Black Panther

by Ronald L. Smith

  He slipped into the suit.

  He felt powerful. Royal. He turned to and fro in front of the mirror. He felt as if he were playacting. But he wasn’t. This was real.

  “I’m not the Black Panther yet,” he said, looking at his face in the mirror, “but I promise I won’t let Wakanda down.”

  He walked out of the bathroom, and into the embassy bedroom.

  “Wow,” Zeke said. “You look like…a Super Hero.”

  “Well, he is,” Sheila said, smiling. She rooted around in her silver briefcase and then shut the hinges with a resounding click. Zeke stood in front of the mirror, posing in his Red Lightning outfit. Sheila looked at him and shook her head, but behind her eyes a smile took shape.

  “Tell me about Vibranium,” Sheila asked.

  “It crashed as a meteor in Wakanda long ago,” T’Challa started. “It’s the rarest metal on earth, and it absorbs energy but can also release it.”

  “Interesting,” Sheila said. “So if it stores energy, it can be used as a weapon, right?”

  T’Challa paused. A weapon? “I think so,” he said, not saying anything about the news his father had told him earlier—that Ulysses Klaw had plans for some kind of sonic weapon. “In Wakanda, it’s closely guarded at all times from smugglers and thieves.”

  Sheila nodded. “What’s it like?” she asked. “Your…homeland?”

  T’Challa released a sigh. “It’s beautiful. The forests are green and lush, the lakes and rivers crystal clear. Even the air itself is special.”

  He felt a pang in his stomach just thinking of home. He was worried about his father and friends. But his father said that the battle was at a pause. Please keep them all safe, he prayed. Even…Hunter.

  Sheila seemed to pick up on T’Challa’s worries. “We’ll get it back,” she said. “Your ring.”

  T’Challa nodded. “It’s M’Baku I’m most worried about.”

  What he said was true. Although his father would be deeply upset if there was a piece of Vibranium out in the larger world, a friend and citizen of Wakanda was irreplaceable.

  He had to succeed. And then get back home. If Wakanda was still under threat of war, he had to be there with his father.

  T’Challa put his street clothes back on over his suit, which was so light and thin it felt like he wasn’t wearing it.

  Sheila turned to Zeke. “You’re really going to wear that?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Zeke said with an edge. “It’s like cosplay, but for real.”

  “What’s cosplay?” T’Challa asked, stuffing his mask in his backpack and then hoisting it onto his shoulders.

  “More like nerdplay,” Sheila teased.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Zeke said. “When we’re…done with all this.” He gulped, and for the first time, T’Challa saw doubt flash across his face.

  “You don’t have to do this,” T’Challa said gently. “M’Baku is my friend. I can’t just stand by and let it happen—whatever it is. Not to him or to anyone else. But I understand if you don’t want to go any further.”

  “What?” Sheila said. “I’m doing this because you’re my friend. And that’s what friends do, right, T’Challa? Help one another.”

  T’Challa paused. It was the first time either of them had used his real name. “Yeah,” Zeke chimed in. “One for all, and all for one, and all that.”

  T’Challa smiled. That’s what he and M’Baku used to say to each other. However this all ended, he thought, he had definitely made good friends here in America. He looked at both of them and released a breath. “Ready?”

  Outside, Michigan Avenue was bustling, but with a cold wind that whipped between the skyscrapers. Every now and then a group of costumed partygoers strolled by, completely oblivious to the cold, it seemed to T’Challa.

  The bus ride to South Side Middle School was uneventful, except for a few teenagers dressed in costumes, who laughed uncontrollably for some reason T’Challa couldn’t explain.

  The trio walked through the empty parking lot. It felt strange to T’Challa to be at the school this late. A few solitary cars sat in the parking lot like sleeping beasts.

  Sheila led them to the corner of the school that she had indicated on the blueprint. A few narrow white steps led down to a door. T’Challa couldn’t believe that he was really going to break in.

  Zeke reached out for the door handle and groaned.

  “What?” Sheila questioned, stepping forward to look for herself.

  “Great,” Zeke said in frustration. “It needs a key card.”

