| COHERENT COMICS UNINC. PRESENTS an ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES Tale.... __\|/_______________________________________________________________________ /|\ BEACON by Dave Van Domelen, copyright 2001 | #4 - "Shadow Out Of Berlin" ============================================================================ [cover shows Beacon in his wheelchair, being shot by a figure from off-screen as he fires his Light Lance wildly. This is the first cover in full color, with garish Golden Age-style colors.] ============================================================================ [September, 1939 - Chicago, Illinois] My world went red as pain smashed through my right thigh. Years ago, the doctors had told me I was lucky I could still feel in my useless legs, it would help me avoid gangrene. Right at that moment, however, I didn't feel very lucky as the bullet fired by my former friend Ronald Jameson tore through my femur. I barely noticed the Light Lance strike the concrete floor of my workroom as my hands spasmed and let go. My ears still rung from the roar of Jameson's pistol firing so near onto my ears, in such a closed room. There was another faint clatter a moment later, sounding like it came from a hundred miles away. A part of my mind not screaming in pain recognized it as one of the toolbenches being knocked over. Jameson had been no more fortunate than I had in our exchange of fire. I fought past the pain, struggling to open my eyes and see what had happened. It wasn't the worst pain I had ever experienced...it may not even have been among the five worst. But it was quite sufficient, thank you, and it felt like hours before I could focus on the room in front of me. Jameson lay among scattered tools, his suitcoat burning feebly around the charred hole in his chest. I don't think he really wanted to kill me, his aim would not have been off if he had. By the time we'd ended our association, he had turned himself into a passable marksman, and ten feet isn't much distance at all to one who knows which end of a gun is the unpleasant one. But he'd forgotten my reflexes, honed over years of making myself a target for the forces of darkness. I didn't have to *want* to kill him to put a bolt of deadly light into his heart. As badly as he might have turned out, I still did not desire his death...but he stepped into the jaws of a beartrap when he pointed that gun at me. "H-harry..." Ronald rasped, desperately trying to draw air into lungs half-shriveled by the heat that had blasted his chest. Clamping one hand down on my injured leg to try and stanch the flow of blood, I awkwardly wheeled over to where he had fallen. "Yes, Ronald?" "I...g-guess this...didn't turn out...too well f-for me, eh, H-h-harry?" "In the name of God, what did you hope to accomplish?" He smiled weakly, his eyes defocusing. Blood no longer pumped through his body, and he didn't have long to live. Only the fact that the Light Lance was relatively painless allowed him to remain aware as long as he had. "G-give Hhhhitler the Light Lansss," he slurred. "M-make clean war, lesss woul' haff t'die. Bett...er worlll..." he rasped, breathing his last. The door burst open as police drawn by the sound of the gunshot arrived to see what was going on. The redness closed in around my vision at that point, but my last thought before fading into darkness was to curse Hitler and his Nazis. The Kaiser had only taken away men's lives. Hitler took their souls.... * * * * [November, 1939 - Washington, D.C.] "Doctor Parker, we appreciate your enthusiasm, but of what use is just a single prototype 'death ray' and suit of armor if we can't mass-produce them for the Army?" I tried not to scream in frustration at the men facing me in the War Department office. It had been hard enough to get a meeting in the first place, with so many willing to believe that Hitler was solely a European problem...or no problem at all! And now that I'd found listeners who took the Nazis seriously, they refused to take *me* seriously. "Yes, yes...I am aware of that issue. I have been trying to make my more advanced inventions replicable for the past several years. But I'm not suggesting I try to continue that work under the War Department. I'm asking to personally use my creations to serve the country. You've read the dossiers on me, gentlemen, you know I was one of the 'superheroes' of a while back. Can't you think of any way in which such a man would be useful now? If not overseas, then at home, rooting out fifth columnists." "Yes, we can," the lead officer nodded. "But not right now. And, to be brutally honest, not with you. You're still recovering from your injuries..." "It's only my *leg*," I snorted with annoyance. "And you're no longer a young man, Professor," another officer interjected. "Ten years ago you might have been able to shrug off a bullet wound, but I doubt you can now." The head officer nodded. "I concur. Neither the situation nor your disposition are right at this time. We will keep you in mind, however, should these things change. Good day." "But..." "Good DAY." I sighed and turned to leave the room. My new armor, constructed of duralumin and synthetic rubber, made only slight noises as my latest leg brace design performed flawlessly underneath. I had been required to leave the Light Lance with a guard before entering the building, of course. Probably a good thing...I was ready to shoot that insufferable Colonel. I collected my Lance