.|. COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS ----X----------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` =====, ======== ====. ===. ======= ======= // // // )) //|| // // ===== // //===< // || //=== //=== // // // \\ //==|| // // `===== o // o // // o // || o // o ======= o Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Marc Singer and Terrone Carpenter Issue #11, "Firestarter" Part III of THE BONFIRE by Marc Singer Copyright 1999; a Legacy House production ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Cover shows Warden leaping into the enraged STRAFE agents, kicking Tony and Teller and swinging his swords at Dan. Flames have consumed the outside of the cover and now threaten to burn the center.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Tracey had to admit, it did look bad. STRAFE was heavily armed, dressed in black commando costumes, and had just finished beating the living tar out of a bunch of hapless teenagers who had been trying to pass as real paragangers. Now the NYPD surrounded them, and if anyone looked like a paragang, it was STRAFE. Dan stared at the cordon of police. "...I don't suppose you'd believe this is all a big misunderstanding?" One uniformed cop shook her head. The olive-skinned woman was Rani Chavez, an East Village cop who'd been chasing after STRAFE for days. "Lower your weapons, put your hands in the air." Tony Drake, Jen Kleinvogel, and Lana Smith remained frozen in their battle positions on the street...or, in Jen's case, ten feet above the street. They were all waiting for Dan's lead. Dan was already unarmed, but didn't want to send the wrong signal by raising his arms. He subvocalized "Teller, backup" into the wire mike inside his ski mask, then told Chavez, "We've been protecting the East Village, same as you." "Not the same as us," said Ben Whitman, Chavez's waspish partner. "You just kicked the crap out of the Rust Brothers, for God's sake." "They weren't acting of their own volition..." Dan glanced down at the technoloa fetish blinking on the spinal column of one of the cyborgs. There was no way the cops would believe that Dr. Jacky was controlling them, or that the whole fight had been a set-up. "Anyway, we've arrested the Rust Brothers with police help before. Check with the fourth precinct..." "Already ran it through HQ," Chavez said from behind her gun barrel. "Those were government agents, and they say they've never heard of you." "And you weren't arresting those kids," Whitman added with disgust. Dented and shattered cyborgs littered the street. Dan muttered for backup again and rolled his eyes toward the rooftop where Teller was stationed. He caught a flash of steel in the moonlight, and realized Teller wouldn't be helping anybody. Jason Teller had been slammed against a ledge, disarmed, and wounded by the paranormal vigilante Warden. Teller could hear Dan calling for backup through his earphone, and Warden must have too; he raised one of his Japanese swords and slashed down at the unarmed agent. But Teller's telekinetic ability was good for more than just steering projectiles with unerring accuracy. He grabbed hold of Warden's sword...he couldn't stop it, but he did shove it aside. The sword cut into brick as Teller rolled out of the way and past the surprised Warden. Warden adjusted quickly, slashing with his other sword, but Teller steered that so it only cut the fabric of his outfit. Teller scooped his hand across the rooftop and found a small pebble. He snapped his forearm, drilling it with preternatural aim and power straight at Warden's eye. The vigilante lifted a bundi, parrying the stone. "Wouldn't have done you any good, anyway," he said with a smile. Teller realized Warden's black bandana covered his eyes...he didn't *need* to see. Teller bolted for the fire escape. Warden hurled a handful of Chinese throwing coins at him, which Teller easily seized and redirected. But Warden was only using them as a distraction; he leaped through the air, casually batting aside the coins with his left sword while slashing down with his right. Teller tried to divert the blade, but Warden was compensating and his aim stayed true. Teller fell back to avoid the cut...and felt his shins bang against the low ledge. Warden called out a warning, but before Teller could react he was tumbling over the ledge and off the building. "Omigod, *Teller*!" Jen launched across the street like a projectile. The sudden movement panicked the cops, who held guns loaded with actual projectiles... Several shots rang out from the small Italian restaurant on East Houston Street. STRAFE's other concealed agent, Mulholland, hit and disabled the police floodlights. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite the shot Teller was; some of his bullets went astray, breaking car windows or pinging off doors and convincing the police they were under attack. They returned fire on everyone they saw. The volley of bullets bowled Tony over, but didn't pierce his skin. It passed through the intangible Lana. Jen had already caught Teller and was cruising up First Avenue, and Mulholland had cover. Dan was in the middle of the crossfire. He back-flipped high into the air, above the field of fire and the squad-cars' headlights. He twisted and somersaulted in midair, coming down at an unexpected spot between bursts of rifle fire. He leaped again as the police readjusted their aim, and landed behind Tony. Tony dove over his commander, becoming a living shield. Tony bit his lip as the bullets lanced off his back. "Any ideas...on how we get out?" he grunted. Two hands sprouted up from the pavement beneath them. They grabbed Dan and ghosted him down through a maze of concrete and pipes, then yanked him into a large sewer main. It already held some Rust Brothers, beaten and bogged down in the waste. Lana Smith vanished back into the underground. She reappeared a minute later with Tony in tow. Tony tried to stand on his own, but was pale and unsteady -- Dan guessed he was about to go into shock from the pain of all the bullet impacts. Lana tried to hold him up, but once Tony turned substantial again the waifish girl couldn't support him. Dan slid under Tony's other shoulder and the three of them scrambled down the sewer. Above ground, the police were running out of targets. Whitman led a squad into the Italian restaurant, smashing through the side door. Moments later he poked out the front door, shaking his head -- empty. Chavez cursed and pounded the hood of her car. From the rooftop, Warden gazed down on the police. Some of them had noticed him. He turned and, with a final swirl of his black trenchcoat, he was gone. * * * * Andrew Trumbull watched Warden disappear, then lowered his binoculars. He stood on a high tenement rooftop several blocks away in the Lower East Side. His fine three-piece suit and expensive nightvision binoculars didn't blend with the gang-ravaged slum at all, and would have marked him as an easy victim if he weren't the personal lieutenant of Rex Umbrae. Andrew parted his thin lips and said, "Damn. If I only had a sniper's rifle..." "You wouldn't kill the Warden," said the man standing next to him. "He's most tenacious that way." The tall black man also wore a suit, a black pinstriped number with a white silk tie, gloves, and carnation in his lapel, yet he didn't look at all out of place. He was a member of the New York Macoute and the leader of their elite hitmen, the Guede, and the Lower East Side bowed to his stylistic whims. He was called Saturday, by the few people who spoke his name. Saturday was there as Dr. Jacky's representative, and the man controlling the Rust Brothers. "It is a pity Warden didn't kill STRAFE, or STRAFE him." "He wasn't part of the plan," said the third person on the roof. She was the only one dressed to fit the Lower East Side, wearing a dirty leather jacket with a flame symbol. She'd also bleached and dyed her curly hair to a fiery orange color. Every time Andrew caught sight of her, he shivered... not from her crimes against taste, but because she was another puppet of the woman who had briefly stolen his mind. "I'm a little surprised Warden even showed up," Burnout said. "I wonder if that was Bathory's doing...her people have been squealing all over town about some alliance with STRAFE." "You don't think that's true?" Andrew said. "Nah. It was all a set-up to convince Warden. Trust me." Her eyes twinkled and she flashed a deranged smile that hinted exactly how she'd gotten that information. "But it does bode well for our little treaty if Bathory and Cockatrice are unintentionally helping it along." "I'm sorry, my sister, but I cannot regard this truce as a success." Saturday dismantled his technoloa control unit, a mass of electronic components which resembled a tiny man or a voodoo doll. "We failed to dislodge STRAFE." "We set the cops and Warden after them, and we saw how effective just a little cooperation can be. Think of it as a dry run." "Then what next?" said Andrew, sniffing and calling for his helicopter. "We negotiate a treaty that'll end the gang war." Burnout stared northward, at the gleaming skyscrapers of midtown. She would get there any day now, she knew it. It was simply a matter of going through the East Village first. * * * * The STRAFE agents reconvened at the prearranged safehouse, a small produce store on Tompkins Square Park that had been looted days earlier. Jen and Teller arrived first, flying in low under a huge Chrysler billboard that screamed INDULGE YOURSELF through automated loudspeakers and holographic letters. The agents fidgeted among the trampled fruits, regretting that Dan had insisted on radio silence. Teller bandaged his wounds and kept talking about Warden's inhuman speed, even after Jen stopped listening. Dan, Tony, and Lana arrived next. Tony had calmed down from the shock, and didn't even realize he was leaning heavily on Lana until he caught Teller's sardonic look. Then he pulled himself off her and slumped down onto an orange crate. Dan glanced around the store