Courageous

by Nicholas Olivo

  “It worked,” Herb breathed. “The hold is broken.”

  “Herbert,” Albert called. “Step away from her, son.”

  “What? Dad, why?”

  Megan shot forward, her fangs extending, grabbed Herb and pulled him to the ground. Petra was across the room in a flash and hauled Megan off of him before she could tear his throat out. Herb scrambled to his feet, his hand at his neck. “Let me see,” Mrs. Rita said, as she rushed into the room. Two pricks of blood were dripping down Herb’s neck, but Mrs. Rita nodded. “You were lucky, Herbert.”

  “Vincent,” Petra called. “I can’t—” Megan broke Petra’s hold again and flung her into the wall. I didn’t have time to portal Petra to a safe landing, and she cracked against the wall and slid down it in a limp heap. I was about to call up chains to bind Megan, something that I should’ve thought of earlier, when Mrs. Rita ran forward and struck Megan across the jaw. I’d seen the elderly medicine woman fight vampires before, and she’d torn through them like they were paper dolls. But Megan wasn’t any normal undead. Being strigoi mort meant she was on par with Carmilla, and now I was seeing just how unprepared we were. Mrs. Rita’s blow turned Megan’s head to the side, and as my partner turned her head back to look at Mrs. Rita, a savage grin split her face, and her eyes turned black.

  “She’s gone feral,” Albert said. “She needs to feed.”

  I summoned up some infragillium manacles from the floor and bound Megan in place. Then, grabbing a sudden inspiration, I portaled back to the main chamber, and created another portal inside of Mrs. Rita’s hexagon. In the Caulborn command center, Sojin was only now sitting up, his shirt and suit jacket trailing wisps of smoke. He yelped as I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him through. A second portal took us back to the lab. “Hey, Megan,” I called, “catch!” and I pushed Sojin at her.

  At the sound of her name, Megan’s head whipped around, and I dismissed her infragillium bindings. Her eyes flared crimson when she saw Sojin stumbling toward her, and she descended on the rogue Caulborn agent with a snarl. Blood sprayed across the floor as Megan’s front teeth elongated into needle-like fangs and she plunged them into Sojin’s breastbone. Sojin let out a high-pitched squeal as he swatted ineffectually at Megan. Then his skin turned ashen, and he stopped struggling. Megan drew her head back, her eyes now glowing orbs of blackness. Her needle fangs retracted, and her canines elongated, as a normal vampire’s. She plunged these into Sojin’s neck and began taking greedy gulps of the man’s lifeblood.

  Mrs. Rita looked at me, her face unreadable. “You sacrificed that man, Vincent.”

  I shrugged. “In my defense, Mrs. Rita, he was an asshole.”

  I glanced over at Herb, who looked as if he wanted to go to Megan, but Albert kept his hand firmly on his son’s shoulder. “What I was trying to tell you, son, was that your girlfriend didn’t get a chance to complete her transformation uninterrupted. From what you and Vincent told me, she was killed, and then immediately compelled to doing this Treggen fellow’s will. That means she never fed, never went through the rough part of the transformation into an undead. Now she’s going through it plus interest.”

  “If she hadn’t fed,” Petra asked, dusting herself off, “how is she still so strong?”

  Albert’s eyes never left Megan. “Vincent told me Megan was killed just yesterday. A newly turned vamp can go for three, maybe four days before they start to weaken, a week or two before they starve. A strigoi mort? Probably a lot longer.”

  Megan’s drinking was slowing, but whether that was because she was nearly sated or because Sojin was running out of blood, I couldn’t tell.

  “But if Treggen didn’t let her feed, then he wasn’t planning on keeping her around very long,” I said. “What’s the point of compelling her if he was just going to let her waste away?”

  “Maybe she can tell us once she’s finished, um, eating,” Gears said. “I don’t know about you guys, but this is the first time in a long time that I’ve lost my appetite.”

  Megan pulled away from Sojin, her face and neck covered with red. She pushed the body aside, sighed contentedly, and stretched. Then she curled up in a ball on the floor and fell asleep.