and stalked down the road towards my hotel a few blocks away. I'm sure I garnered my share of curious stares, cloaked in red, white and blue armor, but I was too busy fuming over military hardheadedness to notice or care. Stripping off the armor without assistance was easier than putting it on alone, but I still missed having a loyal aide to help with such things. But I couldn't stop thinking about Ronald, and I saw his face in the eyes of the few who had offered to take his place. Maybe once my dreams were no longer haunted by Ronald's final words I would be able to place another man in harm's way as my ally. But not yet. Not just yet. I had just heaved myself into my wheelchair when there was a rapping at my door. It didn't sound like the polite tapping of hotel staff...more like the assured knock of a man who expected to be entering soon on Important Business. Far be it from me to disappoint. "Come in, it's not locked." Nor was it. But there *was* a small Magnalux pointed at the door that could be triggered by a radio box on my armrest. I had been attacked in closed rooms too often, after all. The door swung open, and a nondescript man in a well-tailored but inexpensive suit stepped through. "Professor Parker? I'm John Doe of the Secret Service," he held out an impressive ID card that "confirmed" his dubious name and position. "I'm sorry about the brushoff you got today, but we felt it was necessary, for the benefit of anyone who might have been watching." "Hm?" I cocked an eyebrow. "The War Department building isn't really secure, too many eyes and ears around, at least until we officially go on a war footing and boot out anyone suspicious. Most notably, it's not proof against magical spying." "Magic?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice. Granted, I knew that magic was real...the Midnight Killer had been my first taste of it, and since then I'd had a stomachful. But the government's position was that magic was just trickery and fraud. John Doe chuckled. "Yes, I know, you hardly expect a G-Man to believe in magic. Except that I'm a mage of some small talent myself, including skill in blocking scrying magics," he held up a small pentagonal talisman. "Until we can block large areas all at once, it's best to keep this capability hidden, hence the show we put you through earlier today. Once we have the new offices of the War Department built, the whole place will be proof against scrying, but until then..." he shrugged. I snorted. "Well, then, since now we're safe from scrying eyes, do you suppose you could tell me what today's play-acting was covering up?" "My group wants to hire you on," he smiled. "There's only a few of us, people who know magic is out there and know how to deal with it, but we suspect that there's only a few cases that really require our special touch. Are you in?" My hand moved away from the radio control box on my armrest and I offered it to Agent Doe. "I'm in." * * * * [September, 1940 - Macedonia] I pulled my hooded cloak more tightly around me against the winds howling through the hills of northern Greece. Not for warmth...the armor kept me quite warm when under power. For concealment, rather. Even repainted in dull olive drab, my armor stood out for its shape, and the cloak helped me look no more remarkable than any local farmer or herder out for a walk. Hopefully, I was merely out for a walk, and not heading into deadly peril. To date, the Nazis had been laughably unsuccessful in their quest for mystic artifacts and godly patronage. For all the talk about Wotan and his fellow gods being on the side of "true Germans," Agent Doe assured me that the Teutonic gods had no wish to support the National Socialists. And the Nazis knew it as well as we did. So they'd gone hunting patronage elsewhere. Specifically, Greece. And that's where I came in, on my first serious mission overseas. After all, of our little "weird happenings" group, I was the only one who had faced minions of the goddess the Nazis were rumored to be courting. Nyx. I was effectively alone, though. Doe himself had to stay in Washington to oversee work on the new War Department building. It would take months, if not years, to prepare the ground before the first brick was laid, if the building was to become one giant anti-scrying shield. Johnny Angel was tracking down a sorcerous menace in Chicago. No one knew exactly where the Wanderer was at the moment, but that was pretty normal. Doe had offered to send one of his "normal" agents with me, but I declined. I just needed help getting to Macedonia and back at the hotel, but I could handle the actual investigation myself. After all, I was better off alone. Then I spotted the trucks parked in the valley. The insignias had been painted over in attempt to hide their identity, but there was no mistaking it. The Knights of Thule were here, right where Doe's information said the old temple of Nyx was located. No guards were visible at the entrance to the cavern-temple. Not surprising, really. They would be just inside, where they could see without being seen. But that only worked if an enemy was coming up the valley, where trucks could reasonably drive. So I crept down from above. A few tricks I'd picked up from one of Doe's associates made my braces nearly as agile as a healthy man's legs, and I'd spent much of the past year training to get the absolute most out of my artificial mobility. Setting the filters on my goggles, I dropped down inside the