and said, "Where's Mulholland?" "No sign of him," Jen said. She touched her headset. "Maybe we should call him...?" Teller shook his head sharply. "The cops might have him." Dan's eyes widened. Mulholland had been the only one coming back on street level. "No, not the cops..." Most of the storefront window was already smashed; Mulholland didn't take too many injuries as he hurtled through it. His collision with the empty fruit stands was another matter. A dark figure dropped off the top of the awning, bounced off the sidewalk, and hopped in through the empty windowframe. Teller groaned "Not again!" as Warden drew his swords and charged the team. Warden took the tall, almost-bald man first, the one who'd shrugged off an entire police squad's bullets; Warden could still hear air whistling through the bullet holes peppering his clothes. The tough guy had to go down first. He reached for a taser, but Warden easily rolled under his guard and slashed up with the bundi and hook sword. It was like hitting steel; the swords slid up and off the tough guy's ribs. The tough guy clubbed down, but Warden was already gone, rolling under his arms...the bullets from the marksman, Teller, pinged off the tough guy as Warden ducked behind him for cover. Warden tossed a throwing coin, lodging it neatly in the barrel of Teller's gun. The flying woman was buzzing him...some field made her harder to detect when she flew...but she was too cramped in the store. Warden grabbed a leg and used her momentum to whirl her above his head, finally tossing her into the tough guy. He fell but didn't seem harmed. Now the acrobat was on him. Warden tensed his legs to leap away...and the acrobat caught him, punching him in the back in mid-twist. Warden rolled with it, popped up behind a table that reeked of smashed bananas, and drilled three throwing stars at the acrobat. His enemy ducked under two and batted the third one aside. The other "Strafe" members were starting to rally; Warden had to shift tactics. He blinded the acrobat, stealing his sight to view the store interior. It was the best sensory input he'd ever had: like drinking pure spring water. Permitting himself a slight smile, Warden jumped over the table and kicked the acrobat across the sticky floor. Warden glanced at the others with his borrowed sight and finally saw the skinny girl, the one who barely registered to his other senses: it was Burnout, all right. One of the maniacs who'd nearly beaten him to death a month ago. Cursing, Warden slashed at her but the blades passed through. She reached for him, and he backflipped away. His flip took him past Teller, who was drawing another gun...an elbow to the wrist put an end to that. The tough guy charged him again, and Warden recalled hearing the man grunt back on Houston when the cops shot him. He could still feel pain. Warden whacked him in the solar plexus with the hilt of his sword, then boosted the tough guy's natural pain reflex until he sank to the floor, crying. Now it was getting easy. The flyer rose again and Warden scrambled her spatial perceptions; she slammed into the ceiling. He twirled his swords in two graceful fighting curves, going for Teller again. The acrobat, still blind, drove a foot into Warden's gut. The vigilante flew backwards and the acrobat followed through, throwing a punch by hearing alone. Warden barely blocked it. Then he steadied himself and raised his swords... Only to see one of them phased from his grip by Burnout, the other knocked loose by a watermelon shell hurled by Teller. The blinded acrobat closed in and grabbed Warden by the throat. "We're government agents," he shouted. "You've already cooperated with Hendrick!" Warden rolled backwards and hunched in a battle stance as the others closed in around him. "Hendrick?" he coughed. He remembered the old guy. They nodded. "He was our commanding officer," the acrobat explained. "Well then," the Warden rasped, "I'm sure he'd be real proud." With that, he vaulted out the windowframe and was gone. Jen leaned against a fruit stand and ran her fingers through her long, dirty hair. "What just happened?" she said. Teller strutted over to the empty window. "Who the *hell* does he think he is?" he screamed, veins bulging on his neck and forehead. Teller could just make out Warden scaling the face of the billboard. He picked up a gun and said, "I could still..." Dan clamped a hand on Teller's arm. "That's not necessary." "Grind, he *jumped* us! *Twice*!" "Because he thought we were a paragang," Dan said. He blinked awkwardly as his sight returned. "He saw Burnout with us," Tony growled, eyeing Lana. "He saw us shooting at cops," Dan said. "Mulholland, what happened to you?" Mulholland massaged his sore temples in silence for a moment. Then he said, without apology, "I caught him tailing me. So I attacked him." Dan looked to the rest of the team, not happy with this proof. "Someone set us up," Jen stressed. "Someone set us up." Dan nodded. Someone *had* set them up. But it hadn't been hard. * * * * Cockatrice