  “Um…” Gears said.

  “She’s finished her transition,” Albert said. “She’ll sleep for a while, and then when she wakes, she should be her old self again. Or, well, as close to it as she can be.”

  Herb knelt in front of her, brushed a bit of hair out of her face, and bit his lip. “I don’t want to leave her on the floor like this,” he said. “Can we move her?”

  I looked to Albert and Mrs. Rita, who shared a glance, as if asking each other for their professional opinions. Mrs. Rita answered, “I think that will be fine, Herbert. Vincent, can you portal her to your medical bay? I will clean her up and see that she rests comfortably.”

  I created a portal, and Herb gently lifted Megan’s blood-soaked form and rested her on one of the exam tables. Mrs. Rita followed, and Albert moved to go through, as well, but I caught him by the arm. “One thing. Can you cast ‘speak with dead’ or whatever on him?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder at Sojin’s corpse.

  Albert’s eyes glowed orange, telling me he was invoking that odd specter sight that Herb used. After a moment, he shook his head. “He’s warded somehow. Something’s blocking divination effects on him. That means no spiritual communication.” Albert tapped his lips. “Is that sort of protection standard for a Caulborn?”

  “No,” I replied. “And I was afraid of something like that. Thanks for checking.”

  He nodded, stepped through the portal, and joined Mrs. Rita and his son in the medical bay. I shut the portal, leaving myself in the room with Gears, Petra, and Sojin’s remains.

  “Okay,” I said, stepping over to the corpse and patting down his pockets. “This is turning out to be an eventful day.”

  “What are you doing?” Petra asked.

  “Interrogating him,” I replied, unbuttoning Sojin’s jacket and rummaging through his pockets.

  “You don’t really think he’s got some secret files or something on him, do you?” Gears asked.

  “No. Okay, you got me, I’m just looking for my switchblade. Here it is,” I said, pulling it from Sojin’s jacket pocket and tucking it back up my sleeve into its hidden sheath. I checked his other pocket and found his wand. “Gears,” I said, “can you tuck this someplace safe?”

  “On it, Vinnie,” Gears chirped. “It’ll look great in the trophy room next to Sir Deathblow’s axe.” He snatched the wand and scurried from the room.

  “Megan is going to have trouble with this,” Petra said, gesturing to Sojin’s corpse.

  “I know,” I said, getting to my feet and dusting off my knees. “I would, too. Even though the guy was an asshole, that’s not going to make it any easier for her. But strigoi mort feed on souls and blood, and if Megan’s going to continue on, she’s going to have to get past it. I feel cold saying that, but it is what it is. If she remembers what she did while Treggen compelled her, she’ll probably also remember that Sojin was a jackass, and we probably would’ve killed him anyway.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “That’s not going to take much of the sting out of it, but what other choice did I have? Feed her a random, possibly innocent person?”

  I let out a breath and shook my head. “We’ll deal with this when Megan wakes up.” I commanded Courage Point to create a casket for Sojin, which I then sank through the floor and buried deep in the earth below Olympus. Petra raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged. “I can’t call a cleanup crew for him, and I’m not going to return his body to HQ. Just because we can’t do necromantic interrogation doesn’t mean someone else can’t.” There was no question in my mind that Treggen would assume I was somehow responsible for Sojin’s and Megan’s disappearances, but I didn’t want to make it easy for the asshole
to find me.

  With Sojin disposed of, I turned back to Petra. “What I need to figure out now is how I caught Sojin’s lightning bolts like that. The first time he hit me with that wand, I was out cold for hours.”

  “He sent the bolts through your portal,” Petra said. “Maybe something about the extradimensional energy affected the lightning?”

  “Maybe. That doesn’t seem right, though.”

  “What else was different?” Petra asked.

  I Glimpsed back at when Sojin had blasted me with the lightning bolts earlier today, then compared it with what had just happened. The first time, I’d been caught off guard. The second time, I saw it coming, and…

  “Son of a bitch,” I breathed. “I was scared.” I pulled off the Anisa Amulet and stared at it. “I was scared, Petra. I knew the lightning was coming, and the amulet gave me the power to stop it.” I ran to the main chamber. “Alexis,” I called, “Bring up images of every Commander Courageous comic page from 1940 to 1949.” Alexis’s giant screen filled with thumbnails of priceless comic artwork, showing the origin and first several years of Courageous’s exploits.

