as they do today. Achilles would have been an atheist if not for his mother Thetis dipping him in the Styx as an infant. That's hard to explain otherwise."
"Thanks for clearing that up" Cindy said. "And now I have a surprise for you."
Bloom got clumsily to his feet, adjusting the armor which was not intended to fit his soft body. He buckled the sword belt around his stout middle with a short two-foot long bronze blade sheathed on the left. None of this made him more imposing at all. "Well, miss, what might that be?"
"How would the immortal Achilles like another bout with the greatest warrior of this age?" she asked. "He's waiting for you."
"What? The man in black from the back of Fenneman's museum? The one my men called the Dire Wolf?"
"Yep. This time he knows what he'll be dealing with. Think Achilles is up to a real challenge?"
The air around Norman Bloom shimmered with a red aura and his body swelled outward, hardened, grew into a sinewy mass of bronze muscle. The handsome face beneath the golden curls grinned confidently at her. "Many a fool has thought himself a match for Achilles and their widows wept in the morning. Where is this poor soul?"
"Down by the pond, he said."
Achilles lowered the bronze helmet down over his head and turned for the door. Pausing, he turned his head back to look at Cindy. "You realize I will claim you as spoils after slaying this Dire Wolf. You don't think he has a chance against me, do you?"
Cindy laughed out loud. "If. You. Only. Knew."
VIII.
Waiting beneath three elms, Jeremy Bane had gauged the pond at being twelve feet deep. There was a wooden bench overlooking the steepest bank, and on this he had arranged something the size of a human torso wrapped in canvas. He stood with folded arms, waiting as patiently as he was able to, which meant a lot of fidgeting and shifting weight from one leg to another, until he finally saw a man coming through the gloom toward him.
"Ah, Achilles. I guess you met my partner?"
"She will soon be the first of my slaves," answered the blond marauder. There was the faintest hiss as he drew his bronze sword. "I don't know if your shade will go to my underworld or not. If you meet Hades, give him my regards."
"Yeah right. I always liked Norse mythology better."
Achilles attacked with no further words, leaping forward in precise motion, feet planted as he plunged the point of his sword to the center of the Dire Wolf's chest. Every move Achilles made had the perfection of thousands of hours of practice but he could not have known of the Trom armor under Bane's clothing. The bronze blade skidded off, ripping only the cloth of the turtleneck, leaving Achilles off balance for the barest split-second. Bane had deliberately left himself open for this strike to get Achilles into position. He seized the Preincarnated warrior's wrist and snapped one circlet of a pair of handcuffs around it, then leaped back out of reach.
"What foolishness is this?" Achilles roared in one of his sudden rages. He found that the handcuff was fastened to a length of sturdy chain which led to the bundle on the bench overlooking the pond. "I thought you had a fighter's heart!"
"Oh, I'm past all that," Bane replied calmly. "I don't think I have anything to prove at this point. By the way, this rock weighs over two hundred pounds." He braced himself and shoved the bundle off the bench into the water, where it promptly sank and dragged Achilles down with it. The resurrected Greek legend hit the surface with a splash, went under and showed no signs of coming up. The water churned with his struggles and then grew still. Soon even the bubbles ceased.
Cindy Brunner came wearily down the hill from the house. She leaned up against Bane, one arm up around his shoulders. "I'm not picking up any thoughts from down there," she whispered.
"Might as well wait an hour to make sure," Bane said. "You never know with Midnight War cases. You took care of the others?"
"Sure. They're all napping up there. Off to prison they go where none of the other convicts will believe any of their crazy stories." She peered down into the black water. "You suppose we'll find the body of the modern host, Bloom whatever his name was, down there?"
"I think so," Bane said. "Achilles is probably back in the underworld by now, hanging out with the ghosts of Hercules and Samson and that guy holding the head that had snakes for hair."
"That's Perseus," she told him. "With the head of Medusa. And Samson is an Old Testament figure. Sheesh, I hope we don't have to start tangling with all those guys as a regular thing."
10/17/2016
3/1-3/3/1996
I.
Crouching on the roof of the two-story building across the street, Jeremy Bane watched the robbery with great interest. It was a bitter windy night at the beginning of March, but this street near Washington Square would be deserted anyway at three o'clock in the morning. None of the shops and boutiques stayed open past nine and there were no bars or nightclubs for a few blocks. Only a single car had rolled past in the past ten minutes.
Despite the chilly wind, Bane wore only his usual outfit of black slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. He did not seem to even notice the cold. Fifteen years of both Kumundu training and the tagra diet exclusive to Tel Shai students had made his body able to adapt to all but the most extreme conditions. Accelerated healing was the main benefit of tagra, but there were other side-effects of the tea that were invaluable in themselves.
Getting down on one knee, the Dire Wolf studied the scene at the rear of Fenneman's Museum of Oriental Antiquities before him. He had looked it up that afternoon and found it was a private collection of Bronze Age relics open to view only for a donation or to approved scholars. It had been founded in 1879 by someone named Alan Fenneman but had long since passed into ownership outside the family. Bane had read the catalogue and noticed all the golden goblets, cauldrons, belt buckles and brooches, vases and urns, as well as dozens of bronze swords and shields. Good enough loot to make it worthwhile, he supposed.