stretched her arms and reclined further back in the bath. The water was so cold that a light fog rose from it; and whenever a knee or a fingertip touched the surface, frost crystals would spread in fine fractal patterns. When she was done, Cockatrice planted a hand on either side of the tub and pulled herself out of the water. She stepped out onto the floor, moving carefully because every surface in the bathroom was coated in a thin film of ice. She was still reaching for her white terrycloth towel when a small orange tomcat burst into the suite. He was one of Bathory's whelps, a grimy little urchin she retained for information-gathering. Cockatrice half- suspected Bathory kept the boy around just to annoy her. The tomcat shifted back to human form and blurted out the latest news, stopping only when he saw Cockatrice through the open bathroom door. She glared at him, letting him see her incredibly clear blue eyes. The boy stammered, "I...I'm sorry, madam, I thought mistress Bathory..." "Lady Bathory is out feeding right now." She dropped the towel and stepped into the bedroom. She left ice-caked footprints on the carpet. "You may address your report to me." The boy tried to look anywhere else in the room, but she grabbed his jaw and locked his face in place. "*To me*." "W-Warden attacked STRAFE but didn't kill them," he said. "Also, some others teamed up to kill them...Umbrae, Burnout, Dr. Jacky, the Rust Brothers. They're talking alliance." "Really?" That *was* important. An anti-STRAFE alliance could just as easily become an anti-Snow Leopards alliance, unless she and Bathory got in early.... "Well done. You may go." The urchin backed towards the door, bowing to her. "There's just one more thing," Cockatrice added. The boy froze. Cockatrice smiled. "Keep your eyes to yourself." Fear animated the boy and he ran for the door. His legs were already shifting to feline form for greater speed, but he couldn't turn his body completely before Cockatrice opened her clear blue eyes, and stared. A wave of cold poured out, hitting his paws first. She rolled her gaze up his dirty, underfed little body, and what she saw she turned to ice. The boy was frozen in mid-twist, part human and part cat for the rest of eternity. Cockatrice traced a finger under the chin of the crystalline sculpture. It was actually quite pretty. "You know," she said, "I finally understand what Bathory saw in you." * * * * Early morning light poured through the windows of the paranormal critical-care room in the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Doctor Ellen Cortes, head of STRAFE's Tesla Branch, leaned over her patient and said, "You're making excellent progress, Colonel." Her face, round and unwrinkled, loomed large in his limited field of vision. Richard Hendrick mumbled his answer, and she had to lean even closer. "What was that, Colonel?" she said cheerfully. "I said, someone of your years shouldn't be babying me. I got burned; I didn't get stupid." As she recoiled, he added, "I can't believe they're letting girls run Tesla Branch now." Cortes straightened her back and brought her clipboard into view. "I'm the oldest supertech engineer you have, Colonel. I'm also the best." With a flick of her wrist she motioned to the machines that regulated Hendrick's diet, purified his air, stabilized his heart, and regrew the bright pink patches of fresh skin that were slowly replacing his burns. "If you don't like it, you can always wear bandages the rest of your life." Hendrick spoke again. He could only muster a low but clear whisper. "Sorry, doctor. I don't like being laid up here while there's a mission going on." He sighed, alerting several sensors to the pain it caused in his chest. "Especially since I could have saved Brown and ended it before it began." Cortes bit her lip. "You're just saying that to get sympathy." Hendrick nodded, as much as the bandages and braces would allow. "And yet it's true. Those kids are running around New York without my experience, without my instincts. Because of my blunder." He blinked. "They're without you, too." Cortes hastily scribbled the last few notes on her clipboard. "Thank you, Colonel, that will be all...." She spun on her heels and marched for the door out of the antiseptic white room. "Do you want to help on this mission?" She stopped. "What?" "The missions. You always want to go along. Help out. Maybe get one of them to notice you...?" He wheezed out a laugh, triggering several alarms. Hoses shot more purified air into his mouth and he had to speak over the hiss. "You're not *so* young. And I'm not so old, either. I notice these things." She hugged her clipboard to her chest. "You're just playing on my emotions now. Manipulating me." He nodded again. "But you'll have to trust the old bastard. And me... I'll have to trust a little girl. If we want to help the team out." She stepped closer to the bed. "And what would that entail? Hypothetically speaking." "You'd start by bringing me all the intelligence the agency currently