opening of the cave. Two armed men turned in shock to face me, but I managed to knock them out with a swing of my Light Lance before they could raise the alarm. They wore oversized coats, no doubt to help conceal their rifles while out on the road. I doffed my own cloak and struggled into the coat of the larger of the two men, wincing as the cuff ripped on a protruding bit of my armor. It would have to do for a disguise. I had no illusions about my ability to drop two completely alert guards. The fact that the men had been on guard long enough to relax worried me. That meant the Knights had been here long enough to get something done. And there it was, at the end of the tunnel. The red lamps, the altar, the chanting. It was disturbingly familiar to me, so similar to what I had once seen in a cave on the other side of the world. A dozen of them, one of me, and evil magic being performed. I chose the direct approach. The cavern flared into whiteness as I put a bolt of purifying light into the back of the head of the man who seemed to be conducting the ceremony. The snap-crack of the Light Lance was followed quickly by the sound of the man's head exploding from steam pressure as the fluid in his brain was superheated by coherent light. I had to respect the training the other men had been given. They immediately went for their weapons, but none tried to fire blind in the cramped quarters. Smart of them to not risk ricochet. Or maybe they just knew someone else had first call on my head. A shadowy figure rose from the corpse of the man I had killed, emerging like smoke that even my optics could not penetrate. "Herr Leuchtterm," the figure sneered. "I am afraid you were too late to stop the ceremony...you merely ended the sacrifice's life a little more spectacularly than we had planned. I am the Ritternacht, and I am the avatar of Nyx who will end your miserable existence once and for all!" I fired the Light Lance again, but Ritternacht simply flowed out of the way, unfazed by the light filling the cavern. Backing up, I fired again and again, striking several of the slower Nazis by accident, but never striking my true target. Then I pressed the trigger and nothing happened. "You should have brought a larger battery, cripple," Ritternacht chuckled, closing the gap between us like the shadow of a sunset in these mountains. A hand seemingly as insubstantial as smoke slammed across my face in an icy slap, nearly breaking my neck as my head snapped around in recoil. "The night always devours the day," Ritternacht crowed as he picked me up and slammed my stunned body up against the cavern wall. "Fenris will eat the Sun, and the world will burn until there is nothing left but the eternal Reich, the seed from which a perfect new world will be born!" He tore the battery pack from the small of my back, and I felt my legs go limp. "Listen to yourself," I gasped. "You don't even see the contradictions! Nyx isn't interested in a new day of any sort, Nazi or otherwise. She just wants night to fall, and your precious Reich will fall with it!" Ritternacht merely laughed, coldly. "Hitler is a fool, Parker! See how he aligns himself with the Sun, with that ridiculous swastika! Night is the true power, the source of the true Reich!" So. The swastikas had not been painted over just for camoflage. This group knew that it was courting a power to which that ancient Sun-symbol was an anaethma. A few of the Knights of Thule looked uncomfortable at the open words of treason against the Fuhrer, but none moved to interfere. And why should they? I was helpless, my devices without power, my words without force. I was no "special" like Doe or the Wanderer, and without my tools I was less a threat than any normal man. The Ritternacht, on the other hand, was the key to power. Unfettered and allowed to grow, this avatar could easily give the Knights the ability to seize the reins of the German government, then possibly even conquer the world. Another icy fist plunged into my chest, wrapping around my heart and squeezing. I gasped and shuddered, terror gripping me and sending me into a thrashing convulsion. My *entire* body. A clarity as icy as Ritternacht's grip washed over my mind. Post tenebras, lux...after the dark, light. I now knew why I had never been able to reproduce so many of my works for others' use. Why John Doe always seemed to act like I was more than simply a scientist. Perhaps he felt I needed to find out for myself. Thanks for nothing, Doe. Ten seconds more and I'd have gone to my grave not knowing what I had just realized. Fighting the agony of Ritternacht's grip, I raised the Light Lance until it was pointing directly at him. "Do you plan to club me to death with that, Herr Leuchtterm? It has no power left, I can feel the light has gone out of it!" "F-fiat lux!" I gasped, pressing the trigger stud. Light, not merely a beam but a ravening river of power, flowed from the Lance and struck Ritternacht square in the chest, bending to wrap around him like a snake constricting a rat. A Ratzi. The power came not from the flat battery pack in the Lance...it came from inside my own soul. I was a mage...a mage of science and wires and tubes, but a mage nonetheless. And a power of light, to fight the darkness. With a defiant howl, the Ritternacht was no more, night split asunder by the day, a shadow dissolved in the Sun. Their souls tied to the ritual that had summoned the avatar, the surviving Knights of Thule cried out