"Scarlet's Letter" by Dave Van Domelen based on characters and situations created by Eric Alfred Burns ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Dear diary." No, that doesn't feel right. Rewind the tape. "To posterity...." Gag. Pretentious enough? Hmm. "Dear...grandfather. Today I took my first steps along the path you blazed two generations ago. Somehow it feels right that I tell you this, even though you've been dead since I was a little girl. And even though you're not REALLY my grandfather. Hah, I'd like to see him try and swing a sword...he'd probably fall over. Oh, don't get me wrong...for all the emotionless reserve his generation of Englishmen shared, he loved me and I loved him back. But he was a boring man. Not like you. Not like the Golden Swashbuckler...." * * * * "Hey, watch where you swing that thing, Karen!" Ian yelped as he jumped back much farther than he really needed to. "Sorry, just getting the feel of the blade," she grinned as she mock- stabbed at Ian, pressing the stud on the hilt that made the blade crackle briefly with electricity. "Whoa...that's no prop!" Ian realized. "Did you...?" "NO, I did NOT rob the museum to complete my costume, Ian. After all, we both know that's not how a proper English Lady behaves," she giggled as she deeply curtsied, sweeping the sword behind her and almost knocking over a floor lamp. Then she stood again even more quickly, blushing as the laces on her breeches came undone. Ian smirked and made a big show of turning away while she redid them with a better knot. "And a proper English Gentleman turns his back while a lady laces up her pants," he mocked back. "Are those leather?" he asked, turning back around, since he was not a proper English Gentleman. "Yep. Got 'em the same place I found the sword with built-in cattle prod. You know that shop in town, 'Iron and Velvet?'" Ian raised an eyebrow. "And what is a proper lady such as yourself doing shopping at a bondage shop?" Karen did a quick turn to show off her "redcoat" outfit and picked up a tricornered hat with a huge white plume on it. "Why, getting myself a costume, of course. I can be fairly sure no one else will be wearing quite the same thing, yes?" "There is that, yes. Here, let's see it with the mask." Karen picked up the mask and looked at it like it was a dead mouse. "Is this really necessary? I mean, will there be ANYONE at the party who doesn't expect the youngest, and hence most 'adventurous,' daughter of Lady Strathmore to dress up as grandmother's old champion?" She grinned adventurously. "You'd be surprised. Besides, it's part of the tradition. Even if everyone knows who you are, you stay masked until midnight. And there might be other Swashbucklers around, you know. With that book your mother put together last year out, his popularity is back on the rise." Karen put the mask on and looked at herself in the mirror, then frowned. "I still think grandmum's spinning in her grave over that. I mean, she may have donated her personal effects to the museum and all, but it was relatively tasteful. Sometimes I think mother went ahead with this lurid piece of near-fiction just to get back at grandmum." "She denies it, of course." "Of course." Ian ran his fingers through Karen's coppery hair as he planted a quick kiss on her lips. "Must run, have my own costume to get ready. Pick you up at eight," he paused and looked her up and down, "my Scarlet Swashbuckler." * * * * "The weird thing was that I was almost *hoping* for something to happen at the party. I thought it would be so deliciously ironic if the same thing happened to me as happened to you...I suppose as a bored socialite I was wishing for some excitement. If wishes were fishes, this one would be Moby Dick. "I-Ian was wearing a Zorro costume, which looked positively silly with his beard and long hair, but he thought it was dashing. "Oh, God...this is where it all went sour. I don't even know if I can say it to a tape recorder. I guess I should try, though...if I'm ever to get over this, I have to talk about it, even if it's just to a dead man I never met. "The party was in a dull phase, midnight was still over an hour away and people were starting to run out of witty stories to tell but weren't yet drunk enough that any old story would be witty. At least that nitwit Nigel never showed up, but it was still a bad party even without him. So Ian and I slipped away to one of the balconies...." * * * * "This one's empty," Ian whispered after poking his head behind a hanging tapestry. "Come on," he grinned lewdly. Karen followed him into the alcove between the tapestry and the glass doors that only partially kept out the cold night air. "Couldn't we find one near a heat duct?" she asked. "Oh, I think we'll be able to keep warm enough," Ian smiled. Karen fingered the activation stud on her sword. "Now, now...don't make me use this on you!" she mock-scolded. "What makes you think I...wait, you hear something?" Karen grinned for a moment, thinking this was some sort of distraction, then frowned as she noticed the background murmur of the party downstairs had changed tone. It was quieter, more anxious. "Sounds like something's wrong. Maybe tommygun-wielding thugs are robbing the place," she tried to joke, but her voice sounded hollow and nervous in her ears. Reliving a masked wonder's origin might be a fun thing to daydream about, but it was not something she really wanted to experience. Ian quietly moved to the tapestry, waving Karen back as he peeked out. "Trouble. One big side of beef and a pair of gunmen. Why'd you pick NOW to be right?" Karen gingerly stepped over to the tapesty herself, wishing she hadn't worn such loud boots. They'd caught her eye in the shop, with the steel plates and hobnails and all, but at the moment a pair of fuzzy slippers would have been a lot better. "Oh God," she found herself whispering as she saw the man grinning in the middle of the room. He had a brutish, misshapen face and a lopsided smile that was his trademark. "It's Smiling Jack," she hissed to Ian. "Who? I don't follow the crime scene." "Utterly mad. One of those 'super soldier' types governments sometimes try to create, he can break a tree in half with his bare hands but is a stone cold lunatic. He was supposed to be in lockup for the rest of his