Bane's informant had not been able to provide many details. One of the lower-level thugs had downed a few beers and bragged a little about a new crime boss who was going to have the cops terrified. He had dropped a hint or two about this particular street and how everyone would be talking about it the next morning, then had belatedly gotten some prudence and changed the subject. The tidbit got passed furtively to Bane, who had thanked his informer. Years earlier, Bane had rescued the man's parents from a house that a maniac named Mr Gallows had torched. Ever since, the man had been glad to pass along any underworld tips he thought the Dire Wolf would be interested in.
The solid-looking wooden door at the back of the museum had letters that read simply NO ADMITTANCE and a light burning under a curved steel shield. Next to the door was a green metal dumpster filled with crushed cardboard boxes and wrappers, beyond that was the rear of a natural food store. The alley was wide enough to admit delivery trucks full of presumably natural food, and now a black unmarked panel truck pulled into that alley.
Across the alley, Bane immediately raced to the far edge of the roof, swung around to hang by his fingers on the cornice and then simply dropped down to the paving. He landed lightly on fingertips and toes. Tiny bone fractures or sprains or jolts to the spinal column healed so quickly he was barely aware of them. The Dire Wolf was not indestructible, of course. Damage severe enough would kill him as it had most Tel Shai knights before him through the ages. For relatively minor injuries, though, instant recovery enabled him to pull off many of his seemingly reckless stunts. He leaped up and headed for the robbery.
Of the four men who had emerged from the panel truck, he immediately recognized three. The short man in the white suit with the white fedora was Fancy Jim, the alarms expert. He had put down a leather tool box and was pulling on latex gloves. Fancy Jim specialized in disarming alarm systems for robbery, using a techhnique he had invented that somehow used a freon spray that froze wires so they would not trigger an alarm when broken. Looming up over Fancy Jim, watching the smaller man protectively was his long time partner, Tiny Jim. Named with the ironic slang that calls fat men 'Slim', Tiny Jim was six inches over six feet tall and wide enough to fill most doorways. His flat, brutal face under a crewcut that left him almost shaven, showed both low intelligence and the belligerence of someone who does not understand most conversations going on around him. Fancy Jim and Tiny Jim had been working together for years.
The third man was hitting middle-age, bundled up in a down-filled parka with a black wool hat. Bane knew that prominent beaky profile. This was Menlo Park, nicknamed for some reason after Edison's workplace. Park was a minor criminal who had been arrested a few times but never done prison time. He was known as someone who worked with most of the fences and pawnshop owners in the metropolitan area getting good deals on stolen merchandise. He also knew several private collectors of art who were not above paying to gloat over stolen paintings they could not display publicly.
In the second it took him to run across the alley toward the panel truck, Bane had recognized the three known crooks and almost dismissed them as threats. Normally, he was not concerned with lower level operators like these three. His prey was serial killers and maniacs like Samhain, Golgora or Ethan Petrov. It was the fourth man, standing apart from the known crooks, who triggered all of the Dire Wolf's sense of menace. Park and Fancy Jim were known to carry small caliber sidearms and Bane knew the flexible Trom armor under his clothes would protect him from those.
All he could see of the fourth man from the rear was a tall figure just over six feet, wrapped in a bright red silk cloak that reached the ground. The back of the head showed tight golden curls. Just the way the blond man stood off to one side, watching the three thugs work, showed he was in charge. Bane earmarked him as probably the really dangerous foe here. In an instant, the Dire Wolf hopped up on the sidewalk and approached the men just as Fancy Jim unclicked the lock on the rear door with a satisfied grunt.
"We need to talk," Bane said, getting within arm's reach of the robbers without having been seen. Three of them gave a start and swung around in surprise and fear. "Bane!" yelped Menlo Park as he backstepped quickly. "Oh, no. I'm not tangling with this guy."
Tiny Jim snorted. "He don't scare me none." The hulking form drew back his fist back behind one mashed ear and lunged forward. His sheer size and bestial face were usually enough to panic storekeepers or witnesses into flight but Bane stood where he was. Tiny Jim swung his huge fist in a simple roundhouse right. Bane used his own right hand to swing that blow further inward across Tiny Jim's body, while whipping his own left fist up along that thick arm to smash into the center of the brute's face with a sharp smacking noise. Tiny Jim swayed, his defenses dropping. Bane snapped his left leg up in a high side kick that slammed the side of his boot up under the big man's jaw. Tiny Jim fell over backwards with a moaning sound. In less than a full second, the Dire Wolf had felled one of the intimidating goons in the New York badlands.
"Hey, boss!" Menlo Park cried out, "Give us a hand."
The blond man unfastened the clasp of the red cloak and tossed it onto the roof of the panel truck next to him. He was a muscular man with sharp definition in his wiry build rather than bulk, with most of his upper body showing because he was wearing an open leather vest. The man had on heavy loose trousers and high leather boots. He was handsome almost to be point of being pretty in a still masculine way. Under the curly golden hair was a tanned face with a square jaw, straight nose and bright blue eyes. Under the dim light, he flashed a confident smile.
"Fear not," the leader said. "Any mortal is a fool who dares stand up to Achilles."
II.
That startled Bane a bit. His Kumundu training enabled him to make instant appraisals of any potential opponent. This man who called himself Achilles was very dangerous. His balance, his muscle tone, how he placed his feet as he moved, the way he watched Bane's arms and legs rather than his face... all these marked him as a skilled fighter. The Dire Wolf stepped over toward a more open area beyond the space between the truck and the rear wall of the building and waited watchfully. This could be an interesting fight, he thought.