like the damned that they were as Nyx demanded her price in blood from the only ones who she could reach. And then, among the husks of men, I entered an all-too-familiar darkness of my own. * * * * [January, 1946 - Washington, D.C.] President Truman bent down to place the medal on my chest. "I know it's not much, Professor Parker, especially since most of what you did to earn this will never be known to the public, but your country thanks you," he said. I wish I could have stood to accept the honor, but I had damaged a delicate suspension of disbelief in fighting the Ritternacht. John Doe explained that now that I knew for sure that the braces worked via magic, the scientist in me could no longer trust them. I had paid the price of knowledge. Truman moved on to the next man in the room. All of us had saved the country, or even the world, in many ways over the past years. But the public wasn't ready to know about gods of night or demons from the future or alien races bent on helping Hitler enslave humanity. So we worked in secret, Division 13 of the Office of Strategic Services, while others fought the visible war. Now the war was over, the O.S.S. was being disbanded, and I was done with the whole business. I felt tired and old beyond my years, as if I'd burned up much of my life in the Ritternacht's grip. Doe had offered on several occasions to teach me true magic, but I turned him down every time, even though learning sorcery might restore the use of my legs. I was too old to think of things in such a radically different way. I was a scientist, trained to think like a scientist. I might someday be comfortable with the things I could do, but...no. Let someone else save the world next time. Training to be a mage would be an admission that I wanted to get back into the battle. And as much as a part of me did want that, it was the foolish part that would get me killed sooner rather than later. Truman finished his presentations, shook everyone's hands, and left for his next piece of business. I nodded to my assistant, it was time to leave. Jason was simply a glorified valet, not a partner like Ronald had been. But I didn't want a partner in adventure anymore, I needed a man who could take care of my simpler needs. As Jason pushed my chair towards the door, a man I had seen before on occasion interposed himself. He had the same air about him as John Doe had many years ago...a man who has an offer you won't refuse. "Yes?" I sighed. "Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying. I'm retired from all of this now." "You're familiar with the Edison Project, are you not?" the man asked, ignoring my opening refusal. I nodded. "The people who tried to make Tesla's deathray work, while the Manhattan Project was working on the Atom Bomb." A nice bit of irony in that project's name...Edison had hated Tesla, did all he could to ruin the man. "I remember making up some detailed plans of my Light Lance for that group, although I don't recall them having any luck...after all, it was really magic." "I'm Major Orville Henderson, attached to the Edison Project. And we think we've discovered a common link in many of the so-called 'magic' devices created in this century. We'd like your help on the Project." I sighed. "I don't do magic tricks any more." "You don't need to. And I know you've suffered a lot in service to the country. But while the war may be over...it's not really over. Russia either already has the Bomb or is damned close. And they captured several surviving Knights of Thule, plus Stalin's pet genetic specialist seems to have some ideas about 'paranormals' like you or Agent Doe. Your country needs you, Professor Parker...." I rubbed my eyes tiredly. "Leave your card with my assistant. I'll have an answer for you in the morning." Jason was silent until we'd reached the car and he was driving me back to my home in Virginia. "So...will you accept?" he asked. I looked tiredly into the setting Sun, wreathed in wispy clouds that lit up like ribbons of flame. "Night is coming," was all I had to say. =========================================================================== THE END =========================================================================== Author's Notes: And so end the rather jump-around-y adventures of Beacon. Perhaps I'll write other stories set during his 1930s career or his work for the O.S.S. Maybe I'll do a story set in the 1950s, with Beacon as a supporting character. But this series was always intended to be about his origins and his struggle against the forces of night, as embodied by the goddess Nyx and her followers. The idea that the Pentagon has some mystic significance is almost as old as the Pentagon itself, so I figured I'd go with it. }-> Built in 1942-3, the Pentagon in the ASH world is the largest permanent anti-scrying talisman, protecting not only itself but much of the Washington D.C. area from remote sensing. The Thule Society was a semi-secret occult organization that predated the Nazi party and operated within it. As far as I know, the Knights of Thule did not exist, but they're a natural outgrowth in a world where magic is real (just as Section 13 of the O.S.S. was in the ASH universe). Not that the Nazis were short on knights of this, that and the other thing. A couple of vocabulary notes. "Fiat lux" means "let there be light." Leuchtterm is one of the possible German translations of "Beacon," as leucht means light. Ritternacht means Knight of the Night.