  “What are you looking for?” Petra asked.

  “Instructions,” I said, scrolling through the images. “Wheatson told me that Caulborn agents found the real Anisa Amulet. One of them, Mitt Nollen, went on to create Commander Courageous, using this artifact as the basis for the character’s powers. That means that of all the ways Courageous used his powers, however Nollen wrote it would be the closest to how it actually works.” I stopped on an image. “Here, Rex Arkwright is afraid of heights, that’s what lets him fly. We knew about that. But here,” I scrolled to an issue a bit further down where Courageous was projecting a beam of darkness onto a man, who was collapsed on the ground, trying to shield himself from the darkness. “This nameless bad guy was afraid of the dark, and so Courageous gained darkness powers.” I scrolled back a page. “So, how’s he do that?” I asked, half to myself.

  “Commander Courageous has the ability to sense the fears of those around him and draw on those fears to bestow powers upon himself,” Alexis said, startling me.

  “I know that,” I said. “How?”

  One of the comic panels scrolled into view. “A calm and keen mind is the key to tapping into others’ fears.” The panel showed Courageous in his trademark “I’m a hero, dammit” pose. Above him, in bright green letters, were the words, “Never let fear get the better of you.”

  “So, by calming my own thoughts, I can sense the fears of those around me?”

  “Correct,” Alexis chirped.

  “Gears,” I said, “you mind being a guinea pig?”

  Gears paused, rubbed his chin, and then shrugged. “Sure, Vinnie, why not? Just don’t expect me to dress up as Señor Fear for you. I would not look good in a sombrero with little dangly skulls hanging off of it.”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely more the Wrecker than Señor Fear.”

  “Pff. I am way scarier than the Wrecker. All he could do was break stuff. I can break stuff and then rebuild it into things that let me break even more stuff.”

  Petra put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a small smile. “You’re stalling, Vincent.”

  “Right. Okay, here we go.” I did my best to calm my mind, to block out everything around me, to focus solely on Gearstripper. What was Gears afraid of? Hostess stopping making Twinkies again? Running out of Karo syrup? I stood there for nearly a minute, but didn’t get anything. Finally, my shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Don’t worry about it, Vinnie. Given that we’re probably going to be fighting Treggen’s forces really soon, I think you’re going to have lots of chances for on-the-job training,” Gears said, patting me on the shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” Petra asked.

  “I need a few minutes to think,” I said. “I’m going to go for a quick walk to clear my head, okay?” Petra nodded and gave me a hug, and I left the room. My thoughts were a whirlwind as I wandered through Courage Point without any particular destination. I walked into Courageous’s trophy room and couldn’t help but glance at the artifacts in their display cases. The ring on the unbreakable chain that Ms. Infinity had given him; Sir Deathblow’s axe, still bloody from when Jake had used it against Carmilla’s forces; the petrified dinosaur egg that could spawn zombified T-Rexes. The novelty of looking at these hadn’t worn off. I mean, how could you get used to seeing the items from Courageous’s most famous battles? But my brain wouldn’t focus on anything other than the problem at hand.

  Why couldn’t I make the amulet work? I could fly, so its magic obviously worked. Had Mitt Nollen, the writer who’d created Commander Courageous, just invented all the fear powers? That didn’t make sense; when I’d watched my alternate-future-self fight, he’d used his adversaries’ fears against them. So no, the amulet worked, I was missing something. But what? Understanding this could well be what would make all the difference in stopping Treggen.

  That was when I noticed my footfalls sounding different. Courage Point is carved into the side of a mountain, so, logically, it sounds like you’re walking on rock. Now, it sounded like I was walking down a tiled corridor. Snapping out of my reflection, I looked around and saw that I was, in fact, in a tiled hallway. Windows were spaced out on one side of the hall, offering a view of a cloudy day in a bustling city. The other side of the hall was lined with doors, a pocket for file folders attached to each one. The scent of antiseptic was strong in the air, and I saw nurses wheeling elderly people around, and a couple of younger people shuffling along, leaning on wheeled IV poles for support.