Achilles came at him, shifting his weight from one foot to another, making a quick feint with one open hand before lunging in with his other. Bane was in a loose relaxed stance, hands lowered, ready to react in any direction. As the blond man plunged forward with one fist raised, Bane was already moving forward to block that blow... but it was another misdirection. Achilles jumped up and forward off the ground to drive his knee into Bane's chest. That impact did not do more than make the Dire Wolf stop his own attack, although it would have driven the air from an ordinary man. While still in the air after the knee strike, Achilles then brought his hard fist down against Bane's ear.
It was one of the rare instances where the Dire Wolf was surprised by an enemy's technique and he took that blow squarely. Even as Achilles touched down, he was driving an elbow right at Bane's throat that was blocked at the last split-second by an upper palm slapping it aside. Achilles was open for an instant and Bane blurred out a front snap kick to the face that cracked the steel-capped toe of his boot to Achilles' chin.
Both fighters drew back for a second, both having to digest that they were fighting someone on their own level. Achilles came in fast, hopping from side to side, swinging his right leg over behind Bane's left ankle and pulling it away, moving in behind his foe. Keeping his balance but unable to counterattack, the Dire Wolf caught a vicious rabbit punch to the back of the neck that would have killed a normal man. Bane fell to his hands and knees but was already moving back up when Achilles kicked him hard on the side of the head with a leather booted heel. That knocked him out.
Menlo Park cackled and drew a small flat Beretta .25 from inside his coat. "Good work, boss! Let me finish him."
"Oh, NOW you find courage?" yelled Achilles. "No. I forbid it. I think this man and I will clash again and I look forward to it. Go about your tasks. Plunder those rooms as we agreed. I want gold ornaments and the weapons I pointed out in the drawings Dandy Jim made of the interior."
As the three men hustled to run in and out of Fenneman's Museum carrying invaluable relics from the past, their blond leader went over to crouch over his downed opponent. Bane had rolled over onto his back and was already stirring. Achilles seized him by the hair and slammed the back of Bane's head down to the alley floor, again hard enough to mean death for most people. The Dire Wolf moaned and took a deep shuddering breath.
"Still alive," the gang leader said with great interest. "What manner of man are you? What protects you?" He rose to stand over the dazed man. "The gods will bring us face to face again."
Fancy Jim called over from the panel truck, "Almost done, boss! We found a locked drawer with five thousand in cash as well."
"Divide the paper money among yourselves," said Achilles. "A prince concerns himself with real treasure."
As the gang finished and started to seat themselves in the truck, a police cruiser pulled over with its lightbar flashing to block one end of the alley. A single uniformed officer got out from behind the wheel, reporting a robbery in progress into a car's microphone. He stepped around the car, one hand on his sidearm. "Freeze! This is the police."
"Hurry up and get in, boss," pleaded Fancy Jim from behind the wheel.
"Shall a hero flee mere city guards?" scoffed Achilles. He began walking slowly but steadily toward the officer.
"Hold it right there, not another step," the cop said. Getting a good look at the muscular man stalking toward him, he drew his revolver. "This is your last warning. Stay where you are and put your hands over your head. You are under arrest-"
Achilles charged. The cop fired three times and clearly saw the man's chest indent with the impacts for a second but the skin was not broken by the shells. Then the big blond man cuffed the officer on the side of the head and sent him crashing to the ground.
"Boss, please!" begged Fancy Jim. "We gotta get out of here."
Reluctantly, their leader joined his gang in the panel truck and they backed out of the open end of the alley to speed away into the dark streets. Even as the truck vanished, Jeremy Bane was getting back up and rubbing his aching head as he regained his senses.
III.
Two hours later, Bane was being questioned in the waiting room of Metropolitan General by three officers while the injured cop was under observation. The man had taken a hard hit to the head but had regained consciousness and was speaking coherently. He was being held under observation while a second set of X-Rays were studied by a radiologist for signs of bleeding inside the skull.
The cops in the waiting room were making Bane repeat his story for the eighth time, obviously searching for uncertainties or contradictions. The injured officer had already related what had happened. Bane's long established reputation as a PI, as well as the fact he had been seen lying unconscious as the blond man's feet, helped him to not be taken as a suspect for the moment.
The arrival of Inspector Harold Klein in his inevitable white raincoat and chewed up unlit cigar was a great relief for everyone. He listened to what the three cops had to report, said he would check with them in a few minutes and then escorted Bane to stand outside the hospital front doors where they were still within sight.
"You never let me down, buddy," rasped the short Inspector with a lifelong New York accent. "Anything weird, strange or supernatural in the Five Boroughs and I know I'll find the Dire Wolf right in the middle of it."
"It's what I do," Bane said. "You yourself seem to be assigned any crime with even a touch of the inexplicable in it. As if you're the automatic choice by the big brass."
Klein snorted his way of laughing. "Yeah, they go to me because they know I'll drag you in to clean it up. All unofficial and off the record and everything will be denied, blah blah blah."
Glancing back at the lobby to see the three cops watching them, Bane said, "I wouldn't have it any other way. So. I suppose a net has been thrown for Menlo Park, Tiny Jim and Fancy Jim?"
"You bet. Every blue on duty is looking for them. But about this guy who called himself 'Achilles.' You're telling me he beat you in a straight fight. I didn't think that was possible."
"Hate to admit it. But next time will be different."