has on the paragangs...hypothetically speaking." He winked at her. They both smiled. * * * * Tony Drake hadn't asked for any company on his morning walk, but Dan Tracey went along with him just the same. Tony waited until they were far away from their stolen apartment and asked, "Any particular reason you're tailing me, boss?" Dan forced a smile. "If I were tailing you, Tony, I wouldn't be walking right next to you. Actually, I wanted to talk." Tony ambled down the empty sidewalk. The crowds weren't coming out this morning, the way they had after STRAFE's first paragang busts. Last night's violence was too random, and had too much chance of continuing. "I hear you've been worried about the mounting violence..." Dan said. Tony pulled his collar up high around his neck. "Jen talked to you, huh?" Dan nodded. "I'm worried too, Tony. There's no point denying it anymore, we basically *are* a paragang. If we don't end this war soon..." His voice trailed off. "Anyway, I wanted to know what you thought about it. What we can do." "I'll tell you what we can do." Tony held up his hand, pointing to the metal band around his wrist. The Tesla Branch device could, theoretically, detect psionic intrusions on anyone else who wore the bracelets...their teammates. "We can watch Lana Smith like *hawks*." Dan shook his head. "Lana's not the problem, Tony..." "Like hell she isn't. Things got rough as soon as *she* joined up, didn't they?" Dan sighed and started over. "I know she injured you horribly in Haven..." neither one had to be reminded of the bomb she'd shoved into his stomach, "...but that was Burnout, Tyra Dumont, controlling her." "Maybe," Tony said. "Or maybe it was Lana all along. In which case these little safety bracelets are useless." "Tony, calm down..." "Forget it, Dan. I think I'll take my walk alone after all." Tony stalked down the block, leaving Dan standing on the empty street. * * * * The offices at the peak of the World Building were uncommonly busy that afternoon. Half of the executive assistants were on telephone or internet conferences with North American Combine government officials, selling Rex Umbrae as the man who could stop the paragangs. The other half were on secret land lines, talking to the paragangs. Umbrae stood over Andrew, listening as his aide negotiated the most crucial arrangement over a headset telephone. Andrew's voice was silken and Umbrae waved for him not to overplay it; Bathory was no boardroom fool. "...We understand you were also discrediting STRAFE," Andrew said into the thin microphone. "...I wouldn't put it that way; we didn't lose anything. But if we were to pool our resources..." Andrew winked at Umbrae and flashed him a thumbs-up. Then Andrew's false smile...worn even for telephone conversations...collapsed and he tried to break back into the discussion. Bathory obviously wasn't letting him. Umbrae thought about grabbing the phone and negotating himself; the headset would easily come off with a snap of Andrew's neck. Umbrae half-thought he deserved it, just for using something as crass as a thumbs-up sign... The smile reappeared and Andrew said, "You don't beat around the bush, do you? I can assure you, we're just as concerned about Burnout as you are." He looked to his employer for approval; Umbrae nodded. "Let's say that her final disposition will be a key part of the treaty." He smiled, teeth slightly parted, waiting for some final pleasantry that never came. After a moment he slipped off the headset and said, with pride, "The Snow Leopards and Cyanide Blues are in. They're coming tonight." Umbrae marched out to the main hallway, pulling Andrew in his wake, to inspect the caterers and security guards who were setting up for the reception. He'd talked the government into quietly averting their attention from his criminal operations, if he could deliver them a pacified city. He'd talked the paragangers into stopping the war, if he could remove STRAFE and the psychotic Burnout. He'd talked Burnout into leading a unified strikeforce against her enemies in STRAFE. The treaty would become official once the East Village fell. Umbrae paused at the bar and offered his lieutenant a glass of champagne. "To the new Manhattan." * * * * Red and blue lights flashed outside the brownstone condominium, adding some color to the gray winter dusk; low-hanging clouds blocked any colors of a natural sunset. A small crowd milled in the street as several cops pulled a well-dressed man out of the building. Blood and Jaz-dust were still splattered across his shoes. The man pulled his jacket over his face; no reporters were outside, none even came near the East Village, but old habits died hard. Whitman and Chavez worked crowd control. Normally this arrest would have been a two-officer job, but they were awfully near the Greenwich Village border. A young man in a dirty tan trenchcoat approached Chavez. He was handsome, but with beard stubble and bags under his eyes that said he'd been letting himself go lately. Chavez couldn't blame him. He