unnatural life...his spree in Manchester made the news when you were off in Peru on that holiday last year." "Why would he try to rob a party? Even if he needs the money, there's got to be better ways?" "I don't know, he's insane! Maybe someone he dislikes is here, maybe he picked the name out of hat. Oh...God...." A sickening crack could be heard as Smiling Jack broke a man's neck with one hand, followed by a stunned silence filled only with Jack's demented laughter. "Sorry ta put a damper on th' evenin', all, but I don' like no witnesses," Jack bellowed. "You may fire when ready, lads." "We've got to...!" Ian started. "What? DIE?" Karen whispered urgently. "There WERE security guards, if these guys can take out trained guards, we'll just add to the list! If we stay hidden, we can at least tell the police...." The shooting started. Ian glared at Karen, pulled the sword from his belt. "I have to do SOMETHING!" Ian burst through the tapestry, shouting, "Halt, evildoers!" as he leapt from the railing towards the gunmen, hoping to startle them and take down at least one with his flailing blade. It almost worked. The gunmen did stop in amazement at the ebon- garbed man swooping down on them. But Jack didn't. "Ian..." Karen whispered as Jack smiled and caught her lover in his knotted hands. "No!" she blurted as Jack casually shattered Ian's left arm. "So, someone else up there!" Jack boomed. "Come on out, love, or his death'll be slow! I ain't got time ta search the place for stragglers." He added emphasis to his words by pushing a thumb into Ian's right eye, eliciting a scream as the black mask went slick with blood. Something tore in Karen's mind. The fear was gone, yet oddly it wasn't replaced with rage or hate like they always say in the stories. There was just a cold sense of What Must Be Done, an icy grip that held all her feelings tightly down and wouldn't let her know what they were. A few quick steps and she brushed aside the hanging cloth, pulling her sword from its scabbard in a fluid motion. Jack's men brought their guns up to point at her, but she didn't look at them. She didn't look at Jack's leering face. She just looked at the back of Ian's head, focused on it like it were the only thing in the world. And she jumped. Her jump was just as uncoordinated as Ian's had been, and seemed just as doomed as Jack held out his free hand to catch her soon-to-be bullet- riddled body. The first shots fired. She skipped off the bullets, bouncing a little higher in the air. The thick leather of her soles split, but the steel plates underneath held. The shocked gunmen held their triggers down, but she just danced across the stream of lead until their magazines were empty and she was directly over Jack. Using some of the kick from the final bullets, she flipped over in mid air, pointing her sword straight down at Smiling Jack. Jack was so astonished that he didn't move a muscle until she had rammed the blade down his throat, like some bizarre sword-swallowing team act. Choking on the blade, he dropped Ian and flailed about trying to grab Karen. Karen said nothing, but pressed the activation stud on the sword, sending the entire charge of the battery through Jack's insides. He collapsed in a slightly smoking heap. The gunmen ran in panic. Karen suddenly felt all the repressed emotion flood back, and nearly swooned. What to do? She looked down at Ian's bloody and unconscious form. "What I have to," she said to herself, scooping him up and running for the door. * * * * "I dropped Ian at the hospital, then took his car out into the countryside. At least I had the presence of mind to make sure help was sent back for the others but I admit I was scared...I hadn't even thought to take off the mask when I was yelling for doctors to come help Ian. "Then later I was glad I kept it on because I was more than a little worried that I'd be in trouble for killing a man...even a man as loathsome as Smiling Jack. "But get this! The scumbag survived! It's a good thing he didn't wake up before the police arrived, or it would have gotten quite bad. And Ian's recovering too. Believe it or not, he's the only one who knows I was the one who stopped Jack, and that's because I told him! There was so much panic in the crowd by the time I made my entrance, no one took the time to identify me. Luck, I guess. "And that's where things get really odd. I DANCED ON BULLETS, grandfather! And it wasn't because I have some sort of lightning speed or anything, it seems to be just dumb luck. Luck in economy-sized packets. The bullets just happened to strike at the right angle with the right spin and everything to not get through the plates. It was like being kicked in the feet, and when the adrenaline wore off I could hardly stand, but it was unbelieveable! It's like I have some sort of really good karma going...later, while I was driving and trying to clear my head, some drunken revelers came barrelling down the road at me, and by all rights should have turned us all into a bonfire because I couldn't hit the brakes hard enough to stop in time, but all four of their tyres simultaneously blew out and all I got was a scratch on Ian's fender. "NO, I'm not going to go play in traffic to test this out, but I think I have super-luck or a guardian angel or something. "Is this what it was like for you? Finding out in one horrible night that you could really do something about all the bad people out there, and knowing you couldn't sleep right at night without trying to do just that? "I don't know...maybe it's not yet an age of heroes again. You gave up the good fight because the times had changed and the fight wasn't so good anymore. Maybe the times are still wrong. But I keep thinking about all the people who got killed or hurt because I wanted to hide in the shadows...sure, I didn't know THEN that I had powers, that I wouldn't just add to the body count, but I know NOW. And now that I do know, I feel like I have to do something about it. It won't bring back the people who died, but maybe it'll help keep others from joining them. "I'm running out of tape on this cassette, so I guess I just have to think about this some more myself. I'd ask you to wish me luck, but it looks like I have plenty of that for myself. "Signing off, for now. The Scarlet Swashbuckler."