"Hah. I'd pay money to see the rematch. Officer Mooney in there swears he saw his slugs hit the man's bare chest and not penetrate. What do you think?"
Bane considered for a second. "The logical explanation is that he was wearing a Kevlar vest with some flesh-colored material over it. Maybe to build up an image as Achilles. Personally, I don't know. I've seen so much in the Midnight War that not much seems completely impossible."
"Wait, wait," Klein said. "You don't think he's the real Achilles? From Homer and the Trojan War and all that?"
"Assuming there ever was a 'real' Achilles, even then I doubt it. He'd be three thousand years old. No, my bet is that he's someone with a wild talent that makes him resistant to harm and he's playing Achilles as a role. Maybe to cover his real name so he can retire after making enough profit."
"Yeah," Klein replied. "I can see that. Lots of these loner crooks and masterminds are known by some goofy name so they can maintain deniability in court. Sepulcher, Mr Gallows, Samhain, even good old Dos Manos. It doesn't work, of course. Lawyers always show that Joe Schmoe was identified so closely as the Big Galoot that there is no confusion. I think they just like the funny nicknames."
"Like Dire Wolf?" asked Bane.
"Hah, exactly." Klein spit the soggy cigar butt into the gutter by the walkway. "The difference is that with you, the name fits. You're a real Dire Wolf all right."
IV.
As he drove up East 38th Street and turned onto Lexington Avenue, Bane began to feel the light contact with Cindy's mind. Their telepathic liaison had been established for so long that it was as familiar and comfortable as a fireplace on a cold night. Most of the time, they were so used to it that neither was fully aware of the bond unless distance broke it. He swung into the one way alley next to the KDF building, went down the concrete ramp with its sharp turn at the top that had scraped a few fenders and pulled into their underground garage that was just big enough for the Mustang and their Subaru Outback. The Dire Wolf hung the keys on a hook by the door, trudged down the corridor past the vault and the armory and went up steep steps to emerge from a walk-in closet in the front hall.
Cindy Brunner was waiting at the base of the staircase. A year younger than Bane, only an inch over five feet tall and just over a hundred pounds, the small blonde was the most skilled telepath in the Midnight War at that time. Others might have had more forcefully dominating minds or greater range over distance, but for precise control and varied uses of her abilities, Cindy had no serious rivals.
As Bane came up to her, she said, "Uh-uh. Not a word, hon. I'm in charge for the next few minutes. Here." She held out a plate which had a sourdough bread grilled Swiss cheese and boiled ham, thicker than usual, slathered with mustard. Realizing he was ravenous and hadn't eaten since a snack at nine the night before, he gratefully took it and ripped into a mouthful a real wolf would envy.
Cindy handed him a sixteen ounce glass of iced tea and he accepted it with the other hand. "Now, up the stairs we go," she said. "Third floor." Without waiting, she started up the staircase and he followed while making short work of the hot sandwich. She marched him into his quarters. "Your fuzzy white bathrobe is hanging in the bathroom. Now is when you take a scalding hot shower and a little nap."
"Wait, Cin, let me tell you about this Achilles business-" he began as he dropped the empty place on his dresser.
"I know you're exhausted, even if you don't realize it. It's eleven-thirty in the morning. You've been up and running around since yesterday morning at five. When I read your mind, I get drowsy myself."
The Dire Wolf let her tug off his jacket, which she draped over a chair. "Yeah. You're usually right, Cin."
"What do you mean, USUALLY? Come on, hon, I don't wanna lose you because you burn out trying to save the world. Shower and bed, I mean it. I'll be downstairs. I'm almost finished with EMMA, that Jane Austen is the best." With that, the blonde swung around and left, closing the door behind her. Bane smiled and started stripping as he headed for the bathroom.
On the first floor, sitting behind the desk of the DIRE WOLF AGENCY office, Cindy finally reached the end of a book she had been trying to read for a year. She wished people still talked the way they did in those old novels, so precise and articulate. Our discourse has certainly gone downhill, she thought. The telepath put the book up on a shelf behind her that held a clock and a police band radio, then got up and stretched. She was wearing a beloved pair of beat-up white jeans that would not stay together much longer and a maroon sweatshirt that read SCARABS WORLD TOUR with a list of cities and dates on the back. Cindy was very attractive without make-up or fussing with her hair, but she was cute rather than gorgeous. Right now in March, her freckles had faded to nothing and her skin was pale while her golden hair was a darker shade than it would be once summer sun hit it. Exactly as she glanced at the clock behind her, her mind automatically picked up on Bane descending the stairs and getting nearer.
Four and a half hours sleep. She knew that,with his enhanced metabolism, that much was really all he needed but she worried he was not getting even that much lately. Born to run. In the open doorway, the Dire Wolf appeared in a fresh uniform and with a clarity in his eyes that had not been there when he had first come home. "Thanks, Cin. You take good care of me even when I resist it."
"There's nothing more important in my life," she said and came over to hug him. "Oooh, your stomach is rumbling. That's the problem with being so fast and active, you go through calories like a blast furnace."
"It's the price," he admitted. "Tell you what, how about we run over to Three Brothers on 40th Street."
"I'll grab my coat on the way out." She hustled him out the front door, striding left on Lexington and up two blocks in the stinging wind. "What happened to Spring?" she grumbled. "The first robin is going to be frozen to the ground!"