pointed to the suspect, who was getting shoved into a squad car. "Excuse me, officer. Was this paragang-related?" Chavez noted the guy's weird, stilted diction. "You think we'd get this many cars for a paragang call? The narcotics boys only come out of their fortress downtown if it's an easy collar." The guy was confused, and she added, "He's a drug dealer. Had a six-figure advertising job and he got so deep into Jaz he had to deal to keep his head above water." "How'd you get him?" the man inquired. "Because he waited until the middle of a paragang war to shoot his connection, all so he could make a few extra bucks. And his connection's girlfriend, so there'd be no witnesses. We got him because he stuck around, scraping the Jaz into little sandwich bags." Chavez removed her hat and rubbed her eyes. "There's no fucking hope for this city, is there?" "A few people are trying to hold the line," the man said. His voice was deep and reassuring, like an actor's. "Yeah?" She cocked her hat back on top of her curly black hair. "Like who?" "You guys, for instance." He inhaled, held the breath, then quickly let it out. "And the people chasing out the paragangs." "You mean the *local* paragang. They aren't Robin Hoods, pal." "They haven't hurt anybody, that I've heard. They don't run Jaz or protection rackets. We could do a lot worse." She strolled back towards the squad cars, letting the man follow beside her. "We couldn't do *any* worse," she said. "What these guys don't get, what Warden understands that they don't, is that the paragangs will always hit back at the easiest target. Warden makes *himself* the target. These guys make *my neighborhood* the target." "But the paragangs already want it! It would be a target anyway..." "I thought you might say that." She unholstered her pistol. "You're Strafe, right? The one with the gearwheel." She leaned her head down into the small radio unit clipped to her shoulder. "All units, this is 74 at the Jaz murder. We have a possible paragang leader here...." The other police on the scene whirled and stared at the young man. Chavez had led him into the middle of them. Most pulled their guns on him. "I just came here to talk," the young man said, raising his arms. Chavez smirked. "Guilty much?" "We can still work together," he pleaded. "It isn't too late..." The radio unit crackled with voices, but they weren't answering Chavez's call. A gruff male voice said, "We've got Snow Leopards and Cyanide Blues pushing in from Washington Square Park..." Another voice, almost lost in static, blurted, "Boys of Pain are spilling out of the subway at Astor Place!" Another voice: "Macoute goons on Avenue D..." Another: "Cyber- Nostra coming in from Nolita..." Another: "The Onyx Eye, repeat, the Onyx Eye..." They could already hear gunfire in the distance. The crowd scattered for cover. The police tightened around their new captive; the Jaz dealer, forgotten in the back of a squad car, wailed for someone to save him. An earsplitting squeal of feedback pulled everyone's attention skywards. The Chrysler billboard was no longer blaring its inane slogan; somebody had climbed onto the metal rig that held the floodlights, which now cast a woman's shadow across the well-muscled actor and the expensive car. The feedback coalesced back into speech and the billboard speakers broadcast a confident, amused female voice over the rooftops. "People of the East Village," she announced, "you are hereby accused of violence." The Strafer looked like he wanted to break away from the police. "Of greed." The Jaz dealer pounded on the car window. "Of incompetence." The police looked from the Strafer to the billboard to each other. "Of selfishness and fear." The crowd rioted, breaking down windows and doors to get off the streets. "And worst of all, of falling behind in the big race. I want those skyscrapers." The shadow pointed uptown. "And I won't let a miserable misfit ghetto stand in my way. You are all found guilty." The shadow raised its arms high. Bursts of fire poured across the holographic imaging generators, causing the huge orange letters of INDULGE YOURSELF to twist and flicker like giant flames. "That's Burnout!" the Strafer screamed. "She's behind the attack! Let me call my people!" The man pushed towards Chavez, causing the other police to raise their weapons and yell warnings. The man kept walking toward her, saying, "Trust me." Chavez, unblinking, cocked back the safety and aimed. TO BE CONTINUED... =========================================================================== Next issue: Warden returns and STRAFE battles the paragangers...*all* the paragangers. Absolutely every gangster guest-stars in the giant-sized conclusion to "The Bonfire." =========================================================================== Notes: Lana Smith created by Dave Van Domelen/Tony Pi. Cockatrice and Tyra Dumont created by Tony Pi. Rex Umbrae and Warden created by Matt Rossi. STRAFE #11 written by and Copyright 1999 Marc Singer. A Legacy House production.