  “Actually,” T’Challa said, “that’s better.”

  He rolled up his sleeve.

  “How’s your super–Google watch going to unlock a door?” Sheila asked.

  “Like this,” T’Challa said, and then typed a sequence of numbers into the watch face. “I need a piece of paper.”

  Zeke took off his pack and ripped a piece of paper from his notebook.

  “Tear off a small piece,” T’Challa told him.

  Zeke followed T’Challa’s request silently, and handed it back.

  T’Challa took it and folded it in half, then slid it through the magnetic strip of the security lock several times.

  “What in the world?” Zeke questioned.

  T’Challa took the paper and then laid it on the watch face. “Unmask,” he said.

  Zeke and Sheila watched in fascination as a blinking red light glowed beneath the paper. “C’mon,” T’Challa whispered in anticipation. The light changed from red to green, followed by a chime.

  “Yes!” T’Challa whispered.

  He lifted the paper from the watch face and slid it back through the strip on the security lock.

  Click.

  A red dot blinked on the black box.

  “We’re in,” he said.

  Zeke’s mouth hung open. “Uh, do you think I can get one of those watches?”

  “I doubt it,” T’Challa said, and pushed open the door.

  The walls that led down to the basement of the school were covered in a mosaic of black and white tiles. Hissing steam and the sound of clanking pipes filled the air. Beads of water clung to the tiles.

  T’Challa placed his foot on the bottom step. Ahead of him was nothing but darkness. “Wait a minute,” he said, and his voice carried in the dark. He slung off his backpack and then slipped out of his street clothes, revealing his suit—the suit of the Black Panther. He stuffed his clothes in his backpack. The Vibranium mesh in the suit winked in the darkness, like stars.

  “Awesome,” Zeke said, and then followed T’Challa’s lead and changed into his Red Lightning outfit.

  T’Challa led the way in. “No flashlights,” he said.

  Once again, he felt as if the suit helped his vision in the dark. He saw the dents and cracks in the walls, felt the air around him stir. He didn’t even feel the small wet puddles he stepped through.

  They walked single file—Zeke’s hand on T’Challa’s shoulder, and Sheila’s on his. “Can you see down here?” Zeke asked.

  “Yes,” T’Challa said.

  “Good,” Sheila replied. “Please don’t lead us into a fifty-foot drop into a black hole or anything.”

  “I won’t,” T’Challa promised, hoping he wouldn’t.

  They continued to walk. T’Challa sensed the air in front of him, cool and wet. As far as he could tell, he was in a vast empty space. He didn’t sense the impression of any objects or structures. Just emptiness.

  “Hold on,” T’Challa suddenly said.

  “What is it?” Sheila asked.

  “More steps,” T’Challa answered.

  “How is that possible?” Sheila asked. “I saw the blueprint. This is the basement of the school.”

  “We’ll see about that,” T’Challa said, and led the way down.

  It was a short set of stairs, and a weak light pulsed at the bottom.

  “I see light,” Zeke said.

  “Thank God,” Sheila added.

  T’Challa stepped o
nto level ground.

  “This is a subbasement,” Sheila said.

  “A basement under the basement?” Zeke said in disbelief. “Oh, man.”

  “Look at this,” T’Challa said.

  A circular door stood before him, closed shut with a massive iron lock. It reminded T’Challa of the door of a submarine he had once seen in Wakanda.

  “Where does that go?” Zeke asked, looking over T’Challa’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t see it on the blueprint,” Sheila said.

  T’Challa closed his right hand into a fist, and felt the material of the suit tighten around his fingers. “Here goes,” he said, and drove his fist through the lock.

  The lock fell away with a clang and clattered to the ground.

  “Wow!” Zeke said.

  T’Challa felt his right hand with his left, amazed. There wasn’t the slightest sensation of pain. “The suit absorbs energy,” he said.

  “Wish I had one of those,” Zeke murmured.

  T’Challa pulled at the door, which scraped open with a bone-piercing metallic screech.

  A tunnel. Darkness loomed within.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “We have to follow it,” Sheila said firmly.

  “We do?” Zeke ventured.