Inside the Italian restaurant, the cozy warmth and tempting aromas restored her usual good spirits. They decided to stay simple when ordering and stuck to basic spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and a little side bowl of toasted raviolis. Wine would be wasted on them, since the tagra diet meant that alcohol just passed through their systems without effect. Cindy had coffee and Bane plain ice water. They dug in and did little talking until their plates were half empty.
Eventually she asked him about the case he was working on and Bane related the whole story to her. He glossed over descriptions, knowing she was picking up visuals from his mind's imagery and stopped with Lt Klein sending him on the hunt.
"Good old Klein," she commented. "When you two first met, he was determined to run you in. Now you're crimebusting bros. You know, Jeremy, this whole Achilles business just sounds wrong to me. What do you know about the story of Achilles?"
"Not much. I didn't go to school, you realize. He was a Greek warrior back in ancient times. He couldn't be injured except for his heel and sure enough that's where he got hit with a poison arrow."
"Hmm. Well, I read a lot of mythology back in high school. It was my obsession in my senior year. The funny thing is, originally Achilles wasn't invulnerable. That was a later addition to the legend. In the ILLIAD, he is wounded in the elbow." She nibbled on the last of garlic bread thoughtfully. "So I kind of doubt that this dude is somehow the real Achilles from the Trojan War brought to the present somehow."
"I think he's just some modern guy with a form of gralic resilience. He may be bulletproof, and that's what gave him the idea of assuming the Achilles name," Bane said.
"You know what?" Cindy asked, putting down her fork and pushing her chair back. "It's been a while since we had to tangle with the Preincarnators. How about if this is one of their deals?"
Bane considered the idea. "Could be. Old Leopold Vidimar has been in hiding for years. His son Warren hasn't been seen either. But there was another son, Jonas, who never seemed to get involved in Midnight War stuff. Still, he might have ended up with the notes and papers explaining the Preincarnation spell."
"Ugh, that stuff gives me creeps big time," she said. "Turning people into their ancestors. And they never turn into Abraham Lincoln or Buster Keaton, it's always Jack the Ripper and Sawney Beane. Hey, look at our empty plates. Italian food is the one meal I can keep up you with bite for bite."
"It was good," Bane admitted. "This place never lets us down. So. Maybe we should try to track down Jonas Vidimar or his friends in the Preincarnation cult?"
Cindy gestured for the check. "Seems like a good place to start."
"I was also thinking of trying to figure where this Achilles gang will strike next. He's got definite patterns. He doesn't seem interested in cash or prescription drugs or electronics like most robbers. Instead, all he cares about is items actually made of gold or silver. I figure he must be pawning some of the loot to pay his gang."
As she calculated the tip and spent too much time deciding what was generous and what was going too far, the little blonde said, "Give me a minute. Yeah, that's a good line to follow but don't you think the NYPD is already working along those lines?"
"Very likely. Another trick is to set up a trap. Place something in the paper about a new collection of Bronze Age artifacts arriving from Europe and dangle it as bait."
"That's worked quite a few times. Well, my dear, we have ideas but we need information. I'm afraid tomorrow is going to be phone calls and research and visits to offices."
"That's what I hate most," said the Dire Wolf. "Fighting is okay, but detective work is just work."
V.
In the three-story wooden house painted red, Achilles looked out over a hundred acres of fallow farmland. The silo and the stables had been empty for years. With the death of the last member of the family who had founded the farm, the property had been seized by the banks. Working through Fancy Dan's crooked lawyer pal, Achilles had purchased this property in Dutchess County. It was fifteen miles from the nearest town and neighbors were scattered along the highway. He had the provacy he requested.
At home here, the warrior was wearing the constant heavy leather boots and what looked exactly like a linen sundress of royal purple, belted at the waist with a gold cinch and with white trim on the hem and short sleeve cuffs. No one dared say anything. If Achilles had decided to walk around town like that, someone in the gang would have felt compelled to warn him, but so far their leader always changed into more acceptable clothing before going out.
"This is a good start for my kingdom," he announced. "But it needs horses and oxen. Goats also. I want some slaves to start working the land to grow wheat and olive trees."
"Ah, boss, slavery is against the law in this country," Menlo Park ventured to interrupt. "We can get cheap labor that hardly speaks English."
The blond head turned and the face had turned red. For one terrible second, the gang was frightened that he was going to fly into one of his rages where no one was safe. But, taking deep breaths and visibly calming himself, Achilles came down to his normal level of anger. "Oh, if it must be so. I suppose I cannot whip them if they slacken?"
"That would bring the cops here," Menlo Park advised him. "A lot has changed since the days of Hellas."
"So I see. Very well. You men go about your usual tasks. Take some of the lesser items to your pawn shops to be exchanged for paper money and then divide it between yourself. Just take the gems and some of the jewelry. Touch not the weapons, nor the helmet and shield."
"What about you, boss.. that is, if I can ask?"
"I am going to take one of our cars to Poughkeepsie City, we need two more members of this household. I will go alone, I have learned to drive well enough." He headed from the room and as Dandy Jim cleared his throat, Achilles paused in the doorway. "Do not worry," the blond marauder said dryly. "I will change into garments this age finds suitable. Bah."
When he left the farmhouse, Achilles was wearing baggy tweed pants and an equally loose-fitting tan shirt under a winter coat that reached his thighs. The leather boots were still on his legs, with their inner steel caps on the heels. By now, he realized everyone knew about the vulnerable heel. Whether he was the true Achilles or not, whether his one heel was in fact vulnerable, he always acted as if it were true. He climbed into the black panel truck and took off while his worried gang watched from the windows of the farmhouse. Whenever Achilles went anywhere without one of them, it invariably led to big trouble.