  One older fella blinked and pointed a gnarled hand at me. “He just stepped outta thin air. He wasn’t there before! He wasn’t there before!”

  His nurse, who had knelt down to tie her shoe, stood back up and gave me an apologetic smile. “Of course, Mr. Hallison. Now, come along, we want to make sure you get some fresh air. Won’t that be nice?” She nodded at me and wheeled Mr. Hallison away.

  So, I was in a hospital? How had I gotten here? I hadn’t conjured, hadn’t sensed, any extradimensional energy. I looked down the hallway and expected to see a portal or rift, but all I saw was an old-style TV, the boxy kind with dials, sitting atop a cabinet in a waiting room. I took a few steps forward and squinted at the news anchor. Ted Koppel looked young; his hair was dark, and the lines were gone from his face. While I couldn’t hear him from this distance, a box that read Iran Contra Hearings was displayed over his shoulder.

  As the blood drained from my face, I felt a slight warmth against my chest. Peeking down my shirt, I saw the Anisa Amulet was glowing slightly. I’d somehow activated it, and it had time-traveled me back to the eighties. But why? What was here that could possibly—

  And then I noticed the name on the door just to my right, printed in neat block letters.

  Nollen, Mitt.

  Chapter 9

  Holy shit. Mitt Nollen. The writer who’d created Commander Courageous, Ms. Infinity, Professor Brymstone, and all the other members of the Defenders’ Society. The amulet must’ve figured I was scared that I wouldn’t know how to work it, so it had brought me to the one person in the world who could teach me. For a second, I just stood there, not sure what to do. Then I gave myself a shake and knocked.

  “Come in,” said a voice that sounded like it had lost a war against cigarettes.

  I opened the door and stepped inside. The room was small, but bright. A handful of flower arrangements were set on one side, and there was a small bathroom to the other, along with two folding chairs. But I only had eyes for the man sitting up in the bed. Mitt Nollen himself. He was bald on top, with neatly trimmed gray hair at the back and sides of his head. Wrinkles covered the sides of his face and forehead, but his brown eyes were sharp. Mitt had died suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s. Whenever I was, the disease hadn’t g
otten his hooks into him yet.

  And holy shit, Mitt Nollen! This was like meeting Stan Lee or Bob Kane. I was dumbfounded, and stood there for just a moment, my mouth agape.

  “You trying to catch flies, son?” Mitt asked, one bushy eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth turned up. A rolling table was situated across his lap, and he’d been writing in a notebook with a No. 2 pencil.

  “No, sorry,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Look, son,” he said, picking up the buzzer to call the nurse. “I’m sorry, but I’m sick and not up for visits from fans right now. The docs say my lungs are shot and my brain’s rotting. If I live to get out of this place, I’ll start doing the convention circuit again, and maybe we can chat then.”

  “No, no, I’m not a fan. Well, I mean, I am a fan, but that’s not why I’m here. My name is Vincent Corinthos. I need to talk to you about an artifact you found back during your other career.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Mitt said, just a hair too quickly. “I’m just a writer.” But I noticed his thumb hadn’t pressed the nurse call button yet.

  “One minute is all I ask,” I said. “Please.” He looked at me skeptically then nodded. “May I?” I pointed at his pencil, which he passed to me. I quickly drew the Caulborn logo on a scrap of paper. “I work for the same agency you once did,” I said. “More than the world is at stake here, Mr. Nollen. Literally all of time is hanging in the balance.”

  Mitt stared at the logo for a minute. “You know,” he said, “I almost put that as the emblem for the Defenders’ Society. But it didn’t feel right, like I’d be trivializing the sacrifices my friends and colleagues made.” He shook his head. “Okay, so you know about the Caulborn. Doesn’t mean you’re one of them. I still have friends in the agency, and I’ve never heard of a Vincent Corinthos.”