  “Follow me,” said T’Challa, and then he climbed up and in.

  The tunnel was narrow and dark. T’Challa sensed dirt and gravel under his knees. The cold and wet sank into his bones.

  “What if this tunnel doesn’t have an end,” Zeke said, “and we just kept crawling and crawling forever?”

  “Thanks, Zeke,” Sheila said. “Thanks for putting that in my head.”

  T’Challa concentrated on the task ahead of him. He wanted to get out of the close confines of the tunnel. “If there really is something going on down here,” he asked, “how did they get in, with the door being locked?”

  “Some other entrance?” Sheila suggested.

  T’Challa didn’t answer. There was something ahead of him. He could sense it, the dim outline of shapes. “I think we’re coming up to the end,” he said.

  Cool air caressed T’Challa’s face. Sure enough, the tunnel led out to an open space. T’Challa had no choice but to roll out and drop to the floor, about two feet down. Zeke and Sheila followed his lead.

  “Oww!” moaned Zeke, uncrumpling himself and standing up. “That hurt.”

  “Being a Super Hero is hard, Zeke,” Sheila quipped. “Imagine that.”

  T’Challa took in the space before him.

  “What is this place?” Sheila asked. “I don’t think we’re under the school anymore.”

  “Looks like some kind of water system,” Zeke said. “Maybe this is an old sewer tunnel. I heard there are all kinds of tunnels under Chicago.”

  They walked a few feet and T’Challa suddenly stopped. Massive columns supported a structure above his head. “Uh, guys…” he said, and then pointed.

  Ahead of the trio, two stone arches, built in a Roman style, butted up against one another. “Where the arches meet,” he said.

  “In the damp below,” Sheila said.

  “Which is kind of where we are now,” Zeke added, stepping over a murky puddle.

  T’Challa felt the coolness all around, a blanket of suffocating damp. He walked forward slowly, but then paused.

  He gasped.

  Devil’s Traps formed a path ahead of him, and then snaked around a dark corner.

  “Are those—?” Sheila started.

  “Yup,” Zeke said. “Oh, man. This is creepy.”

  “We have to follow it,” T’Challa said. “We have to.” He paused and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

  “Smoke,” Sheila said.

  “Be careful,” T’Challa warned them. “Follow me.”

  Sheila and Zeke followed T’Challa without protest. A narrow path was ahead of them, barely a few feet across, with walls on either side. They followed the mysterious archways until they came to another open area. T’Challa sucked in a breath.

  Gemini Jones and the Skulls were gathered around a small fire. Smoke drifted up to become lost in the unseen roof. A voice echoed through the cavernous space, and there was no mistaking it. “What we do here tonight, we do as one,” Gemini called out. “Tonight, we summon the Prince of Bones!”

  A raucous cheer went up from the Skulls.

  T’Challa swallowed hard.

  Gemini’s voice echoed through the dim light again. “This thing called Magick is a fearsome devil, and is quick to fool those who think themselves as mighty. The doing is in the belief, brother. Believe, and ye shall prosper.”

  Those were Vincent Dubois’s words, T’Challa realized. The ones from his grimoire.

  T’Challa saw M’Baku there in the crowd. And he was smiling.

  “I promised you power,” Gemini said. “The Prince of Bones will give us that, and more!” He walked in a circle, T’Challa noticed, just as he’d done at the house in the woods. He was in his element. And he had his audience.

  “We have to warn them,” T’Challa whispered.

  A shaft of light shone down from a crack somewhere above their heads. Gemini and the Skulls looked up as the weak moonlight cast its pale glow. The night of the gibbous moon, T’Challa thought.

  T’Challa noticed M’Baku again. He looked as if he were enthralled, under a spell, his eyes wide and full of wonder. Now was T’Challa’s chance. He stood up. Zeke and Sheila rose with him. “Gemini,” he called.

  Gemini Jones turned around. For a moment he just stared, as if he wasn’t sure who called him. But then his eyes landed on T’Challa. “Not you again,” he said, as if exasperated—and then—“T’Challa.”

  T’Challa was struck speechless.