It was a forty minute drive before the warrior entered the outskirts of Poughkeepsie. Here at an interesection was a gas station, a laundromat and a diner that read MITSOPOLOS FAMILY in blue neon cursive. He and his gang had stopped here a few times. Achilles got out, feeling vaguely uncomfortable without a weapon of some sort on him. He entered to find only two patrons sitting in a corner booth and a very Greek-looking woman of middle age wiping the counter.
"Ah, good to see you again, sir. Would you like a menu?"
"No. Thank you. I have a business offer, perhaps your husband and his brother would like to hear it as well."
"Oh. Really?" She went through swinging doors into the kitchen and in a moment two men came out behind her. They were wearing aprons and hairnets and disposable plastic gloves which they were peeling off. Neither seemed happy at being disturbed from their work.
"The other day," Achilles began, "Your son was sitting at the counter doing his schoolwork. Fine-looking young boy, quite intelligent. Perhaps ten or eleven."
"What? Where are you going with this?" asked the mother.
Achilles reached into his pants pocket and came out with a roll of hundred dollar bills bound with a steel clip. He had counted it out as ten thousand dollars. "I am the great Achilles. I wish to buy him as my personal servant."
As the two sputtered and began telling Achilles where he could put his moneyroll, no one noticed the mother step around the corner of the counter and take out her cell phone.
"Forgive me if I have offended," Achilles said, fighting down his constant anger. Being denied anything triggered him. "I am from the hills, from the old country where things are maybe done differently."
"We do not sell our children here! This is America!" The older of the Mitsopolos brothers jabbed a finger at the intruder's face.
"I will break that finger off and make you eat it," Achilles said in an absolutely serious tone that left no doubt he intended to do just that. Mitsopolos gulped and backed up a step. Before anything else could happened, the diner door swung open and a New York State Trooper trooper stepped in.
"We got a 911 call from this address," he began but broke off as he saw Achilles. "You! We've been hearing about you and your gang." His right hand dropped to unbutton the flap holster on his belt as he saw the marauder snatch up a steak knife from the counter. Resisting arrest and moving quickly toward an officer with a raised knife were all the justification needed. The Trooper drew and fired once. Achilles' head snapped back and then straightened again with only a red mark in the center of his forehead. In the next instant, he had lunged forward, back leg straight and front leg bearing his weight as he drove the steak knife into the Trooper's heart.
Against the backdrop of screaming and yelling behind him, Achilles picked the Trooper up off the floor and threw him down the stairs outside right into the second officer who had been waiting by the car. Both men, living and dying, tumbled to the ground. As he raced past them, Achilles whipped off his long coat and tossed it over them to further entangle the live officer before hurtling around the corner of the diner.
In a few seconds, the Trooper had gotten free of his dead partner. Putting aside his feelings for the moment, carrying out duty, he drew his own sidearm and ran around to the back of the diner. He found a short, dumpy man well into middle age with a double chin and not much hair left. The man was hitching up his baggy pants and tightening the belt a few notches.
"Hey! Mister, did you see a big blond guy run past here?"
"Did I ever," answered the old man. "He took off into the woods over there like a marathon racer. Scared the crap out of me."
The Trooper considered giving chase, but decided to go back and check on his partner. It seemed the wounded man was breathing in shallow gasps but was still holding on to life. The Trooper used his car radio to call for an ambulance and then reached the barracks to report the incident. He was too preoccupied to see the pudgy older man climb into the nearby panel truck and unobtrusively drive away.
VI.
Back at the headquarters building, Bane got started working the phones. Since the beginning of his career, he had turned down rewards and had requested instead that the people he helped instead report to him whenever they were aware of anything eerie or unexplainable. Over the years, this had led to some of his most important cases and his army of observers numbered over a hundred. Since he had mostly rescued them or their loved ones from monsters and maniacs and cults, his observers were eager to help out. Several had become obsessed with paranormal phenomena for its own sake and frequently mailed him hefty typed reports. He went down his list as the afternoon wore on.
Cindy tackled their new desktop. At this time, the Internet was just really getting underway. The websites available were limited and took forever to load. Scowling and sighing and drumming her fingers, the telepath doggedly kept at it. After an hour, she sat up. "Hey, Jeremy? I think I got something on Altavista."
Bane put down the phone and rubbed his ear, which was getting sore from all the calls. "Like what?"
"Well. Under his real name Daniel Mallinson, Fancy Jim recently bought an unused farm property up in Dutchess County. Where did he get enough money to swing that? He's always been scraping by on two-bit heists."
"Yeah, that could be the break we need. You've got the address?"
"You bet. I'd calculate a little over an hour drive north. We've been in Poughkeepsie, it's sorta near there."
Bane came over and squeezed her shoulders from behind. "Good work, Cynthia Lee. Maybe this computer gimmick will be useful."
"You'll seeeee," she sang. "Wave of the future. We taking off now?"
"Sure. I think you need the Trom armor and weapons, though. I'll make sure the Mustang is stocked."
"Okay, back in a minute." As the little blonde jumped to her feet, the Link on Bane's belt beeped and they both paused as he took the call. He did little talking, just a few requests for more information and then a thank you. Returning the Link to his clip on his belt, he told her what had happened at the diner upstate.
"The wounded Trooper didn't make it," he said somberly. "Heart damage was so bad it gave out before the ambulance arrived. So now our Achilles has a murder rap."
"That whole business with buying a pretty young boy as a companion is SO ancient Greek," Cindy muttered. "They were into that stuff. I could never keep those images out of my head when reading about Heracles and Hylas. Ick." Cindy left the room to suit up.
Bane went down the underground garage and checked the tires and oil on the Mustang, took a roll of paper towels and wiped the windows on the inside, then went through the travel bags and equipment boxes in the trunk. Rummaging through a case in one corner, he came up with a five foot length of tow chain and stored it in the trunk as well. He himself was already carrying everything on him from the matched silver daggers to the lockpit set to a pair of the dazzle grenades to gauze adhesive pad. His sport jacket and slacks had over a dozen hidden pockets and slits. Even each of his boots had a single edge razor blade concealed in their top seams.
When Cindy came rushing into the garage, she had changed into her field suit, black boots and heavy pants and a waist-length jacket that contained nearly all of the gimmicks Bane carried with him. One of the anesthetic dart guns was belted in a holster across the small of her back where the jacket concealed it. Cindy carried her helmet under one arm but in a public case like this, she was unlikely to wear it unless shooting got heavy. "Good to go," she announced and climbed into the passenger seat.
They headed up the ramp, with the steel panel rising to let them out and then closing automatically behind them. They headed for the Major Deegan and started going north. As they negotiated city traffic at its worst hour, just after five in the afternoon, Cindy brought up the idea of forming a new KDF team.
"You have to admit the two of us in that ten story building feels silly. I have a few ideas for new members. Steve tells me the Trom have been raising a Human orphan to serve as a liaison between our Races but she's still a minor. In a few years, she'll be eighteen."
"I'm coming around to the idea," Bane admitted as they left the city limits. "There's that Blind Archer I met in Woodstock last year. Galvan might be interested, he was the Champion of Androval before Sulak. And I'm still holding out hope that Dandelion might clean up her act and be a hero again."
Cindy scoffed. "I don't know about her. I think she's gone bad permanently. But there are a few more possible candidates." She placed a hand on her lover and partner's sleeve as he drove. "We'll always miss the guys in our original team. But it's been six years and honestly I think we have a duty to carry on the fight."
Bane changed the subject. "What else can you remember about the Achilles from legend?"
"Oh. Well, he was the greatest warrior of his age. With or without his invulnerability, he was an unstoppable killing machine. He killed Hector, the Trojan champion and he was himself only killed by treachery when sneaky Paris nailed him with a poisoned arrow through the heel."
"So that's where we get the saying, 'Everyone has an Achilles' heel' comes from? I wondered about that," Bane said.
"Yeah. Later on in the ODYSSEY, we meet Achilles' ghost wandering miserable in the underworld. The Greek afterlife was mostly all gloomy and foggy and unhappy except for a few who were sent by gods to a better area. Achilles was really unhappy."
The Dire Wolf made a non-commital sound. "Anyway, the guy I fought was wearing thick leather boots that laced up to the knee. I don't know if I can pin him down long enough to get those boots off and stab him in the ankle. That would be a good way to get killed myself. We have to come up with a trick."
"We have another half hour of driving before we even get near the guy. Let's rack our brains..."
VII.
It was just getting dark when they found the red farmhouse. Every window in the building seemed to be lit. Bane had taken the chain and handcuffs from the trunk as they parked down the dirt road and studied the red farmhouse from the distance.
"So let me get this straight," Cindy said, speaking through the wound down window. "I sneak around the building, using my telepathy to creep up on the three gang members and knock them out with darts. Then, instead of fighting Achilles, I send him down to the pond where you've be waiting."
"Yes, exactly."
"This is a plan?!"
Bane shrugged as she got out of the car to join him. "I'm sure I could beat him in a second fight, now that I've learned his strong points. But honestly, what's the point of still another ten minute slugfest? I'm reaching a stage where I just want to get things over with."
"Achilles said men fight for glory, so that their names will be remembered. Maybe he was right. It's been thousands of years and we still know who he was."
"I don't care about glory," Bane said. "I'm here to get the job done." With that, he raced across the dirt road and cut sharply to the right as he entered the farm property.
Left behind, Cindy Brunner shook her head and clicked a fresh clip of anesthetic darts into the CO2 powered pistol with its long needle-thin barrel. Holding the weapon in one hand, she was almost invisible in the dark wearing her black field suit with only her hair giving her away. The telepath reached out with her mind, searching, hunting until she made light contact with the fence specialist, Menlo Park. The man was smoking a thin black cigar on the back porch. She crept up on him, certain he was not aware of her presence. She introduced the thought to the back of his mind that he wanted to sit down. In a few seconds, Park pulled over a plastic and aluminum lawn chair and settled down into it. That was when she fired a dart into his neck.
The darts stung quite a bit as they jabbed into skin, and usually the victims slapped that insertion point with the thought they had been bit a mosquito or stung by a wasp. The instant of pain was enough to distract them until the drug took hold and made them groggy and incoherent. Three seconds after injection, most victims were sinking into unconsciousness. Cindy stepped up onto the porch, retrieved the spent dart to stow in one of her jacket pockets and made sure Menlo Park was breathing normally.