  Gemini cocked his head and grinned. “Oh, snap! You didn’t know your boy M’Baku told me who you are?”

  T’Challa winced. This betrayal cut the deepest. Why did M’Baku do it? Acceptance? Respect? He didn’t understand.

  “You know what happens to spies, right, T’Challa?” Gemini taunted. “They get busted.” He cracked his knuckles.

  T’Challa had to be careful. He didn’t have time to become distracted by Gemini’s childish bravado.

  Gemini cocked his head in curiosity, taking in Zeke’s appearance. “What are you wearing, man? That some kind of rat? You Super Rat, man?”

  Howls of laughter from Gemini and his friends. M’Baku hung back in the shadows, not speaking, just eyeing T’Challa with a guilty expression.

  “I don’t know how you found us here,” Gemini said. “But in a few minutes, you’re going to regret it.”

  “Gemini,” T’Challa said, and his voice did not waver. “You’re in danger. All of you.”

  Gemini scowled. “Not this again.” He shook his head back and forth and quirked his lips. “Man, you best run home before you get hurt.”

  A refrain of ooohs went up from his friends, accompanied by a few hand slaps.

  T’Challa stared at the ground, jaw clenched. He had to do something, but what?

  He raised his head. “Your father,” he started.

  Gemini’s head snapped back. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk about my father?”

  “The Circle of Nine,” T’Challa said.

  “Circle of what?” Gemini questioned.

  He doesn’t know, T’Challa thought with dread.

  “The words,” T’Challa said. “The oath you all had them swear.”

  The Skulls stopped talking. The sudden quiet felt strange to T’Challa—a foreboding stillness. “‘Darkness falls,’” he started, “‘and He shall—’”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Gemini said, “but you best run home. You’re messing with stuff you don’t know nothing about.”

  “You made them all swear on that book,” Zeke said.

  A murmuring rose from the crowd, but it wasn’t in response to Zeke.

  “What is that?” Wilhemina Cross whispered.

  T’C
halla turned, tense and ready.

  From the darkness beyond, a shape drew closer. T’Challa leaned forward but couldn’t make it out. As it approached, it split apart, like a cell dividing under a microscope.

  Men.

  Nine men.

  And Bartholomew Jones stood at the front of them, dressed in a flowing robe of black.

  Mr. Jones and his men stopped in front of Gemini and the Skulls.

  T’Challa clenched his fists. He felt the power of his suit, pulsing next to his skin. What would Father do if he were here?

  But his father wasn’t here.

  T’Challa had to be the Black Panther now.

  He stepped out of the shadows.

  Mr. Jones turned. “Young prince,” he said. “So you have come to my awakening.”

  Gemini tilted his head. “He’s a fool, Pop. I told him he’s got no business here, but he didn’t want to listen.”

  T’Challa took another step forward. “Whatever you’re doing, I’m giving you one chance to step away now, before people get hurt.”

  “Hurt?” Gemini said. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

  “My ring,” T’Challa demanded. “Where is it?”

  Mr. Jones reached within the folds of his cloak. A silver medallion hung around his neck. T’Challa took a step forward.

  Slowly, Mr. Jones withdrew his hand and revealed a vial, swirling with silver liquid. “Are you speaking of this?” He held up the vial, and the darkness surrounding them flared.

  T’Challa shuddered. What did he do with my ring?

  Mr. Jones held the vial high, and the roof of the cavernous space brightened. “Did you know that when Vibranium was first found in Wakanda, it turned several of your people into demon spirits?”

  “Pop,” Gemini said. “What’s going on? Do we use that for the summoning?”

  Mr. Jones turned to his son. “Oh, there will be a summoning, but it certainly won’t be for a dead schoolboy.”

  Gemini cocked his head again, as if he didn’t understand. What’s he talking about? T’Challa wondered.

  T’Challa had a decision to make. He could try to take down Mr. Jones now, or he could let him speak. He remained wary, ready to leap into action, but Gemini interrupted his plan. “We’ve got the gate, Pop.” He pointed to an arrangement of Devil’s Traps forming a triangle. “It started at the school. We placed them all around the entrance, so he can follow it here.”