So far they had not had anyone die from the anesthetic darts but an allergic reaction was always possible. There was no such thing as a completely safe non-lethal weapon. The darts were the closest they had found. Cindy satisfied herself that Park was in for an hour's deep slumber and then opened the rear door to the farmhouse. She found the hulking Tiny Jim in the kitchen, distracted him the same way and dropped him with a dart. Despite her attempt to break his fall, the big brute slipped from her grasp and hit the kitchen floor with a thud.
Now she had to move fast. Cindy found the final two minds in the next room, and curiosity was stirring in them about the thump they heard in the kitchen. She fixed onto the mind she recognized as Dandy Jim, slammed the door open and strode into the living room to fire a dart at the alarms expert. He was wearing a thin white silk shirt that the anesthetic sting penetrated easily. Giving him no futher thought, she swung around with her arm extended and was surprised at the other man in the room.
Leaning back in a recliner was a short, out of shape man in his late fifties but he was wearing a leather breastplate, knee-length skirt and heavy boots, all studded with bronze reinforcements. In that martial uniform, his flabby arms and soft legs looked ridiculous. On the table next to him sat a bronze helmet with a vertical crest of stiff horsehair. He regarded her entrance without alarm, which also surprised her.
"You CAN'T be Achilles," she said, stepping closer. The dart gun remained aimed at his exposed skin.
"Not at the moment," he said. "My name is Norman Bloom, although that wouldn't mean anything to you. Have you ever hea? And no, according to Achilles, no one actually saw Ares or Aphrodite appear. Mortals just attribute bad luck and good luck to the gods, same as they do today. Achilles would have been an atheist if not for his mother Thetis dipping him in the Styx as an infant. That's hard to explain otherwise."
"Thanks for clearing that up" Cindy said. "And now I have a surprise for you."
Bloom got clumsily to his feet, adjusting the armor which was not intended to fit his soft body. He buckled the sword belt around his stout middle with a short two-foot long bronze blade sheathed on the left. None of this made him more imposing at all. "Well, miss, what might that be?"
"How would the immortal Achilles like another bout with the greatest warrior of this age?" she asked. "He's waiting for you."
"What? The man in black from the back of Fenneman's museum? The one my men called the Dire Wolf?"
"Yep. This time he knows what he'll be dealing with. Think Achilles is up to a real challenge?"
The air around Norman Bloom shimmered with a red aura and his body swelled outward, hardened, grew into a sinewy mass of bronze muscle. The handsome face beneath the golden curls grinned confidently at her. "Many a fool has thought himself a match for Achilles and their widows wept in the morning. Where is this poor soul?"
"Down by the pond, he said."
Achilles lowered the bronze helmet down over his head and turned for the door. Pausing, he turned his head back to look at Cindy. "You realize I will claim you as spoils after slaying this Dire Wolf. You don't think he has a chance against me, do you?"
Cindy laughed out loud. "If. You. Only. Knew."
VIII.
Waiting beneath three elms, Jeremy Bane had gauged the pond at being twelve feet deep. There was a wooden bench overlooking the steepest bank, and on this he had arranged something the size of a human torso wrapped in canvas. He stood with folded arms, waiting as patiently as he was able to, which meant a lot of fidgeting and shifting weight from one leg to another, until he finally saw a man coming through the gloom toward him.
"Ah, Achilles. I guess you met my partner?"
"She will soon be the first of my slaves," answered the blond marauder. There was the faintest hiss as he drew his bronze sword. "I don't know if your shade will go to my underworld or not. If you meet Hades, give him my regards."
"Yeah right. I always liked Norse mythology better."
Achilles attacked with no further words, leaping forward in precise motion, feet planted as he plunged the point of his sword to the center of the Dire Wolf's chest. Every move Achilles made had the perfection of thousands of hours of practice but he could not have known of the Trom armor under Bane's clothing. The bronze blade skidded off, ripping only the cloth of the turtleneck, leaving Achilles off balance for the barest split-second. Bane had deliberately left himself open for this strike to get Achilles into position. He seized the Preincarnated warrior's wrist and snapped one circlet of a pair of handcuffs around it, then leaped back out of reach.
"What foolishness is this?" Achilles roared in one of his sudden rages. He found that the handcuff was fastened to a length of sturdy chain which led to the bundle on the bench overlooking the pond. "I thought you had a fighter's heart!"
"Oh, I'm past all that," Bane replied calmly. "I don't think I have anything to prove at this point. By the way, this rock weighs over two hundred pounds." He braced himself and shoved the bundle off the bench into the water, where it promptly sank and dragged Achilles down with it. The resurrected Greek legend hit the surface with a splash, went under and showed no signs of coming up. The water churned with his struggles and then grew still. Soon even the bubbles ceased.
Cindy Brunner came wearily down the hill from the house. She leaned up against Bane, one arm up around his shoulders. "I'm not picking up any thoughts from down there," she whispered.
"Might as well wait an hour to make sure," Bane said. "You never know with Midnight War cases. You took care of the others?"
"Sure. They're all napping up there. Off to prison they go where none of the other convicts will believe any of their crazy stories." She peered down into the black water. "You suppose we'll find the body of the modern host, Bloom whatever his name was, down there?"
"I think so," Bane said. "Achilles is probably back in the underworld by now, hanging out with the ghosts of Hercules and Samson and that guy holding the head that had snakes for hair."
"That's Perseus," she told him. "With the head of Medusa. And Samson is an Old Testament figure. Sheesh, I hope we don't have to start tangling with all those guys as a regular thing."
10/17/2016